Dr. Opie's Energy/Energy Blaster Seminar [I-9]
By
British_Agent,
Posted on: 2007-05-04 21:51 in Player Guides
suggested build?
ATs to 50 - TA/A Def, Nrg/Nrg Blaster, EM/EA Brute, WS,ELM/ELA Stalker
Fantastic seminar! I've had my Nrg/Nrg blaster since the beta and your words are golden.
I think it should be noted that you can pretty much avoid the 10 sec post-Nova downtime by just eating 1 Blue and hitting CP, that usually gives you enough to continue blasting at near (kind of) full capacity until your 10 sec are up (provided you have stam and whatnot).
Also, I have Stealth and Invis right now, I swear by stealth, but rarely use invis, can you expand on your Leadership vs. Concealment?
Yeah. On leadership vs concealment ...
Get a travel power +stealth IO. There's your stealth. Now skip concealment and take leadership (or whatever else suits). Remember Medicine is also a good PvE choice, since Power Boost doubles the heal from that.
IAmTehRad, I generally don't suggest builds, but rather try to provide first principles on how to decide on a build.
So, here's my main build goals, for an energy/energy:
I prefer to skip Torrent these days. Used to swear by it. Instead, I go for Energy Punch. The damage from that is quite rewarding.
Grab Build Up and Power Burst at level 4/6 (either order). With temp fly from the atlas safeguard mission, you don't need to rush to Hover/Fly (or your preferred travel power choices).
Travel power prereq by level 8, Bone Smasher at lvl 10, and Aim at lvl 12.
Travel power at 14.
Use 16-20 to get to Stamina by your preferred method. If you fly, take Swift for the +fly bonus.
Power Push/Hasten at 22/24 (whichever order you prefer). After having tried power push for a prolonged period on an alt of mine, I find it indispensable. It's a great damage mitigator especially against bosses. Everything up to this level is available in all PvP zones.
26-30 for me is Conserve Power, Assault and Tactics. So I have leadership available for lvl 30 and above (all PvP zones except Bloody Bay).
Nova at lvl 32. In spite of my dislike, it does rub off on me, a bit.
Power Boost at 35. You can get it earlier, but with powers coming every 3 levels now, it's a choice as to what you get in which PvP zones, and I can do without Power Boost in PvP.
Total Focus at 38. Duh.
Fire Mastery is my epic, so I have Char, Fire Shield, and Rise of the Phoenix.
I'm still debating what my lvl 49 power should be.
Another way to describe my build is to note what I skip:
- Power Bolt
- Energy Torrent
- Sniper Blast
- Stun (candidate for lvl 49 power)
- Boost Range
For slotting, I am still working out how to do that with IOs. For example, I got Freebird for Hover, but I miss my movement rate on that, and want to perhaps 5-slot Hover (Freebird set only has 1 Fly enh, so need two more for 3-slotting fly).
I also have several HOs that I'm debating whether to keep or replace with rare IO sets for various purposes. I'm not prepared to discuss this all in full detail, because I'm still asking questions myself.
Greetings Heroes! Welcome to Dr. Opies Energy/Energy Blaster Design and Strategy Seminar, Updated for Issue 9!
efiance
[Note: this is updated to be useful for Issue 9, but it does NOT explore Invention enhancements in any great detail. The source of my powers data is Red Tomax's City of Data site.]
I am Dr. Opie, an archmage of incalculable power [if you can't count to level 50] who has soloed the archfiend Inferno [and failed, until he was available as an EB]. Why should you listen to me? Because you want to do the blaster thing right, with an eye to the details of energy/energy blasters, specifically. If you're already a blaster, and have your own strategies and tactics, none of what I say is intended to disparage your techniques, and your input is welcome. If you are a neophyte or journeyman blaster, this is only one of several resources available online for learning to be a blaster. Read them all and draw your own conclusions.
Some of you might notice that this Seminar is fairly similar to one I gave years ago on the same topic. That is true, but it has significant changes, both due to more recent power constraints and bonuses, as well as due to the intervening years of experience on my part.
Your Power Sets:
Energy Blast - Your Energy Blast primary is of course the bread and butter of your set. You probably will not acquire all of these powers but you will end up with most of them by the end of your career. Every single blast in this set does energy and smashing damage in various ratios, and does knockback some percentage of the time, except Aim, which is a personal boost. Your asset here is strong single-target attacks that can be fired in rapid succession, keeping your enemy off of his feet.
Energy Manipulation - Your Energy Manipulation secondary is your true strength. The powers you select from this pool do far more to ensure your success than your primary choices. With the right choices, you can hit harder than any other hero without inspirations or buffs from teammates, you can do massive damage to any target that dares to get within close range of you, you can fire everything you have without pause and not run out of endurance, you can buff your defense and movement in unexpected ways, you can increase the range of your attacks, and you can mez (disorient) a boss with a single attack.
Energy/Energy as compared to other sets (new section):
Having made acquaintance with many other blasters in my career, and particularly close acquaintance (OOC: blasters I've played) with the furious Vinny Thermo, the beautiful Beluane, the sparkling Electro Cutie and the ineffable Cold Steel Bunny, I've some observations on blaster powers.
The bad news first: energy blasting is not the best overall blaster power set. Sorry, it's true. The single-target blasting is weak because we have to chase down the bad guys we knock back (which is quite fun, but in the end a waste of time), and aside from Nova, our AoEs are generally a tactical disadvantage. Finally, we just don't shoot as fast. Yes, we can shoot -again- as fast as any other blaster, but we just aren't as quick on the draw as some (e.g., fire/* and ice/*).
The good news: Energy Manipulation is widely considered the blaster secondary. It makes any primary blaster set better: AR gets long cones from Boost Range, Ice gets longer mezzes from Power Boost, Fire gets a huge damage boost early on from Build Up, and all knowledgable heroes and villains rightly respect and fear Total Focus.
Energy/Energy isn't the be-all end-all of blasterdom, but it is probably the most common blaster in Paragon City, and it is a blaster's blaster. No other blasters have the feel of sheer power that comes from hitting so hard that foes go flying, and in spite of the extra time it takes to get back in range of a foe we knock too far back, we know that once they're on the ground, the fight is over unless we're fighting a very tough cookie. Other blasters will be "safer" or "more damaging" or "faster", but we're not unsafe, nor weak, nor slow.
The Powers:
I am not going to give a rundown on every power in the set. Other instructors have handled that task quite nicely. The purpose of this class is to understand how the powers in the set can be used.
On the Energy Blast side of things, there really are no wrong choices to make. Every power fits into an overall attack strategy. On the Energy Manipulation side, your choices should be more carefully made, because you can't select them all and take a good selection of pool powers.
There are a few "must haves" of every energy/energy blaster build. <ul type="square"> [*]Take both Build Up and Aim. They stack. With the 500% cap returned to blasters in Issue 5, they stack well even with powers fully slotted for damage.[*]Take Conserve Power and fill it with recharge enhancements (3 SOs or 2 lvl 50 IOs). I did not do this for most of my career, and did OK. I switched over using a free respec at level 47, and increased my effectiveness to devastating levels. I only had to avoid using my high-endurance powers (the AoEs, mostly) for the brief period when Conserve Energy was down. The only thing keeping me from throwing firepower left and right was sound tactics (avoiding excess aggro). This was with Stamina, too, of course. The advantage of spending endurance only half as fast in a major battle cannot be underestimated. This makes every other power you have that much more effective, because you can use them all much more often.[*]Take Total Focus and level 38 and slot it completely. I suggest 2 ACC, 1 recharge, 3DAM, if SOs. (IOs and HOs change the equation a bit: prioritize accuracy and damage, with any spare slots going to recharge or disorient duration. The disorient duration and recharge are good out of the box, though, especially when combined with Power Boost.) This power will stop a Boss cold. With this, I hunted Paragon Protectors solo, and only bad luck got me faceplanted (miss ... miss ... miss ..., even after a full Aim+BuildUp).[/list]Aside from these four powers, everything else is gravy. Also notice, 3 of these four are in your secondary! This does not include Power Pool "must haves" such as Stamina.
Specific Power Choices:
::Early choices
Early in the game, you have a choice between two of four powers:
<ul type="square">[*]Power Bolt (the lightest blast power, has range and recharges fast, though its animation is slower that other energy powers)[*]Power Blast (the more damaging but slower recharge blast, has a faster animation time than Bolt)[*]Energy Torrent (the AoE cone with high knockback)[*]Energy Punch (the first "blap" after the mandatory Power Thrust)[/list]
This choice will affect your entire early career. To start, I highly recommend taking Power Blast as your main energy blast attack: mostly because Blast is the better attack (faster animation, more damage). Power Bolt is higher DPS (damage per second), yes, but you are a blaster. Scrappers have DPS. Blasters have burst damage. For example, assume that you can take down a target with a Bolt/Blast combo: you're done in 2.6 seconds. If you're relying on DPS from Bolt, that's 3 Bolts, spaced out by 4 seconds apiece, so roughy 10 seconds from start to finish. In the meantime, you're getting hit back by 10 seconds worth of attacks and haven't finished anything off. I repeat, blasters should not care about DPS.
Of the other choices, taking Power Bolt lets you stay at long range at the price of lower damage, Torrent gives you AoE flexibility at the cost of high endurance and a slow fire rate, and Punch gives you very high single-target damage at the cost of being in melee. Even if you take others of these powers, you have effectively chosen your combat style at this point. I mention this so that you can slot and plan future powers appropriately, not to grossly categorize builds post facto.
::Knockback
There is an art to using Knockback, which exists in all of the ranged attacks and in Power Thrust. While much disparaged, knockback has many advantages. The problem of knockback is generally teams: other people are trying to ki... er, um arrest the same targets as you, and knockback moves them out of range (from your melee friends) and disperses out of AoE (for your friendly defenders, controllers, and fellow blasters).
In general, Knockback, especially as used by the 100% chance of knockback in the powers Power Thrust and Power Push, is capable of seriously disabling all but the most powerful of opponents (which includes AVs, most EBs, and, sadly, all of PvP land where there are more trained acrobats than in a circus!). While you're solo, all of this knockback is helpful, because a great deal of your powers are ranged (so you don't often lose time chasing the bouncing villains) and even the AoEs can be controled to push things together instead of blowing them apart.
While you're teamed, you should focus on using single target attacks, because this will make sure that your knockback is under control, and in such instances, your only aggro is generally from your target, who can't hit back. The AoEs can be useful in such cases, but they need to be used thoughtfully.
Of course, with Nova, all of the above logic gets thrown out. Just run in and blow up already. In general, anything that got knocked back is dead, except bosses and AVs. Your team will not complain.
::AoE attacks
It is a personal choice whether you want to take AoE attacks. There are two main ones in this set, aside from the Nova (nuke) power at level 32: Energy Torrent (cone) and Explosive Blast (ball, same range as Power Bolt/Burst). Energy is decidedly not an AoE-specialized set. It's AoE powers, however, are effective in their own ways. The first thing to realize is that an AoE from an Energy blaster is not supposed to eliminate large masses of weak enemies, the way more AoE-focused sets can. Rather, your energy blast AoE attacks are better thought of as debuffs or controls. Their damage is significant only in that it is applied to several foes; the knockback is more significant. The knockback itself has been the subject of much disparagement, because it moves all the enemies out of range of further AoEs. See the "Knockback" section, above.
The trick with your AoEs is to remember that you want to use the knockbacks, rather than pretend that you have non-knockback AoEs. When the baddies are closing in, both AoEs will serve to push them away, and knock them down for enough time for you to get away or buff up with insps or whatever. Explosive Blast has an interesting side effect in that it ALL blasts away from you, not away from the center of the blast, so at close range, it appears to just be a "wider cone" than Energy Torrent. A major advantage of Explosive Blast is that if you get mobbed, you can just target one foe, and most all of them will be pushed away from you.
If you want to use AoEs for damage purposes, it is best to hover above a group (stealthed, or with some major range boosting for your cone attack) and use both AoEs down on the group. Knockback thus becomes knockdown. Fully slotted with BuildUp/Aim, this can eliminate a group of blue-conning minions (when solo, post-ED). The knockback/down eliminates a good deal of the potential alpha back from your targets. Alternatively, a good wall or corner can keep them together. With good manueverability, you can zip around and line up your cone AoE, and knockback the bad guys to keep them together in a blob for other attacks.
Finally, an advantage of having the AoE attacks is that they can be cycled in for doing damage against a Boss or AV while staying at range.
If you don't want to use AoEs, you don't have to. It's optional, but adds some versatility. Personally, I don't use the AoEs: I think they chew up too much endurance, and it's far more satisfying to 2-shot most everything in rapid succession.
::Sniper Blast
By level 8, the Energy/Energy blaster gets access to something unavailable to other blasters until much later, or even at all: Build Up + Sniper Blast. Other secondaries get Build Up at level 16 or not at all. We get it at level 4! Other primaries get Snipe at level 12 or later, or not at all. We get Snipe at level 8! That makes sniper attacks a particular strength that belongs to the Energy/Energy blaster, especially in the early game. With both of these powers, you can take down one minion in a single shot (color varies based on slotting and level, but you'll always be able to down an even-con minion if you hit, except for certain specialized minions with extra hit points or damage resistance). Reducing your enemy count by one even before the fight begins is a win/win situation. If you take Sniper Blast and Build Up, and slot appropriately, you will not regret the choice.
That said, sniping isn't for everyone. First of all, it's a slow-activating, interruptable power. In general, you can't use it in the heat of combat, and you could have taken some other attack instead and output damage in a continuous stream with other attacks. If you take Snipe, you will generally have an attack pattern of sniping, hoping it hits, and then following up and taking down the other enemies swiftly. Another disadvantage is that Snipe takes so long to go off that Build Up (and Aim) have mostly run out before you can do anything else. It's often more damaging (and more risky) to do your self-buffs and then get off 3 or 4 attacks with extra damage and accuracy than to just get Snipe and one other attack. The difference comes down to play style. If you think of yourself as a stealthy infiltrator that has a job to do, Snipe is for you. If you think of yourself as the rawking blaster who delivers damage in a continuous stream of showy and spectacular blasts, Sniper Blast probably isn't for you.
Currently, I have snipe. Again. I'm considering respecing out of it. Again.
::Nova
Nova is the "nuke" power of the Energy Blast set. Frankly, I don't like it. Sorry, but I don't.
It has its place in the scheme of things. For a very brief moment, you devastate all of the foes nearby (up to 16, as of Issue 5), and then you have no endurance, and must use inspirations to do anything for about 10 seconds. Its recharge is very slow; 6 minutes without slotting or Hasten, but never much shorter than about 2 minutes (3 recharge SOs + Hasten).
In practice, this becomes a team power. In team missions, there are groups large enough to be worthy of the sacrifice this power entails, and backup protection from teammates to keep the aggro off of you for those that survive. Also, multiple Novas (or other blaster set equivalent) can quickly destroy a large group of orange/red enemies.
In solo play, it becomes mostly worthless and not very fun (for me). Yes, I can take on a large group of red-conning minions and live. In between, I must wait 3 to 6 minutes (depending on slotting, cuz it doesn't deserve all recharges). It isn't fun to wait that long, and I'd much rather have a strong, long distance, single-target attack that recharges fairly quickly, to accompany my Power Blast.
It is not a "bad" power, per se. I just don't find it fun. However, if you do like causing massive amounts of damage all at once, and don't mind waiting for it, and you don't mind looking severely constipated right before doing your damage, Nova will serve you well. Remember, I said that no wrong choices to make for your primary set, and that includes this power.
FYI, as of this writing, I do have Nova in my build, and it has 6 slots, 3 recharge, 3 damage. It doesn't need +ACC because Aim+BuildUp is de riguer. I emote a sneeze as it goes off.
::Power Push
Power Push is a very nice power, but it is not necessary for any given energy/energy blaster. Some swear by it, others think it's a waste of time. The general rule I have for such powers is to ask, "Do I actually use this, or does it sit there ignored?" That is to say, does it fit in one's playstyle?
If you get this power, you should be pulling it out in every fight with a boss, especially if it's a solo fight. Combined with Power Thrust (which all of us have), you can keep a boss disabled for most of a fight. It's kind of like Ice Slick from the /Ice set, but with a more pro-active flavor. It's insanely accurate (same 40% acc bonus as Nova!), and recharges in 8 seconds, and activates faster than most everything else in the energy blast set (1.1 seconds). It easily fits within a normal ranged attack cycle, such that Power Push -> Power Blast -> Power Burst is smooth with enough recharge enhancements and hasten. It's range is a bit shorter than Power Blast and Power Bolt, but that's OK: in general you don't want to hit something outside your normal range even further out.
It's optional, but only to the degree that you enjoy using it. It is somewhat similar in usage to Parry or Divine Avalanche for Scrappers: the damage mitigation is wonderful, but you could be blasting for real damage in the meantime.
::Energy Punch
Energy Punch does more damage than any blasts you get before the Sniper Blast. Yes, even more than Power Burst, though not by much. It's fairly endurance hungry, and recharges more slowly (about the same endurance/recharge as Power Burst). And you can get it at level 2! If you already know how to blap, and like doing so, it's almost a must-have power. It's possible to skip it, but I like its one-two punch with Bone Smasher, which nearly always 2-shots a minion, and usually 2-shots an LT when combined with Aim/BuildUp.
Another consideration is its activiation time, which is .57 seconds. This makes a 1-2 punch with this power even more formidable, because within 2.07 seconds, all of the damage of both Energy Punch and Bone Smasher has been applied to the target.
It's chance of Stunning is 30%, mag 2, which is fairly low, just enough to stun a minion, but with luck, it can stun a boss when combined with Bone Smasher (18% chance for that: 30% of 60% is 18%).
It has a 5% chance of dropping toggles in PvP.
::Bone Smasher
This is the other blap. It's bigger and better, but correspondingly slower and more expensive for endurance. Slot Endurance reductions here more than recharge reductions: running your blaps fast and furious will drain your endurance quickly, even with both Stamina and Conserve Energy. Your range blasts won't chew up endurance, but these will, almost as badly as AoEs.
There's a 22% chance for toggle dropping with this power in PvP.
::Stun
Of all powers in the Energy/Energy sets, this is the one with which I am least familiar. Its damage is low, but its stunning lasts as long as that of Total Focus, but is of a lower magnitude (stuns a LT). Combined with Bone Smasher, that it gives a 60% chance of stunning a boss. If Energy Punch is also part of the combo, that's a 72% chance. Of course, this is extremely effective when combined with Power Boost (to double duration, and to keep the stun stacked. The recharge is a bit slow, but fast enough that proper slotting allows the mez to be spammed and stacked.
However, I've never taken it except to test things out. It is a mez power, which means it shouldnt be ignored in the scheme of things. The only reason I didnt take it is that by the time I had acquired all of the power pool powers I wanted, I was of a level to get Total Focus, which is remarkably more effective.
::Power Boost
This isnt a must have power, but it is much, much, much, much, much more effective than it appears at first glance. To start, it buffs your movement speed for any movement powers aside from walking (and teleporting). It also doubles your DEF bonuses, your mez durations, your knockback distances, and so on. I slotted this with three recharges, which when combined with Hasten gave me 15 seconds on and 10 seconds off with this power. I would usually pull it up before doing a Total Focus attack, or when I needed to move very fast (it makes hover go as fast as fly, without having to 3-slot hover with fly SOs).
It also has other nifty effects. If you take the Medicine pool, any heals you do are doubled. If you have Tactics, your ToHit buffs just got doubled (never mind the doubling the already wonderfully high buffs from Aim and Build Up!). If you have any endurance modification powers (e.g., Stamina, or Short Circuit), the Endurance change is doubled. Yes, Short Circuit is an elec/* blaster power, but the bonus here is worth mentioning, because it makes Short Circuit a one-shot-drain-all-endurance attack.)
City of Data indicates that this isn't doubling, however. Rather it's +119.2%. So it's -more- than doubling.
::Boost Range
This power does exactly what it says, and I have no beef with it, except that by the time you get it, just about everything in the game outranges all of your powers, even with this on. It has a use with Cone AoE powers, in that a longer range is also a larger AoE. This particularly helps Assault Rifle blasters. It's of marginal worth to Energy Blasters. You are either going to build around having this power, or not have it at all.
::Total Focus
While this is a slow-activating power, and your target and its friends will likely get an alpha on you if you dont quickly charge in and launch it, it can stun bosses and one-shot LTs. The stunning of bosses is the main utility, though, and turns you into a boss-killer on a par with any scrapper. Combined with Power Boost, the stun lasts for 20 seconds (before slotting mez SOs!). Combined with Build Up and Aim, you can deal with a boss-less trio with three one-shots: Total Focus on the most powerful, then Bone Smasher on the next most, and then Power Burst or Energy Punch on the last. In a trio with a boss, you stun the boss with a Power Boosted Total Focus, then immediately switch to his companions with Power Burst and Bone Smasher and or Energy Punch, leaving only the mezzed (for 20 seconds) boss. Total Focus will recharge before then, and you can re-mez him. Your only foil against powerful bosses is missing too often, but Total Focus has a built-in 20% bonus to hit. If you're also using Stun, the odds of missing all of the stackable mez is very low except in the most extreme of circumstances.
- Power Pools
Most power pool advice is ably covered by other instructors, and Ive no wish to re-hash their wisdom here, so Ill summarize some essential points.
The fitness pool is a must, even if you take Conserve Power, because running out of endurance is as bad as being mezzed or slowed. With both Stamina and Conserve Power, only firing Nova or using lots of AoEs when during the CP downtime will dry up your endurance. At all other times, you can use everything youve got.
Aside from Fitness, I recommend the Speed pool, because even though it now lacks a+DEF bonus, and can't be perma, it still speeds up Nova recharging and keeps the damage output high in general. Just as Stamina is worth a couple of endurance cost SOs in every power, Hasten gives you effectively two recharge SOs in every power. Your job is to throw out damage as fast as possible against the tactically/strategically most effective target, and even if you have enough powers that theres always one ready to go, your more effective powers will be ready to go sooner.
All other pool choices are a matter of personal play style and choices. Currently, I have Fly (including Group Fly for Hami) and Leadership (because Arachnos and PvP taught me that I wanted to SEE things more than hide from them ... I used to have Stealth).
-Ancillary Power Pools
Any choice is good.
I chose fire, because Rise of the Phoenix is very pretty, and I love getting back up right away. I like Char as a fast single-target mez, and the Fire armor gives a good resistance to the most common non-S/L damage type.
Cold Mastery has its virtues, as does Munitions (LRM!).
Force Mastery has high recommendations from many fellow blasters, with Force of Nature granting a great resilience (35% base resistance to everything but psionic damage, plus boosted endurance recovery), but no mez resistance. Of course, the Personal Force Field is a wonderful panic power.
Still, its all a matter of personal choice at these levels. Nothing is uber ... and if it is, itll be nerfed, eventually. Speaking of which:
:
*Dr. Opie chuckles.*
*Dr. Opie grins goofily and starts singing GIRs doom song*
Doomy doom doom doom doom doom DOOM doomy doom doom
*ahem*
Er, um please excuse me. At times, I am awed by the brilliant design and balance of the powers in this game. Then they come up with things like suppression and defiance. These, too, awe me, though not in a positive way.
Sorry.
Defiance is effective at low levels, when you dont have Build Up and Aim and blasts fully slotted with SOs. In such a situation, even a blaster isnt in danger of death at even 10% of their full hit points, and the minor bonuses from defiance at this point (yes, minor the bonuses are remarkably small until you get to about 1-2% of your hit points) play a valid strategic role.
If you try such a thing after 30th level or so, you will die. Quickly. If you keep on trying it, you will be in perma-debt. A blaster at 50% hit points is in grave danger of being killed in by two more hits, or a single hit from a powerful boss. Against the kinds of dangerous foes against which one would imagine defiance would be useful (because, after all, they just hit you really really hard), Defiance is useless (because, after all, the next hit is going to be just as hard, and take you down to zero.) So the math is: 100% -> hit -> 50% (no defiance bonus yet) -> 0% (um, do I get infinite defiance if Im at 0 HP?).
My advice to you neophyte blasters is: use defiance on purpose until level 10, at which point debt kicks in. Then never use it again on purpose. If you get hit to within a hit point of death, and then get a blast off, well, gee, that was lucky for you. Maybe you kill the boss that almost killed you. Then a minion trips, falls on his laser rifle, which accidentally goes of and hits you for 3 points of damage. Luck goes both ways, and with Defiance, luck will be -against- you, not -with- you.
I would like to see defiance based on the damage rate, not damage amount. That way, if you are getting hit a lot, but using heals judiciously, defiance builds up because of all the hits, but doesnt go away just because a heal took you back to full. But you are still obviously in severe danger, because if the damage rate is very high, then lacking heals for 10-20 seconds is enough to kill you. Id call that real risk, and Id judge that Defiance should be giving at least a moderate bonus at that point.
- Conclusions
An energy/energy blaster has a great set of powers, some of which are diamonds in the rough, and others of which are real gems. Your secondary powers deserve special scrutiny: dont ignore them just because you dont want to be in melee range. Your AoEs strength -is- their massive knockback, not their damage. And Conserve Power + Stamina will keep you blasting for a long time to come.
This concludes my seminar. Questions and comments are welcome.