Oh yeah. I was gonna Perma Energize big time.. and then there was instant snipe.. yay..
Perma Energize. Wistful sigh.* With a turbo IO/Hasten build. The good thing about such a fast build. If the knock back roll misses for some of the mob...torrent should be able to tick around quick enough to 'get them again' and catch the rest of the skittles. And Perma Energize would help fuel that. I found my 'build' never felt right after Ed. The slowing down of the build made it not only less fun but less able to turn the attacks to how I'd gotten used to them.
That's what I liked about my pre-ED En/En build. High octane.
But I guess a really good IO build could be another level of magnitude above that with probably end/health and some meZ(?) to help mitigate en/en's thirstiness. Certainly, it looked like issue 24 was going to be a blaster's salvation in that dept.
I remember thinking my brute had that 'Energize' as part of it's armoury. It would have been great for blaster's to have had that. They get it and then the game closes down.
(I would occasionally 'bemoan' how some of the 'types' seem to get an excess of riches while some seemed to get the 'crumbs' treatment. And I played across most types.)
Had a Nrg/Nrg Blaster would team with my friends and have a blast with what we called the Nova Bomb, hover, wait for tank to herd mob, then drop Enrage Insp's, Aim & Build Up then turn off hover drop in the middle of mob and use Nova.... Hence Nova Bomb!
Sounds like a bag full of fun. The energy nova was certainly emphatic! Good tactic their. Dive bombing Nova on the Tank's herd.
That was the thing about En/En Nova. You could get 'slapped' out of a mob as your Nova exploded in mid-air. Always embarrassing. So making sure a tank 'had it' was always good. Soloing, Elec and Ice blasters could 'place' their novas. Very advantageous.
And some of us silly people three slotted hover and swift to take advantage of this very thing
Silly? I used to always x2 slot swift to close down to melee after a blast or AoE so I could blap. I was always shy of x3 slotting it. (slots were always at a premium...) But that 'extra' turn of pace always makes sense. If an enemy is off their feet, close the gap quicker to land the killing blow. x2 slotting Hover, minimum, on my Defender made sense as I did 'hover' blasting on my FF/En. x3 on the Hover worked even better...it just gave that extra turn of pace.
((It was great playing ping pong with force bolt (was it?) which almost seemed to have an auto-hit to it... (well, it did no damage...but it was great for keeping a foe off their feet! Once slot with an acc in it seemed to do the trick.))
My 'ears' pricked up when there was some 'en/en' blaster talk. My favourite and 1st L50 blaster until later superseded by an Elec/Elec Domi. This thread has given me one or two ideas regarding build, tactics, slotting refinement when the game comes back.
and then there was instant snipe..
Bit of a strange thing the snipe...and novas. I can see the design idea. Made sense in the early days. In the end, they weren't worth the down time. Or the 'waiting' around. So to speed them up aka a rinse and repeat nova with no end crash made much more sense in the Water Blaster...as a preview of Issue 24. Transformative. It gave the 'blaster' their 'nova' back.
And if you wanted to be really nasty;.. put three Damage Range Hami's into PowerPush and keep a foe at a distance FOREVER and snipe him to oblivion.. and if your hovering while doing it.. even better...
The classic Powerpush and Snipe combo.
Add 'Snipe' becoming an 'Insta-Snipe' makes into that cocktail sounds bags of fun and makes much more sense when we thing what Blaster or ScRapper can do with the 'wait' time on a Snipe. You can exceed the damage quite easily...without the design kludge of being 'nudged' off your snipe to add to your woes. Having an Insta Snipe...makes more sense with a 'quick' damaging Blaster type. Why slow it down with a pregnant pause blast? Sounds counter to the blaster's remit. On a high octane turbo build one can only wonder how you could pound a boss with a vastly speeded up snipe attack! 'Exotic.' Indeed. Gives the 'blaster' back one of its heavy attacks and makes the type more aggressive once more. Very 'hot house.'
I honestly believe En/En had the most diverse set of playability options of any blaster
*thinks. I didn't enjoy my Sonic/En blaster solo as much. Felt very stilted by comparison. My ice blaster felt very hold, kill...very silky. I didn't use the ice mat quite as much for blapping as perhaps I could or should have. Maybe it was the end cost of the icy aura 'chill' that stopped me getting in and mixing it in that fashion.
Energy felt more expansive. Free-er. Smoother. Progressively and expansively designed. eg. Blapping. Blast some and knock themover. x2 or x3 slotted swift to close the gap. Energy punch. Bone Smasher. And Power/Energy thrust them. Close to finish with Bonesmasher. Or any combo of.
I'm not sure if anyone else thought of Exploding Blast as a 'blap' power. However, I do remember reading on the official forums, a tactic of pulling a mob to a corner...then putting an exploding blast into the lead mob and blitzing them off their feet...then torrent them and clean up with melee attacks. It was counter to leading with Torrent. I tried it. Kinda worked. But you were in for it if the 'knock' roll failed. I was one for making some long charging attacks AOE like that 'auto knock.' Especially from close range.
Energy had a great set of melee and blast options. Plus the extensible long blast and close melee protection and utility of Power Push and Energy Thrust. You had a snipe. A nova. Situational powers. You could extend your knock back and stun 2ndary effects with Power Boost with a nice rainbow aura...
Yes. You had the stun. A massive Boo-a-shakka in Total Focus. Boost aim and damage. Boost range was an excellent utility to help push shorter range AoE like Torrent further and your snipe onto another planet. Blast was what I did first. Then I went went. It's hard to explain why I got ultimately disenchanted with Energy. Was it the 'not much use' Personal Force Field in the FON set? Was it post Ed and the removal of my beloved Perma-Hasten (probably. That stung. I didn't play it much after that.)
In later times. Revisiting it. Energy didn't seem to 'hit as hard' as other blast sets. And the knock back mitigation higher up in the game seemed didn't seem to help against the very well endowed with buffs Arachnos mobs or Carnie or Malta. I'd got out the habit of using range and knock back and was hybrid blapping AoE with melee. Often with predictable results.
Though I did work hard to stun and total F(!) a Nemesis or War Hulk upon occasion. Powerboost could keep them cuckoo for a while.
I found them hard to split up. But I'll use Arcana's tactic with the snipe next time...
I think playing other types, short of an IO build (which I never did for a blaster....), I found I could push the Blaster as far on the Diff/mob width settings. I found that disenchanting as well.
I honestly believe En/En had the most diverse set of playability options of any blaster, and I basically played all of them over time. I started as a straight up ranged blaster, which it does fairly well because the knockback mitigation makes that play viable. Also, I didn't even *know* DE had mez until long after I started playing, because when you're shooting them from 40 to 80 feet away with a lot of knock they usually don't have the chance to mez you. Its a good blapper combination and I got into blapping fairly early, circa Issue 1. Sonic/Electric might be a better blapper, but En/En is right up there, and power boost makes your blapper stuns go from good to awesome. Of course I played hybrid for a while. With enough HOs or later IOs you can play Energy as an AoE-focused blaster as long as you learn to control your AoE - hover blasting helps
Which is the best Blapper? Fighting talk from Arcana. Hmm. I'd have sworn blind it was an En/En blaster right up until I met my Elec/Elec Dominator.
You mention Sonic/Elec. Telling. You didn't say, 'Sonic/Energy.'
My Duo-Partner (we tried out a fair few combos...
) and I went for gold with a Sonic/Elec (he had that one...) and I went with Sonic/En. We melted our mobs with Sonic's one two punch of the 1st two primary attacks. Silky smooth and set up the mob up for a butter punch.
After that? En/En just felt...'hard work' to hit the mob into submission. After a one two blast of sonic...orange mobs would see their health bar melt...and the mob felt like butter with the melee punch. I guess their 'res' was melted with sonic...which made the melee punch hit so hard.
About 35 levels we did that. I have to grudgingly admit that Elec seemed the better blapper than energy. Not sure why. For a very smooth set, elec seemed to even out smooth it. It seemed a shade quicker or smoother. I'm not sure what it was. Elec had a hold. En had Energy Thrust. Elec had Havoc Punch while En had Energy Punch. Elec had Thunderstrike. En had Bonesmasher...and Total Focus (I think Elec had 'shocking grasp?')
I think Sonic was definitely more damage primary to set up the blapping 2ndary. Though I'd argue not as much fun as Energy. Ice was a lethal blap set. Well. Control. Blast. Blap set.
So my dam list would be...in terms of what felt damage or efficient.
1. Sonic/Elec.
2. Sonic/Energy.
3. Ice/Ice.
4. Elec/Elec.
5. En/Energy.
That would be my top 5 as damaging blappers. En as low as no.5? Surely no.3?
Fun list?
1. Elec/Elec (I didn't get my Elec Blaster to beyond L38, but does my Elec Dominator count!
)
2. Energy/Energy.
3. Ice/Ice
4. Elec/Elec.
5. Sonic En.
All minus IOs. (well, apart from my Domi 'blap/scrap/blaster'...)
Fire? Too much death (mine) to make the list. And where was fire fist? We had the 'distant' fwassh of the fire sword instead. Never seemed to 'connect' for me.
Azrael.
PS. And the elec dominator had so much utility or ways to 'pull the legs off a spider.' I went for dominator over blaster for elec/en in much the same way as I went for Ice blaster after my controller ice/rad experience...
One had more utility to survive...and a mix of options for mitigation which made knock back frustratingly random. While Ice blaster was more direct. Hold. Blast. Your dead. A troller with teeth.