Shenalia

The problem with that idea is, Blasters were like that at one point... during Beta. The secondaries were the Tanker melee sets: Energy Melee, Fire Melee, Ice Melee. They were changed to "Manipulation" sets when Devices was added and the game went into production, by swapping out some of the melee powers (but keeping most of the structure of the sets) and adding in various "other" things, like Energy's self-buffs and the control-ish powers such as the immobilizes and sleeps. They did this because the AT simply suffered from the complete lack of damage mitigation.

My view is that it was the right idea... they just didn't apply it consistently enough. Mostly, several key powers in some of the sets didn't pan out as well as one would think they would (Frozen Aura, Auto Turret & the bugs with other devices powers, the damage auras). /Energy didn't really have those issues, and once they upped the damage / cost / recharge of the melee powers to make them more powerful than the primary sets (to make up for the lack of range, and greater risk), it and Elec jumped in usefulness. /Fire would have, as well... except for the fact that it's more AoE-centric, and those don't take out harder enemies quite as well as, say, Total Focus or Thunderstrike do. Add that in with being in melee range still and you've got a set that doesn't pan out as well as designed.

The problem isn't that we need more damage. Far from it. We just need to be able to use what we have more easily - and that's what it looks like, to me, they're doing. Increasing the short-ranged attacks in the primaries makes them more useful and usable, and not just for Blasters. (Ever see a Storm / Energy Defender try to use Power Burst with Hurricane running?) Perhaps the changes to /Fire and /Dev will be similar.

As to the change to Fire/ that Castle mentioned? I have a feeling that it's either tied to the changes to /Fire in a thematic way (a secondary effect for fire attacks?) or a potential change to the horrendous Flares animation. Either way, not a bad thing, not at all.

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Pick up grant invis and get your friends to do it too. Brings us to the stealth cap.

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that got nerfed in the new patch too

have to re-apply GI every time you're unhidden for it to add to -per

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Um... this is how it worked before. It's not changed in the patch, they just noted that this is how it works, period.

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You probably got Lucky, People's Fist.

My Elude and Toggles and passives are all 3-slotted with defense SO's, and even with Elude up and -6- Extra Lucks, Elite Boss Chimera auto hit me every single time.

I ended up just popping 12 enrages to cap myself, and then ran in and beat the crap out of him as quickly as I could, and then healed myself with greens every time he popped me one.

Even then, it took 2 tries to kill him.

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Yie, Arc. My Blapper beat him twice 1v1 (both in the arc and in his personal mission) with a total of 8 purples (2 sets of 4) and some blues. I think he hit me twice with the sword in one fight and once with the bow in the other, and that was it. He was the easiest of the Praetorians for me.

Mother Mayhem was harder than he was, by great amounts. That auto-hit Dominate hurts, and you can't make her not use it in favor of something else.

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::walks into thread munching popcorn::

Hey guys what's going on? Am I missing something? Wow, lot of the vets are out and posting. Oh god, numbers, nooooo.

::gets mezzed by numbers::

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Welcome to the party, Neutra. Enjoying the view?

I'm with you, Pilcrow, on a lot of these changes. Already we have the single-target immobilizes (except for Energy Manip - and Power Thrust is worthwhile enough to make up for it), but I don't see AoE immobilizes coming with some of the location-based AoEs that some sets have available. I mean, Ice Storm and Blizzard on enemies that can't run away, after we have them able to be buffed by Build Up and Aim? C'mon.

More "soft" control powers at range? Hell yes. Single-target or AoE, fear/sleep/slow... sign me up. I've been asking for this for a long, long time, actually. We already have quite a few of these spread out - just not very many, and they're almost always limited to melee range. I would count "aggro reducers" as part of this, too; think of the Ninjitsu's "Smoke Bomb". Reverse version of Provoke from the Presence pool.

PBAoEs? I wouldn't get rid of all of them, but some could easily be swapped out without any problems. These would make room for some of those soft control powers we were just talking about...

It's all really about synergy. Right now, there's little synergy between the primary's damage powers being at range compared to most of the secondary's mitigation powers requiring the Blaster to be in melee. The best "synergy" between primaries and secondaries comes from those sets that allow the Blaster to use the powers that supply mitigation - self-buffs in Energy, traps in Devices, placeable control in Ice - at range... and when the Blaster ignores range and goes into melee, using the secondary powerset as their primary and only taking from primary powerset for those powers that can act as secondary, supplemental powers. My best example, and one of the most prominent in the community: Blappers that use Ice Blast for the holds and fast-firing high damage single-target blasts as fillers for their attack chains.

I do agree that seeing more range in all ways in the secondaries would be a very welcome thing. You do not have to remove all melee - that would be a major mistake to do so - but to add range to those abilities that really have no reason to be at melee range...

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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.

Oh, and mez protection:
1) My regen actually gets mezzed pretty regularly.
2) Play on a team? 5/8 of defenders and 5/7 of controllers can give you mez protection.

The whole point is that although a solo scrapper>a solo defender, a blaster teamed with a controller, tanker, or defender can do more than a scrapper in that situation. Like you say, your huge damage ability comes at a price. Just try to make up for your weaknesses.

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This argument has gone into semantics; what I believe needs to be done is a summary and a reiteration of main points.

- Blasters do not currently fill the role of a "ranged damage dealer" because they do not do an appreciable amount of reliable, sustained damage at range. To compete with - and outdamage - melee damage classes (Scrappers, mainly), we need to take melee attacks from our secondary. With this taken into consideration, most Blasters (Blappers?) do compete and usually out-do Scrappers slightly - not massively, slightly - in damage. If you compare the best sets to the best sets and the worst sets to the worst sets...

Then you compare what the melee classes have that the Blaster gave up for this slight advantage: defense. Blasters, when they do go into melee to compete damage-wise in the method they are supposed to, lose the one thing they have going for them in any sort of defensive manner: range. Not that range is all that useful, considering most enemies out-range us with their ranged attacks and our lack of defenses anyway still mean we faceplant... but we lose that to actually compete. Scrappers and Tankers... lose nothing.

The point up to argument, really, comes down to two disagreements: one side says that the additional damage is negligible to a point as to not make up for the lack of defense, and the other side claims that, no, the additional damage does make up for the defense - while usually claiming that the defenses really aren't that great.

Personally? I recognize three things.
- Scrapper defenses are nothing to be scoffed at. They're powerful in of their own right; claims that enemies mezz past them easily and that they don't really help out that much are ridiculous.
- Without going into blapping, which requires particular secondaries and builds, Blasters do not fulfill their role as well as they should. Some have AoEs, which give them a different role, but the sets that are not built for AoE cannot fill that role and often turn to...
- Blapping, the result of the whole mess, where Blasters have embraced their weakness - the lack of defense - and admitted that range means nothing to them in an attempt to actually fill that role. My point here? Blappers do fill the damage role, but in accordance to the "deal", they give up too much to do so.

What do Blasters want? To be held to the same level of scrutiny and balancing that the melee classes are - we want to actually get what we pay for by losing all sense of defense. Most Blasters disagree on how to do this, but a consensus can be found usually on one item, and one item alone: balance the secondaries.

We recognize we'll never get defenses; we don't want them, really. We want what we're supposed to have in their place.

We recognize we'll never get mez protection (well, most of us do). We don't really want that, either.

What we want is more of what we do, in more effective, efficient ways. We want to be able to stay at range and have a consistent attack chain without resorting to practically being in melee - which comes to calls for having all attacks have at least an 80' range to them. We want to have our control and buff/debuff style mitigation powers to be more useful - or be available, once again, at range. We, just like Defenders, want to have an inherent power that does not rely on making us go dangerously near death - especially since, as we've already covered, we have no defenses to keep us alive once we reach that point.

Really, we want to be able to do what we're told we should be able to do. Right now, we're not.

Indeed. There's lots of options to work with on those powers - and often, I find that the PBAoE powers in the Blaster secondaries are usually the least-used or most oft-cited powers among all of them for requests of the Devs to look at them for help in balancing Blaster issues.

I just hope that _Castle_ is still reading this and sees these ideas as more ways that they could rework these powers while keeping to the intent and purpose of them - and make them more useful to us in the exchange.

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The lighting field cast on a enemy and hits his near by buddies. This would also to me apply to the slow toggle in the ice secondary and i think its combustion in fire that both effect enemies only when they get near the player. I think it could add alot to these two secondaries to have that changed.


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Forget lightning field. Added damage is nice but imagine if you could drop Hot feet down in an area instead of having it PbAoE around you. Now, that would be a good reason to take the Fire Secondary and a nice pay-off for a level 38 power.

Look at Frozen Aura. Bam, targetable ranged AoE sleep. Suddenly the power is actually usefull to the majority of blasters and not just to the select few who work around it's draw backs.

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Good points. There are some powers in the Blaster secondaries (especially Fire) that would work well as ranged drop powers:

-Burn at range would be great! Combine Ring of Fire and Burn.
-Hot Feet at range would be great also. Caltrops but with larger AE.
-Frozen Aura would be useful.
-Ice Patch is probably too powerful to make ranged.
-Time Bomb or Trip Mine as ranged wouldn't affect the power's strength but would make it nicer to use compared to asking a team to wait while you smoke and toe bomb.

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We already have Burn at Range, its called Ignite . Ice Patch could at least get a range like Caltrops. I dont think that would overpowered.

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Yes, Burn with range is Ignite, but that's in a different set. The usefulness of Ignite for AR/ over how useful Burn is for /Fire simply provides another example of how adding a kind of range element to several PBAoE powers would make them far more useful.

To me, there are several ways of adding ranged components to PBAoE powers, and each method is more applicable and worthwhile to different powers in the various sets.

1. Increased Radius: Simply put, increasing the radius of a PBAoE power makes it more useful simply because it can affect enemies further away from you. It can drastically affect the strength of a power, however, due to the fact that it can affect more opponents - so doing this for a large increase isn't viable balance-wise for quite a few powers. I personally see this being a good solution for Chilling Embrace - expanding it to be the same radius as Hot Feet would allow a Blaster to keep enemies slowed without necessarily staying in melee range with them - staying right outside of melee range, instead.

2) Enemy-Based Toggle: Changing certain powers from toggles that are currently self-based auras to enemy-based toggles is one method of adding an element of range to them. This is currently the favored idea for some auras, such as Blazing Aura and Lightning Field. However, creating an enemy-based toggle that deals damage creates problems with kiting - you can simply place it on an enemy and keep out of the enemy's range, but within the range required to keep the toggle working, and wear them down without any risk. This will undeniably keep the devs from doing this, IMO.

3) Adding a location-based targeter: Many of these powers could easily be given a location-based targeter, similar to many location-based AoE powers in the game. This is usually applicable - and most appropriate - to non-toggle powers, such as Burn (Ignite), Ice Patch (small Ice Slick), and Frozen Aura (Flash Freeze). However, I had the thought recently - you could add a ranged location targeter to the damage auras, such as Blazing Aura and Lightning Field. Add a new graphic, and you've got a toggle version of many location-based rain damage powers. Keeping the lower damage tick rate and not adding a run-away fear component to the power could create a unique new style of power that truly is "support" in nature - you can keep the effect of a power in the area while not submitting yourself to the dangers of being in that area yourself.

Many different options that can be done with these "melee-ranged" powers to give them a ranged element and make them far more useful to the many people who cannot afford to enter melee long enough to use these powers - many of which draw aggro from multiple enemies (at melee range) onto the blaster when used.

(Oh yeah - wh00t, quote pyramid)

Hence, why I suggested it being a +25% damage boost earlier in this thread...

Seriously, what's with all the people jumping on this thread now that _Castle_'s posted to it? I mean, it's not like he doesn't read most of the threads around here - he probably posted here after reading the discussion, finally seeing one with more than one actual doable idea.

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I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.

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_Castle_, thank you! I had the feeling that you and some of the other Devs had been observing some of the threads being posted by regulars of the forum recently, ever since that post that you were looking to help us out after your recent issues with Claws and such. Just hearing further input from you on what you like and what sounds doable is very, very uplifting.

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The devs have admitted that the Blaster secondaries are sub-par and promised again and again to fix them. But they haven't yet because, I suspect, they see it as a lot of work.

So, this thread is about fixing the blaster in the easiest ways possible. The quickest, dirtiest set of changes you could imagine to make Blasters what they should be. Imagine you're Statesmand and you have decided to fix the whole AT over in time for I7, so you have limited development time. What would you consier that needs to be changed and how would you change it?

What I think

[*]1) Blasters need to be able to make a better ranged attack chains with their primary and secondary combined, than could be made with just the primary.[*]2) Blasters need to be able to deliver more AE, or at least more of it at range.[*]3) Controls and Debuffs are part of a Blaster's arsenal for a reason, and if they need more protection, that is where it should come from[*]4) It is more appropriate to share more of a Blaster's Defensive "strengths" (control, debuff) with other blasting ATs than to share more of a Blaster's Offensive strengths with other blasting ATs.[/list]
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Pilcrow, as many people have before me in this thread, I fully agree with your four points above. However, I do not agree with your changes because you bend one of your own points to achieve them.

The one thing I'm talking about is adding a 10th power to the primary to be available at level 16. This is a massive coding change and structure change to the AT, a change to how Blasters match every other AT in structure (except for Kheldians, who have their own structure entirely). Throwing out that change, your changes have merit, but they are not as a whole fully acceptable to many people.

What would I do? I would stress points 1 and 3 of your listing by doing something that Statesman once agreed with me when I had a conversation with him at E3 last year on the topic. Blaster secondaries are named as "Support"; however, all of them but Devices are based on the "Melee" beta sets. He expressed his opinion that Devices are, in fact, the closest to all of them being "working as intended" out of all of the secondaries, and I wish to stress the parts of the set that are working as intended to the other secondaries in small changes. As well, I have never liked Defiance, although to change it would take a redesign of the Defiance concept, and that is for another time. (I have pressed my ideas for a "Burst" power in the past in other threads, but this is not the place for it.) To summarize: I would make the secondaries more "Support" in nature through minor changes to powers within the sets that reflect what already does work within those secondaries.

After reading posts within this thread, I have been able to revise my own ideas with some of those suggested, and I like some of yours personally, Pilcrow. You don't mind if I borrow them, do you? Anyways, all of the sets would all revolve around a common theme - as they currently do, but stressing that theme even further. As well, you'll see a common change in all of the Manipulation sets: the loss of one of the least powerful melee attack powers for a new power meant to supply additional mitigation or support ability to the set.

Devices:
- Caltrops: Fixed so that in PvE, enemies cannot jump out of them (in the same way that Heroes cannot jump out of NPC caltrops).
- Targeting Drone: Add a small +DMG buff (~+25%), unenhancable. No increase to endurance cost.
- Time Bomb: Time Bomb is targetable and if it is damaged by Fire, Energy, or Smashing damage, it goes off early. (I liked this idea so much, I'll keep it!)
Explanation Devices has always been a "trap" theme set with decent self-buffs. I loved the ideas you suggested, Pilcrow; I just need Caltrops to actually be useful in PvE. (Damnit.)

Electricity Manipulation:
- Charged Brawl: Removed.
- Havoc Punch: Add a short duration (5 seconds?) where target's endurance recovery is stopped entirely. Moved to Charged Brawl's previous position (#2).
- Lightning Field: Change from a PBAoE aura to an Enemy Targeted Aura (similar to Defender debuff toggle auras). Stats of power (damage, high endurance cost) remain unchanged.
- Build Up: Moved to Havoc Punch's previous position (#4).
- Shocking Grasp: Moved to Build Up's previous position (#5).
- New 9th Power: Melee range single target attack that does minimal damage but performs massive endurance drain and kills target's endurance recovery. Long recharge time.
Explanation: Electricity already has damage mitigiation via a combination of a variety of control powers and endurance drain. Enhancing that is simply a natural progression of that theme - and it requires an enhancement to the endurance drain components of the set to make it work. The powerful melee moves are left at melee range to make up for their strengths.

Energy Manipulation:
- Energy Punch: Removed.
- Bonesmasher: Moved to Energy Punch's previous position (#2).
- Stun: Increase damage, to mirror melee mezz moves in other sets (Frozen Touch, Shocking Touch). Moved to Bonesmasher's previous position (#4).
- New 6th Power: Energy Cloak (from Brute's Energy Aura). Should function similarly to Device's Cloaking Device.
Explanation: Energy's theme is all about self-buffs and powerful melee strikes. There are very few problems with the current set - it's one of the most popular due to the strengths the set currently boasts. Adding another kind of self-buff - an inherent stealth power - is not only done in another secondary, but matches the theme well from another "Energy" set.

Fire Manipulation:
- Combustion: Removed.
- Build-Up: Moved to Combustion's previous position (#2).
- Hot Feet: Increase effect radius (30ft, from 20). Moved to Build-Up's previous position (#4).
- Blazing Aura: Change from a PBAoE aura to an Enemy Targeted Aura (similar to Defender debuff toggle auras).
- Burn: Change from a Self-Placed Location-based AoE to a Targetable Location-based AoE (Ignite, in essence).
- New 9th Power: Melee range single target high-damage DoT with Fear (Retreat version). Fast animation, sets enemy on fire.
Explanation: Fire Manipulation desperately needs help, more than any other set, and adding a sense of mitigation to the set is the easiest way to do this. Damage over time is the common Fire secondary effect, so we keep it in practically everything while changing powers to allow for a level of mitigation. The new power reflects a long-sought after visual effect: an enemy panicking because they have been set on fire, which serves as a wonderful mitigation power.

Ice Manipulation:
- Frozen Fists: Removed.
- Ice Sword: Slow duration increased slightly. Moved to Frozen Fists' previous position (#2).
- Chilling Embrace: Increase effect radius (30ft, from 10). Moved to Ice Sword's previous position (#3).
- New 4th Power: Ice Sword Circle, as per the Dominator power.
- Frozen Aura: Changed to Flash Freeze (from Ice Control).
Explanation: Ice, naturally, is about soft control and slows. What better way of doing so than improving the few powers that suffer in the set to bring them in line with the others? Chilling Embrace matches Hot Feet, except without damage or the higher endurance cost that comes with damage auras. Frozen Aura becomes ranged, which is a change it desperately needs to become more useful.

So, what do you think? A vast number of changes that greatly increase the "support" effect - or usefulness of the "support" effects that are already there - with only two powers - the new final powers for Electric and Fire Manipulation - requiring any new animation work, if they don't just recycle animations that the game already uses for them! Yes, I know many people do like the melee attacks that I propose removing for these additions - I use Energy Punch on my blapper, myself - but I would think that the powers being put in their place and the other changes would justify them.

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It should be included. It *has* to be included, or balance gets horribly thrown off (i.e. Trick Arrow). But there is a reason why it *isn't* included.

At the moment, activation times and animation times are strongly coupled, and animations cannot be changed on the fly by the game engine. So animation times cannot be tweaked by the power designers to balance powers - they can change the damage index with a push of a button, but it takes an act of god to change the animation of a power.

Set a power activation too long, and the set can underperform with little way to fix it. Set a power activation too short, and the set can outperform strongly with little way to fix it short of hitting it with harsh recharge penalties (which will make the set underperform, especially at lower levels).


But what that does mean is that the designers really have to be very careful when initially creating power sets, to make sure that the animation times won't create problems, and whenever they get a chance to redo the animations of a power set, they should be really be careful to design carefully - because they tend to be so set in stone.

Altering the game engine to allow for (small) adjustments to activation/animations is probably one of those things far far down the road but possibly one of those things that would convey a huge benefit to power balancing in the long run.

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I understand and agree with you 100% on this. In the meanwhile, though, they should balance the numbers they can change to match with the animation / activation times the powers are now stuck with. Whether this means making some powers very low in endurance cost (Swipe in Claws, Flares, etc.), making them more potent for the time allowed, or even lowering their effectiveness slightly (noting Energy Transfer here might piss off some people, but hey - it's true)... it should be addressed. Quickly. When they can adjust the actual animations / activations, they should do so, but it shouldn't be left to sit in the meantime.

In regard to the arguments over particular skills not being worth the animation time they take to deliver, this has been a long-standing request of mine to the devs:

Include animation time in your power balance calculation.

For those of you who don't know, geko has explained some of his power balance work here on the boards in the past - he's got an excel spreadsheet with all of them listed out and a ton of calculations to show how much damage something should do, how much endurance it should cost, and how much recharge it should have in reference to similar powers. The one thing that I noted that was missing from this calculation? Animation time - the time it takes to use the power... which is a very large part in how people build their characters, a big matter in gameplay, and quite often the difference between one set and the next. (See Archery / Claw's woes and why people love Ice/, Dark Melee, and Energy Melee / Manip.) It has also been addressed several times in powers that have suffered from it before - Katana back in Issue 2, for example, and Twilight Grasp. Any set - any power, at that - that is supposed to be a quick use, quick recharge low-effect ability should be quick to use.

I would just like to say that Concern's list, while rather complete in its coverage, contains some items that are much of a personal preference of the person listing the item than actual issues. A good example of such is Freezing Touch - the person who mentioned it may like it to be changed, but it is useful for other reasons than the problems the person has with it. (C'mon, it's possibly the fastest animation hold power in the game.)

Truly, the problems that Blasters have come from three standpoints overall:
- Defiance being mostly useless due to the fragile nature of Blasters
- The secondary powersets are very imbalanced, some of the powers being flawed in design as opposed to the Blaster supposedly being a "ranged" AT.
- Secondary effects from some of the powersets are very limited in use.

To touch on those three points in more detail...

- Defiance increases the Blaster's damage as they lose health, raising them slowly towards their damage cap (which they cannot normally reach on their own). However, it does not kick in at all currently until they are at 40% health or less - and even then, does not truly give any appreciable effect until the Blaster is nearly dead. This, in combination with the Blaster's low defense, leaves them unable to use it without putting themselves at great risk... and if they are already at that risk, an extra percentile of damage or two is not going to save them if the enemy can kill them with one or two attacks.

- Secondaries: I was told by Statesman at E3 last year, when I spoke to him at length in person, that the Blaster secondaries would be reviewed and considered because he admitted that a great number of them were flawed by design for the AT due to being based on melee sets from the CoH beta. It was mentioned that Devices was, to him, the proper mindset for the AT's secondary: utility powers with various use instead of simply another way of dealing damage. The sets that are designed most similarly to this (Energy, Ice - lots of mitigation & utility built in) perform wonderfully except for one or two powers that are weak by design (Frozen Aura, PBAoE low-mag sleep as a lvl 38 power). The sets that are designed in a drastically different way (Fire, to be specific) on the other hand suffer greatly from a distinct lack in survivability on the Blaster's part and in fact lessens the Blaster's survivability in order to be used properly. This was to be addressed, but was instead decided that it was "not an issue" when Defiance was introduced.

- Secondary effects: Some of the secondary effects have flaws in relation to their effectiveness for the Blaster. Each of them have their own problems, some moreso than others.

Energy: Knockback in primary, disorient in secondary. Not many problems with this, aside from the AoE powers scattering enemies and creating problems for teaming.

Ice: The slow effect on all of the primary powers, aside from the Rain powers, is very low in magnitude and duration, causing it to be almost unnoticed.

Electric: Endurance drain is an all-or-nothing gamble on the Blaster's part. It is said to be in design that enemies do not use certain attacks once their endurance drops below a certain point, but this is rarely noticed as the enemies have an impressive amount of endurance recovery. The only way the drain is often effective is that the enemy's endurance recovery is also killed, which is much more difficult to come by. (This is much more an issue in PvE than PvP.)

- Fire: The secondary effect is more damage - in DoT. This, combined with very few powers within the two sets designed for any sort of mitigation, gives the Blaster few ways to truly defend themselves. Any kind of mitigation added to this set would help greatly, even if in a slight manner.

My personal suggestions and wishlist items? Listening to the bug lists given by Concern is a good start, as well as the wishlist items for Defiance and a few other powers (Explosive Blast, Auto Turret, and Frozen Aura come to mind). Other than that...

- Discuss with the design team whether or not it would be possible to cause -Recovery to lessen the amount of endurance being recovered instead of killing said recovery outright. (Same with -Regen, but that's a separate issue.) If so, would it be possible to put a low-mag -Recovery effect onto some of the Electric powers, even possibly in place of some of the outright drain done currently? A little bit goes a long way.

- Add some kind of mitigation to the Fire Manipulation set. Even one power designed purely for mitigation would improve the quality of life for the set by leaps and bounds. Personal ideas: a low duration Fear or Panic effect on one or two powers (You're setting the enemy on fire, after all), or take a power from the Fire Control set and manipulate it to scale it down for Blaster use. (Smoke, or a scaled-down version of Flashfire, would work wonderfully for this purpose and wouldn't be overpowered due to the lack of other mitigation powers to stack with them.)

That's it for now. _Castle_, if and when you read this, we appreciate all that you do for us. Please let us know if any of these ideas and concerns are plausible to the developer side of the community!

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CoughtalkaboutDAPLEASEcough

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Actually, my plan was to see if I could hear some of the logic behind the latest updates - and to see where current priorities stand. (My personal pet question/issue is my own to ask, and I need not divulge it here...)

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Course.. how likely is anyone to actually meet a Dev at E3?

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Pretty easy... as some of us will be on the show floor.

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Awesome. Now I truly hope to get to have a conversation with one of you while I'm there.

Well then, States, I hope to see you there.

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I like the option of melee attacks in the blaster secondary. I think Energy is the ideal in many ways, although I would like to see one of the boost powers be the initial one, maybe build up be the first power. It has 4 melee attacks that have specialized secondary effects. Power Thrust is a terrific power for knocking strong melee bad guys away from you. Punch & Bonesmasher have nearly Identical DPS & the same chance to stun over a minute (EP has less chance to stun per attack, but more attacks per minute, so the chance to stun is similar). Stun is situational, but can be beneficial to a blaster. & of course Total Focus, the big Kahuna. Thats 5 melee attacks that are really good situationally.

Besides that the power set has 4 effects boosts that are all valuable, Power Boost, Build Up Conserve Power & Range Boost. This is a nice versatile set, & a good one for a player that wants to make a Blapper.

I think all of the Blaster secondaries should roughly follow this example, except Devices which is a really good, but very different type of set.

If I was going to change Energy Manipulation, I would add something like Temporary Invulnerability or Force Bolt to replace probably Energy Punch.

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Actually, as I noted earlier, each set has its own theme - and you just perfectly outlined Energy Manipulation's to a tee. They both have good concept designs, decent application of those designs, and the powers are good, worthwhile powers in of themselves. Ice has a good design and decent application, but there are more powers in that set than in Energy or Devices that just don't do enough to justify the results. (To be specific, Frozen Fists / Chilling Embrace / Frozen Aura.) The problem is that Electricity has a flaw in its application - the endurance drain on the powers is for all intents and purposes worthless, as you need a power from the Electric Primary to make any of it matter in a practical sense. The powers are worthwhile in of themselves, and as a whole the idea behind the set works, but the effect of the mitigating factor that ties it all in is incomplete.

Fire is simply poorly designed. Unless you supply some sort of damage mitigation with the Blaster's primary (Ice/Elec), the set requires you to actually put yourself into harm's way with no mitigation from the secondary itself. The application of the concept would've been decent if the concept itself worked. As for worthwhile powers... all I have to say is, Blazing Aura, Burn, and Hot Feet for someone with no defenses - and you can't keep this set as it is while adding actual defense to make those powers worthwhile. You'd just be making the Blaster into a miniature Fire Tank - and we all know that this game could ill-afford another TankMage like that. It pretty much needs a complete rehaul.

Jeez. I get home a little later than normal, and I miss the chance to actually respond before the new threads went insane. Statesman, please read down this far, and hopefully see this.

The inherent problem with Range vs. Melee is that the difference in range vs. melee when fighting enemies lessens at the later levels. Early on, it's painfully obvious how much more powerful melee is than range against us; at the later levels, the various degrees of ranged effects - including mezzes that the melee'rs don't have to deal with - and the amount of enemies that only attack at range that have their ranged damage boosted to compensate make that difference shrink massively. Tie this into the defenses that the meleers get to make up for that original difference... and your reasoning for the difference in the damage cap flies out the window. They have the defenses to make up for their lack of range and then some; saying they're at more risk due to where they fight is ludicrous.

Controllers and Defenders are ranged too, but guess what? They have damn good forms of damage mitigation - or, at least, most of them do. They can easily make up for their squishiness at the new range, and they gain offense to compensate by the later levels.

Blasters... I don't see them as necessarily "Ranged" damage as utilitarian damage - ranged, melee, you name it - they can dish it out. I also understand, unlike seemingly countless new people to the boards here, why the melee powers are so much more powerful than the ranged attacks: because you have to give them an incentive to take them. If they were the same power or weaker - like they used to be - no one would ever take them, and people would simply ask, "Why are these here?"

I'm the last person you'll ever see ask to have the melee powers taken away. The difference with /Dev and /Energy compared to the other sets is that they have very few worthless powers, and they all have different themes. The basic designs behind those themes, however, is what causes them to suffer.

If you want to make all of the secondaries fun, then remove, improve, or change the powers that the vast majority of players deem worthless from them. Give each of them - much like the Defender primaries / Controller secondaries - their own theme... and stick to it. Also keep in mind checks and balances, and keep it useful at the same time.

The very idea that Devices and Energy - about as different of sets that you can get - are the most useful secondaries explores this. Devices isn't as much about damage (the mines and auto turret withstanding) as it is about trapping the enemy and supplying utility to the Blaster. All of its powers support this.

Energy? It's all about extreme melee damage, combined with powerful self-buffs and single-target control through disorientation. It's all about crushing your foe extremely quickly, hopping in and out of melee range, and using the buffs to put yourself to extreme levels of power for short durations - right when you need the buffs.

Electricity has a wonderful theme going, very similar to Energy: extreme melee damage combined with control via endurance drain. The problem with this is that endurance drain, when applied to enemies, is an all-or-nothing proposition; you either make them completely worthless permanently... or it has no effect. This doesn't take place until you both drain them completely and prevent their endurance regeneration. When you take that into consideration, the endurance drain of the Electricity secondary means little to nothing. This is where the problem appears with it: without that controlling mitigation and pure power to match with Energy's disorients and buffs, Electricity suddenly suffers quite badly.

Ice? Once again, another unique theme, and a very well-used one as well: control in various forms at the sacrifice of the damage that the other elemental sets provide. It has several wonderful powers, including Ice Patch (continuous knockdown = control), Shiver (extreme slow = mitigation), and Freezing Touch (extremely fast animation melee hold = control). The problem is that some of the powers - Chilling Embrace and Frozen Aura, to name two - match this theme, but their effects have drawbacks that make them not as useful to the Blaster as they originally seem. Chilling Embrace requires the Blaster to stay in melee range with the enemy, and it doesn't actually control the enemy - and the net result is less survivability for the Blaster, not more. Frozen Aura would work incredibly well, but it has a low magnitude and it alerts enemies to the Blaster's presence before it takes effect... unlike most of the useful Controller sleeps, which don't draw nearly as much aggro when used (if any at all, can't remember). The set is good, without any inherent flaws, but it doesn't necessarily scream out as being very good. That's where the problem usually lies.

Fire's theme? Pure melee PBAoE power. The problem with this is that it has nearly no mitigation or utility as a whole - which is what Blasters usually look for their secondary sets to provide. Consume is useful, yes, but that's where the line ends; without any kind of mitigation, how can you expect a Blaster to be able to enter melee range to use the rest of the powers? Hot Feet keeps enemies from running away... Burn requires the Blaster to stay within melee range to keep the enemies within it... Burning Aura requires the Blaster to stay in melee range with his enemies to have any effect at all. The set is fundamentally flawed as its use requires the Blaster to actually have less means of mitigating damage than they would without the set. This is why it suffers and is considered by most Blasters on this board to be complete garbage.

You want Blasters to be good at range? Make being ranged vs. being in melee actually make a greater difference at higher levels, or give us more ways to mitigate damage at range with our secondaries, with more choices available to us. You don't have to take out the melee powers to do this, either; this is why the different sets have different themes. Until then, you'll see the massive imbalance between the ATs.

States, everything sounds great, but there's one concern I have that I need to get a response on. Please, hear me out here.

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• Contacts give out another series of missions – story arcs. These are linked missions that form a much larger tale. Players normally receive story arcs only after they’ve leveled their Contact up to the highest level. Whenever a named character occurs, he’ll be a Lt. for the solo player at the lowest Reputation level and a Boss for teams or solo players with higher Reputations. Arch Villains, Elite Bosses and Giant Monsters will remain as they are; but, for the early and mid-levels, players will not need to defeat these foes to complete the mission. In the high levels, this is not the case.

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Currently, this is not the case; you can get a storyarc from a contact at any point in your relationship to them, as long as you've done at least one mission for them. Is this going to be a change to the way the game is done? And, if so... some contacts (namely, the sets you get from 25-30 and 30-35) take forever to improve your relationship with them. Two of my characters have done every single storyarc for those tiers and haven't maxed their relationship with a single one of them. If that goes through without making the contacts upgrade your relationship faster, with less missions, it's going to become incredibly hard for even a solo player to get all of the storyarcs with a single character for those tiers, much less for someone who plays with teams regularly.

Please, is this a planned change, and if so are you going to alter the relationships? Or is that a misunderstanding?

Here's my question to everyone doubting the changes in this thread thus far...

Do you enjoy, right now, fighting 3 +4 (purple) minions if they give you a decent challenge and rewards?

If so, why, then, does it matter to you at all if those 3 minions are white or purple, if they're giving you the same amount of challenge and reward? Because that's pretty much what Statesman is trying to do.

If you're the type of person who takes on 6 red minions instead of 3 purple minions... what that's going to turn into is taking on 6 blues instead of 3 whites. Same challenge right now, same rewards... simply changing the colors.

The only thing different is your perception of what the minions "should" be, because you're used to the way it is now.