I'm trying to get a handle on Temporal Manipulation...

Story Archer · January 11

I've got two L50 Blasters, and Energy/Energy (role-play) and a Fire/Atomic (min/maxed), and I've enjoyed them both immensely. I usually max out my ranged/AoE defense and stay at range as much as possible. Now I've got what I think is a fun concept for a Rad/Temporal character and I'm trying to get a handle on how Temporal Manipulation works. The Rad is negotiable at the moment, and I'm open to other primaries (though anything with props like guns or rifles).

Reading through the power descriptions, it looks like the set is at its most effective when comboing its powers (I usually take a minimum number of powers from my secondary) and I might have to get in there and mix it up a little more than I usually do. All good. Browsing the numbers listed, I can't quite tell how to make the best use of them, what powers are 'skippable' or any crucial slotting. I'd love to find a a guide or at least a couple of tested builds that I could draw from, but anecdotal advice is very welcome as well. What I'm trying to avoid is spending a lot of time leveling up a character that plays more like a Corrupter - if I want that, I'll just make a Corrupter.

TIA for anything you might be willing to offer. 🙂

Edited January 11 by Story Archer

Snarky · January 11

On 1/11/2025 at 9:03 PM, Story Archer said:

I've got two L50 Blasters, and Energy/Energy (role-play) and a Fire/Atomic (min/maxed), and I've enjoyed them both immensely. I usually max out my ranged/AoE defense and stay at range as much as possible. Now I've got what I think is a fun concept for a Rad/Temporal character and I'm trying to get a handle on how Temporal Manipulation works. The Rad is negotiable at the moment, and I'm open to other primaries (though anything with props like guns or rifles).

Reading through the power descriptions, it looks like the set is at its most effective when comboing its powers (I usually take a minimum number of powers from my secondary) and I might have to get in there and mix it up a little more than I usually do. All good. Browsing the numbers listed, I can't quite tell how to make the best use of them, what powers are 'skippable' or any crucial slotting. I'd love to find a a guide or at least a couple of tested builds that I could draw from, but anecdotal advice is very welcome as well. What I'm trying to avoid is spending a lot of time leveling up a character that plays more like a Corrupter - if I want that, I'll just make a Corrupter.

TIA for anything you might be willing to offer. 🙂

Expand

i use temporal manipulation as the "willpower armor" set for Blasters. just get it, slot it, and forget it. here is an example of a Beam/Temporal i used on incarnate trials for a year. specialist at long range dps uninterrupted because i was WAY OVER THERE away from the bad stuff.

Blaster Beam Temporal Munitions w ach.mxdFetching info...

Frozen Burn · January 12

On 1/11/2025 at 9:03 PM, Story Archer said:

I've got two L50 Blasters, and Energy/Energy (role-play) and a Fire/Atomic (min/maxed), and I've enjoyed them both immensely. I usually max out my ranged/AoE defense and stay at range as much as possible. Now I've got what I think is a fun concept for a Rad/Temporal character and I'm trying to get a handle on how Temporal Manipulation works. The Rad is negotiable at the moment, and I'm open to other primaries (though anything with props like guns or rifles).

Reading through the power descriptions, it looks like the set is at its most effective when comboing its powers (I usually take a minimum number of powers from my secondary) and I might have to get in there and mix it up a little more than I usually do. All good. Browsing the numbers listed, I can't quite tell how to make the best use of them, what powers are 'skippable' or any crucial slotting. I'd love to find a a guide or at least a couple of tested builds that I could draw from, but anecdotal advice is very welcome as well. What I'm trying to avoid is spending a lot of time leveling up a character that plays more like a Corrupter - if I want that, I'll just make a Corrupter.

TIA for anything you might be willing to offer. 🙂

Expand

I love /Temporal. It has everything. hard hitting STs, AOE, Control, and +Rech buff. Personally, I didn't want to skip anything and I've found use for all of the powers with my Psy/Temporal Blaster (build below). I tend to play in melee range a lot to use the PBAOEs and Melee Powers. And the tremendous amout of control you have makes it easier than some other secondaries.

One thing I love about the set is that your T1 immob will stack with your Hold (Time Stop) so that you can Hold bosses - that's right, when using the immob and your hold in sequence, the hold gets extra mag to hold a boss.
I also have a set of Superior Blistering Cold in Aging Touch with the chance to hold proc - it procs fairly often and is a additional control that stacks with the Time Stop as well.
End of TIme (PBAOE) - i like the full Superior Avalanche in it with the chance to KD. It does good damage and again, more control for survivability.
Future Pain is great heavy hitter
Time Lord is is extra +Rech and a nice mule for the Resistance specials.
If there was a skippable power, I guess it could be Time Shift (ranged AOE stun). It's only mag 2, so you'll only get minions. However, I still find it useful as taking a group of minions out of fight is still worth it - especially if you're waiting on other powers (like your nuke) to recharge.

Librarian Archivist - Blaster (Psychic Blast - Temporal Manipulation).mbdFetching info...

Uun · January 12

Time Wall has secondary effects when used in combination with other powers. Most of these aren't significant and I ignore them (other than the Time Stop combo).

Aging Touch: DoT doubled
Time Stop: Mag increased by 1 (for 3.5s)
End of Time: Damage increased
Future Pain: Mag 3 fear
Time Shift: Mag increased by 1 (for 4.7s)

Chronos provides a 30% recharge buff and has secondary effects on your self buffs. These are a nice bonus, but be aware that the damage buff is lower than Build Up.

Temporal Healing: Absorb increased
Time Lord: Increased energy resist, recharge, and slow resist

The skippable powers in Temporal are Aging Touch and Time Shift. Aging Touch is fine as a lvl 1 power, but most of your higher tier blasts have superior DPA and you can respec out of it. I currently have Time Shift in my build, but I slot it for ToHit Debuff and use it to mule Siphon Insight.

tidge · January 13

I have a Dark/Temporal, I'll embed my page 5 build in spoilers for completeness. This is an older character.

Reveal hidden contents

Some of the secondary power synergize very well with this primary, some do not. Chronos fires every 22 seconds with an almost guaranteed %BuildUp. The melee (single target and PBAOE) are rarely used. I should note that this character was intended to be "mystical", this is the reason for the Arcane Bolt.

Mack008 · January 15

FWIW... Time Shift can have 3 damage procs added to it, giving it 193.7 points of damage. Nothing to write home about, but it's not a bad addition to your AoE arsenal. Toss in some recharge (which won't change the procs) and an Accuracy and you're good to go.

tidge · January 21

One caveat about trying to leverage Time Shift as a %damage attack: It has a base accuracy of 0.8. This is among the lowest of the base accuracies in the game.

The extra possible damage, even as AoE, may not be yielding as much for a Blaster as simply making more attacks. It would be IMO a somewhat heavy investment in slots to try to capitalize on %damage, as opposed to slotting something like 5x Absolute Amazement. YMMV.

I like AoE stuns, but I left it out of my /Temporal Blaster.

Frozen Burn · January 22

I whole heartedly agree with @tidge here.

If you take the AOE stun power (like i did), you need to invest slots in it to make it viable, and loading up on procs doesn't yield as great a reward as one might hope (and you'd need at least 2 generic Acc IOs (or equivalent) to make the power on par with normal powers).

If you take it and invest the slots, it's better and more useful to use 5-6 pieces of a set of something to get the set bonuses. Time Shift is a power to help your survivability and provide damage mitigation vs. doing a few damage points. If you have another stun power, the even more better as you can then mitigate damage of bosses while you drop them with your plethora of other attacks.

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