Blizzard's recharge is too long to be practical and Ice Storm deals less than half the damage of Rain of Fire (MIDs is incorrect on the RoF number, each tick deals 3.34 damage not 1.668). Ice Blast's cone deals 80% of the damage of Fire's cone in the same animation and Ice Blast does not have an equivalent to Fireball.
Maybe with Soul or Mu Mastery you could get enough viable AoEs though.
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.
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ah, I had thought RoF and Ice storm more even than that. If anything I suppose it leaves fire at the top even more then if it's got the superior rain strength as well. |
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Blizzard's recharge is too long to be practical and Ice Storm deals less than half the damage of Rain of Fire (MIDs is incorrect on the RoF number, each tick deals 3.34 damage not 1.668). Ice Blast's cone deals 80% of the damage of Fire's cone in the same animation and Ice Blast does not have an equivalent to Fireball.
Maybe with Soul or Mu Mastery you could get enough viable AoEs though. |
Guess I'll just leave it at the thought "blizzard would be cool to use on an ambush" and not push it far beyond that.
"Fascinating. I'm not bored at all, I swear." -Kikuchiyo
the other problem you'd run into with that is toggle crashes when you nuke dropping your defenses.
rad/mm may not be quite as damagey as fire, but does lots of aoe and would make a viable alternative to fire. has a bit more mitigation and the ability to stack some stun. also can slot dmg or -res proc in several of the powers.
The best combo for this is DP/MM, Or, if your brave, DP/Fire
MM has the obvious advantage of DP, but fire you get a much needed boost to PBAE damage. You can survive with heavy inspiration use coupled with strong defensive IO'ing and possibly vengeance if your running a farm with lowbies, Although a 54 farm would be pushing it.
Is it possible, that in todays age of AE ambush Farming, an Ice/MM could be the highest AoE damage you could attain (rather than ice/fire, since a blaster farmer depends heavily on drain psyche to survive ambush farms)
Sure previously, Archery and fire reigned king, but that was moving spawn to 16 mob spawn. Now you are WAY over the target caps, which is one of ice's specialties with ice storm and blizzard. Also, with DP running at max capacity all the time, nuke crash is a thing of the past, and psy wail would serve decently in the down time amongst other damage.
So just how fast can a crash nuke recharge in a reasonable build, ice storm? Or would something like Arch/ Fire/ Still be faster due to inability to get recharge low enough on ice's AoE damage?
I know with a certainty Fire/MM can farm at 54, and far more quickly than the best SS/Fire brutes I've seen, but the people with those builds are incredibly rare.
(guy I ran with had softcapped S/L 54% S/L Res, and DP recharging fast enough to be constant)
It probably isn't the 'best' but I'm always a fan of unorthodox builds claiming a little niche of greatness. And at least it's a certainty it could bring bosses down fast at the end too.
*I know Build Up and Aim don't benefit storm powers as well, but you can load up on red insps before you enter, you could probably kill three spawns with a single cast.
"Fascinating. I'm not bored at all, I swear." -Kikuchiyo