idontcare

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I have Fly,hover,hasten,super speed,fitness,and concealment. you act as If I took NO pools in protest to having to take them.

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Sorry, perhaps I misunderstood. There were so many interesting posts going both ways I guess I lost track.

So, in light of the changes to the game, you will be doing a respec and changing your pool powers to help augment your defense to increase your ability to survive and solo? Possibly by removing Fly and putting in Leap or maybe the fighting line for Tough and Weave? Or maybe the Speed line? How important is Hasten anyway?

Sorry, I'm sure you know how best to make changes. I know it sucks having to carefully consider the pool powers when planning a respec, and it is something we shouldn't HAVE to do, but it's something we have all had to endure.

I would like to know what your final decisions are. I have a Blaster alt coming up thru the ranks and always appreciate learning from those who have already made it.

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NO BUILD should be dependant on pool powers.

Secondaries should do the trick. Pool powers should be neat little additions. And utililities like travel powers. they shouldn't be all to be damned must haves.

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And I agree, but that is NOT the reality for the majority of builds. So your refusal to work with the reality of what is ... Sorry, I am at a loss for words hear. What does one say to a person who knows that the sky is blue, yet is determined to act as if it were pink?

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Wow... you addressed this to me like I designed the game.

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Actually, I addressed it to you like you made the statement, which you did. And it was in the context of respeccing your build, which you said you won't do and shouldn't have to do because [ QUOTE ]
We shouldn't have to design our builds around pools. Pools should accentuate our builds.

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I was simply wondering why you think you are so special, since every build I have done save 2 does require the build to be designed around the pools.

And where did you see that streak breakers apply to the mobs?

Last I heard, geko said that only human players get streak breakers cause the mobs don't get frustrated by long strings of misses.

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We shouldn't have to design our builds around pools. Pools should accentuate our builds.

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hepheastus, you keep saying this and I wish it were true, but for every charactor I have made except the fire/dev and ar/dev blasters, I have had to design my builds around the pools. And even then, I have had some pretty gimped builds.

The fact that you are currently playing one of the 2 builds that don't have this requirement is meaningless. When the ATs are balanced (it will never happen, but I can hope they get close) then every build will be able to solo, every build will be a welcome addition to a group and every build will either require or not a design based on the pool powers you take.

Thanks for the reply. I'm thinking that the changes in issue 2 have caught many people flatfooted due to the increase in stuns and mob tactics. I know when I first played my Rad/Rad fender after issue 2, at first I was happy. Things didn't seem too changed and I was whupping up on things as usual. Then I began dying. Chain stuns were nailing me hard. I wasn't prepared because they hadn't been there before.

I hung her up for 2 weeks and played other toons, made some new ones, got used to the changes, played a few Blasters even. Last night I played her again. I had learned from playing alts, I was more prepared. I knew to run sooner, to eat a brain chicklet, to pick away at the edges of a crowd, all of the things that I didn't have to do before.

After 3 hours, I was out of debt and happy again.

I hope that in a few weeks you will take your Blasters out for a run. That you will use what you know about the changes to make playing them fun again. If this doesn't happen for you, then you have my sympathies. 35 levels of play is a long time to just have to hang it up.

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It doesn't work that way. We should all be independant heroes who just take specializations. My blaster should be defined by the fact he likes to engage at long range, and builds all his powers that way. I wish we'd all start at the same stats--same HPs, same basic skills--and start working from there, and never really get as far from center as we do. It just ends up making us half of a superhero.

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This is by far the best expression of what this game should be. It sums up, in one short paragraph, everything that concerns me about changes to the game.

I hope the devs read this and realize that this is the direction they should be heading with the game.

5 stars for you.

AoE max mobs hit = 4. Don't change the accuracy, just cap the # of opponents you can hit. 5 might be a better number.

AoE max damage = 4 X single target damage, if you hit more than 4 targets the damage per target starts to decrease.

I'm sure there are other ways. The second idea is in keeping with the idea that a blast only has so much power and that power gets distributed amongst the targets.

AoE is AoE, so this should affect ALL AoE, not just blaster.

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3 points

1. A scrapper has FAR less a risk of being "skewered" then a blaster. It really tickles me when your friendly neighborhood regen scrapper who is practically invicible to the same groups that cut a blaster in half in a matter of seconds tries to say that he takes such great risks.

2. Controller same. I see Fire Controllers barreling through group after group without breaking a sweat. Fire Controller soloing is neither time consuming nor dangerous.

3. Device blasters can still solo without smoke grenade. Not quite at Scrapper level safety (and yes Smoke Grenade provided nothing more then the level of Protection that an SR scrapper enjoys) but still good.

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At level 26, no way.

1. regen scrapper doesn't have IH yet

2. controller doesn't have pets yet

3. don't know

At level 32 though, it's a different story. The thing that many are forgetting is how long it takes. My 31 BS/Regen can solo level 34 Rikti, in medium groups (5-7), but I will be using some inspirations and it will take me 5 minutes. The problem with Blasters is that they can't survive 5 minutes head to head.

But if you take your time, hit and run, throw an attack and bail, sneak back around to throw another, you know, tactics, then how do you fair?

This is actually a serious question, not a troll or flame. I hear many blasters say they will suck with the changes and many say they won't. My suspicion is that the ones who don't think the changes will be that devistating are the ones who are already using tactics, hit and run, etc... while the ones who are really, really upset are not.

So, can anyone who is an AoE blaster, who is still soloing groups of 7-10 0/+1/+2 in under 5 minutes let us know how they are managing, while some others claim that can't even fight groups of blues?

The other part of the fun equation is that you can level after 6-8 hours of play. Once you get into the higher levels, you have to fight the +2 mobs or you will take 15-20 hours or more to reach the next level.

Also, one of the strengths of this games is one of its weaknesses, the powers you get early continue to be the powers you use later. Getting extra powers is fun and learning to use them keeps things exciting. But there are points where the powers are just the same old same old. How many slows do I need? If I have 3 effective attacks that I can continuously cycle, why do I need another?