Lacrymosa

You know what I love?, how people can throw all the theories and numbers and dev worship, but when asked for a vid, everyone gets flakey. Half of you just wanna post just to post. Your not helping anyone with your OPINION. Honestly do people play the game anymore?. Castle needs to come in here and stop lying to you guys. This whole "devs are infallible thing has run its course". Stop with the dev love, they make mistakes, blindly reciting what a dev posted is DoDo like behavior. There that was my scientific analogy. It ain't impetus, then again im happy it isnt.

Can someone show me a vid of perfect aura taunting? One vid. Get a blaster or scrapper and ask them to go nuts on a target, no taunt just aura. And then lets see if Gauntlet kicks in. You cant look smart if all your posting are smiley's and what YOU believe to be true. Am I the only objective one here?

Your a Blaster, unkillable + Blaster= Oxymoron. Nice strong Tough and weave isn't going to do anything for you PVP wise. I don't care what IO set you put in them. Its a semi durable blaster, and even then thats pushing it.

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Also, could you please drop the condescending "you're wrong" / "you don't play the game" / "take a hint" nonsense. It doesn't support your cause, and it's quite obnoxious to see people present evidence and all you respond with are unsupported anecdotes and insults. I think most here are more than willing to civilly discuss mechanics and their methodology / results, of which you're doing none of.

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As far as im concerned no one is showing evidence, just posting numbers and their own experiences, a bit pretentious aren't we?.

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(Yes, I realize that comment is directly confrontational and borderline "civil." I loathe coming across that way.)

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Yeah,just like I loathe freshly cooked macadamian nut pancakes. If your going to be confrontational, don't be passive agressive, it shows a weakness you think your hiding, but thats just text book, and your not text book right?....your orginal and unique.

The impetus theory?...really?...I know that wasn't at the top of your head. That's like me comparing MMO game mechanics with biomedical engineering. Its silly.Just becuase its something you have an interest in or plan on doing, doesn't mean we want to see a post of it. Moving on. Is anyone up to putting their tank to the test?. Server and global. Because just like the impetus theory and every other scientic guess work, we need to SEE actual proof. Like I posted before, gamecam and or Fraps. Everyone is so particularly busy crunching numbers or linking wiki pages, yet no one offered to show, or to record actual evidence.

As far as I'm concerned everyone is just talking in circles about who plays what tank and how much. Show me some proof. On that note spare us the scientific diatribe, pseudo intellectual posts on a VIDEO GAME board is oxymoronic. Its like people forgot to use actual game proof and went on to crunching numbers and quoting out of date theorems. City of Pretentiousness...

Obviously your going to get the biased kool-aid drinkers who say "Nothing wrong with Psi" or its "super fun for me!". But as a guy who has taken many blasters to 50. I would say no, it isn't fun. You won't run through mobs like say a fire or ice blaster. You won't have the same effects. And its been nerf so badly that even in PVP its, OK at best. The main problem was that the devs put one of the famous least resisted powers in the game, and thought no one was going to say anything.

With reason, everyone who either did a Mother Mayhem mission or a Clockwork King mission, screamed "OP" before the set was even made into a list of moves. This of course made them nerf it out the gate. And then nerf it again. My question to you Jack would be, which do you consider fun?; A fire blaster with high dmg output, flame effects, quick recharges and tons of aoe dmg. Or weak DPS based psionic, with slow recharges, high end issues, strong vs human mobs, and purple waves of energy. You decide.

I agree Bruise, take a look at any other MMO out there, and you will realize that the "blaster/mage" role, has some sort of mitigation for lost life points. WoW gives the mage a shield and a bubble, also a teleport. Followed by stuns. Hunters/Rangers, are given either a pet, or "feigning/ playing possum". Priests/Clerics, in some MMO's are given pets, shields, bubbles, and or self rez.

When coming into CoH I felt the blaster was a bit lacking in the defense department. They come with no survival powers and 0 resists. No trick up their sleeves and no bubbles. One has to either IO up, or wait till 41-45 ish to get a bubble. Obviously very late and very optional at this point. Defiance was the trick, but it got nerfed into an entirely different power and ignored.

In my opinion, I learned that making a "mage" class fun is providing it a way to escape any situation said mage puts himself in. Be it either bubble, or shield. Nothing's perfect but, as far as blasters go in CoH, they pretty much would get obliterated by any other mage in any other MMO. The problem is the secondary effects of Blaster AT's in CoH, Ice doesn't slow down targets as effectively as it would in say WoW. And Psionics doesn't confuse or hold long enough to make a difference.

In a sense if Scrappers are the cheap and very bulky offspring of Rogues, then blasters are the sluggish malnourished peasants of mages. I don't see any great things happening for blasters any time soon.

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You have every right to gimp yourself all you want, but none to expect others to carry you when you do

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QFT, hit the nail on the head with a sledge.

The main problem is that every other Blaster AT is either stronger than Energy or less annoying, and by less I mean, doesn't knock back mobs with every move. No one is telling you to stay with the team, but to be more EFFECTIVE, and less troublesome, big groups tend to like tight deathballs of mobs. This is why scrappers don't have knockback(MA excluded) and rather knockdown. The devs made a pure solo AT with energy, unfortunately they suited for flashy over useful. Its nice to know you can knock back anything, but that doesn't stop the other blaster AT's from performing just as well.

Wendy you need to use some objectivity, and realize nothing is perfect. Yes you can kill things with Enrg, but its a bit annoying having everything scattered when other AT's focus on Debuff anchors and melee aoe. Of course no one blames the devs in the matter, the whole "devs are gods and infallible" gag, has run its course. They make mistakes, hopefully they see this and make KB, KD.

Secondly, I need to see how alot of you players take on mobs. Because as a lvl 50 Ar/Dev, I NEVER have time to set any mines. And I run on 6-8 man teams. There are two truths in CoX, a huge portion of the populous dislikes Energy blasters and Devices suck. But both are great for Soloing....something the game implements badly.

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Absolutely not. This is a stupid idea that would ruin the set for those of us who have an IQ greater than the sum of our area code that can actually use the set without annoying our teammates.

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Relax kiddo, its a better idea than, "blast the opponents away from the melee dps class." Common sense. If Fire,elec,Arch,Ice,Psi, and sonic, blasters can live and perform well without KB I'm easily assuming Energy would be fine. Secondly refrain from calling any idea that isnt yours stupid, and then people wonder why the moderation's happen..

Secondly nearly almost every blaster AT comes with three Aoe's, the rest being single target, if anything, fire is geared toward single target thanks to Blaze being stronger than tier 4 energy(Power burst).

The reason people blame the set is either through personal experiences or the fact that sometimes the devs make mistakes...they are after all...human, and read my post again, dont just copy and paste it in an attempt to swiftly and carlessly disproving it. "And I will agree it is the player", did you miss that?, or where you busy looking to find anything that didn't agree with your bias?.

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The set is fun and is middle of the pack for damage output. Energy is also a less resisted form of damage in the higher levels. Nothing needs to be changed; the haters in this thread just need to get a clue and learn how to play the set.

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Actually anything that isn't smashing and lethal is less resisted in the higher levels. Do you actually know anything about the game? or do you just like your energy blaster that much, that you cant see past the bright colors?.

Lastly I need to see how you play the set, why not show us all how much of an expert you are, gamecam or fraps, anything else you post is just biased. You need some objectivity, speaking your mind with indifference is not "hating" its rational thinking.

A lot has changed since the goold ol TV fire tank/burn days. Now its whether you can hit cap or whether you can live through a tough fight. Either way keep the classic Fire tank build; Tough, Weave, aid self. Although it's debatable, I use Aid self quite well. Forget Burn, they nerfed it beyond belief and now mobs run away. Don't bother with temp protection, even IO's wont cap your defense or res so its basically a need to want faster recharge on your heal and consume. Which can still be achieved with slotting Tough and weave with IO's.

With SO's Healing flames is still more pivotal than it used to be. I'll send you a good build.

Krunch I've missed you man. I agree a lot of people are so enamored, so helplessly devoted to JUST posting , that they forget the simple things in playing the game. But honestly, this dispute can be dealt with. Get Gamecam or Fraps, and show. Thats what I do whenever I'm having a problem getting my initial point. Or invite someone to see you tank, I've done it countless times. What better than actual game footage?, Humble Film at its best.

I spend most of my time tanking (as you can tell by my number of posts) so I cant...rather I don't spend my time on the boards. Mostly because someone always has to try and disprove something, its the way of the world. And MMO's tend to bend to any exploit/tactic one might have toward the combat system. Scrappers wanna be Tanks, Tanks wanna be Scrappers, Blasters wann solo every AV now thanks to IO's. Someone always finds a way. But it's never enough for some, so why not just make a recording and show us how You(in general) play.

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Also, could you please drop the condescending "you're wrong" / "you don't play the game" / "take a hint" nonsense. It doesn't support your cause, and it's quite obnoxious to see people present evidence

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What evidence? as far as I'm concerend WP has a weak taunt aura, Invincibility has a strong taunt aura...just dont let that scrapper or blaster hit something. Only Mudpots, Icicles and Blazing aura serve as great aggro aura's because of the dmg they do. Every other aura is either weak or glitchy. I'll be posting a vid soon BTW. That's soon to be evidence and not just board posting.

Kruunch we need to team again.

With RTTC and fast healing the job is pretty much done for you, if anything slot it like a normal tanker, until you can afford some IO sets. Slot RTTC and Fast Healing accordingly. Trust me I have a lvl 41 WP tank, I have still yet to slot IO's and im running TF's with 0 deaths.

While I dont "hate" it as an AT, I hate its side effects (KB). Horrible thing to team with tanks and scrappers and have everything just spray away from the tight death ball. And I will agree it is the player, but I havent seen many Enrg blasters short of an SG team that actually positions him/herself into the correct knockback direction. Its strong and great to look at, but the devs need to seriously consider changing it from knockback to knockdown.

Aett, your missing the point here, Don't busy yourself with trying to disprove me, and use some objectivity. Their called new ideas, and as radical as they may seem. The radical ideas are what created MMO's in the first place. You and I have different opinions, fact. But we all want one thing. Change. You can use every opinion you believe to discredit every opinion I believe. Either way we play the game of roundabout. You don't even have a perspective of what my and Ultimo's ideas might actually look like. Take something into consideration.

And yes I know, thats asking alot from people who regular boards, Internet meme reciters, and even people who wish to argue. But I ask for some clarity. And not a swing of the bat every time I throw an Idea into the air. I get it. Its fun shutting people down, but its not exactly a science, especially when someone can just "QFT", or "Truth" their way into anyone's point of view. But Objectivity is still required.

My original point was that while we know we can get APP blasts, their laughable, everyone who gets them knows this. I don't care about hitting 41 or 32. Its the fact of having more than two blasts that I would enjoy. Call it overpowered but power scaling can easily be done. You can say "people will find a way", but has that ever actually hurt the game?, No. I'm a huge fan of the "if it aint broke..." mentallity but, its not about repair, its about addition. You and many others fear change, obvious, but its not a bad idea, in fact its far from, Tankers with blast have already been decided in Champions Online. Is it so "radical" or obtuse to ask for them in CoH?.

What I find funny, is that if the devs actually implemented the idea of tankers with more blasts, people would make a tank immediately just try them out be it for fun or test. We all love arguing over the "what ifs", but when it comes down to it, we rejoice in having something new.

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Why should Tankers be given blasts to make your concepts be available, instead of Blasters getting Defenses? Should Defenders get some secondaries where they get some MM pets, because there are concepts out there that call for it? Should some Controller secondaries be completely melee attacks? Should Scrappers have some secondaries that contain ranged controls, instead of just armors?

Why should Tankers be able to break their mold, but not other ATs? If you're going to say that it's because there are characters in comics that do more than what Tankers in our game do, I'm sure that you can find some examples of everything I stated above.

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Blasters get shields...and might I add the very over powered Force Mastery APP, which many have coined the "tanking blaster APP".

Controllers, get the very "OP" Hibernate from the Ice mastery,

Scrappers and Defenders are the only AT's that don't get over the top, overpowered APP's. Balance is usually achieved through strength of powers. But if you need further proof, see WoW, or EQ, or even the Diablo series. Balance in these games are made by adding new powers that seem overpowered but remain weak in certain areas, being CD(cooldown) or high end/mana usage. Overall the game still remains the same, if anything enemies are given more life.

What I ask is for more blasts, NOT several "I win buttons". Don't assume I want a landslide victory over every mob I run into. Although if I did, I would create a fire/ blaster and inferno my way into easy exp. See where I'm going here?, we all know what moves are overpowered, we see them everyday when we play. And yet the game isn't ruined. Enemies aren't adjusted "on the fly" because a blaster or a scrapper joins the team. Its easy to implement blasting for Tanks, the only "adjusting" needed would be the very blasting powers. The game doesn't need to be revamped to add already existing powers.

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Skipping HS isn't integral but SoW is??? Way wrong there. HS is one of the staples of the set for your exotic types. MOB is your smash/lethal resists, HS is your exotic defense. It may be in a different form, but its part of your complete defenses, with a tidbit of s/l too, but not hte main part. Considering most powers have s/l in addition to exotic, it actually means defense against some s/l powers as well in that meaning too.

Not to mention the LOTG that fit in it.

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Ah the exotic dmg discussion, already had this conversation a long time ago. 90% of the game is lethal and smashing dmg the rest is exotics. But these "exotic" types and their dmg won't be noticed with Rttc and fast healing at work. And since you mentioned IO's, if your full of io sets exotic dmg will mean nothing to you, as your regen would be high. I'm not saying its a useless power, but that you can still survive without it. I have and still do. I understand the stack of HS with weave, but its hardly "pivotal". IN MY OPINION, SoW is more integral than HS due to its provides the same numbers but toward resists oh and the end mod.

Its a nice "exotic" def power, but when everthing else in the set is taken, it can be ignored. I've survived plenty of TF"s without it.

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Fact is, WM only needs Clobber, Whirling Mace, Shatter & Crowd Control to be effective. Bash is required, so that makes 5, and if you don't have enough recharge, you'll likely want Jawbreaker (or if you want the knockup). However, I consider JB to be totally skippable as its DPA is only slightly better than Pulverize, and I'd much rather fill my gap w/an epic blast (granted, Fire Blast has a slightly lower DPA than JB, but its overall animation is faster and thus reduces your overall DPS less, plus is ranged and opens up Fireball). So that's 5, maybe 6 powers vs. 8 for DB, and 2 powerslots is *huge* in my book.

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Actually those who PVP know that having every attack but the very low dmg lvl 1 one, is useful. If you consider 2 more attacks "huge" then you have to know that with those 2 attacks DB is made whole, as an attack chain combo and overall dmg. Thats the point, you have all the moves so you can be more devastating. As I posted before DB is for the tactician, WM is for the hammer types. But dont take my word for it, make an AE with DB enemies and WM weigh the differences of power and speed.

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I've tried this and it doesn't work very well. It's sort of like not having ED but forcing yourself to follow those rules.

One of the big perks to WP is its go power. Why would you hamstring yourself by lowering your recovery to Stamina only level and then having to invariably slot for recovery later? Its doable ... but you miss a large part of what being a WP is (and then fun of being free of recovery concerns with regards to set bonuses too).

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I wouldn't say its dramatic as "missing a large part of being a WP", as some might argue SoW is an integral part. But trust me, if you have SoW you dont need HS, but as I posted, you could always get HS later, its not like skipping something integral like say, Mind over body.

It depends Dave, if you pick WP, you can acquire QR and skip getting Stam, ( I have done this and with ease). And get everything else without having to worry. You could skip HS and Resurgence and opt to pick the attacks up. Or skip Resurge and pick up HS later. Is HS needed?, well if you survived all the way up to the power then no.

Now if you take Invul, you will probably be skipping the passives all except Tough Hide. The point is to have ALL the attacks, as you benefit more, with them as a DB. This is not to say mace is bad, just that to make DB glorified, you need to get all the powers.

Lastly, Even as a Macer, I assure you , you will be taking all attacks but one, maybe due to low dmg or what have you, but every tank I see usually has 8 attacks by 50. DB just makes you pick one more.

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es, it is. Those comics have to worry exactly jack squat about balance. The story tellers can make those characters as powerful or as weak as they want, pretty much on the fly.

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And how have the devs NOT done this?. We have seen a nerfing of regen three times and a nerfing of fire and invul tanks. Rock has still remained "overpowered" in the sense that its only one shield toggle. Sometimes balance is ignored and concept is favored. I can only think of Rad defenders when I think of concept and imbalance.

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But without doing that, and implementing a system where Tankers can get a decent amount of blasts throughout the game, would lead to problems.

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Not really, through APP's tanks are given a taste, that isn't to say the devs have to bend over backwards for more blasts. I'm not talking about unique new blasting powers, but rather to use the already existing blasting AT's. I'm guessing you don't like change much?, or you like being "neutral" all the time. Asking for a little more isn't bad you know. Especially if its emulating an already emulated platform. Its rather expected.

Ive been asking/saying this for years Ultimo. A tank with blasts would be very nice to see, if for the look alone. And no I don't mean "epic" eyebeams that do laugable dmg. Originally I felt as I was the only one...till I saw what they did with Statesman in the comics(elec blasting). it wasn't long till I wanted something better than the week "epics" that tankers recieved.

For those who posted that "blasting isn't a tanks forte";

Lobo = Gun blasting
Silver Banshee - Sound blasting.
Darkseid - superior eye beam dmg (Omega effect being his main power)
Eradicator - Energy blasting.
Imperiex - energy/fire
Neutron - energy
Preus- fire/energy/
Vartox- energy
Silver Surfer - cosmic beams/generally anything he wants
Iceman - now officially a tank after the whole White queen incident.
Green Lanterns - power ring
Iron Man - See hulkbuster armor, or Ultimo fight (Yes he's a tank)

I can keep going but I think my point is made. Marvel and DC have already implemented this idea in tons of their characters that "tank". Asking for it in a game which revolves around those heroes and said franchise isn't asking fot too much. Mainly I feel many veer away from this opinion, because of the "overpowered" arguement that would soon follow. But as a vet who has made a Rock tank, and invul tank back in I5, and a WP tank, I know what overpowered is, and have no problems with what it has manifested into.

Obviously I would love to see this done. will it ever happen?... many think the APP's blasts are great, so I doubt it. Then again thats what Champions Online is for.

DB makes you take every power , but at a higher reward factor. Mace is fast and strong easy to apply and hammer away. In my opinion DB is for the tactician, I've had a WP/DM for a while now, once you get passed the 20's and start getting your chain attacks, it becomes a tad unfair for the enemy. I.e. the Sweep combo is devastating on huge groups. As well as weaken. Its fast and it provides buffs for the user and debuffs for the enemies.

As far as taunting goes, with taunt, sweep combo, and typhoon's edge, it wont be much of a problem. The only heartache is the actual build itself. As an Invul vet, I found that the passives ; Resist Energies and Resist elements, are far from needed. But its up to you to decide what you don't want or wish to skip.

In conclusion, take DB for the tact or WM for the power.

Shout out to DR. Janis on Guardian server who;

Is level 50
Has no SB...I repeat has no SB

Reasons; "It doesnt fit into my purple set scheme" . "But I'm a fast healer" . Four team wipes later..."I'll go get my tank"....three team wipes later...."Mission is hard". Perfect example of a PLed Lazy kins with no SB. Mind you we had a Rock tank and fire scrapper on team...So there went the dps. Fulcrum workeds "only when it wants to". Horrible player.

Probably add more Defense were it counts on Rock Armor, seeing as people still use it after 32. Increase stone skins numbers just a bit and allow Minerals to be ran on Granite. Everything else can pretty much be "dealt" with.

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Way to miss the point.

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I got the point, you just have no actual response. You have no excuse, if you cant run CoH because of ONE buff, then you need a newer rig than I do. So what else cant your rig do?, because of ONE buff.

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SB may boost my attack rate. That's great. I like that. But the side-effects of super-speed are very detrimental to my performance in a fluid combat environment because control over my positioning degrades dramatically.

Thus, I usually request that a Kin withhold SB from me until I'm either:

A: In the middle of a positively huge mob where all I really need to do is turn around.

B: Shaking hands with the Big Bad's face.

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I would love to see a vid of how you engage in combat. I have 2 high levels scrappers and I have been sb'ed before. Never has it ruined my performance in a fluid combat enviornment. Unless of course I hold the run button down. Honestly I would love to see a vid of you on SB and how its "detrimental" to your combat style.