Which Blaster...?
All of the primaries work well for what you're wanting, with Archery and Psychic being particularly nice with 80ft tier 3's (most tier 3's are 40 or 50 ft), and are therefore the most common for those wanting a lot of range.
For an all ranged build, it is the secondaries that are more important to note as most have powers used in melee. An all ranged build, outside of respec builds, is a pretty rare thing as it sacrifices a lot to just use ranged attacks. Most blasters will, at least in part, move in and out of melee range except in teaming situations where far fewer powers for all ATs are needed.
The most common pure ranged build is Archery/Energy where one sacrifices all or most of the Energy melee attacks and focuses on things like Boost Range, Power Boost, and Conserve Power. MM, usually again paired with Archery/Psychic, is also a pretty common ranged build using Psychic Scream and occasionally moving in for Drain Psyche. Devices is far less common, particularly since most of its functionality is replaced with IOs, but if you adapt to its playstyle many have found it an enjoyable ride. Ice, although not common, can be very effective for its mitigational tools such as Ice Patch and Shiver.
The biggest question is how much you team. Honestly, if you team a ton any Blaster primary could be made to work purely from range and that's probably what you are accustomed to seeing is the Blasters hanging back, firing off a few attacks, and moving to the next spawn. Solo situations are where the melee oriented nature of the secondaries plays the biggest part.
I will also mention that /Ice and /Mental have good ranged effects and few/skippable melee attacks. Not "no" melee effects, but stuff you can live without.
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So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Archery/Energy
Energy secondary gives you boost range this lets you do mass damage from a distance.
Archery's tier 3 heavy hitter does almost snipe damage with out all the nasty delays and interrupts. Boost Range makes it almost the same range as a snipe.
Archery has good AoEs, and a crashless ranged nuke, the only set that has more and sports a crashless nuke is Assault Rifle but that primary lacks Aim. Good for concept, bad for maximizing ranged alpha damage.
If you pick up Munitions as your Epic Pool you get another crashless ranged nuke. It acts like an AoE snipe and has that range to start with. Boost range means that you can fire on stuff that is outside your perception range. (You'll need a forward observer to target through).
You also get Cryo Freeze ray in Munitions. With Boost Range you'll have more than enough range to double stack it on a boss before they can reach melee.
If you soft cap your defense to ranged and add in as much AoE defense as you can get you can use hover to fly above the mobs and make sure that they do the least damage possible while still "raining" death from above.
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I would also say /Energy for a ranged blaster.
Arch/Nrg, but be aware that ranged Blasters are weaker than normal Blasters. Especially if there is a Kin on the team.
A Kin defender will often outdamage Ranged Blasters because they refuse to get Fulcrum Shift.
Ok,
I mostly play tankers.
I'm wanting to shift gears a bit and switch to something long range.
I wanted some advice on which blaster I should choose. I don't want a blapper, i want to lay down fire from a safe distance.
This is mostly an opinion question, I'm sure you all have different sets you prefer to others, I'm just wanting some ideas.
Whatya got?