TwoHeadedBoy

Yeah, as I explained earlier in this thread, my build is AOE centric and not planned around optimizing a single target attack chain. You'll read more about this in other posts throughout the thread, but the main strength of choosing Archery as a primary is the AOE damage output. While something like Fire Blast will see much higher single target damage, leading to much faster kill times against single targets like GM's, I felt that the direction I'd rather go in was settling for the *ability* to solo some of the toughest single enemies in the game, whilst retaining the best AOE output that I am personally aware of existing in the game. Now, nothing about this implies that Drain Psyche is overpowered. Read my last couple of posts if you'd like to see the elaboration on that point, and thanks for watching.

Do you not think that Blasters reasonably deserve a self +regen power that is contingent upon a tohit check and x enemies present, and on a long cooldown? Do you really not think that an AT who knowingly sacrifices survivability for damage is not deserving of a power that helps boost their single target damage levels to points that other damage-centric AT's cannot reach, once again contingent upon a tohit check and long cooldown? To me, everything about it seems quite reasonable.

I am well aware of how powerful my powers are on all of my characters that I care about. I use them all to get the most power out of them that I can. I do not feel that it is abusive to strive for the most from your build and try to use all of your powers to their full potential. The only exception to this would be if something was an exploit, such as Ion Judgement when it first launched. People used a ridiculously OP, damage buffed version of Ion. The devs said it was a bug and not WAI, and so using it was a bug exploit. That is the only type of scenario where I feel there is a valid argument against not getting the most out of a power that is available to you.

I'm not looking for a fight. Saying that I'm abusing a power that, as far as we know is WAI just doesn't seem fair to me, that's all. I'm trying to be very civil with you... I just feel you are accusing me of abusing something as if I am doing something underhanded, when I am just using a tool that the game provided me with that as far as I know is functioning properly. This goes for anyone who uses Drain Psyche, but as you put, "abuses" it. The negative connotation just isn't justified or appreciated.

Well that's not necessarily true. Psychic Shockwave is a great AOE attack, and provides a chance for AOE stun. World of Confusion on top of that means a good chance for very decent soft control against even level enemies. Mind Probe is a fast animating and good damage single target attack. Concentration is a second +tohit and +damage buff to be alternated with a similar power from your primary if you have one, and invaluable tool if you don't. Telekinetic Thrust is noteworthy for soft control during the level up process and a Kinetic Combat mule for end game purposes, plus it can be very useful at points during end game content such as the Minds of Mayhem trial.
And why do you feel that way? It gives Blasters a very logical single power boost to survivability, which is useful to its max potential only under ideal circumstances (similar to Soul Drain, Eclipse, Sunless Mire) so as to avoid overpowering. Conditional limitations are relevant. The -regen debuff serves a purpose of amplifying the single target damage of an AT who inherently sacrifices survivability for damage output via their design- I see nothing overpowered about that.

Like I've mentioned already, giving Devices a couple of Traps powers or a hybrid of two (Triage Beacon, only affecting self, and Acid Trap) already bridges the gap to making Devices competitive with /Mental, plus it already gets a self +Defense power, something /Mental does not have. The lack of mobility on the traps is just as much a balancing limitation as the target cap requirement for full benefit from Drain Psyche. I'm sure there are equally plausible solutions for other sets.
Like I already went over, your initial statement is not true. I picked and use about as many primary powers on my Blaster as I picked and use /Mental powers. I already went over one example in my last paragraph about a possible carry-over for one powerset, but as for fire: I would say that Healing Flames and Fiery Embrace would be fair enough, or at least a step in the right direction. Once again, it'll be situational, but the presence of a self heal plus the right amount of outside damage buffs (Fulcrum Shift for example) and Fiery Embrace on top of it would be a whole WORLD of ridiculously epic Blaster damage. There are ways to balance sets around /Mental's performance standard without replicating the exact effects
What you have to consider is the small radius of Drain Psyche, the fact that it is not inherently anywhere close to permanent, and the fact that it requires a tohit check. It is no more overpowered than Eclipse is on a Warshade- Every GM my Blaster can solo is equal to every wave of 54x8 Psionic or Toxic damge that my Warshade can live to tell about, as a personal example. Balance does not equate being able to do the exact same things. For Drain Psyche to achieve the results I achieve with it requires very careful play, and very high end build planning.
I feel that the nature of Blasters being damage king as per their description dignifies some special treatment in terms of powers that help boost damage output- Melee AT's already have access to some of the best +dmg boosts in the game, and Brutes have a marginally higher damage cap compared to Blasters. I would say the trade is fair overall.
I really don't appreciate your accusations of abuse. I know I haven't been innocent in this thread, I've said some pretty harsh and uncalled for things... But I don't think that justifies your accusations. I feel like you're accusing me of exploiting something that is not WAI, like using a bug to my advantage and calling it a character feat, which is not the case. I have yet to see, hear, or read any Developer statement that Drain Psyche is not WAI. Now, if you personally have a gripe with the power, you're just coming off as spiteful.

It would be one thing if Drain Psyche was a bug that was being exploited, but as far as we know the power is WAI and we have no word from the Devs that it is not. They've had plenty of time to address such a concern if they had one, and they have done no such thing. Even with the Hami-o exploits getting fixed, the Devs stated very far in advance that they were not WAI but they simply didn't have the resources to fix them. That is not the case for Drain Psyche, so please do not use your personal gripes and confuse them with bug exploiting. It's just not fair.

Against a single target, Drain Psyche is making up a very minor part of my survivability- Its primary use in a 1v1 GM scenario is regen debuff. I have softcapped s/l defense layered with ~50% s/l resistance (and other stuff that's not relevant to this case as the GM in question is purely smashing damage.) Drain Psyche is only a large credit to survivability when at the target cap, where I'll regenerate 112 Hp per second. Against a ST it helps but not nearly as much as my layered def/res does.
Against more exotic damage the +regen is definitely noticeable. I also play my Blaster purely in melee range, and I am a small purple to the softcap to melee defense- I have ~35% energy resistance also, so that is helping me against the third most common damage type in the game. It's also worth noting that I have mitigation from the AOE stun secondary effect in Psychic Shockwave, the confuse (plus contagious confusion proc) in WoC, which I take full advantage of, and if I want it, the KB from Explosive Arrow (otherwise I lock down my targets with E-Fences to cluster for AOE and negate KB.)

Fences, Drain Psyche, Ion Judgement and my Polar Light Lore pets all do -end or -recovery, not that I use the Lore pets outside of I-Trials, but that's all available to me as a form of mitigation also.

A Hover/Fly and a Hover/Afterburner bind help me out with that a lot of the time, whether for positioning myself appropriately in the spawn at a rapid pace and then reclaiming my hover defense- I have even higher defenses with AB active so I can use that as a pseudotactic (via flying around real quick, pulling enemies to directly below me with AB active, flying up high, and then hovering down for DP once they're sufficiently clustered) or if I *need* to, or more often than not I think it'll be fun, though it doesn't happen often. If spawns aren't aranged properly, a single ranged blast with Explosive Arrow can often push enough together to saturate DP efficiently, or a corner pull usually via Snap Shot will draw enough enemy attention to you that you can manipulate their position via clever pulling to optimize self buffs.

There are many plausible tactics to use, my personal favorite is locating the largest pre-formed cluster in the room, buffing on it, and going to town on everything as quickly as possible. This stems from my Warshade being my main and being very used to optimizing self buffs based on enemies surrounding you- My Warshade is obviously better at surviving the burst damage, but my Blaster melts the spawns so fast that he's just as enjoyable to play.

We're picking one secondary to be awesome, and I'm suggesting that the performance of this one secondary is the standard that other Blaster secondaries should be buffed to the performance level of, in a nutshell. Details can be found within my last few posts. Theoretically speaking as of now, any blast primary can accomplish this same feat assuming perma Drain psyche.

Looking back, I hated them too. Once again, sorry to everyone. I felt like I was being attacked and my accomplishment was being written off, but I realize that my attitude in the first place is what lead people to come at me from the POV they did.

Well for me, I wouldn't say that Blasters necessarily even deserve to beat debuffers as it is now. I feel that normalizing all blaster Nukes around RoA and implementing methods of comparable or equally useful powers to Drain Psyche would be good enough- It would mean that Blasters had enough single target power to potentially solo the hardest ST spawn class in the game, while having the potential to pump out AOE damage that would *generally speaking* surpass all others on comparable budgets- I'm not saying it would or should be perfect, but I do feel that it would be "good enough" to reasonably reclaim the crown in a general sense.

Now, as for survivability, Shadow Meld going into a Blaster epic pool would be a huge step in the right direction IMO. For me, it would make my obviously special case Blaster- Purpled and PVP'd to the gills- Essentially uncontested in his role. If all nukes in blaster primaries were normalized around RoA, access to Shadow Meld would mean that the threat of defeat during the cast time was alleviated. As it is now, soloing 54x8's, I can Clarion>Aim>Toggleonfly$$(get to the spawn)$$toggleonhover>Drain Psyche>RoA>que Psychic Shockwave while casting>Concentration>Mop-up. When I'm on a farm or for some other reason past the aggro cap, I'll que Fences before shockwave to make up for my lack of taunt aura and set up a cluster for max FF chances from Explosive Arrow.

Now, sometimes the burst damage from certain enemy groups is enough to take me out during the ROA cast, but if I can get through it the spawn is doomed guaranteed. This is where Shadow Meld would come in, as close to a guarantee as would be reasonable that I survive the case time. If Blaster Nukes were normalized around this standard, and Shadow Meld was granted in EPP's, the high end Blaster performance could be replicated at least every third spawn even on a SO budget.

Of course, this is really only addressing high level performance and is a very situational example. It's by no means a "be all, end all" fix for all Blaster discrepancies. I do think it would be a step in the right direction though.

I know Arcana already pointed out the time and resources things like this would take VS. buffing the whole AT somehow and then doing tweaks after, but there are so many folks screaming "Nerf!" at Drain psyche when, personally I feel it is granting Blasters a set of skills that *all* sets should have access to, and nerfing it would be in the wrong direction. I know Arcanaville isn't one of the people suggesting this, but the line of thinking being tied in by most people with the "Buff the whole AT" sentiment seems to be tied to "And nerf Drain Psyche" to an extent that it makes me uncomfortable, moving in the completely opposite direction than it should be moving in.

Look. I know I was being a jerk earlier in the thread, and I feel bad about it. I wrote an apology on the previous page but I'll say again that I was out of line with a lot of my comments.

A Fire/Ment or anything else that deliberately optimized a ST chain would probably have a competitive time with the Ill/Rad, but that doesn't make it any less impressive. I only worried enough about my ST output to be able to down big game, period, not aim for fast times. For the way I play and utilize my Blaster, having enough ST to down a GM is icing on the cake- Archery is primarily an AOE set. I feel that the AOE output I gain by playing Archery is worth the slower times on big game, once again just being able to do it without outside help is good enough for me. I'm sure eventually I'll optimize my Fire/Ment for the sake of being more competitive for things like this, but for now he collects dust on Virtue while I Rain my Arrows.

And hey, don't make fun of my graphics. My computer is old and sensitive, and he can hear you. (You should've seen how they looked before the card upgrade... ick.)

Well Explosive Arrow, RoF, Fireball, that DP tAOE, etc. are all very potent powers to have at the low levels and useful as "band aids" to stand in for a nuke IMO. The question becomes the survivability balance: Personally, as I level the Blaster in my experiment, I plan on picking my attacks conservatively, focusing on end redux and stamina slotting and picking up my pool toggles early on in the build.
Nice, congrats on the accomplishment by the way. Impressive. I'm toying with the idea of making a degen 75 dot/25 -hp for my Blaster to see if I fare better with that than Reactive (I only have a t3 version of that on my Blaster anyways.) If only I could transfer Incarnate stuff over from my main to do these tests..

I've been trying to think of things that would also raise the average though, such as my idea of including Triage beacon and Acid Trap in Devices (or a variation self affecting hybrid of the two using appropriate scales.) I see what you're saying, but applying these would raise the average along with the highest possible options for all Blaster sets.
See, I can't speak much for Blaster performance aside from the high end- I don't generally spend a lot of time playing the lower level game and I had my Blaster's 20 billion build waiting in my base for him before I even made him. Since as of right now in all fairness I'm not very qualified to speak about the level up process and the impact of what Blasters give up vs. what they gain for it (that is the purpose of my experiment in the Blaster forums) I don't think it'd be fair for me to try and comment on it decisively, since all I have to go on is undocumented personal experiences that I only really vaguely recall.
See, this can be applied to other things also and is not just a Blaster issue: Dominators don't truly shine until they get perma-dom. Super Strength is a fairly weak set with no AOE's until it gets Footstomp, whereas Claws has Spin almost out of the box. This means that Super Strength can be more challenging to level, but the question becomes whether or not it's worth the tradeoff of the eventual performance- I am a fan of setting goals with my characters and working towards those goals, though I can understand others not feeling this way. Anyways, it'd be the same for Blasters on an AT wide level if the idea I've presented was implemented. I'm not disputing that it probably wouldn't be as time-effective, but I am a fan of spending more time for what I feel would be a more appropriate resolution.

I don't have any experience playing confuse-heavy sets so I honestly can't comment on this. Something I do want to add in though is that I find the /Mu tacked on the end of Arch/Ment is invaluable, Fences allow you to get the most out of Explosive Arrow and by extension the Force Feedback proc. The best metric I can think of for measuring AOE damage is the amount of time it takes to cap AE tickets without red inspirations or accepting the 750 bonus (so don't hit the glowie, reach the ticket cap just by defeating enemies on the map.) I'm curious to see the impact the confusion would have on rewards earned, since like I said it's not an approach I'm familiar with. Do you have a Dom of this brand that we could compare times on?

I don't use ROA against ST's, but as an AOE power it's absolutely worth the cast time.

Well that would depend on the build in question. My survivability is high enough on my Blaster that against 54x8 spawns I can generally use it comfortably every time it's up. Basically if you can survive the cast time of RoA, you can survive anything.

But do you feel that in the extreme recharge case, RoA is enough to give Blasters the "King of Damage" crown, and would normalizing other nukes around RoA for Blasters (same base recharge, damage and end cost) not be an effective way to make Blasters perform at a standard that you'd consider appropriate?

I know I haven't demonstrated this yet, and it's not a "blanket observation," but a "max potential" observation, I am willing to record AOE spawn melting times of 54x8 enemies on my Blaster vs. my SS/Fire Brute. The Blaster kills noticeably faster without inspirations, the Brute pulls ahead at the damage cap but is evened out to around even overall killing time due to the downtime from stacked Rage crashes. To me, this shows that Blasters do in fact retain the potential to hold the damage king crown.

I know that the ST argument is controversial, and it's just my opinion that temporary powers like daggers should not be considered, but adding something like Posion Trap to Devices and similar powers to other Blaster secondaries (like Drain Psyche already does) would give Blasters the potential to have more personal Single Target output than other damage oriented AT's also.

Now, none of this accounts for the level up process, and that's why I'm doing my experiment in the Blaster forums- To gauge for myself the level up discrepancies between a Blaster and a Melee oriented damage AT on an even playing field and without IO's or anything of the sort being taken into consideration. I haven't finished the experiment yet, so I really can't speak definitively about that until I do.

But that's not really a problem is it? Some powers in this game are just super awesome and I don't see why that's a bad thing. I don't think Eclipse or Light Form should be nerfed because the AT's have other limits in place and are balanced around those very strong powers. Same with Drain Psyche... Sure it's a great Dominator power, but other Dominator secondaries are very strong also. I believe /Fire is considered by many to be the strongest Dominator secondary. Different build strategies call for different things. Just because one power is good doesn't make it the only viable choice across all the powersets... Unfortunately the issue for Blasters is that really no sets besides /Dark offer any benefits worth not having Drain Psyche. The other sets need to be made more competitive. There are compelling reasons to make Dominators with non-Psi secondaries, Blasters need to have the same amount of viable options.

I was speaking generally, not about any specific case. Definitely a neat thread, I looked it over earlier. Fire is a much better choice than Archery for ST damage and compared to todays game I would say that the liberal use of small inspirations (I'm assuming reds? Haven't read too much into it) is totally fair given the absence of Alpha and Interface. I know Fire/Ment has better ST potential than Archery/Ment, I just chose Archery due to the superb nuke and knowing that the -regen from Drain Psyche would be enough to cover my ST anyways, so it is perfect for my purposes.

The idea that Drain Psyche is exploitative and only meant as a +Regen power and not a -Regen power is easily dismissed by the in game power description. I feel that the combination of these two attributes is a good recipe of "just the right amount of power" and similar steps should be taken to improve other Blaster secondaries.

3.) I'm sorry for being rude and snippy.

I don't agree with your perspective on this issue we've been discussing but I will agree with you here. I feel like you've presented your opinion in a way that is open for constructive discussion ("aggressive negotiations" might be a better term) and I don't think you've broken any rules or said/done anything inappropriate.

That's not true at all. I've said it a million times, and I've quoted myself saying it, but I'll repeat it again: I 100% support other Blaster secondaries being buffed to work as well as Mental Manipulation. I would be totally in favor of adding Triage Beacon and Poison Trap to Devices, or a sort of hybrid power of the two that provides less potent benefits (I haven't worked out how to balance it properly, but you get the idea.) I'd be all for adding Shadow Meld or Soul Absorption (a caster only version) to /Dark. The list could go on and on. I personally don't think Mental is OP (in an exploitative or not WAI sense,) I think it does a lot to address the survivability issues present in other Blaster sets, and I think the presence of one potent debuff is totally appropriate for Blasters. I don't want to hold any other sets back at all, I think using /Mental as a model for Blaster performance would be totally appropriate and helpful for the AT.