Miladys_Knight

Yep. I usually check vet badges first though. Far far far too many bad experiences with bad grav players. I once was on a 3 hour PUG ITF (I was helping a newbie I was trying to mentor) that featured a grav/FF controller. If we had kicked him we'd have been done in an hour.

I won't go into that particular missions details again lets just say that I won't stay on a team with a grav player that I don't know unless he/she has at least 4 years of CoX experience and even then its a first 5 minutes type thing.

To date I've never teamed with a "good" grav player and the recent "update" to grav means that there are lots more "bad" grav players out there. To save myself the hassle I just don't team with them.

Actually this is an issue that has been present since the KB bug reared its head. I think it might be related. I have experienced delays and "unqueueing." It usually happens right after I am hit with a mezzing or KB attack.

It "feels" as if the game is making me wait while it checks to see if I am affected by the KB or Mez and it decides to unqueue my attack even though the offending attack doesn't exceed my KB or mez protection.

You might try hitting Dull Pain "before" jumping in for the alpha. Dull Pain not only heals you but it increases your max hit points. That gives you a larger hit point buffer to work with. It increases your regen rate because you are regening with a larger hit point pool. It also makes any orange or purple insps you used more valuable.

It's more likely that he's looking at Trick Arrow.

Some of Dom issues could be solved by having domination affect the controls in psuedo pet and toggle type powers. The devs reduced the durations on those compared to controllers and then made Domination not work on them.

Having Domination affect the confuse duration in AA would make a pretty big difference (or putting the fear [if it is terrorize] back into the Dom version). They should probably reduce the end cost of AA to .5 end/sec since it looks like we are still paying the end cost for the fear effect that isn't there any more. Inceasing the range in Flash Freeze to 80 and reducing it's recharge would also go a long way in helping Ice as would increasing the range of Ice Slick to 80.

If you don't mind the horrendously slow pace and leveling speed you can make a very survivable Arch/Dev blaster with SOs only. Problem is that it will be slower by about a factor of 4 than any other non-/dev power set combination (even elec/ and psi/)

The situation as portrayed isn't a random one. The one described was my college roommate's car.

It had a pinhole in the top radiator hose (it went through a bout a gallon of coolant every 2 weeks.)

It had a slow brake fluid leak (he had to put a pint in every couple of weeks and he could tell when it was needed by how squishy the brakes were).

The crankcase leaked oil. It would leak 4 quarts overnight and he would put a plastic pan under it when he parked it, take the pan and pour it back into the engine, drive it to work and put the pan back under it while he was there. Repeat. He'd have to put about a cup of oil in every 30 miles (no pan while driving).

Reverse gear didn't work. He'd spend several minutes on campus looking for a place to park that had 2 stalls back to back so he could pull in and park facing forward to exit. He also left plenty of following room while driving so he never got caught in a place where he would have to back up.

One of the engine cylinders had a bad valve and carbon would build up on the spark plug. Every couple of weeks he would take that plug out, soak it in gasoline over night, wire brush the loose carbon out, regap the plug, and put it back in.

There were more things wrong than right with that car but, in the middle of winter, in 20 below temperatures, it would fire right up first time and he'd be out jump starting the cars of his friends that wouldn't start. Funniest one was his professor that bought a brand new car. The new car wouldn't start (this was in November on a cold day) and my roommate drove over in his junk heap of a car and jumped it and got his professor going.

It all kind of reminds me of the blaster AT. A bunch of junk powers (with a few decent ones) all thrown together in a jumble. Only someone with a lot of experience would even consider it "ok" (kinda like my roomie and his college car). A bunch of broken pieces, in an ostensibly broken whole, still plugging along as if mortally afraid of dying.

A provably false premise:

A broken glass may still hold liquid at the bottom. Trying to drink out of it may cause you to ingest glass shards, cut your lips, your mouth, your hand. It still ostensibly functions as a "glass" it is also still demonstrably broken.

A car can be leaking oil, leaking coolant, leaking brake fluid, and have reverse be non-functional. It can still be driven (forwards), It can still be put into motion (though you may have difficulty stopping it). It still "works" as a car but by reasonable people's definition is broken.

An Air conditioner with a broken fan still puts out large quantities of cold air, however since the air doesn't move the unit will freeze up, thaw out, freeze up. It still does what it is designed to do (cool the air) it is by most reasonable definitions "broken"

A blaster is one of those ATs that work fine only part of the time (like all of the above examples). Most reasonable people consider that "broken"

Thank you for playing, please drive through.

Yep, Soul Drain from the PPP, sorry for the confusion.

I haven't run hero stats on it yet but with other combos where I can ignore either the cone damage power or the PBAoE my damage actually goes up once I have Perma because I can use a seamless chain without having to bounce around. Dark/Dark has too many powers that are cone/melee even with perma I still have to bounce around to be effective which is .... less effective.

If I don't take a second to realign the cone power(s) or my target mob is in motion before the power activates I sometimes hit only 1 target or just a couple drastically reducing their total effectiveness. It may not be half but it is too much of a ding for me to seriously consider playing dark much more.

I'm just glad it's not a power set that I had to pay for and then find out that I didn't like it (I'm looking at you Beam Rifle).

It has it's uses (I never overlook an AoE to hit debuff). The problem for me with dark control is the range dance is exacerbated. Cone range for Fearsome Stare, Living Shadows and Night Fall. Melee range for Gather Shadows, Engulfing Darkness, and Heart of Darkness.

You have to bounce back and forth like a psychotic ping pong ball to get the most use out of the powers (not really an issue for the controller). If you miss lining up during any of those bounces you waste the power(s) and you are all ready only half as effective because of all the time you waste bouncing back and forth.

Its also the one primary that you can't solve that with perma and skipping the powers that don't fit in one category or the other.

and the corr and defender likely done it better.

If you don't want to rely on inspiration drops you've completely eliminated the blaster AT which is silly. There are tools a competent player can use. I was rotating things like Eye of the Magus, Force of Nature, Nova, PFF, Phase Shift, and inspiration use (and when I was flat out of stuff the wedding band for a few seconds) just like I always do with this toon.

I didn't really die more often than normal (caveat: it's still more often with blasters than any other AT though)

The thing I have to interject here is that, unless the blaster PLAYER is a top tier player, then when the fight goes badly the blaster won't turn the tide at all but will be the first to hit the pavement instead (which is just the opposite). In that case what will make the blaster turn the tide is someone else on the team having vengeance (or the defender(s) on the team getting to leverage vigilance).

Any type actually. I did it with my Energy/Energy/Force blaster that has almost no mitigation but is purpled out and has Perma-Hasten. There is no IXP debt so a trip to the hosp is no biggie except for travel time back the mission.

Honestly you're probably hurting the newbie more than helping them. Since market access comes before IO access most newbies are going to be selling low tier expensive salvage to build up a nest egg rather than buying it to craft.

Even Newbie VIPs will also quickly learn that you make more on the market selling the luck charm than you get wasting it to craft an enhancement that you'll out level next weekend and just want to over slot with a higher level Acc IO or start frankenslotting for effect instead.

Your real target should be tier 2 common salvage. That's the stuff that a newbie is going to slot and keep in their build. That level salvage is also particularly annoying for a new player because of the level breaks of where it drops compared to what's required to craft in that level. (It drops only half as much from level 35-40 because tier 3 drops the other half of the time but is still 100% of what you need to craft with from level 35-40)

Hyperbole much? Strawman much?


So tell me exactly how adding damage as you want helps the blaster teamed in these situations? These are the EXACT teaming situations that the solo performance buffs we've been talking about will be useful on a team. Right now blaster damage is almost high enough to steal aggro even from a good tank. Buff the damage as you want and it very well could mean that the blaster could steal the aggro even from a good tank on a consistent basis (I'll trust Arcanaville to run the numbers on that I don't have her gift where that is concerned) this makes survivability buffs even more important than any damage buffs especially of the level that you are contemplating

I notice that you didn't deign to share. Perhaps because they are trivial or not germaine to the real issues?

You mean like adding damage will fix them? You can pour gallons and gallons of water into a 16 ounce container.... it will still only hold a pint no matter how hard you wish for it to hold more.

Since blaster problems on teams and solo boil down to being mezzed too much and being defeated too much I don't see how you could even spout such nonsense. Any fix that addresses these 2 issues will provide benefit solo and teamed.

There is a difference between a fix and a buff. I want the broken parts of the AT fixed. You just want a damage buff.

My point is that this is not the case. On a team the aggro goes to the tank (if its a good tank) solo the blaster gets it all. A team fix may still not solve the solo problems. The converse is not true.

Have to keep the horse in front of the cart.

You can take spring attack for the KD mitigation and still keep the Fire Epic

Actually a 25' radius Knock down after a (random 2-4 second per target delay) would be thematic.

"SNIPER! Hit the dirt!"

Blaster version is a stun and it's in the Electric Epic. I have it on my Sonic/Ice/Elec.

Sirens > Frozen Aura > EMP (doesn't wake them up since it does no damage) > Dreadful Wail.