dave_p

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An idiot thread by an idiot OP who is incapable of realizing the effect of debuff resists.

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Actually they are. Or rather, Requiem, Romulus, and Romulus Augustus are.

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It does vary from boss to boss, but in general, I've found Chilblain's immobilization effect on AVs to be less than outstanding. But again, its other effects and benefits are what help me win.

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According to culex's spreadsheet , most AVs have a very low Immob protection, even when the purple triangles are up. Of course he doesn't list their resists and since most of us slot our immobs for damage, it just might be that we're not stacking the mags for enough time. Then there are the AVs that run around non-stop no matter how much you try to immob them (Diabolique, Mako... ).

Lift already had better DPA than Propel. The new damage scale, if applied, would bring it up to Fire control (Char & RoI) levels, maybe a bit higher. W/containment, that's outdamaging many blaster T1 & T2 blasts.

Before the market, I was playing for a month, letting my sub lapse for a month, etc. Since I started playing the markets, I've played for 16mo straight. I'd still be here w/o the markets, but I wouldn't have 2 or 3 of my vet badges, and I sure as hell wouldn't have as much fun just playing the game either (being able to afford whatever you want tends to make the rest of the game smoother too).

Got quite a stockpile of those (at least I think I do--I have a ton of the lvl 40+s, but I'm pretty sure I have quite a few of the lower lvls ones too). What server you on, Ful?

Yeah, I always buy the leaping stealth IO (cuz it's cheaper) and stick it in Sprint. If I can't afford the end for Sprint (my lowbies), I just toggle it on/off every minute or so (lasts 120 sec), though if I'm constantly fighting, I don't bother since it'll just be suppressed anyway. All my squishies have the Stealth IO and SS for full stealth, unless they have powers like Steamy Mist or Sup. Invis. I'll prolly do that for my melee too one of these days, just stick it in a prestige sprint and only activate it in those rare occasions when I don't wanna be seen w/my tank or scrapper.

A proc in a damage aura generally does about 16% of ED capped damage, or one damage SO's worth. At least that's been my experience when keeping track w/Herostats. So after you ED cap your damage aura for damage & end redux, and have enough acc to hit consistently, it's a very good idea to add a proc or two. For almost all PBAoE powers, I just 6-slot Obliteration, but for damage auras, I usually go:

Scir: D/E, A/D/E, lethal proc
Multi Strike: D/E, A/D/E
Eradication: energy proc

That's almost ED capped at 50, though you can swap out the Multi Strike A/D/E for a Cleaving Blow D/E and cap your dam & end redux, but I like having higher acc. I pick the Eradication proc to mix up damage types. In Death Shroud, this would get you neg, lethal & energy types. You even pick up a bit of +regen and neg resist bonuses.

QR

Here's the thing about Ice/Storm--you don't have to use all your powers, all the time. In fact, you really shouldn't. You pick & choose which combos are best for the situation at hand.

Need a leadoff? Ice Slick + Freezing Rain, both cast around a corner for zero return fire. Wanna do damage? AA, Frostbite, Tornado, Lt Storm. Got a corner? Add Hurricane. Wanna debuff? Hurricane (in a circle, or corner) and FR, Shiver, Snow Storm, whatever. Wanna stun bosses? Thunderclap & Tornado. Wanna slow things into oblivion? Um... pretty much, everything works for that. Need a lockdown? You still have Glacier. Wanna defend an area, keep things away from squishies? Hurricane, FR, AA, Gale, Lt Storm. Positioning? Hurricane & Gale. AV fight? Tornado, FR, Lt Storm. You even have O2 boost for spot heal/buffs.

Early on in your life, you'll use Ice Slick a lot, and you'll love it to pieces. At 50, I hardly touch the power, but it's still good to have around for taking the alpha around corners and such (which is to say, not taking the alpha at all). Ice/Storm is a bit of a challenge to play well, but once you get the hang of it, it's an incredibly powerful combo, *does* have synergy, and loads of fun. I've often said before that my Ice/Storm was the most fun I've had taking a controller to 50, and I still stand by that.

Nothing wrong w/the other combos in the OP's list either. Grav/Storm can do some interesting things w/Wormhold & Hurricane for positioning or WH & Thunderclap for stacked stuns and whatnot. Fire/Storm is a damage beast too, maybe rivaling Fire/Kin.

You know, the current level of Snipe damage, which is to say DPA, isn't all *that* bad. Adjusted for Arcanatime, most snipes do about 70~75% damage of T1 or 2 blasts, and about the same DPE as well. Considering their range and front loaded appeal, and the availability of some seriously cheap snipe sets out there, I'm not so sure it really needs that much love. Then again, I only have a snipe in one of my dual builds on just one of my blasters, so who am I to argue?

PvP? No such thing. PvE? High def builds w/a self heal and some controls and you're getting there. Looking at the OP, going for S/L def is a bit weird for a blaster, esp an Ice blaster, tho. I'd go for capped Range w/AoE in the high 30s and use your powers to keep things at range (very easy for Ice/Ice). Otherwise, anything pure psi or whatever will shred you. Toxic alone will completely waste this build when not in Hibernate (psst, it doesn't last forever).

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The rains do lose the buff when the duration of Aim or Build Up wear off. It's a bummer, but it's better than nothing. Which they used to get, I believe.

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Wow, learn something crappy every day. Guess I'll be modifying my attack chain a bit.

I like your add ons, but it might threaten to overwhelm a completed newbie to blasting. If you're considering an intermediate section, I'd also write something about activation times and how they affect overall damage output. This is sort of a pet peeve of mine, but a lot of ppl just look at the big numbers and don't consider how long it took them to achieve it or that a string of faster, but smaller attacks will often beat the big slow attack out. Then again, there's value to burst damage as well, so maybe something about burst vs. sustained damage might be appropriate for a 200 level course.

Assuming you're going to 6 slot them both anyway, it really doesn't take a ton of difference where you put it. If you go for bonuses, and your alternate slotting is, say, 6-slotting Thunderstrikes, if you 5-slot Apoc (skip the Dam) and stick in a A/D/R Thunderstrike in the 6th, you get a better return in the longer recharging BIB. Then again, if you want the proc bonus to fire more often, it'd be better served in the quicker recharging Chilblain (assuming Chilblain is in fact a regular part of your attack chain, prolly for immobing the AV). Of course, the proc would be better yet in Ice Bolt, and then 5-slot the rest of the Apoc set in BIB, though you waste a lot of +dam that way (no need for a 6th slot in BIB in this case unless you want another proc or a +range or something).

BTW, Chilblain has almost as good a DPA as Ice Bolt and better DPE. It's actually not a bad idea to work it into your normal attack chain in an AV fight instead of Ice Bolt, in which case you would in fact be casting it more than BIB, or at least equally depending on your attack chain.

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I've tanked 3 GMs at once and they can't hurt me fast enough to overcome my regen

[/ QUOTE ]And you found 3 GMs at once, where? If you're referring to the Devouring Earth things, those aren't GMs.

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DE GMs found in PI & Eden aren't GMs? Why's that?

You could sometimes find 3 Paladins in a group. Also Lusca's head & 2 tentacles would count. 3 Winter Lords during an event, or Jack, Eochai and a single event GM. You could find 3 GMs at once even w/o resorting to DE monsters.

Wait, why would you lose the Aim (assuming you lead w/Aim) by the time you fire off Blizzard? Not considering Arcanatime, Aim & BU both activate in 1.17s and IS & Blizzard both have 2.03 cast times. That's not even close to Aim (& BU's) 10s duration, or are you saying the rain pseudopets lose the buffs as they wear off?

Or you can just perma your PA and be done w/it. Ill/Kin FTW!

They're super cheap now. Well, "cheap" might be relative, but you can get Karmas for like 5M or less (used to be in the 10-20M range).

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Ummm...sure, I guess.

Why is this in the Tanker forums, just out of curiosity?

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Cuz this is where Stone tanks live? I know mine has some silly runspeed out of Rooted/Granite... Guess brutes might want that too.

Since Blizzard drains your end, I'd definitely apply Ice Storm *before* Blizzard. And I do. BU+Aim+IS+Blizzard, all around a corner, is an awesome combo.

To the OP, the guide is very well thought out and is prolly comprehensive enough for anyone looking to make a new blaster. Everything I write below can be used as a reference, but honestly can be ignored for a beginner's guide. Having said that, some number crunching comments:

There are nukes, and there are NUKES. Thunderous Blast is a low damage nuke. Higher than the non-end drainers (RoA, FA), but lower than Nova, Inferno, etc. It's what you pay for having range. FA, I wouldn't even categorize as a nuke, just a high damage cone, tho because of the long animation time, its DPA is rather meh. In fact, FA has the lowest DPA of all of AR's cones. Also lower than Fistful or Energy Torrent as a comparison (but higher than Fire & Frost Breaths and far higher than Howl).

RoA, while a nice mini-nuke, also suffers from a long animation time and its DPA end up being merely good, not great. Fire Ball is higher. Still good tho, it's just that Fire Ball is fantastic. Of course, it almost matches Thunderous Blasts' total damage, and at range, and w/no end drain, which speaks more to TB, I think, than RoA. Dreadful Wail is also a low-end Nuke, the lowest PBAoE nuke, but has fantastic secondary effects and is somewhat fast animating (a true emergency power). Nova & Psy Wail are both NUKEs and Inferno's king of the PBAoEs, almost getting up to Blizzard level w/o all the fuss about DoTs (well, there's some, but they're nearly instantaneous).

ST damage: w/just the T1 & 2 attacks, AR is about middle of the pack. Arch & Elec are a bit lower, En, Fire, Ice & Psy above. Son is just pathetic on pure damage, but maybe makes up for it w/the -resist debuffs. I tend not to think so in most fights, since the front loadedness of blaster damage will tend to kill things before the debuffs really add up. AV fights and the like are exceptions.

When you add in your heavy blast, Fire, Ice & Psy (more Fire than Ice or Psy) run away w/it. Blaze is just sick and BIB & TK Blast aren't far behind. Blazing Arrow is actually pretty good too, not too far behind TK Blast, so Arch pulls above avg here. Energy kinda fades here cuz Power Burst's animation kills its DPA which isn't much better than the T1 & 2 blasts. Elec & AR don't even get a heavy hitter. Son's heavy is equally pathetic as its T1 & 2 blasts, though its debuff lasts longer. Even if you remove the animation time, Shout barely outdamages Power Blast straight up.

AoEs, you did a pretty good job of them, except again, Son's cones are rather pathetic, though they all have very good secondary effects attached to them. Even w/-resist in mind tho, *every other cone* in the blaster stable at least *DOUBLES* Howl's DPA, with the only exception being Frost Breath which merely beats it by like 80%. Buckshot nearly TRIPLES Howl's DPA.

In short, I'd rank ST damage as:

Fire >> Ice > Psy > Arch >> En > AR > Elec >>> Son

AoE as:

Fire > AR > Arch >> En > Elec > Ice > Psy >>> Son

or if you can fully leverage your rains and Ignite patches and whatnot:

Fire > AR > Arch > Ice > En > Elec > Psy >>> Son

and mitigation as:

Ice = Son > Elec > Psy > En > AR > Arch > Fire

Mitigation is a lot harder to gauge since it depends a lot on playstyle, team or solo, what secondary you take, etc.

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And although I continue to build toon after toon with AV soloing in mind, it's only to solve the problem: "How do I set to the highest difficulty, and then go wherever I please and do what I please, whenever I choose, with or without teammates, and stand a reasonable chance of succeeding without having to make a lot of preparations?"

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This. I like being able to tackle 8-man invinc spawns on a "squishie" AT (or hell, even a scrapper) and win. Not that I don't like teaming, but if I get separated or there's an ambush or something goes wrong, I like knowing that I can take pretty much whatever the game can throw at me, even if my team happens to be dead or away.

BTW, many AV/GM solo fights do turn into a boring button-mashing fest, but to this day, my favorite fight ever in CoH was when I soloed Infernal in a 30-min marathon. It was never boring, not even for a second. When you're a sliver away from dying at all times, you don't have time to get bored. And it was never just a button mashing fest--there was a ton of maneuvering & tactics involved. This was of course before IOs, hell, even before ED.

Nowadays, fights have gotten a lot more predictable w/IOs where you don't have to think about things like terrain or tactics in general like we used to. It's just +def, +regen, calculate your DPS & end recovery, have a backup heal and done. I still think the planning & building part is fun, but the fight itself isn't nearly as exciting as it used to be.

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mean, i can stand in the middle of two level 54 boss spawns and afk.

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These are not the limits of Stone that we aspire to. There's far more that can be done, and it sometimes takes Tough/Weave.

Having said that, I previously used Maneuvers, not Weave, to get my last bits of S/L def, but I just finished a respec that gets me to 44.5% S/L w/o either Man or Weave which makes me much happier. So yeah, it's not needed, but it's a whole lot easier to get to where Granite is hardly used except as an emergency power.

There's the first few seconds before RI is activated when you're vulnerable. Then theres when your anchor inevitably drops. Then there are AVs and other resistant mobs against whom RI does surprisingly little. A high base def covers almost all the very few holes a Fire/Rad has in the first place, and 2x Maneuvers is good for that. Really, I"m not saying it's a must have or anything, but it's good to have and I think there's room for it in most builds, esp considering you're benefitting at least 8 different entities w/a single toggle (2 Fire/Rads and their imps).

Yeah, we've gone around this before. I've actually modified my stance somewhat that I no longer advocate Leadership for all builds, but for a duo of Rads, I still think it's worth it. Say you happen to be going for high def builds--it'd be far easier to achieve def-cap (or near it) on a pair of Fire/Rads w/both running Maneuvers, esp after they throw up RI. Then there's 2x Assault stacked w/2x AM w/containment & Hotfeet w/2 EFs running. Yum. Then there're 6 imps to think about who'll get the benefits of all that stacking described above.

Still, I'm no longer of the mindset that no Leadership = Fail so there's progess for ya.

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to ops..why did you slot active defense with 2 hamis?.

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slotting Active Defense with Hamis will Enhance the value of your resistance to Defense Debuff. It doesn't show in mids but it works in game.

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Does that work for Grant Cover also?

Gotta love HO "bugs".

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If you are using Hover for KB protection

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Unless you're talking about slotting a Karma or Blessing in Hover, what KB protection? Last I knew, they got rid of that "bug", or did they put it back? I run w/multpile -KB IOs so really don't notice it...

If you're stacking Fire/Rads, definitely also take the Leadership powers--all of them, in fact. 2X Maneuvers, Assault & Tactics becomes very powerful. Vengence on one or the other when things get through. Stack AM to get them perma quickly (you'll both need some decent recharge bonuses, but not nearly as much as solo). Stack Hotfeet, get containment, cast EF, things will die quickly. Both running Choking Cloud, w/RI & your AoE stun/holds alternating means you shouldn't get touched much either (and again, Maneuvers is up). Really hard to mess up.