AR/DEV. Why Not?

I'm thinking about making a new blaster to run with a friend. For concept reasons, I was leaning toward AR/Dev. I keep hearing about AR/Dev being a really bad/weak combo. Just looking at the powers in each set, it doesn't seem like it would be that bad. So why all the AR/Dev hate?

I think it depends more on your playstyle than anything, some people probably just do not like the set up time the build takes (with the trip mines) and the reasoning is vaild, because in the amount of time it takes to set up the mines another build could have cleared the mob already and be on to the next one. Also, most teams won't want to wait around for mines to be set up and the damage AR deals is heavily resisted with higher level baddies.But I have always been and always will be a concept player, so if I like the concept I do it and don't care about consequences, so I encourage you to do the same :-)

I've heard a lot of hate on AR/Dev, but especially on the /Dev part.

While I don't have a full picture to answer all of the hate, I can say that a lot of the powers in /Dev are situational, require several minutes to set up (looking at you Trip Mines), but when they do work, they work ok.

I have an AR/Dev at 50. If I'm solo and have the time to set up the traps and stuff, then he's pretty fun. Slow, but fun. If I'm on a team, we usually go quickly and most teams don't want to wait 5 minutes for your pyrotechnics. Mobs are dead and gone before you light your fuse.

Overall, Damage is another issue. You're doing Smashing/Lethal damage and later in the game, these are the most heavily resisted types from what people have told me.

I don't know. I have a lot of fun on the right teams with friends and solo, but I have better choices I could play for a more dramatic and exciting play session. If you solo or have teams that take a relaxed approach to leveling and running missions, then AR/Dev could work for you.

You'll hear lot of AR/Dev hate, but not from me. I ignore the mines because they take too long to set up and since I rarely solo, the team has usually moved on by the time I'm ready to rock.

AR: Sure, the attacks are resisted in late-game, but you make up for that with versatility. With lots of S/L and fire and KB, you can find something that works in most situations. Big AoE opportunities with Full Auto, Flame Thrower, M30 and Ignite.

Dev: The trouble here is that there are several powers that are near-useless, but the ones that aren't absolutely kick ***. Cloaking Device is awesome! Caltrops is very handy. Targeting Drone is a boon. Gun Drone can be very useful in big fights.

And Munitions Mastery goes SO well, with Body Armor, Cryo, Sleep and LRM all being very useful power.

I love my 50 AR/Dec and I never feel out-blasted by any other type of blaster. In addition, since he has defense slotted up in Cloaking Device and Combat Jumping and resistances in Body Armor, he's an all-round hardy blaster. Also, since you can skip so much of the secondary, adding Tough and Weave is never out of the question.

There may be some sets that do more damage, but fun is not all about DPS.

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like this new blaster is going to be a lot of fun.

AR/Dev is fine. I have one in her 40s.

Here she is. Her focus is Hasten only down for 14 seconds, she can ghost a mission if hovering [not the brightest idea in hindsight, but there's the 2 min after deactivation too] and tp teammates over, and with the temp power stun stacked with beanbag she gets a mag 6. I regret pushing PFF back to 44 as I want it now.

This is a respec build, that's why Hasten is back at 26.

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You might also want to take a look at Traps/AR defenders, Mine is rapidly becoming my go-to hero.

A lot of people don't like playing blasters without Aim and Build Up.

It's all about your brand of fun.
I think the only way to find out if it is for you is to try it!
I haven't leveled up an AR/Dev, but I do have an Archery/Dev (and love it, but that is quite different).
More importantly, I have an SG friend who lives for his AR/Dev and is an absolute blast (Both literally and figuratively) for everyone that teams with him. His mission in game seems to be to find new and more explosive ways to out-aggro the tanks. I am often amazed at just how successful he is, haha.

Every time I see the negative things said about AR/Dev, I want to summon him to post his thoughts on the powerset combo.

Not that it is wrong for people to dislike it. It's not for everyone.

Anyways... better answers for you above me, but I just felt the need to babble in here about this!

Good luck and I hope you enjoy it!

AR/DEV why not?

because pretty much any other combo is measurably better and /dev specifically was designed for a game that no longer exists.


that said, different people find different stuff fun- play one and see how you like it.

It's not for me, because without both Aim and Build Up I just don't feel like I do that much more damage than a Scrapper. And Scrappers are six times as hard to kill.

I ran a /Dev up to 29 or 30 once- enough to get the trip mines slotted- and I hated it because it was slow and annoying. Weirdly, I ran a Dark/Traps corr -as slow if not slower- up to 50 with no problems a couple years later.

I have no philosophical problems with AR; it doesn't seem like it's for me, but I respect it. /Dev is my last choice of secondary any time ever. Second last is /fire, but there's a huge gap between the two.

ALL Blaster secondaries [well, except Mental] are weak, put together out of leftover powers with unclear goals, but most of them do one or two things really well. What /Dev does well is not something I want to do, apparently. "Enough damage to kill them" is two stacked trip mines and I could drop two whole spawns in the time it takes to stack two trip mines.

The Aim/Buildup thing is probably the biggest drawback - and it is a huge drawback when playing the role of blaster.

My main is a 50 AR/Dev, and I agree the trip mines take a lot of time. In teams, I might throw one at my feet before pulling in an AV, which means I get my satisfaction at the explosion but without the team tapping their fingers. Done right Trip Mines or Gun Drones can be used in combat, but when I say I do this, it's still uncommon, and in all cases situational.

That said, I built this guy to solo mostly. He does this well, running I think +2 or +3 notoriety (don't remember exactly atm). As was said though earlier, this takes time. But I'm proud to say that every EB I've run into solo has not walked away. (Continuing to work the build to solo AVs will take time, but that's my current goal for this toon)

This is due to my choice of Fire for epic: Melt Armor doesn't do -Res or -Def as well as surveilance in Munitions, but the self-rez comes in really handy (and makes a satisfying boom, too). For my build, this APP helps both solo and team, as Melt Armor is an Aoe, and the self-rez means my face plants are temporary.

The build is slow, the end-game resists a lot of my damage, and I'm actually using my deaths as an ingame tactic. If high explosives and bullet casings aren't enough to outweigh that, AR/Dev isn't for you.

~Raven

I always have a hoot on mine (lvl 50 now). I don't feel underpowered in groups and when I solo I enjoy the survivability of caltrops, beanbag, knockbacks, etc. And let's face it, DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA is just more fun than throwing ice or fire

Trip mines don't feel like they slow me down solo. I drop one by my feet, toss a handful of caltrops in front of it and open up the gunfire on the mobs. Anyone who make it past my caltrops gets blown up. Good times and not very time consuming.

AR/Dev really requires a much different play style than the typical blaster. The best method of utilizing Trip Mines that I've found is to try and be the first person to the spawn, completely invisible through Cloaking Device and Super Speed, lay down the mine at the enemies feet, jump back while firing off flamethrower, and then use Full Auto with a few range enhancing IO's so as not to gimp on the damage once Flamethrower is finished animating.

You use Flamethrower before Full Auto as it is quicker, and so the damage ticks can begin immediately. You use Full Auto at the furthest range to open up it's otherwise narrow cone, and so that you are far out of range of most retaliatory fire when you land. Trip Mine will toss some enemies on their back to help this portion of the mitigation further.

The trick is doing all of this before your team arrives, but not so early that they don't arrive by the time you are using Full Auto. Your team also needs to be aware you are doing this, as often the case is they run down another hallway leaving you with a very angry spawn to deal with. I suggest the Arctic Mastery to put the spawn to sleep if such a thing happens so you can join the team without sicking a double spawn on them. Barring that, Caltrops and Ignite provide some pretty good walls.

Running ahead actually works pretty good with AR/-- because of all the AOE's it is packing compared to the relatively few ST attacks it has. You're usually better off running ahead to toast the minions and LT's of the next group than you are chipping away at the boss. Besides, that's why Gods invented Scrappers. That said, you DO have Ignite if you really need to do some heavy ST damage quickly, but the enemy you light on fire needs to be rooted, which can take some time.

The other method for using Trip Mine is simply finding your tank, and putting a bomb near him. As he is the center point of attention, this usually means quite a healthy explosion, though the knock-back might irritate him a bit.

If your team is moving fast enough (because of a Kin or something similiar) don't bother too much with the Trip Mine. You're better off just running and gunning.

Also, if you're 'Toe-Bombing' make sure you don't have your gun drone out, as he can screw things up.

--/Dev is also pretty good for defense building with Smoke Grenade and Cloaking device providing a fairly good base, (About 10% Defense when you convert the To-Hit Debuff and the defense bonus from CD.) just keep in mind that To-Hit debuffs do not always apply fully when you are fighting stronger enemies, especially AV's and such. My own AR/Dev has 36.9% S/L, 33.9% Ranged, and 22% AOE before you add in Smoke Grenade (7.72%).

The main problem with AR/Dev is that it *does not* play like the other Blaster Sets, and while you do have a lot of options to proceed carefully, in order to be comparable with the high-end damage other sets can do you need to do a lot of fancy maneuvering with the Trip Mine while they only really need to hit build-up and aim when they are ready. A lot of people dislike this, and you shouldn't feel bad if you are among them.

Mostly Lethal damage/no buffs means you will rely on Trip Mine stacks to defeat tough Bosses.

AR/Devices was designed around the original game when you could 5 or 6 slot Damage SO's by running Targetting Drone. Enhancement Diversification destroyed the AR/Dev Blaster and they never fixed it. Although they say it looks fine on paper, it's pretty weak sauce in the actual game.

Roleplay-wise it's very good. I have one at 34. You can do better with the gameplay with Dual Pistols or Archery and Devices and AR/NRG is good. I am working on an AR/MM, but too early to tell much, probably good too though.

Yea I agree with you Quixotik all they have to do is give AR ammo swap like duel pistols, and that would solve everything. AR/DEV is not bad at all if you get the recharge high enuff. I can kill +2 romans off the wall with no insperations easy. here is my build and I dont use mines at all.

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