Hmmm - interesting build; my En/En main's gone down the vanilla Fitness route, and with that plus strategic use of Conserve Power has no end problems to speak of.
Not having tried the double EndRdx slotting/no Fitness approach I couldn't give a definite yes/no on whether it's workable or not, but it looks like it's at least worth a try. 
Whirlwind without an EndRdx or Stamina may be a bit ambitious, unless you restrict it to when CP's up.
More specifically on power choices, I'm not at all convinced Leadership it a top idea for blasters. Even with their 2xEndRdx they'll still be grinding into your already limited end, and if you take the 3 slots from them and put them into individual attacks you can more than make up the damage you drop.
Your CP slotting looks fine - it's only worth putting Rechg in there anyway, so take that to the ED cap and you're as good as it'll get.
I'd highly recommend Boost Range - with 3xRechg it's close to perma even without Hasten, and while its up your regular attacks have snipe-level ranges, and your actual snipe can hit things you can barely see to target. With Boost Range up you can snipe further than Nemesis Tirailleurs, which is immensely satisfying.
Power Push I found nice too, although less so than Boost Range. If it hits it's a guaranteed KB (assuming non-exotic mobs), which both gets the victim out of your face and lets you get another snipe in while he's climbing to his feet.
Never used Explosive Blast, aside from briefly on the test server (didn't like it at all), but IIRC it was more a knockback fiend than a damage dealer; if you want more KB in the build I'd swap Dmg to KB_Dist here, and maybe move a few slots elsewhere.
Losing or reducing Leadership's the obvious way of getting Range Boost and Power Push in, but of course it's your call.
Given the nature of the team I'd say explosive blast is droppable, from all of you preferably. It'll shoot those mobs left, right and centre and most likely out of the Stromie's snow storm. At least with Torrent it scoops them in a particular direction, so you can push them towards stormie carnage, same with Power Push.
I would suggest droping explosive blast, whirlwind and stimulant(although you do make a valid point for taking it, save it for one of the guys who's not using the boards to streamline their build 
), take boost range and Power Push for the reasons Standoff mentioned, and slot up the leadership powers a bit more for maximum effectiness. I'd recommend this for the whole team, especially the defender with it's bigger boosts. This will leave you room for stamina. If you want the leadership pool, you'll find end a HUGE problem without it. No stamina builds ARE workable, but you do have to be careful of your power choices, and it's about getting alot of bang for your end. With people flying all over the place, You're going to want as much end as possible, so you can take out strays that have been knocked away, or to knock stuff back to your stormy. SS is a good travel power for this, as is teleport.
Hope some of that helps you dude!
Hey guys, hope you're enjoying the snow Thanks for the replies!
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interesting build; my En/En main's gone down the vanilla Fitness route
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I have several other chars using Fitness, and that's one of the main reasons I'm hoping to get away without it on this char. It sometimes feels like the 3 choices obligatory from Fitness are taking away the excitement of my character, or perhaps 'uniqueness' for a better choice of word. It feels pretty dull having the same pools all the time, and I know that goes against good common sense because I thanked the Gods when I finally got Stamina on my main, but hey...
Btw, Standoff, I wouldn't mind seeing your en/en build if you're ok with sharing it. PM would be fine.
[ QUOTE ]
Not having tried the double EndRdx slotting/no Fitness approach I couldn't give a definite yes/no on whether it's workable or not, but it looks like it's at least worth a try
[/ QUOTE ]
Before my post I tried to figure this out with the attack planner on my hero builder. I threw in a couple of attack chains, and the final endurance levels were below zero - though I'm not sure I was doing/interpretting this right.
[ QUOTE ]
I'd highly recommend Boost Range - with 3xRechg it's close to perma even without Hasten, and while its up your regular attacks have snipe-level ranges,
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Ooh, I missed that observation. Thanks very much, that's excellent advice from both of you!
[ QUOTE ]
Given the nature of the team I'd say explosive blast is droppable, from all of you preferably. It'll shoot those mobs left, right and centre and most likely out of the Stromie's snow storm. At least with Torrent it scoops them in a particular direction, so you can push them towards stormie carnage,
[/ QUOTE ]
You make very good points. People see a KB-heavy team and think "ZOMG THE CHAOSS!!!11", but we like to think there is order to our chaos. Therefore, I agree with what you're saying, but I'm at a dilemma whether or not to drop this for concept reasons. I might have a play on test and see how it feels.
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Whirlwind without an EndRdx or Stamina may be a bit ambitious
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I would suggest droping explosive blast, whirlwind
[/ QUOTE ]
Heheh, I thought whirlwind might get that response. Our stormie provides _excellent_ herding and control with hurricane and gale, but there are times when things get a little out of hand. Also, if he goes down, all hell breaks loose. I figure whirlwind would be a great emergency button and also handy to support his hurricane in doorways or large rooms for herding when things are looking dangerous. Plus it fits my KB-tastic concept rather nicely. Of course, it could be that whirlwind sucks for herding since it is KD/KB as opposed to repel. I appreciate your points, but I'm gonna have to think about this one.
[ QUOTE ]
This will leave you room for stamina. If you want the leadership pool, you'll find end a HUGE problem without it.
[/ QUOTE ]
The toggles were my main worry.
Thanks for the input both. VERY much appreciated. I'd welcome some more views on the above ideas. Also, could Aim use some ToHit buffing?
In the meantime, I'll try some more builds and post them here for review if that's ok.
KERBLAMO!!!
Happy to hear you found the thoughts of some use, MrT; if you want a look my final Standoff build's further down this email. While you've gone for the Hasten but no Fitness (so slot lots of EndRdx) route, I've gone for Stamina but no Hasten (so slot lots of Rechg).
It's some way from perfect, and in particular I took Total Focus way too late - I realised that as soon as I finally got it, but until then I'd been in a "blaster, not blapper" mindset and had avoided it on principle. 
Still, as I don't/didn't exemp very much with Stand it didn't seem particularly useful to respec it earlier at that point.
Re. ToHit buffing, I'd (as you can see ) put one in Build Up (+100% Dmg, +15% Acc base) rather than Aim (+62.5% Dmg, +37.5% Acc base) for best effect.
---------------------------------------------
Name: Standoff ED1
Level: 50
Archetype: Blaster
Primary: Energy Blast
Secondary: Energy Manipulation
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Power Bolt==> Acc(1)Dmg(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(7)Rechg(17)Rechg(21)
01) --> Power Thrust==> Acc(1)
02) --> Power Blast==> Acc(2)Dmg(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(7)Rechg(15)Rechg(19)
04) --> Build Up==> Rechg(4)Rechg(15)Rechg(25)TH_Buf(46)
06) --> Hover==> Fly(6)Fly(31)Fly(39)
08) --> Power Burst==> Acc(8)Dmg(9)Dmg(9)Dmg(13)Rechg(17)Rechg(19)
10) --> Sniper Blast==> Dmg(10)Dmg(11)Dmg(11)Dmg(13)Rechg(23)
12) --> Swift==> Run(12)
14) --> Fly==> Fly(14)Fly(31)
16) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(16)Rechg(40)Rechg(43)
18) --> Health==> Heal(18)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20)EndMod(21)EndMod(23)
22) --> Power Push==> Acc(22)Rechg(25)Rechg(27)
24) --> Aim==> Rechg(24)Rechg(27)Rechg(29)
26) --> Aid Other==> Heal(26)Rechg(36)IntRdx(39)Heal(39)Heal(46)
28) --> Aid Self==> Heal(28)Rechg(29)IntRdx(37)Heal(40)Rechg(40)Heal(46)
30) --> Energy Torrent==> Acc(30)Dmg(31)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)Rechg(34)Rechg(37)
32) --> Nova==> Acc(32)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Rechg(37)Rechg(45)
35) --> Boost Range==> Rechg(35)Rechg(36)Rechg(36)
38) --> Resuscitate==> IntRdx(38)
41) --> Shocking Bolt==> Acc(41)Hold(42)Rechg(42)Hold(42)Rechg(43)Hold(43)
44) --> Charged Armor==> DmgRes(44)DmgRes(45)DmgRes(45)
47) --> Total Focus==> Acc(47)Dmg(48)Dmg(48)Dmg(48)DisDur(50)
49) --> Power Boost==> Rechg(49)Rechg(50)Rechg(50)
Thanks for the build. I see what you mean about the 'blaster, not blapper' thing. I really love the melee moves in /energy myself. Interesting how you slotted Energy Torrent - what's it like with 3xDmg? I was planning on using it more as a soft control since the base dmg seems rather disappointing.
I have to admit Energy Torrent was no more than middling with that slotting; it was taken as "nothing much better on offer at that level" pick, and courtesy of ED I had a few spare slots to put in it.
As I already had Power Push for reliable soft control (ET's KB only works when you don't want it ) I put damage in, as that made it a bit less annoying for tanks when I was using it teamed. Best used hovering over the crowd so you knock down rather than back, but used very infrequently for all that.
I take it you didn't have too much trouble with your single Acc per attack?
Surprisingly not - I have had to go double Acc with my 40s villain, but don't recall having had any problems with Stand. Perhaps there are more DEF-based opponents on the villain side? 
Working on a new build with Fitness atm. I'm going to take Hurdle over Swift since I have SS, and Health for same reason. I often hear players saying Health isn't such a great choice for squishes because the buff isn't really enough to compensate for the rate of dmg received. Therefore, a quick question is, would 3slotting Health be a no no on this character, assuming it would boost recovery to around 77%?
edit: I wonder if it would be improved further by Power Boost.
Ok, here's another possible build, this time with Stamina. Some points are:
This build felt far less tight than the previous one, in which I was pressed for slots. In this build, I had quite a few options. The first build had 11 attacks, 12 if you count whirlwind. This build has 10. I slotted health for reasons mentioned in previous post. If this is generally considered a [bad idea, I could donate the slots elsewhere. Removing Assault (ie 10% dmg buff) allowed me to better slot powers with more dmg SOs overall, so perhaps that is a worthwhile trade.
This build feels more solid, but I've dropped some fun factor like whirlwind, and not too sure how happy I am with that.
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Kerblamotron
Level: 40
Archetype: Blaster
Primary: Energy Blast
Secondary: Energy Manipulation
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Power Blast==> Acc(1)Dmg(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(17)
01) --> Power Thrust==> Acc(1)KB_Dist(37)
02) --> Energy Torrent==> Acc(2)Dmg(3)KB_Dist(19)Dmg(31)
04) --> Energy Punch==> Acc(4)Dmg(5)Dmg(17)Dmg(34)
06) --> Power Burst==> Acc(6)Dmg(7)Dmg(7)Dmg(19)KB_Dist(37)
08) --> Sniper Blast==> Acc(8)Dmg(9)Dmg(9)Dmg(29)IntRdx(36)
10) --> Bone Smasher==> Acc(10)Dmg(11)Dmg(11)Dmg(29)
12) --> Build Up==> Rechg(13)Rechg(13)TH_Buf(37)
14) --> Hasten==> Rechg(14)Rechg(15)Rechg(15)
16) --> Super Speed==> Run(16)
18) --> Hurdle==> Jump(18)
20) --> Health==> Heal(20)Heal(21)Heal(21)
22) --> Stamina==> EndMod(22)EndMod(23)EndMod(23)
24) --> Aim==> Rechg(24)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)
26) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(26)Rechg(27)Rechg(27)
28) --> Power Push==> Acc(28)
30) --> Power Boost==> Rechg(30)Rechg(31)Rechg(31)
32) --> Nova==> Dmg(32)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Rechg(33)Rechg(34)Rechg(34)
35) --> Boost Range==> Rechg(35)Rechg(36)Rechg(36)
38) --> Total Focus==> Acc(38)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)EndRdx(40)
---------------------------------------------
Comments appreciated.
[ QUOTE ]
would 3slotting Health be a no no on this character, assuming it would boost recovery to around 77%?
edit: I wonder if it would be improved further by Power Boost.
[/ QUOTE ]
If you compare the % of your hit-points you recover in 10 secs, it looks something like this:
No Health: 4%
Health with 1 SO: 6%
Health with 3 SOs: 7%.
As you can see, 3-slotted Health won't save you if you're taking burst damage. It only helps a bit with downtime between fights (and provides a small sleep resistance). I usually prefer Hurdle/Swift on my squishies, especially if you ever plan to PvP. And Power Boost does not affect +regen powers like Health, only direct heals (like Aid Self).
CoX 50s: <ill/rad> <ice/ice> <fire/kin> <grav/sonic> <ice/storm> <earth/kin> <kin/elec> <cold/psy> <thugs/dark> <fire/dark> <dark/elec> <night widow> <EM/ninj> <mind/icy>
I'd agree with that Okton said; the Stand build has Health because it dates way back, and with Flight/Hover on board taking Hurdle as an alternative didn't seem necessary.
Fun's the whole idea, so it would be good to get Whirlwind back in if you can - how about dropping one of the melee attacks, moving other powers down a bit, and getting WW in the 20s?
If not that, maybe Power Push, given that Whirlwind (to a degree) does a similar job to it anyway?
Or, finally, once you're in your 20s and can see how end lasts once Stamina's fully slotted, you might decide you can get away without Conserve Power. In my experience I only needed CP for long AV slogs when there were no +REC buffs to be had.
Hm, the hero planner specifies 40% heal rate for unslotted Health and around 77% 3-slotted. Can you help me understand your numbers? If yours are the case, there is certainly no point to taking it on this character.
Thanks Standoff, all good suggestions. Was considering a swap with PP or CP myself - I'll have to wait and see how it goes post-stamina. This character was primarily created for fun, so I should really stick to that if I can.
[ QUOTE ]
Hm, the hero planner specifies 40% heal rate for unslotted Health and around 77% 3-slotted. Can you help me understand your numbers? If yours are the case, there is certainly no point to taking it on this character.
[/ QUOTE ]
Health (unslotted) provides a 40% boost to your default heal rate which gives you 5% HP back every 12 secs. So with Health (no enhances), this becomes 5% HP back every 8.6 secs (40% boost), and with 3 SOs, 5% HP back every 6.7 secs (78% boost). Switch the numbers around (to 10 secs) and you get what I quoted .
CoX 50s: <ill/rad> <ice/ice> <fire/kin> <grav/sonic> <ice/storm> <earth/kin> <kin/elec> <cold/psy> <thugs/dark> <fire/dark> <dark/elec> <night widow> <EM/ninj> <mind/icy>
Aaaah....
Thanks
/me goes to adjust build
Hi again. Here's a new build for your comments and critisism. Main differences to previous one is dropping Health for Swift, losing CP, and swapping PP for WW.
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Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Kerblamotron-Stamina
Level: 40
Archetype: Blaster
Primary: Energy Blast
Secondary: Energy Manipulation
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Power Blast==> Acc(1)Dmg(3)Dmg(5)Dmg(17)
01) --> Power Thrust==> Acc(1)KB_Dist(37)
02) --> Energy Torrent==> Acc(2)Dmg(3)KB_Dist(15)Dmg(34)Dmg(37)
04) --> Energy Punch==> Acc(4)Dmg(5)Dmg(15)Dmg(36)
06) --> Power Burst==> Acc(6)Dmg(7)Dmg(7)Dmg(17)
08) --> Sniper Blast==> Acc(8)Dmg(9)Dmg(9)Dmg(19)IntRdx(27)
10) --> Bone Smasher==> Acc(10)Dmg(11)Dmg(11)Dmg(19)
12) --> Build Up==> Rechg(12)Rechg(13)Rechg(13)TH_Buf(27)
14) --> Hasten==> Rechg(14)Rechg(21)Rechg(21)
16) --> Super Speed==> Run(16)
18) --> Hurdle==> Jump(18)
20) --> Swift==> Run(20)
22) --> Stamina==> EndMod(22)EndMod(23)EndMod(23)
24) --> Aim==> Rechg(24)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)
26) --> Whirlwind==> KB_Dist(26)
28) --> Power Boost==> Rechg(28)Rechg(29)Rechg(29)
30) --> Explosive Blast==> Acc(30)Dmg(31)KB_Dist(31)EndRdx(31)Dmg(37)
32) --> Nova==> Dmg(32)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Rechg(33)Rechg(34)Rechg(34)
35) --> Boost Range==> Rechg(35)Rechg(36)Rechg(36)
38) --> Total Focus==> Acc(38)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)EndRdx(40)
---------------------------------------------
I decided to lose CP since I would have taken it shortly after Stamina anyway, and by then I should have a good idea of my endurance needs. If I'm struggling at that point, I'll be able to pick it so no problem there.
WW is back in the build, mainly for fun factor - something inside me says 'take it! take it!'. Also because the two other blasters on our KB team have either already chosen PP or will be doing so, so I figured variety might be nice. I'll see how it goes.
Oh, I also included Explosive Blast. This was mainly because none of the other choices at that point were particularly appealling. I'll see what that feels like on test first maybe. Not very sure on best slotting for it. I figure it's a scattering move so slot for that, and also slot for endurance reduction since it's rather heavy there.
My enhancements were chosen in order this time, so if something is clearly a bad idea please feel free to say so. I'm pondering more interrupt reduction on Snipe, though I _think_ I've read somewhere that endurance reduction is more efficient?
(yay, forums letting me post finally! [censored] was up with that??)
That all looks pretty solid to me. Something you can easily fiddle with when you have the power is the Explosive Blast slotting; as the main use of this is (I gather) an AoE "get out of my face!" button, you might swap the damage Enhs for an extra Acc and KB_Dist. That way you can be more confident it'll have the desired effect.
As you say if it turns out some aspect doesn't suit your playstyle you can always tweak things as you level through the build.
Happy blasting!
Quick update in case you three were interested
I'll be dropping Whirlwind from the build. Tried it last night, some thoughts can be found here. I'm going to replace with PowerPush after all, which has proven to be of great use in our team keeping those pain-in-the-censored foes out of the way till we can deal with them. eg Tsoo sorcerors, Lost bosses and so on.
Shame really, coz it would have been nice to have *gasp* identity in the build for once.
I noticed you dont have any vertical travel power in there. Might want to consider something along the lines of fly/superjump/teleport.
That's very true, Hammerfall. As somebody that had SJ on most of his other chars prior to this (which is one reason I went speed this time), switching to SS was both shocking and rather horrible.... at first. Now I'm used to it and have learned some good routes around the maps, it's really rather fun. So far I've been getting by with the GvE jump pack, and the safeguard Raptors. One of our team also has respec'd into Recall Friend.
So basically I'm gonna see how it goes and perhaps take vertical if I can't handle the frustration
Hello fellow blasters. I'm relatively new to blasting, and would very much appreciate some advice/opinions/critisism on several builds I'm considering for my energy/energy blaster. Please be gentle with me
He's primarily PvE, and almost exclusively groups with two other energy/energy blasters and a storm/energy defender as part of an experimental KB-heavy team. This means no tanks, no h34l0rz, etc. We are currently lvl19 and having great fun.
I'm going to try and put down my thoughts and reasoning in the clearest way I can, apologies in advance if I make a mess of it. There are just so many things going round in my head at the moment
Please ignore the lvls at which I've slotted enhancements - I was having trouble with the builder.
Ok, so, potential build #1:
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Kerblamotron
Level: 41
Archetype: Blaster
Primary: Energy Blast
Secondary: Energy Manipulation
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Power Blast==> Acc(1)Dmg(3)Dmg(5)EndRdx(17)EndRdx(25)Dmg(31)
01) --> Power Thrust==> Acc(1)
02) --> Energy Punch==> Acc(2)Dmg(3)Dmg(5)EndRdx(19)EndRdx(34)
04) --> Energy Torrent==> Acc(4)Dmg(29)KB_Dist(29)
06) --> Power Burst==> Acc(6)Dmg(7)Dmg(7)EndRdx(17)EndRdx(25)Dmg(40)
08) --> Sniper Blast==> Acc(8)Dmg(9)Dmg(9)Dmg(31)IntRdx(37)
10) --> Bone Smasher==> Acc(10)Dmg(11)Dmg(11)EndRdx(19)EndRdx(37)
12) --> Build Up==> Rechg(12)Rechg(13)Rechg(13)
14) --> Hasten==> Rechg(14)Rechg(15)Rechg(15)
16) --> Super Speed==> Run(16)
18) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(18)Rechg(23)Rechg(23)
20) --> Aim==> Rechg(20)Rechg(21)Rechg(21)
22) --> Assault==> EndRdx(22)EndRdx(27)
24) --> Whirlwind==> KB_Dist(24)
26) --> Tactics==> EndRdx(26)EndRdx(27)TH_Buf(31)
28) --> Power Boost==> Rechg(28)
30) --> Stimulant==> IntRdx(30)
32) --> Nova==> Dmg(32)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Rechg(33)Rechg(34)Rechg(34)
35) --> Explosive Blast==> Acc(35)Dmg(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(36)EndRdx(37)
38) --> Total Focus==> Acc(38)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)EndRdx(40)EndRdx(40)
---------------------------------------------
The main difference between this and another potential build is forgoing Fitness powers in favour of squeezing in some Leadership buffs and Stimulant. I figured Stimulant might be helpful because, apart for O2 from our stormie, we have no real mez protection and it's beginning to hurt. I considered Assault and Tactics because, well, we're blasters and more dmg/acc is never a bad thing. I know they are only around 10% buffs unslotted, but if the other two blasters in our team took both as well, then it would stack rather nicely, right?
I'm not sure on best slotting of the leadership toggles. I've slotted only one accuracy per attack due to the Tactics theory.
In the absence of Stamina, I'm considering slotting most attacks with good endurance reduction. Is it unrealistic of me to try and play on this slotting and Conserve Power alone? The stats from the hero builder's attack planner are scaring me, and yet I've seen lvl50 en/en blasters on these boards swearing they get by just fine.
On the other hand, and please correct my assumptions here if needed, the team would receive a minimum of around 30-ish% buff to accuracy if all three of us stacked Tactics. That's around one additional accuracy SO per attack power. So a question I'm asking myself is, if I took Stamina instead of the Leadership and Medicine powers, could I devote more accuracy and/or damage slots to my attacks instead of endurance reduction, worry less about running dry since I've got no toggles, and still be as effective accuracy/damage-wise?
I'd appreciate some opinions on the above.
Ok, and now some general energy/energy-related questions. I was thinking of slotting some range in Power Burst but I heard the base was being improved soon - any truth to this? I'm not sure on the most efficient slotting for Conserve Power or Explosive Blast - could anyone help there? What is the general opinion on the powers I've skipped, ie Stun, Boost Range and Power Push? Since this is supposed to be a KB-heavy team, I like the idea of Power Push - could I subsitute any power in my build for this and remain effective? Any suggestions on where to slot more KB would be cool too.
Thanks for the input.