HotButteredSoul

Great guide! I especially like how you walk people through the early to mid levels. I have a few thoughts:

1) Unless I missed it, you seem to have left out any commentary on Super Reflexes... might be useful.. even if you were to say you're intentionally not mentioning it.

2) Stone Melee's Fault, IMHO, is not a required power. In fact, by dazing enemies you prevent them from attacking you. Thus, Fault is counter productive to building Fury.

3) By that same token, Taunt helps you to build Fury. And if you team at all, considering the large number of Brutes, you will often be competing for Fury with other Brutes. Having Taunt will make your Fury bar fatter than other Brutes who forgo it.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm... I love this idea! Thank you for working out the numbers.

Even though it's old, I'd recommend reading the sonic resonance section in my Earth/Sonic guide. I cover all of these powers in more detail, and for the most part the controller numbers = corruptor numbers.

As far as corruptors go, mine LOVES Liquefy. I would give it 5 stars on a corruptor but fewer on a controller. It's a fantastic opener if you slot for accuracy, since you can hold an entire spawn sans bosses and debuff everyone. My Dark/Sonic corruptor has his slotted with 3 recharge IOs and 3 lysosome HOs. That gives soft capped recharge, accuracy (for the hold), defense debuff AND to-hit debuff. It's fantastic.

First of all, thank you for writing a guide based on the AoE blapper concept. This kind of build is high adrenaline and really fun to play. And, as you note, /Fire Manipulation gives you plenty of AoE options!!

I have a couple of thoughts to add:

Combustion - I disagree with your take on Combustion. It does damage comparable to to Fire Sword Circle (DS 1.5 vs 1.79). FSC has the slight edge, but remember that it is 50% lethal and 50% fire damage. Combustion is 100% fire damage, so there are enemies which will take more damage from it than FSC. It also costs less endurance (13 vs 18.5) and recharges faster (15 vs 20) than FSC.

The complaints about Combustion are: 1) its 3 second cast time (though FSC is 2.67) and 2) DoT (FSC is burst).

The nice thing about both are they give you a nice little 6-7% defiance damage buff. Since you have Fireball, you can probably do without one or the other. Many people loathe Combustion. I have to say that I used it as my first attack in my blapper chain for 46 levels and loved it.

Inferno You're leaving out your highest damage blapper attack. I think you addressed the issue perfectly. I think it's worth mentioning that after your suggested attack chain (Inferno, CaB, Consume) you are ready to unleash enough hurt to pretty much destroy whatever is left. Whether or not your toggles are up will make little difference at that point. After all... you aren't a brute/tank/scrapper But like you said, it's a personal choice.

Rain of Fire If you are going to run Hot Feet and slot for slow... and/or if you find yourself teaming with friends who have AoE immobs, seriously consider Rain of Fire. It's the most damaging AoE ranged attack you can get. You can jump into the middle of a mob with Hot Feet... slow them down... then drop RoF (which slows them down further). Kinda fun to watch and an idea to play with.

I just made 811k between bids last night and then logging in today. Good stuff!

Thanks for the interesting guide!

Tonight, Hemorrhoid Android was born.

I like having Shiver AND AA on my Ice/. Certain situations I prefer to stay at range. Others I like to be in melee. With both I have the flexibility to slow an entire spawn from either.

And I agree with you, Nemeros, about Frostbite. It's fantastic in conjunction with Shiver or AA. It's up to the user not to drop it on his own Ice Slick.

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ALl hail Playskool

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Hail!

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Today I beat the prettiest and strongest of all, the sun.
He talked smack so I stole a space shut.....shutt..shovel, and I saw him crazy. I tried to calm himm down, but I figgrd he was off the deep spess. So I wound up the biggfest fase krackign I cuold.

But I brok my bat!

Now I am pretty in space, but not strong enuofph to go home. I am goign to die...I'm so hngry.
The end?

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Sounds like somebody is pretty, strong, and high!

Off with her head!

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Seriously?

Should I write a guide about how to play Radiation/Radiation Brutes? How about Time/Dark Miasma Controllers?

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Yes. It's about time.

* standing ovation *

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Well, it would benefit from any stories and screenshots from the WM/EA movement. Apparently there's even a WM/EA super group. But there's not even one story of exploit and victory that they've shared.

For shame.

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Umm... theres like 5 screenshots...

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Exactly. And not from the vg. We need more! MOAR!!!!!

*harumph harumph harumph*

Hey! I didn't get a harumph out of that guy!!!!!

Well, it would benefit from any stories and screenshots from the WM/EA movement. Apparently there's even a WM/EA super group. But there's not even one story of exploit and victory that they've shared.

For shame.

Ok... here's Pretty Strong's description. See what you think:

The barbs started young. “Your name is Pretty? Should be Ugly!” “Your name is Strong? Should be Wimp!” The playground is a cruel place, and Pretty Strong endured slushies in her hair, daily wedgies, stolen lunches, and other inhumane abuses too vile to relate in an ESRB rated T game description.

Nevertheless, Pretty earned her first beauty pageant title at the tender age of 6. The headlines read, “Pretty Pretty”. By 16 she was a veteran and winner of 15 contests. But she wasn’t done. The weight training began and it wasn’t long before she was representing her country in both the Miss Universe pageant and the Olympics as a weight lifter.

With gorgeous looks and a savant level skill on kazoo, she won the former. With a decent clean and jerk and a powerful snatch she won gold in the latter. She had finally lived up to her name.

But childhood wounds have a way of lingering. Vindictiveness has a way of corrupting. And Pretty Strong has a score to settle… with you and the rest of the world.

OMG it's my lucky day. The name "Pretty Strong" was available on Freedom.

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I can't wait till MrPlayskoool makes a WM/EA guide

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Don't be like me. Don't play an Elec/EA instead of a Mace/EA... You may still be pretty, but you're not strong! And what is pretty without strong? I've made such a horrible mistake!

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It's never too late.

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I think it is.

I heard from this guy that I know that when he talked to his cousin's roommate's uncle he thought he remembered that the developers were going to disable selecting EA if you already selected Mace because the strong and pretty was threatening to crash the servers. All of them. All the Internets.

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Wow.. Then if you haven't, make yours today!!!

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Don't be like me. Don't play an Elec/EA instead of a Mace/EA... You may still be pretty, but you're not strong! And what is pretty without strong? I've made such a horrible mistake!

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It's never too late.

And attitude.

Ooooh... nice point, Stack. TYVM!

Slotting Suggestions.

If you're using RoF for scatter, then you're probably fine with the base slot. But if you're using it for damage, you want to soft cap damage, get about 66% recharge, and slap a little accuracy in there. Even though RoF slows enemy movement, it does not accept slow enhancements.

Common IO/SO suggestion: 1 accuracy, 3 damage, 2 recharge.

Of course, how you slot will depend on where you drop it in your attack chain as well. For instance, in mine, after Freezing Rain, I don't worry to much about accuracy. Or, a blaster that does Aim->Shiver->RoF would not either.

If you're going with set IOs, it takes the Ranged AoE damage sets only. You can get a rather nice amount of damage and recharge via franken slotting in 5 slots (I use a Posi Dam/Rech, an Air Burst Dam/Rech, and 3 Detonations of Dam/Rech Dam/End Acc/Dam/End to get 20% acc, 98% dam, 72% rech, and 43% end) and still have a slot left over for a proc.

A note of Rain of Fire accuracy.

This is from Circuit_Boy in the blaster forums here. In case it ever gets wiped, it says:
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The "rain" powers almost all have normal accuracy: 75%. The "increased accuracy" is a myth based on the fact that the Accuracy Modifier of the pet-summon power is 2.0. That just means you can't miss at placing the pet. It has no effect on the pet's accuracy.

If you don't slot the rain powers for accuracy, you're significantly gimping your own damage, and it gets worse as the level difference between you and your opponents increases (in the opponents' favor, of course).

Each tick is checked to hit, so if you're fighting +2s without any accuracy enhancements or tohit buffs, only about 56% of the ticks will hit. With two accuracy SOs, it'd hit about 93.3% of the time. That means you're losing approximately 37.3% of the damage--of the ticks that could hit anyway.


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In other words, it's good to slot accuracy in RoF.

Your guide missed a scenario:

Rain of Fire should go down ASAP after a slow, immob, or AoE hold affects a spawn. Rain of Fire does more damage(lvl 50 corruptor unenhanced: 125.12) to a locked down enemy than either Fireball(49.75) or Fire Breath(73.20). Since it's DoT, you want to drop it first to get it started.

Some blasters can accomplish this themselves. And since Fire/ corruptors get Rain of Fire too, many types can do this themselves as well. My Fire/Storm's attack chain is: Snow Storm->Freezing Rain->Rain of Fire->Fire Ball->Fire Breath.

It's glorious. So glorious, in fact, that it's worth planning your Fire/ Blaster|Corruptor toon so that it can hinder enemy movement on an AoE level on his or her own. With that in mind...

Blasters powers that can AoE slow/kd:
Devices: Caltrops
Fire Manipulation: Hot Feet
Ice Manipulation: Chilling Embrace, Ice Patch, Shiver
Cold Mastery: Snow Storm

Corruptor powers that can AoE slow/immob:
Cold Domination: Snow Storm, Sleet, Heat Loss
Dark Miasma: Tar Patch
Radiation Emission: Lingering Radiation
Storm Summoning: Snow Storm, Freezing Rain
Traps: Caltrops, Poison Trap
Leviathan Mastery: School of Sharks
Mace Mastery: Web Envelope

Don't change the subject.