Blaster Week

[Nyghtmaire]

To gently redirect my altitis (yet not trigger any ODD tendencies), I’m focusing on an AT a week. This is BLASTER week. 
 

One in my stable is a Psi/Fire/Mace that has been languishing at T3 since before power reordering and both sets’ revamp. Time for a new build! Before I get out my trusty legal pad and pen, I have some questions:

 

1. In Psychic Blast, what are the preferred single target attacks now? I currently have TB, MB, PL. Thinking of swapping MB for WD (tiny bit of control option and faster cast time) and adding PD, again as it’s a super fast cast time. SM seems too slow but what do I know?!?

 

2. Currently soft capped S/L/E with Scorpion Shield. Seems like a nice opportunity to switch to Fire APP for Bonfire and build towards 32.5 R/A and a decent chunk of melee. I can map out 85% slow resist with this approach but have a path to 100. What is the functional difference between 85 and 100? Worth pushing it all the way? When it helps, ITS GREAT. But doesn’t seem to be something that comes up too often. 

 

3. Burn and Consume both look like stinkers. Consume I never used (except as a mule for E/N def) even though it’s in the build except when preemptively to deal with sappers. And Burn’s radius is tiny. Any compelling reason to keep these? (Leaning towards dropping burn for the reduced cast time Combustion while keeping FSC - drop FSC instead single at least Burn is fast and leaves a patch).

 

4. Use to play in melee range with lots of jousting. Hot Feet helped with a KD proc. Still worth keeping? Or more trouble than it’s worth if I’m no longer soft capped?

 

As always Hive Mind, many thanks. Please don’t send a Mids link. I’m off that sauce for the time being. 

[tidge]

On 5/24/2023 at 12:26 PM, Nyghtmaire said:

 

3. Burn and Consume both look like stinkers. Consume I never used (except as a mule for E/N def) even though it’s in the build except when preemptively to deal with sappers. And Burn’s radius is tiny. Any compelling reason to keep these? (Leaning towards dropping burn for the reduced cast time Combustion while keeping FSC - drop FSC instead single at least Burn is fast and leaves a patch).

 

 

4. Use to play in melee range with lots of jousting. Hot Feet helped with a KD proc. Still worth keeping? Or more trouble than it’s worth if I’m no longer soft capped?

 

As always Hive Mind, many thanks. Please don’t send a Mids link. I’m off that sauce for the time being. 

 

I am work-slopping (sic) a Seismic/Fire Blaster.

 

My current (still leveling, so I'm not soloing x8 content yet) build has the following four powers, and I don't think each will survive. I do want some PBAoE for enemies that get stuck in walls/ceilings, and for when I get dog-piled.

 

Combustion: In practice, this power rarely gets used. In my final build plans it is 5x slotted with Scirocco's Dervish.

 

Consume: I have this only slotted with 2xIO recharge, because 3 minutes is hella long to wait. I had considered trying to make this into a mini-%damage nuke, with something like:

 (A) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50+5
 (*) D-Sync Conduit (EndMod/Recharge): Level 53
 (*) D-Sync Drain (EndMod/Accuracy): Level 53
 (*) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage
 (*) Eradication - Chance for Energy Damage

 

Ultimately as a Blaster, I didn't need %damage from a PBAoE, so that's why I thought straight recharge was better. However: the recharge time is still excruciatingly long. I still use it, but only when I am really noticing that the blue bar is sagging. I have penciled this for removal from the first level 50 respec.

 

Burn: I use this more than Combustion; I think it is because for lower-level content I simply have less of a need for a PBAoE. I have to do some more testing to see if the %procs fire on cast (not thinking about pseudo-pet %procs) as the plan currently is to go with

 (A) Superior Avalanche - Accuracy/Damage: Level 50
 (*) Superior Avalanche - Damage/Endurance: Level 50
 (*) Superior Avalanche - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance: Level 50
 (*) Scirocco’s Dervish - Chance of Damage (Lethal)
 (*) Eradication - Chance of Damage (Energy)
 (*) Obliteration - Chance of Damage (Smashing)

 

Hot Feet: I planned nothing fancy with this, as I was unimpressed with it on a Dominator. As you can see I value the Slow more than the Damage.

 (A) Ice Mistral’s Torment - Slow/Endurance: Level 50+5
 (*) Pacing of the Turtle - Accuracy/Endurance: Level 50+5

 

I can't speak for using an Overwhelming Force %Knockdown piece in Hot Feet... I don't remember %damage pieces %proc-ing very often in it.

[tidge]

After a little bit of experimentation with Burn in a level 41 solo mission at x3: It does seem like I am getting reasonable %damage chances on the cast, which is pretty much what I was hoping for. I have a feeling that it is Combustion that will come out of the build, keep Consume with a pair of recharge IOs, and shuffle some of the slots that had been penciled into Combustion. They almost certainly won't go into Consume, it is very likely I'll tweak the build to run some sort of Defense toggle at a mid/lowish level to include a Kismet +ToHit piece to support the (Fast) Snipe.

 

In this little round of testing, I was trying to make more of an effort to use Combustion, but it still didn't feel as if it was fitting into solo combat particularly smoothly. I was facing Crey (and getting blinded quite a bit) so while it was nice to have this as an extra (non-targeting) attack I'm still not sure it was all that necessary.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 5/24/2023 at 12:26 PM, Nyghtmaire said:

I can map out 85% slow resist with this approach but have a path to 100. What is the functional difference between 85 and 100? Worth pushing it all the way? When it helps, ITS GREAT. But doesn’t seem to be something that comes up too often. 

 

In my experience (mostly melee), 85% is plenty but I wouldn't say no to 100%.  Keep in mind that debuff resistance stops that amount of the effect from any given foe.  100% means that you never get slowed.   That's cool.  But 85% means only 15% of the debuff gets through.  If you are fighting an Agony Mage and she hits you with Gravity Distortion, instead of -50% speed reduction it's now a 7.5% speed reduction for 12 seconds.  If you are fighting three Agony Mages, then it is possible that all three get a -7.5% debuff on you at the same time for a 22.5% reduction, but again that's only for 12 seconds and that is if all three hit you at exactly the same time.

 

The problem with debuff resistance is when you are fighting groups that toss out tons of a specific debuff.  Every KoA minion can throw Caltrops, it's a base 80% speed reduction for 45 seconds.  So if you are planning on fighting KoA all the time, definitely shoot for 100%.

 

This comes into play with Cimerorans and defense debuff as well (and those damned Scrub Bots) of course.

[Yomo Kimyata]

12 hours ago, tidge said:

I can't speak for using an Overwhelming Force %Knockdown piece in Hot Feet... I don't remember %damage pieces %proc-ing very often in it.

 

Should be a 12.82% chance per pulse per enemy.  I'm not sure how often Hot Feet pulses (I assume 10 seconds like most damage auras, but I really don't know), but I clearly see mobs getting knocked down, just not reliably.

[tidge]

9 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Should be a 12.82% chance per pulse per enemy.  I'm not sure how often Hot Feet pulses (I assume 10 seconds like most damage auras, but I really don't know), but I clearly see mobs getting knocked down, just not reliably.

 

I'm guessing the 13% is assuming an auto-hit? This feels like one of those cases where a ToHit roll would also come into play.

 

I've been fooling around with (Epic) Force Mastery's Repulsion Field (with a KB-KD piece and Endurance Reduction) to backup Seismic Shockwaves. I do see adjacent enemies getting knocked down, but I haven't done much specific testing to see if its rate is particularly good. It's been years since I tried this, and I want to say that I almost always give up on the idea of a toggle with knockdown.

[Nyghtmaire]

Thank you both. I’m using Consume purely as a mule for Eradication 3-piece. And yea, the recharge is toooooo long. 

 

For Hot Feet, I’ve slotted 2 Superior Avalanche (ADE and KD proc) and 2 Ice Mistral. End Reduction is the priority. I threw the Overwhelming Force proc into Cauterizing Aura. It *seems* like there is a lot of KD going on, but I really need to bite the bullet and tease out the independent, practical effects.

 

Re Combustion vs Fire Sword Circle, I’m enjoying the slightly faster cast time of the former. Movement is so key that shaving even a bit - a fraction of a second — adds that little bit more towards survival likelihood. I agree though regarding use of Burn (and little need for a PBAOE at lower levels) - that really shines. Overall, I enjoy how many useful powers there are in both sets, leading to meaningful choices and exciting cost-benefit analysis. 
 

Thanks again!

[tidge]

You have certainly given me some things to think about! If I sacrificed Repulsion Field I could fit another LotG mule into the build. I will be doing some experiments with toggles and unslotters to see if I can learn anything.