Grey Pilgrim

Well, I do agree that a Tank has to be survivable and be able to tank for their team, but that "sufficient" defense line isn't so high that you can't devote a good amount of your build to offense. Tanks are heavy defense with decent offense: you shouldn't ignore either one.

People seem to be more okay with Tanks that don't do much with offense, but I really start to see them like healbots: they're ignoring part of what they can do. Survivabilty and aggro control are important, but so is offense (and really, offense is a part of those two).

Again, Tanks are designed as such. They have an offensive secondary, and much of what they can do is tied in with attacking (Bruising, aggro control, debuffing, etc.). And our damage has been buffed before when it has been seen as too low.

Be resilient, yes, but be able to punch effectively as well. It doesn't matter if other ATs have better offense: you don't need ignore what you can do because of that.

Some of that was directed at comments other than Ironblade's as well, FYI.

That's way too generalist to make sense, as that really depends on the powersets you have (depending on the set and your goals with it, you might want more or less of either the primary or secondary). You really shouldn't have to skimp on your offense to have good defense as a tank: you might have to cut back on some offense in your APP, but not your secondary (or you can grab from both, whatever floats your boat).

My Fire/Fire tanks quite well, and he grabbed as much as he could from everything (while still being able to slot well). My WP/DB has every attack from his secondary and is ridiculously resilient. Same thing for my Invuln/Mace. Considering you can get nice recharge, +HP, or +defense bonuses from IO attack sets, there really is no need to underslot attacks, either.

I'm not saying Tankers should ignore their primary, I'm saying you have a secondary as well: you're not somehow being less of a tank because you focused on your offense some. Even before I19, we had enough power picks and slots to do so. After, it's going to be even easier.

If you took your tank villainside, not really the case. And even heroside, they're showing up in tip missions, are in some Oro TFs, and the Statesman and Dr. K TFs. Not to say -perception is super common, but it is nice to have when you need it.

? Any tank should be able to attack just fine (as in take most of their attacks and slot them well, not to mention use them) as well as tanking for their team. When you're on a team, managing aggro is priority one, but attacking is and can be a part of that. Tanks have a secondary and a primary: use both.

Yup. Maybourne on SG-1 went from being one of my most detested characters to one of those that I loved seeing whenever he came back (his rapport with O'Neill was awesome). Heck, same goes for some of the big bads like Ba'al.

I only watched that opening mini-series for BSG and a few of the follow up episodes (we don't get cable and we haven't got around to watching them on Netflix), but while I thought it could lead towards being too moody, pretty much all of the characters were quite interesting... and most of them were flawed (but in a balanced way). It's a hard thing to do, I know, but shows seem to do better with being character driven when they say they aren't going to be.

Some of the best SG-1 episodes centered on how those characters weren't perfect and could make mistakes (heck, O'Neill didn't think he deserved to become Ascended), so I agree completely. Yes, those characters were usually on the heroic side, but they did have some balance.

You can have jerk characters or people that aren't perfect, but if you can't make them someone for the audience to connect to, that's bad.

That's what I was referring to. Swap Ammo is more about varying your types of damage and mitigation: not the ability to turn off KB because it would make teammates more happy. You want more mitigation from KB and -defense? Go with standard ammo. You want more damage? Go with Fire. Toxic and Ice have some things they can help with (-damage and -recharge), but I'm not sure they're strong enough on their own for a Blaster. But that is what Swap Ammo is for, and how it is designed.

Energy Blast isn't going to get something like Swap Ammo, as it doesn't need to vary its damage at all to do well, and it does one type of mitigation well. Removing KB from it loses one of the characteristics of the set, so having a toggle to do so would require other changes to the set to make it not be a nerf. You'd have to get into all other sorts of balance things that would have to justify the time spent by the devs on it, and Energy Blast really doesn't have the lower performance to make that time worthwhile.

I have run all-one-AT TFs before, so I can understand the appeal of that, or even an "all Illusion" TF or something. No issue for me there, as that's just a way to have fun/put a spin on content you have done before. My own comments were more for people discounting x AT or powerset for just running regular content. I wouldn't insult them, but I would say that's a questionable choice: one of the great things about CoX is that so many combos of powers and teammates can work. Going against that just makes the game less fun.

And heck, that goes the same for speed runs and farms. A lot of combos could work there as well. One of the fastest Manticore TFs I've ever been on had a few Blasters with KB in their powers, including my Energy/Energy.

"Horrible" and "terrible" are rather strong words to describe the situation. Even combos where redraw is going to happen, you can work to chain your attacks so you aren't needing to redraw very often (I have a DP/EM Blaster, Arch/Dev, Nin/Nin Stalker, Kat/SR Scrapper, etc.).

Yes, redraw will affect your DPS, and it's certainly annoying for my Scrapper and Stalker to need to fire off their mez protection midfight. They're not really suffering in performance, however... it's not to the extent I would call it "horrible."

What is your playstyle for you Blaster? You can hover out of range and keep your defense up (going for ranged defense helps, but purple inspirations can help as well), or you can go for the fast jumping route with CJ and Hurdle. I've defeated all the EBs in game with the different combinations, including my AR/EM. I did use EM a bit with the EBs, but not much. Their melee attacks hurt.

So AR can get it done... even with annoying ones like Silver Mantis or Marauder. Darn tier 9 godmode powers. Darn defense debuffs.

Why would Energy Blast get a swap ammo style power? You keep talking like the sole purpose of Dual Pistols having Swap Ammo is to remove the KB when they want, but... that's not the case. Each of the ammo types offers a different benefit that the Dual Pistols user can leverage. You can argue whether each one has a big enough benefit or not (personally, Standard and Fire are the only ones of use for my Blaster), but being able to turn off KB when they want just to make teammates happy isn't really the reason Swap Ammo works as it does.

Maybe that's not what you are driving at, but it seems like it from your posts on the subject.

Wanted to also reply to this in particular: "Also, while I personally don't avoid inviting Energy Blast characters, I don't think folks who don't want to are bad players or "selfish.""

Not inviting someone to your team based on anything like AT or powerset is a problem to me. It can make sense for some encounters (like "Master of" TF attempts) to ask for certain combinations, but anything else in the game doesn't call for such a distinction. All such behavior shows is an unwillingness to adapt, have fun, or to look down on someone else's fun.

Now, I'm not saying you can't avoid certain players if they have shown they won't play along well or don't use powers well (I do have a few 1-starred people that I avoid after bad encounters with them on teams), but making a decision based solely on a character's powerset or AT is not a good thing.

Probably would make sense. Not that it would help my guys still going for their Vanguard badges, since people always take on the motherships on nights I don't play. Heh. Would give it some incentive at least, without being another dreaded badge that DC *ahem* all of us would have to go for.

When they put Star Wars back in the theater in... what, 1997? and had the extra scene with Biggs talking to Rogue Leader (don't think they ever gave him a name, did they?), I never understood why that wasn't in the original cut. It made us feel a bit more for those two guys when they got blasted, and connected Biggs in with Luke's earlier situation. That scene really doesn't upset the pacing and adds a lot to the movie, I would say.

The scene Marcian linked to... well, I like it and wish they had added it in part, but I can kind of see why they cut it. At that point in the movie it does feel like a detour and distracts from the flow of the story. It also cuts back from the archetypal feel of the movies, too. I generally like the detail shown in that scene (as it does add realism to what is going on), but it really isn't needed for what the original trilogies are about.

I can definitely see why the space battle part is cut out... kind of feels disjointed and doesn't add much to the story at all. The scene with just Biggs and Luke is a little odd (I know they're talking about the rebellion and all, but it feels like they're standing too close and moving a little awkwardly), but it's not too bad.

Ah, makes sense. Think I read those without knowing enough about how the proc works.