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Have you ever played an Ice Manipulation blaster?
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Originally Posted by Silencer7
I think /ice is kind of overrated in terms of survivability. It has a small ice patch, a melee range ST hold, and a pbaoe sleep. Ice patch isn't super helpful in terms of survivability, and you might as well take the better (targeted aoe) sleep in the cold APP.
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Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
I have, actually. I have one at level 50.
@Dysc, on virtue:
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Then I'm not sure why you would say Ice is overrated. I can effectively solo without dying x8 and that was before I had my soft capped s/l defense. In the right hands ice is overkill when it comes to survivability. An Ice/Ice/Cold Blaster is the Blaptroller king
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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I have an excellent grasp on the math and the tactics thank you.|
Originally Posted by Silencer7
Oh, I understand the math you used, I just think the claim you are making is garbage.
edit: also you seem to have a... questionable grasp on how the percentages work. Shiver provides exactly zero mitigation against a spawn's alpha strike. And after the alpha (assuming you opened with shiver? /boggle), the first application of shiver is only going to delay the mobs' second attack by a second or two (if that.) Blasters don't have enough health or regen to leverage -recharge into significant survivability. Shiver is a wonderful control power, especially for primaries with rains, but it's not making a meaningful contribution to your lifespan. Other than ice patch, /ice doesn't have much of anything remarkable from the standpoint of survivability. It has a melee ST mez, but lots of other secondaries have that. It has the pbaoe sleep, but both sonic/ and the cold APP have better sleeps. Blaster ice patch isn't useless, but it's not that useful, either. It's small enough that they can run out after being knocked down once, and it's size means that you either have to let things get into melee with you long enough to use it or have a good corner to pull to. |
When paired with a low AoE damage primary like Ice/, Sonic/, or Psi/ Shiver's contribution to your survival is huge. Using SOs for recharge without hasten or Set bonuses you can keep Shiver double stacked and about half of the time can have it triple stacked.
Shiver's -rech per activation is 65%. A single application will almost cap -rech on even cons. A second application will cap the -rech on anything up to +3s and will almost cap it on +4s.
As I said before over time 2 applications of shiver is like having 75% damage resistance. That's simply due to the -rech. The -run speed also plays a part for 2 reasons.
1) Mob ranged attacks do roughly 60% of the damage that mob melee attacks do. Strangely enough keeping the mobs at range is like having another 40% damage resistance. (Technically it works out to 1-(.25*.4) or 90%). If you have an ED capped epic shield like temp invul and it's a smashing or lethal attack it works out to 1-(.25*.4*.32) for a grand total of 96.8%
2) Factor in Mob AI behavior. The mobs will grind away towards you in slow motion. When they have a ranged attack recharged they will stop and fire it. You can trick the AI into switching over to melee mode (the mob will cue up a melee attack and keep it queued) when it gets to within about 16 feet. If you jump into 16 feet and then back out to 30 or so the mob can get stuck in melee mode and will continue to grind toward you without firing any ranged attacks even if they are recharged.
Not only that but most mobs have very few ranged attacks to use. Cutting them down to only their ranged attacks is also a huge bonus in survivability.
There's nothing wrong with opening with Shiver. As you pointed out all you have to do is survive the alpha (actually this is a universal challenge that all solo blasters face. If you can figure out how to eliminate, bounce, or spread out the alpha you can survive with ANY blaster pairing). In my experience 2 small purple insps is enough to take the Alpha of an even level 8 player spawn with about half a bar of health left at the end of the alpha strike depending on what you are up against. With bad rolls you might have to eat a green. Set bonuses giving you ranged defense in that range obviate the need for purple insps. Having PFF from force mastery also gives you a tool to splash the alpha. Having an AoE sleep like Sirens allows you to eliminate the Alpha.
Using the terrain is also an excellent way to open with Shiver. In doorways you can target a mob, duck behind the left side, que up Shiver, and then jump across to the right side. The mobs won't aggro until you are safely behind the other side of the door and by then they won't have a target. This lets you split the spawn. You can then drop ice patch and the 5% of all mobs that you always miss with Shiver will be right there to slip on the ice. They'll be dead before the rest of the spawn can catch up.
When paired with a high AoE damage primary like Archery, Fire, or AR then yes, I'll agree that Shiver is less useful but it is still a powerful mitigation tool even in those cases. By the way AR/Ice is amusing if you aren't in a hurry. Shiver + Ice patch + Ignite is maniacal giggle time.
If you are the kind of blaster that likes to Leroy in with all AoEs blazing this tactic probably isn't for you, but for survivability it works and works quite well. My Sonic/Ice/Elec soloed his way up and only has the first debt badge (I wouldn't have gotten that if blasters had real mez protection). I don't have the electric Epic shield on him because I don't need it. The only toggle he has is combat jumping and he only has about 10% defense to ranged slotted from set bonuses.
About the only thing that gives him real trouble are council since the Robots are immune to sleeps and the War Wolves are immune to slows.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
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Well DP/Ice seems to be working pretty well for survivablity.
Opening with shiver as mentioned above then using bullet rain and empty clips with chemical ammo so any alpha strikes that do hit, do less damage plus ice patch is a godsend for minion bumrush.
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This depends on what you set your personal team size to. If you are set to 1 player, then you are correct, Shiver has little use. However, if you bump it up to 4-8 then Shiver can make a noticeable impact on your survivability as it will not only delay the second volley of attacks, but also keeps enemies from piling on top of you in melee. Shiver is also quite useful in the War Zone and Storm Palace where you're fighting large groups of +2s.|
Originally Posted by Silencer7
Shiver is a wonderful control power, especially for primaries with rains, but it's not making a meaningful contribution to your lifespan.
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Other than ice patch, /ice doesn't have much of anything remarkable from the standpoint of survivability. It has a melee ST mez, but lots of other secondaries have that. It has the pbaoe sleep, but both sonic/ and the cold APP have better sleeps. ... Blaster ice patch isn't useless, but it's not that useful, either. It's small enough that they can run out after being knocked down once, and it's size means that you either have to let things get into melee with you long enough to use it or have a good corner to pull to. |
Ice Patch can be a huge form of damage mitigation. Even beyond the obvious corner pulls, a Blaster that drops Ice Patch and takes two steps back keeps enemies from getting into melee and keeps those enemies that were trying to get into melee on their butts. IP is also good for keeping War Wolves contained (the hard part is getting them to stop on the patch for their initial slip and slide.
)Chilling Embrace has -recharge combined with a -14% damage debuff, allowing you to basically ignore minions and focus on an annoying boss or lieutenant, especially if you also drop IP.
Freezing Touch is a solid hold, can't really say anything bad about it. Combine it with Ice/, //Fire or //Elec for stacking holds on a boss.
Frozen Aura has a very fast recharge with a very long duration, meaning it stacks very easy with itself (like Shiver). This can help you tackle multiple bosses quite easily, like running head on into 3 DRMs. If you have Sonic/ or //Ice then you can quickly stack it and lock down an entire spawn.
Granted, while these powers individually may not be "remarkable from the standpoint of survivability", its when you combine them together that you create an environment for the Blaster to easily survive against insurmountable odds. My only complaint is that IP's KD breaks FA's sleep (curse you Castle! /shakefist)
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Set Bonuses or No Set Bonuses ?
If you are talking about no set bonuses Devices just wins out right for personal survivability on secondaries bar none. Its enough that you probably don't need a primary with it, except to speed things up.
Lay down trip mines throw down caltrops pull spawn onto minefield move on.
Its slow but very safe.
If you are talking about with bonuses ? Softcapped fire/fire comes to mind, fire/ment, fire/elec all good. With /Ment you get world of confusion which is effective once you put in a coercive set, drain psyche, psychic shockwave a truly devastating combination if you can survive to use them. Fire/Fire and Fire/Elec you are just killing things at an insane rate, damage is your mitigation.
Just a note, As has been stated above -Rech on either the primary or the secondary, is something you take because you are looking to help out the tank or the scrapper. -Speed however is very useful, just not as nice having something step on a big pile of mines.
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I'm not understanding your reasoning here, and it's very possible the problem is on my end. -14% damage debuff (from evencons) turns 1000 HP of damage into 860. If you can't ignore one you can't ignore the other. Are you talking about stacked -recharge effects?
| Chilling Embrace has -recharge combined with a -14% damage debuff, allowing you to basically ignore minions and focus on an annoying boss or lieutenant, especially if you also drop IP. |
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@Boltcutter in game.
In all honesty that comment about chilling embrace gave me something else to think about....
I did skip the power because it seemed a pretty useless toggle at the time but i didnt notice the -damage portion, combined with chemical ammo -damage effects that should be pretty nice....
I am liking how flexible DP/Ice is right now as well since it can either stack -damage or stack slows with cryo ammo. Granted you need to constantly be firing but combined with shiver most enemies pretty much crawl to you.
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CE has both a -40% recharge and -14% damage debuff that lowers the damage of affected enemies (Tanker's CE has it as well). These two combined make for a good amount of mitigation. Granted, you're not going to start a fight by running into the middle of a large group with CE on and hope to survive (though Jack would have called this a superior tactic during Defiance 1.0 haha!), but its enough to allow a minion or three get get up close while you are working on downing the boss. If you combine this with Ice Patch, then you can pretty much ignore the minions (within reason of course, and there are always exceptions, like Sappers) until you get the bosses and lieutenants down. Then you drop Ice Storm on top of yourself and cackle with glee. Good times, good times.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
I'm not understanding your reasoning here, and it's very possible the problem is on my end. -14% damage debuff (from evencons) turns 1000 HP of damage into 860. If you can't ignore one you can't ignore the other. Are you talking about stacked -recharge effects?
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Of course, your tactics may need to change depending on whom you are fighting. Your normal tactics for fighting Malta should be different than when facing Carnies or Soldiers of Rularuu. For example, I use Frozen Aura more often when facing Carnies since it allows me to time my holds between the MI's 5/7 phasing and still eliminate the DRM, and any other non Illusionists, from the battle fairly quickly (if you get 2 MIs I find prayer combined with a little bit of luck, and yelling at the screen, to be useful).
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I think it depends on what your upto really, it could be /ice, it could be /nrg, /men or even /dev
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Originally Posted by New Dawn
I think it depends on what your upto really, it could be /ice, it could be /nrg, /men or even /dev
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You know... that's an interesting thought, hehe...
With /Devices I can solo an Elite Boss without taking a point of damage.
I'm not saying that would be my top answer to this question, but... It just goes to show that there are many ways to skin a catgirl.
While I imagine Ice is the best answer (I've never played one though), I just have to say that an Elec/Elec/Elec is worth mentioning.
Probably not the best... But that's its place, it seems... Not the best, but good all around (It hurts me to say that, because I like to scream that E3 is GREAT... because it is, hehe... but it's more how you use it than the pure numbers themselves).
3 Holds, Endurance Drain, Knockbacks, chances for "sleep" and some good damage (Great melee attacks)... It has some very good survivability.
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No, it won't. |
Originally Posted by Silencer7
Power boost will help you deal with mez resistant enemies.
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Power Boost just increases the duration of mezzes. It does nothing to increase the mez's ability to get past a target's resistance.
You can stun something for longer, but if you couldn't stun it in the first place, Power Boost isn't going to help.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Originally Posted by Silencer7  Power boost will help you deal with mez resistant enemies. |
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
No, it won't.
Power Boost just increases the duration of mezzes. It does nothing to increase the mez's ability to get past a target's resistance. You can stun something for longer, but if you couldn't stun it in the first place, Power Boost isn't going to help. |
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No, I knew what I meant. |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
You are thinking protection not resistance. Mag protection is what power boost does not help with. Resistance is what shortens the duration
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Most of the time, you're better off just killing whatever the resistant mob is. I haven't seen too many blasters of any kind that have much difficulty with anything other than an EB or AV, in which case the mez is going to be pretty useless for half the fight anyway. Anything less can usually be killed well before a mez wears off (even if it's resisted) if you focus your attacks on it.
Why mez something longer when you can just eliminate the threat altogether?
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Sonic/Energy |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
No, I knew what I meant.
Most of the time, you're better off just killing whatever the resistant mob is. I haven't seen too many blasters of any kind that have much difficulty with anything other than an EB or AV, in which case the mez is going to be pretty useless for half the fight anyway. Anything less can usually be killed well before a mez wears off (even if it's resisted) if you focus your attacks on it. Why mez something longer when you can just eliminate the threat altogether? |
Power Boost sleep, then work your way through ?
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Slotted, Siren's Song lasts at least 45 seconds without Power Boost. If you can't kill the entire spawn in that amount of time with a Sonic/Energy you have bigger problems than your mez ability |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Sonic/Energy
Power Boost sleep, then work your way through ? |
I do it all the time with my Sonic/Devices, and I don't have the melee attacks of Energy to speed it up. Don't get me wrong, Power Boost is a nice power. But there are times when it is just not necessary.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
the blaster i just made was a Rad/MM blaster and i found him about as survivorable as my duel pistols/devices but my duel pistols was slightly better cuz of the switch ammo factor and mainly cuz of cyro ammo which i though it's slow effect was pretty good
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I agree, especially with global set recharge bonuses and hasten theres usually little need for power boost because you can just use the power again anyway. Its nice in some ways, especially pre sets but its not a 'need' power really.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Don't get me wrong, Power Boost is a nice power. But there are times when it is just not necessary.
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Plus considering I would be playing dp as primary, that pretty much only leaves stun, supressive fire and power thrust to really have any use with it, all of which recharge fairly fast anyway.
Im not going to deny that energy is a very powerful set because that would be insane, but in terms of surviability i think its more of a single target killer than a mob killer just like energy melee is on tanker, you would need to pair it with a higher AoE based power set to get the best of it.
It works well with fire because fire has no control powers, so power thrust and stun alone could really use a little help occasionally, without a ranged control power your sitting duck unless you have a long duration.
Still maintain that DP/Ice is insanely surviable compared to the other blaster sets. -damage from chem ammo and chilling embrace, plus holds, slows, immob and sleep combined with DP's AoE powers is devastating to mobs even before you get armor powers.
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Iv been having high survivability on a Energy/Mental Blaster latly.Lots of KD and KB with additional Psi AoE...good stuff.
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Originally Posted by Sunstormer
So two questions here, most overall survivable blaster, what would it be?
Secondly, which would be the most survivable secondary to place with Dual Pistols? This is for the PvE game, PvP would be nice too but thats pretty much just Psy anyway |
A lot of Blaster secondaries offer survivability if you work toward that goal...
> Devices: Cloaking Device + Smoke Grenade + Super Speed can easily let you set up Trip Mines and/or Time Bomb. Then all you have to do is pick up the remaining pieces. Kind of slow for me to play though... You can also set up tons of Trip Mines and just pull mobs to you. Downside is that this does NOT help you solo EB's/AV's/GM's.
> Electric Manipulation: Goes well with Electrical Blast if you want to go for the endurance drain route. You also get 2 holds this way as well.
> Energy Manipulation: Pretty much high single-target damage and 2 nice utility powers, Boost Range and Power Boost. Sometimes, the best way to survive is by killing your opponents faster and /EM does just that.
> Fire Manipulation: AoE's. Not much in this set alone that actually helps your survivability directly.
> Ice Manipulation: Tons of survivability here. You can easily cap recharge debuff and movement speed with this set. Ice Patch is extremely nice and your Tier 9 allows you to sleep an entire spawn and just pick them off 1 by 1.
> Mental manipulation: Great survivability here as well. Drain Psyche will help you tons with +recov and +regen while keeping recovery and regen down for EB's/AV's/GM's. This set is one of the few that is great against a big group as well as being useful against a single, strong opponent such as an AV due to the -regen in Drain Psyche.
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As an Ice/Ice blaster, I find this concept of "Too much" control intriguing. Explain.|
Originally Posted by Santorican
Ice/Ice/Cold is the most survivable Blaster combination ever but its almost too much control.
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Originally Posted by Fulmens
To the OP: That's kind of like asking what the fastest riding lawnmower is. The fastest lawnmower will still lose to the worst car that passes inspection.
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Ice/Ice Blaster. Dedication to concept is an ugly thing.
Claws/WP Brute. Sex without the angst.
Every CoX character lies somewhere on this spectrum.
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There's a point at which you don't need more control, assuming you do reasonable damage. My fire/ice rarely needs any control beyond what Shiver delivers by itself. I haven't played ice/ice, but it seems to me all the slow and -rech in the primary is wasted since Shiver will floor everyone anyway. |
Originally Posted by Tramontane
As an Ice/Ice blaster, I find this concept of "Too much" control intriguing. Explain.
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Two holds also seems redundant- again, you should be doing enough damage that the difference between being at the recharge floor and being held doesn't matter.
The ice secondary delivers all the control a blaster is likely to need. Pairing it with a control-heavy primary is gilding the lily.
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| Again, questionable. I think I have comparable control ability to a Controller. |
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The -slow and -rech in the Ice Blast primary is pretty redundant after two applications of Shiver. No question there. That's completely true. The two holds of Ice Blast aren't redundant, though. -rech isn't perfect mitigation in the way a hold is. The enemies are still gonna get the first round of attacks off. If you're facing something like a Malta Sapper or any mob that mezzes, chances are you wanna mez them first, because even one attack from them would ruin your day. Having a ranged hold is invaluable there.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
There's a point at which you don't need more control, assuming you do reasonable damage. My fire/ice rarely needs any control beyond what Shiver delivers by itself. I haven't played ice/ice, but it seems to me all the slow and -rech in the primary is wasted since Shiver will floor everyone anyway.
Two holds also seems redundant- again, you should be doing enough damage that the difference between being at the recharge floor and being held doesn't matter. |
A similar situation applies for bosses. Chances are you don't wanna get tagged by a boss at all. And that's why you want two ranged holds, because one alone isn't going to do the job fast enough in that situation.
Granted...when soloing my Ice/Ice I prefer to run with the enemy levels cranked up but the spawn sizes kept relatively low, so that does affect the way I see things. And of course team play is a different dynamic. It should also be said that if someone's playing an Ice/Ice, chances are they're fairly conservative in playstyle anyway, as opposed to the gung-ho crazy other blasters go for.
With regards to Ice/Ice equalling or outperforming controllers...it depends on the metric of comparison. I find I'm often better at locking down bosses than most controllers, and I can certainly equal a controller on a smaller team. Definitely not in an eight-man situation, though. Unless they're an Illusion controller who doesn't know what the hell they're doing. Which is unfortunately common, mind you...
@Acyl
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I very much disagree. A sonic blaster isn't all that far behind a non-domination mind dominator from a personal survivability standpoint. It is lower sure, but you also do a lot more damage depending on secondary.
The same thing that lets a mind dom cake walk solo content lets a sonic blaster do the same. And while dominate is better than screech, it isn't that much better at eliminating single targets