Beam Rifle Secondary Advice

With the Issue 24 updates to the Blaster archetype announced, I would like to try a Beam Rifle Blaster. The problem is I have no idea what secondary I would like to try.

I plan on mostly soloing from levels 1 through 50, and then mostly participating in raids and Incarnate trials. I would prefer to stay at range.

With all that in mind, and the upcoming Issue 24 updates, what secondary would you suggest for Beam Rifle?

Well depends

Do you want to hold , damage or both?

If you are soloing, and prefer range, you simply can not beat Energy Manip. With boost range, the hardest part of staying far away is a maps geometry.

Beam Rifle is probably the most range-oriented Blaster set. Energy will do well for you, maybe even Devices come I24.

Devices is nice because it pretty much doesn't have any in-combat redraw, it supports a long range playstyle and it is going to pair swimmingly with snipe sets. My issue 24 blaster is beam/devices for conceptual as well as gameplay purposes.

Energy is great, you can't really go wrong with it, but I'll differ with MisterD on the utility of boost range. Having used it extensively since launch, I now feel that in the vast majority of cases it is a white elephant for the set. You'd feel silly to skip such a unique and theoretically potent power but situations that take advantage of it are few and far between. When it is useful it still manages to annoy you by requiring constant recasting.

The two places where it strikes me as credibly powerful are street sweeping and fighting Hamidon. Against many regular enemies it allows you to smush them with impunity as long as you can be sure that you're more than 80 feet from the highest point they can reach on foot. Thing is, even now on live blasters don't really need to be that scared of most enemies. We're talking issue 24 here, it's going to be a lot harder to be killed by a boss and a couple minions. I'd say the same of Hamidon: why not just kill a blue from normal range? If you're sniping away from 300 feet you're also not receiving any team buffs or anything like that.

So, with too many words said about boost range, what does energy still give you? Build up, power boost, energize and a couple nice melee attacks. I think beam rifle in issue 24 pretty much speaks for itself and thus benefits more from a set's buffs than from any supplemental attacks. As such you can stack those up to field operative, targeting drone, caltrops, and maybe some of the other stuff appeals to you more than it does to me.

I would look at Device.

The IO sets bonuses will allow you to set up for Range cap Hover blasting fairly easy. Caltrops will be good for keeping mobs away from your area even though your hovering.

Again because of the IO set bonuses this offers you some decent numbers.

I'll second /devices, god help me.


Caltrops is invaluable for keeping enemies away and come I24 Targeting Drone will give you 'insta snipe' at will, making this terrific single target set even better. Targeting Drone isn't great, but it's a nice set mule and the buff that made it instant-cast means it's useful to pop out in an emergency to distract enemies with.


Now all they need to do is spruce up Trip Mine & Time Bomb and I'll have run out of things to whine about!

I went Beam/Devices, although I also have a Beam/Traps. Does great damage and since I can use most /Dev powers before a fight, I don't deal with redraw or the 'I have 8 billion attacks' issue. Drop Trip Mine for the big spankin' defiance buff and go to town with Overcharge. If any straggler manages to drag his sorry *** to your position, well, that's what the Trip Mine was for.

Fair points about Boost Range and em..but..neglecting the chances to Cloaking Dev (or whatever it is)...Devices really does not offer anything much you cant already get from pools.
Sure..you can spam webnade at stay at range..but if you are staying at range, why wouldnt you be on a hover blaster anyway? Cloak..you get def and stealth from stealth, to hit from tactics (with confuse and fear res).
I have not heard amazing things about the damage from gun drone..and the mines arent going to be much use playing at range.

I just like Energy Manip

Actually my beam/dev is my first flying-and-not-combat jumping character in probably at least six years. It's hard to keep track at this point. Beyond cloaking device/field operative just being a good sustain power, the reason I like it with beam is that beam is good at long range, right? Know what else is good at range? Ranged defense! Know what goes well with ranged defense? Regen! Especially since hover and fly don't detoggle under mez, just in getting the blaster to the mid-20s in preparation for the update I've found it to be a surprisingly fun combination.

It's almost like it is already good without issue 24's updates. That is pretty hard to believe though because it would imply that blasters don't completely suck.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Back to your point, yeah, it isn't so much that I am fully appreciating all that devices has to offer, it's more that the highlights of devices beautifully compliment beam rifle. I was about to get into my feelings on why beam rifle will be particularly intriguing in issue 24 but I obviously tend to get long-winded and this thread is already about beam rifle so there's no need for that.

That is true..beam is such a good 'rangey' set. My Beam/Em is ALSO my first non ss/cj toon in a good 4 years. lol. I just wanted to try something with fly and that seemed to fit well.
I just wish fly wasn't so..I dont know. Not quite right. lol

To exacerbate the derail, I know what you mean about fly. Have you set up binds for it? They don't do anything for the physics but they can make using it in a pinch much less difficult. I've got fly on my first thumb button, afterburner on my second thumb button and hover on C. Now I just need to grow an extra finger to hit a ninja run toggle and it'll be sorted. It certainly beats my old technique of trying to click on the powers in the tray when I wanted to move because something started shooting at me!

Hrm, I think I'll have to make both a Beam Rifle / Devices and Beam Rifle / Energy Blaster, take 'em to 35, and see how they shake out.

Wait wait wait after 8 years of playing and forum lurking, I make a BR/Dev and it's FOTM all of a sudden? Having a lot of fun with mine, btw.

*cough cough*

I would wait and see IF a new blaster secondary was coming out.

*nudge nudge*

IF one were to come out I'll bet it would be really cool and work well with Beam.

*Looks at OP awkwardly*

Yep, it sure would be neat IF a new blaster secondary was in the near future

Just for the record too, with the changes to blaster secondaries and snipes coming Devices went from being one of the worst to arguably the best secondary for blasters. So I wouldnt be so hard on yourselves.

If your set has a decent snipe then seriously consider /Devices.

Not that martial combat doesn't look like a great set which would work just fine with beam rifle, but it strikes me as one I'd want to pair with a primary that enjoyed mixing it up at closer range. Even disregarding the melee attacks, you've got your pbaoe teleport, you've got your slow aura, the short range cone disable... I'm thinking that'll be more fitting with water blast, for example.

What APPs are people thinking of for Beam/Dev? Right now I'm leaning towards Force for the nice res shield to go alongside ranged defense, and a little extra AoE since Beam seems to be lacking in it.