How big a drawback is AR's lethal damage?

I've been thinking of starting an AR blaster, but the reliance on mainly lethal damage gives me pause. Is it a big handicap?

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Not really. I have an Archery Blaster, which is even more Lethal focused than AR, and it still does fine. Robots are a bit of a pain, but it's kind of like a sword Scrapper... your damage output is so high that even resisting half of it won't stop you from demolishing most enemies. Plus AR has a fair amount of Fire damage too (unlike Archery).

Also, Full Auto is usable every spawn... that more than makes up for doing Lethal damage.

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Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name

[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636

I remember seeing a spreadsheet with resistances averaged over all enemy groups, and how much damage you would typically do.

Fire came out around 98% full damage, Smashing, energy and cold around 96% and Lethal bottom of the list at 92% of full damage.

So while lethal is more resisted, it isn't by much. You'll be doing something like 5% less damage at most on the whole, and unlike Psi you're never facing enemies who resist you really heavily.

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In addition to having the two fire attacks, isn't the grenade smashing damage?

The robots that are highly resistant to lethal are also weak to smashing, so the two should balance out somewhat, assuming that I'm right about the grenade.

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@Roderick

The grenade is about 1/3 Smashing and 2/3 Lethal. It's also pretty weak, doing less damage than your tier one single target blast. Robots will be annoying until you get Flamethrower and Ignite, though not that bad. The good news is that the things that are highly resistant (50% or more) to Lethal tend to be found at higher levels where you'll have some fire based damage. Clockwork aren't as resistant as true robots, so by the time you are likely to run into 50% resists (Council bots at 25+) you'll be able to burn them. Those annoying Crey Tanks are resistant to both lethal and fire, but they resist almost everything so most people hate them.

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Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name

[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636

Real world...no worries. AR's main weakness, imo, is my getting sick of the sound of burst.

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AR is a great set. There is a lot of lethal, but there is also a lot of fire, and once you get some levels in there, the AoE is impressive. At 50, you can LRM, Full Auto, Flamethrower, Ignite, Grenade and take everything out. It's all blastery goodness.

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Never argue with stupid people. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

@vanda1 and @nakoa2

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<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

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Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory

This thread was relevant to my interests. I was just thinking about making an Assault Rifle character. Thanks!

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Too many alts to list.

AR is my favourite blast set. The lethal resistance issue isn't an issue.

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Agreed the lethal isn't that bad at all really. Burst/slug i believe have higher damage to start than most tier 1/2 attacks. Buckshot recharges and animates so fast its ooey gooey goodness. M-30 has some smashing components to it, its when slotted and added to your aoe chain isn't that bad of damage like people make it sound. Flamethrower is all fire, and full auto is good damage (though they STILL need to put its cone back to a 30 degree cone IMO, the 20 is really annoying for still having a 10 target cap unlike the 16 of Rain of Arrows)

AR is an awesome set. Flamethrower is so full of win especially when you get it, its higher base accuracy and wide cone just annihilate spawns.

If you go AR, i'd highly suggest /ice manipulation. It even lets you get good use out of ignite (though i hate how they changed it) But /ice lets you patch/shiver and then focus on your AR blasting so you don't have to worry about redraw so much.

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Plasmic's Guide to Sonic/Mental

Plasmic's Guide to Regeneration

Plasmic Fire - 50 Fire/Rad Victory Server

About 90% of the time, doing lethal damage doesn't really matter. For the other 10% of the situtations, which are mostly robots and some tanker types, you can really leverage Ignite and Flamethrower, but even more important are the attacks from your secondary. If you have something like Bonesmasher to fall back on, your AoEs will wipe out all the non-resistant foes in short order and you can walk right up and punch out the survivors.

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Rule number six of an empathy defender is NEVER underestimate a blaster's ability to die. I don't care if he has CM, Fort, both RAs, bubbles (both FF and Sonic), and is fighting next to a Storm defender with hurricane on. If there is a way to die in that situation, the blaster will find it.

So long as you can get build up in your secondary, Build Up + Full Auto is so much win you wouldn't believe. Even con mobs just fall over. My AR blaster literally chews through Rikti mobs with his AoEs. Drones really hate AoEs, which means I love 'em ^^

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Literally?

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