Distance = lousy defense -- just ask bubblers how useful they rate force bubble to be for defensive purposes. And then ask a bunch of blasters if they would rather have The Big 3 bubbles (insulation, dispersion, and deflection) on themselves or if they would prefer to stand in the middle of Force Bubble without The Big 3.
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And, of course, there's the complaint that some Secondaries have too many melee attacks - something that the Blaster avoids at all costs.
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You're thinking of Haephestus. He didn't reflect the sole opinion of the Blaster community in any way. Plenty of Blasters like Melee and my own Complaints in regard to Blasters is that there's Not ENOUGH Melee attacks and they cycle too slow while offering no real lasting Debuffs/CrowdControl. What there IS too much of in this game, is AoE Damage fields that cause fear and knockbacks and crap that don't in any way shape or form protect anyone from Mobs with Ranged attacks who shoot while running away, which is pretty much 97% of all enemies.
No, Melee is quite fun and somtimes is a way of life for some blasters, especially the ones that can handle it. The only Problem of course is that these blasters are not offered any kind of Melee defenses until the late 40's which doesn't help either sicne that becomes an issue of having no Status Protection either.
PLEASE do 1 of these:
--Give Blappers GOOD temporary defenses or debuffs
--Give Blappers temporary light StatusResists
--Remove the Damage-Cap on Blaster Melee
--Replace High-Aggro, Low-Damage, AoE Fields in the 2ndaries with something DEFENSIVE.
Or
--ADD Status Resists to those Low-Damage AoE fields.
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How about losing Power Thrust, Stun, and Boost Range from the /Energy powerset and adding things that help more than a few power sets....maybe put some form defenses there. I like Energy Punch/Bonesmasher/Total Focus, but the three I mentioned are situational at best.(yeay yeah, some people use them, but most that I have seen have no use for them besides punching people 200 feet for fun at lvl 50)
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Many of the /energy blasters I team with are very happy with boost range.
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I, as an NRG Blaster, LOVE Power Thrust.
NO TAKEY!
When I started playing I went from Origin story to character creation, so I wasn't too mindful of "The Perfect Build" and to be honest I don't want a powerful character that is nonsensical. (Really, the idea of Spider Man shooting lasers out of his eyes, or the Invisible Girl with an assault rifle just wouldn't make for a good story to me.)
So I play an electricity girl as both primary and secondary powers. I've found that vulnerability to lethal damage is really high for me, and what you say about ranged damage of villains just isn't something I see. I've had 80% of my health evaporate with a thug using an empty the clip power with a machine gun while I ran by him just trying to get to friends.
So I think if you are talking about some kind of "ranged means less damage" rule of thumb, you must be using some defense baseline that just doesn't exist for many of the superhero archetypes.
Thank you for listening!
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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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A variation on this theme come up a LOT and I make a point of emphasizing it every time i notice it. There was a thread "tosses a rock over there" that had a LOT of great ideas on some type of aggro mitigating pet to put into our secondaries, and I think it would be a great thing.
My personal favorite (thinking of /fire here) would be a a flaming effect put down using the same means as Rain of Fire. Once in place, you attack the mob, and they react as if the effect generated the attack. They unleash hell on it instead of you, and you proceed to wipe them out. A couple of seconds in to the fight, they realize that it's you hurting them and refocus on you. Hell, I don't even need it to have any attacks of it's own. Just grab that inital aggro and I'll handle the rest.
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I like the way this sounds. I might render it this way: Make a power called Focal Point. A targetable ranged summon that is static. All of the ranged attacks that the blaster fires instead of firing from the blaster (they still do the animation, just without the power affect) fire from the summon. This draws fire off of the blaster and onto the pet. They would still have to be summoned at a range because they could be killed just as easily as the blaster who summoned them and they can't be buffed, so the blaster is litterally simply sending his powers from another target in order to keep themselves safer. While it can't be buffed, I would allow it to be healed. Outside of attacking instead of the blaster, the Focal Point has no attacks or abilities of it's own.
Can I ask why are blasters solid up to say level 20?
What makes their damage good till then but fall apart later?
The cap is in play then as it is later, so it can't be that can it? Or is it that you don't really keep getting better attacks while the scrapper does?
I don't know for real but could better later attacks be the problem. Hack is much weaker then headsplitter. But you get snipe one of your best damage attacks very early. Maybe what's needed besides mezz defense is better late attacks.
I don't know just asking.
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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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A variation on this theme come up a LOT and I make a point of emphasizing it every time i notice it. There was a thread "tosses a rock over there" that had a LOT of great ideas on some type of aggro mitigating pet to put into our secondaries, and I think it would be a great thing.
My personal favorite (thinking of /fire here) would be a a flaming effect put down using the same means as Rain of Fire. Once in place, you attack the mob, and they react as if the effect generated the attack. They unleash hell on it instead of you, and you proceed to wipe them out. A couple of seconds in to the fight, they realize that it's you hurting them and refocus on you. Hell, I don't even need it to have any attacks of it's own. Just grab that inital aggro and I'll handle the rest.
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I remember that thread and I loved the idea. My personal favorite was a "trick shot" that came into the bad guys from a 90 degree angle from where the blaster was standing, making the mobs blaze away in that direction for a few seconds. Solo...the few seconds would enable us to have a chance to take them down before they wised up and targetted us. Teamed...the few seconds would enable the Tanker or Scrapper to regain aggro.
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Defenders are fine. Controllers have a problem because the order of their powers is wrong. Just poor design in my opinion and no excuse for it either.
Blasters have gameplay issues though that need to be addressed, they have lost their role and the title of damage king.
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I don't agree that defenders are fine, but unless they focus solely on the controller primary when fixing controllers and solely on the blaster secondary when fixing blasters, they ought to come out OK, too. 
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To quote the manual "Scrappers...often find themselves a bit overshadowed by the more specialized Blaster and Tankers" (Page 8). I assume this is the concept for the AT (and I'd guess, is desired to still be relevant) but I fail to remember the last time a Scrapper was overshadowed by either AT let alone Blasters.
[/ QUOTE ] Really? I'd say a scrapper is more than "a bit overshadowed" by a tanker's defenses. Actually, I'd say tankers have around 4x a scrapper's defenses...that's more than a bit. It leaves the scrappers with enough that, with support, they can tank an average spawn. It's enough, but it's not remotely the same catagory of defense.
The comparison to blasters' offense is a lot closer. Scrappers are only slightly overshadowed by blasters offense. It's right on there, in the offense department. Of course, effectiveness is a mix of offense and defense...the difference between a scrapper's defenses and a blasters is...umm...trying to divide by zero here...
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Defenders are fine. Controllers have a problem because the order of their powers is wrong. Just poor design in my opinion and no excuse for it either.
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Defenders are not fine. They simply gave up as a community after continuously being ignored in threads far longer and larger than any other community spawned that eventually got them the developers special attention.
Under construction
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Really? Just who is suffering?
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Hmm, first they nerfed hasten, then they nerfed AM.
Then there were the mob changes they made. The list goes on, but they have made many changes based on what SOs would allow players to do when they were fully slotted.
It would have been far easier to balance enhancements with the game rather than leave everyone in an overpowered state.
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Can I ask why are blasters solid up to say level 20?
What makes their damage good till then but fall apart later?
The cap is in play then as it is later, so it can't be that can it? Or is it that you don't really keep getting better attacks while the scrapper does?
I don't know for real but could better later attacks be the problem. Hack is much weaker then headsplitter. But you get snipe one of your best damage attacks very early. Maybe what's needed besides mezz defense is better late attacks.
I don't know just asking.
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It's not totally the attacks we have, it's the enemies. Status attacks, greater range on the baddies, Status attacks at range, more damaging attacks...all of these combine to make our range and damage nearly moot. Then you add in insults like /fire's lvl 38 power....hot feet.
Furio--Lvl 50+3 Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster, Virtue
Megadeth--Lvl 50+3 Necro/DM/Soul MM, Virtue
Veriandros--Lvl 50+3 Crab Soldier, Virtue
"So come and get me! I'll be waiting for ye, with a whiff of the old brimstone. I'm a grim bloody fable, with an unhappy bloody end!" Demoman, TF2
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Yes, but that balance usually requires SS and stealth or things along those lines (like teaming w/ a controller who locks down everyone.
Scrappers and Tanks don't *need* any particular pools except for say Stamina which is pretty much and all-AT issue.
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IMO, no AT should need any particular pools to function. My scrapper needed the fighting pool to function (and still needs leaping to acrobatics) well in fights, and I think that it would be much nicer if all of these pools were groovy bonuses instead of necessities...because your primary/secondary already covers those.
But I'm not sure how to go about that.
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There's a slight difference. Scraps and Tanks dip into the fighting and jumping pools to augment their resists and defense. Blasters don't have other powers that these augment (until at least L41 and the APPs), but we also get lower bonuses (in the base numbers), lower effective enhancement (as a %age off a lower base), and a lower (resistance) cap.
Unless used defensively (i.e. to a foe coming to within melee range of the blaster) a blaster has to use SS and stealth in order to be able to use melee attacks (say as an alpha attack) otherwise we die.
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Defenders are not fine.
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Okay I'll bite, what problems? Other than specific power problems I have not seen any problems with defenders as a whole so please enlighten me.
Don't bring up mez protection, I am not for blasters getting it and I sure as hell am not up for defenders getting it either more than what they already have. Damage is a moot point as well, as the damage they do is plenty although I would have said the same of Tanks too.
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Really? Just who is suffering?
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Hmm, first they nerfed hasten, then they nerfed AM.
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I was quite torqued about it at the time but have long admitted I was wrong on it. What they did to AM and Hasten was make it so that there was a reason to fully slot the powers. That makes sense. Its the same thing that eventually drove the Invincibility neft (in part) and will someday bring about Fearsome Stare being "fixed".
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Then there were the mob changes they made. The list goes on, but they have made many changes based on what SOs would allow players to do when they were fully slotted.
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And? How does that equate into suffering (nevermind you didn't answer the question)?
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It would have been far easier to balance enhancements with the game rather than leave everyone in an overpowered state.
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Some would call it a state where they get to have fun with their characters as opposed to always be running out of endurance, being casually hit, easily damage, etc.
Last I looked my characters of all ATs continue to suffer defeats.
Under construction
I have to say that blasters should most definatly have a 500% cap, but you cant lower scrappers cap to 400% without putting Super Strength and Energy Melee above several scapper primaries in terms of DPS.
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Can I ask why are blasters solid up to say level 20?
What makes their damage good till then but fall apart later?
The cap is in play then as it is later, so it can't be that can it? Or is it that you don't really keep getting better attacks while the scrapper does?
I don't know for real but could better later attacks be the problem. Hack is much weaker then headsplitter. But you get snipe one of your best damage attacks very early. Maybe what's needed besides mezz defense is better late attacks.
I don't know just asking.
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My theory which has every right to be wrong is: The lower-level game is balanced for low defenses (since no one has really matured their defenses...tankers come close, scrappers not so much) and immature offense. Blasters can fairly rapidly slot out their main attacks and don't have to worry about defenses, so the lower-level game is practically tailor-made for them.
It gets harder later as the game adjusts to try to keep up with tanker and scrapper defenses and defender/controller buffs/debuffs.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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Does this mean you are making a new baseline? Last I checked the base line was three white minions. Is this changeing?
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That was clarified in the now-locked Regen thread.
One hero = three white minions isn't a baseline- though Statesman said it should be fun. It's more like they want one hero = 3 +3 minions to be challenging...but I have a feeling that isn't a baseline either. AT's are going to be inherently unequal somewhere along the line...but to me that's just a problem with the way PvE deals with defense powers in the first place.
Thanks for addressing this. I know they are weaker attacks for range in PVE, but that just gets back again to: range is weaker. I also know there is a stated goal to have a lot more emphasis on PVE than PVP in this game but I think this time we have the luxury of the two issues coinciding.
Too bad the PVE monsters don't fight PVP style....I have seen some awesome things with Counterstrike and Quake bots...let's program them smarter!!!
More satisfying by far to beat a smart AI opponent that uses the same rules as you than a cheating computer that has 40k HP and breaks rules such as Fake Nemesis can put up PFF from inside a Hold 
Better AI will put your PVE and PVP game more in line with each other. Turn the AI on and off to taste with mission difficulty settings and viola, more fun in the game.
To me base damage is a bigger issue than the damage cap. By most counts Scrapper base damage is very close to Blasters. By the time Blasters "pick and choose their targets from a distance", e.g.:
- wait for tank to get aggro before attacking
- be cautious about using AoEs
- try not to aggro mez'ing mobs
- run, phase, or drop dead when they do get aggro
...the Scrappers are clearly dealing more damage through the course of a play session because they can jump in with little risk.
Why would any informed person, who wants to be effective, play a Blaster over a Scrapper as the game now stands? Blasters need a boost in damage to fufill their role in a team.
s.
--------------------------------------
Hard Wired - L50 Elec/Elec Blaster
The Grump - L42 DM/Regen Scrapper
Sludge Bucket - L27 Rad/Dark Defender
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And? How does that equate into suffering (nevermind you didn't answer the question)?
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They are continually finding ways to make mobs harder because the player base is overpowered. However, this further increases the differences in AT defense and causes a serious case of haves and have nots. Instead of pushing the game towards bigger and bigger numbers they should have made the enhancements obtainable smaller and balanced the powers from there.
Which would have taken care of: [ QUOTE ]
Some would call it a state where they get to have fun with their characters as opposed to always be running out of endurance, being casually hit, easily damage, etc.
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There's a slight difference. Scraps and Tanks dip into the fighting and jumping pools to augment their resists and defense. Blasters don't have other powers that these augment (until at least L41 and the APPs), but we also get lower bonuses (in the base numbers), lower effective enhancement (as a %age off a lower base), and a lower (resistance) cap.
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Actually, pre-stacking, my dark armor scrapper used the fighting pool to have resists in the first place, so yeah, I do kind of think that there is a similarity. I couldn't run a shield that gave smash/lethal resistance at the same time as a shield that gave mezz resistance without tough.
And you completely bypassed my point, which was "blasters should have the tools they need to function in their primaries and secondaries, and the power pools should be nice options, but not required."
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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Defenders are not fine.
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Don't bring up mez protection, I am not for blasters getting it and I sure as hell am not up for defenders getting it either more than what they already have.
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Fine, Defenders don't get any Melee Attacks until certain APP/EPP's anyway. But Blasters DO get Melee attacks early on. And why do Scrappers have such massive StatusResists? ....Because they Melee. Admit it, they're feeding the Gander and starving the Goose!
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Why would any informed person, who wants to be effective, play a Blaster over a Scrapper as the game now stands?
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Most don't. My entire SG stopped playing blasters and basically that leaves us with Tanks, controllers, defenders, and scrappers. A few are trying keldians but for the most part it is those four ATs.
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SOs are unbalancing the game and forcing them to make things difficult to the point that in order to challenge a minority the rest of the population suffers.
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Really? Just who is suffering?
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