Zaks Handy Hints for Happy Hunting

[JohnO]

Comments and corrections will be welcome.

[JohnO]

1.
As a blaster you'll need to Awaken often.
Stun relief insps will cure the Awaken stun effect.
Keep a column of insps with Awaken at the bottom followed
by stun relief, Respite and Catch a Breath.
After you die just hit the right key 4 times and you'll be back in
action ready to die again.

[JohnO]

2.
When teaming with a tank make them your waypoint.
The tank will attack groups and you can use the waypoint
as a range finder for your cone attacks for optimal spread
of fire.

[JohnO]

3.
As a blaster you will often need to run away,
don't wait for someone to shout 'run' or for your health to
turn red, start running when the mobs turn to shoot at you.
Never just run in a straight line and rely on distance, always
either hide behind something very big (e.g. a building) or
run round a corner if indoors.
After you've lost line of sight stay close to the corner but
safely tucked away and use some camera angles and zooming out
to watch the mobs chasing you, once someone else has picked up
aggro from them you can get back in the fight.
Sometimes you will have powerful defenders backing you up
and you won't want to run at all, force fields and fortitude
are both good signs that this is the case.

[JohnO]

4.
You may have many toggles some of these will be mainly defence
e.g. Super Speed, Stealth.
When tackling a tough boss or AV and the enemy is going to be
incapacitated or attacking someone else, turn off these toggles soon
after firing the opening shots, don't wait until your endurance gets low.

[JohnO]

5.
Often you will be lucky enough to team with a tank or a controller,
unless you have agreed to single pull (the tactic of last resort)
let them open every fight, even if the group ahead seems quite easy.
This will not only stop you taking unnecessary damage but will also
give your opener confidence that they are in control and leading into
each fight.

[JohnO]

6.
One of the best heroes you can team with is a Fire controller.
If you are fighting things that cannot see you at long range
(not Knives or snipers) move ahead of the controller while the imps
are finishing off the last villain of the fight and line up your
attacks at the next group. This will allow you to immediately open fire
when the controller uses Flashfires (AoE disorient) so the mobs don't get
a chance to wander around and spread out.

[JohnO]

7.
Sometimes you may find yourself in a group where a scrapper is leading
into the fights, and the enemy is not being tanked or held. Depending
on how many area effect attacks the scrapper is using what will normally
happen is that anything you attack will come after you. Either just use single
target attacks assisting the scrapper or plot your escape route (see hint 3)
before opening up with any area effect attacks of your own.

[Naaman]

7a) As a general rule you're better off aiming for minions, especially if you can 1 or 2 shot them, leave the big stuff for the scrapper.

[Zombieman]

Very cool guide... I may have to get hints 1 and 3 printed out A3 size and hang it up by my monitor... 

P.S. I've just snagged a copy of this thread as PDF and put it in the downloads section of our site coh.forlorn-hope.org (under Guides)

[Awesomniac]

And let's not forget Awesomniac's top tips for difficult situations:

Situation A: There are a couple of mobs of relatively low level.
Solution: Run in and blast things!!!!1!1!1one!!

Situation B: The foes look pretty tough, but you might be able to take them.
Solution: Run in and blast things!!!!1!1!1one!!

Situation C: You're on a full team, the rest of the team are still recovering from the last fight, the group in front of you are all purples and there's an AV or two in there somewhere.
Solution: Run in and blast things!!!!1!1!1one!!


If any of these solutions fail you are simply not blasting hard or fast enough.

[Zephyr]

You gonna write a "Handy hints to that elusive debt cap" guide then awe? 

[Awesomniac]

You gonna write a "Handy hints to that elusive debt cap" guide then awe? 

That's no problem, you just do some debt farming...you take a team of 7 blasters and a dark defender, then you go to an AV mish...