so what is the revised, revised view of blaster primaries i24?

Do you have any numbers to support this statement?

13

Check out this n00b. The answer was clearly 36. Do you even play this game?

Pfft. Mental keeps its throne unless DP gets nerfed.

Mental is going to be barely beating devices for most people.

And yeah devices will still be at the bottom.

Edit: Devices may actually be better.

That's retarded. I guess if you're talking about poor people Blasters that'd be true, but I'm pretty sure "if you're poor you're doing it wrong" is a longer standing indication of failure. At the high end, controlled by a skilled player, /Mental Blasters will still be at a performance level that's unreachable by every other Blaster secondary.

If by poor you mean blasters that aren't running tailored AE missions, then you have a point.

lol wut? I'm pretty sure that being able to softcap all your positions with a small purple (with layered s/l/e resistance to boot,) hardcap your regen in an alpha strike and permanently debuff an AV/GM's regen by 500% works outside of AE missions.

You make it sound like the other secondaries won't be able to achieve everything but the -regen, and do it without having to aggro a spawn.

The self +regen won't be as high either. Oh and also, perma DP builds never have to worry about building for sustainable endurance, so there's another advantage.

And since when is eating alpha strikes a bad thing? The aggro is the fun part.

Actually, I've been thinking about rolling Sonic/Ice when I24 rolls around. Its one of my candidate test combos to level during the beta: I have a feeling its going to be an incredibly tough build.

Don't get me wrong: I think Energy Manipulation is getting a great deal in I24. But just as I think people couldn't see past the perma /devices thing initially and I had to actually point out what Energy is going to be able to leverage, I don't think the other secondaries have been given fair shakes yet either. More than double the slotted absorb that energy is likely to get in regen and healing, plus a much wider chilling embrace, combined with the current strengths of ice patch and an almost cheating level of stacking sleep past 38, plus a non-crashing dreadful wail, sounds like one of the more interesting I24 combinations coming up.

I could have told you that...anyone with a Sonic/Ice right now could have told you that. Of the Blaster combos, it probably has the most solo controls and a contender for the 2nd highest team controls. Just add absorb and you're looking at a different kind of Blaster, namely an offensively limited one but a heck of a hard one to kill.

People want to add dmg to Frozen Aura but I'd much prefer targeting the weakest link of the set: Shiver. Frozen Aura actually gives an avenue for good solo survival whereas Shiver can be made rather redundant. Swap Shiver for a clone of Arctic Breath (moderate cone dmg with -def/-res, slow, -rech and knockdown-over-time) and suddenly Ice Manipulation will have a leg to compete on with offense and stand out as superior team and solo control but low utility (only BU really).

Don't get me wrong either other secondaries won't be unplayable anymore than they are unplayable now. Energy is just getting a triple/quadruple play that puts them to shame.

Even with your example of Sonic, Sonic /Energy now has a non crashing power boosted AoE mag 3 stun that also is a nuke and reduces the resistance of everything it hits. Then you can just stack a stun on anything not yet deceased.

The new nukes really solve energy's old problem of the lack of that extra AoE and then goes even further for those with secondary effects.

If /Energy is making out better, its probably not by that wide an amount. As I mentioned, /Ice is getting the Absorb toggle, but while regen effects are being targeted at 1%/sec half-enhanceable, Absorb is being targeted at 1.67%/sec fully enhanceable. That's a high enough absorb to make it easily the equal of perma energize, even factoring in power boost.

I think power boost has always been a bit underrated, but its not getting any stronger in I24. It is getting a few more things to boost like Sonic's nuke, but /Energy is also mostly single-target focused while /Ice has and will be getting better at AoE mitigation. AoE mitigation is more difficult to leverage today except for high end builds, but in I24 blaster survivability could increase high enough to put that in play. And /Ice in particular has a path to very strong mitigation if Absorb can be fully leveraged.

If it can be fully leveraged, and that's an open question before testing, /Ice's absorb toggle fully slotted with have approximately the strength of unslotted Instant Healing, perma.

Energize will also be providing /Energy an incredible end management tool. Is the extra benefit from absorb, outweighed by easily softcapped defenses and the ability to fight at extreme range ? For enemies that have more melee attacks than ranged you would think so.

/Energy already has that very nice ability to softcap defenses by leveraging power boost. I think you are missing just how strong the new secondary effects it has to play with. 20 second mag 3 stuns, 20 Second holds, -60% to hit for blackstar, and powerboost and Thunderous blast give electric blasters what they have been asking for, a meaningful way to sap an entire spawn.

/Energy was already a top two contender before the changes, I just don't see anything that got enough boost out of them to come from behind and overtake it.

I'd say that depends on the player. Fighting long range, while a survivability advantage, can also be a liability for sets that are more attuned to closer range. I can see any secondary with supplemental PBAoE effects (doesn't even have to be damage, just something) synergizes better, IMO, than boost range ever could. Sets like Dual Pistols, Electric Blast, Rad Blast and to an extent Psy and Energy Blast gain a sideways benefit of leveraging PBAoEs with stuff like Soul Drain, damage auras, Chilling Embrace, Drain Psyche and the like which can't really be duplicated with /Energy.

IMO, /Energy is probably best suited for cone focused sets like Dark Blast and Assault Rifle but doesn't go badly with any particular set (it enhances them all, really). Still, a Rad/Energy probably won't be even half as good as my Rad/Dark if only because Soul Drain synergizes way better with Irradiate and Atomic Blast both. Sonic/Ice is sort of the same way, leveraging sleeps solo (Frozen Aura is suppose to be getting a range improvement too) plus the slows and absorb slowing incoming damage even more. KD patch for controlling multiple bosses that pass through that? Nuke everything with Wail then put whatever survives to sleep so you can pick them off while they're weakened?



But /Ice has more mitigation outright. Not bagging on /Energy, but even now /Ice has more. But it has less offense than Energy but you're not really talking about that. With the absorb, defense will be good but resistance will be just as good if not better since you have a means to slow down the enemy's attacks (all of them if you need to). /Energy doesn't have that capabilities by itself, it can only improve upon what other sets have.

I'll wait and see what is on BETA, until then my blasters gather dust.

I don't know what Frigid Protection is getting in terms of endurance management, but Field Operative (aka Cloaking Device) was demonstrated as delivering about 1.53%/sec of recovery, which is significantly more than slotted quick recovery. The net recovery shown with stamina and field operative was about 4.11%/sec which is more recovery than my incarnate SR scrapper has with Agility Core Paragon.

(Also worth noting that while field operative was up combat attributes showed zero endurance consumption, which is consistent with Arbiter Hawk saying that it would be silly for recovery toggles to burn significant endurance).

Power boost does help defense, but its extremely difficult to perma, and because it doesn't affect defensive set bonuses its contribution to defense buffs on an energy blaster is actually not usually that high.

Boost range is probably the least appreciated energy manipulation power, but I can't imagine lots more people falling in love with boost range in I24 over now.

I certainly like energy manipulation: I've been saying its the most balanced blaster secondary in terms of having the best mix of abilities from blapper to ranged blaster since probably my first week on the forums, but I don't think any generalist set like energy can really be fairly considered multiples better or stronger than the other more specialized secondaries.

I don't know how you are playing it, but standing in the middle of a spawn and firing off a two and a half second soul drain is going to need considerable levels of defense to ride out. Especially true when you are following up with a 3 second cast nuke. Even if you can consistently max out soul drain you are missing the synergy of power boost and stunning melee attacks from energy with radiation's stuns.


To say /energy just improves on other sets is to damn with faint praise. /Energy also has the advantage its offense is also its mitigation as well. Stun+Total focus = neutralized boss.