RSRobinson

AfterShock, feel free to post/link it anywhere.

As for killing swarms for 5 hours, I didn't say it was 5 straight
hours, just 5 hours total. It happened to be split about in half.
Normally I have trouble powerleveling past 1 or 2 hours at a
time, but it was the home stretch to 40, so I toughed it out.

Swarms are a mob type found in great numbers in Crey's Folly. To
all you swarm hunters, put in the overtime now. Underlings on
test (swarms are underlings) are worth very little exp now.

Misc power question answers. On the question on Stealth,
Invisibility doesn't allow you to attack while using it, Stealth
is the power you want. Smoke grenade now misses (changed in the
last patch) but that isn't really a big deal. The whole point is
to reduce the overall damage you take from a pack and even
missing a few, it still does that. Smoke grenade and Cloaking
Device are both great, and while there is some overlap, you'll
want to pick them both up.

Scrappers are not bad soloers, though it takes perhaps a near-
perfect build to get a really good AOE soloer (by far better than
single target) while, for example, any Fire blaster build is going to be
a good soloer as long as the person is at all competent. The bigger
problem comes in groups, at higher levels. Let's not even talk
about scrappers taking more damage, pretend that isn't even an
issue (and it is), let's just talk dealing damage. The
scapper has to be really on his or her toes to not be complete
deadweight. A blaster just hits TAB and unloads his AOEs. A few
blasters do this and the mobs all melt. At worse, the blaster
hand clicks a mob in the center and unloads. With fast animation
time and no need to move close, the mobs die in seconds. The
scrapper, even if he is well-built and has powerful AOEs, has to
run up to the mob he wants to fight. If he wants to unload an
AOE, he has to carefully select the mob because his AOEs are much
lower radius than a blaster's plus the scrapper has to physically
get next to the mob before he can fire. With such low radius, the
mobs moving around as he charges is much more of an issue. And, a
scrapper usually has 1 circular AOE and the others will be a very
short range cone which is nearly impossible to use to the fullest
in a group, you need to be alone and use certain time-consuming
techniques to get the mobs properly lined up to use those
effectively. Of course, when you are playing with a couple of
blaster friends, anything that takes more than a couple seconds
is 'time consuming'. Its just a matter of game mechanics working
against scrappers and for blasters.

Lightning_Fast, you say you can 2-shot equal minion groups.
Fantastic. so you use one shot for Frost Breath, and the second
shot for... Ice does not have a second AOE. Ice Storm? It will
not do enough damage, its barely passable when you get it and it
declines a whole lot over time (relative to mob hit points). I
see from your sig that you are a level 16 ice blaster. Its just
not the same in the 20s and the 30s. Ice does not have a second
AOE to follow up with. Now, the reason I mentioned Fire as a
secondary in my guide was because getting Fire Sword Circle would
give you one. I haven't tried it myself, but Frost Breath and
Fire Sword Circle could well be the basis of a decent AOE
leveler. Maybe. However, it would still be hard because you have
two powers that need proper positioning instead of one. In other
words, its easy to line up a cone and follow it up by a big
circular AOE. Its not easy to line up a cone then use an AOE that
requires you to be right in the middle of the mobs, and has a
small radius to boot. It seems much more workable with energy
since you can stealth in and Fire Sword Circle then back out and
follow up by the circular Explosive Blast.

As for Energy, if you six-slot both Energy Torrent and Explosive
Blast plus always have buildup available and have all SOs you
could probably one-shot a -1 con pack, barely. Hopefully the mobs
are not at all resistant to smashing (the most common resistance
I believe) because a good portion of both AOE's damage is
smashing. Fortunately, energy resistance is rare. If they are
smashing resistant, you won't be 2-shotting a pack of anything
worth fighting. But even if you can, to do that you have to
underslot some of your single target powers to make the
enhancement slots, plus you can't do it until 31 because only by
then will you have Explosive Blast long enough to six-slot it. In
addition, you are dealing with some mobs being knocked back and
some not, meaning it is difficult to get both AOEs to hit the
whole pack. And while you can do it say at level 32 with all +3
level SOs, gain a few levels and your damage tapers off enough
that you'll be not quite doing enough damage to kill them. Ice
and Energy just are not cut out for AOEing. If you want AOEs, go
for the power sets that specialize in them.

Don't judge everything by the hero planner. Not all 'moderate'
damage is the same. Fire Breath plus Fireball does significantly
more damage than does Energy Torrent plus Explosive Blast
regardless of similar labeling. That's just the way it will be
with so few labels available. The weakest single-target attack,
Power Bolt, does about the same damage as Energy Torrent even
though Power Bolt is listed as minor and Energy Torrent is listed
as moderate. And Explosive Blast does a little less damage than
does Energy Torrent. The labels don't really help you, you need
to go out and use the powers or get advice from people who have.

Here's a powerleveling guide for Electricty/Electricty - do
swarms. The 30s are the levels that really suck, but as long as
you have the option to do swarms during them, you are at least
ok. The sad fact is that the amount of exp needed to level in the
30s is sick. Only exploits or things that feel like exploits like
swarms hide how poorly balanced it is. Take away swarms and
everything but maybe Assault/Fire blasters and Fire Tankers are
severly screwed. I street hunted all of 37 to 38 in Founder's
Falls (I wanted to earn a large bank of Influence) and mindlessly
killing as fast as I could it took about 10 hours for the level.
I remember doing 39 to 40 on swarms in about four and a half
hours. I'm guessing it would have taken 12 to 14 hours street
hunting. The game is that far out of whack. If the new content
has no exploitable mobs, it will be plainly clear just how
unthought out the leveling system is.

Electricity is worse than other Blaster options, but heck you
still are a blaster so that makes you better off than anyone else
other than a fire tanker. And no I don't have a fire tanker, it
was clear to me that they were going to get nerfed. So I don't
really know how good they are currently, whether they are still
in the same league as a good blaster.

As for secondary effects, with Ice, Bosses swinging much slower
equals a good thing. For Energy and knockback, just use it or
watch someone using it. It works. The key to both effects is that
you don't need to be shooting off extra attacks that don't do
damage to get the effect, you do your damage and get the effect
for free. Note that I talk about bosses because lieutenants and
minions live 1-3 shots, a few seconds, so secondary effects
aren't really of any concern.

As for not needing Cloaking Device, Smoke Grenade, Targeting
Drone, Trip Mine - you can play without anything, but these are
efficient powers that make you level much faster, the point of
the guide.

As for the guy who claims I will get owned by Freak Tanks and
speeded ink men. First ink men are minions so they are no threat
whatever they are doing. Oh no, they stunned me. Um, wait, they
do so little damage, why again was it that I cared? As for Freak
Tanks, the fact that you cannot safely kill them without Hover
doesn't mean I cannot safely kill them without hover. Caltrops
works fine on them, you just have to know how to use it. Mobs
often run through a Caltrops most of the way before it 'catches
up' with them. If you are standing right at its edge, you get
crushed. If you are standing back a bit you don't. Besides with a
Tank, I'll just be kiting it on Superspeed, it never gets
anywhere near me. In fact, it generally will go into flee mode
long before it dies. Its an artifact of kiting and mob AI which
you will be unaware of if you use Hover all the time. Chasing
down a slow moving Tank and killing it while it tries to run away
is zero risk. Plus, with Cloaking Device, I can chase it in and
through packs of other mobs and they'll never even notice me.

Its simple really, I played the game to 40 and I hardly ever die.
And although I did power level at times, I did the vast majority
of missions from all my contacts including every one of them 30+.
I've fought and killed Purple Nemesis lieutenants five levels
higher than me, red tank smashers, the lot. I never used Hover
and I didn't die.

My Targeting Drone has 3 slots in it, seems fine for me. You
could probably get by with 1 slot, it really is a big boost, but
3 slots seems enough to hit consistently any mob I've ever
fought or am likely to fight.

Mezrah, just try slotting the powers the way I suggest. Recharge
sounds fine until you realize that first Hasten is easily enough
and anything past that goes into serious diminishing returns and
second, you will be 1-sniping and 2-shotting the minions you will
be exping on. By lowering the damage, now you need 2 or 3 shots
to kill those minions maybe even 4. Since you start the battle
with all of your powers charged and ready to go, making them do
as much damage as possible means faster kills. If you were always
fighting 20 or 30 mobs and had to use your powers over and over,
then recharge becomes tempting. But you get that free salvo,
damage is king. Just play it both ways and I'm confident you will
be slotting all damage very soon.

Lightning_Fast, what defines an AOE blaster is the ability to
kill a large pack of mobs in a single salvo. Fire has Fire Ball +
Fire Breath, which will kill a pack in one salvo. Assault Rifle
has Flamethrower and Full Auto which each can do the same. For
Energy, Energy Torrent plus Explosive Blast will not kill a pack.
For Electricity, Short Circuit plus Ball Lightning will not kill
a pack. For Ice, Frost Breath plus Ice Storm will not kill a
pack. Thus, Fire and Assault Rifle can level using AOE quickly
and effectively and the others cannot. That is why they are AOE
powers and the others are single-target powers. Using Fire and
Assault rifle, you will level fastest using your AOE powers on
large packs of close-to even cons. For the others, you will level
fastest by taking a few of the highest-conning minions you can
take down efficiently.

Of course, once you reach 30, everyone levels fastest if they can
find some efficient ways to take down swarms. Before the patch,
Explosive Blast 5-slotted could take down packs of swarms. I
don't know if that is still the case now that they are no longer
vulnerable to energy. This is one reason Devices is so good. Trip
Mine plus swarms means that the 30s go by quickly. There is
something immensely satisfying about standing on a trip mine,
shooting a swarm and having a pack of 10 or more of them decend
on you and get blown to pieces.

And notice I did not mention swarms in my guide. I wouldn't be
surprised if they get nerfed more. I think they are exploitive,
but the exp system is so out of whack they are exploitive
compared to everything else but not exploitive because everything
else is ridiculously undervalued exp wise.

Anghell, Rain of Fire is ok low level but as you level it gets
worse and worse. Since the higher levels are the harder levels, I
build for them. And trying to get Stamina as early as possible,
taking Rain of Fire just uses up a slot that could be used to get
a stepping stone to Stamina or a more critical power. Plus even
early on it is just so mana intensive that I find it slowed down
my leveling when I tried it, way too much downtime because of it.

As Jim_Gleaves mentioned, I am not looking at people's template
builds. There are a million threads for people asking about
particular templates, please take a look at the first few pages
of this forum and probably your exact build has been asked by
someone else. As long as you get Stamina by 20-24, get a travel
power, and have space for the bread and butter attacks for
primary, you are well on your way. The only problem you may
encounter is taking too much damage because you couldn't fit in a
defensive choice early on. That's another plus for Devices, Smoke
Grenade comes early and it alone can basically cover your
defensive needs.

Lone_Vandal, Thunderous Blast doesn't come until 32 and
generally, when you use it the only things standing are what you
missed You have this huge scenario to drain a bosses endurance
(as I said, minions no threat, bosses are). All I can tell you is
that as an Energy blaster I am just killing it, concerned only
with damage and I am also negating him with the constant
knockdowns putting him on his butt without having to worry about
using any powers that aren't severely damaging him. My friend
often comments while watching me play how unfair it is as I kill
bosses who just can't fight back. Why go through all the trouble
of trying to get endurance drain to do something when you can
just use knockdown and actually have a workable power? And before
Ice blasters jump on my case... Or you can slow the boss so he is
dead before any of his powers can recharge?

Zen_Lord, Tough is most effective when stacked with other
lethal/smashing resist. 15% base or 30% slotted resistance by
itself just doesn't make that big of a difference. Now Weave is
nice for defense but you have to take 2 powers that I don't want
to get it. You could take Manuevers, Combat Jumping, and Stealth
instead of Boxing, Tough, and Weave and be better protected. Once
you get high enough, you don't really need the defensive powers
to survive. You just need enough so that you don't get downtime.
With them, your health regen and health inspirations will offset
the damage you take. Without you take too much damage, especially
in spurts every so often and you get downtime waiting on health
(and maybe the occassional death too). For blasters, forget about
damage resistant and just go for +DEF powers. There are so many
of those available as the first power in their respective pools
that it just doesn't make sense to me to go for a 3rd tier power
that does basically the same thing. Once again, another reason
why I love Devices. You get both Cloaking Device and Smoke
Grenade, fantastic defensive powers, with no power pool choices
used up.

You ice blasters have to understand that I am talking about
leveling efficiently. Simply put, you are not fighting any mob
that can stun you or that represents any danger such that you
would need a hold. Having holds is irrelevent because you will
never use them. Yes it is a valueable power when just playing the
game but not when powerleveling. When powerleveling, you will not
have hit point downtime, you will take next to zero damage
factoring in the healing inspirations that will be constantly
dropping (and often they aren't even needed), and you won't be
dying.

Take the single-target power set Ice. You will spend the 20s in
Independence Port going after 5th column and family. Dark Astoria
is preferable, but the zombies are cold-resistant and Ice has no
snipe nor good AOEs so I am reasonably confident you won't get
good exp there. You will spend the 30s either in Crey's Folly
doing Swarms (a BIG plus for Devices that you get Trip Mine for
use on them) or in Founder's Falls killing Circle of Thorns or in
Brickstown killing werewolves and various other wimpy spawns.
These are the best places to get exp for a blaster from 20 until
40. Dark Astoria and Crey's Folly are the best for AOEing,
Independence Port and Founder's Falls are the best for small
groups for single target. In none of these places does a hold
ability matter. Once in a while in Dark Astoria a shaman will
hold you. Near 40 in Founder's Falls the Air Thorn casters
likewise will hold you, once in a while. These are rare
occurances, and who cares? You'll see that the situations you are
in, an occassional hold is an annoyance, nothing more. You won't
be in any danger of dying. That is one of the reasons these
places are where we grind, no danger, no need for any control
powers. Get a few defensive skills and mob DPS to you is low
enough that you'd have to actively try to get yourself killed.

I know holds are excellent powers in any situation in which you
are at risk. The whole point of powerleveling is to make a
situation with maximum experience and minimum risk. And although
I don't have a level 40 ice blaster, don't assume that doesn't
mean I haven't played one at all. Importantly, I've played a
single target energy blaster to 40. I know the difference between
playing the game for fun, fighting challenging enemies, and just
grinding for maximum exp. The former, holds or other control
powers are very useful. The later, they are dead weight.

Put it another way. Please tell me where you would grind exp solo
in the 20s and 30s that you would have any reason to use a hold.
I don't think you can name any place that wouldn't be much lower
exp than the places I mentioned above, where no holds are
required.

As for Frost Breath, the game is not the same low level as it is
high level. Really, I consider level 20-22 the breaking point. By
that time, you have all your key powers, have them slotted, you
have stamina, and at 22 you get SOs. While your Frost Breath may
seem comparable to a fire blaster's powers in Perez Park, it is a
far different story in Dark Astoria. Your Frost Breath and Ice
Storm simply cannot compare to the Fire Blaster's Fire Breath and
Fire Ball. Just the fact alone that the zombies take extra damage
from fire and reduced damage from Ice means even if your powers
were identical, you'd still earn exp much slower. And AOE killing
zombies in Dark Astoria is by far the best exp you can get for
the entire 20s, nowhere else even comes close.

Melee blasters just won't going to work. I said in my post that
melee is not a threat, but it will be if you are actively seeking
it out to be able to use your attacks. The damage melee attacks
now do is impressive, yes, but I don't think you will get a
viable leveler out of it. If you do, post the build and where you
fought. And once again, anyone can get 15 or 20 levels quick on
any blaster even picking the weakest powers. Tell me how to get
through the 20s much less the 30s efficiently with such a build
and I will be impressed. Heck, I'd be impressed if a melee
blaster soled his way to 40. Period. No matter how long it took.
And it will take a LONG time.

Understand that most of my comments judging the power sets are
geared to the later levels. Yes you can AOE kill as Ice for your
first 10 or 15 levels, maybe even 20. However, watch a good fire
blaster doing the same and you will have to admit they do a far
better job. Go to Dark Astoria and watch a fire blaster two-shot
packs of zombies, or an assault rifle blaster one-shot them. A
few seconds and a pack of 10-15 mobs is dead (you just ignore
the shaman), move on to find another.I would be just shocked to
see any Ice Blaster AOEing even 1/4th as effectively or getting
good exp in any AOE fashion from 20 on. Please, if you can, tell
me where, my Ice Blaster is fast approaching the 20s and would
love to get that kind of exp!

The truth is that the first 20 levels are really development time
on your character so you can do the last 20 levels at something
more than a snail's pace. The exp and time you need for each
level begins to grow quickly in the 20s and skyrockets in the
30s. Just about any blaster can level reasonably quickly the
first 20 levels, even with a melee build or a single-target power
set using AOE build, whatever. You won't see it not working until
it is too late to fix the problem on that character. That is the
point of this guide, to help you build a character early on that
won't be more and more unplayable as you climb in levels.

The point of powerleveling is to get to 40, not 10 or 20. As I
said in my opening, many people play for fun. Go ahead then and
make your melee blasters and your AOE Ice builds. But if you want
to efficiently make your way to 40, I stand by my guide.

Thanks for the feedback people, I went through and wrote up some
thoughts on the comments. Sorry that I don't have the patience to
quote everyone by name.

I knew fly and electricity would be controversial. I didn't
expect Ice Blasters to jump on my case, as I said nothing bad
about Ice. I didn't go into as much detail as Energy as I have a
level 40 Energy blaster not Ice Blaster, but Ice is still a good
single target power set. As for powers that I didn't mention,
like holds, I only did a guide for quick and efficient leveling.
Those powers are not used in that context and are thus
irrelevent. If you are having to shoot off a hold, you are
fighting mobs that are not the best you could be fighting
exp-wise. Even after picking up all the powers I suggest, any of
the sets is going to have a number of picks and enhancement slots
left to get the utility stuff and customize it for their needs. I
only addressed the stuff you want and need for quick leveling.

But to electricity blasters. You are still a blaster which
makes you better off then the other archtypes. Just compared to
the other power sets, you come up short. Its just that the
secondary effect is so bad. Ice has slow, Energy has knockback,
you get the terrible endurance drain. Lacking a third big nuke
hurts, but is livable. Giving up a strong secondary effect is
what makes Electricity inferior to both Ice and Energy.

As for flight, I took flight on my first character (a level 24
controller) and was crushed the first time I grouped in
Independence Port and the speeders/jumpers cooked me getting
across the zone. Its really noticeable in such a huge zone just
how much slower you are. Speed is just plain useful. And no way
will a flyer beat me across a zone regardless of enhancements. A
short hop 100 meters through city streets in which I have to go
around? Ok. Any real travelling across a zone? No way. You just
come to learn the zones and the fastest way to get places. And as
soon as there is any long stretch, superspeed just blitzes out
ahead. Also, superspeed plus cloaking device or stealth means no
worry about unwanted aggro and makes for easy scouting.

Alt-tabbing out while flying? Hah, that is exactly because it is
so slow. At superspeed, even crossing Independence Port won't
give me enough time to alt-tab out and really do anything.
Superspeed fully enhanced (which takes only 2 slots) is about
twice as fast as fly fully-enhanced, closer to 4 times as fast as
unenhanced fly. If you guys like fly, great for you, but I
honestly can't recommend it, speed just has too many benefits in
my opinion.

Hover. I don't like it. I do see why some like it. However, my
point was not that it is terrible, rather that it is not the
necessity I've seen some people treat it as. I was trying to
counteract the myth that a blaster must take Hover or become part
of the pavement due to mob melee. That just isn't the case.

As for Energy being viable AOE, it almost stacks up damage-wise,
but not quite. If you can't take out the pack with your first
salvo of AOEs then you can't efficiently exp with it. That's why
I like Fire Sword Circle. Its not the greatest, but it gives you
the AOE firepower necessary to kill off the group with your first
set of attacks for the weaker AOE powersets and is thus usable.
However, my general feeling is that if you want AOE, go Fire or
AR. Like a poster said, I too agree that Devices is just
better than the other secondaries, but energy and fire are both
viable for their reasons. It can be done and my guess is that an
efficient leveler can be made out of it. So I mentioned them.

In answer to a question, the final powers like Nova, once
slotted, do enough damage to basically kill any non-boss you are
fighting. I have Nova, my friend has Thunderous Blast (poor guy
chose Electricity). With these powers, all minions are dead. You
just use it and then back off or use a couple endurance
inspirations because you have no endurance or endurance regen for
a while and you are bound to have missed one or two, or if it is
Freakshow, some will stand back up. Its a fun power, it really
isn't an efficient leveling power though. But darn is it neat to
throw a bunch of corpses in all directions. And for electricity,
the victims stand there for a short time and shake before they
collapse, it looks pretty cool.

Someone mentioned swarms. Swarms are nerfed, but still soloable
depending on your build. Watch out, they move so fast that they
aren't where they appear to be, your client generally is not in
sync with the server. If you come on a pack and it spawns for
you, you can AOE it. If it is already spawned, what you want to
do is shoot one, the rest charge you and now you can AOE them
because they are all right on top of you. This is easier when
they are close to your level, they do a bit too much damage if
they are too high. I liked doing this with Trip Mines, fun fun
fun.

Hi gang. I've been reading these forums quite a bit, but haven't
posted until now. I thought it time to give something back.

This guide will help you build the best blaster you possibly can.
By best, I mean most efficient, from a power-gaming perspective.
If you prefer building characters for role-playing reasons, that
is fine too but this guide is not for you. This guide is for the
person who wonders why he gets killed all the time while other
players steamroll through the levels.

I'll repeat, this is a pure powergamer's guide. You don't need a
guide to have fun, every bit of advice here is about building and
playing a character who will level as quickly as possible, die as
little as possible, etc. The one thing I do not do is suggest any
exploits. All the advice I give is advice I am reasonably
confident will never become obsolete due to nerfs. Of course, you
never can tell but I avoid any obvious exploits that will almost
certainly be fixed.

Just so you know I have some experience, my main is a level 40
energy/devices blaster. My current alt is a level 26 assault
rifle/devices blaster (yes I think devices is far better than the
other secondaries.) I have numerous low-level alts, both blasters
and other classes. And I have read there forums a lot, and
collected a lot of good advice and opinions, especially on powers
I have not used yet.


PICKING YOUR PRIMARY

The five primary powers are divided into two groups. Fire and
Assault rifle are AOE power sets. Energy, Ice, and Electricity
are single-target power sets. For leveling speed, AOE is simply
better than single-target. For doing door missions, single target
is better than AOE. Door missions are fun, but the higher you go,
the more AOE has the advantage in leveling.

For soloing, fire and assault rifle blasters will be focusing on
killing large packs of blues to yellows. Ice and energy blasters
will be going after small packs of two to four yellows to reds.
Frankly, electricity blasters should reroll. Electricity is by
far the weakest of the primaries. If powergaming is your thing,
don't take it. And for all you electricity blasters who want to
respond by relating some story to prove you are not weak, stop.
You are. Ok, you are still a blaster, so compared to other
archtypes, you are fine. But compared to Ice or Energy, you are
simply inferior. Sorry, I didn't design the power sets.


PICKING YOUR SECONDARY

Basically you have three choices. Devices has by far the best
powers. The other power sets get buildup. Energy gets buildup at
level four, so it is the best for a quick start. Fire has Fire
Sword Circle, an excellent AOE and therefore is your third
possibility. It works best with Energy or Ice to compensate for
your poor AOE capability.

Before the increase in the damage cap, I would have said pick
Devices, hands down. This was because Buildup is a waste when you
can cap your damage from enhancements. Now this is no longer the
case, so Devices is a tradeoff. No Buildup so you can't do as
much damage as can someone with Buildup. On the other hand, every
one of your shots will do consistently high damage due to
Targeting Drone and the ability to six-slot your attack powers
with all damage. When exping, you will have enough damage to kill
the mobs without needing Buildup to be available. And you get
lots of other good powers. I still think it is the best choice
overall.

Energy is a quick-starter, you'll definitely do better between
levels four and sixteen (i.e. between when you get buildup and
when Fire gets it). But, those levels are easy regardless. I
think it is not the best long-term decision but it is good for a
new player to whom the low levels aren't that easy.

For Fire, Fire Sword Circle is tempting as a single-target
blaster to get a decent AOE. Of course, Devices gives you Trip
Mine but that is at much higher level. And Trip Mine can be
tricky to use effectively (but fantastic when it is). And you do
get Buildup. Perhaps Fire is not the optimal choice but I think,
for powergaming, it can be a good one.

Electricty and Ice secondaries, in my opinion, just don't cut it.
They have nothing going for them.


PICKING YOUR POWER POOLS

Every blaster should take Stamina. Once again, someone will post
with his wonderful tale of his blaster who gets by without it.
Good for you. From a powergaming perspective, your character
would be better with it.

Next you need a travel power. My suggestion is go for Superspeed.
You should only take Flight if you are already taking Hover since
Flight is so slow that it barely qualifies as a travel power. In
my opinion, Hover is highly overrated as I'll discuss in the
section on melee. Overrated power plus bad travel power plus
extra used up power pool (of your four total) means probably not
the best choice. The keys to Superspeed are first I find it to be
the most useful power for travel and fighting. And second, you
will be taking Hasten eventually so you have the prerequisite and
don't have to use up a power pool. Leaping just doesn't cut it
for me, but that is a matter of preference. I like to do door
missions for fun, and I always regret not having Superspeed on my
current blaster. I tried out Superleap, it just isn't for me.

Let's talk about Hasten. Can you live without it? Yes. Should
you? No. You will get experience faster with Hasten then without.
More importantly, it will make a bigger boost than any other way
of spending one power slot and 4-5 enhancement slots. If you are
a powergamer, you will get Hasten. Depending on your build, you
can delay getting it but sooner or later you will. Getting it
early to unlock Superspeed kills two birds with one stone.

After these two choices, your power pools are for defense.
Defense? "What is this concept?", you say. Aren't we blasters?
Defensive choices are what separate the quick-leveling power
blaster from the people who keep telling us horror stories about
their exp debt. Especially for AOE blasters, you need some
defense. When you are attacking a pack of 10 minions with a boss
or two thrown in, there is a world of difference in how much
damage you take from just a couple of defensive powers. The
reason why blasters you read about are able to crush pack after
pack of whites/yellows for great exp and you die is because you
aren't using a few defensive powers and they are.

Devices is fantastic because it gives you both Cloaking Device
and Smoke Grenade for defense. If you don't take Devices, Stealth
from the concealment pool is hard to pass up. Superspeed negates
its speed penalty and combines with it to give basically full
invisibility. Invisibility is fantastic and you get a hefty
defensive boost in combat. What's not to like? Combat Jumping
costs almost no endurance, gives defense, and makes you resistant
to immobilize in addition to helping you get around. Manuevers
from the Leadership pool is a solid defense boost. Hover adds
defense. The Fighting pool has some defense in it, but it
requires too many power choices to unlock in my opinion. As good
as it is for a tank or scrapper, I'd advise blasters to steer
clear of it.

My suggested power pools choices are: Hurdle, Health, Stamina,
Combat Jumping, Manuevers, Hasten, and Superspeed. If you are not
going Devices secondary, I would suggest dropping either Combat
Jumping or Manuevers to get Stealth. You can drop Superspeed for
Super Leap. I prefer Superspeed because it is useful during
combat. If you go Leap, you will be switching it off for Combat
Jumping while fighting anyway (they can't be used at the same
time). Plus, cooking around door missions with Superspeed is just
incredibly handy.


PICKING YOUR PRIMARY POWERS

For Assault Rifle, at lower level you will function as a
single-target blaster using Slug, Burst, and Sniper Rifle. Once
you get Flamethrower 6-slotted and move to Dark Astoria, you are
an AOE blaster. At level 22, with six SO damage enhancements, one
flamethrower makes one dead pack of zombies. That can take you
all the way up to 30. Finally, at 32 you will get Full Auto which
once six-slotted means one dead pack of just about anything.
Buckshot and M30 grenade simply don't cut it at high level and
you don't have infinite enhancement slots to waste on them. It is
more efficient to just pass them by.

For Fire Blast, it is all about Fire Ball and Fire Breath. Fire
Blast is helpful mostly at low-level. At high level, you'll use
it for killing stragglers that survive your AOEs - out of a big
pack, you'll miss a few which you may want to finish off (or you
may just move on and ignore any survivors). Blaze and Blazing
Bolt give you, finally, the ability to deal efficiently with
bosses. There is nothing wrong with making your fire blaster more
well-rounded and you will have enhancement slots to spare.

For Energy blasters, Power Bolt, Power Blast, and Power Burst
along with Sniper Blast are it. The key to an effective
single-target blaster is having the three non-sniper attacks and
cycling them over and over. Power Burst is short-range, yes, but
melee is no problem as I explain below. With knockdown, it is
easy to safely get close enough to use Power Burst even on bosses
(if needed). Mostly I like it as a minion killer. Snipe a minion,
it is dead. Power Blast and Power Bolt another. Power Burst and
Power Bolt a third. One 'salvo' of all your powers plus a
recharge of Power Bolt (which is fast) means three dead minions.
This is your bread-and-butter exping method. Your AOEs are too
low-damage to be of any real consequence. The best use for them
is to do enough damage to a large group so that one Power Blast
or Power Burst can kill them. In this case, you can double-up a
Power Bolt to function as a third killing power (yes it does less
damage than the other two but it recycles very fast). So you
could kill a pack of 6 minions by Explosive Blast or Energy
Torrent then Bolt/Bolt, Blast, Burst twice.

Since it was hard for me to find this information as an Energy
blaster, I'll include it here. How much damage do our AOEs do?
Not much. six-slotted with damage, at level 40, they both top out
around 120 damage to an even con. Explosive Blast does slightly
less damage than Energy Torrent. Power Push does basically zero
damage. I was hoping 'minor' damage meant about what Power Bolt
does, 160ish damage six-slotted. Rather it does 20 damage with no
slots, or about 60 damage six-slotted. And that is with the
'increase' in damage in the last patch.

Ice Blast functions similarly to Energy just using Ice Bolt, Ice
Blast, and Bitter Ice Blast instead. Your disadvantage is you
have no snipe, so you don't get to start out a fight by instantly
dropping one opposing minion. The advantage is that Bitter Ice
Blast has better range than Power Burst (though it is still
somewhat short) and your activation times are faster. Hasten is
most critical with Ice Blast to get your three attacks cycling as
fast as possible. Frost Breath does acceptable damage and should
be used as your 'weakening' attack to drop mobs into single-shot
range of your heavy nukes, just like for energy.

For all the power sets, the rest of the powers are purely
optional. Aim is good, though not terribly impressive. Its best
use is as a boss-killer to give you the best chance to hit.
Inferno and Nova are both great for that tough fight (they are
really excellent for door missions with big groups which can be
quite fun.) Too bad they recycle so slowly, but adding recharge
enhancements reduces their massive damage, their best quality.
I've never used Blizzard but from what I've read, it
sounds... um... underwhelming. Ice Storm and Rain of Fire are
both endurance-intensive control powers. For Fire, I'd say skip
it. Ice is more a control power set and can make use of the power
better. To me, the key difference is that Ice Storm can be
slotted with Slow Enhancements and is therefore a useful power.
Fire Storm cannot be.

If you've taken electricity, I feel for you. You are a
single-target power set but you lack the third nuke that both Ice
and Energy get. You will need to use Ball Lightning more as a
nuke than as an AOE to get as much firepower as you can. Don't
get me wrong, its not that your damage is all that bad though it
will lag behind Energy a bit without a Power Burst equivelent.
No, its just that the knockback and slow effects of Energy and
Ice are both very good secondary effects. Endurance drain is
basically worthless. I laugh when I hear some Electricity blaster
detail a rare situation in which he neutralized some boss with
his endurance drain. My main is an energy blaster. I too
neutralize bosses, with knockback, as that boss spends his
last few seconds before I waste him on the ground. Plus, I get
that knockback consistently and often in every fight against
every mob I face. And I get a third heavy nuke, heavier than
either of Electricity's nukes to boot.


ENHANCING YOUR POWERS

Here is the most important lesson in enhancing your powers. If
you take a damage power, you will six-slot it. If you can not or do
not want to six-slot a damage power, you should not be taking that
power. The great thing about being a blaster is that the majority
of your slots go to your attack powers, allowing you the luxury
of six-slotting them all. This is why defenders fall much further
behind the damage curve than just the difference in base damage,
they don't have enough enhancement slots to fully slot their
attack powers.

Once you have Stamina and Hasten (and probably even before),
slotting attack powers is easy. Do you have Devices and therefore
Targeting Drone? If yes, slot six damage enhancements. If no,
slot five damage enhancements and one accuracy. If the power has
a big inherent bonus to accuracy, like Fire Breath, you can go
either way though personally I would favor damage. I would rather
miss one or two of a big pack and leave the rest dead rather than
leave them all with a sliver of life left.

Blasters are all about damage, and you will be the most efficient
blaster you can be by recognizing that. Nothing is worse than a
mob living with a pixel of life and needing to waste a whole
additional attack on it to kill it off. The more damage each
attack does, the less likely that is to happen. Are you running
low on endurance before Stamina and thinking endurance reduction
will help more than damage? Think again, having to use an entire
additional attack will use a lot more endurance than you save.
Think recycling your powers faster will help? Get Hasten. Before
that, you probably are waiting on the power to recycle because
your power did not do enough damage to kill the mob off on the
first shot.

Consider this. Imagine a person who slots each attack power with
3 damage, 1 accuracy, 1 endurance, and 1 recharge reduction for a
'balanced' approach. Now consider the device blaster slotting 6
damage instead. He is able to do that because Stamina takes care
of endurance, Hasten takes care of recharge, and Targeting Drone
takes care of accuracy. With SO damage enhancements adding 33% at
even level, the first person is doing two times base damage while
the second is doing three times base damage. Every shot is doing
50% more damage by slotting all damage. Basically, the second
person is doing the same damage on every shot that the first
person is doing with Buildup. A free Buildup on every shot? Sign
me up!

For travel powers, it takes two slots to max out Superspeed (with
SOs), three for Superleap, and four for Flight. You spend so much
time in this game moving around, if you can find the slots, you
might as well make your chosen travel power as good as it can be.

For Stamina, six-slots all the way. Hasten should have five or
six. The last one moves you from a trivial downtime on it to no
downtime. You are probably fine either way. If you have the
slots, go for six, but this is an area you can grab a slot from.

Defensive powers should just get their default one-slot. SOs
normally give a 33% boost, but defense buffs are one of the few
that only get a 20% boost. It just isn't worth it to waste your
slots for that little return until after you've fleshed
everything else out. Its not inherently bad to have more defense,
but it can be difficult finding the slots and I wouldn't weaken
my offense by doing so. Its better to use one more power slot to
pick up another defense skill than it is to spend five slots to
double the effectiveness of a defense skill in my opinion.

For Aim and Buildup, two to three slots is enough to always have
one up (with Hasten), though it is probably enough to leave them
at one slot. For quick exping, you hit Buildup then use your
attacks and by the time Buildup wears off, the fight should be
over. By the time you find your next pack to kill, it will be up
again even with one slot.

Note that once you get Stamina slotted up, endurance will not be
a problem. Before then you might want to slot your toggle powers
with endurance reduction.


WHEN TO TAKE POWERS

The first twenty levels are for getting your primary attacks,
getting your travel power, and getting Stamina. Leave powers that
are not critical for your twenties. You want Stamina by level 22
at the latest. It is that good.

If you are a fire blaster, you get your two primary AOEs (Fire
Vreath and Fire Ball) by level 8, so you want to prioritize your
defense powers. The sooner you have them, the sooner you can
start crushing packs of whites and yellows instead of greens and
blues.

For Assault Rifle, your good AOEs come late. Your early ones,
Buckshot and M30 grenade, are both pretty worthless. Your useful
AOEs are Flamethrower and Full Auto, so you have time before you
can turn into an AOE blaster.

For single-target blasters, defensive abilities are still useful
but not as critical. You really don't have the firepower to kill
more than whites or yellows efficiently for a number of levels,
and white or yellow minions are pretty harmless even without
defensive powers.


SOLOING

First of all, understand that door mission are bad exp. The
higher your level, the worse they become. They are a good change
of pace and can be fun, but when you want to get experience, you
don't want to be doing them.

AOE blasters grind best in hazard zones taking on big packs. Get
used to Perez Park, Boomtown, Dark Astoria, and Crey's Folly,
they will be your zones of choice.

Single-target blasters grind best in city zones taking on small
packs. Door missions are viable longer for you, especially if you
find a good one and keep resetting it. They have nice small
clumps of whites for you to kill. But eventually, your nukes will
be overkill on whites and you'll want to move to the street where
you can find more challenging prey. Get used to King's Row,
Skyway city, Independence port, Brickstown, and Founder's Falls,
you will be spending a lot of grind time in each.

A tip for fighting street mobs. Spawns are done on demand, when a
player gets near them. The mobs have a level range depending on
where they are. However, most often a mob will spawn in level
based on the player who spawned it. So, if the mobs range in
level from 26 to 29 and you are level 26, you'll see a mix. If
you are level 29, you will almost always see only level 29s. This
is good, street fighting less than whites is a waste of time.
But, it means you want to be as alone as you can be. If you have
lower-level players running around triggering the spawns, you
will find yourself frustrated with lots of greens and blues.

Also understand there is nothing wrong with fighting weaker mobs
at low levels. In your 20s and 30s, white mobs are very weak to
you. But low teens, they are tougher. Just because you will
eventually be killing packs of whites or small groups of reds
doesn't mean you can do it at early levels. As a general rule,
you will get better exp by slaughtering masses of mobs weak to
you as compared to taking a longer time to kill fewer weaker
mobs. This is why AOE is better leveling than single-target. If,
at your level, a certain pack of mobs does any appreciable damage
to you, you will get better exp by finding similar mobs a level
or two lower.

Stealth is your friend. With stealth, you can dictate exactly how
the fight starts and always get off the first shot. This is
especially important for AOE blasters. Fire Breath and
Flamethrower are devestating, short range attacks. You want to
move close to get their cone perfectly aligned before you open
the fight. Stealth lets you do that. For Energy blasters, getting
close enough to use Power Burst after your Snipe is helpful. Ice
Blasters generally engage and fight far enough away that the mobs
won't aggro until after you start the fight, so they can best
afford to not have stealth. Even so, it is still a fantastic
power. And both Stealth and Cloaking Device give a hefty defense
boost during the combat as well. Its tough to pass up one of the
stealth powers on a blaster.


GROUPING

Large groups, more than four, are purely for fun. If you want to
get good exp, stick to four or less. Ok, actually you should be
soloing. But when you group, you should be dominating the action.
The game is about damage, blasters are by far the highest damage
class. If you built your character well, grouping revolves around
you. In a small group, basically you pick fights just as you
would solo, just more difficult versions. Everyone who is not a
blaster has one job: make sure you live and make sure you can do
as much damage as possible.

This means if you are an AOE blaster and you do not have a tank
who can hold aggro and let you use your AOEs, the group is bad.
If you are a single-target blaster and you are not going for reds
(and purples when they readjust villian difficulty), the group is
bad. If the team's blasters are not putting out as much damage as
they can to their preferred target, the group is bad.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes you just want to have fun and then
grouping is great. But if you want exp, and want to group, you
will need to carefully monitor how the group unfolds or else your
exp bar is not going to be moving.


WHY MELEE IS NO BIG DEAL

Many blasters love Hover and claim that any melee is death, that
you will always be dead in a hit or two in melee. They are wrong.
Probably they don't have any defensive powers, and suboptimal
builds that do not kill quickly enough. I have a level 40, and I
can tell you that even at level 40 melee is no big deal most of
the time when soloing (grouping and fighting harder mobs is a
different story but a good tank will mean it still isn't much of
a problem). Only very specific mobs are threats in melee and you
will soon learn which. Basically, if it is a generic minion,
don't worry about it. Melee with minions is more of a threat low
level than high level. By level 20, minions are no threat to you.
The mobs you fight will die in seconds, you will have defensive
power choices, a few mobs swinging at you a couple times won't
make any noticeable drop in your health. Pop a health inspiration
whenever you get low on life, they drop like candy.

There are a few mobs that are a threat in melee. Any Boss and
some lieutenants (Freakshow comes to mind) are the ones you do
not want near you. You can use Hover to keep out of melee range,
but you have to waste an entire power pool slot on it, and more
importantly have to take the Flying pool which means one less
pool choice for better defensive powers. Plus you are stuck with
flying as a travel power, because it just is too darn tedious to
drop to the ground, use a travel power, then rehover up over and
over to set up each fight. Moving from pack to pack is constant
when grinding, and Superspeed is the best to do it. A few seconds
multiplied over thousands of packs over your character's career
is a lot of time.

Being afraid of melee, even a little bit, applies mostly to
single-target blasters. For AOE blasters, you are fighting packs
of white or at-most yellow minions and the battles last long
enough to cast one or two AOEs and then your foes are dead. They
will shoot one round of ranged attacks before they drop. You
ignore any bosses or lieutenants. Fire your two shots and move
on. Melee simply never comes up.

It is the single-target blaster who is fighting higher con (and
thus more dangerous) mobs and will be concerned about melee. If
you have Devices, just forget Hover. Throw Caltrops down in front
of you before you attack and melee is never an issue. If you have
Superspeed, just kite. Fire your attacks, and while waiting for
them to recycle, the few seconds, turn on Superspeed, back up to
maximum range again, and turn it off. If you have Hurdle plus
Combat Jumping, jump backwards to accomplish the same thing.
Heck, just turn on sprint and back up. Of course, more often than
not, the mobs are dead in seconds so you don't need to bother
kiting.

The point is, Hover is unnecessary. It works, it just isn't
needed. To me, it is a wasted power pick. At least it does have a
defense boost, so that is one plus for it. If you like Hover, go
for it, just don't assume other blasters need it to survive or
that we die a lot without it.


THE END

Well, that was quite long. I think the template here will help
new blaster powergamers understand how to build and play blasters
efficiently. I'm sure there are some differences of opinion, some
people prefer to play slightly differently than me, but you
certainly won't go wrong building a blaster according to my
guidelines. Feel free to post your own tips and comments!


Kelena, 40 energy/devices
Technobabble, 26 assault rifle/devices
both members of Knight in Tights on Virtue

(plus lots and lots of alts)