Erratic

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Actually, not only are Defender secondaries at 66% of Blaster's "base" damage, but we also generally get weaker attacks in *identical* builds.

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Brawl Indices between the two ATs are consistent.

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I think what it boils down to is that a controller can do everything a defender can do when it comes to buffing/debuffing/healing (except for the dark set) so why take a defender when with a controller you get the defenders power and the controlling power.[/QUOTE]

Ostensibly because you also get the Defender secondary powers.

Of course a lot of people consider those relatively weak and not worth having. . . .


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Making the primary set of defenders the controllers secondary did not help defenders at all.

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No, the secondary is not as powerful as the primary but 75% is still darn good.

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And a better deal than Defenders got in relation to Blasters.

Call that a double whammy.

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i've done it many times with my fire tank.

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True. . .forgot about Fire Tankers and Spines Scrappers. I should have more accurately said the vast majority of characters and builds can't and don't do such.

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And that's why I love blasters It's not boring at all when you're playing it. You can't start to fight, set the auto-attack and go to get a coffee...

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You can't do that on any character in the game.

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The overpowered nature of Blasters during issues 1 and 2 had been addressed by two things: The fixing of Smoke Grenade and the Purple Patch.

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No, because that would assume that every Blaster had Smoke Grenade (they did not) and the Purple Patch hit everyone. Indeed, after the Purple Patch the game saw a massive upturn in selecting people strictly for "the most", and was the period in which Defenders complained bitterly about being excluded because Controllers did Defenderish things too well while Defenders didn't hit hard enough. Blasters, Controllers, and Tankers were preferred, nobody else need apply.

The downfall of Blasters came when they upped the amount of ranged attacks on mobs that previously had few or none (Lead Scorchers for example didn't alwasy patrol the streets of Steel Canyon) and upped the amount of status effects in the higher game--a present in Issue 2.

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maybe it isnt one of those exclusive things.....

as for the new power sets.... a red name has neither confirmed or denied that list.

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That sounded like a confirmation to me...closer than anything we usually get from Statesman, at least....

I'll be disappointed if we can't make a Bow blaster (and I'm a little iffy on whether there are enough "Trick Arrow" ideas to make a full Defender primary without becoming hokey), but if it means Sonics go to Blasters...

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Psychic Blast is a Defender secondary that has no paired theme primary and isn't available to Blasters. Sonics could be the same way.

Other than the Quantum/Void bit, I have to admit that when I got into playing my Warshade the though came to me that they were Blasters done right. The secondary powers aren't a hodgepodge.

But I imagine it would be difficult to do wholesale changes to the secondary sets at this point. Still, they could load up secondary effects for a bit of gain (like is being done with some Defender powers in I4).

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Oh, I'm not saying things like only wanting Empaths around, or expecting Defenders to do nothing but heal isn't foolish. But ultimately, the issue was never about being asked if they could heal or not, it was about being asked to heal at all.

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Yeah. . .sure.

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I imagine the scrappers who cant are either dark or invuln, and relying on their decreased resistance caps? or is 75% enough to take on reds and make sandwiches? I don't know, maybe not. But then dark gets cloak of fear for added defense, and invuln gets invincibility for added defense... so.... I don't know if its true that not all scrappers can do this.

let us not forget: everyone loves sandwiches.

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On my Dark/Inv Scrapper I most assuredly can not walk away and make a sandwhich and expect to come back to anything other than a defeated character. Not saying that I don't expect to win normally but that will require interaction on my part.

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No you haven't. You may have seen, "Team looking for a healer", but that translates to "Controller/Defender who is Empathy primary".

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I saw a broadcast that asked for a defender. It wasn't until after I joined that they asked if I was a healer. I mean get it straight people are so much more open these days to who they invite. They just throw back what they don't want.

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*LOL*

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After all: Defender attacks are (iirc) 75% damage compared to the equivalent Blaster attack. This means that a Defender who can slot up to the cap will still be 75% of a Blaster who does the same. An equal % cap across the board should do the trick.

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66%, and some have ways to bypass the cap.

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I have seen many a broadcast asking for "Team needs a defender!" "Team looking for a tank!" "Task Force looking for a scrapper!"

I have NEVER seen a broadcast "Team needing a blaster!!!"

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That's because Blasters are easy to find at lower level and not that critical to have at higher levels (though they are pretty sweet).

However Tankers. . .apparently are still hard enough to find that I can log mine in and get an invite in very short order.

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I have seen many a broadcast asking for "Team needs a defender!"

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No you haven't. You may have seen, "Team looking for a healer", but that translates to "Controller/Defender who is Empathy primary".

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It is probably part of intentional design that range superiority is not always going to be there.


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While I could see some villians having more range than me, but when minions of equal level are throwing rocks farther than I can fire my sniper rifle.. there is a problem. Not to mention the fact that even if it WAS designed that way.. then blasters need to have extra defense to ranged attacks. Being two-shotted by something that you can't reach is a problem.

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Very few things of remotely appropriate level can two shot you, let alone do so with a ranged attack. And rocks certainly aren't exactly a major threat.

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And the Defender is going to continue to have that even if his snipe's range is dropped to 50. So again, the Defender's range is not an issue. Get over it.

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And the Defenders is also going to continue to have ways of dealing with shorter range than villians. Blasters do not.
You, get over yourself.

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You're the one here failing to make a coherent point. You whine that a Defender has more range. I note that the Defender is still outranged by mobs just like the Blaster. You then hold up that the Defender has other tools to help with that, ignoring that your intial complaint was the Defender's range which has just been shown NOT to be an advantage in the situation at hand--when the Blaster is being outranged.

You're being argumentative for the sake of it and making no sense.

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I have brought that up several times in posts. It is on the top of my lists. And I have seen it on the top of many lists concerning blaster changes that are needed.


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It is probably part of intentional design that range superiority is not always going to be there.

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No doubt 25 more range isn't going to be sufficient, we need more than that. But it is salt in the wound. Even though a Defender can be outranged as we are by villians.. they have ways of dealing with that issue that we don't.

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And the Defender is going to continue to have that even if his snipe's range is dropped to 50. So again, the Defender's range is not an issue. Get over it.

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Here's how you can tell blasters are generally useless. Try to think of a single team, a single situation, a single time in game where a team trying to decided between two potential teammates would say "No, lets not take the scrapper, let's take the blaster!"

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Whenever I'm playing my Tanker and have aggro locked down.

25 more range isn't going to keep those villians from outranging you and it is hard to see how can it be salt in the wound when the Defender is just as prone to being outranged by those mobs.

If the issue is being outranged by villians, then bring that up instead of complaining some other AT has a powerset somewhere with greater range.

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I wonder what level your blaster is at the time of the writing and what power pool sets he has. A base blaster without taking power pool sets that make him a "Blapper" would be hard pressed to take a "group" of red cons to him or her at 30+... I

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I suspect this was intended to be a reply to Omegaof9 and not me.

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You say the base line is 3 white mobs. I have yet to see a blaster at 30+ take 3 white mobs and not be wondering if they are going to fall and get debt (hence the nickname debt magnets).


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i wonder what kind of blaster you've been seeing.. i can take down a pack of red mins np(that's not using my nuke either)...

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Well then I guess according to Abysmal you're overpowered.

*Yawn* More argument by assertion.

You claim a lot of things are overpowered but never define what overpowered is or how the things detailed meet the qualification.

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Basically Overpowered takes the fun away from the game.

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Hint: Fun is subjective.

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Only two of the snipes open to Defenders have longer range, and one of those is in a set that is not heavily played due to substandard activation times.

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What is your point Erratic? Are you saying that the sets don't have a longer snipe range in them? Or are you saying don't generalize and say that only two sets in the defender line have snipes longer than blasters?

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My point Concern is that of all the things that are woes for Blasters, whining about not having 25 more range on a Snipe is not really a good thing to focus on, especially when the claim made--that Defenders have longer range on their snipes as if every Defender does--isn't true.

Would 25 more range on snipes (which not all Blasters get) suddenly make Blaster's woes go away? No? Didn't think so.

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Well if a Blaster's role is ranged attacks, why can defenders snipe from a longer range then Blasters? Why do Blasters do less damage then Scrappers? Why do Blasters have less defense then support folks like Controllers or Defenders?

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Only two of the snipes open to Defenders have longer range, and one of those is in a set that is not heavily played due to substandard activation times.

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If you have great defensive capacity you don't need to take out your foes with the same urgency that you do if you have lousy defensive capacity. The range at which your foes are is irrelevant.

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And this is what is seen when a Scrapper leaps into a group of +4 mobs and beats them down.

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And your point is....?

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Merely confirming agreement.

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If you have great defensive capacity you don't need to take out your foes with the same urgency that you do if you have lousy defensive capacity. The range at which your foes are is irrelevant.

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And this is what is seen when a Scrapper leaps into a group of +4 mobs and beats them down.

While Blasters could visit the realm of near-500% damage through self-buffs, I agree that they should have the same damage cap as Scrappers.

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Alot of blasters don't mind being defenseless and working around it. In fact many of us pride ourselves on being able to do it. However we do mind when another AT comes along and makes us look like the kids off the short bus because they can do our job better than we can.

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And what I'm saying is that such a focus is an outgrowth of a more fundamental issue. If Blasters didnt' have to worry about being defenseless nobody would question who was dealing the most damage. But having to be reserved in attacks for fear of drawing a cross expression from a mob that kills you on the spot is a limit.

When fighting easy enough to dispatch targets the simple fact that a Scrapper has to move from target to target while a Blaster need only cycle to next target allows for a certain rapidity of attacks that a Scrapper can't match. But nobody teams to kill such targets. And what you do team to kill and how Blasters fare is the issue that constrains damage dealing.

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So we would just like it to be completely obvious that when you want damage on a team you turn to a blaster and not a scrapper.

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I think it is an example of mass self-delusion to think otherwise. I love playing my Scrapper, I love wading into the thick of things with him. I love what he can withstand. And I know full well that when I want damage I want a Blaster along.