Ohms__NA

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The 14-16 in my sig is from the "Issue 4 sprint to 50." At some point around level 43 or so [I don't remember exactly] I started counting how many times Boltcutter, my Scrapper, died, vs how many times Aurora Forge [my wife; Fire/fire blaster] died. She died 1.14 times as much as I did.

(She did spend a WHOLE lot more time staring at her screen, mezzed, than I did. And I agree that that is a problem.)

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Was she soloing, or duoing with you? If she was duoing with you, it's a whole different ballgame than if she was soloing. I plan to get to 50 with Arc Salvo by teaming only. I really just don't like the vast amounts of mezz so many 40-50 villain groups have.

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Exactly, when teamed or running a duo, a Blaster can use this to his or her advantage. They're no more survivable than they ever were, they're simply using their teammates to offset their weakness.

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Ohms: I've noticed that whenever you start to lose on a particular point, you change the subject.

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Change the subject? Exactly how am I changing the subject? You're posting a friggin' sob-story about how tough Scrappers have it, and I'm disagreeing with it. Instead of actually dealing with points made, you obfuscate matters by turning things personal, making accusations, misrepresenting points actually made, and when that doesn't fly either, you blow the whole thing off with crap like this?

Lessee.... Scrappers are still about, what, four times as survivable as Blasters? Yet still have a 500% damage cap, and gained 12.5% to their base damage output. Which means they still have near-Blaster levels of damage output while clearly having better survivablity. Okay, okay. They can't solo AVs anymore, but I'm having trouble seeing their plight.

[*]Scrappers still offer high levels of damage. [*]Scrappers can still take incoming damage some four times better than Blasters. [*]Scrappers still have an inherent that, while unpredictable, doesn't require one to get their fourth point of contact kicked up around their shoulderblades before it kicks in. [*]Scrappers still have a bajillion times more mez protection than Blasters. [*]Scrappers are still far more desirable from a team standpoint because the upside they bring is so high while the downside is so minimal.[/list]Uhm... yeah...

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While the above is a perfectly valid counter to the line of argument BlasterMaster is taking, I would like to point out that for my Blaster his main lines of Defense before I5/I6 were not Combat Jumping nor Stealth. They were:
[*]A controller's AE holds[*]A tanker's aggro control[*]A defenders shields or debuffs

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Exactly. Something I pointed out to no end when all these changes were being floated. The most team-dependant AT going is the Blaster AT. When the other ATs can't hold, or buff, or debuff, or control aggro, who directly pays for these indirect nerfs when they team up? Blasters.

With the damage output nerfs, the indirect nerfs, the brainfart that is Defiance, not to mention the "stupid Blaster tricks" the lead designer himself posted, the issues Blasters had (ie. survivability and desirability on teams) were only exacerbated.

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You got an 18% boost in hit points.

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And a 50% reduction in the one thing that's our main "defense", our offensive capacity.

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You got a 100% boost in damage cap. Either the 500% happens or it doesn't. You can't claim it counts when Scrappers had it, but not when you got it.

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Not only should the "Scrappers at 500% while Blasters are at 400%" thing never should've happened in the first place capping Blasters equal to, and not greater than, an AT that has a defensive capacity is still a part of the problem. Blasters paid for their offensive capacity by giving up their defensive capacity. Scrappers gave up squat and cap out at the same level? Yeah, can't see why people have a problem with that.

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And along with that 12.5% increase in Scrapper damage, we lost somewhere around 85% of our defenses.

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Blasters lost 50% of their offensive output without a base damage increase (something Scrappers were given in trade when their defensive capacity took a hit) to offset it while gutting what little defensive capacity they could scrape together from the pools. But hey, at least we can now get one-and-a-half-shotted instead of one-shotted with that massive 18% HP boost everyone seems to invoke sooner or later in this ongoing debate.

Oh, and we got Defiance too.

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I kind of enjoy the rather unique ability to service any target in the battle. I can Total Focus a boss, knock a bad guy off the controller keeping me alive from the other side of the melee, then go back to pounding on the boss without having to run around like a scrapper would. That's where the balance between primary and secondary lie for me. Sure, I have glass chin, but the bad guy had best land the first punch or I'm gonna pummel him.

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Blappers have that mythic "gunkata" folks were wanting for a Scrapper primary. With my E3 Blaptroller I can punch, shoot, hold, immobilize and sometimes even drain (), the holy batsnot out of things. I can do it close up. I can do it at range. And with TP Foe, Recall Friend and Medicine, I can 'port friend and foe as well as heal myself and my teammates. I just take take much in the way of a punch and I tend to drunk-walk when someone so much as farts in my general direction.

Blaster primaries and secondaries aren't as clearcut as ther other ATs. While Scrappers have Offense/Defense and Tankers have Defense/Offense and Defenders have Buff-Debuff/Offense, Blasters are Offense/Offense. Contrary to their titles. Primaries have, for the most part, ranged attacks. But they also have melee-ranged and control "support" powers. But for the most part, it's about offensive capacity. The same goes for secondaries. There are melee-ranged and support powers here as well, but for the most part, secondaries are about offensive capacity. Should the secondaries be reexamined? Heck yes. So should the primaries.

Should Blasters have their melee attacks removed. Hell no. Just because you can't take a punch is no reason to not be able to clobber someone in the face. If anything, it's a bigger rush doing it when you can't take a punch. Seeing as how many powers still require you to close to melee-range, and seeing as how staying at range isn't all that safe to begin with, chopping out the melee attacks would do more harm than good. About the only people that would help would be the folks that insist on refering to Scrappers and Tankers (and Stalkers and Brutes) as "melee classes".

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That lowers the offensive output of Blasters as related to Scrappers since they spend parts of the combat typing "zzzzzzzzzzzz" instead of actually using their offense.

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On all of my Blasters have have numpad0 set up with a "Mezzed!" tell-bind. Saves time.

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Give most of the Blaster secondaries a non-interruptable heal and they'd likely find Defiance better than criticals, too.

Edit: Actually, not a half bad idea, that. Would create some nice synergy with Defiance.

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Was running a Dark/Dark Corruptor in a themed VG a few weeks ago. Things went south and the team, save for my Dark/Dark, faceplanted. As I stood my ground taking out the remains of three packs of Longbow I jokingly came to the sad realization that there was no way in hell they were going to give Blasters a reliable (and non-hinky) self-heal. That isn't to say I wouldn't want a self heal. I mean, there's a reason why I manage to work Medicine into all of my Blaster builds.

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You're refusing to take the protection that a team can offer, then claiming that your self-martyrdom entitles you (and all the less-stupid people in your AT) to some tremendous benefit.

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Refusing to take the protection teams offer? Huh? Where the hell are you even getting that? I solo. I team. Do I take advantage of the support a team gives me while offering them the support I bring? Hell yes. This isn't about Blasters on teams. I'm dealing with a point someone is trying to make that the disparity of Blaster v Scrapper defensive capacity doesn't matter because of teams. My point is that what Scrappers have solo, they also have on teams. Furthermore, Scrappers' lack of fragility coupled with their offensive capacity makes them far more desireable for team invites than Blasters. I5 was supposed to address this problem. Instead, the AT was given Defiance. This damn sure isn't about a game that doesn't exist anymore.

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You're arguing about something [Scrapper defenses] that you don't know and won't learn about.

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Really? Is Scrapper defensive capacity noticably higher than that of Blasters or not? Is Blaster offensive capacity as noticably higher than that of Scrappers?

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Scrappers should in no way even come close to Blaster damage output.

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Here's the thing: on average, they don't. Can a scrapper keep it up for awhile? Yeah, of course. Can a blaster do twice the damage in a quarter the time? Yep.

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Sustainable Damage > Burst Damage and until recently Scrappers had a damage level that capped out at 500% while Blasters were capped at 400%. When the devs finally got around to adjusting Blaster damage caps, they only set them equal to, not greater than Scrappers, an AT with a helluva lot more in the way of defensive capacity. And when they did it, they bumped Scrapper base damage.

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Oh, and mez protection:
1) My regen actually gets mezzed pretty regularly.

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Try it without any mez protection whatsoever. Something the devs refuse to even entertain giving to Blasters. See, that's the ****** in all this. They're insisting on holding Blasters to "the deal" while not insisting Scrappers be held to it as well.

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2) Play on a team? 5/8 of defenders and 5/7 of controllers can give you mez protection.

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I do team, but you cannot expect to have anyone around that can give you mez protection on every team. And here again, how is a Scrapper in anyway lacking with a team the way a Blaster is without one? The truth is, they're not. If anything, a team amplifies Scrapper attributes and as was the common b!tch for so long Scrappers are a hell of a lot less high maintainance than Blasters are. Why bother inviting a Blaster, and they're downside, when you can invite a Scrapper and not have to worry?

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Like you say, your huge damage ability comes at a price. Just try to make up for your weaknesses.

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Here's the thing, I don't have a problem with "the deal". I don't have a problem with riding into battle wearing nothing but a thin layer of gasoline-soaked tissuepaper for protection. I enjoy it, and not everyone can do it. If you want higher offensive capacity, you must sacrifice defensive capacity. If you want higher defensive capacity, you must sacrifice offensive capacity. That's "the deal". Unfortunately, the devs have a scattered approach to how this is applied.

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Have you played a scrapper? I mean recently, not I3 regen.

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No. Scrappers never held much interest for me. Entirely too safe. I've tried several builds and power combos, but just could never get into it.

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Survivability is a joke.

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You want to talk about a joke? Ride into battle wearing nothing but a thin layer of gasoline-soaked tissuepaper for protection. I blapp, baby. Until lvl 44, I didn't have a single means of dealing with incomming damage save for my trusty gizmo (Aid Self) and even with Charged Armor, I'm still susceptible to getting the crap mezz'd out of me. The next time I see a Scrapper drunk-walking, or held, or slept, or immob'd instead of having all of it run off their backs like water off a duck you'll have a point. Until then you are seriously barking up the wrong friggin' tree.

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Better than blasters? Of course! By a larger margin than blasters can outdamage scrappers? Of course not!

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Therein lies the problem. Scrappers have a defensive capacity. Blaster paid for their offensive capacity by giving up virtually all of their defensive capacity. Scrappers should in no way even come close to Blaster damage output. Blasters should dish out damage as obviously better than any AT as they obviously cannot take it. Sliding scale. The more you dish it out, the less you can take it. The more you can take it, the less you can dish it out. That's "the deal". Unfortunately, while Blasters are expected to hold to "the deal" Scrappers have been violating it since about I2.

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They're pretty well balanced, scrappers having an edge solo, and blasters having the edge on teams.

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More pandering crap. Tell me, if you excel at soloing what's stopping you from excelling on teams? The real answer is nothing. Not a damn thing. Scrappers don't need a team. They can dish it out all out of proportion to their ability to take it, and they can take it damned well. This capacity in no way diminishes in a team setting. If anything, on teams Scrappers overshadow Blasters even more. This is a long-running problem, especially in the higher levels. Once again, this isn't my first rodeo. Your arguments are holding absolutely no water.

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Now, can some scrappers do more than some blasters? Of course! Comparing a Dark Melee/Dark Armor to an energy/fire is just silly. How about we compare claws/inv to fire/ice instead

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No "Jack of all trades, master of none" should do anything better than a "Master". None.

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As for defiance Vs critical hits... I'll trade any day. Criticals are an average of 8% of the time, and often come on a low damage attack. It's the lottery, whereas defiance is your tax rebate. If you win the lottery, you get a LOT of money! But, chances are against it. Your tax rebate sucks, but it's there.

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Defiance requires one to get their [censored] kicked in order to use it. Criticals do not. It's not even [censored]ing close. You want to b!tch about 8% of the time? If a Blaster has any damned sense in their head they'll use Defiance 0% of the time. By the time Defiance kicks in, a Blaster had better be getting healed, jamming greenies, or getting the hell out of Dodge. All of which negate the boost Defiance gives. The last thing they should be doing is firing off another shot. Unlike ATs with the ability to take a punch, when you're flashing red as a Blaster something's gone seriously wrong and you are about to die... in a hurry.

Once again, speaking from experiance, anyone who says Defiance is anything but a waste of effort that's best ignored, or better yet, would gladly trade Defiance for Criticals, is, to be blunt, talking out their [censored]es. Would Scrappers do better with Defiance than Blasters? Well of [censored]ing course. Scrappers can take a punch. Hell, the HP level at which Defiance kicks in is about the level a Regen has while running MoG. Yeah... that wouldn't be too overpowered.

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I may not have been in beta before ATs...but I was in beta.

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ATs were always there in beta. I'm not talking about beta.

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We were told that our role was ranged damage...

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Wrong. We are being told that our role is ranged damage. What we were told was dealing damage. And that's what the AT is. Damage Dealers. We can't take much in the way of a punch but boy can we dish it out. At least, in theory.

[/ QUOTE ]States started this thread off saying that we were Ranged Damage as our role. This thread has been around for about a year. 1 year applies in my mind as a WERE more than an ARE. Now I agree that this is semantics, but heck, your entire objection to what I said is based upon semantics.

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It isn't semantics. It's experiance. I've been here since before there was a here here (this makes sense to folks that know this wasn't the original home of the CoH forums)I was here before CoH even had archetypes. When the Blaster AT was first broke it was about damage. This whole "ranged" jazz is there for one reason and one reason only... to placate Scrappers concerned about their roll. And that is a recent phenomena... relatively speaking. My objection isn't to what you've said. I'm simply correcting the conditioning you've been subject to.

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We were told that our role was ranged damage...

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Wrong. We are being told that our role is ranged damage. What we were told was dealing damage. And that's what the AT is. Damage Dealers. We can't take much in the way of a punch but boy can we dish it out. At least, in theory.

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Range matters. It's not quite a defense, but it's not meaningless either. And it's not BS for there to be an AT whose primary role is ranged damage.

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Not saying range is BS, per se. What I'm saying is this whole "Blasters are ranged damage" is pandering to Scrappers so they won't boohoo because Blasters can and/or should be outdamaging them using melee attacks. Blasters aren't "Rangers", they're damage dealers. Period. Doesn't matter at what range that damage is dished out and I don't want to see the AT getting overhauled into Rangers because Scrappers can't tolerate the fact that a "squishie" can out punch them.

This whole "boss killer" and "ranged damage" jazz is mollycoddling. So, was throwing "the deal" out the window in the first place. Instead of having the stones to say, "Look, you're not specialists. Expecting to take the damage of a Tanker and dish out the damage of a Blaster, two ATs that are specialists, is asking too much." and hold Scrappers to "the deal" they're damn sure holding Blasters to, they started mollycoddling. And unfortunately, once you start doing that, you have to keep doing it, and unfortunately, once you start doing that, it snowballs.

Now, do I think the devs will ever straighten this out? Not really. But this "Blasters are ranged damage" and the rest of the things that get floated around here are bull[censored] and need to be pointed out as such. Blasters are about dishing out damage. Period. The range from which that damage is dished out matters not at all. Blasters cannot withstand damage. Not to mention status effects. If they're expected to be held to "the deal" they damn sure better get what they paid for.

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Assume Blaster ranged damage is put on par or made superior to scrapper melee. Why would anyone with any sense play a scrapper at that point?

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Oh, not this old [censored]ing song. Blaster damage, any of it, ranged, melee, melee-ranged, single-target, AoE should be better than "on par" with Scrapper damage output. Period. There isn't a [censored]ing Blaster build that has the defensive capacity that even the piddliest Scrapper build has. Since Scrappers never paid the price for their offensive capacity the way Blasters have, they in no way should even come close to dishing out the damage Blasters should be doing.

Returning the rightful, bought-and-paid-for, role of unquestioned "Kings (or Queens) of Damage" will in no way make Blasters any less squishy. Returning the rightful, bought-and-paid-for, role of unquestioned "Kings (or Queens) of Damage" will in no way make Blasters any less prone to getting the living crap mezzed out of them.

Why should anyone play Scrappers? It's simple. They want to be a "Jack of all trades" when it comes to dishing it out as well as taking it. And like all Jacks of all trades, they should be masters of neither. Unfortunately, they are, and too damned many people want to keep it that way.

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Ohms: We've had this discussion. At least three times. For the new guys in the audience, my quick bullet points:[*]"500% of base" happened approximately 1% of the time for Scrappers.

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Seeing as Scrappers have a better defensive capacity than Blasters, this should happen 0% of the time.

[ QUOTE ][*] We are now 3x as tough, not 18x+ as tough, as Blasters.

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3x or 18x, it still means Scrappers didn't pay for the offensive capacity they enjoy. It just means they're no longer AV-soloing tankmages. The moment Blaster offensive capacity is 3x that of Scrappers, you'll have a point.

[ QUOTE ][*] Burst damage is better than sustainable damage in 80%+ of fights [median length of a fight with a Blaster in it is 7-12 seconds.]

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The ability to "take it" > The inability to "take it". The moment something goes wrong for a Blaster, be it a key miss, additional mobs, or getting mezzed, burst damage means exactly squat. Been thru way too many high-level battles where the Scrapper is still going as if nothing is happening while the rest of the team is either getting the crap stunned, or kicked, out of them or are simply faceplanted to buy into this bullet point.

[ QUOTE ][*] Scrapper ranged attacks are slow, infrequent, and rare.

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Don't care. I'm not one of those folks that think the range from which an AT does or takes damage means anything.

Nice try. Unfortunately those of us who've been around awhile know better. Sustainable Damage > Burst Damage. Do Scrappers have nukes? No. Do they need them? Not when they have a defensive capacity a helluva lot stronger than anything Blasters have, coupled with an offensive capacity that shouldn't even be anywhere near that of a Blaster... but is Hell, Scrappers had an offensive capacity that capped out at 500% while Blasters were, until very recently, capped at 400%.

Don't even get me started on the Scrapper inherent that spikes their damage yet does not require them to first get their [censored]es kicked in order for it to kick in.

Long and short of it is this. Blasters paid for their offensive capacity by giving up their defensive capacity. Scrappers didn't pay for a damned thing. Not only should their offensive capacity not surpass that of Blasters. It shouldn't even come close. Period.

Happy b'day Dysmal.

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Thats not true...they said they were fixing blaster secondaries...err...wait a minute, how many months ago was that again? I stopped counting after six.

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It's coming up on another six months since you stopped counting.

That's always a safe assumption. Ya' think I blapp sober?

Even with the typos?

Folks actually bother PMing the devs. I mean, I'm sure they do. Presonally, I don't see the point in bothering.