Highest DPS blaster?

[Unrandom]

My friend and I just found the game again and want to make new characters. I plan to make a brute or tanker (not 100% sure yet), and he will be a blaster. We want the blaster to do the most of the damage. What power sets should he pick to have the most DPS overall?

[Rathulfr]

I believe that Fire/* Blasters are the highest DPS, but I could be wrong, and will shortly be corrected by others, I'm sure.

 

[Coyote]

I really don't think that you'll be corrected ;).

Beam Rifle might end up higher effective damage in a duo against AVs, because it has -Regen and sources of -Res other than Annihilation. So while it does less personal direct DPS it may end up better against AVs/GMs.

But it will be a lot lower AoE damage, and against Bosses and such they'll probably die too fast to get enough benefit from the -Regen/-Res, so Fire will generally be better.

 

Ice is also high DPS with more defense, and Archery is also high AoE damage (but not as high single-target). So is Water Blast, and it can slot some -Res IOs.

 

But in general, you have to work hard to put anything else in the dicussion other than Fire Blast if you're looking for "highest damage".

[Unrandom]

What for secondary set good for?

[Rathulfr]

For Blaster secondaries, I like Temporal, Tactical, Devices, and Energy.  For blapping (melee blastering), I recommend Atomic, Martial, or Darkness.  But pretty much all of the secondaries are decent, depending on what you want to do.

 

Rather than try to metagame in advance, why not just roll up a character you think will be fun, and see if you can make it work for you?  HC gives us 1,000 character slots per shard, so you've plenty of room to try things out as you see fit.

 

[Unrandom]

Thank you! 🙂

[Hjarki]

 

3 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

I believe that Fire/* Blasters are the highest DPS, but I could be wrong, and will shortly be corrected by others, I'm sure.

Fire is definitely one of the top contenders. However, since the Snipe changes, the value of sets has re-shuffled a bit and I don't know anyone who has done a comprehensive review for Blasters. My suspicion is that sets like Dark and Psi are serious contenders (at least for single target damage). For multi-target damage, it's mainly how hard you make the bodies bounce with your ultimates.

[Nemu]

Fire has a snipe too and it has better DPA attacks, it still wins.

 

Also context, are you going to level the normal way running missions/TFs or are you going to get PLed. What's your starting capital? Is someone going to give you billion inf and billion inf IO builds or are you working your way up from scratch?

 

If you are working your way up from scratch melee ATs are going to have a hard time early levels because their defenses are not mature enough and end up being endurance sinks. And if you don't have the inf to bankroll those toons with IOs some melee ATs still suck going into higher level content. Controller/blaster might be more effective in a duo. There is less investment needed to make the duo effective and controllers also bring buffs/debuffs to the table that augment survival on top of controls.

 

Of the blaster secondaries the ones with build up or similar variants will give you better burst during those early levels and sometimes those CoT spectre LTs or ruin mages need to DIE right now. The secondaries that are more range friendly like devices and tactical arrows will offer lower damage output but are "safer." Those two secondaries are good for beginner blasters though, if your buddy is learning the game and have not mastered movement those pick one of those secondaries and hover and you can make do.

 

Advanced blasters that mastered movement will have a better time playing secondaries with melee attacks, and that's where the real damage is.

[Hjarki]

2 hours ago, Nemu said:

Fire has a snipe too and it has better DPA attacks, it still wins.

Fire has one of the slowest sniper attacks, so the average DPS of its attacks suffers.

[Nemu]

7 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

Fire has one of the slowest sniper attacks, so the average DPS of its attacks suffers.

I wasn't aware that different snipes in quickform had different animation times? I thought it was standardized to 1.33 seconds across the board?

Also, whatever difference in animation time in the fire snipe is more than made up by blaze.

[Haijinx]

In that dps is also a function of AOE

 

For ranged def Fire.  

Melee probably Electric.  

 

So for AOE Fire/Elec, ST would be high also.   

 

Of course that's no consideration for survival just damage.  

 

========

Ice/Eng used to be a ST favorite, but no quick snipe? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Destlin]

I hate the rain skills a ton so I pick sets with AoE that better suits me like archery. Lots of AoE potential in the set and the nuke isnt one it is just a powerful aoe on a 14 second cd once kitted out.

[Erydanus]

22 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

I believe that Fire/* Blasters are the highest DPS, but I could be wrong, and will shortly be corrected by others, I'm sure.

 

Well I thought that too but last night on Excelsior help people were saying (wait for it) ICE is highest DPS because "the dpa of some of the beams are just nutso". 

 

And I was like, "even with fire's bonus dot secondary?" and people were like, "hell yeah, ICE is single target blaster king, fire is highest AoE" and I was all like ….

 

it's not April 1. I have not ever seen this suggested much less the math chucked out in public. I don't know the math here. But this is completely contradictory to 100% of what I have heard before. So let's have at.

[Camel]

29 minutes ago, Erydanus said:

Well I thought that too but last night on Excelsior help people were saying (wait for it) ICE is highest DPS because "the dpa of some of the beams are just nutso". 

 

And I was like, "even with fire's bonus dot secondary?" and people were like, "hell yeah, ICE is single target blaster king, fire is highest AoE" and I was all like ….

 

it's not April 1. I have not ever seen this suggested much less the math chucked out in public. I don't know the math here. But this is completely contradictory to 100% of what I have heard before. So let's have at.

I could see this being true. With the changes to Freeze Ray, you can skip your T1 blast and have an attack chain of T2, Freeze Ray and Bitter Ice Blast, all of which can have 2+procs. 

[SlimPickens]

Ice/fire and fire/fire are both extreme damage producers.

 

 

[Zeraphia]

Fire/Fire with Burn slotting Armageddon Fire and FotG -res is the highest. 

[Unrandom]

Thank you all for the great information!

[Jolly Ogre]

Ummm....just remember DPS means you are still standing doing the DPS.

 

If you are face down your DPS is 0.

 

Build for survivability too.

[Call Me Awesome]

If you want to play in melee then Fire/Fire is a contender, you're likely to eat a lot of aggro though.  If you want to play at range then Fire/EM is a good choice with Boost Range letting you reach out and touch someone.

 

I'm happy with the DPS of my Fire/EM/Fire blaster, Bonfire (with KB-KD proc), Rain of Fire, Fireball & Breath of Fire makes for a dandy minion melter and ghetto control power with Blaze & Blazing Bolt to say hi to the boss... not to mention your Nuke every 30-40 seconds.

[agentx5]

On 4/5/2020 at 3:24 PM, Unrandom said:

My friend and I just found the game again and want to make new characters. I plan to make a brute or tanker (not 100% sure yet), and he will be a blaster. We want the blaster to do the most of the damage. What power sets should he pick to have the most DPS overall?

Speaking as a blaster main (Alyssa Q'Uzixola), the goal should be synergy with your teammates.  The most DPS I've done is when I'm paired with a Defender or Controller who is debuffing and buffing like crazy.  That's actually what's fun about this game, there isn't a "best".  Also I find -Resistance is harder to come about than -Defense, and -Res does more in end-game content than -Def.  And finally don't discount the power of things like electric's -End draining effects.

 

Remember it's a team effort.

 

Since you and your friend are running together, you should really work on two powersets that synergize when put together.

[GetRidOfWires]

I’m going to put in a mention for Fire/Plant. Skewer and Spine Burst are pretty effective and Toxic damage is not resisted as much as some other forms of damage. Later you get an AoE Hold that can keep enemies inside Rain of Fire.

[Fire Chief]

Elec/Ice slow em and mow em 🙂

[Parabola]

10 hours ago, Jolly Ogre said:

Ummm....just remember DPS means you are still standing doing the DPS.

 

If you are face down your DPS is 0.

 

Build for survivability too.

Just to reiterate this point. I think it's actually quite hard to build a blaster that doesn't do enough damage. I have an elec/mental and she kicks out plenty of damage despite elec being considered a weak primary. The thing is she has synergy and survivability. She can sit in melee range letting off a chain of aoe that results in complete safety once the drain kicks in. Sure another blaster could produce bigger numbers but dead mobs are dead mobs, having to use one more click to get there is neither here nor there.

 

This is particularly important if you are going to be running as just a duo with your friend. Whatever the other character you aren't going to be able to cover all the bases. If they go meatshield you aren't going to have buffs/heals to support you. If they go support then the mobs will tend to swarm you. In just a duo I would look to go a little multi-role rather than all out damage dealer. A brute and a corruptor or a controller and a corruptor might be something to consider, or at least using a blaster that can offer more than just straight damage.

[Frostweaver]

Dual pistols with the fire ammo outperforms most other AOE sets except specifically fire, but unlike fire you spend more time NOT DEAD which cranks your damage up a notch. single target there are better, but some of the 'betters' are using the most-resisted damage types, which drops their total output down a notch.

psi is only really good BECAUSE it's a rarely resisted set. If it were lethal damage, it would be considered the lowest performer, rather than one of the better ones it is now.

[Zeraphia]

51 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

Dual pistols with the fire ammo outperforms most other AOE sets except specifically fire, but unlike fire you spend more time NOT DEAD which cranks your damage up a notch. single target there are better, but some of the 'betters' are using the most-resisted damage types, which drops their total output down a notch.

psi is only really good BECAUSE it's a rarely resisted set. If it were lethal damage, it would be considered the lowest performer, rather than one of the better ones it is now.

Psi is not a rarely resisted set. It's the third most resisted set behind Lethal and Toxic. 

"Psionic is third with Arachnos bots/widows/Fortunatas, Turrets, Council Robots, Malta Robots, all Nemesis, some PPD Psi Officers, Praetorians, and Psychic Clockwork possessing 40% to 50% Psi resistance."