Highest AoE Blaster DPS?

Topic, trying to find what that might be (for me anyway). Keep in mind I am looking for best AoE damage, single target damage is just a bonus.

A few things first:
1. I like to team regardless of AT. Especially like to team while playign a blaster due to squishiness.
2. I played a Fire/Dev up till ~32, but I simply just do not like Devices. Too many solo oriented powers and it's just too slow overall IMO. Also, see #1.
3. I read this thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=139004. It sounds like the winner is Fire/???. Fire/MM was mentioned a bunch of times but there was no clear winner, or so it seemed.
4. I read this guide: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=129320. Fire/Ice and AR/EM were brought up and had builds posted.
5. I do not want AR, Archery, or Eng as primaries, and no /Dev.

That said:
-What puts out the MOST AoE DPS?
-A dead blaster cannot blast. If a Pri or secondary switch is worth getting a bit of mitigation to avoid 50% of faceplants (just picked a number as an example), then I'd like to hear the suggestion
-Blasters are squishy, however, a set like Rad/Fire seems to be very PBAoE oriented. I'd be willing to play this and learn to "blap" if it puts out top damage. Range is preferred however. If the difference is relatively negligible, I'd rather choose ranged simply for survivability purposes.

So far I'm thinking either Fire/Ice, Fire/MM, Rad/MM or Rad/Fire. I don't need builds, just primary/secondary suggestions. Any suggestions?

Thank you

-MT

Fire, AR, and Archery are the best AoE Blaster primary sets. Of the three, Fire offers the highest single target damage and at least as much AoE as the others so it's definitely the overall damage king. (Archery is a lot safer though since you can use Rain of Arrows without direct line of sight.)

As far as secondaries go, /Fire and /Mental are the only ones with significant AoE damage. /Fire may have a slight edge since it has a damage aura, but it requires you to stay in melee range a lot. /Mental has a cone and a PBAoE instead of two PBAoEs and a damage aura, so you can open up from 40 feet away or so instead of jumping right into the middle of a group, though you'll still spend some time there since you'll want to use Drain Psyche to boost your regen.

Ultimately, it comes down to your tolerance for jumping around. If you don't mind hopping back and forth a lot between cone and PBAoE range, go Fire/Mental. If you'd rather just build for +HP and softcapped S/L defense and jump straight into the middle of each mob like a Scrapper, go Fire/Fire.

You can also go Fire/Ice and give up some damage for a lot of mitigation... you won't kill as fast but you'll be able to slow things to a crawl, make them fall flat on their faces, and burn them down with fireballs and fire breath. Plus you'll actually be able to use Rain of Fire to good effect.

It seems like anything with a crashless nuke is going to win this category. Fire/ has more aoe damage in it's first 8 powers than DP, AR or Arch, but the fact that those three sets can have their minion-and-LT-shredding nuke available every other spawn (or even every spawn, in highend Archery builds) seems like it puts them ahead.

My DP/MM blaster is a buzzsaw on 8 man teams; I'll open with BU > hail of bullets > psy shockwave, then joust out while rain of bullets fires. If enough things are still alive at that point, I can go to two cones (empty clips and psy scream.)

Fire/MM is great at aoe, no question, but it's nuke is infrequently available and crashes your endurance.

If you're willing to spend the inf to softcap it, DP/fire might be pretty awesome. If you can live with being in the middle of a big group for extended periods of time, /fire will probably pump out more raw damage than anything else.

I would tend to agree with StrykerX with a few caveats.

Rad is a good AOE primary as well especially if you don't mind being in close/melee range. It also accepts the achilles heel proc which can greatly boost your damage.

Fire/ is the undisputed king of AoE for 2 reasons. It has fast activations and it's secondary effect is more damage. The problem is mitigation since it has nothing that provides any hard control and it's only soft control is the unenhanceable slow in RoF.

Archery is good since it has a non-TAoE, a TAoE, and a cone. All with fast to medium animation times. It has a hard control in Stunning Shot and a soft control in the KB of Explosive.

AR is good because it has a TAoE and 3 cones plus a patch power than can affect multiple targets. It has a hard control in Bean Bag, 2 AoE KB powers, and an avoid in the patch power. The down side is that it lacks AIM and it has medium to long activations.

For secondaries, /Ice and /Devices are mitigation heavy.

On the other end of the spectrum you have Mental which has a grab bag of utility powers including a potent regen/recovery tool and an extra damage cone.

/Fire is going to have the highest AoE damage output of secondaries which it does by having more damage as it's secondary effect and giving up mitigation. The only mitigation that /Fire has is the slow and avoid in Hot Feet. The down side is that the animations are dangerously long especially since the mitigation is low.

To survive with a Fire/Fire you need a lot of skill or a good tank/support teammates. Taking Force Mastery as an epic power pool is also a good idea.

Although I agree /Fire and /MM top the list of AoE damage secondaries, /Elec is close enough behind that if you decide to hybridize between AoE and single target blapping, /Elec is a good choice.

Lightning Field has the same big radius as Hot Feet (though less damage and no Afraid, -Fly, or Slow effects). Thunder Strike has minor AoE damage in a so-so size radius. The single target blaps are on par with /EM.

/elec is anything but an aoe set. It has lightning field, but that's all really. The tiny aoe splash on thunderstrike is barely worth mentioning.

Arch/Fire played in melee range.

Thanks for all the great input here everyone. Decisions, decisions... A few more questions.

1. The main reasons I didn't want AR is because of resistance by enemies (esp late game). Is this a problem?
2. Archery and DP, do they have any re-draw issues when using the secondary?
3. The DP "crashless nuke" is which power, is this the tier 8 Hail of Bullets? So it doesn't crash like normal blaster nukes? Sorry not familiar with the set yet.

Thanks

-MT

I want to add a question, too. This thread has inspired me to roll a DP/MM for massive AoE.

The thing is, I HATE cones. I would prefer to never, ever use them. To entirely leave them out of my sets, even. I like PBAoE or targeted AoEs. IF I choose never to use any cones, would DP/MM still be the best AoE choice for Blasters? Or considering a no-cone build (for any set) would another powerset combo shine?

My vote is for Rad/Fire or Fire/MM....depends on how you like to give the hurt. Arch/Fire would also be a solid choice.

If you're not using cones as fire/mm, something has gone terribly wrong.

Also redraw times are normalized now, so you'll only have a problem with redraw if you really hate watching the animation.

I don't see any mention of Radiation/Mental?

I have to say after playing a short time (28 at the moment) I am a complete AoE machine.

Neutron bomb
Haze
Scream
A self heal/End boost

I rarely use either of the 2 single hit attacks (except my nice stun).

Fire/MM for me.

the /MM part especially since it's psi damage and seems to hit more often then the fire part, especially in pvp.

(yes I know psi is resisted in high end pve, but if you are facing something that has "tier 9'd up" and your fire damage is doing piddly damage, I often find that the psionic attacks seem to do the trick. rare situation but it happens.)