So many classes, but doesn't have the one I want

[Diantane]

Played my first blaster this week (Fire/Atomic). Leveled him to 46 and just stopped. I just had enough. Put to sleep and then the foe kills me with no way to protect myself. This happened several dozen times. Don't care for melee (played a stalker. Drop a red inspiration, click on build up and go to assassin. Then three others kill the guy that I took too long to prepare for. All my efforts wasted). What I needed was a blaster with mez protection. Thought that the sentinel was the answer, but their damage level is so low it takes me three full uses of all of my attacks to kill anything. The defender's even worse. They need either provide mez protection for the blaster or beef up the sentinel (which I would prefer).

[Nerio72]

There are Set IOs that provide mez protection, found 2 with a quick search in the wiki, sure there are more.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Aegis:_Psionic/Status_Resistance

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Impervious_Skin:_Status_Resistance/Regeneration

[Wavicle]

With a Blaster the way to do it is a combination of Defense from Pool Powers and IOs and Mezzing the Mezzer before he Mezzes you. Those are your tools, use them and you shouldn't have nearly as much trouble.

 

But also, you can carry some Break Free inspirations and use them when necessary.

 

Then in the Incarnate powers at level 50 you can get the Clarion Destiny power which gives you full permanent Mez Protection at tier 4.

[Sovera]

Man, you're complaining over basic stuff.

 

Read my guide if you haven't, and then type /ah between missions to make sure you have a stock of purple inspirations. In the case of the Blaster also of Breakfrees. Or if the Sentinel then purples and reds. Once you get to 32 the Sentinel catches up.

 

A Stalker is not about slow assassin strikes-in-stealth because it's slow. Hit with your strongest attack while in stealth to force it to crit, -then- use AS.

 

Try to copy builds instead of trying to pile something yourself until you are more used to the game and builds.

[ZorkNemesis]

2 hours ago, Nerio72 said:

There are Set IOs that provide mez protection, found 2 with a quick search in the wiki, sure there are more.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Aegis:_Psionic/Status_Resistance

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Impervious_Skin:_Status_Resistance/Regeneration

 

Those don't provide "Protection", but they provide "Resistance" which means you'll be held/slept/whatever for shorter durations.  Most set bonuses that provide damage resistance also provide mez resistance bonuses similar to these enhancements as well.  You'll still get controlled.  The only statuses you can protect from through slotting are Teleport, Repel, and Knockback.

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by ZorkNemesis

[SuperPlyx]

As stated there are lots of options for when mezzed but one thing not mentioned: Blaster Primary and Secondary powers that are available at level 1 can be used while mezzed

You can keep attacking even when mezzed!

[Grouchybeast]

To get the most out of blasters, it's best to take a multi-layered approach to mez protection.

 

- Your T1 and T2 attacks, which can be used while mezzed.  Slot them up and use them.

- Inspirations: purples to buff your defence so you don't get mezzed in the first place, and breakfrees to, uh, break free when you do.  Keep some in your tray. Right-click and combine when you see a few boring oranges or yellows that you don't need.  (As you level up, turn off smaller insps to keep your tray tidy.)

- Powerset selection.  Some Blaster powersets come with varying levels of mez protections, so if you're really keen to avoid mezzing, choose your powersets accordingly.

- Your own mezzes. You have access to a range of holds, etc from your primary, secondary and epic powers.  Use them selectively and proactively on enemies that mez.

- IO sets.  These can give you appreciable levels of defence to avoid mezzing, and status protection/resistance as well.

 

In combination mez shouldn't be a major problem, even when soloing.  (In teams, some kind support toon probably threw a status protection effect and a ton of defence on you already.)  It's a bit more complicated than toggling on your mez protection in a melee AT, but in compensation you get all those lovely ranged AOEs.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Grouchybeast

[Diantane]

Thanks for the quick replies. Gives me something to work for. The incarnate update would be ideal, May switch from doing missions at RWZ until then though 🙂 I'll also work on the inspirations (thanks for that helpful tip).

[Carnifax]

If Mez is really bothering you go down the Sorcery route for Rune of Protection. Never felt the need personally on any Blaster but you may. 

 

If you can't live without Mez prot Sentinels and Forts both cover "Mez prot with ranged". As do Dominators to some extent too. There are tradeoffs (to avoid Tankmaging) but all 3 ATs give some combination of ranged (and some melee if you want) and Mez prot.

[Shred Monkey]

Until you get your destiny incarnate slot, the best mez protection on a blaster is ranged defense...and then staying out of melee.   If you get range defense up to 45% then most mez attacks will miss you 95% of the time.  You use break frees when you do get hit with a mez.  Also, knowing which enemies are using the mez attacks so you can kill them first helps as well.

 

Also...  you may want to check out the Dominator AT.  They have mez protection when domination is up.  With enough global recharge you can make domination permanent.  I have no experience with them so I apologize if I'm mis-stating something about them. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by Shred Monkey

[Bill Z Bubba]

You could also go nuts and build a ranged scrapper. After SR was nerfed to the dirt way back in the old days but before the scaling resists were added, I was running my claws/sr scrapper utilizing nothing but focus and shockwave from claws along with Dark Blast, Night Fall and Tenebrous Tentacles from Dark Mastery. It wasn't great but it did keep me alive during those dark days.

[Hew]

Sentinels are surprisingly good, but you have to consider that single target damage is not their forte. They get more mileage out of aoes (with some weird sort of distance-damage sliding scale thingy I believe), they can be tough as nails, and you wont get rickrolled like a blaster due to mez.

 

Or you can do atypical things like nature/whatever/darkness permasouldrain perma-ish overgrowth and just be at or nearly at damage cap _on a defender_ almost all the time. That is no small amount of damage! If you are REALLY worried about mez, you got elec/whatever/darkness defenders with a portable +res/mezprotect bubble for yourself and your team. CT into melee under stealth, pop your bubble, souldrain, pbaoe, profit.

 

 

 

[Erratic1]

Play a Bio sentinel. You get Mez protection and a 25% damage buff in exchange for lowered resistances. Build for defense so you don't really care about the lowered resistances. You end up at 94% of blaster damage. 

 

Is it worth it to give up 6% damage and a bit of range for Mez protection and better overall defenses?

 

That's your call.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Erratic1

[InvaderStych]

20 minutes ago, Hew said:

Or you can do atypical things like nature/whatever/darkness permasouldrain perma-ish overgrowth and just be at or nearly at damage cap _on a defender_ almost all the time.

 

Pardon me kind poster, do you have a newsletter to which I may subscribe?  I had a notion a while back for rolling some combination of Nature and Dark, but never quite settled on an AT.

[Snarky]

sigh.  I hate to say this. (I love to say this!) Learn to play!  Get off my lawn!

 

seriously you want a Blaster.  You just do not want the current builds.  You want a conservative build made for the game as it was back on live.

[Sevico7]

Don't forget there's Clarion Partial Core Invocation which is one of the destiny incarnate powers that gives at least mag 6 or better mez protection for 120 second with a 120 seconds cooldown and it's only tier 3 Destiny to, you will need to level to 50 and unlock them however. Another option is a /traps /sonic or /forcefield corruptor which all have some kind of power that as some protection to.

[tidge]

10 hours ago, Diantane said:

Played my first blaster this week (Fire/Atomic). Leveled him to 46 and just stopped. I just had enough. Put to sleep and then the foe kills me with no way to protect myself. This happened several dozen times.

 

Check your pockets for Break Free inspirations.

[arcane]

I think you’re going to be much happier with your experience once you (1) get your first IO build going and, to a lesser extent, (2) get more comfortable with inspirations.
 

Both are powerful tools that can offset your AT’s weaknesses. For instance, Blasters need break frees and a smidge of defense. Sentinels are dying for damage procs.

 

PM me you global chat handle if you would like to ask questions more in game 🙂

[Xenosone]

Elec/shield stalker. Set up target macros for lightning rod and shield bash. Buildup, lr, sb then do an assasin strike. Drop the guassians proc in buildup for damage.  Make sure you have the stalker ato for build up. Do horrible horrible things to the ai that make you love stalker forever.

Stalker 2. Em/ea. You have stuns. You have an aoe stun in ea. Youre stunning bosses. Theyre dead. This thread is diamonds. 

[Triumphant]

11 hours ago, Diantane said:

Played my first blaster this week (Fire/Atomic). Leveled him to 46 and just stopped. I just had enough. Put to sleep and then the foe kills me with no way to protect myself. This happened several dozen times. Don't care for melee (played a stalker. Drop a red inspiration, click on build up and go to assassin. Then three others kill the guy that I took too long to prepare for. All my efforts wasted). What I needed was a blaster with mez protection. Thought that the sentinel was the answer, but their damage level is so low it takes me three full uses of all of my attacks to kill anything. The defender's even worse. They need either provide mez protection for the blaster or beef up the sentinel (which I would prefer).

 

I've been playing this game for two years now.  Remembering what it was like as a new player, let me say that I fully sympathize with your frustration.  This is a wonderful game, but there are a few tips (most of the important bits have already been mentioned, above, by our friendly player base) that you need to follow to get the most out of it:

 

1) This game has a lot of moving parts and a high initial learning curve.  Once you understand all those moving bits and how they interact, the game becomes much easier.

2) Reading the wiki and forums and asking questions there and on discord will help you to get a good grasp on all the factors involved in playing various AT's and power sets.

3) Be patient.  The time for overcoming this learning curve will vary by the player.  I was quite slow.  It took me months (very nearly a year) of playing and tinkering before I was able to confidently and competently play different AT's.  Most people probably learn a lot quicker than myself;  you are likely one of them.

4) Learn how enhancements work and acquire Procs, Globals, and Sets and slot them on your character as soon as you're able to afford them.

5) Learn how to make merits by doing task/strike forces and convert those merits into enhancement converters.  Sell the converters on the market and use the influence to buy the enhancements you need.

6) Join a supergroup or try to join pickup games (radio/newspaper missions are great training wheels) as much as possible.  Teammates can often offer buffs that will protect you from mezz effects and a good tanker will draw aggro so that you can blast the enemy with less risk to yourself.  Let the melee toons engage first, to draw that aggro, before you start blasting.

7) To reinforce # 3, be patient.  Keep practicing!  Ask for help when you get stuck or frustrated.

 

The game will get easier in time, I promise.  Once you have a year or so of play under your belt and a fully IO'ed lvl 50, you may even begin to find it too easy.  You'll find that hard to believe, now, but it's true.

[Without_Pause]

Not surprised someone who couldn't pull off a farmer on a basic level is now complaining about not finding an easy mode on other builds. I honestly wonder how much of the OPs leveling is done with farms or 2x XP. The ignorance about how to play a build is quite high. I mean, a level 46 blaster and now you don't like getting mezzed? Did you completely skip past going against Circle of Thorns and Tsoo during your early leveling?

[Uun]

7 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

Your T1 and T2 attacks, which can be used while mezzed.  Slot them up and use them.

THIS

[Solarblaze4]

My main is a fire/fire blaster. I leveled up on live with a heavy blapper playstyle before knowing what a blapper was. What has been said above is very true and helpful. Inspiration use, use of your mezzes, knowing your opponents' powersets, using defensive powers, and adjusting tactics are important. Most of all is knowing what you can outright defeat, as blasters survive better when they kill faster.

 

Just an added suggestion i havent seen yet:

 

Flares and fire blast are your goto if mezzed. Your secondary's immobilize can also be used while mezzed and more important for keeping a single melee target at range. Slot your ATO enhancement set in either of these powers. Specifically the ATO set that breaks you OUT of mezzes. It does not proc on every use, but it is extremely valuable, especially when out of break frees.

[Xenosone]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

Not surprised someone who couldn't pull off a farmer on a basic level is now complaining about not finding an easy mode on other builds. I honestly wonder how much of the OPs leveling is done with farms or 2x XP. The ignorance about how to play a build is quite high. I mean, a level 46 blaster and now you don't like getting mezzed? Did you completely skip past going against Circle of Thorns and Tsoo during your early leveling?

You hush your mouth! Enabling ae babies is legit okay. I guess, since there is no way long term that this player will quit and go and be a train wreck in another game. This player will play and love this game while learning nothing about it in another ae farm multiplied by however many other people do this strategy of leveling in ae only. 

 

Oh sorry off topic it seems while still be completely related to what op is doing.

[skoryy]

/e squints