Comicsluvr

I am a comics genre fiend. I like the archetypes that I've found there and believe that, like characters in CoH, it's how you develop the character that makes it unique. How many different kinds of Fire/Fire Blasters can you make? As many as you have imagination for.

Several years ago I was disappointed that there was no ranged AT that had enough defenses to take some damage (think Iron Man). I tried to create one, thinking that it should be a Epic AT so that it wouldn't become so common as to dominate the landscape. The idea was shot down as 'Tank-magery' but then a year later VEATs came along. Obviously the AT is competitive but not overwhelming despite its strengths.

I was wrong in my thinking that an Epic AT was simply supposed to be powerful. I was informed that they also followed a fairly narrow theme (Khelds for instance). My idea was too broad and therefore did not qualify as an Epic AT.

Now with all of the recent concern for Blasters I've begun thinking of my idea again. Is there a way to build a character that is balanced, puts out damage at range but isn't invulnerable? VEATs do this very well but why not have an AT with a broader scope? Why can't we have characters with ranged attacks, some melee, some lightweight mez resistance and enough defenses that they don't get flattened with 2 hits?

Many will leap in with 'Well Inventions let's us do that NOW. How would the same inventions affect this new AT?' This is a valid point. However I think the idea has merit. Would an AT with roughly the same damage output as a VEAT yet less resistance be overpowered?

Would it be worth the effort to design such a thing or should we just tweak Blasters and call it done?

I look forward to seeing an original ED thread to be ressurected any day now lol!

I have friends who will not team with Dark Controllers because they were on an iTrial with 6 of them recently and the howling drove them mad.

Yeah...this needs to be a feature, not a workaround...

I think a lot depends on your play style.

Thermal adds Resist to the pets so they live longer (always a good thing). Thaw will keep them from being mezzed to death (I use that before dashing into the big boss fights if I can). Forge will make the Ember even more of a killing machine and Melt Armor will soften up the hard targets. You also get a ST and an AoE heal.

Sonic also gives you Resists but without the heal. It has Liquify (great for keeping mobs off their feet) and Clarity for fighting off Mez.

Time is a great set for Melee-centric pets because of the PBAoE heal and the aura.

A lot depends on your style as I said. Good luck in any case.

Watch your pet's icons. From what I read the other day when I created one each stack is a 2% damage buff. 10 stack limit = 20% damage buff limit. The MM's own attacks have a chance (lesser or greater) of adding a stack. I only got my MM to lvl 8 so I'm still undecided on the set overall. However Ravens looks like a good power just from the size of the cone, the recharge and the FX

Thanks Edenfire. I dropped them a line to let them know I'd like to participate.

I'm all over this! My global is @Model Nine. Hook me up. I'm a writer by trade so anything along the lines of plot or backstory I can help with.

As my handle indicates I'm a comic book lover from way back...when they were good lol. I've been playing CoH for many years and one of the things I miss is the set team playing 1-2 nights a week. Something else I miss is being able to read the content. So many people speed through everything in their race to 50 or whatever.

In an effort to kill both birds with a single stone I'd like to have a set team that plays 1-2 nights a week with the same players and characters. The trick is that we start out as lvl 2 right out of the tutorial and actually PLAY the game as opposed to speeding through everything. We can establish a SG or coalition with an existing one for storage and so forth. Also, since some of the best comics had a stable of characters each player should have 2 toons of different ATs. We can look at it as a chance for people to experiment with stuff they haven't tried.

I'm also looking for a good theme for the group. It can be tight (all Mutants, all guns, all Dark or whatever) or loose (think the Avengers and the Defenders) as the majority chooses. I'm planning on doing this Blue side because of the amount of content. I'm only free Friday and Saturday nights at the moment and I'd like to shoot for one or both nights.

I've posted a list of possible roles to fill below. Note that this is a very loose list and just to be a guideline. I don't mind if we wind up with 1 more or less in some categories but I'm trying to avoid 1 Tank and 7 Blasters if possible.

1) Tank/Brute/Scrapper
2) Tank/Brute/Scrapper
3) Blaster/Corrupter
4) Blaster/Corrupter
5) Controller/Dominator
6) Controller/Dominator
7) Defender/Mastermind
8) Defender/Mastermind

I want to thank everyone for the rapid replies. After thinking on it I realized several things:

1) Many of the people I started the game with, RL friends I knew before CoH, are gone now. I know many people on-line but the connection is not as tangible as with the real people I know that used to play.

2) I don't lead much. I play, solo and team, but I don't lead much for some reason. I'm not sure why...I have no particular aversion to it. Perhaps I need to LEAD some TFs and teams to be able to slow the pace down a tad and smell the roses as it were.

3) Sometimes you can't go back. No, I didn't enjoy running out of End either. I also remember how difficult some foes were the first time I ran into them. With experience comes familiarity and I now know who to take out in the mob first. This can't be un-learned and is something I can only counter with new foes or old foes at higher levels.

4) We have scores of new powersets available so I think I'll take some new toons through the same old content with fresh eyes and see how that feels.

Thanks for all the tips and advice.

This past weekend I was on an ITF with some friends and my Incarnate, IO-slotted Fire Blaster was raising heck like he always does. One of my teammates said "Hey remember when we thought this was hard?" We all Lol'd and played on.

What he said got me to thinking. I remember when only a non-squishy or a truly gifted veteran player could turn the Diff above the basic level. I remember when teams went into the STF and the LRSF knowing that their success rate was no where near 100%. I remember the feeling when you got on one of those really great PUGs or spec-built teams that just CLICKED and everything was mad fun for hours.

I remember the content too. I remember how bad I felt for Wretch and Ghost Widow doing their story arc Redside. I remember when I discovered that the Luddites were right and the orange pipes really WERE evil. I remember the rush of accomplishment when I was on my first MS Raid and the Rickti fell in droves.

Now players do Sewer runs until they're ghastly husks sitting at their computers. They run TFs solely for Merits and Badges and Accolades but never stop to read the content. At lvl 21 they grab a Performance Shifter Proc and watch their End issues melt away. At lvl 35 they slot up Kinetic Combats and suddenly they're nigh-invincible. Along the way they grab +Regen and +Rec Procs, farm with their friends and race towards Incarnate status where they form a different little club farming for Incarnate Salvage and IXPs.

So now for the big questions: Are we ever going to feel that rush of discovery again and where does the game go from here? I'm sure the Devs have people working on this...top people. I'm also sure they're just as worried as I am. They've set the bar so high that the older parts of the game seem drab and unused by comparison.

Should the Devs keep going as they are...pouring out new shiny? Should they devote some of their energy to the older content...spruce it up a bit? Posi is wildly popular after they revamped it after all. I see people running the ITF all the time just for fun...yet many of the older TFs are only run when someone needs the badge or they rotate into the WST slot.

I like this game. I'd like to see it keep flourishing and growing. But how do we (and by we I mean the players AND the Devs) keep it from becoming just a constant rush a new stuff? Where do we slow down and look at what we had before and bring it up to date?

Give me the ability to see my veteran-earned free costume tokens and I'll be a happy camper.

And as for the Cure Lost/Rescue Percy thing OFW? It's just like every other Accolade...if you want the perk you gotta run the content at least once per character. Honestly I do it as soon as I hit lvl 12ish because I've had pre-Cim toons where I forgot to do it and couldn't join an ITF.

I like the design but unless you're really in love with Boost Power and Boost Range I'd go with /Ice. It has BU, a Melee attack and Shiver (which you can use to slow the incoming enemies). I have an Ice/Ice Blaster and I love him

I recently picked up a pack of Superboosters and discovered several Enhancement Boosters in it. When I discovered that they only worked on common IOs I was a bit disappointed. I sure wasn't going to waste them on anything less than a level 50 IO and by the time my characters get that high I don't use that many.

Then I hit upon an idea for a Scrapper I've been completing. He's a BS/Shield with Build Up and on a lark I threw some of the Boosters on one of the Recharge IOs. Wow...the usual 42% boost jumped to 53%. Later on tonight I plan on doing a respec to pull one of the slots from BU and put it somewhere else. My next experiment will be aimed at the End Mod IOs in Stamina for an End-starved toon of mine.

So now I have a question for the Forum: How do YOU use the Enhancement Boosters you've gotten? Have you found the bonus significant enough to respec the character in any way?

Just curious as to what everyone is doing with the Boosters. Wondering if they wouldn't be put to better use somewhere else.

And therin lies the problem. We think we know what Blasters need. We have ideas as to how to give it to them. But they're just ideas right now. We can't come to any sort of consensus and I think part of the reason for that is the wildly different play styles. Personally I like fighting at range so my vote would be for Mez protection of some kind that worked at range. As the enemy drew closer this would diminish.

Great for me, horrible for blappers. We won't be able to find a single solution that works for everyone but if we can find one that covers MOST Blaster players and styles then we might have something.

You left out one very important point that I didn't see addressed: In this game there can be a clear and distinct benefit to teaming other than just getting into the mission. Yes, I remember the days of broadcasts for fillers because someone wanted to solo a TF. I still think we should be able to do that.

However if I want to take a Blaster into a really high-threat environment I can ask for help. Not just more Blasters (which can be loads of fun) but others as well. I might get a Controller (to lock the targets down), a Defender (that helps me hit harder and get hit less often), a Tanker (to abuse the enemy while I shoot them in the head) or any number of other alternatives. Teaming is not just 'well now we can hit four times as often' it adds a totally new dynamic.

Ever play the ITF with all Tanks? Ever do it with all Defenders? Still fun but two totally different kinds of fun. There isn't one way to do anything in this game. Even if the 'other game' had the best storyline and fighting and teaming mechanics is there any reason to play it more than once? Are there different character classes and different ways to accomplish the same goal? If not then the developers missed the all-important Replayability mark by a good margin.

I paly this game not JUST because of the community...not JUST because of the new shiny every few months...not JUST because of all the OOH AHH special effects. I play it because after I've done it once in the red car I wanna go back and do it again in the BLUE car 'cause the blue car isn't as fast but it does better wheelies!

Forgive me for trying to get back on topic but...

Do Blasters simply need a total overhaul? They underperform as an AT. Many of their nukes cause crashes so bad that players are reluctant to take them. They have fewer secondary choices than any AT in the game (except Doms with whom they are tied at 7). Many of their secondary powers seem to be counterintuitive to how the AT works within the game. Defiance 2.0 is better but hardly the best way to update them. Mez is still an over-heavy burden in many players' opinions. Yet the Players love them.

So...there it is. Does the AT need some sort of ground-up overhaul? Many in one of the other Blaster threads claim that VEATs got a lot of what players were suggesting for Blasters. Ok...well VEATs certainly are popular but it's not like everyone ran to them in exclusion of all else. This fact, more than anything, tells me that the Blaster AT could survive just fine with a little luv and attention. A little bit of Defense or Mez resistance (less than VEATs got) certainly wouldn't destroy the Blaster AT.

Ok so obviously we have a lot of Blaster threads out there. Many Blaster players want a change to the AT. However the big debate is HOW to change it and WHAT really needs fixing.

I'd like to gather some data for this. Not theory, not third-hand stories or YouTube video but real data. However a single observer makes for poor data collection so I'd like to ask the Forum for help.

Make a new Blaster. Don't rely on information or memory from your lvl 50 uber guy who hated Malta 5 years ago. The game is different now. We need NEW information. I'd also like to add a few caveats in the interest of good observation:

1) Run solo first. Yes, this will often suck but please do it. Go through the tutorial, start at level 2 and run the content. Make note of which enemies are tougher, which are pushovers and so on.

2) NO SEWER RUNS! This single TF has done more to skew player opinion than anything. Imagine a new guy just starting the game. He makes a Blaster, emerges from the tutorial and is invited to a DFB. Not knowing what he's getting into he agrees. Over the next 90 minutes he rockets up 10 levels in the most raucous fun he's had in a while. Then the team breaks up and he has to solo. Wow...bummer. This is HARD! So please, stick with the basic content.

3) Team about half the time. I'm not trying to collect data on the extreme ends of the spectrum. I don't care if you never level up and use only your T1 and T2 blasts all the way to 50. By far most players won't do this and most data collected along in this way will be useless. Most players will team at least some of the time. Teaming is an inherent part of the game. Some content (like TFs) ONLY work for teams. So don't solo all the time or your numbers might be biased versus the norm.

4) NO PLs, AE FARMS or any other kind of rapid-leveling schemes. See #2 if you need to know why.

5) No sugar-daddying with a wealthy toon to buy great IOs at lower levels. I'm not saying that you need to work just off of your Blaster's income (because some players will help others out with cash) but the number of new players who will have access to a Numina's Unique or a Performance Shifter proc will be small.

6) You don't have to start from scratch to be helpful. If you have a Blaster in the 20s (or 30s or wherever) who isn't full of pricey IOs then any information you could give would be helpful. This would make collecting data across all levels much faster.

I'm not expecting everyone to studiously write down every encounter. That's too much like work. However posting a few short notes as things develop will be helpful. Something like 'three Hellion Minions aren't so bad but two Lts are killer' is great.

I'm going to ask for the Blaster's Power Sets and level for each post. I'll make the first posting myself later on today. Thank you all in advance for your help.

Between what the Devs think we need to have (and they're often unsure themselves) and what players want (don't give the kids TOO much candy or they'll get sick and go home) lies the answer I think. The problem is that the answer, like philosophy, is different for everyone.

Some players like Blapping. Ok, more power to them. I tried it and it wasn't my cup of tea. Such players want more melee damage, splash effects with their melee attacks or something. Some Blaster players like range and want some sort of rangerd buff or mechanic. Unfortunately this leaves the other players out of the loop.

Being a fan of easy fixes I'm in favor of starting with more damage. Go back to the '3 minions vs one character' model the game started with. Now I think we all admit that, at the early levels this is insanely easy. I can defeat 3 even-conned minions with Brawl and virtually any other single power in the game that will affect either them or me. The game was designed that way so as to not scare off new players who had yet to learn tactics, builds and so forth.

But the game has changed. More enemies at every level have mez now. More enemies can chain-mez you to death now. More enemies have the tiny micro-mezzes that drop your often important offensive toggles now. On the other hand we also have IOs, inventable self-buffs and Incarnate Powers. By now the traditional 'me vs 3 Minions' model has gone essentially out the window.

So now, in the game today, how does a Blaster REALLY perform solo? Some of them do all right while others not as well. Some of the power sets lend themselves to safer and thus easier soloing the same as other ATs. /Dark has an 80' Immob that does MORE overall damage than a T1 blast. /Mental has the same thing. Most of the other T1 Secondaries are 50' range or melee only. I see this as part of the problem. Some sets aren't just better than others, they're CLEARLY better than others.

I think all of the Blaster sets need to be standardized a bit. Give ALL of them a crashless nuke or, if you keep the crash, make the thing SO powerful that the player will want to use the thing. Give ALL of them some sort of self-rez (I love Phoenix and use it as part of my attack chain at times) or else give them some other power that makes dying either less painful or less likely.

All of the other ATs have a way to deal with Mez whether it be mezzing the mezzer or simply being highly resistant to it. If Blasters are going to rely on damage as their 'offensive defense' then they need more of it. If someone comes up with something else I'm all ears. However remember that the more complicated a mechanic is the tougher it is to balance and the easier it is to break.