In terms of 'what powers are good', here's what I'd do:
From fire, I'd definitely take the three ST blasts (blaze is omfg amazing), fireball, aim, and inferno. Blazing bolt, like all snipes, is more of a 'for fun' power and is not necessary. As for the other two AoEs, it depends on what your style is and what you take from /mental.
From mental, the 'must haves' are mostly concentration, drain psyche, and at least one of the AoEs. You have to take subdual, but I wouldn't do much with it other than immob things while I'm mezzed since you have much better blasts in fire/. Mind probe is an OK melee attack and I'd take it on most other builds, but again fire/'s ST is so good you may not need to bother. TK thrust is a useful 'get out of my face' utility power - the nice thing about KB is that it works on bosses with one hit, unlike most types of mitigation blasters get. On the other hand, world of confusion and scare are both complete junk, mostly because of their cripplingly low durations. The choice of psychic scream, psi shockwave, or both, again comes down to playstyle choice and synergy with whatever you chose for fire/.
The AoE question mostly comes down to 'cone AoE, radial AoE, or both'? Fireball, rain of fire, and psi shockwave are all radial AoEs, while breath of fire and psi scream are cones. If you want to fire a chain of AoEs from range, you'll want breath, scream, fireball, and possibly rain, while from melee you'll be tossing fireball, shockwave, and again possibly rain. If you only want to do one or the other, you can skip an AoE or two. If you want to retain the ability to do both, you'll want all the AoEs. Fireball + psi shockwave is certainly a good 1-2 punch, but it's definitely not the only AoE trick you could have in your bag. (If you really wanted to get silly, you could even take static discharge or repulsion bomb from an epic pool and have a full-fledged AoE attack chain. 
)
With the fitness changes in i19 finding free power choices for everything isn't going to be a problem (at this point, assuming a travel power in every build, every skippable power in your primary/secondary directly translates into a slot to take a pool or other minor power - and you have 4 skippable powers). The real issue will be getting enough slots into all those attacks. For that reason I definitely recommend taking as heavy advantage of sets and frankenslotting as you can. If you can get stuff like 5-sets of posis, thunderstrikes, and oblits into your blasts and AoEs, the recharge, accuracy and recovery bonuses will make it a lot easier to get away with fewer slots in everything else (and, for that matter, only needing 5 slots in those attacks). Hasten will also be a good choice to save on recharge slots.
As far as epics go, I think all of them except munitions have something to offer. The all have an armor to give drain psyche time to work its magic, and there are several other offensive and defensive options available - snow storm, hoarfrost, and hibernate, static discharge, shocking bolt, and surge of power, PFF, repulsion bomb, and force of nature (and you have spare power choices enough to pull off the PFF + aid self combo), or char and RotP.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
What Muon said. I want to emphasize Blaze. Its Blaze. Blaze at 18. It is better than good, its Blaze.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Quote:
I started writing this before Muon replied and had to go afk, so this just repeats what he wrote, just not as good as he worded it lol. so with that, yeah what Muon said.|
Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
Not looking for a full build (hate reading Mids' output and I'm able to work with more compact advice like "5 Posi's and a Recharge in Fire Ball" or "Frankenslot for A/D/R"
 ), more on what I should definitely take and which I should avoid because they're not nearly as good as they look or whatever. Or was the basic advice I got in chat last night of Fire Ball + Drain Psyche + Psychic Shockwave (plus the unstated Concentration, Aim, Flares, Fire Blast and Subdual, all of which are pretty much mandatory no matter what Blaster combo you do, when there's an equivalent) pretty much all there is to it with most of the rest being fluff that's there mostly 'cos you HAVE to choose powers? |
It all depends on how you want to play him, I like to play in melee range and Drain Psyche and PSW being PBAoE works well with that. I toggle Fire breath out of range then SS into the middle of the spawn so the amimation goes off in and when it finishes i can fire off DP/fireball/PSW. If you wanted to play at range or Hover, You have access to a lot of cone powers and now an AoE immob. So you could fire off an Immob, Firebreath//Fireball/Psi scream/Epic cone. Maybe work in RoF before the chain if you find mobs are still standing after that AoE barrage. Drain Psyche and PSW become useless if you play this way. Or you could mix melee and range and bounce back and forth using a combo of cones and PBAoE's. Decide how you are going to use your Fire/MM and build him around that playstyle, thats how i would decide what powers to skip. P.S. world of confusion is a waste of end and is only used as a set mule for most people.
I crashed a cadillac through the gates of hell and returned with a fistfull of dollars.
Just throwing a few thoughts out there.
I play my Fire/MM away from the bad guys, utilizing all those cones and ranged AoE attacks (except Rof F which I never thought was worth the slots/endurance) for the first 38 levels or so. I don't take Drain Psyche until 35 and then follow it immediately with slotting Mind Probe and of course Psychic Shockwave. By 40 I'm now mixing it up in melee when safe, spamming PS and FB and using Fire Blast, Blaze and Mind Probe at close range as well as Drain Psyche now that I'm close enough that it doesn't have to alter my playstyle. Oppressive Gloom is added into that mix as soon as it becomes available in the APP. The cones are still there and make a superb opening salvo but now you have the option of staying back and inflicting excellent AoE damage or stepping up and doing the same + some very beneficial effects.
Don't underestimate the potential benefits of the combined -Rech effects of Psychic Scream and Psychic Shockwave as well as the -Regen effects of Drain Psyche agianst hard targets.
I know you said you didn't care for Mids lay-outs, but here's one that's not only easy to read, it has almost no IO's in it at all. I only use assault on teams of 6-8 or in rare endurance friendly scenarios. Hover is utterly invaluable at lower levels, especially when soloing and I tend to use the Ninja Run as often as not as my primary means of travel.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.803
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Magic Blaster
Primary Power Set: Fire Blast
Secondary Power Set: Mental Manipulation
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Flares
- (A) Accuracy
- (3) Accuracy
- (34) Damage Increase
- (34) Damage Increase
- (34) Damage Increase
- (46) Apocalypse - Chance of Damage(Negative)
- (A) Accuracy
- (A) Accuracy
- (3) Accuracy
- (7) Damage Increase
- (7) Damage Increase
- (29) Damage Increase
- (29) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Accuracy
- (5) Accuracy
- (5) Damage Increase
- (13) Damage Increase
- (15) Damage Increase
- (31) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Endurance Reduction
- (A) Accuracy
- (9) Damage Increase
- (9) Damage Increase
- (21) Damage Increase
- (31) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Accuracy
- (11) Accuracy
- (11) Damage Increase
- (13) Damage Increase
- (15) Damage Increase
- (31) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Recharge Reduction
- (17) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Flight Speed
- (A) Recharge Reduction
- (17) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Accuracy
- (19) Accuracy
- (19) Damage Increase
- (21) Damage Increase
- (25) Damage Increase
- (25) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Healing
- (A) Endurance Modification
- (23) Endurance Modification
- (23) Endurance Modification
- (43) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
- (A) Endurance Reduction
- (A) Recharge Reduction
- (27) Recharge Reduction
- (27) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Flight Speed
- (46) Flight Speed
- (A) Accuracy
- (36) Accuracy
- (37) Damage Increase
- (37) Damage Increase
- (37) Damage Increase
- (40) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Recharge Reduction
- (33) Damage Increase
- (33) Damage Increase
- (33) Damage Increase
- (46) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Accuracy
- (36) Accuracy
- (36) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Accuracy
- (39) Accuracy
- (39) Damage Increase
- (39) Damage Increase
- (40) Damage Increase
- (40) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Accuracy
- (42) Accuracy
- (42) Damage Increase
- (42) Damage Increase
- (43) Damage Increase
- (43) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Accuracy
- (45) Accuracy
- (45) Disorient Duration
- (45) Disorient Duration
- (A) Accuracy
- (48) Accuracy
- (48) Damage Increase
- (48) Damage Increase
- (50) Damage Increase
- (50) Recharge Reduction
- (A) Steadfast Protection - Knockback Protection
- (50) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance
Level 1: Brawl
- (A) Accuracy
- (A) Run Speed
- (A) Recharge Reduction
Level 2: Ninja Run
I started to list the things you want from that combination then I realized it was pretty much everything so instead let me take a different tack and give you some points on the things that are more optional than others.
Fire = You want everything but
Blazing Bolt
Inferno
Are both very easily skipped. Blazing bolt suffers from all the blaster snipe problems, about the only thing its good for is pulling.
Inferno, Looks real nice, just not available all that often and crashes your end.
Rain of Fire, Excellent power but its on a 1 minute recharge if you have to choose which AoEs you want from fire this is the weakest.
Mental
Scare, Single target soft control thats weak and you have nothing to stack it with
Mindprobe vs TK thrust, I personally prefer TK thrust, it will provide mitigation. Mindprobe is trying to be mitigation through damage but it does pretty nice damage.
Drain Psyche, braking my rule here its the best power in either of the two sets for a little while it lets you have a very good measure survivability. You top out in the low 90 hp/s for regen. Not as high a capped scrapper can do (149hp/s softcap and 20% resistance) but very good.
Blasters need more powers like drain psyche they make the AT fun.
It kind of depends on your playstyle. My fire/mental was the epitome of blastery goodness. Gobs of ranged ST and AoE damage, lots of recharge, and no thought for my own survival. That said, here's the powers you'll want.
Fire Blast: I took every single power. If you don't have room for that, blazing bolt and inferno are probably the most skippable. That's not to say that they aren't useful, just that their usefulness is situational.
Mental Manipulation: My advice here is a bit biased by the way I made my fire/mm. I was focusing on a ranged only toon, and skipped some of the melee powers that you might find useful. That said, take the following powers:
Subdual: Cause you have to
Telekinetic thrust: Great for getting rid of a guy that's pounding on you long enough to turn him into a greasy scorch mark.
Psychic scream: hooray for more AoE
Concentration: this is a no-brainer
Drain Psyche: also a no-brainer
For an epic pool, I took force mastery, since it gave me yet another AoE in repulsion bomb and the ever-useful personal force field. I'm considering switching to mu mastery now, because rain of fire + electric fences just looks freaking sweet.
All AoEs except Rain of Fire. Drain Psyche. World of Confusion is worthwhile as a IO-mule only (Malaise and Coercive Persuasion are great). Aim and Concentration. Either TK-Thrust or Mind Probe (Kinetic Combat is great here). Either Cold or Mace epic and grab defensive shield and build for S/L defense (and as much ranged defense as you can get). Combat Jumping for combat mobility. Acrobatics for hold + KB protection is pretty nice. Fighting and/or Leadership from the pools.
Not looking for a full build (hate reading Mids' output and I'm able to work with more compact advice like "5 Posi's and a Recharge in Fire Ball" or "Frankenslot for A/D/R"
), more on what I should definitely take and which I should avoid because they're not nearly as good as they look or whatever. 
Or was the basic advice I got in chat last night of Fire Ball + Drain Psyche + Psychic Shockwave (plus the unstated Concentration, Aim, Flares, Fire Blast and Subdual, all of which are pretty much mandatory no matter what Blaster combo you do, when there's an equivalent) pretty much all there is to it with most of the rest being fluff that's there mostly 'cos you HAVE to choose powers?