Novacat

I find it quite nice and try to fit it in either my T1 or my immobilize (on my main that's two 80 footers anyways); it'll do nothing for you if you're being double-mag3'd but that 1 protection popping up has gotten me out of a lot of weaker holds and sleeps early.

Some kind of radiation manipulation secondary for Blasters? Something like Atomic Manipulation?

It would be a lot worse if they'd gone my-local-airport and, let's call them 'Travel' 'Security' 'Administration' agents were the ones doing the 'searching'. Luckily, in this world where superheroes are there to uphold justice, it's the other way around and they only let you pass if your burning-handed lightning-clad Brute gives them a quick feel first to check for contraband.

"Sustain" is the name for the blaster-wide buff by which one power in every secondary set gained a survival and endurance improvement. These were added to the powers rather than replace them and installed at level 20 at the latest. A common example is Field Operative: Once Cloaking Device, it no longer costs endurance, and instead gives 225% Regen and 50% Recovery. Still cloaks, just, gives instead of takes. (Yes you read those numbers right. It's clear this was a bit of a slap-patch job and would probably later on have been dissolved into a more complete secondary rework, but we'll gladly take the "oh no I HAVE to take this power at 20" for what it offers us.) Most are toggles but some are clicks and one (arguably the worst of the lot) is actually off a fear attack. Ninja training has another clicky, while Fire just toggles it on and won't need to re-click until they die. There's a handful of exceptions: Most of them are that instead of Regen you get an Absorb (temp HP) layer that lasts a few seconds every few seconds. In your case (/Energy) it's instead the endurance side of things that's an alternate, with a 119.2% global End Reduction applied to everything you do above and beyond whatever redux your IOs may already offer. Means getting things to 1/3 of their original cost is effortless come IO sets and some electrical blasts will regularly refund more than they actually cost on hit!

Just to note that for many Blaster combos accuracy enhancement is HEAVILY overcovered by other sources on the character. It does leave things lacking in terms of recharge if you go heavy, but Positron's Blast is great for frankenslotting 2-3 slots (usually the proc and damage/range for my cones). Do make sure there's decent recharge in the other set pieces you slip in there.

Ice / TacArrow would also do quite well. Area Slow, two holds (one single and kinda bad on its own so you'll probably just use the two in Ice, but the other's AoE with *severe* drain), the accuracy and perception debuffs of flash arrow, and of course a good amount of -recharge. Lacks melee, but some serious AoE screwjobs for your target group.

In fairness, the "minimal/moderate/high/superior/extreme" monikers were all over the place and rarely meant it. Felt deliberately misleading much of the time as far as blast sets went.

Well, out of respecs on my main, but HERE are some unslotted numbers in accordance with the beta setting which will be much more relevant in a couple of weeks. Damage bonus and to-hit at 0, all other things being the same, a few shots on white 50 Jaegers in Peregine: Lancer Shot: 132.63 - same as the window promises Lancer Disintegrate Bonus: 26.53 - same as the window promises Penetrating Ray (Fast Mode, 0% To-Hit): 142.63 Penetrating Disintegrate Bonus: 3 ticks of 15.68 each. Penetrating Ray knocks back, Lancer Shot stuns quite reliably. Lancer also guarantees a spread, though still a bit buggy on Justin as there's a delay so things don't spread if the target dies before this happens. Edit: oh and, Penetrating Ray Slow mode: 281.52. ARGUABLY its disintegrate bonus would go up but I was alone so couldn't test that properly.

Huge font is huge... Okay. First, your starter, Electrified Net Arrow, is as-good or better than most alternative tier 1s on primaries save for being a rather long-winded DoT. Higher accuracy, hits just as hard though over a duration, immobilizes. Glue Arrow is basically super-caltrops. Ice is great if you have another hold somewhere, otherwise I'd skip it. Upshot's amazing but you probably took this. Flash Arrow is ultra versatile. It doesn't aggro unless you put some procs in it (so don't) and you can leave it at just 1-3 slots easily while getting full use out of it. Easily have everyone start their fights with about -8% to hit and no perception (so your side decides when it begins). Not powerful but damn is it handy Eagle Eye, Agility, Gymnastics you obviously take. ESD Arrow drains harder than Short Circuit (as hard as Thunderous Blast in fact and comes back up faster) AND is a hold. You can easily set this thing up so anything below boss is held AND zeroed out (or nearly so depending on their conning) on the blue bar. If a second decent drainer anywhere lies in your party or your abilities they (and the bosses too) are screwed. Also hits decently hard on clockworks, mechanoids, cyborgs, freakshows, you get the idea.

Well you should be taking your damage into the yellow at least before your alpha-slot (which will send it clean into the red with the ED-vulnerable portion of its enhancement) for sure. A bit of resistance ain't bad though, as a shorter duration does mean those stacks run out faster. Hover helps with knockback and offers a bit of defense, but it's not like you can't get a decent amount of knockback from IOs. The most important thing is, as you say, dead things aren't a threat no more. You WILL be mezzed once in a while, you're not a <insert basically any other AT here> but if it misses, it don't mez, and if it's dead, it don't mez more. A good opener wiping those minions out before they can toss in a stack will greatly diminish your worries in the first place. And from THAT point of view, your greatest Mez Protection is Build-Up.

As so many of these attacks are AoEs, you can just slot Annihilation's -Res instead.

There's a few exceptions, mostly in the form of a single mez type in some of the secondaries. But, for the most part? You remember what the devs thought we deserved compared to those dealing only slightly less damage with numerous times the survivability, to the point where folks used to jokeforesee that the day Blasters got any love was the day the game died. On that note: Knockback: being in flight reduces the duration, but there's also plenty of magnitude for it in the IO sets. Tactical Arrow's Gymnastics also packs a lot. Immobilize: Not that we really care much but Combat Jumping gives a ton. Confusion: To my knowledge, Plants has 7+ mag against this. Fear: Kujin-Toh from Ninja Training. A bit over 8 magnitude. Holds: Mag 2 in Acrobatics Stun: Time Lord (the level 38 Temporal Manip) gives you just under 3 magnitude of it - going to just a bit over 3 while under the Accelerated effect. All: Rune of Protection in Sorcery. Clarion Destinies. They're not permanent but they're quite strong All Proc: Defiant Barrage Global: Mag 1. Do put it somewhere you can use WHILE mezzed. Special Mention: Iron Will in Martial Combat will zero out whatever mezzes you've got on when you pop it. This leaves us of course with your final Mez Protection: Slotting up your starters. You may only have two (the T1 secondary and one of the two starter blasts) of the three, but when you're mezzed they're all you have. And they will regularly save your life.

First, why not call "Ion Charge" "Ionization" or even just "charge"? Just that "Ion Charge" doesn't really roll off the tongue that well. -Def seems really bleh these days what with IOs everywhere, and the stun would either be too low a chance to be worth bothering trying to stack for any use, or be high enough that it becomes a problem the other way. But, Lithium Whip (how far CAN that animation be made anyways?) gave me a thought on the matter. Remember Grand Fulmination, from Dragon's Dogma? We have a set that improves teammates through the -res debuff, but what if Ion Charge instead gave those nearby a small tickle of plasma damage to their attacks? And what if, in relation to jack_nomind's suggestion ... every other stack or so buffed everyone this way, making it double-edged if not careful? Maybe a max of 6 stacks? In regards to the powers that have no special effect: Water/s Tide system did not preclude them having one, so either Ion's a much bigger deal, or they're missing something. Plasma Arc: A T1 Piercing Rounds/Beam variant, I can dig it. Helium Bolt: Given it has no other effects, either this needs to be doing Fire levels of damage or get a little something of its own Lithium Whip: As wide and long and lightningy as the animation can be made; it's a Blast set not a mastermind's pet filler after all Ion Cloud: This, actually, probably shouldn't slow or immob too much. Already a lot of the placeables come with a slow already and this one's its own Immob so it's even more self-contained than most. So how about something that actually wants you to use something to keep things there? > Alternative Suggestion: "Plasma Globe": A blindingly-incandescent field (think flash arrow or an overly bright smoke grenade effect that lingers) dealing high damage over time with a to-hit penalty to enemies within. Consuming charge buffs allies standing in the cloud, effectively keeping the level of charge that has been burnt off (and thus is no longer buffing enemies) while they remain within the field. Fusion: Max charge here would make your alpha strike quite nice but any return alpha a whole lot nastier. Personally I'd like that, but YMMV Jacob's Ladder: Name already taken. Other than the name badly needing a change, I'd suggest swapping this out for a plasma take on snipes entirely. The set does NOT currently have a third single target power (it has two, arguably only ONE single target out of the 7 attacks even if one's more of a "hit two, every once in a while hit three instead" affair). That's even more AoE heavy than the warcrime that is Water (it has Four). How about an electron beam to weld the bastards? This could be your built in immobilize, and consumes charge (if you have any) for a variable level of Melt Armor? Tritium Blast: Rather than short range (they've normalized ranges for the most part by i24 because those 40ft non-cones were a chore to use) make it a small radius. Another semi-single-target, a high damage but small AoE (like radius 8 or 10 with a 6 target cap), a bit expensive for non-blasters (as we have a Sustain) to use as a single target power but otherwise becomes your T3 equivalent and a second pseudo-AoE-pseudo-single power a-la Piercing. Plasma Arc and Tritium Blast; your two "I can use this either way I guess" powers. Chain Reaction: I love the triple-tap format similar to a Burst of Speed that doesn't move you, but that's probably going to have to add up to high damage if concentrated, and be basically your "I want things on their ass" variable control power. If you really want it to hurt, you'll concentrate or slot it for procs. Starburst: Well I guess there's enough targeted that this would be a Point-Blank, but you do know there's no longer an end-crash and recovery debuffs on nukes nowadays right? It can probably just be formulated as a short lived DoT field anchored to you, rather than something you actually toggle on or off. Like, 4 ticks that add up to maybe 325 blaster base (instead of 250.2 but not as high as Inferno) but isn't pure damage after all (if you're wise you were stealthed and their counter-alpha is debuffed). Overall I love the concept, but it IS a bit too heavily skewed on AoE - thus my suggestions - as it would be a problem when soloing and coming up against Elites and Archvillains. Switching one of the AoEs to a 'hybrid' and another to a snipe would greatly alleviate the issues while still offering extreme levels of crowd focus.

If you ignore the blaps, as others have pointed out Energy Manipulation has some powerful supports. The Sustain's a clicky, but it has a decent duration. Range Boost for your cones ain't bad at all either. Tactical arrow though, has no melee at all and is one of those utility bags that can really screw enemies up. It offers a strong T1 alternative blast in its own starter immobilize, a decent DoT slow and -recharge in Glue Arrow, a spare hold (ice arrow), a smoke-grenade analogue, superb self-buffs (including an auto +Recharge), mild movement buffs, teeny amount of defense in Gymnastics, and one of the highest base drain numbers you can get on a power in the ESD Arrow (which is also a hold and a decent amount of damage against mechanoids as well).

Well the best way to feel for that is to go try it out yourself, but, basically: 1) Web Grenade is becoming Toxic Web Grenade and gaining a DoT roughly equal to a regular T1 blast (over its long duration though). It can also slot accordingly now that it deals damage as well. 2) Taser gains a 20ft range and damage around Energy Punch's (oh yes) 3) Targeting Drone will be getting a flat damage buff system quite similar to the blaster Ninja set's stealth (Shinobi I think it was?) 4) Time Bomb's fuse is getting shortened to 5s 5) Apparently Trip Mines themselves might get some very minor love. Still subject to a little bit of change, but overall big buff.

Don't forget you can use Sudden Acceleration's KB to KD as well can't you? And that one's not unique. If it's good for tentacles, it should be good for torrent too.

Shinobi drone, eh? Interesting. Tripmine was feeling just a teeny bit too long on the lay so a bit of love won't hurt. Fun to know!

Anything notable for snipes or devices compared to what's currently on Justin?

The changes are good for the most part. Well the first iteration was a bit clunky, but they've been pretty smooth since then. And if one was building entirely to get to perma-snipe, well, now they don't have to waste so many slots in doing so anymore - a bit will let them keep the damage up, and the rest can go elsewhere. The /Dev changes too for that matter.

In a way, not great, ever, but in part also slightly guaranteed no matter what. Secondaries for Blasters can get some resistance (duration reduction, 100% halves it), but have no magnitude protection. If you want THAT: - Vengeance, in Leadership, offers Fear and Repel Mag 10, plus 100 magnitude vs knockback/knockup - Combat Jumping offers high magnitude protection against immobilize... not that that matters much for you most of the time - Far more important is the Hold protection (2) in the Leaping pool's Acrobatics though - Sorcery's Rune of Protection is most certainly not a toggle... BUT it's a powerful 90s protection from all the mezzes and some decent damage resist to go with it. Whittle as much as you can from that 10 minute cooldown if you're using this however For incarnate slots, it's the Clarion Destiny series. That's the one with mez protection. It's over 21 mag for the final 120s core to start with though that slowly fades out to about mag 3 in the last few seconds. IO sets are an easy source of knockback protection. Almost everything else in them though is merely +resistance, not magnitude, but one notable is Superior Defiant Barrage, which grants you a chance of 20% res AND Mag 1 protection against basically every status. If you're just barely mezzed - and for the average blaster that's all it takes - this gets you out of it as soon as it triggers. Which brings us to that other thing... Defiance. Your other mez protection is six-slotting Single-Shot and Subdual, and maybe making sure you've slipped that unique proc chance in one of them. Even when you're held, the three things available at level 1 are still online. When all else fails, make sure these ones count.

Where it's lacking is the AoE - your only beam 'ball' as a Blaster is Overcharge. Superb against low numbers though, and even better in a team since you spread and use one-another's Disintegrates. if you hit two disintegrating targets, Piercing Beam does 210% the total damage of Fire's Blaze (granted it's also about the same increase in animation time) and drops their resistance a smidgen too. Those missions with two AVs at once, there's your MVP right there.

Rather than make fire blast unreasonable (not sure it is, myself; the glass cannon is still FAR glassier than the steel tanks are lacking gun), wouldn't it be the secondary effects that could use a mild upgrade to be worth it? I mean you said it yourself: "given the relative uselessness of most Blast set secondary effects". Personally I think it's mostly just -Def which loses too much of its value as people start slotting IOs and the like (we cap at 95% hit chance after all), and -End which is too binary but would be a massive rework to fix in any way, though, but if the secondary effects are what's in trouble, it makes sense that those would be what gets the upgrading.

Maneuvers and Assault won't hurt, and do stick Gaussian's build-up chance in Aim (take Aim). NOTE: /Dev is currently being reassessed and buffed on the Beta server as are snipes. This WILL alter the value of several of /Dev's powers. Beam: Single Shot: I usually take this one over charged shot. -75% Regen on disintegrating target, adds up nice against AVs and Giant Monsters Charge Shot: Well, like I said... +15% on a disintegrating target is the weakest of the bonuses. Cutting Beam: Beggars can't be choosers. Your only true AoE until your nuke. Does however get a 3s DoT of 11% ticks on disintegrates Disintegrate: If you don't take this, you choose a different primary. Okay maybe it doesn't have to be RIGHT away at 6th, maybe wait to 8th if you really must... Heavy DoT but fairly long duration. Adds -150% Regen debuff, and single target attacks can spread some of the DoT to other targets, allowing them to be affected by those bonuses I've been pointing out as well. Lancer Shot: A rather average T3 shot, but it packs a Mag 3 Stun. Does +20% damage to disintegrating targets. (LANCER SHOT BETA: 100% SPREAD CHANCE.... if they can fix spreading getting delayed and not working on death) Penetrating Ray: Snipe. Can knockback a little, and gets a 3s DoT of 11% ticks on disintegrating targets. Worth it. (BETA: Will have something like 66% spread chance making it an even better fast-snipe once in combat) Piercing Beam: You get this. TAKE. IT. Am I making myself clear? This is a T3 shot... except it's a 'line' (a 4 degree cone in reality) that can hit up to 3 targets total if you line'em up properly. Each for full proper heavy single target shot damage. And -13% damage res to things it hits. Oh and anyone disintegrating when they eat a shot of this takes an extra tick on the spot of 33% of its damage. Overcharge: It's your nuke, it's ranged, it has a Stun chance (guaranteed and longer instead if the target's disintegrating, and I do believe you are aware already that nukes are now crash-less. Devices: Web Grenade: Getting a toxic DoT in beta. You've no choice but to take it, but hey! -Recharge, some damage. Caltrops: A classic. add just a bit more slow, and some damage. maybe procs. Taser: Okay this wasn't the greatest thing but at least it was gonna match your Lancer Shot to stun bosses... (BETA Taser: Well guess what. They're giving it a 20ft range or so and the same damage scaling as Energy Punch. A clear skip just became a clear Include... at least later once the changes go live and you respec) Targeting Drone: Well obviously. Do put a little bit in there to ensure you clear the +22% to-hit properly, although after beta changes that'll probably just up your fast snipe damage rather than make it a fast one Smoke Grenade: As useful as it's ever been. Not something to super-slot, but handy handy handy. Just be careful, Procs WILL cause it to aggro things when they trigger, which is nice mid-battle but really ruins it for its noncombat use. FIELD OPERATIVE: This is your Sustain. You don't not take this. You don't take this at not 20. You'd take it earlier if you could but you can't so it's your level 20 pick. NOTHING ELSE IS YOUR LEVEL 20 PICK. Try to get two Health and two EndMods in there to get some real mileage out of the regen and recovery, but maybe a defense-set global can find its way in a sixth slot maybe... Trip Mine: You know what to do. Time Bomb: You know what to skip.... Except the beta's changing the fuse to five seconds making it really bloody usable! Gun Drone: Floats, helps, may attract a few shots towards it instead of you, happy pet IOs, do something about that recharge when you get there though.

Honestly what you want to go look at is the Sentinel. Not only is it shorter ranged than a blaster (so, more 'mid' if we can pretend for a moment that 80ft is long range) but it's a lot more survivable. Immensely, ridiculously so. Worth a try given the concept you open with. Perhaps more importantly though, what you've got here is extreme overslotting on what blasters get the least of %wise, and severe underslotting on what they offer the most of (that is to say, killy bits). There is diminishing returns, you see.. Let's just take Weave here, as it's one of your bigger sources of +Defense%: - With 2 level 50 IOs in there, we start touching upon "Enhancement Diversification" ("ED"). So the total bonus to the original value is not 51% but 49.7%. So with two such IOs, Weave gets you 5.24% defense up from 3.5% Not bad! - A third slot brings us to 5.55% ... well that's not a whole lot more but, you know... maybe it had something else on it or was part of a set bonus or something. - A fourth slot brings us to 5.68% - Slot five of defense IO ... 5.81%. Starting to feel like you're being scammed here a little. - Slot six. 5.95% Those last FOUR slots worth of +defense bonus all added up to a grand total of 0.71%. And you've not lowered the cost per-tick or anything else. Or Force of Nature's recharge time - how often will it be up compared to how often it COULD be up? Now, compare that to... Kujin-Toh. This is your Sustain - a critical slapdash of a bandaid power for Blaster Survivability that was introduced to the i24 (that's what was beginning testing when the game died a decade ago) test servers to address an extreme comparative faceplanting problem. - What would happen if we took even just TWO of those slots you have in Weave and moved them here for a second Health and a second EndMod IO? You'll note that far, far more (even if it's "just half") of the regen bonus here is enhanceable than Health's. And It's worth two staminas too. A slot can mean a whole lot more in here. Of course there's the matter of your attacks. Now, when it comes to overslotting for something, for a blaster, damage is what gets the most out of it even if pines says you're deep in the red. Still not something to go all-in on all the time, but damage is, how to say, the "least bad" thing to go over into for this archetype. But, that's not all. See, those attacks, they need to hit. 200 damage is 0 if it whiffs. Plus they often go really wide and make you feel like an idiot as you watch it happen. You need accuracy. You need recharge to use them more often. You may want to up the range on cones especially as well - the longer the wider. And, turns out, attacks spend a LOT of endurance real fast especially area ones. Lowering the cost there can have a spectacular effect on your blue bar. Blasters have some of the lowest level of issues with endurance now with the Sustain powers, but you still have to actually bother slotting things around a bit. - That psychic tornado for example? Costs 18.51 base. Out of a base maximum of 100 endurance (health grows, endurance doesn't with levels. You can add a teeny bit more in a few ways, but for now let's just assume you'll not see above 105 for a long time). And you want that endurance spent to not just be lower but to be worth a whole lot more damage right? Kinda sucks to use up almost a fifth of your whole bar in one move and see it do like a quarter of a bunch of minions health - and then they all get to shoot back. If it cost 2/3 as much and blew half their health off in one hit, way better right? If you stick to blasters - and concept-aside I hope you give'em a whirl - understand this: dead things can't hurt you. dead things stop hurting your friends. Dead things are money and XP and sometimes drops. You are blaster; you are not there for things to hear you roar, you are there to shoot things in the face and smash their skulls open with unreasonably powerful melee attacks before they get a hold of you and rend you limb from limb. And they will. We're kinda squishy that way so ideally you'll be doing your wanton high-explosive "arresting" of bodily functions while someone way more resilient than you did the roaring and got their attention. The difference between a fully slotted nuke (that's your level 32, final primary power in any blast set) and 3 empty slots is unforgettable. Except for the bad guys. They're dead. Their liquefied minds can't remember anything.

Beam/Tacarrow has worked quite well for me, but it's more of a control/debuff source in regards to survivability. Beam offers several Knocks (Charged shot, Penetrating Ray though while the latter says down I think it's 'back') and two Stuns (Lancer Shot's Mag 3 and Overcharge's 60% of Mag 3 or guaranteed for same duration as Lancer if target's disintegrated). Tactical Arrow offers an area slow/-recharge/DoT (Glue Arrow), two holds (Ice and the AoE ESD Arrow), a very powerful Drain (ESD Arrow's base is 55%, higher than short circuit, can be slotted to just a bit over 120% with Musculature Alphas), a smoke grenade equivalent (Flash Arrow) to fire pre-battle, and very slight defense from Gymnastics. Plenty of recharge and +perception to go around as well of course. Easy to fill in for yet more controls to round it out or stack further using your Epic choice Admittedly, Ice would be an even stronger primary to go with it.