AoE death.

[Rasix]

I think I've decided on what type of character I want to be playing.  Something specializes in big nasty AoE quality death.  Any suggested builds out there for this type of fun? I'm guessing fire/fire blaster but would like any input.

The rad/rad defender (what I'm playing now) looks like it'll have this available but not until much higher levels.

[Soukyan]

Fire/Fire Blaster is the true AoE ownage machine.

[cevik]

Add my suggestion for fire/fire blaster, so far I only have 2 of the potential AoE's but I still can do a lot of damage to a lot of bad guys all at once.. :)

[Rasix]

I think I'll make a fully medieval armored knight fire/fire blaster.  I could call him The Toasy Crusader or something campy like that.

[Riggswolfe]

Fire/Fire blaster for pure damage output, Ice/Ice blaster for a little higher survivability since they can slow/freeze their enemies when they have too.

Blue Bomb Ice/Ice level 15.

[Venkman]

I am a Fire/Fire Blaster and absolutely concur with the AOE pWnage. It's a flat-out wizard. No real finesse save a root. Your choices are whether to do nuke one target, a few in a cone, everything in an area or everything in an area with you as epicenter. It is probably the most straight forward template there is, and I'm gonna push it by just giving him super speed and fly. He's a hit and run squad all in one.

The secondary Fire Blaster doest tempteth with the point-blank area effect and Fire Sword, but honestly, if I use the PBAoE, the fight is almost over (one way or the other).

Additionally, you can go full soloer and pick up the AoEs, or you can pick and choose based on things that are group friendly. Like, Rain of Fire is just fun, defined. However, use that in a group mission setting, and it's a fed-ex to the hospital. Same with all AoEs, of course, but that's why I took the Cone of Fire over the Rain of Fire right now. Cone of Fire doesn't have the range, and when a group manages the pulls, it's basically another DD useable while the other 2 or so refresh :)

[Alluvian]

I use rain of fire all the time in a group.  It is not a problem.  Just pay attention to where you are putting the center and don't use it in areas with many levels (elevators dont count).  It can work very effectively as a wall as well as a damage dealer.

[cevik]

I use rain of fire all the time in a group.  It is not a problem.  Just pay attention to where you are putting the center and don't use it in areas with many levels (elevators dont count).  It can work very effectively as a wall as well as a damage dealer.

You guys have me wondering what I should do at next level.

I have Fireball, Flares, that other single target fire one.. fireblast?  Fire breath and hasten.. I should get another power at 10 and I'm either going to take hover so I don't have to worry about not being able to get over walls, or rain of fire, then at 12 I'll take the other..

Which way should I go?  Hover first to get the pain in the ass factor over with?  Or rain of fire first so I'm more effective at dealing damage?

[Rasix]

Sounds like a build of choice from what I gather here. Damnit, I don't want to be popular, but I want fun.  And blowing stuff the hell up has always been fun to me.

Sidenote: I like blasters in this game, they don't seem as excessively frail as the standard fantasy wizard (of course, I'm only basing this on sub lvl 10 play).

[Morfiend]

Sounds like a build of choice from what I gather here. Damnit, I don't want to be popular, but I want fun.  And blowing stuff the hell up has always been fun to me.

Sidenote: I like blasters in this game, they don't seem as excessively frail as the standard fantasy wizard (of course, I'm only basing this on sub lvl 10 play).

From what I hear, post lvl25 or so, blasters start to become 1 to 2 hit kills. Its some thing Im not really looking forward to.

Oh yeah. Im an Assault/Devices Blaster. I will be getting Speed, Flight, Leadership, and maybe Fitness for my powerpools.

Assault is kind of a Jack of all trades. No major AE damage, but several cones. Also devices has so many cool things, you really have to pick and choose. And boy, I cant wait for the lovely sound of Targeting Drone.

[Fargull]

I am playing a fire/fire blaster, friend of mine is playing a lightening, ice blaster and we make a hella team.  Lightening has an AOE and a sniper early, while fire gets their's late.  Fire is all about the AOE though, only thing is that if you dash it wrong you become A number One on the kill now list.

But the blowing up of many is teh fun!

[MrHat]

I have a Fire/Devices Blaster.

I opted out of build up for more utility.

Having a blast so far w/ him.  Can't wait for trip wire.  I envision rain of fire, caltrop and trip wire providing lots of fun.

[angry.bob]

Which way should I go?  Hover first to get the pain in the ass factor over with?  Or rain of fire first so I'm more effective at dealing damage?

Hover, hover, hover.  Put a flight speed increase enhancement on it and you've got yourself a ghetto version of Fly. Not having groups of MOBs run up and hit with with axes and crap for a quarter of your life is nice. they can still hit you with their ranged attacks, but they're usually much weaker than their melee attack.

[DarkDryad]

I just hit 14 last night and got fly and let me tell you hover now is nothing more than a place way up there to regen endurance cause flight kinda sucks it outta ya but omg once you can truly fly hover will be religated to the back burner fast.  I can go from one side of perez to the other in about half the time it would take to run the same distance.

[Aslan]

On the subject of fly versus hover, both are really handy.  Fly, for obvious reasons, but hover is good to attack because you get a defensive bonus for being in hover that you do not get while flying.  Plus, of course, trying to attack while using fly will drain your endurance faster than the Thriller can get a kid's pants down.  If they run, fly over to them, hover, then cheerfully hand out the pain.

[Alluvian]

I use rain of fire all the time in a group.  It is not a problem.  Just pay attention to where you are putting the center and don't use it in areas with many levels (elevators dont count).  It can work very effectively as a wall as well as a damage dealer.

You guys have me wondering what I should do at next level.

I have Fireball, Flares, that other single target fire one.. fireblast?  Fire breath and hasten.. I should get another power at 10 and I'm either going to take hover so I don't have to worry about not being able to get over walls, or rain of fire, then at 12 I'll take the other..

Which way should I go?  Hover first to get the pain in the ass factor over with?  Or rain of fire first so I'm more effective at dealing damage?

Rain of Fire was my single most important power at level 15 back in the beta.  I also soloed a lot.  For soloing it made an impossible encounter easy (vs minions, not bosses).

It should be noted that I did not have hover.  It would not fit with my character.  I went with super speed instead.  Hover is a great skill as well.

Rain of fire has three uses that I use it for.
Mob Dispersion:
Mobs REALLY don't like to stand in a rain of fire.  They will run like hell to get out.  Then many will just keep running (morale break).  Leaving you to wipe out the few still left on the fringes.  When soloing with this I wait till the last possible moment before dropping the rain.  I have hasten so I make sure my 2nd fireball is ready to go RIGHT after rain hits.  Once rain hits the mobs will scatter.

Damage:
Fire rain does very respectable damage to a huge area if mobs are held.  With a controller that has AOE holds it is freaking devastating.  As solo I will circle of fire any targets I really want to harm badly like LTs.

Wall:
Mobs very seldom will enter the AOE of a wall of fire.  I have used it often to cover a group or solo escape during a mission.  When running, just drop it at your fee and head around a corner.  It is very rare anything will charge through your fire.  I have used it to step around a corner, trigger rest, and then I am up and ready to take on mobs fully rested.


The power is very slow cycling, so you pretty much have one use per battle unless you keep hasten up, then you can use it twice in larger battles.  It combines GREAT the ice power blizzard power as well.  Same AOE, but the ice one does damage and snares, the fire one just does more damage no snare.  Combined they do crazy damage to everyone in the encounter.

[Venkman]

More AoE goodness:

Last night I was in a full group trying, repeatedly to do this Steel Canyons indoor mission. We held our own until the end. Three total wipeouts in 5 minutes (not including rezzes) and we decided to gather what was left of our egos and head to Perez. I had some Circle of Thorns to take and a few had those Vahzioczechosloviakiannamed dealios.

Even if they were higher than the highest level (I was 9, highest 12), we ripped through them like they hadn't fully spawned in. Everything. We had four blasters in the group (Energy, Two Ice and a Fire). The controller and healer were bored (so we made it interesting after awhile), and the tankers had barely time to solo one each. This was the one and only time I lamented taking Dragon Breath (cone) over Rain of Fire (targetted area). As fast as we were, it woulda been that much faster.

But this was outdoors. Try that indoors on some missions and it's a fast port to bind.

However, I did so like I took Hasten before Hover. +Def wouldn't have made a difference neither there nor the previous indoor mission. But Hasten plus 2 of 5 enhancement slots on Fire Bolt dedicated to +Accuracy plus a few inspirations and it was fun.

So it's just really a traditional EQ-esque AoE group, faster. Finesse is for other times.

[Sky]

My main is an energy/energy blaster.

One concern I have is having energy as a secondary, as the low level powers are melee based. DD already bitched me out for not hovering in combat, but my crowd control is my knockback punch :) I rarely get hit by melee because I keep secondaries off me with the punch and the primary off me with the knockback from my beams and such.

Knockback is very nifty to have, too. Let's me solo a lot of stuff that would mop me up, especially 'casters', because if they are on their ass, they can't do anything but get back up.

The secondary energy line gives me some cool power focus type stuff I'm hoping is worthwhile, but I'm still thinking about maybe rolling up a new blaster with energy/???.

I actually make a good addition to AoE groups because of my decent damage and knockback single attacks for the LTs and Bosses while the AoE folks toast the Minions.

[Valmorian]

My main is an energy/energy blaster.

One concern I have is having energy as a secondary, as the low level powers are melee based. DD already bitched me out for not hovering in combat, but my crowd control is my knockback punch :) I rarely get hit by melee because I keep secondaries off me with the punch and the primary off me with the knockback from my beams and such.

You still get the defensive bonus from hover even if you're just hovering inches above the ground, so you can always do that and still punch away.

On the other hand, in cases where you can't even risk them getting close to you, you can still have the option of flying higher.. this can be particularly useful against mobs that self-detonate, like the embalmed Vazhilok and mages from CoT.

[Rasix]

And The Crispy Crusader is born....



Liking it so far up to 7.  Has some problems with crowd control and close quarters.

[Fargull]

Last night I was in a full group trying, repeatedly to do this Steel Canyons indoor mission. We held our own until the end. Three total wipeouts in 5 minutes...

Just a Note.. have had the same issue until we learned to have someone pull with a sniper shot.  Reserve the AOE till later in the encounter after the pull.  Or, if their is only one boss or LT, have the main tank taunt that one and then concentrate on the Minions and AOE them to death with the main tank still taunting the boss when able with the healer doing the heal.  We handled several missions like that after getting wiped a few times.

[Sky]

Omg, always pull with a sniper shot! High dmg, long range, and occasionally you won't aggro the entire group so you can beat down the boss before you worry about the minions.

You still get the defensive bonus from hover even if you're just hovering inches above the ground, so you can always do that and still punch away.
 

Well, I've of course experimented with this, and it just doesn't feel comfortable for me to give up that amount of maneuverability. Hover is way too limiting. I use it mostly to break falls, check roofs, and the occasional breaking up of a large group of mobs with a high sniper shot. I can't see how some players in beta used the high sniper shot almost exclusively, I can't think of a more boring thing.

Then again, I play the game to have fun. I'm not some mmog gamer that wants to maximize the shit our of everything (not that that means I just hang out hunting greens, I like a challenge, too).

Challenge and fun. See why I don't like mmogs? :P Anyway, I don't have too much of a problem taking damage from melee mobs, as I mentioned, I can deal with them through knockbacks for the most part. It's the higher levels I'm concerned with my melee being useless.

[Big Gulp]

I've got an energy based blaster, and practically every attack produces knockback.  At level 10 now it's kind of sick how far I can throw groups of bad guys with my AOE blast.  Fire is more efficient, but damn it if I don't just love seeing bodies flying all over the place.

[Venkman]

Just a Note.. have had the same issue until we learned to have someone pull with a sniper shot. Reserve the AOE till later in the encounter after the pull.

Heck, on that mission, we only used AOEs when the fights were near completion. Hehe, only time I ever pull with an AOE is if I'm soloing, there's only five (or less) even-/cons and I have at least one Catch a Breath inspiration on me.

However, group makeup was our primary problem. I personally haven't gotten Sniper Shot yet, and I'm not sure if the other blasters did either. Our taunter was way overwhelmed with the stuff our one Controller kept missing with their controlly type things. It was 7 of us versus something like 15 of them, and they were all red and purple to me.

Next time I'm on though, I'll see who's got Sniper Shot.

[rattran]

I've tried out a variety of templates, and watching the AoE fire guys go is amazing.  I'd try the build, but I'm having too much fun with a Defender Heal/Psychic. Never found healing to be fun in a mmog before, this one is though.

[Sky]

Well, if I ever get let into your group, ~I~ have it :P

I've been concentrating on powers, not the extras like teleport and whatnot, excepting hover and then fly, because it fits my character as an interstellar being. So I've got most of the powers available to a 12th level character. A few of the bumped characters told me not to delve too deeply into the extra powers, lest I gimp myself out, and so far it seems pretty sound as I have a nice array of crap to use (like...I'm running out of hotkeys...)

Fire is more efficient, but damn it if I don't just love seeing bodies flying all over the place.

Amen, Gulpster, amen. That one cone knockdown is just beautiful, even if it's not as flashy as the big fire aoes. Besides, as I've said, screw efficiency, I play what's fun for me to play.

and they were all red and purple to me

Ecch..purples are teh sux imo....whiff ...whiff....whiff ....whiff...oops better Catch a Breath...whiff...whiff...so I guess even though I said I don't care about efficiency, I also don't like wasting energy on mobs I can barely hit. I almost exclusively fight orange and yellers, decent challenge if you aren't careful, but ultimately manageable if you are. Not at the whim of your *cough* level differences *cough* ;)

[Venkman]

I'm glad I went Hasten first before Hover, and really don't see myself picking up Super Speed anytime soon. Straight-line travel across zones is a speed boost unto itself :) But between Hasten and powers modded for recharge reduction, I'm twisting powers like an EQ/SB Bard. And drinking mana potions like it's Diablo.

One oddity I've noticed enough times to wonder on: if I stand in one spot, repeatedly try and hit an NPC and miss twice, I've got a damned good chance of missing all succeeding times. Until I move. When I move, somehow the dice start rolling way in my favor again. Seems like a bug, but it's only happened enough to raise an eyebrow.

[Alluvian]

The secondary energy line gives me some cool power focus type stuff I'm hoping is worthwhile, but I'm still thinking about maybe rolling up a new blaster with energy/???.

Yes sky, build up is a kickass power.  And one of the main highlights of energy secondary is it is the third secondary while it is the 5th for both ice and fire.  So the energy guys can get it early.  Buildup + Sniper shot = really fucking damaged boss.

Fires main lack is that they get their single target sniper style shot really late.  But it is evil when they do.  Until then I find if I take fireblast and throw two accuracies and two dual origin damages on it I am pretty happy with it as a boss whittler.  Not the huge chunks energy can do, but hasten and an enhanced fireblast can do decent damage over time because of the pretty fast recharge.  And fire breath is good enough damage to make it worth using on just a single target even.  I love fire breath.

For fires with aggro problems, that is what I use rain of fire from.  It messed enemies up enough that they stop shooting.  Get out of their line of sight and they will pick a new target when they stop fleeing.  I use that a lot indoors.

[Aslan]

I have an elec/elect blaster with aim and build up.  Normally, my zap sniper shot will do roughly 90-130 depending on the circumstances, but with aim and buildup, I can do a single shot of 192.  Add some damage inspirations and that's over two bills.  Considering that one-shots pretty much all whites and halves the health of an orange, I love it.  It's a Boss Killer.  
I team up with Blue Bomb, who is an AOE ice/ice (baby)  blaster, and even though we are both the same class, the two powers compliment each other really well.  I can weaken bosses right off the bat, he dishes out an AOE, which does some damage and slows and confuses, then I dish out my AOE, then we can just pick off the dizzied fuckers at our leisure.   Besides, for me at least, being a blaster, and having so many secondary powers that require melee range which I don't want, it wasn't even a choice to take build up, but I am glad I did.  It's only enough for one zap, but it's still worth it.  I just need to slap a couple of dual recharge timer enhancements in that baby...

[MrHat]

One thing I feel myself missing more and more is Build Up.  After playing an En/En in beta, I absolutely agree that build + energy torrent = cool.

However, Rain of Fire coupled w/ super slow caltrops really adds up the damage, I can take huge groups of yellows and whites just by pulling w/ a fireball, throwing some caltrops when they get close (this makes them try and run out of the caltrops). Then depending on which way most of them are running, I throw a rain of fire near that direction.  It's great, they just run around for a while, the ones that get through I kite, until I'm ready to drop some more caltrops.  I just picked up haste, hope this helps the caltrops drop real quick (low end cost).  It's great to see the damage come out of 7 mobs when they're taking single digit damage from Rain of Fire and single digit damage from caltrops at the same time.  Pure Glorious Fun.

I can't wait to get my targetting drone so that I can concentrate on damage and timer reductions.

[Murgos]

...ice/ice (baby)  blaster...

Now, I want to make and Ice/Ice blaster named Under Pressure who looks like Ziggy Stardust just to see if anyone gets the obscure three part joke.

An interesting thing about energy torrent is that if you put enough knockback enhancers in it, it will start to disorient the villians after they have been launched.  It's random, but its a pretty long term disorient, a good 15 seconds or so, I was quite surprised when I saw this effect in beta.

My thoughts so far on switching from energy secondary to devices secondary is that, the jury is still out.  One shotting yellow bosses with build-up (slotted with +to-hit buffs and lots of DO +dam in the sniper shot) was buttah, pure sweet cream buttah.  The first melee power in energy manip was also very effective as sky pointed out earlier.  If a mob got too close you just punched it away and that gave you time to get off a sniper shot while it was getting up, assuming you landed the punch of course, I used it so rarely I didn't want to use slots on it so it had poor accuracy.  I could also see how bone crusher could be useful, it does A LOT of damage (equivalent to the short range attack, about half the bar of a white con minion without +dam enh) and leaves a good duration stun, very handy for emergency crowd control.  The higher secondary buffs all looked pretty useful too.

I'm enjoying devices alot though, the target drone, though an end hog, allows me to focus my +acc in one place and thus pile on the +damage in others, hopefully, increaseing my average damage by quite a bit, I haven't done any extensive parsing yet to actually quantify the results but I definately hit far more often with the drone up than not, particularly against red and (low) purple bosses.  Devices is probably worth it for being able to hit those low purples on those hard missions alone, I know I struggled with that in beta.  Caltrops can, in the right circumstances, be amazing.  Good long duration DoT and snare.  The snare will actually stop some mobs dead in thier tracks, even orange abominations can't get through it AT ALL.  It's like a wall to them.  Against other mobs it is less effective though still usefull because, like fire rain, mobs wont stand in the middle of it, and if they are moving they aren't shooting.  Once I slot it with more +slow I imagine it will be even better.

I'm going to play though to trip mine before I make up my mind permanently but right now it seems like an evenly balanaced matter of taste between the two secondary power sets.  Both sets, en manip and devices, seem equally balanced in effectiveness.  Given how disparate the power sets are I'm quite impressed.

[Reacher]

I have a fire/fire blaster and I love it.

I am lvl 18 and have elected to take superjump as my travel power.  I chose it for a couple of reasons:

1.  I travel as fast as a teleporter and faster than flyers/runners.  (yes, the runners are faster over unbroken/unblocked ground, but how much of that is in this game?)

2.  Combat jumping gives me a defensive bonus and a bonus against immobilization (hover does not).  CJ also lets me maneuver much better when fighting than hover does.  Sure with hover you can fly out of range, but meanwhile they are pounding on you while you move oh-so-slowly and in indoor missions you can't get high enough to be out of range anyhow.


In my powerset so far I have:

Flares
Fire Blast
Fire Ball
Fire Breath
Rain of Fire
Ring of fire
Combustion (they are increasing the DOT damage on this BTW)
Build Up

Extra Pool power is Recall Friend.

Build up is awesome btw and gives a great bonus to damage.  I am considering AIM, but not sure how much extra aim will help.  I have heard reports that it also dramatically increases your damage, but am unsure on this.  (anyone know?)

In a group fighting lvl 18 mobs earlier today, we had leadership and accelerate metabolism buffs running.  The defender would debuff (enervating field) and I would use build-up.  Then I would hit the entire group with fireball for 68/12/7/4/4 and then follow up with breath fire for 3 ticks of 59 points.  Then, a rain of fire would help scatter the mobs and keep some aggro off me.

Yupper, I was hitting each mob in cone for 272 with just the first two attacks.  Always make sure to stay as far away from your fire breath target as possible and you might have to change your angle before hitting the attack.  This will give you the biggest possible cone.  I often get 80% of the group in my cone this way.

Without the debuff used by the Rad/electric defender I was with, my total damage would have been around 230 or so.  Still a very nice hunk of damage to an entire group of mobs.

[schild]

Whoa. That sig has got to go. This isn't a fansite.