Yet more Beam Rifle.. Strategies? Suggestions?

So there was a thread asking questions about Beam a bit ago, I never know the proper rules so i just created a new one rather than necro/hijack the other.

I bought the Beam Rifle set in preparation for retro sci-fi costumes ( ray guns and jet packs yay!) I want to hover blast so as much as i'd like traps it's not fitting my concept.. the whole no aerial trip mine thing you know. I rolled a beam/rad and it's.. ok though I am not sure i am playing her right..and now I am having second thoughts.. Perhaps Dark is the way to go.. dark seems interesting with it's heal and "controls" tar patch to keep pesky flying mobs away from me..shadowfall that can be coupled with a stealth proc for ghosting missions kinda sorta...Both seem like fun but of course i want the most fun! No one likes face planting all the time.. OK maybe blasters :P

I have spent days reading throguh the corrupter and the blaster forums tryign to get ideas for builds and strategies.. not a lot of love out there for Beam

What I am not to sure of is the soloness ( huh is that even a word?) of beam/rad or beam/dark.. and when i say solo i mean from level 1 on up not just soloing at level 50 with incarnate powers.

Which is better for said solo in your opinions? /rad or/dark.. What are some strategies for fighting? Right now my Beam/rad is only 16 and fighting consists of applying toggle and spinning around while shooting things underneath me.. or taking it full in the face inside caves.

Side note i did consider FF/Beam fender but... meh i kinda like all the orange numbers! "Bzzzht disentergrate.. scourge "

Thanks for any input

Blue Centurion posted up a thread in the Blaster forums a while back about Beam Device.

After doing some messing around in Mids I came to discover that because of the IO sets you could place in both Beam and Device it was much, much easier to obtain range defense cap with Beam Device then it was with my AR Device. Foolishly I just assumed both pretty much had the same IO choices. I don't know why I did. , I just did. End result I Mia Culpa myself and have to say that it is probably the one set that I would not gripe about seeing with Device. Device on a whole I think needs improvement but I think if you do the work you will see a Beam Device Blaster can obtain range defense and hover along with Trip mines. So you pretty much can slot all of beam and I'm sure all of Device.

End result it should be a 4/8 solo toon which is nothing to gripe about.

Thanks Plainguy! I did indeed read that thread and several others you replied to, both about Beam and Blasters in general. I have to confess you are a wealth of information and i always appreciate your insightful and honest posts.

So while i may have come here to seek advice on Beam /rad or/dark you just convinced me to give a Beam/Dev a try!

I have a beam/son corr and built for extra def hes pretty stout I hover blast all day and stay very safe really only incarnate stuff proves a threat and thats not often

As sort of a side note, I find storms and cold domination to be good for hover blasting since snow storm will drop flyers that are harassing you.

Beam goes well with /Cold and /Storm...with enough ranged defense nothing can touch you if you go the storm route. FF/Beam is also an awesome choice.

Don't go for traps...there's to much going on and beam loses it's OOMPH! IF you have a secondary that's entirely to busy.

/Dark is also an excellent choice since it's not that clicky and Tar Patch keeps them in a tight little spot.

I wouldn't pair it up with rad...but I have my own opinion about rad. The Anchors like to run and beam can't handle too much heat since it's mostly ST.