Fire and ice primaries both do what you want. Maybe AR, if you don't mind redraw.
If you don't want to be in melee I like /ice and /energy as secondaries. Energy has melee powers, but it also has a bunch of nice utility stuff. Ice offers soft control. People also like /dev, but personally I can't stand not having buildup.
@Dysc, on virtue:
Virtue blues: Overnight (DP/MM), Kid Ridiculous (FC/rad), Panorama (Ill/time)
Virtue reds: Block Party (SS/SD), Goldcrush (earth/fire), Deadwire (claws/elec), Snowcrush (ice/kin)
Thanks for the reply. I'm seriously leaning towards fire/ice ATM. It always seemed like a good pairing, but I could never come up with a costume/concept. Now that powers can be recolored, it's easier to reconcile odd power pairings (for those of us that actually care).
I personally like Devices as a power set. Cloaking device helps me stay out of sight and off everyone's radar. I run an electric/devices and apparently I'm odd. I've not tried a Fire/Ice, but it sounds interesting. I run my blaster solo usually so team builds aren't my strong suit. I suggest a Fire/Devices, but let me know how the Fire/Ice plays if you make one.
Fire/ice should be fine. Good AoE and good mitigation for both teaming and solo. Just be sure to grab shiver.
I prefer fire/elec though, but I'm one of those dirty "blappers"
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Fire/Ice is an excellent choice for a first/learning blaster. It also fits all your criteria.
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Originally Posted by Eloora
Thanks for the reply. I'm seriously leaning towards fire/ice ATM. It always seemed like a good pairing, but I could never come up with a costume/concept. Now that powers can be recolored, it's easier to reconcile odd power pairings (for those of us that actually care).
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-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
I have about 8 blasters, and my favorite one is Ice/Ice with Fire Epic.
I've gotten a fire/ice into the early teens, and so far so good. It's quite fun, and the damage is refreshing after having played everything BUT major damage dealing AT's for a while.
I am still a little hazy on the optimal power priority, especially from /ice, while leveling. I plan on skipping both melee attacks, but I've read some positive things regarding Chilling Embrace, which is really only useful at close range, so I dunno. I'm not so good with making decisions on "situational" powers, and there are seemingly so many in Blaster secondaries!
I haven't really decided what pool powers I should go for either. Hasten doesn't *seem* to be necessary here, although SS sort of works the best with my concept. I'm leaning toward my tried and true favorite hover/fly. I assume I'll want Stamina at some point. Other than that, what are the popular choices? Leadership and Fighting maybe? the D3 I roll with a lot has all 3 of the Leadership buffs, but they do stack right?
Any more thoughts on this are welcome.
Thanks.
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A blaster is a damage engine, dev designed to be fragile. Their design is to kill things quickly before their lack of mitigation allows them to be killed. Their inherent causes them to do additional damage the more damage they do and the faster they do it.|
Originally Posted by Eloora
I've gotten a fire/ice into the early teens, and so far so good. It's quite fun, and the damage is refreshing after having played everything BUT major damage dealing AT's for a while.
I am still a little hazy on the optimal power priority, especially from /ice, while leveling. I plan on skipping both melee attacks, but I've read some positive things regarding Chilling Embrace, which is really only useful at close range, so I dunno. I'm not so good with making decisions on "situational" powers, and there are seemingly so many in Blaster secondaries! I haven't really decided what pool powers I should go for either. Hasten doesn't *seem* to be necessary here, although SS sort of works the best with my concept. I'm leaning toward my tried and true favorite hover/fly. I assume I'll want Stamina at some point. Other than that, what are the popular choices? Leadership and Fighting maybe? the D3 I roll with a lot has all 3 of the Leadership buffs, but they do stack right? Any more thoughts on this are welcome. Thanks. |
With those things in mind what you need as a blaster is:
1) Recharge to fuel defiance.
2) Recovery and end reduction to fuel the recharge.
3) A way to positon yourself safely to line up the maximum number of targets before unleashing your alpha.
4) A way to survive/recover from their alpha.
So for my blasters:
1) Hasten is a must. It's tailor made to fuel defiance. +rech set bonuses and IOs are also nice to haves.
2) Health and Stamina are needed to fuel that level of endurance consumption. Miracle + and Numina +/+ are also nice to have.
3) The Stealth Pool and Super Speed are good for this one as is the Force Mastery Epic (PFF). Stealth from the stealth pool can be replaced later in your career by a stealth IO.
4) Medicine Pool for aid self. This can be used proactively to reduce stun duration before unleashing your alpha and afterwards to heal up. Stealth Pool for Phase Shift if you get in over your head. Force Mastery Epic Power for Force of Nature and PFF. Leaping Pool for Combat Jumping and Acrobatics. Acrobatics can be (and probably should be) replaced later (or sooner if you have the means) in your career by a -KB IO (or 3, not 2 as 99% of KB that isn't stopped by 1 -KB IO isn't stopped by 2 either but is stopped by 3.)
Things that you don't want (unless you are making a concept build or experimenting with IOs) are things that drain alot of endurance like toggle powers.
Fighting pool, leadership pool, and acrobatics fall into this category. They are huge endurance drains for relatively little benefit.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Eloora, you mostly solo or teamed? I didn't see you say. Solo, Leadership stuff won't help a whole lot, unless it's just for concept or you have no other power you need. If you're mostly teamed then grab from that pool as it helps everyone, just don't sacrifice as it's still not a necessity. (I PuG a lot, plus a fair few of my characters are military and police types, so I tend to get Assault and put a -end in the only slot it'll ever need.)
Personally I don't care much for the Fighting pool on any character. Even if you were blapping those attacks are really not very good, and the toggles are end-heavy (and, imo, either not useful enough or replaceable).
I'd say go with Hasten if possible. I'm not one of those who think it a must for everything, but if there's no concept conflict and you're going SS, take it.
Well, since I am leveling my tanker with my friends, I'll probably try to grab other mission/TF/AE groups when I can, and solo the rest of the time. I definitely want my powers to be....all about me I guess you could say. A somewhat self-indulgent build that's just fast and fun and lethal.
I will go ahead and pick up Hasten. I am anxious to really get to know the new (to me) Blaster mechanic Defiance, and what skills complement it. I don't like the idea of living without a permanent travel power with vertical movement, so I'm hoping whatever build I come up with isn't so tight that I can't fit in hover/fly or whatever.
Another vote for Fire/Ice. Mine is my favorite blaster, though I also have a love/hate with my AR/Dev. Dev sucks so bad you get to take a lot of pools, so getting Rec Friend, etc, doesn't hurt so much.
AR looks like it rocks early, it kinda does, but getting Full Auto really makes it bloom. The hokey Dev powers let you get near perma-hasten on an econo budget though the AR is a little Posi heavy but each gets you 6.25%, and throw in an entropic/decimation for the fifth 6.5% recharge. Manticore in snipe gets you 7.5%, as does...ah...something in...
My stuff [had to pull up mids]
- Four Posi and an Entropic = 5x6.5 = 31.25% recharge
- Adjusted Targeting + Dark Watcher + Red Fortune + Impervious Skin = 4x5% = 20%
- Kinetic Crash + Manticore = 2x7.5% = 15%
- Hasten = 70% recharge. 134 sec to recharge w 120 sec duration = 14 seconds w/o Hasten available.
That 14 seconds = 66.25% recharge
And that doesn't include your rech in your attacks.
But...really, you can do that with most secondaries, and I'm far from reccomending Dev as a well fashioned set, but for slotting for IO bonus recharge it's quite nice.
Trip mines are good at Halloween. You also get a non-speed supressing stealth. No build-ups in sight though.
Fire/ice was my second ever toon and I still play him today. Highly recommended. 
Thanks for all of the help and suggestions guys! Fire/Ice definitely feels like a fun, safe choice, but a couple of other combos have recently caught my eye. Fire/Mental and Fire/Elec. How are those for ST burst? And AoE?
Also, If I do catch up to my friends (30'sish plant/rad troller and a 50 D3 leveled down), which might work the best with them? They seem to have it all covered but pure DPS and ST burst on non-held stragglers and bosses.
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Well Fire is pretty much the highest damage blaster primary. It loses a little to Archery and AR in terms of AoE damage but has better single target damage.|
Originally Posted by Eloora
Thanks for all of the help and suggestions guys! Fire/Ice definitely feels like a fun, safe choice, but a couple of other combos have recently caught my eye. Fire/Mental and Fire/Elec. How are those for ST burst? And AoE?
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Mental is best described as the farming blaster's secondary. It's not a blapping secondary but it requires you to close in for maximum effect. However in return it offers AoE damage, a low mag Aoe confuse and (most importantly) a nice buff to regen and recovery.
Electricity Manipulation is more of a traditional Blapper secondary. It has several strong melee attacks some close range mez and knockback powers, a damage aura and an endurance recovery tool. It also has some sapping capability but unless paired with Electrical Blast it really lacks the reliable -recovery to fully exploit it. Overall I would say it's a safer secondary for a blapper than Fire and Energy but unless it's paired with Electrical Blast it doesn't have the safety of Ice, Devices and Mental.
Fire/Elec is an abomination, but not for the faint of heart.
If you don't like "blapping," then you won't get the most out of this combo for solo play.
With your friends backing you up though, you should be able to get up close and personal and smack a few baddies in the face, should you choose to take the melee attacks. If you didn't take the melee attacks and prefer the whole "pure range" style, then you might as well pick another secondary, like /ice, or /dev, or even /energy for boost range.
High recharge/dam bring the best out of fire/elec, with decent support/mitigation you can let loose everything in your arsenal and it's glorious.
Inspiration use, using LOS, kiting and exploiting mob ai can go a long way towards your survivability too, as these are things that all blasters should learn anyway.
I have 2 blasters at lvl 50 a fire/elec and a arch/dev.. The arch/dev is good kinda slow moving. the fire/elec is pure awesomesauce.. I have a new blaster ive been working on a sonic/mental and my god is she good..
But as for what you are looking for id go with fire/ice.. I dont have much practice with /ice but from what I have read and seen it seems fun..
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Fire/Ice is a very solid combo. /Ice covers the defensive weakness of Fire/. It provides good synergy with Rain of Fire and Shiver. Ice patch is excellent early on until fast moving teams of higher levels make it a little redundant.|
Originally Posted by Eloora
Fire/Ice definitely feels like a fun, safe choice, but a couple of other combos have recently caught my eye. Fire/Mental and Fire/Elec. How are those for ST burst? And AoE?
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Fire/Mental is excellent for AoEs and provides mitigation through fast mass arresting, through -recharge debuffs, through Drain Psyche (though in some cases the use is just as likely to get you killed), and through World of Confusion (made quite useful with purple confusion IOs).
Fire/Elec is good at AoEs and very good at ST burst damage. Power Sink makes using Inferno less situational. You WILL faceplant a lot though as you have next to no mitigation and will grab a lot of aggro while also moving into melee quite a bit.
Welp, my fire/ice blaster is 43 now. I've been trioing mostly with the aforementioned exemplared D3 and equal level plant/rad troller. I feel like I plug the holes in our trio (pure non-control AoE, boss finishing ST damage) reasonably well, but I'm a little scatterbrained when it comes to builds.
I've taken everything in Fire/ except the snipe. I know RoF is a debatable power, but I enjoy true DoTs, which this game severely lacks. /Ice I'm....not all that enamored with TBH. Build Up and Shiver are great, and Ice Patch has saved my and my troller's skin a couple of times, but the area it covers is tiny, and it's weak on bosses, where we have the most trouble. Everything else I've either skipped or rarely use. Maybe I'm missing something, or need to change up my playstyle, I don't know.
Also, I took the Fire epic pool for Bonfire, which is kinda neat, but I'm not married to the set. This is the first blue side character with which I've been able to try the epic pools, so I have no experience with them. Thematically, fire, ice or force will work, so any opinions on the usefulness of powers in these sets will help for when I inevitably respec.
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I absolutely love and would recommend //Cold Mastery. Snowstorm is really helpful against bosses, Frozen Armor is some very nice mitigation (plus it has a cheap set to stock a little S/L defense with Frozen Armor, and Hoarfrost and Hibernate make for some nice complimentary powers (while Hoarfrost is a long recharge power, it is a nice heal when needed and at 50 will Cap your blasters HP, and Hibernate is awesome for when things really hit the fan) I never played with the AoE sleep on a blaster, but on my Ice/Psi Dom it seems to come in handy, but I'm not sure its something I think would compliment the Fire/ playstyle.
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Originally Posted by Eloora
Welp, my fire/ice blaster is 43 now. I've been trioing mostly with the aforementioned exemplared D3 and equal level plant/rad troller. I feel like I plug the holes in our trio (pure non-control AoE, boss finishing ST damage) reasonably well, but I'm a little scatterbrained when it comes to builds.
I've taken everything in Fire/ except the snipe. I know RoF is a debatable power, but I enjoy true DoTs, which this game severely lacks. /Ice I'm....not all that enamored with TBH. Build Up and Shiver are great, and Ice Patch has saved my and my troller's skin a couple of times, but the area it covers is tiny, and it's weak on bosses, where we have the most trouble. Everything else I've either skipped or rarely use. Maybe I'm missing something, or need to change up my playstyle, I don't know. Also, I took the Fire epic pool for Bonfire, which is kinda neat, but I'm not married to the set. This is the first blue side character with which I've been able to try the epic pools, so I have no experience with them. Thematically, fire, ice or force will work, so any opinions on the usefulness of powers in these sets will help for when I inevitably respec. |
Active 50s:
Zero Defex: DP/MM//Mace Blaster
Mutant X-7: Fire/MM//Mace Blaster
Running my Kin/EA gloriously
Come on I21!!!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Sure, the devs are supposed to listen to their customers, mister business 101 out there. And if I decide to start suggesting that the devs change the game from being about superheroes and supervillains to being about clowns that is my right as well, and technically Paragon Studios is supposed to pay attention to me. But I hope strongly that they assume a meth-head somehow managed to hack into my forum account and make paper airplanes out of my posts, because I hope they recognize stupid when they see it. I assume they will recognize futile just as accurately.
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Need an Idea? Easy - build an Energy/Energy blaster and join us on Virtue in Talos on most nights at 9 PM EST - we form Knockback teams and it is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
It takes a rare tank to understand - YOU HAVE NO CONTROL and just go with it 
Handclap, Check.
Gale, Check.
Hurricane, Check.
Torrent, Check.
Repel, Check.
Peacebringers, Check.
Taunt, Handclap and let rip the Knockback of WAR!
I played a Elec/MM blaster (don't laugh) and had fun. It was kinda like a super sapper... Short Circuit + Drain Psyche = No end
Greetings. I would like a little break from my shield/mace Tanker, so I'm considering rolling a Blaster. It's kinda slow, and not terribly exciting, so I really need to kick it up a notch. Also, I am recently back playing after a year off, and even then I hadn't played for long, so I'm not up on the latest Blaster info. I would love some suggestions on what sets might fit my needs
. Here are a few things I'm looking for.
. I'll be looking thru the various (outdated) guides in the meantime.
Fun right out of the box. I don't intend to slot up with IO sets while leveling, and I'm a IO noob anyway, so I'd rather not have to mess with them to feel effective.
Fast! Fast activations and fast recharges are a plus. I don't like the feeling of just standing there, constantly waiting for powers to refresh. I want to stay relatively busy.
Good synergy of primary and secondary. I don't really know what pairs well together in terms of secondary effects and the like. I plan to team a lot (usually with a scrapper and plant/rad troller), but I don't want to be carrying around half of a toolset when solo either.
AoE! I love the carnage of area effect damage. The more, the better.
I more than likely don't want to play a "Blapper". I tend to like staying out of harms way, and would like the powers most fit to keep it that way.
Any advice on primary and secondary sets that might fit these criteria would be greatly appreciated
Thanks.