Fire / Dark Need Advice

[Xhi]

Hey guys I hope @Nemu sees this and can give me some advice as I have been looking at his posts and how he walks everyone through obtaining their goals, its really helpful so much appreciation for that. I already have this character made IO'd out but its an old build and its a resistance based build.  This build I want to be a "Blapper" I know this build may be not up to par but I tried to reach some numbers that could help and I'm still new to how to theorycraft so please pick it apart as much as you can so I can get better with my thought process. Any advice is welcomed.

 

I tried to reach ranged softcap and as much Smashing/lethal as I could think of getting while being "efficient" someone may come along as ask themself, "what in the world did he do." I know and expect it. ITs for higher level content (not hardmode) but more-so running paper missions and higher tier story arcs and just being "the blaster". Thanks a bunch for the advice and looking forward to understanding build making some more.

Blaster (Fire Blast - Darkness Manipulation).mbd New.mbd

[Nemu]

Hello,

 

Some feedback on general build process:

Slot attacks as attacks, and not for secondary effect because you want to chase bonuses. If you take nothing else away from this post, this is the only comment that I would ask you to walk away with.

 

Just because every other build does it doesn't mean you need to do it on this build. If touch of the beyond lands you have more end recovery than most builds that instinctively slot the recovery uniques in health. Blasters in general do not need those miracles/numinas if they slot their sustains for endurance recovery.

 

Death shroud is not worth taking, at all. It's an end hog, it basically demands you be in the danger zone and stand there like a brain-dead melee player, and unlike some other non-sustain damage auras that blasters get, it doesn't do anything to help mitigate damage (hotfeet at least slows and screws with mob AI). The defenses that you build is not meant to enable you to stand in melee forever and duke it out. You don't have the sturdiness of melee ATs. Plus, blasters already do enough burst damage that they don't really need the pitiful trickle of damage from damage auras in my opinion. It's the ultimate trap power.

 

Shadow Maul has a 3 second cast time, you can make it work but that cast time might be a turn off for those that are looking for a more fluid playstyle.

 

Keeping the goal of survival via S/L/range defense, lets fix a few of the obvious items I talked about:

 

- remove slots from health and stamina (for now), leave a panacea proc in health and a Pshifter +end in stamina

- reslot midnight grasp with mako's bite, keeping the 3.75% range defense

- reslot shadow maul with 5 piece avalanche, we'll come back to that

 

Kinetic combat is not a very good set if you have funding. Blistering cold is far better

- add a slot to smite, reslot with 5 piece blistering cold

 

Weave gives you the most +def to all and deserves more than unique mule slotting. all your defense toggles only have one slot and you are missing the forest for the trees when you look at what slotting some of these can do for you instead of focusing on stacking set bonuses. Scorpion shield and weave in particular. The former give you 4% more s/l defense if you just add two more slots to it, how many slots would you have to dedicate to get that number via set bonuses?

 

At this point, if I added 2 slots that I salvaged from health/stamina to Scorpion shield (LOTG Def and LOTG def/end), you will be at 43%S/L and 44%Range

- reslot Scorpion shield with LOTG 7.5, DEF, and DEF/End

 

As a blaster you have a lot of weaknesses, therefore I'd get combat jumping a lot sooner because I don't want to wait 38 levels to not to have to worry about immobilizes. Since we dropped death shroud we can push CJ up to level 4. I don't like to miss, so my preference is to slot CJ with an LOTG 7.5 and a kismet +to hit. We lost the range bonus from 2 piece blessing of the zephyr. That will put us down at 43% range and 43% S/L defense.

- move CJ to level 4, reslot with LOTG 7.5 and Kismet +to hit

 

But we recovered a slot from CJ, and I'm going slot up weave with 1 lotg 7.5 + shield wall Def, Def/end and unique, If you have money boost the def and def/end to +5. That brings your defense up to ~44.5% S/L and ranged unboosted. Weave gives defense to all, it's the best bang for the buck and deserves slotting rather than being a mule.

- reslot weave with LOTG 7.5, Shield wall Def, Def/End and +resist unique

 

The next eyesore is the lack of slotting on Rain of Fire, Blazing bolt, soul drain and Inferno, and the extravagant amount of slotting you dedicated to tactics and aim. If you want recharge, 5 slot sting of the manticore gives you 7.5%, yet you went with 5 slot adjusted targeting in tactics for 5%. And you already have 3 piece sting of the manticore in the snipe. 2 additional slots for 7.5% recharge vs 4 additional slots for 5%, there is a clear winner here.

- remove all slots from tactics, add 2 more slots to blazing bolt and 5 slot with sting of the manticore. leave tactics at base slot with end reducer.

 

Soul drain is a build up replacement and requires an accuracy check, you also most likely want it available as often as possible. 2 slotting it with rectified reticle in this power doesn't align with how this power wants to be used. The 2 piece RR is better suited for aim. Soul drain deserves more slotting.

- remove 3 slots from aim, reslot with 2 piece rectified reticle and a guassian's build up proc

 

Avalanche goes better in soul drain, the KD proc is useful to knock stuff down as you buff yourself, so we will move the avalanche set from shadow maul to soul drain

- add 3 slots to soul drain, move avalanche set from shadow maul to soul drain.

 

At this point you have 43% s/l defense and 42% range defense.

 

The next set of decisions is trickier.

It's easier to slot a power that grants +defense to all to bring both ranged and S/L defense closer to softcap. Manuevers consumes more endurance than combat jumping so it's a good target to put more slots in.

- add 3 slots to Manuevers and slot with LOTG 7.5, reactive defense Def, Def/End and +resist unique

 

This brings you to 44% s/l and ~43% range defense

 

This leaves you with a 3 slotted inferno, a 3 slotted rain of fire and a 5 slotted shadow maul. I'm inclined to drop shadow maul because it's a melee cone that's awkward to aim for some people, and it has a 3 second cast. I can then reinvest those slots in RoF and inferno. 6 slotting RoF with artillery will give you another 3% defense which will put you over the top on range defense, you can take a slot out of superspeed, lose 1.25 range defense from blessing of zephyr and gain 3% instead. At this point you are pretty close to softcap to S/L and Ranged and you can use the remaining slots to get more useful bonuses such as recharge.

 

- drop shadow maul and reclaim 4 slots, remove a slot from super speed and add 3 slots to RoF and 6 slot with artillery

- slot remaining 2 slots into inferno and slot with 5 piece armageddon.

 

This also leaves you with 2 open power picks, since you already have combat jumping, picking up super jump for the slow resist unique and the acrobatics for some additional mez protection makes sense, and they require no slotting investment.

 

If you want to edge closer to softcap you can also +5 the defense and defense/end IOs in Scorpion shield, weave and manuevers.

 

I also like to exemp well so power pick progression matters to me. reshuffling some power picks around gives me a build that is self sufficient and can steamroll teams by level 30

 

The end result is much cleaner, with leveling progression that enables you to be self sufficient by level 30, as you will have access to scorpion shield and achieve almost softcap to S/L range when you exemp to that level.

 

Blaster (Fire Blast - Darkness Manipulation).mbd Nemu edit.mbd

 

[Xhi]

Wow, thanks @Nemu for an awesome perspective. I really appreciate the effort you put into explaining your thought process. Hopefully I'll retain and make it a point in my other builds. Appreciate it and I will definitely give this a shot.

[Snarky]

So i run both a fire fire and a dark dark.  Your Blast set, Fire, thrives on two strategies.  1) stealth in and PBAoE nuke then blast madly at anything left standing 2) Drop RoF, and other Aoe/ST from a safe distance.  You have to know when to do this.  Eating a purple insp going in helps about as much as converting a whole build to Sentinel strategy.  You build for range softcap but you want a blapper and have hard hitting loooooong animation attacks at melee range???

 

You can save a LOT of resources and develop other parts of your byuild by taking A1) Dark Pit Toggle ranged AoE 20' rad Mag 2 Stun and 2) Oppressive Gloom PBAoe 12' radius Mag 2 stun.  Wait, Mag 2, + Mag 2 = Mag 4 stunning bosses, Lts and minions?  All Around You....  So.... Why you need defense.  You in Blapper Mode.  They are all standing there drooling.  Now build up other parts of your strategy and walk back the investment in an ill-conceived hope of safety.