Blaster Teams. Godly power or recipe for disaster?
By
Blue_Yin_EU,
Posted on: 2006-02-27 21:18 in Blasters
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if i know that everyone is going to be at full health and stamina, then there's no risk or danger and so you don't keep an eye out for your teammates and so it gets pretty boring because it's too easy 
yes it's god like but you'll might as well play Doom 3 on god mode.
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I love playing on all squishy team, especially if the other players know their stuff. You're right, it's a bit more exciting, but this wasn't about excitement, it was about power.
An all blaster team may well be much more fun but for a rolling juggernaught of destruction that goes through a mission like a tsunami on amphetamines you need scrappers.
Although I will concede the point about trollers and AVs. But ONLY on AVs that run away.
(\_/)
(O.O) Bunny: Our time is coming
(> <)
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if i know that everyone is going to be at full health and stamina, then there's no risk or danger and so you don't keep an eye out for your teammates and so it gets pretty boring because it's too easy yes it's god like but you'll might as well play Doom 3 on god mode.
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I love playing on all squishy team, especially if the other players know their stuff. You're right, it's a bit more exciting, but this wasn't about excitement, it was about power.
An all blaster team may well be much more fun but for a rolling juggernaught of destruction that goes through a mission like a tsunami on amphetamines you need scrappers.
Although I will concede the point about trollers and AVs. But ONLY on AVs that run away.
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Send a group of /regen blasters in against a psi AV and they are going to have bother, 'trollers especially /rad or ill/ will eat them up and spit them out.
But this is a discussion about blaster teams generally, not about my AT is better than yours.
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Send a group of /regen blasters in against a psi AV and they are going to have bother, 'trollers especially /rad or ill/ will eat them up and spit them out.
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Again, a very specific scenario that doesn't often come up. In fact, has never come up. Psi mobs certainly don't cause a lot of problems since regen scrapper has nearly zero defence against all damage types - they soak up the damage and then regen it.
The bogeyman for regens is the AV who can one-shot them.
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But this is a discussion about blaster teams generally, not about my AT is better than yours.
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No, this is a discussion about Blaster teams having Godly powers - which MUST be relative, and presumably, since there's nothing else to be relative to, to other AT teams.
And incidentally, whilst my main is a scrapper, my second alt is a blaster.
(\_/)
(O.O) Bunny: Our time is coming
(> <)
Well it was you who specified that regen scrappers were the comparison. Debates about all AT groups are always rock/paper/scissors, where one AT excels another falls down. Yes some AT's have fewer pitfalls than others but nothings perfect.
Do blasters have godly powers? If so I never noticed. A well organised blaster team will go through mobs like a hot knife through butter. This though is true of any well organised team, mixed or exclusively one AT. The difference being that blasters have always had a bad rep.
People see blasters as an accident waiting to happen. Therefore stick a bunch of blasters together must be madness, right? My current is a scrapper, in fact a regen. I need a big stick to beat off the offers to team. My blaster never had that problem, an offer to team from someone you didn't know was a rare sight indeed.
In general missions, excluding AV's, 8 blasters should fair roughly the same as scrappers. They may not go through the mobs as fast as scrappers but they won't be far behind. This may of course no longer be the case, its been over 6 months since my blaster stopped PvE. I would hope it still is though as they supposidly have been balancing the game.
There will always be exceptions but I would say they are closer to the good end of the scale then the [censored] end, which is basically what the question was asking.
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In general missions, excluding AV's, 8 blasters should fair roughly the same as scrappers. They may not go through the mobs as fast as scrappers but they won't be far behind. This may of course no longer be the case, its been over 6 months since my blaster stopped PvE. I would hope it still is though as they supposidly have been balancing the game.
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Blasters fairing as well as scrappers? Regen scrappers? If everything is going tickety-boo then I would agree, they wouldn't be FAR behind, but as you said, any well organised team will easily sail through a mission.
Ignoring downtime of course. The reason I suggest that regen scrappers as far more Godlike in their ability to pillage is based on their survivability.
Lets take a hypothetical example, just to demonstrate my point. Imagine an 8 man team set on invinvible; everyone's the same lvl, so the mobs are +2 for everyone. Take your average spawn size for that team. Multiply it by four and drop your blasters in the middle of that spawn and imagine how the blasters would fair. Now consider the regens, who'll fire off Dull pain, spool up Instant heal and start dishing it out and THAT is why if you want to see Godlike powers in action (using the OPs language here) you look to the regen scrapper.
I've seen my regen accomplish things my blaster couldn't even dream of emulating - taking on 30 Crey and surviving when the rest of the team planted, going toe-to-toe with a +5 boss and coming out on top and the list goes on and all I can see is the potential if you multiply that by 8.
I'm not trying to convine you of anything, merely explain the source of my opinion
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There will always be exceptions but I would say they are closer to the good end of the scale then the [censored] end, which is basically what the question was asking.
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Not really arguing that OPs point, just trying to point out that if you want to see real unstoppability then you look to the regen scrapper.
Am I bias? Well, yeah, kind of 
(\_/)
(O.O) Bunny: Our time is coming
(> <)
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Am I bias? Well, yeah, kind of
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Tbh I'm not terribly biased in favour of blasters.
My controller could survive things my blaster never could, including soloing AV's, and that was after the removal of multiple pets. I always found it more fun to stand in melee range beside my PA with AV's. I needed that to use my /kin secondary anyway, but its more interesting than standing at the far end of the room.
I have played in all controller teams and they did the 8 man invincible, all purple mobs mission sickeningly easily. AV's going down so fast you missed them.
I find my regen scrapper if anything mildly boring to play. I get into more trouble by not paying attention, forgetting to hit DP and Integration when needed. I don't think I'd want to play in an 8 man regen team. It goes back to my first post about blasters only nuking mobs. It's all terribly affective but it would also be extremely boring.
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Nothing beats blaster only teams, except maybe controler only teams.
[/ QUOTE ]8 /rad corruptors...
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Sorry, but for Godlike teams you needs scrappers, and specifically regen scrappers. It's like a freight train charging through the mission and after each major battle you look about and see everyone's on full health with full stamina.
[/ QUOTE ]Have you ever seen the effect of 8 AM's? Scrappers cant reach the level of destruction of corruptors, apart for maybe 8 spine/regens.
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Full team of eight Precision Rangers.
More fun than wellies full of frogspawn. With the right mix of power sets, you've got holds too.
Nothing beats blaster only teams, except maybe controler only teams.
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Doulos tried a respec on an 8 blaster team, he tried to succed after a while with a mixed and balanced team.
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Have you ever seen the effect of 8 AM's? Scrappers cant reach the level of destruction of corruptors, apart for maybe 8 spine/regens.
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Not see 8 at once while teaming, but 5 of em on a single team yes, now think of 5 AM, 2 Fulcrums and 8 fireballs/psi tornado with Containment.. 
The nice thing about all-squishy teams (e.g. all blasters/defenders/controllers) is that, all things being equal (i.e. no idiots), because they are all of the same squishy mind-set, they all know how to keep the aggro at a distance. When there are melee people in the mix, especially scrappers, (again all things being equal, i.e. them not being idiots) they think differently and can actually bring aggro upon the squishies sometimes, through no fault of their own (i.e. they may be playing well within their AT).
Which I suppose leads to a possible rule of thumb?: a team can get along fine without any melee players, but if you're going to have a scrapper in the team, then you need more than one, or a tank too.
(I don't mean to be derogatory against scrappers - they are truly awesome, and an all-scrapper team is possibly the fasest mission-finishing combo I've ever been in. It's just a matter of team balance.)
In all honesty, I got to say that survivability only becomes an issue the longer the fight lasts. If you'r a scrapper then you don't have the kind of damage a blaster has, I don't care what you say. Maybe a BS/DA with tons of recharge reductors and lots of damage in that pbaoe aura power they has will come close, but will never top a blaster. And the more ppl of the same AT in a team, the more pronounced the difference becomes.
I'll say, without ANY base in fact or proof, that a full */regen team and a full en/en blaster team will take about the same time for the same missions. Because while the blaster teams are chilling out, recovering from the last fight, the scrappers will still be fighting.
And there's nothing anyone can say about the damage differance. A fully SO'd blaster will have more damage than a fully SO'd scrapper. The blasters does have two powersets crammed full of damage (unless you are a /devices) while the scrappers has one set half-full of damage and one set with no damage (except DA). Even Crits don't equal this out, because it doesn't hit by far often enough. And Defiance will also count some way towards finishing off a fight faster.
This is all, of course, only based on observations, and so even if I sound completely positively sure about this, I'm not.
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) - keeping a freak tank in perma- knockback between 2 energy blasters can be pretty funny.
yes it's god like but you'll might as well play Doom 3 on god mode.
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Nothing beats blaster only teams, except maybe controler only teams.
[/ QUOTE ]8 /rad corruptors...
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Sorry, but for Godlike teams you needs scrappers, and specifically regen scrappers. It's like a freight train charging through the mission and after each major battle you look about and see everyone's on full health with full stamina.
One word; unstoppable.
Not to take anything away from blaster teams, but there's all that waiting about to do between mobs
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I was on a team once with 6 scrappers, an empath and myself as an empath, it got very dull - we buffed them and gave the occasional heal while they went after a mob each, yes it was fast but there was very little coordination between them, as far as they were concerned they could have been soloing and it wouldn't have made any difference.
The thing I like about blaster teams is the banter between mobs, laughing at your mates who make a silly mistake and faceplant and they in turn get a chance to laugh at you if you mess up, coordinating attacks and eventually anticipating what your team mate is going to do next, saving team mates when their health is in the red is pretty exciting and making best use of knockback in the case of energy blasters can be pretty satisfying (knockback tennis anyone?
if i know that everyone is going to be at full health and stamina, then there's no risk or danger and so you don't keep an eye out for your teammates and so it gets pretty boring because it's too easy
hmm wonder if this is an insight into the psyche of players and their ATs
Blasters - love living on the edge and short intense experiences
Scrappers - love the feeling of power and being an one-man unstoppable fighting machine
Tanks - loves protecting the team and taking on massive mobs
hmmm