Comicsluvr

However this is the quality of the player, not the AT. The same thing could be said for almost any AT with AoE attacks or hefty debuffs/attacks on long recharges. It's not just about laying down damage (which Blasters do) but seeing where and when to do it. I've seen Blasters turn the tide and I've seen Blasters turned to Jell-o. Neither one was as much about the power of the character as the smarts of the player. Any Corr or debuff Defender could have done the same.

Fun is VERY subjective so I'll have to work from my own viewpoint (note that these are not in any particular order):

1) Earth/Thermal Controller. A very useful Primary solo or on teams. A Secondary with an early self-heal and great team buffs.

2) Cold/Ice Defender. Again, useful solo or on teams. Solo has the blasts from the Secondary, solo AND teams benefit from the Primary. Easy to theme the character.

3) Either MA or Street Justice and WP Scrapper. The ultimate in self-propelled. Status protection early. After QR never worry about End again. Also easy to theme.

4) Invul/SS Tanker. The ultimate survivor for the new player. Just stick to the Primary, Secondary and Movement sets until you get to Unstoppable (which is crap IMHO). CJ to Super Jump if he prefers or Air Sup to Fly. Slot attacks for Acc, End Redux, Recharge and damage in that order. Easy to theme, tough to screw up, always popular on teams especially with Taunt.

5) If he prefers Redside take a Brute, set him up as the Tanker above.

6) Fire/Thermal Corruptor for all the juicy Primary attacks and Secondary buffs.

7) Plant/Thorn Dom. This is only if you think the Dominate mechanic won't bother him. Mine felt strong out of the gate. Great graphics. Fun solo or teamed.

Tell him welcome and good luck.

I wish we could run simulations with the code. As a researcher I would be all over this project. Have the Devs code up Mag 3 Mez protection of some kind for Blasters, put it on a special test server and run it with 1000 beta testers for a month. Log the results. Then remove the Mez protection and try more damage. Test again.

Personally I don't think that Mez protection is enough but it would be a good start.

Yeah...and they had all those 'Beast-Control Powers' already in the game before they did Beast Mastery. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I got two words that makes a Clown Summoning/Control set worth while: The Joker. Feel that little tingle down your spine as you conjure up images of the most evil, sadistic clown of all?

Now think of the words Beast Summoning and try to NOT think of that almost comical movie Beast Master.

Clowns = creepy

Animals = not superhero-y enough for me.

The problem is that many players wouldn't notice the difference if the Blaster had to bail and were replaced by virtually ANY OTHER AT. Wait...they might notice

1) New guy is a Tank. Good, don't have to babysit him
2) Good, new guy is a Scrapper. Does damage and I don't have to babysit him
3) New guy is a Brute. Good, read Scrapper above.
4) Good, new guy is a Controller. We get some buffs and controls. Not quite as much damage but MUCH safer now.

and so on and so on...

The ONLY time I've noticed the absence of a Blaster was on a lowbie dream team I was PUG'd into one night. My Tanker, 4 Controllers, a Defender and 2 Blasters, all pre-17 before Stamina was inherent and Inventions was just getting started. It was a typical situation...I ran in and herded, the Controllers locked down the room, the Defender kept me alive and buffed the Blasters and they dropped Rain of Fire on everything. Spawn melts like butter...move on. The blasters had to go and we kept going...at a much slower pace.

Now, nobody seems to spend more than a day or two below SO levels. By the 30s players are beginning to get into Inventions. Teams in the 40s, led by a 50, can steamroll the ITF in less than an hour. I have a buddy with a Brute that stays at the damage cap pretty much all the time except for Rage crash. He can do this with defenses and Mez protection.

If Blasters are supposed to be kings of damage then they NEED a change to regain that title. Either that or they need something else...a NEW title to hold.

There's the problem...you THINK it is unlikely. You have NO way to be sure. Neither do I. However a good way to judge the player base is to read Forum threads. No, they don't represent every player (only about 10% I read once), but if the majority of Forumites post one thing or another then it at least bears looking into. Examples:

Blaster players said they were under-performing. Datamining showed they were right and the Devs installed Defiance 2.0

Defender players said they sucked solo. More datamining showed they were right and Vigilance 2.0 was installed.

Tanker players said they were under-performing and Bruising was invented.

Stalkers just got a huge rewrite and many Stalker players now love them.

The sum total of all the posts asking why Blasters under-perform, asking how to fix it, ranting about Mez-death and so forth could crush my house. These are (for the most part) not 'My Blaster is lagging a bit behind my Corrupter...what am I doing wrong?' sort of posts. They're more like rage and bile spewed by players tired of keeping the faith while the Devs gather data.

The AT is not broken but it sure is bent all to hell. The sets have little synergy, there are too few Secondaries and damage creep has seen Blasters eclipsed in overall performance by just about every other AT. It needs to be fixed...period.

I like this idea. In fact, to make Snipe a valid part of an actual attack chain, make it so the interrupt doesn't start until after the first second or two. That way if the player double-clicks on Snipe it fires just like any other power. I can see this as the 'OMG I'm slowed nothing is recharged! Wait...my Snipe!' sort of thing.

However I truly believe that Snipe should be the over-the-top damage power that lives up to the sniper's reputation. When I think of sniping in the movies I think of several things:

1) The shooter is hidden because it takes a LONG time to get things just right to shoot. Ok...that's covered with the long animation time and interrupt.

2) The shooter is a LONG way away because after he shoots (typically once) he has to boogie out of there or be mobbed by bad guys. This is covered by the 150' base range most Snipes currently have.

3) One shot, one kill. This is the Sniper mantra. This is true because you only GET one shot so it HAS to count. This is what Snipes are missing. I see nothing wrong with a Blaster being able to Snipe a Lt with one shot off of a 3-Damage slotted Snipe shot. Other ATs, well let's just say I'm old school and feel that every AT should have something unique to it and leave it at that.

If you take the average DPS of a slotted-out Blaster attack chain and make the Snipe do just a hair less than that on average based on recharge time, End cost, animation time, interrupt and all of that, there is NO way it would unbalance the game as far as leveling speed. Sure, you can sit and Snipe Lts all day for free and easy xp...but you'll actually be going slower than you would if you just attacked with your other powers.

I think several of the mechanics listed here should be factored into the typical Snipe power for Blasters.

1) Build-up timer. I really like this mechanic. Makes Build Up and Aim useless for Snipe but then they won't be needed either.

2) Non-tracking for several seconds. Enemies around the target don't notice he's down for 2-3 seconds because everything happens so quickly.

3) Secondary effects. In order to make the various Snipe powers different based on their source powerset, give each one a secondary effect. Fire would have more damage (as a DoT incendiary ammunition), Dark would have a splash - to hit and so on.

4) Mag 2 Fear effect similar to what Stalkers get. Make this a 10' radius splash, just enough to not frighten other Lts and Bosses but scares the Minions because OMG their Lt just BLEW UP!

Add all of this together and you get what most Nukes are; Highly situational powers that a player can pick or not based on their play style. Something only worth taking if you're going to slot it up and use it.

1) Unless and until you get access to Dev datamining you cannot say this with ANY certainty. None of us have any way of telling whether solo or team play is more common. We can only do what we know based on our own play style. From what we've seen on this thread (and others) I think it' safe to say that solo play is at least as common as team play if not more. If team play were the standard then I think we'd be seeing more 'My Blaster doesn't contribute to the team' threads.

2) I cannot think of a circumstance (barring some funky mechanic based on number of people on a team) where boosting solo performance wouldn't ALSO boost team performance. With regards to a Blaster a team is essentially a bunch of soloers running together because they get no exclusive buffs (by that I mean buffs that ONLY work on other teammates). The effectiveness of support ATs goes down solo because they now have part of their powerset they can't use. Blasters never suffer from this.

Therefore if Blaster solo performance were improved it would AUTOMATICALLY improve their team performance as well. Two birds, one stone.

Ok...let me try to explain a few basics:

1) You always to try to balance the AT/powersets around the most common event in the game. This is why the baseline metric is 3 white-con Minions or 1 Minion and a Lt. Those are the two most common spawns at +0/X1. Trying to balance ANYTHING around PvP (possibly the LEAST likely event in the game because it's totally optional) would be nuts, no matter how difficult it is.

2) You can't balance anything around team play even if the team is a duo. It's tough enough to balance an AT internally with all the different permutations of Powers available. You add even 1 other toon to the mix and you've got an impossible mix of possibilities. What if it's a Tanker? Or a Defender? Or another Blaster? The sheer volume of permutations would drive you mad.

3) As was explained before, any idiot can help on a team. You can set a Blaster to Follow the Tanker, hit his AoE on auto and leave the room and the Blaster is contributing. The bigger the team, the more obvious this becomes. Ever been on a team with a single 50 Incarnate and a bunch of pre-35s? The Incarnate generally runs the table while everyone else throws a blast or two and runs their toggles. A character HAS to be able to be effective solo or else the game is punishing soloers.

I rolled a Time/Dark Defender earlier tonight and ran him through content to level 10.something. On a Blaster I would never have felt so safe. I took on Orange Bosses with an empty Insp tray and no Enhancers of any kind without fear. That's because the Defender has more tool in the box for dealing with 'Oh crap I missed with everything!' moments. Blaster only have more damage.