Dr Harmony

I started a Radiation/Energy Blaster recently and had an awesome double XP weekend with her.

For a starting player I'd recommend the following:

Get Aim and Build Up and put at leats one extra slot on each.

Stun and Power Thrust (the knockback punch) need just the default slot. They can both take down a boss tempoarily, although Stun needs help from...

Cosmic Burst - six slot this. 1 acc, 3 damage, 2 recharge, and when you can afford it, get the Thunderstrike set of IOs. they're cheap-ish, and have great bonuses and values for the power they go in.

You have 3 area attacks - give them all 3 damage, 1 acc and maybe 1 end reduction if you can.

Take Bone Smasher, and slot it 1 accuracy 3 damage, with maybe end reducers or recharge on top. Its a good single target attack when you get up close to a stunned nasty.

X-Ray and Neutrino are nice because they work when you're stunned or held, so 1 acc 3 dam there for starters. Later on, these take Thunderstrikes too.

On a team, alternate Aim and Build Up per group and unload your area attacks once the enemy are distracted. Cosmic Burst nuisances like Tsoo Sorcerors and you'll do fine.

For my Earth/Energy namesake I'm going for Hasten-assisted perma-dom and decent defence, enough to simulate mid-level invulnerability:

Hasten - for so many reasons. More frequent domination, and more frequent use of my best powers is a must.

Hover/Fly - Hover takes a Luck of the Gambler, and I like to Fly as a travel power.

Combat Jumping - more defence, another Luck of the Gambler, and immobilise protection fro when Domination isn't up. This combines well with Hover and Ranged Defence bonuses for keeping me safe.

Fighting - Tough to hold a Steadfast unique and Weave to give me more defence, plus a Red Fortune/Luck of the Gambler combo for 12.5% Recharge in a single power.

Building defence like this is a bit inefficient, and I'd might be better served with the Medicine pool, but it has stood me in fairly good stead in those difficult first few seconds of a fight when the enemy are actually moving.

Radiation Blast shines on Blasters.

Neutrino Bolt and XRay Eyes are indeed normalised to 4s and 8s. 3 area attacks and having your status effect baked into your heavy hitter with Cosmic Blast blast make for a very effetcive set.

I found it a bit lacking on my Defender, but love it on my Blaster.

I disagree with the idea that characters are becoming homogenous.

One of my next projects is a Kryptonian style character - strength, invulnerability, flight, heat vision and maybe superbreath if I can fit it in.

I could go Tanker (Inv/SS) or Scrapper (MA or St Justice/Inv maybe?) to emphasise the physical attributes, and pick up X-Ray eyes in an epic pool, and Cryonic Judgement much later for superbreath.

Or what I am doing is to make a Rad/Energy Blaster to start with superstrength and heat vision (and some extra "blue light" powers for the rest of Rad Blast), and build up S/L defence via IOs and Scorpion Shield later to give me some basic invulnerability, enough to put it on my character sheet.

Are you telling me that these two characters would play the same at 50? Levelling up they'll be very different, of course, but even at the end game they're going to be quite distinct, even though they'll round out and become closer as they progress.

Playing one certainly wouldn't preculde playing the other. I imagine the Tanker would still be refreshingly robust by level 20 compared to the IO'd out incarnate Blaster.

Sonic is a very poor solo set, possibly the worse buff/debuff set for soloing. On a Controller in general, its helped by having a pet to place Disruption Field on, but not for Gravity.

Singularity with Disruption Field looks wonderful as a representation of the planet Saturn, but doesn't really work in practice

My Electric Melee/Fire Armour Scrapper is about to hit 50.
She's an excellent balance between pure explosive power and just enough survivability to take on the large crowds her area damage demands.

Buys some medium orange inspirations from Wentworths, and pop them one by one during a mission against enemies with smashing or lethal damage. Maybe run Sprint if you don't normally to simulate the extra endurance usage.

You'll see the effects of Tough that way and decide for yourself if it's worthwhile.

Back when status effects used to detoggle your powers, it was sometimes beneficial to have hover drop.

I remember fighting Fungoids on my blaster in Founders Fall, when they'd sleep me, the fall damage would wake me up if I was high enough.

I much prefer that to floating helplessly through the air.

I disagree with the whole idea of requiring one-to-one pairings.

As already stated, we don't need a Kinetic Armor, for example, because Energy Aura can cover that concept, or even Invulnerability or Willpower with a cosmetic aura.

Radiation Manipulation for Blasters can be covered by Energy Manipulation. Light blasts are covered by white-tinted Radiation Blast.

Some "holes" make little sense, like Sonic Manipulation, or a strictly Plant-based buff/debuff set (compared to say Poison or Rad).

I'd rather the developers spend their time making power sets based on good ideas that will be fun to play, rather than trying to shoehorn an element and type together that doesn't fit.

It would be nice, I agree, but then again there are already plenty of other things to do in the 40-50 range besides running tip missions.

I've set myself a goal with my namesake Dr. Harmony to accrue 30 Hero merits and get that Gladiator's Armor piece. But Ive realised I'll enjoy it much more if I don't just grind out 5 Hero tips a day and play some story arcs, or just join radio team pickup groups or anything else.

For example, I've made a rule to go through the Rikti War Zone missions and play one of those missions every time I need to generate a tip. I fully intend to play thorugh the Praetorian arcs now that theyve been revamped. I even get regular merits for doing this, which is a bonus.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I've enjoyed playing a lot more once I de-clenched a bit on the Hero Merit thing

I almost regret having to cross to villain side temporarily to get the Patron Pool I want, but it's worth the trip (and effective 4 hero merits) if I also pick up the Demonic accolade while I'm over there.
So much easier to get than Eye of the Magus...

Ideally, I like the idea of Hero Patron arcs to match the villain ones.

Energy Assault does very respectable single target damage both at range and close up, as well as packing a good amount of incidental control through knockback and stun.
The downside is that it provides little in the way of area damage.

I'd choose between Energy or Earth Assault.

Thats quite an interesting and rare combination, and one that could work well.

In general, Blasters live and die by the amount of damage they can produce. You'll typically have some single target control for dealing with leiutenants and bosses who'll survive your alpha strike, but minions go down fast.

Devices is a bit different. It has no Build Up, so less burst damage, but provides more safety tools than some other secondaries. Radiation Blast helps counter the low burst damage by giving you three area attacks instead of two. Aim, Electron haze, Neutron Bomb, Irradiate should take out all minions at any level.

Caltrops will let you get in amongst a group safely and let off Irradiate while they're running away in slow motion.

Cosmic Burst is a must as your highest damage attack and your mez, and will work well with Taser for stunning a boss. Slot Cosmic Burst for damage over stun.

Ignore team buffs like Assault, but take Aim definitely as your self damage boost (+65% for ten seconds).

Targetting Drone is definitely redundant with all the -def in radiations attacks.

I'd advise against Proton Volley (the snipe), but take everything else in your primary. From your secondary, take Web Grenade, Caltrops, Taser, Trip Mine if you want to solo, and maybe Gun Drone as must haves.

Another idea. Build a SR scrapper and skip the melee defence passive (or toggle if youre very brave). Build for passive run speed and slot sprint for speed, and fight on the move by kiting enemies, like a superspeedster or feline character might.

Try min/maxing a character within certain self-imposed limits. I've had some success with this.

My MA/SR Stalker deliberately skipped Practiced Brawler, and instead relied on lucks (early on)and break frees to get by. This was based on the idea that she was only human and couldnt take whacks to the head by Freakshow Smashers and shrug them off. She trained hard (at Wentworths) and built up defence to satisfy my min-maxing instincts. She often survived using Crane Kick and the various stun powers to deal with enemies with status powers.

I made a Force Field Defender with the aim of playing her like a telekinetic ranged tank, once again building up on Defence. I gave her the limitation of taking no status powers (stuns, holds etc) and instead relying on knockback and defence to survive. Hard work against Paragon Protectors, for example, but definitely left me feeling tannky and tough when I survived.

I have some similar ideas about a Gravity/Force Fields Controller skipping their single target hold, but I'm not sure if that ones going too far.

Both characters were fun to solo, had well-defined build goals as they levelled up, could contribute on teams, and made it to level 50.

Hero (or Villain) tip missions have replaced radio missions to some extent.

They reward you with merits which can buy many of the really good but exepensive recipes outright, and have a few good hallmarks of newer missions, such as NPC helpers, decent dialogue and a bit of storyline.

Like radios, they can get reptitive, but they're a good alternative for casual teaming. Adevrtising that I'm running hero tips has worked well for me so far.

Very nice on the whole. If you enjoy tip missions, the Gladiator unique IO is available fro 30 Hero Merits - that can be a reasonably achievable career goal on the way to 50.

Incidentally, your melees attacks are slotted a little bit oddly.
I'd trade one of those Acc/End fillers for an Acc/Damage so that you're at least doing maximum damage, rather than shaving a little bit more off the endurance cost.
After all, more damage = fewer hits to defeat = less endurance spent.

Who is more sadistic?

The Dominator, who can reach into their inner reserves and trigger a boost in their powers, or the Controller who's just really good at hurting people when they're tied up?

I'd love to have power customisation options for Domination. The sparkles suit my current Dominator, but I understand they dont work for everyone. And that flash of light when it activates is quite overpowering at default camera distance.

I pretty much agree.

Radiation/Fire has lots of close area attacks.
Radiation/Mental has 3 ranged area attacks and two close ones.
Radiation/Energy allows for some nice stun stacking (fingers crossed, its my latest project)

There's no reason why Psionic Armour should provide resistance to psychic attacks. It makes just as much sense that its effective against physical abilities, but another psychic can disrupt it.

Fire Armour is an interesting choice. Burn would be the hardest to explain as psychic energy. Also, be aware on Scrappers that it still causes enemies to flee, but doesn't on Brutes and Tanks now. I'm currently living with that frustration...

Energy Aura could look like a psychic force field quite easily, and the stealth makes sense. And its getting some rather nice tweaks. One downside is that you'll be far from unique.

Dark Armor is also a good choice with Stealth, and a stun aura. It can be recoloured without the pulse or fade effects. Visually it would work very well I think, with the halo ring from Obsidian Shield.

For a melee set, Energy Melee seems quite fitting. Fire Melee could also work, and for once materialising swords out of thin air may actually make sense.

Power Boost doesn't boost the defence of powers which also provide Resistance.

So that rules out the Kinetic Dampener temp power (which gives energy reistsance) and the Vanguard Psionic Shield (which gives Psi resistance).

Has anyone tried it with the Combat Shield day job Accolade power? That provides 14% Defence to Smashing, Lethal and Energy (and no resistance), which would boost to 28% if this did work. It is limited to half an hours use per week once its acquired, and patchy due to Power Boost's coverage, but could make for a very useful mini-god mode for the right /Energy blaster otherwise.

Has anyone tried this?

"Pink" psychic attacks such as Carnival Ring Mistresses use, work against Ranged Defence. (These are Defender/Blaster Psychic Blast powers)

"Non-pink" psychic attacks as used by Illusionists, Rikti and Tsoo Ink Men work only against Psychic defence. (These are Controller Mind Control or Illusion)

You can get the Elusive Mind accolade and the Vanguard Psionic Shield (craftable from Vanguard Merits) to help out against these attacks, eg facing a Master Illusionist solo.

I've fought her a few times on my Electric/Fire Scrapper recently, and observed that she gains around 1/4 of her health bar back while in Electric form. I usually just run rings around her with superspeed waiting for it to wear off. I agree that is does take a long time and its mildly annoying having to wait.
She doesn't lose any of this regenerated health in a crash when it wears off.

(On my Dominator, of course, she never enters electric form.)

I have to say, I like her a lot more since playing the Rogue missions where she helps you, and makes all the bad puns with the word SHOCK. That and once I figured out to just avoid her until she loses her electric form she's been much less trouble.

I imagine that the power will automatically change. That is what happened with Energize in Electric Armor, for example.

Have you considered putting a Stupefy Chance for Knockback enhancement in Disrupt?

It's only a 20% chance, and it wont be the same, but it will eventually repel anyone standing too close just like the old power used to. I used to have this in my Dark Defender's Oppressive Gloom epic power, and it worked quite well.