Laevateinn

For Screech, slot 6 slots of Stupefy instead; you get the same amount of defense and another 6.25% recharge.

You will need accuracy in LR.

Try to get ED-capped recharge in AM. I don't think you need the regen bonus from efficacy adapter since you can heal yourself.

SD builds are very affordable. All positional defense sets are, since you can easily softcap yourself with red fortunes and multistrikes. Expensive SD builds are an attempt to softcap and pursue other high-end build goals like permahasten levels of recharge.

I agree it's not much, but I don't think it was realistic to expect anything earth-shattering given the lack of any updates to Test, meaning no major new features or game mechanics. I do appreciate the attempt by the community team, who did the most that could be expected of them under the circumstances, and they didn't have an easy job (some people in VU2010 got rather hostile when Niviene came in).

Somebody explain to me why we care about the anonymous internet public approval meter?

Basically, a normal Rikti invasion hit several zones, and Nerva had an extended raid with dropships appearing from all directions (not just the normal routes), Rikti patrols on foot, and large numbers of Heavies. Several Master of Arms showed up next to the end, Niviene and Mod8 were around to hand out titles.

Also Mod8 accidentally flagged a poor Stalker as a Rikti. He got instagibbed by everyone and had to hide in the hospital till it as over.

Nice, I need the invasion accolades on 4 characters so this is just in time.

1 Acc gives you maximum hit chance against +0 enemies.

2 Acc gives you (almost) maximum hit chance against +2 enemies.

In most cases, unless you set your difficulty for it, you won't have to fight enemies that are more than +2 to you, so I hold that there's very little value in slotting more than 2 Acc, maybe less if your powersets have other sources of accuracy. Some powers (e.g. Fire Breath, all Blaster nukes, all Archery attacks) also have higher-than-normal base accuracy, so you may get away slotting just 1 Acc in them.

Secondary effects of attacks (e.g. the DefDebuff in most weapon sets) are not worth slotting for. There is so much you want in an attack - accuracy, ED-capped damage, as much recharge as you can cram in and some endurance reduction - that there's usually no room to waste on slotting them. Just attack more.

As the owner of a Fire/SD/Blaze (and having played a BS/SD to 44), what makes it such an engine of destruction is the /SD/Blaze, not so much the Fire/. Shield Charge and Fireball are your best attacks, and together boosted by Build Up they kill even-con Lts. The AoE strength of Fiery Melee, at least for Scrappers, is very overstated. FSC does a lot of damage, but it only hits 10 targets, has a very small radius and is very endurance-heavy.

So BS/SD sounds perfectly viable as a farming build. The only thing I'd be worried about is the redraw.

I just want to note that a lot of those /SD pylon times are achieved only with saturated AAO. And you don't always get saturated AAO in normal gameplay, since teammates are killing things, stuff gets scattered/knocked around, you don't always have the luxury of perfect positioning, etc. Even playing solo, I rarely bother to get fully saturated AAO, especially vs enemies that don't herd well. So the advantage SD has over non-SD builds is much less than the list of pylon times suggest.

I actually tried soloing a pylon on my Fire/SD without saturated AAO, and took around 9 minutes (vs 7 for my Kat/SR).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33d8Jf3GlMQ

I build for both recharge and defense. Very few softcapped Blasters of any sort have impressed me, though. They tend to be very endurance-heavy, skip critical powers (I've seen a grand total of 1 range softcapped Fire blaster that took Fire Breath) and have horrible slotting. Advocates of defense over recharge typically fall into the trap of chasing set bonuses blindly.

Moved a Corr from Champion to Virtue, and that's about it.

I like Virtue for the population, but this is something that goes beyond the issue of finding teams. I've never liked the small-town feel of other servers, where everyone seems to know everyone else; it gives rise to a sort of parochial narrow-mindedness that I'm not a fan of. Virtue is like this vast, cosmopolitan city that never sleeps. There's something going on somewhere all the time. The crowds of players milling about and the occasional impromptu RP lend it a festive air. You can stay with your friends if you want to, go out and meet new people or take a walk and lose yourself in the crowds of strangers. Freaky things happen in the dark underbelly of Pocket D. There are rumors of alligators in the sewers. Up in their skyscrapers, the elite contemplate the next Dropship Hunt or single-team Mothership raid or solo ITF. Hordes of idiots in Atlas Park provide amusement for the cynical. People here chew glass and piss smaller pieces of glass.

It is beautiful.

Hey, this is great! I may actually consider dragging my salvage into the market window rather than deleting it on sight now that it's not completely worthless.

One reason I'd consider slotting Fire Blast with recharge, in your old build, is that it's your only attack that's usable while mezzed (and you will face more and more mez as you get to the higher levels). More generally, I think it's important for a blaster to have good single-target burst damage and DPS. You want to be able to kill troublesome enemies like sappers and Cimeroran surgeons quickly, and you want good sustained damage to wear down bosses, elite bosses, archvillains and giant monsters. Obviously playstyles differ, but unlike other blast sets, Fire blast does not have a mez and you are taking an APP that does not provide one. So I think your original build having only two single-target attacks (Blaze/Fire blast), and slotting both of them badly, was a mistake. Your endurance problems are also going to be worsened with no endurance reduction in your single-target blasts.

The new build is much better. You can probably go Fire Blast > Blaze > Fire Blast > Fire sword repeat and fill in any gaps with fireball and call it a day.

Since you already have softcapped S/L defense and no resistance APP shield to stack it with (on its own the resistance isn't really much), you can probably not run Tough and just use it as a set mule for the Steadfast +3 def. That saves you a bit of endurance, and gives you 2 extra slots to beef up enhancement values elsewhere.

The build has crippled slotting and power choices in order to chase softcapped defense. There's next to no single-target capability and key powers are skipped (Aim) or underslotted (Fireball, Blaze, Fire Blast, Build Up).

Trying to get high S/L defense on a Fire/Fire is tricky because there are no PBAoE or ranged damage sets that contain large S/L defense bonuses. If you can drop 1 power, consider taking Fire Sword and add another set of kinetic combats in it. This will also give you a 3rd strong ST attack (along with Blaze/Fire blast) to use, since you're skipping Flares and not slotting Ring of Fire as an attack. You can also get more S/L defense with 4 Reactive Armors in Tough and 2 Rectified Reticle in Build Up.

If you find 45 S/L defense too tough to get, you can settle for 32.5 defense instead. This way you are still pretty sturdy and can eat a small purple inspiration to softcap yourself when you really need it; alternately 1 application of ally FF/Cold dom shields will softcap you.

I strongly, strongly recommend you take Aim whatever the cost. A 10 second buff every 45 seconds doesn't sound impressive, but combat in CoH is very "bursty", especially when a Blaster is involved. Despite the misleading description, it's a massive +62.5% damage and will significantly affect your kill rate. It's also another place to slot Rectified Reticles.

Fire Blast and Fireball should be slotted as attacks, i.e. ED-capped (or nearly so) damage and as much recharge you can cram into them. Some good slotting suggestions for Fire Blast are 4 Devastations/2 Thunderstrike (HP, regen and recovery bonus) or 5 Decimations (HP and recharge bonus). Fireball I would slot 5 Positron's blast (all but the Dam/End) and 1 Recharge common IO.

Rain of Fire should be slotted with Dam/Rech, not Dam/End. The slow stacks with Hot Feet's so it's nice to keep it going all the time.

Use level 50 common IOs. You can select the level of an individual IO by right-clicking on an empty slot and typing a number while the popup window is open.

Consume accepts PBAoE sets and you can slot 6-slot Obliteration in here to get more (albeit expensive) S/L defense. It has a larger radius than similar powers (20ft) and you can often hit more enemies to make up for the lack of EndMod slotting.

Burn does not impress me and the tiny radius, scatter, DoT nature and semi-long animation makes it rather less good than it looks on paper. Consider dropping for Aim/Fire sword.

Instead of GSFC in Build up, slot 2 Rectified Reticle (all but the +Per) and 2 Recharge common IOs. This gives much better recharge enhancement, better S/L defense, and saves 2 slots. You can drop the second recharge common IO if you find that you move at a slow enough pace that you don't need it.

Consider slotting 4 Curtail Speed in Snow Storm for 1.25 S/L defense.

I don't have personal experience with Hoarfrost or the Ice APP but I doubt Hoarfrost will benefit you much. With all the +HP accolades and set bonuses you are very close to the Blaster HP cap, so the +MaxHP doesn't benefit you much, and you can eat greens or use Hibernate to heal yourself. Consider dropping for Aim/Fire Sword.

Frozen Armor accepts resistance sets. If you're really desperate and can find the extra slots without wrecking the slotting on other powers, you can slot it with 4 reactive armor and 2 Defense common IOs, which gives ED-capped defense enhancement and decent endurance reduction.