Newbie blaster questions

[Neiska]

Hello forums,

 

Just had some questions for the Blaster experts out there. I have a tech based character that I wanted to make a blaster version of, mainly with one of the gun powers. Her secondary power will be Devices.

 

After some browsing I think the 3 gun powers are sort of - 

 

Assualt Rifle - More area damage powers, but lacks single target sustained damage?

Beam Rifle - More single target damage, the Distentergrate mechanic is a little wonky, and not much area damage?

Dual Pistols - Seems overal between the two, but lacks a sniper attack and has many Knockback powers which isnt always a good thing?

 

Not sure of those are correct, just going from what I have read so far.

 

So I guess I would like to know which would be the best to pair with Devices? Far as "what I want to do" well I mainly play solo, but do team with people on occasion. I usually run AEs, Incarnate missions or hunt bages.

 

My next quesiton is just how durable can you make a blaster? I hear stories of them being paper thin/squishy, but I have never really played one. I mean, how well can they solo? I am not expecting tanker or brute levels of toughness, but I don't want to be instant-splattered either.

 

Thats it for now, thanks bunches in advance.

 

TLDR -

1. Which "gun" powerset would pair with Devices well?

2. Just how glass cannon are they, or can you make them quasi-durable?

[posaunecat]

My brother has a beam rifle/dev blaster he is really taken with. I must admit I've never used devices, even back on live but the changes they made to it look like it's been brought in line with other secondaries.

 

Blasters can fairly easily soft cap ranged defenses and reach decent defense levels for S/L/E which can make you fairly survivable given how every secondary has some sort of sustain power, not to mention inspirations. Liberal use of Thunderstrike/Mako's Bite/Eradication/Cleaving Blow all provide good defense/E/N bonuses and the usual tough/weave/hover/CJ and stealth operative provide good slots for lotg and the resist +3% defense uniques.

 

The one thing to maybe consider is that AR/DP don't have access to an 'Aim' and devices lacks a true 'Build Up' power so that may be a compelling enough reason to go Beam Rifle. If you're okay with not having that you could slap the Gaussian's proc in Operative (maybe? I think?) Or run the +to-hit toggle from Leadership and have it fire off whenever it procs.

 

My blasters range from 32-45ish and are decently built so far and are absolute damage machines when Build Up/Aim are up. Opening with snipe also increases your range for some time letting you completely tear apart several foes before they can get to you. They are still vulnerable to being overwhelmes if your cooldowns are on cooldown, but with the attack/to-hit buffs and your nuke up you can do some serious 'arresting'.

 

My experience with Devices is extremely limited, and I'm sure there are some /Dev specific tricks you can do with the gun drone/trip mine/time bomb but I'm not the guy to ask.

Edited May 15, 2020 by posaunecat
Mobile typos :/

[Neiska]

well here is the build ive come up with. my first attempt. no idea if its good or bad for a blaster - 

 

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1483&c=689&a=1378&f=HEX&dc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

[BigJimPringle]

Speaking from personal experience with devices - you ought to take smoke grenade and drop time bomb unless you're simply using it to mule. With one hit debuff enhancement smoke grenade does something like -6.2% hit, which is really useful in any given situation, and i've personally found time bomb to be entirely useless in practice. And i think you really should 6slot lancer shot and penetrating ray, as they are your primary st damage dealers along with piercing beam, of course. You're also missing 3% def from the unique steadfast protection enhancement and i'm not sure, but i think that chance for recharge you have slotted in Kick will only ever proc if you're actually using the skill, since you have it slotted in an active skill. And put a celerity +stealth in your sprint, i'm pretty sure it stacks with the fieldops stealth.

 

p.s. if you decide to go with pistols, which have KB only if you're NOT using any of the specialized ammo, look in this thread - dp/dev discussion

Edited May 17, 2020 by BigJimPringle

[Scientist]

On 5/17/2020 at 6:53 AM, BigJimPringle said:

[snip]  i'm not sure, but i think that chance for recharge you have slotted in Kick will only ever proc if you're actually using the skill, since you have it slotted in an active skill. And put a celerity +stealth in your sprint, i'm pretty sure it stacks with the fieldops stealth.

That is correct, the Force Feedback only procs if the skill is used.  If you are spamming Kick, you will lose a lot of dps from not using the much harder hitting blaster attacks.  It probably also has a low chance to proc in Kick because Kicks recharge is short.  And yes, Celerity +stealth stacks with everything, Superspeed, Stalker Hide, Steamy Mist, etc. 

[CaptainLupis]

I have a Beam/devices blaster which I really enjoy playing, though it is only at the mid 20s at the moment. I think the question is how do you wantto play? Solo, team, both?

 

I find that beam/dev is great for solo play, it is mainly single target attacks, but they hit hard. I play it almost like a ranged stalker, which post 20 is easy to do with Field Operative and a celerity steath IO in sprint. (I use it in sprint, even though I am generally hovering, so I can slot something else in hover, it gives a bit more flexibility and can be turned off if the end drain is too much). The combo also works well in small teams, however in big teams the single target attacks, unless it is against hard targets, tends to get a bit lost where your targets usually end up dead before the animation has completed.

 

In short, if you are wanting to play on big teams I would suggest going either AR or DP as both have much better AoE options.

Edited May 19, 2020 by CaptainLupis

[Shred Monkey]

DP is great for AoE damage, but weaker on single target damage.  It's Nuke is PBAoE, so you need to be inside a spawn to hit everything.   I really enjoy my DP/Devices toon.

 

Beam is great for single target damage but weaker on AoE damage.  It's nuke is from range so you can use distance to aid in survivability.   My Beam/Devices blaster is easily my most powerful toon.  Able to solo almost anything (GMs, TFs, etc).  But I wouldn't list it as my "most fun" toon.  I prefer being in the middle of a spawn blowing stuff up rather than hovering back shooting fish in a barrel one at a time.  Also, as mentioned above, you get a lot of corpse blasting with Beam Rifles on a good team due to longish animations.

 

I've not played assault rifle enough to provide an expert opinion, but the reason I haven't played it is due to weaker damage numbers at least on paper.

[tidge]

21 hours ago, Scientist said:

That is correct, the Force Feedback only procs if the skill is used.  If you are spamming Kick, you will lose a lot of dps from not using the much harder hitting blaster attacks.  It probably also has a low chance to proc in Kick because Kicks recharge is short. 

Kick is my default choice when going the ____ -> Tough -> Weave route, and I have always dropped the +Recharge IO in it. However: I've only ever used Kick to fill an attack chain while leveling. I will admit to being 'tricked' by it's +Recharge when using MIDS... often enough times that I've considered never taking it again!

[Frostweaver]

To be fair, I don't actually LIKE BR on a blaster... it's damage single target is high enough that spreading disintegrate feels like a waste of time, and it just doesn't feel like it has the AOE a blaster set needs... although it is PERFECT for sentinel target caps, and if your blaster wants to stomp all over scrapper and stalker toes by being a premier single-target murderer, it's pretty much the best for getting the job done.

 

AR/devices is a natural synergy that the developers have actually artificially added synergy to. AR goes from being a low-end set to being a middle-of-the-road set when paired with either devices or Trick Arrow.

 

Dual Pistols has a weird synergy with devices because of the pbaoe nuke and trip mine... It turns Devices from a set specializing in ranged attacks to a hell of a Blapper. The defense buff from Hail gives you all the time you need to drop a trip mine without getting hurt, and because devices does NOT have any auras to attract aggro, you can stand right in the middle of a spawn, take your sweet time to drop a time bomb or trip mine, and then unleash hail to break the alpha.

I do not necessarily agree with others about the uselessness of time bomb... it's damage buff is like having a build-up in a combo like dp/devices that doesn't HAVE a build up, and when you drop it and follow up with (smoke grenade!) hail, rain, a trip mine, caltrops, back up a little for empty clips, and another rain, it goes off right after the rain does... leading to about 3500 damage inside 15 seconds and bouncing, debuffed, slowed, proc monstered, running in fear, whiffing enemies... if any survive.

Mu mastery for charged armor (big resists against the three most common damage types in the game) and electrifying fences to keep a spawn on your trops and finish your aoe attack chain, and your 'low damage' pistols are doing darned near what a fire/fire blaster can do with TONS more mitigation.

And, of course, your ranged  and steamroll damage is NOTHING to sneer at either. Piercing rounds with an achilles in it makes AV's squishy.
 

And, of course, since most of DP's attacks can slot KB sets EVEN when you have incindiary ammo equipped, just using a couple of slots almost always gives you an extra +100 recharge... which cranks the heck out of your DPS (usually +30% with an incarnate build) and lower damage with faster recharge (but still slow recharge) also means more damage procs going off in the same period of time. Frankenslotting Hail is VERY profitable.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Frostweaver