Fire/Ice. Ice patch, shiver, fireball, firebreath, rain of fire... I think youll be fine late game.
Honestly fire/Ice is one of the more powerful PVE blaster builds due to the mitigations of /Ice combined with the burny death of Fire/
Soloing is a snap with this build from 1-50.
Fire/Ice will allow you to do quality soloing from start to finish. That combo gives you plenty of damage and protection. Ice/Ice can be equally effective.
Anything ice will be ok on the surviveable but the real question is going to be build and IOs
Fire/Ice is welll
yeah... 
Don't underestimate Shiver. If the alpha doesn't kill you, throwing out Shiver against +2s gives you roughly twice as long to live. So it's the equivalent of 50% Damage Resist.
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Plus it keeps them nice n tight for the fireball/breath/rain AoE massacre you are about to lay on them.
I have an ice/ice, and an arch/mental....see the thing about arch/mental is it's like an unbelievably large amount of AoE, which don't get me wrong is awesome, but sometimes i feel like im only useful in missions with large groups....not always though.
My ice/ice is very very fun! It's quite survivable, with a massive amount of damage. (i'd recommend taking medicine though) I don't have any experience with fire/ice though. As ice/ice, you really have to play to your strengths...take all, if not most of the holds and don't be afraid to take melee attacks -- (ice sword, ice patch, freezing touch, etc.) Good luck!
Survivability-wise my Sonic/Devices blows my other blasters out of the water.
Siren's Song a mob, wake one up with Screech, beat it down with ST attacks, wake one up with Taser, beat it down with ST attacks. I can go through a mob like that before SS wears off (they sleep for almost a minute and a half the way I have it slotted) and they never get a shot off, and if they do my ranged defense is close to softcapped, so they probably won't hit me.
I also have a Stealth IO in Hover and Cloaking Device so they don't see me before I put them to sleep.
Only downside to it is my AoE sucks.
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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. |
My first 50 was an energy/ice blaster and he rocked through all levels. Nice control with some ice attacks and ice patch and also nice knockback for when things got too close.
elec/ elec or eng becomes "lol pve" after powersink/boost along with short circuit
yeah, just gotta survive the alpha that you're going to take while Short Circuit animates.
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Survivability-wise my Sonic/Devices blows my other blasters out of the water.
Siren's Song a mob, wake one up with Screech, beat it down with ST attacks, wake one up with Taser, beat it down with ST attacks. I can go through a mob like that before SS wears off (they sleep for almost a minute and a half the way I have it slotted) and they never get a shot off, and if they do my ranged defense is close to softcapped, so they probably won't hit me.
I also have a Stealth IO in Hover and Cloaking Device so they don't see me before I put them to sleep.
Only downside to it is my AoE sucks.
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Just wanted to point out that the real key to what you describe is the AoE sleep of Siren's Song. You could just as easily be Sonic/anything and take Super Speed with a Celerity +Stealth IO for invisibility. I'm not saying your combo is bad, but some folks don't care for Devices so I wanted to point out there are other options.
And to the OP, you may get enough mitigation in just having /Ice that you won't need it but I find taking Aid Self from the Medicine pool helps my blasters tremendously. Sort of a split between improving survivability and just decreasing downtime. It's particularly nifty if you take Personal Force Field from Force Mastery; you pop PFF and unless the mobs have a big +ToHit (like from Nemesis Vengeance) you'll have plenty of time to heal up to full.
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yeah, just gotta survive the alpha that you're going to take while Short Circuit animates.
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Tesla cage (+shocking grasp or powerboost) the dangerous enemy 1st, the rest shouldnt hurt much
QR: Ultimate survivability: devices
Lay down half a dozen mines, cover them with caltrops, pull the mobs onto them and let the hillarity ensue. Later levels you have the gun drone and the time bomb. So you can lay down your mines, toe bomb with the time bomb, and then let the gun drone draw the agro if any survive the mines.
There is one problem with this, it will have you pounding your head on your desk and pulling out a defender so you can speed up.
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Survivability-wise my Sonic/Devices blows my other blasters out of the water.
Siren's Song a mob, wake one up with Screech, beat it down with ST attacks, wake one up with Taser, beat it down with ST attacks. I can go through a mob like that before SS wears off (they sleep for almost a minute and a half the way I have it slotted) and they never get a shot off, and if they do my ranged defense is close to softcapped, so they probably won't hit me.
I also have a Stealth IO in Hover and Cloaking Device so they don't see me before I put them to sleep.
Only downside to it is my AoE sucks.
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Just wanted to point out that the real key to what you describe is the AoE sleep of Siren's Song. You could just as easily be Sonic/anything and take Super Speed with a Celerity +Stealth IO for invisibility. I'm not saying your combo is bad, but some folks don't care for Devices so I wanted to point out there are other options.
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Yup, well aware of Siren's Song being the keystone of it. You'd be surprised how many powers from /Devices I DON'T have. I have no Caltrops, no Smoke Grenade, no Trip Mine, and no Time Bomb.
It was the problem of Faceplant vs. Glacier Speed Soloing that I was having. I solved it by dropping the majority of the /Devices powers and becoming a hover blaster. When I made the decision the character was already level 43, so deleting wasn't an option (I have a rule about not deleting anything above 35) and I didn't want to level another Sonic blaster. So, I worked with what I had and came up with a build I'm happy with.
For the record, it all ties in perfectly with his backstory too. He's a mutant, but the only power his mutation gave him was the sonic part, the rest is all gizmos and doodads. I even went with Munitions Mastery to flesh that out more.
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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. |
Fire/Ice is good all the way through (it's my favorite.) /Ice makes any primary pretty survivable, and Fire has great ST and AoE damage.
Ice/Ice will have even more survivability, but will lose out a bit on the damage, especially AoE. It's a great soloing blaster, though, one of the best.
Sonic/anything is also a good survivable soloist. I'd recommend Sonic/Energy or Sonic/Elec, for the added ST damage.
/Devices gives you some nice mitigation early in the game (not as good as /Ice's, I think, but you get it earlier). Late in the game, it adds even more, IF you enjoy the style of setting traps and luring enemies into them. Some people like that, some find it dull.
So those are my thoughts off the top of my head.
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Survivability-wise my Sonic/Devices blows my other blasters out of the water.
Siren's Song a mob, wake one up with Screech, beat it down with ST attacks, wake one up with Taser, beat it down with ST attacks. I can go through a mob like that before SS wears off (they sleep for almost a minute and a half the way I have it slotted) and they never get a shot off, and if they do my ranged defense is close to softcapped, so they probably won't hit me.
I also have a Stealth IO in Hover and Cloaking Device so they don't see me before I put them to sleep.
Only downside to it is my AoE sucks.
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Just wanted to point out that the real key to what you describe is the AoE sleep of Siren's Song. You could just as easily be Sonic/anything and take Super Speed with a Celerity +Stealth IO for invisibility. I'm not saying your combo is bad, but some folks don't care for Devices so I wanted to point out there are other options.
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Yup, well aware of Siren's Song being the keystone of it. You'd be surprised how many powers from /Devices I DON'T have. I have no Caltrops, no Smoke Grenade, no Trip Mine, and no Time Bomb.
It was the problem of Faceplant vs. Glacier Speed Soloing that I was having. I solved it by dropping the majority of the /Devices powers and becoming a hover blaster. When I made the decision the character was already level 43, so deleting wasn't an option (I have a rule about not deleting anything above 35) and I didn't want to level another Sonic blaster. So, I worked with what I had and came up with a build I'm happy with.
For the record, it all ties in perfectly with his backstory too. He's a mutant, but the only power his mutation gave him was the sonic part, the rest is all gizmos and doodads. I even went with Munitions Mastery to flesh that out more.
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I went devices for a different reason, Fire/Dev to be exact. I like all the mitigation that devices has to offer, made being all ranged a lot easier. Caltrops adds slow and fear so any enemy trying to get to you usually can't (except for those pesky warewolves). Smoke Grenade combined with Cloaking Device make for some nice defense, a couple of IO sets with ranged defense and you are golden. Trip Mines is a good solo tool, good for opening battles and gives a good defience bonus, on a team with someone who can draw aggro, if you have decent AoE defense you can set one up in the middle of the group while the aggro is being held. Gun Drone a pet, all that needs to be said, sucks that you have to resummon every minute, but the extra damage and mitigation it offers helps off set the fact that you don't have build up, or at least to me.
Oh yeah almost forgot about targeting drone, even on teams with +4 - +5 enemies I rarely miss with that and all the added accuarcy from IOs but the tohit is good. If you decide to put in the chance for build up every now and again you will see an extra load of damage.
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I love my Ice/Energy Melee.
I leave Power Thrust on auto, so if something closes for melee I target it and it gets instantly nocked back. It even nocks most bosses back. Combined with having my hold 6 slotted I hardly ever die solo.
I tend to blap a bit so in teams I die if I can't put up PFF fast enough.
I also have leaping pool and healing pool too. Power boosted aid self heals me almost to full.
How about Ice/Elec. I think it would be a great one too.
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Ice/Ice will have even more survivability, but will lose out a bit on the damage, especially AoE. It's a great soloing blaster, though, the single best.
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Fixed.
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Ice/Ice will have even more survivability, but will lose out a bit on the damage, especially AoE. It's a great soloing blaster, though, the single best.
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Fixed.
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Agreed. Ice/Ice is the best soloing blaster I've ever played - and I've tried quite a few combos. Ice/Ice gives you up to three single-target holds, and you can get a fourth from APPs. You have a lot of slow effects as well - and slows are really good damage mitigation in PvE.
The holds are excellent when fighting bosses. The slows help, of course, all the time.
Elec/Elec is not bad, but it takes longer to hit its stride. An Elec/Elec only gets really good at end-drain and slapping holds down around level 35-38. Power Sink is at 35, Shocking Grasp at 38.
The Ice/Ice gets all the critical toys much sooner. So it's easier to level up an Ice/Ice.
Ice Blast is famous for its single-target damage, but it does have Frost Breath and Ice Storm. These aren't bad if used correctly. And of course the nuke is an AoE power.
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I rolled up a fire/ice blaster and I am loving laying waste to everything in my path, but I am worried about mid to end game survivability with him. Is the fire/ice a viable build for survivability in the 20s to 30s or would something like ice/ice be better to solo mid to late game content with?
I am basically looking for a blaster that does a good amount of damage, some aoe ( doesnt need to be a ton but at least 1 or 2 attacks is nice) and some control for survivabvility. I have heard Arch/MM is a nice build, but seeing that pure lethal damage is highly resisted I am not so surte about it.
So out of Fire/Ice, Ice/Ice, Arch/MM and any others, which would be the best build for good damage,survivability and the ability to solo well.
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