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At the moment, Scrappers, and to a lesser degree, Tankers, are being analyzed. Once we establish a baseline, then we'll be in a better position to look at Blasters.
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Don't forget to turn on the level-to-level adjustment subroutines in your test environment. 
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Thought I'd post a further explanation about the Blaster damage explanation in "Ask Statesman."
That was - and is - the reason why Blaster damage is capped lower than Scrappers. I did forget to add that the ranged attacks of mobs deal less damage (typically) than melee attacks - and the Blaster is generally the target of raned attacks.
But many issues have come up - most notably, the perception that Blasters are too fragile at levels 35+. Their damage potential does not compensate for their low hit points.
And, of course, there's the complaint that some Secondaries have too many melee attacks - something that the Blaster avoids at all costs.
At the moment, Scrappers, and to a lesser degree, Tankers, are being analyzed. Once we establish a baseline, then we'll be in a better position to look at Blasters.
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even if mobs' ranged attacks deal less damage than melee attacks, and if we assume that blaster can always stay away from the mobs' melee range, mobs' ranged attacks will still hurt blasters far more than melee attacks will hurt scrappers. The risk to scrappers cannot compare to the risk that blasters go thru.
It's time for Statesman and the devs to acknowledge this FACT and do something soon. It'd suck to have to wait another 3 months when the FACT is staring every1 in the face for all that time, not to mention all this time beforehand.
I've been reading these posts and I agree with most of them. My blaster needs better attacks. I have build a "Sniper" class of blaster: I have all ranged attacks and only Power Thrust as a Melee. All of my ranged attacks (except for Power Push) are 6-slotted. I also have Aim and Build Up.
Here's a typical senario of my kind of combat:
Aim, build up and sniper blast the closest minion. While it is charging, target and que up Power Blast. After both fire, Power Bolt. OK, I have now killed 2 Even to +1 minions. +2 Minions require me to fire Explosive blast to take out that final sliver of health they still have. Now, I have killed 2 minions and agroes the entire mob around, beside, and behind them. Now I start spamming out Energy Torrent, Power Push, and my other powers as I run backwards and hope the KB works to my advantage.
If I go up against Mezzers, I die. If I go up against anything with more than 2 Lieutenants, or anything with a Boss, I die.
I tried something with another character and designed a Blapper (Only taking the Energy Manipulation Secondaries as well as Tough/Weave and other combat defense powers). I slotted all my attacks with 1 Acc and 5 Dam. I ruled with that character and had seceral teams tell me that I was a Scrapper with a Red coin beside my name 
This is in comparrison to my Blaster who was kicked off of several teams because "you don't do enough damage and can't keep up with the Scrappers." I then bring up my Katana/Regen and ask if they have a free-slot and an SK and get an instant invite. My Scrapper is level 15 and I can get an SK up to 40 to help with the team that just kicked me... how does that make my blaster feel? Gimped!
Since hitting level 41 I have gained access to the Shields offered in the Force Mastery, but the only one I have only keeps minions away about 20% at the time and drains my already prescious endurance too quickly for the benefit.
I chose to make a blaster because that is the type of character I alays play in pen-and-paper RPGs. I love Blasters and hope to get mine to 50 before I5... but with only my SG and close friends willing to team with me, it is going to be difficult at best, impossible at worse.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
1) Wow! there's over a hundred people reading the Blaster forum!
2) Ranged Damage tends to be about 2/3 of Melee Damage per attack. So, right there a Blaster has a de facto 33% Damage Resistance overall (since less damage is incoming) along with no Defense or Regeneration or Mez Resist... but the Scrappers can get 75% Resistance or 95% Defense or 600% Regeneration easily, along with the various other contraptions that they've got in their pools (AoE Fear, AoE Disorient, Max HP Boost, lots and lots of Mez Resistance, self +Recharge). So, essentially, if a Blaster only takes Ranged attacks and a Scrapper only takes Melee attacks, then the Blaster is wildly underpowered, since we're only mitigating about 30% of incoming damage while the Scrapper hovers about about 80% mitigation. Oh, and they get a bit more damage. According to that, then Scrappers take less risk for more reward in the form of damage.
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An increase in damage doesn't stop you from being disoriented/slept/held/immobilized. It doesn't stop you from being swamped so long as you can't distribute the damage to the individual targets faster than a certain rate (that given the lessons of the past isn't likely to occur).
I fail to see the fascination with damage in terms of fixing Blasters. Damage wasn't decreased on their part on the road to breaking them, why would damage being upped be the fix?
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Alot of blasters don't mind being defenseless and working around it. In fact many of us pride ourselves on being able to do it. However we do mind when another AT comes along and makes us look like the kids off the short bus because they can do our job better than we can.
So we would just like it to be completely obvious that when you want damage on a team you turn to a blaster and not a scrapper. We want the role of Damage king made clear, which it isn't currently especially with scrappers being able to potentially continuously out damage blasters.
blasters have the alrgest base damage scrappers have about 80% of that for a base damage i believe, controllers and defenders have 65% blaster base damage with tanks having 80% of a scrappers base damage. the buff cap is 500% for scrappers and 400% for blasters sooo lets take a level 1 attack for example and say it does 12 damage a scrapper with that attack would do 9.6. if damaged is capped scrappers and blasters would both do 48 damage with said attack.
with that said blasters attacks generally seem to have a higher base but not by much, and the range isnt as good as it should be to be considered a defensive option, mainly because if you shoot soem oen from afar they dont automatically know where you are esp if you hide after shootin ( ie guerilla tactics). mobs need to have a function that allows them to search for a ranged target instead of instantly aggroing and finding the hero.
melee attacks on a ranged AT is some what silly aside from the fact you would want to use melee once a villan closes on you, for which one or two good attacks is fine but not a whole secondary filled with them.
also the mez resistance is nonexistant when it really needs to be, but it should be a click ability that has a down time and cant be reduced in recharge rate by slots or hasten ( perhaps by defender buffs however), this way we can start a fight and have maybe 20-35(perhaps this can be increased with leveling) seconds of mez resistance with like 2 mins down time on the power, allowing us to kill things and if we dont in that window then we are vunerable . the main issue with blasters getting mez protection is that the support ATs are meant to fix that weakness, but its not always certain that we will team with a person that can do that. worse case solution is to allow stimulant in the medicine line to be used on yourself.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
Yes, exactly. There's no point in boosting blasters only to turn around and nerf scrappers--and then find that blasters were over-boosted. Thus, we soon lose the very power we were hoping for.
Range and target selection are advantages and I must invite blasters who don't understand this to play a scrapper sometime. I can shoot from one side of the room and then automaticaly switch the other and then go back again. It would take a pretty nimble scrapper to do the same. And runners are a joke to me...
No, the problem is that a lot of our attacks do not give us sufficient range (OK, maybe AoEs need to be in close and create a risk/reward situation; but our single target powers should let us stand pretty far back and snipe away. As an ice blaster I feel this problem pretty acutely.).
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Another thing to please keep in mind is that some defenders have powers whose effect is to amplify damage (siphon power, fulcrum shift, fortitude, accelerate metabolism) - and many blasters can increase their damage to 400% of base without recourse to these buffs. This makes those powers far less desirable... It would be great if there could be room left to buff! That's why the 500% limit is so nice for scrappers.
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Honestly, what other ATs have so much question as to their usefulness in their primaries? Blasters are supposed to be damage kings.
Scrappers: have a higher dmg cap and can herd and AoE kill mobs. Strong debate on who deals more "damage"
Tanks: can herd and, with AoEs or energy transfer, clear entire maps solo. Debateable (though less so than v. scrappers) who has better damage over time when factoring in survivability.
Controllers: especially a certain hot FOTM primary that can deal high damage with much better survivability.
Defenders: with a blaster's primary as their secondary, and powers like fulcrum shift approach a blaster's damage level.
Kheldians: there's a recent post asking which makes a better blaster, a blaster or a Kheld! With the Nova form and the upcoming changes to Cosmic Link it becomes questionable.
How many other ATs can blasters debatably outpreform for their primary role?
If we dip into the medicine pool can we out-heal a defender? If we dive into the fighting and jumping (for acrobatics) pools, do we out resist a tank (or a scrapper even?). Oh wait, we get less of an effect from the fighting pool than tanks or scrappers get from the pool power.
Our best option for matching *any* primary ability?
Managing aggro.
By taking phase shift.
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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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Ditto. I am still painfully making my way thru the last 2 levels to 50 so I can park my blaster and concentrate on having fun with my new scrapper.
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Defenders have the same hits as scrappers.
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Hit Points or Accuracy? Cause they do not have the same HP as a scrapper.
Stop putting words in my mouth, I said Scrappers, tankers and post pet controllers are over powered, if the devs decide to fix this by overpowering Blasters and defenders, that's fine, if they fix this by nerfing scrappers, tanks and post pet controllers, I'm fine with that as well.
In the case of controllers, I can see some fixes being in line with the nerfs, like upping the damage for their pre-32 skills, or implementing the 3X damage thing when an enemy is held.
From scrappers and tanks, I can't say I'd be all that upset if they lowered them without any bonuses (that they don't already have).
Either way, I'm sick of "City of Tank mages," and wish we could get back to the game where teaming didn't slow down XP gain.
My 2 influence on blasters: Keep in mind I have only gotten one to the low 30s so I can't speak about the upper levels beyond the effects while SKed.
#1 - Range is WAY too short. This has been said, but when Sky Raiders(first met in the 20s) outrange your snipe with their burst attacks it's pathetic. This forces you to close or fighting a runnng battle the entire time.
#2 - Melee based Secondary. Secondaries filled with melee attacks doesn't fit into my view of a ranged fighter. Heck, Fire Manipulation out right sucks, and the few people that take more than 3 or 4 powers from it quickly learn just how useless it is.
#3 - NO protection. We have to rely on power pools to give us any form of protection, yet we are forced to draw massive amounts of aggro just by doing our jobs. This means that we either hit one guy at a time with our pidly little attacks, or risk debt on a constant basis with AoEs.
#4 - Seemingly useless at higher levels. This is more from hearsay than actual experience, but I rarely see blasters in the 40s, but I see TONS of scrappers. Either people have just given up do to the effects of the choice in #3 above, or they just aren't ever asked to very many teams.
Now my ideas: Keep in mind these are just ideas, so feel free to run with them or shoot em down. 
#1 - MASSIVE range increase for, at the very least, the snipes.
#2 - I'd love to see a more controller feel for the blaster secondaries. Buildups could replace any of the 'too powerful' controller powers, and remember to keep #1 in mind for these.
#3 - How about Blaster Secondaries have some form of mez/hold protection as the lvl 38 power. Even if it only absorbs say 2 holds, it will keep us from being punching bags against all the mezzers at higher levels.
#4 - Damage increase is obvious. If you don't like the idea of changing the caps, the fix the Base. Remember, scrappers have the ability to effectively double their damage at times, and this gets even easier as they fight higher ranking baddies.
#5 - Along with #4. How about a reverse type of critical where blasters get an increased chance of doing double damage the lower the rank. This would make a lot of sense to me since I see blasters in the role of 'equalizer' as opposed to the 'boss killer' role of scrappers. This means scrappers focus on bosses and AVs while scrappers balance against overwhelming numbers.
#6 - Just my deepest wish, but how about a SINGLE pet power for blasters. I'm not talking a dozen imps, but how about being able to summon a single minion level Warwolf, Behemoth, Snowman(woohoo winter event) etc. I know this is wishful thinking, but it would give us blasters a front line to stand behind.
Glad to know this is being looked at, but frankly, Blasters need to be put at the top of the pile. The weakness of blasters comes into play sooner than 35, if you ask me.
Overall, as you level up, mob damage and "dangerousness" increases due to versatility of powersets and damage output. Meanwhile, player damage resistance does not scale up according.
The result: soloing much past 30 goes from moot to impossible for non damage absorbing builds. Tankers and scrappers stand out clearly as the superior spec at these high ends.
To resolve this, I think a couple of things need to happen. First, for nearly all classes, damage resistance needs to scale up better, in line with that of those we oppose. We are supposed to be fighting equals. I can't one shot them w/o using aim and buildup, why are they oneshotting me? I don't see them activating aim and buildup...
Second, blaster secondary powers being melee oriented has been pointed out as illogical since beta. Give blaster more support powers in the secondary line, esp. temporary defensive powers. If I see the enemy activating aim and building and he might be targeting me, let me activate my temporary defensive energy shield or fire shield, or risk being one-shot. Another great secondary would be resistance to crowd control powers. Being cc:ed is death to a fragile blaster.
In summary, there are definite weaknesses to the blaster now that the game has grown and we have levelled far beyond they days of "City of Blasters". The secondary power sets have proven their inadequacy. Time for this class, often thought to be overpowered, for their time under review.
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Alot of blasters don't mind being defenseless and working around it. In fact many of us pride ourselves on being able to do it. However we do mind when another AT comes along and makes us look like the kids off the short bus because they can do our job better than we can.
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And what I'm saying is that such a focus is an outgrowth of a more fundamental issue. If Blasters didnt' have to worry about being defenseless nobody would question who was dealing the most damage. But having to be reserved in attacks for fear of drawing a cross expression from a mob that kills you on the spot is a limit.
When fighting easy enough to dispatch targets the simple fact that a Scrapper has to move from target to target while a Blaster need only cycle to next target allows for a certain rapidity of attacks that a Scrapper can't match. But nobody teams to kill such targets. And what you do team to kill and how Blasters fare is the issue that constrains damage dealing.
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So we would just like it to be completely obvious that when you want damage on a team you turn to a blaster and not a scrapper.
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I think it is an example of mass self-delusion to think otherwise. I love playing my Scrapper, I love wading into the thick of things with him. I love what he can withstand. And I know full well that when I want damage I want a Blaster along.
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I'll say the same thing I PMed to Statesman: blasters need saving throws. This would let us take half damage or avoid the mez affect. The roll would be relatively low and quite undependable. You still wouldn't want to solo a boss unless you were high on purples or you had a good control power.
Statesman is not going to do anything to make blasters too hardy. The Devs want us as one of the weaker melee classes and that's fine as long as ability to inflict ranged damage is worth the trouble.
But we really need an escape clause, from time to time, to give our tank/defender teammates a chance to pull our bacon out of the fire.
I've pointed this out before, but blasters need 3 basic changes for them to stand in equal footing with the other damage dealing AT. These are:
1. inherent mez protection
2. inherent accuracy so as to combat mog and elude without having to resort to HOs
3. increased unresistable damage % in pvp
blasters will alwasy be 1 or 2 hits away from death and I accept that. but if blasters are supposed to be king of damage, I'd like to see that happen.
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blasters have the alrgest base damage scrappers have about 80% of that for a base damage i believe, controllers and defenders have 65% blaster base damage with tanks having 80% of a scrappers base damage. the buff cap is 500% for scrappers and 400% for blasters sooo lets take a level 1 attack for example and say it does 12 damage a scrapper with that attack would do 9.6. if damaged is capped scrappers and blasters would both do 48 damage with said attack.
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Except Scrapper and Blaster damage is based the same, Brawl index wise, Scrappers brawl hits with the same damage as blaster brawl. Which everytime you see Brawl comparisons there is no percent decrease, like with tankers, when compairing their damage.
Concern post that blaster damage chart with the BI of all our sets compaired to the Spines scrapper.
As a hard-core Scrapper I say give Blasters 500% damage cap, heck give them 600% damage cap!
Blasters have low HP, no DEF, no RES, and no Status Protection.
IMO, Blaster secondaries should be Control based powers. Everyone elses primary is copied by another AT's secondary. Giver control to Blasters.
With all due respect, capping Blaster damage below that of Scrappers because of range just doesn't jive. Giving Scrappers better defensive capacity than Blasters? Okay, that's fair. But giving them a higher damage cap than the so-called "Kings of Damage" the so-called "Offensive Juggernauts"?
If you have great defensive capacity you don't need to take out your foes with the same urgency that you do if you have lousy defensive capacity. The range at which your foes are is irrelevant.
Call me kooky, but shouldn't something like the following apply?
- [*]Tankers should have better defense than Scrappers, but Scrappers should have better offense than Tankers.
[*]Scrappers should have better defense than Blasters, but Blasters should have better offense than Scrappers.[/list]
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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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Uhm, if melee is something Blasters should avoid at all costs (and I'm not saying it is, Risk vs. Reward should apply here) how in the name of all that's good and tasty in Odin's beard did this puppy hit the shelves with this many Blaster melee attacks in the first place?
While Blasters could visit the realm of near-500% damage through self-buffs, I agree that they should have the same damage cap as Scrappers.
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If you have great defensive capacity you don't need to take out your foes with the same urgency that you do if you have lousy defensive capacity. The range at which your foes are is irrelevant.
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And this is what is seen when a Scrapper leaps into a group of +4 mobs and beats them down.
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At low level, range is king. Starting in the 30s, that starts to go away. Nemesis, Carnival, and Malta are all at least as dangerous at range than in Melee. (Indeed, Nemesis tends to use their ranged weaponry within melee range.)
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
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The idea of zapping things appeals to me generally more than the idea of punching things. So I'm inclined to play ranged damage types. For some that inclination is absolute and so they are going to play Blasters and not Scrappers given a reasonable choice. And if the choice isn't reasonable they are going to take their dollars and go elsewhere.
My earlier statement is that wanting to play a Blaster is sufficient reason for some to choose to play a Blaster.
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I'm completely with you in playstyle preference and playstyle philosophy. Shooting things from cover is more entertaining to me than chasing after them. This is why I typically play mages or archers in fantasy games; I prefer to spend my time pulling triggers than struggling to get someone in range of my fist.
That being said, 12% of my current characters are blasters.
I dare say that I've gotten pretty good at managing aggro, as it's the first skill a blaster's player needs to develop. Pick your target(s), use your terrain, and don't hesitate to retreat if it gets too hot.
Don't think that every one of your powers is there just to help you do damage; most are really just a form of active defense. Pool power choices are critical for blasters because of this.
Also, ironically, it's GOOD that most of a blaster's secondary track is extraneous because you NEED those slots for pool powers. My primary is a level 43 Ele/Ele with 4 pools (well, 5 including Body Armor) and I've used less than half of my secondary powers. I do not want to be in melee, and my power selections reflect that.
So, I'm sorry that I'm not standing up in defense of my favored AT, but for the most part I think that the defensive potential of blasters is just fine. Except for Fire blasters.... the price of their power is too high.
My only real critique is that since a blaster's primary defense is his ability to alpha strike, that makes the Concealment pool far too valuable to them. Any AT should not be "forced" to rely so heavily on a pool power (such as Stamina or Hover, for that matter) to work.
please accept this post from a scrapper-preferenced player and player of all AT's to mid levels, at least:
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Here is the problem states.
The ONLY way a blaster can outdamage a scrapper is if the blaster uses his melee attacks. The primary blaster attacks are a joke compared to the secondary. The melee attacks are several times stronger. This forces blasters to go into melee. This is especially true in PvP.
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all pvp arguments aside (discussing pve only), I notice your toon list includes a fire/* blaster. mine is fire/fire. although I do choose to leap into melee when safe, I really don't need to. with a good tank, I'm perfectly confident standing back & spamming fire breath & fire ball. against +2's, I don't need the tank - hitting build-up & then the above combo will take all the minions down, then the addition of a blaze will take down a lt. I haven't seen a scrapper that can do that as quickly. safer, yes. quickly, no. fire is an extreme example but all the primaries have ae's.
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This goes completely against what you're saying, by claiming that range is a blaster's best defense. It's not. What good is range when the only way a blaster can actually hurt someone is by going into melee?
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disagree, again. I have fire-sword with 5 dmg & 1 acc. it's set to auto-attack. I stand back happily blasting away until something gets too close, then it gets toasted. that seems to have worked as a great defense for me, so far. killing lots of stuff really fast with ae works rather well, also.
I do think it would be more appropriate to say that solid tactics, understanding of what your role is, and... a good tank or a solo run is your best defense.
<remainder of post snipped as it was specific to pvp>
others have mentioned that scraps get a 500% damage cap. how is that such a relevant issue? +3 SO's take you to 230%. HO's take you to 300%. although I have no doubt it's possible, I would like to know how often it comes up that you can get an extra 170% damage or even 100% damage (for HO's) to make this worth mentioning.
remember I started this post commenting that I'm scrapper-preferenced? I am. scraps are my fav AT due to personality and style. often in teams, I felt that I was unnecessary because blasters were tearing things to shreds before I could even attack them. then i3 came along and tanks were then one-shotting +2's as my attack was going through it's animation - my strongest attack that would need to be followed up with another decent damage attack just to defeat that mob... and that same tank then laughs in the face of the 3 dozen mobs that would have torn me apart. maybe I'm a little bit biased about these issues since I don't have these problems with my own blaster. but, being "overshadowed" by the "more specialized tanks and blasters" sent my scrapper into solo mode for about 20 or so levels, coming out only to run respecs and eden trials cause I find them incredibly fun. I have little sympathy for blasters cause the smart blasters I've teamed with rarely die. those that get impatient and start shooting while the team is recovering or before the tank runs up die... and often get the other squishies killed in the deal.
I've played all the AT's and so far enjoy teaming with everything except energy blasters - even them, I can tolerate while playing certain toons that don't need mobs grouped & stationary. when I build a team with my tank, I get a def & as many blasters as I can. when I build a team with my scrap, I avoid blasters cause I don't like feeling useless. building a team with def or cont, I pick up a tank & scrap (letting him feel useless) and a few blasters. when I'm not in the mood to deal with ... a certain mindset likely to be found in blasters ... I pick up a group of all scraps, defs, and conts.
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all pvp arguments aside (discussing pve only), I notice your toon list includes a fire/* blaster. mine is fire/fire. although I do choose to leap into melee when safe, I really don't need to. with a good tank, I'm perfectly confident standing back & spamming fire breath & fire ball. against +2's, I don't need the tank - hitting build-up & then the above combo will take all the minions down, then the addition of a blaze will take down a lt. I haven't seen a scrapper that can do that as quickly. safer, yes. quickly, no. fire is an extreme example but all the primaries have ae's.
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Build-up Wade in walking wtih Quills going, Hit Spine Burst, then jump back and throw spines and add ripper for added fun. Bam, mobs dead. Almost as fast Fire and completely safe while doing it. It doesn't matter if the tank holds agro or not.
As a blaster and as a scrapper, scrappers have it much better than blasters. Especially when you look at damage done over minutes instead of seconds. Will your Fire blaster out DPS a Spines Scrapper in a mission solo or teamed? Didn't think so.
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I haven't played a blaster for a long time, but I completely agree that their damage needs to be upped significantly, specifically at the higher levels.
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An increase in damage doesn't stop you from being disoriented/slept/held/immobilized. It doesn't stop you from being swamped so long as you can't distribute the damage to the individual targets faster than a certain rate (that given the lessons of the past isn't likely to occur).
I fail to see the fascination with damage in terms of fixing Blasters. Damage wasn't decreased on their part on the road to breaking them, why would damage being upped be the fix?
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