Blaster

Overview

The Blaster is an offensive juggernaut. This hero can deal a ton of damage from either a distance or up-close, but he must be careful because he's somewhat fragile compared to other heroes. The Blaster can't stand toe to toe with most opponents for long. His best defense is a great offense!

Alignment: Hero

The Blaster's power sets are:

Primary: Ranged
Secondary: Support

The Blaster has Low Hit Points and High Damage.

Power Sets

Primary Power Sets

A Blaster's primary power sets are designed specifically for ranged attacks. They are:

• Archery (Issue 5)
• Assault Rifle
• Electrical Blast
• Energy Blast
• Fire Blast
• Ice Blast
• Psychic Blast (Issue 12)
• Sonic Attack (Issue 5)

Secondary Power Sets

A Blaster's secondary power sets are designed for support via melee attacks, minor crowd control powers, or temporary self-buffs. They are:

• Devices
• Energy Manipulation
• Electricity Manipulation
• Fire Manipulation
• Ice Manipulation
• Mental Manipulation (Issue 12)

Ancillary Power Pools

• Cold Mastery
• Electrical Mastery
• Flame Mastery
• Force Mastery
• Munitions Mastery

Inherent Power

• Defiance

Strategies

Like the Dominator, the Blaster has powersets that are not exactly intuitive in their synergy. The Blaster's primary sets and hitpoints both speak obviously of ranged combat, and yet the Blaster secondaries all feature a number of melee attacks - some of them very good. This discrepancy can lead to confusion. Some Blasters feel their role is to manage ranged combat, and merely take the nature of their secondary powerset to mean that they have more powers they can skip in favor of useful power pools, such as Fitness. Other Blasters, instead, opt to revel in their secondary's melee attacks, taking melee attacks and engaging in as much melee combat as they do ranged. Such characters are referred to as "Blappers", a blaster that acts like a scrapper. And of course, some Blasters are somewhere in between.

It should be noted that these strategies are not necessarily equal, but neither is necessarily wrong. The Blaster has these options available to them, and it's up to each player to determine which one fits their play style. This does mean, however, there is very little uniformity across Blasters, and that most strategic advice has to be tailored for each type of Blaster. The only strategy that is shared across most Blaster types is that of Active Defense.

Active Defense

Simply put, Active Defense means protecting yourself by removing things that can harm you. For Archetypes with Control at their disposal, such as the Dominator and Controller, this means using mez powers like holds or disorients. For the Blaster, this tends towards being more simplistic; defeat is, after all, the ultimate debuff.

For some Blasters, area effect damage is king. To these Blasters, the plan is pretty simple - if you can wipe out all the minions before they get a shot off, they can't be a problem while you're gunning down the lieutenants and bosses. For others, single-target damage is much more key, and to these Blasters, the opposite is true - remove the lieutenant or boss first, because he will take the most effort, then cut your way through the weaker minions.

But defeating isn't everything. All Blaster secondary sets contain some powers with a control element, such as the knockback and disorient powers available to the Energy Manipulation set or the slow and immobilise powers available to the Devices set. These powers are not there so you can use them to strategically control the battle - they're there so you can use them tactically to control your fight in it, especially by limiting incoming damage.

Historical

• Flame Mastery was added to the game in Issue 3.
• Electrical Mastery was added to the game in Issue 5.
• Psychic Blast and Mental Manipulation were added as selectable sets for Blasters in Issue 12.

External Links

• Summary and Analysis of Blaster Powersets
• Archetypes documentation on official City of Heroes site
• Official City of Heroes Manual as a zipped PDF file