StrykerX

I'm designing a very high end build for my Bane Spider and I have room for either Call Reinforcements (permanent) or Summon Blaster (10 seconds downtime). I've never used either and I was wondering which will be more effective (slotted with five Soulbound Allegiance including the proc) as supplemental damage... I'm not going to be relying on them as much as a Crab but I figure more damage is more damage and I don't have much else to put in the slot except maybe Spring Attack. Any advice would be appreciated.

If you're interested in the build, here it is (currently has the Blaster pet slotted):

Solo? Probably the DoT. On a large team the debuff might be better though, it really depends on how many people are running Reactive since if there are several the debuff will probably be capped even at 25% chance to proc.

I have a SoA that has a Bane build and a Huntsman build and even though I mostly play ranged ATs I preferred the Bane for solo leveling. The Huntsman is better for teaming though, at least until you get Crowd Control slotted up and enough defense to handle jumping into large spawns. A Huntsman is also probably better on SOs (I started IOing my Bane out in the 20s) since your defense powers favor Ranged defense... a Bane feels a bit squishy until you start adding some melee defense set bonuses or stack multiple defense powers (which is very hard on the blue bar without recovery bonuses). If you are going to frankenslot or use mostly SOs while leveling then I'd suggest making a Bane build and a Huntsman build and using whichever seems best for the given situation. If you are going to invest more heavily in IOs I'd go Bane because they rock once you get their defense and recharge up.

Whichever way you go I'd also suggest doing tip missions and using your first two alignment merits to get a Miracle +Recovery IO. All those toggles tend to be hard on your blue bar and it just gets worse once you add in the high endurance attacks like grenades, Shatter, or Crowd Control.

Blaster Rad Blast is actually a bit different than Corruptor or Defender Rad blast. Which one you want will depend on what you want to do with the character:

The Blaster version is good at AoE damage and works very well with /Fire or /Mental since it has a PBAoE attack and does well while standing in the middle of the enemy group (once you slot enough IOs to survive the aggro or find a good Tank / Brute to distract the enemies). It has defense debuff as a secondary effect but as a Blaster you're much more concerned with hit point debuffing, so you'll probably be trying to maximize the AoE potential and spending a lot of time in cone and PBAoE range. The Blaster version also has much stronger single target damage since Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Beam were converted into harder hitting standard recharge attacks.

The Defender / Corruptor version has two extremely fast recharging (but weak) single target attacks and the same AoEs and heavy hitters as the Blaster version (though of course they don't hit as hard). If you are going for damage then you'll want to stay in close and leverage those AoEs so pairing Rad Blast with a close support set like Kinetics or Time Manipulation will be a good idea. If you care more about the defense debuffs (which get very large on Defenders) you can also just focus on spamming Neutrino bolts (preferably with an Achilles' Heel proc) between buffs and debuffs and dropping the occasional AoE... used like that the set goes with anything, though Rad/Rad is of course a classic from a concept point of view.

I personally prefer Rad Blast on Blasters because defense debuffs are generally less useful than some of the debuffs other Defender / Corruptor blast sets put out and damage-focused Corruptors are generally better off with Fire (Defenders are probably best off with Sonic for damage). But on Blasters Rad ranks right up with Fire if you want a PBAoE death machine and has the added benefit of being able to slot Achilles' procs. I would suggest a Rad/Fire PBAoE Blapper if you don't mind dropping a lot of inf IOs or plan to mostly run in teams, and a Rad/Mental if you want to be slightly less squishy while still packing massive AoE power.

The reason VEATs don't go through the tutorial is because they have a completely different origin from other characters. They are Arachnos minions (by definition Villains) who have decided to try to grab some power and fame by putting themselves on the Destined One list. They can later choose to become Rogues or go all the way to Hero, just like other villains can, but a newly created level 1 VEAT is basically a generic Arachnos henchman who has decided to become a lot less generic and make a name for themselves. They don't have any mechanical need to do the tutorial since you have to have a level 20+ villain to make one (and therefore aren't a new player) and there's no real way for it to make sense story-wise for them to do so, so they skip it and instead run a unique starting mission that sets them up with the standard initial villain contact. Basically they get an alternate intro based on their background, as do Kheldians heroside.

DP/MM is going to flatten spawns fast when HoB is up, but that's not going to be every spawn (or even every other spawn without very high recharge). On non-HoB spawns he's going to probably need about 10 seconds to clear the minions (7 or so if only fighting even cons), which gives time for quite a few sword or gun attacks. 45% S/L defense will do the job most of the time, but there will be cases where he takes a couple of hits, gets debuffed down to 30% or so defense while clearing the minions, and then gets flattened by a lucky boss hit before he can regen the damage or take down the boss(es). Whether it's worth trying to stack an extra 8-10% defense to make that scenario far less likely is going to depend on the OP's playstyle and tolerance for faceplanting... it's a question of whether you want to die less often or kill things a bit quicker.

Interesting analysis... one thing I'm curious about is how Sonic and Fire compare when dealing with more typical builds that don't have any purples and don't have the recharge to do a T1 -> T2 -> T3 attack chain. Basically, something more like Flares -> Fire blast -> Flares -> Blaze vs Shriek -> Scream -> Shriek -> Shout, with no procs other than Reactive (since so many Blaster builds use 6 Thunderstrikes in their ranged attacks). I find those sort of comparisons more interesting because that's sthe sort of build I'm likely to be running... even if I do plan to spend two or three billion on a Blaster I'm still running Thunderstrikes because I like to solo, and not being hit is good for soloing.

There are several very heavy AoE builds you can do, depending on what playstyle you want:

Fire/Fire or Rad/Fire - PBAoE Blapper, designed to jump into the middle of a spawn and hit everything around them until nothing is left (you may well not even use Fire Breath just so you can never leave melee range). Extremely dangerous to play but probably the highest damage single character (raw damage output, not counting debuffs) in the game since you have truly massive AoE and extremely high ST damage too, especially if Fire/Fire.

Fire/Mental - Also an AoE monster but more focused on cones. You'll do a lot of your damage from near a spawn rather than in the middle of it, with occasional jumping in to use Psychic Shockwave or Drain Psyche. The main reason I consider this a lower damage build than the pure PBAoE type is that you won't get the best use from Hot Feet while you are out lining up cones, but it's a safer build.

DP/Mental or DP/Fire - DP's basic AoE capabilities are only average but every three spawns or so (every two spawns with very high recharge) you get to cut loose with Hail of Bullets for very good large area PBAoE damage.

AR/Energy - AR has quire a bit of ranged AoE damage and Energy makes it even longer range. Boost Range plus Full Auto gives a truly massive cone, but like all cones it only can hit 10 targets so that can be a problem.

Archery/Energy - Three words: Rain of Arrows. Build for recharge and use Boost Range and you can use Build Up + RoA on one spawn to wipe out pretty much all the minions, then Aim + RoA on the next to do it again. You also get massive range on your targeted AoE and all of your single target attacks and even get about 80 feet on your cone (or around 100 feet if you enhance it for range) so you can flatten spawns from long distance and get by solo with far less defense than those PBAoE builds. Still, you aren't going to do the raw damage a close range AoE build can.

Not to mention that Assemble the Team has a long cooldown. If Incandescence has the same recharge time as other Destiny buffs it will be useable a heck of a lot more often than AtT even in non-league content. Having a stealther who can summon the whole team to the boss room every mission without having to use up a pool choice to get Recall Friend will be very handy on certain TFs.

Frozen Armor actually has pretty good Cold resistance (21% base) and minor (7%) Fire resist, so it can be slotted for resistance. Unfortunately the fire resist is a bit too low to fool with and cold damage really isn't common enough to bother slotting resist for, but at least you can pop a Steadfast 3% defense IO in it and actually get more cold resistance too since that IO does have some resistance enhancement.

Unfortunately, Power Boost doesn't affect defense powers that also offer enhanceable resistance so the downside is that if you are /Energy then you can't get extra defense from Power Boost. If you aren't going /Energy then that doesn't matter though.

I like Hot feet on my Fire/Fire, simply because I didn't take the cone and instead use a pure PBAoE chain. Though small-radius auras like Blazing Aura I still skip, and sadly Death Shroud is one of those. I figure anything standing right next to a Blapper is toast anyway unless it's an AV or GM (in which case it's usually the Blapper who is toast ) but a 20 foot aura like Hot Feet can help out against mobs you aren't currently punching.

One thing to keep in mind is that Blasters have a relatively low HP cap. It only takes about +33% HP to cap you and if you get the accolades then you'll have +20% just from those, which means Hoarfrost is only giving you 13% and you usually get a few percent +HP from IOs even if you don't specifically build for it so really you'll lose out on 5-7% or so at worst by not going Cold. I far prefer Mace Mastery... sure you have to go villain temporarily but Scorpion Shield has S/L defense and Energy defense. Since one of the largest sources of non-S/L ranged damage is energy (lightning, plasma blasts, etc...) that's a big help. You do lose out on Hibernate and you can't take any other Mace powers without having to draw the mace (which can be a concept breaker) but the only Blaster epics I actually would take a lot of powers from don't offer defense anyway so that's not so big a deal. Besides, unless I'm actually playing an Ice Blaster I'd far rather have a soft purple glow than look like a walking ice cube.

As far as your secondary goes, you have several good options. If by "melee combat" you mean actual melee attacks then /Energy and /Electric are both good. /Energy gives you more control (almost everything can stun) while /Electric gives a damage aura and the best (single target) melee DPS (and some mitigation too). /Fire is also good but is more AoE focused and has no mitigation at all... you'll do massive damage but probably faceplant more often. If by "melee combat" you just mean melee range then /Mental is also a good choice since it has a nice PBAoE and Drain Psyche for regen, but its actual melee attacks are a bit lackluster. /Dark also looks good for melee, but I haven't actually tried it much yet.

For a primary there's always Fire... Fireball works well at any range and Blaze is the best DPA Blaster attack so it's a natural to add to a melee chain. Rad is also nice since it gives you a PBAoE, though it does take a while to do its damage since it's a DoT. For a pure single target Blapper you really can't beat Sonic though... you get a huge cone sleep to disable spawns with so you can fight them one at a time. If you prefer using a damage aura or PBAoEs then Fire or Rad are going to be better though, and if you want some control and decent single target punch then Ice can be handy. Overall I'd go with either Fire, Ice, Rad, or Sonic paired with /Fire, /Energy, /Electric, or /Dark and grab Scorpion Shield. The exact combination would depend on my concept... AoE vs massive single target damage, control vs raw damage, etc...

From a mechanics standpoint, it's hard to beat Sonic/Energy for easy soloing. Put a spawn to sleep for a long time thanks to Power Boost, then pummel them down one at a time with powerful stunning melee attacks. Of course if you keep the difficulty reasonably low then Fire/Fire can be a lot of fun... you wipe out spawns so fast you don't really need a lot of protection, especially if you have Aid Self to pop between fights and carry a few inspirations for EBs. But really any Blaster can solo fine on low difficulty, the problem comes when you try to handle larger spawns or purples.