Best solo blaster in the game...?

[Nostromo21]

Thanks again to you vet guys. I recently started a dark/temp blaster, also have a psychic/temp from a while back + psychic/mental. Might have to roll a elec/temp and/or beam/temp to see how they go, for sure. I imagine this says that the general consensus is, you can't go wrong with TM as a secondary for any blaster...?

 

Tried several corruptors and doms recently as well, yesterday I went off on a tanker tangent, when I tried to resurrect my old invul/fire tanker Ruby Rock back from live, heh. Then made dark/bio one which is even more tanky I think. The stalkers I tried just didn't stick. Only really enjoying my Ill/Dark troller, PB, beast/nature MM & a couple defenders were ok for solo levelling I guess. The widow is parked at 21, I just can't afford the hospital fees to get her to 24 Fortunata - you def need private health insurance levelling those lol!

----

Finally got my widow to 24 last night. She is now all death-from-above Fortunata ranged goodness! Totally different ballgame with her new powers and approach. Most mobs up to orange just melt before they even get to move, much less get to me, given her core holds and mez powers :D.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Nostromo21

[McOz]

On 10/2/2022 at 10:41 PM, Voltak said:

They are also S tier for dmg. 

Curious if you can back this with a build? (in relation to dominators)

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by McOz

[Voltak]

3 hours ago, McOz said:

Curious if you can back this with a build? (in relation to dominators)

 

Back this?

As in I may be Making a claim with no experience or substance?

Not sure what you mean,but if,only if, that's what you mean....

 

My vídeos are posted

My builds are posted 

Pylons test times from myself and others also posted 

 

Is that ok for backing ?

Edited October 9, 2022 by Voltak

[McOz]

@Voltak I apologise, I wasn't looking to cause offense. You said Dom's are S Tier for damage. I've watched your videos, and they are very impressive. I particularly like the Earth/Rad build. You state in the videos that the builds are optimised for control and survivability, not damage. With out taking away from anything you do, or have done - what I'm *really curious* about is - what does an S Tier Damage Dom build look like?  I've not seen this before. This is coming from a place of 'i'd love a Dom that does sick damage!', not a 'put your money where your mouth is' place. Perhaps I could of phrased that better.

 

[Voltak]

10 hours ago, McOz said:

@Voltak I apologise, I wasn't looking to cause offense. You said Dom's are S Tier for damage. I've watched your videos, and they are very impressive. I particularly like the Earth/Rad build. You state in the videos that the builds are optimised for control and survivability, not damage. With out taking away from anything you do, or have done - what I'm *really curious* about is - what does an S Tier Damage Dom build look like?  I've not seen this before. This is coming from a place of 'i'd love a Dom that does sick damage!', not a 'put your money where your mouth is' place. Perhaps I could of phrased that better.

 

I see what you mean now, thanks for clarifying

There are builds for specific things

Builds for pylon
Builds for General use
Builds for Hard Mode 

and so on. 

Feel free to check all of them. I have posted a few on Dark/Dark Doms

[FUBARczar]

On 10/8/2022 at 6:54 PM, Krimson said:

That depends on what you are building four. Out of four Blasters, two of them are very good Blappers, my Beam/Temporal is not a Blapper at all, and my latest Blaster who is Dual Pistols Devices, certainly does not blap but is always in melee because the entire point of my DP/Dev Blaster is to be a Smashing/Lethal farmer who clears via AoE chain. And he does it well. 

 

So more specifcally: A True Blaster is a Damage Monster with several approaches as to how said damage is dished out.

The reason I said Dev and TA don't count is because they don't have melee attacks.  Not that one can't be in melee range, especially with DP and its quick recharging PBAoE Nuke.

 

So generally, if one is a Blaster and they omit melee attacks from their chain, then they are leaving a lot of damage on the table.  

 

If one wants a pure range blaster, then  Beam and Fire are the best bets.

 

But of course people can do whatever they want.  

[Frosticus]

Plant/fire dom

Ice/ta blaster

Fire/Dark Corr

All have good damage with good control. They have tools to stay at range and have no incentive or alternate builds that perform "better" in melee.  For instance melee Fortunatas do way more damage, so pure ranged builds always have that gnawing at them. 

 

Hover sentinel

-Pick one with a ranged nuke and it will sail thru most of the game allowing you to slowly turn up difficulty or engage new enemy types with confidence 

 

[Rahabina]

On 10/8/2022 at 10:38 AM, Snarky said:

I have a Beam Rifle/Temporal I use for very hard Incarnate Trials with tough Leagues.  Way more damage, especially ST.  But given the choice to "Solo" the entire game I would pick the crazy Elec build without a second thought.  Because once you start cheating, why go back?

I have not played an electric blaster since live.  This was actually my first toon and I was bad at it.  I think I never leveled her past 30 but now I know so much more about blasters I think I will make one and my long almost forgotten live toon can have redemption lol

 

I do like Temporal as a blaster secondary (my beamie has it) my live one was elec/elec and maybe that was the issue for me.

[lemming]

I have a elec/martial blaster that was great to level up.  Didn't do anything but generic IOs and they were still able to solo most content (at least at standard levels), I was actually surprised on how easily they beat up honoree and the vanguard while going for the alpha slot.   And that was before the improvement of the shocked mechanic.

[BazookaTwo]

I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring here and say Archery/ninja/ninja Sentinel with no travel powers except CJ and Infiltration, is a character that can stay at ranged, or stand up in a mob and laugh.  The damage is lower than avg blasters, but it's not bad at all. 

 

I often have players remark that "maybe they should try a sentinel" when they see it in action. 

 

Most fun I've had soloing for sure. 

[Voltak]

On 10/2/2022 at 3:50 PM, FUBARczar said:

Teaming with @Voltak on the regular, I would say that his PoV is coming from 4* in 30mins with 3 deaths.  His PoV is coming from a CoX vet who specializes in range characters, especially Corruptors and Defenders with controllers and Dominators right on their heels.

 

Volt does a wide variety of content including soloing.

Fubar is among the best teammates in the game hands down for hard mode content. 
 
He is among the best, if not the best Blaster to play with in the game for hard mode along with @Raw and @EV-300

Please look us up in the Master ITF chnl 

There are many experienced vets there

WE do the absolute hardest mode content in the game. 

Come learn, enjoy, and do harder and harder challenges as time goes by. 

@EV-300 comes up with more difficult challenges for us to do all the freaking time. 

He's our masochist for fun  GOAT. 

Edited January 19 by Voltak

[Zewks]

These types of posts really need to be separated into 3 unique categories:

 

1. Playing 1 to 49 with no twinking

2. Playing at 50 without twinking or many incarnates

3. Playing at 50, fully decked out in min/maxed IOs and incarnates.

 

Mostly because there is a HUGE difference between all 3 of these gameplay points. When you have someone suggesting advice for #3 when someone is looking for advice for #1 or #2, it ends up not being relevant or very helpful. Likewise, a level 50 (even without proper IOs) is going to play a lot different than a level 30, just because they have all their powers and slots. Much easier even with standard SOs to meet desired performance levels at 50 than it is at 30.

 

Its important for all the Veteran players wanting to help, to better parse the info the person asking for help is giving to avoid this. For example, in this post:

 

Quote

"Just started a Dark/Temp blaster as a sort of thematic hero, just for fun, doubt I'll get her to 50, with my rampant alt-o-holism he he."

 

From that alone

-- Rampant alt-o-holism: chances are they dont have many fully decked out characters, meaning probably not a lot of resources to min/max enhancements while leveling/playing alts.

 

-- doubts they will get them to 50:  This clues us into how they arent gonna be power leveling, and how they most likely wont be leveling super fast. Means they probably arent doing ramped up mission difficulties (certainly not +4/8). Means they most likely arent twinking their character as they play.

 

 

These 2 things alone should help us steer our advice to things that are practical for the player. 

-- Classes/builds that are reasonable with unoptimized enhancements slotted (probably no IOs)

-- Not having the full assortment of powers available to the class for a good portion of the gameplay. Early powers need to allow for smooth, survivable gameplay on their own.

-- Not having soft capped defense/resists/recharge, etc. If the class isnt very tough or tanky on its own, probably not worth recommending.

 

 

This rules out unhelpful advice like "Blasters with the right IOs can solo tank things just fine".

 

I dont want to sound unappreciative of those wanting to help, but this has been a big frustration for myself in this game, getting advice that WAY overshoots the scope of what Im actually going to be doing in the game. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 20 by Zewks

[Nostromo21]

On 10/3/2022 at 8:09 PM, Six-Six said:

I will second @Sovera's assertion on how forgiving Sentinels are.

I myself learned the game on that AT, and if it wasn't for the Sentinel, I wouldn't be enjoying this game as much. Depending on you how comfortable you are in playing solo and the difficulty settings, you can opt to balance his armour with damage and possibly pick up a few utility powers on the way (elec mastery has an ally heal for Sents). Hover is another line of defense, not just in the percentage having it on gives, but the physical sense that melee can't reach you if you're even 10 feet in the air.
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Dangit! I just took a closer look at a Dark/Ninjitsu Sentinel! ALL of the Ninja powers look so much more useful when compared to my Blaster, which I'm only really using Shinobi and Kuji-In Toh from. What would be the pro-cons? Does Shinobi-Iri provide innate stealth, like the blaster Shinobi does...? If not, is there any other Sentinel secondary which does? Otherwise, just grabbing Stealth from the Concealment pool could be a better option anyway, given the recent upgrade to the power? Actually, doesn't look like Ninja even has stealth for Sentinels, but Dark does - very nice! :D

 

The other thing I'd be missing is the sniper power Moonbeam - I guess the Sentinel primary has something close to it...?

 

Edited February 12 by Nostromo21

[Six-Six]

Ninja is one of my favourite secondaries on a blaster. I like to compliment the blade attacks with combat teleport... so pew pew with primaries, then blink to your target and slash. the wasp and butterfly have a satisfying crunch to them... the lotus, not so much so sometimes I skip it. The others Nin powers do come in handy and I take most of them depending on the toon's bio.

Nin on Sents does have stealth... the same value as Blasters. And yes, sentinels lack the Sniper power most blasters have. but it's not a deal breaker for me. you just have do adjust your mindset that you're NOT a blaster. 

[Frozen Burn]

Blaster forum!  Get that filthy Sentinel talk outa here!  lol  😄  Yeah, Sents are better now since the revamp, but I'd still take a Blaster over one any day.

 

So, if we're talking "Best of".... I have many very survivable Blasters that I would call "Best of" and I Blap with all of them (except 1).  I will solo +4x8 incarnate arcs with them....

• Ice/Fire/Flame (I will also farm with this toon - when I need to)
• Energy/Martial/Mace
• Psi/Temporal/Mace
• DP/Mental/Mace
• DP/Ninja/Mace
• Rad/Atomic/Mace
• Dark/Dark/Soul
• Seismic/Martial/Mace
• Archery/TA/Force (non-Blapper)

 

 

[HelenCarnate]

19 hours ago, Nostromo21 said:

 

Dangit! I just took a closer look at a Dark/Ninjitsu Sentinel! ALL of the Ninja powers look so much more useful when compared to my Blaster, which I'm only really using Shinobi and Kuji-In Toh from. What would be the pro-cons? Does Shinobi-Iri provide innate stealth, like the blaster Shinobi does...? If not, is there any other Sentinel secondary which does? Otherwise, just grabbing Stealth from the Concealment pool could be a better option anyway, given the recent upgrade to the power? Actually, doesn't look like Ninja even has stealth for Sentinels, but Dark does - very nice! 😄

 

The other thing I'd be missing is the sniper power Moonbeam - I guess the Sentinel primary has something close to it...?

 

Shinobi Iri has stealth on Sentinals and on Scrappers for that matter. 

[TECHWON]

On 10/2/2022 at 10:41 AM, Voltak said:

Regarding the question posted by the OP --

"Best" is determined by the player, the driver not the car.   Your skills and your style will pick your combo. 

Yes, Fortunatas are extremely powerful. Considering that without Aim and without Follow up, you can carry in your build a 65% dmg buff
And, in addition to that, they are armored, they pretty much are sentinels but on steroids. 
They also carry an arsenal of controls not just blasts. 

But, if your skills are up to par, and your build as well, Dominators can be extremely powerful as well.   But Dominators don't always kill from range. 
They are also S tier for dmg. 

Also, Corruptors are also very powerful.  
A Kinetics corruptor is a sight to behold when in the right hands and with the right build.  As far as dmg goes, they can be on par with blasters or when fully stacked of dmg buffs and scourge, they can surpass blasters solo, but that's situational. 

Blasters are the kings or range dmg.  They were designed to be kings of range dmg.  Everything in the designing the development of blasters was made exactly for the purpose of placing them in that role. 

Your survival as a blaster is 90% based on skill, then comes your build, and your secondary. 
What one player can do with a blaster is not necessarily what another can do given the same blaster.   Skill matters a lot. 

I don't even place sentinels here. 
Everything above can do better than a Sentinel. 
 

 I agree with all of this but far as best for solo work with a blaster gotta go fire/fire