A powerleveler's guide to blasters (very long)

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An excellent post, concisely demonstrating for the perusal of the Developers everything that is best about the best AT in the game.

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Why would a post about the best AT in the game be in the Blaster for. . .oh. . .you think Blaster is the best AT in the game?

*whistles*

Uh. . .nermind, go right ahead and think that.

Best blaster thread, and maybe best thread on the boards. 5 stars. Thanks, OP. Made me consider a few other powers down the line for my newly made blaster.

I didn't read any mention of flares. Should we skip it?

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I didn't read any mention of flares. Should we skip it?

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Unless you are taking devices as your secondary, you won't be able to avoid flares. At level 4, you can't take a power pool and most of the secondary sets don't offer anything reasonable.

Well if you go Fire Energy, you can skip it.
Level 4 is Uber level , get Buildup and start one shotting whole groups with a fireball heh.
I dont have Flares , sometimes I want another single attack but I have gotten by without it. I am going to hold out till the later Fire single target powers come available.

American_Pie, I believe I explained that but I'll restate it to
be clear. For powerleveling, none of the secondary effects have
much of an effect although knockback and slow do give a slight
edge in damage taken: one less shot from a minion here and there,
and a few less shots if the pack is big enough to warrent using
explosive blast on it. But that isn't the issue. As I said, for
typical grinding, the fact that electricity lacks a third big
nuke is its problem. Ice and Energy can kill faster overall
because we have a third heavy nuke to drop into the mix. One more
nuke ready to go at the beginning of each fight and charging
through the fight means mobs die faster.

Jabbestryne wrote and you felt it good enough to agree:

"so whats the big diff in an energy 1-2 shotting a mob and the
elec doing the same? Drain or knockback...pfft wtf cares."

Exactly! The difference is I have an additional nuke to do it
with. We open a battle, snipe a minion is dead. Use our 1/2 nukes
a minion is dead. We both are identical. You are now waiting on
your 1/2 nukes to recharge. I instead use nuke #3. While you were
waiting for your 1/2 nukes to recharge, I was hitting the next
minion to die with 1 of the 2 nukes it will need to be defeated.
Consider a large pack of minions. The basic method to efficiently
kill them would be to use AOE (Ball Lightning/Explosive Blast) so
that now a single #2 nuke would kill them or two #1 nukes. Except
I also have a #3 nuke that will also kill them. For every 2
baddies you drop, I can drop 3. It is a noticeable difference,
and very noticeable when you need to go 4000 even con minions for
your next level.

Lieutenants are basically just as weak as minions, and good to
exp on because they typically drop in one more nuke than does a
minion, and give a sizeable exp increase for it. A pack with
multiple lieutenants is no problem, in fact its just more exp. Of
course, it depends on the lieutenant. Crey lieutenants, for
instance, have damage resistance and are no longer good to fight
simply because it takes more time to drop them than the increased
exp makes up for.

You don't fight bosses at all while grinding. Not because they
are dangerous. They could be, but that isn't the reason. Its
because they have a large chunk more hit points than a minion or
a lieutenant and do not give enough added experience to
compensate. For instance, in the time it takes me to kill off a
Death Mage in Founder's Falls, I could have taken out an entire
additional pack of a Behemoth lieutenant and 3-5 minions. If I
have them all in sight and don't have to go looking (not uncommon
once I got the hang of the spawns), probably I could take out two
such packs if they were small in the same time. But even one, say
a small one, of 3 minions plus one lieutenant gives more exp than
does one boss and takes far less time to kill.

Trust me, it has nothing to do with risk. With knockback, I can
take on the bosses with no risk. Bosses spend most or sometimes
all of the fight on their backs trying to stand up. It has
nothing to do with that, it has to do with how many hit points
they have, how long it takes to whittle away those hit points,
and how much exp they give.

And I'll repeat again American_Pie, even if by careful slotting
you've gotten endurance drain so that at level 40 you can negate
a boss, Ice and Energy have been doing it from level 1. Did you
weaken your attacks through the early levels by devoting slots to
Short Circuit that could have instead been used on your primary
attacks? Or to get hasten 6-slotted early? Or Stamina?

Raptor_CK, you'd be wrong. My housemate is a level 36 electricity
blaster, I have seen what endurance drain does (or doesn't do.)
American_Pie's major problem is that he doesn't understand that
it takes very specific build to get it do anything useful at all,
useful in only very specific circumstances (boss killing) that do
not come up while powerleveling. Ice and Energy both get a
secondary effect that starts working from level one, with no
specific build requirements, and that also work for boss killing
but also work against every single target you fight during the
entire game.

It is not immature in a guide on powerleveling to tell the truth.
Is it immature to say that a blaster is the way to go and that
anyone who is a powerleveler and is say a controller should
reroll? No. So it is not immature to say that Electricity, the
weakest blaster primary, should reroll.

Lightning_Fast, you are incorrect. Ice is NOT able to do a
2-attack combination to kill a group. At low level it can, but
the guide is a guide to 40, and more importantly it is the high
levels that really count. Ice cannot effectively AOE exp at the
higher levels and is therefore a single-target powerset. In fact,
energy is better at it than is ice at high level. You must
understand, Ice Storm is a control power, it does negligable
damage at higher level. Energy has two AOEs that do noticeable
damage, but it doesn't qualify as an AOE powerset because those
two will not allow you to consistently kill a group in your
opening salvo. They don't do enough damage, you'd need a third
AOE to finish off the pack and you don't have it. Just as Ice
gets Frost Breath which will not kill a pack and nothing else to
follow it up with.

If you believe Ice can and I quote, "can powerlevel at almost
identical speed as AR/Fire, provided you do not diverge from the
-1/equal criteria", then you are simply mistaken or talking about
low level.

As for not playing every blaster, I've played them all up to 20
and I've done my homework by reading other people's opinions,
those who are high level in the appropriate classes. More
importantly, I've played to 40, I know how powers scale and how
mob hit points scale. For instance, I can tell you after getting
to level 8 that Fire Blasters will always be able to AOE exp,
right up until 40 because mob hit point never take some drastic
jump that will make them not be able to. In fact, it will get
easier because once they get SOs, they will be able to handle
even higher con packs before having to use
Aim/BuildUp/Inspirations than at the lower levels.

Its simple, find any level high level Ice Blaster that can AOE
solo and get him to give you the skills he is using and what mobs
he is doing it on. And importantly, please explain why there
isn't a dozen 'Check out my new Ice AOE build' posts of people
wanting to make their own version on this board. If it was
doable, there would be, just like the million 'Please critique my
Fire/Assault Rifle' threads that actually are there.

Cleen, why not? I wouldn't mind seeing Blasters nerfed a bit.
Then everyone will see just how stupidly slow leveling is for any
sub-optimal build, hopefully it gets changed, and I can play a
different archtype without wanting to pull my teeth out. Sounds
good to me!

Red_Bane, I'd skip flares because Fire Blast is a 4 second
recharge time. Once you have hasten permanently running, casting
Flares then Fire Blast will do less damage over time than just
casting Fire Blast over and over. Plus, you need to 6 slot it
with enhancements if you are going to use it, and there are much
better skills at any given level for the fire blaster to slot
(like your AOEs, then hasten/stamina, fire blast, blaze, blazing
bolt, etc.) You might take it to make the early levels easier,
but once you get rolling, you'll never use it, so I'd advice
skipping it in order to make your build as optimal as possible.

I really appreciate this guide and would like some input on this build based on this.....

fire blast / devices
skills:
1. fire blast & Web grenade
2. fire ball
4. caltrops
6. Hasten (power pool #1)
8. hurlde (power pool #2)
10. combat jump (power pool #3)
12 fire breath
14. super speed
16. target drone
18. smoke grenade
20. health
22. stamina
24. manuevers (power pool #4)
26. blaze
28. trip mine
30. blazing bolt
32. inferno
34.
36.
38.
40.

slot allotments:
3-11. slot ball & blast
13. slot fire breath x2
15. slot super speed and fire breath
17. fire breath
19-21. hasten x2
23-27. stamina
29. blaze x2
31. blaze x2
33. blaze & inferno
35.
37.
39.

fire ball, fire blast, fire breath, blaze and inferno are maxed
super speed gets 1 extra slot
hasten gets 4 extra slots

as you can see, I am not certain what to finish this build with...

any input appreciated.

Great guide and I thought very well written. I prefer ice/devices just because I like to be a little more "controller-like" (controller is my actual favorite AT and my main is mind/force field, pity me if you wish ).

However, I'm choosing ice full-well knowing it isn't the "fastest." Still found lots of useful advice here, thanks for taking the time to write it.

To everyone who's preaching the greatness of fly over superspeed, you're all forgetting one things. His guide was not designed to create the best "all around" blasters. It was designed to create blasters with the most focused and economical builds for the highest possible damage output. Considering that the average character only takes one movement power, and that Super Speed's prereq is the invaluable Hasten, it's clearly qualifies as a better pick than Fly in that particular build, regardless of whether or not fly is practically superior. Super Leap is the only arguable alternative, since its prereq is Combat Jumping which he also suggests taking.

heh, i forgot to tell you i liked your guide a lot rob(prolly cause it's almost exactly my fire/dev). i dont agree with you about nerfage tho, i think all the other ATs should just be brought up to pace as far as lvling goes. i can barely stand 2-18 as it is...

but im sure the devs will make it all better

RSRobinson:

Would you agree that if an energy or ice blaster takes DEVICES as their secondary, they can also become a very good AE blaster by adding trip mine to their repetoire?

Trip Mine + Energy Torrent + Nove

or

Trip Mine + Frost Breath

Either one of these will wipe out entire packs of white to yellow minions.

Yes. Keep saying that Electricity is terribly weak and should be avoided.

Such protestations are useful.

I started building my fire/dev as I described above (FYRE STARR) currently I am only lvl-6 with limited playing time. My ice/ice was much more powerful at this lvl than this toon, probably because I didn't take flare, so I only have two attacks and I am always waiting on them to recharge... as soon as I get firebreath (gonna bump getting that up from #12 to #8) I think things will start rolling along better.
Right now, I don't care much for devices, again I know its the powers you get later that are beneficial rather than the ones you have now. I find web grenade useless and caltrops unnecessary since most of the gangs would rather stay huddles together and shoot me than rush me.
I currently have 3 slots on fire blast & ball with 1 accuracy and 2 damage. I really had to put the accuracy's in, I was just missing too much. At lvl-16 (target drone) I will trash the accuracy and put in more damages.
I am gonna keep plugging away with this toon. Don't have much time to play on weekends, but will do what I can.

Cambios, Trip Mine by itself is all you need, fully slotted it alone will blow up a pack of whites and some yellows. Depending on the pack, the survivors are often easier to mop up with single-target powers (i.e. you miss one or two and the rest are dead) making it work well with single-target power sets. Just remember to slot accuracy, trip mine is just like a pet, it doesn't inherit your buffs like targeting drone, buildup, or inspirations, so you need an accuracy on it.

But it is a power you cannot get until 28, can't have slotted up to usefulness to 31. You need perfect positioning because it takes a few seconds to set up and the radius is not the greatest, so you need packs that do not move. Plus you need superspeed to combine with cloaking device and give you full invisibility to get right in the middle of the pack to set it up. Smoke Grenade used to be great, but it misses now and it just takes one mob that you missed to notice you and mess you up. Finally, the recharge is a bit slow which can become an issue when trying to blow up a pack and superspeed to the next, you'll have to wait longer than a 'real' AOE blaster.

Overall, I'd say the negatives probably make the power a little too hard to use for AOE leveling. The setup time and the low radius will make you 'waste' a pack too often (i.e. get a low number of kills) and it is a bit slow on the recharge especially when you are waiting for it to do the next pack. Still my experience is limited. When I had it, I did AOE exping on swarms (and it was very useful on them). With them nerfed soon, maybe it turns out to be a viable option for the 30s and single-target device blasters. Its certainly worth a try. Even if it doesn't work for you as an AOE exping tool, it is still a great power and just one more reason to love Devices.

A question about AoE farming. Perez Park was great with finding large groups of minions. But now at lv12, they've all turned gray. The only gang that have any color in them are ones with multiple bosses or lts. I've been finding similar gang setups within the park itself. When I visited Boomtown, I found that each gang has at least 1-2 bosses and 1-2 lts. Now were the large gang of minions at Perez Park the end of the quick and easy gravy train?

try the water areas in perez park. (hydra runs) players love leveling on them. they are usually around lvl 13-15 i believe.

RSRobinson:

Thanks again for the feedback.

If you toss a smoke grenade into a pack of mobs, do the ones that is "misses" aggro on you? If so, that sucks. If they do aggro, will they aggro even if you have SS and CD on?

If that is the case, then it seems its better to just use SS + CD to drop trip mines and not even worry about smoke grenade. Is that an accurate assesment?

From my limited use of energy torrent compared to my use of fire breath + fireball on my fire blaster, it is definitely true that torrent isn't enough to make an energy blaster into a good AE blaster. However, when I group my energy/dev blaster with my wife's ice/dev blaster, torrent + frost breath generally takes out entire packs.

Would you say that any */dev blaster can be good at AE as soon as they hit level 31 (5 slots in trip mine)? The question then is how good at AE are they until then (fire/ar being the tops).

Cambios,

No, Smoke Grenade is no aggro. But the ones you miss will not have their aggro range reduced, so if all you have is cloaking device, when you go right into the middle of the pack to try to set up a trip mine, then they will aggro. Depending on which ones you missed you can take damage, but worse they may mess up the pack's positioning which is key because trip mine has a low radius. Its probably just better to go with superspeed + cloaking device now.

I know how much damage energy torrent does, and I don't believe it and Frost Breath will let you AOE exp forever. but I could be wrong. What level are you? To the best of my recollection, Frost Breath hits reasonably hard when you first get it but settles in later to a mid-range AOE. To combine with Energy Torrent for 1-shot kills, it would need to do as much damage as a #2 nuke since energy torrent hits like a #1 nuke (beyond level 20 or so, a #1 plus a #2 is generally about how much hit points a mob has.) Maybe a high level ice blaster could give the numbers on his frost breath, but I bet it is going to be quite a bit less than a #2 nuke, at least beyond level 20 or so.

As to trip mine and AOE, it depends what you mean by 'good at AOE'. Trip Mine is certainly a good AOE, but for the reasons I detailed above, I don't think it would quite be up to the task of AOE leveling all by itself. Mostly because its radius is so darn small. Maybe you could hybrid it in hazard zones, blow up a good size chunk of a pack with trip mine then use your single-target nukes to kill the much smaller remainer, which also gives trip mine some time to recharge for the next pack. The major problem is that the hazard/trial zones that have suitable packs tend to have a boss or several in the pack. With AOE, you just blow away the minions and move on ignoring the bosses. If you only get a subset of the minions and need to gun down some more single-target to make it worth the time spent, now the bosses become an issue.

At high levels, say 30+, I'd say the best AOE is AR once you get Full Auto slotted up. Fire is very close, arguably better depending on the circumstances, and of course has been great since level 8. Energy is 3rd. Its two AOEs are decent but suffer from several drawbacks. The obvious one is that their damage is a little too low to blow away packs just with them. They can almost do it, but not quite and almost-dead mobs don't give any experience. Plus you don't get your second AOE until 26. Finally, the AOEs have knockback which often throws the mobs out of position after your first AOE so your second AOE doesn't hit all of them. Ice and Electricity are the worst. I guess it doesn't rally matter which order you go, they are both very far from being able to AOE exp. By the 30s, Ice Storm is completely a control power, its damage almost completely negligable. Ice has Frost Breath which does decent damage but it is a cone. Electricity has Ball Lightning which does ok damage, I guess it is about the same as the other ball AOEs (which is less than the cone AOEs), but a lot of it comes as a DOT. A quick DOT, but DOTs still mean the difference between a dead mob and one that gets to shoot you before it dies. Short Circuit got an upgrade, but from the number's I've seen, its still very low damage. Its like power push, considering how much damage it did before the upgrade, it can be doing 'much more damage' and still be doing not a lot

In the 20s, AR is worse than fire but it still has the awesome Flamethrower . Energy drops to the worst since you only have Energy Torrent. Before that, fire is the only consistent AOE exper, though I suppose Ice in the early teens when it has just gotten Ice Storm might be able to pull it off for a few levels. Heck, with damage upgrade to short circuit, maybe even Electricity can AOE exp a bit at the low levels, though even if it can, it'd be short lived.

Thanks for the guide RSRobinson. It was very helpful. I made a prelim build based on your guide and was hoping you could critique it. Any advice would be appreciated. Unless of course it's perfect.

Edit: I added a fire blaster build based on this guide as well.

Archetype: Blaster
Primary Powers - Ranged : Assault Rifle
Secondary Powers - Support : Devices
Slot[01] Level 1 (Starting Primary) : Slug /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[02] Level 1 (Starting Secondary) : Web Grenade /Immob
Slot[03] Level 2 : Burst /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[04] Level 4 : Caltrops /Slow
Slot[05] Level 6 : Hurdle /Jump
Slot[06] Level 8 : Hasten /Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg
Slot[07] Level 10 : Targeting Drone /HitBuf,HitBuf,HitBuf,HitBuf,HitBuf,HitBuf
Slot[08] Level 12 : Sniper Rifle /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[09] Level 14 : Super Speed /Run,Run
Slot[10] Level 16 : Health /Heal
Slot[11] Level 18 : Flamethrower /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[12] Level 20 : Stamina /EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec
Slot[13] Level 22 : Smoke Grenade /HitDeb
Slot[14] Level 24 : Maneuvers /DefBuf
Slot[15] Level 26 : Combat Jumping /Jump
Slot[16] Level 28 : Cloaking Device /DefBuf
Slot[17] Level 30 : Ignite /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[18] Level 32 : Full Auto /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[19] Level 35 : Time Bomb /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[20] Level 38 : Assault /EndRdx

Archetype: Blaster
Primary Powers - Ranged : Fire Blast
Secondary Powers - Support : Devices
Slot[01] Level 1 (Starting Primary) : Fire Blast /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[02] Level 1 (Starting Secondary) : Web Grenade /Immob
Slot[03] Level 2 : Fire Ball /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[04] Level 4 : Caltrops /Slow
Slot[05] Level 6 : Hurdle /Jump
Slot[06] Level 8 : Fire Breath /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[07] Level 10 : Targeting Drone /HitBuf,HitBuf,HitBuf,HitBuf,HitBuf
Slot[08] Level 12 : Hasten /Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg,Rchg
Slot[09] Level 14 : Super Speed /Run,Run
Slot[10] Level 16 : Smoke Grenade /HitDeb
Slot[11] Level 18 : Health /Heal
Slot[12] Level 20 : Stamina /EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec,EndRec
Slot[13] Level 22 : Blaze /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[14] Level 24 : Cloaking Device /DefBuf
Slot[15] Level 26 : Blazing Bolt /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[16] Level 28 : Trip Mine /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[17] Level 30 : Maneuvers /DefBuf
Slot[18] Level 32 : Inferno /Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg,Dmg
Slot[19] Level 35 : Assault /Rchg
Slot[20] Level 38 : Combat Jumping /DefBuf

RSRobinson, I hope you can tell that I fully agree AE and Fire are the kings of AOE xping. I have done it with my fire blaster (and before that a fire/fire tanker). I don't deny that fact for a second.

I simply enjoy discussing and analyzing possibilities with people who know what they are talking about (and while I create and run RP-required RPGs for a living, there is still a bit of powergamer in me that has to be satisfied on occasion).


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RSRobinson wrote:
I know how much damage energy torrent does, and I don't believe it and Frost Breath will let you AOE exp forever. but I could be wrong. What level are you?


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My fire/dev blaster is 15. My energy/dev blaster is 10. My wife's ice/dev blaster is 12. We actually haven't tried the torrent + ice breath combo yet (we also have a defender/tanker combo nearing level 30 that we play a lot).

I am just wondering if 6 slotted energy torrent + 6 slotted frost breath would be a legitimate AOE xping tool. If not, then hopefully the addition of Explosive Blast or trip mine would at least make AOE xping possible at higher levels when advancement as a whole slows down.


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RSRobinson wrote:
At high levels, say 30+, I'd say the best AOE is AR once you get Full Auto slotted up. Fire is very close, arguably better depending on the circumstances, and of course has been great since level 8. Energy is 3rd. Its two AOEs are decent but suffer from several drawbacks. The obvious one is that their damage is a little too low to blow away packs just with them. almost do it, but not quite and almost-dead mobs don't give any experience.


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Perhaps if energy's 2 AEs are "almost enough", the addition of frost breath to that mix could make for good AOE xping at that point?


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RSRobinson wrote:
Finally, the AOEs have knockback which often throws the mobs out of position after your first AOE so your second AOE doesn't hit all of them.


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This is definitely the kicker. The knockback does present a random X factor that could screw things up. The best scenario I could envision for an energy and ice blaster combo would be:

Round 1) Ice blaster uses frost breath and Energy blaster uses explosive blast.

Round 2) Ice blaster uses caltrops and then energy blaster uses energy torrent.

Or:

Round 1) Energy Blaster drops down a trip mine while Ice Blaster uses frost breath.

Round 2) Energy Blaster uses explosive blast while Ice Blaster uses caltrops.

Round 3) Energy Blaster uses energy torrent.

Cambios, when doing AOE with torrent and explosive blast, you should use torrent first. The mobs get knocked backwards, whereas with blast they get knocked outwards. When you use torrent first, they stay grouped close enough together to be hit by the blast.

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Cambios, when doing AOE with torrent and explosive blast, you should use torrent first. The mobs get knocked backwards, whereas with blast they get knocked outwards. When you use torrent first, they stay grouped close enough together to be hit by the blast.

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I've noticed that with torrent, but I've never used explosive blast (obviously). Thanks for the tip!

last night was incredible.

my fire/dev blaster jumped from lvl 23 to lvl 26.4 in about... 7 hours. this was done in Dark Astoria at 2am(west coast). had to be the most insane xp i've ever seen.

the process consisted of:
1) run up to group w/ ss CD on, hit aim, smoke grenade middle guy.
2) fire breath middle guy(on average would hit 7-9 out of 10-12 of the banished pantheons)
3) fire ball same middle guy, run onto the next group

this left Lts and some randoms alive which often tried to chase me down. since the groups are all so close together, i could get 4-5 Lts and a bunch of minions following me at once.
when i decided there were enough, caltrops+smoke+fire breath+fire ball = even more xp. with stam 5-slotted until 25, then 6-slotted, i didnt really run out of end. my insp slots filled up with bounce backs and healths because i wasnt getting hit/dying. i also had an emp/rad defender and an ill/storm controller following in my wake, mopping up the leftovers. every once in a while i'd meet up w/ them again for recovery aura.

i'm relatively inexperienced(highest character is 26 and counting ) and so my question for you guys, is this possible at later lvls or should i enjoy the easy xp now and get ready for slow lvling?

I wanted to finally dispel Robinsons notion that Ice cannot AoE at higher levels. Here is his quote "Just as Ice
gets Frost Breath which will not kill a pack and nothing else to
follow it up with."

Please dont try to come off as the end all blaster champion because clearly you dont know what you are talking about sometimes.

I just spent lvl 33-35 in Crey's folly fighting monkeys on rooftops. With a 5 slotted ice breath, and build up, I can drop groups of 15 lvl 34-36 monkeys in one shot. Thats right, one shot. Thats 230+xp per monkey or about 3500 per group. And there are TONS of groups Took me about 20 mins to gain a full pez.

And dont say "well thats not AoE" because it is. And I have seen packs of monkeys up to lvl 37. So Im pretty sure I can do this for a long time.

I agree with alot of what the poster said... but

1st - Nova, Inferno, ie. anything with a long recharge. Would NEVER be suggested by a power gamer, the reason for the build of character is to gain xps faster than anyone else. These abilities do not do that. They are flashy cool abilities with tons of damage, but over all are worthless. If in fact this was a POWER GAMERS guide that is.

2nd - It's amazing how many people over look 6 slotting Smoke grenade. You do realize they are raising the cap right? This is one of the greatest group abilities that any blaster can get. Not only is it a great solo skill it's great when you are in groups.

To me Blasters are not all about 6 slotting damage on every damage skill you have, and leaving def. or aux powers in the wind. Personally I think it's best to pick 3 main attacks and 6 slot them, and use the rest of your slots how you want.

Just my 2 inf. and yes, my blaster is 40 , was under 2 weeks.