Mr. Fantasy

I love what my BR/Rad brings to a team and is capable of solo. Debuff first and blast hard targets second and redraw isn't a problem.The pairing works extremely well late game when hard targets become more common. Perma hasten is easy to obtain late game which goes well with overcharge and when combined with judgement you'll have plenty of ranged aoe for steamrolling.

I've seen lots of people say BR should be paired with passive sets so that you can focus on blasting but that can be said about all blast sets.

Always. They have a high DPA and make excellent process mules.

Piercing beam isn't about aoe or cones it's about -res. If you want to take out hard targets fast take the beam!

I almost never ever like or take hover on any builds...... but decided to try it on my BR/Rad mainly for concept reasons and have found it invaluable. It's great for positioning and also good for getting above the action to more easily target anchors or targets. With AM and a little slotting the speed is pretty decent.

Since I hover blast Choking Cloud didn't make it's way into my build. Even if I didn't hover blast I would most likely not take it because I stay at range to make the most out of cutting beams cone.

Depends what you're soloing. My team build BR/Rad can take out AV's and GM's rather efficiently however lacks the consistent aoe that a DP/Rad has available for taking out 8 man spawns. What's better? Dunno.

This is a gross miscarriage of justice and we cannot stand idly by and allow this to continue without raising our voices to the powers that be. 4 out of 10 defender primaries are being shafted yet again.

WE ARE THE 40%!

I propose that all non healing defenders rally outside of Atlas city hall until we receive equal consideration for a 4 slotted Defenders Bastion bonus! If this bonus is allowed to go to live it will widen the already vast rift between the haves and the have nots. Paragon will be forced to see and recognize the favoritism shown to the healing primaries while we the 40% are once again cast to the side.

I proclaim that until the 4pc Defenders Bastion bonus is changed to something useful such as immob resistance we the 40% will remain on strike!

Sonic Blast is a very solid choice. The -res coupled with /kins +damage really helps melt mobs with a teams support and puts a hurting on hard targets.

For solo play Sirens song is an extremely valuable tool which will sleep the mob and allow you to work your buffs/debuffs in relative safety as well as pick the spawn apart one by one if you so choose.

The sonic waves could be tinted and perceived as energy to possibly work with your theme. The only negative of the set is that it is light on aoe damage while soloing. While teaming the -res in howl offsets your lower aoe potential by ramping up the rest of the teams aoe damage.

I'd hardly call DA "clicky" with Dark Regeneration being it's only click power.

SinisterDirge's list is probably about the same as what I'd recommend.

As primarily a soloist or duo player on a low difficulty setting I doubt you'll be bothered by playing Poison as a secondary set. I have very little experience with poison outside of the old MM version but I've been spending a lot of time on my Beam/Rad Corruptor and when I solo at low setting I don't even really need to use my secondary outside of a few of the more difficult fights. Poison will offer you plenty of help in the times your beam rifles damage just isn't enough to do the job on it's own.

As for beam rifle in general on a defender or corruptor I've pretty much decided to start running my own teams and setting the difficulty high so after I lay down my debuffs I still get my share of blasting in from spawn to spawn. One big positive of being a corruptor and blasting after the debuff stage is that mobs are usually close to or already in scourge range so half of my attacks are landing for double damage.

-1/+0 every mission on every arc? I'm guessing just EB's and no AV's?

Just pick one you think you'll enjoy playing for that length of time. There's nothing at that level of difficulty that a blaster wont breeze through.

I often find myself in the same boat with blasters especially paired with a primary like BR which gives zero reason to be in melee range. I found myself looking at corruptors also for better synergy. BR/Rad is quite nasty for team play, drop IR and EF and then pound on hard targets. Concepts are easy with the pairing also.

Ele/ele blasters are fun if you're looking for something different. Enough of soft control in -end and stun procs to make you feel like a pseudo troller while still playing like a blapper. Sappers often get a bad Rep and I wavered before dedicating time to one but I fell in love once I started noticing paragon protectors, cyclopses etc. Unable to pop their T9'sbecause they were drained.

I have both and vastly prefer the BR/Rad for big game hunting or teamed missions with a high difficulty setting. If I'm soloing or on a steam rolling team the AR/Rad takes the lead because of it's aoe capabilities. My beamer is currently only lvl 47 but I'm guessing it will be one of my favorite characters to play for incarnate content.

In the voice of the old Wendy's where's the beef commercials..... "Where's the control?".

I made mine an Efreeti. The molten lava clubs lend themselves perfectly to the concept.

They can all have their uses depending on the situation. Duration of the effects shouldn't matter much in the grand scheme of things especially after you get fulcrum shift since most encounters generally wont be lasting too long anyway.

You could use regular ammo and slot achilles procs in the attacks but I personally didn't like the scatter it causes while playing a kin. While in standard ammo mode the piercing rounds also naturally give a -20%? resist to a target. Downsides are the achilles procs will only fire off if you're in standard mode, knockback, and your attacks are generally less damaging unless your procs activate. I usually only switch to standard against hard targets (bosses/AV's) with high defense that my team may be whiffing on. I had hopes to proc out all of my -def attacks like a /rad defender but the headache wasn't worth it for me.

The chem rounds are a great way to go if the tank or whomever is taking the agro isn't able to keep up with the damage being dealt. Between fulcrum shift and your aoe's and cone you can cut damage almost in half. I like chems against a lot of Psi attacks.

I don't use ice rounds very often but I've heard quite a few DP defenders swear by them. The only time I really use ice rounds is against Nems to slow there attacks once the spawn has stacked vengeance and that's only if it's needed. My blaster uses ice rounds sometimes to help him keep some distance but I like to be in the middle of things on my defenders.

Fire rounds are my favorite. I never ran into a situation where more damage wasn't a good thing. I'm addicted to seeing a large cloud of orange numbers.

The cool thing with swap ammo is it will allow you to be a little bit flexible. I'm sure you'll find a favorite ammo type and stick with it 90% of the time not sure what type that will be for you though.

Charge in fulcrum shift-->Hail of bullets-->Rain of bullets-->mop up anything that may be left while refilling your end/hp bars and reapplying siphon speed so you can continue to the next mob with the same chain.

Kin works great with DP since your best buff/debuff fulcrum shift and your nuke are PBAoE. Being in the middle of the pack is also going to benefit you for your heal/end heal. I played mine to 50 and it was a very effective combo and a blast to play recharge didn't bother me the slightest bit.

EDIT: The Chem rounds will not lower enemy resists they lower enemy damage which does come in handy from time to time because you can pretty much blast a spawn with Fulcrum shift/Hail/Rain/Empty clips and cut their damage significantly.

I respect out of repulsion field in favor of force bubble. It was very simple to softcap range and forcebubble keeps things at range and pressed together to maximize my cones and aoe's while occasionally dropping the bubble to dive in with a hail of bullets. I've found soloing at x8 /+0,+1 to be the most efficient and fun way to solo my FF/DP/Dark and the repulsion field just chewed my end up way too fast to make it worthwhile. Against smaller higher level spawns it would probably be much more effective.

On teams there is just something so satisfying about pushing spawns into the tank rather than...........waiting.

More often than not I actually get more invites and positive receptions playing shielders/buffers than a "healer" powerset. I think the world of IO's and softcapping opened a lot of players eyes.

I honestly can't remember that last time I was frowned at for blasting if ever at all.

A sliding dmg/end rdx scale based on the number of teammates would be nifty. I've never been a big opponent of the current vigilance however I'm excited to see what may be in store. I was very happy with Defiance and Domination changes.

Don't worry about redraw. Most people that will tell you the redraw would be unbearable have never actually spent time on a TA character.

Aid self couples really well with powerboost and could be just what you need to recover your health enough to move from spawn to spawn without rest. If you need to heal in an encounter just back out of the fight for a second and duck around a wall PB->Aid Self. By time the mobs can gather up real tight on the corner you'll be there waiting for them with a full or close to full HP bar.

I personally try to avoid taking acrobatics at all costs. Slot power thrust with a cheap kinetic crash set and see if you cant slot a karma, steadfast or Zephyr -kb somewhere else on your build and call it a day.

Congrats on lvl 50! Were you aware that DP sucks???

Yeah but you like Force Fields so what would you know about it! :P

I'm definitely in the minority but....

I really can't see anything in either set I'd want to be without except O2. I do think DP could use some tweaking (HoB/Piercing rounds/swap ammo %'s) but by the way people talk about each power I'm left wondering what powers they actually do take.

A crashless nuke will never be left out of my powers list regardless if it's recharge is too long and it doesn't give enough damage incentive to be a pbaoe. Mobs pinned down by hurricane in a patch of freezing rain are just begging for a hail of bullets.
As far as being left vulnerable....... are everyones defenders really that fragile??? My kin/dp makes it a point to be the second into each spawn and fires off FS->HoB->RoB with no problems. Granted if I jumped into an 8 man spawn by myself without considerable buffs and led off with my nuke I'd get pasted but if I'm playing like than I should die.

My advice is feel the set out for yourself and respec what you don't like or use. If I followed everyones advice on this forums I wouldn't even bother making a DP hero or villain.

With the use of a little bit of tactics and sensible gameplay I've never had a problem with an energy blast set wether it were a blaster, defender, corruptor or dom. Blasters are about the easiest AT to make nrg blast work because of the flying corpses rule is easier to put into effect.

Using walls or environment to control kb, hovering above your targets, knocking targets into an aoe kill zone are all helpful tools to making an nrg blaster enjoyable and a pretty decent damage mitigator. Focusing on single hard targets is also a big part of making an nrg/nrg work for you. Starting with a few melee attacks before dropping your aoe's can often be the difference between scattering living and dead targets. NRG blast and KB sets in general aren't for everyone personally I love them because of the added challenge/fun of using positional tactics.

And just to ease your worried mind..........I highly doubt all of your PuG teammates are talking about you through PM's..... they may set up a private channel to talk about you though