Novacat

Actually snipers don't ignore stealth as far as I can tell. It's just that because their sight radius is like 150 feet instead of 55 or less, even 65ft of stealth will still leave them shooting your ass beginning a little under a hundred feet away. Stealth will let you get in your own snipe's range and deal with it before they know what hit'em though.

How about some mutually exclusive copy paste, like crab venom grenades? One normal one without taunt? Easy, quick, and let's those who want to keep it keep it.

If you mean tough as in resilient, you'll not really find anything quite up to the level of stalkers let alone tankers. Ninja doesn't offer anything for that that you can't get in other sets: Field Operative in /Devices gives just as much defense while Targeting Drone's a stronger damage buff. /Tactical Arrow's got some solid buffs as well and also has a 1.75% defense like those above, in this case built into Gymnastics (which also includes some mez resistance, knockback/up protection and some extra jumping height). Reaching even 40% ranged defense (S/L can be a bit easier) is hard without extensive IO bonuses, and reaching 45% might require some harsh decisions for your build's offense/utility. The grand majority of your resilience will come from pools: Weave, Maneuvers, and your patron defense (Scorpion Shield is a popular one due to 10.5% Smash/Lethal and 7% Energy defense), and then IOs. But, that's not necessarily all that bad, as you've got a different set of tools. Your blasts hit rather hard and most of them pack some form of soft control or debuff in them: everything in dark debuffs tohit for example while energy's got tons of knockback everywhere. Your level 32 primary power may not have as high a target cap but hits basically like incarnate judgements (if you're used to those for comparison) and Aim and/or Build-Up (and/or chance of build-up IO on aim) also help ensure those biggest hits do serious damage. There's also snipes which smack single targets like trucks and do so even harder if you're not in combat at the time. Caltrops and all sorts of other fun stuff like bonfires or ice patches can make it that the grand majority of the time the only defense category that you need is 'Ranged'. You may have a pet or pseudo-pet, your secondaries all pack a regen/recovery power (like Field Operative) that offers other stuff, though the exact details vary (it could be an absorb shield instead, or an actual heal-tick, or energize which just shrinks your endurance costs to a trickle) across the sets... And teammates won't complain about having more stuns or holds or even just -hit thrown around with everything you do either. Time Shift for example is an area Mag3 stun with -Speed and a mild -tohit on it just to be safe, while Burst of Speed is a teleport-attack with 200ft range and three shots per charge cycle! And your melee attacks, when you do have them... most of them outside of /Ninja hit bloody hard and pack some nasty debuff or CC like stuns and knockdowns too. 3-4 seconds of "it has to get back up" may not seem like much to a tanker, but that's all the time you need to incinerate them and their friends with a blaster. Once their health is gone, they're not hurting anyone.

Nah not really. With 65ft stealth any NPC other than Turrets, Giant Monsters and Snipers will generally be incapable of seeing you - they'd need perception buffs or be a type that flat-out ignores stealth (you know the ones) to do so (this is where smoke grenade comes in). Even then those who can see you will only do so once you're that much closer than normally. In practice that means a lot of snipers high up on the rooftops won't see you either, being like 90-100ft away in what would normally have been their aggro radius. But things with perception bonuses, longer sight ranges or or that ignore stealth will know you're there once you do get close enough. The trick, then, is that as a Blaster, the edge of your range may be still outside the detection range of most of them thanks to your stealth, so if they're not the type to be toebombed, hit'em from afar.

You'll note I pointed the same out in my bit about stacking for the IO You sure stealth doesn't have a speed penalty anymore?

There's not much differences, just less drawbacks. Stealth, in the pool, is a 35ft one, and grants 1.75% defense(all), but comes with -35% Run and Fly speeds The Stealth IOs from the movement sets are 30ft, obviously take up a slot, but have no speed penalty Field Operative is the Sustain power of /Devices. It's not only 35ft with 1.75% Def(all); it has no penalties, costs nothing to toggle on, and instead offers 225% (half of which, more than 2 and a half Healths, is enhaneceable) Regen and +50% (that's two Sustains, fully enhanceable) Recovery. And yes they can stack, just not toggles (stealth and field operative keeps you at 35ft, but the IO and super-speed and field operative all stack together). But you may not need/want additional stealth sources since you could also just toss smoke grenades. If you combine the IO somewhere (I usually just stuff one in Sprint) you'll have a bit more than a bane's cloak on its own, but the thing with the grenades is that some enemies like rikti drones and knives of artemis ignore stealth entirely, whereas blinding them works fine. It IS your level 20 power, and the only reason it's not an earlier level power is because it only becomes available at 20th. Only other real advice is don't forget targeting drone it's a damage bonus across the board now.

The damage effect is one of those "pseudopet" affairs which is why it's hard to get the hard numbers without the code.

I know the damage radius is a little over 10ft - probably 15 to be properly rounded though it usually feels like 12-13 because our feet are so damn small. As for damage: just a quick example but: at level 14 in Atlas with no slots at all in them, if your Lancer Shot would do 128.some your Burst of Speed will deal 57.

Def cap is certainly nice, but not strictly necessary for a Blaster. For one thing you get less out of even the pool powers than melees (1.75 instead of 1.88, 3.5 on Weave instead of 3.75 that stalkers/scrappers get.. it adds up). Getting to 32-36% (depending on your epic pool and secondary set) Ranged and 1-2 other other types is easily done with IOs, but crossing into the 45% realm on just your autos and toggles (obviously we're not talking about inspirations or barrier here) can put a hole in your offense and utility slotting, and it's all gone to waste if you'd be teaming. Blapping in general is a simple thing: Most sets have 1-2 solid melee attacks (and may have 1-2 duds you won't bother with). There's no real secret, it's simply that they hit damn hard and usually activate fairly quick while packing a status too. These attacks supplement your ranged set. So a good joust will get you in and out of range for no longer than you needed to be. This works in as part of the whole "how to deal with mez" issue. Blasters have two ways around it. -First is Defiance. Your first two Primary and starting Secondary power work even if you're otherwise offline from statuses. So slot at least one (I strongly one primary and the secondary starter if it's in any way useful to you) of those up properly. They may not be your best attacks but they're infinitely better than nothing. -Second... Can someone whose head was blown off by a slow-snipe stun you? Can a bunch of idiots with sleep grenades do anything when you've alpha-nuked the lot of them? Dead things can't hurt you. Dead things can't mez you. And that's part of where blapping comes in. A minion that just ate a well slotted Bone Smasher is not a healthy minion and if still alive is wandering around like an idiot doing a swaying animation. A boss on the floor, health deep in the red, trying to get back up from your KB needs a few more seconds before he can be a threat. Still, carry 1-2 breakfrees and never forget a few purples just to be sure. One rather blapping-friendly combo I enjoy is Water/Martial Arts Your AoE options include Water Burst (knocks down), Whirlpool(location targeting: looks neat for a dot rain, also -def, -spd), Steam Spray (hard-hitting decently wide cone), Geyser(ranged Nuke with knockup and stun), Burst of Speed (has 3 charges, doubles as a melee-PBAoE teleport), Dragon's Tail (melee PBAoE with knockdown chance), and you'll have Reaction Time up at all times for a 30ft -40 recharge aura around you to keep them in. Ki Push is kinda handy (and funny to watch) as well, not like KB's a problem since you're a Blaster. Storm Kick's pretty good single target for its cast time, and you'll probably want Eagle's Claw for a heavy hitter though it's not the greatest of the lot. Enjoy your juggling.

If you use the melee attacks there's jumping but if you ignore most of them it's not going to be much of a problem. End of Time isn't too too bad for jousting, has some -res built in and adds to the -regen, though aging touch is nothing special and future pain's just bad. You can probably ignore those two melee hits entirely leaving the whole set more comfortable around a base of 50 feet or so. Leaves a bit more room for pools and patrons too.

It depends on a few things, notably what enemies you're fighting. Ice can stack up some heavy hitters a lot faster. Freeze Ray (though a DoT) and Bitter Ice Blast are quick-cast high damage affairs and if you can bust out Blizzard and Ice Storm's full durations the area damage is very high as well. Over 10s you can be dealing some serious hurt, and a lot of it packs -recharge to make you safer too. Several of these are part smashing part cold, though. Tac Arrow offers some solid utilities and an excellent Build-Up variant and offers slightly better self-buffs and protections. Has +recharge too. It also means you're stacking up some serious hold mags (you've got ice arrow too) quite easily. Beam is a completely different beast. It's pathetic at AoE in comparison to Ice, and offers stuns instead of -recharge or holds. It's also Energy instead of mostly-cold with some cold/smash, so your preferred target profiles are going to be quite different. How it handles in single or 2-3 target affairs can be significantly worse ... or significantly better, depending on if you bother making good use of Disintegrate mechanics. Combine this with the simple job of lining 2 guys up (or at least just firing into a crowd) for Piercing and you've suddenly got a very different experience out of the set. Time isn't going to be adding much to your damage here, but it *will* be adding quite a bit of "effective" damage through -regen for the big guys (not that it's enough to stop it entirely but a few hundred % is a moderate amount of HP unhealed per second. And instead of holds, you've got a bunch of stuns. Less reliable sources than Ice's holds, but two of them are AoE (though one's loaded on your nuke)! So, while it's also better in groups, for a quick cycling and no set-up, Ice is the stronger "out of the gate" option. If the fight's over the fight's over. Given some time to fire up (so not in fights that would last 5s with ice) and using Disintegrate like you're supposed to, against smaller numbers of targets like Elites, AVs and Giant Monsters, Beam Rifle will outperform it fairly handily.

Always thought it was autohit. Maybe because we already have so much acc anyway on TA in the first place.

I like to frankenslot it using slow sets with damage/range in. Slow keeps them in the patch longer but acc is wasted on glue so go grab like positron for more range, damage,end and recharge. 3 from each of 2 sets ain't bad

The animations do their normal length. The problem way back in the day, until just a few issues before the game ended, was that redraw added another second or so. You had your 1.67s cast time, but before that you also pulled out your gun. So that was actually a problem (they'd even given weapon sets a 5% or so bonus on their base accuracy to compensate) since longer activation times mean a straight loss of DPA/DPS. It still looks pretty silly though.

Oh no that can be turned off. Both weapons can have their redraw removed, it's not like you're a Soldier of Arachnos! Water's got no snipe though dehydrate's a health drain. It's an AOE-focused set with subpar single-target damage, but a massive amount of soft-control built in. Less good for soloing high level AVs, spectacular against large blobs of purple mobs.

Yeah I was just going to suggest BR/TA as well. Tac Arrow's a powerful set of self-buffs and utilities ("what trick arrow wishes it was" for several of the latter things) and though beam lacks a 'ball' it's an excellent set overall, offering a bit of -regen, some DoT, a few knockbacks (weak ones so more like knockdowns really) and some decent stuns. Overcharge's ranged though a bit weaker than most (you'll use it plenty as your 'ball' though) and Piercing Beam is a real gem.

Why would you say math isn't fun? Are you trying to make your teacher cry?

Handy but not necessary for everyone in this AT (amazing for everyone else though) For example if you're Energy/Devices as the OP, Targeting Drone virtually takes care of all your Quick-Snipe damage needs in just a to-hit and to-hit/endurance. Others might prefer to forego that part of the bonus in exchange for other improvements to their build; Tactical Arrow gets +Acc, which while not to-hit comes on their Sustain anyways and will amply supplement the IOs and set-bonuses you're sticking everywhere to bring your accuracies into the 140%+ range all over. Slots in defense powers may be a bit more limited. Anyone doing 5/6 piece sets in an effort to up their defenses and resists is going to be overwhelmingly overflowing with accuracy. The extra quick-snipe damage is quite nice, but that may be all it does.

It's possible. If we think along those lines it appears the Sentinels were also designed under the old statesman-era adage: "range is your defense, you don't need to be that much more damaging, damage is your defense you don't need range, ranged damage is your defense you don't need any defenses" I do like the addition of area attacks like Dark Obliteration and Refractive Beam (why am I stuck with Charged Shot and a half-the-half-it-should-be still-not-a-snipe LRM instead?) but the lower damage, lower range, clunky Opportunity and worst of all the severe lack of utility because your secondary's nothing but defense powers ... it just dulls the shine away. That said, I always feel capping defenses on a Blaster simply costs too much. Even as effective as it is, it just... feels like you've given up so much for it.

Without moving them laterally, it sends them up into the air. With all the "Knock-" effects the advantage is simple: Things flying up, down, away, or trying to get up from their evil magic buttocks are not attacking. You know how a hold might be 5-6 seconds of them doing nothing? Well in practice so can a heavy knock-up or knock-back. In exchange for not being as hard or as long-duration a control, they're far more accessible and numerous for ATs like blasters, and usually come in as a secondary component of an attack or other ability, thus making them relatively cheap to obtain compared to "Take The Hold Power"

Regen and Recovery primarily come from your Sustain power (for most sets that's your level 20). While there's a few variations on the theme, in general that's 225% Regen and 50% Recovery, half of the regen being enhanceable (that's still more than 2.5 times Health enhanceable). Stacks with Health and Stamina, too. For Devices it's as you already know Field Operative: that 1.75% defense may be pathetic but every little bit helps. Try slotting this into it later on: Numina's Health/Recovery and Healmod, Performance Shifter's +Endproc and Endmod, and Luck of the Gambler's Def/Globalrecharge. Then put Panacea's Proc and Healmod (for another 2pc) in Health. Not counting the procs you'll already be at 209% Recovery and 462% regen, with stealth, 7.5% global recharge improvement, and 2% to all defenses. Overall, you CAN try to shoot for softcap of defense of 2-3 defenses (Ranged positional being the main one) but the last few % can really, really eat into your slotting (that is to say, negatively affect the other parts). I'm more comfortable shooting for around 35%+ ranged and maybe 24%+ AoE instead (solo toggled; not counting emergency clickies, Barrier, teammates or purple inspirations), which is plenty hardy for a "squishy". I view anything beyond that as a bonus, but won't go to lengths to try and go above. Many of your protections also come in the form of soft control. Stealth + smoke grenades mean you decide where and when the fight should even start, and it turns out 'when' is blowing off their legs with explosives. That mild -ToHit may not be much but in the end it all adds up. So does knockback; things flying onto their rears aren't shooting you. Things thrown out of the room and needing ten seconds to get back aren't shooting you. It's not "a hold", but damn if half the targets being on their rears isn't a good alternative! Also: Strongly consider the globals from the defense and resistance sets; tough and stuff like 'body armor' can better be seen for you as 'mules' especially for those amazing +3% def special IOs, but never forget that dead things can't hurt you more.

Last question first: A lot. Many are soft controls though, built into so many other powers. But, even five seconds of hold is a lot of time to a high damage squishy. Controls could save you a lot of hurt, or make things easier for teammates. Glue Arrow is caltrops but with more range, really. The disadvantage is you're firing it, though; caltrops tend to be more of a "in front of you before the fight" affair, so you'll find glue just a bit less utilitarian. On the other hand you loose it unto whatever's smashing its face onto your tank and you've got a debilitating AoE DoT you didn't have to run in and target to deploy. ESD is a powerful hold and drain, but it's more of a control-nuke: needs some slotting to shine, and not up every fight. if you can spare the mods and use Radial Muscle for added end-mod, it can be worth doubling up on that hammer with some more slots; maybe Endmod + End/Accuracy IOs mixed with three from a Hold set. Get that thing up around 120+% drain so you'll have a decent chance of affecting purple minions properly, though don't go overboard trying to maximize. Should you decide against the other two holds due to the drawbacks you noted, ESD stands on its own rather well in this fashion; not something to use on lonely elite bosses, but a quick way to shut up everything around them if the nuke wasn't enough. Also, pretty nasty hit against 'robotic' types. Don't discount Flash Arrow: this slightly-faster-cast copy of smoke grenade stacks up with your dark powers nicely. Use it before a fight, it doesn't need much slotting at all to be useful, so 2-3 is enough if you've got some accuracy bonuses coming in from elsewhere. The severe -perception means it does stealth duty as well

Here's my take on it (although just halfway there in-game): Not at the softcap anywhere solo without popping purples or anything special, but overall slightly more resistances and HP help mitigate this, as do slightly higher damage and the 1.75 increase in net endurance gain per second. I know I don't have cutting beam but I've just found myself using it less and less once I got Overcharge and Piercing, and Glue Arrow more and more until it ended up like this (still love Cutting for leveling though). It's not quite your primary goal as you wanted maximal defense, just something for comparison, that though fairly tough for a blaster and offering a bit more performance, probably takes twice the incoming attacks as yours. Blaster - Beam Rifle - Tactical Arrow.mxd

That is not required these days. Snipes no longer work that way. They're slow out of combat and fast in combat. Since the subject today is defense ... why not Hover or Combat Jumping (I know it clashes with ninja-run but IIRC it doesn't clash with Gymnastics) as a final power if not Assault? Tiny final extra couple of %.

Well, while it's certainly not my style (I'm no fan of the 2nd attacks like charged shot), one thing I'd definitely say you need to consider is your recovery. Right now, with the amount of drain on there I'm wondering if your one proc in Stamina is going to counteract your 1.11 end/s regular rate while in a fight. If the fight's taking longer because you keep on running out of juice, that's not just negatively balancing out the increase in survivability that you're gunning for, it also risks dropping chunks of it off when you detoggle from running low. Unless you're usually teaming with some recovery buffers, you might want to go test out how that handles in longer solo fights. If the tests show some unpleasantness with your blue bar, maybe consider breaking Numina down to 3 and and slotting up some EndMods into there (whether from a set or otherwise). Though more defense is nice, it IS at the cost of a lot of slots being semi-wasted on a power like Eagle Eye, since things like the accuracy, endurance and recharge aspects of IOs don't actually affect it - just the Heal. One other thing would be: Overcharge is your strongest attack, and also your only radial AoE. If you really must keep it at 2 slots, maybe Ragnarok's Damage and Damage/Recharge in there instead, or something along those lines? There's a -Res chance in Annihilation too. *Also, why are you using Tactics? Maneuvers I fully understand/support, but, you do have Eagle Eye... maybe consider Assault instead?