AV/GM killer other than fire/rad or traps...
By
Aett_Thorn,
Posted on: 2012-01-23 09:37 in Corruptors
If you want to try /time for AV soloing, may I recommend Sonic Blast for the stacking -res component?
I would think that a Sonic/Cold Corruptor would be able to murder GMs.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
ah ok, that's 2 votes for sonic. I'll also have to check out /cold as well. So I guess /time wouldn't be all that good then?
If tired of fire, sonic is good for av's
IMO, cold is the best after traps for av's
So with choices that you have left, try sonic/cold
Haven't tried that combo, but should be great for what you are looking for
Another vote for Sonic/Cold. The problem with Time for AV/GM soloing is that the -regen in Time is fairly weak and requires more spamming than most -regen powers. Time can keep you alive against them no problem, but taking them down is a lot harder.
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
Take a look at the 'basic rotation' for Sonic vs. some other sets:
Shriek (1s) 35.04
Scream (1.67s) 80.2
Shout (2.67s) 119.49
Total = 234.73 in 5.34s yields 43.96 dps, plus 15% resistance debuff yields 50.55 dps
Flares (1s) 42.12
Fire Blast (1.2s) 66.75
Blaze (1s) 88.42
Total = 197.29 in 3.2s yields 61.65 dps
Subdue (1.67s) 55.05
Telekinetic Blast (1s) 41.71 + 26.69
Will Domination (1.1s) 81.75
Total = 205.2 in 3.77s yields 54.43 dps
Dark Blast (1s) 41.71
Gloom (1.1s) 73.44
Life Drain (1.93s) 68.4
Total = 183.55 in 3.93s yields 46.70 dps or 54.83 if you skip Life Drain.
Ice Bolt (1s) 41.71
Ice Blast (1.67s) 68.40
Bitter Ice Blast (1.07s) 95.10
Total = 205.21 in 3.74s yields 54.87 dps
Now consider that Thermal, Cold, Radiation and Traps (the 4 sets you'd use for AV-killing in secondary) all have -resistance debuffs. So let's look at that with those debuffs added in and let Sonic double-stack the primary -resistance debuffs 100% of the time:
Fire = 80.15 dps
Ice = 71.33 dps
Dark = 71.28 dps
Psychic = 70.89 dps
Sonic = 70.34 dps
So by taking Sonic, you're taking a set that will do less single target damage than Dark/Ice without having -acc to protect you. It does less damage than Psychic without the proc slotting advantages. And, of course, it does way less damage than Fire.
Note that the simplified rotations above don't really reflect just how bad Sonic is for single target damage. As you drop recharge times and include activity with the secondary, sets like Fire, Psychic and Ice have their dps surge upwards because they're actually "two nuke" rotations rather than "three nuke" rotations. In contrast, Sonic suffers because it's so dependent on those extremely short resistance debuffs and its big nuke is weak.
The reason people say Sonic is good for AV fights is because they're talking about teams. The Sonic/* Corruptor themselves is taking a penalty to personal damage in order to debuff the AV to improve the damage of their team. For solo play, Sonic is terrible choice.
wow great info!!! So, I guess for AV soloing fire is still king but would you say ice falls in as second for primary choice? So I wonder how well an ice/cold would do soloing AVs.
Quote:
No. It's 15% per attack, not total. And they each last a few seconds, and the same power can stack with itself. Not to mention, that isn't an attack chain, that's just 3 attacks. Most people who solo big game with sonic throw out shout because it hurts dps, and substitute and epic set power, usually electric fence for a quick animating attack that won't disrupt the flow of -res from shriek and scream.|
Originally Posted by Beauregard
Take a look at the 'basic rotation' for Sonic vs. some other sets:
Shriek (1s) 35.04 Scream (1.67s) 80.2 Shout (2.67s) 119.49 Total = 234.73 in 5.34s yields 43.96 dps, plus 15% resistance debuff yields 50.55 dps |
Not to mention none of the listed sets show any attack chains, just 3 attacks from the primary without recharge times being factored in as to whether or not the 3 attacks can be cycled endlessly. Sonic IS in fact the best ST set after fire, although admittedly, it does that job slightly better on a defender than a corruptor.
Quote:
1. Using Electric Fence would actually lower your damage since it's worse than either Shriek or Shout (and doesn't apply a -resistance debuff).|
Originally Posted by Pyro_Master_NA
No. It's 15% per attack, not total. And they each last a few seconds, and the same power can stack with itself. Not to mention, that isn't an attack chain, that's just 3 attacks. Most people who solo big game with sonic throw out shout because it hurts dps, and substitute and epic set power, usually electric fence for a quick animating attack that won't disrupt the flow of -res from shriek and scream.
|
2. No matter how you twist and turn, there's a fairly hard limit on the number of stacking debuffs you can fit into the 5 sec window.
3. Shriek is substantially lower damage/animation than Shout, so the only reason to choose it is if it would allow you to cram in an additional -resistance debuff in the 5 sec window. Which wouldn't be the case with the rotation you're describing.
So not only would your objections have been dealt with had you bothered to read a bit further in my earlier post, but your recommendations would merely serve to lower your Sonic Corruptor's already anemic single target damage.
Quote:
| Not to mention none of the listed sets show any attack chains, just 3 attacks from the primary without recharge times being factored in as to whether or not the 3 attacks can be cycled endlessly. |
Indeed, the actual effect is the reverse of what you're imagining. As you pile on more recharge and include the effect of intertwining powers from the secondary (you need to refresh those debuffs), Sonic starts to look worse and worse. If you're Sonic/Cold, you need to spend almost 1/6th of your time refreshing debuffs. Each time you use one of those powers, you're losing a -resistance debuff from your nukes for the next nuke (more than that if you're using the 'Electric Fence' method you suggest).
The other sets don't suffer this drawback. Indeed, their damage efficiency actually rises due to the fact that they're replacing the lowest damage elements of their rotation with debuffs. Sonic doesn't benefit from this effect since pretty much all of the elements of its rotation are 'low damage'.
Quote:
| Sonic IS in fact the best ST set after fire, although admittedly, it does that job slightly better on a defender than a corruptor. |
Quote:
I'd be wary of trying to discern fine differences like this from the numbers I posted. Consider another way of viewing damage: from their 'optimal point'. For a Cold Corruptor running an idealized debuff rotation:|
Originally Posted by SuperT
wow great info!!! So, I guess for AV soloing fire is still king but would you say ice falls in as second for primary choice? So I wonder how well an ice/cold would do soloing AVs.
|
Psychic = 71.5 dps @ 567% recharge
Fire = 70.5 dps @ 386% recharge
Ice = 59.7 dps @ 310% recharge
Dark = 54.8 dps @ 324% recharge
Sonic = 46.0 dps @ 196% recharge
Those are the peak (base) dps numbers for various sets. At 196% recharge, Sonic will do its best damage. Anything over 196% recharge won't improve Sonic's damage at all because you're already throwing its two best powers as fast as possible.
On the other hand, Psychic is the clear winner in the raw damage department... if you can somehow figure out how to lower your recharge by 567%. Anything less than that and it starts to lose ground (pretty quickly too - at 310% recharge, Ice is the top dog and it's pretty far behind Fire at Fire's optimal 386% recharge).
You've also got considerations like slotting flexibility. For example, Energy Blast nuking flat-out can get an average of ~24% more recharge due to Force Feedback procs. You can do oddball things like Placate with Psychic Blast or buff your to-hit with Dark Blast.
It's also worth noting that just because you can damage the AV/GM slightly more effectively, that doesn't necessarily mean you can survive. Ice Blast has an advantage over Fire Blast in that the AV will have a significantly lower chance to hit the Ice Blast player. Dark Blast has an even greater advantage in this area.
Or you could go with Beam Rifle and just take any secondary you wanted.
So you're saying that Psychic Blast is on top only if it has enough recharge to somehow be above the Recharge Hardcap?
You can't have more than 400% +Recharge. And getting to some of the other recharge levels you have there is highly impractical for most characters, especially if you're fighting GMs and AVs and need some Defense as well. The only set you list there with a reasonable level of Recharge is Sonic, which may be why it is actually used for GM soloing and not some of these other sets.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
Quote:
May I ask why? I have zero experience with BR. Does it hit harder than fire?
|
Originally Posted by Beauregard
Or you could go with Beam Rifle and just take any secondary you wanted.
|
I know absolutely nothing about soloing with corr's.
That's mostly cause after 7 years in this game, the highest I've been able to get a non melee toon is to 27, and that was a blaster.
I do know that if a guy named Silas says something about it, he is to be listened to. Nearly drowned me one night by tying some dps calculations around a brick and throwing it in the river.
Willpower has more passive regen than Regen does. Who thought that was a good idea?
Can we get a fix for Energy Melee instead of more new sets?
Quote:
Beam Rifle can debuff regeneration. While it doesn't do so as well as the four secondary sets I mentioned, it will add enough to a set like Time to at least give you a shot.
|
Originally Posted by Erhnam
May I ask why? I have zero experience with BR. Does it hit harder than fire?
|
Quote:
For a Cold Domination secondary, probably. For most levels of recharge, Fire will beat Psychic Blast on single target for secondaries that don't require much interaction. However, a Psychic/Kinetic would probably beat a Fire/Kinetic for raw damage just because you spend so much time using buff/debuff powers in Kinetic that you just don't have enough time to fit in a third nuke for the rotation.|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
So you're saying that Psychic Blast is on top only if it has enough recharge to somehow be above the Recharge Hardcap?
|
Quote:
| And getting to some of the other recharge levels you have there is highly impractical for most characters, especially if you're fighting GMs and AVs and need some Defense as well. The only set you list there with a reasonable level of Recharge is Sonic, which may be why it is actually used for GM soloing and not some of these other sets. |
I think you're also not quite grasping the math here. The numbers I was presenting were the breakpoints at which further recharge won't increase your damage any more. Since most high end characters are aiming for perma-Hasten (275% bonus recharge), having a very low ceiling like Sonic means that even if you're doing decent damage at lower levels you'll be outclassed at higher levels of recharge. Since Sonic doesn't even do decent damage at low levels of recharge, it should showcase how badly it gets outclassed at high levels of recharge.
Quote:
There's just so much wrong here, but I've stopped caring quite a bit about arguing with people on the internet, so I'll keep this short. |
Originally Posted by Beauregard
For a Cold Domination secondary, probably. For most levels of recharge, Fire will beat Psychic Blast on single target for secondaries that don't require much interaction. However, a Psychic/Kinetic would probably beat a Fire/Kinetic for raw damage just because you spend so much time using buff/debuff powers in Kinetic that you just don't have enough time to fit in a third nuke for the rotation.
Well, Corruptors generally aren't built for solo'ing AV/GM since they're poorly suited for it. However, if you were building a Corruptor for this purpose, Sonic would be about the worst set imaginable. It does very low damage and has no worthwhile defensive features. In contrast, Dark and Ice give you ~15% in to hit debuffs. Considering that this is more defense than you'd get from Weave + Maneuvers + Combat Jumping fully slotted out, I'd argue that's pretty significant. I think you're also not quite grasping the math here. The numbers I was presenting were the breakpoints at which further recharge won't increase your damage any more. Since most high end characters are aiming for perma-Hasten (275% bonus recharge), having a very low ceiling like Sonic means that even if you're doing decent damage at lower levels you'll be outclassed at higher levels of recharge. Since Sonic doesn't even do decent damage at low levels of recharge, it should showcase how badly it gets outclassed at high levels of recharge. |
1- Fire blast, if built with the same goal and inf amount, will always deal more damage, ST and AoE than psi blast will. That's what it was designed to do. Psi can have it's exotic damage and recharge debuffs, but it simply won't out damage fire. It would call for either a fire blast buff, or a psi nerf.
2- In this day and age of CoH, any class is cappable of soloing AVs, and most can solo GMs if enough thought is put into it. That being said, corruptors are one of the best ATs for doing this, as Silas or Silverado will tell you (though I haven't seen a post by Silverado in a while).
3- I don't think you are grasping the math. The tohit from dark and ice(which has ONE power by the way with a tohit debuff) will be resisted by an AV by 85% up front. So -100% tohit is effectively -15% now (numbers given are for easy math examples, not real numbers achieved and kept perma by ice or dark blast). That is nowhere near the defense provided by the powers you listed. The resistance debuff from sonic, on the other hand is only resisted by damage resistance. Because as it is commonly said around the forums, damage resistance debuffs are resisted by damage resistance. That is to say, if enemy A has 50% smashing resistance, it will negate sonic's debuff to smashing damage by 50%, but not the energy damage portion of the damage resistance. It's the way the game is coded. So no matter what, you will always be doing 15% more damage after the debuff than what you previously did, because the resistance to that type was already there resisting your damage. So you always get the same % benefit, unlike tohit on high end enemies.
4- Sonic does great damage at any levels, but really only in ST damage. The stacked debuffs allow you about 60% resistance debuff all the time, which with a 95% tohit cap, will likely fall to 45% every once in a while because you have to miss eventually in this game. And it's highest ST attack chain will not include shout, because A)it's dpa on corruptors is lower than both shriek and scream, although barely, and B)it's long cast time means one of the debuffs stacked up will likely fade before the attack animates fully.
So to the OP, go with sonic if you want a non fire AV/GM killer, and realized as soon as Beauregard mentioned a chain with 567% recharge that he didn't know what he was talking about. If you choose to go with something else, that's fine, it really doesn't affect me in the slightest, but if you don't want fire, sonic is your next best choice.
*Yes, this was me keeping it breif, I didn't include many of the numerical information I could have because frankly, I don't enjoy spending the time looking up information just to tell a wrong person they are wrong.
Quote:
I always find it amazing when people try to argue against clearly posted facts. Fire has the best single attack; Psychic Blast has the best two-attack cycle. That's not really debateable - you can scroll up and see the raw numbers if you like.|
Originally Posted by Pyro_Master_NA
1- Fire blast, if built with the same goal and inf amount, will always deal more damage, ST and AoE than psi blast will. That's what it was designed to do. Psi can have it's exotic damage and recharge debuffs, but it simply won't out damage fire. It would call for either a fire blast buff, or a psi nerf.
|
The question becomes whether or not that two-attack cycle is realistic (since both attacks have recharges too long to be constantly cycled).
Quote:
| 2- In this day and age of CoH, any class is cappable of soloing AVs, and most can solo GMs if enough thought is put into it. That being said, corruptors are one of the best ATs for doing this, as Silas or Silverado will tell you (though I haven't seen a post by Silverado in a while). |
Quote:
|
3- I don't think you are grasping the math. ... The resistance debuff from sonic, on the other hand is only resisted by damage resistance. |
All the people saying "well, Sonic is great ST damage" are simply wrong. And I showed it rather clearly above by presenting the actual numbers - something you'll note none of the enthusiasts are willing to do. Sonic is horrible single target damage precisely because it has those debuffs attached. It is designed to be roughly equivalent to a middle-of-the-road set like Energy once the debuffs are taken into account.
Quote:
| 4- Sonic does great damage at any levels, but really only in ST damage. The stacked debuffs allow you about 60% resistance debuff all the time, which with a 95% tohit cap, will likely fall to 45% every once in a while because you have to miss eventually in this game. |
Shriek is 35.04 damage in 1 sec. Scream is 80.2 damage in 1.67 sec. We'll have 30% resistance debuffs from our secondary (some have more, some have less; this is a reasonable average). In 5 secs, we can run our cycle 1.36 times and the cycle provides 30% total - so we get another 40.9% resistance debuff on average.
That means our cycle does (35.04 + 80.2) * (1 + .3 + .409) / 3.67 sec = 53.66 dps.
Now take a look at Ice Blast. It does (41.71 + 68.4 + 95.10) * (1 + .3) / 3.74 = 71.33 dps.
This is not some sort of debate over how nice the powers look. This is merely the facts: Sonic does horrible single target damage while solo.
As it was designed to do. The whole reason that Sonic has such bad single target damage is because of those resistance debuffs and what they bring for the rest of your team.
Listen, I understand math makes a lot of people uncomfortable. But trying to replace facts with blather isn't much of a technique for argument. Next time, look up the information so you don't make a fool of yourself.
Add another for Sonic/Cold, I'd also suggest Sonic/Rad
Who do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
Arc Name: Tsoo In Love
Arc ID: 413575
Beau,
Your argument lost a lot of viability when you suggest that melee characters need less help when fighting AVs/GMs than Corrs do.
One of the most important debuffs when fighting these two types of enemies is -Regen, something that no melee type gets without using temp powers. Melee types need to make this up in sheer DPS, whereas the support types don't. This is why for a long, long time, you could see Corrs and Controllers soloing GMs when melee types couldn't.
Secondly, if you're building for fighting GMs and AVs solo, you need to be able to survive the return fire that you get. Not every Corruptor secondary needs that much help in this regard, with the -ToHit that they get as well as the other debuffs they have. Even then, people who do solo GMs tend to build for ranged Defense, not recharge. As such, Sonic does do very well, since it's attack chain doesn't need much recharge to be optimized. You posit that Psy blast should do well at VERY HIGH levels of recharge, but to get to those levels of recharge, you need to sacrifice survivability, which is the opposite of what you want to do.
So please, show me your Psy Blast character soloing the GM, and then a Sonic character doing the same thing. I bet you that the Sonic Blast character will do it faster, if everything else is even.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
Quote:
A 500% regeneration debuff is effectively a 'free' 40 dps or so on a level 50 AV. However, normally this merely bridges the disparity between the dps of melee non-support toons and ranged support toons (melee don't need to spend time debuffing and their attacks are inherently higher damage).|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
One of the most important debuffs when fighting these two types of enemies is -Regen, something that no melee type gets without using temp powers. Melee types need to make this up in sheer DPS, whereas the support types don't. This is why for a long, long time, you could see Corrs and Controllers soloing GMs when melee types couldn't.
|
As for Corruptors/Controllers solo'ing GMs where melee archetypes couldn't, you're talking about a past bug where Radiation Emission wasn't impacted by the AV protections or purple patch. So a RE Corrupter/Defender could deal the equivalent of 1305 extra dps on a level 54 AV - a target that ordinarily reduced a player's damage by over 50%.
Quote:
| Secondly, if you're building for fighting GMs and AVs solo, you need to be able to survive the return fire that you get. Not every Corruptor secondary needs that much help in this regard, with the -ToHit that they get as well as the other debuffs they have. Even then, people who do solo GMs tend to build for ranged Defense, not recharge. |
Quote:
| As such, Sonic does do very well, since it's attack chain doesn't need much recharge to be optimized. You posit that Psy blast should do well at VERY HIGH levels of recharge, but to get to those levels of recharge, you need to sacrifice survivability, which is the opposite of what you want to do. |
Nor does your level of recharge really matter for Sonic performance. At any level of recharge, sets like Cold and Fire outdamage Sonic while solo. They just pull away even more as you pile on more recharge.
Again, this isn't really a debate. On one side you've got the facts - the actual numbers I posted in this thread. On the other side you've got folks who have a vague 'feeling' that isn't really based on anything except their subjective experience.
Can you use Sonic to solo an AV/GM? Sure. The lower dps isn't enough lower that it will cripple you. But should you? Of course not. Why bring a knife to a gunfight?
Beau, just thought I'd point out that one of the mistakes in your eyeball math is the "5 second window". Not all sonic attacks have this small duration for the debuff, that's the smallest duration, Shriek's. There was even a time (before the high global recharge builds I think) when people actually advocated adding Screech to the attack chain only because of its 12s (!) debuff duration.
Something else that's weird in your numbers (though this time it favors Sonic) is the value for Scream's damage. Where did you get the 80.2? Both Mids and RedTomax are showing it as 58.4 to me...
Anyway, it's kinda trivial to stack 4 -res debuffs (so, 60% for a corruptor) from sonic attacks even with lowish global recharge. The classic Shriek(5s debuff/1s activation)-Scream(7s/1.67s)-Shriek(5s/1s)-Shout(10s/2.67s) chain will keep you at 4 stacks of -res most of the time and needs little global recharge.
Using Electric Fence instead of Shout on the above chain nets more or less the same DPS, but people tend to prefer EF for tough single targets because it has better range, roots for less time and will stack immob up to mag 12 (which is quite useful even if you're hovering out of range to stop the running away, especially if you debuff with traps or patches in fixed locations).
Having super-high levels of recharge (like perma-hasten or more) lets you chain only Shriek-Scream (plus a small gap, I think) and IIRC it's the highest DPS attack chain for sonic, despite the gap, keeping 5 stacks of -res on the target consistently.
Throwing Screech in the attack chain may let your -res debuff stack between 4 and up to 6 times at some points, but the overall individual DPS will drop due to Screech's negligible damage (if you're in a team, though, it might be worth it).
When we say all this, we're not pulling it out of any orifice, it's been calculated and debated a lot. You should be able to find several oldish threads about it, usually in the Defender forums (Rad/Sonic was the rage there for AV/GM killing for a while) and later in the Blaster forums, but one that I remember is this: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=195250 - beyond the detailed calculations it even has a spreadsheet with nice colors showing the debuffs stacking and all, to make it easier to visualize.
Sonic gets even better because some of Scream's ticks benefit from Scream's own -res. The problem, of course, is that your DPS depends on keeping the -res stacked, and it will suffer a bit when you have to stop attacking to throw in some debuffs or heals (especially bad for busier debuff sets), or when you miss. In a team, of course, the -res will win over any alternatives hands down. And if you throw Lore Pets or Patron Pool Pets in the mix, then Sonic wins again, even solo.
If you ignore the pets, then Fire has the best DPS but Ice and Sonic are not far behind. Ice has the added benefit of debuffing recharge to the point where it's not even funny, adding considerable safety. Fire's and Ice's DPS aren't hit so hard by pauses to debuff and heal, either, so that's a big plus. So if the OP prefers not to use pets (or can't keep them alive) while going after the AVs/GMs I'd pick Ice (since he said he didn't want Fire) over Sonic. With pets, I'd pick Sonic for sure.
Beam Rifle isn't talked about much because it's newer... I didn't see any threads with the calculations for it and I'm feeling too lazy right now to do it right, but from my [recend and still mid-level] experience with it, it does crazy ST damage with the disintegration mechanic (for ST my BR blaster seems comparable to my Fire Blaster), with the added bonus of even more -regen. It should be a top contender, especially with less busy debuff sets causing less redraw.
Just my long-winded 2 cents...
Playing CoH with Gestures
Oh, forgot to mention something: because the -res applies to the enhanced damage value of the attacks, instead of the base value like damage buffs, higher damage enhancement values (for instance with musculature) will benefit Sonic even more than the other blast sets, I think.
Playing CoH with Gestures
567% recharge. I really stopped taking all those "hard facts" and "math" seriously there. That number alone says it all
Quote:
Uhh actually he's right, once you start stacking recharge and actually make a chain, dps will increase. It's still lower than fire by a long shot but the theorycrafted dps you put up is almost guaranteed false as you didn't even attempt a rotation, +recharge or consider DPA. Few expert Sonic users actually use Shout due to it's horrid DPA|
Originally Posted by Beauregard
Now you're just throwing out spurious objections in the hope that something will stick. Instead of checking whether it made any sense, you just present it despite the fact that all of those 'rotations' work just fine with relatively standard levels of +recharge on high level characters. Indeed, the actual effect is the reverse of what you're imagining. As you pile on more recharge and include the effect of intertwining powers from the secondary (you need to refresh those debuffs), Sonic starts to look worse and worse. If you're Sonic/Cold, you need to spend almost 1/6th of your time refreshing debuffs. Each time you use one of those powers, you're losing a -resistance debuff from your nukes for the next nuke (more than that if you're using the 'Electric Fence' method you suggest). The other sets don't suffer this drawback. Indeed, their damage efficiency actually rises due to the fact that they're replacing the lowest damage elements of their rotation with debuffs. Sonic doesn't benefit from this effect since pretty much all of the elements of its rotation are 'low damage'. Sonic, like Radiation, is only good in a team setting. If you're solo, it will drastically underperform other sets not just from a standpoint of damage but also utility. You may not want to hear this, but that's how the game works. |
Fire is still king, but few fire users even use Flares anymore now that they can stack so much +Recharge that Fire Blast + Blaze + Fireball is generally better than even including Flare. Any down time between those three (or just two, minus fireball) is normally for summons pets, healing etc just as filler.
Whining about everything since 2006.
Ammo switching for Dual Pistols was my idea:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=135484
Hi, outside of fire/rad or /traps, is there another pair that would do just as well when trying to solo AVs/GMs? I have so many fire toons and wanted to try something different. I was thinking of ice/time but wasn't sure if it would be powerful enough? I also like /time's ability to provide a huge amount of defense. Any thoughts?