Power Boost and Dual Pistols - Poor Utility?

From looking over the info on Power Boost in the energy manipulation set it appears that it doesn't buff secondary damage, recharge rate debuffs, knockback, stun duration or damage debuffs, so the only impact it has on Dual Pistols is to boost the hold effect of suppressive fire (when using a special ammo type).

Am I reading this right?

Is it an eminently skippable power on a DP/EM blaster?

From what i remember of the patchnotes, only the controller version was changed, i never seen the blaster version being listed.

Mez durations however are still boosted, stun still should be boosted by Power boost.

Paragon wiki says:

Doesn't DP have ice bullets? Slow component is also affected by PB.

Well, I suppose. You can grab Swap Ammo by lvl 6 as a Blaster and Hellions top out at level 15. So for the hour it takes you to level from 6-15....sure, Cryo rounds work.

But so does Brawl. And your inherent. And Vet weapons (Nem Staff, etc.) if you got 'em.

My point is that the devs really need to make Swap Ammo worth, y'know, actually swapping from Fire to anything else. And I wouldn't count on Power Boost really making much of a difference since the difference is already negligible to begin with.

Frankly, at that low of a level, I find leaving Swap Ammo off to be more effective. The knockback does more for me than the measly Cryo rounds do. And I've yet to see Toxic useful for anything. Long AV fights maybe....but as someone once said, shedding a tear in the ocean doesn't really make a difference.

I have more than one /energy melee. So what I like to do with them is different.

Aid Other could be range boosted and power boosted, and is a pre req to Aid Self which is also power boosted.

I have leaderships on one too rather than blap, Assault increases my range attacks damage, tactics my accuracy and Vengeance gets power boosted - add Manuevers to that and the team ya with can be soft capped.

Within EM itself are powers that benefit anyway so if you are a Blapper you have additional stun duration.

I did some testing a while back on a defender to see if power build up boosted the Def in HoB, but the in-game Def numbers did not register any Def increase when HoB was activated. Not that it would be that much of a bonus with the lower Def. numbers on a blaster but It could be a + for power boost if someone's testing skills are better that mine and can show it affects HoB .

The way to make the other ammo types worth using would be to give them damage bonuses as well, half as strong as fire's. Probably not going to happen.

Power boost seems like sort of a red herring in general these days, but especially in a blaster secondary. Back when total focus could stun a boss by itself power boost at least had that use. Now it seems like a waste of animation time. None of the primaries do enough debuff for it to be relevant and clearly you won't be using it in conjunction with drain psyche or shiver. Power build up, now there's a good power.

Hey devs, how about fold power boost into build up for blasters and give them a stealth clone in its place? C'mon, that's totally balanced.

Some interesting feedback here guys, thanks.

As far as boosting defence goes, do you have to reactivate toggle powers once power boost is active, or will the boosts increase automatically?

E.g. if I have weave running and activate power boost, with the +def from weave increase, even though it was "on" before power boost was activated?

Okay Moonlighter, if you actually play that way you do know that you're the only one, right? Perma power boost has the following implications: You're spending about a fourteenth of your time animating a power that neither does damage nor contributes to damage. You have power boost on auto therefore hasten is not on auto. You have to refresh the power so frequently that any time you get momentarily mezzed or simply activate a power, you run the risk of having your defense lose a third of its value. I'd say it's an endurance sink but if you rely this heavily on it I assume you have it slotted for endurance as well as recharge.

What counts is of course that you make it work for your style of play, I just find it hard to relate to accepting those compromises. It'd certainly open up your build if nothing else! All I can say is I once tried a perma boost range build and that drove me insane within a few hours of play, and it's half as annoying as perma power boost.

Power Boost is pretty awesome. Blasters get less benefit from it than Defenders, Corruptors, Controllers, or Dominators do (because those ATs all can have way more buff/debuff powers in their powersets) and therefore Blasters get a much lower recharge timer on their version of Power Boost to compensate. It can be almost useless to many builds, yes - a fire/energy blaster that stays at range and skips the medicine and leadership pools won't see much point in it. However, for an Elec/Energy blaster, perma-power boost means that they can keep enemies completely drained of endurance from first contact until they are defeated, courtesy of Short Circuit. For the defensively-minded blaster, like Moonlighter, Power Boost can make a huge difference in defensive values courtesy of Scorpion Shield, Maneuvers, Weave, Combat Jumping, and/or Hover. It also turbocharges the numerous stuns in /EM's punches (and any that may be in your primary) to let you perma-stun bosses or numerous LTs with ease, makes the Medicine pool incredibly beefy, and powerboosting Vengeance takes it from "quite good" to "phenomenal."

If you think the defensive approach to Power Boost that Moonlighter suggested is so rare, compare it to Shadow Meld, which many Scrappers were overjoyed to get when they got access to Patron power pools in Going Rogue. Both powers make a similar difference in survivability, when built to utilize them, and that difference is dramatic.

For blasters that don't care about power boost, skip power boost. For blasters that can benefit from power boost, folding it into Build Up would only be a detriment.

Back on topic, Dual Pistols doesn't get much more from it than any other blaster - longer-lasting mez from suppressive fire, plus the usual benefits.