how are blasters supposed to solo?

[ScarySai]

Snort a line of purples, destroy everything.

[Ukase]

On 5/5/2024 at 9:46 PM, Biff Pow said:

Melee is where Blasters do the most damage. If you're going to stay at range, might as well be a Sentinel.

For the most part, I think this is not always true - but mostly true. I keep getting peeved when I see the term "blapper", as any blaster will go into melee fairly often. It's a useless term. You can call yourself a blapper if you like, but you'll be a blaster in my eyes. 

Think about the mental manipulation secondary. Blasters with this powerset are in melee at least every 30-45 seconds just to get their endurance rate up. The idea that a blaster was designed to play at range is simply inaccurate. While it's certainly safer to be at range, melee is where the action is for fire blasters with fire sword circle and Inferno. 

For an ice blaster with the targeted Blizzard, cast relatively safely from a difference - and a couple of ranged holds...this powerset for a blaster is much better designed for range play. But, it still gets a few melee attacks, because, like it or not, you're either going to be proactive and go into melee, or melee is going to come to you. 

Energy secondary is hilarious. Talk about mind games. All those KB powers designed to confuse the player. Am I melee or ranged? They come near, I attack, now they're 40 feet away. There's a synergy there to take advantage of, if you're solo, or aren't teamed with fussy scrappers who hate to use the F key (and I get it). But sacrificing a slot just to knock something down when that slot could be used for more damage, accuracy and recharge...um...no. I'll use the Overwhelming force damage/kb to kd in almost every build if I can. I'll never use Sudden Acceleration's KB to KD unless I'm chasing the 6th bonus of that set. (A whole 'nother topic there) 

 

Sorry, I'm being too wordy, as usual. 

In short, range and melee are both good modes of play, but doing both is working with the sets you get, whereas only doing one or the other is kind of going against the grain of the design of the AT and the powersets. 

Maybe a Sentinel is a better fit for some of us. No shame in that. I cannot play every blaster powerset very well. Great at ice, and energy and fire. Okay at water. Suck at dark and time. 

[Seed22]

On 5/1/2024 at 12:16 PM, MoonSheep said:

blasters have high damage and low defences, always been that way. the best defense is a great offense

Skill issue. 
 

Its not meta, but if you’re solo or mostly solo, build for at least 45% def. You wont do as much as a purely offensive blaster, but you WILL be far sturdier. 
 

My blaster has tanked a +2 Reichsman over TWO brutes following this method and pumping good numbers because blaster modifiers. 

[MoonSheep]

8 hours ago, Seed22 said:

Skill issue. 
 

Its not meta, but if you’re solo or mostly solo, build for at least 45% def. You wont do as much as a purely offensive blaster, but you WILL be far sturdier. 
 

My blaster has tanked a +2 Reichsman over TWO brutes following this method and pumping good numbers because blaster modifiers. 

 

i find the “build for softcap” trend really boring, every AT turns into a grey indistinguishable mush

 

living life as a glass cannon and having to use strategy rather than face tanking every mob is a lot more exciting and rewarding from my experience

Edited May 31 by MoonSheep

[Seed22]

8 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

i find the “build for softcap” trend really boring, every AT turns into a grey indistinguishable mush

 

living life as a glass cannon and having to use strategy rather than face tanking every mob is a lot more exciting and rewarding from my experience

And thats certainly a valid way to go about it. 
 

I like to avoid glass cannons as they get kinda one dimensional, as all they offer is just max damage which to me gets kinda old fast. 
 

Of course I totally get how face tanking things gets old too. I just always find it funny when we don’t have a tank and my blaster’s dodging alphas and nuking mobs at the same time, or tanking an AV with melee radial(which I’ve done on my Ice/Fire. Super hilarious) 

 

For my glass cannon builds that ARE super fun though? They’re doms. Its just so fun to lean into CC/Damage and tank via hard CC for a team. 

[arcane]

8 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

i find the “build for softcap” trend really boring, every AT turns into a grey indistinguishable mush

 

living life as a glass cannon and having to use strategy rather than face tanking every mob is a lot more exciting and rewarding from my experience

Agree. I’m celebrating ~2 years sobriety from Fighting pool addiction 🙂 

[plainguy]

I play all my builds at some defense cap. 
My signature has a OLD,OLD post that should be still active about defense cap and why it is important.  For me back then ( the post is dated) was when my eyes were opened to the game mechanics in this game. 

Some have said they don't like it. I can understand or relate. 

But the simple reality is you just last longer in a mission with Defense cap.. 

Unfortunately there are only so many inspirations you can make and combine to get the inspiration you specifically need sometimes. Similar if you can make defense IOs you can make damage IOs.. 
Again it is a play style of choice.
I can personally recall several times during my gameplay where many on the team had no clue of defense cap and wondering why I was surviving. 
https://github.com/LoadedCamel/MidsReborn 
MIDS is a must to building out and creating builds for end game.

 I couldn't tell you the difference in damage wise between a fire fire non defense cap and a fire fire defense cap build. But I can't imagine it being massively different. 
I can tell you I play a lot on my AR /Device which is the weakest power set in the game and I can open up with full auto kill all the minions and then slug shot the LT hat might be alive.  So I do not see that earth shattering bad.. 

I mean how much damage do you really need to do and how much overkill do you need?  If they have 100 HP and you do 100 HP  in damage it is the same as doing 200 HP in damage.. You get get nothing for the extra 100 HP damage you did.. 

 

[Biff Pow]

My Energy Blaster has 32.5% Defense to everything (a little less to Psi) and I find that's enough for soloing even large groups. The trick is they don't get the chance to fire many shots. And if I do feel like I need that soft cap, it only takes one small purple.

 

[BazookaTwo]

Ever heard of Jousting? It's when you target a mob, run by or jump over them, and the power goes off. If you do it right all they can manage to do is ranged retaliation. This is part of the blapper style you may have heard about. If you want a great secondary for it that will teach you via faceplanting and learning, /energy manipulation is great. I'm running a pistols/em now. Feels exciting 

[The Bagman]

As a blaster, for large groups of mobs, I use something to root enemies to the ground then nuke hard. Enemies usually have stronger melee attacks than ranged...so you can hit them from a distance with flight/hover on.

 

When you get your "big aoe nuke" I find that a blaster's best defense is to nuke hard as possible to take out as many enemies as possible as quick as possible so they don't get to hit you. Then clear up the remaining mobs. You are a glass cannon after all 🙂

[PyroBeetle]

I have found the most fun using Tactical Arrow as a secondary...this allows me to play at range and be very effective, even solo. Solo or on teams lacking support I open up with Flash Arrow, then a proceed out glue arrow, then oil slick arrow, then M30 grenade with a KD to KB enhancement in there (I use Overwhelming Force for this one), which regularly lights my oil slick, then Full Auto with the Ragnarok KD proc, then Flamethrower, which will light my oil slick if none of the above did, then M30 Grenade is ready again to finish off any or the stragglers.

 

I regularly solo +4/x8 with no problems, I do have to eat a purple before engaging the tougher groups, or if I have to face two spawns at once, but I have a macro to combine some inspirations into purples, not red ones though, those I have macro to chew when I use my build up clone.

 

Long story short, embrace whatever AT you are playing. I eat dirt if I pull prolonged agro, but this can be the life of a Blaster. I have enough defense that I am not afraid to fire the first shot in a team environment, trusting that the melee brothers will be in contact shortly, but my job is to mow them down and let God sort them out.

[TECHWON]

I manage to solo by taking tough (boxing tree) or I take combat jumping (leaping tree) for added defense as well I focus on regeneration and dps.

[Gentoo]

I recommend trying Psychic Blast. It has good control and maximum range. I have a Psi/Energy with boost range and I can hit things from across a zone and they never come anywhere near me if I don't want them to. So they can't shoot back. Feels almost like cheating.

[Gentoo]

On 5/31/2024 at 5:11 AM, MoonSheep said:

 

i find the “build for softcap” trend really boring, every AT turns into a grey indistinguishable mush

 

living life as a glass cannon and having to use strategy rather than face tanking every mob is a lot more exciting and rewarding from my experience

 

I agree with this.

 

I actually miss the original blaster inherent where you got more powerful as you got more hurt. Jump off a building and intentionaly get yourself to 1 hp and do godly damage 🙂

[Akisan]

On 6/20/2024 at 8:44 AM, Gentoo said:

I actually miss the original blaster inherent where you got more powerful as you got more hurt. Jump off a building and intentionaly get yourself to 1 hp and do godly damage 🙂

 

It was fun, but it was really awkward (and somewhat toxic) having blasters ask (or in some cases, demand) to not be healed.  (I played both a Blaster and an Empath defender in those days, and yeah... awkward on both sides.  I *did* get really good at maintaining my HP between 10 and 30% though!)

[ScarySai]

You could build for defense and offense equally, or just go full on murder mode with the build and lean on externals for survival.

[Crysis]

On 7/4/2024 at 9:49 PM, ScarySai said:

You could build for defense and offense equally, or just go full on murder mode with the build and lean on externals for survival.

Exactly this.  I just did a respec on an old blaster build and ended up with 8 attacks all six slotted for max damage -and- still achieved S/L/E/N/R soft capped defense.  In fact unless you just are procc’ing all your attacks (which is a questionable tactic for Blasters) you don’t have to just choose one or the other.  

[ScarySai]

10 hours ago, Crysis said:

(which is a questionable tactic for Blasters)

 

I mean it depends on the set, but not really. Even fire/fires wanna proc fire sword and the snipe.

[Crysis]

6 hours ago, ScarySai said:

 

I mean it depends on the set, but not really. Even fire/fires wanna proc fire sword and the snipe.

 

I’m not opposed to procc’ing -some- attacks, but I’ve seen blaster builds on here that procc’d out -every- or even -most- attacks.   I’ve had friends who complained about their blasters’ survivability and when I asked to see their builds, they literally had every attack filled with proc’s and hardly any set bonuses.  Just because you can slot a Proc doesn’t mean you always should, relative to survivability goals at least.

[Crysis]

On 5/30/2024 at 10:39 AM, Ukase said:

I'll use the Overwhelming force damage/kb to kd in almost every build if I can. I'll never use Sudden Acceleration's KB to KD unless I'm chasing the 6th bonus of that set. (A whole 'nother topic there) 

 

 

Sorry to necro an older topic, but I wish upon whatever star you want that at some point before this game dies for good, we are given a simple toggle in options to “Change KB to KD.”  I don’t think it’s needed to go the other way (KD to KB), but it sucks to be forced to use a slot to get the the KB to KD “luxury” feature.  I get that was likely easier to program for a whole host of reasons, but it irritates me so much that I’ve just avoided using KB-oriented powersets.  I never use normal bullets on any of my DP players.  I’ve not played an Energy blast powerset since Live, etc etc.  No player should ever be forced to adjust their playstyle to accomdate mine.  That’s why we have the Null the Gull nullifiers for Group Fly, the prompts for teleport, etc etc.  

 

Do I think I’ll ever get my wish….no.  But I wish it nonetheless.

[Bionic_Flea]

I've suggested an incarnate power that has core adding KB and radial reducing KB.  Bonus points if that incarnate power got a damage dot based on the distance knocked.