If you want pure damage, a blaster is probably your best bet. Yes, even though most secondaries are better suited to blapping.
If you instead just want "a character that does damage and is effective primarily at range", you might prefer a corruptor?
If you're looking to fight at 60ft I feel Archery/MM blasters are what you're looking for. The heavy hitting single target attack has a range of 80 ft, where sets such as Ice, Fire and Energy have a 40-50ft range for that third attack. Archery also has an advantage with the Tier 9, Rain of Arrows doesn't cause end crash and the range is 90ft. No other Tier 9 can do both of those things.
Mental Manipulation will give you anther AOE that has a 60ft range. MM also has an advantage over other Manipulation sets in that the Tier 1 immobilize has an 80ft range. Most other blaster immobilizers have a 40-50 ft range.
Might not qualify as "best ranged damage dealer", but Fortunatas (with the Soul patron) can be quite effective.
Highlights include:
- Double leadership buffs for yourself and the entire team, along with easily softcapped defenses to melee/ranged/aoe. With a little extra effort, you could probably get them to the incarnate softcap as well. Team bonuses are around 20% unenhanced to all defenses, and 30% extra damage.
- A default of 80' range on all their attacks (except for the crashless nuke, that's a PBAOE with a stun). Psionic and negative energy damage aren't as highly resisted as smashing/lethal. Cast times are also very low. The two oddballs are Psionic Tornado (2.37s) and Subdue (1.67s). Everything else is 1.1 seconds or lower.
- A 16 second mag 3 hold on an 8 second recharge by default that's one of your main damage components in your single target chain. A 8 second mag 3 immobilize is there as well, and they're both cycled (along with Gloom from the patron pool) very quickly in a single target attack chain.
- Knock-up for a smidgen of mitigation with Psionic Tornado. Dark Obliteration and/or Soul Tentacles (another immob!) help round out a ranged aoe chain.
- Stealth, and a choice of either a fast recharging single target confuse, or a long recharge PBAOE confuse.
The damage isn't monumental, the end costs can be a tad high unless you build to overcome them, there's no DDR (though the extra defense serves as a nice buffer) and it requires a decent amount of recharge to make work. Not a huge investment, mind you. I've sunk about 100 million into mine and I'm pretty happy with the results.
For pure range I can never reccomend a blaster because they perform so much better when you incorporate the melee attacks. Without their melee attacks most blasters will be out dps'd by corrs.
Corruptors (not /kinetics or /traps and not rad/) or fortunatas with gloom are very good options for pure ranged characters.
Would mention Fire/Cold corrs. The only time you would need to melee is for heat loss and Sleet+Rain of Fire melts everything.
You might also want to give a Peacebringer some thought.
Nova form can hit pretty hard from quite a distance and of course, you have
a lot of other very good powers to pick from as well...
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
Don't overlook controllers. Especially a Fire/Rad I understand is strong with several similar types of toons teamed up. A team of Fire/Rad will burn through anything in the game, and obviously combined with other debuffers and buffers is still very strong.
However my answer to just about any "best" question these days is Fortunata. I don't think the cones are 60+ ft. out of the box, but most of the other attacks are, and the few PBAoE.. well, you have plenty of Defense to use those with little fear.
Not only do Fortunatas have decent ranged damage, they scrap about as well as Scrappers, control decently, and have excellent team buffs in Leadership and Mind Link. Oh, and they crit from Hide like stalkers.
Seriously, they're too good to ignore. You really should level one up just to find out if you like them. If not... respec them as a Night Widow/scrapper or combo melee ranged build.
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Fire/Rad should be played in melee because of hot feet. The only time a fire/rad would be better at range is for AV soloing with a softcapped range def build. OP specifically wanted something that would be a top damage dealer at 60'+|
Originally Posted by gameboy1234
Don't overlook controllers. Especially a Fire/Rad I understand is strong with several similar types of toons teamed up. A team of Fire/Rad will burn through anything in the game, and obviously combined with other debuffers and buffers is still very strong.
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However my answer to just about any "best" question these days is Fortunata. I don't think the cones are 60+ ft. out of the box, but most of the other attacks are, and the few PBAoE.. well, you have plenty of Defense to use those with little fear. Not only do Fortunatas have decent ranged damage, they scrap about as well as Scrappers, control decently, and have excellent team buffs in Leadership and Mind Link. Oh, and they crit from Hide like stalkers. Seriously, they're too good to ignore. You really should level one up just to find out if you like them. If not... respec them as a Night Widow/scrapper or combo melee ranged build. |
It should also be noted that their damage mods aren't very high and they will typically have alot of damage buffs from their self (30% double assault, 0-30% from set bonuses, 0-90% from followup or Aim) which coupled with their low damage cap makes their high end cap out alot sooner than most other ATs. Whether you take that as a good thing or a bad thing mostly depends on the environment that you play in since they're very powerful unbuffed on their "low end"
I'm going to concur that you probably want a Corruptor, not a Blaster.
Corruptor Psy has the full power and range of the Defender version (read: the only powers in the set with a base range <100 are Psychic Scream at 60 and the PBAOE crash nuke) with Scourge and a better damage modifier.
Archery also functions well as a far-ranged combatant, but the Cone AoE only has a range of 40 base.
Dark Miasma plays optimally at long range and is a very strong support set with a myriad of control, debuffs, healing, and one decent team buff.
Trick Arrow can be a nice thematic pair for Archery if you go that route, and avoids redraw, but isn't currently the strongest set. Beta patch notes indicate it is being actively worked on, however.
Thermal has no reason to enter melee and is a reasonably strong team supporter with a couple good debuffs late in the game.
Cold and Radiation can both be played primarily at range depending on your tactics and power selection, and both are extremely strong.
Do not pick Kinetics, Storm, or Traps if you don't want to get close to anything, you will be your own worst enemy. Time, to a lesser degree, fits here as well - making the best use of your debuff aura requires you to be close.
For completeness' sake, I would not recommend Empathy/Pain Domination, Poison, or Sonic Resonance. None of them are particularly good sets and all deliver their primary form of benefit by hanging out in melee with the rest of a team.
@Draeth Darkstar
Virtue [Heroes, Roleplay], Freedom [Villains], Exalted [All Sides, Roleplay]
Code:
I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30)) Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.
Pure damage: /fire dom
Damage with support: fire/corr
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lolwhat? Empathy, Pain Domination, Poison and Sonic Resonance aren't "particularily good sets"? I really hope you're not serious. Now if you meant Empathy and Pain Domination are low offense sets and Poison is low survivability and sonic is basically a worse thermal then yeah they're not particularily good, but you're ignoring their strengths. Also Empathy and Pain Domination work just fine at range. Now I wouldn't say they would be the best choice for the OP cause he stated he wants a high damage ranged character, but the sets themselves aren't that bad. |
Originally Posted by Draeth Darkstar
For completeness' sake, I would not recommend Empathy/Pain Domination, Poison, or Sonic Resonance. None of them are particularly good sets and all deliver their primary form of benefit by hanging out in melee with the rest of a team.
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Originally Posted by TRTerror
Pure damage: /fire dom
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I was pretty much thinking the same thing. Nova form for PB or WS comes with an inherent damage boost from the start. 40 or 45%, I forget which. |
Originally Posted by FourSpeed
You might also want to give a Peacebringer some thought.
Nova form can hit pretty hard from quite a distance and of course, you have a lot of other very good powers to pick from as well... Regards, 4 |
It is squishy, and has no mez protection, other than what's afforded by teammates, or perhaps a clarion buff before shape change. But, hey, it's a lot of fun!
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase
I don't get blasters either. The label says ranged damage dealer, but most of the secondary powers are melee or melee range.
Corruptors are much more pure ranged characters. Normally I'd recommend fire/dark, but with the restriction of > 60 ft, idk. Blaze and Fire Breath are only 40 ft range. Fire/dark corr is a great combo, tho.
Archery, Psi blast (corr) have some pretty long range powers, but I've never played them.
I don't know how the dps works out if blaster's forgo their melee attacks.
Corruptors are usually much more survivable, and have access to Dark Consumption or Power Sink (elec APP) to recover end after the nuke-induced crash (which is melee range tho). Several secondaries give blasters an end recovery tool, but otherwise blasters seem limited in recovering end after the nuke. AFAIK, the only epic pool with end recover is Cold Mastery's Hibernate. Hmmm, Surge of Power from Electricity Mastery doubles recovery for 120s, but that's not an instant refill of end.
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I meant exactly what I said. Empathy, Pain Domination, Poison, and Sonic Resonance are weak sets. There is no mechanical justification to choosing any of them, because each of them is eclipsed in the role that it tries to fill by at least one other support set.|
Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
lolwhat? Empathy, Pain Domination, Poison and Sonic Resonance aren't "particularily good sets"? I really hope you're not serious. Now if you meant Empathy and Pain Domination are low offense sets and Poison is low survivability and sonic is basically a worse thermal then yeah they're not particularily good, but you're ignoring their strengths. Also Empathy and Pain Domination work just fine at range. Now I wouldn't say they would be the best choice for the OP cause he stated he wants a high damage ranged character, but the sets themselves aren't that bad.
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Poison is a joke compared to Cold, Dark, Radiation, Storm, Thermal, Time, Traps, and even Trick Arrow. It has mediocre debuffs with poor ranges and uptimes, a terrible heal, weak CC, and a mediocre rez power, all packaged with horrible recharges and high endurance costs.
Empathy and Pain are two sides of the same coin. Both provide a lot of what a team doesn't need (raw healing), alongside buffs that are either low-uptime or affect a limited number of targets without any substantial upshot. Kinetics, Radiation, and Time, are better choices all around, and Dark and Cold will both provide more overall team survivability when utilizing both buffs and debuffs.
Sonic Resonance, finally, is just indefensible. It is a terrible, terrible set. You pointed out yourself that Thermal in every possible way is a parallel but superior set, and the only thing it does remotely well (-resistance), Traps, Dark, Storm, and Cold can all do better.
So, in summation, "lolwhat?" yourself.
Edit: P.S. Skipping Incinerate on a Fire Dominator is in no way a bad idea. It has only marginally better DPA than Fire Blast and worse than Blaze, and is the only melee range power in the set. Even Combustion can be used from outside melee range if taken, but due to /Fire's somewhat unique position as an almost-entirely ranged Dominator secondary it's a common pick to drop as well to play with a primary that has no business being up close at all, like Earth.
@Draeth Darkstar
Virtue [Heroes, Roleplay], Freedom [Villains], Exalted [All Sides, Roleplay]
Code:
I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30)) Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.
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I think the bonus you're thinking of is Dmg (45% bonus in Nova form iirc). It also|
Originally Posted by Ukaserex
I was pretty much thinking the same thing. Nova form for PB or WS comes with an inherent damage boost from the start. 40 or 45%, I forget which.
It is squishy, and has no mez protection, other than what's afforded by teammates, or perhaps a clarion buff before shape change. But, hey, it's a lot of fun! |
has To-Hit bonus, I think as well.
Still, the ranged attacks are 80 ft (except the cone), and while Nova is a bit squishy,
you can build for nice Ranged Defense, get two heals (Reform Essence, and Dwarf's
Sublimation), a Max health power (Essence Boost), an Endurance Reducer (Conserve Energy),
some very nice resistances with either Dwarf Form or Light Form, you have travel
powers built-in and access to a phase-shift power without the Concealment Pool.
If you like the Concealment Pool, Invisibility works nice because you can still
do self-buffs, and when you're set to bring the carnage, switching to Nova
conveniently shuts it off to attack.
Dwarf form is also your mez protection, turtling dmg absorbing form, and your
escape route (with tp) if things go south.
The real trick is to manage forms well - it's an easy AT to play, but a challenging
one to play well...
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
Great, now I'm thinking I need to make a fire/dark or arrow/dark corr. As if I don't have enough characters (and enough dark themed characters) already!
I do like my corrs though, and I don't have enough of them yet. Probably my favorite support toons, unless you count SoA as support too.
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
It really depends on your play style (i.e. soloing vs. team vs. survivability). I can tell you what I have and how I would rate them since I have so many blasters and which ones are my favorite to play.
- Team (pure damage):
- blasters: fire/fire (has DoTs) and psi/psi (since not many mobs have psi resistance)
- Soloing (damage + controll or some sort of mitigation vs mobs):
- Corruptor: fire/dark miasma and fire/rad
- Dominator: plant/thorn, grav/energy/ fire/psi
- Survivability (damage and range):
- Fortunata
- Soldier of Arachnos (aka crab)
- softcapping on any above mentioned for blasters, corruptors, and dominators.
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By that logic there is no justification to choosing any blast set other than fire. Or any brute secondary other than fire. Or any scrapper secondary other than shield. Or any Dom primary other than Mind of Fire or secondary other than Fire. Etc. Ironically this is logic I go by, I only play powersets that are the absolute best possible choice. However this is not a playstyle I reccomend or spout to the general coh population (cause they get mad at me when I do). |
Originally Posted by Draeth Darkstar
I meant exactly what I said. Empathy, Pain Domination, Poison, and Sonic Resonance are weak sets. There is no mechanical justification to choosing any of them, because each of them is eclipsed in the role that it tries to fill by at least one other support set.
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| Poison is a joke compared to Cold, Dark, Radiation, Storm, Thermal, Time, Traps, and even Trick Arrow. It has mediocre debuffs with poor ranges and uptimes, a terrible heal, weak CC, and a mediocre rez power, all packaged with horrible recharges and high endurance costs. |
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| Empathy and Pain are two sides of the same coin. Both provide a lot of what a team doesn't need (raw healing), alongside buffs that are either low-uptime or affect a limited number of targets without any substantial upshot. Kinetics, Radiation, and Time, are better choices all around, and Dark and Cold will both provide more overall team survivability when utilizing both buffs and debuffs. |
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| Sonic Resonance, finally, is just indefensible. It is a terrible, terrible set. You pointed out yourself that Thermal in every possible way is a parallel but superior set, and the only thing it does remotely well (-resistance), Traps, Dark, Storm, and Cold can all do better. |
The thing about support sets is that they're all very useful. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, but overall if they're played well all of them can be huge assets to teams. The one exception you could make is poison, as it really needs alot of work, but poison is still going to be able to hold it's own in terms of usefulness on a team because it's a support set. Many blast sets, melee sets, armors, and control sets can be deficiently worse than other sets in the same category, but support sets honestly don't share that issue because of how ridiculously good support is in this game. When comparing support set to support set some will obviously rank higher or lower than others, but when you compare support sets to the entirety of the game, there is no issue.
Cold and Kinetics are by far the strongest sets in the game and even with that said I'd probably take a Fire/Poison corr over a AR/Cold corr, Poison is significantly worse than cold but Fire is significantly better than AR. Poison can still support it's team with potent debuffs but AR would not only be struggling but outright failing to keep up to the dps fire can bring and I would definitely take the poison corr over a a dps without buffs/debuffs. The gaps in effectiveness of support sets are much smaller than that of other categories of sets.
Please don't get me wrong though, I think Sonic, TA, Traps, and Poison could all go for a round of buffing to bring them up to the levels of Dark, Rad, Storm, Time, and Thermal. Emp and Pain are odd cases in that they don't offer alot in the way of offense, which this game thrives on, the biggest issue with Emp and Pain is the current metagame of coh, not issues with the sets themselves.
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| Edit: P.S. Skipping Incinerate on a Fire Dominator is in no way a bad idea. It has only marginally better DPA than Fire Blast and worse than Blaze, and is the only melee range power in the set. Even Combustion can be used from outside melee range if taken, but due to /Fire's somewhat unique position as an almost-entirely ranged Dominator secondary it's a common pick to drop as well to play with a primary that has no business being up close at all, like Earth. |
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I was going to go through this post and point out all the places where you either intentionally or accidentally misinterpreted and/or ignored points that I made until I read this.|
Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
...Please don't get me wrong though, I think Sonic, TA, Traps, and Poison...
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If you feel that Empathy/Pain are fine and Traps needs help, we are obviously not playing the same game, so, good day.
@Draeth Darkstar
Virtue [Heroes, Roleplay], Freedom [Villains], Exalted [All Sides, Roleplay]
Code:
I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30)) Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.
I have a variety of ranged characters, probably like everyone else. The two blaster primaries you mentioned are not, I believe, the higher damage blasters. I believe archery has the highest ST damage, and fire the highest AoE damage. Pair either of these up with /EM (obviously taking boosts only for your specifications) and you have a seriously powerhouse that can stay out of range of most foes.
(side stuff: Use 2 centriole hami's + 4 lesser-damage devastation IO's to make the short 40ft. ranged attacks equal range to the other 60ft. attacks. Makes life simpler. Rain of Arrows not only has no crash, but has the advantage of a fast enough recharge that it can be part of a regular attack chain.)
Another alternative might be an Illusion controller. The only controller I play as "pure range". The (hopefully perma) PA's tanking for you can offset this enough to make it a viable choice for you. Pair with a debuff set, and you may get more damage against higher-level foes than you would with a straight-up damage set.
Just my two cents.
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Obviously you didn't bother to read the second part of that section either.|
Originally Posted by Draeth Darkstar
I was going to go through this post and point out all the places where you either intentionally or accidentally misinterpreted and/or ignored points that I made until I read this.
If you feel that Empathy/Pain are fine and Traps needs help, we are obviously not playing the same game, so, good day. |
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| Emp and Pain are odd cases in that they don't offer alot in the way of offense, which this game thrives on, the biggest issue with Emp and Pain is the current metagame of coh, not issues with the sets themselves. |
The biggest thing Traps has going for it is it's -1000% regeneration. Cold, Kinetics, Rad, Dark, Time, Storm, and Thermal are better than traps in varying degrees. I'm sorry if you disagree, and if you like the set that's cool, but I only take numbers into account.
Forum ate my post so lets try this again
Fully ranged /fire doms is viable and doesnt lock you into that horrible 1.67 animation that incin has making you more mobile. There are ranged options that arent that far off incin chains that require less rech and less end.
PB's has mediocre dpa compared to other ranged options aside from radiant strike(i think it's called that) and thats a melee attack. they are very survivable though in human and in all forms if you are good at shapeshifting.
Archery corrs is lacklustre in damage on corrs. Its a good blaster set though.
Pain could use some kind of buff to anguishing cry, the amount rech you need to perma the debuff is dumb imo. Other than that its ok. I also would like world of pain got the team only tag removed. Kind of boring since theres not much buffing to do unless you pug trials on freedom.
Ranged forts works. Single target damage kinda sucks but its fun(imo) and its super easy to build def on them.
I have been doing a number of experiments with characters looking for the best ranged damage dealer. I of course have started with Blasters. I have achieved good success with a Dark/Energy Blaster and an AR/Energy Blaster. I thought it was time to double check I was not overlooking anything. I have decent knowledge of Blasters and Doms, and no knowledge of any other "ranged" possibilities. So I thought it might be time to ask for a little help.
My main question is what are suggestions for the best damage dealer at range 60+. Holds count as Damage Dealing, just because I consider them that powerful. If the character has to bounce into melee and back to range it isn't in the running. The character I am looking for is designed to stay at 60+ range (or better!) Please suggest any archtype/primary/secondary/patron that you think would meet the criteria. Thanks.