Psychic Blast/Mental Manipulation ... are the dual Build Ups worth it?

I recently made Psychic Blast/Mental Manipulation blaster to toy around with and recently got him to 20. Hes a lot of fun but I skipped both build up powers Concentration from MM and Psychic Focus from PB. I've never really found Build ups all the useful But that could just be from play style. The question is with two 10s buffs can you stack them for one epic snipe to end all snipes? and is it really worth it?

Hell yeah. I always use both from my fire/ice together. Rain of Fire's not so weak when each lil orange number is a four, and you still have time to get off fireball.

Well, not with your powers, but still, same thing.

Take them then try using them every time you can. I think you might be happily surprised.

Uh, yeah. One-shotting foes, especially problem foes like mezzers, with your snipe is really, really nice.

I consider Aim and Build Up on blasters to be pretty much essential . . . kind of like Stamina, but more flexible on when you take them.

Thanks for the info I'll give it a shot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Local_Man I consider Aim and Build Up on blasters to be pretty much essential . . . kind of like Stamina

I've played a lot of blasters/defenders/corrupters before and never really missed having them. So I don't think I would call them essential. But still I'll give it a shot the question was more are two worth it more then anything else.

That's fine, but you can pretty much get off all 4 st target attacks in the same time frame as the snipe and do about 2.3x as much damage.

Assuming you have at least a rech SO the only one that isn't coming back around for chaining is will dom.

Snipe is fine if you like it though.

Taking the snipe or not is a matter of personal preference. Cracking open a new group of enemies by diving into your regular attack chain will do more dps than sitting back and sniping. However, there are times that you really don't want a particular enemy to be able to do ANYTHING before it drops; (de)buffers can be extremely annoying if you give them time to set up, and one-shotting them with your snipe can be the most effective way to approach the battle.

However, I could not in good conscience advise any blaster who can take Build Up and Aim to skip them. While Aim alone, as you have experienced on Corruptors and Defenders who have lower base damage to begin with, does not produce a very dramatic difference in battle, a Blaster using both Aim and Buildup start out a fight by dealing almost double their normal (slotted) damage. That makes a VERY noticeable difference in how fast you can wipe out a group. Aim and Buildup are how a Blaster makes good on their general premise that the best defense is an overwhelming offence; if all (or most) of your enemies are dead inside a 10 second window, they're not as likely to have time to tear you apart.

You don't necessarily need to grab them RIGHT as soon as they unlock, but they should be pretty darn high on your list of priority powers. At the very least, try taking them and using them extensively for a while; you'll see the difference. Fulmens has long advocated a blaster training exercise, where you load up on a tray of purple insps, go to a hazard zone, and with the safety net provided by chugging 4 lucks at a time, experiment to see how many enemies of various levels you can kill normally, with Aim, with Buildup, or both.

Yeah hes 22 now so I'm looking into where I can plug those into his build to give them a Spin. Right now I'm having a lot of fun with Drain Psyche then Psionic Tornado + Psychic Scream to just wipe out every minion around.

I'd reccomend looking at it from a different angle. Yes, Build Up and Aim are 'only' ten seconds long. But the base recharge is 90 seconds. With 3 Recharge IOs, its up 10 seconds out of every 45 seconds, that's 22% of your time buffed (+62.5% or +100% damage) if you are constantly fighting.

I don't see Aim as being nearly as important as Build Up. When people talk about dealing massive damage with their Aim/Build-Up combo, the vast majority of that damage is coming from Build-Up.

Aim primarily buffs accuracy. A hit is a hit. If you are already hitting reliably, extra accuracy won't do you much good, and the damage boost from Aim is tiny enough that it probably isn't worth a power choice to get it unless you have nothing better to take. If you aren't hitting reliably, relying on a power like Aim for your accuracy is iffy - better to slot for accuracy and be accurate all the time IMO.

Build-Up, OTOH, is a blaster's best friend. Build-Up provides a pretty huge damage buff, and extra damage is ALWAYS useful.

Edit - Kelenar makes a good point about accuracy-debuffing mobs. I could see taking Aim just for that (although yellow insps also do the job).

Build Up is an 80% damage buff and Aim is a 50% damage buff. While Build Up is stronger, an extra 50% damage is nothing to sneeze at... plus Aim is such a huge to-hit buff that it pretty much guarantees hitting even high defense targets (or hitting while massively to-hit debuffed). I'd take Build Up if I could only have one, but both are very handy.

Plus if you have both and good recharge you can alternate them and have extra damage every spawn.

Then I take it all back. Aim *is* worthwhile for the damage alone.

I guess that's what I get for trusting the power description without consulting the actual numbers. The power description describes the damage bump as 'slight'. To me, slight means, oh I dunno, 05% maybe? 50% + is definitely not slight by my yardstick.

Was it always that good or did it get some love in a patch somewhere along the line?