Novacat_NA

Preferably without at the same time turning the hero into a storm-trooper that can pop aim or use the drone, of course. Thus the suggestions on range-only defense boosts for blasters, who should know even better than their player to keep moving and use cover!

yup. There's no reason why a less defense-equipped AT must ALSO have less HP than others. It'll lose it faster, but it can take a few extra hits of just about any type [rather than many many many many more of one type, and only many many more of the second, which is what you get from various defenses].

If what we take in terms of HP chunks is to make range defense equal to scrappers, one way could be to give us... now don't all start screaming now...
...
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Tanker HP.

yup. that would make us lose our health bar only SLIGHTLY faster than a scrapper with heavy defenses. It wouldn't protect us against mezzing much, though it would give teammates a slightly higher window to save our sorry butts [thus good for teaming].

the only "problem" some might balk at is that yes, this WOULD make us more resilient in solo-play too.

Unless maybe we were to get +15% hp/teammate or something? thus making us safer in teams [well not really but at least that would somewhat offset the increased risk from said teaming]

On the upside though, extra HP is far more reliable than an extra 5% defense [we all know what 5% can mean in this game... 95% chance to hit, anyone?] or toughness, and reliability is something us blasters prize in our abilities... because if it doesn't kick in like you want it to... you die.

You're forgetting repositioning to send that boss stray back at the tanker, then heading back to the other side to renew the caltrop patch between the mobs and the controller, heading up over the whole thing just right to knockdown instead of knockback the entire group as you AoE, then running for cover before they kill you.

Devices and Energy are all about the positioning. That's why they take so bloody long, too. Get to proper spot, lay mine, get to next spot, smoke grenade, lay mine, get to next spot, drop caltrop patch... then set last mine, then smoke-grenade...

this is all before combat STARTS!

I still say "tab, Follow-key" is not nearly the "repositioning" that the average blaster has to do just to stay alive AND kill mobs. Its one more key in the attack sequence that you tap on the way to the attack's numberkey. Its not "critical repositioning".

first: Cronniss_S, that was very nicely put so we forgive you.

Miss Kitty: well you don't have to worry too much on that end [enjoy hard-mode by the way! its much fun!]

For the most part, at least up until recently, Most of the changes we've suggested for blasters are relatively small. Handfuls of minor-moderate changes that will combine to improve us across the board; rather than screaming for one big fix of the "double damage" type.

Even most suggestions of things like crits are for watered down versions. Its actually because we've already been going through the heavy compensation-nerfs, and don't want whatever we get to cause another chain of them.

SG was a fix... but everything else [like burn's mezz-protection removal, or giving things better range than we could ever hope for] has been rather overbearing nerfage. Hell, half our suggestions are just for partial reductions of some of those nerfs, rather than outright removal or addition of new things to screw things up.

Not all, of course. There's also stuff like the simulcasting suggestions, etc..

Doubly so for energy. Add "extra repositioning to compensate or allow for knockback to not scatter everything", and I'd have to say us blasters reposition just as much, if not sometimes more [repositioning != "tab+follow", its actual moving around to get to the right spot] than scrappers.

on the other hand, BECAUSE this does not happen, retaliation is brought onto us while we're still in the middle of the attack animation. you're rooted for almost 2 seconds AFTER Zapp goes off; which makes avoiding counter-alphas rather difficult.

Same with AR

I did say as an AT didn't I?

Dude.. a big colorful giant robot [ok not so giant but in the same style] would be awesome. Plenty of attack options, half of which are just style so you can either go "super-robot" [ie; Getter-robo, voltron, Gravion and the like] or more "realistic" [like Gears, exo-armors and the old variable-fighters].

gawds I'd absolutely love that as an AT. it's tech origin, and its definitely heroic! Maybe an old votoms Scope-dog...

Traditionally, most of our suggestions for blasters are considered to be seperate ideas; that is, pick one or two and implement, to bring us almost up to par.

Most of the time, anyways.

That really depends on the type. A Freaktank will fire a grenade from afar, close in, throw a buzzsaw on his way in if you were a bit far and then melee you if at all possible.

a crey crisis unit will often just stand there and keep you asleep... sometimes for a very... very... very long time... because while anything else would've killed you, HIS sleep grenade does no damage.

Rikti mentalists I've seen actually try to ESCAPE melee, and this on my blaster. of course as soon as they get out its sleepy holdy death time...

Hellion damned tend to stay far. they have a nasty fire-punch, and the laughable combustion [does them about as much good as it does us], but they'd rather just fireball.

Council archons I'd have to say are the most melee-agressive bosses in the early-game. THOSE are pretty much guaranteed to fire once, drop the gun and bumrush you, where they put those feet to most fiendish use (easily 3-hit kill you from full, and that first one's a knockdown).

Chief Soldier rikti seem just as content one way or another. sometimes they stay there and pump 350+ shots into my level 37, sometimes they close in. sometimes they give up on closing in and stick to the blasting... and usually that's when they win against me.

Closes the gap a little but we're still the slowest and most expensive.

But could we get back to talking about BLASTERS?

Like I keep suggesting. Halve our bloody caps [that's right, +150% instead of +300%], and increase the base damage scaling so that in the 20's, when we'd start REACHING said 300+% levels normally, we instead cap out on enhancements [keeping buildup and Aim applied to base damage instead, and lowering their efficiency a bit to compensate], but deal as much damage.

Result I'm looking for: Same damage at level 20 with 200% as right now with 200%.

Same damage at level 25 with new cap as currently with 300%
Same damage at level 35 with new cap as currently with 300% and same for 45 and 50.

Buildup/Aim would apply to our base damage instead [so stay seperate and don't slam into the cap], but of course be reduced in effectiveness to compensate.

This would free up slots for either secondary effects boosting of our attacks, endurance or recharge improvements, or boosting the meager defensive powers we have a little more.

Same damage [ok a TINY bit more with buildup or aim on] as we currently do, just needing less enhancements to do it. That way we can focus on other parts of our offense without falling behind.

I really wish we didn't have to even refer to the whole scrappers thing. Unfortunately, in the *few* cases we kept quiet about them and tried to focus on how to better ourselves in general rather than in comparison, one came in on their own to back-talk and tried to put "them's nerfin-words" in our mouths.

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Blasters have better final powers in each powerset (Primary and Secondary) than Scraps do. Although I guess some of those perma-MoGers and perma-Unstoppablers might argue with me. But have you guys seen Nova? Wish I could do that with my Scrapper.

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Take it. Seriously. You take nova or inferno, we'll take your headsplitter or divine avalanche instead and get some range on it.

Actually, all our points about those things not being NEARLY as "great" as you meleers think they are will either get proven outright:
"Hey, half of them are still standing and my toggles just went dow... why isn't my end recovering?"

or turn out to be a complete blessing for you guys "hey, I can actually survive and not get slaughtered by the large mass of icons which appear as I jump in!"

Either way, I'd have no issues with the switch [headsplitter is FAR, FAR more versatile and useful in combat, in my eyes], and it's probably actually for the better.

actually I meant non-blasters. I mean, most people notice when something stings them.

But you gotta have a pretty high score to notice that upgraded (sharpened) lance back in arroyo or spot how blasters die faster than we're told they do!

Well I'm sure most if not all of us would be more than happy to help'em level a couple of blasters up to the mid 30's and see how well they keep up with teams then.

'course they're probably really really good at the game so we'll have to make sure they get in with the really bad groups to compensate. Don't worry, its not too hard; by bad I just mean the average pickup group.

See, its all about perception.
We noticed it.

Some see our damage in atlas park and then close their eyes, and never notice it.

Obviously our perception stat is higher than average!

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To be honest, I'm also kinda disappointed that it was only five that got sent...

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was napping before they got sent, and woke up with over 10 pages of the stuff already on... you people write a LOT

One thing though states: If the damage we're taking at range is supposed to compensate; ie equalise for what others are taking at melee, then shouldn't it scale the same way in later levels as it does in the early ones?

As things are, the statement is true until around level 20, when our HP difference combines with the lack of defenses to mean we're taking FAR more damage at range than scrappers and tankers take at melee; in addition to taking proportionally greater base damage in the late 30's or above.

If a scrapper has 1500hp, and a blaster has 1000, then melee is not riskier than range if the melee hit deals 400, while the ranged strike deals 300. In proportion of total HP, the scrapper is safer in melee than the blaster is at range. It means we're squishier, and if it was only to this extent, it would be more than fine.

This, however, assumes someone forgot to turn on their defensive toggles/clicks. If you add Mezzing into the mix, the blaster's a LOT squishier. Now add in the far higher damage mitigation, and what was 400 damage/minute has become 150, out of a larger HP pool, and without all those pesky status effects that can end the fight in one shot.

I've taken more than a few Rikti Chief Soldiers on, and in my experience, if their plasma rifle deals 380, that sword will only be roughly 520~550 or so (so the rifle is between 75 and 70% of the sword). The rifle disorients too, though.

Tank - highest HP / highest dmg resist / highest def/ med-high dmg dealer
Scrapper - medium HP / high dmg resist / high dmg dealer
Blaster - Low HP / lowest dmg resist / High dmg dealer
defender - low hp / med dmg resist / med dmg dealer
controller - low hp / low dmg resist / low dmg dealer [but actually safe thanks to powers/pets]

Defenders have various forms of mitigation; whether a debuff or a buff. that's defense right there.

Pretty sure controllers and blasters have THE SAME hp maximum. 1050 at level 50?

Controllers post 32 (and lategame is the blaster issue) have pretty high damage mitigation thanks to pets and the opened up secondaries. you could say their damage goes up a notch to "medium", almost, too.

Energy's all about the snipe. That shorter interrupt/animation REALLY makes it worthy of use.

unfortunately I've still yet to try one myself [altaholic], but from everything I've seen and teamed with, it seems to me the offensive side of kheldians is EXACTLY what a blaster should be.

Their melee is a rather powerful and punishing feature, much like ours [but without the horrid animation length of FCS and combustion and friends]. Nova form has excellent range, wide area attacks, and is maneuverable and can fire a long time (inherent recovery boost) though its very squishy.

Now granted, they have less attacks than we do. But wouldn't this be more due to the fact that they ALSO have access to turning into a tank, or other versatile abilites?

Novaform without the shapeshifting options, and with more attack options [such as the melees in the secondaries; ONCE the majority get revamped to actually work in a good way for us]... that's more or less what I imagine when thinking of ideal blasters. Power, Range, Maneuverability, and STILL unable to take a hit, but at least we get the first 3 for it!

Well Energy manip. has the advantage of actually stunning the enemy. This is a huge advantage. A lot harder to do with fire's horribly slow animations.

Many of the melee powers as they are currently are an excercise in utter frustration, often giving a group of villains plenty of time to stack those incoming-attack-icons between your clicking the button and them actually dying. Even when jousting, there's still plenty of risk, since their attacks will kick in when you get close just the same.

If blaster-melee is made more blaster-friendly, then it could become a very interesting option. Otherwise its just a defenseless scrapper with somewhat kindof higher damage [unless crits kick in] that can't shrug off a minion's mez.

What we can do that a scrapper can't already do?

Let's see... I'd say the only real advantage we have over them isn't ball AoE [they get those in point-blank form, which isn't a problem for them], but rather our extended cones. Sure, the damage is a tiny bit lower, but blaster cones can easily hit an entire group if well used. Only 2 "final" powers of scrappers can do this, but with less damage. As things are right now, our edge is in the full-auto/Flamethrower and other similar combos.

However, as torakage said, the biggest problem is that its not just blaster vs. scrapper... its blaster vs tanker, blaster vs defender, and even blaster vs fire-imps... and that's on the offensive side!

I wouldn't mind seeing some of the melees dissapear personally, but if we're revamped so that they're worth taking and using instead [the non energy melees that is], that's just as good, if not better.

Some of the more problematic ones are Blazing Aura and Combustion; both of which have slow animations or slow DoT as WELL as requiring the blaster to get himself surrounded. I don't think anyone who's wanted to eliminate melee from blasters was refering to Total Focus or Havoc punch

hm. handles street hunting [one minute might be a bit too fast] but leaves missions alone so that teams can split.

sounds closer to actually fixing the problem... I still wonder about the whole autofollow-the-bridge part though...