Blaster Guides and FAQs

Is that a good AT definition? Does that give blasters a purpose beyond what they can do now? While I agree it may be slightly better than the current, "they deal damage", it certainly doesn't seem much more expansive.

Or perhaps I should say it doesn't seem clear enough. I can think of definite ways of designing around that definition, but it still seems a bit too vague.

Not surprisingly, I also can't let go of the concern of how this might affect the melee attacks and other melee oriented powers. They are already somewhat marginalized and if they get marginalized even further in I24, then they ought to be abandoned and the AT should truly be designed as sustained ranged attackers.

Does it give blasters a purpose beyond what they can do now? That depends. What do you think blasters were designed to do before? You might say they already had that capability, but the game engine disagrees: they dropped dead often enough to put enough of a hamper on that purpose that it actually made a significant dent in their ability to level. More than the dent defenders get for having about half the damage modifier.

Sustainable ranged offense means when we give blasters higher DPA attacks, like fast snipes, they *must* have extra recovery to allow that higher offense to be sustained. What would be your justification for getting more recovery if you tested I24 blasters and discovered the fast snipe burned up all your endurance? That its illogical to give blasters a high DPA attack and not give them the endurance to power it? That argument would fail: endurance limits are *supposed* to limit how often you can use your best attacks. That's working as intended.

The actual justification in I24 will be that the ranged changes must come with enough recovery to nominally power them through combat. Except that reason is a complete a**-pull of mine *unless* its actually part of the blaster concept. Which I believe it now is.

Sustainability justifies Blasters getting as much regen as regen scrappers, and more absorb than most tankers have health - *if* its not allocated in a way that allows for tanking alphas. It justifies giving Blasters more net recovery than stamina and quick recovery combined. We're getting those things because we're now intended to. Nine months ago we couldn't get those things, because they would be considered design breaking buffs.

The definition isn't precise, but blasters don't need a precise definition. Because we've had eight years of having a definition that precisely says what we are not allowed to be. We don't need one now. We need an expansive one that tells us what we are allowed to be, and what the game is required to give us. Developers can give us *more*, but they cannot give us *less*. That's the sort of definition blasters need now - because its the same kind of definition all other archetypes have. The list of things archetypes are not allowed to be is generally short: they have freedom beyond that list. Blasters used to very precisely be hemmed in by being not allowed to have alpha strike mitigation, sustainable mitigation, mez protection, ally buffing, strong control, or too much damage.

That's a much more precise definition of blasters, which has the unfortunate property of also leaving nothing left for blasters to be.

Our purpose used to be to die. That's not a joke. We were meant to be protected by the other archetypes, and death was just what happened when they occasionally failed. And we couldn't need protecting if we were self sufficient, so we were not, by intentional design.

Every other purpose you think Blasters had is a thought unsupported by the game engine and the game data. It simply wasn't.


They were always marginalized and always will be marginalized because blasters lack intrinsic mez protection. But melee attacks aren't getting more marginalized in I24 than they are now, ranged attacks are just getting as effective as they were always supposed to be. Blapping was a way to make the less effective work more effectively. It'll be a partial casualty of the fact that Blasters will actually become the effective ranged attackers they were always supposed to be.

But the melee option will still be there, and due to the radically higher survivability it will be a better option in I24 than it is now. If you wanted to make and play a blapper, I'm guessing +400% regen is something that would be of some use to you.

You could argue I24 opens the door to more blapper options. Realistically, any secondary could be a blapper but the two best blappers by lightyears were electric and energy, both with very strong melee attacks with mez. But while Ice Manipulation doesn't have those same powerful melee attacks, it might become the strongest melee ranged blaster by stacking ice patch, the improved frigid's debuffs, and frigid's massive absorb shield. Stack tough, weave, and temporary invuln on the absorb shield and you could have an extremely hard to kill blapper.

In fact, now that /Fire is actually getting real survivability, someone might put all that damage to some actual use. Electric/Fire has enormous blapper potential that is marred by the fact its also suicidal. But above some critical level of survivability Elec/Fire should become a PBAoE powerhouse. The only question is whether 2-3x better than we normally can get now is enough.

I'm not going to quote the whole thing, because it'd be silly to spam the thread when the post is just above mine -- but that's a dayumn fine post. Reminds me of the now-famous (to me) "damage exclusionists" speech given by Churchill in 1939. Oh wait, that wasn't Churchill. It sure does feel like Blasters have waited since 1939 to be given a purpose, though.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

You certainly won't get an argument from me on that score. I used that same reasoning to discuss why blasters did not necessarily need a survivability buff. Isn't there room in the game for an AT heavily dependent on teammates? The proposed changes coming in I24 tell us the answer to that question is NO.

I'd say that prior to I11 they had significantly more benefit. Enemy and encounter design has also significantly altered their benefit. I do not think it is fair to say they were always marginalized (unless you allow for big margins). While I agree the melee attacks always had issues, the margins for their use have been shrinking even further, on top of the old issues.

Indeed, but why do it? Shouldn't there be a benefit to entering melee? Or is that old school thinking? Is it enough that the concept of a mixed range and melee blaster is mostly as functional as a pure ranger? Sure the pure ranger is better, but going into melee looks pretty?

Obviously, the mitigation powers help any blaster survive longer and may open people up to the possibility of using the melee powers, but why should they use them? If you can get the same damage level and mitigation from range, why waste power choices and slots on melee attacks?

It's certainly not a bad PBAoE unit, but is it a powerhouse? It seems it, without looking too close, so maybe I am fretting over nothing. But I think about Fire/Fire/Blaze scrappers or Fire/Fire/Soul Brutes, and I am not sure an Elec/Fire/Force blaster is competitive. Is it worth 6 plus seconds in melee range for SC and FSC, considering the improved ranged options? When we had to close to 40 feet for Blaze, jumping the rest of the way for FSC seemed more appealing.

In theory there's room for an AT that's heavily dependent on teammates -- but there should be a significant upside to mirror that disadvantage. Blasters never had that worthwhile niche specialty, and over the last 8 years it became obvious that the developers were scared of giving Blasters enough damage to make their speciality truly worthwhile in a team environment. (In part, I imagine, because giving any singular AT enough extra damage to constitute a bona-fide team specialty would also require either a revamp of buff/debuff stacking mechanics, or a wholesale increase to the difficulty of PvE encounters, or both.)

Instead, every other AT has steadily gained ground, damage-wise. No other AT has given up anything else of note in return. Hell, even the ATs that do have a genuine, worthwhile team speciality (support ATs) have been given damage bumps to allow them to solo better (Containment, Vigilance 2.0).

Now, finally, it's the Blaster's turn. If Blasters aren't to be given a true artillery specialist role, then the obvious answer is to make them better generalists. Even with the changes in I-24, I'd say Blasters are still a fair amount more squishy than any other AT (as a general rule, not counting the odd exception like, perhaps, Kinetics Defenders/Corrupters); I-24 Blasters are just less more-squishy than they were before.

The bottom line is that if you're going to have a game without enforced team roles, then you can't single out any particular AT as team-dependent. I grok that you like Blasters as a hardmode AT; it's understandable that you would enjoy the extra challenge or the seat-of-your-pants play style of the average Blaster build -- but you must realize that your arguing against Blaster buffs on the basis that you like weak Blasters isn't very compelling from a balance perspective, yes?

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I don't like that blasters are hard mode specifically, I am not enamored with getting pasted while solo (I have a high tolerance for it, but I don't particularly want it). I like that they make other people pay attention to them when teamed (and I think that will still be true even after I24). I absolutely agree it is not compelling from a balance perspective, but I am not positive that matters. Balance is not always required to make a fun, popular AT, if it has enough interesting features.

That isn't to say I don't think balance is a good goal, I just don't find it to be a necessary goal. I don't think that is truly the goal with what I have seen from the I24 changes. They want to buff blasters, but I don't believe they want them to be balanced against scrappers, dominators, brutes, or contollers. Maybe I am wrong, but from what we have seen so far, I think the target is a bit lower than balance.

I think the changes I have seen so far will make blasters more fun, more survivable, and more damaging. But I also see them abandoning the melee nature, which is sad to me, but a choice that could make sense. A fair number of people seem to prefer blasters as rangers. And while melee still seems an option, it is fast becoming a weaker option, where in the past you got value from entering melee, now it will be done just for style. Risk for no reward other than the joy of doing it, which is fine, but I think it will make even more people skip the melee attacks, which will give more impetus 2 years from now to marginalize the melee even more.

I do not normally have a slippery-slope mentality, but I feel like I am reacting not to one incident, but a series of incidents, so I do feel like we are moving down a slope.

The difference is simply too dramatic to be justifiable. 13 self-sufficient archetypes and one dramatically dependent one just to stay alive at all doesnt make any game design sense.


Since the melee attacks haven't been altered in any significant way, it's not possible they have less benefit now. And the primary blapper benefit was not damage, but rather countermez: they were really good at taking out tough targets like mezzing bosses. If anything, the circumstances under which blappers would excel have only increased.

The problem is that you want blapping to work by making ranged offense not work.


There was never a moment during the glory days of blappers that they were not, even by self-identification, called marginal. I think it's fair to call them that because even when my main was configured for blapping (from about issue 1 to issue 19), I was calling blapping that on the forums with virtually no challenge, a time scale that includes essentially the entire range of time when blapping was popular.


The same reasons to do it before will still exist in I24. And the option will work better in I24. I will still have bonesmasher and total focus in I24, and I will still likely use them about as much as I do now, and for similar reasons (to deal with the critter that manages to get into melee, and to take on a tough mezzer).

It's not free. In the course of the game - all those years - they have made [1] attempt to fix blasters. People would like it done correctly. If the powers that be wave flashy buffs in the face of players and they nod but it doesn't fix the core problem and there is never another blaster review (or at least not for another how many years) then blasters as an AT have basically lost the chance to become competitive.

No one is saying "No we don't want these buffs."

What people are saying is "these buffs may not fix the problem."

I am still unconvinced that the buff to snipes, for example, is going to make blaster ranged damage worth the poor mitigation.

The validity of that stance depends on the existence, and likelihood of implementation, of Y.

I think countermez was a better idea than sustain. But better enough to stand on the tracks? Not really. And sustain doesn't just buff blasters: it's numbers buff blasters but it's concept remakes blasters at the design level into something significantly different. Arguing for a completely different buff requires two separate hurdles to be overcome simultaneously. You have to first convince the devs your conceptual framework for blasters is superior, and then within that framework your buff suggestion fits that framework and generates overall better results.

And you have to prove to the devs your idea works better than the results they are seeing which you can't see. And you have probably a couple of weeks, maybe, in which to do that, before it hits beta and effectively moots the objection. Ready, set, go.

I guess that is sort of true. Obviously I don't want ranged offense to not work, but I do want melee offense to have an advantage of some kind. It has mostly lost its damage advantage. The counter mez thing still works to a decent extent, so maybe that is where I should focus my attention. I am not suggesting the devs should change course, but I also want to fully consider how the changes will affect the entire AT.

I disagree. Pure blapping, sure, that was marginal. But being a blaster was significantly more productive than being a ranger. I won't deny the danger, which means it may have been less productive for rewards if you died a lot. However, blasters that mixed in the melee attacks were, in the past, significantly more potent than pure rangers (both with control and damage). I do not think that advantage is as large now as it was in the past.

True, but better options will also exist from range, making the choice to enter and use melee less wise. As an extreme example to illustrate the point, if we make it so that every tanker gained a passive 10% resistance all and 4% defense all for every secondary power they take, there is not a lot of advantage to picking up some of their primary powers.

Obviously, the I24 blaster changes do not trivialize the melee attacks that much and maybe I am worrying over nothing. However, I am concerned that outside of the sustain type powers, we have not seen anything that addresses improving the melee powers and that you, who have always maintained blasters were damage dealers at any range, are now defining blasters as sustained ranged attackers.

Big talk. Let's see the devs back up all that.

We'll see how things are in i24.

With a crashless Blizzard, I can see myself slotting 1 or 2 -ToHit IO in there for the extra security; even if soft capped already. Heck, with PB running, 1 -ToHit IO gets you a 35-40% debuff for 11-12 secs (post cast time) on anything not defeated; and that's time for TF-BS-TF, with the 1st two attacks still leveraging BU + Aim. Oh yeah...and I would have already fired off Ice Storm at some point too. Good stuff!


Otherwise for Ice, I suspect BIB will get "adjusted" out to 80 feet from its current 50 feet. But with no snipe to "adjust" (flipped animations aside for BFR and BIB), I'd like to see Frost Breath get a wider cone or higher DMG (while conceding an END cost of 18.5-20 and RECH of 20-24, perhaps).

It's also possible to play the various blaster sets on test and give feedback that it doesn't make blasters competitive with other similarly equipped characters and let them decide if they want to do something about it.

I honestly don't know how these changes will pan out. I may be blown away with the effects on test and be totally satisfied with the changes. I have a very good idea of the effect of another X percent of defense will do for a build. I honestly have less intuitive understanding of what another X regeneration will do.

For snipes, I am dubious of using this to buff their ranged damage. The buff isn't applied equally to all blasters. Some don't even get a snipe. Many can't leverage this in a normal attack chain. I see too many holes - blasters that really won't see a significant benefit.

For the increase of the third tier attack to 80 I see this as a wonderful quality of life buff that will really help.

For the regeneration/recovery buffs I am hopeful. This might make a huge difference to blasters. I will have to test this.

For the nuke changes - they will be effective, maybe fun solo and less fun in big groups with lots of characters who can nuke.

For the Dual Pistols changes, I suspect it will finally bring the set on par with other blasters just in time to see other blasters use the snipe mechanics and their own crashless nukes pull ahead of the set again.

I think we can all agree that balance isn't the only goal of good game design, but unfortunately that's a truism. It doesn't lead to a useful conclusion or even an interesting discussion. There's a huge, gaping chasm between the premise that balance isn't everything, and your apparent position, which is that the existence of a singularly disadvantaged AT makes the game more fun.

The latter statement doesn't proceed from the former, in other words. The latter statement is, in fact, unsupportable -- and is therefore unworthy of discussion except as a vague point of subjective interest, "Strato prefers that Blasters be team-dependent." Ok. I don't.

Once our subjective preferences have cancelled each other out, what we're left with is the obvious fact that there are no other ATs with Blaster-like dependency, and so there's no obvious reason that Blasters should be uniquely saddled with that disadvantage, unless you want to give Blasters an obviously massive and unique advantage as compensation -- but clearly, neither you nor the developers are interested in doing that.

Locking your door is a good idea; it increases, but doesn't guarantee, your security. To say that security isn't the goal of locking your door, simply because locking your door isn't a comprehensive security measure, would be a fallacy, no?

To be a little less flippant, I agree with your reading of the situation; it's doubtful that Blasters will ever be truly equal to Doms, Brutes, Scrappers, et al. I think if you pumped the devs with truth serum, they'd tell you that a good number of Dom/Brute/Scrapper builds are overpowered, and that the current dev team would never have allowed them in the first place. But even if the developers have no intention of making Blasters truly equal with their peers, it doesn't follow that the developers aren't concerned about the balance of Blasters versus other ATs.

Ranged-attack sets shouldn't be intrinsically inferior to melee-attack sets simply because the Blaster AT has poorly designed secondaries with a surfeit of melee powers. That goes for all ranged-set users; given equal AT-damage scalars, a ranged-set user should be on par with a melee-set user, because the design of the game already gives melee-set users (generally) massive benefits in return for the superficial disadvantage of melee range.

And keep in mind, I'm just talking single-target damage here. For the most part, AoE damage still favors melee-range combatants, including melee-biased Blasters. Some Blaster primaries can output immense AoE DPS from range, but even at that they'd put out more with the help of supplementary PBAoEs from a Secondary like */Fire. Hell, if you want be strictly literal, even the I-24 Nuke buff is aimed in large part at PBAoE powers. There are fewer ranged (crashing) nukes than PBAoEs, last time I checked.

Your (offensive) advantage as a Blapper is that you have a wider selection of attacks from which to cherry-pick the most heavy-hitting repetoire, both single-target and AoE. That advantage isn't going away, and wouldn't even with an as-yet-unannounced comprehensive buff to ranged-attack sets. (We're getting a boost to snipes and a vague boost to non-snipe sets, but as far as I know the developers have not announced an across-the-board buff to ranged attacks.)

Even a pure Blapper would benefit from having a better selection on the ranged-attack side of the menu. And a pure Blapper will certainly benefit, perhaps moreso than a ranged Blaster, from a survivability boost to the AT. If your problem is that content development has increasingly disincentivized blapping, then you should direct your complaints toward the power creep of melee ATs, not at any proposal to make ranged Blasters competitive damage dealers.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Please clarify. I have no idea why you conclude that I-24 will make a ranged attack posture so much better than it is now.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I'd amend this to say:

I think if you pumped the devs with truth serum, they'd tell you that a good number of Dom/Brute/Scrapper/Controller/Widow/Soldier/Stalker/Defender/Corruptor builds are overpowered...

(I have no practical experience with Squiddies, and I don't have a end game Mastermind to say.)

Well, yeah. Apologies if I was unclear. I'm not making an argument that Doms/Scrappers/Brutes are unusually possessed of overpowered build options. Those three are just the most obvious ATs against which to compare Blasters.

Pretty much the whole game is affected by power creep; you're right about that. My only point is that the developers probably aren't interested in giving Blasters every bit of the same power creep to make them strictly equal to other ATs -- but that doesn't mean that the devs aren't interested in or concerned about Blaster balance.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

No, but I have 8 years of CoH being a fun game and blasters being a popular AT to support the idea that balance isn't everything and that a disadvantaged AT makes the game more fun.

However, this is fruitless, blasters are getting buffed and I am fully on board in supporting the changes and trying to make sure blasters get the best possible buff to make them more competitive and balanced. I was never against AT-wide blaster buffs, beyond the fact that I didn't think it was necessary and that time would be better spent elsewhere (new villain groups, fixing outliers like snipes, nukes, barb swipe, the Presence pool, APP Melt Armor (hey, I24 is looking really good!)).

So what is fun and exciting about "sustainable ranged attackers"? Defenders and corruptors already fulfill that role and are among the least popular ATs (I can't prove that, but I believe it).

The essence of the blaster AT is attacks from anywhere. VEATs and HEATs get to be sustained attackers. Why is this denied the AT originally designed to be that? What is the purpose in only improving 5/8ths of the blaster?

I simply disagree. Range has advantages. Oh, those advantages are not strong enough to deny every semblance of survivability, but they are not also hand-wave dismissible.

That is not an advantage. Every attack set has that. It is why people skip Repulsing Torrent and Barb Swipe. It is why they take Gloom. The fact that blasters have more poor attacks they can skip in order to take better attacks that negate their range is not an advantage.

On the one hand, you could say that those who engage in a lot of melee need more of a survivability boost, so naturally this will help them more. However, the nature of this boost actually favors the lower damage rangers face. The mechanics being used to help blasters do not favor taking the kind of big hits one can face in melee. It will still be very useful, my own experience with a high regen blaster tells me that, but they will not favor blasters over rangers.

No, I should direct my complaints to all facets that weaken the relative use and strength of blaster melee powers and I will continue to do so. The I11 buff to range, content development, the I24 buff to range, and the emphasis that I24 sustain powers do not require melee (even when attached to powers that were previously melee). None of them are bad decisions and I support every one, but together they weaken the relative use of blaster melee powers.

If that is the direction we are heading, that is fine with me. But it is undeniable that the value of entering melee has dropped a large amount for blasters and we may be at or close to the point where it doesn't make a lot of sense to build for melee when you could focus on range and get better mileage.

Based on what we know, that is my feeling. However, I'll wait until BETA and see what exactly is there. Until then, I'll just enjoy my time in game.