Solo Blaster Build

[pjh10c]

Hi all,

 

I have a similar question in the Defender section. I am thinking about dipping my toes into doing a 1-50 solo level and was thinking of rolling a blaster. Are there any reliable power sets and build you all can recommend for an easier time leveling? With your suggestions, I can then try to figure out what is most “fun”, but would still love to get input on others’ “fun” factor experience. I am open to more ranged or blapper style, though I would prefer a traditional range style.

Edited December 29, 2022 by pjh10c

[Relvinian]

You would want to concentrate on certain foes.

 

This build is an example of one way to go.  I don't know how to share the stuff on it but it has 41 s/l and 41 energy defense and 61 smash resist and 43 energy resist with decent recharge and hits and regen.  Thus you could play this one "solo"

 

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Edited January 4, 2023 by Relvinian

[Zect]

Solo leveling is still a very broad term. Do you want to solo to 50 as efficiently as possible or is your goal to experience a wide variety of arcs on the way there? How okay are you with deliberately avoiding particular enemy groups or racing past problematic level bands? What's the desired difficulty setting (bosses on/off in particular)? etc.

 

That said, saying you want to stay at range narrows it down a little because the only 2ndary that loses literally nothing from staying at range is /TA. It's one of the most flexible and easy to build for, too, so that's likely a good place to start.

 

As for the primary, you can probably pick whichever you like. Given crashless nukes and quick snipes, the blaster primaries are far closer to each other in ST and aoe output than they ever were on live. Even the damage type is not an issue as long as you can avoid groups with resistant enemies. People used to rag on psi all the time because of that spreadsheet that said it was the most resisted damtype, but I recently took a psi blaster 1-50 and absolutely shredded all the clockworks, ghosts, freakshow, DE etc on the way there. It only gets tricky in the 40-50 range where many big enemy groups have psi resistant bosses.

[Nemu]

You should learn how to play a blaster first. Any blaster build can do enough damage to solo, and our combo suggestions and builds, no matter how good they are, will not going to help you appreciate the nuances of playing a blaster. Defense softcap helps with survival, but it's not the end all be all factor that determines survival, a lot of that comes from skill, making use of the tools in your toolkit, and understanding of the game. This AT takes more finesse to play and if you are coming from a brute/tank/scrapper mindset you will need to make adjustments even if your game plan is to ignore your most of the powers in the secondary and keep at range.

 

The forums are full of builds but rarely do posters dedicate time to teaching people how to play. No one talks about the benefits and importance of the following:

 

Movement - When to move and where to move (i.e don't stand in behind a tank that's in front of an AV/GM and wonder why you are taking so much damage from the mob's cones, don't stand right next to the dark servants that master illusionists summon and wonder why all of a sudden you can't hit anything, etc...)

Target priority - DE emanators, Tsoo sorcerers, sappers bosses in general, etc... Don't take down minions and other trash fodder because they are the first thing that you tabbed onto, take the time to pick out the proper threat because letting those stay alive (i.e. most bosses) increases the odds of them killing you. There are a lot of things playing melee ATs lets you ignore, playing a blaster will be rude awakening for you if you carry that mindset forward with this AT.

Line of sight - if you wade into one of those underground missions with resistance and the mob placement is all spread out and your idea of engaging is to hover in the open and trade blows, you are probably not going to have a good time playing a blaster.

Inspirations and what to prioritize - purples and breakfrees, combine them on your downtime on the way to the next group and most importantly, use them.

 

Here's one bit of general advice I can give you on solo builds. Having some form of total invisibility (super speed + stealtth IO, Stealth + stealth IO, etc...) will help a lot for any solo character.

 

I was like you once, people told me that blasters are a ranged AT a long time ago and I blindly followed that philosophy when I started, then I started to learn how to play the game. When I learned to joust it changed my fundamental understanding of the game and my playstyle. When I learned about defense softcap my game play leveled up as I took advantage of defense inspirations. When IOs were introduced my builds leveled up again.

 

So now I don't see blasters as a "ranged AT" and there's nothing traditional about playing a "ranged" blaster, that's just how new/inexperienced players perceive the AT. Blasters are a damage AT, and those people that have learned to play the AT will maximize their blaster's effectiveness by making use of all the tools in their kit and supplement that with their skill and knowledge of the game.

 

On combos conducive to a smoother leveling experience, look for synergies between the primary and secondary for stacking mezzes. For example, Rad blast has Cosmic Burst which is a bread and butter attack with a guaranteed mag 3 stun, if you pair that up with a secondary that also has stuns then you have a way to lock down bosses or two problem targets. Taser from devices is one such candidate for synergy. You can just as well do the same thing with holds, Dark blast has Abyssal Gaze which is also a bread and butter attack or Ice blast with freeze ray, and plenty more blaster secondaries have ranged mag 2 holds to allow you to quickly build enough stacks to hold a boss.

 

P.S. If you want to learn more about jousting start with these videos
 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Nemu

[Nyghtmaire]

@Nemu speaks the truth. Those blaster tips saved me time, aggravation, and even a bit of my liver. It got me to actually enjoy a blaster for the first time in my life and, oddly enough, make it as close to a main as I ever have. (thanks, Nemu! You’re like a prophet for the AT)
 

Stressing the idea of playing what combinations you like or find the most compelling. I have a relatively low damage Sonic/Martial/Soul (stun stacking and KD city) that shouldn’t work well but is so much fun to play. And it’s all because of lots of jousting, target selection, and a healthy dose of combat teleport/Burst of Speed abuse. BAMF’ing 3-4 times per encounter is hilarious.

[Astralock]

Yep.  If there’s one thing that people need to learn about Blasters, it’s that it is not a ranged AT.  Blapper is the norm, ranged is the exception.

[Force Redux]

I could easily recommend ice / ice blaster and DP / Martial combat. I can easily solo a slashing lethal farm at plus two times eight. Never tried solving an ITF, but these two fit my grouping and solo needs quite easily and are hella fun to play. As @Nyghtmaire said above, whatever actually is fun to play May not always be what is mechanically superior. Animations, your costume and customization, and how that mesh is with your personal play style are all important. Try a bunch out on only way to really figure out how it works for you other than our recommendations.

[JasperStone]

I tried being just ranged on a blaster for a while, but nope.

 

I do recommend considering Combat Teleport to get in and out of the fray.

 

I have it for a DP/Ninja blaster and it is pretty fun.

 

also, it gives a to hit boost and allows you to slot the perception proc which is nice.

 

At the moment I don't have flight(outside of a jetpack) and miss it.

 

Flight for the sorcery pool is the other option to give tp.

 

[Shred Monkey]

Solo at 50 is very different then solo while leveling up.  At 50 you have so many extra slots you can build very solid blaster defenses to go in and out of melee against large groups of +4 enemies.  But that's not true when you're at level 20.  At lower levels you'll have to focus on something specific and then try to control the fights to give you only that type of attack.

 

My recommendation for leveling up is to stay at ranged and focus on ranged defense.  There are a few tricks that help you stay at range (or stay out of melee).  The easiest is to just fly.  There's not a lot of flying enemies in this game, so if you're flying, you're almost always out of melee.  You can also just keep moving away from enemies and kite them around.  I actually enjoy this more then flying because there's a little bit of skill involved and it's not just button mashing and tab targeting.  Additionally if you can mix in some knockdowns/knockbacks slows or other hard or soft controls you can further reduce the incoming damage and keep things out of melee.

 

To get ranged defense, I recommend picking up the 2 +3 defense IOs.  You'll probably have to take the fighting pool to slot them in tough.   Since you're already there, you might as well grab Weave as well and slot it for more universal defense.  I'll also often pick up combat jumping as well for a little more defense and better movement.   Then 6-slot Thunderstrike in your single target ranged attacks and Artillery in your ranged AoE attacks.   These sets aren't available until level 27 but you won't have enough slots to 6-slot a lot of powers until then anyway.  Before that, just keep the difficulty level low enough to manage.  You probably want a stun or hold so you can open buy taking 1 enemy out of the fight while you focus on another.  Unless there's an enemy that can hold/stun you.. then you'll want to target them with your holds/stuns to open and kill them before they move again.

 

 

[WumpusRat]

I'm leveling a seismic/martial blaster right now, and she's great fun. Going for kind of a "jade warrior" D&D monk build with her. Imprisoning (well, crushing) enemies in jade prisons at range, and beating them up if they get too close. The seismic tremors gives me a decent amount of bonus defense by knocking enemies down a lot.

[Meknomancer]

I look back at the first blasters i ran and one of the easiest to level solo was a sonic/time and this was way before sonic got updated into a good blast set. All you need is 2 enhances, an overwhelming force which you can slot at lvl 1and an ff+rech which you can toss in at 17. Throw those in shockwave and your good to go. You can keep everything knocked down, blast debuff and hop in and out of melee at will. With the new QoL changes from page 5 getting you time lord at 30 you can have a perma hasten build right away, theres very few things at low level that resist the knockdowns and you can get it recharging fast enough to be near spammable. Time crawl followed by time stop is a quick 1-2 shot hold on bosses which very few other secondaries can match. With the -res from sonic and the -regen from time crawl/stop even the hardest targets melt.

[smnolimits43]

Well if you want a fun Blaster, i suggest a Sympony/Sonic Dom. Sticks his tongue out.

[biostem]

On 12/29/2022 at 2:33 PM, pjh10c said:

I am thinking about dipping my toes into doing a 1-50 solo level and was thinking of rolling a blaster

I've had great results with an ice/earth blaster.  I like to include stealth from concealment, combat jumping, and aid self, if at all possible, and keep an extra break free or 2 on my at all times, just in case.