Q: So what's a Blaster's role?
A: To keep the Empathy Defender awake.
Well...
A girlfriend of mine and I sat down to compare notes. She's a MA/SR Scrapper 20 and I'm a AR/EM Blaster 23.
Here's what we came up with:
1) Range is largely irrelevant.
The superior range of the Blaster is only a factor for the first sequence of attacks. After that any enemy that decides to get close can.
(In my experience it is possible to psudeo-kite; if one leaps from concealment to concealment and the attack animation executes while in transition, by queing up the attack, you can escape immiediate retribution. However, that strategy is largely terrain dependant and so is a non-factor. Addtionally leaping back out for another will commonly result in a massive counter-volley as all the enemy's own qued attacks will trigger at once.)
The utility of this design is obvious: most heroes fight in melee ergo enemies should close to engage. Simple enough, and highly appropriate. However, coupled with the reality that most enemies out-range the Blaster than it becomes true that range isn't a serious factor in combat.
2) Blasters are the flip side to Controllers, hence the comparisons by States and Co.
Both specialize in mob managment. Blasters do it through destruction, Controllers through obfustication. Not unlike how Tankers and Scrappers complement each other.
To endlessly contrast Blasters to Scrappers is to somewhat miss this point. Yes, Blasters are excellent for just punching holes in anything. But Scrappers are expected to enjoy the pleasure of personally recieving as well as they give so they get appropriate counter-measures. It seems fairly intuitive, and when some torqued-off AV one shots my heroine I understand the lesson: I shouldn't have been drawing it's fire. Not that circumstances frequently trump theory, I've commited Build-Up+Flamethrower seppuku multiple times because at the time it just had to be done, but it seems to me that it is so none the less.
3) The weakness of Blasters is that they have a team role with no mercy.
Aggro errors mean defeat. Being knocked down means
death; you won't live to activate your back-up Dramatic Recovery. My GF mentions that one of her constant duties is watching for strays who rush the Blasters, and even that's wasting time as by the time she's there the unfortunate hero is cold cuts.
So what Blasters need is more HP, not more resistances; while those would be handy I don't see them infringing upon that territory any time soon. They need HP, they need a way to ablate the currently suicidal nature of their role.
I can't honestly comment on Blaster damage; I am, after all, AR/EM and Anything+Build-Up makes for quicker combats. I don't feel like I need more damage.
I just need staying power; some kind of latitude for when things go wrong. Too much of being a Blaster is just being the first to die because chaos theory suddenly made me a target.
