DiscoKat

I would say try it out and see. What have you got to lose?

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lastly if ur a blaster and u dont have all ur debt badges bye lvl 40 your obviusly ned to switch to a controller cus thier the ones that sit back and hide like cowards.

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Just because a blaster doesn't have all their debt badges prior to level 40 it doesn't mean they are playing the AT wrong, it means YOU are playing it wrong. I've seen some pretty bad blasters go that distance without all the badges. That many debt badges that early isn't necessarily a badge of honor as much as a badge of poor play.

I would go with a scrapper then. I find them to generally be more survivable & destructive than a brute. However, the very best brutes can belie that statement.

There are a variety of things, most of which have been mentioned above, that you can do once you reached 50. However, it tends to be difficult in light of AE now. I've been seeing people recruiting for PI mishs in Atlas. Something inherently wrong there.

Ditto.

I nuke as often as possible when on teams, solo is a completely different story. Nuking an AV is certainly an option, with tanks on a team or without, but should depend on the circumstances.

No vet or any other kinds of badges exept MA. All the attacks in his secondary, only a couple powers from his primary (and he skipped his mez protection). He did have the entire medicine pool though.

I have a tank like that on liberty (Sontor). However, I don't team with that build unless they have a tank and I warn him of my rather unique build prior to joining. Otherwise, if I want to team I just switch my active build to the team one and no problems.

Without a decent playstyle those toons can be a horror show. My friend is our group's faceplanter. He plays them all the same, just runs in and blasts no matter the AT. Good guy but it gets a bit grating when you are literally dying for that heal which he won't apply until he begins to lose health. Does lend one to be a bit more independent minded when teaming though...there is a lesson to be learned there perhaps.

So, my question is basically, how do you deal with this crash, what tactics do you employ to a) detect when LF is about to crash; b) protect yourself after LF crashed while you wait to regenerate and recover?

I usually just get out of the fray just prior to crash and once crash hits, I use the quick self heal in human form and then quickly change to dwarf and use that heal. That puts me back to full and I sit in dwarf and start the recovery process from there.

Works about 90% of the time, solo or on a team for me. The other 10% or so is more mistimings but that is why I got the self-rez.

If you want your non-human forms to be the prominent part of your build, only get the fitness pool. Medicine pool is more of a waste of time on a PB, you can do quite well as a make shift healer with Glowing Touch.

This "design flaw" has never slowed me down in the slightest, never really knew of the flaw until reading the forums so I think it is more in the state of mind than anything else. Enemy usually dies too quick for it to be a problem I guess.

Elec blasters are much better than most give them credit for, especially if they only look at hard numbers.

I have an elec/elec/elec who has always been a joy to play. No matter who is on the team he does a significant amount of the damage, blasters included. I've had many comment on the toon even when in the midst of all blaster teams, so much that several have asked for his build (which I admit is entirely unorthodox and not easy to play).

There are many variations you can use with equal effect (depends on playstyle) but I found my most efficient elec/elec/elec to focus on single target attacks (other than TB, Thunderstrike, and Static Discharge). That's just me. Not too shabby as a PvP toon though he can't stand up to the specific builds too well, but I don't spend my time building his loot to go all out on IOs either.

If you meant 'gameplay' as the level of skill then I would agree, but I seem to still find regular teams & tfs.

I'll check it out.

I play all my 50s but always come back to my elec blaster.

Thanks!

I have found the crab thus far to be ridiculously easy, so survivability wasn't so much of an issue. The pets sound good, but I'm still tossing and turning between the toggles or not.

One of my toons doesn't accept buffs from magic or psi based toons, but that is for concept reasons & I accept my toon dropping due to it. He is a Kat/WP so it isn't like buffs are essential to his survival.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

My first question is how bad are Crab in PvP?

My second concerns power choice:

I have four powers left to choose from, these are the ones I'm juggling:

Combat Training Defense
Combat Training Offense
Tactical Training Maneuvers
Tactical Training Leadership
Call Reinforcements
Summon Spiderlings

I feel his powers thus far give him a nice team/solo build, not sure about PvP but doesn't look too promising. I don't care so much about the PvP but am really interested in how the above powers compare overall to each other.

Thanks again!

Never had that problem.

bot/ff is one of my oldest toons and I can't get him past 18. :s

thanks! i've been wondering about that too. I thought I had gone mad, as if I already weren't.

Not when the point is what a Blaster is designed to do in general. If it was designed to spend most of its time in melee range, you would have more melee range powers to choose from than ranged ones (the opposite of how it is now

I believe other than devices you get 5-7 melee powers & one range in the secondaries. Primaries give you about 6-8 range powers. Not really the barn breaking majority you imply. It indicates melee can be just as important on many builds, if not more so, than range.

My PB (storywise) is really a demon mimicking as a PB so I think you know where he will be ending up.

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personally i think warshade's make better tanks than PB's. reason being is you get Eclipse, 2xMires, stygian circle, dark extraction.

yea warshade's have a lot going for them like even taking alpha's in nova form and barely taking a scratch, also warshade's seem to have better DPS then PB's as there's no downtime once u have stygian circle. you get bonus of a stealth and recall friend, and since ur taking eclipse means ur taking hasten so why not ss too?

the only thing pb's have going for them is their version of dull pain, but would u rather have an extra 300 hp or be capped to every type of damage in the game 85% resistances, tanks get their caps at 90% but its impossbiel for a tank to hit capped resistance on every damage type without lots of defenders on the team.

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What did this have to do with the question?

As far as the OP's second post, I would suggest a PB. You can fill most roles and if need be do some decent tanking. I have acted as second tank for ITF (aggroed the nictus) and he did just fine. He isn't fully slotted in dwarf yet either so I expect you should do fine as one.

GL

Yes, caltrops is a great power for controlling who attacks you, but I still think ice/ice is a safer bet. However, the best defense for any blaster is to kill the one attacking you so that should be weighed against any 'controlling' aspect of a set. I think in many cases the controls are secondary, and more of a simple stop gap to allow you to regain your footing and resume the damage barrage.

I would say doubling up any would be a 'quintessential' blaster, since you really can't plug one particular prim/sec under that heading.

Fire/Fire/ Nrg/nrg, ice/ice, elec/elec, etc. can all fit that bill in one way or another. I mean, if played right, a blapper with a couple of AoEs can dominate on a team with more than one blaster.