StrykerX

(Quick reply to the OP, ignoring the drama later in the post )

A few basic tips for a new Blaster:

1) Powers like Aim (or Amplify, in Sonic's case) and Build Up are nice, but the first priority is to get a decent attack chain. You'll want Shriek, Screak, Howl and Shout as soon as possible and you'll probably want Bone Smasher. You may not want to be in melee, but you still will be from time to time and having a nice hard hitting punch that has a good chance to stun is useful. My personal choice would be to take Shriek and Power Thrust at 1, Scream at 2, Howl at 4, Build Up at 6 (because you can't get Shout yet and I don't care too much for Shockwave), Shout at 8, and Bone Smasher at 10. That gives you a decent attack chain and Build Up for quickly eliminating bosses.

2) Always take your first two primary powers (Shriek and Scream in your case). You can use them while mezzed, which is vital to staying alive since Blasters spend a lot of time mezzed.

3) One of the best tactics for Sonic / Energy is to use Sirens Song to put an entire spawn to sleep, then stun one enemy with Screech or your Energy melee attacks and beat it down. Sirens Song lasts long enough to turn most spawns into a series of one on one fights which you will easily win. Add in Power Boost and Boost Range when you get it and you can sleep a fairly large spawn and beat them down one by one without anything ever getting to attack you (except the occasional target Sirens misses).

4) Your chance to hit an even con enemy starts at 90% and drops off to 75% as you level up to 20. That means you really don't have to worry about accuracy starting out, but once you get to level 12 and can slot dual origin enhancements it's worth tossing one accuracy into each attack, and possibly a second accuracy at 17 when you buy new DOs. And speaking of DOs, be sure to sell all your salvage on the market (unless you plan to use some for something)... you should have plenty of influence saved up by 12 to buy DOs. Once you have enough accuracy to hit reliably, focus on damage. Blasters survive best by making the enemy go away, so hitting hard is important. You may want to toss one recharge in things like Bone Smasher or Shout too, but be sure to toss in a couple of damage first.

And most importantly, make several characters and see what you like. Sonic / Energy is a fairly safe but relatively slow Blaster combo (especially if played from range)... you may prefer something with more AoE power like Fire / Mental, or possibly a weapon set like Archery (my personal favorite). Or you may want something a little tougher than a Blaster that can still do good damage at range, like a Rad/Sonic Defender or a Fire/Dark Corruptor. Or for that matter, you might like Scrappers or Brutes. They may be melee, but they're a lot different than WoW melee classes.

Though if you really want a truly original class, try a Mastermind. They're like nothing I've ever played in any other MMO (they make Hunter pets look like bad jokes in comparison). MMs and Blasters are my two favorite classes... I'd suggest trying at least one of each. One great thing about this game is that there's no endless raid gear treadmill like WoW, so it's easy to make lots of alts and get them decently equipped. The top end stuff is expensive, but you don't actually need it to be good.

In order to get patron powers on a Hero, you have to first become a Vigilante by doing 10 Vigilante tip missions and then the Vigilante morality mission. Once you do that, you change alignment to Vigilante and can access the Rogue Isles, but you can not yet run most villain missions (including patron arcs).

Once you are a Vigilante, go to the Rogue Isles and start doing Villain tip missions until you get 10 of them, then run the Villain morality mission. You will become a full Villain, at which time you can (as long as you are level 41+) do a patron arc. Once you complete the arc and unlock patron powers, they stay unlocked regardless of your alignment and you can respec in and out of the patron pools whenever you like. So if you want to be a Hero with Soul Mastery, then after unlocking the patron powers you will want to go back to Hero.

The first step is to do 10 Rogue tip missions and the Rogue morality mission, which will change your alignment to Rogue and allow you to go back to Paragon City. Do so, and then do 10 Hero tips and the Hero morality mission to convert fully back to Hero.

A couple of warnings: first, changing alignment clears any Hero or Villain merits you might have saved up. Spend them before you switch. Second, this will take a little while because you can only do five tips a day (you can however get the morality mission tip and run it on the same day you do the last five normal tips). That means that if you run your full five tips every day it will take eight days to go full circle to villain and back to hero. And finally, Rogues and Vigilantes can get tips for Villain or Hero depending on where they are. If you want to go Hero you have to collect your tips in Paragon City (that's true for both Rogues and Vigilantes), while if you want to go Villain you need to collect tips in the Isles. The easiest way is to go to a level 20-30 zone in the proper city and mow down grey spawns... any mob level 20+ can drop a tip whether it's worth XP or not.

I believe mobs (and therefore pets since the AI is shared) are in fact set to prefer active targets, so the pets will indeed pick on the ones Flashfire missed. It's nice when you get mezzed and the enemy turns on one of your teammates instead of kicking you while you're down, but annoying when your pets do the same and get squashed because they aggroed something that could fight back.

All the demon animations are probably new, so they could likely have made all the demon attacks use the same colors as the Hellfire. However, the demons use multiple different elements so that would look kind of silly, and the UI doesn't support multiple color options for one power. To do it right they'd need a separate pair of colors for the Fire, Ice, and Hellfire attacks.

Most MM secondaries have long recharge powers that really benefit from extra recharge. /Dark can drop more Tar Patches and Howling Twilights (plus having Fluffy out all the time), /Traps can drop more Acid Mortars and Poison Traps, /Storm can toss around more Tornadoes and Lightning Storms while having Freezing Rain up every fight, /Trick Arrow can... well, shoot all the various trick arrows more often, and so forth. Set bonuses can also make the Mastermind a lot more survivable, which can help the pets stay alive (Tankerminding) or help focus damage by needing fewer pets in Bodyguard mode (leaving the most damaging free to be directed to attack specific targets). MMs may not be able to boost the pets themselves much with IOs (aside from the defense and resist auras), but being able to use their buffs and debuffs more often can be just as good. Unless you're /FF, in which case you trade the ability to boost your damage for the ability to pretty much not ever die.

Suicidal Blasters are indeed somewhat common. Blasters can draw an awful lot of aggro, and it takes a bit of skill to use one to full effect on a team without faceplanting (depending on the team, with enough buffs or control everyone's virtually immortal anyway so it doesn't matter). Plus some Blaster players simply don't care about debt... if they can take a dozen mobs with them they're willing to go kamikaze (especially if someone has a rez power). I've occasionally faceplanted due to Blasterlock (a faster paced, more suicidal version of Scrapperlock) on a Fire Blaster... it's easy to lose track of your health when you are burning down massive hordes, and it only takes a couple of seconds for a Blaster to go from fine to dead.

That said, multiple deaths per Blaster per mission are pretty rare unless the team is outmatched or the Blaster is just a little nuts. Which some are... for instance, consider that Rise of the Phoenix does more damage than Nova and has a full minute lower recharge time. Fully slotted, RotP is essentially a second nuke... you can jump into a massive mob, hit Inferno, die, and then hit Rise of the Phoenix to essentially double nuke them, stun the survivors, and end up with half an endurance bar instead of the normal full crash. If that isn't tempting, you aren't a real Blaster player...

Power Boost doesn't affect pets, so it won't do anything for the Decoys or Phantasm and probably not for Spectral Terror (it might or might not boost the initial fear when it is summoned, I'm not really sure). It does boost mez duration so Flash and EM Pulse will last longer... however it doesn't increase magnitude so you won't hold bosses, you'll just hold Lts and minions longer. It also boosts Confusion duration, so you can make Decieve last a truly insane amount of time (about 2 minutes fully slotted). And it will boost heals so Radient Aura will heal for more.

As far as your debuffs go, it should affect defense and to-hit debuffs (I'm not 100% positive but I'm pretty sure) but it won't affect resist debuffs or -damage. That means Radiation Infection becomes an absolute monster for Power Boost's duration and Fallout will absolutely ruin an enemy's day, but Lingering Radiation and Enervating Field don't get a boost.

It doesn't boost damage though, even the spectral variety. It also doesn't boost knockback (it used to, but that was removed). Basically it affects: defense and to-hit (buffs or debuffs), mezzes (all types, including fear and confuse), heals, run or fly speed boosts (and probably movement slows but not recharge slows), and endurance recoveries or drains.

Swap Ammo shouldn't affect proc rates. I've confirmed that you don't have to be using an ammo type that actually has whatever effect the proc is from for it to go off... for instance, a Knockback set proc like the Force Feedback recharge proc will still fire even if you are using ammo that has no KB chance. I didn't do any detailed testing for proc rates, but it should be constant regardless of ammo.

I took my Praetorian Demons/Dark MM to the Isles and then switched to Rogue as soon as I could (very low 20s). Once I got into the 40s I decided to unlock the patron powers and I was able to pick Ghost Widow and do her first arc (the one that gives you access to patron powers) without changing back to Villain. I haven't done her second arc yet but I assume I could if I wanted to now that I hit level 45.

As far as I know, Rogues can do every single mission Villains can (except for Villain tip / alignment missions obviously) and Vigilantes can do every mission Heroes can (again, not counting Hero tips / alignment missions).

Yep, it's only the first two primary powers and the first secondary power that work while mezzed.

Neutrino Bolt does the same damage as most of the Blaster secondary tier 1 powers (Chillblain, Subdual, and Electric Fence). However, it does that damage all at once instead of as a DoT and has a longer range. That makes it a better attack to use while mezzed... I've often had an enemy hold me and then stand there attacking from around 70 feet, out of range of my immobilize. Stuns aren't so bad since the ranged ones are usually very short duration (except for Malta grenades) but unless you always get in close before attacking holds can easily negate your immobilize simply be not letting you move in close enough to use it.

The big difference is that Scrappers can (with the right teammates) actually hit their damage cap. Even with Fury, Brutes are never going to cap their damage unless they are on a very specialized team (multiple /Kins, for instance).

In practice, Brutes only cap their damage if they form a specialized team to do so. Scrappers just need a Kin with good recharge on Fulcrum Shift.

You basically need an extra 25% defense against pets, so one extra medium purple or two extra small purples will do the job. With 33% defense you only need three small purple pills to softcap against pets so it's not that hard.

Masterminds are great, though I would hardly call them non-conventional since they are among the most popular solo ATs (and the best). I personally love Blasters... they can be dangerous to solo but still a lot of fun, and with a decent mid-range IO build you can grab enough recharge and ranged defense to really boost your performance (I haven't tried a high end build yet on a Blaster).

Controllers are another fun solo AT if you pick the right power sets. Fire and Plant both provide good damage, and Illusion is awesome if you can afford to toss a few billion inf at it for perma-PA (sadly, I can't). Just be sure to pick a secondary with debuffs... it speeds things up a lot. I like Storm for the -resist and added damage, but Rad is also quite good. Or jump on the bandwagon and go /Kin, but you said unconventional, not omnipresent.

Dominators look fun too, but I haven't really tried them much. Same with Warshades.

*twitch*

No Seeds of Confusion?!?

That's like making a Stone Armor Tanker without Granite. Sure it's possible and it will work up to a point, but you're throwing away the core of the power set. Given the choice between taking only Seeds of Confusion and taking every other power in Plant Control, I'd take Seeds without hesitation (at least on a Dominator, a Controller needs one or two other powers for damage). Given the choice between having to spend eight power picks and thirty slots to get Seeds vs getting the rest of the set six-slotted for free, I'd still seriously consider Seeds of Confusion. It is quite simply the single best control power in the game. Get some decent recharge so you can use it every spawn and you don't need defense because most of the enemies are attacking each other rather than you. Get perma-Dom and you'll probably have the entire spawn, including bosses, fighting themselves unless you have really large spawns, and even then most will be occuipied.

At least try Seeds out. If you have a specific character concept that absolutely doesn't work with Seeds, that's one thing... but otherwise don't pass up the single best mitigation tool you have. It's sort of like a Fire Dom skipping Flashfire... except Flashfire still isn't nearly as good as Seeds.

I'd put the purple proc (I think it's Apocalypse, not Armageddon for ranged damage) in Jolting Chain, but not the whole set. Jolting Chain's damage is so low that adding damage enhancement is going to be of questionable use. In theory adding damage is better than procs since it hits a lot of targets, but in practice you'd probably rather land a noticeable hit on one or two rather than give them all two paper cuts instead of one. An extra 10-15 damage per target is unlikely to actually save you an attack, especially as a Dom (you have far more powerful AoEs).

I'd suggest if you want the 5 piece set bonuses for Apocalypse, then put everything but the proc in Lightning Bolt. The damage enhancement is overkill, but it's very nice to have the extra when exemping down and the proc does a lot more for you in Jolting. As for Jolting Chain, go with enough recharge, accuracy, and endurance to suit you and then use any slots you can spare for procs. Apocalypse: Chance for Negative is of course great, and an Explosive Strike: Chance for Smashing is still decent. You might even go with the Devastation: Chance for Hold and Energy Manipulator: Chance for Stun procs for more control. There's always 4 Kinetic Crash for cheap -KB too, though if you are buying purples I doubt a -KB IO is going to phase you.

Dark Blast and Dark Miasma can be colored to look somewhat like swarms of tiny insects. And of course there's the obvious: a Crab Spider.

It's definitely 6% fixed. Try slotting Combat Jumping (or another toggle) with a Kismet 6% IO and look at your last to hit chance with Brawl or a veteran attack (something that doesn't have any added accuracy). You'll see exactly 6% higher with the toggle active than with it off, regardless of the enemy's level. If you have global accuracy from IOs you'll have more than a 6% increase since the higher base to hit is being multiplied by your accuracy bonuses, but if you slot the Kismet before getting any set bonuses (I try to slot one in the early teens to help get through those annoying pre-SO levels) and monitor your last to hit chance it's clear.

Demons/Dark is really nice. The demons are great all around pets and at least their AI works quite well, and /Dark makes them a lot harder to kill. They don't have quite the insane control and debuff of Necro/Dark, but the Demon Prince has some decent controls and demons tend to outdamage zombies. Plus since /Dark can put out so much to-hit debuff and fear (especially once you get Fluffy) having a bunch of -recharge from the ice demons adds another layer of debuff rather than just reducing their already pathetic chance to hit you.

Besides, Demons have personal attacks that are actually worth using (hit something with all three whip attacks and you debuff its resists about as much as Tar Patch)... what other MM can say that?

I can't read that build too well... if you have a Mids' build try posting that since we can import it and read it in Mids (much easier). But from what I see, I'd suggest the following:

1) Purples in MM attacks are a massive waste of inf and slots. The damage your whip attacks do is incidental... the reason to get them is for the resist debuff. All you need is 2-3 slots for accuracy and endurance reduction, and possibly a bit of -recharge or a proc if you have room. The only whip attack I'd consider fully slotting for damage is the cone, and even then the slots are likely better used elsewhere.

2) Summon Demons needs a wide variety of enhancements. The Ember Demon has heals and a decent resist shield that can really do with enhancing, and they use a ton of endurance. Blood Mandate will not reduce the endurance cost of non-damaging powers like the heals (Pet Damage sets only enhance powers that have a damage component), so you may have endurance issues. I'm planning to go with Hami-Os on mine: probably 3x Acc/Dam, 2x End/Resist, 1x End/Heal or something similar (or maybe just a lvl 50 Heal).

3) The Demon Prince is similar. He has nice controls and is also an endurance hog. I'm going with HOs again: 1x Acc/Dam, 2x Dam/Mex, 1x Acc/Mez, and a level 50 Endurance IO.

4) Hell on Earth is a great place for pet aura IOs. It can hold both resist auras and both defense auras, plus a couple of recharge IOs to actually use it more often. Those auras really make a difference keeping your pets alive.

And of course, be sure Dark Servant is recharging fast enough to be permanent. Fluffy makes a huge difference thanks to that massive to-hit debuff.

My tentative (post-I19) build is:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.81
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Demon Summoning
Secondary Power Set: Dark Miasma
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Summon Demonlings -- HO:Nucle(A), HO:Nucle(3), HO:Nucle(3), S'bndAl-Build%(5), EndRdx-I(5)
Level 1: Twilight Grasp -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(9), Dct'dW-Heal(9), Acc-I(11)
Level 2: Corruption -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(11)
Level 4: Lash -- Acc-I(A), KinCrsh-Rechg/EndRdx(17)
Level 6: Enchant Demon -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Crack Whip -- Acc-I(A), KinCrsh-Rechg/EndRdx(23)
Level 10: Tar Patch -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25), RechRdx-I(25)
Level 12: Summon Demons -- HO:Golgi(A), HO:Ribo(13), HO:Ribo(13), HO:Nucle(15), HO:Nucle(15), HO:Nucle(17)
Level 14: Darkest Night -- Cloud-ToHitDeb(A), Cloud-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Cloud-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Cloud-Acc/ToHitDeb(37), Cloud-Acc/Rchg(37), Cloud-%Dam(37)
Level 16: Combat Jumping -- Ksmt-ToHit+(A), Krma-ResKB(40), LkGmblr-Rchg+(42)
Level 18: Hell on Earth -- EdctM'r-PetDef(A), SvgnRt-PetResDam(19), C'Arms-+Def(Pets)(19), ExRmnt-+Res(Pets)(21), RechRdx-I(21), RechRdx-I(23)
Level 20: Fearsome Stare -- Cloud-ToHitDeb(A), Cloud-Acc/ToHitDeb(33), Cloud-Acc/Rchg(33), Cloud-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Cloud-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Cloud-%Dam(34)
Level 22: Shadow Fall -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/EndRdx(46), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(46), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(46)
Level 24: Howling Twilight -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(43), RechRdx-I(43)
Level 26: Summon Demon Prince -- HO:Nucle(A), HO:Perox(27), HO:Perox(27), HO:Endo(29), EndRdx-I(29)
Level 28: Petrifying Gaze -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(31), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(31), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(31), EoCur-Acc/Hold/Rchg(33)
Level 30: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 32: Abyssal Empowerment -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 35: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 38: Dark Servant -- HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(39), HO:Membr(39), HO:Endo(39), HO:Endo(40)
Level 41: Dark Embrace -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(42), ResDam-I(42)
Level 44: Oppressive Gloom -- Stpfy-Acc/Rchg(A), Stpfy-EndRdx/Stun(45), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx(45), Stpfy-Stun/Rng(45), Stpfy-Acc/Stun/Rchg(50), Stpfy-KB%(50)
Level 47: Soul Storm -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(48), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(48), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(48), EoCur-Acc/Hold/Rchg(50)
Level 49: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Supremacy
Level 4: Ninja Run

Assuming you have ED capped damage slotting, Assault gives you around 5-6% more damage. That's not much solo, but every little bit can help... and boosting several people by 5% adds up. I personally would go Assault + TP Friend in that situation, because once you TP a dead teammate to safety it's usually no problem for someone to give him an Awaken rather than using Resuscitate. The actual TP, on the other hand, can come in quite handy.

The best way to get a little extra to-hit is the Kismet 6% Accuracy IO. It's misnamed... it actually provides a 6% to-hit bonus whenever the power it is in is active, not an accuracy bonus. You can slot it in any power that takes defense sets and which you will be using all the time in combat, which is normally Combat Jumping or Hover (or any of your main armors on a defense based set). On a Dark/Dark Tanker I'd put it in Combat Jumping or Cloak of Darkness, depending on which you use for your immobilize protection. (If you run both, put it in Combat Jumping since that needs less enhancement so it has more spare slots.)

The only other source of to-hit buffs all characters can get is Tactics, which offers only a little more to-hit than the Kismet IO on most ATs and costs endurance, but it does offer that to-hit to teammates. If you have the free slots and the endurance to run it you may want to go for it, but a Kismet IO alone effectively drops enemies by one level (you hit +1s like you normally would +0s) and it's not hard to get a fair bit of global accuracy from sets. Unless you plan to fight +4s a Kismet, good accuracy slotting, and the 40% or more global accuracy you tend to pick up anyway in an IO build (it's a very common bonus in decent sets) is plenty. If you do plan to fight +4s or you are using a SO / frankenslotted build with little global accuracy, then consider Tactics or a toggle like Focused Accuracy (but only if you can afford the endurance drain).

Assault is always handy with just the default slot. I wouldn't bother with Maneuvers or Tactics though since even slotted they are weak on blasters.

A second travel power can be useful, such as Fly or Super Speed (if you have the City Traveler veteran reward). TP Friend or Hover can be useful too (Hover is slow, but very useful in combat because it has some protection from -fly effects).

I wouldn't fool with Stimulant (you'll be too busy blasting to use it) but Resuscitate can be a nice support power, especially if you also go TP Friend. If nothing else it comes in handy at times in Hami or Mothership raids.

Hasten is always handy even one-slotted, if you don't have it already.

If you went with the Fire APP, grab Rise of the Phoenix if you don't already have it. It's fun to not only self rez, but also blow the enemies up while doing so.

I really don't see the Presence pool helping much. Fear isn't that great a mitigation tool if you're constantly damaging the target (and as a Fire Blaster I assume you will be) and Intimidate has a short duration and long recharge, plus it only works on minions. Minions should quickly be too dead to care about how scary you are.

Personally, I'd go Assault (Fire Blasters can never have too much +damage) and either Resuscitate or Rise of the Phoenix, depending on which is applicable.

EDIT: If you want more recharge, you can also go Stealth and Invisibility and pop a LotG 7.5% in each.