A powerleveler's guide to blasters (very long)

Find it interesting how one person can be so right, when multiple qualified others are saying that the game works a different way.

Maybe he is just playing a different game than everyone else?

If you want to figure out if electricity has any "stun" effect go hunt some clocks or Shockers and see if you can attack when they are zapping you. Note that there is a big difference between being able to queue up the attack and the attack actually firing. Im betting that you can queue the attack, but it wont actually fire. The same is true of Energy's knockback. I can queue up attacks just fine when being knocked back, but they wont fire until I get up again.

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Fifth_element;


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Again you avoid the topic of PVP between an ice vs elec... Why? You only continue to drag out the intricacies of a spell and not talk about its implications on PVP which is how this argument originally started. Your hiding behind other concepts and issues which could be dragged on forever, and ofcourse you are aware of this

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Are you going to comment on why i've never been "stunned" or unable to act when fighting electric powered mobs? Crey Voltaic tanks, clockworks, freakshow juicers among them. I've never stopped moving while running and getting hit by electric blasts from NPCs, i've never had a power stop firing when hit by them either, or anything else. This IS relevant to your own ice vs elec pvp fight, because i've yet to see any type of stun as you seem to imply occuring with electric powerset. Are you going to ignore everyone else's post saying the same thing?

That's all i have for you now, the rest is seriously not worth the effort, its clear nothing will budge you from whatever stance you're in (since you waffle around those as well).

If you respond with another circuitous arguement that ignores what i've just posted, you've proven beyond a doubt every one of my suspicions.

But i'll answer this in parting:

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2. Yes, the BFR is easily interrupable... Have you ever fired a status effect on a monster that fired a status effect on you at the same time. You hear the effect occur, but you never were under any condition of the effect

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Actually, i've been in a sleep from a Crey Protector's freeze cannon at the same time as i had it ice cubed. (Yes its a boss, but i had applied freeze ray before hand)

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Ok this is the last one for me too.. Sorry for clouding this original thread. I truly am

Ice, the problem inherent at the base of your plea, is that you attribute the fact that NPC monsters dont STUN you, Thus you CANT stun them. This line of logic is incorrect. I think using your Tsoo reference of them being able to TP through walls where as Pc's can't does this situation justice.

Its something they do, that we don't.

Furthermore, it appears that you were using that line of logic as a guideline for the 'stun' that occurs when you get shocked by an elec nuke.... which again, as i pointed out to several others who have no grasp on the electricity blaster type, doesn't mean it doesn't exist because the poster hasn't experienced it.

In closing, you will find and perhaps not always, that the 'stun/sleep' effect im describing upon inflicting an elec nuke can occur. For some its not a usual occurance... This is only because of a difference in slotting.

Elec casting mobs do not stun me either Ice (unless tesla'd), but I do stun them. Others have admitted to the shocking effect but percieve it as a graphic only. This cannot be true, because even if you were unable to completely stun a mob 1v1, you can atleast stun it for a few spells... something greater than a duration of 5 seconds..... During that duration, the fact that is taking no agressive action toward the player proves that there is some stun present.

How to achieve greater stun results? Well you could have asked me, instead of refuted

Fifth_Element, can you post your Ice/Energy build here? I'd like to see it cause I'm starting one myself.

And also, why isnt there any comprehensive Ice blaster thread out there? Geeze..

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Find it interesting how one person can be so right, when multiple qualified others are saying that the game works a different way.

Maybe he is just playing a different game than everyone else?

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Right, and only one of them is an electricity blaster... The subject at hand. Funny isn't it

Using that methodology, you would have been the the majority who told Einstein that his theory of Relativity was outrageous. Or that the Wright brothers were crazy to think they could fly because Everyone else told them it wasn't possible..... Good work

Mmm... Nope, Electricity doesnt stun at all, from what I've seen...

And my first character was an Electric Blaster...

The Shaking seen displays UNTIL the target has another Power recharge and go to use it, as soon as that happens--the shaking stops...

Some enemies shake for a half second before a Power recharges and they go to use it, some shake for a few seconds before it happens.

If they've just taken a shot at you, and you take a shot at them at the same time, then they're going to shake in place until their shot recharges and they can take another. I guess if you're not aware of TIMERs on enemy's powers you could misinterpret it as being a 'stun'... <shrugs>

The shaking is a graphical feature only. It looks neat, it adds a lot to the feel of Electric Blasters... but it does nothing beyond add flavor.

RedHeat, no power is going to help you if you get Held. One hold
and you lose. You will be permaheld until you die. There is no
way to break out of it. You can't do anything. Defenses like
Acrobatics are useless. They are toggles. Once you get held, they
shut off. Everything beyond that is pointless. Hell, your
opponent could Brawl you to death over the course of several
minutes to humiliate you, there is still nothing you can do.
Holds last a long time, far longer than the recast. They would
have to miss you 3 or 4 times in a row for you to break out. And
that is with zero defenses, remember all of your toggles are shut
off, so the chances of missing that many in a row are very
remote. And that is assuming they don't have any other holds to
hit you with in case they missed a couple times. In other words,
you might get really lucky and not die one out of a couple dozen
times. So basically, you are dead.

Erratic, it is easy to picture the nature of PVP with the current
rules. The real challenge is picturing what changes will be made.
COH holds, especially ranged AOE holds, are totally devastating.
Even sleeps (i.e. mezzes) are pretty devastating. When I played
DAOC, a few years ago, it was simple. Whoever got off the first
AOE mez won. Holds in COH will be even worse, as you can damage
the victim to your hearts content and he still is held, and you
can keep recasting it. I'm just wondering in what ways the skills
will be nerfed and if controllers will be compensated with
perhaps some decent damaging attacks or just screwed over.

Basically, saying 'X could be devastating if you are locked via
crowd control' is pointless. The locking means you've already
lost. He who gets the first Hold wins. It doesn't really matter
what happens next. Just go watch a controller solo. He may take
forever to kill mobs, using his pathetic low damage attacks and
brawl, but the mob is held the entire time. Players held are just
as helpless as those poor mobs.


Fifth_Element, I decided to put this stun thing to rest once and
for all. I made a new electric blaster, picked lightning bolt,
and took all of 5 minutes against the contaminated to prove it is
just a graphics effect. I shot the first one. He immediately shot
me back. I shot lots of mobs, they always shot me back. I went
close for the aggro so I could shoot at different times during
their attack sequence. You know, let them shoot, wait for a bit,
then shoot them so the shake starts at various amounts of time
before their next shot recycled. When I waited until just before
their attack to shoot, they shook for an instant then shot me
right on schedule. I shot right after their attack. They shook
for a couple seconds because they had no attack come up to
interrupt it. Every time their attack would recycle, they shot
me, regardless of if they were shaking or not and for how long
they'd been shaking.

All I can say is it took me five minutes to show this to be
nothing more than a graphics effect. Yet you claim to be level
40. I can give you the benefit of the doubt. Most mobs die in a
couple hits, so I assume most of the time you see them shake for
an instant between the time your first nuke hits and the second
nuke hits killing them. Yet you also claim to have seen Bitter
Freeze Ray and Burst interrupted. That too will not happen. I'll
still give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you just thought
the attack had started but due to lag it didn't get to the server
in time so you just assumed it did start and was interrupted when
in fact it just never happened in the first place.

As I say, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but
some of the things you say so plainly contradict what we know
about the game, I wonder if you are just burying yourself because
you don't want to admit you are wrong. I know, you'll probably
just respond that I am the one who is wrong and won't admit it.
But everyone else's experiences with the game jibe exactly with
mine except for you. And I KNOW you are wrong about the
electricity stun, I tested it for myself.

I find it hard to believe you can be level 40 multiple times and
not been slept/held/stunned a myriad times right after you
started an attack. Its easy to tell when an attack animation is
going off by looking at the hotkey. Then check the slots the
power can take. If it doesn't take interrupt enhancements, then
it is not interruptable, and it will always go off regardless of
what happens unless you are killed.

At any point, it took me five minutes to prove the shake to just
be eye candy, so please stop telling us how your electricity
blaster will own everyone in pvp due to eye candy.

And anyone else who doesn't know who to believe because we
all write so pationately - do what I did. Make a character and
try for yourself. It won't take more than a couple minutes to
see that the shaking never prevents a mob from attacking you.

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Actually I went ahead and made a web page out of it. If you would prefer a different name for the credit to you, let me know (here or PM).

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Good job! Already bookmarked it for easy referral

It would be nice to check the other boards and see if there are other comprehensive guidelines for hte other classes and website those as well. I know it's a lot of work but one that would be used quite often.

Thanks for your efforts

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Find it interesting how one person can be so right, when multiple qualified others are saying that the game works a different way.

Maybe he is just playing a different game than everyone else?

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Right, and only one of them is an electricity blaster... The subject at hand. Funny isn't it

Using that methodology, you would have been the the majority who told Einstein that his theory of Relativity was outrageous. Or that the Wright brothers were crazy to think they could fly because Everyone else told them it wasn't possible..... Good work

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LARGE difference here from Einstein’s theories. If you can't understand that the game is built with rules of how things work, and equate your feelings towards the rules being different for you as you being of genius level intelligence than I feel sorry for you and hope that you seek help sometime in the future.

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Fifth_Element, I decided to put this stun thing to rest once and
for all. I made a new electric blaster, picked lightning bolt,
and took all of 5 minutes against the contaminated to prove it is
just a graphics effect. I shot the first one. He immediately shot
me back. I shot lots of mobs, they always shot me back. I went
close for the aggro so I could shoot at different times during
their attack sequence. You know, let them shoot, wait for a bit,
then shoot them so the shake starts at various amounts of time
before their next shot recycled. When I waited until just before
their attack to shoot, they shook for an instant then shot me
right on schedule. I shot right after their attack. They shook
for a couple seconds because they had no attack come up to
interrupt it. Every time their attack would recycle, they shot
me, regardless of if they were shaking or not and for how long
they'd been shaking.

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Thank you RSR for this intelligent, indisputable post. And thank you for creating such a comprehensive thread that has helped me greatly on planning out my character.

Good luck to all!

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All I can say is it took me five minutes to show this to be
nothing more than a graphics effect. Yet you claim to be level
40. I can give you the benefit of the doubt. Most mobs die in a
couple hits, so I assume most of the time you see them shake for
an instant between the time your first nuke hits and the second
nuke hits killing them. Yet you also claim to have seen Bitter
Freeze Ray and Burst interrupted. That too will not happen. I'll
still give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you just thought
the attack had started but due to lag it didn't get to the server
in time so you just assumed it did start and was interrupted when
in fact it just never happened in the first place.

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You obviously read the post concerning mob attack recycle times and were convinced it was true because it sounded logical.... Like Tsoo teleporting through walls and such.

Make your character on the Freedom Server. Let us specify a time and place so others can come too. I will log my elec blaster, and chain stun a mob indefinately till it dies... it will not get 1 attack off.

When this does occur, I want an apology on these forums, and I want you to pubicly state that you had no idea how to produce such a result and had no idea that the result grows with level and such and is dependant on a certain enhancement.

Also I'd like you to put to rest your ideas of PVP and what you think you know, or what you think you have done. Then ill show you most of the chars I have access to, some might be currently played but ill have them send you tells... about 12 in total ....

All of this under the condition you come back here, and let the readers know that you were wrong, along with the other non elec blasters.

I really hate giving things away.... I'm afraid the masses will assimilate

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Find it interesting how one person can be so right, when multiple qualified others are saying that the game works a different way.

Maybe he is just playing a different game than everyone else?

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Right, and only one of them is an electricity blaster... The subject at hand. Funny isn't it

Using that methodology, you would have been the the majority who told Einstein that his theory of Relativity was outrageous. Or that the Wright brothers were crazy to think they could fly because Everyone else told them it wasn't possible..... Good work

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LARGE difference here from Einstein’s theories. If you can't understand that the game is built with rules of how things work, and equate your feelings towards the rules being different for you as you being of genius level intelligence than I feel sorry for you and hope that you seek help sometime in the future.

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Fifth_Element, I decided to put this stun thing to rest once and
for all. I made a new electric blaster, picked lightning bolt,
and took all of 5 minutes against the contaminated to prove it is
just a graphics effect. I shot the first one. He immediately shot
me back. I shot lots of mobs, they always shot me back. I went
close for the aggro so I could shoot at different times during
their attack sequence. You know, let them shoot, wait for a bit,
then shoot them so the shake starts at various amounts of time
before their next shot recycled. When I waited until just before
their attack to shoot, they shook for an instant then shot me
right on schedule. I shot right after their attack. They shook
for a couple seconds because they had no attack come up to
interrupt it. Every time their attack would recycle, they shot
me, regardless of if they were shaking or not and for how long
they'd been shaking.

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Thank you RSR for this intelligent, indisputable post. And thank you for creating such a comprehensive thread that has helped me greatly on planning out my character.

Good luck to all!

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This is a joke.

Your seriously assessing the situation of an entire blaster based upon 5 minutes in a biased test sample being at such a low level?

The fact of the matter is, because someone had ideas on what to do, you followed, and for that insight are greatful. Does that necessarily mean thats the best way to do things?
Does that mean that anyone else has ideas?

In your mind, since thats the first voice you heard, and you can EASILY see why it appears to be a good idea, it must be.

RSRobinson makes a low level character, with access to 3 powers... and then comes to a conclusion that the endurance drain found on the electricity nukes does not stun/sleep in anyway. Well guys, it seems hes figured out the ENTIRE class!

I mean So sayeth the shepard, so sayeth the flock right!?

Baldrec, there is no difference in the analogy i made concerning Einstein or anything else. The major point is that the populous (you, and the penut gallery) were sorely wrong. Hence the use of the term sorely.

Was the world flat?
Then why did everyone believe it to be so?

Its called he said she said...

designate the time, i work full time but me or my friends will log on at an agreed upon time (freedom server) It seems I have become the designated poster on our behalf.

Its a shame though.... I'm certain you will write a guide on this too, and then this build will too be talk of the town, and you will have countless peons on these forums asking for advice and pm'ing you on what skills to take

First off: you have no clue what build I went with, when I created my character, or what plans I have for my character. You have no right to sit there and assume that I have 'followed the shepard'. I simply stated the he helped me plan out my character. I never said that 'You are perfect, there is no other way to play!'.

As for your analogy working, PHAH! You compare ideas of how the universe works, to something that was MADE BY MAN? There is no comparing a game world's functions to that of man's belief in his surroundings. Yes, people tend to follow the popular belief, but when a game has said parameters, those parameters do not differ. You can come back and say that games have bugs, etc. And yes they do, but the basic game functions do not differ upon the observer. They are programmed in and if there were others that felt that you were correct in the way the game works I am sure that they would have posted by now.

One last question, humor me if you will.

How come your perceptions are always right on everything, and everyone elses' is wrong? And i'd like you to submit a demo of you getting BFR interrupted =)

Great post thz

Just post a demo Fifth Element.

Fifth_Element, first you claim that electricity just has this
stun effect. I show it doesn't. Oh wait, you say, now you have to
be high level and have particular enhancements slotted. Funny how
you didn't mention that before. At first, electricity's shake was
a stun. Oh wait, now in fact it is something else that is the
stun. So what you are now saying that the shake has always just
been a graphics effect, but there is some other effect of the
power that does cause a stun. I've shown that they only shake, a
purely graphical effect, until they have another attack. So if
there is some stun going on, it has nothing to do with the shake.
My test showed the shake is just animation.

Stop beating around the bush, and tell us exactly which powers
have this mystical stun, and what enhancements you claim to have.
I have access to a high-level (36) electricity blaster, so I can
put these to the test. For the record, after I tested this myself
with a new character, I talked to my friend about his blaster. He
said occassionally it looks like a short, under 1 second, stun
went off but it was hard to be sure because it might just be
recycle time. And it happened very occassionaly. There was
definitely no 3 second stun on every attack like you claim. You
claim that you will chain-stun every mob you fight. Of course,
you've said it is iffy on bosses, and since bosses are the only
mobs that take more than a couple shots to kill, that just makes
more of what you say suspect. How can you 'chain stun' a minion
that takes one or two shots to kill? Oh look, I Zapped that guy
and he didn't shoot back. Amazing! Oh wait, he's dead. Oh look, I
Lightning Bolted and Charged Bolted that guy and he didn't shoot
back. Must be chain stunned! Oh wait, he made his shot at you
when you Zapped his buddy and then died to your two shots long
before his recycle time came up.

I love how you want to 'show us'. In other words, you want to
slip something hidden in. Like, for all I know, maybe there is
some attack that makes the graphics for Tesla Cage go away so you
can hold it with that and then claim it is stun. Forget it.
You've lost too much credibility with all the things you say. If
the stun is real, we can all duplicate it. So either fess up on
EXACTLY what needs to be done, or stop lying. And after that too
does not work, I don't want another 'oh wait, you also have
to...'


You seem reluctant to tell us what is going on. Assuming that you
are not just a big fat liar, the only alternative I can see is
that you've found some bug, you want to use it, and desparately
don't want anyone to find out because you know it will be fixed.
If this is a real, intended effect of electricity, then you
should have absolutely no qualms about just telling us exactly
how it is done. You are afraid the masses will assimilate? No it
sounds like you are afraid the developers will fix some exploit
bug you've stumbled across. Of course, since you won't tell us
how to make this happen, it is still more likely it is all a lie.

RSR thanks for a great post. Even though I dont agree on everything, it was well thought out and offered a lot of great advice and ideas on how to use specific powers.

On Liberty and loving my Ice/Devices!

Frost Leopard

Hey buddy, thanks to you, I had to reroll my lvl 17 POS to make an AR/Dev blaster. Oh, by the way, so did the rest of my entire supergroup.

I hope you're happy...
*goes back to Power Leveling

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RSRobinson wrote:

Fifth_Element, first you claim that electricity just has this
stun effect. I show it doesn't. Oh wait, you say, now you have to
be high level and have particular enhancements slotted. Funny how you didn't mention that before. At first, electricity's shake was a stun. Oh wait, now in fact it is something else that is the
stun.

...

You seem reluctant to tell us what is going on. Assuming that you are not just a big fat liar, the only alternative I can see is
that you've found some bug, you want to use it, and desparately
don't want anyone to find out because you know it will be fixed.
If this is a real, intended effect of electricity, then you
should have absolutely no qualms about just telling us exactly
how it is done. You are afraid the masses will assimilate? No it
sounds like you are afraid the developers will fix some exploit
bug you've stumbled across. Of course, since you won't tell us
how to make this happen, it is still more likely it is all a lie.

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Someone call Webster. Quoted above is the definition of someone getting owned.

TROGDOOOOOOORRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree with everything the first poster said, except that I find Super Leap to be the best travel power, especially for areas like DA as a AoE blaster, I need to find new prey fast, and 1 giant leap up rapidly hitting tab usually does it for me.
Oh, and if you're fire you don't really need Hasten, I dont have it, I'm getting it at 30 because I can, but there's rarely a time when I get up to a fight and don't have Fire Ball and Breath ready. Only reason I'm getting it is because it saves me some slots on Build Up (Yeah, I took Electricity because I thought Thunder Strike was ranged, oh how disappointed I was at level 28, made me quit Zim for like 10 days. It's strong, yes, but I thought it would be another ranged AoE... I have high hopes for Shocking Grasp). So yeah.

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Oh, and if you're fire you don't really need Hasten,


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heh.

Fire Blast every 1.5 seconds and NO NEED to get flares at all. (among a ton of other advantages)

Bzzzzzzzzzz.... wrong! Get Haste.

RSR, thanks again for the kewl guide. I had fallen behind some of the people I used to run with in Supergroup because of a severe case of "alt-itis". My fire/fire blaster has jumped up in levels really quick because of your advice about laying waste to huge groups of even cons. I have taken members of my SG on killing sprees and they have all benefitted from the power leveling strategies that you have given. As you say though....power leveling can get a bit tedious so I'm probably going to go back to missions once I get "caught up".

Now about the PVP business.

I know for a fact that my devastating AoE monster is going to suck at PVP. Why...because players aren't going to let me run up to firebreath distance (while powering up aim+buildup) and follow it up with a fireball. Do I care? Nah...not really.

I'd actually like to see all this PVP spam move to another thread and keep this one with it's original intent and that is power leveling.

So to try and help with that...here is some advice of my own. When you are in your low to mid twenties...it's all about Talos and DA...the exp flows there like a river of pure goodness.

I gotta disagree with you too Arek...hasten = more aim+build up. Aim+build up+firebreath+fireball is the powerlevel combo. I rarely initiate combat without those. I only use fireblast on the remaining shamans (I haven't gotten blaze yet). Get hasten...it rocks...and once you get stamina....it's on!

RSRobinson,

Well, you told me before that I didn't know how mobs scaled and that my experiences of my ice blaster by 16 would change at higher levels.

You were correct.

Now, you weren't correct about things getting harder. Actually they have become much easier. Now that I had time to slot stuff more and get a new power or 2, I am able to kill more efficiently... and have better options of what I choose to AOE kill. Also, as we would expect, stamina and health have lowered downtime between groups to nothing.

Sure, I had cold resistance issues when I hit 21 and DA... but I just lvled quickly on Argos Highway in Talos until 23 and hit TV. I don't even go for bugged spawns in TV as they aren't the ideal for the best xp/hr.

So, now I am 27.5 and still waiting to see when things are going to change. At what point will I not be able to use my caltrops + 2 attack combo to kill groups? Please tell me that I just have to level higher to understand... it worked so well last time.

Again, I will state "Ice can AOE". Again, I will state that AOE abilities diminish through the list of: AR/Fire/Ice/Energy/Elec, and that Ice is still a viable -1/equal minion AOE'r. I never said I could level faster than the 2 above me, but I still think that I can level almost as quickly as fire, based on your criteria. Ice/Fire can definately level faster than AR up to 21, way faster. I would suspect that if we evaluated time/toon, that AR would catch my level by 26-28 and then speed ahead... way ahead starting at 33.