Returning Fire/Dev help please?

Hello everyone. I'm returning after many years. I played beta to an issue after CoV came out, and I'm looking to fix up my favorite 50 to current standards. She's pre-ED, so far outdated. The most recent guide I could find is from I6, so even that is really old, pre-inherent fitness. I've looked at some fire/* guides, and */dev guides, but not sure how to account for targeting drone when using sets and such. IO sets are so confusing to a returning player I'm afraid. Does anyone have a current build they could post? I've reworked a fire/kin controller, and have a medium idea on how to use the market, so I think I could afford some non-purple sets.

I'd like to use this char to farm some AEs and join TFs and other things for making money on drops to IO my other toons, but I'm not sure if that's plausible. I thought about taking flame mastery to get bonfire, melt armor, and fire shield, and using a tripmine tactic then pull with melt armor, and hide behind a corner with caltrops a turret and bonfire, hover, and aoe my buttocks off to finish what chased, but that may be dreaming. I'm just not sure these days. I know a lot has changed since 5 slotting damage in all my attacks with perma-hasten LOL!!

Anyhow, at risk of feeling silly, here is a very unfinished start to a build I was considering. I've not completed slots because I got indecisive, and I'm unsure of what I did here. Any help would be awesome. Thanks in advance to any help.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Pyro Barbie: Level 48 Science Blaster
Primary Power Set: Fire Blast
Secondary Power Set: Devices
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Flight
Ancillary Pool: Flame Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Fire Blast -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg(A), Dev'n-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Dev'n-Dmg/Rchg(3), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5)
Level 1: Web Grenade -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Fire Ball -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(7), Posi-Dmg/Rng(9), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9)
Level 4: Caltrops -- Empty(A)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- Empty(A)
Level 8: Fire Breath -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(11), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(11), Posi-Dmg/Rng(13), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(13)
Level 10: Targeting Drone -- AdjTgt-ToHit(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(15), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg(15)
Level 12: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(17), RechRdx-I(17)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(19)
Level 18: Blaze -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg(A), Dev'n-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Dev'n-Dmg/Rchg(21), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(21), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23)
Level 20: Cloaking Device -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 22: Rain of Fire -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(25), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(27), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(27), Posi-Dmg/Rng(31)
Level 24: Super Jump -- Empty(A)
Level 26: Blazing Bolt -- Empty(A), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(34)
Level 28: Trip Mine -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(29), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(29), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(31), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31)
Level 30: Hover -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 32: Inferno -- Empty(A)
Level 35: Time Bomb -- Empty(A)
Level 38: Gun Drone -- Empty(A)
Level 41: Bonfire -- Empty(A)
Level 44: Fire Shield -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam(45), RctvArm-EndRdx(45), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 47: Melt Armor -- DefDeb-I(A)
Level 49: Rise of the Phoenix -- Dmg-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Defiance
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(23), EndMod-I(25)

A few things for you to ponder:

1) Flares is actually a good attack now. It got it's animation time reduced to 1 second.

2) You can use your first 2 Primary powers and your first secondary power while you're mezzed now, due to the changes to Defiance a while back (you don't have to be almost dead to benefit from it now), so there's another reason to pick up Flares.

3) If you are going to 5 slot your single target attacks, go with Decimation. It doesn't matter if the set only goes to 40, you can't outlevel Inventions like you can SOs. 5 Decimation will get you more recharge bonuses.

4) If you take my advice in point 3, stop when you have slotted 2 sets of Decimation. You can only have 5 of any given bonus, and Decimation's recharge bonus is the same as Positron's Blast's bonus.

5) Time Bomb sucks. No, really. Unless you have some way of staying completely invisible to plant it, or can immoblize or put the entire group to sleep for more than 23 seconds it will go to waste every time you try to use it.

Those are some tips for your current build. Here's some for what I would do with it.

-Lose Combat Jumping and Super Jump play as a hover-blaster.
-Slot 6x Thunderstrike in all your single target attacks.
-Slot 4x Eradication in your PBAoE attacks (Inferno and Trip Mine)
-Take Tough, Weave, and Maneuvers. Slot a Steadfast Protection Res/Def in Tough and don't run it. Acquire Luck of the Gambler +7.5% Recharge IOs for your defense powers.

What that will do is crank up your defense to ranged attacks. And if you are hovering all the time, they will HAVE to attack from range (unless they fly too, then just hit 'em with Webnade)

Unfortunately, you aren't going to have much success farming with this character. Fire/Devices is not nearly as overpowered as it used to be. It is much more balanced with everything else now, and /Devices is viewed as kind of the red-headed stepchild of blaster secondaries. (yeah, those melee attacks that used to get laughed at in other sets? People LIKE them now, they hit really hard)

If I get a chance later today I'll post a build for you showing you what I'm talking about.

ClawsandEffect, thanks for the reply. It looks like a lot more has changed than I first thought eh? I guess if it won't do well farming, I'll continue with my fire/kin controller for now. I just always had much fun with this blaster.

I will slightly disagree, you could ticket farm in the manner I outline in Low level farms and your Blaster.

Use Fireball, Rain of Fire and calthrops and you could farm tickets.

Not that I'm jumping on the disagree bandwagon.. I as well disagree.

If you get your Alpha to T3 and get the level bump it will make it easier to farm. You can farm the fire crey AE mission by hover blasting in the elevator banks area. I do it with all my hover blaster builds. I can solo 4/8 while in that area out of mob reach. You want to be high enough to be out of the fire breath cone. End result the attack chain is a bit slower so you have a chance to heal up between hits. Just eat whatever inspirations pop in the tray make sure you have greens handy for that burst of hits that sneak in. Being already Range capped orange is your friend as they increase your resistance.

As for the build I am not saying take over someone else thread but for the most part minus a few changes fire/dev, radiation/device, energy/device, ar/device are all the same.

I just posted a Range cap hover blast build in the Radiation Device thread below this. Take that and swap it rad for fire. Re-post it here with any changes you might have made or feel that needed to be changed and get some input. Don't waste your time trying to reinvent the wheel. Your wheel isn't going to look too much different from someone else in this game within the same AT and same power sets.

Hey, thanks plainguy, I'll do just that!

Glad to see you back in the game! I hope you enjoy and stick around, it's great to have old friends return!

I love my fire/dev blaster. Here's some stuff I did with mine, maybe it will give you some ideas. Maybe mine are a little quirky, I dunno. I do respecs as I get free ones, and probably like everyone else, I keep refining what's working, and dropping stuff that doesn't do too much for me. If it's become peculiar, it's done so as a natural progression.

First, I totally ignored everything in /dev after the Targeting Drone. Sure, I can set up all those bombs. Everything will certainly be dead... sometime next week. I tried, I really tried to like all the bombs and the gun drone! I just do not have the patience for any of it. I'm kind of sad about that - I really wanted to do the bomb thing on corners, or set up for Katie Hannon witch onslaughts, but it takes FOREVER! I can kill stuff 12 times over by the time I've laid down all those dumb bombs. And the Gun Drone is worthless, imo. I've tried them all, and hated them all. Smoke is only any good if you lay down multiple applications of it - thus, only useful to give you something to do if you have a tank who insists you stand somewhere for hours as they go gather people. *Yawn*

Here is my strategy: Hover out of reach, all stealthy-like. Lay down Caltrops. Drop RoF. If anything is resistant to the Caltrops (like council wolves), Taser them. Blast stuff until it's all dead, which will be very soon. Rinse, repeat. Incredibly Involved Higher Strategy For Big Groups: do a corner pull, lay down Caltrops at the corner, pop out when they get slowed and RoF 'em. Blast away. They are far too busy panicking to get out of the fire to mess with you.

See, my entire purpose for choosing /dev was for mitigation, so that I can survive being a fire blaster. I have a fire/mm sitting at lvl 46 on some weird server (Freedom) for the past 3 years, and wanted a survival strategy that did not include "quick, duck behind something!" with the inevitable, "Oh, CRAP, he's CHASING ME!" that goes with it.

For further mitigation beyond what /devices gives, I thought I would try to get more range, so took the Cardiac alpha. Sadly, I have to say that 20% range increase is pretty weenie, so have bolstered ranges on top of that. I have 2) hami's (Centriole - these are dirt cheap) in the short-range blasts, blaze and fire breath, as well as in the the snipe, but in the latter case, just because I thought a super long-range snipe would be more fun. With the 2 hami's, added 4) devastations. The AoE's get 5) posi's + a range IO. (I also 5 slotted the ranged and AoE purples +1 range IO in there, too, but that is optional. If you skip most of the /devices, you can get all the fire blasts you want, so more recharge is a luxury to keep Caltrops/RoF available all the time). Oh, Caltrops also has a range IO.

I have no defense, but only very rarely die. Seriously. I would tell you if I were often corpsified. At 50, I don't care about debt, but it's just boring doing a nose dive all the time so I try to cap any toons that die or get mezzed too much. This one didn't need it. I took the fire epic and have RotP well-slotted for the rare occasions I meet an untimely demise, so now dying is just another way to kill stuff. Bonfire is there in case I need an emergency button, but mostly I use it to fry AV's feet - it will also send flying any reinforcements the AV might send, too (Use Web Grenade to keep the AV on the Bonfire). If I recall correctly, the numbers in Melt Armor are pretty wussy, so I passed on that.

If you don't like the idea of having no defense, you can get ice epic, which has a nifty defense armor. Add fighting pool, CJ and Maneuvers, and maybe cry a little because blaster IO sets have horrible s/l bonuses. Or, use Thunderstrikes in all your ST powers, and go for ranged defense, which should be pretty easy to achieve.

Can I farm with this build? I dunno. I have never tried it. I pretty much hate farming. If I want to solo /x8 for drops, I'll grab my SD/EM tank, or EM/SD scrapper (The only gains you get from +4/ is exp., which I don't need at 50). This is a seriously great toon for TF's, though, one of my favorites.

Hope this might give you some ideas for your fire/dev, and again, WELCOME BACK!

Eeek, thanks for the ideas! I don't mind trying out more of a fire loaded build like that. I must admit though, I miss doing that wolf mission where we pulled an entire map into a dumpster loaded with trip mines lol.

Thanks again. Btw, I've been making all my new toons on Freedom. It seems the most populated.

Ha! Have always been a Virtue girl myself. The reference to a fire/mm toon I never play being stuck over on Freedom was supposed to be a joke. But, as they say, if you have to explain it, it wasn't much of a joke. Oops.