DONT BE LEROY JENKINS
Dont care if you are a blapper, blastroller, or whatever the heck you think you are. Under no circumstances should you charge into a group first. In fact, unless you have some sort of stealth up, you should *never* be in the front of your group. There is no way to make a blastanker.
BE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE
That being said, you can make your blaster however you like. Blasters are pretty much the only archtype that has this luxury. No power is worthless with the correct synergy, and if you have a special build you want to use, go for it. Of course, don't yell at your defender if you took all the hand-to-hand powers and didn't bother to pick up any defense.
Just because you CAN attack, doesn't mean you SHOULD attack.
Don't just concentrate on what a power CAN do. Know also what it CAN'T do.
It's been said a million times, but I totally disagree with targeting through the tank. A tank has his priorities, and you have yours. They don't always mesh. The tank isn't thinking to himself, "hmm,what's the best target for the blaster?"
(But you had better know what the hell you are doing.)
The scrappers and tanks usually focus on the LTs and Bosses. Wiping out minions will let them do their jobs better. 15 minions have a lot more damage output than 2 LTs and a boss.
Try to help the defenders help you. If you need a buff or a heal, don't make the defender have to work to give it to you. Nothing is more frustrating to a defender than having to chase down teammates to give them a buff, or trying to heal a near-death blaster who is out of line-of-sight.
Don't make the rest of the team have to deal with your aggro.
If you launch a huge series of attacks, your team should be able to expect that your targets are going to die quickly.
Carefully observe what everyone else is doing before you start on a mob. Many times what I do solo simply does not work in a team, because other team members interfere with my normal playstyle. I Don't expect them to adjust for ME.
I adjust for them.
Give the aggro managers a chance to actually manage some aggro BEFORE you start blasting.
Make sure the rezzer has, or has access to, an awaken.
When you join a pug, if you get a feeling that maybe the group won't do well, trust that feeling and bail out.
Don't try to force a situation. If you can't get into position for a good attack, wait. Combat is usually very fluid, especially long fights.
Know your teammates. Screaming for a kinetics defender to heal you when you are half-way to Mars puts a big red flashing neon sign over your head. Telling the Ice/Rad controller to give you Fortitude also puts a big sign over your head.
Know your Enemy. If you have never seen a particular mob before, it's ok to ask about them before you start the mission.
You dont want to find out what DE eminators do while you are trying to energy punch a lesser devoured.
And lastly, don't rely on anyone else to keep you on your feet.
Don't expect a heal, a taunt, a hold, or a buff. If you play assuming that they are coming, you are in for a big surprise.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
Can't add much more to any of this but I do want to say I love being an Energy Blaster. It's great, it's awesome, it's just lovely.
Just one note to the one person who insisted that we are broken, we are not.
To the few who said get PowerPush, your crazy if you don't have it, I don't. I do well without it. I have the Personal Force Field from the Epic Power Pool and it does just dandy. 
It's great to see the baddies all go flying backwards to land on their [censored] when they get close to me.
Always let the aggro masters take the aggro. I always look over the whole "playing" field BEFORE the fight starts. I always look above, that is where most teams will get defeated is from above (someone mentioned that earlier and I concur) If there is another blaster in the group coordinate your attacks. Nothing worse then both of you wasting your sniper attackes on the same target, especially when you both can one shot them.
KNOW WHEN TO RUN. PERIOD. It's called self preservation and to be a successful Blaster you need to have a full dose of it. Don't turn and try and get one last shot in, just RUN. Wait until their backs are turned and then come and snipe them in da [censored]!
One thing I forgot to comment on, was the conversation on accuracy. It's never a waste to slot in one ACC. NEVER EVER. Even with Build up and Aim, they only last a little while. It's always good to have the extra percentage help. Never can hurt.
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Yeah I see that and I am SORRY I posted wrong to you in your thread (I did read it too, it's great), but honestly how can we do this? It's just kidding ourselves when what needs to be done, can't be done by us. I do see where you are going with the thread but seems like this is just what they want us to do, when what needs to be done is things just need to be fixed, and I know there are other threads like that.
Best advice I can give then is to voice your opinion on how things should be changed and hope they change it. In the meantime any new "tricks" you do to fight better, be it ranged or surprise attack etc (the ones you mentioned) would only strengthen and add to our playstyle later when they finally put the big band-aid on the hurt blasters.
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Ok, I know I'll probably get lynched for this but I don't see anything horribly wrong with blasters. There, I said it. Case and point, when I first got COH around issue 3 I fell in love with the idea of the blaster...THE IDEA! When I rolled one from 1 to 20 it became an AT of frustation. I was always dying and switched to a Tank for survivablity. Now I've started my blaster over and love him. He's better, not perfect, but better. I see the AT's an evolution. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Devs are human and they're trying.
Use quick recharging, quick animation attacks to pull. Love jump. Queue up attacks while your out of line of sight, jump into line of sight, and bounce out of it while your attack is thrown. The shorter the animation, the faster you can pull back and away from the group.
Don't charge in with your melees! Let the enemies come to you, and then use your melees. You should use your range first, melee second. In cases for NRG blasters, use your knockback to keep enemies away from you. Learn their Ai! Force the minions to pull out melee weapons, then keep them at range. Rikti don't easily put away their swords after they bothered to pull them out. Leuits and bosses will do it more readily, though.
If theirs aoe, don't stand near anyone else. Kill the aoe/mezzer. A smart blaster is a team friendly blaster, and therefore a live blaster.
Buy rages! Spam them all, then run into a pack and nova! Hit that max damage cap with aim + build up, and then some enrages + accs. They can't fire back if their dead, but know what you can nova (Freaks), and what you can't.
PvP, remember, Ai can be smarter than humans at times. Kill afk villans. Snipe them from a distance, stay above and behind, stay in places they won't look. Snipe from rooftops, open up a fire rain around a corner. Terrain is power!
For you /dev blasters, Use Tp foe! Set down a bunch of mines, and rather than luring villans into your trap, teleport them, right onto it! If their still alive, their in melee range!
Pick off the squishies, Corruptors, Master Minds, Stalkers! There all just good exp for you.'
STAY AWAY FROM ENEMY DARK! ACC DEBUFF IS HELL
Use quick recharging, quick animation attacks to pull. Love jump. Queue up attacks while your out of line of sight, jump into line of sight, and bounce out of it while your attack is thrown. The shorter the animation, the faster you can pull back and away from the group.
Don't charge in with your melees! Let the enemies come to you, and then use your melees. You should use your range first, melee second. In cases for NRG blasters, use your knockback to keep enemies away from you. Learn their Ai! Force the minions to pull out melee weapons, then keep them at range. Rikti don't easily put away their swords after they bothered to pull them out. Leuits and bosses will do it more readily, though.
If theirs aoe, don't stand near anyone else. Kill the aoe/mezzer. A smart blaster is a team friendly blaster, and therefore a live blaster.
Buy rages! Spam them all, then run into a pack and nova! Hit that max damage cap with aim + build up, and then some enrages + accs. They can't fire back if their dead, but know what you can nova (Freaks), and what you can't.
PvP, remember, Ai can be smarter than humans at times. Kill afk villans. Snipe them from a distance, stay above and behind, stay in places they won't look. Snipe from rooftops, open up a fire rain around a corner. Terrain is power!
For you /dev blasters, Use Tp foe! Set down a bunch of mines, and rather than luring villans into your trap, teleport them, right onto it! If their still alive, their in melee range!
Pick off the squishies, Corruptors, Master Minds, Stalkers! There all just good exp for you.'
STAY AWAY FROM ENEMY DARK! ACC DEBUFF IS HELL
On teaming:
Know your team, what they can do, what they're likely to do, and adapt.
This is true of ANY AT, but the squishier you are, the more important it is.
That said, here's a note from the perspective of a longtime Scrapper and sometimes Fire-blaster:
If you are playing with a scrapper, understand the Scrapper role. It used to be that scrappers tended to be thought of as "chase the runner, wipe the minions" fighters. It's no longer true(and I'd debate that it ever was, but that's not the point here). The scrapper inherent, Critical Hit, is specifically geared towards making them more effective at a "top-down" priority-- IE: Boss, Lt, then Minion. Scrappers worth their salt will beeline for a boss with the intent of taking it off everyone else's hands quickly and without fuss. That's what they're built for these days. The *really* good scrappers will check and see if any Voids/Quants/Sappers/other irritants aren't being engaged by other members before they chase down the bosses.
The point here is effeceint targetting and use of powers. I'm not saying "hey, scrappers are better than blasters, let them have the "glory" of the boss kill" by any means. This is about synergistic teamwork. A scrapper's increased crit rate against higher ranks means they drop bosses pretty fast. Most blasters have at least one heavy AOE(and some, like Fire/, are AOE *gods*). That means they'll drop a pack of minions faster than the scrapper ever will. When the Blaster(s) drop a pack of minions in seconds, and the scrapper tears the boss apart soon after... There's not much left to worry about.
This has been my teaming philosophy with both my Fire/Fire and MA/SR of late, and it has worked well. Stuff tends to get cleared quickly enough that we don't have to strain the Defender's ability to keep anyone alive too much, and it's just the ticket on Tank/Scrap/Blaster-only teams. Sometimes there's some aggro issues, but that's where other tricks come in. I will often follow a Fire Breath/Fireball/Fire Sword Circle chain with Rain of Fire to deal with the aggro issues left over after the carnage. It should be noted that with the changes we got in ED(specifically the perceived decrease in Tanker survivability), dropping RoF in the middle of the warzone is no longer a guaranteed way to piss everyone off as it once was. Or at least, thus has been my experience lately. Similarly, Knockback and so forth have also seemed to lose the ill-favor they once suffered under.
I see alot of good advice here. Please keep the suggestions comeing.
Not sure if this has been said or not already - though even if it has, it probably bears repeating.
Despite what you'll commonly hear, knockback is as much your friend as knockdown. Time an enemy spends on it's rear is time that particular enemy isn't attacking you - and should it be the only one around - time you can fire off an interruptable attack, such as a high-damage snipe, that you would normally have trouble with.
Some Blaster-y advice:
The BBB advice is cool, but my first blaster (also my first 50, and whom I still enjoy playing) very rarely faceplanted - only got the first debt badge. He was an expert blastard/blapper from the start. A lot of the fun for me wasn't answering the question, "Can I win?" but rather, "Can I live through this?" There's a price, though: it's slow. Even with teammates noting how fast I plow through things, that's all temporary: I'm just firing all I've got in the span of 10 seconds or so, after I've determined what I need to hit, how to hit it, and with my backup plans for what happens when I miss.
But it's slow. Aim and Build Up don't recharge quickly. Nova comes up even more slowly. Snipe crawls. Waiting for the ultimate set-up and attacking is what grants survival, but the wait is your price.
It's a decent play style, and I had fun with it for a long time.
These days, I find I really don't give a darn about debt. I care much more about down-time. I want to eliminate the waiting.
So here's some pointers:
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1) Range is a defense; it just isn't as good as we'd like it to be.
Its value changes on a case-by-case basis. If there's a gazillion AoEs landing on the tank, firing at the tank's crowd from afar is as good as having 95% damage resistance. If a Paragon Protector is coming after you, closing into melee with Total Focus is the most highly defensive action you can take.
2) Damage is debuff, damage is control
Most blaster AoE powers are fairly weak, only Fire has a large set of reliably high-damage AoEs. But even with minor AoEs, there are uses. In particular, an AoE followed by single-target attacks will be faster than relying just on AoE or just single-target. That AoE is often enough to turn everything into one- or two-shot kills for single-target attacks. In effect, the AoE "debuffed" the enemy's health, making them all easier to kill.
When we do a pull, we are performing a control action. Doing the damage is what causes our target to pursue; keeping the damage limited is further control, enabling us to "hold" the remainder of the enemies far away from us. Finally, as the ultimate control, I'll brag to controllers that my mass AoE hold is way better than theirs. As proof, I walk up to a large group, fire off build-up and aim, and Inferno or Nova (depending on which blaster I'm playing). I then point at all the defeated enemies: "See? Not moving. Lasts a lot longer than your AoE hold, too."
The point of this wordplay is to encourage thought about how you use your powers. It isn't just your few limited mez powers that "control". That said ...
3) Mez powers are your friend.
We blasters may not have mez resistance, but we all get some degree of mez/control powers. Knockback/down, disorient, immobilization, slow, sleep, and of course, hold ... ALL of them help you, IF you know how to use them. Don't look down on the ice secondary hold power, just because it requires a melee attack: it's a HOLD, gosh dern it!!! Don't turn up your nose in disgust at Frozen Aura: it's an AoE sleep -- yeah, Total Focus is way more cool with high damage and it's boss-magnitude stun, but any AoE attack that stops most everything from attacking you for a while is not a weak power.
Each kind of effect is very useful so long as you work WITH it and not against it. Holds are easy to work with, you don't have to change your style to stick a hold in your attack cycle. Disorients are almost as friendly, though your target will wander around more than if they were still attacking you. Slows are easy to work with, but they don't seem to do anything (ah, but they DO ... it's nice and quiet). I learned the value of slows when playing a Warshade to 50. The highly-reduced attack rate is about as good as a 50% damage resistance. Immobilization seems weak when you immobilize them, and then just stand there and shoot them as they shoot back -- dude, use a corner or a tree or a box, and then it's equivalent to 100% damage resistance! Knockback seems to get in the way of "efficiently killing" but this is the nonsense of people who want to stick with a single preferred playstyle. For an energy blaster, especially, knockback is how we stay alive. This doesn't excuse stupid knockbacking (is that a word?), however. Don't use knockback powers when it'll move the fight to where more enemies can see and want to join in. Sleep has that nasty drawback of things waking up ... well, don't wake 'em up. Yeah, it's harder in a team, but that doesn't negate its usefulness, it merely requires good teamwork. The base duration of sleeps are generally longer than you might imagine. The Ice Blaster's PBAoE sleep is a base 30 seconds, which means almost 60 if you slot it right. That's a LOT of control.
4) Hasten still works just fine.
Yeah it was nerfed. It needed nerfing. Yes, of course you can do without it. It still rocks. I've only said "Gee, I need to respec out of Hasten" for one toon of mine: an SR scrapper.
5) Push your limits; it's more fun that way. Trust me.
Don't be afraid of debt, it really only costs downtime. You can kill so fast that debt goes away quite quickly. I've found the fun of blaster-land is to figure out how much you can do with what you've got. I regularly twiddle my difficulty level, just to see what I can handle. I generally don't go up to Invincible, not because it is too hard, but it starts to play very slow. If you are an AoE blaster (especially fire) try Tenacious or Unyielding, which have larger numbers of critters. BTW, just to be a bit more clear on debt: getting debt is OK, but constant faceplanting and sucking up all of the healer's healing for yourself is a bit rude on a team. Take risks; don't commit suicide. There -is- a difference.
That said ...
6) Some enemies, especially newer ones in the game, are the equivalent of being +1 or +2 of the usual enemies in the game.
Croatoa, in particular, is a bunch of +1 enemies disguised as +0 enemies. They all hit harder and faster than Council or Freakshow, and the witches have way more tricks up their sleeves than the Tsoo. Also, they're more likely to use "smart" AI keeping them at ranged (and flying) with ranged attacks. In the low level game, Vahz are highly problematic without a knowlegable team. In the 40+ game, Carnies and Malta are always a pain.
Yeah, this is obvious to the experienced players, here, but I've an important point: some people, used to running on Invincible difficulty, insist on running a Red Caps outdoor hostage mission at that level, or a Tuatha sewer mission at that level. My advice: just leave. Or stay ... it can be quite entertaining if you're in the right mindset, don't care about debt, and want to watch the antics.
First off I'm not a hard core Blaster player, I've only got one at lvl 28 (Sonic/Energy) but I am a [BEEP].
Keep an eye out on the boss/lt when they fire an attack at the melee toon that's holding aggro fire up a nice heavy melee attack jump in an smack him then jump back/away try to break LOS even for a second. He's recharging and if he does aggro on you he's next to the tank/scrapper and will quickly be occupied again. Or he'll go ranged, which means he'll have maybe one attack then be distracted.
I know this is old advice but before firing your cones, back up. At least make an effort to max the number of targets in the cone. This of course applies to a preoccupied pile of aggro with a tank/scrapper making alot of noise at the center of the pile. If you break the tanks aggro, well you broke it, you've bought it.
Defenders can keep track of a fight, and their teammates health/end bars at the same time and so can you. If a defender or a controller is getting hit/mez'd take a few seconds to find the problem mob and kill it, or arrest it if you are feeling merciful. Remember a dead/mez'd defender or 'troller can't buff/heal you, or debuff/hold that pack of aggro that just developed ADD and is looking at you.
Having said that remember to cut and run if the fight is going south quickly. If you live you can get some brownie points by going back and feeding Awakes to the terminally inconvenienced, or sniping/killing the odd mob that's ALWAYS standing over the body of the one toon that can rez.
Know what you can do, know when you can do it, and do it. My Sonic/Eng knows that she can run in AM+BU fire 2 good attacks and maybe get BS at melee target. Also with PT/AS I can get out from any too amorous attention. However I get routinely told to hang back and don't melee. Oddly tanks and scrappers don't find this worth commenting on, it's the mother hen Defenders and Obsessive Controlling Controllers that freak. Bite me. If you can do and get away with it do it, and smile sweetly at the mother hens and think about them being force fed crow.
[insert witty comment]
Recharge Recharge Recharge
If you're daring to venture into IO sets (which is an excellent thing to do nowadays), aim for ones that will give you both good damage and maximize your recharge. There are a number of sets that will give you +5/+6.5% global recharge without going into expensive purple sets, which will increase your dps. Choose these! I'm pretty sure I'll have a 9-10 second downtime on Aim/BU when I finally get my character slotted out (with a perma-hasten build 
)
Defiance
Defiance has had a MASSIVE change. Use the new numbers systems to figure out which attacks give you the greatest damage buff (the tier 1/tier 2 powers give perhaps the best damage buffs). Start out with the low-damage attacks to build up defiance. Do experiments! Find the best routine! I know on my fire/ice blaster I can build up defiance on a mob of enemies really really well by using Shiver on the foes! I know! A non-damage attack and I can build it up to +30% in one hit (depending upon the number of foes)! I usually use shiver + aim + bu + fire-ball + breath of fire and almost everyone's dead.
PvP
nowadays Blasters are the ones to worry about in PvP. We can die easily, so we have to be on our toes, but we are also the most unpredictable. Have the ability to slow down a foe? Use it! then slam them with whatever attacks you have!
Finally, never be afraid to experiment with your blaster. Don't worry about dying on teams, just be sure to always learn from it. I know I still die every so often on my blaster, but I don't like to slow down
What happened to "bitter" instead of "better?"
...and who is b.m.f? Isn't that the sound nightcrawler makes? 
Although I guess my first 50 was a Blaster named "Bad Ms. Frosty" but I don't remember her consenting to this!
Playing a Blaster to 50 made me SUCH a better player. Prior to that I'd had a Tanker and didn't much care or pay attention to what status effects were or prioritizing anything beyond "the most purple mob I can find." Do it!
Two quick things I have learned from my blasters:
1) If you know it is buffer than you no matter HOW MANY reds you pop...they aren't better than a little accuracy and a WHOLE lotta defense candies. This means that if you have accuracy and defense in your pocket, they will save you more often than damage inspirations. While this is less so of enhancements, it is totally so for inspirations. I would almost ALWAYS rather pop five purples and a yellow standing two to toe with an AV than six reds. Now if you have a tanks in your pocket...a pre-ED tank that is...than you can pop them reds and make a difference. Otherwise you want to dodge and weave as much as possible while shooting off your sparkling power blast or burning flame bomb.
2) You need superspeed or flight to get your butt away as fast as possible. Don't waste time and powers on anything else. You need to get away...and faster than they can catch you. Live with it. If you can get some defense in there from a secondary power like hover...DO IT. You are a basta...I mean blaster. You shoot stuff and when it gets hairy you yell "RUN" AS YOU ARE RUNNING.