City of Heroes/Blasters

Overview

• Primary: Ranged
• Secondary: Support

Blasters are the ranged damage-dealers in City of Heroes. They are capable of dealing immense amounts of damage from a distance, and have an array of single target, AoE and conical attacks to choose from. However, this incredible damage-dealing ability comes at a price; Blasters have little defensive ability and are prone to take damage easily. Melee powers chosen from a Blaster's secondary pool can increase the Blaster's defensive techniques in a melee situation, while control powers such as immobilizes and knockbacks help to keep enemies at a safe distance from the character.

General Blaster tips and tricks

• Aim and Build Up are your friends! Use them when the time is right to gain a much-needed advantage on your foes.
• Blasters heavy in AoE and conical attacks, such as Fire Blasters, should try to wipe out as many enemies as quickly as possible before they can get a chance to attack.
• Blasters with mostly single target attacks, such as Ice Blasters, should pick off the stronger enemies in a group (eg. Lieutenants and Bosses) before they attack the minions.
• Some power sets, such as Devices and Energy Manipulation, have control powers that can be used to turn the tide of a battle.
• Sniper powers can be interrupted and should be used wisely.

Blaster Primaries

Assault Rifle

The Assault Rifle power set is in general fairly long ranged, and does decent damage.

• Burst: The starter power, makes five small attacks, and debuffs defense.
• Buckshot: The first cone attack, does moderate damage in a fairly long cone. Does knockback.
• Slug: A strong single-target attack, serves as a good one-two combination with Burst. Does knockback.
• M30 Grenade: Targeted area-of-effect attack, doing moderate damage. Has a long range and does knockback.
• Beanbag: Get this one. A Magnitude 1 disorient attack doing low damage. Priceless for stunning anyone who comes too close. May do knockback in rare instances.
• Sniper Rifle: The penultimate sniper attack. Does extreme damage at extreme range. It's interruptible, though, so don't use it if under attack. Causes quite strong knockback.
• Flamethrower: Another cone attack, this one doing quite severe fire damage over time. Useful for large groups of minions, but be careful of aggro.
• Ignite: Lights an area on fire. As such best used as an area-denial tool, since enemies will run away from it.
• Full Auto: Burn through loads of ammo, do frightening amounts of damage in a cone. Everything an AR blaster could ever want.

Energy Blast

This is the power set that you either love to pieces or hate vehemently. All the attack powers cause knockback in some way, shape or form, which can be immensely practical in blast-heavy groups, but immensely detrimental if you're running with scrappers or tankers. Powers tend to be highly damaging, but slow to recharge. They also tend to cost quite a bit of endurance.

• Power Bolt: A quick attack, doing minor damage. Not too much knockback on this one.
• Power Blast: Slower to recharge, but higher damage. Also does slightly more knockback, and slightly more often.
• Energy Torrent: You'll probably need this one: a wide cone attack that does minor damage and a lot of knockback. Very useful for clearing enemies away from you.
• Power Burst: Short ranged, but high damage. Hefty dose of knockback.
• Sniper Blast: You'll need this. Interruptible, so don't use it in combat, but useful for pulling enemies out of groups if you're careful. Does enormous damage, fierce knockback.
• Aim: Boosts your accuracy a lot, and your damage a little, for about 10 seconds. This is time enough to get off a Sniper Blast, Power Bolt, Power Blast combo.
• Power Push: Low damage, high knockback. Useful for sending enemies flying if that's your thing. Not worth it if you have the Energy Manipulation secondary though.
• Explosive Blast: Targeted AoE attack, which causes knockback.
• Nova: A more powerful Explosive Blast, centered on yourself. Good if you end up surrounded, as it can clear a way for you to get out of there. Beware, though - you'll be completely out of endurance, and you won't recover endurance for a while after use - so use it judiciously!

Blaster Secondaries

Fire Manipulation

Fire Manipulation is generally considered to be the worst of the Blaster Secondaries - a single status effect, loads of melee, and several fire tanker powers that a blaster has little or no use for.

• Ring of Fire: The sole status effect in this power set. It features low damage, and a merely okay immobilize effect.
• Fire Sword: A purely melee, medium-damage power from the fire tanker set. It really goes without saying that the ideal blaster wants nothing to do with melee, so while this is not intrinsically a terrible power, it does not belong in this set.
• Combustion: Another melee-oriented power that is essentially Inferno's annoying little brother. Its damage really does not justify the risk it poses to a blaster.
• Fire Sword Circle: Basically the same issues as Fire Sword.
• Build Up: This is actually quite useful for any damage-dealing character, especially a blaster. It roughly doubles the character's damage output for a few seconds, and is quite useful for alpha strikes.
• Blazing Aura: This power is a taunt aura that does the same DoT as other Fire Blaster powers that do not center around DoT, such as Fire Blast.
• Consume: A rather useful area-based endurance drain that again, is actually pretty useful for Blasters.
• Burn: Given the run-and-gun mentality employed by most Blasters, this is about the least useful power one could give them. It creates a patch of fire that stands in place. Enemies run away from it, and unlike Fire Tanks, Blasters do not do very well to stand in the middle of it to agro them.
• Hot Feet: A Fire Controller power, this toggle creates a patch around the user, dealing moderate DoT, and slowing them.