Onlyasandwich

It's worth noting that melee aoe procs will still trigger on the aoe splash for Thunder Strike, giving you a stronger aoe damage. The power itself is useful as a combination pseudo aoe and control power that still does respectable ST damage while serving those other purposes. The real appeal here is the amazing melee attacks. Charged Brawl and Shocking Grasp are at the top of the heap for blaster DPA. Fire (or Rad in your case) already brings plenty of aoe heat to the table, so you don't really need to make up for it in your secondary.

True enough. Two Knockdowns with a taste of disorient don't exactly turn me into a dominator. I may just try it and see how much I end up eating dirt. I've enjoyed tilting my builds recklessly towards offense lately. Reminds me of the good old days when even the best built blasters ate pavement on a regular basis. 🙂

Thank you for the input! I've definitely lost a lot of recharge opportunities in pursuit of procs. Good point on TS and Force specifically though. Not having those reliably available in time to chain is a problem for survivability even in a team situation. I'm sort of okay allowing defenses to slide a bit here, looking at it from a team perspective with some amount of useful buffs to absorb and perform. I wonder if it might instead be useful to drop any pretense of caring about Ranged defense, and double down on recharge bonuses, relying instead on chained KD as my primary (and careful) defensive tool. As useful as KD is, that might be playing it just a bit too close to the edge! Here is a "double down on recharge and say poo poo to ranged defense" version, which does include Power Sink: I suppose this is a build that might prefer to invest in an epic that has a self rez. 😄

Similar build in spirit, but more defense minded for sure. Do you find yourself ever using Power Sink for blue bar refills? I would think that it wouldn't get too much use with the fully enhanced sustain. Back on live it was great for Nuke recovery and general sustain, but in the days of sustains and crashless Nukes, I wonder.

The chained Knockdown does give you a smashy fun feel for sure. Not quite the chaos of builds that intentionally throw the world on its side of course. 😄

A few threads here recently have been chewing on ideal blaster combos, and what secondaries pair best with fire. The answer of course is Fire/Electric! I played the heck out of this combo on live, but haven't resurrected it on Homecoming yet, and would like to tackle it with a more optimized approach. As always, I would appreciate any further polish you may find that I have missed! Priorities: This is primarily a team based character. I want to blast my best attacks with as many procs as possible, optimizing both ST and aoe damage for practical play. Not sweating ranged softcap, but would like to edge as close as I can while pursuing other priorities. Currently at ~38%, which is decent enough. In solo play, I can cycle purples as needed, and most teams will get me to softcap with incidental buffs/debuffs. Max Hit chance against +4's. Slow resist! This blaster will rely heavily on jousting and in-combat mobility to survive, especially solo. I hate being slowed, and doubly hate it here. It helps that Winter sets are pretty great for other bonuses and proc optimization as well. 🙂 Where I would love more edge: More recharge would be great, though I'm okay with where I am overall with FFback firing. If there is a way to get to softcap and keep my procs, I'm all ears! I don't think I'll miss power sink with all the recovery. What do you think? Anticipated Playstyle: Lead off with Force of Thunder most spawns. Cycle in Fireball, Rain of Fire, then Thunderstrike as they are starting to stand up, chaining the KD. Otherwise joust and blast with my best ST attacks as they come up. I know @Nemu loves their Fire/Elec, and has great jousting technique. To those who haven't tried it, I encourage you to check out some of their tutorials and try it for yourself! Push those blasters to the limit without relying on traditional softcap tactics. Note that my FFback powers are toggled on, and Aim/build up are off when reviewing totals. Quick Snipe is on. Build:

That would explain why you are a bit short! The real choice is between Crane Kick and Cobra Strike. They serve essentially the same purpose in your attack chain, and you don't need both for a clean and efficient rotation. Additionally, Eagle's Claw is an easy drop. It's fun if you like the animation, but does not add anything to your overall DPS. It is at best break-even if optimally used. All that to say, you don't have to build for 100% efficiency! If you like poking things in different ways, by all means go for the diversity. This will however sacrifice some utility and slot efficiency.

What ma attacks do you have?

Given the radius and toggle aura nature, it will be very poor. As @Carnifax has mentioned, i wouldn't bother with any procs in d field at all. Technically you get a decent number of activations over the course of the power, but it is very underwhelming in practice. Lockdown even has a lower ppm than normal. You'd see it pop off here and there, but not a great investment.

OwtS is a matter of taste, really. I typically take it as a sometimes useful power that mules out one of the +def iOS. It's a very flexible mule - even takes the PM absorb proc. If you share your build I'd be happy to provide other insight. Even on a defense set, I would consider Storm Kick a strong addition to a Tanker's arsenal. If you're referring to Thunder Kick, that is of course not skippable.

I really enjoy this question! While I'll never have a totally static answer, it would be something like this: Blaster: Fire/electric - The classic beast with the best of all worlds. Brings the already amazing ST damage in Fire/ to 11 with two of the best DPA melee powers out there. Defender: TA/A these days. TA is so fluid and powerful now, and works equally well solo and on teams. Any secondary is fine - this just happens to be a set on which I prefer matching theme. Every power comes back fast, and you don't have to worry about positioning for anchors, or whether teammates are nearby for buffs to gain maximum benefit. You just shoot things and it works out. 🙂 Controller: Fire/Storm - Nothing has quite the epic feel of Fire/Storm! Other combos may be similar in power, and almost everything else is easier on the blue bar, but Fire/Storm is not only visually stunning, but brings gobs of damage to the table alongside solid controls. Tanker: Rad/War Mace - Rad is easy peasy and works in every type of content, and opens up slotting pretty well as you don't need any extra end support. War Mace is crunchy both for aoe and ST damage. Combined, you have a super flexible tank that can go all out in any content and does great damage in all situations. Brute: I don't play a lot of Brutes, so don't have a very good answer here. I liked my TW/Electric pretty well, but others will have more useful input here. Scrapper: I'll go with my DM/EA for now - smooth as butter in all content. Never dies, damage type that is rarely resisted, built-in blue bar and health tools. All the damage a Scrapper could want, but oddly soothing to play. Dominator: Plant/Fiery/Fire - The APP here is important, as so much of a Dom's character is reliant on their Epics - more than on other ATs. This combo absolutely blasts out damage on all fronts, and can handle really tough content and surprises as long as you stay focused on cycling your controls where needed. Stalker: I've only played a few stalkers. It is home to be best combo for Elec/Shield, and I have one of those. It's really fun! Corruptor: Obviously going to overlap with Defender, but there are some combos that gain more than they lose on Corruptors. I'm rather fond of my Kin/Dark. Kin I think feels more at home on a corruptor, and Dark gives some extra proc opportunities, as well as some interesting control elements that are otherwise lacking in the support set. Mastermind: Another AT I haven't played a lot of. Demons/Dark is great fun though! Demons are very tanky, and Dark has all you need to support them. You can also proc out the whip powers to do respectable damage, giving you something fun and useful to do besides spamming heals and fearsome stare. Another very active combo that requires proactive application of debuffs and controls to stay alive. Very thematic as well. Sentinel: I love my Elec/Nin! Electric is one of the few sets that actually stands out a bit on Sentinels vs. Blasters, given the extra damage afforded Tesla Cage here. Nin is a pretty complete kit, and allows me to work very autonomously. The confuse power slotted with the purple proc is a handy trick too.

Yes. You want it for ddr and slow resist.

MA goes really well with anything, really. The only real point of special synergy to consider would be the +def from Storm Kick, which is quite strong. Even this is pretty universally helpful. Defense based sets like Shield appreciate the extra pad for overcoming debuffs, or edge in incarnate content, while resist based sets will find it easier to ride softcap without bending over backwards.

I am making direct comparison to MA in this case, rather than to attack sets as a whole. To be fair, this may be better positioned as a strength of MA than any failing of StJ. One exceptional element of MA is that its best rotations involve really snappy powers across the board.

In the case of StJ, CU is required for good performance. Eagle's Claw is a silly power that can be effective, but you can be equally effective without it. MA doesn't hinge on it at all. The speed of CU is a bit more relevant for StJ than other sets as so much of its performance is tied up in this power. I don't find CU to be "too slow" in experience - it is still a very good power. The visceral feeling of punching something to the moon is indeed the best reason to take StJ in my book! The animation is great. However, even for the best DPA attacks in the universe, having a slower animation is still at least a difference worth noting. MA's ideal attack chains are snappy whip whip kick kick with very little chance for corpse whiffing at all.

SJ actually parses out well in ideal scenarios like Pylon tests, but has a few practical shortcomings that in my experience hold it back in regular play. Too much of the power budget is spent on Crushing Uppercut. The other attacks are pretty good when procced, but nothing out of the ordinary. CU is exceptional, but a bit conditional given the combo point system, and also has a rather long animation time. Spinning Strike is okay, but basically inferior to Dragon's Tail in every way, and Sweeping Cross is still not a very effective aoe even with the Gauntlet buff. MA is super efficient and has snappy animations for all the best powers. Eagle's Claw is usable, but very optional. It helps that Storm Kick also stacks strong extra defense for Tankers! The additional synergy is welcome especially on Shield, giving you a nice pad to overcome heavy defense debuff scenarios. Edit: Please no combo update for MA! It's fun to have interactive mechanics, but also good to have sets that allow you to focus on the powers themselves rather than combos.

If poison is not your cup of tea, Rad Emission can definitely be made rather poisonous. Water blast can also be colored appropriately. Blast that nasty juice!

They're both fine combos, but shield/ma all the way. More damage from your primary, similar defenses. I also vastly prefer MA to SJ on tanker. SJ is just too lacking in aoe for my taste. MA may only have DT, but DT is amazing.

Apologies! I know there is shorthand in coh builds that isn't exactly intuitive if you haven't visited the process before. "Softcap" is 45% defense in a given position or type, as @Without_Pause mentioned. We call this softcap because while you can technically gain more defense past this point, it is redundant in normal content, as 45% reduces the enemy's chance to hit to the floor of 5%, thus it is a "soft" limit on the effectiveness of stacking defense. There are two broad categories of defense - Typed and Positional. Super Reflexes offers positional (ranged, melee, aoe), meaning you want to layer positional defense bonuses such that you reach 45% for all three, ideally. Ignore the typed defenses (Smashing, Lethal, Energy, etc) in this case, as they won't be relevant. Resistance is still relevant. Super Reflexes also offers built-in scaling resistance on top of what you can obtain elsewhere - you gain substantial resist as you lose HP, making you incredibly tough to burn down. By "defense uniques" I am referring to two specific IOs, both in the resist set category: Steadfast protection +def/res, and Gladiator's Armor Tp Protection/def all. Each of these, when slotted, provide 3% defense to everything for a total of 6% defense on top of your existing totals. By "resist uniques" I am referring to two defense set IOs: Reactive Defenses, Scaling Resist Damage and Shield Wall +res/teleport res. Both provide substantial resistance to all types for only one slot invested. The "rule of 5" is a basic rule of IO set bonuses, like those provided in the luck of the gambler set. You can only benefit from 5 set bonuses of a given type. For example, if you have more than 5 set bonuses that add 9% to global accuracy, any additional 9% accuracy bonuses are completely wasted. You can read more about the nuances here: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Invention_Origin_Enhancements

A very fun combo which I'm sure you'll enjoy! Without delving too deep, a few notes: You are not at Melee softcap - this should be your first defensive priority. You are also missing both +def uniques, which can get you there more easily. Additionally, find a way to fit the +res uniques as well. Quickness is not really something I would recommend skipping. Elude would be an easy drop, as it is very redundant with SR's core strengths once built appropriately. Broadly speaking, you are focused too much on full 6 slot bonuses, where a more hybrid strategy mindful of focused goals would be more beneficial. Follow Up is not just a buff - it is an attack. If you don't slot it as an attack, it can actually decrease your overall damage due to animation wasted on an attack that does very little. Shockwave is outstanding, and I would not recommend skipping. You are over rule of 5 for an entire lotg set. The 6th set literally provides no set bonuses to you. @Bill Z Bubba and others have posted some great SR builds out there. I would recommend pulling a few up and importing slotting strategies as you are inspired.

Anything that operates well at pbaoe range is ideal, as you will want to be in melee range for Time's Juncture. Fire, Water, Electric, and Rad are good from this perspective, as you don't have to rely on their respective cones for good aoe rotation. Beyond that, Time is super flexible and will go great with any primary. If you want to incorporate cones, I would encourage you to consider Combat Teleport along with some good binds to use it easily. This thread has some great ones:

I'd have to login to see for sure if the visual dissipates. I think it does.

Electric/nin sentinel and go all force lightning all day. 🙂 I feel like a Jedi demands a little more of a bag of active tools than SR or WP offers. If going melee, my vote is DB/EA. I get what you mean with the invis power though. For what it's worth, this is a very powerful combo with many great builds already explored in the scrapper forum.

Don't forget the ever classic fire/elec! This is the supreme combo if you want to maximize single target damage. Charged brawl and shocking grasp are some of the best dpa attacks out there, and havoc punch isn't far behind.

Oh man. Oh my. Oh no.