A powerleveler's guide to blasters (very long)

Thanks for the feedback people, I went through and wrote up some
thoughts on the comments. Sorry that I don't have the patience to
quote everyone by name.

I knew fly and electricity would be controversial. I didn't
expect Ice Blasters to jump on my case, as I said nothing bad
about Ice. I didn't go into as much detail as Energy as I have a
level 40 Energy blaster not Ice Blaster, but Ice is still a good
single target power set. As for powers that I didn't mention,
like holds, I only did a guide for quick and efficient leveling.
Those powers are not used in that context and are thus
irrelevent. If you are having to shoot off a hold, you are
fighting mobs that are not the best you could be fighting
exp-wise. Even after picking up all the powers I suggest, any of
the sets is going to have a number of picks and enhancement slots
left to get the utility stuff and customize it for their needs. I
only addressed the stuff you want and need for quick leveling.

But to electricity blasters. You are still a blaster which
makes you better off then the other archtypes. Just compared to
the other power sets, you come up short. Its just that the
secondary effect is so bad. Ice has slow, Energy has knockback,
you get the terrible endurance drain. Lacking a third big nuke
hurts, but is livable. Giving up a strong secondary effect is
what makes Electricity inferior to both Ice and Energy.

As for flight, I took flight on my first character (a level 24
controller) and was crushed the first time I grouped in
Independence Port and the speeders/jumpers cooked me getting
across the zone. Its really noticeable in such a huge zone just
how much slower you are. Speed is just plain useful. And no way
will a flyer beat me across a zone regardless of enhancements. A
short hop 100 meters through city streets in which I have to go
around? Ok. Any real travelling across a zone? No way. You just
come to learn the zones and the fastest way to get places. And as
soon as there is any long stretch, superspeed just blitzes out
ahead. Also, superspeed plus cloaking device or stealth means no
worry about unwanted aggro and makes for easy scouting.

Alt-tabbing out while flying? Hah, that is exactly because it is
so slow. At superspeed, even crossing Independence Port won't
give me enough time to alt-tab out and really do anything.
Superspeed fully enhanced (which takes only 2 slots) is about
twice as fast as fly fully-enhanced, closer to 4 times as fast as
unenhanced fly. If you guys like fly, great for you, but I
honestly can't recommend it, speed just has too many benefits in
my opinion.

Hover. I don't like it. I do see why some like it. However, my
point was not that it is terrible, rather that it is not the
necessity I've seen some people treat it as. I was trying to
counteract the myth that a blaster must take Hover or become part
of the pavement due to mob melee. That just isn't the case.

As for Energy being viable AOE, it almost stacks up damage-wise,
but not quite. If you can't take out the pack with your first
salvo of AOEs then you can't efficiently exp with it. That's why
I like Fire Sword Circle. Its not the greatest, but it gives you
the AOE firepower necessary to kill off the group with your first
set of attacks for the weaker AOE powersets and is thus usable.
However, my general feeling is that if you want AOE, go Fire or
AR. Like a poster said, I too agree that Devices is just
better than the other secondaries, but energy and fire are both
viable for their reasons. It can be done and my guess is that an
efficient leveler can be made out of it. So I mentioned them.

In answer to a question, the final powers like Nova, once
slotted, do enough damage to basically kill any non-boss you are
fighting. I have Nova, my friend has Thunderous Blast (poor guy
chose Electricity). With these powers, all minions are dead. You
just use it and then back off or use a couple endurance
inspirations because you have no endurance or endurance regen for
a while and you are bound to have missed one or two, or if it is
Freakshow, some will stand back up. Its a fun power, it really
isn't an efficient leveling power though. But darn is it neat to
throw a bunch of corpses in all directions. And for electricity,
the victims stand there for a short time and shake before they
collapse, it looks pretty cool.

Someone mentioned swarms. Swarms are nerfed, but still soloable
depending on your build. Watch out, they move so fast that they
aren't where they appear to be, your client generally is not in
sync with the server. If you come on a pack and it spawns for
you, you can AOE it. If it is already spawned, what you want to
do is shoot one, the rest charge you and now you can AOE them
because they are all right on top of you. This is easier when
they are close to your level, they do a bit too much damage if
they are too high. I liked doing this with Trip Mines, fun fun
fun.

Well, I have taken 2 characters to lvl 18, not very high I know. Both Eng/Eng. First I rerolled because I wanted to take ET. The second I enjoyed so much more because of ET. But being Eng/Eng it was my only AOE if a cone could be called that early on. I have never played uber type characters in MMORPG's, but darnit, I want to this time. Love my blasters, but in the context of AOE blasters and power lvling to some degree which of these offers the most. Ice/fire, I figure you get good single target, a cone attack and then I would attempt to use fires secondary for additional AOE power. Fire/Fire, massive AOE's, even if I took the secondary melee AOE's would I find I never used them? Or should I merely go with what seems most min/maxy and get Fire/Device and just lay waste because with fires mass damage and devices utility, it really makes the control of Ice or the additional AOE's of fire secondary slightly less powerful?

Im not a kid, just a 42 year old who has a bit of time between work and kids who is not interesting in role playing, being innovative, playing a weaker class cuz no one else is or avoiding the the popular class on principle. This time I want to be the guy with the cookie cutter power class wreaking havoc upon the game. So experts, what do you think?


Ack, I didnt read your added thoughts, and it answered my questions mostly.

Could you post a Fire/Fire build? I am with phase2, I just want to go for the power to level, I have other characters for roleplaying.

As someone who has played almost all blaster combos out there as alts, including a melee only elec/energy blaster, I have a few comments on ice also. I won't try to "jump on your case", but your assesment is incorrect.

My ice blaster does more DPS than my fire blaster.

Ironically, my energy melee blaster does more dmg per hit than any blaster I have seen, moreso after the recent patch (just get one to lvl 15 w/ melee slotting only and you'll see). My fire/energy does more dmg on a single target with an unenhanced Bone Smasher than my primary Fire Blast does with 5 dmg DOs... but I digress.

The point was to point out powerleveling discrepencies with ice/blah.

Fire breath hits for less dmg per tick over 3 ticks with the same cone as ice breath, which does 2 larger ticks at the same time. The dmg output seems to be almost identical. So, although ice does not have a followup ball-of-fire, power leveling (using your solo definition) is slower, but pretty close, and better than the remaining blasters... although energy can be fun also.

Yesterday I rerolled an old lvl 11 toon (ice/fire) as ice/dev. In about 8.5 hours of play I hit 12.5. I ran only 3 missions up to 12.5 (not including "kill x blahblahs"). Quite opposite of my main toons, but was a test to see his solo abilities.

So, to bore you a tad more, I went to PP at 7. I found smaller groups of 7s until I leveled. I lvled and came back. At this point, I was able to take out 15 -1 groups w/ 1 lt or boss per. The fight would be me lining up a cone, hitting the cone, throwing caltrops, picking off baddies who skirted them or the boss, then lining up and casting breath again as soon as it came up. Unless there was a runner, all dead. Total fight time, about 20 seconds. XP per group, usually 100, which was about 1/20th of level I think. Down time between groups was about 45 seconds as I found another and waited for endurance. Slots? Max possible in ice breath until I got 6, with ice blast trailing w/ a few less (5 in breath at 7, 4 in blast).

So, now that I have some DOs (more if I xfer some influence from my mains), I will have to reevaluate my tactics. I also have Ice Storm, which may turn this into a breath/caltrops/storm battle or some crazy alternative.

So what I am saying... is that my ice blaster can lvl just as quick as my fire (who used to pull buildup/breath/ball/rain combo to take out -1 groups). Same result. Almost identical fight duration. Only difference is lining up the cone 2 times (which fire only did once per battle), which can be a pain sometimes.

[ QUOTE ]
Consider this. Imagine a person who slots each attack power with
3 damage, 1 accuracy, 1 endurance, and 1 recharge reduction for a
'balanced' approach. Now consider the device blaster slotting 6
damage instead. He is able to do that because Stamina takes care
of endurance, Hasten takes care of recharge, and Targeting Drone
takes care of accuracy. With SO damage enhancements adding 33% at
even level, the first person is doing two times base damage while
the second is doing three times base damage. Every shot is doing
50% more damage by slotting all damage. Basically, the second
person is doing the same damage on every shot that the first
person is doing with Buildup. A free Buildup on every shot? Sign
me up!

[/ QUOTE ]

WOW! I never thought of it this way! Great guide!!! Thanks.

[ QUOTE ]
Those powers are not used in that context and are thus
irrelevent. If you are having to shoot off a hold, you are
fighting mobs that are not the best you could be fighting
exp-wise. Even after picking up all the powers I suggest, any of
the sets is going to have a number of picks and enhancement slots
left to get the utility stuff and customize it for their needs. I
only addressed the stuff you want and need for quick leveling.


[/ QUOTE ]

Play or watch an iceblaster and you'll find its a bit different, freeze can mean the difference between HP downtime or hospital trips and save you worry over disorients. Think the main issue was that you applied a leveling "assumption" on ice blasters without having any real experience with 'em.. and ignored two of the primary powers in the set.

Thanks for the info on swarms. I will use that tactic and will steer clear of higher swarms.

As for the other guy who says his ice blaster does more dps than his fire, that's pretty funny. I see you didn't get either too high, a shame because that's when fire really pulls ahead.

Nah, I'm not gonna continue to put fire on a "higher ground" but if any ice blaster gets higher DPS than I do I gotta see this! Check that, I probably wouldn't care even if it was true, fire blasters do too much damage as it is and I'm fine with what I got. No, really.

Nice post, i certainly feel good about my Fire/Fire blaster, and have been feeling good about him for quite awhile. I will add one idea to all of your good ones; Solo is not the way to go, not at all. Why? Find yourself a good gravity controller who slots everything into accuracy and hold duration, then go powerlevel, make sure he has hasten as well, you'll notice that you can pull faster strikes on higher con mobs than ever before and never take a lick of damage, they will simply stand there and let you rain hell on them with aoe. Wanna kill em even faster? Get a tank too and have him tp right to the center of the biggest meanest mob you can find, the grav controller can follow up with crushing field for a serious hold on a tightly grouped mob of super aggro'd baddies, then you just lay down the fire and watch the HP melt away. I seriously spend all my time at almost full End and never take damage anymore, the mobs just fall fast, fast, fast. Grav controllers are a must and deserve alot of credit, I think any fire blaster that's grouped alot with a good one can testify to that.

[ QUOTE ]
So, to bore you a tad more, I went to PP at 7. I found smaller groups of 7s until I leveled. I lvled and came back. At this point, I was able to take out 15 -1 groups w/ 1 lt or boss per. The fight would be me lining up a cone, hitting the cone, throwing caltrops, picking off baddies who skirted them or the boss, then lining up and casting breath again as soon as it came up. Unless there was a runner, all dead. Total fight time, about 20 seconds. XP per group, usually 100, which was about 1/20th of level I think. Down time between groups was about 45 seconds as I found another and waited for endurance. Slots? Max possible in ice breath until I got 6, with ice blast trailing w/ a few less (5 in breath at 7, 4 in blast).

So, now that I have some DOs (more if I xfer some influence from my mains), I will have to reevaluate my tactics. I also have Ice Storm, which may turn this into a breath/caltrops/storm battle or some crazy alternative.

So what I am saying... is that my ice blaster can lvl just as quick as my fire (who used to pull buildup/breath/ball/rain combo to take out -1 groups). Same result. Almost identical fight duration. Only difference is lining up the cone 2 times (which fire only did once per battle), which can be a pain sometimes.

[/ QUOTE ]

No offense, but how exactly is this the same duration fight? You have to wait on the ice breath to refresh while the fire does fire breath followed by fireball and then moves on to the next group.

I didn't read the replies; just want to mention that RS Robinson knows 100% what he's talking about.

...except superspeed can be capped with your original enhancement slot if you choose swift instead of hurdle

You ice blasters have to understand that I am talking about
leveling efficiently. Simply put, you are not fighting any mob
that can stun you or that represents any danger such that you
would need a hold. Having holds is irrelevent because you will
never use them. Yes it is a valueable power when just playing the
game but not when powerleveling. When powerleveling, you will not
have hit point downtime, you will take next to zero damage
factoring in the healing inspirations that will be constantly
dropping (and often they aren't even needed), and you won't be
dying.

Take the single-target power set Ice. You will spend the 20s in
Independence Port going after 5th column and family. Dark Astoria
is preferable, but the zombies are cold-resistant and Ice has no
snipe nor good AOEs so I am reasonably confident you won't get
good exp there. You will spend the 30s either in Crey's Folly
doing Swarms (a BIG plus for Devices that you get Trip Mine for
use on them) or in Founder's Falls killing Circle of Thorns or in
Brickstown killing werewolves and various other wimpy spawns.
These are the best places to get exp for a blaster from 20 until
40. Dark Astoria and Crey's Folly are the best for AOEing,
Independence Port and Founder's Falls are the best for small
groups for single target. In none of these places does a hold
ability matter. Once in a while in Dark Astoria a shaman will
hold you. Near 40 in Founder's Falls the Air Thorn casters
likewise will hold you, once in a while. These are rare
occurances, and who cares? You'll see that the situations you are
in, an occassional hold is an annoyance, nothing more. You won't
be in any danger of dying. That is one of the reasons these
places are where we grind, no danger, no need for any control
powers. Get a few defensive skills and mob DPS to you is low
enough that you'd have to actively try to get yourself killed.

I know holds are excellent powers in any situation in which you
are at risk. The whole point of powerleveling is to make a
situation with maximum experience and minimum risk. And although
I don't have a level 40 ice blaster, don't assume that doesn't
mean I haven't played one at all. Importantly, I've played a
single target energy blaster to 40. I know the difference between
playing the game for fun, fighting challenging enemies, and just
grinding for maximum exp. The former, holds or other control
powers are very useful. The later, they are dead weight.

Put it another way. Please tell me where you would grind exp solo
in the 20s and 30s that you would have any reason to use a hold.
I don't think you can name any place that wouldn't be much lower
exp than the places I mentioned above, where no holds are
required.

As for Frost Breath, the game is not the same low level as it is
high level. Really, I consider level 20-22 the breaking point. By
that time, you have all your key powers, have them slotted, you
have stamina, and at 22 you get SOs. While your Frost Breath may
seem comparable to a fire blaster's powers in Perez Park, it is a
far different story in Dark Astoria. Your Frost Breath and Ice
Storm simply cannot compare to the Fire Blaster's Fire Breath and
Fire Ball. Just the fact alone that the zombies take extra damage
from fire and reduced damage from Ice means even if your powers
were identical, you'd still earn exp much slower. And AOE killing
zombies in Dark Astoria is by far the best exp you can get for
the entire 20s, nowhere else even comes close.

Melee blasters just won't going to work. I said in my post that
melee is not a threat, but it will be if you are actively seeking
it out to be able to use your attacks. The damage melee attacks
now do is impressive, yes, but I don't think you will get a
viable leveler out of it. If you do, post the build and where you
fought. And once again, anyone can get 15 or 20 levels quick on
any blaster even picking the weakest powers. Tell me how to get
through the 20s much less the 30s efficiently with such a build
and I will be impressed. Heck, I'd be impressed if a melee
blaster soled his way to 40. Period. No matter how long it took.
And it will take a LONG time.

Understand that most of my comments judging the power sets are
geared to the later levels. Yes you can AOE kill as Ice for your
first 10 or 15 levels, maybe even 20. However, watch a good fire
blaster doing the same and you will have to admit they do a far
better job. Go to Dark Astoria and watch a fire blaster two-shot
packs of zombies, or an assault rifle blaster one-shot them. A
few seconds and a pack of 10-15 mobs is dead (you just ignore
the shaman), move on to find another.I would be just shocked to
see any Ice Blaster AOEing even 1/4th as effectively or getting
good exp in any AOE fashion from 20 on. Please, if you can, tell
me where, my Ice Blaster is fast approaching the 20s and would
love to get that kind of exp!

The truth is that the first 20 levels are really development time
on your character so you can do the last 20 levels at something
more than a snail's pace. The exp and time you need for each
level begins to grow quickly in the 20s and skyrockets in the
30s. Just about any blaster can level reasonably quickly the
first 20 levels, even with a melee build or a single-target power
set using AOE build, whatever. You won't see it not working until
it is too late to fix the problem on that character. That is the
point of this guide, to help you build a character early on that
won't be more and more unplayable as you climb in levels.

The point of powerleveling is to get to 40, not 10 or 20. As I
said in my opening, many people play for fun. Go ahead then and
make your melee blasters and your AOE Ice builds. But if you want
to efficiently make your way to 40, I stand by my guide.

wow whats this.. the manifestation of my thoughts? lol would you beleive it, I was thinking of writing this post 15 minutes ago, and now I found it, written almost exactly as i would. heh.. A couple of things however I dont agree on . First, Fly is only slow as hell early on.. when you hit 30+ and gear up with SOs youre no longer a floating bathtub but a rocket . I just don't know what I'd do without my Fly. . Second thing, why would you say that 'm30 simply doesnt cut it later on'? From what I've read, you havent had a chance to test out a 6x SO dmg m30, right? Well it's one of my main powers and I'm extremly happy with it. The best thing about it is it has an enormous splash radius. Pre-level 30 I was exping in Terra Volta on white-yellow minions (mostly freaks and sky raiders). Smoke, flamethrower, m30. All dead except for LTs. Snipe, slug, move on. You're right about the rest though and I just started a Fire/Dev today thats basically identical to what you described as a perfect build, except I'm using hover+flight (just a personal preference).

I must agree on not taking hover/fly. I just leveled an NRG/Dev to level 15 in a few days. Trops are doing me a better job than hover/fly. Wasted two powerslots and now it's back to reroll again for the umpteenth time.

I made an AR/Dev which I like and am following Memorex's advice which is working. I will be taking the SS and acrobatics approach (not hover/fly).

Trops are tricky to use now, I use the "dance around the trops" during a fight because mobs other than pukers don't stay caught up in them and you have to lure them back in (or get meleed from behind).

My NRG/Dev just would just get her [censored] shot up with hover in Skyway killing trolls, who liked to just stand back and take pot shots while she hovered.

I have noticed different mobs react to the trops differently.

Hows *this* for a challenge? Write a powerleveling guide for electricity/electricity

I dare yah! I double dog dare yah! :P

I TRIPLE dog dare ya! (Now he HAS to take the challenge!)

[ QUOTE ]
I have Nova, my friend has Thunderous Blast (poor guy chose Electricity).

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm the "poor guy" he's referring to. I have a level 16 Elec/Elec blaster that I abandoned when I changed servers. I now have a 36 Elec/Energy blaster. I certainly do some "power leveling" but I also do a lot of "missions for fun". I spend most of my door missions recruiting a young sidekick to tag along with me, just for the fun of it.

Charged Bolts, Lightning Bolt, Zapp are my 3 primary attacks. I pretty much use Ball lightning just for swarms, or a weak 4th attack. I have Power Thrust on auto fire. Not for the damage, but for the knockback effect if anything gets in melee range.

Thunderous Blast is literally a blast. Every time it refreshes I use it. It's got a *huge* area of effect, and will take out orange or red minions, or yellow LTs with out any worries. Losing all your endurance is not a worry. Anything that lives though the initial blast is also drained of endurance, and basically 1 bolt from defeat. Pop a couple inspirations and you're fine. The only real downside is losing any toggle powers.

[ QUOTE ]
Hows *this* for a challenge? Write a powerleveling guide for electricity/electricity

[/ QUOTE ]

Electric blasters level up just fine. That's not his point, his point was simply that the other blasters do it faster. Having had a lot of time spent as an elec blaster, I have to agree. Our secondary ability on electric attacks (endurance drain) is useless and the lack of a 3rd single target attack leaves us relying on zapp.

And rely on it I do. Coming across groups of mobs it's always zapp target 1, c-bolts and l-bolt target 2, zapp target 3. Zapp rarely gets interrupted anymore, but in cases where I am worried about that I'll pop off tesla cage, it fires reasonably quickly, especially compared to the cast time of zapp.

The biggest weakness electricity has vs Ice or Energy, the other single target blaster types, is vs bosses. With only 1 hold, don't expect to be holding bosses too often. Ice can cycle it's 2 holds, and Energy just knocks them on their backside. There's a couple bosses that just give me a hard time, Chief Soldiers for instance.

Taking out LT's are no problem though, Anything you can't kill in 2 shots you can cage first, then kill at will.

As for power leveling, in the 20's I went hunting for Totems and Mages in Dark Astoria, single pulling them (thanks super speed) and then kiting them around. Level 30 I just wrecked swarms. It was pretty ridiculous, 1 Ball Lightning, just cast it, then run on to the next pack, sometimes I'd get there after the spawn had already been activated by someone else and they'd started to move around, this is a pain, cause you want to blast them right when they're appearing and in a cluster.

About super speed: It hands down beats the other abilities, not just cause it's the fastest, or cause you can keep it always on, or cause it's just as effective indoors as out, but the big reason is cause it lets you single pull. Super speed includes a partial cloak ability that lets you run up to mobs without them engaging you. Used correctly, you can attack a mob and pull it out of a pack without the rest of the pack noticing. As long as the mob doesn't die next to them. I've also in a hurry completed entire "find x clues" missions without having to fire a shot.

I'd originally been of the opinion that hover was fantastic. But the fact is that after level 10 or so, you really don't care about melee damage as much, there's very few villains that can get into melee range with you, and even fewer that have a melee attack you worry about. A couple bosses come to mind, but they're few and far between. I have hover, I can't wait to respec and get rid of it. Stealth would have been a much better choice.

I also have to agree that hasten and stamina are a staple. I can't imagine being a blaster without them now. I 6 slotted hasten. I noticed that when they overlap, you don't take any endurance hit.

Here's what i have that i relly like:
charged bolts, lightning bolt, zapp, ball lightning, thunderous blast
tesla cage, power thrust
aim, build up
hasten, super speed, hurdle, health, stamina, combat jumping

By 30 I had all 4 power pools used and not much left, Short Circuit han't been beefed up, so I took Voltaic Sentinal. It's less than impressive. It fires so slow most fights will be over before it has a chance to run it's course. I think I'd rather have had Short Circuit or one of the melee attacks. Perhaps with Short Circuit 6-slotted that would give me the extra edge I need against some bosses. Who knows? I get total focus at 38, whch supposedly has a mod 4 disorient and knockdown. That might be what I'm looking for if true.

By the way, when doing missions with a sidekick I find Tesla Cage indespensible.

-Brae
-36 Elec Blaster
-leader Knights in Tights
-virtue server

[ QUOTE ]
Its just that the
secondary effect is so bad. Ice has slow, Energy has knockback,
you get the terrible endurance drain. Lacking a third big nuke
hurts, but is livable. Giving up a strong secondary effect is
what makes Electricity inferior to both Ice and Energy

[/ QUOTE ]

How are those secondary effects so strong and make you continually disrespect elec? Knockback and slow? Oh wow! My secondary powers can do both when I need them to. End drain isn't great (basically only useful against bosses), but knockback and slow aren't so great themselves as secondary effects. And, devices is quite overrated as a secondary. I have absolutely no need for cloaking device, smoke grenade, targeting drone, trip mines, etc. As an elec/ice blaster, I can start the fight from far or even run into a mob of reds, start the fight there, and not have to worry about dying. Oh yeah, ball lightning is quite nice as an aoe attack.

secondaries:
Knockback = not hitting you
Slow = not hitting you
end drain = still hitting you

devices:

cloaking device = not getting hit
smoke grenade = not getting hit
targetting drone = not missing
trip mine = nice aoe damage

Nice post, well thought out. I like that fact that you state if your building for fun or theme build what you want. To many powergamer seem to forget that many players are in it for the fun of it and berate those who aren't powerleveling. I really liked your backdown on the enhancement slots choices and why they make sense. Really nicely thought out post, thanks.

I'd like to see you guys skipping hover and then getting owned by Freak Tanks and speeded Ink Men. You can't hop around like a little bunny with those. The tank doesnt care about little tacs on the ground, he'll knock you down with his m30, run straight over caltrops and 1-hit you. Now please tell me an example where jumpin around would be more effective than hovering.

[ QUOTE ]
Do you have Devices and therefore
Targeting Drone? If yes, slot six damage enhancements.

[/ QUOTE ]
How do you recommend slotting Targeting Drone? Just leave it with 1 slot, moderate 3 slot, or all-out 5 slot? Thanks, gun guru, great thread!

Krikkit,

thanks alot for that post,
am also a elec/energy here, lvl 25 (who is considering superspeed).

Am intending to 6-slot tesla to boost the hold duration and reduce the recharge rate as much as possible so that it's more usable on bosses. Am tempted to 6-slot short circuit too, but will see how that plays out (havent got the skill yet) -may also take the power boost skill from the energy line to further augment this.

Let us know what you think of Total Focus!

"AOE Ice builds" - Now that's an oxymoron

Hmmm

I am an Elec / En Blaster, even though I do enjoy my blaster and believe that my dps is good, I certainly notice that my AOE is not up to par.

At lvl 31 I started recording the amount of exp to next level and the amount of exp per even conning npc.

At lvl 31 I needed 314,405 exp and was gaining 143 exp per even con minion, so I needed 2199 (rounding up) minions.

At lvl 32 I needed 386,164 and get 161 per minion = 2399 minions.

At lvl 33 I need 470,416 and get 181 per minion = 2599 minions.

So if I continue to need an extra 200 minions per level up to 40 then my lack of good aoe is going to hurt me even more....

Regarding endurance drain.

In my 33 levels I have never had the endurance drain be effective (even against self resued freakshow that come back with 50% endurance), so as it currently stands the secondary effect of electricity is worthless and makes it by far and away the worst secondary effect of all the blaster lines.

Regarding Thunderous Blast (& possibly Nova?)
At lvl 33 I currently have thunderous blast slotted with 3 damage and 1 recharge, at lvl 34 I will be adding 2 further recharges, the reason for this is that with buildup and aim stacked I can take out a group of red minions, with ball lightning followed by thunderous blast I can take out red minions and orange LT's (my normal targets for these are the elite and field agents in brickstown which come in packs of up to 10). So for me I believe that a faster refresh on thunderous blast is preferable to the extra damage.

I am also unsure about going 5 damage & 1 accuracy on all my attacks, i believe that going 3 damage, 2 recharge and 1 accuracy is more effective (on my lightning bolt / charged bolts) as when stacked with hasten means that they are available most of the time. Given that misses occur against even con mobs even when using aim + with accuracy so's waiting for a power to recycle can and does effect your dps.

So when is the latest guestimate of when they will let us respec our powers ??

I'd like to do Energy Torrent with Hover/Fly for now, and respec to Power Burst with Superspeed later.