[ QUOTE ]
You got a 100% boost in damage cap. Either the 500%
happens or it doesn't. You can't claim it counts when Scrappers had it, but not when you got it.
[/ QUOTE ]
This math stuff is hard... We didn't get a 100% boost in damage cap we got a 25% increase to the CAP, not base damage. A 100% increase would be a 800% cap.
[ QUOTE ]
And along with that 12.5% increase in Scrapper damage, we lost somewhere around 85% of our defenses.
[/ QUOTE ]
And here I thought everyone had their defenses deceased. And a 85% cut to your defense would mean a previously 40% was dropped to a 6%. Not sure anyone saw that kind of reduction.
Lessee.... Scrappers are still about, what, four times as survivable as Blasters? Yet still have a 500% damage cap, and gained 12.5% to their base damage output. Which means they still have near-Blaster levels of damage output while clearly having better survivablity. Okay, okay. They can't solo AVs anymore, but I'm having trouble seeing their plight.
- [*]Scrappers still offer high levels of damage. [*]Scrappers can still take incoming damage some four times better than Blasters. [*]Scrappers still have an inherent that, while unpredictable, doesn't require one to get their fourth point of contact kicked up around their shoulderblades before it kicks in. [*]Scrappers still have a bajillion times more mez protection than Blasters. [*]Scrappers are still far more desirable from a team standpoint because the upside they bring is so high while the downside is so minimal.[/list]Uhm... yeah...
[ QUOTE ]
- [*]Scrappers are still far more desirable from a team standpoint because the upside they bring is so high while the downside is so minimal.[/list]
[/ QUOTE ]
Okay this one I have to disagree with. In all honesty, if I'm forming an 8 man team I will "settle" for a scrapper, not recruit one. They are "utility outfielders" and often have playing styles that don't mesh with large group tactics. And while 2 blasters is enough for an 8 man team, 2 or more scrappers would "spoil the broth." They can play with us but I don't need them.
And you are telling me that you would not kick a blaster in favor of a Controller (happened to me) or a Controller (happens ALL the time). That you would not invite a Blaster to a team, and tell them to meet somewhere for invite, and then invite a Tanker (happened).
You are telling me that you would actively seek out a blaster. Especially one that has LFT on and has a message about looking for a group for search?
Are you on the Freedom server? Because I am tired of my blaster being level 31, and would like to actually gain some levels.
Sure, I am Fire/Fire, but what does THAt have to do with anything. I am basically incapable of soloing at this point (unless I have time to take 30+ minutes per mission, and then have the possibility of getting more debt than experience for a session) But I play the game to have fun, not to examine the carpeting.
What is the meaning of life?
To gain more experience/money/magic/runes/red pages/blue pages/coins/gold/whatever?
No!
It is to have fun!
Ohms: I've noticed that whenever you start to lose on a particular point, you change the subject.
Aracade: My numbers [as far as Scrapper-to-Blaster ratios] are defense, resistance, but not mez protection because I can't figure out how to value it. Getting mezzed, solo, is an "I lose" button. How do you put a multiplier on that?
Good Humor Man:
1) If you want to think of it as a "25% increase in cap" go ahead. I was going on the theory that if 400+100 =500, 400%+100%=500%.
2) [ QUOTE ]
And here I thought everyone had their defenses deceased. And a 85% cut to your defense would mean a previously 40% was dropped to a 6%. Not sure anyone saw that kind of reduction.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, if you're taking 6 times as much damage, from whatever source, I figure your defenses have dropped by a factor of 6. And "everyone" did get their defenses decreased- or to put it another way, put much closer to Blaster level.
In I5 Invuln scrappers went from 66% to 33% damage resistance [non-S/L] and Invincibility lost about half its defense. So twice as many hits got through and a lot of it hit twice as hard. (S/L is between 1/3 and 2/3 of damage taken; I've heard different numbers.)
In I6 that 33% went to 20.6% [S/L went from 75% to 56%] and Invincibility lost a little more.
So, yeah, about a factor of 5 or 6.
Nobody in the rest of the Scrapper community feels that they're a LOT better than Invincibility- if something REALLY sucks, there's a consensus- so I figure that we all got knocked down to around the same place.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
[ QUOTE ]
And you are telling me that you would not kick a blaster in favor of a Controller (happened to me) or a Controller (happens ALL the time). That you would not invite a Blaster to a team, and tell them to meet somewhere for invite, and then invite a Tanker (happened).
[/ QUOTE ]
Most my characters are blasters. That being said I want balance. 2 blasters, 2 defenders , 2 controllers, 1 tanker, and 1 utility outfielder (with one of the defenders or controllers having SOME type of heal). If I can't get that I'll supplement first with controllers and then blasters but individual builds and play style is often more important than AT type.
[ QUOTE ]
You are telling me that you would actively seek out a blaster. Especially one that has LFT on and has a message about looking for a group for search?
[/ QUOTE ]
Of course, but it is my experience that there is a plethora of blasters to choose from while the others are a little harder to find (available). Many times I've had team members report in that someone is trying to poach them. They can stay or go, we'll just adjust our tactics appropriately.
[ QUOTE ]
Are you on the Freedom server? Because I am tired of my blaster being level 31, and would like to actually gain some levels.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry, Guardian.
[ QUOTE ]
Sure, I am Fire/Fire, but what does THAt have to do with anything.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, I prefer Fire/* blasters as their secondary effect is ... more damage 
. Look, each AT has a job to do on a team. Scrappers are 1) solo monsters, and 2) when teamed, boss killers. No other AT spends as much time soloing as a scrapper does thus learns quickly their role on a team. Scrappers are too Id for me but I'll take one in the end if they fit in with how the team is shaping up. Worst TF I ever was on included FOUR scrappers all playing baby tanks. YUCK! Scrappers get use to living when they should have been counting carpet fibers. They are good at what they do but get bored easy on big teams because they have to run to get to the target before it is gone. This causes them to "mob hop" aggroing more than my tank and controllers can handle.
BTW, was all this a massive generalization and unfair broad brushing? You bet. I'm just trying to convey that Scrappers have their own crosses to bare.
[ QUOTE ]
They can't solo AVs anymore
[/ QUOTE ]
Nah, you can still solo -1 and -2 AV's. It can be pretty darn hard depending on the AV in question (heck, some AV's are just flat out impossible even at -levels to you), and it's boring as hell and takes a very long time, and you can die real quick if you get unlucky or make the slightest miscalculation, but it can still be done.
It just really isn't worth the effort, imho. I prefer to take on Elite Boss versions, or get a team.
Plus, how often is it that you outlevel an AV mission to the extent where you can spawn a -1 or -2 or even -3 AV nowadays, now that the AV -> EB patch has gone live?
Arc Salvo: Okay hold one sec guys, we can't just rush in blindly vs these Nemesis, they've got these ranged aoe's tha-
Teammate1(charging in): Shut up, Arc Salvo, you lame*$% Viewtiful Joe wannabe! What do you know?!
Teammate2(also charging): yeah, ST#& arc salvo u PWR RANGR U!
Arc Salvo: *sigh*
[ QUOTE ]
Are you on the Freedom server? Because I am tired of my blaster being level 31, and would like to actually gain some levels.
[/ QUOTE ]
Please tell me you have another blaster somewhere that is 40+.
i do 
[ QUOTE ]
Aracade: My numbers [as far as Scrapper-to-Blaster ratios] are defense, resistance, but not mez protection because I can't figure out how to value it. Getting mezzed, solo, is an "I lose" button. How do you put a multiplier on that?
[/ QUOTE ]
Wait, we have zero mez protection or even resistance. One minion with any kind of mez has a "I win button" against us. Scrappers can handle at least one mez probbably more, we can't.
[ QUOTE ]
Blasters lost 50% of their offensive output without a base damage increase (something Scrappers were given in trade when their defensive capacity took a hit) to offset it while gutting what little defensive capacity they could scrape together from the pools.
[/ QUOTE ]
You know, I haven't thought about this in a long time, but this is true. Back in I5, even after the AOE cap nerfs, I pulled out Arc Salvo, and used a freespec on test to take him from a "decent" concept build (some on these forums would say borderline gimped) into a "min/maxed" concept build with 6-slotted Stamina and perma hasten, and 6-slotted Flamethrower with damage (it was previously slotted 1 acc, 4 damage, 1 range) to go along with 6-slotted Full Auto, and made other tweaks/adjustments to see what was the best I5 version of him I could come up with.
I remembered how I was impressed at how perma-hasten pretty much undid the nerf of Full Auto from 30 seconds to 60 (and imagining how it must have been for the 4 issues where perma-hasten dropped it down from 30 to 18 seconds, and with no aoe caps...), and how I was shocked at what bringing my non Full Auto aoe's from 4/5 damage slotting to 5/6 damage slotting did to my alpha capabilities, and what perma-hasten and Stamina did for my aoe and single target followup potential.
Well this may sound odd, but I honestly felt that the build was cheezily overpowered, and so dropped it and took a break from COH for a while, until the day I6 hit live, actually.
Then I respecced for I6, and was surprised at how much less soloable Arc was compared to how he used to be. His alpha strike capability used to allow him to handle up to +3's (including LT's) in large spawns with ease (with a couple inspirations), but now, medium (or even small) sized spawns of +2's could kill him if I made the slightest mistake, as could +1's if I got unlucky on top of making dumb mistakes. (like letting two minions close to melee... "Aw c'mon, they're only minions, how hard could they possibly hit!")
As for my MA/SR main, he did fine as long as I stopped fighting reds and purples, and downgraded to yellows/oranges, and made sure I had plenty of insps for bosses (/SR's main weakness) and I remembered thinking that "Hey, Scrappers still have defenses to fall back on now that they don't have as much damage, but for Blasters, the alpha-kill was most of the 'defense'"
Arc Salvo: Okay hold one sec guys, we can't just rush in blindly vs these Nemesis, they've got these ranged aoe's tha-
Teammate1(charging in): Shut up, Arc Salvo, you lame*$% Viewtiful Joe wannabe! What do you know?!
Teammate2(also charging): yeah, ST#& arc salvo u PWR RANGR U!
Arc Salvo: *sigh*
[ QUOTE ]
So that 65% badguy is now hitting 57% of the time. And the new Blaster has 18% more hit points.
The new Blaster survivability is (65/57)* 1.18 or 1.34 .
[/ QUOTE ]
This would be great if that 18% actually translated directly to surviveability. In practice, it is only true over a very long expanse of time (days). The minor health buff in the day to day battles of a blaster simply doesn't matter in the upper levels of the game.
Also, your surviveability seems a bit out of whack. There is a rather large difference between the number of hits you will take when an enemy is hitting 37% of the time and when an enemy is hitting 57% of the time.
The burst damage that a blaster can be subjected to now, is greater than it was before by a rather large margin. Considering the lower HP of a blaster, that has a greater effect on blasters than it does scrappers. It results in death faster.
Your surviveability table also doesn't take into account how much longer it takes a balster to kill an opponent thus lengthening the amount of time that a blaster stays in battle, stays in battle with a weaker level of defense.
Your arguement is that scrappers had their defenses nerfed by a larger percentage. So what?
I will bring up the point that scrappers were overpowered before. If your arguement is that scrappers are balanced now, then my arguement is that blasters are not balanced now. So what difference does it make? Are you worried that the developers are going to nerf scrappers to make blasters feel better or are you just trying to say that you had a worse nerfing than blasters for no other reason than to make sure that everyone thinks that scrappers suffered more than blasters? So what?
I think you missed the point of Quijon's post.
[ QUOTE ]
Blasters lost 50% of their offensive output without a base damage increase...
[/ QUOTE ]
Technically, didn't we lose 33% or 25% (if an accuracy SOs was used) of our damage output?
Base (100) + 6 SOs (200) = 300 - 3 SOs (100) = 200 or 33% less
Base (100) + 5 SOs (166) = 266 - 2 SOs (66) = 200 or 25% less
Slight sidetrack on "team build":
I don't usually build teams out of the blue, but two Blasters out of eight is seriously way too low.
Honestly, I usually build a team of "Aurora, and Elementary, and my other friends who are on, playing whatever they've got."
But for my hypothetical "4 am and nobody's on" dream team, it would be 6 people, and three of them would be blasters. [One would be a defender, and the other two could be anything, as long as they could play.]
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Are you on the Freedom server? Because I am tired of my blaster being level 31, and would like to actually gain some levels.
[/ QUOTE ]
Please tell me you have another blaster somewhere that is 40+.
[/ QUOTE ]Why should I do that? Why do I have to have achieved a higher level than 30 to be able to have an opinion? What possible reason do you give that justifies your snobbery. This is My Account minus the 8 characters I have native to the test server (average level 15). I play a lot of alts. Too many some would say.
I play for enjoyment, and sometimes I even min/max but usually I play only story builds. Meaning I come up with a story and build my character based upon that story. Costume and name have to match. I do not get certain powers because they do not fit, and get others because they fit better.
I have soloed (almost) Arachnos missions on Unyeilding. Only had problems with the boss. Could not beat the boss no matter what I tried, but those are my stupid solo woes. Can easily take missions on heroic...it just takes forever. And I can not just run in. So my solo experience gain rate is abysmal.
Basically I have more fun going to another character than playing solo on my blaster.
What is the meaning of life?
To gain more experience/money/magic/runes/red pages/blue pages/coins/gold/whatever?
No!
It is to have fun!
[ QUOTE ]
Why should I do that? Why do I have to have achieved a higher level than 30 to be able to have an opinion?
[/ QUOTE ]When Terry Bradshaw put a hand with 4-5 Superbowl rings in your face you tend to listen. When all you have is a Peach Bowl championship...well, taking multiple blasters to 50 (the hard way, no herding) gives you greater room to complain. Most people who argue on this board have seen AT LEAST one character to the end. Usually multiple categories of ATs. The Blaster end game is completely different from the beginning okay?
I hear what you are saying, and disagree. Just because you have done something different than I have neither invalidates your opinion, nor mine. It just makes them different.
What is the meaning of life?
To gain more experience/money/magic/runes/red pages/blue pages/coins/gold/whatever?
No!
It is to have fun!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Are you on the Freedom server? Because I am tired of my blaster being level 31, and would like to actually gain some levels.
[/ QUOTE ]
Please tell me you have another blaster somewhere that is 40+.
[/ QUOTE ]Why should I do that? Why do I have to have achieved a higher level than 30 to be able to have an opinion? What possible reason do you give that justifies your snobbery. This is My Account minus the 8 characters I have native to the test server (average level 15). I play a lot of alts. Too many some would say.
I play for enjoyment, and sometimes I even min/max but usually I play only story builds. Meaning I come up with a story and build my character based upon that story. Costume and name have to match. I do not get certain powers because they do not fit, and get others because they fit better.
I have soloed (almost) Arachnos missions on Unyeilding. Only had problems with the boss. Could not beat the boss no matter what I tried, but those are my stupid solo woes. Can easily take missions on heroic...it just takes forever. And I can not just run in. So my solo experience gain rate is abysmal.
Basically I have more fun going to another character than playing solo on my blaster.
[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe I should have excluded the word blaster from that question. However with the way you talk about blasters I would hope that you would have one higher than the 30s. There is a big difference in the 40+ game versus the 30-40 game.
Arc_Salvo: I'm probably misinterpreting something in this post of yours, but I don't see this as proving what you wanted to prove.
[ QUOTE ]
His alpha strike capability used to allow him to handle up to +3's (including LT's) in large spawns with ease (with a couple inspirations), but now, medium (or even small) sized spawns of +2's could kill him if I made the slightest mistake, as could +1's if I got unlucky on top of making dumb mistakes. [snip]
As for my MA/SR main, he did fine as long as I stopped fighting reds and purples, and downgraded to yellows/oranges, and made sure I had plenty of insps for bosses (/SR's main weakness)
[/ QUOTE ]
So with your MA/SR you went from fighting +3s ["red/purple"] to +1s ["yellow/orange" - or bosses with lots of insps] and with your AR/DEV you went from +3s including Lieuts (ie red and purple) to +2s and +1s (ie yellow and orange).
What am I missing?
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
[ QUOTE ]
I hear what you are saying, and disagree. Just because you have done something different than I have neither invalidates your opinion, nor mine. It just makes them different.
[/ QUOTE ]
Before I reply what difference are you talking about?
[ QUOTE ]
Most people who argue on this board have seen AT LEAST one character to the end. Usually multiple categories of ATs.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't.
[ QUOTE ]
The Blaster end game is completely different from the beginning okay?
[/ QUOTE ]
Very true, something as easy to notice when you're trying to keep the Blaster alive as when you're playing him. Something I've dealt with as early as level 30 because my friends don't mind SKing up a person who knows how to play.
I don't think one should DQ someone's opinion because they haven't played a toon to 50, except to the extent that they may be unaware of how things change for the AT in the late game.
[ QUOTE ]
Ohms: I've noticed that whenever you start to lose on a particular point, you change the subject.
[/ QUOTE ]
Change the subject? Exactly how am I changing the subject? You're posting a friggin' sob-story about how tough Scrappers have it, and I'm disagreeing with it. Instead of actually dealing with points made, you obfuscate matters by turning things personal, making accusations, misrepresenting points actually made, and when that doesn't fly either, you blow the whole thing off with crap like this?
[ QUOTE ]
Arc_Salvo: I'm probably misinterpreting something in this post of yours, but I don't see this as proving what you wanted to prove.
[ QUOTE ]
His alpha strike capability used to allow him to handle up to +3's (including LT's) in large spawns with ease (with a couple inspirations), but now, medium (or even small) sized spawns of +2's could kill him if I made the slightest mistake, as could +1's if I got unlucky on top of making dumb mistakes. [snip]
As for my MA/SR main, he did fine as long as I stopped fighting reds and purples, and downgraded to yellows/oranges, and made sure I had plenty of insps for bosses (/SR's main weakness)
[/ QUOTE ]
So with your MA/SR you went from fighting +3s ["red/purple"] to +1s ["yellow/orange" - or bosses with lots of insps] and with your AR/DEV you went from +3s including Lieuts (ie red and purple) to +2s and +1s (ie yellow and orange).
What am I missing?
[/ QUOTE ]
The difference is that he is fighting with Ease with his scrapper. The blaster is on a razor edge of dying or living.
I'm thinking he means the line between living and dying.
Generaly, a mistake not being the end of the world. In the case of a blaster. A mistake could cross the line from living to dead extreamly easly.
A scrapper on the same field, the mistake has further to go to push the scrapper across the line.
[ QUOTE ]
While the above is a perfectly valid counter to the line of argument BlasterMaster is taking, I would like to point out that for my Blaster his main lines of Defense before I5/I6 were not Combat Jumping nor Stealth. They were:
[*]A controller's AE holds[*]A tanker's aggro control[*]A defenders shields or debuffs
[/ QUOTE ]
Exactly. Something I pointed out to no end when all these changes were being floated. The most team-dependant AT going is the Blaster AT. When the other ATs can't hold, or buff, or debuff, or control aggro, who directly pays for these indirect nerfs when they team up? Blasters.
With the damage output nerfs, the indirect nerfs, the brainfart that is Defiance, not to mention the "stupid Blaster tricks" the lead designer himself posted, the issues Blasters had (ie. survivability and desirability on teams) were only exacerbated.