Blapper Defenses?

[drgantz]

I've seen posts saying that a Blapper has the best dps, but does it have good defense?  Does is need Tough and Weave from the Fighting pool?

One example is DP/MC.  I would assume that a Scrapper has better surviveablility.

[Coyote]

8 minutes ago, drgantz said:

I've seen posts saying that a Blapper has the best dps, but does it have good defense?  Does is need Tough and Weave from the Fighting pool?

One example is DP/MC.  I would assume that a Scrapper has better surviveablility.

 

Absolutely.

You can try one without Fighting, but it will take a LOT more damage, and now that we get Fitness as an inherent pool, it's a lot easier to fit in Fighting. Also, Tough allows you to slot the two +Defense unique IOs earlier than waiting for an Epic armor.

Scrappers certainly have better survivability, though Blasters do more damage and have the option to stay at range if a foe is especially dangerous in melee. Be sure to build your Blapper so that if it's stuck staying at range, it's not losing too many attacks.

 

Other defensive options are melee-range crowd controls... Electric Manipulation has a couple of PBAoE knockdowns, Ice Manipulations has Ice Patch, etc.

[Haijinx]

I don't think anything /Martial is going to be the best DPS Blapper 

 

It doesn't have the standard Blaster Melee scaling on its attacks.  Its got scrapper ports.  

 

ST compare its number to /Energy 

ST+AOE compare it to /Electric 

 

Two of the traditional strong Melee sets

[DreadShinobi]

Tough and weave are not necessary, they can help, and they offer spots for good IOs, but their base values are pretty poor for blasters. Rune of Protection from the sorcery pool with a high recharge IO build can offer alot more, providing resistance to all damage types and mez protection. I run a resistance based blaster with mu mastery and 20-30% defense to most damage types, the highest being ranged defense, so you can softcap with a purple insp or two. Rune of Protection is effectively a stack of insps all in one click and extends what you can do with your inspiration tray.

[Max Firepower]

Hit fast, hit really hard, and team.

 

Defense is helpful, but letting something start the alpha is about all you need.

 

I blapped when a sentinel was our ‘tank’ and it worked - just enough time to not take all on the chin, then blaster-lock on one target at a time if you are fighting grapes and you aren’t the biggest boom on the team.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Max Firepower

[Nightmarer 2]

This feels a bit like back in the day when some ppl claimed Stamina wasn't needed. I mean, Fighting Pool is not "needed", you can get Rune of Power and when it's down you can rely on insps or take a break and make coffee, you can also rely on teaming with a meat shield and why not, a personal healer. You could also choose Rise of the Phoenix and pump up your recharge so it wouldn't matter if you get killed, I've known in the past players who did exactly that, one of them even considered Rise of the Phoenix as a part of the attack chain.

 

Maybe Fighting Pool is not needed but it is the best solution to make you self reliant at all times.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Nightmarer

[Chelsea Rorec]

My Elec/Elec has 75% S/L 50%NRG resists and 48% ranged def.

Coupled with the -endurance and -End and i tank better than most tanks 😛

No Rune of Power just Tough and Weave so it's all the time.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Chelsea Rorec

[Shred Monkey]

I think it really depends on how aggressive you want to be.  If you want to be able to run into a spawn and open with your PBAoE then blap down the survivors, then you probably need more survivability than if you're going to follow a tank in and carefully beat down the bosses with single target dps.

 

I like to run scorpion shield and have 45% ranged, and 45% S/L defenses.   This tends to also give 45+% to energy due to using scorpion shield and getting a lot of energy from the same IOs that give ranged.  I see many others opt for one of the resistance epic powers so they have high resists to S/L while running tough and, for example, fireshield.

 

Also, knowing your enemy is important.  If you target the enemies with -defense and kill them fast, they are less likely to hit you and trigger a cascading defense crash.   And don't forget, just because you melee doesn't mean you have to stand in one spot like a dimwitted brute.   You can jump back and throw some ranged attacks to kite some enemies if you get in trouble.  Enemies don't attack when they're moving.  This can be a very useful tool to the smart blapper.

 

 

[Nemu]

5 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

just because you melee doesn't mean you have to stand in one spot like a dimwitted brute.

I can't stress this one enough. Don't lol melee, learn how to move.

[Grindingsucks]

I like to have combat teleport macro'd to teleport to the enemy.  Have two other macros set up; one that can telport you straight up and one that can teleport you straight back.

 

In group combat, let the melee guys draw aggro.  Fire your snipe, then a couple other rnged attacks from a distance (Pew! Pew! Pew!).  Then activate combat teleport macro to TP to your targeted enemy.  Hit them with a chain of three strong melee attacks (Blap! Blap! Blap!).  Hit one of your macros to CT either up or away (depending on the map geometry.  Up for open maps, back for narrow confined ones).  Rinse and Repeat until the enemy group is neutralized.

 

This should keep you relatively safe about 90% of the time.  I have a Dark/EM Blaster with low to mediocre resist and defense and he does very well using this method, even in high level group content.

[Haijinx]

On 2/8/2021 at 1:41 PM, Nemu said:

I can't stress this one enough. Don't lol melee, learn how to move.

Unless you are on a full team with the typical 5+ people spamming Maneuvers and Tactics.  Then you can just pretend to be an SR Melee God and just throw out AOEs and Blasts and Melee attacks at will.