Fire Snipe thoughts...

I've got a number of Corruptors with Fire Blast, in fact 3 of them are among my "A list" of 50s that I play frequently. Not that it matters, but their secondaries are /kin, /cold and /time. Maybe one day I'll get around to building up old school /dark and /rad fire corrs as well, but for now those are "B list".

But the purpose of this post isn't to inventory my fire corrs. Rather I want to figure out if the snipe change makes Blazing Bolt not just viable, but worth changing a build to include in an attack chain.

First thing, and I did look around in various threads but didn't see this answered, when you meet the conditions to insta-snipe, does that mean the activation time gets to subtract out the interrupt? So BB would activate in 4.67-3 = 1.67 seconds? Seems like that's where the answer ultimately lies. DPA without interrupt makes it the 2nd highest ST DPA attack, with the interrupt it's the lowest.

Now I've never really paid much attention to the number crunching of ideal attack chains, certainly not for buff/debuff sets where not only can you fill in gaps in the attack chain with something from the secondary, it's entirely possible it's preferable to do something buffy/debuffy rather than blast.

So I set up a simulation of an attack chain of Blaze > Fire Blast > Blazing Bolt > Fire Blast using these assumptions: the blasts all have 60% recharge slotted and global of 185% (including Hasten). I noticed small, .5 second gaps appearing around the third iteration of Fire Blast and the second BB. I'm comfortable with that, given that there would invariably be something from the secondary to do during that time.

Perhaps this is a long-winded way of just asking the fire Corr community if the snipe change has inspired you to replace something in your chain. I won't be looking to take the snipe in addition to existing fire blasts, but to take the place of either Fire Blast or Flares.

For my Fire/Kin, I will get Blazing Bolt and attempt to use it rather than Fire Blast (I don't have Flares). Only after using it and actually seeing how it works for me will I decide whether to keep it or revert to my current build.

My fire/time corruptor's current chain is Blaze -> Fire Blast -> Flares. When I24 hits I'll probably drop Flares for the snipe, giving me an attack chain of Blaze -> Blazing Bolt -> Fire Blast. I'd also need to switch my EPP to soul for Power Boost, which would give enough +to hit out of Farsight to meet the reqs. I may also change up some of my IO sets, since the new attack chain could take advantage of more +recharge. I'm looking at some pretty significant changes actually, depending on how the new fastsnipe works out.

From what I've read, yes, you would subtract the 3 second interupt time to determine the "instant" activation time. I saw it in the Blaster posts on the subject... might have been theorycraft though.

Just remember in order to have it as part of your regular attack chain you need to make sure you have a tohit buff of 22% (if it goes live as talked about on the forums). Corrupters have some difficulty getting there permanently.

Unless there are IO resources I don't know about, you won't be able to achieve that 22% before you get to EPP and Incarnate stuff unless you get help from your secondary or you overslot Tactics like crazy. You will need roughly 62% Tohit buff placed into Tactics in addition to the Kismit proc to achieve that 22%.

To my knowledge, only two corrupter secondaries will help you acheive that (without wasting slots in Tactics), /Time (Farsight) and /Pain (World of Pain with a nasty 240 sec recharge/90 sec duration). Both of these are availible at level 28 and provide a nice 10% tohit buff.

Plus Fire/ gets its snipe at a late level at 26. IMO, the only real choice for it replacing a power in Fire/ is Fire Breath or possibly Fire Blast (DPAwise), the rest of the set is too good.

If all of that is acceptable to you... go for it.

Just curious but do your 'a-list' Fire/ corrs take Inferno? And if not, are you going to work that in as well, in light of the upcoming no-crash nuke changes?

I have a Fire/Dark that isn't 50 yet but these changes, while great, are sure making my job planning her build out tough!