New player - blaster advice

Yes I play a ranged blaster

Not if you want global recharge.
And who doesn't want global recharge?

Commies! That's who!

There are epics, which have armors that will help your survivability, as well as other useful powers. Many of them also have holds, you may want to choose one of those, as the hold will stack with Shocking Grasp and allow you to kill bosses in complete safety. The Electrical Mastery pool has a hold, an armor, an AoE attack, a long-recharge click that gives you very high resistance and improves your recovery for a few minutes, and it matches your secondary.

Hover uses far less end, gives you a bit of defense, and has much better air control. With fly, you slide when you try to stop or turn; with hover you can stop and turn on a dime.

This game is not so difficult as to require a "perfect" build, and what you learn from planning your own will make you a far better player IMO.

Global recharge is wonderful, but not every build needs it to be honest.

If you are already at the 7.5% bonus cap then Sting of the Manticore won't help you where as Extreme Measure can.

Noone said every build needs it, nor have I seen it even hinted, or even debated, all that was said was it was nice...but since you brought it up...
You would need 5 other enhancements of recharge 7.5% for the SotM to be useless in that aspect. (see laws of 5)
also 4 slots Extreme gets you Dmg 2% were as 4 slots SotM gets you Dmg 3%.
Yes Extreme gets you a 1.5% recov but that is something that is easy to slot for tbh.

Fact is we do not know that much about how he plays, or what he is looking for in a final build. He is here asking questions and getting feed back, so why you say my build will not help him is beyond me bud. I mean no disrepect as you have obviously been around a long time and give some good advice, but you seem a bit eliteist and off putting.

First of all I was talking about the cap, I just forgot to put 7.5% cap and only said 7.5%.

Secondly you are taking this way beyond what it needs to be. I wasn't saying Sting of the Manticore isn't bad, I simple said that Extreme Measure is every bit as good. If you don't think so fine, that is your opinion but it doesn't influence mine at all.

Third I said you build will not help him because you have a build that is completely ranged from what I see of it and in his original post he has melee powers mixed with range. What I am saying is not elitist in any way at all. I am simply stating my opinion based on what I have seen from his original post and from what I see about your build.

You posted your build for whatever reason an I simply offered him a bit of advice regarding the information we are telling him and what you posted. My post doesn't put your build down at all. I actually didn't say anything positive or negative about your build so I can't see why you would even begin to take offense to anything I have said.

I disagree w/ that for sure.

I'm sure you aren't the only one that disagrees. If you like the power its only obvious that you would disagree. I on the other hand find it to be a worthless power.

You're not the only one. I don't like gimmicky powers either. Sure, they're "okay" but often there's something far more effective you can do in the same space of time or a better power you can choose.

I put hot feet, frozen aura, world of confusion and time bomb in the gimmicky category. There's some players that swear by these, but I'd never recommend them.

On my blasters, stuff dies way before any damage aura could make a dent. While such auras are marginally useful in tough fights (AVs, EBs), I can put the power pick and slot investments to far better use elsewhere.

Exactly

I wouldn't call them gimmicks certainly, there is a time, place, and playstyle that fits all powers.

Damage Auras are a staple for those blasters who's playstyle have them living (and dying) in melee range the majority of their play time. Lots of folks call these blappers and a well played one deals more damage and survives better than an average scrapper.

If you play as all range or a mix of range and melee (especially if you are light on melee and only use it for finishing stuff off) then damage Auras will give you almost no contribution at all.

Frozen Aura is an awesome power when you are solo or on a team of folks who are either single target damage focused or know how to use AoEs. Frozen Aura (the blaster version anyway) has no damage component. It's duration is greater than it's recharge time out of the box and can be easily slotted to double stack with just SOs this gives you a power that will stop even bosses until you are ready to deal with them. When coupled with a primary that has a sleep in it (like Sonic) you can put an entire spawn to sleep, and keep them asleep while you pick them off one at a time.

Time Bomb which you call a gimmick power is one that goes real well with sleep powers. Put the spawn to sleep, set the time bomb, and move on to the next spawn. Yeah it takes patience to play devices but it's one of the safest blaster secondaries.

World of Confusion is another one of those type powers. It goes very well with Drain Psyche. The majority of mobs that you meet in most (non-AE) missions are minions. Against an unarmored blaster even multiple minion damage can be dangerous. WoC gives you the mitigation you need to maximize DP. Jump into a swarm of minions, drain them, and jump back out before the confusion wears off. Once you've drained them your regen rate should be high enough that, that same swarm of minions can no longer deal enough damage to defeat you.

While yes they are "defensive" powers and yes they do stack slotted with lvl 30 std def IOs (this takes you to the ED cap) they combined still only offer roughly 6% def, that by no means = good IMO. 20-30% is "good", Capped is great, 6% is nothing especially when unslotted they offer roughly 4%. A 2% increase from slotting a power is IMO a horrible waste of slots. The way defense works in this game going from 0-6% def is nothing were as going from 39% to 45% def takes you from damn near unhittable to damn near unkillable.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Sure, the devs are supposed to listen to their customers, mister business 101 out there. And if I decide to start suggesting that the devs change the game from being about superheroes and supervillains to being about clowns that is my right as well, and technically Paragon Studios is supposed to pay attention to me. But I hope strongly that they assume a meth-head somehow managed to hack into my forum account and make paper airplanes out of my posts, because I hope they recognize stupid when they see it. I assume they will recognize futile just as accurately.

I think you need to specify that you find it worthless because it doesn't have much use to your playstyle. As Miladys_Knight pointed out there are other playstyles that can vastly benefit from a damage aura like Lightning Field.

Personally having played an Elec/Elec blaster in my opinion if you aren't planning to play as a blapper (or at least a mix of ranged and melee) you're wasting one of the main perks of /Elec which is the really beefy melee attacks it has. For a blaster that plays as a blapper (which, in case the OP doesn't know, is a blaster that plays more like a scrapper and focuses more on his/her melee attacks and being in melee range) a damage aura is very useful since you'll be in melee range much much more than a ranged or mixed blaster.

Edit: btw I think that other guy called you an elitist because you do seem to have a kind of.."I'm always right" attitude when it's really not about being right so much as just personal playstyle. Just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it doesn't work for anybody else.

Remember, not having long fights does not limit Lightning Field. Lightning Field should be helping make fights shorter (it should be slotted for ~85% or more damage). It is not about how much it does in each fight, its about how many fewer attacks you need because LF has removed enough health from enemies to require one less attack to defeat them.

That said, vs solo spawns, you usually have to start the fight in melee to see that effect. If you plan on ranging mostly, I'd really recommend dropping LF or only use it to help keep bosses endurance drained and for the extra damage vs the hard target (that way you do not need to have it toggled except in boss fights).

Why specify the obvious? It is implied that I am talking about myself seeing as the information you read on this screen is coming from me. There are more reasons NOT to take Lighting Field than there are to take Lightning Field.

Using your example and knowing how excellent the four melee powers in Elec Manip perform you should know that even having EF running wont really make much of a difference because those attacks will drop the enemy before EF has the time to really contribute. Aim + Build Up + CB + HP = just about dead anything, and if you mix in SG that will drop a boss quickly.

Explain to me how you get attitude out of some pink letters on the screen that are just summing up my opinion to a question? If you agree with him then two are the only two people since I have been on this game that have ever said anything to that effect when it couldn't be more wrong.

Not once have I ever said I am right or wrong because in this game everyones experience is different hence why I never give my opinions in a general sense, I give them from my point of view which is all I can do.

To be completely honest, once you have Havoc Punch slotted up and Shocking Grasp really won't have much need to even use LF when in melee range. If you ever come across hard bosses in your soloing eventually you will want to look at getting the Elec Mastery pool and Shocking Bolt. SB and SG will lock down a boss and each recharges fast. Also since SB is ranged and has a quick animation you can open with Zapp then SB and then close to melee for Shocking Grasp (slotted for damage) and viola, dead boss.

Eh, I just tend to disagree with telling people that certain powers are worthless no matter what because I believe every single power in this game can be worthwhile to someone out there. It all depends on playstyle.

Understandable. I don't disagree that Lightning Field can be useful, but from my perspective and opinion I personally find the power utterly useless. I feel that there are a plethora of other powers that can be more useful than LF.

If the OP wants to play with the power then more power to him/her, but I would never endorse the power. I just offer my view of the power as does anyone else answering his/her questions in this thread.