Rakeeb

This is why I do the math, see the effect in game, and judge for myself how a power behaves.

Leaving the power absurdly out of scale compared to all other regen abilities is not intelligent. To effectively balance a game, and give oneself the ability to modify archetype performance wholesale when necessary (like, gee, all this stuff going on in i24), it's a huge help to bring statistical outliers in.

Why is that?

Let's take a look at expected performance from (we'll go with) Field Operative. This power is gaining a base 200% Regen; half of that is enhanceable, so it'll be at 300%. That's pretty good!... oh, wait, Drain Psyche is fully enhanceable and does 75% Regen / Recovery for each enemy struck. So right there, two enemies (2) puts you at Field Operative levels of Regen, and hey, we'll throw in infinite endurance as a bonus. If you hit the maximum number of enemies (10), suddenly you're at 1500% recovery and regeneration after enhancements. That's pretty crazy... you're only 500% below cap at that point.

For comparison, Regen scrappers sit at about 1100% Regeneration over the long term if you average Instant Healing into their rotation, assuming 500% Recharge, and are significantly weaker if you remove that portion of their regeneration (by a lot... IH is essentially core to their survival).

Keep in mind that we haven't even mentioned that this power ALSO inflicts horrid debuffs on its targets that are ALSO fully enhanceable. 500% regeneration debuffs on

So what does that mean for the AT? Well, what that means is that if the development team would like to bring the Blaster AT up to par, that carries with it the concern that certain sets (Fire Blast, Mental Manipulation) will come out much farther ahead and make the archetype too good when compared to the rest of the game. Let's take as an example the idea that Arbiter Hawk suddenly decides to grant all powersets mez defense in the form of a power granting it for a brief period. We'd all want that, right? Suddenly, a well-slotted Blaster can out-dps a Scrapper while having as much defense, more resistance from APP and pool powers, and can regenerate at the same level as one and a half Regen Scrappers put together. A blaster with that much power can wipe out content intended for full conventional teams and can make or break a Trial by themselves. After all, a -500% Regen debuff on Tyrant really does a number on that 2nd phase.

So, what to do? How do you buff the archetype's powers without making the AT absolutely absurd in the team game?

You nerf the outlier. You bring down Drain Psyche. EvilGeko posted a good example of what it could be, and there are others.

Darth, I don't intend to be disrespectful here. I just think you haven't thought this through all the way.

Agree 100% and want to see it nerfed, hard. Let it enhance only the first enemy target hit, restructure the power so that the other (up to 7) boosts are not enhanceable, and then lower the benefit each bonus beyond the first allows. Goal will be to have 3 targets provide a similar bonus to the new Blaster regen powers; if 7 targets are hit let it get to 130%-ish.

Devs won't have the stones to bring it in.

You're absolutely right, and you're completely wrong.

Right now, people who like Energy as a concept are clearly at a disadvantage in terms of regular play as compared to people who like Fire as a concept. The people who like Energy are through no fault of their own empirically weaker than the Fire proponents. I don't think that should be the case. I think they shouldn't even have to worry about this if they don't want to and still be within a reasonable performance metric (10%-ish) of Fire Blast.

I thought the devs had been building them up since i3 with the Kheldian introduction.

I wouldn't say doomed. After all, we have fantastic AOE, good defense debuffs, and are remarkably hard to kill, especially if we slot aggressively for it.

I do agree that this is an edge case. The single-target DPS of a set used to be interesting but hardly a defining factor.

The difference now is trials. Challenging single-target burns (especially something like The Really Hard Way) drive the need to rack and stack single-target damage.

Great question - bottom line is that I didn't play with it at all.

Where Fire is concerned, I did put Flares in there, yeah... I did a fast pass, and I certainly can't claim to know the little tricks in various Blaster sets, like using an AOE for a single target damage boost because it animates so fast. More arguments for using animation time as a balancing factor on the meta level, I guess.

Sure.

The first value (in both damage and base DPS) is the attacks' baseline damage, as if you had put no Enhancements in the power. The second set is assuming you've slotted aggressively for damage in both enhancements and Incarnate powers (345%). The third set is taking the second set and then figuring out how much consistent damage Defiance will be giving you, and working with that.

Hope that helps - a more detailed breakdown is in the first post.

This, a thousand times. A new player shouldn't be punished for picking a cool looking power set.

Ironically, I agree with you, despite your obvious antagonistic attitude. I don't play blasters at the high end.

I'd rather bring a defender, who will multiply the league by a much more statistically significant number, and provide us buffs to resistance and status immunity to boot.

Strato, let me clear this up for you now - this is a min/max thread. I am not going to be nice to fluff sets that can be done better elsewhere. The point is to squeeze every last possible drop of damage out of a solo player so that when they're plugged into leagues their contribution will make the whole better.