Cyclone_Jack

As long as they don't stuff Rularuu the Ravager into a possessed refrigerator, I'm OK with City of Gods.

CoH2 will officially be announced? Guild Wars 2 will ship with a playable demo of CoH2? You got me in the GW2 F&F closed beta!? Paragon and Stardock are joining forces to create the greatest Superhero 4X game ever imagined!? You contracted Benoît Sokal, Frédérick Raynal and Feargus Urquhart and are working with Ragnar Tørnquist to envision an MMO translation of the twin universes of Arcadia and Stark? Cutter Slade is returning to Adelpha!?

If I find out that Paragon hired Bill Roper I'm going to fly to CA and slap everyone there, and then let all the air out of your tires.

When you can solo the original Hamidon + Mitos, then you're getting close to the level of 'too much AoE'. Luckily, it is impossible, with current game mechanics, to do such a thing*.

* Though this was partially accomplished with a combination of 2 bugs a long time ago.

I would like to see Ice Patch (Blaster) use the Frozen Aura (Blaster) animation, or something similar similar the FA animation is much faster than Ice Patch. (Heck, I could have every animation on Ice/Ice be FA, but that would make the animations of the set overpowered and would greatly imbalance the animations of the rest of the game.)

Allowing the 1st 2 tiers of Blasts to use interchangable animations would be interesting, since they are already the same length in animation (or should be really, really close).

Would be asking for the 'Iceman' ice slide while flying be too much to ask?

You'll mostly only see Sleep protection on mechanical enemies (Nemesis Jaegars, Malta Titans, Council robots, etc). Though only seen early-game, I actually like how Sleeps have a delayed effect on Clockwork and wouldn't mind seeing that duplicated late game for some enemies.

Admittedly, FA doesn't mesh well with AoE-focused powersets and Sleeps, in general, are pointless on teams as only 2.5% of the playerbase work well with Sleeps (which is less that half than those that understand Confuse).

Call of the Sandman isn't a bad set to use in Frozen Aura, since it has a chance to proc on a per-enemy basis. Sadly, the heal really isn't anything to write home about, but the set in general is pretty good in Frozen Aura. The other plus-side to CotS is that since it is a Sleep set it should be fairly cheap at WW/BM.

Also, Frozen Aura has as awesome animation.

CE has both a -40% recharge and -14% damage debuff that lowers the damage of affected enemies (Tanker's CE has it as well). These two combined make for a good amount of mitigation. Granted, you're not going to start a fight by running into the middle of a large group with CE on and hope to survive (though Jack would have called this a superior tactic during Defiance 1.0 haha!), but its enough to allow a minion or three get get up close while you are working on downing the boss. If you combine this with Ice Patch, then you can pretty much ignore the minions (within reason of course, and there are always exceptions, like Sappers) until you get the bosses and lieutenants down. Then you drop Ice Storm on top of yourself and cackle with glee. Good times, good times.

Of course, your tactics may need to change depending on whom you are fighting. Your normal tactics for fighting Malta should be different than when facing Carnies or Soldiers of Rularuu. For example, I use Frozen Aura more often when facing Carnies since it allows me to time my holds between the MI's 5/7 phasing and still eliminate the DRM, and any other non Illusionists, from the battle fairly quickly (if you get 2 MIs I find prayer combined with a little bit of luck, and yelling at the screen, to be useful).

This depends on what you set your personal team size to. If you are set to 1 player, then you are correct, Shiver has little use. However, if you bump it up to 4-8 then Shiver can make a noticeable impact on your survivability as it will not only delay the second volley of attacks, but also keeps enemies from piling on top of you in melee. Shiver is also quite useful in the War Zone and Storm Palace where you're fighting large groups of +2s.

First off, /Ice has Chilblain which is, hands-down, the best tier 1 across all Blaster secondaries, with Devices being a close second (the difference being Chilblain does damage).

Ice Patch can be a huge form of damage mitigation. Even beyond the obvious corner pulls, a Blaster that drops Ice Patch and takes two steps back keeps enemies from getting into melee and keeps those enemies that were trying to get into melee on their butts. IP is also good for keeping War Wolves contained (the hard part is getting them to stop on the patch for their initial slip and slide. )

Chilling Embrace has -recharge combined with a -14% damage debuff, allowing you to basically ignore minions and focus on an annoying boss or lieutenant, especially if you also drop IP.

Freezing Touch is a solid hold, can't really say anything bad about it. Combine it with Ice/, //Fire or //Elec for stacking holds on a boss.

Frozen Aura has a very fast recharge with a very long duration, meaning it stacks very easy with itself (like Shiver). This can help you tackle multiple bosses quite easily, like running head on into 3 DRMs. If you have Sonic/ or //Ice then you can quickly stack it and lock down an entire spawn.


Granted, while these powers individually may not be "remarkable from the standpoint of survivability", its when you combine them together that you create an environment for the Blaster to easily survive against insurmountable odds. My only complaint is that IP's KD breaks FA's sleep (curse you Castle! /shakefist)

I can't believe I forgot about these, and I used to run the Shard all the time. It really has been a while since I've run missions there! I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend.

I'm going to have to both agree and disagree at the same time.

On one hand, the pace of the game is to where stopping an resting seems counter-productive. On the other hand, every MMO has a form of 'enforced rest' to either recover HP or whatever other resource they may use (like Mana, Endurance, Stamina, etc).

I would consider Stamina to be another form of Mana. A caster from any other MMO, take a Mage or Priest in WoW, can also run out of Mana (OOM!) and can often be seen eating/drinking in between fights. Even a Warrior will need to eat and/or bandage between fights. My ToS in AoC can easily run OOM in longer fights and my Loremaster in LotRO has been known to stop and rest on a regular basis. These mechanics are in place to both pace the game a bit as well as increase player awareness of their character. If mechanics like this did not exist then you loose a layer of some of that challenge.

I will have to say this, though. Of my L50 Blaster, Tanker and MM, I rarely ever run out of Endurance. I'd say from the mid-20s forward (after I get some SOs slotted) the only time I see myself getting really low on End is in large teams that may pull one or more groups at a time, or chain pull a big mission. Once I get IOs slotted in (early 30s), I can nearly run non-stop. Granted, I also take Stamina in all of my characters (except Kinetics, because I enjoy using their Siphons as my End Recovery mechanics). However, the teens into the low 20s is probably the most frustrating level range for me. DOs don't do enough, you don't have many slots to work with, and your (well, mine at least) focus is on Acc and End, meaning your characters suffer a bit in the Damage/Defense areas.

One thing I would like to have seen in the game, and hopefully something we see in a sequel, are more types of End-Recovery/Reduction powers. More things like Consume, Siphons, Conserve Power, etc. though I'd have more +Recovery than +End.

Still, if you are L50 and having End Issues I would look at two things: Build and Difficulty. If you aren't slotting End Redux then you'll have End issues. If you are soloing while set to 5-man and +3s then I have no problems with requiring more End management on the side of the player.

Indeed, to the point that I made a quite detailed suggestion of the PPD EAT many, many months ago (way before we got VEATs). I keep reminding Castle, but he keeps using his Jedi mind tricks on me.

/Ice has a number of melee-ranged abilities, but most of these abilities are some form of damage mitigation. It has two 'standard' melee-ranged attacks that are decent, but not a reason to pick the set (unless you just really, really like Ice Sword because of its looks ). You pick /Ice due to Ice Patch, Shiver and, most importantly, Chilblain.

Ice Patch is great for corner pulls or to drop underneath you to keep enemies on their butts when you get overwhelmed. It's also great to drop next to a Tank for a bit more mitigation for them. Shiver has a huge -attack speed which greatly increases survivability (Shiver has an enormous cone). Chilblain is, by far, one of the greatest powers available to a Blaster, in terms of damage mitigation. Ranged Immobilize, -attack speed, decent damage, fairly cheap, fast recharge, easily spammable and thus easily stackable, and usable while Mezed. Put this on auto when you are fighting an EB or AV.

If you find yourself getting into melee range, then Chilling Embrace can grant even more mitigation. If you choose a Primary with a Hold, then Freezing Touch will stack with it, helping to lock down a Boss in a timely manner. The only real 'controversial' power is Frozen Aura, which I happen to like (though many do not).

In general, melee is not a 'bad' place to be, as long as you have the appropriate tools at your disposal. As you play the game you'll find a number of enemies that are just easier to deal with while strictly at range, or vice versa. Depending on your power set combination you'll come up with your own strategies for various enemies.

Just remember, Blasters are the greatest AT in the game. So have fun and enjoy!

I'll admit, there was one time I attended a raid, put Ice Blast on Auto and targeted the raid leader, then proceeded to mount two monitors on my wall for work. After the 1st monitor was mounted, I swapped my Auto to Freeze Ray for Phase 2. In the end, I got both monitors mounted, cables into the wall and plugged into the systems on the other side of the wall...and I got another Acc/Mez HO. I think another raid I just auto-fired Freeze Ray and went to dinner. Woot!

Ironically, the times I put it on auto-pilot are the few times I never died during a raid. <_<

My 1st choice would be a Desert Eagle. It's fairly iconic and looks good. Another good choice could be the P08 Parabellum. The .44 Magnum could fit well for the Dirty Harry fans.

For alternates, you may want to look at some SMGs, like the HK MP5, Scorpion SA Vz 61 or Mini Uzi (they also have an Uzi Pistol with that distinctive Uzi look). Granted they are not Pistols, but have distinct looks and would look good in both single shot animations as well as the cone attacks.

The FPC got involved before this forum was moved and tried to find a way to manage the chaos that was in the S&I forums at the time. It was far, far worse than the Pwnz forums got, and one of the big reasons was the constant bickering over the /no (and other similar) posts, as well as the heated flame wars and constant personal attacks. S&I quickly turned into the B&M forums and the Devs all but stopped browsing here. Shutting down the S&I forums was the option the Community Reps were originally looking at, but the FPC opposed this and the Reps decided to just move the forums and pull out the ban stick to make their presence known and to bring a little order to the chaos. Then the added a new rule or three to the forum rules to prevent a similar incident.

That's the short, short version btw.

I'd pick all powers, just because there are a few combinations that I'd love to try out, like Elec Manip/Ice Manip, a weird conglomeration of Dark/Dark, and the awesome Traps/Devices. Although the All Temp Powers would be interesting as a 'Tinker' character, using IO Bonuses for your Acc/Dam/End/Etc.

Player ability aside, yes, I think single-target Blasters can still be quite valuable to teams.

They can help take down Bosses faster while their AoE brethren are smiting the Minions and then they can both work on moping up the Lieutenants. ST-focused Blasters are also very useful in AV battles as well.