Front_Loaded

//Scrappers deal massive damage in melee, and some sets can at range.

//Blasters deal fairly good damage at range, and massive damage in melee.

Uh, in my experience blaster ranged damage always exceeds scrapper ranged damage. You seem to think otherwise. I don't see how you can think this. I suppose you could intentionally make as gimped a blaster as possible and never take any ranged or AOE.

In melee, in my experience, blaster damage exceeds scrapper damage handily (by a bigger margin than I actually thought, as others have pointed out).

//The secondaries *don't count*.

Okay, then scrapper secondaries *don't count* either - which is pretty stupid but if that's how you want it, there it is. Scrappers are gimped damage dealers with irrelevent secondaries. I'd ask what you thought you were getting at by saying such a thing, but I don't particularly care.

If you truly believe Cryptic is going to junk half the powers in all Blaster primary and secondary sets and replace them with entirely different ones, just to please you, you're on the wrong planet. Software companies don't work that way. It's way too late in the development cycle of the product for that. And I guess that people who are happy with their sets should just be shafted to please you.

//...because they [blasters] lack the survivability to live in melee without some pretty choice pool spending.

This differs from my experience all the way through the game, with the sole exception of some AVs. I have no pool powers for defense except Acrobatics and I have no huge complaints about a lack of defenses vs. any mobs from 1 to 50+. I melee, mobs die, I generally do not. I have seen scrappers and tanks die more than I do while teamed with them. I would agree that a blaster meleeing is less forgiving of stupidity than perhaps tank or scrapper is.

//I'm sorry but I'm not buying the whole 'use the melee attacks or stick to scrappers' thing *at all*. Just because Scrapper is my main doesn't mean I don't have alot of experience blasting, it just means my blasters haven't attained the same level. Thats it.

I'd say you have extensively proven to yourself that you do not like playing blasters. If you've discovered this many things about the AT that you hate and want junked/replaced, seriously move on to another AT, there's only 11 more.

Bye now.

I am sure you're correct about bonesmasher's BI if you've checked it yourself (I have not).

Hmm I thought it was pretty well accepted that scrapper base damage is 125% of blaster base? If that's not correct and it's lower then I am even more skeptical about scrapper damage brags.

//I'm not sure where you got you numbers for the various attacks. Here are the numbers from the brawl index (formatted to match your tables above):

The scrapper numbers I posted were multiplied by 1.25 (125% blaster base dmg). The Energy/Energy numbers you provide aren't terribly different from mine (which all came from the sherksilver hero planyer, as far as I've tested has been accurate for blaster attack dmg). The reason the scrapper numbers appear high is because I wanted to put them on the same scale as blaster numbers.

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But still...; Explain this one to me everyone...

How come my scrapper; who is imho rather decently balanced, can do an Extreme damage attack with an improved chance of critting, a minor AoE to it, -Def... etc... in melee (where I live);

But a Blaster can *only* do Extreme damage with *no* chance to crit *AND* a chance to be interrupted with a long wait time to fire; with their snipe. Which generally has no secondary effect but maybe knockdown.

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The words don't mean especially much, they aren't scaled the same way between sets. "Extreme" damage for Dominator for example (Total Focus e.g.) at 65% base blaster damage is left in the dust by most of the upper-BI blaster moves.

You are mistaken about high damage just on the snipe. Many moves in blaster secondaries do very high damage. No it isn't ranged damage, but it's very high damage none the less. In /Electric there is a lot of 100% AOE knockback, some %chance of sleep and disorient and a 100% hold at the end. /Energy has a lot of %chance disorient and single target 100% knockback and a 100% disorient at the end with high mag. /Ice has -recharge and -speed. Not too bad imo, and the scrapper is almost completely limited to smashing/lethal damage except for Dark Melee.

Particularly for /electric and /energy, blasters are pretty well ahead of scrappers in my experience, and it's easy enough to see if you just take the scrapper attack BIs and multiply them by 1.25 (125% base blaster dmg). If you blap, you have access to many attacks that compare very favorably to scrapper attacks, and you retain ranged and AOE damage too. You just don't have any real defenses, which to me is acceptable.

Since you're a katana scrapper, here's a comparison:
Sting... 4.025L
Gamblers... 2.91L ST
Flashing... 3.45L Melee cone (5 targs)
Divine... 2.91L ST
Lotus... 4.51L PBAOE (10 targs)
Soaring... 6.25L ST
Golden... 7.91L ST

And that's all lethal damage, every bit. And that's if you took every attack, which you might not have chosen to do; your alternatives would be to take attacks from pools, which generally suck except for Air Superiority. By comparison here's an Energy/Energy blaster (not my favorite and imo not optimal for damage, but very popular):

Bolt... 2.22E + .55S ST (2.77 total)
Blast... 2.77E + 1.77S ST (4.55 total)
Torrent... 1.83E + .83S Rng Cone (10 targs) (2.66 total)
Burst... 3.11E + 2.11S ST (5.22 total) - note this is at level SIX
Snipe... 5.55E + 2.11S ST (7.66 total) - note this is at level EIGHT
Explosive... 1.11E + 1.38S (2.5 total) Rng AOE (16 targs)
Nova... Some very random amount that is around 12.05, PBAOE, once every 6 minutes or less depending on slotting (yuck)

And we haven't touched the secondary yet, where the real damage is:
Thrust... 1.11E + 1.11S ST (2.22 total, 100% knockback)
Punch... 1.94S + .833E ST (2.77 total, %stun)
Bonesmasher... 2.77E + 1.77S ST (4.55 total, higher %stun)
Stun... 100% stun (you don't take this for dmg)
Total Focus... 2.77S + 7.11E ST (9.88!! total and 100% stun)


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If they even just made the snipes into normal attacks... *that* would help alot of things.

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they already are (see secondary attacks)...

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My AR/Energy; Dead at 19; I can't stomach going further. My Elec/Elec...... don't ask. My Elec/Eng Blapper... dead; can't stomach an Ice/Eng; Fire/Energy is fun for now but I expect to quit her soon somehow; it just can't last. Impossible.

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Sounds to me like you simply do not like blasters. If you think Cryptic is going to rework - let's count - six sets that you mention above (and I expect many more that you didn't try because you weren't attracted to them in the first place) - that's pretty unrealistic, maybe you're better off sticking with scrappers.

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Pil, Concern... do you think sometimes ignorance is bliss?

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What does ignorance mean?

OTOH, don't tell me, I might be happier not knowing.

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Which is the worse problem, ignorance or apathy?

Who knows? Who cares?

Yay our sticky's back.