Someone with lots of mitigation. Buffs/debuffs to potentialize your blaster friend's crazy damage are nice, too. Added AoE damage is always nice since BR is not stellar in that area. Keeping enemies clumped together to help disintegration spread would be nice, too.
With that in mind, I figure you have a few choices:
- Some melee person can add: the mitigation (in the form of tanking), which also keeps things clumped together for the spread, and they can add AoE depending on AT and powerset.
Tankers are still best in the keeping them clumped and aggroed on you, Brutes are ok at that and do more damage and you could probably do the tanking with a Scrapper or maybe even a Stalker if you pick an AoE heavy set and know your Tao of tanking, but blasters are pretty good at pulling aggro away from people...
Titan Weapons, Super Strength, War Mace (or Battle Axe), Fiery Melee or Electric Melee are all sets with nice AoE (there are probably others, these just immediatelly came to mind). Shield, Electric, Fire, Dark and Ice are all pretty good armors which also help offensively.
- Controllers can add: controls which are almost fool-proof mitigation, AND help with the clumping, pets for those hard-to-control targets and extra damage, and buffs/debuffs. Later, with AoE containment and an AoE from an epic set, they can add AoE damage too.
Plant is probably my favorite control set with good mitigation, a pet and lots of AoE. I also really like Kinetics on controllers, but most sets with at least some offensive debuff should be good, and if your friend intends to hover-blast away from melee, kin doesn't look so nice anymore. If the blaster intends to mix it up in melee blapping occasionally (which should be safe if everything is controlled), you both will love seeing him at the damage cap after a nice fulcrum.
- Masterminds add: mitigation with the pets, buffs/debuffs and AoE damage (though the pets aren't that great early on). They're usually not so great at keeping things clumped together, though, and some MMs develop the tendency to take more care of their pets (which can be quite important, actually) than of their team, so you have to watch for that.
Bots, Thugs and Demons are most people's favorite pets and most buff/debuff sets should work fine.
I'm sure there are many other picks available that would mesh well with your BR/EM, all have their pros and cons, and the real answer kinda depends on whether he wants to hover-blast or to blap more, but these are the options that came quickly to mind. Just pick whatever you like best and what you think you can play well.
(In fact, it's kinda hard to make a duo in CoH that isn't fun and effective... I often just throw totally random characters together in teams with one or two friends, and sometimes we think the duo or trio never will work, than we're surprised later because of how great things went...)
Playing CoH with Gestures
Depends on his build.
Is he range cap hover blaster ?
Is he recharge ?
Do either of you have a clue about creating builds ?
Are you in SOs ?
Are you in IOs ?
How much are you going to spend or not spend ?
What AT won't you play ?
You both can play off Disintegrate so you both can be Beam EM. I hate mentioning this secondary but it seems to work well with Beam primary.
Device..
Blue Centurion had a post a while back about Beam Device and as I played with the build I could see you can obtain range defense cap with it very easily. So in some respecs it was a bit better then Beam Energy per say.
You could drop caltrops in front of you to prevent or slow the mobs from getting at you both. Smoke grenade to give you a bit more defense for 60 seconds and a larger perception debuff as your zipping around missions to get to the end if needed.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
Quote:
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Originally Posted by 1SOHL
I have a friend who is playing a Beam Rifle/Energy Manipulation blaster. I would like to duo with them. What would make a good teammate?
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Any kind of Tank, Scrapper or Brute. Seriously, one to take the Alpha and one to inflict one is a simple, fun and sound strategy.
Best of all you can make another duo where you switch roles and HE gets the alpha-soaker and you play the blaster.
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
Another BR character. BR synchs very well with others with beam rifles too.
BR/ Corrupter, /BR def if you want to be able to buff/debuff too. another BR blaster for serious punch.
Warshade is also a possibility. My reasoning here is that, once you hit 20, you'll have Black Dwarf. If it's just the two of you, you can turn that on and do the ol' tank and spank. If you add more people, however, you can adapt as the situation requires. So if you get more squishy shooty types, you can stick with Dwarf form. If you get someone who can take a punch, you can let them take point, go Nova, and help bring the pain. You will eventually have things like Dark Extraction and Eclipse, too.
Of course, "stay in Dwarf Form" probably sounds less than exciting, and to make Warshades stupidly good requires IOs, so I don't blame you if you pass on this option.
I'd throw in a recommendation for a beam rifle defender or corruptor. Beam rifle stacks very well thanks to both of you getting to leverage your partner's Disintegration, and a little (de)buffing goes a long way towards keeping your duo upright, even without a dedicated damage sponge. On a duo, defenders would get +20% damage from Vigilance, which narrows the damage gap between defenders and corruptors a bit; defenders get significantly nicer (de)buff numbers than corruptors, although the significance of that varies on the sets you use. A Dark/Beam defender would add incredible durability to your team, while still allowing you to focus most of your combat time on blasting. Dark would cripple the enemies through AoE slow/fear/-res/-dam/-tohit along with a solid heal and AoE stealth.
Your largest hurdle would be mediocre AoE damage output, but Beam isn't that horrible at dealing with crowds, and hard targets will be in for a world of hurt.
Rule number six of an empathy defender is NEVER underestimate a blaster's ability to die. I don't care if he has CM, Fort, both RAs, bubbles (both FF and Sonic), and is fighting next to a Storm defender with hurricane on. If there is a way to die in that situation, the blaster will find it.
I have a friend who is playing a Beam Rifle/Energy Manipulation blaster. I would like to duo with them. What would make a good teammate?
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