What are your goals when slotting blasters?

[MattBold]

I know brutes/tankers/scrappers etc the goal is to slot for softcap, recharge, etc, but what is the meta when slotting blasters and ranged dps? Do you shoot for a specific % of defense or go all in on damage and recharge?

[Seed22]

4 minutes ago, MattBold said:

I know brutes/tankers/scrappers etc the goal is to slot for softcap, recharge, etc, but what is the meta when slotting blasters and ranged dps? Do you shoot for a specific % of defense or go all in on damage and recharge?

45% Ranged Def or melee depending on secondary.

 

Then damage/recharge. Recovery is covered by the sustain 😄

[Spaghetti Betty]

My first and only slotting goal for blasters is Damage.

 

I'm currently working on a Psi/Earth/Levi blaster for no reason other than having Seismic Smash and Knockout Blow together feels illegal.

[Nemu]

Making sure I don't add Kurt Angle to the mix, because if that happens my chances at survival drastic go down.

[ClawsandEffect]

Depends on the exact build. 

 

If it's a hover blaster then I shoot for ranged defense and pick a secondary that doesn't need to be in melee to shine. 

 

If I plan on being in melee a lot and there's no other particular theme I take Scorpion Shield and softcap S/L/E defense. 

 

Both ways are viable without sacrificing damage output. 

 

It's not so much that I'm worried about defense to keep my blasters alive. I want to keep them as mez free as possible. If the mezzes don't hit I can keep using my harder hitting attacks. 

[SeraphimKensai]

13 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

having Seismic Smash and Knockout Blow together feels illegal.

That does sound pretty awesome right there.

 

14 hours ago, MattBold said:

Do you shoot for a specific % of defense or go all in on damage and recharge?

I personally pug a lot, and on pugs I like to be self-reliant so I usually build blasters to give me a decent base defense for what I anticipate fighting and then damage through the roof. That said I have years of experience playing blasters in pvp using mobility (jousting) and knowing what my enemies are capable of so I really do not need softcapped defense unless I'm going afk during a fight to change a diaper (I have a 9 month old so that occasionally happens).

 

If I had a regular group and was building for say hard mode content, I would trust in my teammates buffs and barrier cycles and focus on maximizing the most DPS I could muster.

[tidge]

Dumb Answer: I go for the concept(*1). Specific to slotting questions:

 

17 hours ago, MattBold said:

 Do you shoot for a specific % of defense or go all in on damage and recharge?

 

Slotting is for Damage(*2), with the intent of picking up Global Recharge bonuses from Enhancement sets. The "capstone" powers often are the deciding factor on if I want to include Hasten in a build. Because of Damage, I almost always include Hasten on Stalkers, Scrappers and Blasters... but with Blasters its inclusion isn't guaranteed. I'll play around with different powers while leveling and see if there is one attack I am simply not using before deciding to replace it with Hasten.

 

(*1) I almost never concentrate on defenses or resists, beyond what I can get from mules. One of my suicide/murder hobos relies mostly on the graces of RNGesus and an Epic Power Pool self-rez for challenging content.

 

(*2) %damage for Blasters is never a goal... of course nothing is certain: I am work-shopping a Blaster right now with "too many" attacks in an dumb effort to have not just a single-target ranged attack chain, but also a melee/PBAoE attack chain, AND a ranged AoE %damage attack chain.

 

Discussion point follows:

 

I have a love/hate relationship with %-Resistance (on Blasters). On paper: applying -Resistance for even the short amount of time from a %proc would appear to drastically increase damage, especially for Blasters that are hovering near the damage cap. This can also pay off dividends when teaming, depending on the specific source(s) of -Resistance. Practically (especially for solo): for most spawns of mobs %-Resistance isn't radically reducing the number of attacks I have to make to clean up an enemy spawn. Ideally, the %-Resistance is most useful against the hardest targets/largest sacks of HP... but since "resistance resists resistible resist debuffs" (and "hard targets, GMs, AVs often have deep resistances) I almost always land on using a slot that would be a %-Resistance piece as a different sort of Enhancement slot. A debuff that is part of a primary or secondary (or power pool) is a different beast altogether IMO.

 

 

[kelika2]

permahasten all blaster every blaster

except one

i slotted a rifle/ninja repeat for +dmg bonus sets because of the way shinobi worked.  then i took assault in its teens and just stacked +dmg sets

devistation

artillery

makos bite

obliteration

ato

adj targeting

 

running around with +50%~ dmg was pretty neat

[Spaghetti Betty]

7 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

That does sound pretty awesome right there.

Spoiler

 You hit Chief Soldier with your Psionic Lance for 611.05 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Sting of the Manticore: Chance for Toxic Damage for 64.57 points of Toxic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Gladiator's Javelin: Chance for Toxic Damage for 64.57 points of Toxic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Apocalypse: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for 96.37 points of Negative Energy damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Seismic Smash for 470.34 points of Smashing damage.
You Hold Chief Soldier with your Seismic Smash.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Gladiator's Net: Chance for Lethal Damage for 45.19 points of Lethal damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Neuronic Shutdown: Chance for Psionic Damage for 64.57 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Ghost Widow's Embrace: Chance for Psionic Damage for 64.57 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Hecatomb: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for 96.37 points of Negative Energy damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Knockout Blow for 610.46 points of Smashing damage.
You Hold Chief Soldier with your Knockout Blow.
You knock Chief Soldier off their feet with your Knockout Blow!
You hit Chief Soldier with your Neuronic Shutdown: Chance for Psionic Damage for 64.57 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Ghost Widow's Embrace: Chance for Psionic Damage for 64.57 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Unbreakable Constraint: Chance for Smashing Damage for 67.46 points of Smashing damage.

I'd say so too!

[SeraphimKensai]

1 hour ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 You hit Chief Soldier with your Psionic Lance for 611.05 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Sting of the Manticore: Chance for Toxic Damage for 64.57 points of Toxic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Gladiator's Javelin: Chance for Toxic Damage for 64.57 points of Toxic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Apocalypse: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for 96.37 points of Negative Energy damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Seismic Smash for 470.34 points of Smashing damage.
You Hold Chief Soldier with your Seismic Smash.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Gladiator's Net: Chance for Lethal Damage for 45.19 points of Lethal damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Neuronic Shutdown: Chance for Psionic Damage for 64.57 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Ghost Widow's Embrace: Chance for Psionic Damage for 64.57 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Hecatomb: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for 96.37 points of Negative Energy damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Knockout Blow for 610.46 points of Smashing damage.
You Hold Chief Soldier with your Knockout Blow.
You knock Chief Soldier off their feet with your Knockout Blow!
You hit Chief Soldier with your Neuronic Shutdown: Chance for Psionic Damage for 64.57 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Ghost Widow's Embrace: Chance for Psionic Damage for 64.57 points of Psionic damage.
You hit Chief Soldier with your Unbreakable Constraint: Chance for Smashing Damage for 67.46 points of Smashing damage.

I'd say so too!

Yeah that's some nice single target right there, and both powers as you see are great candidates for some procs.

[Crysis]

S/L or Ranged 45% Def, often can achieve both.

Permahasten

+Damage

 

Don't have a single blaster without all three of those in place.

[Energy Aura]

If you're building for range I would recommend also building for AOE defense of 45 or more. With the winter event sets you can easily cap both ranged and AOE on most blaster builds. Remember fireball and that annoying AOE blast from the squids are both AOE. Now solo that ITF.

[lemming]

My goal for my blasters is to blast

[Chi]

Range + Damage. 

🙂

[Sykar]

Damage, Damage and Damage!

[Cryoterm]

1º Dmg.

2º Rech.

3º Def.

[arcane]

Proc bombs then whatever recharge bonuses will fit.