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They don't seem to mind giving us 100% damage mitigation in the form of an ice hold, but 25% defense is probably way too high.
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It's 100% to one guy. If there are four guys, it's 25%.
If there are twenty. . .that's a problem.
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Which is why I tend to disagree with people who believe the proper direction to go on balancing blasters is to make them AoE monsters. AoE is only good if its "AoE-kill" ala fire blasters. But there is nowhere to go once you give blasters AoE alpha strike kill capability.
Single target capability balances well with single target damage mitigation, and blasters become very good at killing small numbers of targets, and eventually get swamped if there are too many to handle - which would differentiate them from controllers who would be able to handle more, but kill them slower.
Because we have lower defenses, and scrappers have higher defenses, it actually makes more sense for blasters to be the boss killers, and scrappers to be the gazillion-minion killers - if we had enough control to handle the single boss. It makes much less sense the other way around, unless blasters become walking nukes. The problem is that tanks can kill minions just fine; but if scrappers had more cones and AoEs, I think they would be much better equiped to out-kill both blasters and tanks in settings with large amounts of minions.
It doesn't preclude AoE blasters, just like "scrappers are melee only" is also a fiction. But I think AoE blasting should be the carefully crafted exception to the rule, not the rule.
Just a thought:
Blaster: high-extreme single target damage/low-high AoE damage, low defense, high single target control
Tank: medium single target damage/low PBAoE damage, extreme defense, aggro control only
Scrapper: medium-high single target damage/medium-high PBAoE damage, high defense, medium damage mitigation control
Controller: low-medium single target damage/low AoE damage, low defense, extreme single target control/high AoE control
Defender: medium-high single target damage/low-medium AoE damage, medium defense, low-medium control
Its overly simplistic, to be sure, but it seems to be an easier jumping off point for balance to me than the current model.
In a team, the tank grabs aggro, the scrapper begins wiping out clumps of minions and LTs, and the blaster (at least to start) focuses on the one nasty target, i.e. the boss. In and around that, the controller is adding more control where needed - AoE control to assist the tank and scrapper, single target control to help the boss. The defender is dropping buffs on everyone, or debuffs on everyone else, and possibly helping with offense.
Take any one of them away, and the others can compensate. The scrapper might not kill the boss as fast as the (protected) blaster, but he'll kill the boss all the same. The controller might not be as efficient as the tank in control - because controller control keeps the villains scattered, while tank control clumps the villains more, but the villains are controlled all the same. The scrapper is also a kill-faster, but not absolutely necessary killer. The defender is a general team-accelerator.
But even though none are necessary, all are useful, at least in theory.
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You know, I just realized something. I think somewhere along the line, the devs forgot why we were so frail, why we had no defense, HP, resistance, mez protection, etc. We had range. As long as we could stay out of the range of our foes, we were relatively safe. The rooting effect of our powers made it so that we couldn't stay at range forever, but smart use of immobilize, tanks, and other effects could negate our lack of defense.
What happened was Fly. Fly was an easy way to remain out of enemy range no matter what. To counter this, more enemies were given ranged attacks and much greater range.
What they need to do is reduce enemy range and put in more flying foes. Then perpetually outranging wouldn't be as big of an issue, and Blasters can actually have "range as a defense" again.
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You know, I just realized something. I think somewhere along the line, the devs forgot why we were so frail, why we had no defense, HP, resistance, mez protection, etc. We had range. As long as we could stay out of the range of our foes, we were relatively safe. The rooting effect of our powers made it so that we couldn't stay at range forever, but smart use of immobilize, tanks, and other effects could negate our lack of defense.
What happened was Fly. Fly was an easy way to remain out of enemy range no matter what. To counter this, more enemies were given ranged attacks and much greater range.
What they need to do is reduce enemy range and put in more flying foes. Then perpetually outranging wouldn't be as big of an issue, and Blasters can actually have "range as a defense" again.
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They didn't forget. Statesman suggested in another thread that in his opinion, range *is* a defense because ranged attacks do less damage than melee attacks.
This, of course, fails to take into account that raw numbers like that don't really matter, what matters is if you can be killed. Ranged attacks can kill blasters easier than melee attacks can kill scrappers, so while range might be a defense (against melee attacks, certainly), it is clearly not as good a defense as actual defense appears to be. Of course, the real point is not whether range is as good a defense as scrapper defenses, but just whether range is good enough of a defense for blasters. In and of itself, it doesn't appear to be.
More interesting, my main offensive alpha strike option against bosses is a melee attack - total focus - so I'm actually encouraged to enter melee range. In fact, I'm significantly more survivable if I choose to do so initially, than if I attempt to stand at range the whole time.
Hover-kiting is highly over-rated. Staying out of range is perhaps easier while hovering, until the villain attempts to run away. It is much easier to keep your distance and shoot at something on the ground. In the air, the villain AI at some point gives up trying to reach you and runs. On the ground, they'll keep chasing almost indefinitely.
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This is true. As the game is currently, Blasters are helpless.
Once side effects of the game engine and AI is taken out of the equation, it's clear, even to you, that Blasters have no defenses at all.
This is my entire point. This is a problem, actually.
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I should point out that, but for another exploit of villain AI, tanks and scrappers have no offense. If we are going to claim that pulling and other examples of taking advantage of villain AI are exploits that invalidate the blaster class, then essentially, tanks and (most) scrappers are also broken classes: but for the stupidity of villains, melee classes ought to, on average, be running around constantly while the minion, if he had any sense at all, ran away while his friends shot you in the back. Even a four year old can play a good game of keep-away.
Taunt and villains charging into melee range are both examples of game engine side effects and exploiting enemy AI that give melee classes an advantage they otherwise ought not to have. And what the heck is punch-voke anyway? In terms of game mechanics, its a suicide pact: the more you beat up on my friends, the more I want you to be able to hit me also.
Once the side-effects and AI issues are removed for blasters I expect them to be removed for all classes, or alternatively, I expect comparable deliberate (so as to be immune to the charge of being an "exploit") effects be put right back in.
Take out the "pulling exploit" but then give me back selective aggro control in a deliberate fashion that functions for blasters just like taunt and punch-voke does for tanks. Or conclude its really 6 of one and half a dozen of the other, and just sanction pulling as not an exploit. Ditto all the other stuff.
The only class that really would function well in a game engine "with no exploits" is the controller class. In a game engine modelled on the real world, controllers would rule. Blasters would get hit in the head with a thrown rock and die, scrappers would have to run faster than me or I'd run around in circles around the nearest tree, and tanks would be standing in the street yelling "you wanna piece of me!" to nobody at all.
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They didn't forget. Statesman suggested in another thread that in his opinion, range *is* a defense because ranged attacks do less damage than melee attacks.
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That's my point though. I wonder what kind of difference range makes as a defense when you can truly outrange the opponents. If your range attacks have a better range then their range attacks, you can effectively take 0 damage until they get close enough to be in range to hit you. The rooting makes it impossible to truly kite then, because stopping for the attack duration lets them get within range (assuming range/attack animation is balanced correctly). This means blasters take FAR fewer hits overall due to range, which can justify the amount of damage they take per hit.
The only time this isn't true is when you're flying, at which point you can remain out of range indefinitely. Originally, quite a few mobs didn't have any range attacks at all. The problem came in when Blasters would hover, an exploit they fixed by giving everything ranged attacks.
And a better solution then what I said before. Don't give more mobs fly, give certain mobs GROUP Fly. How cool would it be to have an entire group flying after you, but knowing that if you take that one Lt out they'll all fall to the ground.
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I think that controllers should be put on hold. No other AT generates debt like the Blaster AT...well maybe some Kheld builds, but that's being fixed. I have a 43 ice/storm troller and I have 0 complaints about him. He is and always has been safer than playing a blaster, but he gets 2+ pets to help him mitigate damage. If I get held, then the baddie usually turns on one or more of my pets until I get free and can re-lock things down.
Hmm...what if Sparky became a targetable pet for electric blasters? That would create 50% damage mitigation and might help them....what about pets for the other sets? Wouldn't be infringing on trollers, because we could only have one out at a time, but would be nice to help survive a lil better.
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I know this post was going way back but as I am at work for 12 hours with no real work to do I started reading these posts... anywho...controllers have pets and they own in later levels so why not give Blasters pets as well? Not as many as a Controller but 1-2 to help out with taking some damage off.
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I should point out that, but for another exploit of villain AI, tanks and scrappers have no offense. If we are going to claim that pulling and other examples of taking advantage of villain AI are exploits that invalidate the blaster class, then essentially, tanks and (most) scrappers are also broken classes: but for the stupidity of villains, melee classes ought to, on average, be running around constantly while the minion, if he had any sense at all, ran away while his friends shot you in the back. Even a four year old can play a good game of keep-away.
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You'd have a point here, but for the fact that Scrappers are....
1. Faster than mobs
2. Can attack Mobs in the back (post I3 change)
3. Have some ranged attacks.
Smarter mobs won't make Scrappers useless, they will just add a (needed) penalty to Melee attacks.
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Taunt and villains charging into melee range are both examples of game engine side effects and exploiting enemy AI that give melee classes an advantage they otherwise ought not to have. And what the heck is punch-voke anyway? In terms of game mechanics, its a suicide pact: the more you beat up on my friends, the more I want you to be able to hit me also.
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Taunt exists becuase Tanks Aren't Scary. Every 4 year old in the Arena knows to kill the Tank last....Taunt in the arena is nothing more than taking control away from players.
If Tanks did enough damage to one-shot most minions and lieutenants, then they'd get attacked more by Players and the AI alike.
The Devs have an innate resistance to long recharge, high cost, high damage attacks, so we will never see a proper "Tank", even though the XP/hour for such a class could be easily "balanced".
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The only class that really would function well in a game engine "with no exploits" is the controller class. In a game engine modelled on the real world, controllers would rule. Blasters would get hit in the head with a thrown rock and die, scrappers would have to run faster than me or I'd run around in circles around the nearest tree, and tanks would be standing in the street yelling "you wanna piece of me!" to nobody at all.
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Given that Controllers do (should do, sorry) almost no damage and are Very Squishy, isn't this how it should be?
Nice arguments, though. I really should have detailed the other ATs originally, sorry about that.
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Taunt exists becuase Tanks Aren't Scary. Every 4 year old in the Arena knows to kill the Tank last....Taunt in the arena is nothing more than taking control away from players.
If Tanks did enough damage to one-shot most minions and lieutenants, then they'd get attacked more by Players and the AI alike.
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Target selection is based on what threat that target represents vs the effort required to kill it. To make tanks the primary target on these grounds they would need to be far and away the most dangerous AT on the field. Im talking damage output an order of magnitude higher then blasters. If this were the case there would be no point in anyone every playing anything but a tank, nor would there be any point with anyone teaming with anything but a tank. You would have tanks and spectators, nothing else.
from what I've seen in the arena, targeting is based on who squishes the easiest.
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Target selection is based on what threat that target represents vs the effort required to kill it. To make tanks the primary target on these grounds they would need to be far and away the most dangerous AT on the field. Im talking damage output an order of magnitude higher then blasters. If this were the case there would be no point in anyone every playing anything but a tank, nor would there be any point with anyone teaming with anything but a tank. You would have tanks and spectators, nothing else.
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Oh, I agree completely. I don't think that proper Tanks are possible. The issue is that improper Tanks can't be balanced in PvP.
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I should point out that, but for another exploit of villain AI, tanks and scrappers have no offense. If we are going to claim that pulling and other examples of taking advantage of villain AI are exploits that invalidate the blaster class, then essentially, tanks and (most) scrappers are also broken classes: but for the stupidity of villains, melee classes ought to, on average, be running around constantly while the minion, if he had any sense at all, ran away while his friends shot you in the back. Even a four year old can play a good game of keep-away.
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You'd have a point here, but for the fact that Scrappers are....
1. Faster than mobs
2. Can attack Mobs in the back (post I3 change)
3. Have some ranged attacks.
Smarter mobs won't make Scrappers useless, they will just add a (needed) penalty to Melee attacks.
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If scrappers were faster than all of their foes, that would function analogously to blasters outranging their foes.
Except scrappers aren't actually faster than all of their foes, unless they use yet another exploit - using travel powers in combat.
Would smarter foes make scrappers useless? Well, lets start with scrappers with melee-only attacks. And then lets force them to not attack while using a travel power; specifically flight, super jump, or superspeed.
Now put my brain into an illusionist.
So actually, improving the AI, combined with removing all of the exploits of the game engine in the same manner as you suggest for blasters, can in fact make scrappers useless, or to put it more specifically: melee-only fighters.
Which was my original point: if ranged, low defense classes are inherently broken, then so are melee, high defense classes.
You're right, though, some scrappers have range, and tanks can buy laser beam eyes later in the game. But that only serves to amplify the point: the same argument for claiming the ranged/low defense concept is broken can be used to claim the melee only/high defense concept is broken.
But that is an extreme point of view; its not one I personally subscribe to. This is, after all, a game. In a certain sense, to claim blasters are broken is roughly analogous to claiming that knights are broken in chess, because their movement is inferior to the other pieces and a single knight can't force checkmate like a queen or a rook can, which is the whole purpose of being a chess piece in the first place: to give your player the ability to beat the opponent.
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Taunt and villains charging into melee range are both examples of game engine side effects and exploiting enemy AI that give melee classes an advantage they otherwise ought not to have. And what the heck is punch-voke anyway? In terms of game mechanics, its a suicide pact: the more you beat up on my friends, the more I want you to be able to hit me also.
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Taunt exists becuase Tanks Aren't Scary. Every 4 year old in the Arena knows to kill the Tank last....Taunt in the arena is nothing more than taking control away from players.
If Tanks did enough damage to one-shot most minions and lieutenants, then they'd get attacked more by Players and the AI alike.
The Devs have an innate resistance to long recharge, high cost, high damage attacks, so we will never see a proper "Tank", even though the XP/hour for such a class could be easily "balanced".
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Even if you give a tank these capabilities, it wouldn't eliminate the completely arbitrary benefits of taunt. In fact, if a tank could actually do that, taunt becomes even more essential. Because in the absence of taunt, anything with a ranged attack would be better off standing far away and shooting at the tank, preferrably in a wide circle separated from his partners in crime, and those things with only melee attacks should run in, use it, and run away while it recharges. They should never, ever, for any reason stand next to the tank. Even other tanks in the game are effectively squishy next to an actual (high level) player tank; even freak tanks are idiots for going toe to toe with a tank. If tanks had the damage you specify above, anything lower than a freak tank would have to be uttery insane to approach a tank, unless the AI was smart enough to use tactics: have the hardiest member of the party approach and get the tank to expend its attacks, then while they are recharging, everyone else rush in, attack, and run back.
That's what proper AI does to a tank in the absence of taunt. But we give tanks taunt, so they can draw villains to them at the push of a button, because their job is to draw villains to them. A blaster's job is to keep villains away from them, and prevent them from shooting at the blaster until she dies, but we do not get a power that lets us make that happen at the push of a button.
A ranged, low defense class like a blaster could be made extremely effective if we outranged everything. But everything that actually outranged us would be (and is) a potentially serious threat. In my opinion, this is exactly the same thing as saying a melee, high defense class is extremely effective as long as it can get into melee range, anything that can keep away from it and still attack is a potential threat, and somethng that potentially can't be killed. If the game allows a lot of things to outrange a blaster, but few things to keep away from a melee-fighter, the game is inherently unbalanced to favor melee, and in a way that is just as much an exploit as a game engine that encouraged hover-sniping.
Finding and adding ways to give blasters tactical advantages they can use to compensate for their inherent weaknesses isn't, in my opinion, just looking for ways to exploit the game engine. Its simply acknowledging that the game engine already gives huge, arbitrary advantages to melee/defensive classes in ways that are equally "exploitive," and allowing blasters to even the scales with equally arbitrary, but balanced advantages is perfectly reasonable under those conditions.
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Except scrappers aren't actually faster than all of their foes, unless they use yet another exploit - using travel powers in combat.
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What about sprint, hurdle and swift? So far the only enemies with fravel powers are those with fly, and hover 6-slotted can be plenty fast, and all scrapper primaries have a ranged ST taunt power.
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Target selection is based on what threat that target represents vs the effort required to kill it. To make tanks the primary target on these grounds they would need to be far and away the most dangerous AT on the field. I’m talking damage output an order of magnitude higher then blasters. If this were the case there would be no point in anyone every playing anything but a tank, nor would there be any point with anyone teaming with anything but a tank. You would have tanks and spectators, nothing else.
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Oh, I agree completely. I don't think that proper Tanks are possible. The issue is that improper Tanks can't be balanced in PvP.
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You seem to be suggesting that blasters, at least the conventional CoH definition of one, is inherently impossible (and any attempt to make them possible is almost a cheat by definition) and tanks aren't either. Are we converging on the claim that the only thing that "makes sense" are ranged scrappers?
In a sense, there is such a thing as too much logic for the game engine if the game is going to be fun. At a very fundamental level, players can only play the game if the game engine makes a fundamental mistake in villain AI: a villain should only attempt to fight what it thinks it has a reasonable chance to defeat, but they consistently fail to perform this basic judgement.
If all villains thought that way, well, they could sometimes guess wrong, but by in large players would be forced to engage only things that stand a good chance to kill them, because all other things would flee, tank or no tank.
Over in burn-tank land, there is debate going on about the logic of having villains run out of burn patches. Yes, its perfectly logical that villains would not want to stand in a burn patch. But really, its illogical for them to stand next to any tank, whether the tank is surrounded by flames or not. As I put it, and others have also stated with equal eloquence, given a choice between standing in a ring of fire, or standing next to a really massive guy that wants to hit me with a giant stone hammer, I'm going with the fire.
But really, I should choose neither. I should run away, get PLed by a group of level 48 Master Illusionists, and then come back to Talos looking to start some sh*t.
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[ QUOTE ]
In a sense, there is such a thing as too much logic for the game engine if the game is going to be fun. At a very fundamental level, players can only play the game if the game engine makes a fundamental mistake in villain AI: a villain should only attempt to fight what it thinks it has a reasonable chance to defeat, but they consistently fail to perform this basic judgement.
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I can't argue with that! 
You're sidestepping my main point, thought.
CoV Villains are going to make value descisions about what they can and can not fight, so these "ranged vs melee" and "AI vs Player" questions aren't nearly as pie-in-the-sky as you seem to think.
I think we're getting seriously off topic about PvE Blaster balance, though, so I'm not going to worry about it here....
Thanks for the discussion!
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Except scrappers aren't actually faster than all of their foes, unless they use yet another exploit - using travel powers in combat.
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What about sprint, hurdle and swift? So far the only enemies with fravel powers are those with fly, and hover 6-slotted can be plenty fast, and all scrapper primaries have a ranged ST taunt power.
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Sprint, hurdle, and swift (and quickness, and elude), and hover, and combat jump do allow scrappers to catch some, maybe even most villains. But my point was that there are still villains that outspeed most of that unless you have 6-slot swift on top of 6-slot sprint - my specific example was illusionists.
But while there are some things blasters outrange, and some things blasters don't, there is *nothing* in the game that deliberately uses its ranged advantage against a melee fighter to play constant keep away. They may attack from a distance, but they do not tend to run away from a scrapper to keep that distance - which is what "proper" AI ought to do. This is in reference to the original subject of the discussion, which is is it fair to claim blasters are "broken" because they only way they get by is with "game exploits" and "broken AI."
Scrapper challenge is a game invention that allows scrappers to both draw aggro, and partially nullify their range disadvantage by drawing foes to them, or at least cancelling their desire to run away. There is no opposite power available to blasters. Moreover, a power that did the exact opposite - caused a single targetted foe to run away - wouldn't actually be the point, because it wouldn't offer the analogous benefit. If challenge causes a single foe to not run away and turn to attack the scrapper, the blaster equivalent would be a click power that caused a villain to run out of melee range, stop, and then cease attacking for a while. Essentially, single target terrorize.
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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In a sense, there is such a thing as too much logic for the game engine if the game is going to be fun. At a very fundamental level, players can only play the game if the game engine makes a fundamental mistake in villain AI: a villain should only attempt to fight what it thinks it has a reasonable chance to defeat, but they consistently fail to perform this basic judgement.
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I can't argue with that!
You're sidestepping my main point, thought.
CoV Villains are going to make value descisions about what they can and can not fight, so these "ranged vs melee" and "AI vs Player" questions aren't nearly as pie-in-the-sky as you seem to think.
I think we're getting seriously off topic about PvE Blaster balance, though, so I'm not going to worry about it here....
Thanks for the discussion!
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When we get to PvP CoV battles, yep, there will be a problem, insofar as the arena is a good preview. "Pure" conventional blasters, one on one, have problems unless they are very well stocked with breakfrees, and have some form of good control - at high levels. Its a bit more fair at lower levels.
I agree, though, that is more of a PvP balancing issue, and not specifically a PvE issue or a blaster damage issue, per se.
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Statesman Said:
[ QUOTE ]
Blasters are listed as the damage kings yet their damage is capped BELOW that of scrappers. Why?
The max damage of a Blaster is 400%...a Scrapper is 500%. We did this because the Scrapper is involved in melee and thus in a riskier situation far more often. Blasters, on the other hand, can pick and choose their targets from a distance.
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This is very wrong!! SO not only can they SURVIVE Better than us. They can Kill better than us..... 
Anyone else see a prob with this?
I'd say that the 'high' part of our damage being melee, we're at even more risk when trying to deal equal-damage. Sure, some of those are actually PBAoE or 20ft bursts, but those still have a chance of letting the guy get his punch off... which can mean death.
My biggest problem with that statement is that it is ONLY true if one assumes the scrapper has completely omitted his secondary. The Ranged-damage vs Melee-damage is actually based-on and balanced out on the HP difference. In THIS case, the scrapper IS at a somewhat higher risk, enough to justify the higher cap, especially if you combine this with the fact that most of their attacks are 'lethal-type'.
Of course if the scrapper DOES take some secondaries, this whole idea falls apart at the seams, and even comparing power-pool defenses alone(the only available blaster defenses before the APPs) the scrapper gets better survivability.
And then the mezzing begins....
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So, You spent your 20's using an AI exploit...
You spent your 20's and 30's using a specific ability that only 1 set has (I'm not sure if KB is an exploit, but players sure hate it!)
You spent your 40's using a Travel Power exploit.
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You honestly believe "pulling" is an exploit? I'm sorry, but you're weakening any argument you have by making totally outrageous statements like that. "Pulling" exists in EVERY MMORPG game I've ever played. For CoH, it's even covered in the Stragegy Guide (which is endorsed by Cryptic).
To a smaller extent, "Kiting" is a valid tactic too. For any ranged fighter, keeping at range while continuing to fire is a valid tactic. Even the U.S. Army will pull its troops back if the enemy advances too closely so that it can maintain a ranged advantage.
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"Life is just better boosted!" -- LadyMage
"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens
Scrappers get higher damage potential and criticals? Whats up with this BS. Why dont blasters get the same critical strike chance as scrappers get. Or is this going to be one of those they have a greater risk things again?!?! Dont get me wrong love scrappers, love playing them but i love my blaster even more, but getting killed twice as fast as my controller, twice as many times as my defender, and many many more times than my scrapper. I know where supposed to be a little weak but weaker than controllers and defenders (surviability only).
I have a 27 fire/ice blaster that I created early in the game. This was before I knew the importance of Stamina, so he doesn't even have Stamina. I recently picked him back up again and started playing (he was 25 when I picked him back up, so I got him to 27 now). I can definitely see certain things coming into play that are making him more difficult to play. So here are my observations about damage and ability and defenses....
1) The secondary set is not melee, it's control. Only in the fire secondary set is damage-dealing given more emphasis than control. And some of the control mechanisms the blaster have are quite nice. Roots and holds are invaluable, as are AoE effects. To me, the secondary power set is what makes Blasters so fun to play. The wide array of effects (slows, holds, roots, etc.) make playing a Blaster interesting and not just a spam-fest of the attack buttons.
2) Range, which is supposed to be our defense, isn't working out that way in a lot of cases. It's true that there are plenty of mobs (level 27 Family) which shoot me from a larger distance than all of my attacks (with the possible exception of snipe). I dread the higher levels where just a couple of these ranged shots can take me out.
3) Damage output is quite nice still. I do massive amounts of damage and have little or no problem with how quickly I can dish it out.
4) Any kind of Stun or Hold is very often fatal. Having no defenses is bad enough, but not having any way to mitigate mezzes makes it much much more difficult.
Seeing those things, here's my thoughts on how to improve the Blaster set, and these thoughts do NOT revolve around the pissing match over the damage cap between blasters and scrappers ("I should have more power!", "No, I should!", "No, I should!"). In relation to each of my observations above:
1) Increase the effects of the secondary control set. For example, the ice set slows speed and recharge of the mobs. Increase the time that the mob's recharge speed is slowed, and slow it a bit more. Add in things like: A) Ice Set. Decreased recharge AND accuracy; B) Fire Set. Decreased defenses along with the normal DoTs. C) Electrical. Decreased Endurance Recovery AND possible chance of confusion. D) Devices. Not sure. It's a pretty impressive set for its variety. E) Energy. Knockdown/back AND stun (and 3-second stuns don't count, make them noticeable, like 5+ seconds AFTER they get up). Increasing the control aspects of the secondaries greatly helps to compensate for decreased defenses.
2) Naturally increase range of all blaster attacks as level increases. Decrease damage of mobs' ranged attacks in proportion to their range. If they're further away, they do less damage.
3) Damage is already nice. It's only the other stats that make blasters so difficult at higher levels. I don't believing upping the damage capability will help.
4) All ATs should get some kind of inherent stun/hold break. A click power that breaks a stun or hold and leaves you resistant to them for 10 seconds, recharging in one minute (not enhanceable and not influenced by haste or any other recharge-shortening power like Accelerate Metabolism). This would allow everyone to be able to break a hold and retaliate or retreat, but make them do it quickly because shortly it'll wear off and they absolutely will not be able to do it again for another 60 seconds.
Playing a fire/ice blaster, I've really had to change my tactics. I got comfortable playing scrappers and a new tank. I died a lot when I picked Searing Kold up again, but have been relearning him and found something out.....
Blasters are a VERY interesting and challenging class to play. They have high damage potential, but actually have some crowd control capabilities. Unlike scrappers where you spam your attack buttons after turning on your defenses, or tankers where you pretty much just herd (and if you're solo, spam attack buttons), you have to use strategy.
When I'm in a team, I really never feel like I'm not contributing. I do a lot of damage, and I help out the tanks with my secondary power set. Yes, that's right. I help the tank out. The tank is there grabbing aggro, so I get in close where my Chilling Embrace cuts back how often the mobs are hitting him. My Ice Patch placed right next to him also cuts back how much damage he takes. Runners are locked down with Chillblain. Aggroed groups around the tank are hit with my Fireball (AoE fire and smashing damage) and cone attack. And my snipes take out mobs at a range that are attacking teammates. I deal out a lot of damage, and I add some crowd control into the mix, and I HAVE A BLAST! (no pun intended).
So all in all, the only thing I'd like to see done to Blasters are the things I mentioned to make them not glass canons, but maybe plexiglass ones. When I'm surprised by a mezzer that comes out from behind something and puts a hold on me or stuns me, I'd like to know that I can still do something instead of just knowing that I'll be heading to the hospital shortly. They're already fun because of their seocndaries set, so I'd like to see those few changes to help compensate for their weaknesses.
Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break
The only problem with defeating the Tsoo is that an hour later, you want to defeat them again!
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"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens
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You honestly believe "pulling" is an exploit? I'm sorry, but you're weakening any argument you have by making totally outrageous statements like that. "Pulling" exists in EVERY MMORPG game I've ever played. For CoH, it's even covered in the Stragegy Guide (which is endorsed by Cryptic).
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Nope! I'm claiming that "gaming the AI" is an exploit, and Pulling is an AI artifact.
The larger point I was making, since before the Arena even came out, is that in PvP you are playing Humans.
Humans, unlike any MMORPG AI, know that Tanks are a waste of time, Defenders are really squishy, and Blasters do a lot of damage.
The entire "Meatshield" and "Mage" paradigm painfully doesn't work in PvP, and I consider the game fiddling with my targeting to be:
1) A cheap way to force a PvE abililty to work in PvP.
2) Annoying, since I want to play myself, not let the game do it.
3) An unrealistic band-aid on real class balance.
Tanks should not even HAVE taunt in PvP.
Tanks should do double damage in PvP, with double endurance cost and double the recharge duration.
That will make playing tactically rewarding without the pathetic attempt to temporarily turn me into a mob.
Currently playing:
Infaerna Who knew Fire/Fire Brutes were fun to play?
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9. Making level 32 nukes into more useable AoE powers like Head Splitter or Full-Auto and less situational all end consuming powers.
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This is a great idea, full auto can be used much more than say inferno, i have inferno it is great but i am almost affraid to use it, i say affraid because if anything gets missed or dose not die it ends up most likely with my death, consider that the power drains all your end, or most of it, this is ok because it dose do some HUGE damage, but like i said if something gets missed, you are most likely dead, and if it is a boss that you missed just might as well say good bye then and there.
However, i dont know what you would do to change the power, if you take away how much end it uses it would be to powerful, so maybe you could make it just have 100% acc. so that it would not miss because that is the biggest fear i have it misses and i end up with a pile of debt.
So i dont know how to fix everything but the ultimite power of many blasters needs to be more useable, not so situational, please, if you think of posible solutions write but.
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1. Implement PvP damage resist bypass in PvE.
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Translated, more damage. It seems that the king of damage is not king. Blasters already have low hit points, no status protection (not counting pools), and draw aggro like mad. We only have one way to beat these weaknesses, and that is to kill whatever is training on us. (Yes, there is the option of tank and aggro management, but even that is no guarantee)
Which is the last point, aggro. I start to wonder if Blasters are unfairly favored aggro magnets. An example, a defender shoots his electric AOE out and hits about 7 Tsoo. I throw out a single target fire blast on one of the minions to try to kill him. What happens is that EVERYONE comes running to smack me and runs past the defender (who is still shooting them).
I have seen other posts with similar stories of strange aggro attraction. If possible, can this get tweaked in I4 a little?
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Where do you think they pulled the Tankers punchvoke code from? Surely you didn't think it was a new idea...
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They don't seem to mind giving us 100% damage mitigation in the form of an ice hold, but 25% defense is probably way too high.
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It's 100% to one guy. If there are four guys, it's 25%.
If there are twenty. . .that's a problem.
But there are interesting ideas in the rest of the post.
BS/Katana has a Parry (Divine Avalanche, I think they renamed it to) power which is essentially defensive- it does a little damage, but gives +20% melee defense for the next 10 seconds.
Something like that, but with RANGED defense? Would be cool. I don't know how you fit it in with the world. . ."Covering fire" maybe? Would be a problem with aggro, but if it could be buffed up to 44% ranged +DEF, aggro ceases to trouble one.
20% is way high, I think. . . the Katana attack is slow and END-hungry, that's how it is balanced.
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