Grey Pilgrim

Well, Controllers do have a lot more headaches than Blasters to complete content, at least. Until 32 (and even after they get their pet for some of them), their damage can be rather anemic. Of course, they can control like crazy. My Earth/Storm can lock down two spawns, but it would take him longer than those large area powers take to recharge to kill all those guys. Whereas some Controllers can do more damage, I know. But Controllers are okay solo and great on teams, of course.

I would agree that Blasters have a specific design and they're fulfilling that role. Many ATs in this game can do damage, but they certainly don't play like Blasters. I think they're unique enough in that regard that they can stand some overlap. If anything I've always thought Tankers had a lot more to complain about from Scrappers and Brutes (and heck, all ATs), given how the def cap works, and all the debuffs out there.

I think we're going to keep overlap between ATs if CoX is going to stay working as well as it is. Sure, it might be a little easy, but I don't want this to turn into WoW, where people rabidly count each other's gear and DPS and kick them if they're not doing enough for the group (and people fight over drops). As it is, I can have a Blaster heavy team and steamroll, or Scrapper heavy. I don't care about that overlap, as we're having fun no matter what.

*added*

And yes, it's not always best to add more buff/debuff or control. At a certain point you have enough. Just like you can have enough damage or aggro control. If I have 7 Defenders, I'd rather bring in a Blaster at that point to buff them to crazy amounts and up the whole team's capabilities more, etc. Another Defender or Corr would be overkill. Heck, it'd be the same even after 3 Defenders. Numerically and in real world terms, eventually you have enough to get the job done, and anything else is gravy.

Ummm, developers don't balance ATs around each other? Okay... go read some of their posts, articles, and blogs and see if that's the case. You're going to get a very different picture. If you don't want to do that, look at the recent adjustment to Brutes. Castle did that to get them more in line with where they need to be between Scrappers and Tanks. He needs to work on Stalkers, he said, but didn't have time to do so before GR. So that throws this comment way out.

Can the developers and players have different viewpoints on things? Sure. But a big part of that is needing to know what your metric is, which I've hit on in other posts. Blasters were not doing well enough back before their buffs, which is why they got them. If they're somehow not doing well enough now, people have to make a solid case for it.

Pointing out a few cases where another AT does a lot of damage is not necessarily it, either. Other ATs have to do damage as well, and there will be overlap. And if the overlap is too large, that may merit adjustments needed to individual powers or powersets (like Shield Charge), not necessarily a whole adjustment to an entire AT. A Fire^3 Dom sounds like it can pump out the damage, but I don't know that this is on par with other Doms: they're noted for doing okay, but I doubt they're all at that level (my own seems to bear this out).

CoX let's a variety or ATs work in the same environment, and I think that's a good thing. You're going to have a lot of things be "acceptable" in there, and some things will be better than others unless you're willing to make everything the same, which is bad.

I still think some of the grumpiness we've seen about Dual Pistols is because it wasn't better than everything else, but middle of the road. Because I'm finding it to work as well as the other Blast sets I've tried out.

Yeah, it's a tough call. On the one hand, I noticed how much easier it was for my E^3 to stick up close with mobs (whereas my Blasters with mostly ranged defense notice when something gets in melee range). But mezzes are mostly ranged, too. Holding the common mezzers is a good idea to get around this problem, as I noted, however. You can go for the softcap if you want, but I haven't found it to be all that necessary on my Blasters. I have to give up too much to get it in the builds I've messed with on Mid's, too.

I did put together a build for my Dual Pistols/EM that gets 30% defense to ranged and 15% to melee and aoe to take more advantage of the temporary buff from using Hail of Bullets, while still fitting in a lot of procs and recharge.

Oh, I should note that most of my Blasters, and especially the Blapper types grab Hurdle and Combat Jumping. You can hop in and out of combat very nicely with this, and it's a good approach for an E^3, I think.

Well... the only question he marked properly with a question mark. He was asking the "blapper know hows" what they thought he needed for defense for that build, too.

Your follow up helps, though. I personally prefer the 30% range on all of my guys, as it gets me to a noticeable level of survivability even if my damage, holds, etc., go south. Interesting to hear how it works on other builds that I haven't tried, though. I don't really think of 30% defense to ranged to be that hard or expensive to do, though. S/L on the other hand... can hurt a bit. Kinetic Melee is painfully expensive in merits and influence to get, though my E^3 got all his and a Numina's Proc by running a lot of story arcs and most of the TFs blueside. With merits, it's not that "expensive" other than time on content, but that should hopefully be fun anyway.

You don't need only Kinetic Melees or to tap into Ancillaries for S/L, either. Weave, Combat Jumping, and even Maneuvers can provide a decent base, though now you can grab Scorpion Shield and not have to look like an ice cube if you want to tap into the ancillaries (and you don't mind going villainside for it).

For the other stuff, if you're going to blap, you need to be able to move fast anyway. So I don't find that part of going E^3 that bad. Also, you can get a third ranged hold from your ancillary, so I don't find the melee hold to be an issue (it also does quite good damage). Tesla Cage recharging so fast also makes this easy.

Ummm, why do you think that? At least explain your reasoning. If you think there are better tools elsewhere, go ahead. It's still a little weird to just throw this out there when he said he was trying for that build and just wanting to know what kind of defense to go for.

E^3 can work pretty well as a Blapper, in my experience. Lot of holds to work with for bosses, and you can end drain mobs quite easily with good slotting. I went for mostly S/L on mine, since I was going to be up close so much. I do wonder if he had to deal with mezzes more often (as a lot of those are ranged and won't necessarily have a S/L component), but he could usually hold a mezzer as he was going in, end drain everyone, and not have to worry for the rest of the fight.

Mine has in the low 30s for S/L, as do most of my blasters (whether it's ranged, S/L, etc.). Worked well enough to even solo EBs like Nosferatu up close (though he used inspirations, obviously). If you can fit in some Ranged defense, go for it, but my build was a little tight. I wanted to get the defense in, recharge, and some procs. I think most of mine was from Weave, Combat Jumping, and the Steadfast +def, which isn't that much.

Play around with builds in Mid's, but about 20% defense to something is noticeable (though it helps sooner, you still feel like you get hit more before that), and 30ish is great. You can up it to the cap with an inspiration and you don't need that most of the time. Especially with drained mobs.

Well, I'm never going to say that a Blaster can take more punishment than a Blaster, as that's obviously not correct (nor how the ATs are designed or set up). Malta Sappers can be equally dangerous to every AT out there, but they all get tools to deal with such threats. Blasters and Scrappers can handle both, though. Not sure there's really a point to talking all this over, unless someone really wants to say they're more dangerous to one AT over another (powersets and builds make more of a difference, there).

If you're only relying on using your first two attacks ever, you are going to be sunk as a Blaster. Blasters have tools and ways to build so they don't only have to rely on Defiance while mezzed, however. Being able to attack while mezzed is just one tool, but it is definitely a tool that can save you if you set up the fight in your favor from the start, which is what you should always be doing on any AT, let alone a Blaster.

Quick comment on methodology here. Blasters have access to many attacks and are survivable enough to get the job done solo or on a team. They have to defeat stuff before it defeats them: just like a Scrapper. The two ATs have different ways of doing so, but they can both work just fine. A Scrapper being able to take more hits doesn't matter if the Blaster can get the job done in a fashion that works for the AT. And a Blaster can.

I can get liking Throw Spines, especially on a Scrapper... an AT that doesn't usually have any range or largeish AOEs. But... that's not really characteristic of the Scrapper AT, either. Throw Spines is a nice short-ranged cone, to be sure. I just... yeah. It's not exactly a core case of the AT's mechanics, and if it's really so out of line for a Scrapper power, perhaps it needs a look from Castle to see if it's stepping where it shouldn't, like Shield Charge?

Of course, I don't really think that. Spines Scrappers are nice (I don't really like the look much, but get the appeal looking at the numbers), but they're not the only Scrappers out there, and I don't think the numbers are so "teh uberz" that they're somehow outshining Blasters.

I don't understand why this is only a concern for a Blaster? If a Blaster has to worry about their AOE placement, a Scrapper has to even more, as they have even smaller ranges to worry about. Melee ATs have a lot more issues with lining up AOEs than Ranged ATs, but at worst for all of them, it's a concern. Nobody gets out scot free on this, and time is money for every AT, if you want to put it like that.

You've lost me on your cherrypicking stuff now. I don't have any /Ice Blasters, and I've never been wondering why I didn't have enough mitigation to complement my defense. There's some advantage to being able to stack mezzes on a boss, which can make you want to think through your power picks to some extent, but that's not strictly necessary, nor is it going to help you as you fight an Elite Boss. There really aren't any bad Blaster sets that would make me think you need to avoid them to be able to play CoX. Devices needs help, but you can still make that work with any powerset.

Not sure what you mean by poor AOE with my EM/EM, either. A little damage boost + Energy Torrent + Energy Blast means nearly dead or dead mobs (depending on resists and if the procs fire or not). I drop anything that gets KB'd back (if my teammates damage doesn't drop it before I can target it). EM is pretty middle of the road for damage among Blaster AOEs, too... so maybe there is some misapprehension there?

[/quote]Archery is a bit of an abberation; RoA, Exploding Arrow and Fistful hits, if chained, almost simultaneously defeating some mobs before their retaliation reaches the archer. Combined with a nerfably strong tier 9 (then again, there are many overpowered powers in the game), it is a very solid set both solo and on team (unless fighting robots, CoT spectres and other heavily S/L resistant mobs).[/QUOTE]

Archery has nice AOE damage, but I've found that capability with other powersets, too. Not sure it's really "nerfable" either. It has a long animation and doesn't drop a mob on its own, so it's not as strong as other nukes. It IS a great attack, don't get me wrong, but my point is that it's not all roses, either. Been in the game as is for a long time, too, and through a lot of passes Castle has made with the Archery set. Now, Castle can come in here and say he's nerfing it somehow on Monday, but it's not silly good like EM before its reduction, or Shield Charge, etc. I'd be rather surprise if it happened.

Meh, you're going in the wrong direction with this. Blasters have many ways to mitigate damage (above and beyond dishing it out a lot) to get the job done. They're never going to be as tough as Scrappers, but they don't need to be. As I've said earlier.

Yeah, I don't think they're ever going to standardize it, as that would make all the sets too similar. I actually think that's a good thing. Another poster on the Victory forum mentioned that CoX has way more powerset combinations than a certain other huge MMO (a few thousand compared to a few hundred) and that's great. I think a time range is a much better design setup, as you don't want to forget how other powers are set up completely.

So... what primaries do Blasters need to cherrypick so they'll succeed? I haven't heard of any being bad, and you'll pretty much get a good response for most of the primaries when you ask about it on the Blaster forums. There has been some grousing about Dual Pistols, but that's still debated. My Dual Pistols/EM blaster has been close on the heels of my EM/EM, and I'd be hard pressed to say one is better than the other. And my EM/EM has been really fun and really safe to play.

Or are you talking secondaries? Blasters could definitely use more secondaries, and Devices really deserves a look at, as all the interrupt, long animation, and limited utility powers on a fast moving team (or soloer) really do hurt it. But even then my Archery/Devices had an easy time of it solo and does great on teams. People complain they don't to get to drop anything with all the arrows being tossed around.

I don't know what the "stream" is that you're talking about (and I do see that you don't know if that's me), but you're going to have to show a bar that all ATs need to be at, and prove that Blasters are below that bar. I don't know that you're going to be able to do it. You sloughed off my statement about AOEs and ranges like it doesn't matter much, but it really does. Blasters have a big advantage there, and you have to see that if you're going to do an accurate analysis. You're also going to have to note CoX's overall design mantra where every AT can add something to a team and no one AT is needed to complete any content. That means (as I said before) that there will be some overlap. Scrappers do damage and Blasters do as well. However, one is a better solo AT while the other is a better team AT. Thankfully, they aren't specialists that can only solo or be on a team.

If you can prove around that mantra that Blasters are still somehow not giving enough for what they're giving up, great. I'll agree with you. But you're going to have a hard time convincing me that Blasters as set up are outclassed for pure damage on a team. Go ahead and try, though: I really am open to being convinced of things if you can provide good evidence.

Just so you know, I'm not satisfied with low damage or lack of success. If I'm not clearing a mission in good time (and that changes depending on the mission: I don't like having to pause between mobs much, though), I don't like it. If my TF team is taking too long, I really don't like it, as I have at most 2-2.5 hours of playtime when I'm on. And I hate it if my character takes too long to drop a boss or Elite Boss. All my Blasters have soloed through a huge amount of story arcs, defeating bosses and elite bosses on their own. Even the really annoying ones like Nosferatu (and he was not running like a panzy, believe me) or that have Tier 9 godmodes, etc. This while they're taking on content meant for levels above theirs and for multiple characters (difficulty settings).

I can't stand playing Defenders because they just don't do enough damage. I know their buffs and debuffs do a lot for their teams, and that some can solo with them, but they make me grind my teeth. And I've soloed with Tankers, Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes, Kheldians, Doms, and even Controllers just fine (once they got their pet).

So... while we're debating, don't think I want to fight everything at -1/x1 and think that's okay (even though the developers are going to probably still say that being able to solo at 0/x1 is the metric for being okay).

Our developers are workaholics or something. That's part of what I loved more about this game as well: far more customization and active feeling to play. Not to mention being able to take on more than one thug at a time (as opposed to one killer bunny being about all you could handle in the other one).

WoW and CoX are like oil and water!

Seriously though, I got really bored with that game since I came from CoX. It was fun at first, but finding teams was harder, it wasn't that solo or casual friendly, and getting around was so slow! I thought it would be better when I got a character to 40, but, ummm... those mounts are snails compared to what you can do in CoX.

Tried to get a friend to switch over, since we used to game a lot (and that was the easiest way to keep up once we lived in different states or a few hours from each other). Only played once with me and that was it. *sighs* This game is SO much better, sheesh!

I'm inclined to believe Castle thinks it's more complicated (or warrants more design thought) than a simple numbers tweak, since he didn't think he had time for it before GR. That suggests he wanted to go for something more, to me.

I could be hoping for too much, but the man does some very interesting things (or his team). The change to Fiery Embrace, personally, is genius. I only ever argued for it getting a longer buff duration to all damage. Making it add fire damage to all your attacks is far more interesting than that and I love it.

I hope he does the same with Stalkers. If you want a straight up "dash in there and bash them over the head!" you play a Scrapper. I want and like that there is more to Stalkers, and would like to see him play with that more. Or just expand on how Stalkers can do that.

I'm not going to pass over a straight damage buff to Stalker's base (if that's not unbalancing), but I would say that is the less interesting choice. I prefer interesting choices.

Close to what mine is on my Fire Tanker, and similar methodology. Most of a set of Performance Shifter in there for him, then one Recharge IO. I wanted it up ASAP, but on my Blasters, endurance isn't nearly as much of an issue. Going for some of all three is a good idea, though.

If the other person tries to understand you and work with you, it's all good. The problems (from other people) occur when they try to change who you are. That doesn't work so well in a romantic relationship. Yes, people can change, and they sometimes do in a romantic relationship, but no one should go into one hoping they can fix the other person. That... rarely works.

Now you can cause your own problems, but that's a whole 'nother issue.

That's not what I meant by range (I was not referring to mitigation, though it is lame how much range mobs have in this game compared to us... but of course, if we outranged them, that's a farming opportunity... like when War Wolves had no ranged attacks). By range I mean the large AOEs (cones, ranged AOEs, etc.) that Blasters have to work with, and their ability to fire them from a long range, rather than up close (Spines longest is 40 feet, which is the shortest a Blaster ever has to deal with... and no Scrapper is going to want to sit back that far, either).

That range is huge if you're going to min/max. Stalkers, Brutes, Scrappers, and Tanks complain about when their targets get knocked back or when things are killed before something animates... and that's usually because they have to get up close to hit something (Blasters don't have to move much to keep things in range, if at all). IF you want to min/max and get the most damage you can, a Blaster is going to be far more helpful than any other damage class. You need one Tank to go in (so they don't return fire), some debuffs if you really want to min/max, and then go to town. Why wait for most of the team to get up close? Scrappers are nice for damage on a team, but a Blaster is going to be better, if all you want is damage.

Of course, the game doesn't have to be min/maxxed. Which I always have to say with that example. All varieties of teams work, and every AT in this game can bring something to that team.

They're pure damage from range, up close, and over a broad area. Blasters make mobs drop in a trivial amount of time. Other ATs having the ability to do damage as well doesn't take that away from them in the slightest. I have a lot of Scrappers, Tanks, Kheldians, and a Brute now. I appreciate the damage they can leverage and what they can survive, but I do know that my Blasters can outdamage them without working too hard (and yes, I know Tankers do way less damage, my point is that I can appreciate the gradations between all those ATs).

My argument is in line with what you have here (not sure what exactly Posi said, as I haven't read the post or have time to do so now). FoTM ATs or builds are bad, I agree with that entirely. That's why Brutes needed adjusting and Shield Charge certainly needed an adjustment.

But what this means is that (if the game is designed so nothing is FoTM and every AT has something to offer) all the ATs are going to overlap to some extent. Most of the ATs in CoX have some form of mitigation, but that doesn't take anything away from Controllers, Doms, or even Defenders. And to get XP, merits, clear missions, etc., they all need to do damage. That doesn't take anything away from Blasters, either.

So what I said earlier is the classic mistake people sometimes make with CoX. They think because there is overlap between the ATs, that some are better than others, when they aren't necessarily, as this is how CoX is designed (I could see that without Posi saying it to me, and what you have in that post just confirms it). Can imbalances exist between the ATs? Sure. However, I don't think such an imbalance exists for the Blaster AT since their Defiance, etc., improvements.

You haven't said anything to shake that belief.

Oy. Seriously? Yes, Scrappers can do damage. If they couldn't, they'd rightly argue why they didn't have more mitigation out of the box like a Tanker or even a Brute.

That little comparison between Fire and Spines was rather cherry picked, too. Not every Blast set has as much AOE as Fire, but most of them are pretty good, and not THAT far from what Fire can do. Spines is pretty up there for AOE when it comes to Scrappers... most Scrapper sets don't even come close to it: especially for range. Which is actually pretty important. Most Scrappers can't attack things from the range that Blasters have, and you can't ignore it when comparing the two.

Because of that range, they don't really have to worry too much about where mobs are in a group, especially when compared to Melee characters (and it's far easier to move around a mob that you are not inside, than when you are out of it). Having a large cone or AOE to work with is a large boon when it comes to pure damage output. You hit more stuff and don't have to work hard at it. A Fire Blaster has none of the issues even a Spines Scrapper would have with hitting lot's of stuff.

Can Scrappers survive things Blasters can't? Sure. But that's an overall design decision: Scrappers are great soloers, while Blasters are more team oriented (that's not a "red herring" as you called it, that's design). I'm not sure what all you and others are arguing that needs to change for Blasters, but they already do sick amounts of damage and do that very well. The developers aren't likely to change that setup, because it works well.

Shield Charge was arguably encroaching on a Blaster's territory without giving anything up (before its nerf), but that was due to a wrong number/table being used. It's back to more reasonable levels but still does good damage. Doesn't change my Blaster being able to do the same to every spawn (and I'm not even counting nukes with that).

The Blaster AT is fine. We can attack while mezzed, we have a good amount of health for the AT, and we can do lots of damage up close and from far away. You can argue for certain sets needing improving (Devices is pretty clear, I would say), but there's nothing wrong with the AT.

I seriously have to wonder if people are making the classic CoX blunder with this. You don't need any one AT to accomplish anything, so they think overlap between ATs is a problem. It isn't. If you need damage on a team, you can grab a Blaster or a Scrapper, or even most of the ATs in the game. That's not really a problem, but how the game works. I'd rather that than have to find the holy trinity of ATs to accomplish anything in game.

Stop trying to create problems where none exist. Find sets that need help, sure, but don't make out that the Blaster AT is in need of help. I can't even believe this discussion is going on for so long.