TwoHeadedBoy

I still stand by my submission, but if you ever get tired of playing inferior archetypes and better at making inf, you should make a Human-Form Warshade.

Yea Tri Form AOE is better than Human Form, but Orbiting Death and Dark Detonation with a FF+Rech proc in it are nothing to sneeze at. The FF proc keeps Unchain Essence up decently often which is a beastly AOE attack. Basically though, going human form only means sacrificing the AOE of tri form for better ST, better survivability, and better control.

I agree that a Warshade is probably not the best thing for a new player to make. The learning curve is high, but once you familiarize yourself with the game more and more, you'll eventually be ready to take on the mantle. I sort of think it was good design to have Kheldians locked behind playing a character to level 50 because of the added difficulty and plethora of diverse play style and build options, but what can you do.

All this being said, once you acquaint yourself better with mechanics and get a better "hang" of things in general, you'll find that a Warshade is one of the most potent AT's in the game with an incredibly rewarding experience to boot. If you ever feel the need to get inspired, myself and I'm sure many others would be happy to provide you with an in-game demonstration at any point. For now though, enjoy the game. There's so much fun to be had that it's ridiculous.

Now wait a minute. I still prefer Ragnarok and Javelin Volley over both, the latter probably only being true on my personal build.. But Ragnarok stomps Posi Blast and Kheldian's Grace on a global level every time in my book.

I know the tone is a bit more harsh than we might be used to, but for what it's worth I'm pretty sure Dechs was being ironical and at least partially kidding with this, since Alien clearly does write guides and contribute to the community, lol. Dechs is a stand up guy, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt on this one.

And just for fun, this is what I'd do without budget restrictions (the rule of 5 conflicts are from HP bonuses from Kinetic Combat and Panacea sets, but HP is capped anyways so it doesn't matter.) This build can actually switch Agility for Musculature and still be softcapped, but then it would lose perma hasten by some seconds. Spiritual might honestly be the best bet.

Man, the PVP folks give this game a bad name... Not that there are too many of them, but I've never seen any other "sub-sect" of this game be as rude and downright unhelpful as the few people who PVP. The min/maxers are nice compared to the PVP crowd, and the RP'ers make them all look like Satan in comparison.

More s/l? Nope. Actually, building both SS/Fire and Archery/Mental to 45% and 32.5% s/l defense, it hurts the Brute much more in terms of damage output. The recharge suffers drastically on the Brute whereas the Blaster can have the best of all worlds (there are more than two) when it comes to high end optimization.
Yeah, but the Blaster has close to hardcapped regen, which is arguably more useful than rounded resists when you stack it on top of the Blaster's "kill to survive" capabilities, which are by no means inhibited in my build approach.. Oh, and 53% s/l resists are covering it also.
A Break-Free macro goes a long way. Ageless is good for optimizing AOE and definitely worth taking, but more than one Destiny power can be had per-character, so there's nothing wrong with equiping Clarion against mez-heavy enemy groups.... But that also involves assuming they can hit you A.) Through your defense, and B.) Before you kill them.
I respectfully disagree. Regenerating 130 HP per second and having a personal force field wins every time in my book. Plus the previously mentioned stuff.
With 53% resistance and softcapped defense with one small purple to most damage? Assuming your target isn't dead already? Practicality needs to be taken into account. If something is hitting you with that much damage, anyone is going to be in trouble, regardless of AT.
Yes. Yes it is. It's a huge difference. My SS/Fire regenerates 12.82 HP per second with 51% s/l resists. My Blaster regenerates 130.4 HP per second with 53.1% s/l resists.
I'm not talking about regen alone. I'm talking about almost hardcapped regen, on top of 32.5% s/l defense, 53% resistance, and capped HP (which I haven't mentioned yet.) All of that on top of the Blaster's natural ability to absolutely demolish everything before it's even touched.

*EDIT* Just to clarify. I'm not arguing that, overall, Blasters have more survivability potential than Brutes. That'd be silly. I'm just arguing that Blasters have competitive and often better survivability as opposed to /FA Brutes which is the only set that can even attempt to compete with Blasters' AOE output at the highest end, and still loses.

Drain Psyche and 20 billion influence is Blaster defense. I know it sort of sucks for balancing sets, but it's just too good not to use if you're serious about your Blaster's performance. You can almost hardcap your Blaster's regen, while achieving almost 200% global recharge and ridiculous enhancement values in all of your attacks, plus softcapped or 32.5% defense to most damage and ~50% resistance.

I know I'm regurgitating at this point, but this is what I was talking about earlier.

First: I know the game isn't "balanced" around IO's, but I just don't care at all. Berate me or disagree with me because of that, but that won't make me care either. I just don't.

Second: I use IO's. I use the best IO's when I take a character seriously. I discuss things on the forums that I take seriously.

Third: You're welcome to disagree. I don't care what you use in your builds. I don't care if you agree with me or not. If you're personable and fun to play with, and you take the time to be aware of your surroundings, I will probably enjoy playing with you. I'm only talking about the standard I set for my characters.

Alright. Now that's cleared up...


If you invest the maximum amount of inf. into the best Brute combination and the best Blaster combination, here's what happens. The Blaster does more AOE damage. The Blaster does more ST damage. The Blaster has comparable, if not better survivability, assuming a damage oriented build. Read the rest of my posts in this thread for elaboration, but a Blaster's potential is higher than probably any other AT assuming max investment.

Nope, SS/Fire beats out Fire/Mental on AOE. I have one of those too- It beats out Archery/Mental on ST damage and has the same survivability potential though I haven't really invested in mine yet. Read my last post, Archery/Mental wins overall due to the crashless nuke and is my current project. Sent you a PM with the build.

And my point has been that Blasters aren't just "fine" with high end builds. Blasters win with high end builds, compared to anything else with a high end build, when it comes to straight-up shredding. SS/Fire is the premiere Melee combo and that's why I've been using it in my comparisons so often.. But the point is that max investment considered in both SS/Fire and a high end Blaster set (I've only looked at Archery/Mental in comparison, but I'm sure other sets could beat it as well) the Blaster does much more damage and has better conditional survivability (see:10 targets) to boot.

Honestly, with IO's and resources considered, Blasters are completely broken in almost every sense, including survivability.

For reference, my Blaster project is Archery/Mental. The build I'm working on has 32.5% s/l defense (softcapped with one small purple) 53% resistance, 1948% regen, permanently, assuming 10 targets (even without full saturation, just holy-crap-insane almost hardcapped regeneration) and has over 190% global recharge. The crashless nuke is up every 14 seconds- Even less when you consider FF +recharge in the tAOE that recharges every 4 seconds, and Ageless. It also has Psychic Shockwave up in less than 5 seconds, and standing in melee isn't going to be a problem. After all of this is considered, it also has a regen debuff and an ST chain that can solo Giant Monsters.

If anything, Blasters are broken in the best way possible, assuming you can afford to optimize one. I know that not everyone has the time or capacity to make the inf. to do so, but that's alright. Games like this are great because you can set goals. Try to save up the resources for one high end IO a week to make a beastly blaster. At the highest level of investment, once you put the effort into making a good Blaster, you'll blow every other damage dealer out of the water.

Blasters are designed to be the kings of damage. IO's are designed to maximize performance. At the highest level of investment, and performance optimization, I cannot find a single AT's combinations that can even come close to the capabilities of the Blaster I am working on.

It is not only the best AOE damage output I've ever concocted on paper, but it's also more survivable than the majority of high end Brutes I've come up with on paper- Granted, those Brutes always use Fiery Aura because the damage from FA is too good not to use if you plan on investing in a character whose primary role is damage dealer.

The Blaster beats out SS/Fire in terms of AOE damage. The Blaster beats out SS/Fire in terms of ST damage. The Blaster beats out SS/Fire in terms of survivability, in most cases. The last point isn't definitive because it assumes decent saturation for Drain Psyche, but everything else is 110% guaranteed.

You're just not optimizing your Blasters, or you're not playing the right sets. Blaster's damage potential is obscene, and it makes Brute and Scrapper AOE look like a joke. Not to mention the fact that Blasters have access to a regen debuff, making them much better at handling tough targets.