Fulmens

The special thing about Luck of the Gambler is that you have a *single* IO that gives a significant, stackable bonus to pretty much *all* your powers. If you put four Luck of the Gambler global recharge IO's in four powers (only one of the same IO allowed in a power), you have pretty much given yourself an extra slot of recharge in every power.

This is one of the things people with a chunk ton of money do to make their characters better. I've never gone that route because I'm allergic to spending more than 200 million inf on a single character, given that I've done three for under 20 million each.

Related Abbreviations:

SO- Single Origin enhancement. Only common at level 22+.
DO- Dual Origin enhancement. Usually slotted from level 12 to 22.
TO- Training Origin enhancement. Usually slotted from 1-11.
HO, SHO: "Hamidon Origin" or "Synthetic Hamidon Origin". Only drop from special task forces, only exist at level 50. Named by analogy with SO, DO, TO.
IO- "Invention Origin" enhancement. Built at a crafting station from a recipe, a bunch of salvage, and some influence. Range from "slightly more expensive than a SO" to "godzillions of inf".

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If I'm in a level appropriate zone I just target an enemy and determine my level based on what color they are to me.

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To clarify for the new guy:

minions your level are white-con, as are lieuts one level lower and bosses two levels lower. One level above that is yellow, two is orange, three is red and four+ is purple. One level below white is blue, two is green, 3+ is grey.

Some examples: A red boss is 1 level higher than you, a yellow lieut is your level, and a green minion is -2. Purple minion tells you NOTHING because it could be your level +4, could be your level +31.

I've been doing that math in my head so long that I have no idea if it's actually obvious or not.

... you haven't been to Ouroboros, have you?

There are also plenty of opportunities to do things with your alts, as per your sig.

The only things I can think of that you can't go back to at 50:

1) There are a few non-story-arc, non-badge missions that you can't go back to. I don't know who has them; I think someone mentioned Angus Whatislostface as having some.
2) Villainside, if you fail any of Pither's missions, you cannot get the efficiency expert badge.

So, y'know, go wild.

Our best guess before I13 went live was that it was going to be something like 1 per 600 bosses. (Which in my brain was "1 per 5 freakspecs" but I could be off on that.) So I think it's very possible to go 1 to 50 and have 0 Pool C's drop from bosskilling.

Let us know how it works out.

Hmm. My Fire/Ice is really good, but I like my Fire/Elec even better. it was my first fire/* blaster and the melee damage is SO good.

Fire/Energy is a lot like Fire/Elec, but Fire/Elec has Powersink, which I like better than Conserve Power, and I like the visuals on the melee attacks better. (I know, energy has more utility powers...I don't really use Boost Range that much.)

I'm a big fan of Fire Blasters, with basically any secondary but Fire or Devices.

As mentioned repeatedly in this thread, what you like depends on how you play.

... I will admit for all my macho "I just blow them up" claims, I usually have an Ethereal Shift if I need a moment to myself.

Four acc/rech/holds.

RaikenX said
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...if you're looking for a damage type that isn't resisted by any enemy in the game...you're pretty much going to find yourself boned.

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There's startlingly little Fire Resistance in the game. Behemoths are, like, 20% resistant. Apparently I do at least 20% overkill all the time, because I barely notice that. And some Arachnos guys are presumably resistant, but they resist EVERYTHING.

I frankenslot my nukes. Because you are otherwise sacrificing what the power NEEDS to help out your other stuff. I can see with the Armageddon, but otherwise I recommend this:
Acc/Dam or Acc/Dam/Rech
Dam/Rech x 4

I throw in a little Accuracy because sometimes [less than five times in five years] I have to throw out a nuke when BU and Aim aren't up, some sort of party emergency that needs fixed NOW.

I'm glad you're enjoying your Blaster experience.

... at level 41 you can get ANOTHER AOE. Just sayin'.

I don't find AV's "incredibly boring and pointless" because I'm usually on a team that has SOME way of dropping them in under three minutes.

One SG team, I took inspirations and they lasted longer than the AV did.

Getting back to the original point: Yes. Defense is the new "whatever" to me. I tried a high-defense build and it was fine. My other 5 or so high-level blasters didn't go high-defense and they play just fine. I can hold ten or twelve purple insps, and if I need more than that I'm doing something wrong.

McD: I've played 2 hours straight at high speed on an 8-person team and ended the night with ZERO recipes. And that was in issues 9-12, so what you're seeing might just be the "Divide by eight" effect.

If there's a bug, it would show under the solo/farming conditions. Someone around here has logs of everything they do going back a long time... I don't remember who, though. Otherwise you could try HeroStats for a three-hour-ish run and see what you get.

Having soloed a Dark Armor/Energy tank through the first 20-some levels, I can confidently say that you're overstating the case, Ultimo. Just say "I'm greedy" and put it in your sig.

I only have a couple of brute combos, and obviously I only speak for myself.

Elec/Invuln -Invuln feels a little weak, because V-side has a lot of damage that is "exotic" types. Elec is HUGE STUPID FUN after about level 33, but before that I would say it's a little weak.

Fire/Willpower- I like this one a lot better in the low levels. Admittedly Self Forging Weapon is only around level 27, because I have too many projects, but she's quite violent and impressive. I haven't tried her on many big teams, but solo... there's not much that can do more than ding the bodywork.

Villainside everything always feels hard to me up to about level 20 or 22, but then it takes off. I don't know if heroside spoiled me or what.

(In general, Dark Armor is not a brute I would recommend unless I'd seen you play and it somehow matched your playstyle. )

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Soloists are still screwed, of course.

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Well, relative to teamers. But people have repeatedly said "low level characters..." when they meant "low level soloists..." through this thread. Every few pages I have to post the same thing because every few pages people start drifting into implying that it's a universal problem - that everyone, at all times, has this problem between level 12 and 20.

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That is, if it takes 1% endurance to do 5 damage, it should take 1% to do 5 damage for everyone. Tankers will use less endurance, Defenders will use less endurance, Blasters would use more.

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Yeah! Nerf Blasters!

I don't know how much prestige a really big SG has these days. 1 billion inf is, what, 2 million prestige? Is that a lot?

I could make a billion inf at Wents if I had a reason to.

Not that I'm suggesting rigging your numbers or anything, it's just that the prestige:inf ratio has gotten skewed and I don't know if the high-prestige SG's really noticed. I don't know if there's a lot of overlap between market players and base (or SG) builders.

If you have a level 36 recipe, for instance, you can set your level spread to 36-36 and type in part of the name and set the buy/sell to "All" to see what the entire set is going for- crafted and recipe.

I don't know if you consider that to take patience or not.

OK, math time (I'm really rusty on this.) I seem to remember that it took about 200 Banished Pantheon zombies to get one Luck Charm. (I may misremember that...) Which works out to 100 minions to get 6 salvage [BanPan at that level were 50/50 low and medium.] So if you do 200 badguys, including misc. lieuts and whatnot, you should be between 12 and 24 salvage on average. I don't remember the numbers on common IO's.

If there was a bug where, say, lieuts drop like minions now, that might explain it. Maybe. I dunno.

... even force fields don't stop some of that MI damage.

I've seen an INV tank walk into a room full of +7 freaks and basically fight them to a standstill, but the tank in question had the little bubbles from force fields. (Sometimes the exemplar/autoexemplar rules get mixed up when you're doing a respec... and sometimes you go "What if we try it anyway?" )

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on a team with good players who have fleshed out their toons.. they just don't need an empath.

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... unless something goes wrong. I don't NEED a tank on my teams, but if I HAVE one it works better. Same with Empaths.

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Limb beaty death. Pay attention. :-p Lol.

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I'm very close to changing my sig...

I'm just going to mention that Invulns have no protection against most of the stuff master illusionists do and leave it at that.

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My theory is that blasters are REALLY EASY in the first 24 levels or so, and that they require a change in playstyle (definitely after level 30.)

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That is a theory much like gravity is a theory.

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... you'd be amazed at how many blaster keep going with a playstyle that has stopped working and requires change.

Urgh. Giant wall of text and I still left stuff out.

Build Up. Aim. Get them as soon as possible. Reasoning available if requested.

WARNING: This got really long.

I remember you. You're the guy who would rather delete than fix because you have some odd rules that you made up for yourself.
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[you] have a nasty habit of deleting characters if they dont meet [your] approval the first time through (even though there are respecs, I've had this very bad habit since I started playing any game. Perfection according to my own specifications or bust!).

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So suggestion #0 is "at least try your second build."

Suggestions for what you might be doing wrong, from most general to most specific:

1) Slotting. Before level 22, you have DO's and almost every "guide" gives you the at-50 slotting. We (the royal we) recommend slotting two Accuracy and two or three Damage in each attack. End Reduction and Damage, at these levels, give about the same effect on Damage per Endurance. And the Damage finishes fights earlier.

2) End usage - one common new-kid problem is leaving Sprint on in fights- or worse, Fly. Another is using AOE attacks on only one badguy because "nothing else is recharged."

3) I'm not a huge fan of "All ranged attack" builds because, well, there's a tremendous amount of damage in the melee attacks and I love my orange numbers. Another way of thinking of it is "Scrappers get damage + protection. Blasters get damage + damage. If you aren't using the secondary, you're not that much better on offense than a Scrapper, and you're going to be a LOT worse on defense." If you're determined to have your Range only, I can't tell you that you're wrong. I can only tell you that you're not going to do as much damage.

4) "Scrappers/teams mad at you". There are definitely right and wrong ways to use Knockback. The general rule I used on teams is, "If I knock it back, it's my problem." Single target (or using the cone from up close so I only hit one guy) works well. Nobody worth knowing complains about having one badguy knocked away and killed. There are clever ways to minimize knockback (hover and "Bouncing them off the ground" being one, knockback into walls or terrain being another) and there are clever ways to make knockback work for you- nudging people back into tar patches or damage auras. And some people blame their failures on your knockback- a variant on "Blame the healer" or "Blame the tank" or the other bad Pickup Group blame games. (Protip: If you find someone on a pickup group who DOESN'T suck, ask them if you can /friend them.)

5) "Dying all the time"-One common problem is setting your reputation to "invincible". This causes you to fight enemies that are about 2 levels higher, on average. If you're on a team and doing someone else's mission this may also cause much higher-level enemies than you can handle. At level 30, any random team of competent players should probably be able to handle +3's. At level 14? Not likely. And a lot of team leaders decide "Invincible or die trying" for the alleged greater XP.

Another common problem is opening the fight. As a Blaster, your job is to drop people. Not "drop them to 10% hit points". You should shoot them till they drop and do not get up again. Don't stress about the concussions and organ damage- the prison doctors are really good. They get a lot of practice. If you're soloing, the best way to do your job is to open up with your hardest hitters and keep using everything you have until you drop or they do. On a team, this is exactly the WRONG approach. You want to let other people, whose job is "Fight starter", start the fight. You then do YOUR job and end the fight. Baseball, I believe, separates pitchers into "openers" and "Closers" and you're definitely the latter. First guy to the fight gets the first round of return fire, and Tanks are built for that.

6) A minor point, because I've already gone on too long: Money. Go to Wentworth's, and look at the bulge in the roof. That's there because it's stuffed with invisible influence. You can help relieve the pressure. Buy a bunch of mid-to-high-level Snipe, Confuse, or Fear recipes for low prices (500 to 1000 each.) Sell them to a vendor for 100-per-level (3000 to 5000 each.) Do this once or twice every time you log in and you'll be comfortably well off and not too insanely annoyed at the busywork.

Don't worry that you're taking advantage of other players, or that people will swoop in and buy all your cheap recipes. I buy stuff for 2 million, craft it, and sell for 10 million and people are apparently perfectly happy to pay those prices. The market forum is full of guides, including "0 to a billion in 30 days" if you're determined to have wealth beyond reason. People throw inf around like it's imaginary currency.