Ipso_Facto

Sam, you needed to just go a bit farther down the page. The con multipliers are:

Critter's Relative Level	XP Multiplier
-5 or lower	0
-4	0.2
-3	0.4
-2	0.6
-1	0.8
0	1
+1	1.2
+2	1.4
+3	1.65
+4	1.9
+5 or higher	2

So a -1 gives 80% of the experience of an even-con.

EDIT: I see that these are under discussion as possibly out of date. I know that they were correct as of the "XP curve adjustment"--I checked them myself at that time. I'm not aware of any change since then, and from the discussion there I think it has not changed--I'll check it out when I get a chance.


As for /fire, I have to admit that it's the one blaster set that I can't really get a handle on playing either. I understand it in theory, but I've just not been successful with it.

Part of this is my teaming preferences. If I were regularly playing with a good team, I can see that things would be much, much different. But I solo most of the time, and when I'm not soloing I'm usually in a PuG, and to me /fire just isn't a good set for those situations.

I'm not good enough or fast enough on the game controls to pull off the kind of aggressive jousting techniques that /fire blasters describe, and still stay alive. I know this is a weakness, but I live with it; it's unlikely to change. And by nature, I tend to have a more cautious and analytical approach to playing. There are plenty of other sets where that approach pays better dividends.

i don't think this makes me a bad player (and to those who disagree: whatever.) It also doesn't make /fire a bad set. It just means the two of us don't mesh very well together. It sounds like it may be the same with you.

Okay, so you're not real interested in PBAoE, prefer targeted AoE to cones, and want a little self-protection.

Before I go any further, I'm going to go ahead and put in a good word for fire/ice. The ranged damage is very good--the AoE does include one cone--and /ice is a good secondary to give you a little safety with it. I also just really like that combo, and like recommending it.

Here's the rundown, though, so you can make your own choice.

Archery--one cone very early, one targeted AoE in mid-levels, and then Rain of Arrows at 32. RoA is targeted on the ground. It's a pseudo-pet like Freezing Rain and things like that.

Assault Rifle--lots of cones. Three? Or four? I think 4, counting Full Auto. Plus a targeted AoE. So lots of AoE. Lots of the powers have a chance of KB. The cones all have different ranges and widths, so you'd probably have to do a fair bit of moving around to get the full effects.

Energy--so-so. About like Archery, except instead of Rain of Arrows you get Nova. RoA is much better for farming. Plus a lot of teams hate all the knockback, and you'd have to be careful with that.

Ice--probably not. One cone and one rain. The rain will have mobs running out of it unless someone is doing something to keep them in. Blizzard is really nice, and is ranged, but drains your end and has high recharge like most nukes.

Psychic--not a chance

Sonic--Also has four cones, I believe. No targeted AoE. A PBAoE nova-power. One cone is very low damage but with a sleep (not too helpful on fast-moving teams). Another of the cones is kind of low damage, with knockback. Probably not the best choice.

Fire--always a good choice. A targeted AoE, a cone, and a rain. Plus PBAoE Inferno. Again, the rain will give your team problems unless there's a way to keep them from running. (If you go with the fire/ice, Shiver will do the job pretty well, but still watch out). Fire has extra damage as its secondary effect, so it's the best if pure damage is what you're looking for.

Electric--probably not. I might be too hard on Electric, though. One PBAoE and one targeted AoE, and a ranged nuke.

What did I forget?

Oh, Radiation blast looks to be heavy on the AoE. A cone, a PBAoE, and a targeted AoE. But of course, it's not out yet.

Secondaries: Electric and Energy give good ST melee damage, and energy adds melee stuns. Energy also has Boost Range--that power helps a lot with cones, makes the positioning much easier. That might make it a good choice.

Ice and Devices both add to safety, but not too much to your damage. I prefer Ice myself.

Fire adds a bunch of PBAoE damage, won't help with safety much at all.

Mental, as I said, gives you a PBAoE and a cone, a really good recovery and regeneration buff (PBAoE), and a couple other nifty things.

Can you tell I'm procrastinating about something?

What level will you be doing this at? (I'm not real familiar with how AE ticket farms are set up). If it's post-leve 32, I'd say Archery. Archery isn't really an AoE standout at low levels, but Rain of Arrows makes it one.

Oh, another question: When you say "targeted AoE", does that mean you don't want cones or PBAoE? Or you're just looking for AoE generally.

Anyway, if you want early-level AoE, Fire is always good, and Assault Rifle is pretty strong as well. AR is pretty much all cones, in case that does matter, and is a little less team-friendly with knockback. Fire is just all damage. Make sure your team includes someone who can take the aggro off you or otherwise keep you alive, or be careful.

The fire secondary would add a bunch of PBAoE. Mental gives another cone, and later on another PBAoE power.

Hope that helped?

I like the 4/8. I could live with 3/6, which would retain a little more of the feel of the original rad blast and still be within the normal range for blasters. Any lower than that, and it'd be so frustrating I'd never be able to play it. I can see people wanting it to feel like rad blast, but it also has to feel like a blaster--and it needs to be an effective blaster. Make the recharges, and consequently the damage, too low, and you lose that. These are important attacks for a blaster, especially with Defiance, so they can't be throwaways.

(Of course, if they wanted to make it like Flares, with short recharge and some extra damage, I wouldn't argue. But I'm not holding my breath.)

For a blapper, the secondary is almost more important than the primary. /Energy and /Elec are both good, with excellent ST melee damage. /Fire would give you plenty of PBAoE, if you wanted to go that route (but not much in the way of mitigation powers, so you'd have to be careful or on a good team.) /Mental might also work well. Devices would be the worst.

For primary, electric blast works really well with /elec manipulation for a blapper. Ice and Fire are both good for the damage, plus ice's Freeze Ray and slow secondary effect would be a help. Sonic is good if you're soloing, since you can use Siren's Song before you go in to melee. I'd be cautious about AR or Energy.

So ... let's see. Elec/Elec, Ice/Energy, Ice/ Elec, Sonic/Energy, Sonic/Elec, Fire/Energy, Fire/Elec for ST blapping. For PBAoE, I don't know, maybe Fire/Fire or Fire/Mental?

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I am frequently a lone bidder on lowbie sets, especially redside.

I do however try to make it worth the persons while, and floor my bid at 5*Vendor or so. Having a last 5 shoing > Vendor is a long term incentive for more people to list, if more people list, more people may buy and hopefully reveive the non-50 redside market.

<--- is a dreamer, obviously

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I actually do this too. I don't bid 1500 or anything like that. The lowest I'll ever bid is 20,000 to 30,000, about 10 times what you'd get from a vendor for a level 20-30 uncommon recipe IIRC. I do want people to sell these things, since I want to buy them, and if they're all selling for 500, why should they? Probably makes no difference, but that's what I do anyway.

Fire/Ice is good all the way through (it's my favorite.) /Ice makes any primary pretty survivable, and Fire has great ST and AoE damage.

Ice/Ice will have even more survivability, but will lose out a bit on the damage, especially AoE. It's a great soloing blaster, though, one of the best.

Sonic/anything is also a good survivable soloist. I'd recommend Sonic/Energy or Sonic/Elec, for the added ST damage.

/Devices gives you some nice mitigation early in the game (not as good as /Ice's, I think, but you get it earlier). Late in the game, it adds even more, IF you enjoy the style of setting traps and luring enemies into them. Some people like that, some find it dull.

So those are my thoughts off the top of my head.

I might be that lone bidder, sometimes

I have a bunch of lowbie characters that get played, these days, about once every 50 or 60 days. (My play rate is pretty low these days, will probably pick up again once summer's over.) I don't bother transferring inf to them or anything, not really worth it, and I like to start with the frankenslotting at a low level, teens usually.

So what I do is, before I log off one of them, I'll go to Wentworth's and put in a couple bids for some cheap acc/dam's or dam/end's or something. A lot of the time I'm the only bidder and there are none for sale. It doesn't bother me that it won't fill for a while, since it'll be a few weeks before I get back to it anyway. By the time I get back to it, it'll probably be there.

So, I don't know if I'm the kind of person you're looking to help with this, but you probably are helping me. So thanks!

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Meh, will dom is pretty much in line compared to what bitter freeze ray does. I'm not sure "why" they matched it to that power, but sometimes they overvalue things that the player base does not.

BFR is overall a bit better numbers wise, but is so slow most people skip it. At least will dom is so fast that it can still fit into a build.

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It does seem to be modeled on BFR (and Freezing Touch) in that it pays some damage because of the mez effect. The thing is that the 80% sleep just isn't nearly as effective as a 100% hold.

My big problem with it is this: I won't know if the sleep has taken effect until a second after I used it. By a second after I used it, if the mob's not already defeated then I want to be attacking it again--which means the sleep, even if it did take effect, is gone. If I knew it would be slept, then I'd switch targets, but I don't.

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they just frontloaded the set. I psy blaster has everything they need by lvl 8 and then never really gets better. I personally like late blooming sets, but that's just me.

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And I personally like early-blooming sets. A lot of altaholics do, I bet. When you're making a lot of new characters, most of your time is going to be spent playing early levels. That's what I enjoy about psi. But it's a shame that I don't have a whole lot to look forward to later. That's a problem with wanting to continue that particular character.


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Are people really that upset at the exchange of psyscream for aim?

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Aim is a very, very good thing, and it needs to be there. Psi is so weak in AoE, though, that I wish they'd found something else to exchange for it. Even Ice blasters, usually not noted for their AoE goodness, exceed it handily. A psi blaster in a team is likely to feel a bit overshadowed by any other blasters on the team.

I've found it quite nice for soloing, though.

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The exceptions are when you are leading off with your nukes. You don't get any defiance with them. Usually its best to just pop a couple of reds before the aim/buildup.

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You do get Defiance with the nukes, just like any other power. They benefit from the Defiance from other attacks, and they give the right bonus to following attacks based on their cast time. Of course, it might not be that useful with your endurance crashed, but it's there nonetheless. And then, I guess if you're leading off with it, you don't have any bonus yet .... so uh. Yeah. Anyway. Just saying.

(QR) I just want my energy blasts and energy melee attacks to match. The specific color I haven't decided on, I'll play around with it and see what looks good. But I want them to match. This will make me happy.

I'm not sure if I'd chance anything else. My fire/ice will probably just keep the ones now, I like them. I'll change some other ones, though. But I want to see them first before I decide.

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I know there are certain tactics that will keep ablaster alive longer, but when you compare apples to apples as far as surviveability, dont the other AT's do much better as most have a higher form of protection/defense against damage types?

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Other AT's, especially the melee AT's, do have a lot more survivability at the higher levels. Especially if what you're talking about is "automatic" or "passive" survivability. That's part of what you sign on for when you play a blaster.

But Blasters have enough survivability to do the job. You might have to work a little harder at it, that's all. Again, part of the deal.

I solo blasters all the time, at all levels. I find it more enjoyable than scrappers or tankers, and it's probably because of the relative fragility that I do. Not that I'm an uber player, because I'm not at all. But even a schlub like me can take a scrapper and just barrel through missions without even thinking about it, and live through it most of the time. I have to work at it a little with my blaster. I like the sense of danger, I guess. Or something.

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I was the Empath on an 8 man PUG recently and one Blaster constantly kept rushing into melle range and faceplanting. Aparently she had a couple of close range attacks she considered her best. Problem was we were tackling mobs on INV and even the minions were conning purple so I couldn't heal her fast enough to prevent her defeats.. at least not without letting the entire rest of the team die. Funny part was she never complained, never grumbled, or anything else. It was as if that was HER way of playing and she accepted constant dying as a part of it.

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I played with a blaster just like that once. I said something about it (I was playing on another blaster, so it was no skin off my nose, I was just curious.) He told me that as far as he was concerned he was always going to die anyway, so there was no point in worrying about it. He'd just do as much damage as he could before it happened.

He seemed to be okay with that, not really interested in learning anything to keep from dying so much. He was convinced it was impossible. (Even though I wasn't dying frequently.)

It was stuff like that, actually--I saw stuff like that a few times--that convinced me that, against all forum wisdom, blasters really were underperforming before the Defiance change. Haven't seen it in a while, but I haven't been playing all that much in a while either (until the last week or so.)

Anyway, Blasters do seem to start out really strong compared to other AT's, to me. More attacks, and the differences in defenses haven't really come into play yet. I've always thought that up to level, I don't know, 25 or so, Blasters are actually a little overpowered compared to others.

But then yes, that does change. The other AT's catch up, they start getting more attacks and damage themselves, while blaster damage isn't increasing as fast. They get their defenses and such slotted up. So there's a relative decrease in power compared to where the balance was in lower levels. In my experience.

But that doesn't mean blasters completely crap out or something. They're still powerful. They're still more fun. Scrappers? Meh. Boring.

AR is probably next best to Fire. Or Archery, but not until level 32 with Rain of Arrows.

Pair any primary except Psychic with /Mental or /Fire, and you'll have above average AoE. /Fire's will be all PBAoE, /Mental's will be partly ranged. (With the Ice primary, you'll need to take Ice Storm, the rain.)

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About KB...I've read that people don't like the KB and I know there's a lot of it in AR...but I've found that if I wait for the troller to pop Fire Cages, the KB seems to turn into a KU. Is that true or am I still just p.o.ing people?

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Fire Cages suppresses KB for .... I think 15 seconds after casting. Most of the other AoE immobs do it as well.

Edit: Looked it up. KB resistance for 12 seconds. So it's not your imagination.

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My guess is Statesman/Geko (whoever was in charge of powers at launch) added the 3 seconds of interruptibility time to the 12 seconds of recharge, and balanced snipe damage off the total of 15 seconds.

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Ah, could be. Could be indeed. (I hadn't noticed how that value matched up for some reason, but now that you point it out it makes a lot of sense.)


Now, about Flares and Combustion again.

Flares, as far as I can see, still does get its .3 extra damage on Test., so the total DS is now 1.3. I hope someone else will test that out so I know I'm not just seeing it wrong or something.

EDIT: I now believe I was wrong about this. It's getting 1.00 DS, just in two ticks, one of .70 and one of .30. What's up with that? No idea.

On Combustion, I was overlooking the fact that there are different versions of the power.

Old Dominator Combustion: .5 plus 8 ticks of .15 (1.2 total). Damage at level 50 70.93

Blaster Combustion: .5 plus 10 ticks or .10 (1.0 total). Damage at level 50 83.41

Tanker Combustion: .5 plus 8 ticks of .10 (.8 total). Damage at level 50 57.84.

New Dominator Combusion: .5 plus 8 ticks of .10 (.8 total). Damage at level 50 75.91.

So it looks like Dominators now have the Tanker version. My theory, and it's only a guess: Castle wanted the total damage of Dom Combustion to be around the same as it is now. He did that by adjusting the DOT, since that was something he could adjust without having to change the recharge or radius.

Or he absent-mindedly switched it for the different version, I guess.

*shrug*

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What happened to Flares obscures the reasoning behind the Combustion change, thus the fear and confusion. Is this bad news for big radius AoE attacks (Combustion = 15'), or bad news for fire attack powers (no secondary effects and no extra DoT either), or both or neither or something else? Anyone's guess.

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Ah, okay, I get you.

Funny thing, Flares' power description says it still gets the delayed .3 DS. Might be a text change they forgot to make. I'll take my little Earth/Fire out in a while and watch for it.

Combustion isn't quite as bad as it looks. It gets .5 DS immediate damage in addition to the DOT, which the patch notes didn't mention. Assuming that's unchanged, the DS of the power went from 1.7 total to 1.3 total. Still above the formula value, just by not as much. Of course it's also DOT, so I don't know.

The Fire thing is a little odd, I'm trying to figure it out. Also, I'm not sure I trust the patch notes entirely. I think they have the wrong current value for Blazing Bolt, for one thing. Anyway, assuming their correct, Blaze lost a little "extra" damage in the transition as well--direct damage, not the chance for DOTs, which aren't mentioned at all.

I thought at first that Blaze had as well, but that seems to be something else. Snipes at 12 second recharge calculate to 2.28, but they all get 2.76. I always figured that was a bonus for being a snipe. At 20 seconds they calculate to 3.76, and they're getting 3.76. Still a lot higher, though, so whatever I guess.

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As far as I understand it the devs are trying to promote balance throughout all ATs to give everyone the opportunity to experience the game at a relative rate teamed or solo no matter what AT they choose

Otherwise, why the tank nerfs? or blaster nerfs? or stalker buffs?

I feel a lot of changes (buffs/nerfs) have been done with that in mind and I feel blasters should be next

And I've stated several times I don't think a damage buff is the answer

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While I think your examples are a bit backwards, the main point is correct. Back during the Defiance discussions, we were told explicitly that the goal was to improve blaster performance, because blasters were progressing through the game at an unacceptably slow rate compared to other ATs. So, yes. I think we can safely conclude that the devs want the relative rates of progress to be at least close to the same, and are willing to take action to make it so.

I would assume that they're willing to tolerate some range of performance in this sense, and not going for making them all exactly the same. I suspect the fact that we were getting such a global change, and that Castle actually told us it was to improve performance, means that blasters before that change were really underperforming other ATs in game progress. Not just by a little bit.

I'm sure those changes did improve things. I don't know if it improved them enough to bring blasters up into the acceptable range. No way I can, really. I think probably so. But I don't know.

FWIW, I support this balance goal in general. I'd hate for blasters to lose all the challenge, because I like that, but I think it's good for the game to have your rate of progression not depend too heavily on the initial choice of character type at creation.

Not everyone agrees with that outlook, of course. It's a judgment call. Reasonable people can disagree, etc.

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... Castle's area of effect formula ... penalizes powers that have any significant ground coverage

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I don't quite get what you're talking about here. Blaster AoEs are already calculated according to that formula.

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I'm very sure they are not. When Claws was recalculated (19 AUG 2008 patch), power damage levels all changed.

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Do you mean this?
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Eliminated "pause" times from Claws attack animations. Most attacks activate more quickly now (Eviscerate is slightly longer.) Additionally, a balancing algorithm has been applied to the damage of the attacks. In most cases, this means the attacks will do slightly more damage, though for Focus, it means slightly less damage overall.

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That was a different thing. That was a new algorithm--not for just AoEs but for all attacks--taking cast times into account, which weren't part of the original game balance. It hasn't been generally applied, and it hasn't been applied to Dominators.

The AoE formula has always been in the game, and blaster AoEs have always generally followed it. So have Dominator AoEs. Except for Psychic Shockwave.

About "generally": if you look at the DS numbers for AoEs, there are quite a few powers that are off from the formula by some amount. Sometimes the reason is obvious, sometimes not. Fire AoEs get more damage than the formula suggests, just like its ST attacks. DOT damage seems to have warranted a bonus. A very small AoE radius might be slightly higher. Stuff like that.

But none of those differences are huge. The only exception was, again, Psychic Shockwave, to which part of the formula--the divisor that makes AoE damage lower according to the area the attack can hit--was not applied at all. (Blaster PSW was balanced by the formula before it was ported over.)

The other changes to Dominator AoEs are a matter of changing the radius and/or recharge time, and then applying the formula to the new values. In that sense they were "recalculated", but that's all.

Combustion, as already stated, was a matter of removing some of the extra "bonus" damage (in addition to recalculating for the higher recharge). Not sure what that's about. If I were going to worry about negative implications for blasters, that's what I'd be worried about.

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Is Sniper Rifle from AR also seeing a damage boost?

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This is only for Dominators right now, so no. They don't have Assault Rifle. IF it were to be applied to blasters as well, then I'm sure Sniper Rifle would get it too.

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I like your add ons, but it might threaten to overwhelm a completed newbie to blasting.

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That's exactly what I was afraid of. So this is what I think I'm going to do. I'm going to keep the three introductory paragraphs, because the thing needs an intro anyway. I'm going to keep the bit about Aim, and possibly the stuff about the T1 and T2 blasts. The rest of it will go--or I may make it an annex at the end. If I do that, I may also add some of that other stuff you're talking about.

If I get really ambitious, I'll make this multi-part, and do an overview of secondary sets. With all the variety, that'd be harder, so I'll think about it.

I probably will do a little editing on the original today. I'm home with some kind of stomach bug, and I have to do something to occupy myself.