StratoNexus

I know, but I love that animation. Ice is already solid for single target damage and mitigation, it doesn't really need anything, so I'd hate to lose the pretty for effect. I wouldn't mind seeing the effect increased, as I suggested, but I wouldn't want the animation lost to make the current effect acceptable.

And it apparently didn't just affect Hamis, because Musculature used to enhance slow powers and now it does not.

I do think in general they are a bit short, based on my Fire/Earth Dom and my Mind/Fire Dom. But it isn't by a lot. In most cases, you have to figure in the pets, and I notice the difference in kill speed when I forget the imps (of course my Mind doesn't get normal pets). Plus some sets get modest help from their AoE immobs (Fire and Plant).

Is Flashfire, Sleet, Hot Feet, Mud Pots, Imps, Fire Cages, Tremor, and Fissure in ~12 seconds effective? Yes. Is it more damaging than my AoE centric blasters? I don't think so, but it certainly is close.

Please forgive me, but my love of /Fire compels me to write. Consider this a simple aside; as I write this line (which I am writing last) I consider not making the post at all, but the power of bias compels me.

One of the things that makes /Fire "great" is the fact that it works well in the field of complementing the primary, just not in a way many expect and in a way that exposes the survivability issue more.

/Fire has your standard two powers most sets have that could be considered complementary, the immob and Build Up. Then it also has an end recovery power (which many other secondaries also have). It also has 4 attacks and, like all secondary attacks, these compete with, rather than complement the primary.

But then /Fire also has TWO damage auras. Of which, one is amazing. Like all damage auras they complement any attack in the primary because they do not compete for animation time. Naturally, in order to use them one has to enter melee and stay there; using them effectively vastly lowers your range advantage, but as far as the damage side goes they are fabulously complementary. And once one is in melee anyway, now you can add another AoE power which makes any blaster very good at eliminating (up-level) minions and Lts quickly. AoEs don't compete like single target attacks do. Psychic Scream and/or PsyShock are one of the best benefits you get for taking /Mental and FSC deals nearly 75% more damage (and even Combustion deals more damage than either of /Mental's AoEs).

If you overcome the survivability issue (which is, admittedly, hard to do solo), /Fire is complementary, it just makes the long range attacks you get short range (normally; you can still use them from long range, but then lose the benefit of the auras).

Also, I find it amusing that someone rated /Device as one of the three "good" secondaries.

I see a lot of irony here. If the game isn't hard to understand, how could you fail to comprehend that dominators are a damage AT? It had to be proven to you?

Did you ever upload those Malta or Carnie videos where you are running a mission at 54 x 8? I have trouble with them and Arachnos and would love to watch it.

Anything left is absolutely no threat to the controller at all since they are incapable of moving, much less attacking. I am not sure you really have done killing with a Fire/Kin. Fire/Rad is a bit slower, but a Fire/Kin is much faster than you give them credit for. Fire/Shield is no slouch, but a Fire/Kin has much better AoE damage and the single target is close. People keep harping on the lack of Fire Cages; I don't even have Fire Cages on my Fire/Rad. Flashfire lasts long enough even vs. +3s to polish off the minions and the Lts. are nearly dead. Use single target controls to lock down bosses (avoid Ring of Fire if the KD from Bonfire is still needed, of course) and keep containment on them, kill the bosses while the AoEs tick the Lts to death.

I doubt it. You underestimate the power of Fire control, both in damage and its ability to control (and that is before ludicrous Bonfire).

Her hourly rates for producing such an analysis seem to be higher than you are willing to pay.

What you are asking for is not easy to do. If you want it done, try your own hand at it. If not, badgering another player to produce such a thing in their own time to try to prove or disprove your assertion that is only applicable in the smallest and often most dismissible set of cases seems out of line.

It is interesting that the idea of spawn wipe came up. I agree with Arcana in the general sense that how a build deals with and kills an entire spawn is a good measure to consider.
High end perma-Dom builds prevent scatter, nothing moves. I used to say nothing out damaged a Fire/Fire blaster, but a Plant or Fire/Psi could give them a good run (then they added other sets, increased Dominator damage, buffed FE, among other changes and now I don't say that anymore).

I24 isn't on beta yet. But if it is released as announced, then TD + Kismet is enough.

How about if, the proc shuts the KB and KD off completely, but every 10 seconds allows the KD to happen. This way it still prevents the scatter, but at the cost of some of the control?

That makes the most sense to me. Like most procs, it works fine in once and done powers, but may get problematic in persistent powers.

*Twitch, twitch*

"We have to change this power because of a messed up IO interaction"

The PR nightmare of that statement is scary.

If they change the KB percentage in Bonfire because of an IO I won't slot in it, I am going to be displeased.

There should be dozens of ways to build "properly."

It is important to remember that no one is saying min/maxing should not have benefits. It must. But to use two of your examples:

The difference in survivability for a PB running normal shields, with the potential for Dwarf, while occasionally using Lightbringer is not that far removed from someone running perma-LB.

Willpower may be "easy mode" to get to a nice level of survivability, but it also can be min/maxed to extreme levels of survivability, but since it started so high, still within a good range.

In my mind, those two in particular are good examples of power (and powerset) design.

Drain Psyche, OTOH, has a range that is too far apart. On the low end it is OK (by current blaster standards), in the middle it has a solid boost, then on the really high end it is just too much (not for blasters, for anyone). And that isn't just for build effort, that is also how the power itself scales.

THB, it should be noted that the Devs do advocate somewhat for the min/maxer when they think they can. If this wasn't true, they would already have announced they were fixing Drain Psyche to still be very good, but have both its lower end and upper end fall within a more reasonable range of each other. Changing Drain Psyche in the way most are asking doesn't even violate the cottage rule, but the devs are still resistant to make the change and it isn't because they think it is better for the average player, it is because they don't want to adjust the game for people like you.

You can advocate leaving Drain Psyche as is and know the devs have not only considered your position, but at this point they agree with you. The first thing I thought when I heard they were not changing Drain Psyche was, "It isn't proper that the other secondaries get a power that is much easier to use and can be used by rangers while Drain Psyche is stuck with legacy limitations." I will be advocating for Drain Psyche to go up at the bottom and come down at the top, because I believe that is the best scenario. So far, you are winning the debate, however.

This I agree with and is part of why I don't fear lifting corruptor and defender base damage in conjunction with lifting blaster base.

I am not saying I think 1.3, or even 1.4, is too high for blasters, but I am comfortable at 1.25 (and 1.125 for melee).

End drain has undergone a fair number of changes.

I am pretty sure that in the beginning, blasters drained more than defenders, although it is possible they drained the same amount. Way back then most, if not all, players had never heard of AT mods, and I remember the argument often went, "If it is a primary power, then it will do its thing better than if it was a secondary power."

Then, in Issue 4, defender end drain was buffed to be better than blasters (and controllers were buffed as well, though back then they did not have a lot of end draining powers), because "defenders should be better at secondary effects." In Issue 6 they added the give end back ability to many Electric powers.

The big change came in Issue 7 in response to the change where higher ranked critters had more endurance. All end drain powers became a percentage of target's end, rather than a static value. I am thinking this may be when they normalized blaster end drain to be equal to defenders. I do remember it was a known and purposeful change though, it was not stealthed in (although the patch notes for I7 do not include it and I stopped searching after 2007).

There are some minor changes after I7, (and some of those lead me to believe I7 is when blaster values became the same as defenders), but mostly just error fixes.

Mmmm. Widows. So much pain.

It is amusing that many blast sets have a power that recharges in 20 seconds, but they mostly deal token damage. I was honestly surprised when Dark's ranged mez had reasonable (if still low for its recharge) damage added.

I can leap around with my stalker and the non-interruptible version of Assassin Strike, so your answer is yes.

You don't have to TP, you could do what so many other ATs do to overcome that weakness. Pop a break free. It's not like you need to do it often, so you don't need to carry too many.

No? I see 7 things in a hallway or room (maybe I see them all, maybe not).

How do I prioritize the targets? That guy is the PC, if we kill him the other 6 go away too? I am not a huge roleplayer in CoH, but I do like to pretend a bit more than that.

I would be more interested in drawbacks that were not really drawbacks.

That said, I do love the idea of an Earth TP as you describe, and with the right animation time it would still be a negative, so your idea is pretty cool.

While I think the snipe changes fall into the category of "a buff too far" that can cause concern, what makes you feel the sustain changes are so high they are worrisome? What type of changes in the long run are you thinking about?

Are you proposing that Stone armor has difficulties at base difficulty or even with modest increases in difficulty? Stone's performance on SOs is remarkably good relative to other armor sets on just SOs. It is competitive outside of Granite and then rises well above with Granite.

Maneuvers works as well.

Half suppresses, so it ends up at ~3.9% if slotted while attacking (Maneuvers is ~3.6%).

They still can't jump.

I kind of like the uniqueness of it. I don't think it is best to just have a Granite build, but I like that it is a reasonable option. I do think the negatives in Granite are real and I do think they balance the positives.

I wouldn't terribly mind seeing Granite become something that adds to the rest of the armors, but I don't think Brimstone needs to become a defense power and I don't think Granite needs to lose all of its +defense if that were done. But I also am not eager to see that done, as I kind of like the odd option to run Grantie, Rooted, Mud Pots, Stone Skin, and Earth's Embrace. I think 5 powers of 9 is a fine amount to take, I don't think sets should be designed where 8 or 9 of 9 are required.

Isn't that what I said?
I don't find the other powers in the set to be garbage even with Granite in a build. That isn't to say I don't think there might room for modest improvement for non-Granite builds, but I also just don't see a reason to adjust Granite. It is very strong, but the negatives are solid enough balance, in my opinion.

I don't see it that way. Why use Granite unless you really need it? I'd stay away from that recharge and damage debuff whenever possible and then switch back to my regular armors only when I felt safe enough to do so.

But that is irrelevant. Blasters deal more damage under the same conditions is what is relevant. We are not going to change the value buff/debuff brings so pointing at it isn't likely to be helpful, but we don't need to bring 8 buff/debuff characters to have a good time and to finish game taks in reasonable time frames. Blasters need to be fun, they need to have a distinct playstyle from corruptors and defenders (and other ATs), and it seems it is important they are reasonably survivable as well.

While I think blasters should deal the most damage, I don't think they need to be massively higher once we start bringing all abilities to bear, there is value in being able to bring the pain without also needing to lay out a debuff first.

I play on lots of duos with my wife. Two defenders is a small bit safer, but one defender and one blaster is almost always faster. On larger teams the buff/debuff gains some advantages, but on smaller teams, what blasters bring is valuable.