What's the best blaster for soloing past lv50 in your opinion?

[SeraphimKensai]

I can solo just fine with any blaster I suppose, most often at +4/8 (including one I occasionally use for fire farming). I have 10 of them currently. The caveat is that I IO out all my toons.

[Elia87]

18 hours ago, Tahliah said:

My all-time favorite solo toon, up to and past 50, is my ice/ice/ice blaster.  As others noted, she does mad damage and has some really good holds/mitigation.  I did all the blueside mishes via Ouro on live and am working my way through them all (blue, red, gold) here on HC.  So so fun!  Sure, there are times you have to do more than run in and start blasting (or leading with your aoe's), but that's part of the fun.  Do you need to drop your ice patch in a doorway, then pull the minions away from the AV, so they flop around on your ice patch and make a great fish in barrel situation for your Blizzard?  Do it.  Even if you don't need to, do it.  For the fun.  😛

 

Another fun solo build at any level is an MM. People can wrangle about which is best for them and why, but you almost can't go wrong.  I like demon/dark or kin and beast/nature best for soloing, but again, just about MM combo is good for soloing.  Just make sure you can keep your beasties alive, so your secondary needs to work with them well for soloing incarnate and 54 content.

Ice/ice or ice/plant, which would do more dmg in your opinion?

[Riverdusk]

On 4/29/2021 at 4:25 PM, starjs said:

I know what you're trying to say, and that you mean well, but I really hate these nothing kind of responses. Yes, sometimes the questions are silly, but if all you have to contribute to a thread is something like this or 'the best blaster for any situation is the one you like to see go pew pew the best!' then maybe just not post.

 

And I totally disagree with that sentiment.  It took me a long time to realize that just trying to go with/find the "most uber" didn't lead to my long term satisfaction with a character.  So, I don't believe an answer like that is as obvious as it seems and is a perfectly valid response.  Especially when the initial question was as vague as it was.   Now if the original poster had asked "which one has the best aoe damage?" or something similiar I'd have understood your response a bit more.

 

And telling someone they shouldn't post?  Yeah, maybe don't do that please.

[Tahliah]

2 hours ago, Elia87 said:

Ice/ice or ice/plant, which would do more dmg in your opinion?

I don't have much experience with /plant (my /plant blaster is still low lvl at 20ish and not ice.  I think she may be energy, but I can't recall off-hand), but I think that /plant might do more damage depending how you slot.  If you slot the vines and strangler for damage and acc, then go heavy on slotting for debuff (and acc, of course) in your toxins and spore burst, you can probably do more damage than I do with only my  /ice secondary. 

 

Again, this is just me guessing, so take it for what it's worth.  Though I must admit, I now want to roll and ice/plant just to see!  :P

[Elia87]

57 minutes ago, Tahliah said:

I don't have much experience with /plant (my /plant blaster is still low lvl at 20ish and not ice.  I think she may be energy, but I can't recall off-hand), but I think that /plant might do more damage depending how you slot.  If you slot the vines and strangler for damage and acc, then go heavy on slotting for debuff (and acc, of course) in your toxins and spore burst, you can probably do more damage than I do with only my  /ice secondary. 

 

Again, this is just me guessing, so take it for what it's worth.  Though I must admit, I now want to roll and ice/plant just to see!  😛

Oh i see, makes sense..although i am not good at making builds eh eh..i took /plant because of that spore cloud debuff , wild fortress and the holds..I got it at 50 but not built yet

[Tahliah]

29 minutes ago, Elia87 said:

Oh i see, makes sense..although i am not good at making builds eh eh..i took /plant because of that spore cloud debuff , wild fortress and the holds..I got it at 50 but not built yet

It takes time (and tons of influence) to slot out a toon and get it just the way you want it, so don't sweat it.  Thankfully, on HC, we have so many respecs dropped on us, that we can tweak our builds multiple times!  My old ice/ice/ice blaster has certainly benefited from the HC revival; I never did revisit her build on live, even with all the new stuff we could add (powers, IO sets, etc.).  I just didn't think I could improve her, but I did on HC because I just kept doing different stuff with her build until I got it the way I want it.  Well, okay, there are SOME tweaks I still intend to make . . . some day.  :P

[KauaiJim]

My main here is a remake of my main from live, an Elec³ blaster.  Is Elec considered the most uber?  No.  But he IS uber.  VERY.  IMO the powerset differences for blaster can make a difference if you are trying to achieve a specific goal but for overall general playing I recommend putting together a build with powers that are fun and enjoyable to you and/or that go with what your character's 'theme' is.

 

Also, honestly there are ways to make almost any build awesome at this point.  And there are some real build 'wizards' out there posting great ideas for builds to help folks (see the "Archetypes" forums).

 

Anyhow, I'm trying to say that CoH here on Homecoming pretty much allows you to put together almost any powerset combo and just being a moderately skilled player you will do fine (or should).  My E³ blaster most certainly can do some very powerful stuff.  He's not a tank but even still he holds his own against numerous mobs very well (again, not as many as a tanker or brute but still impressive).  Anymore you can build all of them to be pretty solid - then you just need to pick good powers from whichever powersets you choose and slot them well.  Oh, and of course learn how to use them and be tactical about your battles or you can sometimes even get scrapperlock depending on your build and the mobs.

 

I think I even found a tanky elect blaster build by Hyperstrike right here in these forums if I'm remembering correctly.  Basically IMO blasters are still the 'glass canons' they always have been but now they are more like 'fiberglass canons' with even higher damage than before - so if you kill it fast YOU WIN!  😁

 

So go - be any darn type of blaster you want to be and have fun! 

Edited May 16, 2021 by KauaiJim

[ZorkNemesis]

16 hours ago, Elia87 said:

Ice/ice or ice/plant, which would do more dmg in your opinion?

 

Can't speak for /ice but one thing worth pointing out: the way Toxins works (it adds a damage proc rather than a damage buff) makes it near useless for pseudopet powers like rains.  I rolled an Archery/Plant a short while ago and was extremely disapointed to see Toxins only added 3 damage to Rain of Arrows (roughly 0.88 damage per tic).  I would expect similar low damage for Ice Storm and Blizzard, but it might still add a little bit more given more tics of damage.  It also still provides a +ToHit too and accepts a Gaussian proc (the Gaussian boost won't boost Toxins' extra damage though, and neither will Aim).

 

Statistically speaking, I would guess /Ice would be stronger for straight damage.  Cold damage is less likely to be resisted versus the mostly Lethal you get from /Plant.  Freezing Touch is also stupid strong and stupid proccable if I recall.  Build Up may also give more damage overall versus Toxins since Toxins' damage buff is a proc that can't be boosted further and I think I recall Toxic can be resisted hard by some foes (interestingly enough though, Toxic is a big help against Malta as they have no resistance against it, even the Titans don't resist Toxic).  That said, /Plant will give you stronger crowd control (Vines is amazing for this) and two solid melee AoEs.  Wild Fortress is also a good mule for resist procs and Spore Cloud is great for cutting regen and damage on bigger foes (though nowhere near as potent as the Nature Affinity version it was ripped from).

[Elia87]

10 minutes ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

Can't speak for /ice but one thing worth pointing out: the way Toxins works (it adds a damage proc rather than a damage buff) makes it near useless for pseudopet powers like rains.  I rolled an Archery/Plant a short while ago and was extremely disapointed to see Toxins only added 3 damage to Rain of Arrows (roughly 0.88 damage per tic).  I would expect similar low damage for Ice Storm and Blizzard, but it might still add a little bit more given more tics of damage.  It also still provides a +ToHit too and accepts a Gaussian proc (the Gaussian boost won't boost Toxins' extra damage though, and neither will Aim).

 

Statistically speaking, I would guess /Ice would be stronger for straight damage.  Cold damage is less likely to be resisted versus the mostly Lethal you get from /Plant.  Freezing Touch is also stupid strong and stupid proccable if I recall.  Build Up may also give more damage overall versus Toxins since Toxins' damage buff is a proc that can't be boosted further and I think I recall Toxic can be resisted hard by some foes (interestingly enough though, Toxic is a big help against Malta as they have no resistance against it, even the Titans don't resist Toxic).  That said, /Plant will give you stronger crowd control (Vines is amazing for this) and two solid melee AoEs.  Wild Fortress is also a good mule for resist procs and Spore Cloud is great for cutting regen and damage on bigger foes (though nowhere near as potent as the Nature Affinity version it was ripped from).

Ah that makes sense and wow thank you for the clear explanation...hmm i think i will reroll then to ice/something else...even my beam/plant i suppose i will retire then..

[Tahliah]

16 hours ago, Elia87 said:

Ah that makes sense and wow thank you for the clear explanation...hmm i think i will reroll then to ice/something else...even my beam/plant i suppose i will retire then..

No need.  Ice doesn't have rains except for your nuke (oh, and I guess there's Ice Storm, but I don't take that--can't stand it, though others swear by it).  Does BR even have a rain?  I'm not sure since I've never rolled one, but don't ditch your toons just because someone mentions something that may not even apply to your build (i.e. rains, in this case). 

[Apparition]

Beam Rifle doesn't have a rain, only a cone and a targeted AoE.