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.

Sonic/ MM is amazing. Its a debuffer/controller/killer. It's possible to solo AV's and GM's with, has great team support because of the -res, -regen, stuns, KB, Sleep, -rech, etc. -res + an exotic damage type(psi) is great. Roll one and you wont regret it.

Plus all the animations look cool together. a tip for coloring powers: sonic looks cool in dark colors with Psi having light versions. It's nice looking

Thanks for the replies everyone. I will think about the different synergies suggested and pick out a few combos. I prob wont pick until after Halloween event is over but I will do so after that.

Lewis

If I were to go the sheer standard min/max route and pair each set with a different primary, I might get this layout:

Fire/Psi
Dark/Energy
Radiation/Fire
Ice/Electric
Pistols/Dark
Sonic/Devices

Not that you have to use these pairings. I think there are lot of interesting ways to go. It's pretty hard to go completely wrong. Although I'm not sure I'd be up for Energy/Fire.

Yeah, energy/fire is rough. I used to have one back in the day. He was modeled conceptually after the cosmic minions of a well known planet eater, what with all the cosmic energy and cosmic weapons. I always wish I had stuck with him.

Maybe I should just go with all the blasters I used to have that I deleted. When ED came along, I got irritated snd deleted lots of characters. I had energy/fire, fire/energy, and elec/devices. Heh. I cant remember what I paired with electric. So I could perhaps do rad/elec and dp/dark. Tho in a way I kinda wanted to make AR/traps and DP/Storm, so I might not make either of those sets as blasters.

Anyway, again, I will probably delay making any until early-mid november. Here is to hoping they let us buy a 5th page lf characters someday. Across my 3 accounts I only have 14 slots left (tho I have placeholdet slots for all the other AT proliferations I want and for new powersets that are coming). So this project would eat a big chunk of that.

Ah well. Thanks for all the responses!

Lewis

My favorite blaster so far is my Archery/EM blaster. The theme is a long-distance archery who uses high-tech gadgets. While devices is the go-to gadget secondary, I find it's more thematic to the super spy/agent type theme. I think /energy works a bit better for the higher-tech, less sneaky route. (Melee attacks work with some tech gauntlets, and the many boosts can be treated as more natural. Also, the combo gives perhaps the best 'completely ranged' possibilities out there. It's a hoot.

Past the original posting from the above link, I've added the tier 4 clarion which gives a SECOND power boost/boost range in addition to complete mez protection. 2xpower boost+stun/medicine pool= almost unfair good. That and the cardiac core paragon mean that all attacks have +60% range, (Enhancement) +60% range, (Boost range) +13% range, (Cardiac) and +80-20% range. (Clarion, from peak to lowest value) At its height, that puts the snipe/LRM at 450ish feet.

All,

After thinking about the options and the comments here, this is where I am at.

I want to do Rad/Fire for sure and DualPistol/Dark. So those are set.

I dont want Assault Rifle, Archery, Beam Weapons, Ice or Electric as a primary. I just made an archery/dark medusa and a beam/time bounty hunter recently. I already have ice/ice at 50. I am planning assaultRifle/traps soon. Electric blast is a set I dont want to repeat (i have a level 50 dark/elec defender). I also want to avoid primary repeats within this project.

That leaves me with the secondaries of elec, energy, devices and mental. My available primaries are (based on the above paragraph) energy blast, fire blast, psychic blast, and sonic blast.

Any suggestions on pairings for the remainder?

I see fire/mm recommended often. I could do that. But sonic/mm tempts me by being different, and sonic/electric feels thematic. I want to avoid fire/dev and fire/energy since I did those long ago (and deleted during ED or GDN). I want to avoid psi/dev since I have a traps/psi defender. Also, I want to avoid matching primary and secondary at this point.

I like the idea of Energy/Devices just for wackiness. Psy/energy seems like it would look cool as a combo visually. Fire/elec also seems juicy visually. Fire/mm or Sonic/mm seem interesting. I dunno.

Any advice on (fire, psy, son, energy) / (elec, energy, mental, devices)? I may or may not follow any specific advice, but I want to listen to suggestions in the hopes that they are convincing.

I'm on a similar quest as the OP, to have played a 50 of every powerset. Not including the brand new sets, I'm just down to some Blaster secondaries (Ice, Mental and now Dark) and Thorny Assault from Doms.

My most recent Blaster was a Rad/Fire and I can't more enthusiastically recommend that pairing. Rad provides a fantastic setup for /Fire, put a -res proc in Irradiate and the the subsequent fire pbaoes hit harder (if proc fires) and more reliably (due to -def). I take some odd satisfaction from killing off a spawn without having targetted anyone with this guy.

Energy/Dev can be cool, but is a very deliberate combo. Set up your traps, then stealth to the other side of the mobs and knock them into your traps. I played a /dev MM and had a blast luring mobs into my trap field. It usually took longer to set up my traps then it did to destroy the mobs. I have heard a lot of good things about /dev for blasters so paired with any of those primaries it should work. IMO /energy works best with blapping primaries due to the devastating melee attacks and boost range is nice when you decide to stay back. My 1st 50 blaster was an Archery/Energy and there is nothing like dropping a range boosted RoA on a mob and then cleaning up the remainder with the exploding arrow.

If you are going to play Psi as a blaster primary rather than a defender secondary Psi/nrg is the way to go.

Use hover, slot for Range and Ranged Defense, use Boost range and Alpha Cardiac, avoid Robots and Carnies and you have a decent (elec is better) though not stellar single target blaster.

The caveat is that it will be a long slow slog to 50 if you are soloing, the good thing is you'll be unique. The chances of seeing another Psi/? blaster are extremely low.

Wouldnt go with DP/dark myself. Soul Drain would be nice, yes, but it means you have to enter melee, click an attack, get aggro..ALL before firing off Hail of Bullets. Where, if you had BU, you can fire that as you run in.

DP/MM..recent blaster for me, and great fun. Also, mental is good with just one actual attack..Psy Shockwave. Fire that first, then go to town with pistols. The more you use MM, the more redraw your gonna get. And World of Confusion is a great power to go with the melee tier 9, as well as a set mule. Also, all teh DP attacks take 2 procs, as well as the fire ammo, giving a huge variety in damage types.

Fire/Elec (best ST dps of all blasters when not factoring -regen)
Fire/EM (the legacy blaster, great soloist and choice for a 0% def blaster due to power thrust eliminating problem targets, second best ST dps when not factoring -regen)
Fire/Mental (drain psyche, the av killer)
Fire/Fire (aoe devastation)
Fire/Ice (the mitigation fire blaster)
Fire/Dark (ST damage attack chain with a built in immob + soul drain)

OK, the deed is done. I have made the following choices. All but the last have been made:

Rad/Fire ... Cosmic Strike
DP/Dark ... Worm Slayer
Energy/Dev ... Beta Strike
Fire/Electric ... Wild Magic
Sonic/Mental ... Slender Siren
Psy/Energy ... (not made yet)

Thanks for the suggestions. Some advice I took, some I didn't, but I appreciate everyone taking time to reply.

Lewis

After the fact... sorry...

I'm having a lot of fun right now with AR/Fire.

Build Up + Flame Thrower + Ingnite + Combustion + Fire Sword Circle + Burn Patch + Hot Feet = a grotesque amount of dead bodies. Make sure you have a tank along to herd them into positon, or a controler to lock down into a nice group. Works very nice on ITF.

Also have a lot of fun with my Ice/Fire.

Build up + Ice Storm + Frost Breath + Combustion + Fire Sword Circle + Burn Patch + Hot Feet... Over kill.