I wanna blap!

[queequeg77]

I'm tired of tanks and scrappers and sentinels and their cowardly armor and mez resistance. I want to live life on the edge. I want to earn debt badges. I want to blap!

 

My previous 50 blasters were all ranged, hover style. Can anybody recommend a good primary/secondary combo with lots of good blaps?

 

I just started Storm/Martial because that seemed promising.

 

Any thoughts? This will be for leveling (mostly through TFs), so if you've got a build that's fun from level 1 on, that would be great too!

[EnjoyTheJourney]

I really enjoy the following build. It's efficient at mowing down enemies, especially in melee range where single target and AOE damage both get noticeably better. 

Two key draws for opting for a /martial blapper are that there are good blaps available and you can have good availability for mez protection from a relatively early level; for example, it's nice to be able to say "nope" to the ruin mage during a Posi TF when he stuns, holds, or immobilizes your blapper.

 

You may receive quite a bit of advice for how to reduce or avoid mez, with the obvious implication that having mez protection isn't strictly necessary. It is technically correct to say that. But, if you'd like to just wade into the frontlines and fight then the simplest and easiest way to deal with mez is to have mez protection. Full stop. Rune of protection and inner will can help your blapper easily deal with a high percentage of incoming mezzes from a relatively early level; the resistance buff from rune of protection can be very helpful at times, as well. 

The main blap is storm kick. It is available for use very often. Burst of speed is a melee range AOE, with a suitable animation for a blapper. Eagle's claw is also a good blap. But, because of its slow recharge it doesn't replace any other single target attack particularly well. Dragon's tail has a small 8 ft radius and it usually doesn't hit many enemies; burst of speed is a teleport-into-melee-range-and-attack power that has better range for hitting targets than dragon's tail and that is also available at a lower level than dragon's tail. 

 

Flamefoot - Blaster - (Fire Blast - Martial Combat - Mace Mastery).mbd

Edited Sunday at 11:38 PM by EnjoyTheJourney

[queequeg77]

Thank you, that build looks fun (and expensive!) Does Storm Kick proc reliably with its short recharge?

[Biff Pow]

/Energy has some heavy hitting attacks, it's very satisfy to move in and destroy the Bosses. I like the classic Energy/Energy but Sonic/Energy is also fun and great for soloing (most due to Siren's Song.)

[EnjoyTheJourney]

29 minutes ago, queequeg77 said:

Thank you, that build looks fun (and expensive!) Does Storm Kick proc reliably with its short recharge?

Storm kick has no recharge in the power itself. So, it procs well. Numbers below ...

Mids lists the average damage from procs in storm kick as follows (numbers rounded to nearest whole number):

 

Hecatomb damage proc - 57 damage

Mako's bite damage proc - 30 damage

Touch of death damage proc - 30 damage

Gladiator's strike damage proc - 30 damage

The average damage per storm kick as per Mids is 358, and procs are contributing 147 of that damage on average. It seems reasonable to say that storm kick does much more damage with procs than without; eyeballing the numbers, damage seems to go up by roughly 60-70% by putting in damage procs, compared to not having damage procs*. With storm kick available for use so often the damage procs in storm kick noticeably improve single target damage done by this build. 

* This is a guesstimate based on the idea that without procs the percentage of increased damage added to storm kick from enhancements would probably be higher, leading to more than just 358 - 147 = 211 damage without procs.

Edited Monday at 12:13 AM by EnjoyTheJourney

[queequeg77]

I was considering /energy as well. I have a EM stalker that I love and it shares a lot of the melee attacks.

Also considering electric/martial, and electric/electric.

Too many possibilities, not enough time...

[EnjoyTheJourney]

/energy has very easy endurance management, a good heal, good blaps, and a complex pathway to good mez protection. The pathway to good mez protection goes as follows:

 

Take the leaping pool, including combat jumping and acrobatics. This provide immobilize protection, good knock protection, and enhanceable hold protection (more on that later). 

Take the heal in /energy and use it proactively for stun protection. 

Take power boost, get recharge to where it's close to perma, and proactively use it before engaging with spawns and mid-fight with spawns that are taking a while. 

 

Power boost increases the hold protection in acrobatics from -2 to -3.77, which is enough to ward off one incoming mag 3 hold. 

There's a sleep hole in mez protection, for which you need break frees and your blaster set mez resistance IO. There's also protection from just 1 incoming mag 3 hold. But, in practice it still functions quite well overall. 

Edited Monday at 01:19 AM by EnjoyTheJourney

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Sometimes it helps me to put a build into a forum post. This turned out to be one of those cases. 

The revised build below incorporates eagle's claw and there's a simple single target attack chain for it that leads to more damage than the earlier build. The sequence is blaze - eagle's claw - blaze - storm kick - blazing bolt, repeat. There's a small loss to defense totals and a few defensive powers arrive a little later in the build. It's probably still worthwhile for better damage and more blapping, though. 

 

 

 

Flamefoot - Blaster - (Fire Blast - Martial Combat - Mace Mastery).mbd

Edited Monday at 01:21 AM by EnjoyTheJourney

[Snarky]

When falling into madness,,,, DIVE!  Fire Fire Fire Blaster

[kelika2]

try elec/fire if you want to just be in melee.  you will be a point blank god

[Doomguide2005]

5 hours ago, kelika2 said:

try elec/fire if you want to just be in melee.  you will be a point blank god

This.  It has a large number of PBAoEs available ... Short Circuit, Hot Feet, Burn, Fire Sword Circle among them.

[Jacke]

I'd not take Martial Combat as a Blaster Secondary except in a particular build.  As its Build Up variant is taking the L4 Power Reach for the Limit, which allows all attacks to potentially proc (0.67PPM) a short-term +ToHit (+15% ToHit) +Damage (35%) enhancement buff (15s).  That +Damage is doubled (+70%) for Toxic and Psionic Damage.  Now Toxic Damage is very rare, outside of other Blaster Secondaries only found in the Blaster Patron Pool Leviathan Mastery and just its attack Bile Spray.  And it's rare to have a proc come before just one attack.  I'd make a Psychic Blast/Martial Combat Blaster to get a lot more out of Reach for the Limit.  But I'd not play that as a Blapper.

 

Storm Blast is a different sort of Blast Powerset.  It's somewhat slow to set up and get the most out of.  Kind of clashes with the usual rush-rush style of a lot of Teaming in City as it is now (and often was in the past too).  Also not that great for the edge-of-the-knife play that is a Blapper.

 

The traditional Blaster Secondaries for a Blapper are Energy Manipulation and Electrical Manipulation.  A number of Blaster Secondaries have short-range or melee attacks and a traditional Build Up (+20% ToHit +100% Damage for 10s, base recharge 90s), which can be controlled to precede hard hitting attacks.  Those Secondaries are:

• Atomic Manipulation
• Earth Manipulation
• Electricity Manipulation
• Energy Manipulation
• Fire Manipulation
• Ice Manipulation
• Mental Manipulation
• Plant Manipulation

As @Doomguide2005 mentions, having a lot of PBAoE attacks helps too.  The other important features of Blaster Secondaries are the Sustain Power, which adds +Regen and +Recovery, which is sometimes a toggle Power or other times another sort of Power.  And many more recent Blaster Secondaries have a special mechanic that can provide a benefit, but can make things a bit more complex.  Like Atomic Manipulation and Earth Manipulation.

 

Long ago, I'd made a Sonic Attack/Energy Manipulation Blapper, to have Sonic Attack's -Res to increase the damage of all.  It's fun.  Blappers live on the edge even more than other Blasters.  😺

 

 

[queequeg77]

Ton of great info and suggestions here!

Does /energy's Power Boost work well with Electric/ end drains to work as a sapper?

That's very tempting.

 

I love all of the fire options (my first ever blaster to 50 was fire/ice/fire) but it doesn't really fit the character I'm thinking of.

 

Thematically, I'm kind of whittling it down to primary of Electrical Blast or Energy Blast. Secondary thinking Martial, Energy, or Electricity.

 

[Jacke]

51 minutes ago, queequeg77 said:

Does /energy's Power Boost work well with Electric/ end drains to work as a sapper?

 

Welp, let me check.

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=blaster_support.energy_manipulation.power_boost&at=blaster

 

It may.  "+78.672% ..., Endurance, .... for 15s".

 

There are several key things to know about Toon sapping:

• Need both -End Powers to take away mobs' Endurance and -Rec Powers to stop them recovering Endurance for a while.
• Tough mobs cannot be sapped successfully.
• Even other mobs who are sapped, if they get back what seems to be a sliver of Endurance, they will attack.

I run a Kinetics/Electrical Blast Defender.  Kinetics Power Transference applies good -End on one target.  Electrical Blast Power Short Circuit applies good -End and -Rec to all its targets.

 

But because of Purple Patch (which cuts down effects on higher Level targets) and Endurance and Recovery Debuff Resistance (which reduces those effects on mobs with them), I need both to hit to sap out one target.  Maybe.  If I can sap a target, I can usually keep that one target at 0 Endurance.  But not if it's a special Lt like a Sapper, or most Bosses, EBs, AVs, Monsters, and GMs.

 

Sapping can help.  But it's very much a binary tactic: Either works well on weaker targets, but not at all on tough ones.

 

I'd also never depend on sapping to deal with a build on a Toon that doesn't have sufficient net Recovery to keep fighting.  Fix that by improving the build.

 

The whole point of a Blapper is using the standard tool to deal with the mobs: Thump them enough to be defeated.  Melee Powers have higher damage.

 

 

Edited Monday at 08:15 PM by Jacke

[Doomguide2005]

Sapping is a very binary effect. 

But the shocked mechanic helps with the whole damage is needed to defeat as similar to scourge this function kicks in as sapping occurs and the foes blue bar vanishes.  And again sapping isn't a directly offensive operation.  Its mitigation.  Foes drained and trying to run out of Hot Feet or Burn are very little threat to anyone.  Do they "cheat".  Yes but not in the way folks frequently say.  First they have a lot of extra blue making for more recovery returned with a tic, twice or more from a characters baseline (same reason the accolades for +end help players) and many of their powers are auto or clicks and not toggles, etc..

[EnjoyTheJourney]

8 hours ago, Jacke said:

I'd not take Martial Combat as a Blaster Secondary except in a particular build.  As its Build Up variant is taking the L4 Power Reach for the Limit, which allows all attacks to potentially proc (0.67PPM) a short-term +ToHit (+15% ToHit) +Damage (35%) enhancement buff (15s).  That +Damage is doubled (+70%) for Toxic and Psionic Damage.  Now Toxic Damage is very rare, outside of other Blaster Secondaries only found in the Blaster Patron Pool Leviathan Mastery and just its attack Bile Spray.  And it's rare to have a proc come before just one attack.  I'd make a Psychic Blast/Martial Combat Blaster to get a lot more out of Reach for the Limit.  But I'd not play that as a Blapper.

 

...

 

People can reasonably differ in how far they're willing to go to maximize damage or in how they figure out which primary / secondary combos interest them and which ones don't. The game is easy enough that following one's preferences is still likely to lead to a mechanically functional build. 

Taking a step back and thinking in terms of math, with all of the other increases to damage and multipliers of various kinds, procs, etc, a 35% increase in damage for the amount of uptime provided by a build up power won't have a large impact on overall damage. It is at best a low to middling single digit percentage point increase in damage overall, after all the math is done. On a connected point, if anybody wants to argue that psy blast with reach for the limit at 70% extra damage is going to outdamage fire blast with reach for the limit at 35% extra damage, then it would be interesting to see some math showing that.

 

The point here is that there are a lot of factors that (especially collectively) impact damage in a much more significant way than extra damage from reach for the limit; if one only looks at damage math, then the idea that martial is only really suitable as a match for psy blast because of reach for the limit is a bit of a head scratcher. Circling back to earlier in this post, though, preferences don't need to have solid reasons behind them. "I prefer the following ..." is more than justification enough, even when a preference isn't well supported by math. 

Edited Tuesday at 01:23 AM by EnjoyTheJourney

[Jacke]

11 hours ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

People can reasonably differ in how far they're willing to go to maximize damage or in how they figure out which primary / secondary combos interest them and which ones don't. The game is easy enough that following one's preferences is still likely to lead to a mechanically functional build. 

Taking a step back and thinking in terms of math, with all of the other increases to damage and multipliers of various kinds, procs, etc, a 35% increase in damage for the amount of uptime provided by a build up power won't have a large impact on overall damage. It is at best a low to middling single digit percentage point increase in damage overall, after all the math is done. On a connected point, if anybody wants to argue that psy blast with reach for the limit at 70% extra damage is going to outdamage fire blast with reach for the limit at 35% extra damage, then it would be interesting to see some math showing that.

 

The point here is that there are a lot of factors that (especially collectively) impact damage in a much more significant way than extra damage from reach for the limit; if one only looks at damage math, then the idea that martial is only really suitable as a match for psy blast because of reach for the limit is a bit of a head scratcher. Circling back to earlier in this post, though, preferences don't need to have solid reasons behind them. "I prefer the following ..." is more than justification enough, even when a preference isn't well supported by math. 

 

You're quite right.  Players can decide to combine Martial Combat with whichever Blaster Primary they want.

 

I run an Assault Rifle/Devices main.  For many years, the only direct buff Devices gave AR was a lot of +ToHit and a weird special case boosting the AR Sniper Rifle Power (and only that Snipe Power, a weird case that was eventually removed).  It was a combo thought to be underperforming for Blasters.

 

I love AR/Devices.  I loved it back then and I love it now.

 

And after a relatively recent change, Targeting Drone now provides a base +20% Damage and for the first attack when out-of-combat, another +60% Damage.  But that's just icing on a particular sweet cake.

 

On the flip side, if anyone wants to make a Psychic Blast Blaster, I strongly suggest looking at Martial Combat to see if that works for them.  😺

 

 

[TECHWON]

On 5/25/2025 at 6:57 PM, queequeg77 said:

I'm tired of tanks and scrappers and sentinels and their cowardly armor and mez resistance. I want to live life on the edge. I want to earn debt badges. I want to blap!

 

My previous 50 blasters were all ranged, hover style. Can anybody recommend a good primary/secondary combo with lots of good blaps?

 

I just started Storm/Martial because that seemed promising.

 

Any thoughts? This will be for leveling (mostly through TFs), so if you've got a build that's fun from level 1 on, that would be great too!

 

the being a blapper is where's it at

[MTeague]

I completely read the message title in Twisted Sister voice for "I wanna Rock!"

 

I have an AR/Martial blaster.  Super fun character to play.  Uses Speed of Sound as well, so has Burst of Speed for rapid teleport attacks, a foot sweep or kick or Ki Push, then Jaunt back out to proper Cone distance for Flamethrower or whatever else. And lulz at any melee mobs trying to catch up to her.  I'm not as familiar with Storm Blast, but Martial Kombat is a great secondary.

[queequeg77]

Twisted Sister was very much on my mind with that title.

I ditched the Storm/Martial because I wasn't loving Storm Blast. That character has been reborn as Electric/Electric.

And now I'm going to take the Psychic/Martial challenge as well.

I'll play both through the Posi TFs and see which one grabs my fancy more!

[Jawbreaker]

I'm trying to recreate my AOE blapper I had on live, not quite there with the build yet. Definitely not a typical Blapper, Sonic/Fire. Stealth up to a large group, sleep them with Siren's song and then hit all your AOE's to melt them. Can't wait to try it with the new sleep mechanics coming next issue.

This is the build I'm currently qorking with but I feel like the one I had years ago had higher defenses
https://api.midsreborn.com/legacy/download?uc=1769&c=740&a=1480&f=HEX&dc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