How do you get the most out of Fire Breath?

Do you click on the closest npc to you or the one far away or what?

According to MIDS, Fire Breath can do some pretty high damage. I must be doing something wrong because even with 3 level 30 damage IO's in it (as well as an Accuracy), I see very little damage. Should I respec this power out or what?

My fire/ice blaster is currently 35.

Get good at judging distance and target something at the back of the mob.

BU + Aim + a bit of defiance makes for a pretty damaging fire breath. It's not an I Win Button or anything, but it will lay down some hurt for sure.

Sometimes I target near, sometimes far. Really, for me it's about getting stuff fired off as fast as possible. I usually frantically tab to the next target (usually being on the verge of death myself), then line myself up based on that target's location. Combat Jumping + Hurdle allows me to position myself quickly. I haven't IO'd my fire/MM blaster yet, so I am relying on the old blaster survival standby: Safety through Maximum Firepower.

I've been playing a looooong time (75 month badge), so I've become fairly adept at lining up cones. My blaster has three in his arsenal (fire breath, psi scream, and static discharge). All of them make liberal use of dmg/range Hami-O's. Lots of range makes cones much more practical, although you do have to watch out for aggro on the group behind the one you're targeting.

Take some time in a low-level hazard zone to play around with gauging the range and the arc of your cones. Pretty quickly you'll just instinctively know the best angle for hitting all of a big group.

One little trick that can come in handy if you find yourself in the middle of a big group (especially true on melee character cones) is to target someone in the middle of a group, jump straight up, and fire your cone at the top of your jump. Congrats, you just turned your cone into a ghetto PBAoE.

Ghetto PBAoE . Now you got me in suspense. Only have hurdle now, but was planning on training Combat Jumping (for the immobilize protection, but also the jump). Hit 35, but hadn't decided what to get. Don't think turning one guy into a block of ice with Freezing Touch sounds like my thing. Could train Blazing Bolt (had it at one time on a fire Corruptor), but rarely used it.

I don't know, can Blazing Bolt be used as a normal blast with Interrupts in it?

No matter how much you throw at Blazing Bolt, it will always act like a snipe and really slow down your attack chain.

As for Fire Breath, I don't know if you realise but it is mostly all Damage over Time. The initial hit is not that strong but if you watch, you'll see big ticks of damage fly off of your foes. If you're doing like I do and following it up with Fire Ball, it can easily get lost in all the pretty orange numbers.

The best use of it is on a team with a Controller or a good Tank to get mobs herded together. Then with one application of Fire Breath, Rain of Fire and Fire Ball, the mobs is pretty much toast.

Extend the range w/IOs or HOs. Dam/Range IOs are dirt cheap--I 5-slot mine w/Posi's and throw in a 6th range IO. The range of the cone goes from 40' to 56', which makes the base (and thus the # of mobs affected) much bigger. Now aim for the mob that's farthest to the back, and see how many things you can catch it its AoE.

FBreath + FBall (and Blaze) is why you play a Fire blaster. Aim/BU + FB + FB combo has been fueling Fire blasters to victory since the dawn of this game.

That's the trouble. I didn't realize that Fire Breath was damage over time. I was doing AIM/BU RoF, Fire Ball and Fire Breath and didn't see some big numbers with Fire Breath. Now that makes sense!

It's not a LOT of time- I think it's three ticks or something.

My recommendation is to experiment. Like any experiment, the FIRST thing is the safety equipment: about eight purples in this case.

Find a nice big batch of badguys, even-con [say]. Take four purples (the safety equipment], pick a guy in back, move up until Fire Breath works, then hit Fireball. Clean up the survivors. Try it again, with +1s. Keep getting more safety equipment, trying various combinations of Aim, Build Up, and no buff. I seem to remember that "no buff" drops even-cons, "either buff" drops +1 minions, and "Both buffs" drops +2s, but check it yourself to be sure.

As this goes on, you'll get more comfortable with the two AOE's ... and then you can try it without the safety equipment.

RoF is not my tool of choice because you will hit less guys with your other two AOEs and once they've scattered to outside the radius, they're all still mad at you and alive.

I normally use firebreath to open AoE on a mob, you can just target an enemy at the back of the group and then move towards the group until it animates if you're not sure about the cone. The jump and cone attack trick is good, honestly haven't used it much with firebreath though due to the narrow cone, so not sure how useful it is with firebreath. The DoT is 3 ticks over 2.1 seconds, usually mob is dead on the last tick if you throw in a fireball too. Definitely agree with prior posts, and I would take Mr_Enigma's advice and practice in a lowbie hazard zone too.

I just wish the developers would widen this narrow cone to 45 degrees or more. I tried using this on large groups in Perez Park and could never hit the entire group.

Hitting Aim/BU, RoF and Fireball takes away half of the health of all that stand there. The tiny area of effect of Fire Breath severely reduces it's effectiveness.

You could always go Fire/Energy and use Boost Range plus a couple of Damage/Range HOs... that would give you an 80 foot Fire Breath, which should hit a whole spawn reliably when used at long range and followed up by a Fire Ball.

To me Rain of Fire defeats purpose of fire blaster it scatters targets, why I did not take it. But yes breath does lots dot damage and when used with fireball is quite nice.

Must be a discount on troll feed at the market.........