my thoughts on blasters is simply this-
if scrappers and blasters are pretty much on-par with each other in damage, then what's the difference? Range and defence. Blasters get range, scrappers get mez protection, damage resists and defence. Range most certainly is not a compensation for lack of the others. Especially in door missions where range becomes negated a lot. So we either need to give blasters:
-more control, which then impinges on controllers and defenders and so not a great idea,
-some self healing, which might be a start, but not enough by itself,
-mez protection, which again might be a start but not enough by itself,
-better resists + defense before APP's, which would then infringe on scrappers and so again not a good idea,
-higher damage which would definitely top my list of blaster needs, but again, might not be enough by itself (see below).
My best solution that I can come up with so far would be to add enough damage to place us back into our primary role as having higher damage without equalling the defensive capability of scrappers, and add a little more mez protection and a self heal. Any one of these 3 would be a good start, but I don't think adding all 3 would infringe on the territory of other AT's if they were implemented properly.
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which would definitely top my list of blaster needs
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but... but.... you put it literally at the bottom of your list....
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which would definitely top my list of blaster needs
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but... but.... you put it literally at the bottom of your list....
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I was getting the bad ideas out of the way first so the good ones would stay fresher in your memory 
Okay, this is a dang good question. If a blaster role is ranged why do defenders have more range in both their primary and secondary than blasters do?
Cuz blasters are broken? 
Furio--Lvl 50+3 Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster, Virtue
Megadeth--Lvl 50+3 Necro/DM/Soul MM, Virtue
Veriandros--Lvl 50+3 Crab Soldier, Virtue
"So come and get me! I'll be waiting for ye, with a whiff of the old brimstone. I'm a grim bloody fable, with an unhappy bloody end!" Demoman, TF2
First off.. what is the main reason the blasters take so much damage (aside from the fact that we have no defenses/mez protection and low hit points)? It is because we draw so much aggro! Especially using AoE's etc..
So what if all of our ranged attacks had a reduce aggro ability in them?
So, then what if we could raise the base damage of blasters to where we could max out our damage using 3 or 4 damage enhancements (or if you had build up, you would only need 2 or 3) and then we could use a new type of enhancement called "Reduce Aggro" that would reduce it even more.
So say you are using FlameThrower and have 3 Damage SO's 1 Range increase and 2 "reduce aggro" enhancements, you hit the mobs, but instead of ALL of them turning on you, only about half do, or only 1/3 do.. thus reducing the amount of damage we take.
Another example would be using snipe (or some other power) on a single target (ie boss), set up the same way as above and when you snipe him, you don't automatically draw aggro from him.. he looks around wondering what just hit him.. so you can snipe him again.. but this time (percentage wise) you do draw aggro from him. With the innate ability of the ranged attacks to have reduced aggro plus the enhancements you could cap out at say 50% reduction in aggro..
I read something similar to this yesterday.. but I can't remember where...
What do you guys think?
Yeah but I still think we need more range also.. and less rooting of powers..
I don't really think range is going to solve much for us. We've all learned over the course of 2004 and many posts and tests that range is a lousy compensator for our lack of defense. Range is good for two things- outdoor and outdoor lol. I think our priorities should lie in getting more damage to clear the gap in our roles from scrappers who get pretty much the same damage we do, don't suffer from any lack of range, and are more durable than us to boot. Some mez protection and a self heal would be nice as well, but I'm not asking for any additional damage resistance or +defense powers because that wouldn't make us anything other than ranged scrappers and wouldn't solve anything. Except to make scrappers scream bloody murder maybe lol.
If this thread is to address the role of blasters then it should be to give us more damage before anything else to put solid differences between us and scrappers. Added range won't cut it unless we all want to end up being outdoor street sweep kings which is mind numbingly boring. The majority of missions are door missions, and added range won't do anything in those because you're already in range for each encounter there anyway.
More damage
some mez protection
some self healing
pretty please?
After almost a year now of playing an Elec/Elec blaster, I've come to the conclusion that the AT is lacking focus.
The blaster is a damage doer, but not quite on par with a scrapper. The blaster has holds and imobilize effects, though not as good as a defender or controller. The blaster is a master of range, yet every foe out there seems to have a better range than we do and our lack of defense, well, goes without saying. Oh, and a blaster can draw aggro like the best of tankers, but usually when we're not expecting (or wanting) to and there's that defense problem again.
In short, it's a jack-of-all-trades AT. It's pretty good at a number of things, not great at any of them, and not generally survivable against more than a few foes without serious help.
How can you resolve this issue? Give the blaster some focus, while at the same time, flexibility.
You want the powers to be balance between long range, short range( melee), support (holds, et. al.) and a fourth special class, which I'll go into later.
Blaster should have an inherent defense against ranged attacks. This is their area of expertise and they should be able to avoid ranged attacks as well as dish them out.
Melee attacks should deal sufficient damage to counterpoint the natrual lack of melee defense. They should be there to get a blaster out of trouble, not to play scrapper. Minus the damage, secondary effects such as stun should be an option.
Support attacks--these actually aren't too bad. Some long, some short, good but not as good as defenders or controllers (as it should be).
Now, that special attack I promised; This is the jewel in the blaster crown. The blaster should have 1 or 2 special attacks. The attacks have a base of a short range, moderate damage, and moderate secondary effect. It's how you slot them that makes them special. Add range enhancements and it really boost the range, making it an effective long range attack. Add damage enhancements and it's a devastating short range attack. Add secondary enhancements significantly boost the secondary effects.
This allows the jack-of-all-trades AT to specialize. A range expert can become an effective sniper, picking off foes at a distance. Slotted differently, you can create a "blapper," powerful close in with good range support. Slotted yet differently you create a good support AT, with a mix of range and melee, and excelent secondaries thrown in the mix.
This would allow the blaster to become the consumate battle support AT: a master of it's specialty, but only an average generalist.
Difficult to pull off, I'd imagine, because you'd have to rethink how enhancements work on the special attacks. One or two slots should not give you much effect, but five or six would change it significantly.
Maybe I'm just daydreaming, but wouldn't it be fun?
Every AT has a mix of abilities, though I would argue the only true generalist AT is Scrapper.
Blasters are damage dealers. That's their specialty. The control aspects are secondary, with only a small fraction of powerset combinations that have any *real* levels of control. Range is not a defining characteristic, either, as Defenders and Controllers have it too.
Nope, Blasters are supposed to be damage specialists, despite the fact that we're outshined by a few other ATs in that area.
Since one of the CoV ATs are "reverse" defenders i.e. ranged/buff. I wonder how blasters will feel about it.
Since most of us except /dev are basically revamped tanker melee sets as our secondary.
How about this Mr Statesman. Take a poll on blasters. See how many would give up "/Support" for "/buffs" or "/control".
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
I very much like that idea.
I've been saying for a long time that the real problem with our damage is that the cap, for the damage dealt when reached, is too high.
Rather than have to boost ourselves up by 500% to reach maximum damage, we should have not MORE damage at the cap, but simply a LOWER CAP. The idea here is that thanks to the fact that you're at the damage cap with LESS enhancements (like, say a 250% that's worth as much as our 400 is right now), you have an easier time without breaking the game. The slots y ou save serve to give a host of minor improvements (bunch of small ones instead of one big change) to defense, range, etc etc...
So when you proposed a moderate-across-the-board "specialisation" option... well lets just say I like a lot.
how I see it working: Depending on the power set, the power would have an average range of roughly 50 feet, Brawl Index of roughly 3.8889, and moderate form/chance of whatever the standard status effect . A shorter ranged, slightly weaker version of the Slug/Blast power. However, it would have a very small AoE [the tiny one like some rockets/grenades have in the game]. Recharge would be 12 second base.
The specialisation trick? The power has 1.3x the standard damage cap(so 520%). Accuracy affects it normally, but Range enhancements are worth triple value (this isn't actually too bad, 50 * 2.8 = 140ft. that's 3 range enhancements there), Damage is worth double. Cost would likely be about 25end, to compensate for the relatively low recharge and good power.
With full damage enhancements, you get a short-range AoE attack dealing 20.2228 BI to 2-3 packed foes (Blaze would do 23.5556). More powerful than fireball for sure, but would make a very interesting replacement for the 32, wouldn't it?
Alternatively you could slot 4 range and 2 damage, and thus get a 170ft attack dealing 6.479 (less than a 5 damage burst) to a tiny area, though buildup and aim would up that a bit more.
Other night, my lvl 21 Ice/en blaster teamed with a lvl 22 Ill/Kin and a lvl 21 Earth/Storm. We did a defeat all Striga misison on Invinc. Spawns were all +2's it seems. I have Ice bolt, Ice Blast, and Ice Breath all 1/4 slotted. No Tough, no Stealth...but I do have Health and Stamina.
The team rocked (no pun intended). The Earth cntrlr laid down Earthquake, the Ill released PA, hit me with Speed Boost...we had to play smart, but we pwned. Excellent excellent experience.
The team really really relied on one another for survival. Each person had powers that we combined tactically to beat mobs that none of us could have solo'd. THe controllers controlled....and this allowed me to dish out massive damage...non-stop.
I died once at the end when we totally over-aggro'd. Our fault...but only I died and undoubtedly because I kept using AoE's without acknowledging that the controllers were not able to control everyone. Of course when I fell, the two controllers had no chance to defeat the mobs and they had to run...and this is exactly what should happen. Remove one member and a team is severely handicapped.
Now here's the rub....if we go to lvl 32+...I'm guessing those two controllers wouldn't have needed me at all...the reason why I was so critical at this lvl is they don't do very much damage. By the 30's everyone is doing massive damage relative to the mobs...so the extra damage from blastes is hardly a necessity.
Now, I'm sure you've heard this from other posts...but remember...I'm playing on Invinc with lvl 20 DO's. Increasing my damage doesn't change the fact that just about any AT can still provide the firepower to take out +2,+3 mobs...once they get SO's all those extra slots in the 30's. If I've already got sufficient fire power for a three team spawn on Invinc with DO's...upping my damage seems silly.
I know that nerfing everyone else's damage is about as popular as the DEA at a Phish concert. I realize that nothing short of sacrificing your first born will get Tankers to agree to less damage. So if you aren't willing to reduce everyone else's damage...and if increasing blaster damage will just trivialize battles..and not make them more fun....
What is the role of "Ranged" damage? What does the ranged aspect of damage confer an advantage to a team. My point is that I love the idea that ranged damage should confer an advantage...in solo play it definitely does at lower levels anyway. I would love to see the devs come up with missions or situations where the range aspect is vitally important.
On a side note..perhaps a way to increase the value of 'range' is to increase the range of blaster attacks so they are greater than enemy mez attacks. Not good for PvP...but good for PvE.
Now Mieux, this is the first post I totally agree with you on.
As I play a tanker, yes... you'll pry my damage from my cold, invulnerable fingers.
I honestly believe controllers deserve whatever uber power they get at 32, they've earned it for slugging it out that long.
I don't agree that nerfing should never be done... I just think now is not the time. There are sets in every AT that need a buff badly, clearly, already. No datamining required to find out which ones.
Of course, this all goes back to blaster roles. If we're talking about usefulness post 32 when everyone has damage pretty much, I think it would behoove Statesman very much to lean at least a few primaries and a few secondaries towards being very solo capable. The one that aren't targetted for solo friendly builds could be tweaked to be weak against bosses, but very effective minion killers.
Post 40, I find I need a blaster not nessesarily for a defeat AV mision, but defeat all missions where I t would take me four hours to clear them all out (i'm looking at you, praetorian clockwork outside kill all missions).
It seems simple to me.... scrappers should flow from one powerful enemy to the next... the one who goes straight for the chief mentalist. The blaster's role should be the one who wanders up to the portal that's been open for 5 minutes and reams all the conscripts. Make it so that even if you have two scrapper on your team, killing all the spawns on a 6 man mission would take forever.... That's where blasters come in. I don't think we need MORE damage, just an effective way to lay the damage down quickly.
Of course, one thing I won't back down on is that blasters need some form of mez protection to make them useful in any setting, team or solo, since most mezzes are ranged. They need mez protection or every mob needs to be drastically altered: guess which one's easier to do.
I don't envision a toggle... something like practiced brawler, with a longer recharge to make it non-perma, but able to be used like a break free.
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Now Mieux, this is the first post I totally agree with you on.
[/ QUOTE ] You've agreed with all my posts, you just haven't admitted it to yourself.
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Make it so that even if you have two scrapper on your team, killing all the spawns on a 6 man mission would take forever....
[/ QUOTE ] Damn it man, we may have just stumbled upon the solution for a blaster role. Increase the spawn size by a larger multiple for adding team membes. Maybe keep solo missions the same size, but making duo missions 30% more minions. Make trios have 50% more minions...make 8 man teams have 200% more minions.
I think this will dramatically increase the value of blasters without affecting the solo game. It will also require more aggro control...so this might require some testing. More minions could also mean blasters die that much faster without someone to control the mobs....but again, it encourages players to keep teams balanced as they get larger without adversely affecting small teams which cannot be balanced.
But as a blaster on an eight man team...if there's no tank or lock down controller, I shouldn't expect to being using AoE's. I think the game benefits from me being forced to communicate with the tank and controller in my use of AoE's...."You hold/taunt and then I'll use my AoE...or...hold/taunt right after my AoE..."
or
"Tanker, let me know when your Taunt is recharged and I'll fire my AoE centered on your target, then you follow up with Taunt."
I think one thing that does need to be added is giving more minions -Regen and -Res powers. This really only hurt scrappers and tanks...it increases their need for fast minion killing and creates a love and desire for blasters.
worth a try anyways...
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I think one thing that does need to be added is giving more minions -Regen and -Res powers. This really only hurt scrappers and tanks...it increases their need for fast minion killing and creates a love and desire for blasters.
worth a try anyways...
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Let an ascendant shoot at your defender or blaster for a bit and see what happens...
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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Let an ascendant shoot at your defender or blaster for a bit and see what happens...
[/ QUOTE ]Well, that's true...keep forgetting that -Res also makes you more vulnerable instead of just taking away any +RES that you have. I guess I would change -Res to only take away positive resistance...in other words -REgen doesn't make you start losing health. More -REs would be bad for blasters more so than defenders...unless that changed it.
Increasing spawn size has some problems... Notably our aggro, and the big question of "will they get packed up fast enough for us to make a difference".
If yes, then as-is nothing's stopping anyone else's AoE powers [including the tanker that herded them] from decimating them.
If no, then those extra enemies mean you either HAVE to have a tanker, due to the massive number of foes that need to be reliably not-shooting at you, or you're in rather deep...
Perhaps if we're to be "minion cleaners" then the trick would be to remove the crits against minions scrappers do, but increase their LT and boss crit-chance by 5% each.
Meanwhile, give us a 10% (and therefore unresistable) damage bonus against minions (5% vs lt's and nothing on bosses), to go with our brand new inherent 5% ranged damage resistance (it ain't much but it'll eventually stack up a tiny bit) and +1 mag.
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Well, that's true...keep forgetting that -Res also makes you more vulnerable instead of just taking away any +RES that you have. I guess I would change -Res to only take away positive resistance...in other words -REgen doesn't make you start losing health. More -REs would be bad for blasters more so than defenders...unless that changed it.
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I have seen a pack of Ascendents completely shred an invulnerable scrapper once. They also started tearing me apart in nova form, and when I switched to dwarf, there was a brief pause, and then they started tearing me apart again.
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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Well, that's true...keep forgetting that -Res also makes you more vulnerable instead of just taking away any +RES that you have. I guess I would change -Res to only take away positive resistance...in other words -REgen doesn't make you start losing health. More -REs would be bad for blasters more so than defenders...unless that changed it.
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I think untyped damage is the positive -res you're talking about...
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Increasing spawn size has some problems... Notably our aggro, and the big question of "will they get packed up fast enough for us to make a difference".
If yes, then as-is nothing's stopping anyone else's AoE powers [including the tanker that herded them] from decimating them.
If no, then those extra enemies mean you either HAVE to have a tanker, due to the massive number of foes that need to be reliably not-shooting at you, or you're in rather deep...
Perhaps if we're to be "minion cleaners" then the trick would be to remove the crits against minions scrappers do, but increase their LT and boss crit-chance by 5% each.
Meanwhile, give us a 10% (and therefore unresistable) damage bonus against minions (5% vs lt's and nothing on bosses), to go with our brand new inherent 5% ranged damage resistance (it ain't much but it'll eventually stack up a tiny bit) and +1 mag.
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Well, exploring this idea further...I'm operating under the sassumption, that when you really look at it...no other AT has the AoE damage that a blaster does. Most other AT's get them late (Fire Tanks and Spines scrapper notwithstanding). Tankers and Def's have AoE attacks in their secondary which means they come late and with defs, they are much weaker. Scrappers generaly have only one true AoE, the rest are shallow cone attacks. So while others can AoE...no one can do it like blasters. The problem is that blasters have trouble doing it safely....
So, the idea is that as you increase the team size...you really start seeing a lot more minions and you really need to protect the blaster to kill them quickly. Put enough minions on an eight team mission and even the non-spines scrappers are going to start begging the blaster to AoE...but here is the problem with the idea. Blasters have have the discipline not to use AoE unless teammates are protecting them...and committed to doing so.
Too often, I see blasters use AoE with no communication/forewarning to team members and no one is ready or able to respond to the huge aggro shift. In my experience...this is the real culprit. A lot of blasters want to AoE all the time. They do it..they die...and they keep doing it. No one really cares in the 30's because we don't need the damage. Substantially increasing the number of foes to kill and you'll want to make sure the blaster is there and being protected. Ideally, you'd like to put in enough minions so they can reliably kill tankers without blasters support.
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Perhaps if we're to be "minion cleaners" then the trick would be to remove the crits against minions scrappers do, but increase their LT and boss crit-chance by 5% each.
[/ QUOTE ] Interesting idea. One problem, however, is it just seems wonky. Why are minions immune to crits? But in honesty, why are bosses more vulnerable to crits? No reason, so we can ignore the wonkyness of the idea as the situation is already wonky.
I actually like the idea. Even though it lacks elegance, I think it provides a good incentive. I like that it seeks to use postiive reinforcement from a very visceral way that appeals to scrappers. Big crits on the big guys.
As a scrapper, I would be more than willing to surrender my minion crits for increased boss and lt's crits. In fact, I would be willing to surrender my minion crits simply to carve out a role for blasters. But there are some unavoidable realities..
1) You'd need to communicate this to scrappers. Let's be honest, how many in-game scrappers know that they get increased chances against bosses? I can't tell you how many times I tell the scrapper to focus on the bosses simply because he's got the best chance of bringing the boss down the fastest.
2) People like racking up kills. Minions are easy to kill and go down comparatively quickly. People like getting lost of kills so they tend to do for the weaklings...look at PvP. Regardless of "role" or incentive...it will be hard to get people who play scrappers to zero in on bosses first.
3) People follow patterns. Since most scrappers solo a fair amount, you'll have a hard time getting them to switch gears in teams. When you solo, at low level, you take out minions as quickly as you can because you don't have the defense to survive them in large numbers. I see this all the time in team play...the scrapper just starts attacking the closest minion.
4) Sometimes the minions are the most dangerous. Sappers (I love what they do to /regens) are everyone's primary target. As an /SR, I can't stand Earth Stone Casters and their AoE's and will focus on them first, ignoring Lt's.
5) Blasters are often better boss killers than scrappers. Truth is...with build-up and and ton of heavily slotted attacks...through most of the game, blasters still can put out way more single target damage than a scrapper. Not until much later in the game when scrappers can finally start six slotting attacks do I think it's comparable. If blasters are going to be minion killers, they too would have to focus on minions. I frequently see blasters trying to put down Lt's and Bosses on teams ahead of minions.
so yes....I like the idea of removing scrapper crits against minions, but you definitely need to combine that with larger minion spawns, or something else.
I'm not in favor of increasing damage for blasters. Not even in the form of unresisted damage. What blasters need ..what every AT needs is a role on a team. Giving them more damage means little when that damage isn't needed to begin with.
What it will do is force you to face even higher lvl mobs for a challenge...and exposing you to even greater risk and higher debt.
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I think untyped damage is the positive -res you're talking about...
[/ QUOTE ] Yes. If there was more damage in the hands of minoins of the type that was unresistable....that would put the onus on scrappers but mainly tankers to get blasters to help them to kill more quickly.
...of course...that could mean more deaths for /DA...but wait...they have Soul Transfer!!!!! So never mind, /DA is covered.
As an eng/eng blaster I've noticed that If I want to be able to compete I basically have to alpha-strike. I can snipe with the best (and it deals respectable damage, especially if I have others to take attention away from me) As long as I can keep an enemy knockdowned I'm OK, but if they get up on their feet I'm dead.
"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
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No other toggle travel power uses near as much End as Fly.
[/ QUOTE ] Oooh Oooh I know get one-shotted a lot. (Has happened to me a lot b4 I got Freedom Phalanx Reserve Member Accolade-IT HELPS!)
Well In the elec/elec blaster pretty much every attack takes away end from the enemy so that rocks like since the AoE doesn't do muc hdamage 6 slot it with endurance drain enhancements it's awesome!
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if a blasters role is ranged damage, why do defenders have their own special range secondary secondary that blasters cant take?
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Eh, this is fair enough, really. It's no worse than, for instance, scrappers have defensive sets tankers don't and vice versa, while scrappers (and me) pine for EM/SS as scrapper primaries.
(Granted, I'd love to see all the 'exclusive' sets made available to the relavent ATs, but I can at least sort of see the dev-logic, annoying as it may be.)