New to blasters

[Brutal Justice]

I have pretty minimal experience with blasters and am looking for any insight from the experts.  I have several planned and only one that I am happy with.  

 

I want to play a rad/ and was thinking /elec.  Any insight on how well that will mesh? Or maybe /dark.  I am not sure how I feel about having the sustain on a click instead of a toggle.  

 

I would also like to roll a dark/.  Right now I have it paired with /plant.  I am not sure how I feel about the pairing.  It’s only lvl 13. I might change to dark/energy.  

 

I do like /plant.  Are there any particularly good pairings with /plant?  For pairings with the primaries I already have a /tac, /time, /dev planned and I don’t like to repeat sets.  Let me know what you think.  Thanks. 

 

 

[Coyote]

Plant is a great set and works with pretty much anything, but it is short-ranged with its Immobilize and Hold. Both are worth using (the Immob is Mag 4 so it will Immob bosses in one shot), but you're drawn to being short range, so it will do well with other short-range blast sets that have good cones or PBAoEs. I"m doing Water/Plant and it's working and looking very well together.

 

I'm also planning a Rad/Atomic... granted, it's an end-game build, but being able to rotate AoE Holds from spawn to spawn is nice. Rad works well with any other set that is oriented towards melee since it has a PBAoE and a radial AoE power that can be used well in melee. Avoid /Dark, the sustain has to hit, and it's annoying not having access to it outside of combat. If it had a way to stack like Drain Psyche, it might be a good option, but right now it's by far the worst sustain available.

 

I'm running a Dark/Mental. They work fine, both have cones for a 3-cone AoE cycle. Dark/Energy is the other good pairing for Dark, because Boost Power + Dark's debuffs, heal, control are a great combination. And the cone Immob could use a range boost from Boost Range.

[Nemu]

I highly recommend /elec if you are comfortable with getting in melee. It is the premier blapper secondary because of the damage, mitigation and utility tools it offers and it's quick animation times aside from thunderstrike, which I still highly recommend you take despite the animation time. Rad/Elec will jive better than Dark/Elec from a positioning perspective. If you skip electron haze you can pretty much stay in melee range all day with Rad/Elec where as you will have to hop in and out constantly to use Dark's cones which is it's only source of AoE. The heal in dark, while nice, doesn't justify the constant positioning required to maximize dark/elec's effectiveness.

 

If you are shy about getting into melee though I would not recommend /elec, or /atomic.

[Brutal Justice]

Thanks for the info

 

@Nemu what are your thoughts on lightning field?   I currently have it on my rad/elec but I don’t know how much mileage I am actually getting from it.  I am in melee, but am I in melee enough for it to be worth the end drain?  As I lvl higher will I just be killing things so quickly with my other attacks that it’s a waste of end?  

[Nemu]

I don't take damage auras on blasters. Damage auras don't really add enough value for blasters because they are not always in melee range. So they are just really inefficient and unnecessary end drain that you can do without. Blapping isn't about being dumb and staying in melee all the time, blapping is about seizing opportunities to do melee damage and weaving in and out of melee range as needed. This holds especially true before you get all IOed out, IOs can help you play dumber of course. And believe me you will have enough end problems to deal with even without lightning field as you are leveling up if you go balls to the walls bunny hopping from mob to mob punching and blasting face. Powersink is a much more effective tool for burst end drain and I have drained weakend hamidon in LGTF just by opening up with powersink then constantly apply /elec's attacks including the tier 1.

 

I posted a few game play videos of my fire/elec/mace in the Fire/Elec/Mace thread a few posts below in this forum. I'm going to share with you some observations about /elec in Homecoming and blapping in general:

 

1 - Force of thunder with a KB->KD IO is a game changer. It's also an excellent force feedback mule that can proc it reliably. This power along with Thunderstrike will save your life.

 

2 - Thunderstrike is a must take as well despite the animation time. It also needs a sudden accel KB->KD IO, not overwhelming force KD IO because the latter still lets KB leak through. It's also an excellent force feedback mule. The AoE radius and target cap for this power is deceptively large. When you use this with Force of Thunder you can time the two to chain KD juggle 10+ mobs. Even when the main target dies before the animation finishes the KD portion will still apply to surrounding mobs. These two powers complimented by a good IO build will make you a tank mage.

 

3 - Before you get all IOed out using insp combine in your downtime and turn any insps you don't need into purples, monitor your defenses and at lower levels pop 2-3 small purples at once if things go sour. As you level and get more inspiration slots and better tier insps continue doing the same but add breakfrees and maybe respites into the mix as needed and pop the necessary purples to reach 35-40% ish defense during sticky situations. Don't be shy about using inspirations, your skill and effectiveness as a blaster depends on proper insp use especially pre-IOs.

 

4 - Learn to joust, it's a game changer. The art of movement is lost on the general player base and they just sit around like statues and scrap/blast until things die or they die. Jousting buys you time, jousting will put you out of harms way. Watch my gameplay videos and notice when I Inferno and where I am in relation to the group I nuked. Ever been in a group coming up on a lab room with 2-3 groups of enemies close to each other and you need to pull? Typically you pull with a single target attack then run behind cover right? That's for amateurs, impress your friends by joust-nuking a mob as your way to pull.

 

 

[Brutal Justice]

How do you slot glue arrow?   I was hoping it was auto hit but it looks like the damage portion requires accuracy.  I was also hoping they would take damage as long as they were covered in glue but it looks like it just creates a patch on the ground like caltrops so if they run out of the patch, even if still glued, they no longer take damage.  

[Novacat]

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

[Kaballah]

Damage auras are neat in principle but in practice they're really annoying to keep going because they get detoggled whenever you are CC'd, which is very frequent until late in the post-50 game.

[Brutal Justice]

1 hour ago, Novacat said:

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 slow from the glue is autohit but the damage portion is not.  If you watch your combat logs it misses and does no damage if the target is high enough.  You need accuracy for the damage

[Outrider_01]

Point. Click. Boom!

 

Evil smug ass smirking grin  on your face at the carnage you creat. . Rinse and repeat.

[Novacat]

1 hour ago, Mr.Sinister said:

The slow from the glue is autohit but the damage portion is not.  If you watch your combat logs it misses and does no damage if the target is high enough.  You need accuracy for the damage

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