[Build Request] Ice/Atom/Ice or Rad/Ice/Ice

[The Tsaurian]

Hiya!  Looking to make my first Blaster, workshopping a Mr. Freeze/nuclear winter character, and was looking for some input from you savvy folk!

 

Either have better synergy than the other?  Any advice or builds greatly appreciated!  Budget oriented would be preferred, as I'm still getting situated in Homecoming, but I won't turn my nose up at more optimized or expensive builds.

 

 

[flyingpcp]

I don't know if you've already made the character, but Ice Blast is significantly stronger overall DPS than Radiation Blast. Radiation Blast animations are a bit slow, also. The secondaries I believe are more in line with each other.

[Nemu]

Ice/Atom/Ice has slightly more synergy in that you can triple stack holds.

 

Rad/Ice/Ice will have more AoE potential, especially if you choose to engage in melee with your melee attacks.

 

Most first time blasters build defensively, as they are in for a rude awakening coming from the world of armored ATs. So it's not uncommon to see beginners embrace hover blasting with range defense as a build priority. But even the cheapest of those type of builds will still run you ~100 million inf.

 

As a new comer to homecoming with little funds, I'd lean Ice/Atom/Ice. You can get 2 holds early in your leveling progression in freeze ray and positron cell, and you can add bitter freeze ray later on. Together they give you quite a bit of safety at range for solo content at default difficulty. Just don't make the mistake of slotting attacks for secondary effects. You are a blaster, dead things don't fight back, slot attacks for damage first and foremost, not hold duration. 1acc 2dam(minimum) 1recharge and maybe 1 end reduction is what I would recommend in those attacks.

 

Make sure you take metabolic acceleration the moment it's available at level 20 and prioritize 3 slots of endurance modification in it. It will make your endurance problems go away.

 

As a beginner with little funding, this is also a good opportunity to learn the ins and outs of playing a blaster. People that start out playing armored ATs are pampered and ignore some very important game mechanics. People with funds are also more likely to powerlevel alts and copy builds without really learning the AT, and you can come out better than 80-90% of blaster players I see in game if you really lean into learning game mechanics that make you a more successful blaster in spite of builds. If you can master playing a blaster, you've mastered most other ATs except kheldians and Masterminds.

 

There are plenty of people that are happy to give out builds on the forums, if you want to learn how to succeed as a blaster in spite of builds, I can provide advice as well.

 

Instead of an IO build with lofty goals that you can't afford right now, I'm going to take a more practical approach and start you off on regular enhancements with a hover blaster build:

 

Blaster (Ice Blast - Atomic Manipulation).mbd
 

Basic 101 level tips - as you level, lucks and breakfrees are your best friends. pop 3 lucks at a time to get hit less, and always keep a supply of breakfrees. Learn to combine inspirations during downtime to what you need. If you are taking too much fire, duck around a corner and break line of sight. When on a team do that while moving towards the team, not away, and stop attacking so others can grab aggro from you.