Blaster Build Assistance Required

[Dr McBackstab]

So I've made multiple blasters over the years but have yet to actually go into detail actually trying to build them effectively.  After following a guide on a tanker to great effect, I am now more than motivated to try more of that, seeking better power selection, enhancement layout, and invention suggestions... I'm not exactly very good at that.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

 

Current Blasters:

Deathhead McBackstab - level 50 - AR/Dark/Soul

Nova McBackstab - level 45 - Energy/Mind/Fire (though not attached to that if there is a better suggestion)

Light of Eden - Level 27 (recreation of a character from live) - Archery/Energy/(too low level)

[LKN-351]

I have used Archery and Mental Blast and I'd say right off the bat you have a bit too much accuracy. I know, it sucks to miss but with two slotted acc you could add more slotting to your secondary powers. If you've got 1.30/1.40 or so accuracy you should be fine. If you dont think thats enough you might look into adding some accuracy from a set bonus or slot the kismet proc or something along those lines.

 

Aside from that, it looks pretty good in my opinion. I can identify the IO sets visually but I don't have the effects memorized so I can't comment on the set bonus' you're using.

[Novacat]

Power Selection: Don't always take ALL of the attacks. While it depends a little on individual sets, there's often one or two that are either very redundant, or don't feel quite right for you. There's also the fact that later as you start to IO up some will simply fall behind as the recharge rates of the ones you REALLY care about improve and you need a bit less filler.

• Take Shadow Maul, for example. It has a long cast time, locks you in place for some time, so while it could do pretty decent damage if you catch two or three targets very close together, if you want AoE you have a lot of other options. An M30 AND Buckshot could've been fired in the time you throw those punches, with far more targets and less having to be up close.
• Over in Soul Mastery, Soul Storm may seem attractive at first glance, but you can't stack it. You have no other holds anywhere and the cast time is pretty long too. You could, however, get some decent stunning out with Dark Pit and Beanbag.
• Beanbag may talk about how it stuns, but also note the damage it does for its animation. It's better than Burst, albeit shorter range, so while I certainly want one Stun/Range from the IO sets in there, it's a good idea for the rest to come from the damage side.

Which brings us to one of the other reasons you want to "make some space"; your defenses. Squishy is one thing, but you don't want none.

The lynchpin of the modern blaster secondary is the Sustain. The amount of regeneration (or heal or absorb) and recovery (or endurance discount in Energize) they offer is nuts for a single power, but given that's all we get and how badly off we were before i-24, they're not broken like they would be in any other archetype. Always get your sustain and reinforce its health/stamina type qualities.

Touch of the Beyond is considered the worst of all sustains due to having to be reused so constantly, but even it is there for the regeneration and recovery it offers, not the weak Fear effect that may make one minion hesitate a little while.

 

If you make a little space you can grab things that will greatly reduce your reliance on those accuracy slots, such as the Leadership pool. Thanks to our sustains keeping the whole pool up while firing everything we have is little to no concern by endgame, so feel free to at least grab Maneuvers and Tactics (Assault's nice solo but if you team a lot, you may often be damage-capped, so up to you if you have a 'spare' power slot for it or not). Some prefer (or ALSO get) Tough and Weave as well. I like to stick Combat Jumping in despite having a strong tendency to hoverblast, because it's so cheap to keep toggled on and has no prerequisites, especially if a power I don't want during the early levels would be the only non-pool alternative.

 

Slotting:

First, get some Heal in your sustain. A single +3SO in a regen sustain (the regen ones all give 225%, of which 112.5% is enhanceable) already gives more regeneration than the entire Health inherent. One +3 Endurance Modification SO nearly matches the entirety of the Stamina power; two 50 IOs will leave it in the dust.

Damage is important, and even in sets where you're not going out of your way to get the 5pc/6pc, it's a good idea to at least get it "in the yellow". The fewer hits you need to take something down, the less extra attacks you need, the less time they have to gun you down, etc etc etc.

 

With sources of to-hit and/or accuracy from IO sets and powers like Tactics, you won't need or want anywhere near as much Accuracy. The game caps your chances at 95% anyway, so a good way to verify when in mids, is to check if, say, against relative enemy level +3, you have at least that much. IOs also give a bit more than SOs too, and the sets tend to have multi-attribute stuff like Acc/Dmg, Acc/Recharge/Dmg, and so on, so by the time you've got 4-5 pieces in there, the power's likely capped against +4s as well before you've even joined a team.

 

I'm also a fan of the Overwhelming Force set, but not in a cone that doesn't do knockback. If anywhere, this should go in your M30 so that it doesn't split the enemy group in half with the 50% knockback chance, instead putting them to the floor more reliably. Keeping groups packed together will mean people in Ignite stay in Ignite too.

 

The other set; Defiant Barrage (or superior version), is often well placed in a 1st or 2nd level power so that you can fire it off and maybe get its mez protection effect to proc WHILE mezzed. If you really like your immobilize (Penumbral Grasp in Dark's case) and use it a fair bit, it could go there too, like if you're not a fan of Burst and don't want to put it in Slug. I'd put it in Slug but that's just me.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Novacat said:

Power Selection: Don't always take ALL of the attacks. While it depends a little on individual sets, there's often one or two that are either very redundant, or don't feel quite right for you. There's also the fact that later as you start to IO up some will simply fall behind as the recharge rates of the ones you REALLY care about improve and you need a bit less filler.

 

This is IMO key. Eventually you will get enhancement sets (this isn't the Day 0 game of Live) so the attacks will have some recharge... it isn't like you will be standing around with nothing to do.

 

There are a handful of Blaster combos that I feel lend themselves to taking more attacks than would be otherwise necessary (especially if character concept is a factor), but generally I don't plan to take all of them. As for how I choose?

 

AoE is generally superior to single-target. My #1 rationale is that RNG is a cruel, cruel mistress. I find very little in the game to be as frustrating when trying to drop an enemy with ST attacks and missing two out of every five (even at 95% ToHit). At least with AoE when I miss some, I still hit some. AoE also have better options IMO for slotting with enhancement sets.

 

While leveling Blasters, I tend to try different things. Sometimes powers like melee attacks work really well, other times not-so-much. The only sorts of powers I have mostly (*1) given up on trying with Blasters any more are single-target controls. I'll take one if I can double-up on the same type of control for increased magnitude against a chosen (single) target, but otherwise I feel like I am not leaning into what a Blaster does best: damage. I'm aware that single target attacks (Holds especially) can be slotted with a lot of %damage... but often I find whatever slots  could be put into a single-target power could probably just be put into other powers to increase their output.

 

(*1) By all means, try them... no matter how many times I read the same rationalization for a single-target immobilize, I'm pretty much never going to take such a power if I can help it considering that the arguments in favor of such a thing are either for 1% of game content (AVs that eventually run) or get can possibly be leveraged into peculiar combos (e.g. Atomic). I simply am at the point at which I can't justify the investment in either slots or power choices for a typically niche power.... and I take single-target Fears!

[Maelwys]

Whenever I'm building a toon I'll generally aim for a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 "attacks".
Any more than ~8 and I begin to have trouble tying them all into my control scheme (via power tray icons/binds/macros/etc) to activate them in a quick + accessible manner.

Blasters tend to have more available attacks than most toons due to having two offensive powersets to choose from... but there will still be an optimal attack chain for ST and/or AoE which only uses 4-8 powers that you'll end up spamming more often than not. 6-slotting these is important if you're attempting to squeeze out maximum performance via procs and/or set bonuses depending on what you're going for in the build.

As an example, my Fire/Ice/Blaze's optimal attack chain contains Blaze, Blazing Bolt, Char, Fire Ball and Frozen Aura; with Fire Blast filling in depending on the active recharge buffs. They also have Chillblain, Fire Breath, Rain of Fire, Bonfire and Inferno; but those powers are activated situationally rather than constantly spammed. (I agonized over whether of not to take Freezing Touch instead of either Char or Fire Breath; but ultimately decided against it - technically FT would give me better single-target damage; but it's melee range. Char has better base accuracy and makes a much better proc bomb; and Fire Breath's AoE is too valuable to lose particularly since it gets boosted via Blazing Bolt!).
Situational powers or pseudopets (like Rain of Fire) might not benefit as much from procs; but you can still get some nice set bonuses out of them. Since Tidge already mentioned them; Single Target immobilizes are a good example - these are rarely worth using for damage, and the default duration is enough to stop something from running if/when you need to. So I tend to either leave them with the default slot OR use them as a mule to get a useful set bonus. (e.g. the first 5 pieces of Superior Blaster's Wrath, with the damage proc elsewhere).

Optimal Damage Proc loadout is typically 4 per power. However most ranged attacks only have a proc or two they can take; so it often makes more sense to 5-slot them for a set bonus and proc the last slot... but be careful of recharge slotting in the power itself, since this will almost always lower your proc activation rate. 5-piece Positron's Blast (without the Dam/Rech) with a Bombardment or Annihilation proc in the last slot is perfect for Targeted AoEs; but for Single target or PBAoEs you'll need to sacrifice either set bonuses or proc chance. Thankfully some abilities with extra effects (like holds and slows!) have very nice procs in those alternative enhancement sets and make it a bit easier to "pick a side".

[Doomguide2005]

Okay I know Blaster sustains are good, but I have a tough time imagining (which is all I can do atm) you need almost zero endred in your attacks.  Attacks are the number one source of endurance consumption on any character and not by just a small amount typically.  Is it so good he doesn't need any?

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Okay I know Blaster sustains are good, but I have a tough time imagining (which is all I can do atm) you need almost zero endred in your attacks.  Attacks are the number one source of endurance consumption on any character and not by just a small amount typically.  Is it so good he doesn't need any?

You'll generally end up with a fair bit of EndRed in the attacks anyway; but even with that the Blaster sustains are generally not going to stop a determined DPS-orientated Blaster from eventually emptying their Blue bar. They're more about helping to keep you upright for a few nanoseconds longer.


To give you an example on Endurance consumption:

+ The Blaster that I used as an example above's attack chain sucks an average of 5.756 Endurance per second.
+ Their sustain (Frigid Protection) would grant them about 0.94 End/Sec with no EndMod slotted. For comparison, unslotted Stamina would grant them about 0.47 End/Sec.
+ Altogether with IOs etc. and a single EndMod IO in Frigid Protection their average recovery rate is about 4.726 End/Sec, which means that there is a deficit of ~1.03 End/Sec. So as-is it can technically operate at full pelt for a smidge over 85 seconds (with toggles) or 110 seconds (without toggles) before its endurance will bottom out. 
+ If they didn't have Frigid Protection then their average recovery would drop to about 3.526 End/Sec, for a deficit of 2.23 End/Sec. That would decrease the time they could operate at full pelt to ~45 seconds (without toggles) or ~50 seconds (without toggles).

However it's worth pointing out that in practice, aside from AV/GM/Pylon DPS-measuring contests you're almost never going to be spamming your Single Target attack chain for that long uninterrupted... and even then you can fall back on teammate buffs, stockpiled blue insps, purchasable temp powers like Recovery Serum or (saving the best for last!) Ageless Destiny Incarnate. Some of the Blaster powersets also have extra recovery tools like Consume.
 

Edited May 19 by Maelwys

[Doomguide2005]

Oh I follow you and looking back my eyes were mostly noting the two blueside builds ... and seeing things like 3 acc and 3 damage.  Minimal if any endred slotted at all.  And neither is an IO build.

[Maelwys]

There was an old line of thought on live that went "Before ED you 6-slotted Damage in everything, so after ED you 3-slot Damage and fill the other slots with Accuracy and Recharge and maybe one EndRed". 
Some people from back in the day (or who've gotten ahold of old builds from "back in the day") still hold to this line of thought; and I suspect that was true until now for the OP.


But that was an general "rule of thumb" from long before the devs gave us access to 'Real Numbers' in game or detailed builder utilities like Mids became available to show us the details of what was actually going on with our attacks.

These days if you're still using SOs or Common IOs; then yes, by all means still ED-cap your damage (3x regular SOs or level 25-30ish IOs, or 2x 50+5 IOs)....
...but after that consider how much accuracy you actually need to hit the 95% ToHit cap versus whatever you're likely to be fighting - 1x Acc IO is often enough; particularly in powers with a base accuracy boost or a powerset that gets defence debuffs.
And look at the base Recharge Time - you might not actually need this particular power to recharge any quicker than its baseline to fill your attack chain.
And finally look at the base Endurance Cost - it might be tiny and ignorable (for me generally ~5 End or less); or it might be extortionate (~10 End or more) and need a bit more love.
And after that if you end up with any spare slots? Damage Procs are probably the simplest "Set IO" to get your head around.

[Dr McBackstab]

Okay, thanks for all the advice - I also found some older builds for inspiration too.

 

I had to build an AR/Dark myself though - I would appreciate feedback since I think I might have messed something up on it...

(probably don't need a 6-slot sniper shot... maybe replace it with burst...)

Deathhead McBackstab - Blaster (Assault Rifle - Darkness Manipulation).mbd Deathhead McBackstab - Blaster (Assault Rifle - Darkness Manipulation) version 2.mbd

[Dr McBackstab]

Also might be using the builder wrong - the Resistance totals all ended up with massively negative values...

[LKN-351]

MIDs version 3.7.4 had some issues, they seem to have fixed them in 3.7.9

You might check which version you're using.

[Dr McBackstab]

Thanks - turns out I just had rest turned on in the build - disabling that seems to fix it

 

Deathhead McBackstab - Blaster (Assault Rifle - Darkness Manipulation) version 2.mbd

[BazookaTwo]

My original on live (and my Forum namesake) was an Assault Rifle/Energy Manipulation Blaster. Here are screenshots of his build.

You may be able to make use of various things. 

Highlights:

• Power Boost really, really helps your Defense. 
• Great AOE cones. Widen those AR cones. No wider. Wider.
• Has a relatively high recharge
• Decent ST Damage both melee and ranged.