Miladys_Knight

I may not have been clear. I do NOT believe that it is an objective reason. I fear that the devs DO.

I'm all in favor of making blaster mitigation active mitigation. The only problem with active mitigation though is the staying active part. That still comes down to a mechanic to avoid or prevent mez and also the possibility to break out of mez quickly enough to save oneself by resuming active mitigation.

I did explain my point. Devices can lay out 1600 points worth of damage that all happens in the span of 2 seconds which prevents virtually all retaliation. The problem is that it takes 2 minutes to set that up.

Any blaster primary with decent AoE can do the same in about 30 seconds but you face ALL the return fire.

Its a trade off of 4 times longer for near complete safety. With IOs and/or inspirations you can achieve near perfect safety with the second case and get the job done in 30 seconds.

No amount of IOs and inspirations can make devices do 1600 damage in 30 seconds because of recharge time, animation time, and interrupt time + Time Bomb's Delay.

Now if you look at all that correctly you can surmise that as long as you play ??/devices with a primary that has good AoE (like Fire) you can almost completely ignore your secondary. Which you can. You can play Fire/Devices and only ever use Web grenade which you have to take and Caltrops to keep the baddies out of melee range and do just fine.

Clearly a misnomer.

Definition of Juggernaut from Merriam Webster's dictionary:

Definition of Juggernaut

Jug´ger`naut`
n. 1. One of the names under which Vishnu, in his incarnation as Krishna, is worshiped by the Hindus. See also Jagannath.
2. Any large, unstoppable force, power, or popular movement which defeats or destroys any person who gets in its way or attempts to stop it; as, for years the Notre Dame football team was an unstoppable juggernaut; after the early primaries, Johnson's campaign became a juggernaut, crushing all rivals.

The AT clearly doesn't live up to the term especially when compared to it's Damage dealing brethren.

I don't see it as an objective reason or as a good reason, though I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the devs do. Stating that is the case won't happen. That would be them admitting that they are wrong and it would force them to change that bias.

Except the changes to all the other ATs are expressly to make them less team dependent (ie: to make them more soloable) So the answer to your last question is yes it is wrong and the devs have known/shown that for every AT that could not solo efficiently starting with containment for controllers.

I wouldn't be too sure about that either.

Total focus nerf comes to mind, Power Boost's KB removal nerf, Acrobatics nerf all relatively recent and if not targeted directly at blasters (we know that 2 of the three were for sure) then targeted in such a way to adversely affect blasters the most while potentially "looking" even handed.

When converters hit there will be no "Cheap purples." The time to rethink is now.

What if it took 3 days of set up time to insta-gib the zone? Still overpowered then?

Devices is the ONLY secondary power set that can put out 1600 damage in 2+ seconds. The problem is the set up time to do that is a couple of minutes. A blaster primary power set can put out 1600 damage in a matter of seconds, the only down side is that you are exposed to massive amounts of return fire. That's something that IOs can help you resolve. No amount of IO sets will reduce the set up time required for devices to do 1600 damage to a comparable level. You can't even come close. The trade off is just too high.

Actually I think I have. Blaster performance is the way it is so that Defenders have someone to defend. I honestly think that's the part of the teaming concept the original devs had that the current crop of devs still cling to. Even though they have abandoned the teaming/team support (ie: difficult to solo) concepts of all the other ATs.

Yes I know. It's like saying that aspartame is an alternative to sugar but only blasters are on a diet. Then overlooking that aspartame reduces kidney function in some people, causes migraines in others, can increase the likelihood of heart disease in some, can frequently cause preterm delivery in pregnant women, has some studies showing that it doesn't help with weight loss, and is a mild metabolic poison...... but at least it isn't sugar.

I personally like to avoid complicated and unproven solutions when simple proven ones exist. The more complex something is the more likely it is that something will happen or that something else will go wrong which leaves the problem in place (or a worse one) until the next time the devs have a chance to make a pass at it, say 2+ years down the road.

Edit - and mez resistance doesn't prevent mitigation from offensive toggles being lost nor does it prevent existing mitigation from defense/resistance toggles from being suppressed. We need a solution that doesn't make so many of the powers we get to pick useless. Mez resistance vs mez protection has the same issues that you site between damage resistance and defense. Blasters are combat ATs forced to enter combat by their design. They should have the same tools that the other combat ATs have perhaps just not at similar levels.

I think we have a nomenclature issue here. To me being able to continue to attack means ALL my primary and secondary powers just like all the other ATs that are required, by design, to enter combat get to do. Being able to use 3 out of the 18 when all the other Combat ATs get to use 18 of 18 isn't balanced. I would even be ok with being unable to move as a mezzed blaster if I could use all my powers. I could potentially pop my crashing nuke and still save myself or fling one more fireball and take out those 4 or 5 minions with a sliver of health before they could finish me off.

Part of the problem is the binary nature of return fire too. It doesn't matter how much health a mob has left. If he still has any at all he inflicts full damage.

Disingenuous again and as always. I have never been asking for EVERY thing. I will make the same statement as I always do.

1) I do NOT think that blasters NEED more damage. They need the ability to hang fire and apply the damage they all ready have.

2) I do NOT think that blasters NEED more defense or resistances. I get that they are supposed to be glass cannons and I can and do roll with that too.

3) Blasters are the ONLY AT that are forced into combat and incoming mezzing attacks by their very design yet have absolutely no ability to avoid or escape mez in their power sets (defiance does NOT count. It does not help you avoid nor does it help you escape.)

I'm not even asking for the world when it comes to mez protection. All I have ever advocated is mag 4 protection. Just enough to avoid 1 application of mez so that I CAN hang fire long enough to kill the mezzer without having to resort to break frees and so that I can keep what little defense/resistance/secondary effects I get from various toggles without them being suppressed or detoggled.

That would still not be BALANCED since the other ATs that are forced into combat by their design still have all these things AND MORE but it would be enough to make the difference. I'm not even asking for even footing. I'm pretty sure that I could manage with just a toe hold.

I've been playing this game for 7 years. I know EXACTLY why my blasters fail in situations where my other characters do not (barring powerset differences) I became a Blapper player long before D2.0 for one reason and one reason only. If you stealth in and open up in melee range on a mezzer he'll use a melee attack as an opener instead of his ranged mezzing one. I can take 2 or 3 melee shots and still survive if I can trade blow for blow. Being locked down in the Alpha mez takes that away and gives me nothing to fall back on because I can't finish the mezzer off with the 3 attacks that I can use while mezzed before he can finish me off with his full range of powers.

I return you now to your previously scheduled disingenuousness and exaggerated claims.

This statement,

Followed by this statement, is one of the biggest logical disconnects that I have ever seen posted on the forums. I can't take your posts seriously. It's almost like you have some ingrained anti-blaster bias and aren't even able to see your own hypocrisy.

This. Why spend lots of time and resources on content only a dozen people use.....

Actually I solo with additional mobs when slotted this way. Its the difficulty I don't mess with. 1 SO's worth of Acc in Tesla cage still gives you enough Acc to be good all the way up to +2 mobs.

This is the only nit I would pick with Local Man's advice.

With a 90% base accuracy on Tesla Cage, I wouldn't slot 2 SOs of Acc since against most foes 1 will be enough unless you are going with some insane difficulty setting like +4/8x. I would go 1 Acc, 3 hold, 2 rech. A 3rd rech only shaves .7 seconds off the recharge of the power where a 3rd hold enhancer adds 5.3 seconds to the duration.

I tend to play uniquely to most other players. My solo strategy was always a bit different.

Prior to getting Synaptic Overload I would open with Static Field which was slotted 2 acc, 2 end mod, 2 rech. I would slap Tesla Cage on any mob that was loose and then jump into the spawn and let Conductive start draining them. I would then select a target and alternate Tesla Cage, Electric Fence, and Jump Kick.

I did that while I was waiting for the mobs to drain and Static Field to expire. Once it expired ALL the mobs would self herd to the spot I was standing in and I would drop Static Field again and then follow up with Chain Fences to lock the herded spawn into place. After that I continued with the same single target chain but I lined up mobs and used Sands of Mu for AoE damage along with Chain Fences to add AoE damage and keep the spawn drained.

Very Safe but Very Slow.

Your perception is part of the problem. Comparing red side market with blue side market was like comparing Wal-mart to a road side fruit stand. In actuality the "red side" market was not subsumed into the "blue side" market. Both markets were combined into one "Super Market". The player base perception of some (which was unreasonable) was based on what happens in the real world when there is a hostile take over of a business. The "small towns" lose what little selection they had and they pay higher prices to boot. Prices dropped and availability of goods went up on both sides.

What actually happened was more like Wal-Mart bought out a fruit store chain but instead of closing them all down they opened Super Wal-Marts at each former Red side fruit market location and made all the blue side Wal-marts Super Wal-marts too by allowing the old fruit market to reach a broader base of customers. The instant the devs combined the markets there was no longer a red side or a blue side market just a single super CoX market.

I would say that it was a very good result. Judging by the drop in chatter on the market forums it solved the issues.

Indeed, long after it was demonstrated that they couldn't the devs held onto that (unreasonable?) hope. I think that's part of the problem. The devs cling to failed ideas for oft times inexplicable reasons. I think they need to look at what the customers want and try to provide it.

If the Blaster AT was a cell phone or internet service the devs would go out of business. No one wants to pay for constant disruptions in service (think of mez that you survive as massive lag and mez or unbalanced content that you die from as a service interruption) companies that provide crappy service like that go belly up. Its the exact phenomena of blasters being created the most and also abandoned the most. The advertising is good, and the service is good at first, but the more you use it and the farther from home (or level 1 in this case) the worse the service is. People change ATs not because blasters are hard but because blaster play style/mechanics is annoying rather than fun.

You are actively handling the situation. When you toggle the power ON you are selecting a very blastery damage buff and a recovery buff to help fuel the extra "hot lead" slinging.

You can also actively drop the toggle to turn the damage buff off and the mez protection on. Power sets that have other offensive toggles (like /fire's Hot Feet) would benefit from not having to be detoggled from the mez to have the mez protection kick in.

Running it the other way as you suggest means that if you are mezzed you are still stuck since toggles can't be turned on or off while mezzed. It would sharply curtail the usefulness of the power.

I have little faith in Posi's opinion. As I recall the tl:dr version of what he had Ex Libris post in the market forums (don't know why he didn't make the PR effort to post it himself) was merged markets = d00m. Villians had too little inf compared to heroes, blah, blah, blah. Post market merger and here we are. No d00m instead exactly what we in the market forums said would happened, happened. Inf on both sides stabilized when the ARTIFICIALLY created and maintained barriers were removed. Just the opposite of Posi's opinion on the matter.

On top of that I find that Posi's opinion on the sometimes buff issue to be off by a wide margin since mez is a penalty that frequently turns an entire AT off. Not to mention that, unless I am mistaken, Momentum in Titan Weapons is a "stance" and I don't hear any players complaining about the time that momentum is down. Swap Ammo in Dual pistols is also a stance. People DO complain about that, not because they get to choose but that none of the choices are as good as what you would have if the power set had been built as those before it and hadn't sacrificed performance for "gimmick."

Defiance as a toggle "could" be seen in the stance light because what the devs would do with it is fix it (or break it depending on your point of view) so that it only worked 1/2 the time. I'm proposing a toggle that is a buff in one state but a different yet equal value buff in the opposite state. There's no nerf you just have to select which buff you want by turning the toggle on or off.

Your solution for AR/ when paired with /dev or /dark is what then?

They tried that with defiance 2. It didn't work. To me that says the approach to solve the problem was from exactly the wrong direction.

Sometimes adding MOAR of what you all ready have in abundance exacerbates the problem and it rarely solves it.

If your house is cold and uninsulated you can do one of 2 things. Insulate to make it warm (add mitigation) or turn up the heat (add damage). The first solution has a high one time cost that solves the problem permanently. The second solution solves the problem temporarily. At least until your lights and gas bill arrives and you have a different and potentially worse problem. That you can't afford to fix.

I still think my solution from the closed beta of D2.0 is the way to go. It fixes the issue for every one.

Make defiance a 0 recharge offensive toggle. When it's toggled on it gives the blaster 25% more damage and 25% more recovery. When it's toggled off it gives the blaster mag 4 mez protection and 25% more regeneration instead.

Boom fixed. Part time (and VERY low value) mez protection OR a damage increase and the player chooses the one they want. If you never get mezzed you'll always have it on and you'll have all the extra damage you want. Those blasters that have a hard time with mez give up the damage bonus. The mechanics of the toggle solve the problem for the new or inexperienced blaster player because its coded as an offensive toggle and when they get mezzed it drops and the mag 4 mez protection kicks in.

No extra defenses or resistances added so the blaster stays a glass cannon they just get to keep the cannon part in either scenario. It's a simple solution and solves the problem for both the blasters that want more damage and the blasters that think they have enough damage they just need to be allowed to apply it more often.