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The person who posted that build has consistently shown tendencies towards survival first. It's excessive in my opinion and completely relegates killing stuff fast, which is also a very effective form of mitigation, to the backseat. Whether you feel the latter comment is true or not it doesn't take away from the fact that the build doesn't jive with your goals of max damage, if that's how you measure "the absolute best." The builds in this thread might be more aligned with your goals, if doing max damage is truly your goal. I recommend @Onlyasandwich's build. Just be aware that Max Damage builds sacrifice safety for damage. Look at the progression that the OP took in that thread, from: "I want the highest DPS possible!" to "I'll just turtle up and hover blast." So, is Max Damage what you REALLY want and is what you are going to give up for it something you are comfortable with?

Depends on your definition of viable. i27 Page 5 allowed us to take powers sooner so the build can be revised to reflect taking key powers earlier, but as for slotting nothing changes. However, I built what I posted with the OP's goals in mind. He wanted a team build with perma-hasten and I built a blaster with perma hasten with a few powers that took advantage of high recharge. The build has very little defense, the premise is that survival is covered by teammates. Let's define what your goals are, is it: 1 - I want to be able to play aggressively and solo mobs meant for a big team without too much help. or 2 - I want a team build and I understand that I'll need teammates to buff/heal/cover me, but when they do I can go all out and maximize my damage potential. Your playstyle and knowledge of the game may also influence what you consider viable: 1 - I know all the tricks to playing blasters from movement, line of sight, using hard/soft controls from my toolkit, target priority and inspirational use and I'm ok with a build that focuses more on damage than survival. or 2 - I see mobs and I snipe them while standing/hovering out in the open, but I keep dying because everything gangs up on me after my snipe. I'm tired of dying. Most people I see opt for survival over damage. You can even see the OP gravitating towards range defense in his revisions. If you have the same mindset then this build will leave a lot to be desired.

Pretty sure power boost boosts the heal in life drain. Surprised that all the people that go bonkers over heals and slot attacks as a heal just because it has a healing component aren't jumping all over this.

Once you joust your first inferno, you will never go back. And if you joust your inferno you also solve solarverse' problem. You're not really in melee all that long, and by the time he hits taunt the team would have moved on to the next mob.

You may find some stuff here helpful

@Frosticus people seem to listen to you. Do Whirlwind next. It's time to bring SPIN awareness to the masses.

So first of all my comment about blappers is not a personal attack on you. I'm just trying to highlight the common philosophy around this AT and how it doesn't align with how every other AT is played. I want to do my part to stop perpetuating this fallacy, and my goal is to help you be successful. As for this comment about interesting builds for teaming, you can always try this jank. You won't have the luxury of softcap defenses with this build but it gives you enough tools to do stuff in melee range. Knowing how to play blasters is key, movement is key. As for your comment about using combat teleport - you can't joust with combat teleport. Your mind is in the right place: get in, get out. But where you are most vulnerable is getting locked in animation while you are in melee range trying to fire off that 2-3 second attack. What good is combat tp when you die to retaliation or get mezzed then die during animation before you can use it to get out? Learn how to joust, it is more useful in those combat situations than combat tp. Secondly, combat tp consumes a pool slot. Typical builds will include hasten sometimes just because. Most go tough/weave, some take leadership for more defense/to-hit/Blind protection, teleport could be the last pool consumed. I'd recommend patching up as many holes as possible if you want to dip your toes in melee. Blasters are weak against mez, some like holds/sleep/disorient you are going to suck it up and burn a breakfree on. Immobilize is yet another mez, it's not as serious as the others because you can still attack, but an immobile blaster is a DEAD blaster. Combat jumping is an easy fix, it give you immob protection. In addition, that jump control gives you better mobility for jousting. An immobile blaster is a DEAD blaster, I also recommend a healthy dose of slow resist. Ever get stuck in a caltrops patch or get slowed by psi attacks that neuter your recharge? Blasters depend on mobility and doing damage, if you can't do either you are going to die. Don't skimp on slow resist.

You are not, it's a real term that makes range blasting sound like the norm and using your melee attacks an outlier. I don't agree with that at all. Blasters use both their primary and secondary and those that skip their secondary are the outliers, Of all the other ATs can you think of any that promotes skipping half their powerset as the norm?

@HjarkiI don't think you are disagreeing with me too much on what I said. I will share my outlook on PbAoEs and what makes /Electric so strong. I do use my pbaoes in the secondary regularly but not all of them are built the same and there are ones I favor and ones I think are doo-doo like atom smasher. The biggest factors are radius, secondary effect and cast time. Lotus drops for example has an 8 ft radius and a meh secondary effect, and it is the doo-dooist of the doo-doo pbaoes because it might as well be a low damage single target attack. Deafening wave is 15ft radius and you can cram hold damage procs galore in that power which makes it the most un-doo-dooist of PbAoEs. And then you have Thunderstrike that has a 10 ft radius, 3 second cast time, doesn't do all that much AoE damage which on paper makes it seem very doo-doo. But it has great secondary effects in AoE knockback (converted to KD) and stun which makes it in fact, not doo-doo and a staple in my /elec kit. Since I'm Fire/Elec I don't get too much value out of shocking grasp as if I were Ice/Elec because I don't have a reliable way of stacking holds, and especially since I slotted Shocking Grasp as an Attack/proc monster I don't get a whole lot of hold duration when I do double stack holds via the Blistering cold proc in charged brawl on a boss. What has consistently allowed me to go toe to toe with multiple +4 bosses is my ability to rotate knockdowns via Thunderstrike and Force of Thunder, and both powers can also stun (not something I bank on). I've espoused chain knockdown when I came back to Homecoming and to date I think people are still underestimating how useful and how fun that is. On my Fire/Elec I have multiple layers for survival - being mobile, kill stuff fast, softcap defenses, chain knockdowns/stun stacking, a hold, and even end drain (which I've used on LGTF against hami to slow down its blasts). On the other hand I also picked Fire/Elec because it has a very fast, high DPA ST attack chain when you look at the cast times on blaze, blazing bolt, charged brawl and shocking grasp. Since Thunderstrike and Force of Thunder both take Force Feedback procs and I spam them regularly as part of my game plan they only feed my recharge rate. More Inferno=more fun. This combination gives me the best of all the worlds - AoE damage, ST damage, Range damage, face punching damage, tankmagery/mitigation, fun.

What you call blapper I call just normal blaster. Don't mistake the term with the notion that you can just stand still in melee range punching stuff. There are powersets that help you stay in melee range a little longer, but movement is still key. Someone mentioned mezzes, they might work ok for even con - +2s, When you run at +4 mez duration drops off due to mob scaling, so they are less effective. Hard controls are rather lackluster in the blaster arsenal. And when I talk about controls I don't mean single target, because while you are neutralizing one mob there are 10 others shooting/punching back. I'm not dismissing the value of single target control, but if you look at the big picture you are rarely engaging just a single target, so you need to make sure their friends can't fight back either. Most of the AoE control tools in the blaster arsenal are also slot traps. They typically do low to no damage, and they demand slots to be remotely spammable/effective, so now your slotting decisions are split between doing damage as you should be as a blaster vs pretending to be a really really really sub par controller. There are exceptions, and there are powers that do good damage that also have a control component, but usually the control component has a chance to happen, so they are not super reliable. That said you don't NEED controls to play a blaster. You are an opportunist, and you can either create opportunities to get a hit or 2 in melee or you can leverage your teammates to create those opportunities. Movement is key. Learn to joust and never look back at the days that you thought blaster safety = hover. There are more layers than that. I favor my fire/elec blaster above any other blaster combinations that I've tried and see other people play in game. I've also done dark/atomic where the two sets are at odds with each other because one wants to be at range firing cones and the other wants to be in melee for punches/pbaoes. The former has mitigation in the form of knockdowns which are much more reliable than other forms of hard control because it takes mobs the same amount of time to get back up regardless of level. The latter I just joust a lot. Movement is key.

Some areas of your build show a good understanding of stacking set bonuses. With a little fine tuning you can create good builds in no time. You don't need to chase perma-hasten on every build. But hasten is nice for double gun drones and faster recharge nova. That said, don't discount what Force Feedback procs add to your overall recharge rate. The trick is to have multiple powers with it so you can more consistently trigger it. Of all your powers that should get a KB-KD trip mine would be it. You are almost always going to plant it in the middle of a pack and that'll send stuff flying everywhere without killing them. All the other ones you can position yourself to direct the knockback if that's your thing, even Nova. Slot attack as attacks. Dead things don't fight back. Heavy hitters deserve more slots than low damage attacks. Caltrops and smoke grenade are one slot wonders. You have to make a decision between throwing that many slots into these powers vs slotting your attacks so you can kill stuff. You also don't need both power bolt and power blast, do you really use both in your single attack rotation? I'd imagine you have enough recharge to string together power burst, snipe and one of these two. I can see taking both as you are leveling, but as a complete build, you can afford to skip one of those. Blasters need to learn to deal with debuffs and mez, period. Inspiration use isn't a sign of weakness. High defenses help, but a lot of mez bypass those defenses and you have no protection from def debuffs. You can't have it all on a blaster, which is why the number 1 rule on blasters is still "kill stuff before it kills you" even if you decide to invest a lot into survival. Your nuke contributes a great deal to that. That said, stock up/convert insp to breakfrees. Here's a rework of the build. Kb-kd procs are in all the AoEs but attacks are still slotted decently to do damage. Musculature pushes enhancement values on all attacks past ED softcap. When you exemp, you'll have very high range defense by level 30 and S/L/R softcap by level 35. Blaster (Energy Blast - Devices).mbd

A build with set bonuses that shoot toward a cohesive goal will be superior to a build with only HOs. However HOs can be used to supplement a build to cover gaps in enhancement values. For example The 2 winter IOs give me slow resistance which is the bonus I want but with 33% damage enhancement on each I'm at 66% damage enhancement and 33% acc enhancement. The Acc/DAM HO pushes those numbers into more acceptable values of 66% Acc enhancement and 95% Dam enhancement. The more useful HOs are Acc/Dam, End/Def/To hit, Recharge/Def/tohit, Dam/Recharge, End/Defdebuff/tohitdebuff. A lot of these serve as the best slotting for one slot wonder powers.

Movement I don't like WASD, there's a lot of real estate for your pinky gone to waste when you bind your move keys so close to the left side of the keyboard. R "+forward" E "+left" T "+right" F "+backward" SPACE "+up" ADD "++autorun" X "powexecname sprint" Targeting A "target_enemy_near" Y "target_enemy_next" I click on the team window to target teammates. If it's an buff like speed boost or bubbles I can buff directly via targetting an enemy that the teammate is fighting. Powers Tray 3 is most of my active clicks, this is where I put most of my attacks/bread and butter powers G "powexectray 1 3" SHIFT+G "powexectray 2 3" H "powexectray 3 3" SHIFT+H "powexectray 4 3" J "powexectray 5 3" Q "powexectray 6 3" S "powexectray 7 3" W "powexectray 8 3" B "powexectray 9 3" U "powexectray 10 3" Tray 2 are for buffs such as build up or heals or long recharge powers such as nukes Z "powexectray 1 2" usually aim D "powexectray 2 2" usually build up of a self heal SHIFT+Y "powexectray 4 2" usually my nuke SHIFT+U "powexectray 5 2" usually my incarnate nuke N "powexectray 7 2" set for whatever I occasionally use The default tray is where my travel powers/incarnate/team buffs like shields sit. Slot 9 is reserved for my travel power/jetpack. 0 "powexec_slot 10" 1 "powexec_slot 1" 2 "powexec_slot 2" 3 "powexec_slot 3" 4 "powexec_slot 4" 5 "powexec_slot 5" 6 "powexec_slot 6" 7 "powexec_slot 7" 8 "powexec_slot 8" TAB "powexec_slot 9" Misc \ "popmenu start" I built a pop menu to load my default settings Inspirations I normaly just click on the inspirations myself F1 "inspexec_slot 1" F2 "inspexec_slot 2" F3 "inspexec_slot 3" F4 "inspexec_slot 4" F5 "inspexec_slot 5" Mastermind binds - I find the numberpad binds overly complex and not necessary for 99% of content. I tend to focus fire and control all my pets at once, so the tiering is not useful to me. G "powexectray 1 3$$petcomall attack" V "petcomall dismiss" X "powexecname sprint$$petcomall follow defensive" J "petcomall goto" I do use a set of rotating binds for buffing mm henchmen that lets me use one key to apply both buffs. I also use rotating binds for my kheldians but the core control binds don't deviate from my default binds listed above.

Most ATs would die to have an endurance sustain that blasters have access to. Slotting it means you rarely have to worry about endurance issues. Others may disagree, a lot of players will overlook everything else a power does and focus only on healing if a power has a healing component. My advice is don't get too hung up on heals on these sustain powers, it won't save you. Slot it for endurance recovery, it allows you run more toggles such as tough/weave/maneuvers and those help you a lot more than a measly 35hp/second bonus to regeneration will ever accord you.

Hi Sakura Sun, happy to help! First let's define the scope and the game plan: As I mentioned in game one of the easier routes to bump up your survival is building for defense. If your primary playstyle is ranged then high range defense is a good build goal. Accelerate metabolism is a cornerstone buff and people gravitate towards making it perma when building radiation emission. The build in the screenshot is primarily focused on recharge and damage via damage procs. But it has questionable omissions in IO sets such as the other Defender Archetype Origin set (Superior Vigilant Assault) that gives 10% global recharge at just 3 slots. One thing it definitely does not have is the kind of survival that aligns with your goals. My mids export is erroring out so I'm attaching a build via PDF. This version is the "no expense spared" version Expensive Rad Rad.pdf On Page 4 you will see the stat breakdown. Notice the 45% range defense - that's the softcap for most content and it means most mobs will have only a 5% chance of hitting you with a ranged attack. Notice that on top you also have 74% smashing/lethal damage resistance, which is the most common damage type in the game. Notice further down you also have 85% recharge resistance, which means that enemies that apply slows will not instantly neuter your powers recharge timer. This is especially important for accelerate metabolism, as your endurance management depends on it. Hasten and Accelerate metabolism are both perma and you will have one hard hitting single target hold in dominate. The downside to this build is that it uses quite a few expensive Winter IO sets and Purple sets. If you work up the budget it can be something to work towards. Alternatively you can accomplish similar survival/recharge goals without the slow resist through much cheaper IOs: Cheaper Rad rad.pdf The cost difference between the two builds is around half a billion inf. Performance wise, you will start feeling "super" with the cheap version.

Do you use your melee powers as a blaster? If no there's no advantage to fire/fire compared to fire/ice. In fact Fire/ice is better because it has more tricks to keep you safe. If you do use your melee powers often and fight big pack of mobs all the time then fire/fire is a good fit. All fire/fire has is damage and if you don't pay attention and/or don't have support you'll die a lot. The fire epic is the pool of choice for range blasters, bonfire with a kb-kd IO is pretty OP. Bad blasters also swear by rise of the phoenix. Fire/fire/fire is thematic and that's why a lot of people play it, similar to ice/ice/cold and elec/elec/elec. Rarely do these samey combos have synergy outside of theme. There's also something to be said about diversifying your damage types. Having said that, there's no reason why you can't keep your fire/ice and still level your fire/fire. The game overall is pretty easy and even the 2nd best or 30th best combo can still hang with the rest and contribute.

I would drop static discharge, between psi scream, shockwave and howl you have a full cone chain. That lets you fit in evasive maneuvers for more air mobility. If you plan to take advantage of powers that puts you in melee range you are better off dropping the entire flight pool, pick up combat jumping + super speed and learn to joust. Getting stuck in animation right in the middle of a pack while you are trying to fire off a 2 second AoE is a great way to get yourself in trouble even if you do build for defense. When I see people asking of build help, 90% of the time it's not the build that'll take you to the next level, it's understanding game mechanics. A quick glance at your build tells me that you are probably not at the ranged defense softcap despite the artilleries. You most likely don't have 95% chance to hit +4 mobs either. Recharge looks low for a secondary whose endurance/HP sustain depends on recharge. And as I said you can redirect those slots into static discharge into your other cones. Going 5 slots deep into luck of the gambler just for some S/L resist is also not the most efficient use of slots. For a cookie cutter template I would pick up scorpion shield and build for S/L + Ranged defense. It's possible to still melee blast with pure range defense and a resist shield but that's where mobility becomes even more paramount because you will have to constantly move to trick Mob AI into not meleeing you. If you don't want to do that, then keep a steady supply of lucks, pop one or two before you engage and convert others into purples in your downtime. Here's a quick workup of what a cookie cutter build focused on S/L + Range defense looks like. I always try to keep a healthy dose of slow resist as well, and it's pretty important for Mental Manip. Any slows will neuter the recharge of drain psyche and that's a significant part of your survival on top of your defenses. Sonic Mental.mbd If you want to squeeze more procs in then you'll have to sacrifice defense. A common strategy is to build towards 32.5% defense so that one luck softcaps you. That gives you a bit more room to fit procs in. Just remember if you are going to proc out a hold you still need enough ACC bonuses to make sure it hits. However, based on your comment about catching a lot of aggro, I think you are better off with the cookie cutter template till you learn all the blaster tricks of the trade.

You guys are way behind on the Axe trend. That was very 2020. Now whirlwind is the new cool. Don't miss out and pick up whirlwind today!

It depends on how far you want to dial up the difficulty. You may or may not know this but you can set your difficulty. There's a speech bubble next to where you type in chat and you can set notoriety and select mob levels in missions relative to your level and the team size. You should have no issues with SOs with the default difficulty level for the most part. It's when you ramp up that you'll start noticing your survival taking a hit. However if you team a lot then your teammates can help out in that department.

I have seen a fair share of panda hate I must say. A lot people out there want to make panda steaks. That's constitutes a hostile work environment people.

Congrats on your first 50! It'll get easier from here now that you have a 50 to fund your other alts. I looked at your build. I have comments. A full set doesn't always mean the most benefit. This game like many others is about stacking similar stats. And the set bonuses are those stats. In this game the two main stats that people build for are: Defense Recharge Recharge is straightforward, the more is better, until you hit a point of diminishing returns. In general if you can hit 90-100% global recharge bonus that's really good, more global recharge bonuses past that point fall off in effectiveness and bang for the buck. Defense is more complex, there are multiple vectors for defense and people usually focus on 1 or 2 on non-defense oriented ATs/combos. There are a few strategies with blasters. 1 - if you just want to keep at range and shoot and avoid melee, range defense is a catch all and it'll cover 80% of ranged attacks, some range attacks are flagged as AoE and will not check against your range defense. A popular strategy with pure range blaster is to build for high range defense and pick up a resist epic shield, so that anything that does get past your range defense hits for less. 2 - if you want to mix it up and punch face as well then my preference is Smashing/Lethal defense, which covers most attacks in melee range, PLUS range defense, which covers the stuff shooting at you from range. Some examples of where you can clean up and optimize your slotting a bit, this is not what I would actually recommend, it just serves to highlight the general philosophy and approach to building: If you want to stack stats then any slots past the desired stat you want to chase is unnecessary. take recharge for example All these 6 slotted sets provide recharge at the 5th slot. The last slot doesn't provide any meaning synergy/contribution towards a build goal that's focused on recharge. Also, the luck of the gambler Defense/Increased Recharge Speed takes up a SINGLE slot and offers 7.5% recharge bonus and you can slot up to 5 of them in a build. That's the basics. I've done similar exercises with other posters on shoringup their build. If you fancy a read start here. Happy to help if you have any questions afterwards

You can try something offbeat like this:

I'm not seeing too many procs. You have vengeance and victory rush toggled on and those give you an inaccurate account of your overall stats. If your goal is to play at range why not build for range defense? A full set doesn't mean you get the most out of them. You are overslotted on hover, tactics, maneuvers, weave, frozen armor. Start here if you want a walk through on building with a goal and purpose and optimizing your slots Then stop here for proc slotting on Ice Blast Hope this gives you the perspective you need to succeed. Ping me if you have any questions.

People like that exist but for the most part the price of most IOs have kept the same over the years. The average price of a regular IO from a regular set hovers around 2-4 mil, depending on how patient you are. That hasn't really changed since 2019. The existence of enhancement converters adds another dimension to getting the IOs you need but unlike vaal orbs you won't ever brick your IO. You really don't have to play the price gouger's game unless you are impatient. There are plenty of other ways to get what you need for your build. Considering most IOs top off at 4 mil, with LOTGs 7.5s hovering around 6 mil, ATOs and a few of the quintessential PVP ios broach 8-10mil, it is very possible to get the core of what you need for a build for under 300 mil. Purples and winter IOs propel a build into the mid-high end spectrum. Most builds you see on the forums are in fact high end builds, people usually ask for "what's the best with an unlimited budget" (which by the way is a terrible way to ask for build advice). There's also the ability to craft your drops and use converters to convert undesirable crafts into more useful sets, keep the ones you can use and sell the others for a modest profit. Finally for those more expensive IOs like purples and winter sets you always have the option to trade for them via merit vendor if you don't want to wait. People will tell you it's not the best way to spend merits but if you get what you need why does that matter? Merits like any other commodity in this game is easy to acquire. You can run a speed Apex/tin in around 30-40 minutes, a speed ITF in another 20, and that'll net you 100+ merits for an hour's worth of playtime on top of influence/drops gained. And again, you don't need a top tier build to run those to start. There are plenty of people that get carried on those when they start and then they upgrade their builds as they accumulate more resources. The hardest journey is the first 50, everything after that will become a lot easier.

This game is nowhere near POE's level of complexity when it comes to itemization and builds. The IOs are defined and there's no variation in their parameters, so you don't need to develop currency generating workflows and spend hours on POE trade/crafting just to find the BIS gear. In addition it's much easier to attain end game goals with this game than POE where most builds just die off when they reach yellow/red maps because at that point itemization becomes so paramount it stymies progress for all but the most hardcore gamers. And those people that claim they have amassed billions upon billions of inf are just flashing their wealth, it's absolute excess and you can kit out your builds with a budget of a few hundred mill which isn't tremendously difficult in this game. You don't need to game the market every waking moment playing this game and still be able to outfit your characters. Compare to live when you still lived in the age of Hamis being Best in Slot, the game evolved beyond the power level that hamis offered with sets and set bonuses first and foremost, and incarnates second. There's really no other game that makes you feel as god-tier with a moderate decent build as this one and you can do so even on a budget without spending billions and billions of inf. I think you are on the right track to improve your gaming experience from a currency standpoint, but I wouldn't get sucked into the idea that you need billions upon billions of influence to succeed and have fun. FYI when I came back I won a few costume contests and then used that to fund my first character, then I ran a lot of speed TFs (more apex/tinmages than I care to admit) to generate a lot of reward merits and I actually used those merits to buy IO recipes from merit vendors to upgrade my build before I started selling drops on the market. Farming came much later and only because I learned about super packs and wanted to generate some extra capital to buy winterpacks during the winter event when they were discounted (that's no longer happening). Bottom line is you don't need to go into the extremes of currency generation, you can still spend the majority of your time playing the game, supplement that with a modicum of selling stuff on the market/farming/speed run stuff for merits, and still generate enough inf to start funding your next alt.