Gilia

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I have 3 End Mods & 3 Cytoskeleton Exposures in mine.
56% To Hit
99% End
95% End discount

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Um the recovery buff in nova form is 15%, the end use is .26 and the to hit buff is 9%. So for that 5 extra slots in the form you get about 5% to hit, and gain about .7 end total.

Not very much return for five slots invested.

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It's not even that much. It's just under 0.4 e/s.
I'm a fan of the Gaussian proc and Stealth IO in Nova.

I actually agree with what Phosphorescency completely. I just wanted to point out the reason I would take Energy for the secondary. At level 35 you get "Boost Range" which is easily put up all the time (I believe it's 3 recharges, but maybe just two), which will drastically increase the area of all those awesome cones, which is particularly awesome for Full Auto.

Getting to 32 (Full Auto) and 35 (Boost Range) will take a while, but the knockback in Energy Thrust (?), the first /Energy power and your Assault Rifle attacks should give you enough mitigation to solo easily.

Then late level you can handle huge groups, farm, whatever.

Take Hurdle (Fitness Pool) and Combat Jumping (Leaping Pool) if you want to add an extra layer of fun to this combination (or most any other for that matter).

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Any particular reasons for /ice?
I've heard that it's fairly low damage output, and it doesn't mesh well with elec/...
I've gotten an ice/ice blaster to 32, and it's not too bad...

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What meshes well:
Chillbain will help you fill out your single target attack chain.
Freezing Touch can stack with Tesla Cage, so you can hold bosses.

Why it solos well:
Chillbain and Shiver together are like -115% recharge. Awesome. Chilling Embrace is another -40%
Ice Patch will keep minions and lts on the ground who come near you.
Freezing Touch isn't bad to have ever.
In other words, it adds survivability.

I think Electric/Energy would be more fun to solo, honestly, but Ice/ or /Ice would be able to handle more for most of their career. Like, until 35 when El/En gets Boost Range and nothing ever gets close enough to even fire at them.

lol.. yes, those are spawns you can clear without build up in one RoA, good job.

As far as the damage difference goes, over time itd still not matter. Theres tons of blasters who don't have Aim and a ton who don't have Build Up, and they all do just fine. Sorry to burst your bubble.

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Re: Gilla Fullmens

You are both wrong. Having buildup in the secondary vastly increases the kill rate for a blaster against spawns. AIM+BU+AOES = No Minions badly hurt lts and upset bosses.

As to using MIDS you can't. It won't let you compare attack chains and it won't let you compare peak damage (AiM+BU+Defiance)

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Please read the whole thread. This was already debunked. If you don't like the simplicity of mid's pull out a calcultor. It's pretty simple math. Buildup is fun, and I take on any AT if its in the sets I chose, but it is miles from making or breaking a set.

Using aim and build up in the same alpha strike has always been a waste in my experience. With arch/dev, Aim+RoA was enough to remove all the minions and any non-resistant lieutenants. So was gun drone + RoA.

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Buildup alone significantly boosts the blasters damage output. Having a good secondary does mor as you can fill in your attack chain.

[/ QUOTE ] What primary are you playing that doesnt have a full attack chain? And are you suggesting the only way to massive damage on a blaster is by going into melee?

In general, this sounds like another case of the "never played /dev" vs the "have played /dev." The people bashing it so rarely have any idea what it's like to actually play it.

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i'm pondering trying out an assault rifle/devices blaster,

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don't do it.

AR is an OK primary, but everything on earth resists smashing/lethal damage. Flamethrower and Beanbag are great, M90 grenade & ignite are crummy, everything else is 'eh'.

And devices is hands down the worst secondary.
It used to be pretty good, but the game has changed and /devices hasn't.

power by power:

Web Grenade
the usual 'throwaway' power, no better or worse than any other secondary.

Caltrops
a great power, useful solo or in groups.

Taser
beanbag without range- skippable for any ar/dev

Targeting Drone
the changed to toggles and addition of set IOs make this better than it used to be. Still sort of redundant- beyond the early levels, hitting people isn't really a problem.

Smoke Grenade
the definition of 'skippable power'.
If you really like stealth save up for an IO and save the power choice.

Cloaking Device
see 'Smoke Grenade'

Trip Mine
useless on teams- nobody is going to sit around while you spend ten minutes setting up your mine field.
Useful solo if you don't mind the set-up time, but still situational.
And 'situational' is just a polite way of saying 'skippable'.

Time Bomb
Absolute junk.
All the down sides of trip mines, but it never hits anything.
You'll hate yourself for taking this power.

Auto Turret
Used to be a complete waste of a power. But they made it mobile, which would improve it about 10000%.
Haven't played with it so I don't know how 'good' it is, but it sounds decent.

Of course the biggest flaw with Devices is one of omission- no build up. For an AT who's whole rational is dealing damage this is unforgivable.
Pre ED the ability to six-slot for damage and let your drone take care of accuracy made up for it, but not any more.

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Have you played /device?
SG + CD > Stealth IO
Somewhere in the range of 10 - 100x better. A much much bigger difference in the ability to stealth , not to mention the combination of Defense and -Acc.

Webgrenade smokes the other forced (tier1) secondaries. -50% stackable recharge? Ever fought an AV?
That's true about trip mine. Taser is debatable. I don't agree with the rest.

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A blaster generally does about 50% more damage (when free to go postal at any time for no reason) than a scrapper using their primary and secondary combined. This is based on almost 150 levels of Force Field defender.

A blaster using their primary ONLY can do, maybe, 10% more damage than a Scrapper. The rest comes from melee attacks, Build Up, etc. - none of which Devices has.

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This is insane. Almost every single blaster secondary attack has a lower DPS than almost every single blaster primary attack. Yes, they provide good burst ST damage (or in Fire's case some early extra AoE), but having them will not increase your DPS by 73%.

As far as ST goes, a Scrapper can out damage a blaster anyway. This is assuming the scrappers lives and doesn't manage to kill his team by proxy (thereby severely hurting damage output!).

If you have Mid's, hit Ctrl+C and you can compare the DPS of various sets.

I agree with some previous remarks, /Devices is very good for soloing. It's a little underwhelming on teams. I love the set anyway. I have only hit 50 on 3 blasters (fire/ice, arch/dev, energy/energy) and the /dev was the most fun, easily.