Intro
Hello! There have been lots and lots and lots of calls for Fire/Energy builds in the blaster forum, so I am going to present a build that has worked very well for me, from 1 to 50. In a nutshell, this is a close-quarters specialist (to quote Matches Malone) armed with powerful melee and area damage, but weak long range punch and little defense of note.
The Fire/Eng mentality!
Dropping foes quickly is your best defense. An arrested felon is 100% debuffed and poses no risk. If you cannot drop your foes quickly enough, do as much damage possible and run away. Fear not melee, become aware of the battleground. Speed and mobility are your allies, take advantage of jousting, stealth, teammates, and inspirations. Praise the empaths, who will make you a walking god. Also praise the tankers, who will empower your area attacks and take injury for you. Do not fear debt, but learn from it and your limits. Always carry one appropriate breakout inspiration, or a pink, for they are cheap and you are squishy.
Level 1: Fireblast/Power Thrust
At this point your choices are between Fireblast, and Flares. Flares will offer minor damage with a quick recharge, but most people don't think it's worth the long activation time for an otherwise fast set, and I agree. It does take very little end, so a low level hero may want it just for some extra damage before tools like haste open up.
Fireblast on the other hand offers fast, moderate ranged damage at good range. This is what most fire blasters would recommend the beginner take. It recharges quickly and doesn't take much end. Personally I didn't slot this attack up, but it wouldn't be a poor investment as it's useful in most any situation.
Tip: Fireblast is your pulling power. High level teams sometimes forget they can do this! Its handy when soloing and a boss is surrounded by baddies. For best results, hit fireblast while hopping to the side - and landing behind cover. Youre much less likely to draw extra attention from his friends this way.
Power Thrust you don't get a choice about. Luckily it's a pretty good power. At low level it'll serve as another attack, but will quickly lose its potency. More important is its ability to hit things away from you, which will be handy as you rise in level. With some tactics you can thrust opponents into groups you can then fireball, or hit troublesome foes off rooftops, or knock a boss on its butt for a few seconds. This was how I dealt with bosses until 38; few creatures are immune to it. Slot accuracy and never look back.
Level 2: Fireball.
No contest for the level 2 slot. Fireball is your first AoE (area of effect) and it's a good one. Fireball is the weakest AoE you'll get damage-wise but this is counterbalanced by two pros - the wide area of effect and very fast activation time. You point and a fireball streaks out. Great for when enemies are about to scatter.
Your other choice at this level is Energy Punch. EP is a wonderful power but it just never found a spot in my set. Its a very fast attack with good damage and low endurance cost. If you prefer melee fighting you may want to squeeze this in somewhere.
Tip:Fireball pulling. Usually, this is a bad idea. But in the respec TF you can fireball a group gathering on top and they will attack before the rest of the wave. This also works great when there are two groups in a room close to each other but you only want to engage one of them. Nail one group and run away.
Level 3: Slots. Fireball [2], Fireball [3]
At low level its probably best to slot Fireball with accuracy. Slotting fireblast isnt a bad idea but doesnt suit the flavor of this build. The goal here is to get strong area damage early.
Level 4: Buildup
Another no-contest, buildup from the energy set comes at level 4. Your damage quite literally doubles for a few attacks when you first get this, giving you an edge combined with fireball. It also improves your accuracy by a lesser but still good degree, enough to land attacks reliably. At low levels itll only be available from time to time, but as you rise in level itll start to become a mainstay. Buildup needs nothing but recharge reduction for the entire game.
Level 5: Slots: Fireball [4], Fireball [5]
Same as level 3 slots, fireball needs loving.
Level 6: Hasten
Your choices at level 6 are to take Rain of Fire, or a power pool. Hasten is my pick for a few reasons. First, itll open up superspeed at 14. Second, youll want it eventually anyway, as it almost doubles your attack speed. At first youll only be able to have hasten up for perhaps 1/5th of the time, but this will improve. Hasten also offers a small defense buff. At low level flipping on hasten and hitting buildup will make you feel like youre blasting in fast-forward for a minute, later on itll become the norm.
As for rain of fire, most people are pleased with rain of fire at first but dislike it in the long run. When activated, you raise your arms and a torrent of fire rains down on your foes in a very large AoE, inflicting small tics of damage very rapidly. The damage is ok /if/ your enemies are held, but otherwise a fear component makes the baddies scatter. This runs contrary to the positioning you want for your area attacks and makes teammates angry with you. This fear can be exploited as a defense if you find you or your team overwhelmed. Rain of Fire has a large bonus to accuracy and basically auto-hits anything you'd reasonably attack.
Level 7: Slots: Fireball [6], Hasten [2]
You have your first 6-slotted attack at level 7! At this level, youre probably best off with 3acc/3dmg so it reliably hits. Hasten wont notice this slot much right now, but its an investment. You might want to put it in buildup instead, but I weigh hasten as the priority given that it speeds up everything.
Level 8: Firebreath
Your second AoE and a great attack. Firebreath does heavy DoT (damage over time) to enemies in a somewhat awkward cone. It is much stronger than fireball, but the damage comes over time, it's much slower to fire, and the cone is harder to use. You may find it to your advantage to slot a cone enhancer if you find it doesn't hit as many baddies as you like. Firebreath has a bonus to accuracy which helps, especially at low level.
AoE Comboing
Ive played around with firebreath a lot, and its timing with fireball. Generally its best to use firebreath first and then fireball. Reason being that firebreath has a windup thats better off spent while foes arent shooting at you. It feels faster to use fireball first, but this is an illusion. When its not a good idea to use firebreath is when baddies start to scatter - its easy to misfire and hit the baddie all alone when a fireball wouldve still tagged most of them.
Level 9: Slots: Firebreath [2], Firebreath [3]
Firebreath needs no accuracy at low level. Just throw in damage and enjoy the boost.
Level 10: Bonesmasher.
This will probably be of some debate, some fire/eng people leaving melee attacks until much later in their builds. To this I say phooey. Bonesmasher will serve your entire career faithfully, a hard hitting melee attack in a quick overhand swing. Bonesmasher approaches but doesnt meet snipe damage and recharges somewhat slowly. At low level this will add a heavy punch on lieutenants, especially with buildup active. Bonesmasher stuns with what Id guess about 50% rate, which is really handy. It will not stun a boss, however.
Cleanup Duty:
From now on this will start a new strategy I found to work wonderfully. Use buildup, then firebreath and fireball the enemy group. Often youll drop the minions and a lieutenant will stand. Pop him with bonesmasher while buildup is still active. Later on when you get blaze add that to the end of the combo.
Level 11: Slots: Firebreath [4], Firebreath [5]
Still building up those area attacks. Even if youre using trainers 5 damage is +40%, which you will notice.
Level 12: Aim, and DOs
Aim offers the opposite of buildup, giving some damage and a lot of accuracy for about 10 seconds. This power is especially good against well defended enemies such as drones, anything behind a force field, or high level foes. With aim up I can hit +9s - thats how powerful the accuracy bonus, you just wont miss anything worth attacking except for the 5% auto-miss chance.
DOs
At level 12 you can start taking dual origin enhancements, which are twice as strong as trainers, offering +16% to most aspects such as damage, accuracy, etc. If you have the influence, go for it, but I found that I didnt and managed with trainers. Fireball will work great with 2 acc / 4 damage DOs, and Firebreath is still good with 6 damage. Fireblast and Power Thrust are good with their single accuracy slot.
Level 13: Slots: Firebreath [6], Hasten [3]
Your second 6-slotted attack, and with DOs boasts +100% damage. Fireball and firebreath are now your left and right hand of area damage
Level 14: Superspeed!
Travel powers make life a lot easier in City of Heroes. Superspeed is fast, but offers no vertical, something youll notice in Boomtown. Superspeed also gives a stealth component, allowing you to get closer to enemies without alerting them. This is perfect for getting firebreath off before they react.
Something superspeed provides that isnt commonly mentioned - slow resistance. Powers like caltrops youll laugh at and zip over with only the slight slowing of your run speed. Enough caltrops will eventually overcome even superspeed however.
I slot superspeed with an endurance reducer - its a costly toggle.
Finally, superspeed also unlocks a tactic known commonly as jousting.
Jousting:
Jousting is the art of running past an opponent and hitting them, like medieval jousting on horses. With superspeed you can dash past your opponent and hit your attack. The game will consider you in an eligible spot to attack your foe, but will not activate the attack animation for a moment, giving you some distance as you continue to run. If you jump, you will begin your attack animation in mid-air and make even greater distance. Your foe can still attack you while in that window as you run by, but it is much more likely hell pull out a ranged weapon and use that instead. Jousting is what allows a blaster to engage in melee without standing there taking hits like a tank or scrapper may.
Tip: You can joust most any attack given some practice. This is an excellent way to actually move while using firebreath, for example. Later on, inferno works great with superjump jousting, tap the power as you start to leap away - boom!
Level 15: Slots: Aim [2], Buildup [2]
The temptation to slot bonesmasher is great, but 2 slots in each of these will serve you well for a long time to come.
Level 16: Hurdle
By now youre probably wishing you had some vertical movement. Hurdle will help ease the pain a little, and opens the fitness pool. Stamina is on the horizon. You want this. Badly.
At level 16 you can also nab conserve power, which is a great power, but stamina is better. Well take that CP later on. Conserve power is not an alternative to stamina, because it can only be up a fraction of the time. Plus, stamina is still useful while CP is up.
Level 17: Slots: Bonesmasher [2], Bonesmasher [3]
Bonesmasher continues to grow in power. Were preparing this for level 22 when the damage will spike.
Level 18: Health
If you want stamina at 20, you must take a second fitness power at 18. Your choices are between health and swift. Swift makes you run a bit faster, but you have superspeed for that and swift doesnt help much. Health on the other hand will help ease one of your greatest drawbacks - the lack of self healing. Health alone will regenerate your HP in 3 minutes rather than 4 without.
Blaze couldve been taken here, and is another great power were going to take, but later.
Level 19: Slots: Bonesmasher [4], Bonesmasher [5]
Almost there!
Level 20: Stamina
Hooray! Your endurance recovery will jump a third, much as health ups your hp recovery. Youll notice this right away. With stamina out of the way early we can get back to blasting powers.
Stun is open now, but Id recommend against it. It does almost no damage, does nothing to bosses, and is slow. If stun was fast it mightve been worth the control, but its slow and awkward. Stun has a 100% chance to disorientate what it hits, again except bosses. This build will ignore stun.
Level 21: Bonesmasher [6], Hasten [4]
What? Not slotting stamina right away? Well no, better enhancements are coming up and we want some maxed out attacks for serious damage. Hasten with 4 will be reasonably close to a constant thing.
Level 22: Blaze and SOs
As fireball and firebreath are your left-right combo of area damage, so does bonesmasher and blaze team up as your hard single target hits. Blaze does pure fire damage, fires as fast as fireball, and has a short range. Its not as strong as bonesmasher, but will often burn opponents for a few tics to get close. This range is also very handy as you dont need to be quite in melee to get it off. So you can hide behind the tank, or jump at a flying opponent. You can slot blaze with range, but for 20% a pop I wouldnt recommend it. The recharge is on par with bonesmasher. 1 acc / 5 dmg worked great for me later on.
SOs
Welcome to being a powerhouse! Buy as many single origin enhancements as you can. Bonesmasher will one-shot even minions now. Haste will recharge very fast. Your AoEs will drop groups of minions in a higher level bracket. Life is good. I had firebreath with 6 dmg, fireball with 1 acc / 5dmg, Bonesmasher with 1 acc / 5 dmg.
Level 23: Slots: Hasten [5], Stamina [2]
Hasten is now up almost all the time. Stamina doesnt help all that much without the SOs, but its good to have the slots in now.
Level 24: Conserve Power
Conserve power halves all endurance costs. Toggles, attacks, boosts, everything. Youll find it much, much harder to drain your endurance bar with this up, and when you get stamina maxed out youll basically have as much endurance as you want. It lasts 90 seconds with a 10 minute recharge, so like hasten at level 6, this power just isnt up enough to see regular use. Throw in a recharge SO and save it for longer fights.
Level 25: Slots: Stamina [3], Blaze [2]
More stamina, more damage.
Level 26: Combat Jumping
Why not Blazing Bolt, you ask? Because BB fails this build in three ways. First, snipes are bad DPS (damage per second) given how painfully long they take to fire. Second, it doesnt fit with the concept of close quarters specialist - snipes at short range are less than ideal. Third, it tips off the enemies to your presence, and later on with stealth youll find backstabbing with melee a fine tactic.
Combat jumping will add a few new tricks to use. First and foremost it will give you a much improved jump, increasing your mobility and height. This makes travel easier, allowing you leap over things a few times your height as well as glide up angled walls that you couldnt navigate with superspeed. Indoors you can now get anywhere but the largest of rooms. Combat jumping takes very little endurance to run, and tacks a 5% bonus to defense onto you. Throw in a defense SO to increase that to 6% and leave it be.
Combat jump has one last benefit - root resistance. With combat jumping up you can ignore one root power. Stacked roots will still work, but these will be rare. Laugh as web grenades and tentacles pose no barrier!
Level 27: Slots: Stamina [4], Blaze [3]
Blaze is now doing respectable damage. If you have a friend with access to the Lv30 SO dealer, nab a new set and get stamina the good stuff.
Level 28: Superjump!
Yes, I love superjump. You can now get anywhere except the most difficult spots, and do it very quickly. No longer are cliffs, buildings, and roads built up in the clouds barriers to your travel. Superjump has none of the benefits of combat jump except the distance, so run combat jump during missions. The only place superjump will fail you is shadowshard in the late game, and even then its pretty fun and a lot easier with jump mobility.
Power Boost is ready here, but you dont need it yet. Youll see why later.
Lv29: Slots: Stamina [5], Blaze [4]
More stamina, more damage.
Level 30: Stealth
Level 30 is when enemies start getting much more dangerous. Stealth stacked with superspeed will provide full invisibility versus most creatures, giving you an easy time getting where you want. Some creatures can see through stealth, such as snipers, but these are rare and not really a threat 99.9% of the time.
Stealth slows your run speed, and drains endurance quickly. With superspeed the slowness isnt much of a factor, but together the drain is pretty bad. I still turn stealth off in bigger fights just to save on endurance. Stealth provides a 7.5% defense bonus and offers the best defense-per-slot on any non-prestige pool power for a blaster. If you can keep stealth, combat jumping, and haste going all at once, youve got a 18.5% defense vs. everything. Not bad at all.
Level 31: Slots: Stamina [6], Blaze [5], Blaze [6]
3 slots? The madness! 6 slotted blaze marks your 4th full attack, and stamina has now fully doubled your endurance recovery. Life is good.
Level 32: Inferno
Inferno is your nuke, your boom, your largest and flashiest attack. It will do extreme damage to everyone in a large radius around you, and with a high accuracy bonus, but at a heavy price. You will lose ALL your endurance, and your endurance recovery is almost zeroed for about 10 seconds. I find this endurance drop a bit random - sometimes itll leave you a tiny bit, sometimes none, so you may lose toggles and you may not. Most of times I lose all my toggles but can activate superspeed to run away. This is good, because getting out of there is usually a priority when whatever you didnt kill (bosses) become very angry at taking that much damage all at once.
Inferno recharges slowly, so you cant use it all the time. You shouldnt want to anyway; fireball + firebreath will handle most situations and not cost you the ginormous handicap afterwards. If you have an empathy or kinetic defender on board, the endurance drop is more of a speed bump than a handicap. Conserve power also helps a great deal if you have an endurance inspiration (and you should).
Tip: Inferno + a herding tank are a sick, sick combination.
Tip: See jousting back a ways about how superjump+inferno works really nice.
Level 33: Slots: Inferno [2], Inferno [3], Inferno [4]
At this point having 4 damage slots in inferno is pretty nice. With buildup and aim you basically cap damage and have 95% accuracy vs. all targets. Itll still recharge slow.
Level 34: Slots: Inferno [5], Inferno [6], Haste [6]
Drop two recharge slots in inferno. There, youre doing max damage and it comes back quicker. A thing of beauty. Those short breaks in haste are probably getting annoying now, so thisll fix that. Inferno is your 5th 6-slotted attack.
Level 35: Power Boost
I hated this power when I took it. Just didnt do enough until 38 and total focus.
Powerboost will increase secondary effects of powers, almost none of which youll have except the speed of superspeed and the defense of your toggles. While up, superspeed is capped and your base defense rates double, so your 18.5% turns into 36%, not bad at all. It lasts 15 seconds, and recharges in 60 (base). Running power boost constantly is possible if you 6-slot it - but it is endurance heavy and annoying to click constantly.
Boost range is available at 35. Its a great power, but this build lacks this range concept so well skip it for that reason.
Level 36: Slots: Aim [3], Buildup [3], Conserve Power [2]
About time the boosts got some attention! Youll notice these come up much sooner now. Conserve power is looking much more attractive given infernos drop, and the second slot helps much.
Level 37: Slots: Superspeed [2], Stealth [2], Conserve Power [3]
This level is all about endurance. You cant blast if youre gasping for blue. So we add an endurance reduction slot on both to keep those costs down, and another on CP so you can have it up on a more regular basis.
Level 38: Total Focus
Ive a love-hate relationship with TF. It is a strong attack, one of the strongest in the game. It also has a 100% disorient effect, and works against most bosses(!). Therefore, Total Focus is what will allow you to solo harder bosses. Tap powerboost to double the disorient duration, flip on stealth/superspeed, hit aim to cap your accuracy, and nail the boss for tons of damage and an automatic mez. With bonesmasher, blaze, and firebreath you will make quick work of it. TF will pretty much automatically drop a minion and will apply severe hurt to a Lt. Powerboost will ensure that you can reapply TF to a boss before the mezz wears off. If you cant drop it by the time that second one wears off, youve got problems.
Total focus is SLOW, and costs a lot of endurance. You jump up in a lazy arc and slam down on your opponent, leaving you vulnerable. If you miss, the baddie will notice in mid-jump and get a free attack at you. If this is a boss, this is very bad for you.
Level 39: Slots: Total Focus [2], Total Focus [3], Total Focus [4]
Level 40: Slots: Total Focus [5], Total Focus [6], Conserve Power [4]
Your 6th 6-slotted attack. Total Focus does incredible damage, but is still slow (grrr). Save it for bosses when you team. Conserve power is now up about half the time.
Level 41: Body Armor
Ah, the munitions pool. My motive here is LRM, but I wont turn down some extra protection. Body Armor offers a base 9% smash/lethal resistance. Fill in that default slot for 10%. 10% is inferior to the other pool protections, but its always up and costs 0 end.
Level 42: Slots: Aim [4], Buildup [4], Conserve Power [5]
With 4 slots in aim and buildup you can now start interchanging them more freely. With pacing youll be able to go back and forth and keep yourself boosted about 3/4 of the time. Good damage, good accuracy. Conserve power deserves another slot.
Level 43: Slots: Conserve Power [6], Health [2], Health [3]
CP is 6-ed, and not a moment too soon. Its now up about 60% of the time and itll reliably be there for you when your endurance starts to flag. Just remember to hit it BEFORE your blue bar bottoms out, if possible. Its conserve power, not a regeneration assist.
Health? Health?! Yes. Health will do nothing against incoming damage, but will assist you in another way - reducing downtime. Youll pop health inspirations much less, and last longer in prolonged fights. Slot for slot, I found health to keep me going better than a couple % extra in a toggle defense.
Lv44: Wildcard! (Cryo Ray or Sleep Grenade)
I dislike both of these. The sleep grenade is unreliable and seems buggy, the ray takes too long to pull out, aim, and fire at something you can floor with bonesmasher + blaze in the same time. The sleep grenade wouldve been great at putting minions to sleep while dealing with the boss IF it didnt do damage. But itll do like 5 damage to the boss and aggro it, ruining your TF surprise and doing more harm than good. Take whichever suits your fancy. I took Cryo.
Level 45: Health [4], Buildup [5], Aim [5]
Youll notice the difference in health by now. If you really dont want to slot health, fireblast could use some attention. Its not a bad attack at all and will really help against those AVs you dont want to be near.
Level 46: Health [5], Buildup [6], Aim [6]
Buildup and Aim with 6 slots youll be almost be able to juggle back and forth with almost no downtime. Wonderful.
Level 47: LRM
Long Range Missile, the power that sits between a nuke and snipe. I havent used this power yet but from reports it does superior smash/lethal damage in an AoE from a long distance. I picture this as a mini-boom between nukes, and a measure of safety when you want to blast a group of uncontrolled baddies - by doing it from far away. I wish I could provide more detail but Im not quite there yet.
Level 48 LRM [2], LRM [3], LRM[4]
Nothing much to this. More damage, captain!
Level 49: Acrobatics, Swift, or Grant Invisibility.
We could add another attack here, but not slot it, so why bother. Any of these will improve your quality of life a little. Acrobatics is a moderate cost toggle thatll make knockdowns a thing of the past, swift will negate the speed penalty of stealth, and grant invisibility will help clunky non-ninja allies position better with you.
Level 50 LRM [5], LRM [6], Health [6]
We finish your career with health thatll recover in 120 seconds flat, 4 deadly AoEs, 3 heavy melee attacks, perma-haste, perma-aim/buildup, maxed endurance recovery, perpetual invisibility, full mobility across almost all terrain, some damage mitigation (17.5% def, 10% resistance), a boss level mez.
Any and all comments appreciated. Enjoy! ^_^
