Rathulfr

PREACH! The permanent boost to snipe from slotted Targeting Drone makes my Energy/Devices Blaster a one-shot sniper machine when it comes to minions and lieutenants, and two-shots for bosses. If I don't one-shot my target with snipe, snipe + my T1 usually does the trick, leaving me to two-shot the next target with my T3 + T2 (if necessary). After that, my quick-snipe is recharged and ready to go again. I don't cast Gun Drone for damage: it's my taunt bot and Expedient Reinforcement mule (+dam, +rech, +regen, +ranged defense -- what's not to love?). And sometimes my recharge is so fast I can have two out at the same time for a few seconds. They're my buddies! 🙂

This. Don't forget that Field Operative also includes stealth, which is one less end-hungry power I usually take in my other stealthy characters. Field Operative + Celerity: Stealth in Sprint is basically Invisibility+. Combine with Smoke Grenade if necessary to be completely undetectable in tight hallways or click guarded glowies. And Targeting Drone eliminates the need for Aim or end-voracious Tactics while still giving me a power to slot a complete set of Gaussian's. Yes, it does mean that my teammates don't benefit from Tactics, but at least they're still getting Maneuvers and Assault from me.

The main reason I go for soft-capping defenses on my Blasters is to address the mez issue. I don't mind taking damage, but I absolutely despise being mezzed. Building for defense means avoiding attacks, including mezzes. And that's also one of the reasons I like playing Sentinels, too. But I still prefer Blasters over Sentinels because -- even though I'm not being mezzed -- Sentinels just take forever to kill stuff*. The trade-off of safety for damage is just too much for me, so I'll take a little more risk if it means I can kill stuff in 1, 2, or 3 (max) shots. But that's just me: YMMV. (*: except for @nihilii, who seems to be "The DPS Whisperer" of Sentinels 😄)

Agreed: playing blue is the path of least resistance. If my goal is to get to 50 a.s.a.p., or to join a team for a bit of a challenge but not too much effort, then blue side is the safe bet. When you're facing Wrongbow and Arachnos at level 1, red side seems like too much work (and don't even get me started on the gold side lowbie experience -- *shudder*). Too bad it's a catch-22: everyone complains that blue side is too easy, but almost nobody makes the effort to tackle the challenges of red or gold side. I've spent hours in red and gold zones that are completely deserted except for me. But I can't run for more than 50 yards without encountering another player in most blue side zones (high-level hazard zones being the obvious exception).

Coincidentally, I just ran the entire set of Westin Phipps missions for the lulz, on my villain named Wrongbow. And I did my find myself asking myself, "What's in this for me?" The answer was: "Not much."

I like the idea, but... I imagine it would be easier to do this on blast sets without drawn weapons. Basically, I think it might be pretty complicated to replace the existing weapon sets (AR/BR) with new animations/models. I think it might be far easier to to adjust the non-weapon blasts (Energy/Fire/Dark) to originate from a slightly shifted point on the hand of the existing models/animations. But I don't really know: I'm not a 3D modeler or animator. Just food for thought.

OIC: makes sense. Thanks!

What power do you have set to execauto? That's usually what I do with Hasten, so I don't have to think about it.

Only if I can wear bright yellow and blue tights and name myself "xx_VV0lv3r1n3_420-69_ROFL_xx".

My favorite AoE character is also a Water/Poison Corruptor -- Fud Man (oh yeah!), with all the super powers of beer! 🍺

There's no difference between “Just play the game” and “Just play the game THIS way", because "These are the new rules of the game." It has always been this way, even back on retail: the devs made changes, and you either adapted/overcame/complied, or walked away. For example, when Jack Emmert nerfed the hell out of my Invuln/Energy Tanker, I was so mad that I quit CoH. But I came back after a month or two, because I couldn't stay away. I adapted/overcame/complied. It's the same thing here on Homecoming: their rules determine how you play here. But you're wrong about not having a choice. The good news today (as opposed to yesteryear) is that we have a choice about where to play City of Heroes. Back then, there was only one City of Heroes, so you had to like it or leave it. But now, we have the freedom to choose from among a plethora of other service providers, each with different rules: Rebirth, Thunderspy, Cake Evolution, Sanctuary, etc. If you can't adapt/overcome/comply on Homecoming, then you're free to choose play elsewhere. The bottom line is this: no matter what game you play, you have to play according to the "House Rules". If it's someone else's house, being a good guest means playing by their rules.

My latest, greatest, and favoritest Blaster build yet is Energy/Devices. Energy/Energy is still my OG classic favorite, but I'm completely digging my new Energy/Devices Blaster: BLASTERMAN (on Everlasting)! Blasterman is a "ranged Stalker": he sneaks and snipes and blasts from afar. That means no melee, no toe-bombing. Apparently, this is wrong for a */Devices Blaster, according to the other posts in this thread. But I don't care, because I love him so, as is. I put his build below. I was going for maximum stealth and permanent quick-snipe/bonus damage. In the process, I got soft-capped Ranged defense, soft-capped S/L/E, +30% damage, and almost perma-Hasten. He's so much fun!

My apologies: I did not intend to insult you; I was trying to be helpful. I won't make that mistake with you again.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've tried Stalkers, but I find them a bit too fiddly for me. I'd rather serve RNGesus to get crits on a Scrapper, instead of hiding/placating etc. There's nothing with wrong with Stalkers (in fact, I get the impression that they're actually better DPS than Scrappers), but they just don't work for me, personally. I'm a simple man with simple tastes: attack, attack, attack until dead, lather, rinse, repeat.

I've always mained a Blaster, but I like creating other alts to change things up. On retail I had an Invuln/Energy tanker that I loved, but then the changes in I4 and later completely wrecked tankers, Invuln, and Energy Melee. I also had a Dual Blades/Regen Scrapper that was fun for the novelty of the combo system. On HC, I've resurrected those and other melee characters, but I invariably get bored with them and go back to Blasters (or Sentinels, which are basically ranged Scrappers without the DPS -- but that's not relevant to this topic). I want to play melee, but there's just not much incentive to do so when Blasters seem more effective and less annoying to play (no more chasing fleeing targets). The only melee character I play routinely is my Spines/Fire Brute, whenever I need to farm up cash to equip another Blaster/Sentinel/Corruptor. In the meantime, I keep trying to find a melee alt that's as satisfying as my ranged alts. My most recent attempt is a Katana/WP Scrapper.

It all sounds so exciting. Let me know when you're ready for ID10T User testing: I volunteer.

/jranger

The addition of the General channel is the best thing ever because it cleaned up all the other channels. It basically separates all that junk into one convenient channel that I can ignore. Then I removed General from my chat options and saved it to the default chat.txt file, so I never have to see it again on new chars. Everybody wins!

/em enters to pour gasoline on the fire. Titan Weapons (at 50 + IO sets) War Mace (with the bat model) The rest of them.

I wondered why the Superior: Blistering Cold does psionic damage instead of cold damage. And then I realized: duh, BRAIN FREEZE. 🤣

Roamin' in the glow-men...

In game Email sent!

I was there, too, when The Great Panic occurred. 😆

And especially not if we're careful to avoid poking The Mouse. Steering clear of even being close to infringing on anyone else's copyrights is the best way to help insure that it never happens. So I think we're all agreed on that. Let's all join hands and sing kum ba yah now. 🙂