Samuel_Tow

Issue 1 introduced levels 41-50. People's reaction was "Yeah, and? What new powers can I take in those extra 10 levels?" Issue 2 answered that question by giving us Epic Powerpools, officially renamed "Ancillary" Powerpools, because "what's so epic about those?"

The reason we were given Epics was so there was something new to take in the 40s.

Um, care to actually quote me on any of that? In fact, let's go point for point:

Yeah, and? This doesn't address what I said in the slightest. You're still suggesting filler, and you expect that the excuse of "Oh, it won't take resources to cut it?" Well, it doesn't. And what you forgot to "paraphrase" me on was the fact that I actually agreed with this point: If garbage is what you want to play through, then I have no qualms with that, but that's not what I want for the future of the game.

Yeah, except it doesn't.

No, I didn't. Quote me or make no such claims, please.

I don't recall you saying anything of the sort, but I could have missed it. I know for a fact that I never responded to anything like that, because I have no idea what that even means. You can't put "special issue comics" in a video game, because "comics" are not a game infrastructure. You have to employ them as SOMETHING, be it arc, TF or multi-part mission.

Forget reading what I write, which you clearly didn't. Do you even read what YOU write? No, I don't do many TFs, and that's not because I don't want to. I want to, but the TF system in itself is screwed up.

I don't do TFs because they require multiple people on the team, and when you have multiple people on the team, with only the team leader ever getting the full story (i.e. the debriefings), they are impossible to follow. Do you want to dispute that?

TFs should have their own unique stories woven into the fabric of the game's plot, but they should have stories with plotlines which begin and end with them. I don't want to run a story arc, and them mid-way through to be told "If you want to see the end, you must do this TF." The Hollows storyline is exactly like this. You spend 10 levels hearing about this mystical gateway, and right when you're about to find it, BAM! You need 8 people to do this. Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.

This doesn't give TFs excuse to be garbage. This doesn't give TFs excuse to have poor stories. This means that the TF system needs to be improved. Rather than capitalising on all of the ways it sucks by introducing someone's afternoon of work, I prefer to see the system improved such that the story that is told is available to everyone on the team AS IT HAPPENS. I'm tired of Alt-Tabbing to ParagonWiki to read what I should be seeing in-game off a third-party sight because my team leader was an ******* and just clicked through the narrative. Ideally, I'd like to be able to attempt to do these by myself, with scaling enemies and all that, but without the TF reward. Maybe then I'll be able to see the story without massive changes in TF dynamics.

I don't like the OP's idea because it suggests something I do not want to see. You've phrased the same thing five different ways, but you present it as five different ideas that I've somehow brought different arguments to. You say the same thing in every post here, and I repeat the same thing, myself. I don't care if it's like the Architect or if it's like a comic book. I want new TFs added to the game to feel like they are part of the game's narrative, but to tell their own stories that don't interrupt other arcs mid-way through. I don't mind TFs referencing old arcs and their events. In fact, I expect them to. But I want them to start from a beginning, not from the middle of a previous story that mutated.

That's what my argument has always been. I don't stories that suddenly introduce a brand new villain at the start and kill off that brand new villain at the end, and no matter how you twist your words, that's what you're asking for. That's Architect level up "yawn." But, hey, if the architect is so full of flowers and sunshine as you claim, why not just run missions from there? Because what you're suggesting is pretty much that - that developers give us Architect arcs presented as TFs. Castle already has at least one arc published, doesn't he?

Cut the malicious arguments, please. I don't want one-shot TFs no matter how you describe them. I want TFs that expand on existing factions in new and interesting ways. If you want basically more of the Architect, then "whatever." I don't.

*edit*
You made yourselves a puppet show. Congratulations. I don't remember where I was a year ago, but even if I were present, I would want nothing to do with that sort of thing, especially with trying to redefine a concept as embarrassingly out-of-place as the "origin of powers" notion. I'm glad you had fun - more power to you. But if this is the kind of "fun" you have in mind for the broader public game, then I have to say "do not want."

I also assume you've always believed in never getting anything done, ever. Which is fine, I guess. A bird in the hand is worth twice in the bush. See, I can spout trite slogans, too.

Ignoring it is about as productive as bringing it up. If Champions Online did "some things" better, then let's excise them from that... Thing and discuss them separately. Just saying "Do it like Champions did it!" doesn't really get us anywhere, because all I remember from Champions Online was yelling at the character creator and posting long rants to my friends about all the things I couldn't do there. Like use a sleeveless trenchcoat. Did they add one after all this time?

Point is, a suggestion is only interesting to discuss if it is an actual suggestion. "Do it like that does it" is not, in fact, an actual suggestion, because it expects me to dissect the thing in question and try and surmise which of its good qualities the poster was referring to, provided I even agree that they are good.

All I got from the OP was... Asymetrical design? I think? Which we already kind of have that, but I guess we don't in the way he's picturing it, which is... What? Customizing each glove differently? I guess, but then... Is that all? Because that's not much.

I don't get this. I can get more porn than there is time in the day to sit through for free off the Internet. You should see my bookmarks. Who BUDGETS porn? It's like... Like... Budgeting air or something.

Uh-huh. So you prefer nothing, then? You prefer that Blasters were left to suck hard and nothing be done about them, vs. their state of being just about fine now? I'll take a damage buff overall and the ability to kill what's chain-holding me over the self-satisfaction of having a non-half-***** nothing done to them.

Because of server considerations? Because they want to put a soft limit on these transfers by employing "balance by annoyance?" Because they'd rather you didn't e-mail stuff to yourself all the time? You got to mail stuff to yourself. That's more than what you had before. I'm sorry it's not enough for you. Maybe you'd prefer to not mail anything at all? Because you can do that by... Not mailing anything at all. And I'll keep mailing things to myself, happy to have been proven wrong that this would be a bad idea to add to the game.

Maybe you don't appreciate the value of having, say, shields on your Blasters, but I do. And I'm not sure why you were expecting anything more. Were you somehow led to believe that the system would suddenly remove AT limitations and let you take powers your AT has no business taking? Because if that's the case, then my Blaster would like to have Unyielding, Against All Odds and Strength of Will, please.

And, seriously, would you rather have what we had back in I1 when we got levels 40-50? Because what we had then was zilch. Well, we had "the same powers I didn't take before," that much is true.

I happen to see any improvement as - and this may shock you - an improvement. I mean, call me crazy, but I'm happy when the game I enjoy to play gets improvements, but I guess I just don't think four-dimensionally enough.

A Stalker's Assassin's Strike deals 7.0 Scale Damage all told. With a base damage mod of 1.0, three level 50 damage commons' worth of 99.08% and Build Up's worth of 100%, you get a total of 20.9356 scale damage over 3.76s.

A Blaster with a ranged damage mod of 1.125, with Aim at 62.5%, Build Up at 100% and the same slotting at 99.08% will do... Let's see... Let's take my favourite combo: Blaze + Fire Blast. Together, the two powers deal 3.12 (2.12 for Blaze, 1.0 for Fire Blast) Scale damage and animate in 2.56 seconds one after the other. With the above, they deal 12.691458 right out the gate.

Or let's be cheeky. Let's do one better. Blaze + Fire Sword. Blaze is 2.12 scale damage and Fire Sword is 2.36, but it's on a lower damage mod of 1.0. Let's calculate. That's 17.156971 scale damage over 2.33 seconds to the Stalker's 3.76.

What's more, AFTER the Stalker has expended his Assassin's Strike and delivered ONE hit, what then? Back to basic attacks, the highest of which is I think Head Splitter at 2.62 scale damage at 1.0 damage mod. In the meantime, a Blaster can keep churning out serious damage with both Aim and Build Up AND a higher damage mod.

I'm not sure what a "buffed-up Stalker" can do, but I used to routinely down bosses in about 10 seconds with my Blaster, and I didn't need special conditions to do it, merely that I do not die, which Tankers and Defenders easily provided. There is a serious problem with Stalkers, in that they're one-trick ponies, and their one trick is not all that extrodinary. It looks really impressive when you hit someone for 1000, but a Blaster can pull off a combo such that will make your head spin on a regular basis, with no windup and no interruptibility. I don't know if Stalkers have more short-term burst damage (they probably do), but I'm saying that Blasters are damn close, and they can do it more easily, more consistently and with less setup. Not all Blasters, obviously, but enough can.

I'm not really sure what you're counting here, but that's a bit off. Stalkers have a base 10% chance to score a critical, which goes up 3% for each team member IN MELEE RANGE OF THE STALKER. I know it doesn't say that anywhere, but it is. So you're rarely going to get that in full. As well, Stalkers have a 1.0 scale damage mod to Scrappers' 1.125. I know the critical damage portion is supposed to even things out, but it really doesn't. Stalkers still deal less damage out of hide and still have fewer hit points. Stalkers also lack AoE almost of any kind, giving up their AoEs for Assassin's Strike.

That may make them good boss killers, but again - not out of Hide. And I never said they're BAD at it. I just said they're not nearly as good to reign supreme over all other ATs in boss killing.

Or, as it usually happened to me when I tried it, suffer multiple instances of wasted time and endurance when I was interrupted. That's Assassin's Strike balancing mechanic. If Stalkers could pull off multiple assassionations as easily as a Blaster can just wail on the damage, I wouldn't argue, but Stalkers are very reliant on not being interrupted. This means DoT, such as that from Longbow Flamethrowers, Tsoo Caltrops, Spectral Chill of the Night and so on are problematic. You can still easily scrap and probably even pull off a Placate critical if you're fast enough, but assassinating a boss multiple times isn't a given. Not even when someone else has his aggro.

Except combating "hoversniping" is the primary reason all NPCs were given ranged attacks, and why all powersets in the Architect had one appended to them that you couldn't turn off. That's also why most enemies outrange Blasters with snipe at any enhancement level. Wolves got stunning boulders for this precise reason, in fact. They didn't use to, but the Blasters picked at them from the air, so they got a needlessly brutal ranged attack, too. I wish my Hurl stunned like that.

Again - look at Confuse. Confuse does exactly what's being described here, and confuse removes experience from your kills. IF you get such an attack, you can bet it will take away a proportional amount of experience to the damage it does.

Designing such a set is problematic for Blasters for two reasons:

1. Stealth means crap. Even ignoring all the things that see through it, once you gain aggro, stealth does not work. You can re-stealth and the enemies will still find you. Even with Placate as an option, Stalkers are a good example why you CAN'T rely on being hidden in combat unless you waste a substantial amount of time running away.

2. Range means very little. Attacks that pay in performance for the return of greater range are tremendous ripoffs. Anything above 80 feet is largely pointess on single-target attacks. Enemies will simply close in on you once you shoot them. And unless we're suggesting that this set only works with Hover, it won't work.

Furthermore, Blasters are probably the game's single greatest source of AoE. Even sets like Ice and Electric, which suck at AoE, are still better than what most other ATs can output. A "sniper" set as a Blaster primary, therefore, will not be very useful. All you'll do is spend a lot of time animating slow attacks, shooting at things that have already been killed and being interrupted.

I'm not against the idea here, but I just don't think this is mechanically feasible.

I think bringing up epic phail as your example is not a good start to your thread. If you want something specific, make a list.

Don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out.

"Only" partial mez protection, as a step up from only NO mez protection? Huh. As far as "less damage than we could do before..." Well, look up the word "chortle."

As opposed to not being to mail anything to anyone at all? What did we lose again?

Which... They already had before the changes, so again, what did we pay with for the changes? And considering people still play Stalkers and they still do just fine, I beg to differ.

Yeah, those attacks that ATs don't have any other access to anywhere else in the game. And what does the change to Focused Accuracy years ago have to do with paying a price for proliferating Epics now?

I dare say that's your own fault. Because I keep seeing Kheldians pretty much as frequently as I've always seen them. And again - if the Kheldian changes were "not enough," how does that equate to getting changes but losing something else? Kheldians lost nothing. Right now, they are as good as they were before the changes or better in EVERY conceivable way. They lost nothing.

If you're not looking for a flame war, you might want to be more careful about the absurdities you state as facts before you start weaving arguments out of them. I have nothing against cautious optimism, but what you're apparently basing your fears on is utter nonsense.

Certainly. Check out these two posts by Positron:

Post 1
Post 2

Highlights:

I look at it this way - the same annoying crap that people have been complaining about since practically day one is being slowly weeded out. Travel has consistently been made easier both with "teleporters" of all kinds and with better, less costly travel powers. Now we get a constant speed buff on top of a vastly sped-up Sprint, to the point where that might actually "do" for those hard men and women who enjoy making "all human" concepts.

For those of us who don't? Well, put it this way - you don't have to slot it, you don't have to use Sprint. They're there, but if you don't like the speed-up, you don't have to use them. True, Swift on its own is a not-insignificant buff, but with nothing (or Flight Speed) in its default slot, it's not that bad.

Here's the thing - it is a foregone fact that most people will take Stamina by level 20. I don't and never have, so understand that that's saying something for me to say this. It is a foregone fact that people do. Once you accept this, then freeing up three more power picks, yet adding no more slots, IS, in fact, an improvement on the amount of choice you have access to. Once this goes through, it will be much more a choice of what to take, rather than what to skip and, to be honest, that's a choice I prefer.

Right now, in most people's minds, no matter what AT you play, no matter what your powersets, no matter what, there are three powers you need to take, and take them by level 20 - Swift/Hurdle, Health, Stamina. Every time on every character. The game offers you 24 power picks, but it doesn't really. It actually offers you 21, because three of those, at least, will be Stamina. Making Stamina inherent gives you three power picks back. Not only that, it makes your choice of what to take even harder, because you have to balance what you want to take, vs. what you can slot. Which is what I've been doing all along anyway.

The less I HAVE to take, the more freedom I have to take what I WANT to take. Obviously, this cannot be taken to extremes, like I can't play a Scrapper with no attacks because I "wanted" to take all four travel powers and their pools. But when every single person is cashing in several opportunities to choose for the same thing, then there is a problem, and that problem needs to be fixed. Making that one singular focal point free for everyone is one such solution.

An on that note: I told you so, Arcana.

In a nutshell: Yeah, I feel we do. I've tried to not bring this into the discussion for so long, but I just have to: basic anime vs. basic Western animation, or in other words a continuous story vs. episodic, unrelated stories.

Personally, I have always, always, ALWAYS been much more a fan of the anime format of one story that takes up, say, 20 hours stretched over 60 episodes, rather than 60 or so small, barely-related stories all self-contained that almost never reference each other. The latter just doesn't interest me, because it is forced to squash down an entire story's narrative down into 20 minutes, and you can't really have a three-act story take place in 20 minutes and be decent. Not that I've seen. A segmented story design allows each episode to build on the previous episode's storyline and go from there. You can still have a three-act story (if you MUST), but instead of each act being 7 minutes or so, each act is 20 episodes or so.

In City of Heroes, I really like how the stories are made, in that they feed off each other. One story reveals that the Circle of Thorns are an ancient civilization of disembodied ghosts, then the next one shows them acting like one and summoning a great demon. I like that. I like it a lot. I like it when some stories represents plot revelations while subsequent stories take those old revelations as common knowledge and build off them. I don't want each new story to have to do all the work in itself, because that simply makes it feel crammed and rushed. It's one of the reasons I didn't want to bother with the Architect, because I KNEW that no matter how epic a story felt, it would never, EVER stretch more than five missions, so something would have to happen to rush it.

I'd sooner do a slow, plodding 20-mission storyline like Crimson's World Wide Red - an arc which has A TON of storyline to deliver and even then has room for ambience - over the curt three-mission arcs that we've been plagued with ever since CoV popularised that. I prefer consistent storylines. I prefer consistent bad guys. Every time the story shifts gears and starts introducing a bunch of new threats, that comes together with the old plotline with a very audible clunk.

Of course, I can't really do TFs, and even if I could, it's impossible to follow their stories. So, obviously, I want to ensure that missing a TF does not rob me of a story that's of vital importance, like the Cavern of Transcendence and Kathie Hannon TFs do. But at the same time, I still want them to be about enemy factions I care about, or I don't care about the TF. I don't want to suddenly speak with Positron when he goes "Onoes! These frog aliens from Zeta-Epsilon-Jerkass are invading because... You know, I wrote a book about the. Here, read THIS!"

Any story which attempts to establish a new enemy from whole cloth, give him depth and characterisation, explain his backstory, explain his plan, have that plan enacted, have that plan foiled and then have that threat removed such that we're all back to status quo and nothing has changed, all in the same story... Either sucks, or has to be LOOOOOOOOONG. Crimson's World Wide Red is kind of like that, and that's 24 and change missions long, and it's still on the short side AND it still benefits from Indigo's Missing Melvin and the Mysterious Malta Alliteration. An arc that tried to tell that without Malta ever having been established AND ending with them defeated would need to push 50 missions, at least, and that's just absurd.

If you want short stories, you need to tie them into something else such that they can reference narrative delivered outside of their short spans. If you don't, you end up with FILLER. And I hate filler more than anything else in storytelling.

I'm not sure why running slightly faster is a problem for you, but assuming it is, let me explain what else this fixes: Rooted. Right now, my Stone/Stone Brute has to dabble into Fitness basically just to be not boring to play via being able to move at a speed faster than continental drift. There's something else this fixes: Stealth. Right now, Stealth has an inexplicable speed debuff, but that's fine, since everyone will now automatically have Swift.

I honestly don't see a downside to these changes, other than "I'd rather not," which, while I sympathise with it, is something I am beyond convinced that even the most disgruntled will quickly forget about. I know for a fact that there have been changes I've argued strongly about, that I have simply grown to ignore within... A day. If that. For instance, I didn't approve of removing Training drops from the high levels, because I enjoyed selling them, and I still feel the same way, but now that it's actually happened, I don't really feel like arguing that point, because it's far too minor.

---

As far as "power creep" goes, there really isn't much of any. You get for free powers that people were taking anyway. You change very little about the status quo of power, aside from punishing people like me who did not choose to take "the one true option." Some will indeed become stronger. Those like me, on the other hand, will be about as strong, but will be able to get there much more easily and with much less banging my fist on my desk and losing hard drives over it.

Additionally, if we're talking about the absolute best builds getting even better, I wouldn't worry. Those already skip more powers than they need to, and not out of lack of power picks. All this does is add more redundant power choices (for some), which in my mind only leads to greater freedom to take powers because we want to, rather than because we HAVE to. I don't HAVE to take Warrior's Challenge, but I WANT to take it nevertheless. More redundant power picks will let me do that.

In fact, Stamina or no Stamina, I intend to drop both Air Superiority and Mud Pots out of my Stone Stone Build and replace them with something else. What else I don't know, since I intended to replace them with Epics, but who knows? Hover, maybe? Provoke? I don't know. We'll see.

I plan to use this opportunity to take all of my primary and secondary powerset powers, as well as four epic powers and two powers from a travel pool. I honestly don't see any empty picks posing a danger.

It works decidedly "meh." It tends to miss and even if it hits, it tends to fail sometimes, especially on lieutenants. And even when it works, it pulls the whole spawn in anyway. It's not a BAD pick - it has its uses, but it's not as impressive as it sounds.

Yeah, that's something I've been trying not to say, but it WILL come into play. Just like Kheldians are so very tight for slots, what with having so many "extra" powers from their forms, so will everyone kind of have those problems from now on. You have four more powers on every build, and those are four more powers you may want to slot.

However, and this is the clincher for me - I may not always want to. Swift and Hurdle I will never add slots to, Health I am unlikely to and Stamina... Well, I did well enough without it, I'm not sure if I'll want all three slots in it after the fact. But even if I do, that's just two slots extra, and I SHOULD be able to pull those out of the many multiple endurance reduction slots I was using before, so it's all good.

It takes a long time to get back from the hospital in most cases.

Hey, any story which could make ME cheer on both the hero and the villain is an automatic win in my book. That's the sign of a well-crafted story and, more than that, a good villain. Of course, the completely hatable villain is a legitimate choice, and I can respect that, but to me that kind of monsters is a bit... Empty. It's like having the hero fight nature, rather than fighting a person. Which, again, isn't necessarily bad, but isn't my cup of tea at the same time.

When I originally said "someone to cheer for," I didn't really think to exclude villains from that. I see no reason to. After all, we have an entire side of the game called City of Villains where we play the villain and do the evilnessnessness. Frankly, if I COULDN'T cheer on the villain of the story, I'd say I'm playing the wrong game. So, so, SO much of all three sides of the game relies on having good villains that you're not irritate to have to deal with, but are actually supposed to be impressed by. Sure, some people are never impressed by anything and other people can never root for a villain, but that's just how it goes, I guess. It doesn't mean the actual game doesn't encourage it.

That's actually where most of my gripes with City of Villains come from - it does a TERRIBLE job of presenting our villains as "the villain of the story." It does a bad job at presenting or villains as a good antagonist for a good protagonist. It doesn't even do a good job of presenting our villains at antagonists at all. Most of the missions make us out to be super-powered thugs with no ambitions, no class and no dignity. "Brownie points with the Spiders" my ***! I will never get over that! At least the Clone Factory Saga is decent in that regard.

But, yeah - nothing wrong with cheering on the bad guy. Nothing wrong with identifying with the bad guy, either, in fact. That's what a well-written bad guy should inspire, in my opinion.

In my case, it's usually because I die when I rush in, but survive when I "pull." There are, in fact, three distinct situations where I will always AoE-pull.

1. Time Bomb. I had an AR/Dev Blaster who would lay down a patch of Caltrops. Set a Time Bomb in the middle, then corner pull as many enemies as he could into the bomb. I used to try pulling with Sniper Rifle, but invariably that meant only one or two enemies coming in, wasting the bomb. Instead, I opted to pull with M30 Grenade, which always got the entire spawn.

2. There are several "rooms of death" throughout the game, especially in blue labs where so many rooms are big and open. There's the titular Room of Death which consists of a ramp leading to a platform with another platform above circling it. Going into the centre platform of that room aggroes the two spawns on it, and puts you within aggro range of at least three other spawns on the upper platform. I've seen more teams wipe on that room than any other.

Another such room is the large empty room with weird machines in the middle and exits on all four sides. If you approach from one particular side, there are spawns on either side of the door, causing you to aggro two spawns at once. If you're fighting Nemesis, going into that room could put you under fire from no less than four Snipers, which I have experienced myself. Pulling out of that room, spawn by spawn, ensures much greater safety. Then there's the room which has a "secret" passage on the side through a red forcefield that has you climbing up weird machines. This room you enter through a narrow left-right corridor, which deposits you within aggro range of at least two spawns, sometimes three if the third one spawned that time.

Some outdoor missions will do this, too. Their spawns will be very close together. Not quite close enough to aggro on you at the same time if you pull, but more than close enough to aggro on you if you rush in to fight. And because outdoor spawns tend to be rather more spread out than indoor ones, this is more often a problem.

3. I play a lot of Blasters, and I don't like fighting at the extreme long range that some NPCs can fight at. If I stand out of "multiple aggro range" and fire at a spawn from that distance, they scatter and stretch between me and the spawn point. And, at least as far as my experience goes, there is nothing worse for a solo Blaster to fight than enemies all over the place. Ideally, I want to corner-pull an entire spawn so they bunch up, then eat Fireball + Fire Breath + Rain of Fire. This helps me a lot.

Oh, I trust everyone knows you by now, hence the lack of surprise in the post you quoted. This is what you do here, and this is what we expect you to do.

Well, as long as you choose to post as a self-righteous tough guy, then expect people to lose all sympathy for your "plight."

These recipes are rare and expensive. This is not intended to be a "good" way to get them. Deal with it.

Well, if that is indeed true, then it does two more things:

1. It frees up three more power picks for virtually the entire playerbase, which means players now have more powers and greater potential strength. This, of course, is balanced by the fact that you generally needed two to four slots between those power picks, and taking something else might actually cost you in slots... But then you can always grab slot-light things like Taunt.

2. It helps ME at all levels from 1 to 50, because I only have one single character with Stamina so far - my 50 Stone/Stone Brute. If I get the ability to have Stamina "for free," then this means I will finally be able to give him the Earth Epic powers he always should have had AND it means all of my other characters keep going as they have... Only better. Rather a lot better, in fact.

Come to think of it, the titular Samuel Tow is right now running without Stamina and running Focused Fighting, Focused Senses, Evasion, Combat Jumping and Focused Accuracy and almost never runs out of endurance because I flipped out and put in probably 30 slots of endurance reduction. It'd be interesting to see what he turns into then.

Call me crazy, but...

What did we pay for the Blaster Defiance changes?

What did we pay for the ability to mail stuff to ourselves?

What did we pay for the Stalker changes?

What did we pay the ability to have our villains take Epic powers?

What did we take for the damage increases Kheldians got, as well as the ability to activate Dwarf Form while held?

Look, I can fully understand that "there's always something to ruin it" feeling. I used to feel the same way until the NC Switchover and Positron's promise to "give the players what they want." But since then? Haven't felt that way at all. At no point since then has it felt like someone was deliberately sitting down and designing annoying crap into good changes just to mess with us.

How often do you fight AVs, though? Maybe it's just me, but I almost never do, not alone, not on a team. Most of the time people want to pull is out of large open rooms where multiple spawns will aggro if you just walk in. Since we sometimes need to pull two, maybe three spawns before it's reasonably safe to walk in, pulling them one by one can take 15 minutes.

Most teams on most difficulties can fight one spawn at a time, so I almost never see the need to pull spawns one by one, unless it's an exotic spawn with something big in it.

You are wrong, not to put too fine a point on it. There are no faster boss killers than Blasters, and yes, that includes Stalkers. Melee, range or AoE, Blasters deliver the damage.

First of all, you vastly overestimate Stalkers' "fun" ambush abilities. Stalkers get one shot from hide, and that's it. From that point on, they are a gimped Scrapper. Yes, you can throw a Placate and get a critical on one more attack, which probably won't be your strongest one because your strongest one is a cone on so many powersets, but Scrappers can get criticals, too. The only reason Stalkers are playable is because they are decently good at scrapping. An AT without shields, with low hit points and with ALL INTERRUPTIBLE ATTACKS is very much entirely SOL once its health drops.

First of all, I'm pretty sure this is impossible in the current powers system. Secondly, even if we assume it's possible, there is no way in hell you will ever be given a high-damage attack which can generate full experience and yet generates no risk. This will not happen. The only effect in the game which generates no aggro and has the potential to deal damage is Confuse, and that does not give you any experience if you just sit back and let confused enemies kill each other.

Blasters have:

*Repulsion Field, which is AoE toggle knockback.
*Power Push, which 100% single-target high-mag knockback
*Smoke Grenade, which is... A smoke bomb.
*Full Auto, which has the chance to deal a critical hit.
*Auto Turret, which acts as a decoy and is pretty hard to kill.

Need I go on? Blasters have enough toys if that's what you want. Having these toys is not an excuse to design a gimped, gimmick AT.

Which is what Blaster secondaries are described as at character creation.