Fire/Fire/Fire

[WuTang]

OK firstly, I have to bring in the @Snarky since it's his build, but he's not the only one that knows this....

 

Fire Blasters are OP AF.

 

Don't get me wrong, not screaming for a nerf, but I mean, let's give some love to the others. I actually thought maybe it was just a bit up there, nope it's next level. I'm not even fully slotted, in fact, the ITF I was in last night, I started out at level 45 and was annihilating groups of 52s, I was level shifted to 49 ATT, but still that's 3 levels up. I've never had that with any other toon.

 

How do you roll one so powerful then play anything else??

 

I did die more than a few times...but never did Rise of the Phoenix let me down.

 

Now I'm wondering if Fire Blast is as strong when paired with other secondaries.

 

I rolled a Mando themed blaster (AR/Devices) at the same time, the look is so good I will play him, but it'll be with a Fire Blaster sitting on my shoulder whispering, *not quite as good though, is he?*

[Snarky]

8 minutes ago, WuTang said:

OK firstly, I have to bring in the @Snarky since it's his build, but he's not the only one that knows this....

 

Fire Blasters are OP AF.

 

Don't get me wrong, not screaming for a nerf, but I mean, let's give some love to the others. I actually thought maybe it was just a bit up there, nope it's next level. I'm not even fully slotted, in fact, the ITF I was in last night, I started out at level 45 and was annihilating groups of 52s, I was level shifted to 49 ATT, but still that's 3 levels up. I've never had that with any other toon.

 

How do you roll one so powerful then play anything else??

 

I did die more than a few times...but never did Rise of the Phoenix let me down.

 

Now I'm wondering if Fire Blast is as strong when paired with other secondaries.

 

I rolled a Mando themed blaster (AR/Devices) at the same time, the look is so good I will play him, but it'll be with a Fire Blaster sitting on my shoulder whispering, *not quite as good though, is he?*

i regularly charge out ahead of the team on 4/8 with a fire/fire/fire   fresh spawns waiting to be melted!

[WuTang]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

i regularly charge out ahead of the team on 4/8 with a fire/fire/fire   fresh spawns waiting to be melted!

I'll get him decked out by this weekend and see how badass the build really is.

 

Question....Your Alpha selection was Agility Core? Would Intuition Rad be a tad better? Or do you find the recharge/endurance mod to be the best option?

[Snarky]

5 minutes ago, WuTang said:

I'll get him decked out by this weekend and see how badass the build really is.

 

Question....Your Alpha selection was Agility Core? Would Intuition Rad be a tad better? Or do you find the recharge/endurance mod to be the best option?

I never put my incarnates in the build. If that us in there it is random.  Without opening game (i am working) i can tell you that Alpha was max DPS +45% damage.   Because….  Damage.  MiDs is screwy, and i rarely touch the incarnate in there except when fine tuning an armor set.  

[Ukase]

No doubt fire is very good for blasters. As for fire/ice? Not as good until the later levels, but a lot depends on how you slot and how you play. 
I've teamed with folks who would make a fire blaster look comparatively like a kinetic melee scrapper - just not that good. So much depends on you as a player. Some folks can make any build look magical. And some folks can take a magical build and make it look sad and weak. 

 

Me, I like ice/fire a bit better than fire/fire, even though it doesn't have a snipe. Blizzard is better for me than inferno due to the reduced risk. But the ice secondary...cauterize and frigid protection are practically interchangeable as far as a sustain goes. 

But your question was about the secondary. I like Atomic Manipulation because of the sustain being one of the better ones (for me). Sure, I get held, but only for a very short time. By the time I move to click on the inspiration, I'm generally no longer held. It's got a hold with a decently quick activation time to help mitigate some of the NPCs trying to clobber you. And Beta Decay boosts your recharge, and decreases their toHit. For me, it's one of the better blaster secondary sets. Opinions can and do vary. 

We get a ton of slots, why not try 'em all out, and tell us? 

[WuTang]

This guy is fully slotted now and I ran a +4 ITF last night and half a TinPex, both proved to me the build is solid, thank you @Snarky, and that the power combo just obliterates the enemies. No incarnates yet so it's just pure build, and it does not disappoint. Can't wait to get it full incarnates and see how badass it is then, finish that up today...hopefully.

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, WuTang said:

This guy is fully slotted now and I ran a +4 ITF last night and half a TinPex, both proved to me the build is solid, thank you @Snarky, and that the power combo just obliterates the enemies. No incarnates yet so it's just pure build, and it does not disappoint. Can't wait to get it full incarnates and see how badass it is then, finish that up today...hopefully.

It is a dragster.  It just goes fast as hell and wants to keep going forward.  Glad you are having fun

[Ukase]

I feel I should add...Martial Combat is an incredible secondary because of burst of speed, and inner will. I have inner will on auto-fire. I can't tell you how many times I'll look down at my power bar and see it fired, and I didn't even notice. That means I was mezzed (cuz my health didn't go down in that case) and didn't even realize it. 

Between inner will and sheer will, I only carry one break free now, in case of emergencies. I was able to proc out inferno and the snipe and still build for s/l resist cap and 25% melee defense. So, yeah, I like Martial Combat. I'd like it more if I could auto-fire hasten as well, but I've just bound it to the h key. 

[Blammo]

My search fu is weak, cannot find @Snarky fire/fire/fire build (even though I recall seeing/reading it some days ago). Please repost or share link? I wanna try it out!

 

Please and thanks.

 

/edited @Snarky name for emphasis

 

 

Edited August 15 by Blammo

[Snarky]

36 minutes ago, Blammo said:

My search fu is weak, cannot find @Snarky fire/fire/fire build (even though I recall seeing/reading it some days ago). Please repost or share link? I wanna try it out!

 

Please and thanks.

 

/edited @Snarky name for emphasis

 

 

 

Blaster (Fire Blast - Fire Manipulation) 2024 v 2.01.mbd

[Blammo]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

 

Blaster (Fire Blast - Fire Manipulation) 2024 v 2.01.mbd 43.23 kB · 1 download

 

Thank you good sir!

[Plutonix]

How much skill do you need to use this powerset? I'm used to ranged or bruting/tanking so just trying to to think of I should attempt this. I guess to bullet point my questions:

 

- how hard is jousting?

 

- do I just zerg or is there strategy involved?

 

- what's the learning curve like?

[WuTang]

On 8/16/2025 at 8:35 AM, Plutonix said:

How much skill do you need to use this powerset? I'm used to ranged or bruting/tanking so just trying to to think of I should attempt this. I guess to bullet point my questions:

 

- how hard is jousting?

 

- do I just zerg or is there strategy involved?

 

- what's the learning curve like?

I don't joust with it...the dead don't fight back

 

Just zerg... Seriously pop Aim or Build Up on your way in, Inferno them all, ease back out to the next group. Between Infernos just ST everything.

 

If you die, Rise of the Phoenix

 

I was in a Yin the other week with a buddy of mine and we went up the elevator in the police station. I hit Build Up on exit (with Gaussian) floated to the mob hit Inferno and then clicked the Exit button. My friend never made it to them...

 

[Nemu]

Jousting depends on playstyle and how you want to leverage your toolkit. If you take hotfeet then chances are you don't want to joust too much, as you want mobs running around distracted in hotfeet and taking incidental damage. There are complexities playing a blaster but if you want to zerg then just make sure you have a steady supply of lucks and breakfrees to softcap your defense and fight through mezzes. If you are not on a steady diet of luck inspirations then you have to learn the other blaster survival tricks and learn to play a little more tactical. See the below post on survival tips:

 

 

Inferno solves a LOT of problems and even with fire/fire it does most of the work. Case and point the example in the above post. What part of /fire contributed to that story? I can get build up from a number of other secondaries.

 

A lot of the accolades I see about fire/fire involves build up + inferno, followed up by whatever else in /fire, but inferno did all the work. Yes I'm aware you can use fireball/fsc/burn during downtime but you could just as well do Fire breath + Fireball and toss in rain of fire and achieve similar results at range while covering a larger area, and you get that chain by level 8. Given the number of hover blasters that post their builds here on the forums I'd advocate that latter chain for a blaster newbie and recommend something like fire/energy where you can skip the melee stuff if that's your cup of tea, pick up boost range and extend the cone of fire breath to make positioning a lot easier.

 

The one place where the the claim that fire/fire does stupid damage is justified is for hard mode content where you are encouraged to stick together as a team. You spend a lot of time fighting at point blank range so fire breath is not as useful. In addition, for hardmode content, those blasters can also benefit from fulcrum shift reliably because mobs don't die to a sneeze, and a /fire blaster can actually get some mileage out of cauterizing aura and hotfeet's otherwise pitiful damage. When was the last time you waited for fulcrum shift on a blaster for regular content?

[WuTang]

On 8/18/2025 at 7:17 PM, Nemu said:

Jousting depends on playstyle and how you want to leverage your toolkit. If you take hotfeet then chances are you don't want to joust too much, as you want mobs running around distracted in hotfeet and taking incidental damage. There are complexities playing a blaster but if you want to zerg then just make sure you have a steady supply of lucks and breakfrees to softcap your defense and fight through mezzes. If you are not on a steady diet of luck inspirations then you have to learn the other blaster survival tricks and learn to play a little more tactical. See the below post on survival tips:

 

 

Inferno solves a LOT of problems and even with fire/fire it does most of the work. Case and point the example in the above post. What part of /fire contributed to that story? I can get build up from a number of other secondaries.

 

A lot of the accolades I see about fire/fire involves build up + inferno, followed up by whatever else in /fire, but inferno did all the work. Yes I'm aware you can use fireball/fsc/burn during downtime but you could just as well do Fire breath + Fireball and toss in rain of fire and achieve similar results at range while covering a larger area, and you get that chain by level 8. Given the number of hover blasters that post their builds here on the forums I'd advocate that latter chain for a blaster newbie and recommend something like fire/energy where you can skip the melee stuff if that's your cup of tea, pick up boost range and extend the cone of fire breath to make positioning a lot easier.

 

The one place where the the claim that fire/fire does stupid damage is justified is for hard mode content where you are encouraged to stick together as a team. You spend a lot of time fighting at point blank range so fire breath is not as useful. In addition, for hardmode content, those blasters can also benefit from fulcrum shift reliably because mobs don't die to a sneeze, and a /fire blaster can actually get some mileage out of cauterizing aura and hotfeet's otherwise pitiful damage. When was the last time you waited for fulcrum shift on a blaster for regular content?

 

Much is true...actually prob all. Yeah I ride that Inferno wave fast and hard but then between charges (around 45 sec) I'm pew pewing from a distance. BUT if I have great support where my defenses are crazy or we have heals...great tanking....ect....you get where I'm going, I just sit in the middle face-rolling my keyboard. 

 

Yes I agree about Fire secondary, I'm not 100% sold that it's the end all, be all of secondaries. But @Snarkys build speaks for itself. It is a steamroller. Great on endurance and high on damage and when you fail (and you will fail)....burst back to life with Phoenix.

 

 

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, WuTang said:

 

Much is true...actually prob all. Yeah I ride that Inferno wave fast and hard but then between charges (around 45 sec) I'm pew pewing from a distance. BUT if I have great support where my defenses are crazy or we have heals...great tanking....ect....you get where I'm going, I just sit in the middle face-rolling my keyboard. 

 

Yes I agree about Fire secondary, I'm not 100% sold that it's the end all, be all of secondaries. But @Snarkys build speaks for itself. It is a steamroller. Great on endurance and high on damage and when you fail (and you will fail)....burst back to life with Phoenix.

 

 

Not lying, I have tanked a +4 ITF with that Fire Blaster for a squishy team.  And when i started rambling in Discord and did not stay with the team they had deaths and problems.  So I focused back in for the rest of the ITF. No more problems.  It is insane how much damage it does and how much trash disappears dropping non stop fat and heavy kill zones of fire everywhere.  

[Lionroar]

On 6/12/2025 at 5:31 PM, Snarky said:

I never put my incarnates in the build. If that us in there it is random.  Without opening game (i am working) i can tell you that Alpha was max DPS +45% damage.   Because….  Damage.  MiDs is screwy, and i rarely touch the incarnate in there except when fine tuning an armor set.  

Hello. I have to ask since I'm a bit clueless here. Which incarnates do you use for this build? 🙂

[WuTang]

On 8/31/2025 at 1:37 AM, Lionroar said:

Hello. I have to ask since I'm a bit clueless here. Which incarnates do you use for this build? 🙂

I went with:

 

Alpha: Muscular Core <--MOAR damage

Interface: Reactive Radial <--MOAR damage

Destiny: Barrier Core (though Ageless Radial will actually increase damage)

Hybrid: Assault Radial <--MOAR damage

Lore: whatever flavor you want...

Edited Friday at 06:50 PM by WuTang

[Uncle Shags]

Other than for theme and procced out char (which is nice), I think triple fire is overrated.

 

I don't think /fire/fire is the most damaging compliment to a fire primary blaster.

 

I'm not sure what the MOST most is, but for instance, I've found my /mental/leviathan is much more destructive than my /fire/fire.

 

I realize this is risky, as I'm saying this to people who like fire.  Fire x 3.  Please don't get all flamey and try to burn me.  I'm a nice guy.  And your super power should be about CONTROLLING your fire....

[Seed22]

Have any of you here tried a 4* star fire/fire build. You wanna talk about damage? Whooo boy.

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

I don't think /fire/fire is the most damaging compliment to a fire primary blaster.

I'm not sure what the MOST most is, but for instance, I've found my /mental/leviathan is much more destructive than my /fire/fire.

 

IMO the Secondary is likely up for debate... but the Epic pool notsomuch.

 

Bonfire + Melt Armor + Rise of the Phoenix (with Damage + Recharge + KB>KD) beats the complete and utter stuffing out of everything else for sheer AoE carnage. And Procbombed Char isn't too bad at filling a hole in the optimal ST chain either.

 

I'm personally more of a fan of Ice Manipulation than /Fire, as Shiver and Ice Patch are invaluable when soloing and can at least help keep things in Rain of Fire for longer at other times. And Freezing Touch is high DPA. But Frozen Aura (even Procbombed) doesn't hold a candle to some of the other secondaries' AoE damage options... even Marital with a FF Proc in Dragon's Tail can outperform it and has Burst of Speed for setting up Inferno positioning. I'm not sure about /Mental though, Psychic S(h)ockwave is a shadow of its former self.

[Uncle Shags]

4 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Bonfire + Melt Armor + Rise of the Phoenix (with Damage + Recharge + KB>KD) beats the complete and utter stuffing out of everything else for sheer AoE carnage.

 

Meh.  You've got to try to die and the recharge is twice as long as Inferno.

 

Or you can hit 16 targets each with Fireball -> P Shockwave -> Bilespray for Inferno level damage, and then do it at least 3 more times while you wait for your next nuke.

 

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, Uncle Shags said:

Meh.  You've got to try to die and the recharge is twice as long as Inferno.

 

Or you can hit 16 targets each with Fireball -> P Shockwave -> Bilespray for Inferno level damage, and then do it at least 3 more times while you wait for your next nuke.

 

Sure, but that's true for Fireball plus any additional AoEs/Cones (like Frozen Aura and/or Fire Breath and/or RoF and/or Bonfire and/or Melt Armor). My point is that the Levi Patron pool isn't adding very much to the equation, as Bilespray is essentially a weaker version of Fire Breath. 

 

FWIW, my own fire Blaster's mayhemic playstyle finds it very straightforward to use RoTP on cooldown, so it effectively becomes a third Nuke on top of Inferno and Pyro Judgement (although it really needs KB> KD via the Overwhelming Force unique otherwise you lose 2/3rds of the damage!)

[Nemu]

10 hours ago, Seed22 said:

Have any of you here tried a 4* star fire/fire build. You wanna talk about damage? Whooo boy.

I agree but 4* content isn't the holy grail for everything. The majority of players aren't interested in that and 4* content presents a wholly different meta where fire/fire can go all out and enjoy the benefits of damage buffs/resist debuffs that actually stick around for more than a second, and are fed a steady density of mobs to get ROI out of those AoEs. That kind of thing doesn't happen a lot for regular content because inferno usually kills everything. All the stories I hear about how much damage fire/fire does from your average casual player starts with build up + inferno. But really anything after that is irrelevant.

 

This fire/fire =uber damage rhetoric has been parroted by casual players, much like the generic conventional wisdom "always slot miracle/numina uniques in health." It's devoid of any additional context. FWIW /fire is the LAST secondary I'd take on a fire blaster for casual content, every other secondary offer more interesting tools for damage, survival and utility.

 

If people truly believed that /fire does sooo much damage I'd imagine we see a heck of a lot more xxx/fire pairings in the wild but we don't. Casual players play fire/fire/fire for theme, much like they do ice/ice/cold or energy/energy/force, but they mistake the damage output of fire/ for the efficacy of the combo as a whole.

[Ukase]

8 hours ago, Maelwys said:

I'm personally more of a fan of Ice Manipulation than /Fire

I think it's worth saying that a lot of players are looking for "best". 

And that term requires follow up questions, like "best for what"? 

Best for Nemu, Maelwys and Snarky isn't always going to be best for me. 

The idea that DPS is going to solve most of the game for a given player is true to a point. But - let's all keep in mind the attacks have to land before they do dps. The character has to remain upright to keep laying out that damage. There's a balance to all of it, and where that bubble is on the figurative level is going to be a little different for most of us, especially since the buffs we get, and the debuffs on the npcs are very likely going to be different, because while we may play a lot of the same content, the buffs, the timing of those buffs, the strength of those buffs  -  they're different.