honoroitisfantastic POLL: Blaster - best of AT

[Zect]

Reading this post reminds me of the fact that I have received some PM's asking me "what's the best/most meta X" (usually couched in "what would you play if..." language).

 

I've started refraining from replying to them because I think it's unhelpful to do so. I want to help people learn to think for themselves, not do their thinking for them or foist my preferences and biases on them. If I answer, how do they know I'm telling the truth? (It's a PM, so it's not like someone else will come and contradict me.) How do they know my knowledge is accurate or up to date?

 

One even, I kid you not, calls me a "genius". I am extremely uncomfortable with this fawning tone. There's a reason I post from a throwaway account and abstain from avatars and signatures and all that stuff forumites use to build a brand around themselves. I am happiest if you consider me an anonymous nobody. I reject all assumed authority and want you to evaluate anything I write solely on its own merits - as you should do with anything on the forums regardless of the poster's "reputation" or clout.

 

But perhaps this thread can be helpful to such posters. If I receive any inquiries on what's the most meta blaster, I'll be sure to redirect them here.

[pawstruck]

On 9/3/2023 at 8:00 PM, Zect said:

Reading this post reminds me of the fact that I have received some PM's asking me "what's the best/most meta X" (usually couched in "what would you play if..." language).

 

I've started refraining from replying to them because I think it's unhelpful to do so. I want to help people learn to think for themselves, not do their thinking for them or foist my preferences and biases on them. If I answer, how do they know I'm telling the truth? (It's a PM, so it's not like someone else will come and contradict me.) How do they know my knowledge is accurate or up to date?

 

One even, I kid you not, calls me a "genius". I am extremely uncomfortable with this fawning tone. There's a reason I post from a throwaway account and abstain from avatars and signatures and all that stuff forumites use to build a brand around themselves. I am happiest if you consider me an anonymous nobody. I reject all assumed authority and want you to evaluate anything I write solely on its own merits - as you should do with anything on the forums regardless of the poster's "reputation" or clout.

 

But perhaps this thread can be helpful to such posters. If I receive any inquiries on what's the most meta blaster, I'll be sure to redirect them here.

 

I don't understand the angst, except for the fawning, which does seem a little annoying.

 

Part of the fun of any RPG is optimization. We like to geek out over numbers and effectiveness sometimes. I personally use this game as a glorified character creator, but occasionally I like to know what works better or worse, too. (You just posted in my thread, Zect, and it was fun.)

 

E.g., I myself would like to hear more about whether others think AR is good now, because it's difficult to evaluate changes from a distance. I have a family and very little time to play. I won't be tinkering with Mids or farming inf for hours... so it's interesting to me to see rankings/meta/etc., especially as updates come out. (I'll still happily make a Sonic/Dev blaster if I get a good concept though.)

 

Actually, the "play what you like" line is pretty facile, itself. Not saying you're using it, but some players throw it around like "YOLO" or "tolerance" or whatever other platitudinous tropes humanity can come up with when people don't want to think.

 

/e shrug

Edited September 6, 2023 by pawstruck

[honoroit]

mid level report on fire/mental

 

Figs lvl 28

 

Figs - who is mildly imbalanced

 

positioning for everything is improved by combat tp, night and day versus running about for cones:

 

/bind ` powexec_location target combat teleport

 

/bind shift+` powexec_location 180:30 combat teleport

 

- fire damage is, as always, ludicrously good. blazing bolt, blaze, fire blast under hasten are st

- fire breath does amazing damage across its ticks

 

- mind probe is super quick and hits hard (this over subdual). will definately take the final melee.

- 🔮 psychic scream 😱 hits wide and hard, good for winter set proc that adds an Immobilize. 

- between psychic scream, fireball, rain of fire and fire breath available a lot, and supplemented with inferno (and psychic shockwave to come in a few levels)... aoe of this pairing is exceptional.

 

- drain psyche works best because of combat tp. ` -> youre positioned, shift+` -> your now at a spot to fire a cone at the target you ported to.

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by honoroit

[Nostromo21]

What are the most played/popular ATs (and powersets to a lesser extent) online overall? Would the HC guys have that info I assume...?

[Cyclone Jack]

Not sure about meta, but I had over 2500 hrs on my Ice/Ice/Elec when CoH shut down.  Something about that combination just clicked with me, and no matter how many other characters I made, I kept going back to that Blaster.  It was solid damage and had solid cc, especially with the massive amount of +Recharge I squeezed into the build (~185% or so; I know that Chilblain recharged faster than its cast animation, and BIB, FRay, FTouch were all like a 3s recharge.  I think even Hasten had like a 5s overlap 🤣).  For Homecoming, I did remake the character but, I have purposefully retired the character so that I can spend time enjoying new characters, since I don't have anywhere close to the same amount of free time as I had back then. 😄

 

As far as other Blasters, Water/Dark has been quite interesting, Seismic/Earth is a lot of fun (lots of KD), and DP/MA is a surprisingly fun combo as well.