Fire/Fire/Fire

[Maelwys]

5 hours ago, Ukase said:

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. 

 

I agree in the "different strokes for different folks" idea, but I'm not so sure it comes down to buffs/debuffs.

 

I think most people will want their character to idle at 95% or higher hit rate vs the mob type they're intending to fight (currently +3 for the bulk of non-incarnate endgame content) and enough recharge and recovery to keep all their attacks flowing optimally, plus ideally some form of Mez protection (even if it's just Clarion Core Destiny). Then typically after that it'll come down to some kind of balance between damage output and survivability.

 

However different people on different toons will sit in very different places whenever it comes to "how much damage mitigation is sufficient?" and "how much debuff resistance (particularly -recharge and -defense) is sufficient?". And that risk appetite will determine how they want to build their character.

 

In my experience there's usually only a fairly minor sacrifice in damage output required in order to attain about ~20% defense (and/or ~40% resistance, or MaxHP or whatever other survivability buff takes your fancy) but if you keep pushing beyond that then the sacrifices tend to start skyrocketing - particularly in terms of attack chain DPA. Some specific powersets benefit less from damage procs and so lend themselves more to the pursuit of non-damage-output-related set bonuses; but a large part of buildcrafting effort goes into finding the most efficient tradeoffs on each character... effectively attaining your build goal(s) with minimal sacrifice in damage output.

 

- - - - - - - - - -

 

My Fire/Ice/Fire blaster has practically zero defense and debuff resistance. They tend to stay mobile and joust in order to stay alive between RotP recharge cycles (whenever they instead actively invite face planting!). If the crap really hits the fan they can pop insps, turtle up with Ice Patch and Shiver, activate Hover and/or start actively stacking holds on bosses... but they're primarily built for damage output. "Frigid Protection" has decent heal aspect in it, but "Fire Shield" is barely halfway to the ED-cap for damage resistance.

 

However I also have an Archery/TA/Force Blaster who is also an AoE damage dealing machine. That character has full invisibility, sits at the Ranged positional defense softcap with Repulsion Field running constantly and >43% S/L resistance (raisable to 75% with Force of Nature!) plus ~40HP/Sec passive regeneration and multiple chance-for-heal procs and is also an avid user of both Hover and Personal Force Field. All of his AoEs are usable from at least 95ft away and Repulsion Bomb is (rather appropriately!) rocking multiple Procs including a FF +Rech.

 

Both have a "Nuke" up every 20-22s, but they play very differently. The former is a total joy on regular teaming content, but the latter is my goto for "No deaths" TF runs.

 

Edited Saturday at 09:13 PM by Maelwys

[Uncle Shags]

On 9/6/2025 at 10:07 AM, Maelwys said:

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. 

 

I like bilespray much more than fire breath. Faster, better range, and hits 6 more targets.

 

I need the full 16 target cap on all aoes for my pure dps blaster.  Not having 6 extra enemies trying to kill me makes a big difference. 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 11:30 PM by Uncle Shags
I also get Knock out Blow with /lev, which is fun.

[Maelwys]

21 minutes ago, Uncle Shags said:

I like bilespray is much better than fire breath. Faster, better range, and hits 6 more targets.

 

16 target cap instead of 10, sure. And it's 20ft longer. But faster...?

 

Maybe if you just look at DPA in a vacuum... but B.S. inflicts lower (and far more commonly resisted) damage over a considerably longer duration and it's available half as often.

(i) Bile Spray takes just over 5.167 seconds (1.167s ATBE, plus 5 damage ticks 1sec apart) to deal 75.0757 base damage. And it recharges in 32s.

(ii) Fire Breath takes just over 4.167 seconds (1.167s ATBE, 1s delay, then 3 damage ticks 1 sec apart) to deal 109.7982 base damage. And it recharges in 16s.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly shilling for Fire Breath, but I'd prefer my limited epic pool power selection to give a more tangible benefit than a "mostly superfluous" one that I can pick up with zero restrictions from my primary powerset. However admittedly I've never been particularly keen on trying to consistently hit a capped number of targets with a very narrow cone (30 degrees!) regardless of range; so the only other Blaster Epic/Patron abilities that I'd consider for padding my AoE damage are Force Bomb and LRM Rocket!

[Uncle Shags]

40 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

But faster...?

 

1.8s Arcana time vs 2.9s. Standing still in nearly melee range for 3 seconds isn't pleasant. I can't stand fire breath. 

 

Also, unlike FB, BS isn't a full dot. A big chunk of damage hits before the dots. Procs also hit at the same time. 

 

I’ve found the cone is fine. The range on mine is over a hundred feet, which makes the far width 56ft.  

 

LRM has a 4 second cast time and a 240s recharge...  And force bomb hits 10 with a 60 second cast time.  My Bilespray recharges in 10 seconds.

 

It does what I want it to do: it gives me another quick, big aoe button to mash when my others are on cool down. 

 

Have you tried it? I quite like it. It makes a disgusting sounds as an added bonus. 

[Maelwys]

5 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

 

1.8s Arcana time vs 2.9s. Standing still in nearly melee range for 3 seconds isn't pleasant. I can't stand fire breath. 

...

I’ve found the cone is fine. The range on mine is over a hundred feet, which makes the far width 56ft.  

...

Have you tried it? I quite like it. It makes a disgusting sounds as an added bonus. 

 

Ahh. Lightbulb.

 

Sounds like you're playing a lot at Max Range then, despite Psychic Shockwave.

 

That's a perfectly viable playstyle for anyone who doesn't intentionally ride Rise of the Phoenix and leverage multiple PBAoEs and/or melee attacks. I always joust in and out of Melee Range on my Fire Blaster, and occasionally will simply sit in Melee (on top of an Ice Patch).

Frozen Aura and Inferno are PBAoE and I've at least one Melee attack (I've flicked between Ice Sword and Freezing Touch a lot, but I'm currently using the former. FT is technically higher DPA but IS is upfront damage to the latter's DoT). My Fire Breath is technically 114.6ft, but I rarely activate it more than 30ft or so away (typically whilst hurtling towards a mob and leaping either into or over them).

Frozen Aura + Fireball + Fire Breath + RoF (and I can vastly reduce scatter via Shiver and Ice Patch) is more than sufficient supplemental AoE ability for me between my ~22s Nuke cycle.

 

Yes, I've tried it. I'm not a huge fan of narrow Cones on most toons, since it requires staying a long distance away to effectively leverage them. Too many cave map flashbacks!! 😛

[Maelwys]

8 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

It makes a disgusting sounds as an added bonus. 

As a slight aside:

I currently only use the Leviathan Patron pool on two toons (an Ice/Marine Corruptor and a Savage/Psi Stalker; and for the Stalker it's not even on their primary build!)
Mostly that's due to performance-related choices, but it's also at least partly because I just can't with all the fish related attack animations.
The aforementioned Corruptor is even styled as a "Fishfolk" and they still only take SharkSkin, Hibernate and Summon Coralax. The Stalker is just there for Water Spout.

Back when they revamped Spirit Shark I had high hopes for exploiting Leviathan Hunger stacks to overcome its iffy raw DPA. But in practice it feels more like tossing a guppy.
Procbombed Arctic Breath (Tankers/Brutes/VEATs/Sentinels) has some merit if your main powerset can't fit an Achilles Heel proc and you don't want to take Corrosive Vial or Weaken Resolve... but the opportunity cost in giving up Mu or Soul Mastery (Tankers/Brutes/VEATs) or Electricity Mastery (Sentinels) is just too high for my liking.

Maybe one day on a Broadsword Brute. Maybe.



Meh.

[Uncle Shags]

5 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Sounds like you're playing a lot at Max Range then, despite Psychic Shockwave.

 

It depends on the team, but yeah, I do a lot of jousting. I like to try to pop my pbaoes right over their heads.  One thing /fire does have going for it is the hot feet slow and fear. Without that I've had to be more careful.  I even joust with my melee attacks occasionally.  I've also got combat tp with a backwards bind so I can zip in and out. It's a much more active/twitchy style than my other toons.  I got rid of almost every survival tool and traded in for dps/recharge and mobility. I don't even have the +def/resist unique ios slotted, which sounds dumb. But it's fun! 

[WuTang]

On 9/6/2025 at 12:14 AM, Seed22 said:

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

Yup! Did a 4* Aeon with mine...2 kins and 2 cold doms on the team as well... Total beast mode

[WuTang]

I agree that /Fire being the best secondary is up for debate, but the build is solid.