Incarnate Abilities - Blaster Friendly Suggestions?
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-06-07 13:16 in Blasters
First off, respec. If you've got Fitness as a pool pick, you can respec. The Fitness pool is inherent now.
Second. Generally, pick an Alpha that's going to give you the biggest improvement. The default is Musculature because everyone, especially blasters, have lots of damage powers so a universal SO level boost is always nice. But if you find yourself sucking wind often, Cardiac will likewise drop your endurance usage in pretty much everything.
Basically you can use it to patch a hole in your build if you feel you need that extra boost, or you can use it to boost up your strengths.
As for the other slots... Interface is popular for the fire damage and res debuff, but you can pick anything that compliments your build or style. They all do extra damage and/or debuff.
Judgment is whatever you want. They're -all- good and they -all- kill a lot of enemies. A lot of folks pick Ion for the chain lightning jump but the others all have huge areas of effect anyway.
Destiny, again, go with what is going to work for you. Barrier is a great survival tool for those without res/def. Rebirth is good for a self heal. Clarion is excellent mez defense. Really Destiny is the one you'll probably want to build multiple types of for the utility offered.
And Lore is, again, pretty much up to preference. They're all pretty good and most hit like trucks (with notable exceptions like Seers) So pick what fits best with concept unless you're looking for specific kind of support (debuffs, buffs, damage types, etc).
Well firstly let me suggest respecing your character so you can get a couple more power choices in place of those fitness powers. Since that pool's inherent and all nowdays. Granted you probably already know that, but still. Oh, if you do respec I'd also suggest maybe switching out fire blast for flares. Since they changed the animation speeds for all the T1 and T2 blasts for all blaster sets I believe flares out DPSs and DPAs fire blast.
As far as the alpha slot goes it is pretty subjective though I'd say spiritual (for the recharge) and muscular (for the damage) are probably your best picks for a blaster.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
Unfortunately, its #2: its a truism that what you should slot depends on what you want to do. For example, you're AR so you intrinsically have some extra range most blasters don't have in burst and slug. You could push that further with Cardiac, which can also grant Endurance reduction and Damage resistance strength. If you have issues with endurance and you took damage resistance powers like tough or temp invuln in the force epic pool, that could buy extra survivability and better endurance management and more range.
On the other hand, if you want to straight up deal more damage, there are two main ways to do that. You could go Musculature and get straight damage buff. Or you could go Spiritual or Agility for +recharge which will recharge your attacks faster: Agility will give you more recovery, defense, and possibly movement, while Spiritual would grant more healing and regen, which could be helpful if you took Aid Self.
Depending on what you want to do, any Alpha could be useful, although in the absence of any detailed information I would say look to those first.
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Wow, great helps already! I'm certainly going to respec but I was somewhat worried it would mess up incarnate slotting. I see that some min/max in the fighting pool for res and def boosts but the numbers are too inconsequential to me. I was told I'd be a glass cannon and I wanna be the best cannon I can be!
Besides, since my damage numbers are the highest stat I have, they get the most out of boosting. I might as well work with that one directly rather than tossing out the same power twice (albeit quickly!) in order to do more damage at the expense of more stamina.
With the mention of respec for a x/dev blaster, is it a lateral move to take the concealment power pool over cloaking device? I'd like to stay in my secondary if the numbers are good enough. Thanks!
Fireclad - Neon Peon - Inner Voice - Confused Larry - Pep Squad - Bob's Secret - Squidclad
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Don't worry too much about it. Switching incarnate choices around is a lot easier than respeccing since you can craft multiple ones and switch them out at will when you aren't in combat.|
Originally Posted by Fireclad
I'm certainly going to respec but I was somewhat worried it would mess up incarnate slotting
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fireclad
With the mention of respec for a x/dev blaster, is it a lateral move to take the concealment power pool over cloaking device? I'd like to stay in my secondary if the numbers are good enough. Thanks!
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Ah. Here's the current state of the art in thinking about attacks. You get the best results when you use your best attacks as often as possible, and when those attacks are buffed as much as possible.|
Originally Posted by Fireclad
Besides, since my damage numbers are the highest stat I have, they get the most out of boosting. I might as well work with that one directly rather than tossing out the same power twice (albeit quickly!) in order to do more damage at the expense of more stamina.
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You have a certain number of single target attacks and a certain number of AoEs. When in the presence of lots of targets, all other things being equal your best damage output will occur when you hit them with AoEs. When you are facing just a single target, your best result will occur when you use your best single target attacks as often as possible. The definition of "best single target attack" is the attack that does the most damage in the least amount of time, essentially the attack with the highest DPA: Damage / Activationtime.**
So recharge can help damage output in two ways: it can recharge AoEs quicker for when you want to spawn AoEs on lots of targets, and you generally need significant amounts of recharge to use AoEs a lot (and a lot of recovery). And it can recharge your highest DPA single target attacks quicker so you can use them more often. Very high recharge, in the modern game where the invention system can grant giant piles of recharge - often increases damage by more than damage buffs, which are harder to get.
Good builds try to squeeze the most they can get out of damage buffs, damage procs (enhancements that act a bit like critical hits, and generate bonus damage sometimes at some rate), and recharge buffs. That's without getting into the complexity of doing things like trying to slip in Achilles Heel -Resistance enhancements and things like that into your attacks. If you've been gone since about I5/I6, there are a lot more toys to play with in the game now. The good news is you don't need to do so to be effective, but they'll be there when you decide to go deeper into build-crafting.
** Modification: the amount of time it takes to fire an attack is slightly higher than the documented cast time of the power due to an effect commonly called arcanatime lag. You may see players post about the "Arcanatime" of a power, which is calculated to be (ROUNDUP(CastTime / 0.132) + 1) * 0.132. Damage/Arcanatime represents a much more precise estimate of DPA, and seems to match in-game testing of damage output with a high degree of precision.
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I've never taken concealment's stealth power so I'm not sure how it functions exactly, but a portion of CD's stealth does suppress. It looses 20 feet of its 35 foot stealth radius while in combat (and half of its defense bonus).|
Originally Posted by Garent
The big drawback is that concealment's stealth suppresses while you're in combat, while cloaking device's doesn't, so cloaking device is much better at keeping you from accidentally alerting other enemies while attacking their friends.
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It's always kind of bothers me that CD could pretty easily be replaced with a pool power.
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
Although this isn't as applicable to your Fire/Devices blaster, my own Ice/Energy/Soul blaster has gone the following route on incarnate powers (All Tier 3 because I'd rather upgrade 3 guys to tier 3 instead of one guy to tier 4):
Alpha: Intuition Partial Radial
The key features that grabbed my attention were: Damage that isn't in Musculature, Extra Hold Duration for my 3 holds, and range for my 3 cones. While Fire/Devices may not be as excited about range, so this may not be salient.
Interface: Spectral Total Radial
A damage type somewhat in theme with my character was what I was going for. The secondary Mez effect is gravy, and actually useful the rare times it procs. Stacks nicely with Soul Tentacles.
Judgement: Cryonic Partial Radial
I'm nonplussed by the bonus crit damage offered in the core branches of most of these powers. Partial Radial is the only Tier-3 with 120 feet of range and a 45 degree arc. I feel strongly that greater ease of use will get me more "bonus damage" from hitting more targets, than any random crit rolls ever will.
Destiny: Clarion Partial Radial
THIS is an incarnate power. All those chumps taking Core clarion for their "Perma" protection? Chumps I tell ya! I give up 30 seconds of uptime, and what do I get? I get Boost Range, Power Boost, and a Break Free, all rolled into one power, for everyone within 30 feet. Given a choice, this is the first Incarnate power I would take to tier 4, for the extra radius. The things you can do with this power are just hillarious. Launch 264 foot long Cryonic Judgements is made of pure bliss. The schenanigans aren't as impressive for my other cones, but they are still pretty silly. Coupled with my own Power Boost and Boost Range, this power is amazing, but I imagine it would be quite a boon to non-energy-manipulators as well.
Lore: Phantoms Total Core
They fly, I fly. I'm kinda a wizard or something. It fit. In this slot more than any other I think theme trumps function, because it's pretty obnoxious for me to summon something that is so big and flashy and has nothing to do with my character's powers/theme. My one regret is that you can't disable the ghosty-effect.
The cornerstone powers of my "Incarnate Build" are definitely the Alpha, Judgement, and Destiny powers, with the others being there mostly for fluff/territiary effects, transforming me into a intercontinental ballistic icecube and tentacle deployment platform. It makes the character quite fun because of the sheer distance I can launch what are usually short-ish range attacks from. Incarnating this blaster in particular has taken his existing playstyle and sharpened it into a finely honed weapon, and I've gotten great joy from it. So thank you for the opportunity to gush and maybe get people thinking about how THEY COULD BE BUFFING MY RANGE EVEN FURTHER IF THEY'D JUST COOPERATE JEEZ. :P
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Actually, about cloaking device. Slap a stealth IO in whatever your travel power is. Unless you've got super speed, in which case you've already got full stealth when you use the two together.
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I always pick up Stealth instead of CD simply because Stealth unlocks Phase Shift which gives a much needed rescue power much sooner than Epic Pools.
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Originally Posted by Oliin
I've never taken concealment's stealth power so I'm not sure how it functions exactly, but a portion of CD's stealth does suppress. It looses 20 feet of its 35 foot stealth radius while in combat (and half of its defense bonus).
It's always kind of bothers me that CD could pretty easily be replaced with a pool power. |
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Thanks for all the hard work on these replies. Quite a lot of stuff I'll be incorporating into my respec.
Right now, I'm just running my 'dailies' every 20 hours plus whatever other missions I can get time to do.
Fireclad - Neon Peon - Inner Voice - Confused Larry - Pep Squad - Bob's Secret - Squidclad
I looked around in the forums and guides for some advice on Incarnate abilities. As a returning gamer who has been away for quite a while, I have much to learn. However, I didn't see any suggestions concerning Incarnate abilities and blasters. To be specific, I mean Alpha Slot choices. I thought there might be at least two reasons for this:
1. The 'correct' choices are too obvious.
2. The choices are too subjective.
Consider this question as a blank canvas on which you can share your blaster to blaster suggestions based on your experiences. Specifically, I wouldn't mind personal guidance for my veteran Fire/Dev blaster from Pre-ED/Target Cap CoH.
My lowdown: I'm six slotted on every primary power except Flares. They are my only exemption. I skipped Taser, Timed Mine, Gun Drone and Smoke Grenade in my secondary. Pretty sure I still have fitness as a pool pick along with flight, speed, and recall friend. Epic pool is Fire for Rise of the Phoenix.
Thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Fireclad - Neon Peon - Inner Voice - Confused Larry - Pep Squad - Bob's Secret - Squidclad