Statesman, issue with your position on blasters
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It seems to me AI that favors certain targets over others could help greatly in this situation. A tank smasher prefering to fight a tank (scrappers being ranked #2) may treat damage from another class as being lesser because their hated foe is in the group. Other enemies could realize a vulnerability to status attacks, and mostly ignore damage dealers in the pursuit of the "real threat". The aggro system with artificial provok/taunts and degree of damage certainly makes a situation for aoe damage dealers in general, and frail blasters in particular, where they will be singled out for counter blows. Perhaps more unique AI that would require more tactics and group dynamism could help.
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Interesting idea. It probably gets too far into the game mechanics for it to be implemented and comes with a whole range of balancing issues, but at least it would not be as arbitrary as taunt/provoke. If it could be made to work it would be superior for that reason alone, and it could introduce a whole range or tactical options on top of that.
all of these well thought out and written posts aside, I have but one simple question which I don't think the devs have answered at all yet and really ought to:
where exactly are you getting your data from to say that the game is too easy for post-30 blasters? Or any AT for that matter? I'm very sorry but I'm not seeing it. Are you basing your data on extreme hardcore gamers? Once again, I apologize but that's a very flawed gauge of the bulk of your player base. It alienates the many to try and bring a few into line with your idea of a balanced game and that's patently unfair. So is trying to force people who don't like supergroups/teams into them. Most of my favorite comic book heroes were not part of the Avengers or the X-men. They were solo heroes, and they were good at it. Note that many Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-men would have been equally effective as the solo heroes on their own as well! I think relegating us all to needing teams rather than having them optional is a poor departure from what the spirit of this game originally was (and I'd like to note, the reason you sold us all on it in the first place). It seems to me that the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is being unwisely ignored here.
So I ask you again, what method are you using to gather your info that says this game is too easy post-30 for blasters? I'd also like to add that I feel this way about what is being done to a lot of other AT's besides blasters with these proposed changes. I'd love to play a controller or a defender but you know what? I'm not a hardcore gamer who has the time to dedicate to those more difficult and challenging AT's. I'm a casual gamer who would likely get frustrated at the amount of dedication AT's like those benefit from. It takes someone with a whole lot of time and patience to play one of those AT's all the way to the upper reaches of 'stardom'.
I think you guys are making this game too hard. I think you're paying too much attention looking in the wrong places at the wrong people for your ideas of how hard this game is. I think the massive number of threads like this one, and how all the AT's seem to be at each other's throats trying to keep your eyes cast on someone else's 'overpowered' characters because they fear how hard you guys swing the nerf bat should have opened your eyes to all of this a long time ago.
Somone had a really good idea somewhere above. Why don't you spend less time looking for ways to weaken all the AT's or make the game too difficult for the average (and majority) players, and spend more time trying to improve the role-playing enjoyment aspects of the game instead? Like the SG HQ's he suggested etc. Ok?
Everybody, you've made so many comments about blasters getting nerfed and or suffering from changes made or going to be made to the game but its funny that none of you seem to have mentioned one of the easiest fixes. Not that it would be obvious to everybody but its there. Ok ALL blaster ATs have a fairly good set of ranged attacks, If a blaster can't take the hits maybe he or she should stay out of the range of the bad guys, slot your slots with range enhancements instead of dmg, sure it will take 4 times as many blasts but if the bad guys are too far away to fight back hows it gonna kill ya? Then you just hover safely out of range and soak up your solo experience. and I know theres bad guys with huge ranges and some that fly but those are rare overall and you can avoid them once you know them. This is for your solo'ing, now if your the type who prefers to group then fine you can build a nice defensive build, but you have to choose to do it. Oh btw incase you need an idea on how to start one thats not getting hit lvl 6 8 10 12 one of those get hover and make sure you got some ranged attacks cause you can slot them with DOs at your 12th then most bad guys cant reach you outdoors if your slotted for ranged dmg. =) Im sure Statesman can see the clear logic in that.
that won't help in the late game. I've sniped guys at the very edge of sniper range and have had every other mob in the group shoot me full of holes as I was kiting backwards at superspeed.
Hell it won't even help against sky captains. in teravolta.
And you're ignoring door missions. long rang attacks are pointless when you don't have ANY range but close. Try long ranged fighting in a cave.
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Making mobs tougher and making our AOE weaker
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Never said exactly this. My hope is that making mobs tougher ALONE would bring AOE damage into line. But, I'm still researching different methods to solving this problem.
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"bring AOE damage into line" ?
If this changes no one will take AoE powers. They would not be worth the aggro.
City of Single Target Blasters.
The End.
I said outdoors and there are guys that don't have super long range attacks that you can fight. so please don't try to only answer a fraction of a piece of a poste.
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2) Blasters have the lowest hitpoints (tied, I know).
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I'll have to check when I get home, but I thought hp levels were:
Controller<Blaster/Defender<Scrapper<<Tanker
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With the possible exception of SR, and even that is only possible no scrapper def set is challenged by even minions.
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Actually, they all work virtually the way they're supposed pre-mid 20's. Then, between some extra slots available for defense and SO's they start to scale past the mobs, but even then, before 28, it's more because of damage SO's than the defenses. And in DA's case, with the advent of more status attacks, they're in a real hurting spot. (I got stunned at level 3 when I started my new DA toon.) Thankfully some of the low level status madness is/has been rolled back.
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For 3 whites = 1 hero to be a reality 10 white minions have to pose a real threat to even a solo combat oriented hero. Even the weak scrapper secondary sets are up to this.
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It sounds like a good number for a decent built solo scrapper to me. Maybe some would argue that it's too weak, or too powerful.
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Just because there are a couple of sets that go far beyond what the other scrapper def sets can do does not mean that all of then are not to powerful to meet the difficulty goals set out by the devs.
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True. INV could be toned down. SR could be made better for the slot investment (I'm not entirely sold on perma-elude, and unlike people like Superchum, I don't necessarily think that absolves the set of any valid complaints or tweaks). DA could get it's stacking armors so it's not a status fx b*tch. So on. But I see it as very unbalancing that scrappers can herd huge numbers of mobs, even tankers doing it seems broken.
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I will certainly agree that more balancing between the def sets is still required, but it probably makes sense to have an idea of what the mob difficulty fix will consist of before attempting this.
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I agree completely.
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This sounds good on paper, but in practice the only time its easy to hit large numbers of mobs is on the opening strike. After that the number hit with each attack is not nearly as high.
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Certainly, but with both my aoe blaster and my scrap main with his single pbaoe ( 
)I can hit more than 3 mobs in a single aoe post initial strike pretty easily. Until we see the rewards of fighting hardened single targets versus mass softies balanced, or single target versus aoe become more balanced, aoe will ALWAYS be prefered. It's very telling that aoe blasters aren't complaining about the damage they do, or how economical the end cost of a fireball is (except for a few who somehow think there's a damage nerf coming). If hypothetically defenses were no issue, then aoe is clearly the way to go. Personally I don't think it makes sense to say aoe is balanced due to risk in a group setting. Especially when there are AT's with aoe and potent defense.
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This is actually something I thought they should have done with smoke grenades.
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I was thinking more personal and less group friendly, but that's a place to start. I picture such things as Cyclops shooting down incoming mini-missles and generally being aware of the stick and move nature of ranged superhero combat. I mean an attack like BS or Katana's parry, "supressing fire" or some such that debuffed acc significantly for a short while would be more useful than Total Focus. At least to me, shrug.
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Interesting idea. It probably gets too far into the game mechanics for it to be implemented and comes with a whole range of balancing issues, but at least it would not be as arbitrary as taunt/provoke. If it could be made to work it would be superior for that reason alone, and it could introduce a whole range or tactical options on top of that.
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It'd be a bit of a pain to implement I imagine, but since most factions seem to maintain a degree of roles between each other, once the major ones are set it'd all be about figuring out the flavor ones for the individual types, the general mobs could be copy and paste code. I mean, it's really about asking what are the team roles in a given mob, and what would strategically make the most sense for them to do when presented with their "mob". That of grouped heroes. Personally, anything that increases team dynamics and strategy I'm all for.
Just my two cents, I think blaster damage should not be nerfed in any way. If we can't kill a high damage enemy relatively quickly, we die. If we can't kill an enemy with mezzes (assuming mezzes are things that hold, disorient, sleep, etc.) we die. I've died several times cause I've gotten held by enemies I never even saw coming. Suddenly, I can't attack, and I have half a dozen even con minions closing to melee range, and as I've learned as a blaster, melee range=death. I don't know why Statesman wants to raise mob HP to bring AOE damage "in line". This would piss off everybody, and if we are headed towards making every AT on 100% equal footing, I'm quitting. Some AT's are better at one thing than others are. Scrappers are damage dealers that MUST close to melee range in order to do so. This means they get hit a lot and need at least some defenses. Blasters don't need to get close, however there are ranged attacks and mezzes to consider. I kill said ranged attackers and mezzers asap. If I don't, I die. What's wrong with AOE? Explosive blast is good (I need to 6 slot it for damage though), but if I 6 slot it and find that it does pretty much what it did unslotted before the change, then I'd be pretty upset. It costs a couple hundred thousand inf to 6 slot SO's for damage. I PAID for that. I didn't get it by defualt. I worked HARD to do damage that high, and I get punished for my success? What kinda logic is that?
@Demobot
Also on Steam
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2) Blasters have the lowest hitpoints (tied, I know).
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I'll have to check when I get home, but I thought hp levels were:
Controller<Blaster/Defender<Scrapper<<Tanker
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Yes that's more accurate. My Scrapper used to play with a Defender who was typically +1 above me and we Duo'd so much that I started noticing we could swap out Agro to either one of us because without buffing eachother, we were able to take the exact same amount of punishment. A Scrapper really has a small portion more HP's than the rest of the ATs except Tanks. The only real difference is self-defense as a secondary. Though most Scrappers go so heavy on their Primaries just like blasters that they can get caught off-guard and die just as quickkly as a blaster. My controller's also grouped with enough Blasters to know they can take a hair bit more damage than I can, I just work on no more than 3 targets at a time to manage my Agro responsibly. Many times infact I have to work overtime just to maintain that agro because Blasters keep taking it away from me with their AoE's and random targeting. Sometimes I can hold the agro because I have higher single-target damage than most 'trollers but as soon as they charge up an AoE with Buildup or something, there's not much I can do to get the agro back.
If Blasters were given any more HP's, they'd have as much as Scrappers. ...that wouldn't quite seem fair to me 0_o ...since those Blasters traded that extra defense for Superior Ranged Damage and reduced endurance use. Go Roll a Defender if you're really serious about playing a Blaster with thicker defenses.
Honestly I don't see the big problem with blasters. I have a scapper and a Blaster. The Scapper I use for my more serious gaming needs and the blaster I used to use to just have fun.. and lots of it. Now I can't even solo a group of blues I'm dead within 10-20 secounds. Trying to find a better way to survive without being hit by everyones opening shot has been a task I've been trying to do for almost 2 days now, and as my blaster now has 5 bars of debt at lvl 17 with no end in site I don't think I'll be able to use firebreath as my opening attack 
Reading the forums at work over the last 4 days it almost feels to me that people won't be happy until every class is ... well the same just with a different name. Just my 2 cents and probably not worth even reading, but hey I'm at work and bored out of my tree.
Salt 17 DM/INV
UNPROFOR 17 FIRE/DEV
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I said outdoors and there are guys that don't have super long range attacks that you can fight. so please don't try to only answer a fraction of a piece of a poste.
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Please don;t try to limit me to fighting out doors. and besides I think I covered that. Range is an illusion in this game.
I've run around corners. blasted/
Flown away....blasted
supersped away.... blasted.
You get attacked where you were when the attack began. There's no dodging. and theres not much out ranging in the late game. It's full of snipers, rikti and Nemesis with notoriously long ranged attacks. Obviously you've never played a blaster past level 35.....
i'm rather ignorant when it comes to the pulse of CoH society, and I had no idea that blasters were affected by the update. I have a AR/Dev blaster, now lvl 29, and i've always played the way ppl seem to be complaining about. I dish out great AoE dmg, and if i'm soloing at the time, I have a bunch of respites ready for the wave of aggroed baddy attacks that are coming after me immediatly. I deffinatly work much more efficiently in a group where theres a healer ready to help me out from the start, or a controller to stop the enemies from attacking me. But, (and i stress this point) if the battle lasts longer than one group, I need a tanker/scrapper to go for the long haul while i run from too much aggro.
I realize before the fight ever begins that I run a high risk of dieing. That is my way of thinking. I didn't die until I reached lvl 15, and debt no longer bothers me after what I now refer to as "The respec disaster" heheh... in about 1 1/2 hours i racked up 28k debt for my lvl 24 guy. I consider dieing as just another part of the job.
I really don't see why everybody is up-in-arms about this stuff. If any of you can inform me, plz do!
Maybe You're cool with Debt. I'm not.... especially when it takes damn near 2 million xp just to make level 42 in this game.
Especially now. I want to hit 50 as fast as possible before the Dev's finish [censored] what's left of the AoE blaster.
What exactly have they told us they are doing to the blaster? And im not "cool" with debt. I have watched many a blaster get frustrated a quit the team because they run in and aggro everybody blindly. I make use of choke-points, stragglers, and, heres the kicker, help from other players to make shure i have the lowest risk possable of dieing.
Ok, folks I've decided, if ALL of you can agree on which combination of blaster is the most "broken" as you put it or the "worst" combonation, I'll take it lvl it up and then either I'll be stomping and say you don't know what your talking about OR I'll be stomped and I'll agree that they are indeed in need of alteration of design.
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Ok, folks I've decided, if ALL of you can agree on which combination of blaster is the most "broken" as you put it or the "worst" combonation, I'll take it lvl it up and then either I'll be stomping and say you don't know what your talking about OR I'll be stomped and I'll agree that they are indeed in need of alteration of design.
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With smoke grenade gone none of them are "broken"
No more broken than Spines/INV scrappers. Fire/* becomes extremely powerful in the late game. Fire/Energy would be the sets I'd take if I were starting over again. Having build up and fire breath so early on would equate to pretty fast leveling. of course the early game has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY harder. By the time a blaster hits level 20 now he probally deserves all the gusto he can get.
I've been taking a much needed closer look at blasters, and I must say I've found one area that is definately worth addressing and that would be their ability to resist special effects. Perhaps if they changed the leaping pool ever so slightly. change combat jumping to include knockdown and change acrobatics to exclude knockdown but include sleep and disorient. Then a Blasters basics are covered atleast in those terms. Then they can actually prepair a defense of toggles without them going crashingly down after the first volley of status effects.
Definately if anything provide some status resistances.
Aslong as they don't nerf third power pools I'll always have a good defense to with the exception of status effects otherwise I'm good as gold.
I have a 35th lev Energy/Ice blaster, I think Nova is anything but over powered. I use it and am left with no end, and usually mobs leftover (I have it six slotted by the way 1 accuracy 5 damage SOs).
In the manticore taskforce I was killed 3 out of five times using it.
If the damage of nova is lessened and mob hit points increased, well guess it's respec time.
Nova will be a waste of a power, just my 2 cents.
Pinnacle/Champion
Selenoc 50 Kin/Psi Defender pinnacle server
Oric 49 Eng/Ice Blaster pinnacle server
Ulrich Von Beck 32 Dark/Dark Defender pin
Malhal 48 dark/rad corruptor Champion server
Perrywinkle 41Thugs /traps MM Freedom server
Crabby patties are good for the soul.
I hear you there - I actually did the respect and dumped Inferno as I was tired of leaving leftovers that would defeat me when I lost my toggles and all of my end. 
Those powers sound like something you'd use when you know its gonna send them all to the grave, maybe you need to lay down another AE first then the big one that lvls them out?
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Agreed. Which is why I have a problem with aoe in general as it is in the game. And also why I included spines/inv/reg scrappers and fire tankers. Defenses becoming less needed in the high level game is another issue that needs to be considered, and mob adjustments may change much of that. However, only two sets ever tank. Inv and Reg. Nerfing scrapper defense sets broadly would be a poor idea.
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With the possible exception of SR, and even that is only possible no scrapper def set is challenged by even minions. For 3 whites = 1 hero to be a reality 10 white minions have to pose a real threat to even a solo combat oriented hero. Even the weak scrapper secondary sets are up to this.
Just because there are a couple of sets that go far beyond what the other scrapper def sets can do does not mean that all of then are not to powerful to meet the difficulty goals set out by the devs. I will certainly agree that more balancing between the def sets is still required, but it probably makes sense to have an idea of what the mob difficulty fix will consist of before attempting this.
This is really no different then blaster AoEs where its only 2 primary sets (and maybe trip mine in /Dev) that are noticeably breaking game balance, but all sets are likely to need a hit in order to meet the goals for difficulty.
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Yet, unless mob numbers are adjusted as well, all it takes is an aoe to hit 3 mobs doing 1/3 of a single target attack to equal the damage. Most aoe's that I've witnessed do more than 1/3 of single target, and they certainly hit more than 3 mobs.
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This sounds good on paper, but in practice the only time its easy to hit large numbers of mobs is on the opening strike. After that the number hit with each attack is not nearly as high. The mob AI actually deals with AoEs quite well, a few attempt to melee, while the remainder spread out and attack from range unless the spawn is filled only with mobs that have a strong preference for melee.
Again herding can skew this a lot, so can having a controller hold the mobs in place, but IMO that (the hold) is getting into things that should be highly rewarded since a tank (or defensively built scrapper) is still required to take the initial salvo, but the hold has to be in place before the mobs scatter. This takes timing teamwork and co-operation, all things that should be well rewarded.
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I wondered when I first made my blaster why they didn't have powers that increased their def/res to ranged attacks.
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This is actually something I thought they should have done with smoke grenades. It describes the mobs as not being able to see beyond melee range, it seems natural to me to make it a fairly high debuff against ranged attacks but small or nothing against melee.