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I do not think that the devs are lying. I believe that it is hard to fix the blaster secondaries. Why, because even blasters do not agree on what needs to be done. ... I have even seen posts that have said allow the secondary to give some defense. That goes against us being glass cannons and comes close to making us a tank mage, which will not happen.
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I disagree. I believe the devs don't want to change blasters because their afraid of the results. Why can't we get the base damage upped a bit? What is so scary about giving blasters a tad more damage to make up for their lack of defense? If not damage, then how about blasters attacks are more accurate then other archtypes. I need my attacks to hit my targets, and yet, blasters are penalized more because they can't survive a mistake like a miss compared to other archtypes. Ok, if neither damage or accuarcy, how about some defense? Oh knoes! TANK MAGE! BURN THE HERETIC!; because you know, blasters still lack mez protection. If not defense, then how about a tad mez protection. OH KNOSE! THINK ABOUT THE REPERCUSSIANS IN PVP?!?!?!oneeleventiybillion! How about better secondary effect performance as a form of mitigation. Nope, because chance/single target effects aren't effective on multiple opponents (3+).
Blaster's need something. They rank highest in damage, lowest in everything else, but what their good at (damage) is hard to utilize since it's hard to avoid foes a blaster can't outright defeat.
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Electro-Blasters know the "fool me twice" better than most. The devs were going to look into the intra-AT balance issues of recharge rates and damge levels of Electro-Blasters versus the others. Then they told us they weren't going to adjust them because end drain was going to be so uber in the upcoming addition of PvP to the game. Fat lotta good that did for those of us that weren't interested in the addition of PvP to the game. Not that it mattered. When PvP was getting close to going live, they gelded end drain.
With the reason for not addressing recharge and damage having been removed, these issues should've been addressed, but weren't. Instead, Electro-Blasters were tossed a bone with the random chance of some powers returning a small amount of endurance. And that was that. Well, that is, until ED came along.
Time was, you needed to five- or six-slot Short Circuit with -End SOs before it was little more than a suicide move. Meaning that a power you could get at lvl 6 needed to be put off using into the mid 20s. After that, it was a pretty effective drainer. When ED dropped, that changed. You now had to stack another power, typically Power Sink, with Short Circuit before it was little more than a suicide move. Meaning that a power available at lvl 6 had to be put off into the late 30s.
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Ya, I wonder why they even insist on trying to give Electric Blasts some kind of Endurance manipulation aspect at this point. Between the changes to the powers and the changes to the Mob recharge rates and endurance numbers, I gotta ask "What's the point?!" It is a total joke. They need to just drop the endurance manipulation aspect to Electric and boost the attack, recharge and damage numbers. At this point, I feel that Electric is paying a too high price for some superfical accessory that doesn't amount to much. Its like paying extra for hi-gloss on a lemon, its extra shiny but still sour. 
So then Elec becomes the set without any kind of secondary effect?
Archery has boosted Accuracy (Yeah yeah, I know, I know, carry on.)
AR...doesn't it have the same deal? I don't know, never played one.
Energy's knockback
Fire's DoT
Ice's Slow
Sonic's -Res
...Elec's gotta have SOMETHING...and I think End drain or maybe...uhm...OH! I have it! You know the Taser dart's like 2-second hold? Give that to Elec!
Carl and Sons @Aurora Girl (Pinnacle)
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Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.
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AR...doesn't it have the same deal? I don't know, never played one.
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AR/s secondary is it's ability to be massively resisted toward the upper game.
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AR...doesn't it have the same deal? I don't know, never played one.
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AR/s secondary is it's ability to be massively resisted toward the upper game.
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Along with a piddly -defence on burst and random knockback on 2 single targets of which one is interruptable. Hey Fusilier, I knocked that guy upside his [censored]. Outrider you fool, you forgot his 10 other buddies!
Buckshot, well its like a close friend and then there is M30. Its like that annoying ex-date you were seeing that keeps calling you back and filling up your answering machine with messages.
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My guess would be because fire is mainly damage with only DoT as a effect. With others you get drains, kb, slows and that. I would think it would be much easier to tweak as a starting point before diving it to the others.
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Actually, that's a good point. Fire is the only "element" in the game that doesn't have some sort of secondary effect, since extra DoT isn't nearly as helpful as the devs initially thought. It's part of what makes /Fire suck so much, too.
Maybe they could stick a small damage debuff onto Fire attacks? I'm kind of at a loss how fire would make something less capable of hurting you, but it's the one kind of debuff no attack set inflicts yet, and Assault Rifle/Broadsword/Radiation Blast debuffing defense doesn't make a whole lot of sense either.
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Well I thought it would make sense if fire had a ToHit Debuff. Afterall, it produces smoke. I think the only fire power whose smoke debuffs accuracy is the controller power smoke. And it doesn't burn!
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Okay, I can understand why everyone's not getting all excited about this. I know where the skepticism is coming from.
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Or as the Bard once said, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me fourteen or fifteen times and we're talkin' a Lifetime made-for-tv movie."
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What?!?? No, we're talking Jerry Springer.
I have an idea. It starts with 's' and ends with 'litting their throats.'"
-Belkar Bitterleaf, Order of the Stick
Order of the Stick
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I'm not really sure that Fire/ needs to be looked at but thanks anyhoo Castle 
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Did you take FLARES? Fire needs to be looked at. Just that one, if nothing else.
Or maybe the DoT that doesn't occur 100%. I'd love for every blaster set's secondary to be 100% (like ice, AR, sonic, etc). Poor elec/ and power/ don't get 100% either.
Then we can look at overall DPS, activation animation time, etc. Why are ice/ blasters so popular in pvp? Fast, always slowing, infrequently-resisted, high-damage attacks (3 fast blasts). I mean, fire/ has a trade-off of AoE goodness, but I think secondary effects could be looked into.
Fix flares, and more fire/ blasters would make it into PvP at least. They fixed mental blast, why stop there? Fix *all* of the level 1 powers so they don't suck. Not meaning to focus on PvP soley, but that's a good indication of what sets and combos (in general, all AT's) work well with AV's and other single-target uses.
Besides, flares should be moved back in the set, given nasty knock-back - that's what I'd expect to happen with the animation, etc. (but I really do not want all that, just speed it up, make it a smaller fireblast).
-r0y
"Look how many pages of crap are in this thread already!" -r0y to all threads on these forums.
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I know I haven't been around the forums long enough to experinece the repeated dissapointment some have, but I say, "Let's get excited about this." Castle has posted in our forum three times last I heard, and he's posted twice in this thread. What may have happened is that they have worked their way through the long laundry list of other things, and the squeaky wheel is finally getting some grease. I, personally, am going to hold out and hope that we're going to get the changes that some of you have been waiting so long for.
I don't care what changes they are making to blasters, as long as they are positive ones. It means we're getting some attention.
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I'll believe it when I see it. We've seen dev posts before talking about how they are really going to look at Blaster issues before and that the secondaries will be adjusted to address so many inconsistencies in implementation. So far I've seen nada and zip, which adds to zero.
We are so far down the priority ladder for changes we'll see silk fluff frocks and pink umbrellas for costume options before we'll see Blaster changes. It's not that I think anyone is being untruthful, it's just that I understand the inevitable black hole that bureaucracy induces on projects like Blaster secondaries. It's labor intensive, fraught with universal gameplay issues for a minority of players. I'm not holding my breath because I'll die of asphyxiation.
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Or maybe the DoT that doesn't occur 100%. I'd love for every blaster set's secondary to be 100% (like ice, AR, sonic, etc). Poor elec/ and power/ don't get 100% either.
[/ QUOTE ] Uuuuummmm ....
Just FYI, there's no such thing as a power blaster. Mebby you meant the energy blast powerset?
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
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Didn't you get the memo? Blasters will get nothing because they're afraid to ask.
Castle called devices "gadgets" mistakenly, and people have been ragging him and the other rednames in general for it since.
They'd probably rather stay in silent apathy rather than talkative apathy.
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Where does this leave "gizmos" and "whipsy-doodles?"
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Okay, I can understand why everyone's not getting all excited about this. I know where the skepticism is coming from.
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Or as the Bard once said, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me fourteen or fifteen times and we're talkin' a Lifetime made-for-tv movie."
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What?!?? No, we're talking Jerry Springer.
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No, no. For that to be true the players and the devs would all have to live in the same trailer park or housing project and/or be related.
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Didn't you get the memo? Blasters will get nothing because they're afraid to ask.
Castle called devices "gadgets" mistakenly, and people have been ragging him and the other rednames in general for it since.
They'd probably rather stay in silent apathy rather than talkative apathy.
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Where does this leave "gizmos" and "whipsy-doodles?"
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Aisle four.
I really don't think fire needs jack. not the primary. It's the secondary that [censored] reeks.
Although Fire/* is one of my favorite sets, a change to its secondary effects from the on-again-off-again DOT would be welcome, whether this change be in a ToHit Debuff or whatever. I'm not too keen on a Fear effect, though.
There are definite improvements that can and should be made to Blaster sets, such as Electricity, that have been suggested by many posters on this forum. If I were a Redname, I'd start by attempting to go back through the forum and putting these on a list, sitting down with the dev team, and Pro- and Con- each one until the changes best suited to the direction and needs of the AT and game were decided.
well fire/ really has only 3 problems
1. Flares animation sucks so usually you wait till 18 before your attack chain becomes semi solid
2. Blaze and the like with the itty bitty range
3. sporatic dot on attacks
and so far only one of the 3 different flaws is being addressed that we know of.
now /fire on the other hand.......
Now we aren't ready quite yet to let the catgirls out of the bag.... (quote from ex libris)
My main is a Fire/Fire blaster and I'm actually very conserned about these "improvements" because the only thing we know right now is Blaze is getting more range. For all we know they'll reduce the damage to "compensate". I really hope not though. I'm just worried about my fun factor with this char that I love.
As for Electric, I'm of the belief that when the Dev's try to consider balance they have to factor in what a full team of (insert powerset here) would look like. Imagine 8 Electric blasters if Short Circuit did 100% drain, or if every attack drained 25% End (these numbers are just to make a point). They would be un-killable even on Invincible.
Ofcourse then logically the next comment is "but you'd never see that many Electric blasters together". And I believe that this is correct, and where the Dev's thinking (not confirmed, my opinion only) breaks down. People will continue to make characters that are not considered the "best", and some people even do it for expressly that reason. You can see it from all the "FOTM" comments on these boards.
Alot of us think in terms of soloability though. The problem is that the game is not made for our powers to scale down when in teams, and rightfully so. Why join a team with another Electric blaster if it means both of you now drain less for "balance"? So they have 1 formula for each attack, teamed or not, so they must consider what a big team of that powerset could do. This can unfortunately make a char a weaker solo'er though.
I don't have an answer, just my observations.
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The problem is that the game is not made for our powers to scale down when in teams, and rightfully so. Why join a team with another Electric blaster if it means both of you now drain less for "balance"? So they have 1 formula for each attack, teamed or not, so they must consider what a big team of that powerset could do. This can unfortunately make a char a weaker solo'er though.
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Very insightful. Stars for you
edit: And cool playing cards! 
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Ok, not to sound terribly pessimistic here, since you are trying and the like. Something I'm very pleased to see. However, I hope you don't mind if I don't hold my breath waiting for any other possible changes. That way I can be pleasantly surprised when they happen, and I won't be disappointed if they never show up. (Like almost all the other dev comments about 'looking into' blaster issues in the past.)
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"That is of course the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant." - Nero Wolfe
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Gratz Ohms_, not often I see a Rex Stout reference
Night_Fyre,
I see your point, but to be fair, we already have those instances of massive overkill with debuff from other AT's. 8 Accelerate Metabolisms, Lingering Radiations, Radiation Infections, and Enervating Fields wouldn't be as powerful as the example you gave? Or worse yet, Controller Primaries. Not only do they stack, but Containment is triggered off of each other Controller's stasis powers.
Like I said, I understand your point, but if the Devs balanced this way for all AT's, then they missed quite a bit in the process.
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As for Electric, I'm of the belief that when the Dev's try to consider balance they have to factor in what a full team of (insert powerset here) would look like. Imagine 8 Electric blasters if Short Circuit did 100% drain, or if every attack drained 25% End (these numbers are just to make a point). They would be un-killable even on Invincible.
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They don't really balance secondary effects that way. They don't really balance secondary effects *any* way: they tweak them essentially by intuition.
More to the point: why balance secondary effects like endurance drain like that, when the more important effect - damage - isn't. Eight electric blasters can short-circuit everyone to zero endurance, but eight fire blasters can kill them all just as fast.
The devs *rarely* take into account what will happen when two, three, or four players stack together: they mainly care what one of them can do. The problem with endurance drain is that given a major flaw in critter design - they just don't use all that much endurance, and they don't have full attack chains - endurance drain is almost as "binary" as holds are: either you've drained them to zero AND stopped their recovery completely, in which case they cannot attack you at all, or they don't notice at all. Blasters, having low long-term survivability, cannot rely on what endurance drain will do *later*, only what it will do now. So you have a situation where if they give blasters strong enough endurance drain to help them immediately, they can incapacitate their foes totally, and attack from complete safety, which the devs don't want. But outside of that, what endurance drain *does* do isn't ordinarily helpful most of the time for blasters.
And unfortunately, it would be very difficult to fix this purely by simple tweaking powers on the blaster-side. The real problem is that critters don't need a lot of end. So the difference between "don't care" and "can't fight" is very slim. What they need to do is somehow modify the endurance usage of critters so that being drained hurts them more, so they don't need to be totally zeroed out before you notice any effect at all.
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Night_Fyre,
I see your point, but to be fair, we already have those instances of massive overkill with debuff from other AT's. 8 Accelerate Metabolisms, Lingering Radiations, Radiation Infections, and Enervating Fields wouldn't be as powerful as the example you gave? Or worse yet, Controller Primaries. Not only do they stack, but Containment is triggered off of each other Controller's stasis powers.
Like I said, I understand your point, but if the Devs balanced this way for all AT's, then they missed quite a bit in the process.
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Absolutely right. My belief is that multiple instances of the same powerset on a team was/is a balance consideration for the Dev's. Now is it a just consideration, or does it seem to be applied universally through the game? No, I don't believe so. I'm fully on the side of designing powers as if for solo or "one on a team" play. If my original post didn't convey my personal feelings correctly then I apologize. I was more writing what I believe happens, not what I think should happen.
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What they need to do is somehow modify the endurance usage of critters so that being drained hurts them more, so they don't need to be totally zeroed out before you notice any effect at all.
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I agree. I don't understand why mobs don't use the same rules for endurance use as players. Hell, even give them all Stamina, just make them use the same endurance costs as we do. On top of that, if the Dev's think that that would make long fights too difficult for a mob, give them a Freakshow-like power that when they hit a certain point on the End bar they pop a CaB. That would even the playing field and make End drain much more viable. Ofcourse this is only 1 Blaster's opinion.
QR
Intersting that Lighthouse used the Castle post in this thread to indicate why there will be a free respec after I8....hmmm
Electro-Blasters know the "fool me twice" better than most. The devs were going to look into the intra-AT balance issues of recharge rates and damge levels of Electro-Blasters versus the others. Then they told us they weren't going to adjust them because end drain was going to be so uber in the upcoming addition of PvP to the game. Fat lotta good that did for those of us that weren't interested in the addition of PvP to the game. Not that it mattered. When PvP was getting close to going live, they gelded end drain.
With the reason for not addressing recharge and damage having been removed, these issues should've been addressed, but weren't. Instead, Electro-Blasters were tossed a bone with the random chance of some powers returning a small amount of endurance. And that was that. Well, that is, until ED came along.
Time was, you needed to five- or six-slot Short Circuit with -End SOs before it was little more than a suicide move. Meaning that a power you could get at lvl 6 needed to be put off using into the mid 20s. After that, it was a pretty effective drainer. When ED dropped, that changed. You now had to stack another power, typically Power Sink, with Short Circuit before it was little more than a suicide move. Meaning that a power available at lvl 6 had to be put off into the late 30s.