dave_p

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skip any powers that state in any way: freeze ray, frost breath or ice storm in their titles.

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Wow, I don't agree with any of that. I have no experience with Dark/Ice specifically, so maybe that is good advice for that particular combination, but all of those powers can be good in general.

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Yeah, I have a Dark/Ice and I can tell you those powers work great with Dark primary, and in much the way you speculate in the rest of your post. To wit:

Freeze Ray is a better hold than PG, but with both, you have instant held bosses. Who'd want that, right? Ice Storm is indeed a very good AoE damage power (indeed, one of the best non-nukes Defenders get), and it slows mobs, which can be stacked w/Tar Patch to make sure things aren't running out of their radii. In fact, lead off w/that combo and follow up w/Blizzard to see real meltage (er, frostage). Frost Breath is much maligned, but actually a very good cone, though I can see skipping this for defenders (love it on my Ice blaster though).

Anyway, I have a Cold/Dark and his "evil" twin, a Dark/Ice, and I love both combos to death (usually, the enemy's). Highly, highly recommended combo. As for what can be skipped, that really depends on what you want out of your build. For max debuffage, a lot of ppl skip even the hold powers (this might be where the 1st reply comes from), but I think having 2 ST holds is far too powerful an ability to ignore (again, insta-held bosses!). However, more than 2 aren't really necessary, so I'd skip Bitter Freeze Ray for sure. Black Hole, of course, can easily be skipped out of Dark, and you'll likely have a tight build since all the rest of the powers are tasty, so I'd likely recommend you skip Frost Breath. Unless you're going for a more offender build w/lots of AoEs, in which case FB is a must. Other than that, really, not a lot of skippable powers I'm afraid.

I finally updated my DPA spreadsheet using Arcanatime. This is what I get for MA. Just as a comparison, I'll included Fire.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Martial Arts Damage Act. DPA (With Arcanatime)
Thunder Kick 57.8 0.83 54.73
Storm Kick 103.2 0.83 97.73
Cobra Strike 17.2 1.67 9.31
Crane Kick 134.9 1.67 73.00
C. Axe Kick 112.9 1.6 61.09
Dragon's Tail 81.2 1.5 47.32
Eagle's Claw 164 2.53 59.16

Fiery Melee Damage Act. DPA
Scorch 72.8 1 61.28
Fire Sword 110.9 1.33 70.01
Cremate 137.9 1.5 80.36
Breath of Fire 113.6 2.67 39.12
Fire Sw Circle 126.7 2.67 43.63
Incinerate 172 1.67 93.07
G. Fire Sword 207 2.33 82.54
</pre><hr />

Damage &amp; Activation numbers are straight out of Mids'. The DPA adjusts for Arcanatime in the calculation. *If those are accurate* (big if), I think MA gets unfairly maligned, esp for not having very good AoE damage. Sure it's no Spines, but Dragon's Tail actually has better numbers than all the other PBAoE attacks including the beloved FSC. What MA is missing is a cone (or 2) to complement the PBAoE, but consider that most ppl skip Breath of Fire, and I don't think too many ppl think Fire's AoE potential is all that gimp. As for ST numbers, Storm Kick is the highest ST DPA scrapper attack as well (Incinerate would be #2, though Fire has higher damaging 2nd~4th attacks). Of course it's all Smashing, but we don't complain (too much) about Kat or DB for being all Lethal... do we?

Having said that, MA doesn't have anything as blatantly broken like DA/Parry or any sexy debuffs or combos or exotic damage types, the stuns aren't really reliable and the KBs can be annoying. Still, in terms of pure damage output, MA seems very competitive.

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I prefer fire/ice, because ice/ice has so many defensive tricks that is is possible to spend all your time holding, slowing, and annoying people and none of your time actually doing damage.

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To be fair, let's point out that most of the defensive trickery you speak of can be found in Ice Manipulation, not Ice Blast. So Fire/Ice is no different - in that sense - than Ice/Ice.

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I put back the bolded part of the quote you left out, which I think is very relevant to his original post, i.e. Ice/Ice can do so much mitigation, you sometimes forget to output the damage, which Fire/* excels at. Ice/* also gives you 2 holds and a slow effect in all its attacks, so it's hardly */Ice alone that gives you all the mitigation. Being able to insta-hold a boss before epics is no mean feat.

Having said that, I happen to think Fire/Ice is one of the best combinations of damage & mitigation available to blasters. I paired my own Ice/* blaster w/MM instead to give a bit more AoE damage from the seconary, since Ice excels w/ST damage & control, but isn't the best for AoE damage (doesn't suck, just isn't one of the top sets for it). Fire/Ice will give you almost as much damage output as you'll ever get (admittedly, Fire/Fire will get you more), while getting you a ton of control, esp after epics.

Ice/Ice is a fine combo and is certainly thematic (but so is Fire/Ice if your concept is a temperature controller), and you'll do ample damage with any blaster build. I just like the balance that comes w/Fire/Ice.

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I had a similar experience with Chimera not too long ago. He just kept getting lucky over and over. Or maybe I had just been lucky over and over previously. At any rate don't get discouraged after three tries, you can do it!

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Doesn't Chimera have +Acc? If you're sitting at just cap, you'll likely get hit a bit more than usual, I think. And remember, AVs get a 1.5 to hit multiplier, so even floored, they hit 7.5% of the time.

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The only time I've picked up Maneuvers on a scrapper is the case of my Kat/WP. I had 1 power pick free and tons of endurance, and my defenses were at 41.7% without. Why not softcap and give me another slot for the 5th LotG, I always say.

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Same for me. I've only picked up Maneuvers on a melee when I'm just shy of softcapping X def, and it allows me another LotG rech (and assorted set bonuses). Hardly my first pick, but it's sometimes the right choice depending on the rest of your build.

If I were going to drop an Achilles proc in RI, I'd put it in as a 4th slot. I'd never not max out the other properties of RI by 3-slotting Enzymes in there first. Of course, I'm super tight on slots and can't afford that 4th...

TF isn't all that great in the DPA dept, and won't be used much on high DPS teams, but BS sure as hell would. EP is your best ST attack, but BS is still far better than any of your ranged attacks for pure DPA/DPS. If you're looking to fill the boss killer role (and eschewing your AoEs), I'd definitely look to EP, BS, Burst & Blast to fill out your chain.

ET is also a really nice DPA cone because of the fast animation if you can manage the KB. In fact, it's possibly the best DPA blaster cone out there, including Flamethrower, Full Auto, Fire Breath, etc. I haven't redone my DPA calculations w/Arcanatime, but using straight damage/animation, ET was higher than the other cones, so if the terrain or situation calls for it, I'd use it as much as possible. Stick in a FF +rech proc for a bit more recharge in your life too.

TF, otoh, has good, but not great DPA. It's prolly not worth the end cost for just damage and animates too slowly for fast moving teams. Now its stun is invaluable on slower teams or solo, so I'd still keep it slotted, but I'd drop it from my chain on a fast team.

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with 0 enemies in range

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Don't you mean allies?

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And it will be 0, considering it's an 8' radius (your melee attack radius). If it really were enemies... well, everyone should have Invincibility, shouldn't we?

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3 How much Range defense is sufficient to solo AV's with inspirations so I don't have to limit my whole build for capping ranged)

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You will still want to be close to the soft cap, as AV's will resist the to-hit debuff from RI quite a bit. I would say no less than about 40%. I would also suggest keeping Ring of Fire and slotting for damage. When I have gone up against AV's, the biggest problem I had was a lack of single target damage.

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If you're lacking in ST damage, you should take &amp; slot Ice Blast. It's even better than Fire Blast for pure DPA. Would certainly give you more utility than Smoke (I'd move Hibernate to 49, IB at 41, take a slot each from Ice Storm &amp; Ice Armor, 3 more from somewhere else, and 6-slot w/Thunderstrikes for more ranged def too). If you have no particular desire to solo AVs, I guess there's no real need, but since the OP asked about that...

BTW, you need around 39% def to softcap vs. AVs w/RI running (slotted w/3 Enzymes). Considerably lower if you're planning on using insps, of course.

Leveling builds should go for an Acc/Dam frakenslotting approach, unless you want more recharge for things like PA or Tornado. Your final build depends on what you're aiming for. All my 50s get Blood Mandates for the +def. Both my /Rad &amp; /Storm hit ranged &amp; AoE def caps easily once their respective debuffs kick in (RA &amp; Hurricane), at least against normal mobs.

My take on blasters vs. defenders.

Blasters are a lot of fun to solo & on teams. Depending on which blaster, I really like to team w/them, but I can solo (and quite safely & quickly) w/all of them. My Fire/Ice is an AoE killing machine on teams, but can stealth/hold/kill-really-fast his way through any solo mission, and at close to range def cap, he's pretty damn hard to kill. Similarly, my Ice/MM & Arch/Fire can solo & team equally as well, though not being as IO'ed up, they're not quite as studly as my Fire/Ice. My En/En otoh, I primarily like to solo, and is very safe & efficient at it. I'm not super fond of teaming w/him, because of the KBs (on large teams, I like AoE's a LOT, and ET is just more difficult to use well on big teams than, say, Fireball). Not to say I don't, but all things equal, I'd rather just solo with him.

I *hate* soloing my defenders. All of them. They are all awesome on teams and will make any makeup into safe & efficient killing machine. I can solo w/all of them, and very, very safely (my Son/Son w/his epic shield & IO set-generated defenses can tank for most mishes), but their killing speeds are almost equally slow. Actually, they're not, but they feel slow compared to all my other toons, i.e. scrappers, blasters & controllers (post-pet, anyway). Even my tanks can solo *fast* past a certain point (say post-Foot Stomp/Frozen Aura/Shield Charge, etc), but my defenders never really get that way, even at 50. Having said that, much of this is out of design--I build all my defenders for teaming, never as "offenders", so I simply choose not to solo them.

So my answer to anyone asking which to play between the two is, play both. They're both a lot of fun to play, but for different reasons, at least for me.

If no purps and you're willing to frankenslot, Dam/Rech x 3, 1 Dam & 1 Rech generic IO (all lvl 35s will work). You could do 5x Dam/Rech, but you'll get the same #s w/the 2 generic IOs for the last bits of Dam & Rech, and it'll be cheaper that way. Assuming you never nuke w/o BU + Aim, you don't really need Acc or End redux or anything else. If it were Nova, I'd stick in a FF +rech proc, but obviously not in Inferno.

If you can float a single purp (and get the 5-set bonus elsewhere w/o it), 4 Dam/Rech's will ED cap you (this, obviously, would be a respec at 50 kind of thing). You need the Armageddon D/R to make this work w/only 4 slots.

If you're looking for set bonuses, for recharge, I'd 5-slot Obliteration (all but the proc) and 1 Dam/Rech (cheapest you can find, prolly Multi Strike. If you're going for ranged/AoE defenses, 5-slot Scirroco's (again, skip the proc) and 1 Dam/Rech, but this will not cap your recharge even using lvl 50 IOs so I don't particularly recommend this route.

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3) I'm not a huge fan of "All ranged attack" builds because, well, there's a tremendous amount of damage in the melee attacks and I love my orange numbers. Another way of thinking of it is "Scrappers get damage + protection. Blasters get damage + damage. If you aren't using the secondary, you're not that much better on offense than a Scrapper, and you're going to be a LOT worse on defense." If you're determined to have your Range only, I can't tell you that you're wrong. I can only tell you that you're not going to do as much damage.

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Fulmens pretty much nails it, but I had just one quibble. Blasters aren't just damage + damage, they're AoE damage + Big ST damage to scrappers' damage + protection. Spines aside (and even they can't really compete w/a top-end AoE blaster), blasters can mow down large numbers faster than scrappers. Of course, you can excel past scrappers w/single mobs using your secondaries as well, but I don't think it's all *that* bad to be playing 100% from range (esp if you plan on having high ranged defense).

Also, Fulmens' 2nd post is equally spot on. If you ignore BU & Aim, there's really little point in being a blaster (no, I haven't run w/an AR/Dev since i0 ).

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Quick question getting back into Blaster and really loving it at the moment. The current build I am working on is being built for defense I just wanted to know should I focus mainly on just Ranged defense or should I build for AoE and Ranged defense equally, since the toon I have stays mainly at range?

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AoE attacks are rare enough that you can, in general, get away with slotting just for ranged defense, especially since, in order to softcap (which is the general goal), you're going to be gimping yourself to softcap both.

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Depends on your powersets, but yeah, it's hard to soft-cap both w/o seriously gimping your build. Range alone is achievable w/o sacrificing too much and you should be able to get your AoE def into the high 20s/low 30s along the way, but anything much over 35% will be tough.

I just tried my Fire/Rad on test w/the psi pool swapped out for Ice Blast. Best time was 4:09 ("effective" DPS of 281.8), but that was pretty lucky w/almost no hits (hits = lost time due to healing back = lower DPS) and no misses on LR. Averaged right around 5:00 for the most part. Could still be better, because w/the available IOs on hand, my end recovery wasn't good enough to keep my attack chain on full--I'd actually have to slow down a touch on the Char &amp; RoFs, just fire Ice Blast as soon as it recharged.

Might try again with Fire Blast &amp; Bonfire slotted up and see if I can do any better (Fire Shield would also be better since Frozen Armor is useless for this build except as an IO mule). I'd like to crack 4:00 if possible. I'd still like to hear what a Fire/Kin or /Storm can do.

Mids' indeed does. A good way of telling if your set's bonus is being counted is to shift+left click on a set to flip between a proposed set and an empty set while checking out your totals window. If your bonuses (say for defenses) aren't moving, your set's not doing you any good.

And this. That was when I was just starting to make def-capped builds so mine's not all that great (no BotZs), but Quartermain & Sanctorian have some good builds in there.

Yeah, to be honest, I was wondering if my Ice/Storm could even do this w/no self heal, and I wasn't about to take the Med pool just for this challenge. I ended up taking Hibernate, but I don't know how practical that is for a (mostly) DPS stress test.

BTW, based on the scrapper thread numbers, I calculated a sub 3:30 time using Ice Blast instead of Mental Blast w/my Fire/Rad (yes, MB is really that lame). I shudder to think what a Fire/Kin/Ice can do, if those numbers bear out.

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Getting an approximate DPS value without Lingering Radiation shouldn't be too hard, if you have it perma.

LR lowers the pylon regen rate to 35.79hp/s (just checked it in game).

The maximum tohitchance being 95%, it'll regen on average 34.0005hp/s.

Using the above formula, multiplying by 1.25 for resistances, that would give you :

(38343.75 / 335) + (34.0005 * 1.25) = 156.96 DPS

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Interesting, is that inluding EF? Or does that not matter since damage done is damage done? And thank you for doing the work.

My Char-&gt;Mental Blast-&gt;RoF attack chain has something like 74.169 DPS with AM (using arcanatime), so that + imps + EF's debuff coming out to around 157DPS sounds about right. BTW, if I were to swap out Mental Blast for Ice Blast, my DPS would increase to about 195. That w/LR seems to work out to about a 3:16 finish time, which seems ridiculous, but then Ice Blast has a *far* better DPA than MB (222.73 vs. 81.06). Man, I wish I didn't need IW...

Then again, end comsumption would increase a bit too, so I don't know if my end bar would still be infinite in that scenario. Hmm... maybe a 2nd build is in order...

Edit: just saw Besserwisser's post, but I thought Nihilii factored in LR's 95% hit rate? If not, I'll have to redo my own numbers, of course...

Pylons have no regen? My experiences say otherwise. In fact, Nihilii just confirmed in this thread that:
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LR lowers the pylon regen rate to 35.79hp/s (just checked it in game).

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Also, controllers have debuffs which indirectly affect DPS. Pure DPS is calculable on paper, at least to the accuracy that we understand arcanatime fully (which we don't, but it's close enough). The Pylon gives us a "real life" # that's accurate and practical. As I stated, some builds will be better at the Pylons than others depending on if they're specced just for the Pylon or against all sorts of different (AV-class) foes.

If you wanna use insps, by all means go ahead, but for *this* stress test, I'd like to use non-insp numbers. Feel more than free to start another stress test and use whatever parameters you like--they'll all be worthwhile since they'll measure different abilities. In fact, I've always thought insps were "valid" for soloing things, but temp powers weren't, but for purposes of *this test*, I'd like to limit it to no insps.

Hope you don't mind me butting in here, but I'm very interested in the results of this thread. I started a similar thread yesterday on the controller boards, mostly inspired by the various scrapper stress tests, and am wondering how the ATs compare. Of course controllers have far more debuffing capabilities so the pure DPS #s are thrown off (esp w/-regen thrown into the mix), but I always thought the pylon solo #s were one of the best benchmarks available in the game at 50.

BTW, my Fire/Rad did it in 5:35 for around 242 "DPS", no insps, no temps. He's heavily specced for defense, more than necessary for pylons (no mez, no debuffs), able to solo pretty much all the AVs/GMs, so the DPS could in fact be better. End bar moves up during the normal attack cycle, so that's not an issue either (could prolly lower my time a bit by throwing in some EMPs in there from time to time).

BTW, I do plan on doing this w/my various scrappers, and in fact all ATs if possible (not sure if my defenders will have the DPS to pull it off). I just started w/my controllers since I have more of those at 50 than the other ATs.

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Being able to solo AVs/Pylons/GMs requires a balance of dps and survivability.

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Correct, this is a stress test of the toon as a whole, not just "how much pure DPS can you pour out". That'd be a whole different, and a valid, test, but likely, blasters would win that hands down. In fact, the "solo" designation is largely lost in that context since you'd be best conducting the test w/a few FF/Son defenders in tow, maybe a few Emps to alternate RA for infinite end, just no direct damage buffs. Then again, controllers have pets &amp; more debuffs, esp for -regen, so I *would* in fact be interested in seeing a purely offensive controller build (say Fire/Rad, Kin &amp; Storm) vs. an ST specced blaster (prolly Fire/Elec?).

Having said that, the spirit of this stress test is the essence of "soloing" which includes keeping yourself alive, and with enough end to sustain the fight. Sure, you can use insps to that end, but again, to keep things fair, it's simpler to just exclude any outside influences and compare build vs. build, powerset vs. powerset (even AT vs. AT, since I suspect a solo-specced controller can beat scrappers &amp; blasters at this).

I should also mention, my Fire/Rad's 5:35 time is with 100% suvivability. Maybe 99%, since the pylon would have to string together a whole lot of lucky rolls to outdamage my self-heal, but in a typical run, I get hit maybe 5-6 times during the whole fight (and each hit actually slows down DPS because of the self heals). Also, end drain is nil during the normal attack chain (I actually get back a bit of end during my normal attack chain), so again, this is an infinitely sustainable fight. If you were to introduce even green &amp; blue insps, I'd be able to modify the build for even more DPS, but that wouldn't be in the spirit of this test, which is to say complete self-sustainability. To wit:

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I have solo'ed rikti pylons with both my fire/kin and ill/storm with no insps. However my fire/em blaster can do it insanely faster, although she needs insps.

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It's prolly not hard to put together a insp-free soloing build for blasters (just cap your range &amp; AoE def, take Aid Self), but what that costs you in DPS is the question this stress test would answer. Even just Aid Self, since it's a long cast, would lower your DPS significantly, I think. Even if you only fired it off 5~6x in a fight, that's an extra 20sec or so, not only of no damage, but letting the pylon regen during those times.

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Well, in 20 days, my zero hour arrives. Don't fret, I'm not leaving the game. That's just when I'm giving away all my inf. So, since my party announcement includes a rough estimate of how much inf, I decided it was time to update my screenshot collection. Some of you may remember when I posted my Twin Billionaires and Triplet Billionaires a while back. Well, needless to say, my kitty has grown slightly since then. And so, without further ado, I present to you...

Octobillionaire!

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So, are you like the Octo-dad?

BTW, much respect. Even more so for giving it all away.

I think the strict stress test is no insps, no temps, no accolades. I'm not quite willing to go so far as turning off my auto-accolades, but insps would skew the times quite a bit, I think, esp since it would allow for offensive-oriented builds who can just carry big purps to boost their defenses for the duration of the fight.

I mean, obviously, you can carry out the test any way you want, but if we're to establish a fair baseline, I think no insps, no temps and no click accolades is best.

This seems to be quite the rage on the scrapper boards to calculate your DPS (DPS = 38343.75 / seconds to solo pylon + 127.8125). Unfortunately, debuffs, esp regen debuffs, play havoc with true DPS calculations, but it's a good baseline to see how much damage your controller is outputting while surviving.

So, anyone try it? And time yourself? Any AV/GM soloers wanna give it a go? I'd love to see what a tweaked (for ST damage, anyway) Fire/Kin or Fire/Storm could do with this challenge. I'd also be curious what Ill/* can do, since some have theorized that Ill's ST damage is actually very low on the controller totem pole.

My Fire/Rad with no insps, no temps and no click accolades did it in 5:35 (roughly 242 DPS). I could reduce that by going to the Fire or Ice EPP, but I wanna keep Mental for IW, since this is a generic AV/GM solo build, and a lot of AVs mez (unfortunately, Mental Blast's DPA is kinda lame). A more specialized Fire/Rad could should go well under 5:30.