Fire/MM or Fire/Elec.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
I would expect that it'd probably be a sonic/something, simply for the stacking -res debuffs in the primary. Sonic won't have as much personal ST damage as fire/, but your overall damage contribution should be significantly higher thanks to amplifying the rest of the team's damage with your debuffs. That is, if you don't mind the sound effects of sonic - I personally don't care, but I know some find them objectionable.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
I'm very new to Blasters. Is the debuff in sonic different than the debuff in rad? Basically I am asking if sonic is better than rad for the job? (I do hate that noise.)
Rad blasts debuff defense; Sonic blasts debuff resistance. You can "make" the Rad blasts debuff resistance by slotting the Achilles' Heel -Res proc in one of the blasts (or two, but keep in mind that they don't stack, so slotting it in either of the first blasts and then maybe Irradiate would be the only time I'd slot two). However, Sonic's -Res will stack with itself, so you can achieve much higher numbers with it than with a proc'd out Rad.
But I'd still pick Fire/, if it were me. AV fights are all about Single Target damage, and Blaze is just too good to pass up for that.
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Fire/MM will do great, if you slot sets that boost your melee defense combined with DP you will do great.
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Fire/MM or Fire/Elec.
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Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
sonic/mm
I'd actually have to give Fire/Mental the win over Sonic/Mental. Against an AV, Sonic's -res will be pretty ineffective what with the purple patch and PToD seriously diminishing them. Fire has better DPS without resorting to debuffs, so combined with /Mental's -regen, you'll do better. I'm sure Sonic Blast could do it, but Fire Blast will do it faster, and as a blaster, you don't have time to spare, even with capped off defenses.
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*Stabs warron repeatedly until he dies from it*|
Originally Posted by WarronPeace
I'd actually have to give Fire/Mental the win over Sonic/Mental. Against an AV, Sonic's -res will be pretty ineffective what with the purple patch and PToD seriously diminishing them. Fire has better DPS without resorting to debuffs, so combined with /Mental's -regen, you'll do better. I'm sure Sonic Blast could do it, but Fire Blast will do it faster, and as a blaster, you don't have time to spare, even with capped off defenses.
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Herro Rarron.
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Incorrect. -Res (and -Dam) aren't affected by AV resistances (unless they have innate resistance to type x). They are affected by the Purple Patch, but against anything less than +4 it's not that bad.
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Originally Posted by WarronPeace
Against an AV, Sonic's -res will be pretty ineffective what with the purple patch and PToD seriously diminishing them.
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To expand on what StormDevil said, the debuff types are different in pretty significant ways against AVs.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
I'm very new to Blasters. Is the debuff in sonic different than the debuff in rad? Basically I am asking if sonic is better than rad for the job? (I do hate that noise.)
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Rad blast debuffs defense. This makes it easier to hit the AV - you will, in general, miss less often. However, there are two reasons why this isn't spectacularly useful against AVs. First, most characters won't have much trouble achieving a 95% chance to hit (the max possible) anyway through simply slotting accuracies in their powers - so the defense debuff is redundant. Second, AVs resist defense debuffs quite strongly - by over 70% in most cases. So, you won't really be debuffing them very much, and the debuff itself isn't very useful.
Sonic blasts debuff resistance, not defense. This doesn't do a thing for your chance to hit, but it means you do more damage when you do hit. Unlike debuffing defense, resistance debuffs will *always* have an effect. If you hit the AV with shriek and debuff their resistance by 13%, every single attack landed by you *or any of your teammates* will do 13% more damage. As a bonus, the special AV debuff protection don't cover resistance debuffs. If you hit an AV with 13% resistance debuff, you will always get 13% more damage (unlike defense debuffs where you might get 3% effect out of 10% applied). Debuffing resistance is one of the best ways to make an AV drop faster, and since it increases everyone's damage, on a big team it's by far the largest contribution you as a blaster can make.
So yes, sonic is almost certainly better than rad for AV killing. It likely has better overall single target damage, and the -resist secondary effect will greatly amplify the rest of the team's efforts.
On the other hand, whether sonic is better than fire is more debatable - fire does *so much* damage that it'd be harder for sonic's team boosting contribution to cancel it out. I still think that on a large team sonic would be better, but solo or with only a couple others, fire might match it. You'd have to ask one of the number crunchers about that comparison. But in terms of sonic vs rad, there's no contest.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
As mentioned before, for big teams go Sonic. For solo and small teams, go Fire
Fire or sonic primary; which is more effective will likely depend on your intended team size. For secondary, if running solo/small team then /Mental wins by a mile simply because of Drain Psyche, which can floor an AV's regeneration rate. On large teams there is often a defender/controller who can provide an equivalent -regen debuff (like Lingering Radiation), and once they're at 0 regen extra -regen sources don't really matter. Still, Drain Psyche lets /MM blasters solo things no other blaster would be able to, and do it a lot faster.
Rolling a Fire/, Sonic/, or /MM blaster isn't required for big game hunting; my Arch/EM blaster has soloed AVs too. However, those blasters will have a much easier time of it in general.
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.
Ya, I have noticed Blasters pull a little agro....
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Silly Pepsilon, I'm a blaster. Death don't bother me one bit!
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Originally Posted by Not_Epsilon
*Stabs warron repeatedly until he dies from it*
Herro Rarron. |
Is there a hands down best blaster for versus AV action? I would assume Single Target damage would rule. Does Rad debuff effects even work vs AV?