You won't feel like your not doing enough damage when you get your nuke!
I find that taking Air Superiority and making it an auto power does a great deal for contributing to any squishies survivability. It is a must buy unless I have Nrg as a secondary.
Hasten is a must for getting a respectable chain of attacks off as well.
I soloed an Ice/Nrg Blaster to level 50 with little problem.
Pulls, Slows, Knockdown are all part of blaster stratagey. A blaster will review a mob, make a stratagey and slice them down in a specific order. A scrapper salaivates jumps in and mashes buttons till no one is left standing. I play both, both have their appeal. If you want a fun one to play, play claws on the scrapper side, they have both in close and ranged attacks making it a blastastic scrapper.