Trying again...

This is where understanding game mechanics might help. 6 small(?) purples does no better than 4 small purples, unless Black Scorpion has build up or some other to hit buffs.

If your blaster is not /energy, then you also have access to an immobilize, which most AV/EB-class types have low immunity to, and this--spammed--can keep you out of range of the biggest attacks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ultimo_ You have decent health, but with no defenses, two or three hits is enough to kill you. When a typical spawn of three foes can defeat you on their first volley, I'm left wondering how you're supposed to be successful.

It is not true. A typical spawn of three foes will not do that. There may be a few spawns that could, if they all hit. A typical blaster can defeat/control a typical spawn of three foes facing a three attack alpha (or less depending on what the blaster opens with) and then only facing 0-2 more attacks. 3-5 attacks from a typical 3 foe spawn will not move a blaster below half health.

Solo, blasters do not scale well vs. harder targets. Many do scale well vs. more targets. Teamed, blasters are a good addition vs. many, hard targets. In this game, Iron Man's armor is built by allies. Get a defender or Tanker friend modeled on Ho Yinsen.

Do not solo your own arc that you list as challenging and designed for teams with a character you are not capable of soloing well. Find AE arcs that feature normal challenges or play a regular contact arc.

You could try a brute or stalker. EM / EA or Ela with Mace mastery. You do not get the blasts until high level though. An Arachnos Soldier is pretty close as well.

You have to realize that blasters can do this fairly easily, but not until level 50.

I have two suggestions:

First, when you get to level 41 you can take the Force Mastery Epic power pool. The first power you can get is Personal Force Field. This is very useful, as it makes you pretty much unhittable, as well as providing decent damage resistance. You can't attack while this is up, but you can keep it up until your opponent uses the big attack that would kill you, then you can drop it and attack. It's also useful for running into a big group with the bubble up, then hit buildup/aim, drop the bubble, and nuke them. And it's a good "Get me out of here Mr. Wizard!" power.

At level 44 you can take Temporary Invulnerability, which gives you about 33% Smash/Lethal resistance when fully slotted. I haven't looked at Black Scorpion's attacks, but if they have a smashing or lethal component, the damage will probably be reduced by a third, which will let you survive. At level 47 you can take Force of Nature, which will give you 55% damage resistance to smash/lethal. While this is up, you will have capped your damage resistance to smash/lethal at 75%. FoN is a click with a two-minute duration, after which you lose all Endurance. It also has a long recharge, but this is good enough to allow you to take down the Big Bad at the end of a mission.

The other aspect of this is to get IO sets that increase your defense to ranged or smash/lethal attacks (which depends on your playstyle, though ranged is probably much cheaper and easier to get). You should get the Mids character designer to help choose your IO sets. You'll probably need to get Tough and Weave, and maybe Maneuvers, to get your Defense as high as possible. Depending on your play style you may wish to get ranged defense and be a hover blaster, which reduces your exposure to hard-hitting melee attacks. The goal is to get your ranged defense to 45%, but if you can get it to 35% that'll be good enough to make you "softcapped" when you use one purple. The base to-hit chance for most even-con mobs is 50%, and there's always a 5% chance that any attack will hit, so 45% defense is the target "soft-cap" for defenses. Defense debuffs are pretty common, so more is better, but almost impossible for blasters to obtain.

There are other possibilities (Cold Mastery has a defensive shield), but they may not fit your character concept.

The second possibility is to make an Energy/ corruptor with a secondary that fits. A corruptor can use defender powers, which provide a LOT of mitigation. I have a Fire/Dark corruptor, and usually run her at +0/x8. I did a rescue Ghost Widow mission without knowing it involved an ambush by an EB and three waves of Longbow. I survived this without being defeated. The mitigation provided by Dark is pretty fabulous. One of the Corruptor epics has a smash/lethal shield. With that I was able to build a Rad/Kin Corruptor with 42% S/L, 46% energy and 37.6% ranged defense, using Tough, Weave and Scorpion Shield. You should be able to make an Energy/Kin Corruptor that has similar defenses (this doesn't have damage resistance, though, which means a lucky -- 1 in 20 -- shot can take you down).

I'm not all that wild about playing villains, but with Going Rogue coming out I've found a renewed interest in them. Eventually I can redeem them....

Yeah, I only ran that particular battle twice, but as I say, I stopped playing the character some time ago as a result of the accumulation of frustration. I'm trying again, but the frustration builds so much faster now...

I don't know who negative repped me with this comment, but I'll answer it nonetheless.

The point of this thread is to do precisely what you suggest. I'm trying to figure out how to play the Blaster successfully. Also, this is the first time I've posted regarding my Blaster, so I don't know how it could be "getting old."

I just pulled out my old Energy/Energy blaster, the first (undeleted) character I made which is still stalled at level 43 after five years, and soloed Black Scorpion.

Same tactics as my Fire/Energy blaster: kill the minions, then Hover and blast him till he drops. It took a little longer, but he only hit me once. I used two purples, but I don't think they were necessary. He spends all his time dancing around instead of attacking you.

The main thing about blasters is that you just have to avoid getting hit until you get your shield and any mega-defensive powers in your 50s. For an energy/energy blaster that usually means hovering or preemptively using your KB powers (Power Push or Power thrust) to keep melee types away from you (because melee usually does more damage).

I think the guy who said that this "was getting old" is suggesting that you use the search function to find the previous threads that talk about this. If so, he should just say so rather than being snarky.

However, the problem with the search function is that people write so many utterly useless posts (i.e., "this is getting old") that the search function returns thousands of hits that have no useful information. I wish people would stop filling the forums with pointless posts that simply quote someone else, adding only "QFT" or "/signed" or some kind of personal jab. Don't the forum rules deprecate this?

If I have nothing new or useful to say, or find the post so totally lacking in merit that it is its own refutation, I just ignore it.

Was the Black Scorpion mission the first thing you ran when you picked up the character again? Sometimes when you switch AT, it helps to do a few warm-ups first, especially switching from someone with armors to someone without them. Ranged vs. Melee is also a big switch in tactics.

I know back-to-back defeats are frustrating, but you have to try to remember that from time-to-time the RNG is just against you.

All I can really advise is trying to get in a good frame of mind about needing your training wheels back on for a bit. I'm sure others would help with your build if you post it, however.

Or maybe his character has the Wi Flag?

I can sympathize, as I've also wanted to combine some ranged attacks with defenses. A Blaster/Tanker (Blanker?) Archetype. But I've had good luck so far with my Electric/Electric Blaster using the electrical brawls (and Air Superiority) to compliment the ranged attacks.

NCSoft, Please reconsider your decision to close down CoH. It has an extremely loyal following and enjoys a great amount of free support from the larger community.

I invite everybody to add the above image to your signature as a petition to reverse NCSoft's decision.

Having read some of your other posts on the subject I can safely comment that you are using a brute force approach (ie: depending on mitigation through toggles) to a subject that requires finesse. This is a common problem with players that mainly play tanks, scrappers, and brutes.

Because of the way that the game is, and how blasters are set up, there is what I like to call a "performance dead spot" in the level 33-40 range for blasters. You aren't getting much, if any, new mitigation in this area and mobs are getting tougher. This trend reverses itself in the later levels when you get your epic powers.

What you have to do as a blaster is analyze your power set selection(s) strengths and weaknesses and then emphasize your strengths and de-emphasize your weaknesses. You can do all of this with inspirations, accolades, temp powers, and IO set bonuses.

The first step in learning to be a topline blaster is getting out of the toggle mitigation mind set. Remove tough, weave, and manuvers from your build. They are end heavy powers that don't give you enough mitigation for the endurance they use. (Once you've learned HOW to be a blaster you can put them back in if you really want to.)

For the rest, how about we take it one step at a time and analyze and emphasize the strengths, and then analyze and de-emphasize the weaknesses. Since Ultimo is your name sake I'll be making the assumption through out that eventually you'll put the influence into him to make him "Uber" and worthy of beng your name sake.

Like some of the other posters have mentioned, Force Mastery is probably the best selection for your chosen blaster primary/secondary set, so we'll analyze that.

Energy/Energy/Force

Whoops, getting ahead of ourselves here. Let's start by analyzing the blaster AT a bit first. Simply put, you are an eggshell armed with a sledge hammer. Since we are looking at strengths first let's look at the sledge hammer.

Defiance - The blaster inherent. Every attack you make using your primary or secondary power set increases the damage you do with subsequent attacks. What do you need to fuel this part of your inherent? Recharge to make your best/hardest attacks useable more often and endurance to fuel them. With this in mind, to get the most out of defiance, you'll need Hasten, Stamina, (yes, yes, I know that there are people that will say that you don't NEED Stamina and Hasten, but taking them play to the blaster's strengths and going with out them simply emphasize the blaster's weaknesses, so for the time being we will ignore those folks and call the Staminaless and Hastenless blaster an outlier for advanced players only), +rech set bonuses and accolades, +recovery set bonuses and accolades, +max endurance accolades and set bonuses, and base empowerments. We aren't including inspirations in here for 2 reasons.

1) There are no +rech inspirations.
2) Running out of endurance eliminates the benefit you get from defiance.

Endurance recovery (and endurance reduction) should be built into your character and you should strive for sustainability. (You'll need to use your inspirations for other purposes.)

Things to avoid here are Pool and Epic attack powers since they don't help build defiance.

Energy/

Energy/ does 2 things, Damage (something the blaster is all ready good at) and Knockback. That's it. There are no other effects in Energy/. It doesn't have any stuns, holds, fears, defense/resistance debuffs, or sleeps like some of the other sets, only knockback. Since knockback is for mitigation we'll cover that below in the de-emphasizing weaknesses section. The thing to note here in Strengths is to slot up to (or a little over) the ED softcap for damage while including enough accuracy to hit reliably, and enough recharge and endurance reduction to get your sustainability. SOs can do this, Frankenslotting IO set pieces to emphasize each area is better, as it's a cheap and easy way to do this, and over the life of the character is better than using SOs since the IOs don't degrade (they are thus cheaper in the long run) and they exemplar well. Long term you'll want the very hefty benefits that you get from stacking multiple set bonuses.

/Energy

This secondary is an excellent grab bag of fast activating, hard hitting attacks, mitigation, and other useful secondary effects that include guaranteed knockback, guaranteed and % chances to stun, endurance conservation tools, globaly increased range, globaly increased boosts to secondary effects (except for knockback , [rant] Castle you rat , if you are reading this, when are you going to put KB back into Power Boost for PvE? You can do it now since effects for PvP and PvE can be made different, this would give back the only real synergy Energy/ ever had with /Energy [/rant]}.

As above, the majority of secondary effects are mainly for mitigation and we'll cover those below, but I want to emphasize 1 thing. Take, slot up, and use the attacks in your secondary. If you aren't, you're only 1/2 a blaster (it's ok to avoid them as a concept "Ranger" type character [especially with /Energy] but that too should be considered an outlier for advanced players only) also as above, the thing to note here in Strengths is to slot up to (or a little over) the ED softcap for damage while including enough accuracy to hit reliably, and enough recharge and endurance reduction to get your sustainability. SOs can do this, Frankenslotting IO set pieces to emphasize each area is better, as it's a cheap and easy way to do this, and over the life of the character is better than using SOs since the IOs don't degrade (they are thus cheaper in the long run) and they exemplar well. Long term you'll want the very hefty benefits that you get from stacking multiple set bonuses.

Conserve Power - This is a very good endurance management tool to assist with your sustainability. It has a 600 second recharge and a 90 second duration. With ED softcapped slotting for recharge and ~140% global rech from set bonuses and hasten it is up ~50% of the time. If you can maintain endurance sustainability with out it via IOs, accolades, and set bonuses you could respec out of it later.

Power Boost - This boosts the secondary effects of many powers (not KB though) with the above mentioned globals it would have an up time of 15 seconds and a recharge of ~17ish it would have the greatest effect on increasing your stun durations and it would have some effect on your defense when PFF is on as well as increasing the healing provided by aid self. All in all with proper slotting and set bonuses you probably won't need this power. You'll be destroying stuff fast enough that you won't need it for increased stun duration and the other effects it provides are either just not enough or massive over kill.

Boost Range - A single rech IO in the base slot (with the above mentioned globals) will keep this power on permanently (30 second duration with a 21 second recharge). Nice to have if you are mainly using powers that are long ranged anyway and avoiding using your blaps, but some of your best powers are short ranged (Energy Torrent and Power Burst) and you want to use the blaps. Skippable in this case. Or it can be a level 49 power that gets only the base slot.

Accolades that help with strengths:

Geas of the Kind Ones - A massive boost to recovery, recharge, and to hit for 60 seconds.
The Atlas Medallion - 5% increase to max endurance. This has dual effects. Not only does it give you more total endurance to draw on, but having a higher max end also increases your recovery rate.
Portal Jockey - as above a 5% increase to max endurance. It also has the effect of increasing your max hit points.

IOs that help with the strengths.

Miracle + for the +recovery
Numina's +/+ for the +recovery
Perforamce shifter chance for +end. If slotted as the 3rd endmod IO in stamina gives more recovery on average than a third ED capped endmod IO. Definately worth the cost in influence.

That's it. The strengths are pretty straight forward. You use them to blow stuff up. Using them creatively and using the secondary effects are where you get your survival from.

De-emphasizing Weaknesses and palatives

Unfortunately, for your concept, the blaster is rife with weaknesses. All most all of them are things that you can't do a thing about using your powers in a straight forward manner so you have to get creative using positional awareness and dip into pool powers and use some IOs.

Defiance is a palative of sorts for mezzes. It lets you fire your 3 weakest powers when under most status effects. It's helpful in some situations such as being mezzed near the end of a fight but not enough when mezzed at the beginning of a fight or mid to late game when enemy mez powers have ranges that are greater than the range of these powers.

Blaster mitigation is staying in motion and beating stuff up before it beats you up. That's your only option when you select the blaster AT. The weaknesses for the blaster are as follows in order from the most damaging to least damaging.

1) Status effects

Knockback - yep that's right. It's not being held, not being stunned, not being slept, not being slowed, not being feared. Being KB'd makes you unable to do ANYTHING and there's not a reactive thing that you can do about it. It will keep you from activating powers, even those that can be activated while under various other mez effects due to defiance, it will keep you from using inspirations that could save you, it's a common effect in the mobs, and it can be chained until you are D-E-A-D dead without having been able to do a thing about it except watch in frustration.

The cure is acrobatics if you are poor. Acro does a decent job of stopping KB and it gives a bit (mag 2) of hold protection. (Speaking in game terms it makes you a lieutenant instead of a minion where holds are concerned. It stacks with your inherent mag 1 protection to give you a mag 3). The problem with Acro is that it is expensive in terms of endurance and slots especially for how little it gives you for that cost. Like other toggle powers, if you are hit with another form of mez, this power is supressed and stops giving you it's benefits even though the toggle is still active and burning endurance.

-KB IOS (and the base empowerment for KB protection) are much more cost effective in terms of endurance, power selection, slots used and effects. They aren't turned off by being held, stunned, slept etc. and, unlike the base empowerment, cost nothing to use after being slotted and never have to be refreshed.

You should replace Acro as soon as possible with 1 of these IOs (or 3. Don't use 2. There are almost no KB effects in game that are stopped by 2 that aren't stopped by 1. There are some that are only stopped by 3). This is one of few status effects that you can virtually eliminate (and you should asap).

Stuns - also not much to be done here. There are no powers that you can take or IOs that you can slot that will give you protection against stuns. Aid self if used pro-actively will give you 48.4% resistance to stuns. What this does is decrease the time you are stunned by roughly 25%. This can be good in some situations (like rikti) and aid self is very good for the blaster after the fight as well. Stuns are one of the most common mez effects used by mobs. There are some status resistance IOs that you can slot but the amount of extra resistance provided isn't really worth the slots that the IOs take.

Holds - Not much to be done here except for the above mentioned Acro. The endurance costs are heavy and the protection gained is light. Holds are a less common status effect than stuns or sleeps.

Sleeps - The power health gives you 48.4% resistance to sleeps. This is the same as the resistance (it's not protection it only reduces the duration of the sleep) to stuns provided by Aid self but with the benefit of it being always on. You can also slot your tier 1 and 2 primary blasts with the Entropic Chaos set. The proc has a 10% chance to trigger a 5% self heal which will break a sleep. This only works for blasters due to being able to fire these powers while slept. It doesn't occur often but it does occur. It's not really worth slotting the proc by itself but can be handy if you are slotting the entire set in your tier 1 and 2. Sleeps are about as common as stuns. They aren't as bad though since if the mobs damage you it will break the sleep.

Immobilization - As I said above, blaster mitigation is staying alive by staying in motion. Getting immobilized means that mobs can close to melee range and use devastating attacks. There is an easy fix for this. Combat Jumping. It gives mag -8.3 protection to immobilization, gives you a form of unsupressed movement, gives a 1.75% defense increase to all positions, and costs a mere .07 end per second. One of the very best blaster mitigation powers in the game.

Fears - a "partial" mez. Tactics gives 42.385% resistance to fear. Not a common mez in PvE.

Confuse - This mez prevents you from doing damage to the mobs at the same time as causing you to do damage to your teammates (if you aren't cautious). Tactics gives 42.385% resistance to confuse. A very rare mez in PvE.

Break free inspirations are a kind of cure all to the above problems. A break free can be used pro-actively against KB (but not reactively) and can be used pro-actively or reactively against the other types of mez. You should carry a column of break frees in your inspiration tray at all times and combine other insps into these when you run short. Since the no toggle drop on mez addition and the defiance damage buff (not note, the "mez protection" part) my blasters are only killed now by a very rare streak of bad rolls or mez after running out of break frees. Since blaster mitigation is active, and mez by definition makes you mostly inactive and roots you into place (except for stuns and it's not much different there) mez is still an especially deadly "you lose button" that the mobs still have against blasters.

Endurance drains - Massive recovery (one of your strengths) should allow you to handle this at least temporarily. Geas of the Kind Ones accolade is a good counter to this.

-rech debuffs - Massive recharge (also one of your strengths) should allow you to function even in high -rech debuff situations. A winter's gift unique IO also gives resistance to this effect. Geas of the Kind Ones accolade is a good counter to this.

Movement slows - Super speed will allow you to get out of slow patches or to move at a reasonable speed even when debuffed in this way. A winter's gift unique IO also gives resistance to this effect.

Most of the rest of the status effects in game are either annoyances, or things that you can't do anything about, or challenges that other ATs face as well (defense and resistance debuffs, or being "caged" as examples).

Damage mitigation -

First off is postional awareness.

Using the terrain to block some or most of the mob from attacking when you make the initial attack. Popping up from behind boxes and dumpsters to use ranged attacks (Combat jumping plus Full Auto is an awesome combination for this.)

Using corners for location targetted AoE powers (Rain of Arrows is a good example here).

Surveying the field to see what you are up against. If there are 3 mezzers in the group you are going to attack the chances are very good that you will get mezzed before you get the group down. Popping a break free before you even begin the fight is a very good idea in these circumstances.

Kiting a tough foe. An example of this would be queing up Total Focus and then Super Speeding into and right back out of melee range with a boss mob. You are only in melee range for a split second and that very painful 3.3 seconds of activation is done outside of melee range after you have zipped past. Zipping back in and using stun will mez the boss. Tossing stun in every time it recharges will keep the boss stunned until you can dispatch him.

Multiple spawns at the spawns point. You'll need some extra mitigation in these circumstances. Force of Nature, Using PFF to splash the alpha, popping purple and/or orange inspirations, and using temp or accolade powers are good ideas here.

Stuns - you have 2 guaranteed stuns in your secondary. The technique against a boss is listed in kiting. Either form of mez will neutralize most lieutenants, giving you time to eliminate all the minions with your AoEs before returning your attention to the lieutenants.

Knockback - Your primary is rife with KB powers. Your secondary has one also and it can be used while mezzed. It's the only tier 1 secondary that can completely eliminate damage from a boss (and some EBs and the rare AV) in a single application.

Energy Blast's cone (Energy Torrent) and AoE (Explosive Blast) have a 50% chance to cause Knockback. Against 8 targets that means (.95*.95*.5*.5 = .2256 * 8 = 1.8) that 1 or 2 targets are all that is standing after your alpha. 95% of the time Power Push or Power Thrust makes that 1.

The KB from those 3 attack powers against 8 mobs (including misses) has provided mitigation that is equivalent to a defense toggle of 38.72% (it's also done a decent amount of damage). No single defensive toggle in the game even slotted up to the ED soft cap provides that much defense value.

There are relatively few mobs that are immune to KB effects and with a minimum of KB slotting those that are resistant to it or have some protection to it can still be knocked down/back.

While a mob is on it's butt it's damage output is 0. Lots of people get this. What most people fail to take into account is that mob ranged attacks do roughly 60% of the damage that mob melee attacks do. The farther the mobs fly the longer it takes them to get back into melee range especially since the AI will have them stopping to take ranged pot shots at you. When you have your KB distance slotted up enough that your AoE KB powers are recharged before the mobs can return to melee range you have increased your mitigation to what is roughly equivalent of 40% resistance to all damage types.

If you've been following all this 2, 50% chance to KB AoE attacks against 8 mobs gives you similar mitigation to unslotted granite armor. Against fewer targets it's even better. Against more targets it is admittedly worse (though not significantly worse.) That's all free and entirely due to situational awareness and good use of Knockback.

If the occasional use of Force of Nature and PFF aren't enough for you, here are some other things that you can do.

Get the following accolade powers

Freedom Phalanx Reserve - Auto: +10% Max HP
Portal Jockey - Auto: Self +5% Max HP +5 Max Endurance
Task Force Commander - Auto: Self +5% Max HP

These accolade powers permanently increase your maximum hit points (allowing you to survive through more damage) and increase the effectiveness of your regeneration and self heals.

Elusive Mind - Click: Self +Defense(Psionic), +Resistance(Psionic)

An excellent power to use when up against Rikti, Carnies, Psi clocks, etc.

Eye of the Magus - Click: Self +Resistance(All but Psionics) +Defense(All but Psionics) -Speed -Recharge -Accuracy

Another power very similar to Force of Nature but it features defense layered over the resistances. It's base recharge is 50% longer than Force of Nature but having 2 powers of this type to rely on should be more than enough.

Vanguard Medal - Click: Self +Special(doubles Disorient, Hold, Immobilize, Fear, Confuse and Sleep effects)

Use this accolade power when up against a tough opponent like an EB or stun resistant boss. Very handy.

The best part of accolade powers is that once you have earned them you always have them and it costs you no power picks/enhancement slots at all.

Get these renewable temp powers and keep them in your tray:

Cryonite Armor - Duration 1 hour of use
Effects - Self +Defense (Smashing, Lethal) +Resistance (Cold)

You can repeatedly earn this temp power by flashing back the "Stop the Sky Raiders before they can make off with Balsim's designs" story arc.

Wedding Band - Duration 2 hours of use
Effects - Toggle: Self +Resistance (All)

You can repeatedly earn this temp power by flashing back the "Ring of Peebles" story arc.

Defiance buff your nuke - Yeah, you can pop Aim + Build up and hit your nuke and maybe kill most every thing but with a couple little purples you can make use of the 8.83 seconds worth of Aim that remains. Total Focus takes 3.3 seconds (5.53 seconds left), Power Burst uses 2 seconds (3.53 seconds left) the nuke uses 3 seconds (leaving a comfortable .53 second margin) this should boost the damage of your nuke by another 35% and should wipe the spawn of everything but bosses. If your target for TF and Power Burst WAS the boss he should be gone too.

If there are untidy scraps a single Catch a Breath will power PFF for more than the 20 seconds required for your recovery to kick back in. Finishing off the scraps after that is a cake walk.

All in all the above tactics should provide you all the mitigation you should need through out the game. Only the occasional mez or string of bad rolls will kill you. It will take effort, influence, and practice to get there, but isn't your namesake worth it?

Excellent Post Miladys,

Ultimo_

Another thing that I found true of all characters, but really brought into sharp focus by playing my Energy-Devices Blaster (Level 47), is that each character passes through "plateaus" of strength thru leveling. And you need to know what you can actually achieve at each of these plateaus. Perhaps, you are pushing yourself beyond what is normally achievable for your character. Let me try and illustrate how I see these different levels.

Your first plateau is minor but very noticeable at level 10. Mobs are no longer easy to blow up. They hit harder, seemingly tougher than you have progressed and TOs just dont do enough for you in the damage department (which is why I 2-slot ACC TOs on my powers at this point). Additionally you are seeing real status effects now. DOs and level 15 IOs help a little, but you are in a real "grind" phase for the first time.

The second Plateau is the one you have been waiting for (Level 22). You can now slot "SO's" and have access to a dozen powers, which starts giving you a real attack chain, STAMINA and some situational powers. However, slotting is at a premium. Sure you could start putting Thunderstrike sets in your blasts, but none of them are six-slotted. Your performance is "Heroic", but you are not ready to be facing "Reds" with any kind of success, and even "Orange Lts" can be a real pain.

The Next Plateau occurs between 30-40. In this phase you start having enough slots to start filling in some IO sets on key powers. My Energy Blaster had 3 full sets of Thunderstrike on Power Bolt, Power Blast and Powerburst somewhere around level 37. By this time I also had taken Hover, Tough and Weave (Level 8, Level 24, Level 30). These did not amount to a ton of defense, but combined with Hover they helped. Full set of Red Fortune in Weave prior to 41 as well. This is the time (30-40) when you should be actively trying to get some set IOs into your build. But you need to have a blueprint to work off of by this time as well. Knowing which Sets you need really helps. At this point you should be actively making decent influence thru selling at Went's. By level 41, you should have enough influence coming and going to target a power for IOs (assuming the not-so-expensive stuff) every new power gained should mean one other power IO'd out).

Once you hit level 50, you are going to still be in the Set IO phase and always pursuing Influence to slot powers. So from 40-50 its more or less a continuation of the last Plateau, with the exception of having access to "Epic" powers. These powers form their own phase, and I will tell you why. These powers are simply THAT GOOD. They add elements that are completely lacking prior and/or add powers which completely complement your build. Its not always obvious which "Epic" Set best complements your powers and/or playstyle, so you may well find yourself burning respecs in this phase (I sure did), until you are completely happy with your power choices. But whatever you change, you will need to go back to the drawing board and re-assess your powers and IO choices.
My blaster took Electric Mastery initially to get a third AoE (Static Discharge), but later switched to Power Mastery to have PFF+Aid Self.

The next Plateau is where I am currently trying to reach on my main, which is a completed IO build. I am short of this goal by 10 slots (3 LotG, 2 BotZ KBs, 2 Proc IOs for Health, and 3 Def IOs from LotG set) These 10 IOs may very well cost more Influence and Time than my entire build to this point. There is possibly an additional phase above this where I consider "Purple IOs" but the ultimate goal is still "A Fully IO'd Build".

I am sure you are aware of each of these phases of a character's life, and also that many of the Veterans here can elaborate more on this idea, but the main thing that I want to illustrate is that "each" of these phases ties in very tightly with how far you can push your character. My defender "Biospark" can solo now in an almost unrecognizable fashion from even the time he was "SO-ed" out. But Even now at -10 IOs from completion, he has and knows his limits. This limit of power-per-career-phase will be different for every possible combination of powers/ATs. I feel jealousy at times when thinking of what others can achieve, but it never makes me go out and try those difficulty settings with my characters that are not ready for it.

Hope this helps. Dont give up on your Energy Blaster, its a really fun character to play.