Choosing a Mastery for Seismic

[drgantz]

I'm playing a Seismic/Earth blaster and am near level 35.

I'm looking at several Masteries, and most are out of theme.  I'm mostly considering Force, Ice, and Mace.

For Force, I would have to first pick Personal Force Field or Repulsion, both of which I consider to be useless.  Mace is good, but I don't like the appearance of holding a mace, since my toon uses innate abiliities.  I'm mostly considering Ice, since I can color it brown and  make it look similar to stone.
Does anyone have any opinions of what is good?

[Maelwys]

Force gets my vote. Procbombed "Force Bomb" is the crown jewel; but the prerequisites aren't half bad... Repulsion Field (the FF version, not Kinetics or Sonic Resonance versions) is actually reasonably useful these days as they removed the additional endurance cost for each enemy affected, so it'll keep things out of melee range without bottoming out your Endurance bar. That said, if you don't feel a need to keep stuff out of melee range, just take PFF and slap a LoTG +7.5% global in it.

Fire is the other Epic pool that IMO really stands out in terms of performance: Char (procbombed) and Melt Armor are great, Bonfire serves much the same purpose as Repulsion Field, and RIse or the Phoenix (with a KB>KD) is an excellent PBAoE if you don't mind occasionally faceplanting.

Mace's Web Envelope is useful; but the weapon model + redraw can be a factor and it's the sole decent ability in the pool.
Ice gets Snow Storm (useful); Hoarfrost (largely useless for a Blaster with a Sustain and HP Accolades) and Hibernate (if you don't like PFF; you probably won't like it).

 

Edited Friday at 11:47 AM by Maelwys

[drgantz]

Thank you.  That is a good summary.  

PFF appears to be a weakened version of Hibernate, since I can't affect anyone else and can't rest, while Hibernate allows me to recover.  Fire appears great, but outside of theme since the toon will be an Earth toon.  Repulsion might be good.

[tidge]

Often with Blasters, I find that I've got enough offense (and put most of my slots) in the primary and secondary... so unless I have a concept reason I tend to go with either:

 

Force Mastery (for enhancement mules)

 

Fire Mastery (to get Rise of the Phoenix). The other powers are pretty good, but a short-timer self-rez is important to the way I play most Blasters.

[biostem]

19 hours ago, drgantz said:

Does anyone have any opinions of what is good?

You could go with elec or Mu and say it's some sort of piezoelectric effect...

[Uun]

FWIW I went Arsenal on my Seismic/Earth. I took Body Armor, Cryo Freeze Ray and Surveillance. Body Armor is weaker than the toggle armors but it doesn't suppress when you're mezzed and it covers all damage types except psi.