Best ranged Corruptor

[Extor Prime]

I know they are all ranged, but still:

 

Which corruptor primary does best staying at range as opposed to standing in middle of an enemy pack for maximum DPS? I hate having to close in for PBAoEs. I would rather stay at a distance and blast, and only resort to close ranged attacks if swarmed.

[Hjarki]

In general, the PBAoE in Blast sets isn't very important with one exception: the ultimate nukes. These are critical components of the toolkit.

 

Of the sets, Dark, Dual Pistols, Energy, Fire, Psychic, Radiation and Sonic are PBAoE.

 

Archery and Assault Rifle don't have true 'ultimate' attacks.

 

Beam Rifle, Electrical, Ice and Water all have ranged AE ultimates.

 

However, Blizzard bears special mention here. It not only has the largest base damage of any ultimate but it's also a location AE rain. This means that, unlike the other ultimates, it will Scourge a significant portion of its damage - so the actual damage of Blizzard is 30% more (or so) than you'd expect just examining the numbers. Being a Rain with significant debuffs also means that you can lay debuffs across the area in relative safety after you use Blizzard to shut down the enemy. There's also the issue of target caps - in that location AE don't have true target caps. Rather, each tick they select a number of enemies up to the target cap. As a result, Blizzard can be used against much larger crowds than any of the other ultimates.

[City_of_Jedi]

To the OP:  Fire Blast is what you're looking for.  Don't be deterred by the PBAoE nuke.  It's not an "every spawn" power.  (Obviously you still want it.)

 

You can pull aggro with Rain of Fire, so you might find yourself in melee whether you want to be or not.  That's the price of doing lots of damage. 

 

If you really wanna stay far back, you could try /Energy Manipulation on a Blaster and get Perma Boost Range.  But it isn't always practical to be that far away.  Whatever you pick, it's either going to have PBAoE attacks or Cones, both of which have shorter ranges than your standard single target blasts.  Fire/ and Ice/ have always been the best, although Sonic/ gets special mention for -resistance.

 

However, Blizzard bears special mention here

 

Good info about Blizzard.  I didn't know any of that (other than it being AoE rain). 

[Harrow]

Does DP's Hail of Bullets count as a "rain" effect as well, since it does its damage in separate chunks over its duration? Or does it only check for Scourge once?

[subbacultchas]

Water is my current goto. Admittedly there are other sets with a slight bit more AOE, but I think Water has a solid blend of both single target and AOE, and has one of the best feels in the game.

[Hjarki]

Does DP's Hail of Bullets count as a "rain" effect as well, since it does its damage in separate chunks over its duration? Or does it only check for Scourge once?

 

The key distinction is that Rain effects summon a pseudo-pet that then delivers the attack.

[Flitze]

"Water" is one pool you may consider. Especially since there's a lot of area knockdown enabling you to retreat if necessary.

[Justisaur]

I like the idea, but you also need to consider secondaries.  /time /dark /kin /traps all like to be up close at least part of the time for instance.  /rad can be a bit futher away (choking cloud's the only thing you need to be close for and it's kind of meh so can be skipped.)  /nature I'm not sure about though I know it has a power like rad's choking cloud.  I think all the others are fine from a distance, but not sure which I'd want, My initial thought would be ice/storm.

[Papaschtroumpf]

I have an ICE/RAD that works wonderfully in that situation. She is also hovering 100% if the time unless she's dead or needs to spawn an Ouro portal.

I think /rad as a PBAOE as the final power but I didn't take, don't miss it, it's an "oh sh!t" that I have no use for.

I completed the build a while back and I don't have it handy, but it has high Range and AoE defense and much lower melee defense, another once you've to stay at range.

Perma Hasten, Perma RA, it kicks butt. The best compliment I got is when I joined a team and after a few groups someone asked why they turned the difficulty down. The team leader pointed out that she didn't, everything was just getting killed twice as fast since I joined the team. Felt pretty good, especially in a world where it seems everyone thinks it's all about Fire (I have one of those too, but he is /time and thrive sticking to the tank in the middle of the pack)