Am I setting myself up for failure?

[biostem]

I play blasters almost exclusively as ranged damaged dealers, generally opting for secondaries that support that playstyle.  After reading a bit about the idea of a speedster here, I got this idea in my head about a rad blast/martial combat blaster that would focus mainly on melee.  Now, I've played my fair share of melee characters, but how would this type of character fair?  If I included some powers from the fighting pool, and perhaps cj/acro into the build, would/could I be effective?  Thank you for your input & advice!

[twozerofoxtrot]

Sounds great, I've seen a few of these types of Blappers before.

 

Obviously going to be better on a team with an effective point soaking hits, but otherwise the combination of damage, mitigation, and mobility from the sets should serve you well.

 

Might want to pick up Stealth to help cover your approach to a mob, even if Reaction Time will likely alert them once in range. Edit: Or maybe it won't?

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by twozerofoxtrot

[Paragon Vanguard]

You can play without failure, but sometimes these builds take time to come together. I am a concept builder so I have done blappers before, but I can't say I am an expert on the numbers. Just know you wont be doing +4X8 from the start, if ever....lol. Good luck! 🙂 

[tidge]

Because of that same thread, I've been looking at a similar sort of Blaster build (definitely same secondary), likely a different primary. I wasn't planning on multiple attacks from Fighting... I have trouble squeezing in more than 4 pool powers before level 24. Posting here because I want to keep track of this thread!

 

I've been (slow) leveling up a blappy character 3 melee, plus several ranged attacks), and the biggest takeaway during this effort (pre-50) is that larger spawn sizes can be highly annoying. It doesn't take much for things to go pear-shaped. It takes some effort (slotting, power choices) to get defenses above +30% and resistances are  basically *shrug*.

 

The primary source of grief for me has been large spawn sizes that contain multiple sources of (long duration) mezz. Rune of Protection would cure this problem for me(*1), but I simply don't want to dedicate the choices to get it for my "fun" version of the character. I mention this because in the Speedster discussion, the Sorcery pool is probably off-the-table anyway, and it requires 3 power pool picks that Speedster concepts are not likely to have.

 

(*1) I'm not familiar with how well Inner Will can do the same thing, but this is one of the reasons why /Martial was appealing to me.

[High_Beam]

Love me some Martial Combat.  my go-to Blapper Di Di Guns is a DP/MC Blapper and she's super fun and I haven't even sat down and tried to optimize her, that much fun and that survivable in large danger close ouchie circumstances without eating a bunch of purples and base pre-buffs (though they are nice to have baby).  Bang bang bang, sweep, high kick distract the enemy with panty shot, shoot shoot dead!  yay Di Di!

[brasilgringo]

5 hours ago, High_Beam said:

Love me some Martial Combat.  my go-to Blapper Di Di Guns is a DP/MC Blapper and she's super fun and I haven't even sat down and tried to optimize her, that much fun and that survivable in large danger close ouchie circumstances without eating a bunch of purples and base pre-buffs (though they are nice to have baby).  Bang bang bang, sweep, high kick distract the enemy with panty shot, shoot shoot dead!  yay Di Di!

i also have a DP/Martial and i'm in melee all the time

[Songseven]

if you are stealthed, reaction time will not trigger until you attack,

 

and yeah i have a rad/mc blast, its alotta fun!

 

 

have been using the chance for stun in reaction time, but will respec full set of numi, its only mag2 don't trigger often enough for my liking, but i believe others have spoken about stacking with something like oppressive gloom.

Edited March 10, 2023 by Songseven

[ClawsandEffect]

DP/Martial is loads of fun. 

 

I built mine with the concept that his only actual superpower is teleportation (think Nightcrawler). I use the pool that gives you Jaunt (name escapes me at the moment) with a couple macros to get me into and out of melee in a hurry. TP to target and another one that shoots me 50 feet straight backward. 

 

It's one of the only characters I never bothered to work out a specific attack  chain for and it's amazingly fun. He's Ike playing a John Woo action movie. 

 

I also took Mace Mastery for Scorpion Shield so he's softcapped to S/L/E defense and T4 Clarion for mez protection. At level 50 he is the most survivable blaster I've ever built by a wide margin, and spends at least 70% of his time in melee. 

[Captain Fabulous]

I did this with an AR/MC Blaster. He also has the Fighting, Concealment, and Presence pools. The only AR power he uses is M30 Grenade. All common IOs so far. Very enjoyable. I mean, he's never gonna do Blaster-level damage, but that doesn't mean he's not fun to play.

[Snarky]

I have only succeeded with one Blapper.  Now, in my opinion Blasters were designed from the ground up as Blappers.  Sets that do not conform to short/PB range suffer through less effectiveness in my opinion.  That does not mean it was easy for me to play one.  I find it a challenging style.  
 

FIRE.  I have a few Fire/whatever Blasters.  Fire Fire to me is the most effective.   You want to kill.  NOW.  Your only damage mitigation is murder.  Errrr. Arresting.  
 

My current Dark Dark Corr runs into a slight crossover to this at higher end content.  In that shit starts to ignore stuns/debuffs/or the new content just throws 20xold content spawns at you.  You stunned X enemies?  Have 30 more. Nuked those?  Have 30 more!  The solutions are different but I bring it up for one reason. Have a Fing Rez in your secondary or epic.  If you dont have armor/defenses aim for one in each.  You will thank me later

 

Back to Blapping…. Slaughter is your business. You need to John Wick an endless army of minions along with their Tank EB/AV boss (or multiples.).  You may build for defenses of some type.  They will fail.  You need to know where to be in each room for maximum damage while presenting minimum opportunities for the baddies to plant you.  That is your armor.  Know the content, obliterate anyone not on your team/league.  
 

Good Luck 🧛

 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Snarky