Blaster role

I'm a lvl 32 ENG/ELEC and I've been at 32 for about a month and a half and am having trouble finding people to team with and my observation has been that after you hit 32 blasters really aren't needed to do damage because of controller's pets and scrapper's do so much damage there really is no reason to have "ranged support" when controllers can create 1-5 pets that will do that for you. So it was frustrating for me to find that out when I had spent a good 4 months finally finding a character I truly liked and then spent all the time leveling him to 32 and now it's like I hit a wall...if anyone has any suggestions they could help me out with that would be fantastic.

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32 blasters really aren't needed to do damage because of controller's pets and scrapper's do so much damage there really is no reason to have "ranged support"....

[/ QUOTE ] I hate to say this...but it gets worse. Not only do Scrappers start to pwn when the get all those extra slots, but Tankers and Defenders start coming on strong as well. By 32, everyone's got Stamina six slottted and now they are slotting attacks and have the endurance to finish their own battles.

Your experience is exactly what many here have recognized as the problem. It's not that you don't do enough damage, it's that the rest of the AT's start doing damage.

My advice...find lvl low 20 lvl tanks with Taunt or some really really good taunting auras and SK them.

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Actually, the Boss patch made a few fights impossible for Blasters without holds.

[/ QUOTE ] Without inspirations or with inspirations against mezzing bosses, I can see that. But popping four Lucks before a fight is better defense than any non-Elude scrapper has inherently. And most secondaries have some sort of immobilize that will stop a boss when double stacked.

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The lucks would wear off before the boss was dead, and they still don’t provide the additional hit points a scrapper would have. Also, unlike scrappers a blaster would need to be using these all along so there is a good chance there would not be enough suitable insp. While some sets do have decent holds, others do not. (You suggested immobilize, but that will be useless in most cases.)

Unless you were a good player, with the right sets and power selection the tougher bosses were difficult/impossible. For that matter even the regular bosses pose and extreme risk for a blaster. Back when scrappers were whining about “city of blasters” I would frequently challenge them to try a blaster of their own, most got as far as their first mission boss then gave up.

Lith_Dynamo....join an active SG.

Finding a SuperGroup is about the most important thing that you can do to make the game more fun.

I'm sure that at level 32 you have a large friends list...ask for an invite from the people that you've teamed with in the past, or make your own SG and invite the people that you know.

I hope this helps!

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Unless you were a good player, with the right sets and power selection the tougher bosses were difficult/impossible.

[/ QUOTE ] I can believe it. The main reason is that devs specifically wanted this to be true. They also went on about how you weren't required to kill the boss to complete the vast majority of missions...not sure how accurate that was.

I also know that from my own testing with my scrapper that I was in danger of defeat by even level bosses post lvl 30. The could two-shot me. +2 bosses forced me to use inspirations. I got defeated twice by the same +2 DE boss in one mission. He had like 20% hit points and he still killed me a second time. That's NEVER happened before or since to my scrapper. Too bad. I loved that.

Well, considering the sheer number of "defeat all", "defeat X", and/or "rescue Y" where one hostage is in the boss room (you don't have to DEFEAT him, you just have to kill the hostage-guards while being SHOT AT by said boss), not counting the occasional "key required" that may involve a boss...

It was pretty damn hard to do even 1/3 the existing missions of the game without having to defeat a boss, let-alone not having to at least FACE one...

As far as your scrapper is concerned, that's nothing. Blasters were being regularly one or two-shotted at range [the whole less-damage-at-range IS balanced out by the HP difference... something I wish people kept in mind] by 'unspecialised' bosses (those that aren't particularly specialised one way or the other). Range-specialist bosses would usually one-shot us if +1 our level, and do so right through increased-density and/or fortify at +2.

You couldn't rely on a massive alpha-strike (not that you really can now as far as bosses are concerned) to take him down thanks to the increased HP they had, either. All the thing needed was ONE lucky shot, sometimes two, and you were down for the count. And that's not even counting the mezzers... when a boss's Grav-distortion knocks off about 1/8th your health per tick...

My issue with the boss changes was that the majority of builds that could handle bosses before could still handle them, and the builds that already had trouble with bosses just had a lot more trouble. It didn't really accomplish what the devs intended, except perhaps for sets like super reflexes - which suffers for not being able to floor boss accuracy and not having a way to reduce damage that actually connects.

I don't think the new bosses really added reasonable challenge to the game, except for a narrow band of builds that could feel the changes without being murdered constantly.

Debuffs definitely would've been the way...

Statesman, let me start off by saying that seeing you say

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Secondly, I have no intention of removing melee attacks

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makes me a very happy Blaster, indeed. I love my Bone Smasher, and my Hero just wouldn't be the same without it.

I might add that just giving everyone an extra inherent 5-10% resist against status effects and damage types might make life a little easier in general for everyone, and couldn't really unbalance the system too much.

I have faith in you as the Lead Developer for one of my favorite MMORPGs of all time, I know you'll lead us in the right direction, and I can't wait to see the results of this thread!

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

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Debuffs definitely would've been the way...

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I agree.

I do think the way -regen debuffs work currently is way over the top, though. Surely there's a middle ground (take Ascendants, for example).

Blasters stop having a role, when they stop feeling like Heroes.

For some people that never happens, for others it happens at level 12, and still others lose it after level 35 or 40.

They should feel like a hero from 1 to 50 or this game needs to change its name. This really goes for every class.

Om Concern.. what if you feel like a crazed psychopath around.. I don't know... level 32 and beyound when you get full auto, or ... well 8 bit theather's fighter when you get trip mines. I like Mines... miney mine mine mine....

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Blasters stop having a role, when they stop feeling like Heroes.

For some people that never happens, for others it happens at level 12, and still others lose it after level 35 or 40.

They should feel like a hero from 1 to 50 or this game needs to change its name. This really goes for every class.

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/e clap

I couldn't agree more. For my, I stopped feeling like a hero at lvl 40 with my blaster.

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Blasters stop having a role, when they stop feeling like Heroes.

For some people that never happens, for others it happens at level 12, and still others lose it after level 35 or 40.

They should feel like a hero from 1 to 50 or this game needs to change its name. This really goes for every class.

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Its Sad when after 30 a blasters only role is BAIT!!!

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It didn't really accomplish what the devs intended, except perhaps for sets like super reflexes

[/ QUOTE ] hadn't really thought about that, but perhaps that is why I enjoyed the new bosses. It definitely made /SR much more challening. I can see with /Regen if the boss still can't kill you, you've only extended the duration of the fight. Still, I think /Invul would have been impacted by the increased damage...especially now that they've reduced the +def of Invinc.

I also think it might have added more role defining strategies. I have to say that when I play my scrappers I routinely see blasters shoot the bosses and lt's. I've always felt this was out of line except that at lower levels, blasters are better than scrappers. In addition, when I play my defenders, I'm appalled at how lazy scrappers are at dispatching the bosses. I had hoped that the improved bosses would go a long way to scrappers being required to immediately take out the bosses while the blasters left them alone. I was also hoping to see it put a higher premium on tankers and make it more difficult for all defender teams to get away with no melee types.

What makes teaming fun, imo, is when you have a unique talent that is needed. If no AT is needed, not even a little, then I think the game suffers.

Improved bosses forced teams to focus as a team while fighting those bosses. Sloppy play was penalized. However, I can see on a 8-hero team, fighting 2 and 3 bosses would just be near suicidal.

While many blaster builds are better suited to minion-work, there's just as many that can do as good a job (offensively at least) against a boss as a scrapper might hope to do. Obviously those sets would be focusing on that boss, just as a spines/dark would be playing AoE dustbunny with the guys around the boss. Might actually be a VERY workable pair actually, due to the other problems:

1) Bosses HURT. Much like squids and quantums, we get REAL fidgety even if there's a tank in the team, whenever there's a boss. Especially a mezzer. One-shot death may not really occur anymore, but one-shot DEFEAT (the slow lingering 'ran-out-of-breakfrees-on-the-second-floor' kind) happens all the time.

For one thing, the ******* might disengage for a second just to turn us into 'smoking-crater-man', with the strength, speed and mass of 10 lesser burnt-patches-of-grass, for no good reason (lagspike? cloaking-hate? the fact that we hadn't shot yet? only the Shadow knows!) And if we ARE firing at the minions, he could very well be building up a lot of aggro against us, especially from the AoE's that finished off those guys before they DID turn around... Either way, bosses = bad bad stuff.

2) Some Scrappers save the bosses for last.... Why? beats me. You'd think the only kinda-semi-sorta-serious risk for most scrappers would be the first guy they want dead, especially if the # of minions around you helps determine how much defense you actually have... yet strangely enough I've noticed what you have many, many times.

Perhaps its just the 'satisfaction' of one or two-shotting minion after minion, 'wading' your way to their leader that's standing ... uh, well... 2feet closer than any of them, and is behind you... Or perhaps its scrapperittis, the inability of some players to pay attention to anything else then all the shiny sword-swinging to do much more than just tab their way through a group?

The improved HP/Damage on the bosses actually made squishies even LESS useful, except perhaps force-field defenders. More HP meant you had to wait a LOT longer before you could fire, as a blaster, since the slightly higher damage could QUICKLY build up into you winning the aggro over. It made empaths useless to all except tanks and some scrappers, almost, since other squishies weren't even surviving a single shot, or two-hit combo. low-level controllers, since they'd run low on endurance FAR before the boss was even half-dead, were down to 'hold-chain with blind for half an hour and hope one doesn't miss' or a nasty beatdown if said boss had friends.

Now buffs/debuffs on the other hand... those would be a far better choice for a boss upgrade. Getting caltropped is one thing, but tar-patched is quite another. Going from 4-shotted to 3-shotted by a 20% res debuff doesn't mean much to me as a blaster, but that same % debuff might mean double or triple the damage a tanker was taking before it landed!

It's not just scrappers who get fixated on minions. My scrapper - being DM/DA - benefits a great deal from having multiple minions nearby (Cloak of Fear to make them cower, Soul Drain to boost my damage/accuracy, dark regeneration to heal, dark consumption to recover endurance).

I've duo'd Neuron with an MA/SR scrapper while the tanker we brought along to, you know, tank Neuron, ran around and methodically defeated every single minion in the room (and it was a big room) before coming back to see what we were doing...and then protested that he didn't know we were fighting the AV (despite, I dunno, team chat that went, "There's the AV, everyone ready?" and getting "ready" in response).

I'm not even talking about AoEs taking out the minions first, I mean, literally, people will use their single-target attacks to obsessively wipe out all the minions before touching the bosses or AVs, even when specifically asked to leave them be.

Mind you, it's not like I'm going to get debt or anything because my batteries are all dead before the boss is, but, come on...

It is kinda funny but I was doing a hollows mission with 2 controllers, 2 fire tanks, 2 scrappers , an empathy defender and myself a lowly Ice/Elec blaster.

It seemed as though the only person who could see the bosses was my little blaster. Even the controllers wouldn't bother holding the bosses except when they were the only thing left. At one point one of the team sent me a private tell asking me what I was killing because it was taking so long to kill the minions. I then asked him how many of the last 6 bosses he had killed. When he responded with "What Bosses?" I just ignored him from then on.

Seriously I don't get some of these new players. I think the game is too easy for some classes, extremely easy when I get statements like this from scrappers only in their teens.

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It is kinda funny but I was doing a hollows mission with 2 controllers, 2 fire tanks, 2 scrappers , an empathy defender and myself a lowly Ice/Elec blaster.

It seemed as though the only person who could see the bosses was my little blaster. Even the controllers wouldn't bother holding the bosses except when they were the only thing left. At one point one of the team sent me a private tell asking me what I was killing because it was taking so long to kill the minions. I then asked him how many of the last 6 bosses he had killed. When he responded with "What Bosses?" I just ignored him from then on.

Seriously I don't get some of these new players. I think the game is too easy for some classes, extremely easy when I get statements like this from scrappers only in their teens.

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In fairness, it's not like Troll or Outcast bosses really stand out all that much from the minions/lieutenants. Even the Skull and Hellion bosses have bigger differences in appearance than them.

... Okay, the Bone Daddies tend to blend in, but everyone back in the days they had Shadow Maul learned right quick to pick them out in a crowd.

jumping in here after browsing through the posts.

I have to say I've played my elec/elec blaster the most of my toons. (Given that I love range, playing rogues/snipers/etc. in other games, this shouldn't be a surprise.)

At first, I was a bit dismayed by the melee in the secondary elec pool, but even at my "mid-ly" 35, I've gotten to really enjoy it. No, I'm not a blapper (well, I rarely am, I should say.) And yes, you could say some of the secondary elec powers are "poor cousins" to the primaries (electric fence vs tesla cage, for instance.) But I've lost count of the times having Lightning Clap (or, later, having respec'd out of it, Thunder Strike) handy has saved me solo-ing, or in a team that didn't notice "bad guy behind me." Snipe boss (often a one shot, or close,) weaken minion or lt. THey come close, thunder strike, finish off as they're stunned.

I might suggest "rethinking" some of them - I gave up on an ice blaster, since I couldn't get into playing it, and the ice sword and ... I forget the power name, icy melee - were getting me into trouble, frankly, and I had no interest in charged brawl or havoc punch early on. But I can't say I have complaints with the set.

Just one blaster's opinion - and no, you can't argue with damage, when your con friend watches the damage numbers floating up and /tells you "Did I read that right?" Nice, big triple digits are a point of pride.

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Why is ranged/control overpowered?

[/ QUOTE ] How do you make a control power 75% (or 66%) as effective, then they have a simple 2-4 scale of magnitude? If you lower it by one, you make them horribly weak. If you don't lower them, controllers become useless by comparison.
I think what you end up doing is severely limiting the targets. I think there wouldn't be much problem with blasters having some single-target control effects in their secondary...

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this build already exist and i use it, its an ice.ice blaster. electrical..ice or electric electric is not bad neither. If
you want to be pure offense use fire.fire or arm.fire well you see the build .

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The improved HP/Damage on the bosses actually made squishies even LESS useful, except perhaps force-field defenders

[/ QUOTE ] I have to offer a difference of opinion. It was my experiernce that the improved bosses put a higher penalty on sloppy play. Let's be honest, the amount of tactical cooridination that goes into most battles with bosses is abysmal. Hell, AV's hardly get focused planning. As several have pointed out, tankers and scrappers run around willy nilly and attack whoever they so please. Imo, this is lame. Look at the comic battles, the team either has a specific tactical plan they have to carry out, or they often get beat.

One of the reasons I loved the Tsoo so much is that they thoroughly spanked you for just button mashing. Everybody running around attacking whomever and you'd watch team after team get beated. Sorcs and Hurricane would debuff and heal the minions....defender would eventually run out of endurance, then players would start to drop. Beating the Tsoo requried that everyone get on the same page, and use specific methods to win. Few if any mobs require that kind of concentration and coordination.

Improved bosses brought that back. They required that you had a plan and that you really used your debuffs and your tanker and focused on what the boss was doing, and where it was going.

Imo, the bosses didn't make the squishies less useful, they made them more useful, but required that they do very specific things. Having a Kinetics or Elec drain a boss of endurance was a huge benefit. Using Tar Patch or Snow Storm to slow it down was huge benefit. Now, that Energy knockback was welcomed. Having a blaster slamming the boss with high powered single target attacks was also important. But it required timing and coordination. A blaster's sniping bosses to start a battle was debt waiting to happen.

Again, I thought it made the game much more demanding. Clearly many players could not adjust and did not want to adjust.

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Imo, the bosses didn't make the squishies less useful, they made them more useful, but required that they do very specific things.

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The biggest issue was, basically, the improved bosses required squishies to team. Yes, yes, teaming is good and all, but having missions spawn the minimum of a red boss was a bit too much, especially in the mid-range levels. There's a point where it goes from 'requiring good tactics' to 'if the dice go badly, you die, regardless of your skill'. Unfortunately, at the moment, that point happens to be way further back for Blasters and Defenders.

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Again, I thought it made the game much more demanding. Clearly many players could not adjust and did not want to adjust.

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I agree completely. After a hard day of work, I enjoy some nice debt. After all, my end-of-day entertainment should definitely involve tactical planning.

One thing I find exhilirating about pickup groups is everyone finding out how everyone else's playstyle interferes with thier own.

Oh, and lots of typing. The first thing I want to do when I'm playing a melee Blaster and I fail to stun the boss is stop and send a quick Tell to my teammates to help me out.

Heck, it only takes 4 seconds. 3 seconds, if I stop and find the macro button out of the 15 or so I made with stock phrases. Yay for the 3rd button tray!

Yeah, I live for the game to be more tactical....right after I get Teamspeak.

I'll have to figure that out, because it'll be required when Bosses get twice as hard so 15% or players can have a good time.

Too bad other players won't have voice chat, either...oh well, it was a good idea.

It's sure a good thing we have that difficulty slider now, it stopped everyone from complaining that the game was too easy.

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Too much mez makes melee too risky.

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What enemies have mezzes that only work in melee? Malta tasers are the only ones I can think of. Too much mez makes EVERYTHING risky

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And council with martial arts attacks. And crey power tanks, protectors. And tsoo warriors stacking up disorients with energy melee. There are many mobs with holds or other status effects, and all of them seem to like turning around to take that particular shot at any blasters nearby.

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Getting one shotted doesn't help either. In a good team, yes, you can get away with some melee, but if the team is that good, you should have nice clumps of groups begging for AoE damage.

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Hit and move, don't stick around in melee range. It works, and it's fun as heck.

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Tried it since suppression was added? You might want to. It doesn't work as well as you'd think usually.