Archery / Devices Build - Four Questions

My very first level 50 toon was a blaster, that was over three years ago and while I haven't deleted him, I decided after dinging level 50 that I never wanted to play another blaster again (this was in the days before IOs and I tended to end up with more debt than a Third World Country).

Since doing the rounds with controllers, masterminds, widows and tanks I have rethought and decided that I would like to revisit the world of face-planting damage and have decided to make a new blaster.

For concept reasons I have already decided on archery / devices and have played around in Mids to make what I think is a reasonable blaster who, when fully slotted, will have soft capped ranged defence and decent enough damage but I have a few questions:

1. I like to play solo so I need a build that can at least solo an EB and preferably an AV. Soft capped ranged defence is essential but do I also need Aid self? Is it an absolute necessity or can it be skipped?
2. My build has room for either Aim or Targetting Drone but not both. Which is the better power? Whichever one I take will be fully slotted with a full set of Gaussians including the "Chance for Build up" Proc. I have this slotted on my Widow and it does not seem to fire that often on a toggle power to be of any practical use so would it be better in Aim?
3. Which is the better power, Blazing Arrow or Fistfull of Arrows? I ask because I take one fairly early on in the build but leave the other to nearly the end.
4. Is Time Bomb really bad? I ask because for concept reasons I would like to take it but my power choices are fairly limited and if I have to skip it I will

Thanks for any help you can give me

I can only really comment on two of the questions:
I'd go with Aim instead of Targeting Drone. Your natural Accuracy from Archery should do the trick in most cases and the damage bonus will be more useful.

Frankly I wouldn't want to give up either one of Fistful or Blazing. Fistful is a quick cone with nice range, and Blazing hits like a truck and gives you some early diversity in damage type (for dealing with those frakking Clockwork). I'd give up an early Devices power, or push back Stamina for 2 levels, if that would allow you to get both of these early. That said, if necessary I think I'd lose Blazing, if only because its long animation might cause you problems with an attack chain.

Blazing Arrow vs Fistfull: Take both
Targeting Drone vs Aim: Take both

Seriously though - you NEED blazing arrow if you want to have a decent chance of finishing off hard targets (LT's or higher). Snap shot and aimed shot are nice and build fury decently, but don't hit that hard. If you skip any attack early on I would skip explosive arrow - it costs a lot of end and has a huge recharge for about the same damage as fistfull. Yes, it is easier to use but pre-stamina end is a big issue. Snap Shot+Aimed Shot+Blazing+fistfull will give you a solid attack chain early on and ok AE damage. You need to keep in mind that Archery's AE damage isn't really mature until you have Rain of Arrows slotted up fully - prior to that you need to rely on your single target chain. So take those 4 attacks right off, slot them up, then fit in explosive arrow when you can afford to slot it (usually mid 20's).

As for TD vs Aim, I like having both on my archery/dev blaster and depending on your level you will get more use out of one or the other. Prior to SO's the fact that TD is on all the time AND the fact that it's +to hit bonus combined with archery's high base accuracy means you don't need to slot ANY accuracy if you are just dealing with normal level mobs (+0 and +1's) and a single DO will let you deal with +2's fairly safely. This means you can focus on just slotting damage in your attacks. If you have access to Mr. Yin's store in faultline and you go with natural origin (not unusual for a archery/dev) you can slot damage SO's starting at level 10 - which means you can easily cap the damage with just 3 slots in each attack.

TD will serve you well until you get RoA up often - while RoA does inherit your current buffs it only gets them for the duration they have remaining when you activate the power. Because the to hit buff from TD doesn't last long enough to cover all 3 rains from RoA you are better off at this point with Aim as its 10 second duration will cover the entire rain, plus you get the damage boost. By the 30's or so you will probably be slotting IO sets in your attacks and most of those have a ton of accuracy anyway, so TD really is overkill at that point. While I DO like the way it allows you to laugh at CoT to hit debuffs, the worst ones are the chill of the night fields that the spectral daemon lords put out and those guys rarely close with you as long as you sit on a caltrop field.

So, if you can I would recommend taking TD initially then respec'ing out of it in the mid 20's/late 30's. Personally, I like to have both and my archery/dev blaster does have both but I could see giving up TD for hasten or something like that, which I don't have.

Timebomb: I have never used it, can't say if it will be usefull however as other posters have noted I suspect you will never get to use it in a group. While you might get to use it solo I have found that as cool as it may be to plant a huge minefield and lure mobs into them it is actually SLOWER than just unloading your mobile AE into them. I do use tripmine on my character but more for the defiance bonus (a whopping 25% defiance bonus) and as a melee deterent - plant it at your feet, throw out caltrops then open up on the mobs with aim+RoA+Fistfull+Explosive and if anything survives that it will slowly close with you only to get blown away by the trip mine.