City of Heroes Blaster Guide
Getting to COH's End Game by Blasting Villains From Afar
Blasters are the ranged combat class of city of heroes. Whether their powers result from magical intervention, mutant abilities, technology, or humans that have somehow just trained themselves to exceptional ability, the techniques for leveling this class in City of Heroes and City of Villains remains the same. Blasters do not have much to offer a group except for ranged damage. This is a role they perform well, however.
City of Heroes blaster leveling can be an exercise in frustration unless the player really loves the archetype, portrayed by characters such as Lightning Lad, the Green Lantern (sometimes), and Cyclops. This is because the weak hit points of the class mean that this character has to be more careful and dies more often than many other classes. The penalty for death in City of Heroes and City of Villains is experience debt. A character will not gain full experience until the experience debt is paid back. Most blasters face constant experience debt.
Beginning City of Heroes Blaster Leveling
When a player determines the origin or his hero or villain, it does not do much accept determine where he can buy enhancements and what missions his contacts will give him. A far more important choice for the up and coming super hero in Paragon City is the powers that he will wield to change the world. There are five primary powers and five secondary powers. A City of Heroes blaster character can choose from a rifle, ice, fire, electricity and energy manipulation. His choice determines which type of mobs he will do better against, but villain non-player characters are often resistant to one energy type. This weakness can be corrected partially through the choice of secondary powers.
The secondary power set, which is often weaker than the first repeats fire, ice, electricity, and energy manipulation, but devices is the choice for those who want their heroes to have some technological base. Most of the secondary power sets include a root ability, which will be useful when soloing.
Solo Leveling With a City of Heroes Blaster
If a blaster did not start off with energy manipulation, which allows him to be effective at melee range from time to time, he will get some roots. The roots, which hold a mob in place, are important for soloing. The blaster does not have the hit points of the scrapper or tanker and does not have defense abilities of the controllers and defenders.
Kiting is the process of keeping the enemy a character is fighting away from him. A blaster starts out by using one of his root abilities, running and then using one of his long-range abilities. Repeat as needed.
City of Heroes Blaster Leveling in Groups
A blaster in a group has things slightly easier than he does during solo play. He has other people to beat on the mobs, a scrapper or other blaster to do damage, a controller for crowd control, and a defender to heal. The blaster should know aggro control and use his powers when appropriate to reduce the duration of a fight. The key to all blaster leveling in City of Heroes is for a character to keep a good distance between him and his opponents. Just remember that a super hero in Paragon City must be able to see the target that he wants to attack.
Resources:
City of Heroes Scrapper Leveling Guide
City of Heroes Tanker Leveling Guide
