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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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I say this because giving blasters any significant defenses would be unbalancing...so I see 2 possibilities:
1. Increase blaster base damage at the higher levels on an accelerated scale (i.e. damage scales much higher per level after a certain level). Again, this follows the best defense=good offense argument.
2. Give blasters some defenses (perhaps embedded in their existing secondary powersets, or perhaps new powers altogether), roughly equivalent to 30-50% of scrapper defenses.
I'm a big fan of making blasters attacks really, really powerful. It makes them more comic-booky/hero-ey. I want to see huge explosions and enemies flying everywhere. Remember that this is coming from someone who doesn't play a blaster...I think you guys deserve much better, and I really hope you get it.
I'm a relatively new player, so I thought I'd offer a perspective on that as it relates to blasters. Please take this as a perspective and not a demand.
As to my MMOG experience, I usually like to play the more 'subtle' solo-capable classes. I rarely like to get in and tank. I prefer to send in a pet, kite mobs around, or snipe from a distance.
Accordingly, my first character was an rifle/ice blaster. Due to complete inexperience with power selection and slot selection, she ran out of hunting places PDQ. She couldn't take out a 'typical' group of 3 blues at 12. Mind you, this was with dropped and self-earned enhancements.
I then made an electric/ice blaster. I did a little better with her, but still faced a serious problem of that she could only barely handle a typical group of 3 even cons, let alone the larger groups in hazard zones. Leiutenants and bosses killed her every time, even when she kited her little heart out. I tried her in a few groups, but ran into the problem that, even being very, very frugal with the amount of damage I tried to dish out, she died very quickly. She accumulated a lot of debt, gained little in the way of experience, and the groups she got into broke up when she ran out of self-rezes. Again, this is with self-bought enhancements.
I deleted my devices blaster and rerolled her as a devices/fire blaster. I followed guides to try to find a 'soloable' build out. She could reasonably solo even cons in missions. Hazard zones were undoable unless all the stuff was green. Lieutentants/Bosses had about an even chance to kill her. This was with fairly resonable kiting and careful adherance to 'Best Build' guides.
Then someone gave her a bunch of influence. She was able to buy all DO enhancements. This raised her abilities so she could reasonably survive blue groups in hazard zones. She'd survive maybe 1 white-con lieutenant with the group if it had one. In missions, it translated to being able to do 2 out of 3 with judicious kiting, resting, and careful strategy. She got high enough level that she started encountering mezzers like madness mages and tesla knights. Assuming she was still in blast range, that was pretty much it for her before a death.
Then I changed servers and made a spines/regen scrapper. I made him to be a porcupine type with relatively few buttons to click, since I'm not so good at tanking, and then read that the spines/regen build was relatively powerful.
He could, from the get go, tank any given even con group with dropped enhancements and a fairly careful (but not following a guide) build. In groups with lieutenants or bosses, he holds his own. He only starts getting in trouble if there are a huge number of yellow cons, or there are more than one boss in a group of otherwise white cons. Mezzers are no problem for him, since they only drop his toggles. He takes a hit and is woken up almost immediately after being mezzed and can get his few toggle powers up again almost right away. Against anything lower than whites, his toggles aren't necessary.
Then he got given a bunch of influence, and was able to buy all DOs. This meant that he could reasonably attack groups of yellows with two orange bosses.
On the same server, I decided to make a gravity controller, but abandoned him quickly. I rapidly discovered that wasn't my cup of tea, either.
I made an energy/energy blaster and am enjoying her, but playing her almost solely in missions. No hazard zones for her! At 20, her melee powers seem pretty useless to me, with one or two exceptions of knockback attacks. Why would a range character want to melee if not a last-ditch move to avoid damage?
She's extremely more challenging than my scrapper was, but so far hasn't hit an 'untenable' point where she can't advance any more like the other blasters did.
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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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True, but a dead target (err...Arrested target) is not going to mez you. The faster we can take down the baddies, the less likely we are going to be hit by mez attacks.
Now, its hard to take down a group of mezzers, but if we could do enough damage in an alpha attack to take down the mezzers and maybe a few others, I feel that we might stand a better chance. Nothing worse than doing you big alpha and having a sliver of life left on the mobs and realizing you miscalculated your damage that tiny bit.
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With all do respect Statesman, the last time you posted about looking at Blasters, you said Controllers were in front of us - that's fine. However, now you're saying that Scrappers and Tankers are in front also? When exactly are the Devs going to actually take a look at Blasters? It seems we've had issues for quite some time, yet are being pushed to the back of the line in (terms of fixes) constantly.
I'm huge supporter of the Devs in most cases, but this and you're previous statements in the "Ask Statesman" thread are rather disturbing.
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as a blaster and a controller, I would like to point out that while the controllers were asked "what would you like to see changed" the changes that were given to us, um, by and large (not all of them) did not address the concerns we listed, and the concerns the changes have brought up have gone unanswered by dev's, plus we clearly are not going to get a free respec to fix them.
meanwhile the Blasters are getting no love and the tanks and scraps are getting squeaky wheel greased all they want, to the nerf and detriment of other AT's
(not pointing fingers at scraps and tank, but rather raising the question of "If dev's are going to bend over backwards for 2 AT's only, then what's the point of posting on any other?" things were wrong with tankers and scrappers, you guys spoke up, and got fixed (or at least the old college try at a fix, not sure where you guys all stand on your respective issues now) yet when the blasters and controllers stand up and say "This ain't working out well" we get told "Blasters, maybe someday" and "Controllers, here's the changes we are forcing on you regardless of what you asked for" followed by dead silence...
grrrr
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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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interesting point, but I call hybrid on it. there seems to be a hybrid primary amongst all the AT's. spines is the hybrid blaster. slightly weaker single target damage, but incredible ae ability. in fact, I have one. my spines/da can certainly tear through mobs with build-up quills, death shroud, spine burst, and throw spines. and yes, she's far safer than my blaster with no tank needed. I know I can pull that off an almost as quick kill on +1's with the spiney. however, with build up on fire breath & fireball, the kill is far quicker on all +2 minions. I don't run herostats, but merely by feeling I still have a sense of damage inferiority when I team that particular toon with good ae blasters. it's a great team, though. 
solo, my fire blaster certainly won't out-dps a spiney or... possibly *any* scrapper in a mission. mob count is too low. and there's the tactics factor. I'm squishier as a blaster, I have to be more careful. in a team setting? with enough mobs, definitely yes. since you're using throw spines (the 9th tier power of spines), why not toss inferno into the comparison? in a team, the downtime from end lost & re-toggling defenses (yes, a blaster with defenses pre-epics) is very minimal and the danger is... shall we say arrested? heck, with a tank I've even infernoed purples that didn't die and lived to tell.
but, as my post right above this & below yours implies... scrappers are self-sufficient one-man teams. I will admit a spines scrap would almost certainly outdamage non-fire blasters, but that's a comment out of ignorance (played all the scrap primaries, only one blaster primary) in a team setting due to ae & mob count.
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I would not mind it, but I know some people love the melee attacks.
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(Looks around while clutching a basket of melee goodness) YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM! DON'T TAKE AWAY MY MELEE!
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The faster you take away my frozen fists, the better for me.
Honestly, 2 blaster secondaries really need a look at:
Fire
Ice
I posted in statesman last thread in this forum about the problems with Ice secondary and also several options that I thought could impove it. I wont get into that now again, but the main problem is that the melee attacks in this set dont deal as much damage as lets say energy or electricity. This doesnt really make them worthwhile in my opinion. Also, look at the powers!!! Most come from Tankers secondaries and Primaries! Opposite AT.
We really dont have a purpose after lvl 35. Controllers, Scrappers and even tankers can easily outdamage us. I wanna feel needed in a team.
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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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Please, Statesman, BY ALL MEANS, feel free to look at Blasters now. I think I can speak on behalf of the ENTIRE Scrapper community when I say we're *pleased* to let our Blaster bretheren take our place in line.
They want your attention now, and we wouldn't want to get in the way.
Go. SHOO!
Being both an En/En and AR/Dev blaster myself (on 2 toons, of course), I'd like to see the following for blasters:
1. Eliminate the 400/500% disparity. Scrappers have enough other stuff going for them that Blasters don't.
2. Do something about "ranged aggro = instant death", perhaps by decreasing the amount of aggro with a greater amount of distance. We do need some aggro, for pulling, but to have a single shot trigger a mass eruption of every villain and their mothers in a mile radius is just silly.
3. Blasters need defense that scales with range, including against status effects. Stateman's comments imply that the advantage of being a blaster is range: okay, then give us that advantage -- even to status effects. If a CoT behemoth cannot shoot me from over 120' away, then the CoT mage standing next to him should NOT be able to mez me, either. If I'm within the range of those CoT at 100', there should be an accuracy check for both their elemental and status attacks. But the odds of their attacks landing/affecting me should increase as I get closer to them.
4. Sniper attacks should be aggro-free, or have a very small aggro radius. They're sniper attacks, after all: they're supposed to be stealthy, quick, deadly, and hard to isolate. If I snipe a guy, he should go down quietly, and if not, he should start looking around like "[censored]?" He should NOT be making a bee-line straight to me.
5. More hit points would be nice. But I'm not entirely sure it would be necessary if we take care of items 1-4, above.
Let's not mess with the Blaster secondaries, or at least not Energy and Devices: I like them just the way they are, thanks. Besides, monkeying with power sets seems riskier than what I've suggested above.
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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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And your point is....?
Just a few things I want to hit on really quickly:
(
[/ QUOTE ]1) You're all focusing on the damage cap, and forgetting that we have the AoE advantage. I can obliterate a group of 10 or so +2 minions in less than 10 seconds, any Lt's will be down next with a shot or two, which leaves the boss - melee range can be avoided easily for the most part, and yeah sure they're more dangerous to us than to scrappers, plus there are the mezzes but it's part of the game, if there were no danger it wouldn't be fun.
(2) Can scrappers take on many more mobs and in some cases higher levels, sure, but it'll take 'em several times longer to kill them, while we move on to the next crowd.
(3) The suggestion to implement the 30%-dmg-not-resistant in PvE is ridiculous - we'll be back to the days of "City of Blasters" when everyone complained how fast blasters kill everything and how they don't need anyone else for support and we'll just get nerfed again.
(4) Is there a perfect balance between ATs (or even just blasters and scrappers)? Of course not, and never will be, it's impossible. Are there some blaster powerset or some particular powers that need a bit of help? Yeah, probably. Is the Blaster AT horribly unbalanced, gimped or whatever? Heck no! As it stands right now, the Blaster AT is as close to good balance as it can realisticly get, at least in PvE, in PvP there's some work to be done but we're still better off than Defenders or Scrappers (<-- powerful but horribly unbalanced).
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(1) That might be true for whatever blaster you play. I'm assuming it's either Fire/Arsenal. My AoE and cone in the Energy set won't do enough damage to even level minions to get them barely below half their health. That is with me slotting 1 Acc and 5 Dmg. if I pop Build Up and Aim I might get them to a 1/4 of their health. Only 2 of the 5 Blaster sets are AoE kings. I really wish people would remember that. Not all blasters play Fire/Arsenal.
(2) That also depends on what Blaster vs Scrapper set you pit against each other. Single target blasters do not have the AoE capability that Fire/Arsenal does. When you fcator in Scrapper Critical hits and their ability to defend themselves better, they move faster than 3 of the 5 Blaster sets.
(3) There were no nerfs to blasters ever. Just fixes to ridiculously overpowered Secondary Powers that threw any balance out the window. Caltrops was fixed early on. Remember, right after launch when it would immobolize targets and not slow. And Smoke Genade was fixed, not nerfed. There's a different between an intended 5% Acc debuff and a 50% one. Back then it was a City of Fire/Ar/Dev blasters. When Smoke Grenade was fixed the Devices Secondary was balanced out.
(4) The Blasters sets are not close to a good balance in PvE. Blasters are the only AT I feel with Secondaries that are for the most part ridiculous and offer little to no synergy with the primary sets.
As Blasters we're told to stay out of melee range but all of our Secondaries contain melee powers. It's almost like telling a Controller that his/her job is to control but then have Secondary power sets that negate status effects.
Most Blasters have learned to become "Blappers" to survive. I had to. Total Focus is my most devestating single target attack. That's a shame when a Secondary is more powerful then any of your single target blasts.
I do agree that there will never be perfect balance between ATs. I understand that and I accept it. I don't think it's fair to have the tag "Damage King" when it doesn't apply to more then half the AT.
States has said that Scrappers have the higher damage cap because they are in melee range. Ok. That's nice but they also have: A fair amount of HP, HP Augmenting Secondaries, Critical Hits and Defensive Secondaries. And what do we have? A lvl 32 power that does extreme damage but leaves us for the most part drained of end and detoggled. And for 3 of the 5 Blaster sets it's PBAoE so you HAVE to be in melee range to use the power.
We also have varying ranges within our powersets as well. Flares and Fire Blast for example have two different firing ranges. That goes back to the whole "our most damaging powers" require us to be in close range. Maybe not melee range but close enough for villains to close in on us.
Blasters damage should scale up better then it does now. Toss in a few clickable defense powers. Rework the Secondaries and we could better then we are now without being overpowered. If a Scrapper can get a critical hit with his Laser Eye Beams, why can't a Blaster?
The 400% / 500% thing is the cap when all bonuses are calculated... For instance, a good Fulcrum Shift can slam you against the cap easily. Also, if you have things like assault, fortitude and all those other toggles running, plus build-up and aim.
I think the whole thing that's out of whack with blasters is that toward the end game, the ranged attacks of enemies are no longer trivial.
A blaster fighting nemesis who isn't careful will die almost instantaneously when they respond together with an alpha-strike. I've seen SO MANY die that way. Hell, my blaster dies sometimes without firing a shot... just standing too close to the bleedin fire tank when he aggros and twenty explosive bullets go off.
This is of course tied in to the solo / team issue which has been done to death, but one thing is fact... to make the game harder toward the end, the nature of the enemies change.
Tankers and scrappers by their nature get TOUGHER throughout their lives. Scrappers resist more and do more damage. Tankers well... okay they are just tough.
Blaster damage does go up, but the enemy's ability to dish out harm far exceeds the blaster's ability to deal with it. Lets face it... because of their resistance and defenses most scrappers are at NO risk in situations that are guaranteed death for a blaster. So, I would argue that it is the essentially defenseless blaster who generates aggro with every attack who is constantly at extreme risk whether at range or in melee...
Toward the end game, if blasters must function with tissue paper defenses, then they have to be able to kill the enemy before they themselves are killed...
My take is that blasters should just get ranged +DEF that goes up with level. If they get into melee... well, that's their risk. However, I find far too many blaster attacks (Primary and Secondary) function at point blank range where the rooting makes it a certainty if you fail to knock the enemy back you are going to get clobbered. Increased knock back is not the answer, because tanks already get annoyed enough as it is... especially with the energy blasters who toss enemies around like rag dolls... 
I'd like to see the damage on sniper attacks be increased dramatically. They have a HUGE interupt time, can be interupted by a stiff breeze, and might take half the HPs of a mob at higher levels. They should utterly obliterate a minion and leave an LT with maybe 25% left.
Then again, I'd love to see a 10th power that is one of those massive single wide line beam type shots that hits everything in it's path. 
Rathstar, I rather like 1, 2, and 4.
The fourth in particular has always been pretty funny, in a sad way...balance dictates it shouldn't generate zeroaggro, but at best they should only have a vague idea of where the shot came from until you fire a second shot. When a villian can locate a sniper to within a one-foot radius from a hundred yards away, well...can we recruit him?
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With all do respect Statesman, the last time you posted about looking at Blasters, you said Controllers were in front of us - that's fine. However, now you're saying that Scrappers and Tankers are in front also?
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I suspect that scrappers and tankers are in the nerf bat line, as opposed to the buff line.
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1. Eliminate the 400/500% disparity. Scrappers have enough other stuff going for them that Blasters don't.
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the grass is greener... as a scrapper, I was thrilled to hear about this change & crits. I initially thought, "yay! now I can come close to blaster damage." then I thought, "how the bloody heck am I going to get another 300% damage buff on top of my SO's?" this might actually be a teaming incentive. aside from possibly dm's or a tray full of dmg insps... how does a scrapper achieve this without fulcrum shift or some such? or are my numbers off?
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3. Blasters need defense that scales with range, including against status effects. Stateman's comments imply that the advantage of being a blaster is range: okay, then give us that advantage -- even to status effects. If a CoT behemoth cannot shoot me from over 120' away, then the CoT mage standing next to him should NOT be able to mez me, either. If I'm within the range of those CoT at 100', there should be an accuracy check for both their elemental and status attacks. But the odds of their attacks landing/affecting me should increase as I get closer to them.
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this is one of the more intelligent posts I've seen on here, with the exception of the gentle(wo)man that responded to my first on this board. perhaps not a status "resistance" based on range, but how about just a scaled defense based on range? so that both the capo or the mentalist you just blasted from 80' away either hits or misses, with all detrimental side effects based on that. this would give blasters an actual reward for staying out of melee and being... blasters. combined with the suggestion of less agro posted all through the boards, let agro also scale with range.
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4. Sniper attacks should be aggro-free, or have a very small aggro radius. They're sniper attacks, after all: they're supposed to be stealthy, quick, deadly, and hard to isolate. If I snipe a guy, he should go down quietly, and if not, he should start looking around like "[censored]?" He should NOT be making a bee-line straight to me.
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very nice. give the mobs that same sense of "omgomgomg!" that players sometimes feel upon being sniped. that hair-raising, "wth? where is it? where is it? ouch! stop it!"
not entirely agro-free 100% of the time, but a good enough chance that one snipe or really long range attack might not bring the whole family would also reward ranged blasting.
and seeing a villain whip around looking for you would be worthwhile just for comic value.
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This is what I would like to see happen to blasters.
1. Impliment PvP damage resist bypass in PvE.
2. Increase the range of all primary powers to be greater than the Diameter of Foot Stomp. Greater.
3. Take all PbAoE status effects and toggles in Blaster Secondaries and make them summonable drops or target toggles. Other than cloaking device of course.
4. Make all current melee attacks have a range of 20 feet, either by changing the animations or just letting them have the range. Increase the damage on Melee AoE attack powers again.
5. (stolen idea) Give each single target attack a -10% res that lasts 5 seconds. This not only helps boost the blasters damage a minute amount but also allows the blaster to help a team. Thus encouraging teaming.
6. Swap the damage caps of blasters and scrappers.
7. Remove the rooting effect from blaster attacks.
8. Faster activation times on powers for blasters.
9. Making level 32 nukes into more useable AoE powers like Head Splitter or Full-Auto and less situational all end consuming powers.
Just my thoughts on where I would like blasters to go.
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I totally agree with the highlighted points. Most 'long' range attacks can be outranged by bad guys' submachine guns and we should definitely be able to "Run 'n' Gun".
So let me get this right.
Scrappers get 500% cap because there are in melee and take more risk. Yet they get 80% defence of Tanks too? Sounds fishy to me.
I really wish the range argument would stop being touted as defence. The AI of mob is to stand around till some one wacks them. You dont' have to be a blaster to get first shot, or run around a conner to heal. That and our real heavy hitting powers have little range at all.
Scrapper do more damage in a team setting 45+, barring 32 powers like full auto/nova/inferno. This ofcouse assuming the blaster isn't caught in an AoE mez of some type.
I log in my blaster almost every night. I'm getting a little tired of being told something, then being told that they need to test it further.
Sates is right on the money with further test with scrappers and tanks. No matter how much I don't like whats being said, the right things are at least getting done.
Scrappers getting a higher damage cap due to their being "at risk" for being in melee is absolutely absurd.
I'd like to know what scrapper feels at risk in melee. My invuln scrapper sure as hell doesnt.
And oh wait, whats this? Scrappers can get bonuses from their melee, indirectly or directly. Soul drain, Invincibility, Soul Consumption, Dark Regeneration, Cloak of Fear. Not to mention the fact that certain powers are better suited for melee types in the first place. Transfusion, Transferance, FULCRUM SHIFT!!!! The power that lets scrappers exploit their 500% cap :OOOO
Anyone arguing about AoE on blasters can shove it. Elec/Energy/Ice gets crap for AoE.
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Are people not getting yet that Blasters are supposed to be the black mage class?
They're very useful and skilled players and allies, but they're not the kings of 1v1..contrary to popular belief. Just because their archetype is at the top of the list does not make them the 'knight' 'all around' character, for those of you who havent noticed.. it's just going in alphabetical order..
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I don't know if anything will be changing in FF XII, but for all the other games I've played, even FF XI, the black mage far out damaged any other class in return for being so weak in most every other aspect. Using this comparison, blasters got the weak part right, but aren't quite up to par on the damage scale.
I'm one of those "I played a blaster to level 10 so I know what I'm talking about guys" flavored scrappers. Just thought I'd chime in here with my theory on how the blaster/scrapper/tank triangle should function.
Scrappers have very good offense and defense. Nobody, however, should dispute that Tanks have a much, much better defense than scrappers. Poorly designed end game content aside, Tanks withstand damage that is orders of magnitude higher than a scrapper can take. That is how Scrapper/Blaster damage should relate. Blasters should be easily pumping out way, way more damage than a scrapper.
If the devs feal that much damage is overpowering, then Blasters should have enough utility powers and defense in order effectively use the damage they have now.
Oh, and a 500% cap for scrappers is a bit silly.
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
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meanwhile the Blasters are getting no love and the tanks and scraps are getting squeaky wheel greased all they want, to the nerf and detriment of other AT's
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To be fair, Statesman said he wants to use tankers and scrappers to set the baseline. It seems to me that defenses are likely to get adjusted soon to make that work, and I suspect that means we're going to mostly see reductions to bring tankers and scrappers in line with what he wants for the game.
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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Yet they get 80% defence of Tanks too? Sounds fishy to me.
[/ QUOTE ] Probably fishy because they actually get 25% of a tank's defensive ability (by an optimistic count). However, Tanker defense is so ridiculously high that 25% is still more than enough to survive a dozen attackers.
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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.
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Foes do 2-3x more damage in melee? A scrapper is perhaps 7 times more survivable than a blaster at 40+, even when not facing status effects.
Scrappers are worse off against AVs with strong PBAoE attacks, but several blaster attacks cant be used from safe distance either (some monsters have footstomp range greater than power burst range).
I suggest an inherent toggle with boss level status protection from lvl 35 for all.
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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.
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Hehe, Eng/Illu 
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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.
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scrappers are also noted to be the best (with some exceptions) solo builds. it's ironic that blasters are envious of scrapper defenses while I, a scrapper by personality, am envious of the damage you dish out. this "risk" that blasters face is admittedly *far* greater than that faced by scraps... which is *FAR, FAR* greater than that faced by tanks.
my opinions may also be biased by the fact that I tend to run my blaster with tanks and I check the tanks for taunt and... ! ... if I feel at risk, often wait until I see a taunt go off to then decimate the group which the tank so kindly gathered for me. if they're not dead, the scrapper with his puny ae attack or the tank with his barely punier ae attack can finish them off.