Punisher2020

The problem as i see it is that blasters have a huge glaring weakness

They have no defense and no hp whatsoever.

As i see it, this entitles Blasters to have a great strength

I see that strength as being powerful AoE attacks. That is what i think of when i think "offensive juggernaut", "massive damage at range".

If you take that away then what are you giving Blasters that balances out the enormous weakness of their incredible fragility.

What are you left with if you take the "Cannon" out of Glass Cannon.

Im not sure that you could make a very good argument that a single target blaster generates as much agro as an AE blaster.

That being said, i agree that single target blasters get borked. But i dont think that AE blasters are to strong. I think that single target blasters are to weak. I think that AE blasting should be common to all the blaster sets and that the three blaster sets that we refer to at this time as "single target blasters" should have there AoEs strengthened to the point where they to are considered "AoE blasters".

To put this more simply, I think that AE blasters are what Blasters should be. I think that There shouldnt be AE blasters and Single Target Blasters. All Blasters should be AE blasters and then it would be just Blasters.

Maybe so Ilhulbert but this is not the military. This is an rpg. The object is to destroy the enemy. In an rpg the guy that kills people is not the support. The guys that keep that guy alive are the support.

The reason that killing elements are support in the military is becuase the object of war is not to destroy the enemy. It is to gain control of land. Therefore ground troops, which actually sieze and control land, are the main element, and support units like artillery exist to assist them in doing that.

However if one breaks the military down into sub-elements (which is actually how it is, I am in the Navy) then each sub element has a particular mission. The personel who directly accomplish that mission are the primary element. The personel who assist them are the support.

Take the flight deck of an aircraft carrier for instance. The pilots would be the primary becuase they actually accomplish the mission. Then there is a vast amount of other people who maintain and arm the planes as well as providing intelligence. Those are the support.

Well one, Blasters do die from one hit in some cases, but overall that is not what i meant to convey. Blasters die extremely quickly. Death in 2 hits is very normal for a Blaster. It doesnt have to be a salvo from the entire group. One Lt or a few minions is enough to take down a Blaster in seconds.

2 - Blaster attacks overall are great not just melee attacks (damage wise anyway) as well they should be. Damage is all a Blaster has. Take that away and a Blaster's got nothing left.

2a - I disagree with your characterization of the Blaster as a support class. Support classes are classes not directly involved in the killing of enemies. The Blaster is directly involved in the killing of enemies.

I would also counter this by saying that most of those other people dont play Blasters so they dont realize how frustrating it is to be dead before you realize what happened.

Erratic If that is what you want to use as your out then whatever. Doensnt change anything.

In terms of the melee attacks, I dont care toss em and replace em with stuff that is actually good.

On AoE, i still dont see why this is a problem. Blasters fall dead from a gentle breeze. But they can kill a group of mobs with a single massive salvo. I see that as balanced. Ultimate offense and zero defense. You ask me, i think AoEs should be more prevalent not less. Eng, Ice, and Elec should have just as many as Fire and AR do. Ranged AoEs, massive uber pbaoes, and are what a Blaster is all about. Leave the single target dmg to the Scrappers.

But i think what a lot of Blasters are expressing in this thread is that if the Balance of "you can kill lots of mobs real fast but one screwup and you die" isnt good enough, Then taking the "kill lots of mobs real fast" part out is not going to result in Balance. Its going to result in Brokenness.

What do i think? I think that AlphaStriking could be considered a problem. But its not just a problem of AlphaStriking making other classes useless. Its a problem of AlphaStriking being the only way a Blaster can stay alive.

However it is you who are on the lark Erratic. You. It is really sad that you cant see that. You are sitting here telling Blasters what there experiences should be and claiming that the experience of the Blaster is of no consequence compared to the "world view" where Blasters are concerned.

I claim emphatically that YOU ARE WRONG! The experiences of Blasters are what is relevant here. Not the "world view".

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And again, the undefined flaws can't impact anyone else and somehow are flaws that slip past competent players. Again, nuking before the Controller lands his Hold is not good play. Not letting the Tanker Provoke is not good play. Not taking an AT designed to buff your defenses or weaken the opponent is your choice, but don't come crying when you get burnt for it.


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Have you ever went back and read some of the things you write. I doubt you can imagine what this sounds like to a Blaster becuase you arent one but i will try to translate.

"stupid blaster whenever you die its your fault for being to stupid to allow my omnipotent powers to protect you"

I never said that slips on the parties behalf (his teammates and the blaster himself) couldnt effect other players. I said overwhelmingly more often, they effect the blaster first and foremost.

I expect the Blaster to be nerfed more (or more incentives to group whatever you wish to call it) becuase there are people like you all over the boards to make all sorts of wild claims of how blasters are basing them on your second hand accounts and ignoring the accounts of the actual blasters. My reprieve is that i am also confident that by the time it gets bad enough that i no longer like the AT anymore, Prestige classes will be out and i can roll up one of those.

Its really sad that the Devs make so many decisions based on datamining. Datamining can tell you how many blasters are soloing vs grouping, but unfortunately Datamining can't tell you why.

Once again Erratic you are busy telling us what "should" happen and we are telling you what *has* happened. Thousands of other people can see what they want, but they are not blasters. I mean seriously the way i see it what your doing is like trying to tell a bird what the sky should be like.
Thats the difference. Your telling us what should happen. We are telling you what has happened.

Your next comment is totally off the wall. Here is the quote.

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The point is that as long as everything goes right, everyone is fine but if ONE thing goes wrong, its the Blaster that pays the price 99% of the time

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Somehow you took from this that i meant blasters are safe 99% of the time. What freak slip of your mind caused you to think this i do not know. What i was actually saying is that as long as the group operates flawlessly (how often does that happen?) the blaster is ok, but if the group slips up in the slightest bit, the penalty for that usually lands squarely on the shoulders of the blaster.

But the reality of the matter is that Blasters can get exp more safely and much of the time more quickly soloing or duoing then in a significant group. If you think that is arrogant or whatever i dont really care but that is the reality of the matter.

You are however somewhat correct about One Shot although it happens more then you say it does, it doesnt happen as much as a lot of people say it does. One shot is usually something that Purple Bosses with big melee attacks do. Tank Swipers, Paragon Protectors, Crey Power Tanks, Rikti Bosses, ppl like that. Usually the way a Blaster hits the dirt fast is by being 2 shotted. The list of mobs that even at evencon will cut a Blaster's hp in half is long. (you will probably try to say that this never happens but it happens a lot)

Well Erratic. The problem is that it is *you* who come off as arrogant when you come to Blaster boards and try to tell lvl 50 Blasters that they are incompetent and dont know what they are talking about when you yourself dont even have a high level Blaster. Truth be told, you dont know jack about being a Blaster but what you insinuate and assume based on your second hand data and knowledge. All of your arguments are based upon your experiences as a Defender. You have no idea of what all this sounds like from the perspective of a Blaster.

That is what you are lacking. Perspective.

Take this comment by Moridin for instance

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I am also perfectly safe leading off with an AoE because I know that by the time they pick themselves up off the ground they will be provoked and held, and if they miss I will get the heals I need.

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You replied that this is a contradiction but actually you totally missed the point. The point is that as long as everything goes right, everyone is fine but if ONE thing goes wrong, its the Blaster that pays the price 99% of the time. Blaster survival has a VERY low tolerance for error whether solo or grouped but especially when grouped becuase of the higher con opponents.

Then of course everytime Blasters die they are told it is there fault. This is why many high level Blasters though this may not be entirely the case, and i am not innocent of this, have developed the mentality that it is their responsibility alone to keep themselves alive.

Since the work on a team is to kill the enemy and keep yourself alive, you might now begin to see how from a Blaster's perspective he is doing most of the work. From a Blaster's perspective it is HIS responsibility to kill the enemies, being the offensive specialist and it is also his responsibility to keep himself alive.

But if a Blaster has this viewpoint, then to him, he is soloing and everyone else is leaching off of him isnt he. If a Blaster cant kill the enemies or keep himself alive, then what is going through his mind? Most likely he is thinking that he should be soloing.

FeiWutLong Why do you think that SR is considered the worst scrapper secondary? I'll give you a hint. You have already said it.

You talk about your experiences a lot. What precisely is your experience with the Blaster AT?

All im saying is this. What your saying just doesnt pan out in practice. I have told you why but i can see that your set in your way of thinking. So all i have to say is i encourage you to play a blaster and see for yourself.

I think your position at this point is issuing from your hind regions unfortunately. Not the absolute highest maybe, but like i said, no more then 2 levels under the highest member.

Im sorry but i dont care what "the claim was". I am not arguing someone else's position. I am stating my own.

In terms of single target blasters ile grant you that agro is much more easily controlled as a single target blaster. On the otherhand a single target blaster's contribution in potential killing power from the outset is that much lower.

As to monsters being "distracted by the gobs of damage that higher levels are putting out", this is really quite false. Monsters show a great propensity for sensing lower heroes enemies. All it takes is 1 or 2 of them to go for that lower level blaster and he is often dead before anybody even realizes what is just happened.

At the same time you said yourself that even a high level defender is not kicking out as much damage as a lower level blaster and also you have defences. A defender does not fall over dead if 1 enemy looks his way. You cant use your Defender to speak about a Blaster its like night and day.

Your speaking about support also underlines your lack of experience. You have probably heard that blaster die quickly yes? But you have no idea just how quickly that is. A Blaster can very easily be dead from +4s before those support characters even realize that the Blaster is in trouble. I am talking one minute the blaster is fighting and the next he is dead. I have literally been killed faster then the activation time of the heal that would have saved my life. You have that happen a couple of times and your tune will change.

I dont know what city your living in but in Paragon City, a Blaster in a group DOES shoulder the burden for dealing the majority of the damage just like the Tanker shoulders the burden for absorbing the majority of the damage and maybe you have been blind to this or havent played a blaster high enough to know this, but at the end of the day the Blaster alone is responsible for keeping himself alive. Why. He dies faster then help can arrive. That is the plain truth of it.

On your idle wonderment you inordinately underlined my point. It ISNT acceptable. That is why Blasters get a raw deal in grouping. That is why so many blasters turn to solo and duoing as opposed to grouping.

Once again your taking a Defender and using it as an example to make statements concerning a Blaster. They are different ATs having very different capabilities and weaknesses. A Rad/Dark or whatever other Defender has the defenses to do that. A Blaster doesnt. The fact is that ONE minion is enough to scare the crap out of a blaster at those types of relative differences. Just one. You could throw all the support in the world out there and some enemies will STILL get through.

You wonder that eh. Well ile tell you. The Scrappers are not a total offense and nothing else AT. They have a Defence line as well. This makes them a less offensive AT then a Blaster.

And i dont mean to imply that it is such a hard drop off. It becomes exponentially more risky and dangerous for a Blaster as the relative level goes up becuase of his fragility and becuase of the fact that his main defense is the ability to kill the enemy fast. +2 I think is a sweet spot. Below that and you might as well be soloing. Past that and the risk of death simply doesnt make it worth it.

Im glad that your so nice, but you arent everyone. More to the point, you arent seeing this from the Blaster's perspective. Only from the Defenders. (which isnt suprising since you have played defenders and not blasters).

Much of the impetus comes from the Blaster himself. If the group needs that Blaster Sked they will demand it but often they dont. They probably have another higher level blaster.
But the blaster himself is facing uselessness and a high risk of death.

However as i said earlier. Its a raw deal. Thats why yous see so many Blasters soloing or duoing.

However as an experienced player of Blaster i will tell you Erratic that despite the your onpaper logic, you are wrong. It is very important for Blasters to be among the highest levels in the group or Sked up there for two very important reasons.

#1 Is survival. AoE generates a lot of Agro. Being at or near the level of the opponents both increases the speed at which the blaster can kill the enemies in his blast area thus increasing his survivability, and reduces the damage they can deal in return thus further increasing his survivability. A lower level blaster facing a crowd of purples will often not use his AoEs at all becuase even 1 of those enemies were agro to break (and it does quite often despite any number of crowd control on the part of his teammates)
would kill the blaster very very quickly. Likely more quickly then the Blaster's teammates could react. Often even 1 rogue minion is enough to produce a running blaster or a dead one.
I know if im grouped and looking at a mob of +4 enemies i dont attack a mob that isnt under the direct control of CC. That means a monster that is stunned or the primary target of the Tank. If any mob so much as looks in my direction i run away. This may seem cowardly to you but this is what a blaster has to do to stay alive.

#2 Is Performance. The Blaster is an offensive AT moreso then any other AT. That means the greater the level difference, the lower his damage and accuracy becomes. Once you get up into the +4 range that Blaster is going to be practically useless. Conversely if the blaster's enemies are only even con or +1 the Blaster is going to be very effective. Teammates know this. They are going to demand that a lower level Blaster be sidekicked up as close to the highest level member of the party as possible. Trust me i have been there. When the sidekicking goes down Blasters get top priority.

A Blaster doesnt have to be the absolute top but any more then 2 levels under the top and you can expect an Sk to come your way and you better hope it does to, with pitiful damage output facing mobs of enemies any one of which can take you down before help can come your way you are going to be feeling pretty useless and you are going to be wanting that SK. (unless your leaching and hoping nobody notices your not doing anything, ive been there and done that to)

Is this a raw deal. Yes. The reason is this. A blaster can take down these even con and +1 mobs often without the help of a team or at most with only 1 support AT in tow. Thus grouping to take down higher cons provides less xp for the Sked blaster at greater risk of death then soloing or duoing.

Actually the normal for Nova is 2-3 recharge enhancers. Not 1.
This is becuase with 3 dmg SOs + buildup and Aim dmg is near cap. With 4 it is capped. I could name a few other downsides most definitely but i would need more information on the powersets you wish to take.

Overall failing to take Hasten is just not a very smart move.

Im going to reserve judgement on that at least until i find out some specifics on what these changes will be if any.

I could see you standing in front of such a monster with more hp and the ability to heal yourself especially considering Elec primary and numerous powers in the Rad powerset that slow attack rate.

In regards to stuns/mezzes i had said this on another post but i am beginning to believe that dedicated hold powers like the CoT Mesmerize, Gravity Distortion, and Dominate powers are effected by Tohit Debuff but ignore Defence when determining the tohit of these powers. This would account both for your success against such attacks and for my success against them pre-SG nerf when my defence was still debuff based as well. Dont take my word as gospel though. Its just a theory.

That is true in theory Erratic but in practice it really isnt. You can have every defense in the world as a Blaster and even -1 Cons can and will hold you before you can even finish Full Autoing. I know this from experience becuase i actually do have pretty much every defence available to blasters 6 slotted on my build. I do not fight mobs that can hold. They will stun me effortlessly. All my toggles will drop. I will die.

I dont know about your Defender. I dont have one myself. But what i do know is that what your saying in regard to status effects simply does not work in practice as a blaster.

Another of my more recent posts Jor

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That is why outside of the Invuln line, I am not calling for a nerf to Scrappers. They are doing precisely what they are supposed to do.

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Should i continue or will you agree to pull your head out of your a$$ now.

First of all the increased prevalence of holds, stuns, and sleeps in the enemies does not place an increased emphasis on defence. Observe that there is no power pool power that grants resistance to these attacks. If they hit, the Blaster is pretty much dead. That means the Blaster has 3 options when dealing with such enemies.

1. Kill the enemies before they have a chance to use the powers.
2. Group with another AT that can provide status effect defense or incapacitation.
3. Do not fight mobs with these sort of attacks.

Second your AR tactics are....shall we say....uninformed.

First of all starting with M-30 is bad. M-30 is not a knockback. It "sends the enemies flying". That means they go in all directions jacking up any chance for an effective alphastrike.

If you lead with Buckshot instead its a little better but you still have to deal with the effect of some enemies getting knocked back and others not. This divides the enemy into 2 groups. The ones that got knocked back and the ones that didnt. Since you can only AoE one of these groups at a time you just seriously hampered the effectiveness of your alphastrike.

Here is what you do. You turn on a buttload of defences and lead with Caltrops. Follow with Flamethrower. Step back a touch and use FA. If your defences are good you should be fine at this point. If your still looking at live Lts toss an M-30 and close the range for a buckshot. That should result in Dead Lts. Now your looking at a boss.

Lets see what you say about the Boss. "kill them quickly". Bzzzt wrong answer. Your not killing that boss quickly. No aim. No buildup. No really good single target attacks that you can use under fire. If the boss is +2 or higher your going to run now. If the boss is +1 or lower you are going to use knockdowns like buckshot with your heavy hitting DoTs and try to keep the boss of its feet. Bosses have lots of knockdown resistance that is true, but Buckshot and M-30 are both high mag knockdowns and Slug isnt bad either.

Rapid fire beanbags? Not happening. Beanbag has a very long recharge time even with hasten. Unless you plan to slot this heavily with recharge your not going to be holding any bosses, even for a few seconds. Beanbag/Taser can be done though but in most cases its risky since Taser is a melee attack.

And Jor if you would pull your head out of your a$$ and read some of my recent posts on the subject, you might notice that that is no longer my position. Of course in your world, nobody ever changes their mind about anything since everyone else but you is an unreasonable nerfherder right.

Erratic

1. Doesnt change the fact that the Scrapper's defenses render him virtually invulnerable to the melee attacks of the same spawn whose ranged salvo would shred a blaster before he could blink. You could take every defence in the world on your blaster and it will buy you 30 seconds tops. A scrapper can sit in the middle of the same spawn and have lunch. A scrapper doesnt have a leg to stand on if he is trying to talk to a Blaster about risks.

2. Actually i have. Fire imps are as strong as ever. The fact that they hit much more often effectively mitigates the fact that they deal less damage. Additionally they are now much less vulnerable to being one shotted by opponents.

3. I can. SR scrappers (and if you want just one power i would direct your attention to Elude) have the EXACT same defensive capabilities as smoke grenade provided and that isnt even considered the strongest scrapper defence set. I think a lot of people need to pull there heads out of their butts when it comes to what smoke grenade did. It was the equivalent of maxed defence. Thats it. Elude and Invicibility both provide maxed defence with one power and Defence isnt even considered all that good among scrappers (that is why SR is considered not particularly strong)

I might ask you the same question Jor since it seems that you see cries for nerfs everywhere. I was responding to another poster's characterization of those ATs with my own thoughts. Nothing more. Its nice that you see the need to turn anything and everything into some psuedo-political battle though.

3 points

1. A scrapper has FAR less a risk of being "skewered" then a blaster. It really tickles me when your friendly neighborhood regen scrapper who is practically invicible to the same groups that cut a blaster in half in a matter of seconds tries to say that he takes such great risks.

2. Controller same. I see Fire Controllers barreling through group after group without breaking a sweat. Fire Controller soloing is neither time consuming nor dangerous.

3. Device blasters can still solo without smoke grenade. Not quite at Scrapper level safety (and yes Smoke Grenade provided nothing more then the level of Protection that an SR scrapper enjoys) but still good.

Granted, i would say most people who say that period dont actually have a 40+ blaster.

Thats not taking Aim into account though. AR doesnt get it.

Full Auto also has a number of disadvantages to it. 1 it doesnt deal nearly the damage of Inferno or Nova in practice. Half on a good day. 2. It takes 6 seconds to deal that damage. It doesnt have that "wham your dead" kind of effect.

As for it killing 10 mobs. My Full Auto is 6 slotted all damage and it doesnt one shot anything higher then an even con minion. Maybe a +1 if a get a few good criticals.

On the otherhand i have witnessed first hand Nova one shotting +3 minions and bringing +3 Lts to a slither of health.

As for using it to solo, it depends. The energy blasters i roll with can kick out a Nova every other fight pretty much. We like to duo it up and when we come upon a group of especially tough foes, we do a simultaneous Nova+FA for the WIN.

But as i stated. I dont think AoE is unbalanced. Whats unbalanced is the exp reward of minions vs bosses and Lts.

However Bunker, this is balanced i think. The AoE blaster cant handle groups with Bosses and/or Large groups of Lts (which is why its so different in the PI vs Bricktown). Conversely the Single Target Blaster cant handle groups with lots of minions and will go after groups consisting of a small amount of powerful enemies.

For instance i have seen Ice Blasters take out +3 Fake Nemesis, with two Lts. That would be out of the question for any AoE blaster, even one with a lot of Defense, unless a LOT of inspirations were used.

The real problem as i see it lies in the fact that a group such as this doesnt give as much exp as a group of 8-10 +3 minions. Which is exactly the kind of group an AoE blaster is looking for.

Moridin, its interesting that you say that becuase when most people think about a blaster destroying hordes of enemies in the post 40 game, they are thinking about skills like Inferno, becuase that is the only shot a Blaster has at doing this and living to tell about it unless said Blaster has a ton of defense or a lot of Lucks.

And of course we both know well that 5 minutes doesnt mean 5 minutes. It means just under 2.

Depends on the boss. As a /dev blaster probably becuase /dev blasters have (or at least my build has) a lot of defense enough to decrease the risk to an acceptable level. Regular blasters? Nah.

Btw most high level (35+) bosses cannot be kited becuase they attack mainly through ranged attacks. Take a Rikti Chief Soldier for example. Sure he hits for close to 1k dmg + disorient on his melee, but he also hits for around 500+dmg + disorient on his ranged.

At lvl 50 my blaster has 1017hp. That is no joke. Over half my hp gone. Even at 10x the exp many blasters arent going to take that kind of risk soloing unless they have a serious source of damage mitigation like dev blasters do (+70% DEF on mine) even with so high a reward. Whats more likely is that you would see more blasters forming Duos and Trios to take down the bosses.

Now single target blasters like elec and ice are a different story of course.

Well Fire/Fire Tankers are just rediculous, but the main call of AoE nerf is from Blasters, and Blasters generally dont stick around to take there chances with bosses. They just vaporize the minions and run.