StrykerX

No, I'm arguing that if you can't beat a spawn at +0/x8 difficulty without faceplanting unless you use HoB to quickly cut down minions then you can't solo at +0/x8 at all unless you are willing to sit there and wait between spawns. On a Corruptor or Defender that may not be a problem because they take longer to mop up, but a Blaster using a crashless nuke can clear a spawn fast. Admitedly that's a more common situation with Full Auto or Rain of Arrows since they can be used at range, but with stealth you can also gain a second or two as the enemies react using HoB (especially the ones who choose to run up and punch you). I know on my archer I can solo on +0/x8/no bosses if I get RoA off, but if I try it with just Fistful and Explosive I generally have problems. And since I lack the global recharge to use RoA every spawn without a 10 second wait I prefer to solo smaller groups so I can steamroll them (I kill a spawn in 15-20 seconds, adding 10 seconds or so of downtime is harder on my kill rate than just dropping the number of enemies slightly).

Obviously if you can solo at a given level HoB is going to make every other spawn or so faster, but only if you can survive fighting the rest of the spawns without it.

I consider Full Auto better for most situations for one reason: you can use it every spawn with good recharge. You can not use Hail of Bullets every spawn unless you are fighting things that take a long time to kill, like high end TF spawns. Certainly you aren't going to be using HoB every spawn solo, which is the only place survivability really matters. That means HoB has absolutely zero effect on what you can fight... you can't use it on every spawn so you have to be able to defeat a spawn without using it, therefore you have to adjust your difficulty based on what you can kill without HoB.

Using the base damage numbers given earlier and assuming 16+ targets, we get:

Full Auto: 180 damage * 10 targets = 1800 damage
Rain of Arrows: 225 damage * 16 targets = 3600 damage
Hail of Bullets: 250 damage * 16 targets = 4000 damage

You get to use Full Auto or Rain of Arrows twice for every Hail of Bullets, so on average Hail of Bullets is indeed slightly stronger than Full Auto (3600 base damage vs 4000). Is that enough extra damage to make up for the added risk and wider damage variation from HoB? That's up for debate, and will depend a lot on your build and playstyle. As for comparing HoB's 4000 damage to RoA's 7200... well, let's just say there's a reason my favorite Blaster is an archer. Plus a high recharge build can use RoA or FA every single spawn, which means you actually get to count those powers when deciding what you can fight.


I've never tried that, but I think I may now since I usually don't use all four pools on a Blaster. Combat Jumping be a LotG mule just as easily as Stealth and it has the added bonus being something I'd actually use often... even when flying it's a bit more defense for essentially zero endurance.

I personally like the feeling of calmly flying around raining destruction down on my enemies. Combat Jumping plus Hurdle is slightly faster but it's not a big deal (31 MPH vs 38 MPH) and you get a lot better protection from Hover when using long animating attacks. You don't need binds at all if you just ED cap Hover for flight, and if you don't want to spend a couple slots you can run a Hover / Fly bind. Of course I don't usually take Leadership powers or Resuscitate on Blasters so I have no need to quickly reach a teammate, but really I find Hover best for ranged Blasters (those who only use melee occasionally instead of as part of their normal attack chain) and Combat Jumping better for Blasters who regularly get up close and personal. In particular Hover makes tier 3 blasts easier to use since they tend to have longish animations (except Blaze) and short ranges but are absolutely vital to use in a single target attack chain if you want decent DPS.

Remember that Hail of Bullets cannot (with rare exceptions) be used every spawn. Empty Clips and Bullet Rain are about on par with other sets that have the standard "one cone and one targeted AoE" setup, and those are the AoE powers you get to actually use every time. The ability to use HoB to blast the heck out of every third spawn or so (or every other spawn with high recharge) does help, but only in certain areas. For instance, you can't really count HoB at all when deciding what difficulty to solo on because you have to fight half the spawns without it... or else lose a ton of time sitting around waiting for it to recharge before attacking the next group. Certainly it's above average in AoE on teams, though not as good as AR or Archery (they get their crashless nukes twice as often, which more than makes up for the lower damage), or possibly Fire if Rain of Fire can be used reliably (RoF takes a while to do its damage so it really only helps much against high level enemies who won't die in a few seconds). So best case DP is around 3rd or 4th in AoE power, and worst case it's right in the middle but with a pleasant boost to kill speed every 2-3 spawns. Well, actually worst case you can't use HoB at all because you won't survive being rooted in the middle of the enemy spawn for several seconds before things die... but I'm being generous here.

Rain of Arrows is a true "rain" type power. Each tick makes a separate attack against every target in range, so any given tick fails to hit a target if: 1) the hit roll misses or 2) the target is no longer in range. Most of the time the third tick misses because the enemy started running toward you when the first tick hit and has moved out of the rain's area, but 5% of the time (assuming capped hit chance) you just miss. It's entirely possible (but rare) for two ticks to miss or even all three.

Hail of Bullets and Full Auto, on the other hand, are DoTs. They make one attack per target and the damage continues even if the target leaves the area. HoB's ticks only have a 60% chance each to go off, but it still only rolls once per target to see if they are hit.

Why does it need to eliminate 16 targets? If you are playing on something other than x7 or x8 difficulty (or on a large team) there are probably not more than 10 targets per spawn.


Oh, and regarding AoEs, remember that in most situations (certain TFs are the exception) there are not large numbers of tough enemies or huge hordes. You don't usually need an AoE attack chain, you just need enough burst AoE damage to clear out the minions so you can finish off the badly wounded Lts (and any bosses if applicable) with single target blasts. Playing on x8 probably will give enough Lts that you'll want more AoE to handle them too, but most Blasters don't solo on x8. Likewise, on teams there are generally multiple sources of AoE damage so you only need two or three AoE attacks to clear the non-bosses and then you'll probably want to use your single target chain. There are Blaster builds that can generate continuous AoE damage, but there is rarely any need for that since once you get down to bosses you'll kill them faster using your heavy hitting shots than you will spamming AoEs. (Unless there are a lot of bosses, but again, you only see that on large teams where there's probably a Scrapper or Brute killing bosses while you AoE minions.)

The real concern solo is how many seconds it takes you to dish out enough AoE damage to kill a minion, because that's how many seconds you have to survive the whole spawn attacking you. That's why people like Fire for AoE... sure Fire Breath is slow, but Fire Breath plus Fireball combined take under 4 seconds and can kill minions by themselves with Aim or Build Up. Empty Clips plus Bullet Rain takes almost 5 seconds and does less damage, meaning you take more return fire before the minions are gone. To a low to moderate defense Blaster running on something like +0/x6/no bosses difficulty the minions are the main threat due to sheer numbers... so the best AoE damage set is one that kills those minions while allowing the least return fire.

DP is fine in groups where it doesn't matter if you need a few extra seconds to unload all your AoE damage. But solo the lack of heavy burst AoE hurts it, as does the lack of any real mitigation beyond a single target stun/hold. Of course that only matters if you try to solo medium to large spawns... if you just want to solo on base difficulty and mainly play on teams DP is fine. Still slightly below average, but over all not too bad... and at least you don't have people yelling at you about KB.

Yes. But only on the Chinese servers.

That depends on what IOs you use, what you are fighting, and how much you spend. If you go for recharge rather than defense (such as on a team focused build) you are going to have to survive return fire for several seconds and if half the spawn is on it's butt you take less fire. And lightly IOed or SOed level 50s (far more common than heavily IOed ones) certainly can benefit from mitigation.

Hover cures most of those problems. As for Piercing Rounds, it really doesn't do much with Incendiary ammo so you have to drop to Standard, use Piercing, then turn on Incendiary again... that gets a bit annoying, at least to me. HoB is great when it doesn't kill you, but solo on a Blaster with little defense (in other words, most of them that exist) it can kill you even with the built in defense boost.

Stunning Shot stacks with stuns from assault sets, and since my archer is /Energy I guess that factors in to why I like it. It just seems to be more reliable than Suppressive Five to me, but that's subjective (and my DP Blaster isn't 50 yet)... I'm willing to call them about even depending on what you have to stack with them.

It sounds like you are only comparing the two sets from the standpoint of a top end IO build doing task forces. I have a ton of characters but only a couple moderately high end builds (and none at all with purples) and I rarely run TFs... most of my characters are frankenslotted or decked out with mid-range sets like Thunderstrikes. My favorite Blaster (my Archery/Energy) runs about 26% Ranged defense and 56% global recharge, and he has one of my more expensive builds. At that level I'd far rather wipe out most of a spawn from 140 feet away than jump in the middle of them and spin around wildly for four seconds. The max damage may be lower but RoA generally kills minions every time (HoB doesn't) and against things like Malta or Longbow that it doesn't quite kill I can follow up with Explosive Arrow without ever getting close. Explosive Arrow also generally finishes off the guys that one RoA tick missed. Bullet Rain does hit a bit harder but Explosive Arrow has an extremely fast animation so it's better in some cases.

I'm sure with a multi-billion inf S/L softcapped high recharge build DP is very good, especially on TFs / large teams. But try it solo with a 100 million inf build and tell me how it compares then to Archery or Fire...

If by "wins by a mile" you mean "is almost as good as", I agree. Energy Blast is pretty much the standard "middle of the road" blast set, with average ST and AoE damage. DP is a bit below Energy in most respects, which makes it a bit below average.

Dual Pistols has a faster recharge on its second ST blast, but lower damage unless using Incendiary. Once you get the recharge to run Bolt -> Blast -> Bolt -> Burst, Energy has better ST damage than DP would using Pistols -> Dual Wield -> Pistols -> Executioner's (or any other similar chain if you don't take Executioner's). As for AoEs, Dual Pistols does have a slight advantage when using Incendiary Rounds but using other ammo they're very close if you don't count the nukes (which you shouldn't since Hail of Bullets can't be used every spawn).

Basically DP with Incendiary ammo is about equal to Energy in damage (a tiny bit higher in AoE, a bit lower ST) but with no mitigation other than a weak hold. Using other ammo, DP is a few percent below Energy on damage while still having less mitigation (Energy's knockback is better protection than DP's knockback, slow, or -damage). DP does have one -resist power but it has a horrible recharge and tends to only hit 1-2 enemies so I doubt it adds enough damage to make up for one of DP's biggest weaknesses: the lack of Aim. Likewise the selectable damage types don't do much since most of the damage remains Lethal and you're stuck using Incendiary all the time anyway if you care about damage. As far as the nukes go, Hail of Bullets is going to be available every third spawn or so (or every second with high recharge) and is crashless but dangerous to use since it roots you for several seconds in the middle of the enemy group while you DoT them down. Nova is available less often and drains your endurance, but it also hits significantly harder... enough to one-shot lieutenants when used with Aim and Build Up (which it will be) versus HoB which can leave minions alive and won't kill an even level Lt. Which one is better is really a matter of taste.

I guess my biggest gripe with Dual Pistols is simple the fact that my archer can pretty much do everything my DP Blaster can do only better. Better single target damage thanks to Blazing Arrow's high DPA, better AoE by far thanks to the fact that Rain of Arrows can be used every spawn with good recharge, a better stun... the only thing the DP Blaster does better is dance around. It's not that DP is bad or unplayable or anything, but it's just enough below other sets (not just Fire) that if you play several Blasters you'll notice.

On the bright side DP looks a lot better for Defenders, since they get stronger secondary effects and tend to focus on debuffing rather than killing... which makes ice or chem rounds actually worth using. Blasters tend to only worry about debuffing one thing: hit points... and there are several other sets that just plain do that better than DP.

Both very nice powers, but AB isn't going to be up full time unless you have recharge buffs on the Empath (or a high recharge build that the vast majority of players can't afford). Empathy is fantastic at buffing small groups but on full teams it can't buff everyone except with Clear Mind and the auras (which aren't full time). Kin is going to add a lot more offense and it still heals fairly well if people stay close to the enemy (not as well as Empathy but not bad), it just lacks the regen boost and to-hit buff.

Really I'd say the best defensive buff set is Force Field. With both shields, Dispersion Bubble, and Maneuvers all 3-slotted with level 50 defense IOs it can literally softcap an entire team by itself. No other buff power set can come close to adding that much survivability to squishies and resist based melee types, though it doesn't do a lot for defense based characters. That said, I prefer Cold since it gives lots of defense too while also providing +HP (to the people who can actually use it) and some pretty good debuffs. Buff/debuff sets tend to add more to a team than pure buff sets, especially if there are multiple Defenders or Corruptors on the team.

Though in the right hands you might consider Storm the best buff set... not being attacked at all because the enemy is too busy falling on their butts in a corner while their range and accuracy are floored is a pretty big buff.

You can also just dump all four in Hell on Earth, Soul Extraction, or Gang War. With Hell on Earth or Gang War all I really need to slot is a bit of recharge so the four auras plus two lvl 50 recharge IOs would give the most room for procs in the main pets.

Didn't you know Scrappers are often attracted to shiny things?

You could go back to his roots and remake him in Champions Online...

But seriously, I hate to see you go. Not many of the old school devs left and you were one of the good ones... it's always nice (and a little surprising) to see a dev in a MMO take a rational approach to balance instead of putting on a blindfold, grabbing the nerf bat, and playing pinata.

I'm not going to cry DOOOOOOOOOOM about the game, but I am about the forums. With Babs gone you were pretty much the last dev left that posted often!

To be fair, four of Empathy's powers are either direct heals or regen boosts (which are basically heal over time powers) and another is a rez which "heals" defeated allies. When over half the set is devoted to giving characters more HP in one way or another it's perfectly valid to call it a healing set... just don't forget to use Fortitude, Clear Mind and Adrenaline Boost too.

As far as the best buff set goes, the answer is generally "the one the team is missing." Having a Kin for damage and recharge, a Sonic (or Thermal for non-Defenders) for resists, and a FF or Cold for defense turns pretty much any team into unkillable juggernauts. It's hard to say which one of those three is "best", but having all three is definitely far better than only having one or two.

My advice would be to try a Sonic Defender. They're relatively rare so you'll be bringing something unusual to the team, and they have resist buffs, which cannot be easily gotten elsewhere (other than Thermal, which Defenders don't get). There are quite a few ways to get defense (like Leadership powers, which you should definitely take), but few ways to get resists. Also, Sonic has mez protection that affects you too like FF does, but unlike FF it also has debuffs... so it should solo a bit better than FF if you choose to do so. I'd either go Sonic/Sonic for theme plus more resist debuffs or Sonic/Dark for to-hit debuffs which effectively increase your team's defense.

Protector Bots have the same two single target blasts as the Battle Drones and a targeted AoE that, while half as strong as the Drones' full auto laser cones, tends to hit more targets (pets stink at lining up cones). And since they're +1 level to the Drones they can actually end up doing almost as much (or more, depending on number of AoE targets hit) damage as the three Drones. I tend to put the pet aura IOs in Assault Bot since he only needs 3-4 slots to max his damage and get decent accuracy.

I loved Demons/Thermal for just that reason... they were so resistant to fire that I never even bothered ordering them out of burn patches. I was fighting Destroyers instead of Scrapyarders (went Praetorian then Hero) but they're normally just as bad if not worse since they also like tossing fire everywhere and blowing things up.

It does have a very nice heal (in fact it's the required first power), but it requires a hit roll. Level 13 is that annoying area where you have lost a fair amount of the "beginner's luck" to hit bonus but are still short on slots and using lower powered enhancements. One Accuracy DO will help but if Twilight Grasp isn't slotted yet it still won't do a whole lot. Once you can get a couple of accuracy DOs and some heals slotted in it (and maybe a recharge) it helps a lot more.

Demons/Dark gets very strong later. Early on you'll be relying on Twilight Grasp to keep yourself and your pets healed (be sure to slot accuracy and healing ASAP) but later on you have a lot of fun tools to use:

Darkest Night: Slot it up for to-hit debuff and it really helps, though you won't always need it thanks to...

Fearsome Stare: Slot it for accuracy, to-hit debuff and recharge and get some global recharge from sets so you can use it every spawn. It's faster than using Darkest Night, slows down damage thanks to the fear (which doesn't need enhancing since things are going to be dead fast anyway), and for tough mobs you can stack it with Darkest night.

Tar Patch: Nice for boosting damage in tough fights early, but it really shines once you can use it every (or nearly every) fight.

Dark Servant: Once you get Fluffy recharging fast enough to be permanent and slotted for to-hit debuffs it downright feels like cheating. Between Fluffy, Fearsome Stare, and Darkest Night you and your pets might as well be softcapped in defense against most things. Add in the massive slows from Demon Prince and the fact that you have a very strong (if small) AoE heal and you'll rarely lose pets. You still can, especially the Demonlings since they're fairly squishy, but usually not often enough to be a big deal.

My level Demons/Dark runs on +1/x3/bosses and usually finishes missions with 4-5 pets left (assuming I don't bother to resummon), and I'd lose even fewer if I didn't rush things and often aggro a second group. And that's with a fairly modest build...

Fixed it for you...

(The OP is used to Scrappers after all.)

To be fair, IOs are only "necessary" for certain power sets. Most Blasters, for instance, can operate just fine on only SOs and Stamina as far as endurance is concerned. They need IOs to actually become survivable solo at higher difficulties, but on teams or at base difficulty they can blast all day long without running out of endurance. It's mainly the lower damage ATs like many Defenders and Controllers that have the most trouble, plus a few Brute, Tanker, and Scrapper combos that just suck a ton of endurance.

A decent number of stuns do, since Energy Melee is one of the most stun-heavy sets and Rikti blasters are a common ranged stun. Most holds and sleeps don't though, except the electric-based ones, and quite a few stuns don't either. As for Acrobatics, it blocks one normal hold... I'm not sure if any mobs have Controller style holds that can sometimes be +1 magnitude or not but certainly two stacked holds will nail you. They probably don't even have to stack for long since I think getting held will suppress Acrobatics, leaving you held even after the first one wears off.