Bunny_Man

With respect to Boost Range, the advantages you do not appear to notice are:
1) It is essentially perma with normal slotting (don't even need hasten)
2) It gives Power Burst a very respectable range.
3) The foes you knock back are usually still within range of most powers.
4) Torrent, combined with the Electric Ancillary pool's Cone AoE, extra range means bigger AoE. Take the (otherwise worthless) Explosive blast, and you can 1, 2, 3 punch as effectively (or more so) than other AoE-specialized blasters.

In summary, you can just stand/hover in one spot, raining death from above, no need to run around chasing things. The time you save from not chasing things down keeps up your Defiance bonuses, and increases your DPS significantly.

[ QUOTE ]
Mmm hmmmm... now, any chance we'd get an updated I13 guide?

[/ QUOTE ]

"Working on it. I think Path can give some preliminary details ..."

<<One may amend prior comments thusly: with one able to enter Dwarf form in spite of being incapable of normal action [i.e., mezzed], one need not sustain inspirations to counter such hindrances. Purely defensive [+DEF] bonuses [from purple shields] are the only thing that cannot be acquired by a warshade with alacrity. For reasons unknown to me, Warshade damage powers seem to be significantly more powerful than before. With the higher damage, and the frequent Dwarf Mire, while the Six Stage Death-->>

"Just call it mire/mire/boom, please, Path."

<<In deference to my hu-- er Samantha, while the ... *ahem* mire. mire. boom. ... is more difficult, it is quite doable, and the new alternative is attractive: before, the shellform ... er, um, Dwarf shape ... was highly protective but extremely limited. Now, it is both protective and deadly: very much a "scrapper", as I believe you call the mode of combat.>>

[OOC - I thought the Dwarf to be kind of a hermit crab (hermit lobster?!), which had very wimpy damage, and merely permitted survivability in the post-30 levels of the WS, but now it appears that Dwarf form now adds a lot of power, overall (escape mez, frequent self-buff, do damage - and they even upped the base damage, WOW!)]

<<As a consequence, form-shifting is somewhat unstable. I believe this to be a result of neo-muon interaction with-->>

"What Path means to say is that shape shifting is minor hindrance, but mostly it's a matter of paying attention: I've not felt hindered by it (much), but it can be tricky. Anyway, we'll have more feedback later."

<<But I wanted to talk about the Al Frankenslotting. I was wondering how a senator from Michigan-->>

"Path, hush. Trust me, just hush."

[ QUOTE ]
Come on Path, you know you can scare Samantha off the chick flicks simply by responding to them just so:

"Oooh... just LOOK at that Julia Roberts..." <drool!>



[/ QUOTE ]

Two problems with that strategy:

1) Whatever Path reads, I read, too.
2) As being of pure intellect and energy, Path isn't into Earth girls. Good thing, too, any drool would be from my mouth. Ew.

<< Well, technically speaking, I am in an earth girl. >>

Path, that isn't what that means.

<< Of course, "into" is different from "in" but the difference is solely temporal. >>

No, Path, the difference isn't temporal at all.

<<Oh, yes it is! I've got you this time. Pull out that dictionary! >>

[Path/Samantha reference a dictionary. A few minutes pass.]

<<I don't understand ... your language is so imprecise.>>

Don't worry about it, Path.

Anyway, see what I mean?

Don't knock Boost Range. I used to, but it boosts the range of cones, too. Sonic has 3 cones, and the Electric Ancillary Pool can add a fourth cone. I've had good fun with just Energy Torrent and Static Discharge alternating, and you'll generally affect the maximum that you can, because they'll all be in range of your very boosted cones. I've not played a Sonic/* build, yet, but I'm hoping for a design in which I can cone-blast(x3) and then finish off with a sleep on anything that is still wiggling around.

Too much knockback in one of those cones, you say? Hardly. KB isn't a problem when using a sequence of cone attacks all buffed with Boost Range: they don't get knocked out of range!

IAmTehRad, I generally don't suggest builds, but rather try to provide first principles on how to decide on a build.

So, here's my main build goals, for an energy/energy:

I prefer to skip Torrent these days. Used to swear by it. Instead, I go for Energy Punch. The damage from that is quite rewarding.

Grab Build Up and Power Burst at level 4/6 (either order). With temp fly from the atlas safeguard mission, you don't need to rush to Hover/Fly (or your preferred travel power choices).

Travel power prereq by level 8, Bone Smasher at lvl 10, and Aim at lvl 12.

Travel power at 14.

Use 16-20 to get to Stamina by your preferred method. If you fly, take Swift for the +fly bonus.

Power Push/Hasten at 22/24 (whichever order you prefer). After having tried power push for a prolonged period on an alt of mine, I find it indispensable. It's a great damage mitigator especially against bosses. Everything up to this level is available in all PvP zones.

26-30 for me is Conserve Power, Assault and Tactics. So I have leadership available for lvl 30 and above (all PvP zones except Bloody Bay).

Nova at lvl 32. In spite of my dislike, it does rub off on me, a bit.

Power Boost at 35. You can get it earlier, but with powers coming every 3 levels now, it's a choice as to what you get in which PvP zones, and I can do without Power Boost in PvP.

Total Focus at 38. Duh.

Fire Mastery is my epic, so I have Char, Fire Shield, and Rise of the Phoenix.

I'm still debating what my lvl 49 power should be.

Another way to describe my build is to note what I skip:
- Power Bolt
- Energy Torrent
- Sniper Blast
- Stun (candidate for lvl 49 power)
- Boost Range

For slotting, I am still working out how to do that with IOs. For example, I got Freebird for Hover, but I miss my movement rate on that, and want to perhaps 5-slot Hover (Freebird set only has 1 Fly enh, so need two more for 3-slotting fly).

I also have several HOs that I'm debating whether to keep or replace with rare IO sets for various purposes. I'm not prepared to discuss this all in full detail, because I'm still asking questions myself.

Yeah. On leadership vs concealment ...

Get a travel power +stealth IO. There's your stealth. Now skip concealment and take leadership (or whatever else suits). Remember Medicine is also a good PvE choice, since Power Boost doubles the heal from that.

I've put up an I-9 grav/ff guide here:

Controlling Time and Space - Grav/FF Guide [I9]

I've put up an I-9 grav/ff guide here:

Controlling Time and Space - Grav/FF Guide [I9]

Grav/FF controllers are more of a thematic controller build than a power build. It's not a weak combination, but its strengths differ enough from other controller builds that it can be difficult to determine what those strengths are. This guide is I-9 compliant, but a true I-9 guide is going to be a few months of experience in the making.

Gravity Control
Gravity controlling is different from the main elemental three controllers in a few key ways

<ul type="square">[*]Strong, high damage single-target attacks.[*]Few soft controls[*]A ranged mass hold.[*]The immobilization and hold powers are backwards in terms of how they prevent knockback: a gravity hold prevents knockback, the immobilization doesn't; the elemental sets use immobilization to prevent knockback, while holds do not prevent it.[/list]
In general, if you want pets, grab Illusion. If you want lots of AoE soft controls while waiting for your AoE hold to recharge, take Fire, Ice or Earth. If you want pure, difficult-to-resist control, take Mind. If you want to beat the crap out of things while dictating the placement of enemies on the battlefield, take Gravity!

Your Single-Target attacks
You have 4 fairly high-damage (for a controller, mind you!) attacks early in your controlling career. Since the advent of Containment, these become your bread and butter. Depending on your style, you need only take 2 or 3 of the four: the animations and recharge speeds are such that you have a full attack chain with just 3.

Even for the elemental three, I always recommend slotting 3 damage in the single-target immobilization and hold powers; that's the early level damage pump that takes advantage of containment for most controllers. Here you have more than just two powers with which to do damage, and one of them (Propel) does excellent damage.

Two of the powers (Crush and Gravity Distortion) both set up containment. In my build, I use Crush primary as a damage and Containment power, because it's fast and efficient, and high DPS (well, for a controller). Both powers have a 20% accuracy bonus, and you generally won't have a problem with missing. The recharge for Crush is 4 seconds, and 8 for Gravity Distortion. Gravity Distortion does slightly more damage, but you're going to want to drop some damage for hold duration (only needs a couple) and recharge (just one). In general, I find that I just need enough hold duration to spam-hold a boss safely.

Lift and Propel are the attack powers. You probably just need one of them. Of the two, Lift is "cleaner" (figuratively and literally!). Lift has a fast 6-second recharge, does damage on the same scale as Crush and Gravity Distortion, and 1.03-second activation time (very fast!). Too good to be true? Um, yeah: its damage is less than half of that of Crush. It's clean, but weak. Many of you will find Propel to be more attractive, in spite of its issues. The main problem of Propel is the activation time, which City of Data gives as 3.5 seconds. That number seems a bit long to me, and might reflect an older version of the power; it feels a bit faster to me than that, if not by much. It has an 8 second recharge, so in general it fits well in a Crush-&gt;GD-&gt;Crush-&gt;Propel-&gt;repeat attack chain. It does more than twice the damage of Lift, about twice the damage of Crush. Its flaws are numerous, though. It will generate a piece of debris that never goes away until the area resets (the debris used to disappear at the end of the attack) which is comical in effect until you're stuck wading through it. Also, it does "melee-unfriendly knockback", but this is usually resolved by using Gravity Distortion (the hold) prior to using Propel. (Remember, Crush won't prevent knockback.)

Your AoE "Soft Controls"
All of the AoE controls come in the later levels. Crushing field is perhaps the least worthwhile of these, though it does set up Containment for an entire area (to be used with a Fireball at epic levels, for example). It has the flaws of the analogous powers in other sets, and it doesn't prevent knockback, so it isn't a cheap way to keep energy blasters from causing havoc with their AoEs. That said, I still have it, because -sometimes- it pays to just keep things in place (and on the ground with -Fly).

Dimension Shift is perhaps the easiest of these later powers to skip. Its flaw is critical for most teamwork, kind of the opposite problem that AoE sleeps have. An AoE sleep is problematic in teams because a fireball will come in right after you sleep a group and wake them right back up again. A Dimension Shift will make all the enemies it affects UNAFFECTED by any attacks for 30 seconds (or longer if you slot for intangibility duration). The reason that this is problematic is that your teammates will go on trying to attack things that they cannot affect. Further, this status effect is so rarely used (by players) that most don't learn how to deal with it well. However, there are reasons to have it, and I do have it in my current build. The main reason to take it is that it is an AoE effect that immediately stops your team from being slaughtered, granting time for a strategic retreat, or time to heal back up. Moreover it will even stop bosses. So it's perfect for stopping that 2nd- or 3rd- aggro situation that your friend's fire imps grabbed. It's very situational, and I believe its base duration is too long, but if you use it when you need it, you'll prevent a lot of debt (while the scrappers whine about not being able to hit anything, taking being alive for granted).

Wormhole is Gravity's shining jewel. It does three amazing things:
<ul type="square">[*]It disorients a group of enemies.[*]It moves them almost anywhere on the map you can see.[*]It does all this through walls! (I.e., no line-of-sight required, though you need to have a target.)[/list]It is possible to impress even longstanding -veterens- of CoX with this power. Just say, "Let me pull," and teleport an entire group of enemies into your tank's taunt aura! The tactical advantages of positioning enemies in this manner is only limited by imagination. Toss them away, or into a corner. Put them onto an Ice Slick, or all next to the Defender's DeBuff aura anchor. Do not skip this power. The Devs had me at "AoE Mag 3 Disorient." The rest is very tasty gravy.

Your AoE hold
Gravity Distortion Field, hereafter known as GDF, is your AoE hold. It's balanced like all the other mass holds for controllers, with two exceptions. It has range, and it prevents knockback for a short while. You will, of course take this power ... and rarely use it.

Your pet
The Singularity is a great pet. It is a natural tank, and rarely dies. Most nothing will melee with it, because it's a natural Repulsion field (all but the most knockback resistant will get thrown back a long ways). You and your team, however, can just walk right through it. So you can put it in a doorway and it will keep the bad guys at a distance. On top of that, it spams Crush, Lift and Gravity Distortion, generally holding and controling anything nearby. Oh, and it flies, so no worrying about its accidentally aggroing all the CoT in the pit as you hop from ledge to ledge. It's perhaps the most party-friendly pet of all the pets (except maybe for the D3's heal-spamming fluffy). You can't heal the Singularity, but Force Fields work just fine on it.

Force Fields
Yes, there was a global defense nerf. However, there was a global fix to how to-hit chances are calculated. What that means is that Force Field is a perfectly viable defense set. The defense values aren't as numerically high as they used to be, but they -are- more effective in common teaming situations. It doesn't matter how purple an enemy is, bubbles will make things miss (the problem remains that very purple purples only need a hit or two). Force Fields are notable for their "big three" powers: the two shields and the big bubble. You can just ignore the rest of the set, if you wish, and dip generously into the Pool Powers.

PFF
The Personal Force Field deserves its own section. This is a travel power. With it you can go just about anywhere. It doesn't provide mez resistance, so you'll want your big bubble going also, but in general, nothing will hit you, and even if you are hit it will do less damage (40% base resistance ... even tankers don't get higher that until Tier 9!). It is NOT instantaneous, and is not a perfect panic button, but if you're on the ball, it will save your tender hiney far more often than you will ever care to admit. You won't be able to affect anything else, but otherwise you can go anywhere, even "taunt" bad guys, and do so with near-total impunity.

The Shields
Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield are how you buff most of the party. It needs a refresh every 4 minutes. You'll see the flashing icon these days, so you don't need a timer like the old days: just keep an eye out, and always faithfully refresh them for your party. This is why you don't need to heal, so just DO it already. I have actually played with /FF trollers who never bubbled anyone. Be professional and do it.

There's some hidden bonuses in these powers, some that would surprise even veteran players. The Deflection Shield gives 11.25% Defense to smashing, lethal and melee. So ALL melee is protected, as ranged bullets and rocks and the like. If there were a melee psionic attack, it would protect against it. Further, it grants 30% resistance to Toxic damage, so even if a Vahz barfs on your teammates, it won't hurt nearly so much. No, you can't buff the Toxic resist.

The Insulation Shield protects against the non-smash/lethal attacks. However it's better than just that. It doesn't specifically defend against psionic attacks, but ... it covers both ranged and AoE attacks ... ! That means once you put up both Shields on a teammate, they've got good defense against EVERYTHING (melee/ranged/AoE covers every attack). Further, it gives resistance to Recovery and Endurance attacks (69.2%). So it protects against sappers and mus and carnies and the like. No, empaths don't protect against that.

Finally, both of these bubbles (and Dispersion Bubble) -stack- their +DEF with most everything else that is brought into play. Double bubblers make a team incredibly resilient (you might not be able to hit those +5s much, or very hard, but well, they'll have the same problem with you!).

Dispersion Bubble
This power is an aura that protects your nearby teammates AND yourself for +7.5% (stacking with shields and any other +DEF bonuses) against ALL attack types. You -will- take this power. On top of that, it protects against Hold, Stun and Immobilize, which leaves out only Sleep as a common mez attack that can get through. Sleep will drop this toggle: identify Sleep-ers and hold 'em ASAP.

This power is also useful for saying "The team is over here, stupid, get your afk butt over here!" because it's a nice distinct aura that doesn't get lost in the spammy graphics of the game.

Force Field miscellany
Force Bolt - this is certainly of use, but in the end, you'll have plenty of knockback and knockdown, not to mention extremely precise enemy-positioning tools. Its primary virtue is that it is fast and will mess up bosses faster than a double-application of Gravity Distortion.

Detention Field - This works just like Dimension Shift from your Gravity Control set, except for being single target. It has a better accuracy, and perhaps you just want to remove one nasty boss while the party cleans up the minions. It is easily skippable, however.

Repulsion Field - This almost seems like a good idea, but you get most of this power for free with your Singularity. The main thing you can't do with the Singularity that you can with this is run through tightly-packed groups of enemies and send them flying all over the place. Ask your tanker and scrapper friends whether you should take this power.

Repulsion Bomb - This power used to suck: it was targetted on an ally, and knocked enemies away from that ally. See, the devs think that knockback and scatter is a -good- thing, because, it like, knocks them all away, see, so they stop hurting you ... Anyway, it's way better now. It mag-2 stuns everything in a 12-foot radius of the ENEMY you target. It also does knockback, but it's a 100% stun chance on all minions. This actually stacks nicely with Wormhole, able to stun a boss for a short while. In PvP, it also has a 19% toggle-drop chance. So it's quite worth taking, but it remains fairly skippable if there's a Pool Power begging your attention at level 35.

Force Bubble - Hmm. This is useful, but I've mostly seen this power abused. It represents some of the faulty thinking the devs have with respect to ranged attacks, knockback, and scatter in general. Used correctly, it can render an entire spawn incapacitated with little effort on your part, simply by pushing everything into a corner. It has a couple of major flaws, even if used correctly: 1) it will aggro everything onto you, eventually, so even if it's just wimpy ranged attacks, it's all aimed at you, and you will faceplant quickly if the aggro isn't properly handled by your team; 2) it pushes everything OUTSIDE the range of your dispersion bubble, so your melee team members have to leave your dispersion bubble defense bonus in order to engage the targets you repel. The ways it can be used badly are as common as all the ways knockback can be misused: it pushes baddies out of the tanks taunt aura, without a corner or a wall it will disperse them far and wide making AoEs useless, and well, tanks and scrappers really don't like chasing down the bad guys (trust me on this).

What Grav/FF Brings to the Team
Overall, grav/ff is a thematic build, and not a juggernaut of synergistic powers. The sets tend to overlap rather than synergize (enemy intangibility in both, strong knockback in both, a general ability to put enemies about where you want them on the battlefield). The sole synergy is between Repulsion Bomb and Wormhole (stackable stuns), and that was a fairly recent addition.

However, the strengths of the two sets add up to allowing you to generally "buff and forget" and be able to focus on controlling the battle in ways that other, "stronger" controllers simply cannot. Illusion and fire pets move things all over, and mind control's Confusion is more of the same, while earth and ice are limited to locking down the battlefield however it lies.

With only 3 must-have powers, Force Field lends itself to a very "loose" build (as opposed to the extremely tight build, of say, a */SR scrapper). Good choices are Leadership (primarily because Maneuvers will stack with your bubbles), Medicine (because without it you cannot heal or rez ... this is a very team-friendly pool to take for FF!), Concealment (making others invisible stacks with your bubbles and prevents unwanted aggro), Teleportation (TP Foe is a single-target Wormhole, almost), and you can easily Recall Friends who have strayed away back into the safety of your bubbles, Speed (Hasten is always useful for recharging the slow powers faster), and of course Fitness (there's no endurance-helping power in these sets, so Stamina is as mandatory here as in most builds).

I'll not cover the Ancillary power pools (Epic power pools) here, as they have been adequately covered elsewhere, and are not unique to grav/FF.

But what about IOs? Isn't this an Issue 9 guide?
Yes, it's an issue 9 guide. But -nobody- knows the art of IOs (especially the rares) well enough to write a useful guide. In general, at level 50, it is possible to buff powers more efficiently with fewer enhancements if those enhancements are IOs: two normal lvl 50 IOs are only slightly weaker than the typical 3 SOs, especially three lvl 50 SOs. So plenty of powers that generally get three-slotted (like Build Up, with three recharges) are pretty much "almost as good" with 2 regular lvl 50 IOs slotted instead. However, this means either respecing into such a build in the late game, or going with only two SOs in those slots for most of the game. Yes, there's nifty always-on powers to be gained by finding/buying the right rare Inventions and slotting them into appropriate powers, but you really won't be dealing with that from levels 1 through 40, which this guide covers. In general, the kewl ones will cost too much, and the bonuses will be too weak for your taste if it's just a level 20 or 30 Invention. I suspect (but I may well be wrong) that IOs will largely be a lvl 40-50 occupation, because only then will the influence and slots be sufficient to play the IO game.

I'm sure we'll learn more as time goes on, and perhaps I'll revisit these remarks later.

Dr. Opie has updated his energy/energy blaster guide for issue 9. It doesn't explore IO builds per se, since that's an advanced topic all on its own, but the old version was issue 5, so it has plenty of updates. (My sig has the link.)

Greetings Heroes! Welcome to Dr. Opie’s Energy/Energy Blaster Design and Strategy Seminar, Updated for Issue 9!

[Note: this is updated to be useful for Issue 9, but it does NOT explore Invention enhancements in any great detail. The source of my powers data is Red Tomax's City of Data site.]

I am Dr. Opie, an archmage of incalculable power [if you can't count to level 50] who has soloed the archfiend Inferno [and failed, until he was available as an EB]. Why should you listen to me? Because you want to do the blaster thing right, with an eye to the details of energy/energy blasters, specifically. If you're already a blaster, and have your own strategies and tactics, none of what I say is intended to disparage your techniques, and your input is welcome. If you are a neophyte or journeyman blaster, this is only one of several resources available online for learning to be a blaster. Read them all and draw your own conclusions.

Some of you might notice that this Seminar is fairly similar to one I gave years ago on the same topic. That is true, but it has significant changes, both due to more recent power constraints and bonuses, as well as due to the intervening years of experience on my part.

Your Power Sets:

Energy Blast - Your Energy Blast primary is of course the bread and butter of your set. You probably will not acquire all of these powers but you will end up with most of them by the end of your career. Every single blast in this set does energy and smashing damage in various ratios, and does knockback some percentage of the time, except Aim, which is a personal boost. Your asset here is strong single-target attacks that can be fired in rapid succession, keeping your enemy off of his feet.

Energy Manipulation - Your Energy Manipulation secondary is your true strength. The powers you select from this pool do far more to ensure your success than your primary choices. With the right choices, you can hit harder than any other hero without inspirations or buffs from teammates, you can do massive damage to any target that dares to get within close range of you, you can fire everything you have without pause and not run out of endurance, you can buff your defense and movement in unexpected ways, you can increase the range of your attacks, and you can mez (disorient) a boss with a single attack.

Energy/Energy as compared to other sets (new section):

Having made acquaintance with many other blasters in my career, and particularly close acquaintance (OOC: blasters I've played) with the furious Vinny Thermo, the beautiful Beluane, the sparkling Electro Cutie and the ineffable Cold Steel Bunny, I've some observations on blaster powers.

The bad news first: energy blasting is not the best overall blaster power set. Sorry, it's true. The single-target blasting is weak because we have to chase down the bad guys we knock back (which is quite fun, but in the end a waste of time), and aside from Nova, our AoEs are generally a tactical disadvantage. Finally, we just don't shoot as fast. Yes, we can shoot -again- as fast as any other blaster, but we just aren't as quick on the draw as some (e.g., fire/* and ice/*).

The good news: Energy Manipulation is widely considered the blaster secondary. It makes any primary blaster set better: AR gets long cones from Boost Range, Ice gets longer mezzes from Power Boost, Fire gets a huge damage boost early on from Build Up, and all knowledgable heroes and villains rightly respect and fear Total Focus.

Energy/Energy isn't the be-all end-all of blasterdom, but it is probably the most common blaster in Paragon City, and it is a blaster's blaster. No other blasters have the feel of sheer power that comes from hitting so hard that foes go flying, and in spite of the extra time it takes to get back in range of a foe we knock too far back, we know that once they're on the ground, the fight is over unless we're fighting a very tough cookie. Other blasters will be "safer" or "more damaging" or "faster", but we're not unsafe, nor weak, nor slow.


The Powers:

I am not going to give a rundown on every power in the set. Other instructors have handled that task quite nicely. The purpose of this class is to understand how the powers in the set can be used.

On the Energy Blast side of things, there really are no wrong choices to make. Every power fits into an overall attack strategy. On the Energy Manipulation side, your choices should be more carefully made, because you can't select them all and take a good selection of pool powers.

There are a few "must haves" of every energy/energy blaster build. <ul type="square"> [*]Take both Build Up and Aim. They stack. With the 500% cap returned to blasters in Issue 5, they stack well even with powers fully slotted for damage.[*]Take Conserve Power and fill it with recharge enhancements (3 SOs or 2 lvl 50 IOs). I did not do this for most of my career, and did OK. I switched over using a free respec at level 47, and increased my effectiveness to devastating levels. I only had to avoid using my high-endurance powers (the AoEs, mostly) for the brief period when Conserve Energy was down. The only thing keeping me from throwing firepower left and right was sound tactics (avoiding excess aggro). This was with Stamina, too, of course. The advantage of spending endurance only half as fast in a major battle cannot be underestimated. This makes every other power you have that much more effective, because you can use them all much more often.[*]Take Total Focus and level 38 and slot it completely. I suggest 2 ACC, 1 recharge, 3DAM, if SOs. (IOs and HOs change the equation a bit: prioritize accuracy and damage, with any spare slots going to recharge or disorient duration. The disorient duration and recharge are good out of the box, though, especially when combined with Power Boost.) This power will stop a Boss cold. With this, I hunted Paragon Protectors solo, and only bad luck got me faceplanted (miss ... miss ... miss ..., even after a full Aim+BuildUp).[/list]Aside from these four powers, everything else is gravy. Also notice, 3 of these four are in your secondary! This does not include Power Pool "must haves" such as Stamina.


Specific Power Choices:

::Early choices

Early in the game, you have a choice between two of four powers:

<ul type="square">[*]Power Bolt (the lightest blast power, has range and recharges fast, though its animation is slower that other energy powers)[*]Power Blast (the more damaging but slower recharge blast, has a faster animation time than Bolt)[*]Energy Torrent (the AoE cone with high knockback)[*]Energy Punch (the first "blap" after the mandatory Power Thrust)[/list]
This choice will affect your entire early career. To start, I highly recommend taking Power Blast as your main energy blast attack: mostly because Blast is the better attack (faster animation, more damage). Power Bolt is higher DPS (damage per second), yes, but you are a blaster. Scrappers have DPS. Blasters have burst damage. For example, assume that you can take down a target with a Bolt/Blast combo: you're done in 2.6 seconds. If you're relying on DPS from Bolt, that's 3 Bolts, spaced out by 4 seconds apiece, so roughy 10 seconds from start to finish. In the meantime, you're getting hit back by 10 seconds worth of attacks and haven't finished anything off. I repeat, blasters should not care about DPS.

Of the other choices, taking Power Bolt lets you stay at long range at the price of lower damage, Torrent gives you AoE flexibility at the cost of high endurance and a slow fire rate, and Punch gives you very high single-target damage at the cost of being in melee. Even if you take others of these powers, you have effectively chosen your combat style at this point. I mention this so that you can slot and plan future powers appropriately, not to grossly categorize builds post facto.

::Knockback

There is an art to using Knockback, which exists in all of the ranged attacks and in Power Thrust. While much disparaged, knockback has many advantages. The problem of knockback is generally teams: other people are trying to ki... er, um arrest the same targets as you, and knockback moves them out of range (from your melee friends) and disperses out of AoE (for your friendly defenders, controllers, and fellow blasters).

In general, Knockback, especially as used by the 100% chance of knockback in the powers Power Thrust and Power Push, is capable of seriously disabling all but the most powerful of opponents (which includes AVs, most EBs, and, sadly, all of PvP land where there are more trained acrobats than in a circus!). While you're solo, all of this knockback is helpful, because a great deal of your powers are ranged (so you don't often lose time chasing the bouncing villains) and even the AoEs can be controled to push things together instead of blowing them apart.

While you're teamed, you should focus on using single target attacks, because this will make sure that your knockback is under control, and in such instances, your only aggro is generally from your target, who can't hit back. The AoEs can be useful in such cases, but they need to be used thoughtfully.

Of course, with Nova, all of the above logic gets thrown out. Just run in and blow up already. In general, anything that got knocked back is dead, except bosses and AVs. Your team will not complain.


::AoE attacks

It is a personal choice whether you want to take AoE attacks. There are two main ones in this set, aside from the Nova (nuke) power at level 32: Energy Torrent (cone) and Explosive Blast (ball, same range as Power Bolt/Burst). Energy is decidedly not an AoE-specialized set. It's AoE powers, however, are effective in their own ways. The first thing to realize is that an AoE from an Energy blaster is not supposed to eliminate large masses of weak enemies, the way more AoE-focused sets can. Rather, your energy blast AoE attacks are better thought of as debuffs or controls. Their damage is significant only in that it is applied to several foes; the knockback is more significant. The knockback itself has been the subject of much disparagement, because it moves all the enemies out of range of further AoEs. See the "Knockback" section, above.

The trick with your AoEs is to remember that you want to use the knockbacks, rather than pretend that you have non-knockback AoEs. When the baddies are closing in, both AoEs will serve to push them away, and knock them down for enough time for you to get away or buff up with insps or whatever. Explosive Blast has an interesting side effect in that it ALL blasts away from you, not away from the center of the blast, so at close range, it appears to just be a "wider cone" than Energy Torrent. A major advantage of Explosive Blast is that if you get mobbed, you can just target one foe, and most all of them will be pushed away from you.

If you want to use AoEs for damage purposes, it is best to hover above a group (stealthed, or with some major range boosting for your cone attack) and use both AoEs down on the group. Knockback thus becomes knockdown. Fully slotted with BuildUp/Aim, this can eliminate a group of blue-conning minions (when solo, post-ED). The knockback/down eliminates a good deal of the potential alpha back from your targets. Alternatively, a good wall or corner can keep them together. With good manueverability, you can zip around and line up your cone AoE, and knockback the bad guys to keep them together in a blob for other attacks.

Finally, an advantage of having the AoE attacks is that they can be cycled in for doing damage against a Boss or AV while staying at range.

If you don't want to use AoEs, you don't have to. It's optional, but adds some versatility. Personally, I don't use the AoEs: I think they chew up too much endurance, and it's far more satisfying to 2-shot most everything in rapid succession.


::Sniper Blast

By level 8, the Energy/Energy blaster gets access to something unavailable to other blasters until much later, or even at all: Build Up + Sniper Blast. Other secondaries get Build Up at level 16 or not at all. We get it at level 4! Other primaries get Snipe at level 12 or later, or not at all. We get Snipe at level 8! That makes sniper attacks a particular strength that belongs to the Energy/Energy blaster, especially in the early game. With both of these powers, you can take down one minion in a single shot (color varies based on slotting and level, but you'll always be able to down an even-con minion if you hit, except for certain specialized minions with extra hit points or damage resistance). Reducing your enemy count by one even before the fight begins is a win/win situation. If you take Sniper Blast and Build Up, and slot appropriately, you will not regret the choice.

That said, sniping isn't for everyone. First of all, it's a slow-activating, interruptable power. In general, you can't use it in the heat of combat, and you could have taken some other attack instead and output damage in a continuous stream with other attacks. If you take Snipe, you will generally have an attack pattern of sniping, hoping it hits, and then following up and taking down the other enemies swiftly. Another disadvantage is that Snipe takes so long to go off that Build Up (and Aim) have mostly run out before you can do anything else. It's often more damaging (and more risky) to do your self-buffs and then get off 3 or 4 attacks with extra damage and accuracy than to just get Snipe and one other attack. The difference comes down to play style. If you think of yourself as a stealthy infiltrator that has a job to do, Snipe is for you. If you think of yourself as the “rawking” blaster who delivers damage in a continuous stream of showy and spectacular blasts, Sniper Blast probably isn't for you.

Currently, I have snipe. Again. I'm considering respecing out of it. Again.


::Nova

Nova is the "nuke" power of the Energy Blast set. Frankly, I don't like it. Sorry, but I don't.

It has its place in the scheme of things. For a very brief moment, you devastate all of the foes nearby (up to 16, as of Issue 5), and then you have no endurance, and must use inspirations to do anything for about 10 seconds. Its recharge is very slow; 6 minutes without slotting or Hasten, but never much shorter than about 2 minutes (3 recharge SOs + Hasten).

In practice, this becomes a team power. In team missions, there are groups large enough to be worthy of the sacrifice this power entails, and backup protection from teammates to keep the aggro off of you for those that survive. Also, multiple Novas (or other blaster set equivalent) can quickly destroy a large group of orange/red enemies.

In solo play, it becomes mostly worthless and not very fun (for me). Yes, I can take on a large group of red-conning minions and live. In between, I must wait 3 to 6 minutes (depending on slotting, cuz it doesn't deserve all recharges). It isn't fun to wait that long, and I'd much rather have a strong, long distance, single-target attack that recharges fairly quickly, to accompany my Power Blast.

It is not a "bad" power, per se. I just don't find it fun. However, if you do like causing massive amounts of damage all at once, and don't mind waiting for it, and you don't mind looking severely constipated right before doing your damage, Nova will serve you well. Remember, I said that no wrong choices to make for your primary set, and that includes this power.

FYI, as of this writing, I do have Nova in my build, and it has 6 slots, 3 recharge, 3 damage. It doesn't need +ACC because Aim+BuildUp is de riguer. I emote a sneeze as it goes off.


::Power Push

Power Push is a very nice power, but it is not necessary for any given energy/energy blaster. Some swear by it, others think it's a waste of time. The general rule I have for such powers is to ask, "Do I actually use this, or does it sit there ignored?" That is to say, does it fit in one's playstyle?

If you get this power, you should be pulling it out in every fight with a boss, especially if it's a solo fight. Combined with Power Thrust (which all of us have), you can keep a boss disabled for most of a fight. It's kind of like Ice Slick from the /Ice set, but with a more pro-active flavor. It's insanely accurate (same 40% acc bonus as Nova!), and recharges in 8 seconds, and activates faster than most everything else in the energy blast set (1.1 seconds). It easily fits within a normal ranged attack cycle, such that Power Push -&gt; Power Blast -&gt; Power Burst is smooth with enough recharge enhancements and hasten. It's range is a bit shorter than Power Blast and Power Bolt, but that's OK: in general you don't want to hit something outside your normal range even further out.

It's optional, but only to the degree that you enjoy using it. It is somewhat similar in usage to Parry or Divine Avalanche for Scrappers: the damage mitigation is wonderful, but you could be blasting for real damage in the meantime.


::Energy Punch

Energy Punch does more damage than any blasts you get before the Sniper Blast. Yes, even more than Power Burst, though not by much. It's fairly endurance hungry, and recharges more slowly (about the same endurance/recharge as Power Burst). And you can get it at level 2! If you already know how to blap, and like doing so, it's almost a must-have power. It's possible to skip it, but I like its one-two punch with Bone Smasher, which nearly always 2-shots a minion, and usually 2-shots an LT when combined with Aim/BuildUp.

Another consideration is its activiation time, which is .57 seconds. This makes a 1-2 punch with this power even more formidable, because within 2.07 seconds, all of the damage of both Energy Punch and Bone Smasher has been applied to the target.

It's chance of Stunning is 30%, mag 2, which is fairly low, just enough to stun a minion, but with luck, it can stun a boss when combined with Bone Smasher (18% chance for that: 30% of 60% is 18%).

It has a 5% chance of dropping toggles in PvP.


::Bone Smasher

This is the other blap. It's bigger and better, but correspondingly slower and more expensive for endurance. Slot Endurance reductions here more than recharge reductions: running your blaps fast and furious will drain your endurance quickly, even with both Stamina and Conserve Energy. Your range blasts won't chew up endurance, but these will, almost as badly as AoEs.

There's a 22% chance for toggle dropping with this power in PvP.


::Stun

Of all powers in the Energy/Energy sets, this is the one with which I am least familiar. Its damage is low, but its stunning lasts as long as that of Total Focus, but is of a lower magnitude (stuns a LT). Combined with Bone Smasher, that it gives a 60% chance of stunning a boss. If Energy Punch is also part of the combo, that's a 72% chance. Of course, this is extremely effective when combined with Power Boost (to double duration, and to keep the stun stacked. The recharge is a bit slow, but fast enough that proper slotting allows the mez to be spammed and stacked.

However, I've never taken it except to test things out. It is a mez power, which means it shouldn’t be ignored in the scheme of things. The only reason I didn’t take it is that by the time I had acquired all of the power pool powers I wanted, I was of a level to get Total Focus, which is remarkably more effective.


::Power Boost

This isn’t a “must have” power, but it is much, much, much, much, much more effective than it appears at first glance. To start, it buffs your movement speed for any movement powers aside from walking (and teleporting). It also doubles your DEF bonuses, your mez durations, your knockback distances, and so on. I slotted this with three recharges, which when combined with Hasten gave me 15 seconds on and 10 seconds off with this power. I would usually pull it up before doing a Total Focus attack, or when I needed to move very fast (it makes hover go as fast as fly, without having to 3-slot hover with fly SOs).

It also has other nifty effects. If you take the Medicine pool, any heals you do are doubled. If you have Tactics, your ToHit buffs just got doubled (never mind the doubling the already wonderfully high buffs from Aim and Build Up!). If you have any endurance modification powers (e.g., Stamina, or Short Circuit), the Endurance change is doubled. Yes, Short Circuit is an elec/* blaster power, but the bonus here is worth mentioning, because it makes Short Circuit a one-shot-drain-all-endurance attack.)

City of Data indicates that this isn't doubling, however. Rather it's +119.2%. So it's -more- than doubling.


::Boost Range

This power does exactly what it says, and I have no beef with it, except that by the time you get it, just about everything in the game outranges all of your powers, even with this on. It has a use with Cone AoE powers, in that a longer range is also a larger AoE. This particularly helps Assault Rifle blasters. It's of marginal worth to Energy Blasters. You are either going to build around having this power, or not have it at all.


::Total Focus

While this is a slow-activating power, and your target and its friends will likely get an alpha on you if you don’t quickly charge in and launch it, it can stun bosses and one-shot LTs. The stunning of bosses is the main utility, though, and turns you into a “boss-killer” on a par with any scrapper. Combined with Power Boost, the stun lasts for 20 seconds (before slotting mez SOs!). Combined with Build Up and Aim, you can deal with a boss-less trio with three one-shots: Total Focus on the most powerful, then Bone Smasher on the next most, and then Power Burst or Energy Punch on the last. In a trio with a boss, you stun the boss with a Power Boosted Total Focus, then immediately switch to his companions with Power Burst and Bone Smasher and or Energy Punch, leaving only the mezzed (for 20 seconds) boss. Total Focus will recharge before then, and you can re-mez him. Your only foil against powerful bosses is missing too often, but Total Focus has a built-in 20% bonus to hit. If you're also using Stun, the odds of missing all of the stackable mez is very low except in the most extreme of circumstances.


- Power Pools
Most power pool advice is ably covered by other instructors, and I’ve no wish to re-hash their wisdom here, so I’ll summarize some essential points.

The fitness pool is a must, even if you take Conserve Power, because running out of endurance is as bad as being mezzed or slowed. With both Stamina and Conserve Power, only firing Nova or using lots of AoEs when during the CP downtime will dry up your endurance. At all other times, you can use everything you’ve got.

Aside from Fitness, I recommend the Speed pool, because even though it now lacks a+DEF bonus, and can't be perma, it still speeds up Nova recharging and keeps the damage output high in general. Just as Stamina is worth a couple of endurance cost SOs in every power, Hasten gives you effectively two recharge SOs in every power. Your job is to throw out damage as fast as possible against the tactically/strategically most effective target, and even if you have enough powers that there’s always one ready to go, your more effective powers will be ready to go sooner.

All other pool choices are a matter of personal play style and choices. Currently, I have Fly (including Group Fly for Hami) and Leadership (because Arachnos and PvP taught me that I wanted to SEE things more than hide from them ... I used to have Stealth).


-Ancillary Power Pools

Any choice is good.

I chose fire, because Rise of the Phoenix is very pretty, and I love getting back up right away. I like Char as a fast single-target mez, and the Fire armor gives a good resistance to the most common non-S/L damage type.

Cold Mastery has its virtues, as does Munitions (LRM!).

Force Mastery has high recommendations from many fellow blasters, with Force of Nature granting a great resilience (35% base resistance to everything but psionic damage, plus boosted endurance recovery), but no mez resistance. Of course, the Personal Force Field is a wonderful panic power.


Still, it’s all a matter of personal choice at these levels. Nothing is uber ... and if it is, it’ll be nerfed, eventually. Speaking of which:


:efiance

*Dr. Opie chuckles.*

*Dr. Opie grins goofily and starts singing GIR’s “doom song”*

“Doomy doom doom doom doom doom DOOM doomy doom doom …”

*ahem*

Er, um … please excuse me. At times, I am awed by the brilliant design and balance of the powers in this game. Then they come up with things like “suppression” and “defiance.” These, too, awe me, though not in a positive way.

Sorry.

Defiance is effective at low levels, when you don’t have Build Up and Aim and blasts fully slotted with SOs. In such a situation, even a blaster isn’t in danger of death at even 10% of their full hit points, and the minor bonuses from defiance at this point (yes, minor … the bonuses are remarkably small until you get to about 1-2% of your hit points) play a valid strategic role.

If you try such a thing after 30th level or so, you will die. Quickly. If you keep on trying it, you will be in perma-debt. A blaster at 50% hit points is in grave danger of being killed in by two more hits, or a single hit from a powerful boss. Against the kinds of dangerous foes against which one would imagine defiance would be useful (because, after all, they just hit you really really hard), Defiance is useless (because, after all, the next hit is going to be just as hard, and take you down to zero.) So the math is: 100% -&gt; hit -&gt; 50% (no defiance bonus yet) -&gt; 0% (um, do I get infinite defiance if I’m at 0 HP?).

My advice to you neophyte blasters is: use defiance on purpose until level 10, at which point debt kicks in. Then never use it again on purpose. If you get hit to within a hit point of death, and then get a blast off, well, gee, that was lucky for you. Maybe you kill the boss that almost killed you. Then a minion trips, falls on his laser rifle, which accidentally goes of and hits you for 3 points of damage. Luck goes both ways, and with Defiance, luck will be -against- you, not -with- you.

I would like to see defiance based on the damage rate, not damage amount. That way, if you are getting hit a lot, but using heals judiciously, defiance builds up because of all the hits, but doesn’t go away just because a heal took you back to full. But you are still obviously in severe danger, because if the damage rate is very high, then lacking heals for 10-20 seconds is enough to kill you. I’d call that real risk, and I’d judge that Defiance should be giving at least a moderate bonus at that point.


- Conclusions

An energy/energy blaster has a great set of powers, some of which are diamonds in the rough, and others of which are real gems. Your secondary powers deserve special scrutiny: don’t ignore them just because you don’t want to be in melee range. Your AoE’s strength -is- their massive knockback, not their damage. And Conserve Power + Stamina will keep you blasting for a long time to come.

This concludes my seminar. Questions and comments are welcome.

with respect to Shiver, my main prob with it was that it hit TOO MANY targets, to the point that it would grab more aggro than the supposedly aggro-attracting Chilling Embrace. (It would hit targets well outside of those under control by the tankers and controllers, especially in a tight situation.)

But yes, you can increase the size of the cone by the usual means, and of course make it more accurate.

And, yes, having two holds after lvl 41 is oh, so sweet. That's why I could handle the +2 Death Mages without much bother. Once I land the 2nd hold, -that- one is finished.

"6 Stage Death Blossom"

You crazy Khelds. Just call it what it is: "mire/mire/BOOM!"

&lt;&lt; Samantha, 6-Stage Death Blossom -is- the correct terminology in this case. It has a history that predates your civilization by several millenia. Feh, you like to think that you thought of it first. In fact--&gt;&gt;

[Samantha pops in a DVD of "Steel Magnolias," pours herself a glass of red zinfandel, and sits back to watch.]

&lt;&lt; No, Samantha! Please, no!!! I'll be good. Honest. &gt;&gt;

[We shall refrain from describing the next 2 hours.]

For truth-in-advertising purposes, I'd like to mention I recently respecced.

I dropped Frozen Aura and Shiver and took Aid Other and Aid Self instead.

This is more because of how things pan out in the post-40s. Teaming is more frequent for me (what with AV fun), and that makes Shiver and Frozen Aura problematic for my play style. Shiver's main flaw is that I -do- end up hitting targets that I don't want to aggro (the cone is that wide!). The problem with Frozen Aura is that it is weak on a team. Further, now that I have LRM (yay, boom!), if there are enough minions to make the sleep worthwhile, it is FAR more efficient to just blow them all to kingdom come from the get-go, rather than just sleep them and handle them in detail. Also, now that I have two holds (one melee, one ranged), the other use I had for frozen aura is gone, namely holding the extra minion or two while I go take on the boss.

I -do- kind of miss shiver, because it made bosses nice and wimpy at range. The two holds, however, nicely cover that loss.

As for the Aid Self, it's worth the trade. With 1311 health (including accolades), a fully slotted Aid Self heals over 400 health, is always up when I need it, and is very rarely interrupted (two interrupt enhs).

FWIW, I took down a +3 Death Mage solo, without worrying too much except to be ready and hit a break free if he tried a hold on me before I held him. I'm sure other blasters have their brag stories, but this fire/ice blaster plays far more effectively than my energy/energy (see my link for that guide).

Given the powers you've said you've taken, Camo, I suspect you're underestimating the huge benefits of the */ice slows.

What the slows mean, especially for most pre-level-40 play (where mezzers are infrequent), is that you CAN take an alpha, and count on the fact that you'll only take the one hit from each enemy you face.

For example, consider a Rikti Soldier boss. They do huge damage, and can cut you down in about 20-30 seconds (if not sooner) when given a chance. By emplying the slowing effects of Shiver and/or Chilling Embrace, that boss gets off a first shot, and -maybe- a 2nd shot, and I lose no more than about 1/3 of my health. Part of what you can use (and why many /ice blasters prefer Shiver) is that -ranged- attacks occur less frequently than melee attacks. Many bad guys have just -one- ranged attack, and have to wait for that -one- power to recharge before trying to hurt you again. That recharge time is MORE than enough time for a blaster to finish the job.

The advantage of -recharge attacks is hard to notice in the heat of combat, when we're worrying about taking down that SoB as soon as possible. We need to back out of that mindset and think in terms of the parameters of the fight. We need to remember how many hits from X we can take, and have a good feel for how fast they come, before it becomes clear that we avoided a huge amount of damage. I don't know the numbers on -recharge exactly, but presume that our ice powers have slowed an enemy's attacks to just 1/3 the usual rate. That's effectively 66% damage mitigation, which is comparable to, and better than, many tank resists. That huge mitigation is nearly invisible, though, because we don't see damage reduced to double or single digits ... we see the big opening attack hit us and try to not run away screaming. The point is that the follow up attacks don't happen, or happen with plenty of time for you to protect yourself by other means.

That said, the debate is usually whether to use take just Shiver or just Chilling Embrace; taking neither isn't common, I don't think. I took both because I find both useful in given circumstances. Either one is more than enough to slow things down drastically. The advantage of Shiver, tactically, is that it has range and a huge area, so you can slow down everything for a decent duration. The disadvantage is that it can miss, and it can end up missing some of the more critical targets. The advantage of Chilling Embrace is that it is auto-hit, debuffs enemy damage, and is just as good at slowing things as Shiver. Further, -if- you keep the toggle up, and something runs up and hits you suddenly, it just got slowed and debuffed; it can keep surprises less deadly. The disadvantage of Chilling Embrace is that you have to enter melee range, so, no, it won't help against AVs much.

As for Frozen Aura, yeah, it's a sleep, which means any damaging attack (or even a heal, or a knockdown) breaks the hold. However, the way to handle that is to use Freezing Touch (a power I note you don't list among your faves) prior to other damage powers. A typical way to handle a group would be: jump in, Frozen Aura, Freezing Touch on an LT (if there) or any that were missed, kill whatever you you Froze, Freezing Touch on a slept minion, Blaze, Ice Sword (dead minion), Freezing Touch on a slept minion, Blaze, Ice Sword (dead minion). Re-use Frozen aura to keep sleeps going as needed. It's slow, but very very safe. No, this isn't practical in a team environment, usually. If you team most of the time, you won't be doing this. On a team, if you aren't throwing AoE damage left and right, and firing off Inferno almost as often as it comes up, you probably aren't doing your job, and that means you don't have time to pretend to be a controller. However, there's a ton of cases in which it's useful solo. Even if there's enemies that it won't sleep, it can take out the minions around, for example, a nasty boss, giving you time to handle the boss on your own terms. At lvl 41 or higher, and you take an epic with a single-target hold, this is even better: get both holds on the boss (boss is held), then Frozen Aura the minions (minions held). Set them on fire at your leisure.

I took all the powers in */Ice except for Frozen Fists, and I'm using 'em all, and having a blast.

A fire/ice blaster guide

May your enemies move slowly and die quickly - a blaster fire/ice guide


Since a specific fire/ice guide appears to be lacking, I shall provide one, though it will be fairly brief. Other guides outline fire/* powers and */ice powers perfectly well, so when I discuss specific powers, it is more with an eye to how they synergize or to contribute to an evaluation of a perhaps controversial power.

The main powers I've taken on my fire/ice build are as follows ...

Fire/* powers:

- Fire Blast
- Fire Ball
- Fire Breath
- Aim
- Blaze
- Inferno

*/Ice powers:
- Chilblain
- Ice Sword
- Chilling Embrace
- Build Up
- Ice Patch
- Shiver
- Freezing Touch
- Frozen Aura

Pool Powers:
- Hover, Fly
- Swift, Health, Stamina
- Hasten


Strategies and tactics

The main point of taking Fire/* as a blaster is to output massive AoE damage. The "side-effect" of fire is to do more damage over time, on a somewhat random basis. As a result, while a group of bad guys will probably get their alpha strike on you as you burn them to the ground, there is no "beta" strike.

As such, Fire Ball and Fire Breath, along with Aim and Build Up, are critical powers to take. The full chain of Aim/Buildup/Firebreath/Fireball is sufficient to entirely eliminate all minions and most LTs, leaving only bosses as being somewhat problematic. Be sure to use Fire Breath first, because it has a longer activation time, and it's damage comes in fairly slowly. When followed by a Fire Ball, the last tic of the Fire Breath is about simultaneous with the Fire Ball, so everything falls right when the fireball hits. The other way around, the Fireball animation is ADDED TO, instead of simultaneous with, the Fire Breath animation and DoT, giving the bad guys more chances to fire back.

Rain of Fire is not ineffective in this regard, and is generally OK to use given the Ice secondary's abilities to slow movement to a crawl, but it generally tends to be overkill. The problem with Rain of Fire isn't that it sucks in this combination, but rather that there are clearly better power choices.

The single target blasts, Fire Blast and Blaze, will be integral to your ability to handle bosses and LTs. Blaze, in particular, does huge damage to anything that doesn't resist fire. Further, its range has been extended for Issue 8, making it much more useful in the scheme of things. Flares isn't as good as these two powers, mostly because of the long activation time: the blaster fire primary features great AoE, fast animations and recharges, and extra damage, but Flares fails to provide the first two, making it weaker in comparison with other powers. Remarkably Fire Blast is -faster- than the "fast" blasts in other sets; so it's perfectly OK to rely on it as one of your main attacks, and skip Flares. (Flares is about the same speed as Fire Blast, but with less damage.)

Blazing Bolt, the "sniper" power of the set, is a fine attack, with all of the advantages and disadvantages that implies. It's a more damaging attack than similar attacks from other sets, but mostly because it has the fire DoT added to it. If sniping is your style, it's worth taking and slotting. It doesn't have much bearing on strategies you'd use with ice powers, except that you can conceivably hold or ice-patch or sleep someone, and then back up and snipe them. In general, your other single target attacks will do more damage faster. This attack is more for the ability to take out a single minion right away from a long distance, with only a small chance for reprisal from his companions.

Inferno is the nuke, and, being fire/*, is the most damaging power in the game. Use it as you see fit.


The ice side of things synergizes remarkably well with the fire primary. Specifically, there are four ice powers that serve to keep bad guys packed together long enough for Fire Breath + Fire Ball to defeat remarkably quickly. Ice Patch is perhaps the best of these. Ice Patch is the same as the tanker's ice patch, which in turn is a smaller, PBAoE version of the ice controller's Ice Slick power. Ice Patch is the primary reason to take */ice, and should be considered a "must have" power. I took it at level 22, since Stamina is slightly higher in priority. The best use of of this power is to keep a large crowd of bad guys bouncing in one spot, then back up and fire off the firebreath/fireball combo to take 'em out. Also, with judicious pulling, it can be used with corners and other objects that line-of-sight to "herd" a bunch of unsuspecting bad guys into one spot and stay there (for your AoE pleasure). It's also good at choke points, or, if no other good spot exists, plop it under your tank teammate, if you have one (so long as the tank isn't the target of massive AoEs). Even if the bad guys get up and move a bit, they will move slowly ... the primary danger is that they -can- shoot you, but not often. Ice Patch is the best move to pull if you get cornered by a boss.

Aside from Ice patch, there are two other nice area powers that severely limit the enemy's ability to damage you: Shiver and Chilling Embrace. Shiver is a nice power right out of the box (I slot it with one ACC), and its wide cone will slow up a large area of bad guys. It doesn't -feel- like it does much, until you combine it with other cold/slow powers, and use it against bosses: your damage rate is high enough, and you reduce a boss's fire rate low enough, that you will barely get hurt; only mezzing bosses are problematic with this tactic (you can't slow 'em up if you're held).

Similar to Shiver is Chilling Embrace, which is PBAoE, -but- it also debuffs enemy damage. Its primary disadvantage is attracting aggro, but if you're solo, that shouldn't matter, and if you're in a team, you'll only grab aggro in a target-rich environment. The main advantage is that one you turn it on, you don't have to think about it: if something runs up to you, it'll get off one attack, and then be slowed to a crawl, and future attacks will be fairly infrequent and do less damage, too.

Chilblain and Ice Sword both deserve to be slotted up. Chilblain doesn't kill things fast, but it's damage as part of a combination attack should not be ignored. Also, it impedes flight, immobilizes (the common first-level blaster secondary effect) and slows both movement speed and attacks. Its -recharge stacks with the -recharge of the other ice attacks, and it should not be ignored for the attack chain. Its range is a bit short, but not so short that it puts you in danger. The only caution against Chilblain is that it does not mix well with Ice Slick; there's an anti-knockback effect that foils Ice Slick's knockdown effect. Ice Sword is a nice-damage attack. In my experience Ice Sword plus Blaze is a one-two punch that'll take out anything less than a boss, in most cases; if not, a Fire Bolt or chilblain is more than enough to finish things off. Frozen Fists isn't a bad choice, but Ice Sword does more damage, and in all likelihood, you don't need the faster attack rate that would be the virtue of frozen fists.

There's a very nice hold power in the /ice set: Freezing Touch. While ice/ice blasters complain that it's melee-only, cuz they have two ranged holds, for fire/ice blasters it's a very welcome power. In general, it's worth it to close into melee range, even on bosses, just to get the hold going. Odds are, in a team, that someone else has already done a hold on the boss, which will stack with yours. Solo, you can use ice slick to partially disable a boss, and then get in a couple holds as fast as it recharges. Once the boss is held, the fight is all over except for the "arresting".

The final power in the /ice set, Frozen Aura, is not as obviously "uber" as, say, Total Focus in the /energy set. It is a PBAoE sleep, with a moderate radius, and it only sleeps minions. The virtue of the power is that it recharges fairly fast, and sleeps last a long time, compared to similar hold powers. This is enough to defeat large groups of minions in detail. When LTs or bosses are present, it takes the minions out of the fight, so you can focus on just the dangerous enemies. The animation is fast, but generally the bad guys will have a chance to shoot you first. Overall, I think this power is very useful, especially solo, though not much in a team. It's not a bad power, it just doesn't feel like it measures up to other lvl 38 blaster secondary powers. However, /ice has wonderful holds and slows and the yummy Ice Patch, which more than makes up for Frozen Aura not being as overall effective. One final point on Frozen Aura, Ice Patch wakes 'em up out of their sleep, so in general, you're either ice-patching or frozen-aura-ing, not both.

As for pool powers, the usual rules apply: take Stamina and whatever prereqs you choose to get to it, take a travel power and its prereq, and the rest is gravy. If I didn't like my ice powers so much, I'd probably try to work in Aid Self, which is a huge help to blasters, in general (even tanks profit from it). Otherwise, other guides cover pool powers in sufficient detail.

Aincillary (Epic) pool powers? All are good. Take what you think will be fun. This particular toon of mine is looking forward to the LRM (fire LRM, follow up with fireball, for long-distance AoE fun).

My main slotting advice: slot end reduction in all of the attacks; you'll be surprised how much it helps with endurance issues.

I think that's about it. I suspect the main reason that there hasn't been much in the way of fire/ice guides is that the choices and synergies are fairly obvious. The fire dishes out the damage nice and fast, and the ice side offers a HUGE amount of control. For most blasters, narrow, twisty corridors are a major vulnerability, but not so for this combination. The ice powers will stop things from hurting you (even in melee -- well, not as much as it -would- usually hurt in melee), and the fire AoEs are wonderfully devastating. This is a very survivable combo that can handle melee (without being a blapper, really) and deal tons of damage at range. Personally, I think this combo has the best offense and the best defense (before considering pool powers) of any blaster choices, which keeps you alive and delivering massive AoE damage over and over again.

Some Blaster-y advice:

The BBB advice is cool, but my first blaster (also my first 50, and whom I still enjoy playing) very rarely faceplanted - only got the first debt badge. He was an expert blastard/blapper from the start. A lot of the fun for me wasn't answering the question, "Can I win?" but rather, "Can I live through this?" There's a price, though: it's slow. Even with teammates noting how fast I plow through things, that's all temporary: I'm just firing all I've got in the span of 10 seconds or so, after I've determined what I need to hit, how to hit it, and with my backup plans for what happens when I miss.

But it's slow. Aim and Build Up don't recharge quickly. Nova comes up even more slowly. Snipe crawls. Waiting for the ultimate set-up and attacking is what grants survival, but the wait is your price.

It's a decent play style, and I had fun with it for a long time.


These days, I find I really don't give a darn about debt. I care much more about down-time. I want to eliminate the waiting.

So here's some pointers:

---------------------------------------

1) Range is a defense; it just isn't as good as we'd like it to be.

Its value changes on a case-by-case basis. If there's a gazillion AoEs landing on the tank, firing at the tank's crowd from afar is as good as having 95% damage resistance. If a Paragon Protector is coming after you, closing into melee with Total Focus is the most highly defensive action you can take.

2) Damage is debuff, damage is control

Most blaster AoE powers are fairly weak, only Fire has a large set of reliably high-damage AoEs. But even with minor AoEs, there are uses. In particular, an AoE followed by single-target attacks will be faster than relying just on AoE or just single-target. That AoE is often enough to turn everything into one- or two-shot kills for single-target attacks. In effect, the AoE "debuffed" the enemy's health, making them all easier to kill.

When we do a pull, we are performing a control action. Doing the damage is what causes our target to pursue; keeping the damage limited is further control, enabling us to "hold" the remainder of the enemies far away from us. Finally, as the ultimate control, I'll brag to controllers that my mass AoE hold is way better than theirs. As proof, I walk up to a large group, fire off build-up and aim, and Inferno or Nova (depending on which blaster I'm playing). I then point at all the defeated enemies: "See? Not moving. Lasts a lot longer than your AoE hold, too."

The point of this wordplay is to encourage thought about how you use your powers. It isn't just your few limited mez powers that "control". That said ...

3) Mez powers are your friend.

We blasters may not have mez resistance, but we all get some degree of mez/control powers. Knockback/down, disorient, immobilization, slow, sleep, and of course, hold ... ALL of them help you, IF you know how to use them. Don't look down on the ice secondary hold power, just because it requires a melee attack: it's a HOLD, gosh dern it!!! Don't turn up your nose in disgust at Frozen Aura: it's an AoE sleep -- yeah, Total Focus is way more cool with high damage and it's boss-magnitude stun, but any AoE attack that stops most everything from attacking you for a while is not a weak power.

Each kind of effect is very useful so long as you work WITH it and not against it. Holds are easy to work with, you don't have to change your style to stick a hold in your attack cycle. Disorients are almost as friendly, though your target will wander around more than if they were still attacking you. Slows are easy to work with, but they don't seem to do anything (ah, but they DO ... it's nice and quiet). I learned the value of slows when playing a Warshade to 50. The highly-reduced attack rate is about as good as a 50% damage resistance. Immobilization seems weak when you immobilize them, and then just stand there and shoot them as they shoot back -- dude, use a corner or a tree or a box, and then it's equivalent to 100% damage resistance! Knockback seems to get in the way of "efficiently killing" but this is the nonsense of people who want to stick with a single preferred playstyle. For an energy blaster, especially, knockback is how we stay alive. This doesn't excuse stupid knockbacking (is that a word?), however. Don't use knockback powers when it'll move the fight to where more enemies can see and want to join in. Sleep has that nasty drawback of things waking up ... well, don't wake 'em up. Yeah, it's harder in a team, but that doesn't negate its usefulness, it merely requires good teamwork. The base duration of sleeps are generally longer than you might imagine. The Ice Blaster's PBAoE sleep is a base 30 seconds, which means almost 60 if you slot it right. That's a LOT of control.


4) Hasten still works just fine.

Yeah it was nerfed. It needed nerfing. Yes, of course you can do without it. It still rocks. I've only said "Gee, I need to respec out of Hasten" for one toon of mine: an SR scrapper.

5) Push your limits; it's more fun that way. Trust me.

Don't be afraid of debt, it really only costs downtime. You can kill so fast that debt goes away quite quickly. I've found the fun of blaster-land is to figure out how much you can do with what you've got. I regularly twiddle my difficulty level, just to see what I can handle. I generally don't go up to Invincible, not because it is too hard, but it starts to play very slow. If you are an AoE blaster (especially fire) try Tenacious or Unyielding, which have larger numbers of critters. BTW, just to be a bit more clear on debt: getting debt is OK, but constant faceplanting and sucking up all of the healer's healing for yourself is a bit rude on a team. Take risks; don't commit suicide. There -is- a difference.

That said ...

6) Some enemies, especially newer ones in the game, are the equivalent of being +1 or +2 of the usual enemies in the game.

Croatoa, in particular, is a bunch of +1 enemies disguised as +0 enemies. They all hit harder and faster than Council or Freakshow, and the witches have way more tricks up their sleeves than the Tsoo. Also, they're more likely to use "smart" AI keeping them at ranged (and flying) with ranged attacks. In the low level game, Vahz are highly problematic without a knowlegable team. In the 40+ game, Carnies and Malta are always a pain.

Yeah, this is obvious to the experienced players, here, but I've an important point: some people, used to running on Invincible difficulty, insist on running a Red Caps outdoor hostage mission at that level, or a Tuatha sewer mission at that level. My advice: just leave. Or stay ... it can be quite entertaining if you're in the right mindset, don't care about debt, and want to watch the antics.

Pre-issue-7:

Originally, I had an old vanilla nvidia 6800 card on my system, and things were kind of choppy at the high end (frame rates in the teens), and acceptable (around 20) when turning off key things like shadows, water, and all the let's-make-things-prettier-by-making-them-blurrier options.

Then I upgraded to a 7950 GT OC, and everything, and I mean everything, was as silky smooth as could possibly be, even at the high end. framerates always averaged above 20+, and could go as high as 60, depending on how much was being drawn on the screen.

Post-Issue-8:

And I might as well be playing with my 6800. With high-end settings, it just drags, and low end merely doesn't drag as much (and I mean setting everything to minumum). I have to be solo and just standing there to get above 20 reliably.

I've the usual problems on teams, where too many players with too much combat reduces framerates into the single digits.

Approaching many players or many mobs on a map makes the jumping/flying/running animation very jerky. I notice that some, but not all, jerkiness is associated to reading from my hard drive. Even one player being approached causes a noticeable skip.

Finally, a slightly different observation, w/r to close-up shots with heavy aura powers (e.g., invuln tank auras, Kheldian in Nova form). Every now and again, even pre issue 7, the camera would be forced very close to my character and the aura rendering would be very choppy. When I upgraded to the 7950, this choppiness completely disappeared when this happened. Completely. I was soooo happy. Then Issue 8 decided to nerf my brand new graphics card.

(But I guess I'd really be badly off with my prior card, so I guess it's a wash.)

Here's to hoping that the performance issues are resolved. I think there's something very funky about how power animations are being rendered NOW vs how they were rendered before. Hopefully what's causing the poor performance isn't integral to whatever upgrade in graphics is being made.

[ QUOTE ]
Any chance you could post you actual build. I've been playing around with your "Dancing" Style And I like it. I'd like to see what powers you took and the way you slotted them if all possible. Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

Here you go:

---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Path Integral
Level: 50
Archetype: Warshade
Primary: Umbral Blast
Secondary: Umbral Aura
---------------------------------------------
01) --&gt; Shadow Bolt==&gt; Acc(1)Dmg(3)Dmg(3)Dmg(5)
01) --&gt; Absorption==&gt; DmgRes(1)
02) --&gt; Ebon Eye==&gt; Acc(2)Dmg(5)Dmg(34)Dmg(37)
04) --&gt; Gravity Shield==&gt; EndRdx(4)
06) --&gt; Dark Nova==&gt; EndMod(6)EndMod(15)EndMod(17)Fly(17)TH_Buf(36)
08) --&gt; Starless Step==&gt; Acc(8)
10) --&gt; Swift==&gt; Run(10)
12) --&gt; Sunless Mire==&gt; Acc(12)
14) --&gt; Shadow Cloak==&gt; EndRdx(14)
16) --&gt; Health==&gt; Heal(16)
18) --&gt; Gravity Well==&gt; Acc(18)Rechg(19)Hold(19)Dmg(25)Dmg(25)Rechg(45)
20) --&gt; Black Dwarf==&gt; DmgRes(20)DmgRes(21)DmgRes(21)EndMod(36)EndMod(36)
22) --&gt; Stamina==&gt; EndMod(22)EndMod(23)EndMod(23)
24) --&gt; Stygian Circle==&gt; EndRdx(24)
26) --&gt; Gravity Emanation==&gt; Rechg(26)Rechg(27)DisDur(27)DisDur(29)Acc(29)Rechg(31)
28) --&gt; Inky Aspect==&gt; Acc(28)
30) --&gt; Hasten==&gt; Rechg(30)Rechg(31)Rechg(31)
32) --&gt; Dark Extraction==&gt; Rechg(32)Rechg(33)Rechg(33)Dmg(33)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)
35) --&gt; Stygian Return==&gt; Rechg(35)
38) --&gt; Eclipse==&gt; Rechg(38)Acc(39)Rechg(39)Rechg(39)
41) --&gt; Quasar==&gt; Rechg(41)Rechg(42)Rechg(42)
44) --&gt; Nebulous Form==&gt; Jump(44)
47) --&gt; Super Speed==&gt; EndRdx(47)
49) --&gt; Orbiting Death==&gt; Dmg(49)Dmg(50)Dmg(50)Acc(50)
---------------------------------------------
01) --&gt; Sprint==&gt; Empty(1)
01) --&gt; Brawl==&gt; Empty(1)
01) --&gt; Shadow Step==&gt; EndRdx(1)
01) --&gt; Dark Sustenance==&gt; Empty(1)
02) --&gt; Rest==&gt; Rechg(2)
10) --&gt; Shadow Recall==&gt; EndRdx(10)
---------------------------------------------
06) --&gt; Dark Nova Blast==&gt; Acc(6)Dmg(13)Dmg(13)Dmg(15)
06) --&gt; Dark Nova Bolt==&gt; Acc(6)Dmg(43)Dmg(43)Dmg(43)
06) --&gt; Dark Nova Detonation==&gt; Acc(6)Dmg(9)Dmg(11)Dmg(11)
06) --&gt; Dark Nova Emmanation==&gt; Acc(6)Dmg(7)Dmg(7)Dmg(9)Range(48)Slow(48)
20) --&gt; Black Dwarf Strike==&gt; Acc(20)Dmg(40)Dmg(40)Dmg(42)
20) --&gt; Black Dwarf Smite==&gt; Acc(20)Dmg(37)Dmg(37)Dmg(40)
20) --&gt; Black Dwarf Mire==&gt; Acc(20)Rechg(46)Rechg(46)Rechg(48)
20) --&gt; Black Dwarf Drain==&gt; Acc(20)Heal(45)Heal(45)Rechg(46)
20) --&gt; Black Dwarf Step==&gt; EndRdx(20)
20) --&gt; Black Dwarf Antagonize==&gt; Acc(20)
---------------------------------------------


For what it's worth, I was primarily a Nova blaster, and used human form to sneak past voids and quants (and hold 'em as needed), for the early levels. After the Dwarf form, I left the Dwarf powers unslotted for a while, since I treated it as an emergency form, and continued slotting my other powers. I probably added damage to the Dwarf Smite sooner than level 37, though.

Otherwise, my priorities were:

1) Turn nova into blaster that rivals a fire blaster for AoEs. Note the cone range slotting!
2) Develop the human-form mez powers as quickly as possible. Fast recharge was most important, followed by a long mez duration.
3) Get pets out really fast.
4) For a long while, I tried doing the WS without any pool powers, but in spite of nerfage, Stamina and Hasten made the gameplay much smoother.
5) Fill in blanks, especially useful dwarf form abilities, along with grabbing the nuke and Eclipse.
6) Everything after level 40 is mostly an afterthought. I really didn't need orbiting debt, but it looks cool, and there wasn't much left to choose from that'd be fun.

[ QUOTE ]
How is this different from tracking hits from DoT, like poison/spines? Having a toggle (integration or whatnot) that allows that do help you more than others?

I'm not 100% FOR this suggestion, I just don't think the excuse given by _Castle_ holds water. And I'm 100% AGAINST hypocrisy and double-talk, fwiw. So, is the IDEA worth considering, programming-be-danged?

[/ QUOTE ]

To my own employers, I tell them I can develop just about anything for them, it's just gonna cost time and money. What happens after having actually built something, you've made architectural assumptions about how it all works together. There's no getting away from this, because things need to work together, and not just be a hodgepodge of code. Eventually, you make design choices that make certain future design choices nearly impossible to implement.

What _Castle_ is saying is, "No, the current architecture does not admit that concept easily."

Yes, it's a simple basic concept. We have round pegs that go into round holes, right? Well, let's just code up some square pegs that go into square holes, and it'll all work. ... The problem being, there are no square holes. The holes are all round. Every powerset in the game works with round holes. The square peg idea is VERY elegant, but it requires:

1) Adding lots of square holes.
2) Adding square pegs to go into the square holes.
3) Making sure the round pegs don't accidentally go into the square holes
4) Making sure the square pegs don't get forced into the round holes.

This is too much work to the entire game to make one power work better (and it might not actually be "better" after all, once playtesting shows its flaws).

Now, you might think I'm exaggerating with respect to the square vs round bit. To you, perhaps it looks all round, and you don't see what the big deal is. This is one of the most common debates between developers when designing software. When two devs disagree at this level, it takes a while to hash things out. We're outside that circle, looking in, and we're not in a position to tell the architects of the game that the architecture isn't really what they think it is. It might be fair to say that _Castle_'s explanation lacks detail, but it is unfair to dismiss his remarks as an "excuse."

_Castle_ gave us valuable information: that he'd thought of just this idea, and then was shown how much work it would take to implement it. This tells us that, hey, the devs have already considered this idea, and one thought it was pretty decent, but it was fairly obvious to all of them that implementing it would be grossly impractical.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I mean... you, like, know this is live already, right? And it has been for... I mean, a long time now.

[/ QUOTE ]

Although States announced this a while back, I'm pretty sure that it won't actually hit until I7 (assuming you're talking about the Def fix. This being a necroed thread, I can't tell for sure).

[/ QUOTE ]

This is live, and has been since Issue 6. It gives a good deal of survivability, but it's hard to notice until you have all three auto powers (SR stalkers only get two of them, btw). I also suspect that it also improves with level, but that's just a guess.

Its main virtue is that it enhances survivability, but it does have one drawback: it makes every power in the SR set except Quickness a "must have": all three toggle powers, all three auto powers, the mez resist and Elude. Makes it kind of hard to add power pools and color to an SR scrapper.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, maybe it'll help curb the yelling about how defiance and vigilance are useless at high levels, particularly against av's

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's see, being two-shotted instead of one-shotted... huh, nope. Sorry. Defiance is still going to be useless.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, it would, a little bit. Right now, a "two shot" is typically to something less than half health, but nowhere near the 1% mark, then a similar shot faceplants you. With this, it would be -more- likely that you'd end up with exactly 1% hit points, and therefore a full defiance bar. Your next shot is likely to be devastating (and then you die).

I hate to admit it, but I am finding Defiance -mildly- useful on my lvl 16-18 fire/ice blaster. I know it won't be useful at all, later, but I can see why some people initially considered it a good idea. (Personally, I thought it was a bad idea from the get-go.)

Tormentoso:
[ QUOTE ]
Every squishie AT believes they deserve some form of mezz protection. They each have their reasons, all arguments sound sound, but none will get it.

I'd say give everyone an inherent mag 2 resistance to mezzes, give mobs a chance to crit on holds. This will make mezzes less binary. If you see a Mage sent a mess your way and you're ok, run away and walk it off.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neutra:
[ QUOTE ]
They're never going to give us mez resistance.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's not talk in black-and-white absolutes. I deliberately indicated that my proposal wasn't for a mez-resist power. Even a "light" version of tanker/scrapper mez-resists would be overpowering, and would be "must-have". Further, Tormentoso seems to be missing my arguments with respect to defenders and controllers having their own means of dealing with mez.

And statements along the lines of "They're never going to give us <fill-in-the-blank>," miss the point of threads like this. Most of this thread is necessarily "Never gonna happen." The point is to throw out ideas and compare and contrast, not second-guess Dev thinking, which is a losing game since Statesman regularly (if unintentionally) contradicts himself, and things like ED stay behind the scenes for months until they spring them on us.

Fewest possible moves? OK.

Situational mez resist.

Postulates and reasoning:

1) People like blasters being risky. (I'm one of them.)
2) People don't like being mezzed to death. Even being one-shotted is better than being mezzed to death.
3) Individual powersets aside from devices and energy might need tweaks, but those are several "moves".
4) Defiance is a joke.

So, replace Defiance with an intrinsic that lets blasters DO something other than get mezzed to death. Come on, we're gonna faceplant quickly anyway from any of a number of other causes. The only one that annoys a risk-loving blaster is mez, cuz mez isn't so much about risk as it is about being effectively face-planted while still having nonzero health.

All other ATs have ways of handling mez. Melee ATs have their very prescious anti-mez powers. Defenders generally don't provoke mez, and have some powers that resist mez (e.g., Dispersion bubble). Controllers can employ a "mez the mezzers" attack plan, and at high levels can use their pets to take the brunt of mez attacks. Khelds can use any of the above tactics, and have the anti-mez Dwarf form to fall back on.

Blasters have none of that. At best, they have a "kill mezzers before they mez me" tactic, which is really just a variation of the primary blaster tactic, "kill them before they kill me; if in doubt, run away". Mezzing just takes the "run away" option out of the picture.

If it's an intrinsic power of some kind, then it only activates as the Devs see fit, and doesn't become a must-have, must-slot power in the primary or secondary. It kicks in when you're in trouble: you just got held, and now you're below 50% health (which is bad territory for a blaster). So every "tick" you get a -chance- to shrug off the mez. Not a certainty, but a possibility. And if you are too mezzed for the modicum of resistance provided to free you, well, you were stupid and deserve to faceplant. That's part of the risk blasters love.

It even works for PvP: the blaster is easy to take down -if- you focus on him and can absorb his damage output, but don't think you can just pin him down and kill him quickly. He'll be as risky to nail as any other AT.

And this solve a huge amount of blaster problems without adding to damage output, adding +DEF or +DR, and without adding any controversial powers to be abused. It just gets rid of the reliability of mez used vs blasters. It adds a -tension- factor in PvE fights with mezzing enemies; yeah, the blaster just got held, but -maybe- he manages to break free by virtue of his willpower, instead of giving up hope and waiting to faceplant or praying that the empath isn't too preoccupied to send a CM his way.

We're blasters. We're gonna faceplant a lot anyway. Those of us with the epic Rise of the Phoenix power even like the opportunity to use it! But give us that chance to run away or go down fighting as we choose, not frozen in that Michael Jackson "Thriller" pose, where we know we're faceplanted, but we're just awaiting the formality.