Archery/Energy - Which powers should I avoid?

Hello all,

I'm thinking about creating an archery/energy blaster and I'd like to know which powers I should not even consider taking... especially from the secondary?

For example, I don't see any reason to take Power Boost.

Also, should I take any stunning powers? I figure I want to do damage and take the critters down... but then I thought about it and realize that stunning can buy me time to get out of sticky situations.

And if I take stunning, perhaps then I SHOULD take Power Boost to increase the effects of it.

See? Vicious circle.

So if you can offer any tips, especially which powers I don't really need/want for archery/energy, I'd appreciate it.

I checked out the other thread that had the builds, and I saw some powers not included, but little mention of why they weren't included.

Thanks for any help!

My Archery / Energy is my favorite Blaster... he's built as a long range hover blaster and it works out very well. Assuming you also want to go the perma-Boost Range route (which is pretty much the reason to take Energy), my suggestions are:

Archery
Take everything except Ranged Shot and Stunning Shot for sure. Some people skip either Explosive Arrow or Fistful of Arrows but I find they are both quite handy. Fistful's cone is long enough that you can use it from 80+ feet away with Boost Range and a bit of +range in it (like a Dam/Range IO). Explosive's damage is a bit weak, but it can hit lots of targets and makes a good followup to Rain of Arrows or Fistful.

Stunning Shot is very handy, but some builds can skip it (like if you are going for softcapped ranged defense and can't spare a power pick). I'd strongly recommend taking it unless you have a specific reason not to though.

Ranged Shot is... a snipe. Unless this is your first Blaster, you probably already know whether you like snipes or not. Boost Range + a snipe = insane range, but Boost Range + Rain of Arrows = everything in the whole spawn that a snipe could kill is dead before they know what hit them, so I personally find it skippable.

Energy Manipulation
You have to take Power Thrust, and it's actually a handy power for getting things out of your face. If you can spare the slots, toss a full Kinetic Crash set in it for KB resist and a nice recharge bonus.

Pretty much all the other melee attacks are easily skippable if you want to stay at range. Total Focus is a really hard hitting stun and Bonesmasher is just a really good attack, but if you are going to be 100 feet away from the enemy they won't do you any good. The only melee attack I took was Stun, so I could stack it with Stunning Shot to quickly neutralize bosses... but I almost never use it. Still, Stupefy has nice set bonuses so if you have room in your build it's not a bad idea and it does occasionally come in handy.

As far as the other Energy powers go, Boost Range is obviously a must have and no Blaster should skip Build Up (at least not without a darn good reason).

Conserve Power is either nice or completely worthless, depending on your build... if you have enough recovery to fully offset your endurance use then Conserve Power is not going to be of any use, but if your blue bar starts running low in long fights CP can help a lot. It really comes down to slotting and how many toggles you run... my archer is fully endurance neutral so he skipped CP, but he only runs Hover (I went Munitions so my armor is an auto power) and has good endurance slotting. If you want to run multiple toggles and don't have extra recovery from IOs I'd grab CP if you have room, then respec out of it when / if your build reaches a point where you no longer need it. The biggest reason to use it (fighting better after nuking and popping a blue) doesn't apply since Rain of Arrows is crashless.

Power Boost is handy but easy to skip. If you take Stunning Shot it helps keep annoying Lts out of action longer, and if you also have Stun it keeps bosses stunned longer. One other use is that it makes Hover significantly faster for a few seconds, which occasionally comes in handy. But it's still easy to skip... I find I use it less than once an hour on average, but I keep it because nothing else I could replace it with would be any more useful with only one slot.

Stryker, wow. This was an extremely useful reply and very thorough. Thanks!

So, from what I'm gathering from your response... the only REAL "needed" EM powers are: Boost Range, Power Thrust (default), and Build Up.

I think the idea of a Perma- Boost-Range would be heaven. Is it hard to acquire? Or I should say EXPENSIVE to acquire? LOL!

Also, regarding Endurance... did you find you needed Fitness/Stamina? Or did you just stick in a few end reducers to help things along?

My concept is that he's a ranger-type (medieval ranger), so I'd like to get him stealth... I figure that along with Super speed would be good. Yes, I know I can put a +stealth proc in SS, but that's fairly expensive, no?

Thanks again for your time, Stryker.

My Archery/Energy blaster is a beast. I built her for pure recharge and I have Rain of Arrows up every 15s or so. I don't have mids so it will be a pain to post my build. I will if you want. But this is what I skipped.

Archery:

In archery I skipped Ranged shot and Stunning shot. I don't like snipes and with RoA up so fast I didn't see the point for Stunning shot. Everything dies really fast

Energy: (this is what I took, less to type)

I took Power Thrust because you have to, Build-up, Bonesmasher, and Conserve power.
I took conserve power because with spamming RoA was hurting my end. I didnt take boost range because I didn't see a point, yea i can kill everything from farther away but they are just as dead without it.

I think i got my global recharge up about 90%. and Bonesmasher has gotten me out of some sticky situations.

Thanks very much for your build, Stryker. That's great to be able to have some guidelines. Appreciate your time.

DSlice, thanks for your input as well. I don't like Snipes either... By the time I get the snipe off, in higher levels, the team is already down there taking out the target for whom I aimed! LOL!

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

I actually took the snipe and stun from the primary so I could 6-slot them with Thunderstrikes and Stupefy to get me ranged defense. I skipped Explosive Arrow because you can't slot it with Thunderstrikes (and because I hate KB and so do most teams, I like my targets as close together as possible for RoA). I also took the attacks from Energy for the same reason, I could 6-slot it with Mako's for more ranged defense. Plus, it's hard to hover blast on some maps, so the attacks + the KB means I can destroy anything that gets too close to me when I'm grounded.

So basically Mako's + Thunderstrikes + Stupify = 45% Capped Ranged Defense = Win.

Makes for a tight build though with all those 6-slotters, but on the plus side its cheap sets.

I'd suggest taking Explosive Arrow if you solo much. You can follow up Rain of Arrows with it and everything generally hits at the same time due to the delay after firing RoA, and the extra damage often kills minions that RoA left standing (especially if you fight +2s or so that tend to survive RoA with a sliver of health). The big advantage Explosive has over Fistful is that it hits more targets from longer range, so you can take everything but the Lts down before they know what hit them. Slot Explosive with 5 Positrons and you'll have some nice recharge, recovery and accuracy plus good damage.

Remember, you need about 50% global recharge to get Snap -> Aimed -> Snap -> Blazing seamless with Thunderstrikes since that set only offers 60-70% recharge. You can always just add in Fistful or live with a gap, but for tough enemies it's better if you can get the recharge. It also really helps with using RoA more often. Softcapping is nice, but if you can get Rain of Arrows up every spawn then eliminating all the minions before they can fire is even better defense.

Arch/EM is phenomenal, first off. Great choice.

In Archery, you will want everything except Stunning Shot and Ranged Shot for sure. I took both of those on my archer as well, but they are the most skippable. Snipes have a number of tactical advantages, although the number of times you'll wish you had Ranged Shot instead of just leading with Blazing Arrow or an AoE are pretty few and far between. I primarily keep it on my build for pulling the AVs on the STF, for use against fleeing targets in PvP zones on occasion, and because Snipes have IO sets with phenomenal bonuses that are still affordable.

The main 'problem' with these two powers is that once you have Rain of Arrows, and you've got it down to a decently low recharge through Hasten, Speed Boost, and/or IO sets, none of your other possible opening moves really hold a candle to the glory of BU - Aim - RoA - Fistful/Explosive. When they're on recharge though, and/or when you haven't gotten that high level yet (or are exemplaring below 27), other tools become important again.

Stunning Shot has as much or more tactical utility than Ranged Shot, generally speaking. Ranged Shot is ideal for one-shotting a troublesome minion before it can respond, like Sappers and PPD Equalizers. Stunning Shot can neutralize LTs as well, and if you take the melee attacks from /EM, it can stun bosses too. Having a ranged mez is also incredibly handy to drop your targets' toggles, like the Chill of the Night aura on CoT Spectral Lords. If there's a uniquely dangerous or obnoxious guy you don't want to deal with, and it'll be too durable to take out fast enough (and RoA is recharging), this is what you use.

You could also possibly skip one of the first two blasts, though that's a bit iffier. For a very long time, my archer went without Snap Shot, substituting Fistful of Arrows for it as a filler attack against single targets when melee attacks were out of the question (Mary Macomber, etc.). It let me save a slot in my build, and since they do similar damage, it didn't hinder my effectiveness that much. However, Snapshot recharges faster, uses less endurance, can be used while mezzed (a big plus), and provides a much stronger Defiance damage buff. I would advise taking all three ST attacks from Archery if your build will allow it; in any case, Thunderstrike is a damn awesome IO set, and having more ST ranged attacks isn't a bad thing.

In /EM, you will want Build Up and Boost Range pretty much no matter what your playstyle is, because they're just that good. If you skip them, there's not much reason to take /EM in the first place. The assorted melee attacks are incredibly powerful though, despite melee on a blaster being blasphemy to some players. Energy Punch and Bone Smasher do silly-good damage - better DPA than any of your ranged attacks, for sure - if you don't mind getting your hands dirty. Total Focus isn't as good for pure DPA, but it combines high damage with a guaranteed stun, and a two-for-one is awesome. More importantly, they offer alternate damage types. Lethal damage is heavily resisted by a lot of enemies; specifically, robots and ghosts are incredibly frustrating for those who can only deal lethal damage. Conveniently enough, those same enemies take higher-than-normal damage from smashing (robots) and energy (ghosts) damage. Those missions in Striga against nothing but robots go by way, way faster if you can punch them in the face, for example. I highly recommend taking at least Bone Smasher (for a decent balance between power and speed) and probably Total Focus. Energy Punch is fast and still pretty powerful, but if you are tight on power picks and/or leery of melee, it's probably the most skippable.

Some folks hate melee on blasters because they find it too dangerous to stick around im melee range on squishies. The main solution is to NOT stay in melee for long; jousting your opponents lets you punch them in the face without fear. If you take Hurdle and/or Combat Jumping, you can bounce around your enemies while queueing up something like Total Focus, which will start animating in mid-air and finish from a safe distance away rather than right in front of that Tank Smasher's hammer. This has the added advantage of messing with enemy AI, which will often stop them from attacking while they chase after you or decide how they should proceed.