Statesman, issue with your position on blasters
if you read the AT descriptions a blaster was never meant to solo...they were meant to be behind the low damage tankers that are taking the hits while blasting away at devastating effect. if mobs have more hit points then you cant kill a mob easily before it kills you. a tank and support people need to be there while you do the damage. imo from the descriptions it sounds like a blaster should solo about on par with a defender that is geared to solo(i know an emp defender cant solo like the 3 big damager rad/kin/storm)
-i think Statesmen is doing what he meant to do for the ATs from the very begining. imagine a graph for the difficulty of the game from levels 1-50, right now the graph is pretty linear and this is bad because more powers/SOs/more slots open up...therefore making the game alot easier. mobs start coming into their own in the teens and people are having alotta difficulty during those times. after 22 and especially 30+ the mobs are still the same difficulty but you have infinetly better powers and slots so the game is not even a comparison to those levels. on my graph analogy i think the graph now would look like y=1 or an exponential curve down, while it should look more like y=x or some type of exponential curve going up.
dont know why it posted half of it while i was typing it up........................sorry for double post!
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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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The problem is that the damage is not consistent. Even when you hit with Nova for example there is a 25% chance that it will do half its potential damage, and 39% chance it will do 2/3 its maximum damage. This means that even preceded with some other AoE it isnt going to kill more then three out of four Lts and may only kill half of them, and it will never kill bosses. Unless you are dealing with all minions you cannot ever guarantee you will kill everything.
Also, if you attack with some other AoE first two things are likely to happen. First everything will shoot at you killing you before you can even activate Nova, second even if you survive this the mobs will scatter and you are less likely to hit them all meaning there will be more survivors not less.
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if you read the AT descriptions a blaster was never meant to solo
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Which is of course why the description contains the phrase Blasters can solo successfully.
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if you read the AT descriptions a blaster was never meant to solo...they were meant to be behind the low damage tankers that are taking the hits while blasting away at devastating effect. if mobs have more hit points then you cant kill a mob easily before it kills you. a tank and support people need to be there while you do the damage. imo from the descriptions it sounds like a blaster should solo about on par with a defender that is geared to solo(i know an emp defender cant solo like the 3 big damager rad/kin/storm)
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WTF?
the guide clearly says blasters can solo......
why anyone would quoet from a guild that is 75%+ innacurate is beyond me
You've probably hit upon a point that needs to be **loudly** addressed.....
Everyone that "dabbles" with a blaster sees the great damage they do. To wit;
- Energy blasters can take out even con minion mobs with one shot, and with build up, they can do more than that.
- Fire/* blasters get Fireball as a power upon entering GC/AP if they so desire. Firebreath comes shortly after, and the combo of those two is incredible for when they get them.
Now, let's zoom forward to level 20. They probably have Stamina and perhaps Hasten (and SS, if so). They've got some mediocre DOs, in anticipation of getting some SOs at level 22. What anyone that hasn't taken a Fire or Energy blaster this far is, where you are running has more than one boss/Lt with status effect powers. And, you're running more than fighting. Sure, levels 8-16 were pretty nice, especially if you are a Fire/Dev in Boomtown smoking-->Firebreath-->Fireballing all those nicely grouped 5th column, but now you are lucky if you can kill 3 or 4 minions in DA without getting hunted down by Shaman and getting cornered. You're *constantly* trying to recover endurance and if you're soloing, you are spending more time kiting/running than hunting. Its more like guerilla warfare, where you do a hit-n-run, or snipe-n-run. You certainly aren't go toe-to-toe with **anyone** above green. And, if you are always fighting oranges, you are either seriously in-debt, or lying. Your attacks already do too little to the Lts and Bosses after your "alpha strike", and their return attacks are of the "One Shot, One hold, now I take my sweet time killing them" variety. I only wish I were a mob, so I could kill me a bunch of so-called heroes.
So, you eventually get through the hell of the early-mid 20s (maybe you hooked up with a FF/* defender and a Tank?), and you get to 30th level. Now, you are searching for ways to do more damage, because even the SOs just aren't cutting it. You feel worthless on missions with your friends because, at best, you make a good pin-cushion for all those ranged attacks and status effect powers. You either take too much aggro, or you don't do enough damage. Either way, you're none too happy......
Let me use an archer as an example that we can all invision; the archer wears very little armor (leather maybe?) and fires off their missiles from long range. They risk return fire, of course, but the chances of being hit by return fire is very low, hence no one thinks to give the archer more armor, because they don't need it. They can attack multiple targets without fear, other than the occasional return fire. A sniper, in other words.
Now, consider the knight in armor riding a horse. They ride in and use all manner of weapons, and attract the fear/ire of those in the immediate vicinity, and need a decent amount of armor to protect them. They do a lot of damage, and everyone is surrounding them, giving them a lot of grief. That is why they have the armor.
Now, if the archer were receiving a lot of return fire that was on-target, then they would be getting a lot of armor. As it is, their perch in the castle/fort and their distance from their targets, afford them all the defense/protection they need.
The answer to the Blaster issue is only going to be solved to everyone's satisfaction in one of these ways (that I can think of);
#1. Lower the AoE damage --> Means you either give the blaster controller/hold secondary powers, change the aggro system, or increase the defenses of the blaster considerably.
#2. Remove ranged AoE attacks (make all AoE a PBAoE) --> Means that all ranged attacks are of the single-target variety, in which case, the blaster must be allowed an aggro prevention (like when a sniper attacks your group, the mobs have a strong chance of being unable to determine where the attack came from).
#3. Raises the mobs HP --> Same as #1.
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Anyway, I've been playing alternates recently to see what each was like.
- FF/Dark Defender: Did the Isolator badge on the Tutorial as fast as I could refresh Dark Blast. I chose Defl Sh instead of PFF as my first bubble, so I didn't get to enjoy any real protection. I wasn't getting hit much though, tougher than with a blaster, but still fun. Doesn't solo any worse or any better than the single-target blasters in the beginning, except that I'm a lot more attractive to groups, and when I join a group, they literally walk through missions. On Synapse's TF, we had guy that told me he received 27 hp of damage on the last mission (including the fight against the Clockwork King). Solo'ing against small groups of mobs is still pretty easy, and I can go and collect badges or scout missions or complete non-killeverylastone missions with ease when I use my PFF + Fly. Endurance is only an issue with I have more than 5 teamates and its re-bubble time. I'm taking this one the distance....
- Claws/Inv Scrapper: Walked through the tutorial mission (getting the 100 Contaminated for the Isolator badge) as fast as I could reach the mobs. I was literally running from mob to mob and killing them as fast as I could mash the buttons. Literally no down time from level 1-8, I played at 3am EST, so the server was pretty slow (few people on), and I just ran around GC killing things as fast as I could target them. I got my Strike-->Slash-->Swipe-->Strike-->Swipe-->Slash combo going and yellow Lts were going down like crab on an all-you-can-eat night at Red Lobster. I did group once on a mission because I couldn't handle the Vahz Cadavers spitting on me (don't recall that being a problem with my blaster, since I always took them out quickly or kited, I guess). Without range or an AoE early on, taking out those spitters was a pain in the [censored]. Then I moved on to KR, and I was sad that I couldn't find larger groups to fight, since most of the groups were 2-3 mobs. I found that fighting whites-yellows were the most exp for the effort/end, and I just kept on running. I don't think my end bar ever got below 1/2, and my hp rarely dipped once I got the attack combo/order down. I would simply make a button to follow whatever I targeted/attacked, and then it was cake after that, but I did avoid groups of cadavers. Mostly, the Vahz I fought had 1 cadaver and an assortment of reapers and morts. I got into a kind of mentality, where I was sorta fearless, and was attacking anything and everything....no longer were Eidolons or clockwork scary, I just waded through everything. Getting to PP, I thought that Bone Daddies would still scare me, but up close, I just started them out with a Swipe (which seemed to give them a seizure) and then just Strike-->Slashed them into the ground. The minions barely laid a hand on me, and the little red floaties going up scared me at first until I saw that it barely dented my health bar.......moved onto Hellions, and those DID hurt a bit with their firebreath, but they only got one of those before they were biting the dust, they didn't stand up to the claws as well as they did against my Fire/Dev's fireball....Inside the park, I was fearful of the Madness Mages....for a little while. Even while mezzed/asleep, their knife attacks weren't nearly as "painful" as they were when I was a Blaster. I found that some mobs' melee is less scary than their status effect or ranged attacks (I hate Vahz crossbows, I think we can all agree on that one). Basically, the scrapper was/is a fun AT to play, they are fairly fearless, and I think that they probably see more action and have more fun than any other AT I've played. I don't see how they can complain about blasters, it seems like they should keep their little secret quiet; they get great defense, and awesome animations, fast attacks, they kill like there is no tomorrow, and they get to enjoy almost no downtime. I don't see the downside other than the absence of flashy particle effects......not sure how long I'm going to play this one, it kind of gets boring mashing the same buttons and just standing there. There wasn't the kind of fear that sometimes made my some of my blaster/defender builds exciting (although I readily admit that my Fire/Dev blaster was a bore when "grinding" through certain areas).
- Energy/Energy Blaster: Did this as a comparison, and because I had a certain role-playing character in mind. Immediately, I noticed that the recycle times on the blast and bolt would determine whether I did well or not, and I had to wait several times for endurance to recover while doing the Isolator badge in the tutorial. I also became aware of how often you miss! Jeez, I wait all that time for Blast to recycle, and then it misses?!?!? What's even worse, you waste valuable end, and you either kite around, or go melee with thrust/brawl. Any way you cut it, it was slower going, especially when compared to my claws scrapper. It was down-right annoying. Fighting greens-whites once I had more than one power was my bread-n-butter. It was pretty easy to just run around two or three-shotting mobs. If I missed, then I had problems and spent a lot of time kiting and waiting for endurance/powers to recycle/rebuild. I could go probably 6-8 fights before being forced to take an End break. Getting Build-up was nice.....when I got to use it, I decided that it was probably a situational power until I could properly slot it with at least some DOs and had Hasten well slotted as well. Basically, it was like using my FF/Dark defender, except I didn't have any other cool powers besides my energy blasts. I decided that I had to go the Hover-Sniper route, as anything else was problematic after 6th level. Getting to KR, the plan was to long range shoot the Lt./Boss (unless it was an eidolon, then I used Build-up first) then kite around trying to avoid other mobs until I could bring down the Lt/Boss. Then, I would take on the 2-4 minions without any real fear. Getting knocked down (eliminated once I was using Hover all the time) and missing were still the biggest problems.
Basically, I would have much preferred playing the scrapper than playing the blaster, simply because it was easier to stay alive and still kill mobs. I wasn't constantly worried about my endurance, my hp, the mobs getting into melee range, or missing.
Sorry to go off on a tangent from the rest of this thread, I just don't understand all these cries for nerfing the blasters.......maybe I just suck at this game? 
Energy blasters cannot kill white con groups with one shot.
Unless you count nova, but then even a dark defender with black star could oneshot a white group.
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You've probably hit upon a point that needs to be **loudly** addressed.....
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...Sorry to go off on a tangent from the rest of this thread, I just don't understand all these cries for nerfing the blasters.......maybe I just suck at this game?
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Wow! Great post!!!!
I too hope they leave blasters alone. The game is very challenging and fun as is.
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Fighting greens-whites once I had more than one power was my bread-n-butter. It was pretty easy to just run around two or three-shotting mobs.
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The top portion is the IMPRESSION that people have of blasters, and that their powers are permanently uber-powerful. I can take out even con minion mobs with a sniper shot + Aim, or by adding in Build up, more.....but the impression is that blasters do all this incredible damage. The damage is not so great as to kill whatever you're attacking, so you are exposing yourself to the same danger as a scrapper, except you don't have the defense they do, and nearly every mob has a ranged attack. What is not understood is that the energy blaster uses up a lot of endurance for those shots, and you spend a good deal of time kiting or downtime because of endurance recovery or missed shots.
I think the real "jealousy" is with the Fire blaster, since they can do decent damage over many targets. Problem is, killing groups of blues-greens is chancy, since most blues will probably survive, and of course there is the serious side-effect of damaging a large number of mobs or *missing* (because all those you hit around that mob will "notify" the mob that you attacked them)....you get a large amount of aggro, and until your AoE attacks recycle...you are a fairly weak single-target blaster (well, unless you picked up RoF too, and that will quickly become useless post 16th level or so)...even then, chances are you are running for your life or dead. Plus, once a group of mobs has been attacked, its not like they stick close together (even with Caltrops) afterwards, so using AoE powers is a waste. I can't tell you how many times I was forced to use FireBreath or FireBall on a single target simply because I had no other attack to use.....
Blasters do not have a cake-walk, no matter what anyone says.
The whole point of my post was this; you can't judge an AT by running around getting a few levels with them. Until you've had experience post 30th level (just as heph said), you really have nothing to add to this conversation, because its an uninformed opinion which you have no experience with to back up.....
Nerf Scrappers! w00t!
Well, I do have a Blaster in the post 30's, 31, almost 32. And I can solo just fine with him if i'm doing mission. I'm not a big street hunter with him.
Of course, he is the much looked-down upon Elec Blaster, but for the most part, I really have no problems.
As to one of your ideas, well a couple in your last post, Blasters should never get a Controller secondary (IE< Controller primary as secondary), if you need mob control, then group with a controller.
I also dont think Blaster's aren't special enough to get innate defensive powers and anti-stun powers. If they get it, then let Defenders and Controller's get them also, becaause we dont (My main is a level 44 Kinetic's Defender).
And I also see alot "Blasters draw the most aggro", while blasters do draw alot of aggro, especially Fire, post 32, Controller's draw a hell of alot of aggro from their powers /and/ their Pet's. Evenin lower levels they still do (I also have a 24 Controller)
So, in the end, I think things are fine as they are. I dont think blasters need a 'nerf', but I also dont think they need a boost. The way it is now, I think it's good that Blasters have to depend on others a bit more perhaps if your street hunting, than just being solo kings.
And for those who say Blaster's should be able to solo if they want, I agree, but do missions. That's your best chance of solo'ing.
One thing I will asscent too, perhaps it's different if your devices, because you do get Cloaking Device and Smoke, so can stealth alot of missions if you want, even still, alot of them I kill mostly everything with no problems (Unless I do get stunned) but that's the chance you take when you solo. It's moe dangerous, and meant to be so.
What? Why all the balster hate from Devs? I have had only one character from this games relese...a blaster. I cant play long or much but have managed to get my toon to mid 30's . Now I cant level, die all the time. Dont have 3 hour at a time to try respecs.
Clearly there is some graph showing how many AT's are being played at any time and most are blasters. They will be beat down until the chart equalizes and fulfills some "vision" of the Devs.
This is wrong. This game is all now about frustrating time sinks like debt and grouping and downtime. Pooh, Devs are ruining the only game that was casual and solo player friendly.
You want longevity in a game ? Work on super groups, pvp and storylines. Dont beat your customers into the ground
here comes EQ in tights. City of marginal vigilantes.
It seems to me that the devs -Statesman- is willing to increase mob hp and reduce blaster AOE with the idea that most if not all blasters are powergamers who 6 slot or 5 slot their powers with damage.
My question is: have the devs given any thought to those blasters who DON'T put in 5 damage 1 accuracy or 6 damage SOs into their blaster powers?
Crazy as that sounds, there are, I am sure, blasters out there who prefer range increase, cone increase, recharge increase and all that instead of pure damage for their powers. This might be part of their character concept - for example, a sniper chacter with extra range who likes to sit perched atop a building and shoot at the mobs below.
By implementing changes as if we are all powergamers, the devs will dramatically punish those casual or character-oriented heroes who don't, or won't, 5 or 6 slot their powers with damage. That, to me, is just unwise
RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE
Dawnslayer on Virtue.
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RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE
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...You get bored real easy don't you?
"Through Avarice evil smiles; through insanity it sings"
Forum Troll Rule #1: Anyone who disagrees with my point of view is either a fanboy or an idiot.
I'm a proud carebear.
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RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE
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I'd give this Thread Necromancy a C for effort. Shouldve picked a better thread.
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Statesman, I've noticed that you've been talking about making mobs tougher (although increasing their xp), and also making changes (making them weaker, I am assuming) to blaster AOEs, all because you believe that the game post 30 is too easy.
Is this the correct way to fix the issue at large? Making mobs tougher and making our AOE weaker will only make our job as blasters more tough.
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Well yes, if the game is too easy and they take steps to make it harder, it is going to make your job tougher. . .that is a logical consequence.
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Some will call it challenging, but I don't see it as challenging in a fun way, rather more frustrating to gain xp. This is especially true since most of our attacks rely heavily on alpha strike. We really can't survive long term engagements.
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The ability to rely on one-shot, heavy damage up front kills is why the game has been too easy (for some). Rather obviously if that makes the game too easy then addressing that is what is going to occur. As to not being able to survive long term engagement. . .have you ever built to do so? Probably not. Common wisdom was Aim + Build Up + AE = Win, there was no need to build to try to survive a long engagement and so nobody did.
Those days are over.
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The larger issue - making the game more challenging post 30 - cannot be solved by making the same mobs that we've been fighting all this time suddenly tougher.
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Why not? You don't explain why making the mobs tougher doesn't make the game more challenging.
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Lol... Erratic explaining why blasters had it easy. I love it. When reality gets to be too much I do a search on his name to read surreal jewels like that.
Edit: Holy [censored]. I just read 10 pages into the thread, and this netfreak spent the entire time being an instigatory as he possibly could... from page one he is quoting the imminently reasonable OP and setting about spreading his brand of hate... seriously, one of the most evil guys I have ever seen post on a forum. Don't think I have ever encountered anyone who so deliberately tried to egg others into losing their cool just for the sake of their own entertainment.
Posters like this are the death of the public discourse.
Emnity
if you read the AT descriptions a blaster was never meant to solo...they were meant to be behind the low damage tankers that are taking the hits while blasting away at devastating effect. if mobs have more hit points then you cant kill a mob easily before it kills you. a tank and support people need to be there while you do the damage. imo from the descriptions it sounds like a blaster should solo about on par with a defender that is geared to solo(i know an emp defender cant solo like the 3 big damager rad/kin/storm)