Shield/Electric Melee is nifty with Shield Charge and Lightning Strike. EM also has a plethora of PBAoE and Cone attacks.
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Fiery Melee, certainly, and War Mace and Battle Axe each have three AoE/Cone attacks. Though between them, WM has a slight edge because one of its attacks can hit twice as many foes as the equivalent attack in BA.
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Dual Blades is quite good for AOE... one Pbaoe and two cones... kind of the same setup as Warmace and Battle Axe, where two of the AOEs are in your last two attacks, so you'll have to wait until 35 to really start knocking them around. Fiery Melee is the inverse... you have plenty of AOE early on, and round out your ST in the 30s. Super Strength is pretty much just Foot Stomp at 38 for AOE. Though it is a nice AOE.
For a secondary, Shields is nice, as you noted (+damage aura and Shield Charge). Any of the primaries with a damage aura will help out as well (ie, I use my two PbAOEs on my Fire/Fire tank, and Blazing Aura usually finishes off the little bit of health the minions have left while I'm taking out the boss or lts).
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Does Fire beat out Electic in the multi-target department? Don't remember the powers off the top of my head.
Quote:
Shield gets a useful AoE attack in its primary, and a damage boost. Fire gets one that's much less useful. |
Originally Posted by TygerTyger
Seems like a Shield / Super Strength might top the list, with Shield Charge and Footstomp in tandem, but are there other combinations that dish out good to great AoE damage?
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Most primaries get aura DoTs, including Fire, Dark, Stone, Electric, and Ice. Of those, Fire's is probably best for damage. Willpower, Shield, Invulnerability don't have damaging auras.
Secondary - a toss up between Fire and Electric for the first tier. In pure number of attacks, Electric wins, with three damaging AoEs and one non-damage. Fire has 3 damage AoEs. But the non-damage Electric AoE is not worthwhile, and one of Electric's AoEs is a very narrow cone. Fire's AoEs are all fairly easy to hit multiple targets with. Electric has a bit of control; Fire has none at all. Some of the Electric powers are technically splash damage rather than actual AoE attacks, but they all taunt what they hurt.
Shield/Electric is a favorite combination; you have two teleporting AoE attacks that make it easy to round up two close spawns.
Mace and Battle Axe are the second tier, with Mace beating out Battle Axe slightly because one is larger. Dual Blades is close to them on paper; its actual value will depend on how free your build is and how much you enjoy the combo system.
Ice has two damage AoEs, one PBAoE, and one a broad cone. It also has one pure control AoE.
Dark Melee has 3 AoE attacks. All do damage. But 2 of them have such long recharges that they hardly count. The other is a very narrow cone.
Super Strength, Stone, and Energy Melee all have one damaging AoE attack. Super Strength's is easily the best, but it comes very late in the build.
Stone, Ice, Super Strength, and Electric all have no-damage control AoEs. The ones in Stone and Ice are very useful; the ones in SS and Electric much less so.
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I'd say overall, (taking usefullness, strength, recharge times, etc), SD/Fire/Fire, Fire/SS/Fire or SD/SS/Fire
There seems to be a pattern here...
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Seems like a Shield / Super Strength might top the list, with Shield Charge and Footstomp in tandem, but are there other combinations that dish out good to great AoE damage?
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