StrykerX

Fire does the best DPS. Single target, AoE... doesn't matter. Fire is best, especially with good recharge bonuses. As far as secondaries go, /Fire or /Mental is the best for AoE damage, /Electric is the best for single target melee + some AoE, and /Energy is the best for a pure ranged build (thanks to Boost Range).

The problem with Fire is that all it does is damage... there's no mitigation at all. Adding a secondary like /Mental or /Ice that has some mitigation helps, but Fire Blasters tend to die a lot regardless (though so does everything around them).

My suggestions for various types of Blaster:

Best AoE damage for large teams: Fire / Mental. You get excellent AoE potential without having to spend as much time in close as Fire / Fire does, so you take less AoE splash damage. Fire / Fire is marginally higher damage but Fire / Mental is safer and has a few nice tricks other than raw damage.

Best Blapper (melee Blaster): Fire / Electric. Extremely powerful melee attacks plus Blaze, and you get good AoEs to thin out a spawn. Incredibly powerful but also incredibly fragile. Ice / Electric gives up a bit of damage but gets a couple of holds and some slows for mitigation, making it a safer option that still hits hard.

Best pure ranged Blaster: Archery / Energy. Archery has three single target attacks with a full 80' range, which is enough for a seamless attack chain with moderate +recharge. It also has a slightly longer range on its cone attack. Add in perma-Boost Range and you can stay flying safely above your enemies while dishing out pretty good damage. And most importantly, Rain of Arrows is probably the best Blaster AoE in the game... it can wipe out every minion in a spawn and doesn't take that much +recharge to use it every fight. Assault Rifle / Energy is also good... it has more AoE power but requires getting a bit closer and Full Auto isn't as good as Rain of Arrows.

Safest Blaster: Ice / Ice. You're practically a Controller, but your damage is a bit low and mainly single target. You get a ton of slows and holds plus a KD patch and some AoE DoTs though, and Blizzard is insanely damaging if enemies stay in it the full duration (like if they're held and at the -speed floor)

Really, you need to try several Blasters and see what clicks for you... they have very different feels. Electric Blast is still under-performing and Dual Pistols (if you have the Going Rogue pre-purchase) is a bit gimped (looks great though). I'd also suggest trying Energy / Energy... it's not best at anything but it feels more "super" than most since you send mobs flying all over the place and can also pound them in melee. Just be careful of the knockback in teams... you can cause a lot of chaos if you aren't paying attention to where you knock things.

I believe Acrobatics protects against a single hold from most "normal" mobs, but not always from "controller" type mobs like mentalists... they either have a higher base magnitude or they have a chance for an additional +1 magnitude like Controllers. I'm not 100% sure on that but I think it's true.

More importantly, nothing protects from stun. There are a lot of very annoying stuns at high levels... particularly from Malta (insanely long duration stuns at that) but also from others. They're most common in melee but some are ranged. Also, some of the mentalist type mobs have both a sleep and a hold... does sleep de-toggle Acrobatics now? Either way, unless you have a very tight high recharge build I'd take both Flares and Fire Blast. You'll probably want Flares anyway as a filler since it has longer range and better DPA than your immobilize.

If you never use Flares and Fire Blast, you either don't solo much (and therefore just spam AoEs) or like to use melee. In the case of not soloing, you can skip all sorts of powers since you won't really need single target DPS (though it helps on AVs) but if you like blapping you are going to be stunned a lot so you'll want attacks you can use while staggering around. Especially if you fight Malta.

Even with Rage SS isn't too great without lots of +recharge. It's absolutely brutal with stacked Rage and 6-second recharge Foot Stomp but with standard SOs or a cheap IO build it's average at best. Losing Rage would make it unplayable without very high recharge (enough to use Build Up every fight).

I'm pretty sure Bots/Traps MMs have soloed some GMs with SO-only builds, and quite a few AVs. They're a bit annoying at low levels due to lacking AoEs, but once you hit 32 you start mowing down everything in sight. Really, any combination of Bots or Thugs and /Traps, /Dark, or /Storm will be fun and effective. (/Storm probably less so with no global recharge than /Dark or /Traps, but it's so fun to play I have to include it. )

Brutes or Scrappers can also be quite good on SOs, as can Tanks if you don't mind slow (but very tough) solo speeds. Nothing really compares to a good Mastermind though for being effective without IOs.

Though one thing you should keep in mind is that SOs are not the cheapest route. Frankenslotting with cheap set IOs (the ones with lousy set bonuses that aren't popular) in the late 20s to early 30s is cheaper than SOs... you pay more up front but for a few million you can get significantly higher enhancement values (8-9 SOs worth in 6 slots) and a few minor set bonuses. Buying SOs at 30, 35, 40, 45, and 50 costs more than that, so you save in the long run. It's easy to get a few million by level 30 or so by just listing your salvage and any recipe drops that have current bids on the market for 1 inf an item... no marketing knowledge needed. Frankenslotting makes Brutes and Scrappers far more attractive because you can slot some decent recharge and endurance reduction in your attacks while still ED capping damage and getting plenty of accuracy. Melee ATs seem to have worse endurance issues so being able to squeeze in more end reduction is a huge help.

With Going Rogue coming up and a bunch of new stuff being added, I had an idea for a new attack mechanic to challenge high-defense characters. Right now the main weakness of defense-based characters is autohit attacks or critters with to-hit buffs so high they are effectively autohit (or at least auto-95%)... what if you added a few mobs with autohit attacks that had a single 50% chance to apply damage, like one tick of Hail of Bullets? That would essentially equal a standard 50% to hit chance that ignores defense, which could be a nice new wrinkle for a new AV or trial boss (we are eventually going to get to fight Praetorian Hamidon, right? ) It could also make for a challenging but slightly less annoying foe for defense based characters than those blasted Rularuu eyeballs and Devouring Earth accuracy boost crystals.

And no, this idea is not based solely on the fact that I can't afford softcapped characters and am jealous of Blasters soloing the ITF and such. Not solely based on that at least...

The best DB attack chain that you can achieve with sane recharge levels is Blinding Feint -> Attack Vitals combo, so you need Blinding Feint, Ablating Strike, Vengeful Slice, and Sweeping Strike. You also have to take Nimble Slash or Power Slice, so I'd suggest Power Slice since the Sweep combo uses it and is handy against large groups. Even if you don't want to use Sweep I'd suggest taking Typhoon's Edge because it's one of the highest damage Scrapper PBAoEs, and since you are going to have Typhoon's and Power Slice you may as well take 1k Cuts if you can fit it in. The Empower and Weaken combos are handy when leveling but once you get Attack Vitals you're really better off just mowing the enemy down with that since the extra +damage from Empower vs just Blinding Feint is pretty minor and using Weaken is giving up a lot of DPS just to get a relatively small debuff. More importantly, skipping them lets you skip taking and slotting Nimble Slash, which on a build this tight is a big help. (I'd suggest a respec since you'll need Nimble Slash at low levels to fill out your attack chain.)

DB/WP is a very tight build, so you may want to consider Ninja Run or Combat Jumping + Hurdle as a travel power. I haven't IOed one out yet but ClawsandEffect's build looks pretty good, though I personally wouldn't take Body Mastery since with Blinding Feint and a Kismet 6% to-hit IO you really won't need Focused Accuracy and with Stamina and Quick Recovery you aren't going to need Physical Perfection. I'd probably skip an ancillary pool and grab Super Speed or Super Jump and Typhoon's Edge. The other priority is enough recharge to pull off BF -> AV seamlessly, which is pretty easy... you need 127% in Blinding Feint, 108% in Sweeping Strike, and 96% in Vengeful Slice (all including enhancements). With good enhancement slotting that's only around 30-40% global recharge needed, or you can just pad the attack chain with Power Slice when Hasten is down and pretty much ignore global recharge entirely.

There is a higher damage attack chain, but it requires insane recharge (perma-Hasten levels) so I'd suggest just going with Attack Vitals. Oh, and be aware that Kinetic Combat sets cost a fortune... you could save a ton of inf by slotting for +HP and +regen instead of defense. You'll be squishier, but it won't cost half a billion to complete the build.

My first 50 was an Energy / Energy Blaster and I still loved my Archery / Energy. If you go pure range you won't use much from your secondary anyway, just Boost Range and Build Up plus the occasional Power Thrust to get something out of your face. With /Mental you'll either be skipping two of the main powers people take /Mental for (Drain Psyche and Psychic Shockwave) or else you'll be getting a lot closer to the enemy than you would otherwise need to. The big advantage to Archery/Energy is that you can stay 80-100 feet back (and up) at all times and still have a full attack chain and good AoE damage. Slot a couple of Range/Damage HOs and your cone has a 100 foot range. If you don't mind skipping some set bonuses to use Range/Dmg HOs in several attacks you can even do things like shoot Hamidon from outside the goo or snipe someone from so far away you need to target through a spotter.

Frankenslotting is very useful in the mid levels (25-40 or so). It can make a huge difference, especially when you only have 3-4 slots in many powers. In fact, it's better than slotting full sets at those levels since you generally don't have enough slots in a given power to get the good bonuses like recharge or defense.

I usually try to start grabbing cheap set IOs in the mid to late 20s so I can get some endurance reduction and recharge in my attacks while still having good damage and accuracy. I've tried frankenslotting in the teens but unless you have major endurance issues (like some Brutes) it's really not worth the hassle since you have to do it all over again in 10 levels or so. Level 26+ IOs are full SO strength or more (and the dual / triples are better than singles) and can easily be kept until your endgame build. You can play all the way to 50 on a mix of level 25 and 30 generic IOs and cheap level 25-35 set IOs and be stronger than you would have been with SOs while spending less inf than replacing SOs would cost.

DP has a particularly annoying redraw time, so it's a bit of a pain to use your secondary as part of your attack chain unless you only use one set at a time (for instance, Psychic Scream + Psychic Shockwave then switch to pistol attacks). In particular, Blapper style secondaries like Electric will be annoying. My suggestions are:

DP / Mental - Open up with your /Mental AoEs then start shooting

DP / Energy - Ignore the melee attacks and use perma-Boost Range to fight at a distance

DP / Ice - Open up with Shiver and Ice Patch then start shooting

DP / Devices is not recommended unless you like soloing and are very patient since you have no Aim or Build Up.

DP / Fire could work for an AoE build, using Combustion and FSC then Hail of Bullets or Bullet Rain. DP / Mental would be safer though.

Finally, DP / Energy is also the closest thing to a gun-fu martial artist build we have. If you like concept more than you hate redraw it could work, just color the punches so that the energy isn't as obvious.

No Fearsome Stare? More control and to-hit debuffs are always nice, though Bots tend to mow down minions fast enough that I can understand skipping it. A lot of Bots players go Mu for their patron pool because it has -KB in its AoE immobilize... good for keeping enemies from being knocked out of your Assault Bot's burn patches. I can see going Soul to keep the dark theme going though.

The big thing I notice is your Protector Bot has no defense slotted. I would suggest slotting the Blood Mandate Acc/Dam and Acc/Dam/End IOs, the Brilliant Leadership Acc/Dam and Acc/Dam/End IOs, and two level 50 defense buff IOs. The Protectors can run out of endurance if you slot no end reduction and their force fields provide excellent defense so you want those slotted up. You'll also want an Edict of the Master 5% pet defense bonus IO somewhere... I put mine in the Assault Bot on my Bots/Traps (he doesn't need endurance, just accuracy and damage).

Telekinetic Thrust does about 2/3 as much damage as Flares and has double the activation time, plus it's a melee range power and can't be used while mezzed like Flares can... all in all it's nowhere near as good as Flares as an attack. Essentially it's a copy of Power Thrust from Energy Blast except the energy part of the damage is swapped to psionic and it has double the activation time.

It might be worth taking as a "get out of my face" power but that's about it.

Technically you could eliminate the 0.7 second gap by dropping Fire Shield for Stealth or Hover and slotting another LotG for true perma-Hasten. That would also let you drop a slot from Hasten and still have only a 0.3 second gap.

Not that 0.7 seconds is in any way a meaningful delay. I assume this is a team build because you'll be extremely squishy.

Purples do three main things:

1) They give a lot of recharge, which lets people get enough recharge for their attack chain from fewer sets, leaving room for more defense sets. And of course if you depend on click powers like Integration or Healing flames higher recharge is higher survivability.

2) They give full bonuses when exemped, making characters much stronger on lower level TFs. Having high enhancement values and great set bonuses at level 20 or 25 makes a huge difference.

3) They tend to have other useful bonuses that either boost survivability (+HP) or potentially free up more slots (+accuracy), plus extremely high enhancement values. That lets people free up more slots in attacks and shift them to defensive powers or set mules. It also allows slotting more procs and boosts total damage, which is nice for Blasters and others whose main survivability tool is killing all the bad guys (or good guys) really fast.

That said, high survivability builds generally don't use as many purples as max-recharge builds. You mainly see tons of purples in archtypes that need fewer set bonuses to survive (Scrappers, Brutes, etc...) or rely heavily on boosting the recharge of AoE control powers (Controllers, Dominators).

Invulnerability tankers can cap Smashing / Lethal resists and defense while also capping HP, but they have much lower resists to non-S/L damage and no protection from psi. Electric Armor tanks can get close to capped S/L and capped energy resist, but have no defense other than pools and IOs.

Pretty much the closest thing to Granite is a perma-Dull Pain Invulnerability Tanker with softcapped S/L defense. The Granite tank will take less damage from fire, cold, energy, and negative and will be harder to hit vs a single target (unless the Invul tanker really piles on the S/L defense bonuses), but both will be near-unkillable 90% of the time and both will hate anything psychic.

EDIT: Dark Armor Tankers may actually be the most generally survivable simply because they have solid resists to everything and a ton of utility. Add in some defense from IOs and you have a tank that's pretty tough, can heal, has some minor control, and has no vulnerability to specific damage types or reliance on having multiple enemies in range. Other sets outperform Dark in certain situations but Dark is extremely versatile.

Endurance can be a pain at low levels (and even after heavy IO investment on a few builds) but there are plenty of ways to cope with it:

- Slot an endurance reduction DO in each attack starting at level 12 as your second priority (accuracy being the first priority since a miss is wasted endurance)

- Avoid damage auras and high endurance toggles pre-Stamina. Don't even run defensive shields on Scrappers or Tanks unless you really need them (like for a boss).

- Do use AoEs, but only if you can hit a group. If you hit 3+ targets an AoE is more endurance efficient than a single target attack.

- Attacks use more endurance per minute than most toggles. Be sure to slot them accordingly. (Do slot any toggles for end reduction too unless they're dirt cheap like combat Jumping).

- Pick the right power set for your playstyle. If you solo a lot, avoid things like Earth Controllers and certain Defenders that have low damage outputs since you'll have to attack longer (and burn more endurance) to win a fight. I find Blasters incredibly energy efficient since all they do is blast things... drop an SO worth of end reduction in each power and you'll rarely have to worry about your blue bar even before Stamina.

- IOs are your friends. It's actually cheaper to frankenslot (pick cheap set IOs just for the enhancement values and don't try for good set bonuses) in the late 20s to early 30s than it is to buy SOs through 50. You can get very high enhancement values that way, such as 90%+ damage and 60% or so accuracy, recharge and endurance reduction, which will pretty much eliminate most characters' endurance problems unless they're Plant/Storm or something similarly power hungry.

And if you really do want to play one of those high endurance combinations, run a lot of task forces and use the merits to buy Miracle and Numina's recovery uniques to put in Health. They're expensive, but a few power sets are very hard to get endurance neutral without them.

Or just play a Regen Scrapper or a Willpower Tanker, Scrapper, or Brute and take Quick Recovery plus Stamina. You'll pretty much never have to look at your blue bar.

Trust me, you want Archery/Energy. You get a full single target attack chain with a base 80' range, the best mini-nuke in the game (that also has a full 80' base range), and the longest standard cone (not counting Full Auto). With Boost Range and a couple of range IOs or Hami-Os in Fistfull of Arrows you can have a 100 foot range cone plus a 127 foot range on all your other shots. You can also push Ranged Shot to over 320 feet if you want... you'll probably need a spotter to target through though.

As far as the ugly bow goes, the Arcane Wooden bow looks decent and the Composite Bow has some cool color combinations. I prefer magic-oriented archers because I'm not really impressed with the tech-style bows (other than the Vanguard one) but they aren't that bad.