Someone mentioned that Blasters suffer from inconsistant Powersets within the AT itself. I'm not entirely sure I agree with that but I will say the Minuses in many of them are Now worse than the Minuses that us DA Scrappers have compared to the "Scrapper average" somehwere around within the other 3 Scrapper secondaries For example ,for Blasters in each Primary/Secondary I can think of:
-AR's: Entirely lethal damage which is what most Scrappers do too and also Resisted by a large amount of "Thuggish" Mobs. An AR can never shine when there's a Scrapper on their Team too.
-Fire Blast: Aggro Magnet which in Late Game means they get Perma-Held
-Ice Blast: Blizzard's DoT is based on Area instead of being a NORMAL DoT that stays on the Mob nomatter where the Mob runs.
-Energy Blast: Basically what Storm Defenders would be if they had Real Damage and a Primary/Secondary system that somehow resembled Synergy *Tries imagining a Storm/Energy Defender ... Head feels like it's going to Explode*
-Electric Blast: The Most Scandalous Black-Eye on the Dev's Reputations to date: This set has always had crappy Damage because it was expected to Dominate in PvP. ...But now that PvP is here, Endurance Drain is Nerfed to 25% Per a Last-Minute rule. PvP DID effect PvE NEGATIVELY...Devs should be beaten with rubber hoses for breaking that unwritten law.
-Devices: Mines are exploited while the rest of the set can't even begin to compare
++Energy Manip: Very good synergy, Total Focus and Conserve power Pwnz ... Pretty much the only Blaster set I can't find serious fault with
-Fire Manip: It beats out DarkArmor and Controller/StormSummoning in order to Tie with WarMace for Worst secondary in the Game. Only one thing is needed to make it worthwhile, and that's add several Status Resistances to it.
-Electrical Manip: 4 Melee Attacks. Personally I love that, most Blappers do infact. ...Unfortunately those Melee Attacks are completely unreliable for their Debuffs and Statuseffects. ...Melee is enough of a Gamble for any Blaster, why are electric's Melee attacks a Gamble too? Also Needs to Synergize with it's Primary better.
-Ice Manip: Lacks the consistant Melee damage of electrical and suffers from the same lack-of-control problems also making it nearly as bad of a gamble in Melee range as Fire Manip is. ..Needs to synergize with it's Primary Better
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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
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Pseudotron, some of those powers aren't really as good as you think they are.
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I've used all of the scrapper powers I've mentioned. Dark armor, DM, and Invuln. I know what I'm talking about.
I would like to point out that Statesman, that Blasters are more than capable of hitting their head on thier own damage cap. With ++SO's, Build Up, and Assault you can easily reach that cap and still have Aim left over for more damage. Damage Insperations and Teammate Buffs become superficial after that. Raising the damage cap would give blasters more headroom that they need. Its unfair to have the capability to exceed your own damage cap by your own inate powers and yet be limited by such a boundry. I also think other ATs capable of buffing teammates would appreciate it if we could use the buffs we recieve to there fullest extent.
I should also point out that many mobs that did not have ranged attacks now do after Issue 3 and that mob range at high levels exceeds typical blaster range.
Finally, some builds have more melee attacks or near-melee attacks than they do basic ranged attacks. This is even further compounded by the fact that you can pick up more melee attacks from Power Pools. A couple melee attacks for a ranged blaster are good. Having too many means your not a ranged blaster, your a scrapper without defenses.
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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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hehe... a little excited there? to answer your question, well... my regen gets a little concerned in melee. rather often. before you laugh, I don't have a cookie-cutter tough/weave build. and if anyone suggests that might be the reason, then might that also be the reason your blaster doesn't die? mine has tough, stealth (since stealth provides ... well, stealth ... and a higher defense than weave to blasters), cj and acrobatics and is *rarely* in debt, why doesn't the other blaster that complains about debt? so, to answer your question, non-invuln non-cookie-cutter scraps still face risk. depending on the team make-up, my scrap will face far more risk than my blaster. the reason is simple. I pick my targets and kill what I pick. (btw, your invuln is quite simply *very* powerful once invincibility gets tossed in the mix).
certain powers are better suited for melee toons. certain powers are better suited for ranged. healing aura from emps and rads is better for ranged so the def doesn't have to run into the group & get ae'd. same with dark def heal. siphon power is better for the ranged, assuming the kin avoids the melee also. isn't the fs buff also centered on the kin?
the ae argument is still valid. energy has 2 ae's, one with a higher brawl index than the standard 8' radius scrap ae and one with a lower. these are both much larger areas than the scrap ae. not as heavy as fire, but it's there. energy also has knockback and is probably the most solo-friendly set.
elec & ice are both hybrids. elec still has one ae with a higher brawl index than the scrap ae & larger radius. elec also has a hold, a pet, and a severe end drain ... a power which I've had elec blasters tell me lets them solo anchored missions with easy. ice is lower damage but has control. (psst... that means don't play this set if you just want to do damage damage damage).
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(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.
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Sorry, but I find that statement ridiculous. How many mobs in general have a strong resistance to every type of damage in the game? I know Sappers have Eng resistance, some CoT have Fire I believe, I'd guess Crey have varied etc. But almost nothing is to the degree of a Tanker. And since PvP is the obvious source of this, I haven't seen Tankers being mowed down by blasters even with the bonus.
So I really can't see this bonus being applied to PvE making that much of a difference for the avg. fight. Sure, in specific match-ups it might help, but overall it won't make a large difference imo. It will certainly not bring about a "city of blasters" with hordes of heroes mowing down mobs by the truck-load.
Here is my problem with the range statement. My range as a blaster is LESS than most of the range of the villians. They can shoot me from far away but I must move closer to hit them. I have an NRG/NRG blaster with boost range and to me that should mean I can shoot most think from really far away.. not so.. it more or less serves to balance the distances. Now what about blasters that DONT have boost range.. They get shot.
I do think defenses should be boosted a little since blasters can wind up drawing a lot of aggro. I would also like to see built in resistances in secondaries.. Make the fire blaster less vulnerable to fire and cold. Same with the Ice Blaster. Make the Electricty take less damage for Electricity and Energy.. Make the NRG resistant to NRG and Smashing..
Also the reality is that most of the secondaries DO NOT help a ranged character. Devices and NRG are ok but Fire.. ugh.. I would hate to be a fire/fire blaster..
The Blaster AT does get ignored post 35.. I have a hard time getting on teams. I also hate being mezzed by everything under the sun.. that sucks royally. I dont expect to get defense vs that but do SOOOOOOOOOOO many villans have to have so many effect like that ???
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
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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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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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1. Open mouth
2. Insert foot
3. Check the internal servers to see if devs are playing the same game...again.
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
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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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Nice work!!!!
I think the problem may be in the numbers. By that I mean, word on the street is that <quote>Blasters Suck<quote>. Hence, the majority of new players have created melee characters. So.....they have to pay attention to the masses. Do I agree? No way...I'm on your side dude. But it's obvious where their priorities are at...
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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
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Pseudotron, some of those powers aren't really as good as you think they are.
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I've used all of the scrapper powers I've mentioned. Dark armor, DM, and Invuln. I know what I'm talking about.
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All right then, you're deliberately exaggerating.
Dark Consumption is nice - /Fire blasters get something much like it, I believe.
Soul Drain is good, but it's just not going to cap your damage consistently. Most of the time I use it, I get maybe +37%, which balances it with build up.
Cloak of Fear is a nice power, but given that it's in Dark Armor, all it does is make DA competitive (while sucking its endurance down faster than everything else). It's by far not the great power you're making it out to be - and it's getting nerfed. Dark Regeneration has a base end cost of half your total endurance.
Invincibility and Soul Drain are the two best powers you list that are exclusive to scrappers...well, except Soul Drain is available to Defenders and Warshades, and the latter can double stack it with Dwarf Form, but who's counting? It's scrappers who are the villains in this piece, right?
Also, please feel free to notice that I have a DM/DA to 50, so I have direct experience with most of the powers in your list.
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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Some might argue that this can be mitigated by using say fly/hover. Two issues: 1. If you get mezzed, you drop into melee range, and 2. I understood that it was never intended to steer particular builds (even Hasten and Stamina) for playability.
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Have you ever noticed that when mobs with hover/flight get mezzed they rarely if ever drop to the ground, yet you always do? In fact, if its a mez like stun they can still move at flight speed and jump instead of walking drunkenly, or encased in a block of ice hanging mysteriously in mid-air. I would really like to have some good insight into this descrepancy, especially since have the reason to mez something might be to get it on the ground for the rest of the team to clobber.
Blasters are fragile throughout their career. The MAIN reason 35+ feels so fragile is because blasters have zero status protection and 35+ is full of status effects. We spend 35 levels learning when to run, only to not be able to run when it hits the fan way more than half the time after 35.
The secondary reason that blasters feel so fragile after 35 is because grouping becomes an absolute necessity, and the groups are bigger. Why does this matter? Two wors. Aggro Management. Solo, or in small groups, aggro management isn't too difficult. But the larger number of mobs post 35 mean a blaster has two choices. Only do between 1/3 and 2/3 of normal damage (depending on powerset) by sticking to single target attacks, or take the risk of the aggro and hope the tank is REALLY amazing. It doesn't seem to matter how long you let the tank build aggro, one AoE and they all head for the blaster 
So add some type of mez protection, and decrease aggro from secondary AoE targets. That's my suggestions.
Scrappers have a higher damage cap of 500% because they are involved in melee but some scrappers (spines for instance) also have ranged attacks. Conversely, the blaster secondaries have a lot of melee range powers, not to mention Nova and Inferno which are point blank range primary powers. Why not make Blasters and Scrappers have the same damage cap but ranged attacks have a lower cap than melee attacks? So make Blaster Ranged and Scrapper Ranged attacks capped at 400% whereas Blaster Melee and Scrapper Melee are capped at 500%. This makes more sense because melee is much more dangerous for Blasters than it is for Scrappers and makes the situation more safe for a Blaster to rush in and use a quick melee or use a melee attack in defense when a mob gets to close. It might also make sense to have more Blaster secondary melee have a status effect for that reason (defense). For instance, make Fire Sword and Fire Sword Circle and maybe Combustion (debatable) have a chance to disorient who they hit.
Consume is very good by the way but it's one of the few really good powers in fire secondary. I have three attacks from my fire secondary. Consume, Build Up and Ring of Fire. Tried some of the rest and respeced them out at some point as they weren't worth it or weren't worth the risk.
[moved to a more relevant place]
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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.
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Funny, sounds like Blasters, the "long unpaid attention". Oh wait, that's what we're supposedly posting here about.
Don't even give me word one about Defenders not getting any love. Defenders have problem powersets. Blasters have AT-wide problems. I play a Dark/Eng Defender as an alt. We have NO problems as Defenders that compare with Blasters as a whole.
You want to talk about Empathy/FF needing more solo love, sure. You want to talk about Storm needing PvE work, sure. But don't give me word one about Defenders being ignored. Heck, I'm having trouble figuring which GOOD powers to fit into Dark Miasma, the more so with Tar Patch changing on Test.
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-Electric Blast: The Most Scandalous Black-Eye on the Dev's Reputations to date: This set has always had crappy Damage because it was expected to Dominate in PvP. ...But now that PvP is here, Endurance Drain is Nerfed to 25% Per a Last-Minute rule. PvP DID effect PvE NEGATIVELY...Devs should be beaten with rubber hoses for breaking that unwritten law.
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Quite right!
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-Devices: Mines are exploited while the rest of the set can't even begin to compare
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ROFL Yeah right.
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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.
[/ QUOTE ]Hilaroius.
I think you forgot..
10. Give Blasters better mez protection than scrappers
11. Give Blasters more HP's than tankers.
12. Make blaseters resist all defender debuff powers.
13. Let Defender buffs count double for blasters.
14. Reduce all endurance usage by blasters attacks by half.
15. Give blasters inherent resistence to dmg at lvl 1
16. Make Hover as fast as fly and Flight as fast as Super Speed for blasters only.
17. Make blasters immune to Taunt.
18. Remove aggro from AoE attacks.
19. <reserved for other completely balanced and reasonable requests>
The benefits of range decrease to nothing as Blaster rise in levels, as has been stated over, and over, and over again.
The secret to making blasters viable in groups does not lie in upping damage, getting status protection or getting control powers. It lies in aggro generation.
Blasters generate too much aggro...too much for tanks to compensate for. Scrappers do not generate much aggro at all, even though they can dish out and take more damage than blasters. Who would you rather go for? The whirling mass of death standing in front of you, or the squishy in the back trying to act as fire support. I know who SHOULD be getting more attention, but the mobs behave otherwise and that is the problem.
Personal experience time here. Had my 34 Kat/Regen on a Manticore TF, teaming with my housemate who had a 34 Inv/SS tank built for taking and holding aggro. Three blasters were on the team, as well as a Stone/Stone tank and two other scrappers making a full eight-hero group.
Every fight we started the blasters faceplanted. Every single fight. I KNOW how my friend plays, and he never loses aggro, but in this case he could not keep it. And there were TWO tanks in there and everyone waited for them to secure aggro. The blasters were invariably defeated within 10-20 seconds. Everyone else survived easily. The blasters were reduced to making group kamakazi attacks with Novas just to be able to do enough damage to alpha the group, and they still died. My scrapper on the other hand, never EVER had an issue. I was fighting reds and purples, indiscriminately using my AOE attack with buildup and only using Integration(3 slotted) because I was just not taking enough damage to justify IH.
Only one blaster remained at the end of the TF and he was at the debt cap. I was three bars into 35 with no debt (I went down once during the entire TF). In essence the Blasters were ranged one-hit tanks, making minimal contribution to the team. Is this what we are meant to be as an AT?
TAKE A LONG HARD LOOK AT ALL BLASTER PRIMARY POWERS AND REDUCE THE AGGRO GENERATED BY THESE POWERS TO EIGHTY PERCENT OF THE AGGRO A SCRAPPER CAN GENERATE AND YOU WILL BE TAKING A FIRST BIG STEP TO MAKING A BLASTER VIABLE IN HIGH-LEVEL GROUPS!!!
Just my $.02, in some detail... these are intended for PvE.
1. Give blasters some defense or resistance depending on their primary/secondary that scale with level. What I would like to see is something equivalent to this:
For elemental resistances (energy, electricity, fire, ice) the primary would start at 10% base and add +1% for every two levels (first bonus at L2), ending up at 35% base at L50. This would only be for the blaster's energy type, so a Fire primary would be good at not taking damage from Fire, but would have no resistance to Ice. The secondary would offer a 0% base resistance, but add 1% every other (odd) level, starting at L1. This means a blaster with the same primary and secondary would end up with 80% resistance to that element, otherwise 35% to primary and 25% to secondary. Keep in mind that this is at most resistance to two element types, non-enhancable, but scaling with levels.
For Devices blasters instead give them a defense bonus that scales with level, starting at 3% Base and increasing by 1% every four levels (bonus starts at L4). This should be lower than the resistances since it applies to all attacks and there are more stackable defenses from pool powers that can also increase this to higher levels than there are resistances. At L50, a /Devices blaster would have an inherent Defense bonus of 15%.
2. Give base damage and accuracy on Blaster ranged attacks a minor boost (10% or so) to set them apart more from the higher overall damage cap Scrappers have.
3. Blasters get 20% unresistable damage on their Primary, 10% on their secondary. If the primary and secondary are of the same element type, these higher of the two (20%) is used for both Primary and Secondary powers. This gives a bit more reason to take some of the weaker secondaries in combination with the same type stronger primary.
And finally, for PvP:
Give blaster (and all AT, for that matter) ranged and melee attacks a chance of dropping a toggle when they hit. I'd suggest the chance be base 10% for Primary Powers, base 5% for Secondary powers, scaling +1% for each slot in the power. (so a six-slotted Primary would have a 16% chance to drop toggles, a six-slotted Secondary would have a 11% chance).
Toggles themselves should have a base drop resistance as others have suggested. I'd suggest a 8% base for Primary toggles, a 4% base for Secondary toggles. Pool power toggles should have only a 2% toggle resistance. This means that a Primary power with its base slot has a 3% chance of knocking off a Primary toggle, a 7% chance of knocking off a secondary toggle and a 9% chance of knocking of a Pool power toggle.
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I think these suggestions would bring Blasters up to the level of other ATs and give each blaster type a bit more flavor. The PvP change is just something I really would prefer over the current toggle dropping solution and it would help Blasters as well in the arena as they would be the premier ranged de-togglers (at least would have a chance to drop toggles at range).
Thanks to all who read this far...
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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.
[/ QUOTE ] I have to argue against this being a bad thing.
1) Some of us want to play Blappers...that's right, dont' want a scrapper...want a blapper.
2) It's nice when the secondaries are not carbon copies of each other with different animations and slightly different order. The more variety you give to the secondaries, the more interesting they are to play. Please don't turn the secondaries into the Controller Primary counterpart: everyone has a single target hold, an aoe immobilize, an aoe hold, etc. Variety, variety, variety.
If you insist on changing power sets, change them so they are more different than alike. Please. I can't honestly believe people want all the secondaries to play like each other, or even two of them.
EDIT:
On the last point about secondaries. One major thing may solve a lot of your problems. Instead of attaching power to say, Ice or Fire or Electricity, create power set templates separate from power set animations. What this mean is that you can have /Dev, but implemented with all ice powers where appropriate. Web Grenade becomes an ice web. Targeting Drone would change to some sort of ice scope.
Is this a lot more work? Oh yeah. But then people could play the powers they want, with the style they want...I know...a pipe dream.
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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.
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Funny, sounds like Blasters, the "long unpaid attention". Oh wait, that's what we're supposedly posting here about.
Don't even give me word one about Defenders not getting any love. Defenders have problem powersets. Blasters have AT-wide problems. I play a Dark/Eng Defender as an alt. We have NO problems as Defenders that compare with Blasters as a whole.
You want to talk about Empathy/FF needing more solo love, sure. You want to talk about Storm needing PvE work, sure. But don't give me word one about Defenders being ignored. Heck, I'm having trouble figuring which GOOD powers to fit into Dark Miasma, the more so with Tar Patch changing on Test.
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I have to agree. Defender is not optimal solo AT, but it is not designed to be that.
If I could just use clear mind on myself, that would be my only request. In high 30's getting chain mez'd is a pain in the [censored]. My team gets nailed sometimes for it. When you are always on top of the buffs and heals, then all of a sudden out of action with little warning, it can cause trouble.
All in all, I think defender is fine. Some help with mez would be grand, but I think DA and blasters REALLY need the help. Would be nice is not the same as borked.
-k
Statesman -- no lecture: just quick suggestions.
1) Damage cap. Beaten to death already; you know what we want.
2) Secondary versatility: you and your boys are already on this, but it needs to happen fairly quickly. Controllers are powerful. I'd know. I play Earth / FF as an alt. Mind is devastating late-game, like all Controllers. Blasters need to have something to look forward to.
3) Damage to look forward to. Let's have something to work towards after Level 32.
4) Take another look at the supernukes. Full Auto is preferred due to its practicality; it can be relied upon. See what you can do for the other abilities.
5) PvP: Ratchet up the En Drain to 60%. Make it something worth taking Electrical Blast and Kinetics for. Oh, and take it out of EM Pulse or make the Radiation crew pay for it somehow.
Okay, I'm going to repeat what I've been saying here, in hopes that just maybe Statesman and the devs will notice it. First of all, Statesman's comments about ranged damage being less than melee damage, and Scrappers being at "greater risk" than Blasters once again demonstrates that the devs are still thinking about the conditions of other MMORPGs, and not the conditions of the one that they have created.
First of all, CoH is unique (except perhaps for SWG, and even that's not true for low levels) in having as many foes with ranged attacks as with melee attacks. Ranged attacks are common, and thus the condition that exists in most medieval themed MMORPGs, where the typical ranged attack is a bow or other weak attack, and magical "nukes" are rare, doesn't exist here. This IS fairly true for a good portion of the early game, when pistols and other extremely light damage attacks are common. Later on however, and even early on with foes such as the Clockwork, ranged damage is not an issue of "will you be attacked" but "how much damage are you taking from the attacks?" You can think of ranged damage as a constant threat that is continually draining HP, while melee damage is a greater drain that you expose yourself to by getting into melee range.
Second, there is the issue of damage being less at range. This is the main reason why Statesman believes that Blasters are at "less risk" than Scrappers, and at low levels, this is the truth. A Blaster can avoid damage by staying out of range, and can "pick and choose" his targets, minimizing his risk. Of course, at low levels a Blaster is not likely to hit the damage cap, so he actually has no limitations on his damage at this point. (Outside of the number of Enhancement slots he has earned so far)
The problem comes when the Blaster gets to much higher level, and the amount of damage done by foes, compared to his hit points, becomes much greater.
If we take a hypothetical situation where ranged damage is half of melee damage, and consider a low level where it will take 20 shots, at range, to kill a Blaster, then the Scrapper will take only 10 shots, half the time. On the other hand, if we consider the situation of a high level, where it will take only TWO shots to kill the Blaster, then he will still survive twice as long as the Scrapper. (Which for the moment we are imagining has no defense) However, the TIME required to kill the Blaster is still 1/10 of the time it took at the low level. Originally, the Blaster would survive 10 more shots than the Scrapper, but now he will survive only one more. This is not much of an advantage, as it doesn't give the Blaster as much time to try and attack. In other words, the "risk" is only slightly lower, instead of much lower as in the lower level. The more damage a foe does compared to the Blaster's (or even Scrapper's) total HP, the greater risk he is in.
Of course, the Scrapper is usually not going to be killed in only one shot, thus the ratio between the number of hits the Scrapper can take and the number of hits the Blaster can take is NOT dependent on the amount of the damage. And once again, THIS is the problem, the problem that I have been describing all along. The issue is not that melee attacks do more damage than ranged attacks, it is that Scrappers have defenses against both ranged AND melee. So their defenses reduce the damage they take, even if that damage is ranged. In fact, they reduce the amount of damage proportional to the amount they take IN MELEE, which again, is usually greater.
Since ranged damage must be balanced for the amount of defense that Scrappers have, then it is NOT balanced for the amount of defense that Blasters have. A Scrapper's defense can scale as he levels to keep pace with the increasing damage, but an archetype which has ZERO defense cannot scale, because you cannot scale zero. Anything times zero is still zero.
If a Blaster had defense that scaled with his level (and some Blasters can get defense through the Power Pool, or Devices, although I won't say that it's adequate) then at least his risk would stay CONSTANT compared to a Scrapper. But all this would mean is that he should have the same characteristics at high level as at low level. As mentioned above, the cap doesn't even effect low level Blasters, so it only penalizes the Blasters who are already at great risk to start with.
The primary defense that alleviates risk is Damage Resistance. This, also, is something that I have pointed out many times. Defense, or dodging, does not alleviate risk to quite the same extent, because while it lowers the chance of being hit, it increases the risk that a lucky hit WILL cause the player to have to retreat. In addition, defenses such as control powers and targetted debuffs are also inherently more risky, because they can miss. The more random factors you introduce into a defense, the more of a risk it is, and conversely, constant defenses are less risk.
Even in the choice of defenses that they do have available, Blasters are exposed to more risk, because their defenses are more random in nature. Therefore, if anything, a Blaster is at MORE risk than a Scrapper, given the same proportional defense. So the argument that the Blaster needs a lower cap because he is at less risk doesn't actually take into account the risk that is involved. A Blaster cannot avoid ranged attacks because they are common in this game, and cannot avoid the consequences of being hit, because damage is balanced for characters that do have damage resistance, and the Blaster does not.
Hopefully, the devs will recognize this as they look into the defenses of Tankers and Scrappers, and will keep it in mind when they start to look at Blasters. In all honesty, they could just as easily boost damage as boost defense. They would have to completely change the design principle of the Blaster, and raise its damage to a proportion above Scrappers, just as Tankers, Defenders and Controllers have damage proportionally below Scrappers. They will HAVE to graduate the damage, though, starting like it is at the early levels and only raising it after about level 20, when the other archetypes reach their final proportions, though. To do otherwise would be to make Blasters too powerful prior to 20, when their ratio of hit points to ranged damage is high enough to protect them.
The other alternative is to raise defense. Not Defense, the concept, or Damage Resistance or anything specific, but defense in general. Again, the issue is that defense due to range becomes too low after a certain level, to counter that decrease, simply introduce a ranged defense that equals it. Thus, when the Blaster reaches the higher levels, he will still be at the same risk as he was at low level, and at the same risk as a Scrapper. This defense could be in any form, control powers, buffs, debuffs, even stealth (i.e. aggro reduction) is a form of defense. It could even be in different forms for different Secondary sets.
Blasters need to be able to a) do as much damage as Scrappers, b) use their attacks freely, c) pull and otherwise "pick their targets" even at high level, and d) survive long enough that combat isn't an either/or proposition.
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If I could just use clear mind on myself, that would be my only request***Some help with mez would be grand
[/ QUOTE ] Kikyo, something you should think about regarding mez prot:
1) The reason why you have CM is specificially because other players don't have the equivelant. Kinetics and Storm have similar anti-status powers, but they still need you to protect them. Why shouldn't the reverse be true?
2) If we give some defender sets mez protection, how long before all the sets demand status protection?
3) The whole point of not having status protection is to present interdependencies on teams. My defenders get mezed ...but if I have good scrappers and tankers, I still won't die. They see I'm down, they protect me. Same goes for blasters and other defenders. The more weaknesses we have, the better the team has to be in terms of playing like a "team." So many people ignore that and simply want to destroy an dependency they have on other AT's.
If you want complete self-sufficiency, play a scrapper. Don't like that scrappers are the only one who should be self sufficient? Well, what happens to the game if everyoen is as self-sufficient as scrappers?
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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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I really like these ideas. Except maybe #3 - as in most cases a change like that would have to apply to both mobs and heroes, which would kinda negate the whole range advantage.
And to all those that want protection from mez - why should Blasters get some kinda special treatment when neither defenders nor controllers get mez protection (yeah, i know there's IW for controllers but it's one power that's only available at 41)?
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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
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Pseudotron, some of those powers aren't really as good as you think they are.
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