I found a happy!

I am so pleased! Pleased actually is perhaps the wrong word to use to describe my newist creation....Hexsing!

Now blasters are not my cup of tea. Squishy, little defense and well, just the Glass Cannon. I have made many, and deleted many opting for more survivability. Then I got a theme in my head that could only really come about as a blaster. Others would work, but I just needed to change it up again. Make something new and exciting, with a touch more twitch.

So I rolled up a Dark/Psi!

First off! Praise the Devs for porting Dark Powers to a blast set. Im not saying it's OP in the least, and I have chosen to actually gimp my damage a great deal. But I survive, and have a great time.

Abyssal Gaze alone makes the set for me. It's on fast recharge and I 6 slotted it as soon as I got it.

Now unlike other blasters or blaster styles of play who say ramp up damage and accuracy, I went a completel alternative route. Skipping most of my melee support in favor of range, and bypassing tough and weave. (I figure why bother with defense. It's nice, but Ill always be hit my something, and I need to accept that)

What I have done however is 5-6 slotted all of my dark powers, which is easy because I only use 3 Psi powers. In each I have Accuracy x 1, Damage x3 or X2 and 2X accuracy debuffs placed in my slots. With the exception of Abyssal Gaze which has more recharge, accuracy and damage, with just one - to Accuracy enhancer.

The result...Im not getting hit by anything, and if I do it seems quite rare or the enemy gets the jump on me. Sure some people noticed my damage was not on par with the other blasters that team, but when all is said and done, Im not pulling aggro off the tank.

I guess what I am getting at is that I feel like I am doing more support/controlling than just blasting, and for now it actually seems like it's going really well.

So my question at the end of all of this is...

Is this the totaly wrong way to think of a blaster? Is breaking the tried and true mold going to bite my butt later, or am I possibly on to something?

Honestly, it doesn't really matter.

If you like what you're doing that's good enough.

No one is going to pay any attention to your damage in anything involving leagues at 50+.

I'm not sure why you need some sort of affirmation to do what you're doing. Either you like it or you don't. The rest of it, is pretty much "Who cares."

i went with dark/energy and im actually enjoying it, majority of the blasters i have played never felt like ranged dmg toons they felt like half ranged dmg half melee dmg and i do not think they should have any melee powers

i went with energy because a majority of the set is click buffs, powerboost basically doubles the -tohit on all your powers and improves the duration of your mez powers and your heal (slotted the nuke, blackstar, could potentially have -71% tohit with powerboost active), boost range will help all of your cone powers, and conserve power helps with recovering from the nuke or if you are running low on end in general

the only melee attacks i even plan to have are total focus and the default power power thrust (one as a heavy hitter for anything that gets too close and one fast charging one to push back stuff that gets too close)

Looking at the numbers, I don't think you're getting a lot from those -tohit enhancers. Not a placebo effect (as there is an actual benefit), but not too far from it.

I would suggest doing a blind test - making a second build with more conventional slotting on blasts, using the exact same power picks and all, and switch builds without looking at the enhancements until you don't know which one you're playing, and see if you truly see a difference.

mmm, I'm looking at numbers as well, and with a very quick rough estimation, it looks like it could be fairly potent. At a To-Hit Debuff value of 58.48%, you're To-Hit from most powers is going to be -8.32 for 10 seconds. While that doesn't seem like much of a boost compared to -5.25 you'd have from not slotting it at all, the difference starts to add up when you start stacking the debuff on an enemy. For instance, if you can keep up 3 applications of the to-hit debuff with an enhancement value of 58.48%, the enemy will have his to-hit reduced by -24.96, and only have a 20.04 chance to hit you. If you did that same thing with no to-hit debuff enhancements, that enemy instead has his to-hit reduced by -15.75, and has a 29.25 chance to hit you. That's a difference of 9.21, which, in terms of how to-hit and defense work, is a quite a significant difference.

If you can stack the effect 6 times, without it wearing off, the enemies to-hit will be floored. He will only have a 5% chance to hit you, and you'll effectively have some sort of reversed soft-cap Blaster.

For best results I'm thinking 2-3 Lysosome Exposure, which increase your Accuracy, To-Hit Debuff, and Defense debuff by 33.33%. After that, perhaps just straight Damage, or maybe Damage IO's if you can find a set bonus you like.

*Do* keep in mind, however, that your To-Hit is not going to be doing much of anything against an Arch Villain, and is going to be at reduced effectiveness against enemies who have additional To-Hit, such as Rikti Drones. Also be aware that, unlike a truly soft-capped blaster, you need time to build your To-Hit, which is time the enemy has to take you down. At the same time that a Soft-Capped blaster is only going to be soft-capped to a few types of defense, where as your To-Hit reduces enemies ability to hit you indiscriminate of what element or type their powers are.


You might also want to contemplate taking Oppressive Gloom and Soul Storm from the Soul Mastery tree via Ghost Widow. It doesn't have as much to do with your specific enhancement preference as it is just taking advantage of your primary and secondary. As you mentioned, you like Abyssal Gaze in that it stuns enemies.

Oppressive Gloom stuns all enemies around you at Mag 2. This will take care of any minions around you, effectively removing from the fight in a method similar to World of Confusion. It has better synergy with your Dark Blast set, however, in that if a boss within 12 feet of you, then you can use Abyssal Gaze while Oppressive Gloom is running and he will instantly be putty in your caring hands. Oppressive Gloom is normally hard to use because it lowers your HP, but Drain Psyche should mitigate that issue entirely.

Alternatively, or Perhaps even additionally, Soul Storm works very much like your Abyssal Gaze; a single target hold, but it is Mag 3 instead of Mag 2. If the idea of getting into melee combat to stun the boss is unappealing, Soul Storm can very easily be used from a range with Abyssal Gaze as a sort of 1-2 punch that completely disables the boss as well. This takes more set up time than Oppressive Gloom, and it won't take care of the minions, but you don't have to go into melee to make use out of it, and it sounds like you prefer range.

Things to think about, at any rate.

I've always seen Blasters as Ranged/Support. I have foregone my Blaps on my /NRG purely to do something different with it. The Power boost and Boost Range both can well affect aid other and aid self as well as vengeance. So now I do STFs with her and if the bleep hits the fan and someone falls, 45% defence all around including my manuevers. Then I res that person. The great thing with NRG is I can powerboost vengeance at something like level 30.

Dark/Mental? So that's -tohit, cone immob, cone knockback, -regen, -recharge, hold, fear and a self heal all on a Blaster.

Grab Medicine and Leadership and proceed to be ripped apart by teams wanting you. I love Blasters and like to stand by they've enough damage that, when it comes to build planning, you can afford to be looking for other ways to support the team. Great hearing you've come to a similar conclusion ^^ May have to roll a Dark/Mental, it sounds near perfect a build playground as a Blaster can get.

Also like the idea above of /En powerboosting Vengeance, hadn't thought of that! May need to go respec my AR/En..