Questions about Fire/Ice/Fire vs Fire/Fire/Fire

[R jobbus]

Hey guys, I'm a new player and my first character to reach 50 is a fire/ice/ice blaster, though I'm considering respecing the epic ice pool to fire

 

my questions really revolve around Fire/fire/fire blaster and how it would compare to just doing fire/ice/fire.

 

Is the fire secondary really that important if i'm gonna switch to fire epic pool? or like what's the advantages of fire secondary compared to ice.

 

 I really like the ice patch and slow capabilities of /ice, but I don't want to miss out on stuff investing in a fire blaster without one of the better secondary sets. Is Fire/fire/fire better to invest in than fire/ice/fire? I mean i use the word 'better' but just if im trying to make one of the stronger blaster sets and invest in them long term, would i be better off just making a new fire/fire/fire blaster (I have a fire/fire blaster so far at like 24)

 

What would you guys suggest. thanks for the help

[Nemu]

Do you use your melee powers as a blaster?

 

If no there's no advantage to fire/fire compared to fire/ice. In fact Fire/ice is better because it has more tricks to keep you safe.

 

If you do use your melee powers often and fight big pack of mobs all the time then fire/fire is a good fit. All fire/fire has is damage and if you don't pay attention and/or don't have support you'll die a lot.

 

The fire epic is the pool of choice for range blasters, bonfire with a kb-kd IO is pretty OP. Bad blasters also swear by rise of the phoenix.

 

Fire/fire/fire is thematic and that's why a lot of people play it, similar to ice/ice/cold and elec/elec/elec. Rarely do these samey combos have synergy outside of theme. There's also something to be said about diversifying your damage types.

 

Having said that, there's no reason why you can't keep your fire/ice and still level your fire/fire. The game overall is pretty easy and even the 2nd best or 30th best combo can still hang with the rest and contribute.

[Sykar]

19 hours ago, Nemu said:

 Bad blasters also swear by rise of the phoenix.

Nonsense.

[Hjarki]

Let's look at how you're likely to build each.

 

Ice Manipulation

Chilblain is a waste of a power pick no matter how you cut it. Nor is Frozen Fists any better. Pick your poison. Neither can be slotted with particularly strong sets (that you wouldn't be using elsewhere).

Ice Sword is a mediocre melee attack. It's a bit better than Flares (69 base dpa vs. 53 base dpa) and Fireball (63 base dpa), although the long activation time can be helpful in meeting recharge demands.

Frigid Protection is a standard Regen/Recovery power with a large slow/-damage field attached. The slow field isn't really all that helpful unless you're fighting trivial content and you're probably not going to slot it for slow sets anyway.

Build Up is what it is. It's better than Aim but it's normally a bit superfluous to take them both.

Ice Patch can't be slotted, so it's a dead power pick. It's one of those powers that seems a lot more useful than it is.

Shiver is junk.

Frozen Aura is nice enough, I suppose. But you rarely want to be milling around in a crowd lightly wounding them - especially when the control effect is a Sleep that will likely be broken almost instantly.

That leaves us with the shining star of the set: Freezing Touch. Freezing Touch has top notch damage (98 dpa), it's a Hold (can slot Unbreakable Constraint and protect yourself from whatever you're fighting) and it's on a 10 sec recharge (almost any other melee attack this deep in the tree is on a 16+ sec cooldown and doesn't fit well in most rotations).

 

So you'd generally take Frigid Protection, Build Up (it is better than Aim, after all) and Freezing Touch. This allows us to just use Fireball, Freezing Touch, Blaze and Blazing Bolt if we're in melee and the Hold on Freezing Touch means we're probably protected from reprisal by a non-AV/GM enemy.

 

Fire Manipulation

Ring of Fire is the only Immobilize Blasters ever really want to take. It's not exceptional damage (73 dpa), but it's a lot higher than standard T1/T2 blasts (including Flares). The 6 second cooldown means you can (in theory) run a rotation of Ring of Fire, Blaze, Fireball, Ring of Fire, Blazing Bolt.

Fire Sword is on the low end of melee damage (78 dpa), but it's a -defense melee attack.

Build Up is what it is.

Cauterizing Aura gives you a damage aura on top of your Regen/Recovery. It's nice enough, but don't expect it to do much damage since the radius is melee range.

The rest of the set is PBAoE, PBAoE and more PBAoE. Since you already dumped the one good PBAoE set into Inferno, this isn't much of an advantage unless you're doing something extremely specialized like a Blaster Fire Farm build.

 

Perhaps the best use for Fire Manipulation (outside of that fire farm build) would be a pure Hover blaster due to Ring of Fire.

 

For epic pools, Fire is a solid choice. Char is one of the best Holds around and can take Basilisk's Gaze. Fire Shield can mule the uniques. Rise of the Phoenix is a handy tool to have in your toolkit and can take Stupefy without having to worry too much about the knockback proc.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Hjarki