Onlyasandwich

Power boost buffs deflection/insulation to incredible levels. This persists for the shield duration, even once pb wears off, allowing this to be effectively perma. While pb is up, it buffs dispersion as well.

It provides above average defense compared to pool options, substantial exotic resist, and stealth as a bonus. Not to mention the outstanding slotting options as @Frozen Burn highlighted! Stand out power in a strong set.

~.75 - 1 defense to all per slot is a pretty good return compared to most set bonuses when you're chasing softcap, especially on an AT without a solid defense foundation. Often such builds are muling a whole power mostly for the 3.75 defense bonus that comes with it. Ideally one leverages this in powers where the enhancement value itself is also a primary investment, but sometimes this aspect is marginal compared to the defense bonus. Absolutely the Uniques and pursuing defense bonuses from sets that usefully enhance other powers is the first step. However, you inevitably start looking for low-hanging fruit to round things out, and 1-2 extra slots in Weave is often the efficient answer.

Where is sentinel? I think storm blast is uniquely suited to the AT. Storm blast benefits from being able to focus on the blasts to leverage storm cell and c5's special mechanic. Without this, damage feels on the softer side. Sents can just toggle up defenses and blast away. Damage scales are now strong with the sent buffs as well. Blasters want something a bit punchier, and if playing optimally will be spending a good bit of their animation time on the secondary. Def/corr have their own distractions with their excellent support sets. My own choice was storm/rad, which provides some extra aoe. Here's my Sent build for context. I colored the Rad powers white to look all cloudy. : ) Sentinel (Storm Blast - Radiation Armor).mbd

I have eleventy thousand billion. I email myself not to store inf, but to brag to myself about my own glory.

Weave is definitely worth an extra slot or two if you are building defense in earnest. It has a better shot per defense return than most IO bonuses you can chase outside the uniques.

I've been iterating on this a bit, and came to an interesting compromise that might make sense. I've dropped leadership for stealth. This keeps my lotg's, but creates an accuracy problem with the loss of tactics. However, this is mitigated by a few things: Most powers are still at max hit chance anyhow. Those that aren't will be helped by -def from the primary. The Gaussian in Forge will proc nearly every time, and I can pre-cast it on stoney to guarantee a hit when needed. This is useful for personal damage generally speaking as well. The powers that are short on hit chance (really just heat ex) are mostly used in longer encounters, where the debuffs are likely to be in effect. This build also runs lighter on end, and has the extra utility of personal and team stealth when needed, as well as of course the use of quicksand. Creative slotting still manages to just eke out S/L softcap. Rune takes the place of Earth's embrace as my emergency power, and also frees up a mule slot so the Gaussian fits in. Now I have a reactive tool if I get mezzed as well. Controller - Earth Control - Thermal Radiation corrected arcane stealth vers.mbd

Plant is really the whole deal by itself. I vote go dominator! Plant/fiery amazing.

For sure! Maybe even just half the cast time would be enough for a slam dunk. I guess it's still an overall good power. The fact that I'm waffling simply means there are interesting choices to be made.

Appreciate it, I have and will! Thank you all for taking the time to review. It's always interesting to me to see how different people value certain powers. For context, I do already have CJ, and my power pools are maxed out. I have worked out a separate build that drops leadership for stealth. This maintains the # of lotgs, but loses a couple percentage points of defense due to the lost opportunity to slot rectified reticle in tactics. There aren't other low slot bonuses for S/L to sub in. With incarnate, most powers are still at max hit chance, but heat exhaustion and melt armor will rely on all the earth def debuffs to max out. This second build does have the benefit of modestly less end consumption as well. Stealth is also pretty useful. Note that, in order to maximize procs and slotting in general, the current build relies on Vigor Core, tactics, and kismet for most of its hit chance beyond native power slotting. Other +acc bonuses would require leaving a ton of damage potential on the table. Just gonna roll as is for now! I don't mind at all dropping out of flight to hit stalagmites. It's easy enough to pop with my binds, and has not been an issue.

I definitely like the power, and have enjoyed its benefits on other characters. The question here is more where it stands in comparison to other tools available, and what I could potentially swap, or if indeed a swap is worthy for my build. At higher levels for me the utility is mostly in its ability to get mobs to glob up more easily with creative engagement. At times the -defense will even still be pretty relevant. However, the present build is pretty tight! Thus far, the considerations are: Earth's Embrace. A bit dubious, as this power provides substantial staying power for things that get past my defense. Vengeance. Vengeance is actually super strong as we all know when the use case arises. Beyond that, losing the lotg would hurt. Swap away from leadership entirely and see if I can sort out my accuracy without tactics. Would likely pick up a pool with two lotg mules (flight, stealth). Not sure how this would work out - may dig on it later. QS helps with accuracy of course, but it is very much less than ideal to rely on it across the board given the animation time. I want my openers to hit reliably. Something else? Not a high stakes question, in any case! The build will work fine without.

That is just the toggled on FFback procs. I only have 55% global recharge outside of hasten and FFback.

But muh lotg! An idea worth considering.

I've been revisiting an old Earth/therm build lately, and have come to the point where I think I want to squeeze Quicksand in. On paper, it seems largely redundant with the hard controls Earth has at hand, and the -def is covered in other powers as well. However, there are a few points I see in its favor: Less obtrusive than cages on teams where the visual effects can be annoying. Auto-hit (not a huge advantage with proper slotting, though some situations where useful). Another location based aoe I can initiate while out of LoS. Casting it at the foot of the nearest mob in a group creates nice clumping, allowing me to more efficiently follow up with my other aoes. What are your thoughts? Do you consider it a must have on your Earth? If so, what other uses have you found for it beyond the above? What would you consider dropping in the attached build in favor of it? I'm thinking Earth's Embrace would be an easy drop, as it would be 1:1 for slotting. Both are one slot wonders. However, the ~300 extra max HP and occasional heal provide some beef to my defense based build that may give vital time to heal back up when something makes it through. Definitely on the edge here! Controller - Earth Control - Thermal Radiation corrected arcane.mbd This build's priorities: S/L defense softcap. High recharge through combination of set bonuses and FFback incorporated in both aoe and ST chain. (note for the sake of totals that FFback powers are toggled on, so detoggle for accuracy on global recharge) Spammable ST and aoe chain. High slow resist. Pay attention to /Therm's team support tools (give love to shields, heals) Proccy proc proc where I can proc a meaningful proc or two. Prawk. In an effort to avoid Ageless and maximize proc potential, this build does rely on Vigor Core for accuracy. End management is tight pre-incarnate, but workable with good management. On an unrelated note, I'd love to swap Arcane bolt for Hurl boulder for thematic reasons. However, I just can't get behind a 2.5 second animation lock for the payoff. Arcane also comes ahead in damage pretty firmly. Do you actually enjoy boulder in your build?

I don't typically run AE all that much myself. If I'm stress testing a build I'll just type in "smash" or "fire" and see what comes up, and pick from the results. Nothing wrong with mitigating the KB of Rise! However, I had it as is for the mule slot on the PM absorb proc. Typically if I'm rezzing the KB isn't that big of a deal, or even desirable.

I agree that jolting is solid single target. However, what controller primary would you identify as truly worse in damage once procced out? Ice is a contender, but now has good proc options for cold snap and a more survivable pet that will actually stick around to apply its damage. I do think that electric has enough damage to to get by just fine, and is a good set overall. However, I'd still rank it very low compared to others based on primary damage potential.

To my earlier point, this would make an outstanding dom! Electric is a great control set, and only better in the hands of a perma dom. Dark is also one of the better assault secondaries. Damage will be very high indeed when properly slotted.

It's on the lower end. The key here is that none of the powers really have any worthy proc potential, so there isn't a way to transcend the boundaries of controller scales. Jolting chain is okay damage but abysmal for procs. The hold has the same damage potential as any. Gremlins do respectable damage, but their ai is a bit wonky and they die super quickly. I do enjoy the set and it is effective for control. I ended up taking it on a dominator to leverage better damage. Edit - as others have pointed out, jolting is solid for single target damage with procs. The chains don't proc well, however. Still, I would struggle to identify a control set that is definitively worse for damage.

The pseudopet here is the patch itself. The patch in turn summons a few entities with a variety of powers, which inherit slotted procs according to type. Due to the nature and frequency of how they are summoned, cast, and die, then reappear, certain few of these powers proc exceptionally well. This is compounded in a large mob, as the summons scale to a degree with mob numbers, and the effects are aoe. Understanding all of this in city of data is very confusing! The optimal damage slotting was not intuitive, so Carnifax's parsing in their tool was super useful to confirm.

This is the only one that stuck for me. Great damage, durability, and a fun bag of super effective tricks. Procced out whips are actually really meaningful damage as well.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on my respec! I did optimize the build further a bit for a better ST chain. Notably, Fire Sword is now pretty much on par with Blaze and Blazing bolt, giving you three super heavy hitters to blitz down bosses. I gave it a whirl on a +2 x 8 Fire farm (pretty favorable conditions I know) and it was lovely. None of the powers felt wasted, and I was able to keep a continuous flow of destruction whether focused on ST or aoe. The Hot Feet dance worked as expected. Endurance was quite manageable, though I did pop Consume a couple times after many back to back rotations. Once I get my Alpha slotted and pumped a bit I'll try it in more challenging content. It's already living up to what I want out of it. Edit: +3 x 8 with bosses was also fine. +4 was pretty hit and miss - doable but with death. Perhaps this will improve with incarnates slotted out. Newest spec:Blaster (Fire Blast - Fire Manipulation).mbd

Welcome, and I'd love to hear how it goes! You can ignore the levels slots were added. Just add as you see fit when leveling. It's all the same in the end. You don't lose slots when exemping - the enhancements just scale down.

I did a first pass at how I would respec my own Fire/Fire, and thought I'd share in case you share some of the same goals. Highlights of this build: Heavy recharge focus - just shy of perma hasten. Power choice is focused on ease of use in pbaoe range. All aoes can just be thrown out without need to worry about positioning cones. Although Burn is great, I didn't pick it here, instead favoring larger aoes for simple application in more spread out situations. Ranged defense at 33.75, within a small purple of softcap. This provides a strong layer that should make a meaningful difference in solo play, and gives room for team buffs to contribute something useful as well. Moderate S/L/F/C resist, all within the ~50% range. Max hit chance against +3's. 85% slow resist, suitable KB protection. Moderate proc focus in relevant powers to maximize damage. We could drop the proccing and slow resist to pursue a more traditional ranged softcap, but would sacrifice significant damage, and slow resist is quite valuable. Anticipated playstyle: As @Frozen Burn mentioned, alternating Inferno and Bonfire is the way to go. Inferno will blow most every mob away, while Bonfire provides strong control so you can get through your aoe rotation. Hot Feet keeps them slowly running away from you in pbaoe range, so less likely that melee attackers will thwack, keeping most hits targeting through your ranged defense. With Hot Feet and the fighting pool, we are putting solid pressure on even the Blaster sustain's superior recovery. However, between this and Consume as a backup, you should be fine. Optional to leave Evasive on during combat. File: Blaster (Fire Blast - Fire Manipulation).mbd

I broadly agree with you on ranged defense slotting priority for blasters (assuming you are bothering with defense), as even pbaoes can be jousted. However, if you're not staying in melee to use hot feet and/or burn, there isn't much point to taking the /fire secondary other than theming. This is what makes the secondary stand apart from others beyond just another handful of good dpa melee attacks and build up. My own fire/fire went for S/L as a compromise, bolstered by scorpion shield. I don't know if this would be nearly as effective these days with the attack typing changes, however. This does get me interested in a respec, however! I'll share my own take later on.

Thank you @Sovera! I don't know why that didn't occur to me. Edited the OP to include the file itself. Your build has a strong advantage in E/N resists and recharge (though no FFback), while mine achieves higher psi and F/C, and a ranged instead of melee focus. We have a somewhat similar amount of slot focus invested in proc strategies. Overall I think your approach is similar in spirit. Typically I think we have a fairly similar philosophy in most builds I see, so I always enjoy seeing your perspective. Ultimately different primaries afford different set opportunities, but lessons to learn either way. From a power perspective, going with Evasive instead of Meltdown is a fair trade. Extra lotg, and I really enjoy the maneuverability and extra travel speed myself. I'll see how much I end up using meltdown, and might make a swap later on. Meltdown does have a rather annoying long animation. From yours, I see that I can pump recharge in ground zero a bit more without hurting proc chances, so swapped my Avalanche choices out a bit, keeping damage pretty much the same and shaving a solid 8 seconds off.