Old Story - Same Gripe - Assault Rifle coupled with Devices Just no Ummph

Gah. "Iffy" is just such a horrible word in this argument. /Devices isn't iffy. It's defensive.

Trip mine is a great backup plan for when something comes running at you. In a large group, that isn't often, but it does happen. Specially when you start laying in with your AoE's.

It's a great front line plan if you work with your tank. The problem is that you need to communicate. Of all the teams I was on with my ice/ice blaster, about the only communication we blasters ever offer is "I'm going to nuke the next group" or "Nuke ready".

Now mind you, to the OP, /devices doesn't offer the same tricks that other secondaries do. That's a good thing. Every set having Build Up just means a lack of variety and imagination.

But AR trades some of the things you see in other primaries for the amount of AoE it brings and that crashless nuke. That nuke, for the record, is unique to Archery and AR. Everyone else is crashed and many of us are standing pantsless in a pack of thugs. -usually- those are dead thugs. But i've seen my share of Energy and Fire blasters run, hop and nuke only to get smoked by the LT they just missed, or the Boss that wasn't quite killed.

Now, it's personal opinion whether an extra AoE or two and a crashless nuke is a fair trade to Aim. I think it is.

As for numbers, you can have a field day comparing the numbers on red tomax to find a set that does optimum damage and includes all the wondrous AoE and ST options you could care to have.

And yet another strawman in a field of strawmen, in a city of strawmen.

First the word I used was "Underperfom", not "Inviable". Not the first time you have pulled that in this thread. Second the reason I only respond to about 10% is that even I get tired of highlighting the obvious.

Warkupo's example chain is the best example of this. Why not just have everyone get to the spawn when there is one minion barely alive. Just how much of a bias do you need to build into the comparison to say you are winning ?

You mean its a fragment of a post, that starts with giving the AR/Dev an 11 second starting advantage, and when you say similar slotting, you actually mean UNSLOTTED. So if you really wanted to be fair in that example you need to drop the AR/Devs damage further because he isn't hitting as much as the fire blaster who has more plus to hit from Aim and Buildup than the AR/Dev gets from targeting drone.

I noticed the unslotted numbers when I first read your post, but at the time it was unimportant, as that bit of skew was tiny in comparison having the other blaster start late. Why not just start at 15 seconds and claim the AR/Dev infinitely outperforms the fire blaster.

Oh the big bold letters are there so you might actual try and notice how much in error the things you are saying are.

Is that meant to mean something ? Seeing as we are talking about teams on task forces, +0,+1 is currently what is available.

Most of the chains we have been talking about are yours or Gilia's, The higher the con the worse you do. I suppose at some point perhaps with an AV, you could lay down 15+trip mines over 2 minutes manage to pull him into the field before they start exploding and then claim 6k points of damage over the period of a few seconds.



If by comparable you mean significantly less in any given time, and to the point where even your examples have AR/Dev blasters running ahead to solo spawns before the rest of the team gets there, then yes. Most other people wouldn't consider that comparable.

As it stands you can easily pair devices with sets that have aim. Somehow ARCH/Dev while a nice combo, with a better crashless nuke than AR and AIM and 3 Aoes, is hardly overwhelming.

AR with a set that has buildup is also very nice but hardly overpowered. AR with AIM, comboed with a set that has buildup would probably be on a par with archery in terms of sheer burst AOE, nice but hardly overpowered

Devices with buildup, has exactly one power that gains significant gains from build up, and that is trip mine. Oddly enough Trip Mine + Buildup is 40 points more damage than a fully slotted Time bomb and considerably less than two trip mines placed next to each other.

Back to AR/DEV with build up
Now leaving out the fact that Trip Mine, is virtually impossible to get entire x8 spawns to hit unless you are in the center of them when planting it. The combination of Buildup, trip mine, Full auto ( How you are going to full auto an entire spawn when you have just placed a trip mine its center is left as a matter of speculation), would do about 1000 points of damage over 10 seconds or 100 DPS of AOE damage per second. That sounds large, but its about 20% than an ARC/Fire can allready do with Aim, build up, Rain of arrows + Fire Sword circle, you toss in a followup of combustion and its real nasty. If you would like mitigation with that damage, Aim, Buildup, Rain of arrows, Drain psyche,psychic shockwave, to have you regenerating at over 100 hp/sec, and doing more damage , over a larger area and in still less time.

So when you mean "far more powerful than any other primary/secondary" you actually mean slightly less than others that are already available.

Edit: And I forgot to mention that Archery has better range for its comparable AOEs

Dude I'm taking this post super serial. All of this makes me want to roll another AD/Dev for some reason...

Wow, for me I am thinking ARCH/Fire would be HOT

I hear what your saying and in some aspects I agree. But I believe the game has moved on beyond the time of AR Device. As I have stated several time, back in the days The utilities of Device helped out immensely.

Today IO's have Added Accuracy bonues, Higher recharge rates and higher defense rates. ETC

That has made MANY players equivalent to a level 10 Paladin carrying a Vorpal Sword ( D&D Pen and Paper reference )

Who cares if you can make them run off if the other guy can kill them with one fell swoop.

When a Electric Shield Fire Scrapper can get the Defense cap and spam Shield Slam, Melt Armor, Lighting Rod, and Fireball ( or whatever order is correct for maximum efficiency ) all because of IO's, does it really matter that you dropped smoke grenade on them ? They are dead in seconds.

Maybe IF they gave Targeting Drone a DPS boost it would make a difference, Oh wait they tried to do that but then dropped it years ago and never readdressed it.
Okay then they should give Cloaking Device some sort of first strike Damage boost to compensate for the changes. Oh wait they tried that too years ago then dropped the idea and never readdressed it.

I guess the Devs seen some sort of issues as well.

Oddly enough just the other day I can't tell you how many times I had to ress a AR Device player who kept running ahead and getting aggro or ended up bring unexpected mobs back to the rest of the group. Once while the Tank was afk. Lucky the scrapper was good enough to take control while I just aoe heals on our grp. I finally sent the guy a tell and said to he needs to be more careful and that I could see the TL eventually kicking him.. He replied the TL already sent him a polite warning. In his defense he was fairly decent, but just was having some bad breaks that day. It happens.

I think its foolish that you need to have super speed, Cloaking Device, and Stealth IO and smoke bomb so you can run in and toe bomb a group. Then you need Combat Jump so you can help you Jump better, so you can then as your jumping use Full auto in mid air on the target you picked in the back of your spawn group. So your in mid air still and not planted in place when you start your attack. Then move in to use Flame Thrower to clear out the rest. But before all of this make sure you drop Caltrops infront of your spot so the Mobs you didn't kill that might be charging you now might turn away when they hit the Caltrops. IF they don't turn away then use Ignite on your area to make them run off. Mind you this is solo, because in a full group the Tank would have the aggro and every other person on your team is dropping an AOE on the group.

So what happens if I can't afford a Stealth IO ?
What if I don't like Super speed ?
Can't I use Super Jump ?
If I can't use super Jump, why not ?

Doesn't anyone else see how retarded that sounds ? Don't you just see your so ingrained with it's just the way it is that you accept it as the way the toon needs to be played.

And please lets not start saying its not, because everyone who felt they needed to give AR Device instructions pretty much kept saying the same thing about toe bombing.

For the Third time. I repeat what DrMike2000 said. IF AR Device isn't the worst then what spec is ?

Except that the chart I demonstrated allows even you to step in and make an oogled comparison. Even if you were to decide to start them at the same place the AR/Dev has still done comparable damage to you during your peak performance. During non-peak performance, AR/Dev is significantly ahead of you. As such, he's probably doing more damage than you overall, but I'm only guessing based upon the first chart.

I find it all kinds of hilarious that you cite me as bending the truth when you are the master of it. You started your entire argument on a series of assumptions taken out of any context, and all your examples thus far have done entirely the same, where as I have methodically laid down examples, bent to the rules you have set, and then demonstrating potential of an AR/Dev when bent to my own. I even took time to point out the flaws in your own arguments and how you might improve your playstyle, such as needing to mitigate damage, or that the ice secondary lacks long-term potential, or that rain of fire goes at the start, or that you shouldn't begin your combo at 40 feet when you have long range attacks that benefit more from DoT.

Yet you have the gall to sit here and call me a liar, all the while hiding under the guise that your just so intellectually superior that you cannot be bothered to actually argue back with anything but the pieces of information you have selected. I'm rather curious how that process works. Just what qualifications need to be met on something before you can respond to it? Let us into the ravaged and delusional world you live in, for mine is all sane and logical, and I'd rather like to rip it off the wall.

And once again you prove that you can only argue out of context. While my chart is assuming unslotted data, that was merely to offer me convenience during my calculations, obviously the majority of the players in this game are going to slot their attacks, and it is under a very noble assumption that I estimate they will be slotting their powers to maximize damage potential and hit their targets.

This new chart assumes your chain vs my own with all powers 3 slotted for damage, and the fire blaster enhanced by aim and build up. We are going to assume that all blasters are slotted for enough accuracy to hit their targets.



As you can see, AR/Dev is utterly kicking your *** now when played competently, and is still doing fairly comparable damage to you otherwise. Again, I want to stress that I have omitted the redraw for AR/Dev, as well as the travel time for the Fire Attacks. I consider this fair, but want to point out that the artificial time added from redraw is, god-willing, going to be fixed one day. You will always need to wait for your fireball to get to the spawn, however. Furthermore, we're also assuming that the Fire Blaster, is, as always, impervious to damage and thus not needing to use any sort of mitigatory powers that would increase how long his chain takes to complete.

I have purposefully left out TD thus far because, again, I was under the noble assumption that any blaster worth a damn would have enough accuracy to hit the things, but seeing as how nitpicking unimportant details is the only way you can pose an argument, I think I might try it myself. This coincides with my new goal of 'trying to get into your head to see just what the hell is going on', rather nicely.

Again, assuming SO slotting, AR/Dev gets yet another advantage in a long line of advantages from TD, because he does not need to slot as much for accuracy and is thus capable of spending those slots on other things such as recharge and enduranc. Whichever you pick, shooting faster or shooting more effeciently, the AR/Dev once again takes another step forward from the mediocrity of your Fire Blaster. Take note that TD buffs to not apply to Trip Mine, Time Bomb, or Gun Drone as they are all considered pets.

Let us also make notice that TD grants a 60% resistance to To-Hit debuffs, meaning that in a situation where accuracy debuffs are being applied, the AR/Dev is getting affected to a much smaller degree than everyone else, allowing him to hit targets far more effectively.

I don't know, why, when you first posted your example, did you assume all sorts of movement upon the AR/Dev, but allowed the Fire Blaster to start at optimal range? Hypocritical much?


That's great. I'm glad Task Forces are stupidly easy right now, but that doesn't dismiss the point. Any group of idiots with some AOE and a /Kin is fully capable of obliterating +0 and +1 enemies, thus you aren't really impressing anyone by being able to do it as well, especially considering your in game example comes from straight the hell out of nowhere with no equivalent comparison to anything

Yet you are somehow magically capable of of *not* having your damage lowered by higher level enemies? Is this kind of how you are able to be magically impervious to all damage?


At 5 seconds AR/Dev is doing way more damage than you as Fire Breath has not even been applied yet (F:0 AR:387.5) At 6.01s, the moment you use Fireball, you are still behind while the AR/Dev is jousting Flamethrower (F:335.8 AR:397.5). At 8.04 second, the moment you use Rain of Fire to "finish off the stragglers" you have caught up, and passed by, to/the AR/Dev significantly as your powers have had time to apply their DoT, while AR/Dev has been busy firing off Full Auto from wherever-the-hell away (F:552.45 AR:397.5). Or so it would seem. Full Auto is doing 104.06 damage a second during it's animation and applies 12.5 damage after 3.3 seconds. When you activate Rain of Fire has has had a little more than a second to apply his Full Auto damage (F:552.45 AR: 501.56). Again, Fire only needs a few more decimals of a second to apply it's full burny damage, so let's just give it to him (F:711.85 AR:501.56). After another 2 seconds AR/Dev begins catching up, but Rain of Fire is still going so we add that in as well, (F:772.15 AR:709.68), and after the entire 4 seconds (we're at a total elapsed time of 11.33 seconds, by the way) Full Auto has finished (F: 802.3 AR: 863.4).

During the 3 seconds Full Auto is animating, Fire can use Blaze and some other single target attack, but his AOE's will not have recharged assuming base recharge. Fire Breath will need 0.95 seconds more when 3 slotted for recharge while hasten is going for a total recharge of about 170%. The Fire Blaster would likely want to use Blaze and perhaps Flares and Fireblast. Blaze will need 4 seconds to apply it's full damage, and Flares/Fire Blast will not get the Build Up + Aim damage. Blaze+Rain of Fire will probably kill whatever enemy it's aimed at, but the Fire Blaster will need to wait the 4 seconds it takes for this to happen, so he might opt to speed things up with one of his other ST attacks, or just wait for his AOE's so his endurance can take a rest.

In a +0 or +1 spawn it's likely that if these two Blasters are together that everything is dead sometime during Full Auto's animation. After that the AR/Dev is pulling ahead because he can still throw Trip Mines around while the Fire Blaster is waiting for BuildUP+Aim+Rain of Fire to be awesome again.

So let's review:

@5.01s (F:0 AR:387.5)
@6.01s (F:335 AR:387.5)
@8.04s (F:552.45 AR:501.56)
@8.11s (F:711.85 AR:501.56)
@11.33 (F:802.3 AR:863.4)

Once again, it's important to stress that this chart assumes the Fire Blaster is magical and doesn't need to mitigate damage which would lengthen his chain. Given the level of the enemies being fought (+0 or +1) this normally ridiculous assumption is somewhat lessened to a degree, though not entirely.

They are comparable.

Agreed, Archery is rather awesome. I have a Archery/Fire that I rather enjoy.

That said, in order to call the entire set better I would need to do a comparison chart to an Archery chain like I did for Fire vs AR/Dev. Until then, such comments are purely subjective.

On the subject of Trip Mine having too small of a radius to hit all the enemies, and your general assumption that AR/Dev somehow has less AOE spread than Fire: Trip Mine has a radius of 16 feet, 12 feet for the fire damage. Fire Ball has a radius of 15 feet, which is more than and less than Trip Mine at the same time (woah man). Fire Breath has an arch 30 degrees, 15 degrees less than Flamethrower's 45, so it's going to be hitting even less target. Rain of Fire has a radius of 25 ft, and Full Auto's 20 degree cone is significantly widened by using it range.

As the rest of your argument is switching to an entirely different set, and thus a different argument, I'm not going to address it less you force me to compare an attack string to every single feasible blaster combination possible against AR/Dev. BillZBubba might be into that kind of thing, and may his demon overlords bless him for doing so, but I am not.

Except for this part:
vs

Bolded the part you took out of context to try and prove some sort of ignorance upon my character. I was not saying AR/Dev outperforms every set, but that it would if given BuildUP+Aim. /Devices doesn't have BU because Trip Mine is *very* powerful, and AR lacks Aim because some Developer (not devices~) decided I wanted Beanbag, or something, instead, which I'm only slightly grumpy about.

It's not the only time you've taken something out of context (you do it almost always), but I thought I'd point it out anyway.

Not as cool as Pistols/Ice!

You mean aside from the fact that your chart omits all your movement ?
Ignores the fact that trip mine will have to be placed on the leading edge of a spawn and wont be able to hit all of it. That the optimum positions to set up trip mine, fire flame thrower and full auto are three different places that you have to move between, and conveniently forgets that the fireblaster can and will do other things during those 3 seconds you have at the end there.

Now going back to an actual example from the game.
4 seconds after activating firebreath the fireblaster's minions are dead.
You know when I tell you I have slanted calculations in your favor you really should listen. That 4 second number is a perfect example. In the chain I used I unnecessarily crippled the fire blaster. The 2 seconds that aim and build up take can be done on the way to where the fireblaster is actually firing.

You will have to pardon me If I don't take your advice about how to mitigate damage. Especially seeing as you have managed not to notice rain of fire with its nice control and avoid abilities at the end of the chain you like to attack.

Shouldn't be at all grumpy about Beanbag. Dunno about you, but the ability to take out a problematic Minion or Lieutenant for 15 seconds (a single L30 stun duration IO) has saved my AR/Dev's solo *** quite often.

Okay, admittedly I didn't read your post. If I can borrow from your own pile of excuses I don't really feel like I need too. I was gonna make some snappy retort, but I'd rather just get this out of the way. I've posted data all over the place, and I've explained examples and the fallacy in those examples as I've posted them for both sets. While you've been a good tool for demonstrating all of this, I think this discussion has reached the point that anyone reading can make up their own minds with the data presented and doesn't need me to continue giving scenarios and examples that might bend data all over the place.

The only places left for this discussion to really go, aside from me having to repeat myself to you ad nauseum, is comparing other sets than fire/ice, and talking about IO builds. While I'm certainly capable of discussing both these things, I plain as hell don't want too. Especially not with you in the background, chirping nonsensically every other post.

I probably won't be responding to you again in the future, as I think the forum in general is onto your shenanigans and doesn't need someone like me to point them out anymore. Besides that, I have my mental stability to consider.

Okay so it was snappy after all. Oopsie daisy~

In short, I'm out. Have a good day, and good luck the next time you decide to argue with something that can do more than addition, I'm going back to the scrapper forum where people actually have intellectual conversation. I hope your next, inevitable, response to this is as humorous as all the others, for I will never know it's warm, fuzzy embrace.

Oh I know.

It's just not so great for *my* AR/Dev so I have a very personal bias against it =D

If given my way (something I would warn against doing regularly) I would remove Beanbag and let me fire rockets out of my fingertips, or something.

That is true. A well IO'd teammate can make a slow, tactical SO build look obsolete. At the same time, lots of power sets benefit more from IOs than others. Similiarly, a team that is strong on AoE's steam rolling isn't going to much notice if their ST scrapper, blaster, or stalker disconnects. Some builds work better for some situations, and some people have IO builds. If you look at that and decide the standard is going to be steamrolling +4 teams, then yeah... AR/Dev is left wanting. It isn't the only combination that will be left behind though.

As I recall, they saw an issue only because of murmurs among the players, but data mining showed that the noisey minority was misinformed. That said, I would venture to guess in light of the previous talk about IOs they might find different results if they looked now. That's because in the past, an incredibly safe build (ar/dev, ice/ice, etc) would look just as good as a unsafe, fast killing build (fire/fire) on paper/data mines. Now that the latter can be made safe (see Another_Fan's logs, where his opponents only have a 6% chance to hit), and nothing can be done to make the prior do more damage.

Bosses typically have 45' perception if I recall correctly. Smoke Bomb brings that down to 4.5' if they can't resist, and about 8' for those that do (e.g. drones). You don't need more than cloaking device + smoke grenade. The only people that see through that are immune to stealth and will see you anyway (again, drones). I have played three /Devices blasters through without Superspeed or Stealth IOs.

Yeah, being able to move quickly even while travels are suppressed is what it takes for a cone & pbaoe reliant setup to be as effective as possible. What about Radiation/MM though? Back to the situation though, I would probably follow Trip mine with M30 if I were toe bombing. THEN hop out and use my cones. Depending on the difficulty, FA might be a waste though.

But... why not put the mine down at your feet then fire cones from where you're at? If Full Auto's up it's not going to take much to melt a mob anyway. I didn't think that word was okay anymore...

I didn't :-(

That was actually answered a couple times as DP/Devices.
For my personal preference, I would also toss in builds that are really good at one thing to the point that it's a waste. Psy/Ice, Ice/Ice, which have survivability to the max, but could stand to do more damage. Electric/Devices is probably worse too. Elec/Fire I'd put below AR/Dev.

I don't know, AR/Dev has awesome AoEs and can be played with extreme survivability pre-IOs. It's rounded nicely enough that I'd put it at average for most combinations. Again, if you start talking IOs where others are more survivable and do more damage that's different.

I would like to commend you on being specific in your concerns and not seeing a disagreement as a prompt to resort to personal attacks. Perhaps there is a forum in which this could be discussed in a helpful, unbiased, and respectful way that could catch the eyes of developers, and they could give it another look over.

I hope you react as well over there, whenever someone points out your assumptions are at best questionable.

I guess it's a matter of asking yourself why I (and others) asked you those (same) questions.

I don't need to dig through to find those answers because those questions were for you. I didn't need the answers.

I enjoy playing AR/Dev blasters when I play them. I don't find any deficiency when I play them. I think they are fun to play. I'm not mini-maxing or exploiting. I'm playing the game to have fun. I'm not scared to play on the servers (I do NOT like to team with exploiters so some server(s) are just no fun for me because they have just become rotten-with-exploiters and isolationists as far as I'm concerned).

If you think some other set is so good, then just don't worry about playing AR/Dev blasters any more and play something else.
We all know that the power-sets aren't balanced. We all should know by know that the archetypes are lack balance (compared to one another) even worse than the variation of balance of power sets within an archetype.

I don't need to jump in with numbers. You're the one "claiming" numbers. Generate them.
I could care-less about the numbers. I'm here to have fun and number-crunching and mini-maxing isn't part of my fun-equation any more. I have better things to do and playing with an AR/Dev blaster is one of them.

I don't have a problem with knockback. I enjoy it.
So far - I've never been kicked from a team for using knockback. (I have a level 50 Eng/Eng blaster - they do way more knockback than AR/Devs do)
However, I don't take the grenade-launcher power or bean-bag for AR either.

Of course, I'm not into farming or lug-nut tank-chasing. I like to play with a little finesse, tactics, and style which is often a drag on the mini-max, dps, bull-in-the-china-shop players. To each their own.

I don't need number to prove to me that playing a AR/Dev blaster is fun.

It sort of already is like DP as it does different damage types already.

AR/Devs are more of a finesse blaster. It takes time and strategy to use them to their potential and they can control the area of battle a lot more than other blaster set combos. No other blaster secondary set give you invisibility or smoke grenades.

The Targeting Drone is a toggle that constantly buffs your ACC - and, if you really want Build-up, you could slot a Gaussian Fire-Control :: Chance for Build-up in it.

If you can't keep up with the team, then try to get ahead of it and set up for the next group while they are fighting the first one. (If you can't figure out how to do this, it isn't worth my time trying to explain it to you.)

Your tactics are lacking. You can adapt. ... or maybe not ... it seems you have made that point clear.

No reason trying to convince you otherwise.
Have fun hating your AR/Dev blaster.
I'll spend my time enjoying mine (Trip and Timer).

OMG, where do I start. The more you post to attack me, the more you make it crystal clear you really, really do not read anything else in this thread that myself or anyone has posted. Who are you Kanye West at the vmas.

Its obvious you have some assumption about me being some exploiter as you make comments about exploiters 3x in one sentence. Well you got me your right. Let me go pick up the one of my weakest blaster to go exploit with. I can go get my Electric Shield Fire Scrapper, but for some insane reason I want to have a challenge while I go EXPLOITING.

Gaussian Fire Control has a build up.. Gosh, why didn't I think of that. OH Wait I do have it in my Target Drone.

Just cut and paste what you said in the first place. It's pretty much the same you said the first time. Lets give instructions on how to play a toon. Whats next your gonna tell us how to toe bomb ?

I appreciate you going over everything you don't like to do in this game. I am glad that you know your Eng/Eng has more KB then AR Device. Sadly since you refuse to read, your missing the point.

Lets just agree to disagree. I'm a big boy to admit when I am wrong. But you seem to be talking this way too personal.

Keep in mind, I don't like Devices. I won't play it, no matter the primary, because it doesn't suit my playstyle. I'll agree with you that Devices needs to be looked at. Now, having said that, I find it amazingly hypocritical of you to post a thread complaining about the weakness of AR/Dev and saying it is not 'viable', then going on to talk about how you solo on x8 and farm the wall in Cimerora. That just does not compute. There are many blasters, scrappers, and brutes that can't solo well on x8.

It makes about as much sense as a player saying their Illusion/Radiation controller is not 'viable' or 'team friendly' because they don't do as much AOE damage as a Fire/Rad controller on teams, while happily running off and soloing a bunch of AV's & GM's. Some combinations are stronger teamed than solo, and some are stronger solo than they are on teams. That doesn't mean they don't all bring something to the table.

That's not the fault of the set. That's a bad team (or potentially a bad player, but I don't think that's the case with you). In two years, I have not been asked even ONE SINGLE TIME to stop or reduce knockback when playing my AR/EM. And that includes liberal use of Power Thrust against bosses when I steal their agro from melee characters. Of course, like you, I also own whatever agro I take, so I tend to quickly blap those bosses into the ground with melee attacks when that happens.

Right answer.

Wrong answer.

That's a bit of hyperbole on your part. You only have access to a maximum of 18 powers from your primary and secondary. Were you not using any pool powers? No Swift, Health or Stamina? No APP's either? No single-target attacks? No Targeting Drone, Smoke Grenade or Cloaking Device? So, it's not anywhere near remotely accurate to say you were stuck only using 3 powers out of 24, now is it?

On fast teams, the vast majority of the powers used on my AR/EM are Full-Auto, Flamethrower, Buckshot & Boost Range. That's pretty much it. Add in an occasional Build-Up when it's recharged and I actually remember to hit it. If the team is moving a little slower, I'll go into blapping mode and start using the Pom-Poms of Doom™. In fact, out of AR, the only other powers I have are Bean Bag and Burst.

I think you'll find with a fairly large number of powerset combinations, that a relatively small number of powers are used constantly, and the majority of them end up only being used occasionally when the right situation presents itself.

Here's my suggestion to you: Strip your AR/Dev if you have anything valuable in it, and reroll it as AR/EM. It'll be much more productive (and fun) that waiting around for Devices to get any buff love from Castle.