StrykerX

Fire, AR, and Archery are the best AoE Blaster primary sets. Of the three, Fire offers the highest single target damage and at least as much AoE as the others so it's definitely the overall damage king. (Archery is a lot safer though since you can use Rain of Arrows without direct line of sight.)

As far as secondaries go, /Fire and /Mental are the only ones with significant AoE damage. /Fire may have a slight edge since it has a damage aura, but it requires you to stay in melee range a lot. /Mental has a cone and a PBAoE instead of two PBAoEs and a damage aura, so you can open up from 40 feet away or so instead of jumping right into the middle of a group, though you'll still spend some time there since you'll want to use Drain Psyche to boost your regen.

Ultimately, it comes down to your tolerance for jumping around. If you don't mind hopping back and forth a lot between cone and PBAoE range, go Fire/Mental. If you'd rather just build for +HP and softcapped S/L defense and jump straight into the middle of each mob like a Scrapper, go Fire/Fire.

You can also go Fire/Ice and give up some damage for a lot of mitigation... you won't kill as fast but you'll be able to slow things to a crawl, make them fall flat on their faces, and burn them down with fireballs and fire breath. Plus you'll actually be able to use Rain of Fire to good effect.

I've played several Blasters and some of my favorites are:

Archery / Energy - build for pure ranged attacking. With perma-Boost Range, Hover, and good Ranged defense you can be very survivable and Rain of Arrows is fantastic AoE damage. It's a very fun build, though you don't have quite the damage output of some other Blasters.

Fire / Mental - AoE monster with massive single target damage too, especially with high recharge. You'll faceplant a lot unless you get a bunch of defense, but not as often as a Fire/Fire and you'll have almost as much damage.

Ice / Electric - Single target Blapper. Two holds, a damage aura, and massively powerful melee attacks let you lock down a boss or a couple of lieutenants and pummel them into the ground.

Sonic / Electric or Sonic / Energy - Put a whole spawn to sleep, then melee them down one at a time. Sonic is nice on teams too because of the -resist.

Energy / Energy - Not the best damage, but knocking things all over the place is a lot of fun solo. Not the most team friendly build though unless you are good at controlling KB.

Ice / Ice - Massive mitigation and control plus decent single target damage. Probably the most survivable Blaster around, though you'll have almost no AoE damage.

Fire / Electric - The ultimate DPS machine. Nothing else blueside has as much single target damage, but expect to die a lot unless you spring for a very expensive S/L softcapped build. (Then you only die a little more than average since you'll be pulling aggro from everything in sight. ) Fire / Energy is almost as good for hard target killing though and you have one of those so I'd just use your second build on that character for a max-recharge S/L softcapped build if you want to have a fast AV killer.

I'm pretty sure duos always got some boss spawns, but they do seem more common now. There seem to be more bosses in general compared to the old days, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

I suspect part of your problem is that you were both essentially playing pure damage squishies. Warshades don't really have much mitigation or control at level 19 and most Blasters have pretty much none at 20 that will affect bosses, so I can see a +2 boss being a real pain. Especially a Widow since they have defense and you generally don't have a ton of accuracy at 20.

On the bright side, things will get a lot better for you in one more level when you get Dwarf form... you'll actually be able to take a few hits and let your Blaster buddy burn down the bosses while you keep them occupied.

AR/Dev also has a better alpha strike if you're willing to spend 5 minutes laying mines...

(Though I'd rather spend those five minutes clearing half the map with the Fire/Mental )

Or just buy a -KB IO for Combat Jumping... they can be had for a few million if you are patient and one is enough to negate about 95% of KB attacks.

Remember that while held or stunned you can only use Snap Shot, Aimed Shot, and Subdual. As a Blaster, you will spend a considerable amount of time held or stunned. I would never make a Blaster without taking both of my basic single target blasts... you need them for a good ranged single target chain and especially for use while mezzed. You could carry a lot of Break Frees, but being able to kill mezzers without needing to pop one helps a lot.

Slow stuff down then burn it, and drop enemies that get too close on their butts with Ice Patch. Plus you get a hold to slap on anything that reaches melee range if you want to take it. Should be a decent combo... I'd suggest going Cold for your APP because Shiver + Snow Storm + Rain of Fire should be great and all that -recharge should be decent mitigation.

I like Psychic Scream -> Fire Breath -> Fireball. I don't have PSW yet on my Fire/Mental Blaster but just using the cones and Fire Ball does a pretty good job and it can be used at range where PSW requires getting in the middle of a group and therefore not being in position to use cones. Once I switch to set IOs I plan to get some +range in Fire Breath... if I can get it to 60' like Psychic Scream it should be a lot easier to hit enemies with both cones.

PSW looks like a great attack but with only a 25% stun chance I'm not sure it's worth getting in the middle of the action to use it. I plan to take it and use it in groups or fire it off solo when multiple enemies get close to me, but I'm not planning to use it as part of my standard AoE chain unless I get a lot better at quickly hopping in and out of the enemy group so I can use my cones too.

Stamina is pretty much required for a Blaster unless you want to spend a fortune on IOs (and it's useful even then), so that's three power choices required. I'd suggest Hurdle rather than Swift if you like Ninja Run... using Hurdle + Ninja Run as a mini-Super Leap is faster than running with Swift + Ninja Run and doesn't require fooling with Sprint.

Aid Self is a huge benefit for a Blaster. You can use it to almost eliminate downtime once you have Stamina by healing up between fights... Stamina plus halfway decent endurance slotting (I suggest frankenslotting with cheap sets) means almost never running out of endurance since you won't be running many toggles so the thing that slows you down is health. Being able to top off your green bar after every fight is worth the two power picks, and you can also use Aid Self in combat if you time it well (the interrupt period is only one second) or just duck behind something.

Fighting is only useful if you are trying to softcap defense and need Weave.

Leadership is pretty pathetic on Blasters due to their low buff values. It can be useful if you run with a premade team and everyone takes Assault and Maneuvers but otherwise it's not worth the endurance.

Some people love Hasten... I personally tend to skip it unless I'm going for a high recharge build and will have it up most of the time or I just have a spare power pick. It's handy for bosses and EBs but hardly vital. But then I prefer powers that boost my performance full time over part time buffs... I even tend to put off Build Up and Aim for a while (though I do get them).

Flight is a huge benefit to Blasters... you can avoid most melee attacks simply by being out of reach. Grab Swift instead of Hurdle for a speed boost, especially with Hover. And do take Hover... it costs a lot less endurance than Fly, is faster in combat than Fly, and it has some -Fly protection to keep you from being dropped by Web Grenades and such.

Personally, I'd go with Swift, Health, Stamina, Stimulant (or Aid Other), Aid Self, Hover, and Fly. Then add Hasten if you have room. Or skip Fly and just use Ninja Run for travel and Hover for combat, though flight is a lot of fun so I tend to take Fly anyways.

The only problem with Dull Pain is the 2-3 minute recharge. A Tanker mey only need healing that often, but a Scrapper (especially one not IOed out) only has 75% max S/L resists (likely around 70% with Tough) and moderate defense. That may not be enough to keep you going until Dull Pain recharges.

Aid Self is actually pretty easy to use in combat for a Scrapper if you don't have a DoT on you... unlike a tank you aren't the focus of all the bad guys' attention so you can jump back and hit Aid Self (especially with an interrupt reduction enhancer) while the guy you are fighting steps up to hit you. And you can also duck behind cover for a few seconds without worrying about losing aggro control and letting the squishies get clobbered. I would try to work in Resist Energies though.... energy is a common damage type.

The defense debuff on Irradiate is usually worth the same as every other defense debuff: nothing whatsoever beyond a chance to slot an Achilles' proc. Once you get a decent build you generally are going to hit things 95% of the time anyway so defense debuffs don't (usually) matter. You'll have occasional places they're handy, like Elude users and +5 mobs, but it's rare.

The real question is, are you going to be surrounded by enemies a lot? If you like getting up close and personal then a nice PBAoE attack will help out, but if you mainly stay at range you won't get much use from it. I'd say go Irradiate + Neutron Bomb if you like melee (since both work well when surrounded) and Electron Haze + Neutron Bomb if you are normally at range.

I far prefer Rain of Arrows to full nukes for normal play. With good recharge you can use it every spawn (while teamed... solo you kill them too fast unless you have bosses) and it wipes out minions at long range while leaving lieutenants fairly damaged. I like to open up with Aim or Build Up plus Rain of Arrows and Explosive Arrow from 100+ feet (Boost Range), alternating Aim one spawn and Build Up the next. Also, Rain of Arrows doesn't need line of sight so it can be used very safely.

Don't get me wrong, Nova and the other full nukes are fun, they just don't figure into routine play since they recharge so slowly. I tend to save them for emergencies or just pop them on a random spawn now and then for fun if things are going well, but Rain of Arrows is a core part of my archer's attack chain.

Pet powers are only affected by enhancements that match that power's type. The display is messed up because the pet summon power accepts all those types, but the actual pet abilities do not. The attacks are flagged to accept Damage but not Resist enhancers and are set to schedule A, so they are properly enhanced by Damage slotting and unaffected by Resist slotting. The shields are flagged to accept Resist but not Damage enhancements and are set to schedule B, so they are not increased by Damage slotting and cap at 60% as normal with Resist slotting.

Even though Damage and Damage Resist are considered the same thing internally by the game engine, the enhancements that provide it are flagged with a type (Resist or Damage) and pet abilities ignore all enhancements in the summon power that don't match one of that ability's type settings... that's why (for instance) slotting a Lich with an Acc/Hold IO only boosts accuracy on his Hold powers and slotting Pet Damage set Acc/Dam does not boost accuracy of non-damaging controls. Things like putting Centrioles in Thermal shields works because if a power accepts any of an enhancement's type flags you can slot it and it will have full effect, but that only applies to Hami-Os since they (and the lower level versions like Titan-Os) are the only enhancements with such a wide range of flags. IOs are flagged for a particular type of power (a Hold set Acc/End IO is still a Hold enhancement) but Hami-Os are flagged for every effect they generate.

In the case of the Ember Demon's shields, I suspect the devs have (or will) set the shields to not be enhanceable for Range. That would keep Centrioles from affecting them. As far as the power effects UI goes... well, don't expect that to be accurate any time soon since they'd have to recode things to get it to display properly for certain oddball (mostly pet) powers.

Increasing the magnitude of your KB does increase how far a target is knocked back. Take your total KB magnitude and subtract the target's KB protection... if that result is:

Zero or less: No effect, the target is not knocked down

Between zero and one: The target is knocked down but not back

One or higher: The target is knocked back, with higher KB magnitude equaling longer KB distance

Knockback and Knockdown are exactly the same thing, which one you get depends on the final amount of KB applied. Also, if the target has KB resistance or vulnerability it will reduce or increase that final value before checking to see how far to knock them. (That's why lower level foes and KB vulnerable ones can get knocked back by powers that normally do knockdown).

Finally, Knockup is a little different. KU powers can't be enhanced for KB and I'm pretty sure their effects don't scale with magnitude (probably to avoid problems in areas with low ceilings).

Pistols has no secondary effects with any ammo type. It cannot deal KB, slow, deal -damage, or apply a DoT. All the other powers will have a DoT using Incendiary ammo but with Pistols all you do is change 30% of the damage from Lethal to Fire.

I'd rather of a full team of Storm/Energy...