Arcanaville

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it's not me who's lost his sense of balance it's you. and you're the one who inserted the bit about +4's at 30. I know blasters aren't supposed do that. they don't have the DEFENSE for it. you know that defense that says I don't have to be all that mobile in combat?

who has to move more. the guy who can't survive melee or the guy that can? It really is that simple. we can have this argument forever... but I've played a scrapper to 45 and a blaster to 50. you need to try this on someone else.

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To be honest, although I originally expressed the opinion that scrappers need to move more than blasters, I was thinking about only one aspect of maneuvering.

Having thought about it very carefully, and then paying careful attention to my blaster and scrapper recently (especially with all the recent changes on test), I believe my position is this:

Both have to move about the same amount. However, blasters typically have to move *more immediately* than scrappers. The "penalty" for a scrapper jogging over to where they want to be is low; if a blaster has to move at all, the faster the better, and sometimes slow might as well be not at all.

In particular, I noticed that even when I'm not using total focus at all, taking superspeed "jousting" away is actually having a significant negative effect on my blaster. Its hard to describe, but the penalty for not being able to essentially be where ever you want to be, moment by moment, is high.

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lol...I tell that to MA players all the time. I hate DT too. I have to tell them to wait until I hit Soul Drain before they go knocking fools around. No fan of Crane Kick either. In fact, MA is the one scrapper set i enjoy teaming with the least.

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Dragon's tail is a knock up, it won't knock things out of soul drain, and Crane kick is single target, which won't screw up a soul drain either.

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Actually, DT is knockdown for even con and higher, knockback for under even con. In other words, in normal play, its knockdown.


Mieux:
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Depends on how its slotted. I beleive if you put knockback in it, it knocks them back.


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Slotting it will cause it to knockback higher foes, but it still will function the same way: knockback for a certain level and lower, knockdown for everything else. You let me know when you find a scrapper that does that, though. I only know this because I tested it when they fiddled with it and tanker knockback, but I cannot imagine a single good reason for slotting DT with knockback.

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SnipeFu,

Congratulations! Just saw that you took home the Most Helpful award! Well deserved!

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Thank you

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Gratz SnipeFu


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Support Blasters Yoda Does. A perimiter around the survivors the devs must make.


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Jedi are really more katana/SR scrappers. And much like on the test server now, most of their defense comes from parry. Also, they look really cool, but put them in an arena, and a bunch of blasters will kill them pretty quick.

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Arcanaville said:
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Although, against single targets, scrappers can do unholy amounts of damage if they HO themselves to +300%, use build up, and then score a crit (which bypasses the scrapper cap, btw).


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I'm starting to get irritated when people talk about the top 5 levels like it's the entire game. I've been playing for NINE MONTHS and I don't have Hamidon enhancements. 460 hours- if I played 9 to 5 as a job that would be three months of work. On just that one character.

It's bad enough when people ignore the pre-32 game. . .

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I guess its time to start putting smileys in my posts and dotting my "i"s with hearts again.

I was half-heartedly responding to someone asking what does more damage than a nova set off in a dumpster full of held villains. I originally said "inferno." I should have said "blizzard."

In fact, the power capable of doing the highest single target damage is recall. Fly to the top of the world, and then recall a level 50 tank. That beats even head splitter at the damage cap.

This works in the under level 32 game as well, and has wicked range.

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You're thinking too small. If you have TF, why do you need bonesmasher?


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Me personally? I don't. Other blasters might want both, and I don't begrudge them that. For those that want bonesmasher, are you willing to take away bonesmasher and give them total focus at level 10, and call it even? Cause the people that took bonesmasher, I don't think they are going to be happy with "we took away bonesmasher, but don't worry, in 28 levels you can still have total focus."

I think you are thinking too "50"

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Come on! You can't see how another AT doing more damage than a blaster under optimal conditions for the blaster is unbalanced? Then I guess their is no further point in bothering to talk to you.

I though you were interested in sincere discussion, you just want to preserve the status quo.

[/ QUOTE ] For like the sixteenth time...where is this true?

Optimal conditions for the blaster are dumpster full of an infinite number of held mobs. Is there some power that does more damage than Nova at damage cap?

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Inferno, I guess.

Although, against single targets, scrappers can do unholy amounts of damage if they HO themselves to +300%, use build up, and then score a crit (which bypasses the scrapper cap, btw).

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Stop talking about the damage caps: no one cares. Neither class is going to hit it without 400 fulcrum shifts.


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I care. And 5dmg1acc slotting, plus Build Up, plus Aim is over the blaster cap. All blasters with BU and Aim can self-buff themselves over the cap, which means the cap actually is doing something to a significant proportion of solo blasters. And I don't need HOs to do it, either.


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Instead of bickering about scrappers like children, what you should be doing is verbally hitting States on the damned nose with a six-slotted rolled up newspaper for his "melee attacks are fine" garbage. Yes, ONE melee attack is fine, not SIX. A heavy damage attack like TF is fine and good: A low damage melee attack like frozen fists is nothing short of retarded.


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And bonesmasher, a melee attack that hits as hard as a snipe, has a significant chance to disorient LTs, and (/en) blasters can get at level 10, unlike TF which you have to wait till 38 for, is...? If we are only allowed one, and its total focus, no melee until 38? Or do we get total focus at 10? Or do we get bonesmasher at 10 and we don't get to have total focus at all?


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Here's a hint: until those minor melee attacks are replaced, blasters aren't fixed.


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Here's a hint: since most */en blasters are not complaining about their secondary, we should leave it alone and go fix the ones with real problems first, then come back when we have nothing else to do.

For those people not familiar with the energy secondary:

Its probably one of the, if not the best blapper set.

energy punch, bonesmasher, total focus. Stun is not fantastic, but it isn't total crap for a blapper (its kinda crap for a conventional blaster). Power thrust is more useful for a conventional blaster, but even blappers need to occasionally blow off steam by grabbing the 3 iron and finding some clock gears.

And yet ironically, it has practically the best support powers also:

endurance management: conserve power
range effects: boost range
damage and accuracy: build up
DEFENSE: power boost

The only thing we don't have is stealth, and stealth is the cheapest thing for blasters to buy. There are no prerequisites for stealth from the conceal pool, we get stealth for free if we take superspeed, and stealth and superspeed stack to just short of pure invisibility and we can still attack.

Technically, we don't have droppable patches like caltrops or ice patch either, but I wouldn't say that breaks the set.

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I can tell you from personal experience that Blasters do 60% more damage than Scrappers in the early levels. It's simply how they are slotted.

In the 20's and into the 30's, however, Scrappers get the extra slots to put into thier attacks, and Blasters get extra slots for....utility/travel powers.


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Since I infer from this passage you believe the "early levels" are the pre-20 levels, slotting cannot account for a 60% difference in damage. DOs (the only enhancements available at those levels) only boost damage by 16.6%. Maybe if a blaster 6-slotted for damage and the scrapper only had the original single slot in every attack, the blaster would be doing 200%/116% = 172% -- 72% more. If the blaster had a more conventional 5+1 slotting and the scrapper put even a single extra slot in their attacks, you'd be comparing 183/133 = 138% -- 38% more damage.

If anything, early level blasters might have an extra attack over the average scrapper, but I don't think that is necessarily typical. I do know my early level scrapper kill speed and my early level blaster kill speed were comparable - not identical, but similar. Certainly not a 60% difference. At best, my blaster might have been 20% faster, and that speed difference was nullified past 22 when SOs became available. My blaster still killed faster (for a little while yet) but my scrapper had less downtime in between fights. It was basically a wash.

Also, blasters are slotting attacks well into the 30s. For me, explosive blast took up 6 slots from 27-28, nova took up 6 slots from 33-34, and total focus took up 6 slots from 42-43 (I didn't take it till 41, and EPPs didn't exist yet). Conventionally, someone is more likely to take total focus at 38, burning slots at 39-40. In other words, of the 18 slots you get from 31-40, 10 are likely to go to attacks.

In the 20s, among the powers a blaster will likely be commiting slots to are hasten and stamina, a similar situation for many ATs. A specific power energy blasters are slotting in that range is conserve power - a "utility power" many ATs would give their right robotic arm to have the privilege of slotting in the 20s.

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Thought I'd post a further explanation about the Blaster damage explanation in "Ask Statesman."

That was - and is - the reason why Blaster damage is capped lower than Scrappers. I did forget to add that the ranged attacks of mobs deal less damage (typically) than melee attacks - and the Blaster is generally the target of raned attacks.


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As I mentioned in my PM, and my original response here this statement reflects the notion that scrappers should do more damage than blasters because they take more damage than blasters - and that is completely irrelevant to the issue of the damage cap. The damage cap does not limit blaster damage.

The damage cap does not limit blaster damage.

What it does is force blasters to output an even amount of damage over time, instead of being allowed to "burst" damage higher. There is no question that blasters can survive for less time against ranged opponents than scrappers can survive against melee opponents. This means time is more important to blasters than scrappers. A blaster doesn't have the option of shooting eight times more shots at a boss than a minion, because a blaster is not going to live that long. A blaster wants, and needs, to frontload damage to survive.

Build Up starts off as a great tool that doubles our damage for 10 seconds out of 90. Its superior to a power that would increase our damage by 11% all the time, even though our total damage output is exactly the same. By the time we are in our 40s, BU is now a power increasing our damage by about 38% one third of the time. Its net effect is about the same over time, but its less useful overall. Because the average doesn't matter, the burst damage does.

Some of us could compensate by stacking Aim on top of Build Up. Except that now runs us up against the cap, so we can't front load that way. A scalable build up would be superior both in balance and in effectiveness as a damage improvement for blasters, but not if the cap limits its effectiveness.

Bottom line, the cap has nothing whatsoever to do with blaster vs scrapper damage output. Its a statement on who should be able to have more control over their "burstyness." Scrappers need burst damage less than blasters, so a lower cap for blasters does not say "blasters should do less damage," it says "blasters should have less control over their damage output." If they need it more and they get it less, thats a statement about blasters that has nothing to do with damage output.

If you want scrappers to have higher damage than blasters, give them a higher base damage scale, and give us the same damage cap. They will still do more damage than blasters, but we would gain back the control over our damage that would help us more.

Base damage says who does more damage. The Cap says who has more control over their damage. Blasters should have more control. So they should have the higher cap.

Edit: minor but goofy typo edited

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The one thing I noticed that I didn't see on here: Even if you do successfully pull only one bad guy, if the rest are on alert and you hop in their line if sight after wacking the one you pulled, they'll see you even with invis. Just thought I'd point that out.


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I thought I mentioned that in #1 in my post above, but I should have been more clear. I also hinted at it in the next post:

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Similarly, if you actually break line of sight while firing at a target and you actually kill the target for whatever reason, the fact that you broke line of sight means the others can't rush you. The main problem with LOS-breaking is that the *only* reason they aren't all trying to kill you is because they can't see you; the moment you round the corner again they are all going to charge you.


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You do have to be careful about that. So even if you pull only one, there is a difference between a "good" pull and a "great" one, and its one of the advantages of hitting from behind (and not killing anyone). I believe it takes about a minute or two for the "alert" to wear off, btw.


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Last night I only had time for one mission (thank God my grad school classes are finished until September now), so I undertook a Freakshow warehouse mish solo in order to practice on pulling. Wow, that line of sight thing really does make things a heck of a lot easier, doesn't it? I only aggro'd a second Freak once or twice, and I never got myself in a situation that needed for me to SS away.


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1. Distance is important, but breaking line of sight is even better.

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I find jump pulling to be the most effective. You find a convenient crate to hide behind. Target an enemy, hit the attack (which won't go off yet), then jump. The attack will go off once you land, safely out of site. If there isn't something to jump over, you can also jump around a corner. This is harder, since you have to move, jump, and hit the attack. It takes some coordination and timing, but it's not too bad. It goes off again after you land behind the corner out of sight. But if done right (and out of perception range), there is no way for a mob to attack you after you attack unless they come after you.


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Yep, this tends to be the best tactics outdoors. Note: you used to be able to do this with fences, but not any more.


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As someone else said, you don't want to defeat the mob you pull. Defeated mobs send out a death cry that agros nearby friends. I've seen a pulling guide that describes this as being a larger radius than the "hey I'm being attacked" cry that pulled mobs normally send out.

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Yep, and there's a catch to this that makes this advice a sometimes not entirely correct. This is a problem for people that don't break line of sight. As I mentioned, there are a lot of people that "pull" by standing fifty feet away stealthed, shoot one, and see how many come. If that shot kills the target, they will tend to pull the entire group because of the "death cry."

But a proper pull won't do that. The only attack we have that has any chance at all to 1-shot kill tends to be snipe (anyone pulling with firebreath deserves to die). If you pull from extreme range with snipe, and you are outside their perception range, you can shoot with impunity. If the snipe actually kills the target, all of the others will be "alerted" but they will be unable to actually see you to attack.

So it is perfectly valid to stand at extreme range, use boost range, build up, and snipe-kill someone one, wait for snipe to recharge, and then shoot *again* and this time pull the next one.

Similarly, if you actually break line of sight while firing at a target and you actually kill the target for whatever reason, the fact that you broke line of sight means the others can't rush you. The main problem with LOS-breaking is that the *only* reason they aren't all trying to kill you is because they can't see you; the moment you round the corner again they are all going to charge you.

Its one of those rules that its best to believe when you are first starting out because its safer to believe it, but then in certain circumstances, its good to remember that its not absolute, because some tactics require you to disobey it later on.

Example: one minion, one LT, one Boss Rularuu, in the tunnels, where sniping from maximum range isn't possible because of tunnel geometry. Here, its best to kill the minion, break LoS, wait for aggro to quiet down, then attempt a pull on the LT. The alternative, pulling the minion, might cause him to shoot at you, which might then pull them all to you.

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Pulling I'm still trying to master. I recognize that you pick off the outside stragglers when they wander from the pack and don't immediately target the boss, but other than that, I'm open to advice. Once I'm out of stragglers to pull toward me, that's when I hit the pulling wall and end up aggroing everyon


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Here are the basics everyone will tell you:

Distance is good, be far away.

Stealth is good, have some (it reduces the perception radius, effectively making better use of distance)

Don't kill the guy you are trying to pull (this one, frankly, isn't really accurate, though, in the sense of if you actually pull off the perfect pull, but you accidentally or deliberately kill the target, you still shouldn't aggro the whole rest of the bunch).


Here's a few things people don't always know about pulling that isn't mentioned very often:

1. Distance is important, but breaking line of sight is even better. I see so many people "pull" by standing still, firing a shot into the crowd, and then seeing how many come after them. That's not pulling, that's gambling. If you can break line of sight fast, your pull will tend to go better. Line up on a target, and then move behind an obstacle (like around the corner) until you can just barely see the target. Then - and this takes practice - fire and move behind the obstacle *at the same time*. What will tend to happen is that the guy you shot will come around after you, but the others, because of the way the alarm logic works, will "get alerted to your presence" but be unable to locate you, since they can't see you. Be warned that this doesn't always work, so be able to "mouse look around the corner" to see what's coming.

A really good way to do this exists in the Hollows, the Shadow Shard, and other places where you find yourself in the "hollows-like" tunnels. There is so much "up and down" terrain, that you can jump up, fire, and as you fall back down you will break line of sight, exactly the way you want. If you want to use snipe to pull from very long range, *hover* and fire, then immediately turn off hover - once again, you'll rapidly fall out of line of sight.


2. When it goes to heck, it can be fixed! Run for your life, but keep them in sight if you can. Keep kiting them until they get tired of chasing you, and start running back. Then - go after them, and shoot the straggler. When they are all running away from you, shooting the last guy in the back will generally cause him to turn to you and attack, while the rest of the group continues to run off.


3. The guy that wanders away is a good target, but the best target is the one the other guys aren't looking at. If there is a group all looking in one direction, go to the other side, and shoot the guy closest to you (farthest in the back). Hit him, and if he isn't knocked back too far into the group, he will come after you, but the others wont' turn around fast enough to see you (see breaking line of sight, above).

Which one is closest? All good pullers have /target_enemy_near bound to a key, so they can reliably target the closest thing to them.


4. Target things that prefer melee attacks over ranged attacks. Slashers over gunners, that sort of thing. They are least likely to stand and shoot at you, and much more likely to run after you.


5. When pulling simply won't work, or won't work well: if there is something in the group with a very long perception range, like snipers, rikti drones, and other things that can see through stealth, only experts have any chance at all pulling those groups. It can be done, but only from extreme range with snipe shots. Don't practice on these. Never, ever attempt to pull the Skyraiders unless you intend to practice on them to write a pulling guide. Its possible, depending on the mix of minions, but most of the time you'll get a bunch of raiders teleporting in all around you.


You know, if you want to learn pulling but aren't hanging around pullers a lot, watch tanks that herd. Herding is the converse of pulling. Notice what they do. They grab everyone's attention. Then they run off. Then they run around a corner. They break line of sight because they want to force all those mobs to have to chase them instead of standing and firing from range, and then as they all round the corner they bunch up in nice piles - if they do it right. If they do it wrong, the villains go wide around the corner and don't make a pile.

You want to do the same thing, just to one target at a time. Get his attention. Shooting him in the head works wonders to get their attention. Then run around the corner, fast. Force him to come to you. Make sure you're ready to hit him before he gets a good shot at you. Make sure this is all happening far enough away from the others that they don't care. Your main problem is grabbing just one, and breaking line of sight fast enough to only keep one.


It takes practice, but that is what solo missions are for - no one can laugh at you when you "pull" eight DE towards you at the same time. When I was learning this I had blown pulls in ways so ridiculous you would think I was trying to commit suicide. Don't be discouraged if it takes time to get right. Most of the people that tell you they got pulling down quickly probably aren't even doing it correctly now.


Energy is king of the pull. Have fun.

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Any advice on playstyle from anyone who can handle +1 or +2 mobs would be greatly appreciated. (As would someone saying...yeah, you're pretty much on the money by quickly offing one or two and then beating feet.)


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At level 24? Hmm, I would say have stealth, snipe, build up, and torrent, and don't attack more than 4.

BU+Snipe+torrent if snipe is well slotted will probably take out a +1 or +2 minion at your level, and the torrent should knock down the other three (but not do terrific damage). Then, its a shoot out on the remaining three. Power blast, or bolt+blast will take out the second one, probably for free (you're probably not taking too much damage yet if torrent connected well). If you have power burst, better yet, but you have to start this engagement more or less in range of burst to begin with, which is why stealth is important.

If you had burst, you have two, probably three of four dead, but you've probably taken some hits, and you have to put the last one or two down quick. Without perma-hasten, your attacks won't be recycling very fast. It would be tricky to get the last one down fast enough, but its possible.

I could get away with this with 3 +1 minions. Usually 4 +1 minions. I would not go after more than 3 +2 minions this way at level 24, too dangerous. It would be possible with superspeed and bonesmasher, but I had neither at 24. If there is an LT in that mix, my max was one +1 LT and 1, maybe 2 minions. I would not engage a +2 LT unless it was alone. Facing any group bigger than those limits, and I would resort to pulling to bring the count down.

Of course, at the time I was 24, there weren't any +2 LTs in small spawn groups to be found anywhere. Which means I was pulling all the time.

If you are thinking of going after the bigger game (higher than even con, more than three, or both), I think energy blasters at level 24 have to be really good at at least one of three things: pulling, super speed jousting, knockback control. Realistically speaking, you'll want at least two out of these three solid.

Really good at pulls: if you think its impossible to pull two LTs apart, not good enough yet. If you think pulling = standing back here and shooting at something, not even close yet.

Really good at jousting: you don't need extra range in burst or torrent, you don't run into things, and if you get low health, you escape more often than drop dead.

Really good at knockback control: you want them there, you put them there, chain knockback is second nature, and you will switch targets to knock one down and switch back without thinking.

I got good at pulling in the 20s, it took until the late thirties to get really good KB control, and I didn't even know about jousting until the 40s. I tended to stick to even con villains myself in the 20s, if I could. Heck I went after blues a lot, I tended to prefer the easy kills when I could get them (when I was street hunting, which wasn't often except in the level X'8s and X'9s).

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The streakbreaker, as I understand it, only forces one hit after a string of misses (determined by base accuracy). I've not heard that it forces a string of hits to get accuracy to where it should be.


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If I remember correctly, the streakbreaker is also only supposed to help us, not hurt us. Meaning, the streak breaker only breaks streaks of misses by forcing a hit, and only for us, not the villains.


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Oh, speaking of hitting streaks, this happened about one second after I taunted the Freakshow. I thought I didn't even have a chance to use EA before that, but you can see the message indicating that it went off.

So, how often does that happen to invuln?

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I don't know if this necessarily happened, but even though the system told you EA went off, and then all the hits came pouring in, they could have gone off before the extra defense kicked in. The sequence of events could have happened like this:

Taunt
Freakshow initiate attacks
EA fires, and simultaneously the attacks arrive
EA records visually first
All the attacks land

The important thing to note is that based on my experience, the way the game engine works is that those attacks the freakshow initiated use the defense you have at the moment they started to activate, not the defense you have when they land.

I finally got around to revising it, so please add my Arcanaville's Hamidon Raid FAQ 2.0 to the list please.

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Well, I combined SnipeFu's energy blaster guide with Concern's "Be a Better *******" philosophy, added a few range/accuracy/damage HOs, and created the ultimate long-ranged sneaky dirty-fighting sniper. I'd often snipe a Malta sapper from extreme range while stealthed, watch him turn around looking for me, then nail him with a second snipe without either him, his fellow minions or his LT seeing me. After that, BAM BAM BAM from range and they're "arrested".

Was it sporting? Nope. Was it fair? Nah.

Was I Being a Better Blastard? You bet your bippee!!!

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That works also.

Blasters do not want "fair" fights. I was never exactly a full-fledged 3B, but I know the highest compliment you can give to a blaster is, after watching them defeat a bunch of foes, tell them "that hardly seems fair."

Since you also have snipe slotted for hami-range, have you played "tag the death mage" in Portal Court yet? They hate that. First they climb the nearby hillside to get into range of you, and if that doesn't work, they actually sometimes run off into the ocean - if you don't kill them first.

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heh... 5 more levels of using the hospital as the fastst travel power in the game

In the Hollows: Ding, level 8 at last!

*runs into a spawn of lvl 15 trolls because it's the fastest way to get back to Ms. Liberty.*

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And i thought i was the only one who did this hehe. I still do it even after im able to collect debt. yay a tp to another zone whooohhoooo.

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What goes around comes around: starting about 11 levels from now (I see you are 34), this will become your fast exit out of the Hive.

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The second one is really really tough for me. See the majority of my game play is with a large team on invincible missions. The J-Force and I get together NIGHTLY to go on what we coined Debt Runs(TM) and we dont' just keep it to ourselves we welcome any hero who wants to see what real fun is. With only receiving half debt you are effectivly forcing us to work three times as hard to do what we are now, hit debt cap.
I REFUSE to be forced to street hunt.

But after reading each and every post on this thread I see that this comunity is not made up of real men and woman. That its mostly sissy, wimps, wusses, chumps, wankers, girlie men, and even more girlie woman who can't seem to take their debt like the hardcore heros they are. Yes this is griefing of the entire community, because the many are making the life of the few so much more difficult.

Statesman, please, I beg you do not take my debt from me.

But if you do, I have one small request. Please Statesman, remove the debt cap. This way while it may take me longer (much longer) to accure massive amounts of debt I will never ever have to reach a point to where my deaths are worthless, every death will raise not only my purple bar, but my enjoyment of the game.
It has been my dream to out debt a level 50 before I reach it. Never ending debt *swoon*


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I can see how this would be a significant hardship for you and your fellow players, and I feel for you. What I can suggest is, before starting the mission sessions, have all the participants take a midnight run through perez park with no toggle defenses and no stealth to go chat with the Eidolons. After reassembling after that little stroll, you can all start your missions pre-padded with significant debt.

If you are higher and have travel powers, may I suggest visiting the lovely zoo we have in Paragon City, located right off the coast of Peregrine Island. After just a few minutes of "pet the monkeys" you should be all set. Stock up on awakens, it'll go faster.

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States sorry to do it, but I got to use your own words against you. If you're going to halve debt, then it should be across the board. The ability to do missions solo varies by AT. Street sweeping was supposed to be there for the people who have problems soloing missions. It's supposed to give them something to do. Now you want to punish that behavior.

You said:

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I've stated before - I don't want FORCED grouping.

All Archetypes CAN solo. Some do it slowly, some do it quickly. Some can solo most missions, some can solo fewer missions. And worse comes to worse - a hero can always hunt the streets and stop some crime there. That was always the intent of city zones.


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Your post

Has this changed? What this is going to do is further widen the solo gap among the ATs. It seems to run contrary to your stated goals. Perhaps those goals have changed.

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Since I did so well guessing the intent of 3minions=1hero, I'll take a shot and say that there is a difference between FORCED teaming and ENCOURAGED teaming.

Statesman has always said the game should allow people to solo. Such people shouldn't care all that much about how fast or slow they level relative to others, because, well, what others, they solo.

Statesman has also said they want to encourage running missions, and grouping. He stated directly that he believes the best part of MMOs is the grouping. So while he wants CoH to have a refuge for soloers, by trying to ensure they can always experience the game at their own pace, contrawise he wants to encourage mission running and teams, because that is where the heart of an MMO really lies.

He never stated, and it is never implied, that soloers should experience the game *in the same way* or *at the same speed* as teamed people. The teaming bonus alone guarantees that won't happen.

In any case, separate from that, there is only one class that really gets speed-penalized by the debt-halving (or rather, isn't helped much compared to other ATs) and that is low level controllers. Low level controllers already do solo missions safely, but slowly, so debt doesn't matter so much to them. Practically all other ATs can take advantage of the rise in the debt level floor by attacking faster and riskier, if they so choose. They can attempt to learn their ATs strengths and weaknesses quicker and in higher risk situations without penalty, something difficult to do at level 5 when all ATs are practically the same squishy two-attack wielders.

I'm sure that is partially the intent - to assist people that learn the ropes slower or have limited experience with MMOs, and need more time to figure it all out. It also hopefully means that when you get a bunch of new players into a team at level 9, if someone makes a mistake and wipes the team, it isn't cause for insane retribution, but rather an educational moment, since the penalty isn't so bad.

Give controllers, at least the low level ones, the triple damage bonus on held targets, and controllers could theoretically catch up to the other ATs in the early going. A really interesting way to give this bonus to the early controllers, and have it fade away as the controllers level, is to allow the triple damage bonus on held targets for *base damage* only, not enhanced damage. That would make it a really great boost for early controllers, and it would slowly, gradually fade away to a small amount at high controller levels.

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Um... baiting people to play missions? Why?


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Because that's where the game is, I'm just guessing.

Yay, another energy blaster makes it to 50 despite having to overcome the incredible deficit of being both unable to solo past 40, and unable to team because no one wants us.

So how'd you do it? Currently, I'm recommending that energy blasters make a costume that looks like a phantasm, so they can follow illusion controllers around and hope the controller doesn't notice the extra phant.

"w-t-f? when did they give phantasms a snipe? And NOVA???"

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Snipe, didn't know if you could back this up for me. Recently discovered the Wonderful World of Total Focus. Power is REAL helpful post 40, when everything starts to annhilate blasters, stun the boss and take out everything else while he's woozy.

Anyways, anyone else notice an issue with after hitting with total focus, the target will not start acting woozy unless they're made to take a step? If they don't move they jsut continue to swing/shoot/etc. as if not affected.

Thanks bud

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I've recently noticed occasions where after I total focus something, they turn to look at me almost like I aggroed them from afar, and sometimes they seem to stare at me for a couple of seconds before going woozy, but I haven't seen them actually attack (effectively - I haven't been hit with an attack) while stunned by total focus.

Are you seeing them make motions, kind of like how blinded foes sometimes stand there blind while continuing to go through their attack animations but no actual attack happens - or are you actually seeing real attacks that are landing real damage?

I have been seeing a lot more zombies, though. You know, you defeat them, their health and endurance bar goes to zero, they stop attacking ... but they just stand there until they despawn, they don't fall over.

You know, this is eeriely similar to what I remember having at 25, except instead of Aim I had energy punch - seriously. Also, my slots were more balanced between bolt and blast, which was also an idiot mistake. And I did not have hasten. At all. I had - tada - grant invisibility.

Oh my god was I broken in retrospect. There's a reason I got really, really, really, really, really really really really reallyreallyreally good at pulling.

That build is not made for bravado. That build is made for using stealth to get just into snipe range and using BU+Snipe to destroy minions from Seattle. Also, torrent works best inside solo missions, not street hunting, where you are facing the optimum number for energy blasters to control - 3 to 4. BU+Snipe one, one down. Torrent everybody, everybody fall down. Power blast+bolt #2, probably two down. From the moment the first snipe lands and the foes have any idea you are there, about 6 seconds have elapsed. One on one, you can take the last minion with nothing but power thrust if you want. I'd consider slotting it for accuracy, though.

Also, I'd strongly consider picking up power burst and slotting it for another powerful minion killer, especially if you follow SnipeFu's advice and respec in superspeed. Stealth+SS means you can close to point blank range without being seen (by most foes), and then you have two immediate minion kills. Snipe kills one, torrent+burst kills two, blast+bolt (on top of torrent damage) does a heavy number on #3, you should be sitting better.

What did I take at 26 to help fix up my build? Explosive blast. Because, its like EXPLOSIVE, man. It must be good.

I deliberately avoided reading guides or numbers on the forums until I leveled past 30. You can tell.

If you are going up against the rularuu at some point, I would suggest one of three things: add range to snipe, take boost range, or take total focus. The rularuu are definitely not stand and fight foes, you either have to seriously outrange them, or disorient them, or both, especially against rularuu bosses. Without a way to kite them, or stun them, I don't know how a blaster takes on one of them. FoN might help, but there is no mez protection in FoN; you might find yourself stuck in a detention field until FoN expires.

In general, in fact, as you enter the 40s, lacking any sort of alpha strike mez might be a problem. Power push will help in this regard, but a lot of things recover way too quickly from knockback for this to be completely reliable on its own (and the rularuu in particular tend to fly).

Just a thought; you have a while to think about it before 41.

OmikronOmega:

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Well wouldn't you agree that if you need to use PP on a regular basis you're doing something wrong?

I mean how many times do you actually NEED to knockback a foe? Only when they get to close. If you are pulling them close to you ALL the time then you should be working on a new strategy.

I'm just trying to understand PP better. Don't take my post as an argument


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SnipeFu:

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Well just the other day, I decided to take on 2 lvl 50 Circle of Thorns bosses. Now we all know how nasty one can be let alone two, especially for a blaster. I kept one on his a$$ by chaining PPs back to back while I arrested the other one using a combination of other things.


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Total focus and the chain knockback you get from regular energy attacks is usually good enough to take out the two death mage combination, although its dangerous and power push helps greatly. Death mage pairs are actually the *easy* boss pair in PI. They are susceptible to knockback, and they give energy lots of chances to set up chain knockback by standing there and bringing up their toggles.

Where total focus + aggresive blasting falls apart is the fake/warhulk pair. This pair is nasty because one has the long range mega-snipe (fake) which you have to take out right away, and one is resistant to disorient and has a really hard melee swipe (warhulk). Expending TF on the fake leaves you not a lot of options for the warhulk except continuous chain knockback fire. Meanwhile the fake is going to periodically need to be disoriented back into next tuesday, which makes this exercise very challenging.

Power push does improve the odds quite a bit. It has 100% knockback, so you aren't as reliant on continuous energy blasting for chain KB, its ranged (unlike PT) so you dont have to get into swipe range, and it continuously pushes the warhulk farther away, preventing him from closing the distance on you and swatting you like a bug. Meanwhile you have a couple seconds breathing room to thwack the fake with total focus again.

I've never had it pre-50, but I can see now how power push would have made it much easier to go after single bosses in the old days as well. Until you have total focus at 38, the only other mez-like effect that en/en has that is reliable besides power push is power thrust, and it does require getting up close and personal more than some blasters would like. To think how much easier freakshow bosses would have been with power push - ah well.

BTW, if death mages is the "easy" pair, and warhulk/fake is the "medium" pair (two warhulks is also medium - harder to take on up close, but susceptible to long range snipe), what's the "hard" pair? Carnie bosses. If any blaster has a mechanism for taking on pairs of carnie bosses at even con or better, I'd love to hear it. Heck, taking on just one master illusionist requires a ton of insps and a lot of luck, and the other carnie boss is only slightly less impossible to solo.

At some point, Omikron, all blasters have had to (at least attempt to) figure out how to take out mezzing bosses and LTs, and ultimately, normal KB will only take you so far. We either need 100% knockback (PT, push), or better mez (total focus) to keep us in the game. At 21 or 35, you might not have seen the nastiest of the nasty yet: the Rikti Magus, pairs of Mentalists, Malta sappers and Gunslingers, Fake Nemesis and Warhulk bosses, and of course the creme de la creme of nasties, the Carnival of Shadow bosses. Mez or die, and most blaster mezzes are up-close-and-personal powers. At lower levels, power push is used effectively to split up a group that a blaster doesn't think they can take on - push the LT or boss away, and deal with whats left, keeping the boss or LTs out of range (or at least out of melee range - vis-a-vis the freak tank that decides to charge after you).

One more thing about knockback - sometimes we are using it for the "back" part of knockback. But often times we are using it for the "knock" part - meaning its damage mitigation; power push is effectively 2-4 seconds of immunity from attack on most things; they can't attack you if they are on the ground. Hit a DE thorn with power push, and you can practically clear the entire rest of the room before he gets back up - 100% damage mitigation, and I wouldn't really care where he actually lands. Other attacks have KB, but PP is certain so long as it actually connects - you can essentially already be shifting targets after you click it.