new player - blaster building advice

So I'm finishing up my free trial this weekend, and am looking forward to some months of play. I've started with a blaster, and have enjoyed reading other postings about the player type. I'm curious if anyone has any advice/feedback to offer as I press on with leveling the character.

I'm now about level 15. I'm doing energy as my primary and electrical as my secondary, with flying as my transport power. I've tried to balance small, medium, and large damage/induction on my energy blasts, and so I now have bolt, blast, burst, and sniper. On electrical, I've tried to balance those blasts with a little bit of melee in case they get in close range, so I've used electrical fence and charged punch (or whatever it's called). I did hover and now flying for transport.

I'm trying to keep my enhancements in use, with an emphasis on damage, accuracy, and ranged for the bursts. Fence is the only AoE I have so far.

All I've done so far is solo, and I haven't touched AE yet. While I expect to solo a lot, I do hope to learn the character well to maximize my effectiveness when I do group. Definitely don't want to be a drag when the grouping comes.

Any advice on things I should think about as I continue to level him up? It's been a fun ride so far!

Thanks.

Random thoughts, sorry for the wall of text.

Be flexible. You'll likely notice that group play will be harder on you than solo play, as you pay a higher price for other peoples misques. Learning how to deal with your aggro will come more easily than learning how to deal with other peoples aggro. The fact that you say you only have one AOE will help in teams. AoE will generate a LOT of unintentional aggro. When grouping with mostly single target attacks, focus on the peskier mobs first, as you will take them out quickly. Don't rely on other teammates for anything. Learn how to use line of sight to stop incoming ranged fire. Looking at an 8 man spawn on the highest difficulty is not the same as looking at a solo spawn on the third difficulty. Focus on doing things that will keep you alive the longest. You have the fewest available tools for damage mitigation, so use what you have. Pay attention to who is providing the best aggro management, and support them. If the tank is getting hurt by a particular foe, put all your fire on that foe. If the defender or controller keeps getting mezzed, take out the mezzers first. Don't let people convince you that your build is sucky, blasters are sucky, or you are a sucky player. Just keep on pounding away at the bad guys. .

A few basics:

- Before level 22, you want to focus on accuracy and damage for attacks, and possibly one endurance reduction if you have enough slots. Once you get to 22, you can use Single Origin enhancements... at that point you should slot attacks with one Accuracy, three Damage, one Endurance, and one Recharge. That's a good general purpose slotting to use until you can afford set enhancements or you decide you need a different mix.

- Bolt, Blast, and Burst are your main attacks in Energy. You'll want all three well slotted because you'll use them a lot. Bolt and Blast are especially important since you can use those while held, stunned, or slept. Sniper is nice to lead off with, especially with Aim or Build Up (or both) but is easily skipped if you don't have room.

- Energy Torrent is a very useful attack. It hits several enemies and knocks them flying, which is handy since it keeps them from shooting you for a couple of seconds. However, as a flier you may want to skip it since you can usually avoid getting close enough to need it. It's still handy in tight quarters though.

- Explosive Blast is handy but not particularly powerful. You can skip it and not really miss it, but if you have room you may want it. Aim, Build Up, Energy Torrent, then Explosive Blast can do pretty good damage to a whole spawn, but Aim and Build Up aren't available every spawn so it's up to you if that's worth the power choices to take.

- Speaking of which, take Aim and Build Up. They help a lot.

- You'll want to take Stamina at level 20 if possible. It makes a huge difference. Take Swift (which increases fly speed) and Health before 20 if possible so you'll be able to get Stamina.

I don't know as much about Electric, but I do know Charged Brawl and Havok Punch are fantastic damage powers. They're also melee though, so you may not want both if you are going to try to avoid getting close. On the other hand, you can do phenomenal damage by using Power Blast, Power Burst, Havok Punch, and Charged Brawl as your attacks and staying close to the enemy. It's dangerous though.

Since it's your first character, I'd suggest playing around with as many of the powers from your primary and secondary as possible. Once you decide what you like and what you don't you can use your second build to select only those powers you want. By the time you get into the mid 20s you should be able to afford new enhancements for the second build.

Oh, and be sure to use Wentworth's. Even if you just list every salvage piece you get at 1 influence you'll end up richer than you would be selling them to a vendor. Do sell enhancements to vendors, they don't sell well at WWs... and they sell for more at a vendor that sells that enhancement (a Mutant store pays more for Mutant origin enhancements than a Tech store.) If you take some time to check out prices you can make quite a bit off the market even at low levels, but even if you don't want to fool with that at least sell the salvage. For instance, some recipes are almost worthless and should be vendored, while others can make you millions if you craft them and sell the IO on the market. It takes some research to figure out what's valuable, but it's time well spent.

My newest baby blaster is an nrg/elec. You will definitely want Stamina because this build can be an endy hog I've found. I like to take either Swift or Hurdle at level 10 and then take Health (or whichever movement power you didn't take at 10) at level 16. That gives me an additional "fun" power to take at levels 12 and 18 and breaks up the monotony of taking the two Stamina pre-req passives before Stamina itself at level 20.

Using melee successfully on a blaster as an attack is mainly a matter of getting the timing of the game down. Until you're comfortable with that, your strategy of using your melee mainly as a means of defense is where most blasters leave it. You may find as you gain experience that you start taking the pounding to them rather than wait for them to bring it to you. If you do that, then don't let anyone tell you you're doing the wrong thing (unless you faceplant every single time you try it); as a blaster, your job is to do damage, and as long as you do that without causing teamwipes no one has any right to complain about precisely how you do it.

Personally, I like to slot my attacks with 2acc, 3dam, and 1endred or 1 recharge until I start messing with set IOs. I tend to go into a lot of situations where I am facing things that con at +2, +3 or more to me, so that extra accuracy is very useful. If you start acquiring a taste for higher level foes, you might think about adopting a higher accuracy slotting scheme than just 1acc. Also, when it comes to Power Burst, I swap out the endred and the recharge in favor of 1 range enhancer. My main is an nrg/nrg and her Power Burst is slotted to almost match the base range of the main two blasts; it makes a nice utility tool for either close up fighting or a more ranged approach.

As for /elec, I took it mainly for melee powers on my little blaster because I've been around long enough to have leveled three blasters to 50 with one of those being a very successful blapper (blaster who is built to fight primarily in melee range), so I feel very comfortable with being able to handle using the melee attacks as attacks. I would skip lightning field; it looks pretty cool, but it's also an aggro magnet. It won't do enough damage to do more than tick off mobs. Since you're new and often solo, I would look at each power choice's potential to mitigate aggro. Anything that holds, sleeps, KBs, stuns, or immobilizes is usually a good choice although there are some powers out there that just aren't worth it (/ice's tier nine for example).

A final note: This build has the potential to create a LOT of KB. There are a lot of people who get irritated, sometimes rightly so, with KB because it can do all sorts of unintended annoying things in team play. I would suggest that while you are playing solo, you start paying attention to your KB. Start learning how far things fly, in what direction, etc., things will go when affected by the KB of your various powers. With a little practice, you can learn how to use the KB as a positioning tool rather than a disruptive scattering force that teams will squawk about. Barring that, get used to using Hover a lot when teaming so that you can direct most of your efforts downward which should turn your KB into knockdown. Another team strategy is to go solely single target and concentrate on killing what you shoot. Still a third, is to save the nrg AoE powers for later on in the fight when the mobs are very low on health. This way, when you unleash the KB, you will hopefully kill most of the mobs you hit rather then scattering them.

There's a lot of good advice on here so far, especially from DestineeFable. I'll just append my thoughts:

-General word of advice to a new blaster player: When on teams, it's a good idea to always wait for the melee types to run in first (or let other squishies throw down controls and debuffs). Once the initial "alpha aggro" has been taken, let loose!

-As previously discussed, controlling your knockback is a crucial tool to master for solo, and especially grouping. There are two main reasons people dislike knockback on teams. It can scatter enemies, making subsequent AoEs less effective since the enemies are no longer nicely bunched together. KB also can piss off melee allies, since they have to chase after whatever target(s) you are knocking away. Just stay aware of these nuances and you should be fine. For example, one boss is bearing down on your scrapper teammate, and another is after your defender teammate. Unless the scrapper is dying, help the defender.

-One of the best ways to take advantage of knockback while still minimizing chaos is to corner your enemies. Position yourself so your enemies are repeadedly knocked against a wall, or into a corner. Also keep in mind that one of the best times to use your melee attacks is when the enemy is flopped on the floor

-Also be aware that certain enemies and villain groups encountered later in the game are resistant to KB effects, so be prepared to adjust your strategy accordingly (for example, hovering above a scary boss and sticking with your ranged attacks).

-On single target vs. AoE attacks: The combo you've chosen excels at huge single target damage, making you an excellent boss killer. Play to your strengths! When on a team, you're the ace in the hole for taking out a beefy target FAST. Pick a boss or a dangerous lieutenant (i.e. Tsoo Sorcerors) and obliterate them.

-Regarding AoE in particular: I do recommend Energy Torrent because it's a lot fun to use (and partly because I love cones). Quick/easy beginner tip for using cones: aim at an enemy in the back of a group. I probably wouldn't get Explosive Blast, because it knocks enemies in all directions away from the explosion, unlike energy torrent which can be directed with a little finesse. Torrent is best used when you can knock enemies into a wall or corner, or when a controller has the enemies immobilized. There's a time and place for everything though- keep in mind that torrent can draw a lot of aggro , so just because you have it doesn't mean you should always use it.

-Powers I wholeheartedly recommend: Bolt, Blast, Burst, Torrent, Aim, Build Up, Charged Brawl, HavocPunch, Power Sink, Shocking Grasp

-Aim and Build Up are awesome for boosting your burst damage output. Usually it's best to alternate them so you often have at least one up. Slotting: 3 rech

-Pool Powers: get stamina ASAP! It's by no means necessary, but extremely helpful. The prereqs aren't too bad either, swift + health.


Ok, I ran out of steam. Hope that helps! Feel free to post here or PM me if you have any questions.

"As such, blasters operate best when they are very reliant on teammates."

If the blaster in question is experianced enough to have the situational awareness to realize not only what the blaster himself is doing, but what everyone else is doing AND experianced enough to realize that any particular teammate is more of a threat to the blasters survival than an aide, then I agree. The AoE blaster trumps the ST blaster. But until the blaster player in question has learned about the tactical considerations of good and bad teams and good and bad players, then I suggest a more relaxed single target approach. A bad AoE blaster is worse than a mediocre ST blaster.