Warloch

Some powerset combinations are more self-sustaining than others. I run a Dark/Dark Brute and at level 30 in beta I could literally SMASH my way non-stop through a mission set for two heroes, using Dark Regeneration and Consumption.

At lower levels I made prodigous use of Rest. You could 3-slot it for recharge. I'm thinking it may be available after each battle.

Take a look at whatever self-heals your powerset packs and six slot them with heals, recharge reductions and accuracy if necessary.

Health is an excellent choice for Tanks, and it should also be a good pick for Brutes with their added HPs. The medicine pool is also a good pick.

Those ideas are off the top of my head. Now if you will excuse me, I must be off to SMASH!!!!!!!

I can live with Defiance. Heck, I can take anything and make a positive use for it. It actually came in very usefull in the missions I ran on Test today. I fail to understand, though, why you guys thought that this would help blasters in the area they need help the most...late-game survivability on teams.

Blasters are front-loaded ATs. Defiance just makes them even moreso by bypassing the standard enhancement progression limitations, letting them get to that wall even faster than before. Yay, I guess.

If the lower resists/defences go live, blasters will see even less healing than they did before from healing Defenders who are going to be too hard pressed keeping the tanks on their feet to even think about a blaster who can be KO'ed seconds into a fight from some ranged guys who happened to be just within range of an aggro pulse of the one target the blaster felt safe enough to attack.

Any true boost to blasters should adhere to the following criterea:
<ul type="square">[*]Must protect the blaster from being defeated in what sometimes seems an arbitrary manner.[*]Must not involve giving blasters Resists or Defense, in keeping with States' vision of the AT.[*]Must offer a benefit that helps blasters of all levels and power ranges, without being too powerful.[/list]My idea...

TRUE GRIT
"Blasters are notoriously fragile, but they nonetheless stand the front line against the hordes of villainy threatening to overrun Paragon City. So great is their resolve to carry on through a fight that Blasters can sometimes take a hit that would flatten anyone else."

Beginning at Security Level 10, Blasters gain the TRUE GRIT ability. Any attack that would result in a Blaster's defeat will trigger the ability; The Blaster's health will stabilize at 1 HP, giving the hero a last chance to heal, launch a final attack, or escape out of harm's way. This ability is on a three-minute timer and the read and white blaster AT icon will appear in the characters effects area.

That is what I would like to see, anyways...

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I use icicles, chilling embrace, taunt, and punchvoke from six-slotted AoE and single target attacks, and Doc Spielmann tells me that she didn't typically peel aggro away from me. I think that again, this is a matter of the tanker more than the blaster powers. But again, I think it shouldn't be that risky for you to use your powers on a team.

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On the Tf I mentioned, my tank buddy had Invincibility, Taunt, Provoke, and his punchvoke going. The Stone tank had mudpots, taunt, and whatever he had slotted into his melee attacks and they were still unable to keep the blasters standing. All they had was their Energy Torrents and one had Explosive blast....not enough damage there to warrant causing the tanks to lose aggro.

I also think something has to be said for hero synergy and player familiarity. When I play my Eng/Eng blaster with my tank buddy I never die becuase (1)We have been duoing since beta and have had our style down for a year now, and (2)we sit almost five feet away from each other when we play and when I start taking damage he knows about it a half second later. Many blaster players are not as lucky as I.

Blasters solo well enough because at least we know where all the aggro is generated from and we can deal with it on our own terms. In a group, while we must have faith that the tanks can hold the aggro, the common experience is that we will catch fire and earn a faceplant. So we take matters into our own hands and get accused of having a solo mentality in a group, or we limit our damage output to a point where we cease to make an equal contribution and just end up leeching.

The benefits of range decrease to nothing as Blaster rise in levels, as has been stated over, and over, and over again.

The secret to making blasters viable in groups does not lie in upping damage, getting status protection or getting control powers. It lies in aggro generation.

Blasters generate too much aggro...too much for tanks to compensate for. Scrappers do not generate much aggro at all, even though they can dish out and take more damage than blasters. Who would you rather go for? The whirling mass of death standing in front of you, or the squishy in the back trying to act as fire support. I know who SHOULD be getting more attention, but the mobs behave otherwise and that is the problem.

Personal experience time here. Had my 34 Kat/Regen on a Manticore TF, teaming with my housemate who had a 34 Inv/SS tank built for taking and holding aggro. Three blasters were on the team, as well as a Stone/Stone tank and two other scrappers making a full eight-hero group.

Every fight we started the blasters faceplanted. Every single fight. I KNOW how my friend plays, and he never loses aggro, but in this case he could not keep it. And there were TWO tanks in there and everyone waited for them to secure aggro. The blasters were invariably defeated within 10-20 seconds. Everyone else survived easily. The blasters were reduced to making group kamakazi attacks with Novas just to be able to do enough damage to alpha the group, and they still died. My scrapper on the other hand, never EVER had an issue. I was fighting reds and purples, indiscriminately using my AOE attack with buildup and only using Integration(3 slotted) because I was just not taking enough damage to justify IH.

Only one blaster remained at the end of the TF and he was at the debt cap. I was three bars into 35 with no debt (I went down once during the entire TF). In essence the Blasters were ranged one-hit tanks, making minimal contribution to the team. Is this what we are meant to be as an AT?

TAKE A LONG HARD LOOK AT ALL BLASTER PRIMARY POWERS AND REDUCE THE AGGRO GENERATED BY THESE POWERS TO EIGHTY PERCENT OF THE AGGRO A SCRAPPER CAN GENERATE AND YOU WILL BE TAKING A FIRST BIG STEP TO MAKING A BLASTER VIABLE IN HIGH-LEVEL GROUPS!!!