Poll time: Which blaster will go the distance?

So in an ongoing case of alt-its, and a desire to master all things blaster I've started three new toons at once, all powersets I have yet to play. And was shooting for things that aren't as Fotm as some combos like fire/mental.

#1 fire/ice in prae
#2 sonic/mental in paragon
#3 archery/elec in paragon (What can I say I'm sick of ambushes)

The builds aren't concrete, except for maybe #2, as despite all evidence against the plan I'm skipping siren's song, and going to rely heavy on the knockback and screech for my mitigation. Looks like it could be a conetastic build too with a dash of ST.

Going heavy aoe like the fire/ice (As it is fire after all) And invest in chilling embrace, along with ice patch and shiver to see just how well they work paired with all that damage. Seemed like the best choice for mitigation too given fire's lack of it.

The arch/elec will probably be a ST style build, more in my normal blaster comfort zone then aoe builds.

Question is, which do you all think will be the most fun, or go the distance you could say in wanting to get it all the way to 50? That and any particular synergy you think they'd have or perhaps be lacking?

I've personally never played any of those builds. My wife on the other hand has played both a sonic/mental and a fire/ice. According to her the sonic/mental had nice survivability, but damage was too ST focused. She really loved her fire/ice, and that remains her favorite blaster to this day. Fire gives awesome damage, both ST and AoE, and ice adds in mitigation that fire lacks.

She and I were actually playing paired blasters at that time. I played a Fire/mental and she was playing her fire/ice. The main thing we noticed while playing was that I did more damage than her, but died more often, which is about what you'd expect.

Fire/Ice is still to this day the fastest Blaster I've reached 50 on. Mostly solo to boot.

The damage is amazing. Great AOE from the start. Good ST chain as well.

The real beauty comes from /Ice though, making this one of the more durable builds I've played.
Shiver and Ice Patch are the two mainstays.

However...

I would advise not taking Chilling Embrace as you won't be in melee much with this combo. Also I'd avoid the Tier9 in /Ice as your AOE's will make the sleep pointless.

Otherwise enjoy! Pairing Rain of Fire and IP with Fireball and FireBreath in the Hollows = great fun!


Can't vouch for the other 2 as I haven't tried them yet.

Just saw that your Fire/Ice is in Praetoria so no Hollows. However I will mention that Fire/Ice and Eng/Eng are the only two sets I'm willing to play again. Making Praetorian versions to take Redside! Currently my new fire/ice is loving the underground! It's my very own slaughterhouse.

What Maestro said. Fire/Ice is an awesome synergy for Blasters. I'm one of the few who doesn't appreciate Fire/ much -- mostly because of the nearby rooting of Firebreath and scatter on RoF -- but Ice Patch fixes both those and makes you more survivable.

Finish it off with a EPP with a hold to stack with Frozen Touch.

#2 would also be viable. It's a fair amount of AoE, mostly in the form of cones, and the -res with -rech would make you valuable on teams. However, I don't think soloing it would be much fun.

I don't think #3 is a good idea at all. I don't see the synergies between the two sets.

Well, Archery/Electric could work as a Blapper. Open with the Archery AoEs (including Rain of Arrows if it's up) then put the bow away and melee the survivors. You'd either want high S/L defense to survive or massive recharge to just open with RoA on every spawn, but I could actually see this as being a fun build if you have a few billion inf to throw at it for softcapped S/L defense plus as much recharge as possible.

I'd go with Fire/Ice out of those three though. /Ice has enough mitigation to really let you make use of Fire's high damage. Sonic/Mental is one I'd avoid, since in my opinion the main reason to go Sonic in the first place (not counting character concept) is Siren's Song, and /Mental's AoEs negate that. Fire/Mental or Rad/Mental have more AoE power while still avoiding redraw, though I suppose a Sonic/Mental/Electric with a continuous all-cone AoE chain could be a lot of fun on teams. Just be sure you have a good tank because you'll spend most of your time rooted...

I can say with experience that Sonic/Mental/Elec is very conetastic. You can have a never ending cone chain of death, and if you're in need of PBAOE there's always Psychic Shockwave. Couple that with great team friendly stuff in Sonic's -res and you have an excellent blaster. I use mine to farm the Cimerora wall from time to time.

I don't know about the other combo's aside from Sonic/Mental. I tried that a while back because on paper it is very powerful with a full chain full of cones, but each cone takes forever to animate and I found myself very frustrated at loads of slow casting powers.

I am not a big fan of Fire, but at least it has fast animations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

I rarely have issues solo with too many targets staying alive and rushing me. If they do, I have a plethora of control as a sonic/mental to deal with anything that gets close, +Psychic Shockwave to kill them.

There are some things I can't solo as well as a targeted AOE/PBAOE blaster, like AE farms and such where mobs crowd you. The way I see it though, if I fight tons of mobs up close all the time I mind as well just roll an AOE minded Melee combo(SS/Fire Brute, Elec/Shield Scrapper, etc.)

Fire/Ice is my favorite amongst many blasters (including Fire/MM for big team play and Sonic/Energy for solo play) as I feel you're pairing the most damaging primary with the most defensive secondary. I also like the thematic components. I find it solo's adequately and teams very well, so cheers for #1.

Things my fire/ice is teaching me.

#1 Clockwork in prae suck... =p
#2 Ice sword is not bone smasher (respeced out)
#3 Why did I not take my T1 attack till a respec? There's no reason now with defiance the way it is to skip them at all, and the new flares really is impressive, not to mention crazy fast recharge.
#4 Chilling embrace is in the build for now, jury's out on keeping it.

That said I'm really enjoying the art of the corner pull on this one over my normal blapper playstyle. Watching whole packs come around the corner into chilling embrace then the full fire aoe barrage is enjoyable as anything. Though bosses still give me fits, as does the ol aggro management, I think "rain of aggro" is a great way to describe that power, though dropping it point blank on chilled mobs then watching them try to run doesn't get old ever.

Can't wait till ice patch though, i get the feeling that's when things will get even more fun.

As for the other alts, still in the low levels, I'll have more to say on them later. That and I'm going down the list, and realizing I've only got elec, psy, and energy in terms of primary sets I haven't played with.

Toyed with eng/dev, but that seems too much like my ice/dev, so may pass on it. Elec though was what's giving me fits, I kinda do but kinda don't want to make an E3 blaster, it's been done already, but none of the other sets seem to have any decent synergy with it. Any thoughts?

Ice patch and rain of fire + AOE is a beauty to behold.