Devices and Defiance Strategy Guide.

If you Blasters thought Devices has no Build-Up you would be mistaken. Built into the upper tier of Devices powers is a very useful level of damage boost from Defiance for Blasters. Also, these attacks do not draw aggro so they will not break your stealth.

Trip Mine=26.4% boost to damage for 11.4 seconds.

Time Bomb=52.80% boost to damage for 15.5 seconds.

Auto Turret=39.60% boost to damage for 13.50 seconds.

So, in a simple attack, you drop a Trip Mine (at your feet) or Auto Turret prior to attacking. For a Nuke power, Time Bomb+Auto Turret+Nuke= 92.40% damage buffed nuke plus Time Bomb, which is extreme damage also. Quite devastating, usually only Boss level are left standing.

What you need also is any two of the following three powers, Cloaking Device, Smoke Bomb, or a Stealth IO. I suppose Superspeed could also substitute for one of these, but haven't tested it lately. And for Rikti and other Perception+ mobs you'll need all three.

An example attack for buffing up a nuke power, let's say Radiation Blast, would be: You activate your Stealth powers.> Place a Time Bomb at the Mob's feet, 15.5 seconds of Defiance buff -time starts.> You summon Auto-Turret (7 seconds activation).> Mobs will attack Auto-Turret, but not see you.> Hit Aim, Irradiate, followed by Atomic Blast buffed 130.98%.> Time Bomb explodes at 15 second mark.

Not too shabby for a Devices Blaster. In fact with Time Bomb thrown in Devices probably grants the highest Nuke damage of any Blaster secondary, although I haven't crunched numbers on it, just Mobs, which seem very crunchy.

Unfortunately, the defiance buff starts when the power is activated, rather than when its recharge begins. This means you can only get one of those buffs at a time. You could still stealth up with a time bomb and then nuke, but the issue I have with that is, well, what's the time bomb for if you already nuked the spawn? Two adjacent or mixed spawns might make it more worthwhile if you can get to them well before your team does.

The description of Defiance says it stacks with other Defiance buffing and I believe the buff from Time Bomb and Trip Mine begins when the power finishes activation, not when it explodes. At least I don't get a Defiance Buff icon on my HUD for 15 seconds after Time Bomb explodes like I do from other attacks. I don't think they would have left this out, but maybe they did.

To answer your question of why? Well, why activate Build-Up and Aim before you use your nuke? It's a good buff.

Edit: It works as described. In the Combat Log I get a 90.42% buff to base damage after activating Time Bomb+Auto-Turret.

Alot of times players with Devices Blasters feel a little gimped and too reliant on Trip Mine patches, etc., but you don't have to. You can use the Defiance buffing just like other Blasters use build-up to take on a boss. There's just the set-up time factor, but no fix for that.

Ah, well, happy to be wrong about that. So yeah, I suppose you could, but the question is whether it's worth the animation time, endurance cost, having those powers, et cetera, to get that buff. I would imagine the main way to make it worth your while would be to ensure that the time bomb and the trip mine hit a different group than the one you're nuking. My difficulty is in imagining common scenarios where that's going to occur.

Just nice to know that only the Bosses will be left standing after the nuke, most times. Not so easy with no Build-Up. And for those times when the Mobs are plus levels.

Alot of players complained they could no longer 6-slot damage SO's into attacks after Enhancement Diversification. Many wanted TD to also boost damage a little and it does now for AR-Sniper Rifle only. I always viewed the high Defiance buffs for the last three powers in Devices as a small compensation for ED.

The rest is up to one's personal play style, but IMHO, it is much faster, more dynamic, to take out a tough boss with Time Bomb+Trip Mine and buffed Hail of Bullets than to set up 7 or 8 Trip Mines and lure them into it.

Big devices fan here. I have noticed a substantial damage boost since defiance came out, and I monitor my damage boost at all times.

Agree that the mines and turrets' activation time / interrupt makes this mostly viable for alpha strikes when solo. It is hard enough to get the turret out when teamed, let alone the mines.

But devices is well worth it just for caltrops, the drone, and cloaking device. Time bomb and taser are the most skippable powers unless you solo a ton.

Devices may be weaker when compared to another secundaries, but it's far from gimped.

It works, and I can solo +2/x8 with my archery devices, takes a little more of preparation, but not many blasters can do it.

Cloaking device + stealth IO, then I smoke bomb the spawn for the to hit debuff, which works nice with my 35% defenses, making me almost at the cap. Plant a trip mine near the foot of the first mob, enjoy the free 25% damage as you jump back, hit aim and rain of arrows.

RoA will clear all minions and almost all Lt. Which will be unfortunate to step on the mine and then will be slowed by the caltrops, thus, never reach me. I am free to finish the Lt. with explosive arrow and the other cone aoe I have, and proceed to sniper the boss from safety.

Takes me around 20-25 seconds to clear each group of mobs. Which is the cooldown of my aim/RoA combo. Devices is the second best "defensive" secondary for blasters, the first would be Ice with stacking slows.

But I think most people play devices because it's the only set that fits a natural kind of blaster, without fancy powers, just gadgets, a gun, pistols or a bow. From all 3, I learned that the bow is the best pair with devices, because of aim and more frequent nuke than pistols. AR is good too, but it requires Time bomb to work better, and probably solo. The trick to AR is to learn how far you need to set the time bomb from the spawn, hit full auto and heard the mobs to the time bomb. Then when they are over it, toss a caltrops to keep them there a little long as it explodes.

Time Bomb is must have for me. Never sure about Auto-Turret, but Time Bomb is a nice asset. Never know when you need a little 20 foot radius nuke to help with more resistant targets.