I have issues with 2 of your statements here.
Saying Devices and Ice are problematic when solo is outright wrong. Devices and Ice are probably the strongest sets for a soloing blaster.
Devices is actually BETTER solo than teaming, because most teams won't have the patience for a /Devices blaster to set up all their toys. My Sonic/Devices, between the AoE sleep in Sonic and all the toys Devices has, routinely goes entire missions without taking damage, let alone dying. Other blasters outshine him on teams though because their secondary isn't as reliant on strategy and proper placement.
I don't know Ice that well, but from all reports it solos extremely well and doesn't do bad on teams either.
I have no problems with most of the other stuff you've said here.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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I don't know Ice that well, but from all reports it solos extremely well and doesn't do bad on teams either.
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I do know Ice very well and confirm the above statement.
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Ice Manipulation offers...
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Chilblain - the jewel of the set. If that's news to you, then you don't know the true value of /Ice.
I have to agree with Claws on /Devices, I have one that is like level 45 and I would say solo is about the same as teaming, and on teams I don't know about most Blasters but I tend to shine over other blasters with other secondaries.
Solo - Toe Bombing makes it so that most enemies I am fighting suffer severe damage before the battle even begins. Cloaking Device and Smoke Bomb offer a good bit of extra suvivablity, Caltrops does a great job at keeping most enemies at range, Web Grenade does a great job at slowing the bosses that I am trying to fight so they don't attack as often. Solo, just like Claws, it is very rare that I even get hit. And Gun Drone adds a great bit to dps.
On team like I said I shine, and I make sure I do to. If the team has a good aggro soaker all I have to do is go in beside him/her and set up a mine jump back Aim --> and AoE's and there goes the nieghborhood. Teams love the fact I add to defense with Smoke Grenade.
Just had to highlight, during the KHTF, everyone loved me, as they fought Mary I set up a mine field and once the next spawn came in they were pretty much down to just Mary and Bosses with like half health. Got plenty of kudos for that.
Devices is what made me play Blasters again it is a great set. Only thing I wish is that Gun Drone did not have such a long cast time or if it were perma
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
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/Ice blasters tend to have to rely on slows
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Don't underestimate the power of slow, most foes have limited ranged attacks, slows do a good job of keeping the enemies at range and slowing down their limited ranged attacks so overall you are taking a lot less damage, and well if you are like me with over soft capped ranged defense that is a whole other story lol.
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
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I don't know Ice that well, but from all reports it solos extremely well and doesn't do bad on teams either.
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I do know Ice very well and confirm the above statement.
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Ice Manipulation offers...
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Chilblain - the jewel of the set. If that's news to you, then you don't know the true value of /Ice.
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Knight_Chill I have admired your love for Ice/Ice blasters, I might have to make a toon on Guardian so I can see a good one in action, played with some horrible ones on Freedom and I know the set is better than that.
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
"very, very little resists psi damage with the exception of robots"
And carnies. And lots of praetorians. And Psychic Clockwork. And Guns. And did I mention how many factions use robots? Psi is not one of the least resisted damage types, especially 40+.
Since you note the need for blapper play in other secondaries, same for psi, need to be in melee to make use of Mind Probe, TK Thrust, Drain Psyche, or World of Confusion. Subdual has lackluster damage considering its cast time.
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"very, very little resists psi damage with the exception of robots"
And carnies. And lots of praetorians. And Psychic Clockwork. And Guns. And did I mention how many factions use robots? Psi is not one of the least resisted damage types, especially 40+.
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A good bit of Arachnos too.
My vote as far as least resisted goes to toxic.
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
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My vote as far as least resisted goes to toxic.
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You'd be surprised...I'd hate a pure toxic primary or secondary. Devouring Earth and Tsoo resist in fiercely, Undead types in Vahz and BP, guns resist it INSANELY, try taking out a firebase when your powers do 10% damage....
Forgot that the undead BP resist psi as well above.
Fire is the least resisted, far as I can tell. Almost no faction resists it in general blue-side beyond the Hellions. Behemoths and not much else.
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My vote as far as least resisted goes to toxic.
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You'd be surprised...I'd hate a pure toxic primary or secondary. Devouring Earth and Tsoo resist in fiercely, Undead types in Vahz and BP, guns resist it INSANELY, try taking out a firebase when your powers do 10% damage....
Forgot that the undead BP resist psi as well above.
Fire is the least resisted, far as I can tell. Almost no faction resists it in general blue-side beyond the Hellions. Behemoths and not much else.
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Ok learn something new everyday looks like I have to take my vote back lol.
What all resists Fire, I know hellons do and I think the Behemoths?
"Yes, winning all the time can be boring."
-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
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Knight_Chill I have admired your love for Ice/Ice blasters, I might have to make a toon on Guardian so I can see a good one in action, played with some horrible ones on Freedom and I know the set is better than that.
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Feel free to look me up when you start rolling stuff on Guardian. Bring fresh cookies.
AmazingMoo, I appreciate you taking the time to put this together. I know that these long posts take a bit of work.
Unfortunately, I disagree with quite a few things you said. 
Maybe it's just because I exclusively solo, but my perspective is very different than yours.
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Devices is problematic for me. It seems almost entirely group-oriented.
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Umm, I think most people (including me) think that the opposite is true. Based on my limited teaming experience, you hardly ever get to use Trip Mine or Time Bomb because they take too long to set up. Plus, at higher levels, there can be so many AoEs flying around (like when you're fighting Nemesis) that you'll just get interrupted if you try and use them anyway. Solo, though, is a different story, and you can use them to instantly anihilate an Elite Boss, if you're patient.
While you can use Gun Drone on teams, the damage it adds on a team is pretty negligible--it shines a lot more solo when you can use it to soak up aggro.
Also, you rarely have need to use Web Grenade or Taser when teaming because most things die too quickly for them to be needed. Solo, though, Web Grenade is great for applying -Recharge to tough foes and Taser is excellent for instantly taking an annoying Lieutenant or Minion (e.g. Sappers) out of the fight.
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Energy Manipulation...very viable in groups and somewhat less viable solo.
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Not sure why you think Energy Manipulation is anything less than excellent, especially solo. Conserve Power gives you essentially unlimited endurance for those EB fights, Power Boost greatly extends the duration of any controls you have, allowing you to lock down Bosses with ease, and the melee attacks quickly pound your foes into gooey paste, while giving you a good chance to disorient them in the process.
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I consider Electric Manipulation to be the second strongest blaster secondary compared to /Mental.
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Ok...
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Most of this comes from the sheer power of Power Sink.
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Um, what? I'd never say that Power Sink is a bad power, but the real attraction of Electric are, like Energy, the hard-hitting melee attacks. Plus, Electric gives you an immobilize instead of the kind of crappy melee knockback (Power Thrust) that you get with Energy.
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/Electric's real weakness is that aside from its drains, it doesn't do a lot to protect the user. There's no heal along with all the free endurance, and the few status effects are all single-target, meaning that large groups will still do bad things to you.
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I think that you're underestimating the AoE knockback in Lightning Clap and Thunderstrike. Clever use of those two powers can do a lot to save your hide. I agree, though, that Electric doesn't give you nearly the control of Devices or Ice--but that's the trade-off for the massive damage you get instead.
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Like Devices, Ice can be problematic when solo. It performs okay on teams, but I feel that the other sets outperform it even then.
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Like someone else pointed out, Ice is possibly the BEST secondary for a solo blaster. Chillblain is, hands down, the best 1st tier power among the secondaries, and the controls available with Ice Patch, Freezing Touch, and Frozen Aura do awesome things for your survivability.
You seem to really like Mental Manipulation. I freely admit that I don't have much experience with it, but I don't see anything obvious about it that would make me pick it over, say, Ice for a solo blaster.
You also seem to be big on heals and endurance recovery powers. However, every Blaster can get Aid Self which, in my experience, is really all the healing you need. As for endurance, once I get Stamina, most of my Blasters don't have too much trouble with endurance ever again (well, except my Ice/Energy, but he has Conserve Power to help him out).
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"very, very little resists psi damage with the exception of robots"
And carnies. And lots of praetorians. And Psychic Clockwork. And Guns. And did I mention how many factions use robots? Psi is not one of the least resisted damage types, especially 40+.
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A good bit of Arachnos too.
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Dont forget Rikti 
At least it cuts through invulnerabilities t9 power.
"Fascinating. I'm not bored at all, I swear." -Kikuchiyo
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I don't know Ice that well, but from all reports it solos extremely well and doesn't do bad on teams either.
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I do know Ice very well and confirm the above statement.
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This. Ice excels at survivability.
Also, do not underestimate the power of Slows. With Shiver I can reduce the attack rate of all enemies by more than half (65%), which then reduces the amount of damage my team and I take by more than half (this power is perma out of the box). Add in Ice Patch to reduce incoming damage even more. For the heck of it, Chilling Embrace lowers effected enemies damage by 14%, on top of the -40% Recharge DeBuff (which, again, helps the rest of the team).
Also, Chilblain is the best 1st Tier of any Secondary. Period. 
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"very, very little resists psi damage with the exception of robots"
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Actually, Psi is very much resisted in the game. It's actually one of the most resisted damage types if memory serves, enemies that resist Psi really resist Psi.
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"very, very little resists psi damage with the exception of robots"
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Actually, Psi is very much resisted in the game. It's actually one of the most resisted damage types if memory serves, enemies that resist Psi really resist Psi.
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Psi isn't so much resisted OFTEN as it's resisted HARD, and things that resist it really, really suck. It's still not the same level as, say, Lethal, but it's pretty gimepd in certain situations, as noted before.
I have to make a note about Devices, however. Even though I freely admit it's better for soloing than it is for teaming, thanks to teams plain not waiting around for you to use your best powers, that doesn't actually make it a GOOD set. Yes, if used correctly and with the allowance of a LOT of extra time spent fiddling about, it's well workable, but it comes short in many, many situations, especially those that require high, concentrated damage. You can kind of fudge it, yes, but it still takes a lot more time to do than it should.
What's more, it's chock full of annoyingly weak powers. Cloaking Devices is... Kind of cool, I guess, but it would be a lot better if it weren't just negligibly better than Stealth from Concealment, and Smoke Grenade is almost completely worthless. Its to-hit debuff is meaningless and its primary use - a perception debuff - isn't worth the text it's written in. To a certain extent, Cloaking Device and Smoke Grenade allow you to become completely invisible so you could toe bomb without having to delve into a pool, but come on now! That's something which is easily replicable through Stealth and Super Speed, or Stealth and a simple stealth Invention thingy.
I will also agree with the others - do not underestimate slow. Just shiver on its own can almost bottom out enemy speed, which is BETTER than a patch immobilize. Shiver's massive, massive cone also covers a much larger area. Unfortunately, my one Ice/Ice Blaster is only level 33 or so, so I can't comment on the full usefulness of the set.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Kinda funny... when I was reading through I was like "Well, your opinions and mine have some differences, but that might be playstyle..." Then I got to the Ice description and I was like, "Are you MAD?!?!"
Shiver, unstacked with itself or anything else, is around a 50% recharge debuff on +2s. Which means that they hit half as fast which means that you live twice as long. An alpha will still kill ya, if it was going to anyway, but otherwise... you have time to win the fight, which is all any Blaster should ever ask for.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Unfortunately, my one Ice/Ice Blaster is only level 33 or so, so I can't comment on the full usefulness of the set.
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Get to work! 
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Unfortunately, my one Ice/Ice Blaster is only level 33 or so, so I can't comment on the full usefulness of the set.
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Get to work!
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Indeed. At lvl 33 you are still a kiddie cone.
Dammit, now I want to roll a Something/Ice
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
Go for it. /Ice is hawt.
But if you should happen to go Ice/Ice, please don't take a half dozen IM powers and complain later about having too much mitigation.
I have a Elec/Ice blaster, level 34, love her a lot.
I'd be curious to know what makes Chillblain such a good power. Maybe it's because it's almost 1am and I'm half asleep but, I just don't see it.
Damage equal to Ice Bolt, long duration Immobilize, -20% Recharge on foe, 4 second base recharge making it quite stackable, oh and -Fly too. With no Recharge Enhancements, you can keep 3 stacked on an enemy, dropping their recharge to -60%.
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I'd be curious to know what makes Chillblain such a good power.
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Cyclone Jack gave you the stats. I'll give you the sound bite: Chilblain is a potent boss killer - AVs not withstanding.
Gotta speak up in defense of devices, using some examples from recent gameplay.
Smoke grenade and cloak: We were playing a friends custom mission, pack of 7-8 mobs. Drop a smoke, slip back to ice bolt's max range, plink, pull one lone mob into range of friends and gun drone, plink, repeat, plink, till nothing was left but a lone boss.
Smoke grenades debuffs aren't useful if you do things like hit with high damage attacks, or kill a minion right next to his smoked buddies. (basic pulling 101 too) But nothing I've seen, not even stealth IO's pulls as well as that power does when paired with a stealth. Cloaking device also has no movement debuff (unlike stealth) And doesn't require wasting slots, power picks, or cash on Stealth IO's. Along with the end being spent to keep a travel power running, combat jump aside.
Gun drone: Little known fact I love about this puppy. When summoned it gets EVERY buff on your blaster, including defiance bonuses and insps. And the buffs don't fade off the drone till your character loses them. That and when you get enough global recharge (through hasten or IO sets) You can get two drones out at once for about a 30 second window.
Fast forward to the imperious task force i was on last night, second to last mission, Romulus gets pulled up the hill where the team was waiting, now picture him getting wailed on by dual gun drones buffed with hasten, speed boost, red insps, and fulcrum shift. They never stopped firing and my SG leader actually complimented me on the help they were in the fight.
Web grenade: Second best tier 1 out there (I'll give #1 to chillblain) And the power that let me casually sit beside a rooted red con greater devoured. Who was trying to spit at me now and again, but had a hard time of it with the recharge debuffs and no means to melee while I devoted a barrage of ice/ blasting and holds into the fake nemesis beside him. That or you just kite one boss away from the other, problem solved till the immob wears off.
Caltrops: short of ice patch name one blaster secondary power that lets you pull a mob pack, then bunch them up nice and close for AoE's? Or a power that (like ice patch again) means no mob is getting past short of being a flyer or a warwolf. This is kinda cheating i'll admit, but my own arc uses the cargo ship map in the first mission, I knew the ambush was coming. So I dropped caltrops in the hall behind me, had time to kill 2 malta and 3 freaks, walked back through the door, the 3 mobs from the ambush were still doing the caltrops i can't get by dance. The trick is knowing to throw them, then backing up, mobs are too dumb to walk through the whole patch to try and get to you. Unlike if you stand beside the trops, then they'll be more then happy to come melee you still.
I've been trying to write a guide for ice/dev, and the hardest part was trying to find a way to explain devices, finally settled on it being the swiss army set of blasterdom. It doesn't do anything special on it's own, but what it does do is make every power in your primary that much better. Because it gives you the tools and time to use them for max effect. and it has a trick for pretty much any situation.
Is the set perfect? Heck no, time bomb is utterly useless, past threads show the jury is still out on TD (though I say it's fine as is) and trip mine while fun is a more solo then team power, you can sneak up and toe bomb by the tank, but it's tricky, time consuming, and odds are your primary could have done more damage in the time spent if it's an AoE heavy one.
But one thing devices isn't? Lousy or useless. Just a matter of knowing how to use it properly. Though sadly you still can't take a drinking straw, a rubberband, and a paperclip to build a full set of purple IO's.
I love blasting. I make no secret of it. Blasting is my favorite thing to do in COH. However, not all blasters are created equal. Some are more reliant on teams, and some do better solo. Some combinations are problematic, and some just kinda suck.
As kind of an exercise in determining what I liked and didn't like about each of the blasting sets, I built a spreadsheet comparing the different blaster secondaries. This is not a numbers comparison. I'll leave that to those with more talent at math. Instead, this is a instead a 'what set does what?' chart to identify gaps within each set. I'm trying to see what makes them more useful in groups or solo and to identify why a set may feel like it underperforms.
Blaster Secondaries Spreadsheet
The most obvious conclusion I can make is that the other sets are overpowered dramatically by Mental Manipulation. Not only is it the only set that offers a self-heal (in the form of Drain Psyche's heal-over-time effect), but it also does LOTS of psi damage and has a lot of 'soft' control. Drain Psyche also comes with a 'light' enemy regen and recovery debuff which can mean the difference between defeating an AV and not defeating an AV in certain teams. About the only bad thing you can say about Mental Manipulation is that it doesn't do so much against robots.
My /Mental blaster is a 50 Archery/Mental with a few good sets. She solos and groups with about the same efficiency and does a broad array of damage against pretty much all comers. I've told others that Archery/Mental is quirky, but highly rewarding.
Now I've heard nasty, hurtful rumors that a nerf might be incoming for certain powers in Mental Manipulation, but I haven't seen anything concrete. Honestly, you'd have the nerf the set a LOT before it quit outperforming the others.
Devices is problematic for me. It seems almost entirely group-oriented. I've seen /Devices blasters solo well, but they don't really seem to excel to me unless they're in a large group. A lot of that has to do with the lack of click self-buffs that other blasters get. Targeting Drone and Cloaking Device are worth-while powers, but their bonuses don't really seem to make up for their limitations.
My highest /Devices blaster is only about 21, so that could be shaded by inexperience with higher-level play. However, if I were going to make any changes to this set to make it more attractive, it would be to make the toggle buffs more powerful. I'd add a small +resist component to Cloaking Device (and maybe increase its +defense, too), and a small damage bonus to Targeting drone.
Energy Manipulation is probably my favorite secondary set. My Energy/Energy blaster was my first 50, and I love the visual effects and knockback it comes with. I've also got a Psi/Energy coming up on her mid-40s. However, this set still doesn't quite measure up to /Mental in terms of power and utility. It's very viable in groups and somewhat less viable solo.
It also offers what I consider to be one of the most 'skippable' powers in game: Boost Range. Solo, Boost Range means you can use your stronger powers without moving around so much. In groups, it means you can pull from slightly longer distances. It adds so little to a blaster's repertoire that many consider it to be a complete waste. I don't quite think it's a complete waste, but I wouldn't recommend it to many.
I would bring Energy Manipulation up in attractiveness and utility to Mental Manipulation a few different ways. The first thing I'd do would be decrease the recharge time on 'Conserve Power' a bit. Maybe 25% or so. This would allow 'conservationists' (like myself) to have a bit more control over their end expenditure.
To counter the sheer uselessness of Boost Range, I'd add a small-to-moderate -recharge component to it to not only allow /energy blasters to use their powers at longer ranges, but to also use them more frequently.
I consider Electric Manipulation to be the second strongest blaster secondary compared to /Mental. Most of this comes from the sheer power of Power Sink. Unslotted, it's an end drain that will make kinetic defenders cry and will always keep the blaster full on end. Slotted, and possibly in conjunction with other end draining powers, it will turn the blaster into an electric-powered machine of destruction solo or in groups.
/Electric's real weakness is that aside from its drains, it doesn't do a lot to protect the user. There's no heal along with all the free endurance, and the few status effects are all single-target, meaning that large groups will still do bad things to you.
However, having all the free endurance gives you the ability to run a LOT more powers than most blasters. My 50 Elec/Elec runs Combat Jumping, Acrobatics, Tough, Weave, and Charged Armor without any Fitness or Stamina.
That brings up the second, 'however'. The single hold in /electric can be augmented greatly with holds in other sets, including the 'epic' APPs.
Accordingly, I wouldn't do anything to Electric to make it more attractive or powerful. While it isn't quite up to /Mental's level, it allows for a broader range of secondary and tertiary options.
Fire Manipulation's big strength is the same as Fire Blast. It does great damage, coming up short only against enemies who are strongly resistant to fire. It also comes with Consume, meaning that the blaster can keep himself topped up on End when well-slotted. Careful use of Burn means that the blaster can always be free of all but the most powerful status effects. It doesn't offer a lot of protection for the blaster, which seems to make it more useful in teams than solo.
My highest /Fire character is 20ish. The only reason I haven't spent more time with her is simply because I've been playing other blasters. However, I've seen /Fire blasters do well both in teams and solo.
The only thing I'd do to this power is to make Consume offer a small, perhaps even non-enhanceable heal. It'd fit with the theme of other fire powers like 'Healing Flames' and make /Fire blasters slightly more durable when they choose to solo.
Like Devices, Ice can be problematic when solo. It performs okay on teams, but I feel that the other sets outperform it even then. My highest /Ice blaster is late 30-ish, so higher-level play may change that a bit.
Due to the lack of any kind of end utility or defensive utilities in the set, /Ice blasters tend to have to rely on slows and the knockdown effects of Ice Patch. This means using a lot of powers all the time. Rather than this set making other powers work well, as in the case of electric's end drain fueling Fighting toggles, a lot of ice blasters feel they need the Fitness set to even consider using it.
Ice Manipulation offers as its tier 9 power, 'Frozen Aura', an AOE sleep. In the world of 'AOEs Win', dedicated sleep powers don't play well in groups.
To make this set more attractive to soloers and for group usage, I'd make a few significant changes. First, I'd place a small bit of defense in Frozen Aura. Second, I'd increase the radius of Ice Patch slightly and add the same status buff that Burn gets. Lastly, I'd add a small endurance recovery buff to Frozen Aura... make it so that it works something like a 'single target Heat Loss'
These are my thoughts. Please note that I am in no way nerfherding. I'd prefer things to remain the way they are rather than see a single set nerfed in any way. Corrections or comments are highly welcome.