Help me pick Six blasters

All,

Against my better judgement I have decided to at least have characters with every non-VEAT/HEAT powerset in the game (Veats and Heats are too thematically locked to the lore, and I hate them). I dont have to get these characters to 50 but I would like to have experience with all the powersets to some degree. AT doesnt specifically matter.

When looking at what I lacked, I realized that I lack ice armor, ice melee, stone armor, ninja blade, ninjitsu, assault rifle, dual pistols, and ... every blaster secondary other than /Ice (I have a level 50 Ice/Ice blaster).

So if I decide to take the train to crazyville and make the "rest" of the characters I "need" then I believe I will need to have six blasters. At least I believe there are seven blaster secondaries. Other than Ice, which I have, I see fire, elec, energy, dark, mental, and devices. Have I missed any secondaries?

So, I see 3 approaches:

1) do themed pairs. Fire/fire. Elec/elec. Dark/dark. Psy/mental. Energy/energy. DP/devices.

2) min-max. In this case, I want your opinions on which primaries are "best" for whatever reason. Primary repeats are ok, even if you say "fire for all because its uber".

3) Make Ice/ my "thing". This is my favored option since I have done this with other ATs. I have every permutation of fire control, as an example. So in this case, I would make ice/fire, ice/elec, ice/energy, ice/dark, ice/mental and ice/devices.

So, got any suggestions for me? Well other than "get a life"?

Thanks,

Lewis

The problem with themed pairings is that they aren't really the best option (Psi/mental and DP/devices are horrid to try to level) and it is easy to become quickly bored or disenchanted with the combination and quit playing them or outright delete them. (I'm guessing your goals is to have some fun along the way rather than just grind and that you may actually want to stick with it longer if it is fun.) Usually you only have one damage type when you do that and when you run into content with resistance to that damage type the results can be painful (especially in the case of Psi/Mental vs Robots and Carnies.)

I prefer not min/maxing so much as finding synergies between the primary and secondary.

Rad/Fire for pure PBAoE carnage, Sonic/Ice for awesome control, AR/mental/Elec "king of cones", Ice/elec/elec blaptroller with 3 ranged holds and a melee hold, etc.

I would quickly get bored with your 3rd option. Variety is the spice of life.

Is Archery a blaster primary? Lately I've been wondering about an Archery/Devices combo.

It's themed appropriately -- in comics, archers are often into gadgets and tech.

Archery has an accuracy bonus, and devices has a little device that increases your accuracy, and combined with Tactics from the leadership pool...

The objective is to use all the blaster secondaries but ice, yes?

I'd roll:

Fire/Fire - massive damage, everywhere, all the time.
Rad/MM - PBAoE monster. Use your ranged AoE point blank. Drain Psyche, hit build ups, then the 3 aoe's- melt spawns at +2x8 in a single chain. My current favorite.
AR or Arrows/NRG - nice mitigation, stacking stuns, minimal redraw, boost range with AR to maximize cones, combined with a build-up lacking in the (AR) primary
DP/dark or Rad/Dark- blappity, hail of bullets requiring melee range anyway. mmm, soul drain.
sonic/electric - some control from the primary, soften up your targets for hard hitting melee attacks. Ice/electric is another I'd consider- mine is mid-40s and I don't enjoy it as much as my ice/ice, but can't bring myself to delete it, either . Electric/Electric has stacking holds, and lots of end drain. Electric blast kind of gets poo-poo'd for dmg, but it is fun and pretty.

/devices is a bit tougher for me to recommend. Maybe a weapon set since /devices won't cause a lot of redraw- I'd go with arrows or DP since AR has no build up power, nor does devices. Ice or Dark seem interesting, too.

Since you have AR and DP in your list of sets you haven't tried, you can try pairing them up with something. AR/EM works well with range boosting the cones, but you said you may not level them all up very far, and that requires at least lvl 35. I'm not sure what goes well with DP as I've never tried it, but it has some decent aoe and I hear it works well with /fire when you get your nuke and some defense.

I have a grand total of one blaster. He's level 40 and is DP/MM. I like the combination a lot.

I have 2 lvl 50 blasters....

1 is Elec/Energy and was/is good-to-okay.

1 is DP/MM and liked the combination.

Good luck!


Edit:


You're braver than I am if you actually start down this path...

I know I don't necessarily like "repeating" powersets when I make new toons but there are some powersets I haven't touched (and really don't want to)...AR and Energy Blast are the two that come to my mind heh.

I'd aim to make your Blasters as different as possible in how they play.

For example:

Sonic/Mental gives you an almost continuous cone attack chain. Rely on team support and your own mezzes to stay alive.

Rad/EM gives you lost of Stuns. I play mine as a Kryptonian type with compromised invulnerability, mostly in melee with Heat Vision (XRay Eyes) for the odd runner. My aim there is control, then defeat single hard targets. I love taking on Paragon Protectors for example. I used S/L defence to stay alive.

Elec/Elec can play a bit like a Dominator, control then move into melee and unleash the damage on selected targets.

maybe add in..

Dark/Fire: combine melee defence or S/L defence from IOs with -To Hit to give you the best survivability while you cook everything. You're a minion mincer.

Energy/Devices - a dedicated solo artist. No defence IO bonuses allowed, use procs in your attacks and play tactically.

Ice/Ice? I dont know /Ice too well. And you like Ice.


This way its like you're giving each one a slightly different team or solo role.