RSRobinson

[ QUOTE ]

Invuln with 75% capped resistances and running dull pain
(something SR does not have) can buy 84% direct mitigation not
counting the 60% heal that dull pain offers, while DP is up. The
theoretical maximum mitigation of non-defensive scrappers is not
stuck at 75%.

If the *absolute maximum* credible defense an SR scrapper can buy
is 80% net mitigation, that's not bad: invuln can theoretically
do better.


[/ QUOTE ]


With both Dull Pain and Unstoppable up, Invulerability is
godlike. That hardly represents the vast majority of
Invulnerability's lifetime. Against smash/lethal it is always
good (if you take Tough), but against the elements it falls flat.
Go fight COT or Rikti or Carnival or many Praetorians, Longbow,
Arachnos, Wailers, etc, etc. The days when just about
everything was smash/lethal are long gone.

We are talking about for SR 80% mitigation against _all_ forms of
damage: from bosses, archvillains, psi, whatever. I wonder how
much you play Invulnerability? I can tell you, its power against
Smash/Lethal is *not* representative. You go against family and
bank guards and you feel godly, its why in COV in the 30s you
take Council missions and avoid COT like the plague. Even council
has a moderate amount of non smash/lethal. With Invulnerability
and Tough (65% or so smash/lethal resists) plus Dull Pain, we are
looking at about the 80% SR will be getting against _everything_.

Look at it this way, Invulnerability with Unstoppable and Dull
Pain by your own numbers is 84% (I'll take your word for it). SR
about that at all times under this new system with this build. Do
you play Invulnerability? Do you know just how godlike you feel
when Unstoppable is up? And how unrepresentative it is of your
mitigation in the rest of the play? I respect your posts greatly
Arcanaville, but I can't believe you'd defend that level of
mitigation against everything.

Remember also that SR has passive resists, can take Tough, Aid
Self, Siphon Life. Its mitigation is not solely in its defense
either. Of course, if this system goes live, you don't really
need any other form of mitigation. 80% on a scrapper? That's way
overpowered in today's world.



[ QUOTE ]

Of course, invuln cannot achieve 75% resists for any length of
time, but then again an SR scrapper running FF, FS, evasion, CJ,
maneuvers, and weave all simultaneously is either going to have
some END consumption issues, or is going to have serious slot
consumption issues.


[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't say the build was painless. But look what Granite
tankers will put up with if the payoff is good enough. As for
slots, since ED, slots are much less of a problem. 4 slotting
each of those powers (1 endrx except passives plus 3 defbuf) plus 1
slot for Practiced Brawler (to make it perma) is 25 slots to defense. That
is perfectly reasonable, you have 67 slots to go around at 50.


[ QUOTE ]

More to the point: whatever SR will be able to do in I7, it can
already do now. The only difference is that it *if* it chooses to
expend all that effort to absolutely maximize defense, that
defense will work across all levels and ranks in the same way,
just like resistance does now.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes currently it can get 40% defense. But that tradeoff isn't
worth it when you are fighting mobs with 75%, 85%, or more
basic tohit. Its the system of increasing returns. Both defense
and resistance are worth a lot more when you near the cap. If you
can make a big tradeoff to go from say 30% to 40% mitigation, in
whatever form, your not going to do it. But if the you can
instead go from 80% to 90%, that's worth a heck of a lot more.
That's the situation you are looking at here. Buying all these
powers and slotting them to go from 30%ish to 40%ish defense in the
current system is just not worth it, but it will be worth it in
the new system.


[ QUOTE ]

Do you want to take a guess as to what the maximum damage
mitigation is of regen? I'll give you a hint: the number is in
the triple digits.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'll be frank, regen sucks at mitigating damage. Its good in the
situation in which there is no threat. Go jump into an
eight-player pack of mobs and see how long it lasts. I do it all
the time with my invulnerable scrapper (depending on villain group),
so many circumstances when its fantastic (tanker keeps standing around
between fights, a squishy is about to back into and aggro another spawn, a pet
aggroes one, no tanker on the team, etc.) Regen has next to no
mitigation against heavy incoming damage like alpha strikes.
Basically you hit Dull Pain first or risk dying straightaway on
the alpha. You drop to near death, hit reconstruction and Aid
Self if you have it, then start hitting those inspirations and
hope they last longer than the mobs. If you Instant Healing,
Tough, and Resilience, and the spawn isn't too tough, you are ok,
but for the vast majority of real world spawns, it can't hold a
candle to how much punishment the invulnerable player can take.

Triple digit mitigation? You mean per second? That's nice, except
its nothing compared to spawns that can alpha for 2000+ damage.
Invulnerability can survive and tank those spawns, regen is out
of luck. Regen has a lot going for it, fantastic right from its
early levels when facing easy stuff like soloing in missions, but
its mitigation in situations when you actually need it? Hardly
anything.


[ QUOTE ]

And that theoretical maximum defense build? I've tested it at
length. You're better off dropping tough/weave and picking up aid
self. One less power selection, significantly more survivability.


[/ QUOTE ]

This doesn't really matter. If Aid Self replacing say manuevers
gives even more mitigation (and it might even under the new
system), that's even more broken. I harp back to your own
numbers: 84% for Invuln with both Dull Pain and Unstoppable
(capped resists) running. Its more because Invulnerability
gets defense from Invincibility/Tough Hide, but SR gets its
passive resists. If SR is approaching Invulnerability's Unstoppable
numbers in its normal mitigation, numbers with which I can jump
into a pack with an AV and be in no danger whatsoever on
my scrapper (provided its not psi), that is a problem. No
that's more than a problem. That's just broken. Well, not that
I wouldn't like scrapper to defense to return to those levels,
but alas, that sort of thing is long gone. Normal mitigation
in the ballpark of someone running Elude/Unstoppable, which
are just plain awesome? No way, not in today's world, too good.

Before people get too happy for defense based sets, I think one
has to take a look at some of the numbers. First realize
resistance is capped at 75% for most archtypes, this system will
cap defense-based mitigation for everyone at 90%. Now that the
performance of the two is brought in line, I can't expect that to
stay.

Just look at how close to the cap you can get currently. Let's
take an SR scrapper. You can take the passives and toggles (5% +
12.5%), combat jumping (2.5%), Weave (3.25%), and Manuevers
(2.5%). Yeah, yeah, a very specific build, but not considering
the extremes is exactly what got the developers in trouble the
first time. Add that up and you get 25.75% defense. Three slot
each (156%) for 40% defense. That's 80% mitigation to all damage
with no holes, with no outside buffs. Heck, if you could live
without Stamina and throw Hover into the mix, add a few extra
slots to the toggles and keep them at +3, and you are capped
across the board. In fact, because of the incredible increasing
returns of defense when near the cap, it would be worth it to
6-slot despite ED's penalty, and even without Hover you'd be
pushing up near the cap.

Heck a team of 8 defenders just running slotted manuevers (3.125%
base each, 156% slotted, x8) is giving everyone 39% defense or
78% mitigation just from that one power each.

I can't see this going live without another massive rebalance of
all defense-based powers on the order of Issue 5. All you people
getting giddy about this change, sit back and think about it. If
you are into game mechanics and like how this balances defense
with resistance, you'll love it. But if you a defense-based
character fan who hates to get nerfed...

For computing brawl indexes for the pets not your level, you have to take into account that the damage is reduced by the purple patch compared to you. Assuming you are 36 and your tier one pets are 34 (I think that is what you are saying), the pets are doing only 80% of their normal damage due to level difference (see the chart above). Also its very difficult to get the value when all you see is rounded numbers that are so small. 3 could be anywhere from 2.5 to 3.5, a heck of a range. PVP testing would almost certainly be needed to get these small numbers.

To figure these out, its helpful to note that damage internally seems to be on a point scale, where 36 = 1 brawl. So 100 points gives the 2.7778 we see for the typical light attack, etc. When you are dealing with rounded pet numbers you can use the points to figure out its probably 140 rather than 138.79 or that sort of thing (just pulled those numbers out of my hat).

Many pets have exact copies of existing attacks which is nice, but I've noticed that while most are exact copies, some have been alterred. For instance, Grave Knights get Gloom and Dark Blast but they do a bit less damage. Presumably the developers decided giving them the full values was too much ranged damage for a primarily melee pet. Mercs get the mob-version of burst (3 ticks not 4 like a player's burst). Some of the bot attacks are copied from elsewhere and are probably the same as their source (though you'd need to check to make sure). I wouldn't be surprised if Bot Laser Burst is the same damage as merc Burst, Full Auto Laser probably is the same as Full Auto. Photon Grenade, Seeker Drone, Flamethrower, most likely are direct copies of those various attacks. But only testing will see if any are alterred.

I looked over your to-hit numbers. I don't know what your calculator is doing, but it is doing it wrong. Supremecy is a to-hit buff which is added in to the base to hit then enhancements are multiplied afterward, just like tactics or focused accuracy. For instance, take a tier one pet fighting a +3 mob with two accuracy SOs (+66% accuracy). The mob is +5 to the pet, for a base chance to hit of 41%. If supremecy was 25%, that would be 41 + 25 or 66% base chance to hit. Multiplied by 1.66 for enhancements, we get 110%, well beyond the cap. Your table lists 82%.

I don't think supremecy is 25% accuracy however. If it was, pets would be capped at low levels against +0s and +1s even with just training accuracies. They seem to miss more than 5% though they still hit noticeable better than a player. I'd guess the bonus is somewhere between +10%-+15%. As far as I know, no one has tested it enough to give a definitive value.

Even if it was only +10%, tiers 1s would be capped against +3 mobs (+5 to them) with 3 accuracy SOs and have an 86% chance to hit a +4 mob (+6 to them). Here is the to hit numbers for the famous purple patch which this is all based on:


[ QUOTE ]

Foes your level have not changed. You have a 75% chance to hit and your powers are 100% effective.
Foes 1 level above you - No Change. You have a 68% chance to hit and your powers are 90% effective.
Foes 2 levels above you - No Change. You have a 61% chance to hit and your powers are 80% effective.
Foes 3 levels above you - You have a 55% chance to hit and your powers are 65% effective.
Foes 4 levels above you - You have a 48% chance to hit and your powers are 48% effective.
Foes 5 levels above you - You have a 41% chance to hit and your powers are 30% effective.
Foes 6 levels above you - You have a 34% chance to hit and your powers are 15% effective.
Foes 7 levels above you - You have a 25% chance to hit and your powers are 8% effective.
Foes 8 levels above you - You have an 11% chance to hit and your powers are 5% effective.
Foes 9 levels above you - You have a 6% chance to hit and your powers are 4% effective.
Foes 10 levels above you - You have a 5% chance to hit and your powers are 3% effective.
Foes 11 levels above you - You have a 5% chance to hit and your powers are 2% effective.
Foes 12+ levels above you - You have a 5% chance to hit and your powers are 1% effective.


[/ QUOTE ]


I bring this up because your numbers make tactics look valueable when it is in fact pretty useless for a mastermind (except how it helps teammates). Supremecy provides more than enough of a to-hit buff to overcome the lower tiers' penalty for being behind in level, with the large amount of accuracy masterminds typically slot. In fact, all the leadership powers are just as useless for the endurance they cost. Assault, which you seem to like, is 11% extra base damage. With 3 SO damage in each pet and +25% from supremecy, it amounts to 5% additional damage. Its not nothing, but its highly overrated, a power for a team-oriented character. Keeping your attacks will net you a heck of a lot more damage than assault ever could soloing.

Statesman, its your game, I can't believe some of things you are
saying. You talk about the 4-person limit as if you've never
heard about it. Do you even read these boards or have anyone who
does? Its pretty common knowledge among the power gamers that
more than 4 people suck, and why. Hell even just regular people,
not powergamers, instinctively know that when the team gets too
big, their exp bar stops moving. This is just one example of you
guys not really being in touch with the game as it as actually
played, and explains a lot of the stupid changes you are making
recently like the purple patch or the controller pet mega-nerf. I
am absolutely petrified that your changes to villian difficulty
that you keep talking about are entirely theoretical and will be
utterly catastrophic to the game as it is actually played. I
expect the uproar to make the purple patch look like 'the good
ole days'.

Street sweeping people already fight the toughest packs they come
across. The zones have lots of people running around crossing
paths, who knows what spawned any particular pack. Probably some
guy running to and from his mission. It doesn't matter, you fight
every pack you come across. And they just aren't tough enough to
warrent teams more than 4. And even then its only because you
like to group or you were unfortunate enough to pick a
non-soloing class because you'd be doing much better soloing with
a good build. And here is a clue about soloing: saying
controller's 'can solo' because they can technically arrest mobs
eventually is so far from reality, I can't believe you'd actually
say it. Everyone knows that 'can solo' means 'can solo at a
reasonable rate'. Five to Ten times slower than a good soloer
does not qualify as 'being able to solo'. And its just cruel that
the classes that cannot solo are also the ones not particularly
desired for groups. Even groups that need them only need one. You
only need one tank to tank or one controller to hold. Either one
will do, you don't need one of each, you don't need more than
one. However, the more blasters you get the better you are off.
That's assuming they aren't off soloing to get the best exp they
can.

As for trial zones, no one is there. You seem to think that
'most' players are just in the game for fun not exp. If that was
true, people would be crawling over the trial zones. They are
not. Just about everyone wants their exp bar to at least move.
There is a reason people 40+ grind on Nemesis now. Trial zones
are filled with mobs with status effect. Rikti Crash Site is a
perfect example. Status effects are not fun. People don't like
being unable to do anything from being held/slept/stunned. And
they definitely don't like dying from the same. Those effects are
fine for a player to use on mobs, mobs don't 'care' if they
aren't having fun. Players do. No one is going to try to get just
the exact team composition to go take these mobs when they can
just tackle easier mobs, for better exp, and have more fun just
being a superhero and kicking butt. But all the changes you
mention are pure nerfs, make everything harder, slower, force
particular group compositions. Here is the bottom line: Help the
underpowered classes, don't cripple the more powerful ones. And
the mobs are fine in power, they don't need to be beefed up, just
get rid of the stupid purple patch. There are already
suitably-challenging mobs to fight. They are called deep purples.

Once again your 'vision' conflicts with the game. People like
being superheroes, kicking butt, taking names. But no. You 'never
wanted' people to be able to fight mobs more than a couple levels
above you, and based on the status effects that more and more
mobs have, apparently you don't want people to be superheroes
anymore but rather scared chickens afraid that if they don't do
every fight exactly right, one status effect gets through and
BAM! Another trip to the hospital. People don't like this. When
you need to get 4050 even-con minions just to level, at the very
least you want to grind through those mobs quickly and
efficiently. Its tedious enough now with the sheer numbers you
have to kill, I don't think people want every fight to be
'challenging' (read: even more tedious and unfun due to status
effects.) They want to group up so they can kick more and tougher
mobs, feel more like real superheroes, not like a bunch of wimps
in which the random gang members roaming the streets are all the
ones who should be the superheroes.

Even if you change the Trial Zones so that they are not a
pain to grind in, lots of people will move in, and once again
your spawns will be spawned by other people running around not
you determining their size. Just go to any zone worth exping in.
You can't find your own little corner to spawn mobs from your
group. That just doesn't happen. The game as it is actually
played inherently limits the size of the spawns regardless of
whatever code you think is in there to base it to the group. If
you actually played the game, you would know that in any zone
worth being in, the vast majority of spawns you fight were
spawned by someone else, not by your group. Its just one more
reason mission suck. They send you all over the world, so you
have lots and lots of soloers spawning mobs as they pass by going
to and from the missions as small spawns.

All the changes you hint at suggest one thing: not making
grouping any better but instead making soloing harder to
indirectly make grouping more attractive. Here's a clue for you:
people solo because it is the only way to get decent exp. Group
exp sucks. You state all these reasons on paper why it shouldn't,
but just go actually play the game. It does. Now you want to make
solo exp suck just as much?

I mean, you say you want to make it so that one hero is worth 3
minions? You do realize it takes _4050_ minions to make a level
in the 40s, right? And adjusting villian exp doesn't count. Its
obvious you always wanted 3 minions equalling 1 hero it just
didn't work out, so the 4050 even-cons per level is based on what
you actually wanted, meaning you really do want the sickeningly
high amount of time per level. You've said before that the time
per level is where you wanted, obviously talking about the
average person who can take 20+ hours per level. Most of these
players have yet to reach the 30s and 40s so they don't know how
bad it will be. When they do, lots of people will quit. If you
think people are going to put up with 20+ hours a level, you are
sadly mistaken. People already think exp is too slow for anyone
who does not have a powerleveling build, and many of these
comments come from people only in the high teens or 20s. If they
think it is bad then...

Everything you say sounds like your intent is to cripple power
builds so everyone has to suck up many hours a level. That would
be unacceptable if you get a ton of new abilities each level,
when two out of three levels you get 3 enhancement slots only, it
is unthinkable. No way are people going to play the insane amount
of time. Why do you think so many people make Blasters? They are
sick of the ridiculous grind. Every 3 levels you basically get
one new power fully slotted. And post-38 you have no new powers
to get, just ones you found were less important so you put them
off. Many builds in the 40s are just picking up something random
because nothing left is really at all useful, and they have to
choose a power. The game is just not worth the ridiculous grind
you are setting it up to be (not that it already isn't a
ridiculous grind for non-power builds.) A new fully-slotted power
every 20 hours? Ok. One every 60 hours? No way. One every 60
hours that is not at all exciting, just something you picked up
because it was the least sucky thing left? Not a chance.

The last thought is regard to your comment on status effects and
inspirations. Here is a clue about those inspirations: they don't
work. For my blaster, I've popped a level 3 Strength of Will-type
inspiration and still been held by the first shot on a Knive of
Artemis boss. And not just once, or just to them. Consistently,
any boss cuts through these inspirations. Not that I have a whole
lot of experience since they drop so little. Even if they did
work, when every spawn of certain villian groups has a status
effector in it (such as Rikti), having to have an inspiration for
every fight is unsurmountable. So the game is fun by running to
contacts every 10 minutes to buy all new inspirations because you
are paralyzed without? If they don't work 100%, they are
pointless. If the holds go through your protection, you die. No
one is going to grind on any mob in which there is any risk of
more than the occassional death. Exp is already far too slow to
suck up more exp debt. Powerlevelers don't die much. Regular
people do. And there are tons of complaints on your boards about
it. There is a reason powerlevelers choose mobs without status
effects. But given the choice, so does everyone else. They are
just unfun. And when it already takes ridiculous amount of time
to level when you don't have a power build, anything more than
the rare occassional death is just rubbing salt into the wound.

Its good that you communicate, but the more I read from you, the
more I believe you just don't get it. "To hell with the players
and their fun, our vision is more important than people actually
enjoying the game!" you seem to be saying. There is a reason so
many people hate Sony over EQ. Its the reason I won't be playing
EQ2. And, unfortunately, if things keep going the way they seem,
its the reason I won't be playing COH much longer.

RoninDF, the test was to prove, as I said, that the shake itself is not a stun. And I did. As for if there is something else that can cause a stun, my housemate is a 36 Electricity blaster, I've played with and watched him play plenty of times. And I talked to him. He said, on occassion, it looks like a stun effect is going off. But no way in heck was there a consistent, 3-second stun going off on every attack. Not even close. An occassional benefit? Perhaps. Something that will make an electricity blaster in PVP? No way.

And just standing there shaking doesn't mean he is stunned. He is only stunned if he stands there and shakes WHEN HE HAS AN ATTACK RECHARGED. In other words, if he is shaking but he'd just be standing there waiting anyway, that is meaningless. You say you shock-stun them in 2-3 hits. Well, of course. First hit, they shoot at you. Second hit they shake. But that is because they just shot at you and have a number of second left before their attack recharges. They aren't stunned, they just have nothing to do.

A random occassional stun I can believe. But the person claimed a 3-second stun on each and every shot, all the time, that he could always chain-stun any opponent. On that I call BS.

Sorry about not replying for several days, the new content has my
attention. Since the daily maintainance happened today at an
unexpected time, an hour and a half late, I thought I'd recheck
the thread.

Lightning_Fast, the only possible AOE combinations Ice/Devices
has to kill AOE in the 20s is Frost Breath/Frost Breath or Frost
Breath/Ice Storm. That's it. You don't have access to any other
AOE powers. Well, unless of course you are using the special Ice
Blast powerset that has other AOEs none of us get.

You've explicitly stated that you don't Frost Breath twice. Ice
Storm won't do it. Even if we discount the mobs running out of it
(let's say you have Provoke and can tank), even if we discount
the fact that its damage doesn't scale up, it still is a
slow-acting DOT. In other words, it'd be faster just to skip it
and wait the 10 seconds for Frost Breath to recharge. It sounds
like you are relying on some magic to get the mobs to just stand
in the storm and do nothing while you run to the next pack. Hmmm,
what could that be? Oh wait, Terra Volta, bugged spawns. Good
thing you got the 20s done before this patch which is supposed to
have fixed all those spawns.

But, forget that. Even if we just got rid of all Ice Storm's
drawbacks and pretended it did all its damage in one fell swoop,
the 60-second timer alone is enough to disqualify it. There is no
way you can get anyone to believe that you can earn exp remotely
close to a Fire blaster with his AOEs recharged in 16 seconds
while you have to wait 60 between each of yours. Fire can burn
away almost four packs in the time it takes you to get one. At
least in Dark Astoria, you can often find 3 or 4 packs all within
sighting distance of each other. Fire blasts one, blasts another,
blasts another while Ice, even if everything else fell into
place, blasts one then goes and gets a cup of coffee while
waiting for the AOE to come up so it can blast another.

As for swarms, what are you talking about? I didn't say you were
doing them, I said they were the 'easy' mobs post-30 and they no
longer are an exping possibility. And as for Dark Astoria having
mobs weak to fire, well that's the whole point. Mobs weak to your
attack is a good thing, and Ice not having any is just another
strike against it.

So, once again we have another poster who gives unbelievable
numbers, gets performance from abilities that no one else seems
to be able to duplicate, and won't explain how its done. So you
are either lying, trolling, or not soloing. I urge people NOT to
try out other builds and see how well they powerlevel. Its an
oxymoron. The whole point of powerleveling is to get to 40 fast,
not to try something random only to find it sucks and you've
wasted many hours on a now-worthless character. The reason many
people reas posts on powerleveling is that they do want to
powerlevel, they don't have the time to experiment, they want to
find something that works, something they know will get them to
the higher levels in their limited playtime. It would be insane
to take the advice of one poster who makes claims that goes
against the experience of a lot of other experienced posters. If
you want to come straight out and tell us exactly what you are
doing, so we can analyze it and try it ourselves, great. But the
mysterious, 'trust me it can be done', kind of posts don't earn
you any believability, they just explain exactly why people are
drawn to powerleveling posts: they want something they know will
work, and they know it because a lot of people have tried it and
it works for them all.

---

Ashiitakka, according to Hero Planner Conserve Power has a
recharge of 10 minutes. And even with the recent change, it lasts
I believe 90 seconds now. That's just too long a recharge time
for it to replace a consistent, always-on power like Stamina.

If your numbers aren't exaggerated it seems you've found a good
exp spot. However, I wonder how localized it is to Terra Volta.
Are you taking on packs of Skyraiders with lots of lieutenants?
With Smoke Grenade they are doable, and I've heard good exp.
You won't find anything like that post 30. Swarms/Monkeys are the
equivelent and they are getting nerfed. Just like there is
nothing as easy as zombies in Dark Astoria past 30, once swarms
are gone.

You again did not mention what you are fighting or how you are
doing it. So again, I can only guess that you are using 2 Frost
Breaths. You have not disputed that, and I can't see any other
way for Ice to 2-shot anything AOE (Ice Storm will not cut it.)
So I assume you are Frost Breathing a pack twice. It has a 3
second animation time and 16 second recharge timer. Assuming
you've 6-slotted it with damage and have permahasten that is 9.4
second recharge. So it takes you at least 15.4 seconds to down
the pack, casting it twice. And, since Frost Breath is a
small-radius cone, you are going to miss stragglers on the second
breath. Compare that to Fire which uses Fire Ball and Fire
Breath, with a 1 second and a 3 second animation time for a total
of 4 seconds to kill the same pack. So wherever you are exping,
Fire would be a lot better off there.

But wait, here is the kicker. At level 26, Energy gets Explosive
Blast. Now Energy Torrent 6-slotted cast twice won't kill a pack,
but throw in even a 1-slotted Explosive Blast and it will. At 27
if you 3-slot Explosive Blast, the 3-shot combination will be
enough probably to do yellows. Energy Torrent has knockback, but
its all pushed backward rather than scattered, so its perfectly
credible that it will be able to hit a group twice if Ice can.
And I believe Energy Torrent is a wider cone, it feels on par
with flamethrower though admittedly I don't use it all that much.
Anyway Energy Torrent activation time (1 second) plus recharge
time (Hero planner is wrong, it is 12 seconds, 7 seconds with
Hasten) plus second activation time (1 second) plus Explosive
Blast time (2 seconds) is 11 seconds. So whatever mobs you are
killing, Energy would do it faster. And no one tries to say that
Energy is an AOE powerset.

Maybe you just have found a great exp spot. Something like
swarms, that makes weak AOEs perform well. It doesn't mean you
are an AOE blaster. If Ice is an AOE blaster, then Energy is an
AOE blaster because it can do what Ice can faster. Probably that
makes Electricity equal to Ice as an AOE blaster. Slot Short
Circuit for damage with its upgrade and use Ball Lightning plus
Short Circuit plus Ball Lightning again. It takes three shots to
your two, but since the second shot comes while Ball Lightning is
recharging, not a problem. And since Ball Lightning has a 1
second activation time and an equal 16 second recharge time, it
too is slightly faster than Ice. And both those attacks are
circular AOEs, much better for nailing a group than is a cone.
True, Short Circuit is PBAOE but with the enemy Smoke Grenaded,
that really isn't a problem.

The point is, if Ice can do it, so can all the other blasters.
Are we all AOE blasters now? Is every blaster a fool for not
slotting their AOE as much as they can. Or you have found an exp
spot that works well. Care to share it? I advocate going to Dark
Astoria because it is the best place I've found, but I'll change
my tune if you show me someplace better.

At any rate, I'm guessing you've just found a good set of mobs to
exp on in Terra Volts in which lesser AOEs are effective. Heck,
considering how wimpie zombies are in Dark Astoria, I'd bet it
would work there too. But only if you have Smoke Grenade because
otherwise these extended fights against huge packs will mean
downtime. Taking out a pack in 4 seconds means one enemy volley. Taking
out a pack in 11 to 15 seconds means a number of volleys. And any
lieutenants/bosses will become an issue. So I guess the lesson is
that all */Devices blasters can be passable AOE blasters because
Smoke Grenade allows you to stand there laughing at the mobs
while you wait for your AOEs to recharge.

Terra Volta/Dark Astoria ends at 30. When you get to Crey's
Folly, and the patch goes live that nerfs swarms and monkeys,
you'll have trouble. The packs there aren't as forgiving as in
the lower levels. Lots of Crey guys with damage resistance, lots
of Rikti with stuns, Nemesis often has really high level bosses
out of place in weaker packs, and so forth.

I'll stand by my definition. An AOE blaster is such because such
a blaster has powers which are good enough to destroy packs, and
don't require special weak packs that may get nerfed or may only
be in a specific zone. Fire and Assault rifle have the powers
that there is no reason to suspect they will ever not be able to
AOE exp. Even before the 40+ content goes live, I can say with
confidence that those two power sets will be able to AOE through
it. And I can say it is unlikely that Ice, Electricity, or Energy
will be able to. They rely on specific mobs, weak mobs, that
happen to go well with them. Swarms are just the perfect example.
Can we say all powersets are AOE because they can destroy swarms
efficiently? What about now that swarms are nerfed? Assault Rifle
and Fire will always be able to find some targets to AOE
efficiently, unless a nerf comes that changes the basic mechanics
of the game. To my mind, a power set that can AOE efficiently
only a small number of specific mobs, probably underpowered, that
could be nerfed at any time simply does not qualify as an AOE
powerset.

Lightning_Fast, what 2-attack combo are you referring to? Do you
mean to say you are waiting for Frost Breath to recharge to kill
with two frost breaths? AOE exping is about a single salvo
killing a pack in a few seconds and moving on. Its not the number
of shots, its the fact that you don't rely on waiting for any
skill to recharge. Not only for the speed, but to not let the
mobs spread out, minimize damage you take so you don't generally
need to bother with a Smoke Grenade, etc. You didn't explain
exactly what you are doing, so I'm guessing here.

Assuming I am reading you correctly, I'd wager what you are doing
will be comparable exp to just killing small packs of 3 or 4
yellow/orange/reds using your single target nukes, in a
higher-level than you area. I put some time numbers below, so
please fill us in on how fast you are getting exp. If you are not
making comparable exp to an AOE blaster, than just the fact you
kill with an AOE isn't very impressive. It takes about 10 seconds
for Frost Breath to recharge assuming permahasten. Plus, it is a
cone so getting the mobs to be in proper positioning for the
second blast will be difficult, you will need to take more time
and inevitably miss some. If you are taking 15 or 20 seconds to
kill 5-10 blues (depending on pack size and misses), then you are
getting comparable exp to what you'd get taking those same 15 or
20 seconds to waste 3 or 4 orange or red minions. Plus the single
target packs often have a lieutenant among them. Lieutenants are
good because they take not a lot more effort to kill than a
minion and are worth a nice chunk more exp.

I can tell you exactly how AOE exping goes for an Assault Rifle
blaster post 22 (SOs). Go to Dark Astoria. Go to section where
mobs can spawn in your level range. Because of the way spawns
work, the vast majority of spawns you trigger will be white.
Thus, you can usually bounce from spawn to spawn, not spending
much time trying to look for a juicy pack (depending on
competition from other players of course). Whites are easy, I
don't even bother with Smoke Grenade most of the time, it just
slows me down. Find pack. Target best mob for flamethrower cone
spread. Luckily Flamethrower has a wider cone than typical cone
attacks, so generally you nail most or all of a pack, say 5 mobs
when you get a bad shot up to 12 mobs on a good one. Flamethrower
takes about 3 seconds to animate. That's it. You are done. I have
Combat Jumping on and jump away, looking for the next pack. A
couple seconds later lots of mobs die, and you get lots of
inspirations, and a big chunk of exp.

I played a bit last night just for fun with my AR blaster, been
spending a lot of times on other alts. At my current level, I
can't quite single-shot a pack of yellows without using an
inspiration. Unfortunately, yellows are rare because of the way
spawns work (mostly whites) but I accept that to get pack after
pack after pack of perfect targets rather than trying to search a
higher level area hoping for yellows. But when I do find a
yellow, I get so many inspirations that I almost always have a
damage one to pop right before doing the rare pack of yellows.
And yellows, even without an inspiration, are so close to dying
from the one shot that an M30 grenade (single slotted) is enough
to finish them, so I hop back, stop for a second to M30, then
continue search for next pack. Good to see some occassional use
of M30 which I generally regret getting. Ok, I admit, sometimes I
don't use an inspiration and use M30 instead just so I can not
feel totally stupid for having wasted a power pick on it.

I'll put it this way. Last night I went from 2 bubs into 27 to 1
bub into 28. I took a break to sell a number of times. And I was
generally gunning down the whole pack. It was more fun to waste
those shaman. I hadn't played this character in a while so I felt
no need to grind. Despite that, the 9 bubs took me a little over
two hours. And that is without permahasten - I only have it one
slotted so far, one of the things I'd have done differently if I
remade the character (get Hasten at least 5-slotted by 22). This
matters because lots of times while truly grinding, I
Flamethrower a pack, find another and have to wait for
Flamethrower to finish charging. Not only does it slow me down,
but it gives the mobs time to move a bit so I hit a few less on
average. I'm not exactly sure how fast I could do a level if I
had hasten fully slotted and I just went from pack to pack
flamethrowering them and moving to the next. Let's say
conservatively an hour and a half a level. It'd probably be a bit
less. If I did no selling and I could find an empty section of
the zone (hard on Virtue), plus had hasten at leasy 5-slotted I
could see doing a level in not a heck of a lot more than an hour.

For comparison, I did these levels in the same zone with my
Energy Blaster where I single-target killed packs. I did
white-orange packs, though again whites were by far the most
common, and I killed everything. And I sold enhancements as well.
I can't remember the exact numbers, but I think it was a bit
under 3 hours a level. Maybe it was a bit faster than that, it
was a long time ago, but I'm sure it was not slower than that.
Now that I have a lot more experience with the game, if I did it
again with no selling, I'd estimate I could get a level in a
little over two hours single-target killing, I'd think that would
be about as good as I could do. About half as fast as the optimal
AR build, and presumably fire would be similar. Granted, these
are optimal numbers, meaning all you care about is the grind, you
are a competent player with a good build, and you focus to
squeeze every last bit of exp out of the time you play. But that
as what powerleveling is all about.

So how quickly are you getting levels using your Ice AOE
techniques? I can't imagine you are coming close to what Assault
Rifle can do, and if you are getting better than a level in 2-3
hours, what you'd get with a single-target approach, I'll be
impressed. But I am interested in what the best Ice can do is, so
please give us your numbers.

Fifth_Element, first you claim that electricity just has this
stun effect. I show it doesn't. Oh wait, you say, now you have to
be high level and have particular enhancements slotted. Funny how
you didn't mention that before. At first, electricity's shake was
a stun. Oh wait, now in fact it is something else that is the
stun. So what you are now saying that the shake has always just
been a graphics effect, but there is some other effect of the
power that does cause a stun. I've shown that they only shake, a
purely graphical effect, until they have another attack. So if
there is some stun going on, it has nothing to do with the shake.
My test showed the shake is just animation.

Stop beating around the bush, and tell us exactly which powers
have this mystical stun, and what enhancements you claim to have.
I have access to a high-level (36) electricity blaster, so I can
put these to the test. For the record, after I tested this myself
with a new character, I talked to my friend about his blaster. He
said occassionally it looks like a short, under 1 second, stun
went off but it was hard to be sure because it might just be
recycle time. And it happened very occassionaly. There was
definitely no 3 second stun on every attack like you claim. You
claim that you will chain-stun every mob you fight. Of course,
you've said it is iffy on bosses, and since bosses are the only
mobs that take more than a couple shots to kill, that just makes
more of what you say suspect. How can you 'chain stun' a minion
that takes one or two shots to kill? Oh look, I Zapped that guy
and he didn't shoot back. Amazing! Oh wait, he's dead. Oh look, I
Lightning Bolted and Charged Bolted that guy and he didn't shoot
back. Must be chain stunned! Oh wait, he made his shot at you
when you Zapped his buddy and then died to your two shots long
before his recycle time came up.

I love how you want to 'show us'. In other words, you want to
slip something hidden in. Like, for all I know, maybe there is
some attack that makes the graphics for Tesla Cage go away so you
can hold it with that and then claim it is stun. Forget it.
You've lost too much credibility with all the things you say. If
the stun is real, we can all duplicate it. So either fess up on
EXACTLY what needs to be done, or stop lying. And after that too
does not work, I don't want another 'oh wait, you also have
to...'


You seem reluctant to tell us what is going on. Assuming that you
are not just a big fat liar, the only alternative I can see is
that you've found some bug, you want to use it, and desparately
don't want anyone to find out because you know it will be fixed.
If this is a real, intended effect of electricity, then you
should have absolutely no qualms about just telling us exactly
how it is done. You are afraid the masses will assimilate? No it
sounds like you are afraid the developers will fix some exploit
bug you've stumbled across. Of course, since you won't tell us
how to make this happen, it is still more likely it is all a lie.

RedHeat, no power is going to help you if you get Held. One hold
and you lose. You will be permaheld until you die. There is no
way to break out of it. You can't do anything. Defenses like
Acrobatics are useless. They are toggles. Once you get held, they
shut off. Everything beyond that is pointless. Hell, your
opponent could Brawl you to death over the course of several
minutes to humiliate you, there is still nothing you can do.
Holds last a long time, far longer than the recast. They would
have to miss you 3 or 4 times in a row for you to break out. And
that is with zero defenses, remember all of your toggles are shut
off, so the chances of missing that many in a row are very
remote. And that is assuming they don't have any other holds to
hit you with in case they missed a couple times. In other words,
you might get really lucky and not die one out of a couple dozen
times. So basically, you are dead.

Erratic, it is easy to picture the nature of PVP with the current
rules. The real challenge is picturing what changes will be made.
COH holds, especially ranged AOE holds, are totally devastating.
Even sleeps (i.e. mezzes) are pretty devastating. When I played
DAOC, a few years ago, it was simple. Whoever got off the first
AOE mez won. Holds in COH will be even worse, as you can damage
the victim to your hearts content and he still is held, and you
can keep recasting it. I'm just wondering in what ways the skills
will be nerfed and if controllers will be compensated with
perhaps some decent damaging attacks or just screwed over.

Basically, saying 'X could be devastating if you are locked via
crowd control' is pointless. The locking means you've already
lost. He who gets the first Hold wins. It doesn't really matter
what happens next. Just go watch a controller solo. He may take
forever to kill mobs, using his pathetic low damage attacks and
brawl, but the mob is held the entire time. Players held are just
as helpless as those poor mobs.


Fifth_Element, I decided to put this stun thing to rest once and
for all. I made a new electric blaster, picked lightning bolt,
and took all of 5 minutes against the contaminated to prove it is
just a graphics effect. I shot the first one. He immediately shot
me back. I shot lots of mobs, they always shot me back. I went
close for the aggro so I could shoot at different times during
their attack sequence. You know, let them shoot, wait for a bit,
then shoot them so the shake starts at various amounts of time
before their next shot recycled. When I waited until just before
their attack to shoot, they shook for an instant then shot me
right on schedule. I shot right after their attack. They shook
for a couple seconds because they had no attack come up to
interrupt it. Every time their attack would recycle, they shot
me, regardless of if they were shaking or not and for how long
they'd been shaking.

All I can say is it took me five minutes to show this to be
nothing more than a graphics effect. Yet you claim to be level
40. I can give you the benefit of the doubt. Most mobs die in a
couple hits, so I assume most of the time you see them shake for
an instant between the time your first nuke hits and the second
nuke hits killing them. Yet you also claim to have seen Bitter
Freeze Ray and Burst interrupted. That too will not happen. I'll
still give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you just thought
the attack had started but due to lag it didn't get to the server
in time so you just assumed it did start and was interrupted when
in fact it just never happened in the first place.

As I say, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but
some of the things you say so plainly contradict what we know
about the game, I wonder if you are just burying yourself because
you don't want to admit you are wrong. I know, you'll probably
just respond that I am the one who is wrong and won't admit it.
But everyone else's experiences with the game jibe exactly with
mine except for you. And I KNOW you are wrong about the
electricity stun, I tested it for myself.

I find it hard to believe you can be level 40 multiple times and
not been slept/held/stunned a myriad times right after you
started an attack. Its easy to tell when an attack animation is
going off by looking at the hotkey. Then check the slots the
power can take. If it doesn't take interrupt enhancements, then
it is not interruptable, and it will always go off regardless of
what happens unless you are killed.

At any point, it took me five minutes to prove the shake to just
be eye candy, so please stop telling us how your electricity
blaster will own everyone in pvp due to eye candy.

And anyone else who doesn't know who to believe because we
all write so pationately - do what I did. Make a character and
try for yourself. It won't take more than a couple minutes to
see that the shaking never prevents a mob from attacking you.

Fifth_Element,

Why do electricity blasters get so defensive about endurance
drain? Its almost like saying it sucks is a personal attack on
the player. It isn't.

And it does suck. Must be done in melee means it is no threat to
a competent player. And even if it does land, you can still run,
can still pop an endurance inspiration. I've self-enduranced
drain completely many a time using Nova, and it is no big deal.
An annoyance, no more.

I wonder if you are a hover blaster? Used to standing still
during a fight? Because if you are a superspeed blaster, you will
quickly see that the game in PVP will play much like FPS. And any
FPS player will tell you rule #1: ALWAYS be moving. As in you
don't stop moving, ever, for any amount of time, for any reason.
Or you die. PVP in this game will be very similar. I expect
superspeed will gain popularity exactly because mobility benefits
are so critical. You will NOT get a PBAOE attack with a 3 second
animation time off on any competent player. Oh yeah, once in a
blue moon blind luck or lag will allow it, but that is like
playing the lottery, not building a consistent PVP character. It
is not absurd to say so, its absurd to claim it isn't true.

Might the skill be fun? Heck yeah, nailing a newbie with it would
be. But in any situation, a crowd control power would be a
million times better. Let's see, would we rather manage to get a
PBAOE endurance drain off on a crowd or a PBAOE Hold? Really a
no-brainer there. Plus some controllers have ranged AOE holds.
Heck, some controllers have a ranged AOE stun, which is even
tougher to defend against (no acrobatics). And the status effects
are absolutely core to controllers. Without them, they are
worthless. You think they may get nerfed but endurance drain will
not? Well, actually, probably you are right because endurance
drain is just not that good.

As for stun, I have to question your response. I know for a fact
that all but a handful of specific attacks can not be
interrupted. I myself have been held or stunned many a time and
still completed the attack I had started. I've done the same in
reverse to mobs many times. Just because a mob begins to shake
doesn't mean the attack isn't still going off. It is. Too many
people say the shake is just graphics, and the one example you
choose to use to show it is not, I know you are misinterpreting.
So unless more conclusive evidence is shown, it seems likely to
me it is just graphics and nothing more.

I'll stick by my assessment. Ice crushes any other blaster,
period. They have way faster animations so their attack will go
off first. Their attacks inherently slow your recharges, another
advantage but probably irrelevent since they will be holding you
with their freeze rays to begin the battle. And in raw firepower,
they have 3 uninterruptable attacks (i.e. not snipe) all at range
that are very quick to animate. So, given equal competence in
players of Ice and anything else. Ice wins.

RedHeat, forgot about that with the patch. Still, if you don't
have devices, you don't have targeting drone, you are in trouble.
Players have much better defenses than mobs. In PVP you basically
need a 6-slotted drone and probably tactics on top of that.
Otherwise, you are not going to be hitting consistently, and woe
if your opponents should include a forcefield defender. Or a
devices blaster that hits you with smoke grenade. It seems to me,
devices becomes almost mandatory in PVP, but we'll see.

Neuro1, and anyone else who sent me a private message. I'm not even going to try to answer them. As my replies here might give away, I am verbose. I just can't write a quick response to anything. Even when that is my intention, I just end up writing and writing. If I tried to answer all the PMs I've gotten, well I wouldn't be actually playing COH anytime soon.

If its a general question about blasters, a power, whatever ask it on the thread. A quick look tells me almost all are instead a 'critique my build' message. The whole point of the guide is to roll-up all the information you need to make a good build, and explain why particular choices are made. I thought reading the guide would be enough for a person to make a good build, but apparently not. How about a checklist then? Look at your build and ask these questions:

Do you have your chosen travel power at 14?
Do you have stamina at least by the mid 20s?
Do you have all of the key attack skills for your primary set, preferably the first level they become available?
Do you have adequate defense planned early, say one skill by the mid teens and a second by the mid 20s?
Did you 6-slot your primary offensive powers first and not waste any slots on other powers until your offense was maximized?

As long as you can answer yes to all, then don't worry about what other powers you went for, the exact order, which travel power is your favorite, if I or some other poster would have done the exact same thing. It doesn't matter. YOU HAVE A GOOD BUILD.

People, you just have to play. After you get the basics in place, there are so many choices that boil down to how YOU like to play. I hate Flight and would never give up my superspeed. Other people despise superspeed and are in love with Hover/Flight. Some people want stamina by 20 and will put off good powers until after while others are fine with waiting until 24 or even 26 in order to get the more 'flashy' powers to play with first. I could go on and on. Neither I nor anyone else can make these choices for you because we don't know how you like to play.

All builds have their plusses and minuses, and there is no 'perfect' build. Heck, everytime there is a patch some builds get better and some get worse. The guide will get you a solid base for a character that will be an efficient leveler. That's really all I, or anyone other than you, can do - give you the information you need to make informed choices, because in the end you are the one that is going to be running the toon.

Who knows how PVP will play out, it seems almost a certainty that many powers will get tweaked and outright nerfed before it goes live. As it stands now, any good controller will crush any blaster, except maybe Ice. There is just no way you can drop your opponent before he gets two holds off on you - I'm assuming that will be enough to overcome acrobatics' hold resistance. And any controller with sleep or disorient has a one-shot win because there is no way a blaster can get any defense other than inspirations. I can just see every blaster fighting for a couple minutes then running for cover back to buy a bunch more strength of will-type inspirations (do contacts even sell these? I never needed to buy them) because without them you are roadkill.

Of course, that just brings it right back to nerfing. People will complain that controllers are too powerful, so status effects will get nerfed. Then controllers will complain because without them, they are powerless, and blasters will be on top because of all the damage they can do, so we'll see a demand for reduced PVP damage. Then fights will drag on and blasters still will be on top because of their endurance discount, so some change here. Of course melee characters will be useless, so they'll demand some new abilities to get into melee and will probably waver between fodder and gods. Then, well, you get the picture - what finally goes live for PVP will probably be nothing like the game we play. More importantly, as was amply demonstrated in many other games, a class system based around fighting mobs almost never has anything resembling balance in PVP and about the only thing it does do is get a bunch of skills nerfed because they are too powerful in PVP. I hope the developers have a whole lot of beta time planned, and a whole bunch of good ideas to avoid this.

For blasters, as it stands now, Ice wins hands down. Ultra fast animations and two hold spells. I'd say AR is the worse. Only two single target attacks (I don't count snipe because no way can you get it off without interruption against a competent opponent) and those attacks have long animation times. Plus they are lethal damage. No way are you going to bring down a tank doing 10% damage a shot. Electricity not sure on. They have a hold, but just one so its not enough to overcome any hold resist effects. People talk about the stun, but is it real? I've heard that it is just a graphical effect and doesn't actually stop an opponent from using a skill, just most of the time they are recharging anyway so it seems that way. Endurance drain is useless. Both big endurance drain abilities are long activation and PBAOE. No way are you going to get someone to stay that close to you that long. Energy seems like most of its best qualities are lost in PVP. To hard to get near to use the close-range nuke and acrobatics basically negates the knockback (and what PVP build will not have acrobatics). Fire is probably the worse off in PVP. I mean what skills does it have? Snipe that will be interrupted, heavy hiting nuke that is to close range to land and two subpar nukes.

And of course, we don't know what new stuff will be introduced between now and then, nor what villians are like. Probably be new powers, new power sets, new pools. And who knows how PVP will be done. Maybe you just can't duel and can only have PVP missions of some kind that are designed to make everyone useful and prevent blaster raw ranged damage and controller ranged status effects from just dominating everything.

It sounds like you figured it out. Just keep backing off. Most
fights against minions are so easy, you don't need to bother. But
if you do, turn sprint on and back up. Remember, you can turn
sprint on and off with the press of a button. Most of the time,
you don't need to kite, just turn it on when you do need it.
Once I got superspeed, I never used sprint again. Even if you
keep sprint for a while to max out superspeed with it before you
can get a couple SOs in it, you certainly would never use sprint
in combat. Just use superspeed like you used sprint at the
earlier levels, except its a whole lot better.

Sprint doesn't give any defense, nor does moving. The point of
moving is to stay out of melee combat, against the relatively few
mobs that can hurt you. Most minions can't. Basically, gang
slammer (i.e. Outcast Slammer, etc) and 5th Column Fist minions
are just about the only guys you want to avoid. Well, yeah,
lieutenents and bosses too, but the vast majority of guys you
fight are minions. AR/device has a lot of powers you want to take
at low level, making it hard to find room for defensive powers
early on. Fortunetely, you get Smoke Grenade at level 16 which
is so good, it the only defensive power you need. Don't let me
discourage you from taking more, more is always good, just trying
to say Smoke Grenade is really good.

Once you get Stamina decently slotted, you can keep superspeed on
all the time if you want or just turn it on and off as needed.
Just put it in an easily-accessible hotkey and hit it when you
need it.

And since you are devices, don't forget caltrops. Throw it down
in front of you before any fight that looks challenging and the
fight is a whole lot easier. Just back up a bit and fight, watch
the mob AI as they get to the caltrops, its easy to figure out.

arzenal22, it depends what you mean by exploit. It'd consider it more a loophole. It isn't cheating, its just relying on something you know is going to be changed. Its hard to explain, I didn't feel exactly good about killing swarms, but I didn't feel like I was cheating either. I only did it because the amount of exp you can get in any other way is so insanely slow. So its an exploit but not an exploit. Err, or something. I guess we need multiple terms.

Compare that to these level 2 guys parked in train stations. I consider that just plain cheating. That is an exploit, with the full bad connotation of exploit. Its like in beta when you try all sorts of unexpected things trying to find bugs. Except here you find the bug so you can use it to cheat.

In the case of swarms, fixing the exp is fine. In the second case, if I was in charge, I'd run through the logs and find every character who did this, delete all those characters, and give the accounts a good long suspension. It'd be simple to write the script to scan the logs, unfortunately gaming companies have historically been stupid on this subject. Oh no, we can't ban a paying customer. They just fail to take in to account the people who quit in disgust in seeing cheaters being pandered to.

Alaron, you did notice my mention of Nova and Inferno was not in the core powers for powerleveling but in the 'rest of the powers that are purely optional' section. In other words, those are the powers you DON'T need for powerleveling. After getting a powerlevel core, a blaster will still have a number of powers and slots left to choose. Nova and Inferno are just plain fun powers, and since by 32 you will have your powerleveling core intact and complete, there is nothing wrong with picking up the ultimate power in your set, its not like you have any powerleveling skills left to pick up at 32 (well not counting Assault Rifle, but their ultimate is a powerleveling skill.)

Nova and inferno are not worthless. If you powerlevel to 40 and then quit, what is the point? Do you do absolutely nothing else along the way? Try one of the task forces, for instance. The powers may not be available all that often, but they are fantastic every time they cycle. What's not to like about a one-shot kill on every minion you are fighting that also nearly kills all lts and heavily damages bosses? And the only penalty is that you have to turn your toggles back on after you pop down a couple of those endurance inspirations that hardly get used otherwise.

Defensive powers are necessary, I did mention that clearly in my guide, and smoke grenade is the best one you can pick up. And it is worth slotting. I advised against slotting the defensive pool powers because Defense Buff enhancements are only 20%. Smoke Grenade is a debuff, with 33% enhancements. Wow, it seems like often I end my posts with 'Just one more reason to love Devices'. Buildup is great and all, but I'd never give up devices unless I was playing a character just for fun.

Arzenal22, any blaster can kill swarms/monkeys easily, in fact so can many classes. That does not mean you have an AOE character. It is simply a loophole which, by the way, is fixed on test. As I said right in the opening of my guide, I did not base any of the advice on exploits, things that I knew would get nerfed. Underlings are getting nerfed, as everyone knew they would. Now when the patch goes live, suddenly your 'AOE' blaster isn't anymore. But the AR/Fire blaster is still AOE-ing packs because they truly are AOE blasters.

Its no different than fire tankers. Everyone with half a brain knew that they were getting way too much experience through a loophole that the developers hadn't anticipated. Everyone knew they were going to get nerfed. And they did. Now we have a glut of fire tankers all complaining about how useless their characters are because they based them on an obvious exploit. You may try to claim you are an AOE class because of a loophole, but that doesn't make it so. As soon as the patch goes live, go back and AOE your monkeys for 20 exp a kill and tell me how well an Ice blaster is at AOE exping.

Cambios,

No, Smoke Grenade is no aggro. But the ones you miss will not have their aggro range reduced, so if all you have is cloaking device, when you go right into the middle of the pack to try to set up a trip mine, then they will aggro. Depending on which ones you missed you can take damage, but worse they may mess up the pack's positioning which is key because trip mine has a low radius. Its probably just better to go with superspeed + cloaking device now.

I know how much damage energy torrent does, and I don't believe it and Frost Breath will let you AOE exp forever. but I could be wrong. What level are you? To the best of my recollection, Frost Breath hits reasonably hard when you first get it but settles in later to a mid-range AOE. To combine with Energy Torrent for 1-shot kills, it would need to do as much damage as a #2 nuke since energy torrent hits like a #1 nuke (beyond level 20 or so, a #1 plus a #2 is generally about how much hit points a mob has.) Maybe a high level ice blaster could give the numbers on his frost breath, but I bet it is going to be quite a bit less than a #2 nuke, at least beyond level 20 or so.

As to trip mine and AOE, it depends what you mean by 'good at AOE'. Trip Mine is certainly a good AOE, but for the reasons I detailed above, I don't think it would quite be up to the task of AOE leveling all by itself. Mostly because its radius is so darn small. Maybe you could hybrid it in hazard zones, blow up a good size chunk of a pack with trip mine then use your single-target nukes to kill the much smaller remainer, which also gives trip mine some time to recharge for the next pack. The major problem is that the hazard/trial zones that have suitable packs tend to have a boss or several in the pack. With AOE, you just blow away the minions and move on ignoring the bosses. If you only get a subset of the minions and need to gun down some more single-target to make it worth the time spent, now the bosses become an issue.

At high levels, say 30+, I'd say the best AOE is AR once you get Full Auto slotted up. Fire is very close, arguably better depending on the circumstances, and of course has been great since level 8. Energy is 3rd. Its two AOEs are decent but suffer from several drawbacks. The obvious one is that their damage is a little too low to blow away packs just with them. They can almost do it, but not quite and almost-dead mobs don't give any experience. Plus you don't get your second AOE until 26. Finally, the AOEs have knockback which often throws the mobs out of position after your first AOE so your second AOE doesn't hit all of them. Ice and Electricity are the worst. I guess it doesn't rally matter which order you go, they are both very far from being able to AOE exp. By the 30s, Ice Storm is completely a control power, its damage almost completely negligable. Ice has Frost Breath which does decent damage but it is a cone. Electricity has Ball Lightning which does ok damage, I guess it is about the same as the other ball AOEs (which is less than the cone AOEs), but a lot of it comes as a DOT. A quick DOT, but DOTs still mean the difference between a dead mob and one that gets to shoot you before it dies. Short Circuit got an upgrade, but from the number's I've seen, its still very low damage. Its like power push, considering how much damage it did before the upgrade, it can be doing 'much more damage' and still be doing not a lot

In the 20s, AR is worse than fire but it still has the awesome Flamethrower . Energy drops to the worst since you only have Energy Torrent. Before that, fire is the only consistent AOE exper, though I suppose Ice in the early teens when it has just gotten Ice Storm might be able to pull it off for a few levels. Heck, with damage upgrade to short circuit, maybe even Electricity can AOE exp a bit at the low levels, though even if it can, it'd be short lived.

Cambios, Trip Mine by itself is all you need, fully slotted it alone will blow up a pack of whites and some yellows. Depending on the pack, the survivors are often easier to mop up with single-target powers (i.e. you miss one or two and the rest are dead) making it work well with single-target power sets. Just remember to slot accuracy, trip mine is just like a pet, it doesn't inherit your buffs like targeting drone, buildup, or inspirations, so you need an accuracy on it.

But it is a power you cannot get until 28, can't have slotted up to usefulness to 31. You need perfect positioning because it takes a few seconds to set up and the radius is not the greatest, so you need packs that do not move. Plus you need superspeed to combine with cloaking device and give you full invisibility to get right in the middle of the pack to set it up. Smoke Grenade used to be great, but it misses now and it just takes one mob that you missed to notice you and mess you up. Finally, the recharge is a bit slow which can become an issue when trying to blow up a pack and superspeed to the next, you'll have to wait longer than a 'real' AOE blaster.

Overall, I'd say the negatives probably make the power a little too hard to use for AOE leveling. The setup time and the low radius will make you 'waste' a pack too often (i.e. get a low number of kills) and it is a bit slow on the recharge especially when you are waiting for it to do the next pack. Still my experience is limited. When I had it, I did AOE exping on swarms (and it was very useful on them). With them nerfed soon, maybe it turns out to be a viable option for the 30s and single-target device blasters. Its certainly worth a try. Even if it doesn't work for you as an AOE exping tool, it is still a great power and just one more reason to love Devices.

American_Pie, I believe I explained that but I'll restate it to
be clear. For powerleveling, none of the secondary effects have
much of an effect although knockback and slow do give a slight
edge in damage taken: one less shot from a minion here and there,
and a few less shots if the pack is big enough to warrent using
explosive blast on it. But that isn't the issue. As I said, for
typical grinding, the fact that electricity lacks a third big
nuke is its problem. Ice and Energy can kill faster overall
because we have a third heavy nuke to drop into the mix. One more
nuke ready to go at the beginning of each fight and charging
through the fight means mobs die faster.

Jabbestryne wrote and you felt it good enough to agree:

"so whats the big diff in an energy 1-2 shotting a mob and the
elec doing the same? Drain or knockback...pfft wtf cares."

Exactly! The difference is I have an additional nuke to do it
with. We open a battle, snipe a minion is dead. Use our 1/2 nukes
a minion is dead. We both are identical. You are now waiting on
your 1/2 nukes to recharge. I instead use nuke #3. While you were
waiting for your 1/2 nukes to recharge, I was hitting the next
minion to die with 1 of the 2 nukes it will need to be defeated.
Consider a large pack of minions. The basic method to efficiently
kill them would be to use AOE (Ball Lightning/Explosive Blast) so
that now a single #2 nuke would kill them or two #1 nukes. Except
I also have a #3 nuke that will also kill them. For every 2
baddies you drop, I can drop 3. It is a noticeable difference,
and very noticeable when you need to go 4000 even con minions for
your next level.

Lieutenants are basically just as weak as minions, and good to
exp on because they typically drop in one more nuke than does a
minion, and give a sizeable exp increase for it. A pack with
multiple lieutenants is no problem, in fact its just more exp. Of
course, it depends on the lieutenant. Crey lieutenants, for
instance, have damage resistance and are no longer good to fight
simply because it takes more time to drop them than the increased
exp makes up for.

You don't fight bosses at all while grinding. Not because they
are dangerous. They could be, but that isn't the reason. Its
because they have a large chunk more hit points than a minion or
a lieutenant and do not give enough added experience to
compensate. For instance, in the time it takes me to kill off a
Death Mage in Founder's Falls, I could have taken out an entire
additional pack of a Behemoth lieutenant and 3-5 minions. If I
have them all in sight and don't have to go looking (not uncommon
once I got the hang of the spawns), probably I could take out two
such packs if they were small in the same time. But even one, say
a small one, of 3 minions plus one lieutenant gives more exp than
does one boss and takes far less time to kill.

Trust me, it has nothing to do with risk. With knockback, I can
take on the bosses with no risk. Bosses spend most or sometimes
all of the fight on their backs trying to stand up. It has
nothing to do with that, it has to do with how many hit points
they have, how long it takes to whittle away those hit points,
and how much exp they give.

And I'll repeat again American_Pie, even if by careful slotting
you've gotten endurance drain so that at level 40 you can negate
a boss, Ice and Energy have been doing it from level 1. Did you
weaken your attacks through the early levels by devoting slots to
Short Circuit that could have instead been used on your primary
attacks? Or to get hasten 6-slotted early? Or Stamina?

Raptor_CK, you'd be wrong. My housemate is a level 36 electricity
blaster, I have seen what endurance drain does (or doesn't do.)
American_Pie's major problem is that he doesn't understand that
it takes very specific build to get it do anything useful at all,
useful in only very specific circumstances (boss killing) that do
not come up while powerleveling. Ice and Energy both get a
secondary effect that starts working from level one, with no
specific build requirements, and that also work for boss killing
but also work against every single target you fight during the
entire game.

It is not immature in a guide on powerleveling to tell the truth.
Is it immature to say that a blaster is the way to go and that
anyone who is a powerleveler and is say a controller should
reroll? No. So it is not immature to say that Electricity, the
weakest blaster primary, should reroll.

Lightning_Fast, you are incorrect. Ice is NOT able to do a
2-attack combination to kill a group. At low level it can, but
the guide is a guide to 40, and more importantly it is the high
levels that really count. Ice cannot effectively AOE exp at the
higher levels and is therefore a single-target powerset. In fact,
energy is better at it than is ice at high level. You must
understand, Ice Storm is a control power, it does negligable
damage at higher level. Energy has two AOEs that do noticeable
damage, but it doesn't qualify as an AOE powerset because those
two will not allow you to consistently kill a group in your
opening salvo. They don't do enough damage, you'd need a third
AOE to finish off the pack and you don't have it. Just as Ice
gets Frost Breath which will not kill a pack and nothing else to
follow it up with.

If you believe Ice can and I quote, "can powerlevel at almost
identical speed as AR/Fire, provided you do not diverge from the
-1/equal criteria", then you are simply mistaken or talking about
low level.

As for not playing every blaster, I've played them all up to 20
and I've done my homework by reading other people's opinions,
those who are high level in the appropriate classes. More
importantly, I've played to 40, I know how powers scale and how
mob hit points scale. For instance, I can tell you after getting
to level 8 that Fire Blasters will always be able to AOE exp,
right up until 40 because mob hit point never take some drastic
jump that will make them not be able to. In fact, it will get
easier because once they get SOs, they will be able to handle
even higher con packs before having to use
Aim/BuildUp/Inspirations than at the lower levels.

Its simple, find any level high level Ice Blaster that can AOE
solo and get him to give you the skills he is using and what mobs
he is doing it on. And importantly, please explain why there
isn't a dozen 'Check out my new Ice AOE build' posts of people
wanting to make their own version on this board. If it was
doable, there would be, just like the million 'Please critique my
Fire/Assault Rifle' threads that actually are there.

Cleen, why not? I wouldn't mind seeing Blasters nerfed a bit.
Then everyone will see just how stupidly slow leveling is for any
sub-optimal build, hopefully it gets changed, and I can play a
different archtype without wanting to pull my teeth out. Sounds
good to me!

Red_Bane, I'd skip flares because Fire Blast is a 4 second
recharge time. Once you have hasten permanently running, casting
Flares then Fire Blast will do less damage over time than just
casting Fire Blast over and over. Plus, you need to 6 slot it
with enhancements if you are going to use it, and there are much
better skills at any given level for the fire blaster to slot
(like your AOEs, then hasten/stamina, fire blast, blaze, blazing
bolt, etc.) You might take it to make the early levels easier,
but once you get rolling, you'll never use it, so I'd advice
skipping it in order to make your build as optimal as possible.

BernieGoetz, I know reading this guide you must think me purely a powergamer. That is not the case. I would rather be doing missions than street grinding any day of the week, even for slower exp. Heck, I play an energy blaster, a good mission runner but not the best grinder just because I like missions.

The problem with this game is that missions run out before you level up to the next level. You have to grind. To me, grinding is something I do not for more levels and powers (though I do like those), but to open up my next set of contacts and get more missions. Unfortunately, I was one of the people with 2 bugged story arcs from 25-30, so I have not been able to see any of story arcs from 30 on. Very frustrating to me. Fortunately, the devs have said that this is fixed so I should get to see 40 plus story arcs. I also read that there are a whole lot of missions 40 plus, I hope this is truly the case. The fact that one of the first missions I tried was a 'defeat all villians' mission with a level 40 archvillian in it was very upsetting. I am a soloer at heart, and before I was even a bub into 40, already I've got an unsoloable mission. Plus, I came across an unkillable boss for me in another mission, fortunately I didn't have to kill it. It hits for 300 damage at range, has a ranged hold, phases out during the battle so half the time your attacks have no effect, and summons lieutenants to help it that also have a ranged hold attack. Oh yeah, and it floats so knockback only pushes it back, it doesn't knock it down. It just is too powerful - the phase out that makes an attack just bounce off which it seems able to turn on while recharging its attacks and off while firing is the kicker. Add to that so many more minions having status effects and all of your toggles getting turned of and the content I played so far seems to have the general theme of difficulty via frustration which does not bode well for me to have fun with it.

American_Pie, ignore the others in your supergroup. YOU would
have leveled faster to 40 using Ice or Energy than Electricity.
And I didn't say Electricity sucked, I said it was inferior to
the other choices. From a powerleveler's perspective (the whole
point of the guide), the idea is to choose the best choices, not
the second best choices. So I guess from a powerleveler's
perspective that does mean it sucks, but if you just want to have
fun, do missions, that sort of thing there is nothing wrong with
it.

Of course, you say you did very little soloing until 34, so I'm
not sure how you comments really apply. You are grouped with your
friends until 34 meaning regardless of what character they
played, you will all level the same. Heck, for all I know, you
were one of the first to 40 because one of your grouping buddies
was a fire tanker. After 34, when you said you did your soloing,
you are high enough level to do swarms. All blasters can squash
them quickly and efficiently, so during your soloing time it just
boiled down to more play time than your friends. Now I don't know
if you did do swarms or not, but you would have leveled faster if
you did. If you did not, it proves even more that the issue
wasn't your build or your primary power set, but just lots more
playtime or a willingness to grind that your friends lacked. With
the next patch, swarms will no longer allow all blasters
comparable leveling in the 30s. Underlings are nerfed on test.
The next crop of people coming to the 30s who want to level as
fast as possible will really see the difference between AOE
blasters and single-target blasters and between the various
single-target blasters. And they will see that Energy and Ice are
better than Electricity.

Just for the record, I did a bit over 4 levels in the 30s on
swarms and the rest on missions and street hunting in Brickstown
and Founders Falls. I hated doing swarms because they were so
dull but I just couldn't stand the insanely slow exp speeds as a
single target blaster, I could only stand so much once all my
missions were used up. These levels showed me that a build has
to have a powerleveling aspect to it to make any progress at all
at the high levels.

Admit it, endurance drain is far inferior to knockback and slow.
For powerleveling it is completely useless. You kill mobs that
pose no risk and can be massacred as fast as possible. No mob
will live long enough to be drained of mana. At least with
knockback and slow, you will take slightly less damage, though
all three will take little enough that it is hardly an issue. No,
for powerleveling, lacking a third big nuke is electricity's
problem. Versus bosses (which are kind of irrelevent for
powerleveling since when going solely for exp, you do not fight
bosses) I'll match my knockdown to your endurance drain any day
of the week. Especially before your character was fully
developed. Remember, knockback puts bosses on their back right
from level 1, and right from the opening shot of the battle.

By the way, I've copied Kelena, my 40 energy blaster, to test.
I'd be happy to meet you anytime to give you the chance to
impress me with your endurance drain. We can hit the COT and Crey
level 40 spawns around Agent Six, a typical single-target grind
spot for the high 30s (not that there is many alternatives), and
you can show me just how fantastic endurance drain is. And I'll
show you the difference the third heavy nuke makes.

Lightning_Fast, it isn't being closed minded to admit that fire
and assault rifle are simply better powerlevelers than are the
single-target power sets. Its really indisputable fact. Ice,
Electricity, and Energy all kill in a similar fashion so it is
best to compare them. My point was that we should avoid bringing
in Fire or Assault Rifle as a red hearing to make Electricity
look bad, to compare it to its peer power sets and show that it
still comes up short.

Bwbarbou, you are making a mistaken assumption that I do not do
missions. You don't list your level, but here is a tip. Do EVERY
mission at 30 and again at 35. When you are done with them,
you'll be left with about 3 levels in each 5-level block to go
that you'll have to grind somewhere. And there is something like
having a boss be a practice dummy after you managed to drain its
endurance. Having him spend the entire fight on his back, right
from the opening snipe, looking stupid as you beat him into
submission.

BernieGoetz, basically the same comment. At high levels the
missions give you only a fraction of the experience you will need
to level up. As in all your contacts will be drained, no more
missions, and you still have several levels to go before you get
more contacts. You will have to grind no matter what. The
difference is that a poor grinding built is likely to get
frustrated with the mindless killing and give up while a good
build is still frustrated but can get through in something less
than eternity to get to see the new contacts and the new
missions. Now that swarms are to be nerfed, it will take a player
even more willing to grind mindlessly to get past the 30s. We'll
just have to wait and see on the 40s.

Codename_hitman, what's your point? You just assume I would have
trouble taking out 2 purple lieutenants and 2 red minions. You
would be mistaken. The only mobs that give me any trouble are
those with status effects. You know, the ones that will knock
your hovering butt out of the sky right into the middle of the
pack. Nothing gets into melee range unless I want it to, or I am
held/slept/stunned (not counting immobolize, with Combat Jumping
I can't remember the last time anything successfully immobilized
me.) If that happens, with caltrops, I am much less likely to be
forced into melee than the you with your hover which just shut
off.

Single-target blasters avoid large packs because there is no
advantage in fighting them. You'll still have to pick them off
one at a time. What's the difference between picking off 5 guys
one at a time twice or 10 guys one at a time? Only that with 10,
more guys are shooting at you for a longer time, so you have more
downtime. Yes, a pack of oranges will do a noticeable amount of
damage shooting at you over the time it takes you to take them
out individually, especially if you are not a devices blaster
with Smoke Grenade. It just makes much more sense to find smaller
packs that you can drop quickly to minimize the shots you take.
It has zero to do with melee. I have no hover, yet no mob gets
into melee range with me unless I don't care if it does.

I'll add that if you rely on hover, wait until you get to high
level. I've been fooling around with the new content on test and
the developers' non-creative method of making the higher level
groups more difficult is to make a lots of them have status
effects. You will be slept/held/stunned constantly. You will be
completely drained of mana and have all your toggles turned off
contantly against one villian group. I don't mean just by the
bosses, by minions, minions at range. Hover will not even keep
you out of melee anymore because it will be constantly shut off.
Fortunately, my caltrops still work fine, and superspeed means if
I find the fight going badly, I only need a second or so of
unheld/stunned/slept time to turn it on and run away with my tail
between my legs. Flight is just slower, you will get much less
separation in the same given time, meaning much more chance that
you don't get away.

American_Pie, maybe if you'd actually read what I posted, you'd know the answer. Electricity blasters are still blasters and therefore still good at powerleveling. They are simply inferior to any other blaster. If you had chosen any other blaster primary you'd have gotten to 40 even faster.

Of course, you failed to mention any statement I made that you didn't agree much less the reasons for it. Here is a simple fact: for the single target fighting style, ice and energy both are better at it for the reasons I describe. Energy, for instance, is basically just an in-all-ways superior version of electricity. We have the same three basic attacks (the 4/8 second nuke and snipe) except Energy gets the useful knockback while you get the useless endurance drain. Plus, energy gets a 3rd heavy nuke for which electricity has no equivelent. It is insane to claim that electricity will somehow magically be able to kill as quickly when it has inferior tools to do so.

So, please, instead of insisting I don't know what I am talking about, explain exactly why you think that electricity will powerlevel as fast as energy or ice. (It is a given that all 3 are inferior to fire/assault rifle so we can just ignore them in the discussion).

Renjiro, the problem with your argument is that Blasters will
always solo faster than any other archtype, simply because they
are the archtype that does the most damage. What this game comes
down to is defeating mobs and that means doing as much damage to
them as they have hit points. Blasters will always do this faster
than anyone else. You can't make that not true without destroying
the basic design of archtypes in the game and that isn't going to
happen. The main reason I knew Burn Tankers would get nerfed hard
is because they destroyed the basic relationship between the
archtypes. Offensive tanker or not, if a tanker can deal damage
more efficiently (or even close to as efficiently) as the damage
class, its a problem, it will be stopped. However, that the
damage class is the best for damage is by design and will not be
changed. Other archtypes may get a boost (especially scrappers),
the gap may close somewhat, blasters may even take some nerfs but
in the end blasters will still be the fastest levelers, that's
just the way the game is and always will be.

Unfortunately, the game is in my opinion only a short-term game
because it lacks anything else other than killing. It has no
items to strive for, no crafting, little differentiation between
characters of the same powerset and level (at the higher levels),
and little variety in mob abilities and combat methodology (i.e.
95% of mobs just shoot at you and possibly charge you in order to
hit you in melee). Its also an inherent flaw that the more varied
in abilities a character is, the less efficient it is at just
killing stuff. Blasters have tons of killing abilities, that is
basically all. Completely boring and one dimensional, you kill
the same way over and over again. But you level by far the
fastest. Defenders are more interesting because they have a
defensive power set combined with an offensive one, but they pay
for it with noticeably less offense. Controllers are to me the
most interesting, because they have the most variety in
abilities. My first character was an illusion controller - you
get damage spells, holding spells, a charm, pets plus the defense
that the defenders get. By far the most interesting and by far
the least effective at what the game is all about, killing mobs.
And pity other controllers, as pathetic as an illusion controller
is soloing, he is much better off than the others.

To my mind, with so little to do in the game, the only way to
keep enjoying it is trying out new characters. The problem is
that characters other than blasters and some scrappers are
terrible levelers. Unless you have way too much time on your
hands (and even then), you can't get multiple characters into the
high 20s and 30s to try them out. Really, the game lacks anything
to do other than kill, the only way you can try something new is
to try a new character, it is inexcusable that you can't level at
a reasonable pace. In many ways, the game is more similar to
Diablo II than to a MMORPG. Imagine the failure D2 would have
been if it took a hundred hours or more to get to 70 or 80th
level.

Many people don't understand that the gap between an AOE blaster
and everyone else, including non-AOE blasters, is insane, several
times at least. People look just at the AOE blaster and say 'my
god, leveling is way too fast in the game'. Yeah, well go play
anything else. With swarms nerfed in the upcoming patch, people
will see just how stupidly slow leveling is now.

If I could make the next patch, I'd first look at controllers and
boost the damage their single-target status spells do to be in
the same ballpark as everyone else. I'm talking about their basic
attack spells like Blind, Fossilize, Char, etc. Throw controllers
a bone, its not like boosting their damage is going to suddenly
make them soloing gods or start being the character of choice in
groups. Basically treat those abilities just like attack spells
and give them damage appropriate for their recast delay in the
same way everyone else's damage spells are done. Controllers have
a lower damage multiplier than the other classes, so their damage
will still be less, but it will be something other than a
complete joke. At the same time, I'd change the endurance cost of
every single-target attack spell (for everyone) to be on the same
scale as that used by blasters, ignoring any secondary effects
the spell has. I can't think of any single-target attack spell in
which the secondary effect is so good that it absolutely demands
you pay additional endurance for it. Most importantly, the
archtypes who get a boost (i.e. everyone except for blasters) are
already the archtypes who I think most people agree need help.
When it comes to damage output, the class the furthest behind,
controllers, get two boosts. I don't honestly believe anyone
could claim that making their single-target status spells do some
decent damage at a lower cost are going to overbalance
controllers. They already are probably the weakest archtype,
chances are this still wouldn't catch them up but it'd be a good
start.

Reducing the endurance cost wouldn't increase combat power, it
would only reduce downtime between fights. Downtime is no fun for
anyone, its why everyone takes Stamina. Its not like any
non-blaster will suddenly become overpowered because of this. The
bottleneck to beating up mobs is still how fast you can kill
them, and that boils down to how many attack spells you have, how
fast they recycle, and how much damage they do. Blasters will
still be at the top. It only will get rid of the huge pauses
every few encounters that other classes must endure to regen
endurance and that blasters have to put up with much less often.

The second problem I'd address is that AOEs are just insanely
better than single-target attacks for exping. The truth is that
if we discount Fire and Assault Rifle Blasters (and Fire
Tankers), the difference between the soloing ability of the
classes is not really all that out of whack. Scrappers compare
reasonably well to blasters minus the AOE advantage. Defenders
can be passable soloers, if built for it, at least when you are
not forced to compare them to an AOE soloer. To address this
disparity, I would add a method of acquiring exp that
single-target power sets would be more suited for, namely
completing missions. The current reward for finishing missions at
higher levels is a joke, it might as well not even exist.
Increase the reward. Not a little bit, a lot. It should scale to
mission map size, and therefore mission completion time. A tiny
map should give about 1% of the level, an enormous map (like a
big COT base one) should give about 5% of the level. To prevent
abuse, I'd scale the reward based on what percentage of the mobs
you took out, down to a minimum of say 25% of the reward. In
other words, if you invis through and just find all the glowies,
you'd get the minimum 25% of the possible reward. If you killed
half the villians, you'd get half the reward. If you got them
all, you get the full reward.

The net result would be that the soloing exp earning ability of
the various archtypes will be made more similar. AOE blasters,
the current kings, will see no improvement. In fact, with the
nerfing of underlings, they will be reduced. At the same time,
all the other archtypes will be improved. No one will gain exp
any faster than the best currently possible, just the people who currently
gain it the slowest should see a marked improvement. At the same time,
people are encouraged to do their missions rather than skipping
them in favor of grinding.


One last comment: American_Pie, my housemate is a level 36
electric blaster. Name any comment I've made that is uninformed.
I've watched him play a whole lot, played beside him a whole lot,
and the simple fact is that electricity blasters are inferior to
other blasters for powerleveling purposes. I'm sorry that you
have a level 40 electric blaster and don't want to admit that you
aren't as good as the other primary power sets. Go complain to
the developers that endurance drain has to be improved, attacking
the messenger is pointless.