Blasters need more Secondaries
Anyone else feel there arnt enough secondaries for Blasters?
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I'd like to see more sets with soft controls, but more dynamic and team-based than Devices seems to be.
I disagree.
Blasters need more Epics!
A Psi Epic!
Indomitable Will
Psychic Shield
Resurgence
Debuff Power
Some mez power
Good to go!
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My main issue with blaster secondaries is that Devices is the only one that feels right for a Natural blaster, including most of the characters Archery, Assault Rifle, and (soon) Dual Pistols draw from for inspiration. Something like a Melee Mastery pool mixing Martial Arts attacks with things along the lines of Body Mastery powers (Physical Perfection and Focused Accuracy both make sense here) and presumably Build Up would be welcome.
I wish there was a Weather Epic that borrowed a little from Storm Summoning. Can you imagine a Blaster-rated Tornado or Lightning Storm?
Edit: Just remembered these powers summon standard pets. Too bad, that. But maybe granting Steamy Mists with a very small radius could take the place of the normal armor that appears in the blaster epics.
Blasters could use more secondaries.. But I would rather than secondaries that blend well with Blaster Primaries.. not just melee ports of something else. I like Mental Manipulation as an example.
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
Hi everyone in Blaster land.
Iv noticed that Blasters get the shortest list of Secondaries to any AT in the entire game.It keeps me from bothering with Blasters personally, and why im more drawn to Defenders because of there broad Primary choices. Id think giving them a few more would be nice, not to mention that theres a few id personally want to use on a Blaster. The following sets are on my wish list for Blaster Secondaries. Martial Arts Dual Blades Katana Claws Thats just what id like Personally. Anyone else feel there arnt enough secondaries for Blasters? |
and masterminds "need" more primaries. others have more secondary/primary because they're easier to port over. for MM primaries, and blaster secondaries, no other AT can use those sets. its not as simple as just porting another set over like in PP 1 and 2.0 and with the aforementioned sets. while i agree that more secondaries would be nice, they're harder to make so the chances of seeing more is less likely than a primary. Personally i'd like to see more mitigation for a new secondary than what simply just strait up porting over those sets would bring.
Positron's i13 letter: We are trying to make PvP more accessible to new players, while giving experienced PvP'ers the advantage that comes with formulating tactics around the new systems we're putting in place. PvP from now on will be on our priority list. If something isn't working out, we'll be in there tweaking it and making it work, for the entire future of the product, not just Issue 13.
Hi everyone in Blaster land.
Iv noticed that Blasters get the shortest list of Secondaries to any AT in the entire game.It keeps me from bothering with Blasters personally, and why im more drawn to Defenders because of there broad Primary choices. Id think giving them a few more would be nice, not to mention that theres a few id personally want to use on a Blaster. The following sets are on my wish list for Blaster Secondaries. Martial Arts Dual Blades Katana Claws Thats just what id like Personally. Anyone else feel there arnt enough secondaries for Blasters? |
Some manipulation sets that are (IMHO) more realistic (the name is the set they are based off of in most cases):
Dark Manipulation: I think that between Dark Miasma, Dark Melee and Dark Armor there are almost enough powers to fill out a manipulation set. It would probably need one or two new powers (like a single target immobilize unless they make Touch of Fear the T1 skill). I figure that like Ice it'll be a a control/debuff focused set and having a scaling version of Build Up (Soul Drain) will give it an unusual twist for Blasters. I actually give this set high odds of being the next manipulation set. Back in I12 when the devs proliferated Psychic Blast to Blasters they made Mental Manipulation to go with it. The only blast set Blasters don't have is Dark Blast so it would make sense to proliferate that next time they do powerset proliferation and making Dark Manipulation at the same time would make sense if it can be done with minimal effort.
Martial Arts: I figure the devs will do this one eventually just because it's asked for so much. The problem is where to draw the powers from. Figure on a max of 4 melee attacks plus Focus Chi and Cobra Strike would be ok. Crane Kick would work for the Tier 1 skill although the damage would need to be reduced (basically make it a clone of Power Thrust). However that sill means you need a minimum of two powers from elsewhere. The obvious ones thematically are Caltrops and a reskinned version of Smoke Grenade from Devices. This would probably make a functional set but the problem is it doesn't really offer anything new, it's basically Energy Manipulation with Caltrops and Smoke Grenade instead of Boost Range and Power Boost. I hope the devs go a different route but the problem is making a set that feels different from Energy Manipulation and Devices without requiring a lot of extra effort in terms of animations.
Trick Arrow: Like Martial Arts this is one that would be popular with a lot of people and suffers from the question of where do you get the powers from since Trick Arrow has a max of 5 powers that I would consider suitable for a Blaster. My suggestion is actually to solve both problems at once and make a set that combines Trick Arrow debuffs with Martial Arts attacks but when I suggested it in the Suggestions Forum people seemed to really hate the idea. In any case unless the devs decide to go the Martial Arts route this set will require several new powers from somewhere and baring the unlikely event of Castle and BaB designing the set after getting really drunk and watching Avatar I'm not sure what they would be.
However that sill means you need a minimum of two powers from elsewhere. The obvious ones thematically are Caltrops and a reskinned version of Smoke Grenade from Devices. This would probably make a functional set but the problem is it doesn't really offer anything new, it's basically Energy Manipulation with Caltrops and Smoke Grenade instead of Boost Range and Power Boost. I hope the devs go a different route but the problem is making a set that feels different from Energy Manipulation and Devices without requiring a lot of extra effort in terms of animations.
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Trick Arrow: Like Martial Arts this is one that would be popular with a lot of people and suffers from the question of where do you get the powers from since Trick Arrow has a max of 5 powers that I would consider suitable for a Blaster. My suggestion is actually to solve both problems at once and make a set that combines Trick Arrow debuffs with Martial Arts attacks but when I suggested it in the Suggestions Forum people seemed to really hate the idea. In any case unless the devs decide to go the Martial Arts route this set will require several new powers from somewhere and baring the unlikely event of Castle and BaB designing the set after getting really drunk and watching Avatar I'm not sure what they would be.
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The problem is kind of that blaster secondaries are just cobbled together powers from other powersets. There's only a few powers in blaster secondaries that don't exist anywhere else.
Look at Fire Manipulation. It's Fire Control, Fiery Melee, and Fiery Aura all smashed into one and not as good as any of the things it draws from. There's not a single power in it that is unique to it.
Energy Manipulation has 3 powers that are unique to it: Power Boost, Boost Range, and Power Thrust. The other 6 are taken from Energy Melee. Conserve Power used to be unique before scrappers got Epic pools.
Electric has 1 unique power. It used to be more, but they gave other ATs Lightning Field and Power Sink. Before Eletric Armor and Electric melee were given to villains Electric had the most unique powers. Now they just have Shocking Grasp.
Devices has Cloaking Device, Targeting Drone, and Gun Drone, everything else is available in Traps.
Ice has no unique powers, everything is available in Ice Melee or Ice Control.
Mental Manipulation is a cobbled together collection of powers from Dominators and Psi Blast. The only thing that was unique was World of Confusion, and they ported that around already.
It's not so much lack of choice that annoys me about blaster secondaries, it's lack of uniqueness. I'd like something that no other AT can do in my character's powersets, and most of the time those other ATs can do it better.
It really seems like they got the game almost finished and ready for launch and someone came running into the meeting room liek: "Holy crap! We forgot to give blasters secondary powersets! Take powers from other ATs and throw something together!"
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
I don't really make blasters due to the 2ndaries, also. My thought process is like this; Why make blasters defense so weak, but add mainly melee attacks to the 2ndaries? The only one i ever choose is /ice because is has something to offer other than melee attacks. I try to keep them as far from the fight as i can. I don't understand "blappers". Maybe someone can offer some insight to the playstyle.
I don't really make blasters due to the 2ndaries, also. My thought process is like this; Why make blasters defense so weak, but add mainly melee attacks to the 2ndaries? The only one i ever choose is /ice because is has something to offer other than melee attacks. I try to keep them as far from the fight as i can. I don't understand "blappers". Maybe someone can offer some insight to the playstyle.
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Blaster melee attacks hit really, really hard. They allow you to chain a bunch of high damage attacks together in a hurry if you need to. For example there are only two single-target, non-snipe blasts that do more damage than bonesmasher: blaze and blazing arrow. And bonesmasher is the middle-damage attack from EM. Total focus does considerably more.
Staying at range offers a degree of protection, namely keeping you away from enemies' big melee attacks. But so does closing to melee and just pulverizing stuff into a fine red mist very quickly.
...in CoH racing to 50 is like trying to race to the end of your vacation. -Arcanaville
Debt barely slows down levelling these days. It's just a little bar that measures how much Awesome you've generated recently. (If you're not getting debt, you're just not trying to generate Awesome hard enough.) -Kelenar
My suggestion is cribbing Focused Accuracy and Physical Perfection from scrappers' Body Mastery. A version of Dragon's Tail (perhaps with expanded area? It's been a while since I played a MA scrapper) would also nicely distinguish it from Energy Melee, probably pushing out one of the harder-hitting ST attacks.
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I think the biggest issue with this set is that unless you were playing archery with it, the redraw would be brutal.
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The problem is kind of that blaster secondaries are just cobbled together powers from other powersets. There's only a few powers in blaster secondaries that don't exist anywhere else.
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It's not so much lack of choice that annoys me about blaster secondaries, it's lack of uniqueness. I'd like something that no other AT can do in my character's powersets, and most of the time those other ATs can do it better. |
Dominators and Blasters get combination secondaries that rather being direct copies of some other ATs primary draw their powers from several different primaries (Control, Buff, Melee, and Armor [with the latter being limited to damage powers in the armor set])
I don't really make blasters due to the 2ndaries, also. My thought process is like this; Why make blasters defense so weak, but add mainly melee attacks to the 2ndaries? The only one i ever choose is /ice because is has something to offer other than melee attacks. I try to keep them as far from the fight as i can. I don't understand "blappers". Maybe someone can offer some insight to the playstyle.
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Positron's i13 letter: We are trying to make PvP more accessible to new players, while giving experienced PvP'ers the advantage that comes with formulating tactics around the new systems we're putting in place. PvP from now on will be on our priority list. If something isn't working out, we'll be in there tweaking it and making it work, for the entire future of the product, not just Issue 13.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
You could get things like dual blades, MA, kat, perhaps, but they'd still have to fit within the 'manipulation' framework, so you'd get some of the melee powers and then the rest would be self buffs/soft controls/etc like usual for blaster secondaries.
I've long wished for the 'body manipulation' MA/other stuff style secondary as well. MA is just so pretty, and the thought of having some of those attacks on the sort of scale blaster melee attacks tend to be on makes me drool.
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I don't really make blasters due to the 2ndaries, also. My thought process is like this; Why make blasters defense so weak, but add mainly melee attacks to the 2ndaries? The only one i ever choose is /ice because is has something to offer other than melee attacks. I try to keep them as far from the fight as i can. I don't understand "blappers". Maybe someone can offer some insight to the playstyle.
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Energy has 4 melee attacks out of 9 powers. That leaves you half the set to choose from if you don't want the melee attacks. Except Power Thrust, you're stuck with that. Power Boost, a power that boosts the secondary effects of you other powers, wouldn't an Ice blaster find that useful? Or Boost Range...hmmm, sounds useful for someone who wants to avoid melee, does it not? Conserve Power...stretches your endurance bar so you can blast longer before running out of endurance....sounds like something all blasters could use.
Fire gives you a lot of powers that you need to be in melee to use. In fact, with the exception of Ring of Fire pretty much the whole set requires you to be in melee. Your generalization actually fits this one.
Devices doesn't have a single melee attack in it. Not one. Even Taser has range to it. No one has ever built a Devices blapper.
Electric also requires you to spend a lot of time in melee, but out of that, only 3 are melee attacks (4 if you count Shocking Grasp as an attack, I consider it a hold)
Mental Manipulation also makes you spend time in melee. But what do you get in the set? Melee attacks? Nope, only 2 powers in it count as a melee attack. You get Drain Psyche, one of the most awesome powers blasters have ever been given. World of Confusion, a fairly crappy damage aura with a minor confuse built in. And of the 2 that count as a melee attack, one is Psychic Shockwave, one of the best PBAoE attacks in the game, on ANY AT.
Yes, Ice does give you options other than melee attacks, but so do other sets.
As far as the blapper playstyle goes:
A blaster that uses ALL of his powers will outdamage one that only uses half of them. A blaster that uses only ranged is only half a blaster. On the flip side, a pure blapper who only fights in melee is no better. A true blaster is a damage dealer....it doesn't make any difference at all whether they're dealing that damage from down the hall or 2 feet away.
I'm building an Ice/Electric blaster that will have his melee ability. I don't consider him a blapper....he's just a blaster that doesn't gimp his damage potential by skipping his hard hitting attacks. Especially with Ice as his primary, what possible danger could he be in punching an enemy that is frozen in a block of ice?
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
Really? No other set has anything to offer except melee attacks? None? That's quite the generalization there.
Energy has 4 melee attacks out of 9 powers. That leaves you half the set to choose from if you don't want the melee attacks. Except Power Thrust, you're stuck with that. Power Boost, a power that boosts the secondary effects of you other powers, wouldn't an Ice blaster find that useful? Or Boost Range...hmmm, sounds useful for someone who wants to avoid melee, does it not? Conserve Power...stretches your endurance bar so you can blast longer before running out of endurance....sounds like something all blasters could use. Fire gives you a lot of powers that you need to be in melee to use. In fact, with the exception of Ring of Fire pretty much the whole set requires you to be in melee. Your generalization actually fits this one. Devices doesn't have a single melee attack in it. Not one. Even Taser has range to it. No one has ever built a Devices blapper. Electric also requires you to spend a lot of time in melee, but out of that, only 3 are melee attacks (4 if you count Shocking Grasp as an attack, I consider it a hold) Mental Manipulation also makes you spend time in melee. But what do you get in the set? Melee attacks? Nope, only 2 powers in it count as a melee attack. You get Drain Psyche, one of the most awesome powers blasters have ever been given. World of Confusion, a fairly crappy damage aura with a minor confuse built in. And of the 2 that count as a melee attack, one is Psychic Shockwave, one of the best PBAoE attacks in the game, on ANY AT. Yes, Ice does give you options other than melee attacks, but so do other sets. As far as the blapper playstyle goes: A blaster that uses ALL of his powers will outdamage one that only uses half of them. A blaster that uses only ranged is only half a blaster. On the flip side, a pure blapper who only fights in melee is no better. A true blaster is a damage dealer....it doesn't make any difference at all whether they're dealing that damage from down the hall or 2 feet away. I'm building an Ice/Electric blaster that will have his melee ability. I don't consider him a blapper....he's just a blaster that doesn't gimp his damage potential by skipping his hard hitting attacks. Especially with Ice as his primary, what possible danger could he be in punching an enemy that is frozen in a block of ice? |
/ice just seems to have the best mitigation to incoming damage. A slow toggle, a slow power, ice patch, an aoe sleep, a hold and an immob.
Alot of ways to stay safe.
I think /dev offers caltrops and a couple bombs that have to be planned. (which is hard to do on most teams)
/MM has WoC ( but on my arch/mm i hardly see it hit with a full set of purps on it.) A single thrust, and a single fear.
/Fire has burn to kb them.
I don't see much mitigation from the others. A single immob or single hold and thats about it.
But i'm no pro at blasting. I just always go /ice. lol.
Well Ice and Devices are pretty much the best sets for damage mitigation, no question about it.
The others do have mitigation it's just less direct. Electric has some melee range mezzes as well as Power Sink to help drain their endurance. Energy has several melee range mezzes. Mental has some mezzes and -recharge but most of it's mitigation is in Drain Psyche's +regen. Fire just mitigates damage by helping you kill things faster .
Dark Manipulation: I think that between Dark Miasma, Dark Melee and Dark Armor there are almost enough powers to fill out a manipulation set. It would probably need one or two new powers (like a single target immobilize unless they make Touch of Fear the T1 skill). I figure that like Ice it'll be a a control/debuff focused set and having a scaling version of Build Up (Soul Drain) will give it an unusual twist for Blasters. I actually give this set high odds of being the next manipulation set. Back in I12 when the devs proliferated Psychic Blast to Blasters they made Mental Manipulation to go with it. The only blast set Blasters don't have is Dark Blast so it would make sense to proliferate that next time they do powerset proliferation and making Dark Manipulation at the same time would make sense if it can be done with minimal effort. |
Perhaps something like this?
1. Midnight Grasp - Melee, Moderate DMG(Negative), Foe Immobilize, -To Hit
2. Smite - Melee, Moderate DMG(Smash/Negative), Foe -To Hit
3. Death Shroud - Toggle: PBAoE Minor DoT(Negative)
4. Shadow Maul - Melee (Cone), High DoT(Smash/Negative), Foe -To Hit
5. Build Up - Self +DMG +To Hit
6. Touch Of Fear - Melee Fear, Foe -To Hit
7. Dark Consumption - PBAoE Moderate DMG(Negative), Self +End
8. Black Hole - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Intangible
9. Cloak Of Fear - Toggle, PBAoE Foe Fear, -To Hit
Thank you so much for breaking that down and schooling me. I didn't mean it the way it sounded. It just seems hard for me to play blaster because "most" of all the 2ndaries require you to be in melee range but blasters feel VERY squishy to me. (unless IO'd to the gill)
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/ice just seems to have the best mitigation to incoming damage. A slow toggle, a slow power, ice patch, an aoe sleep, a hold and an immob.
Alot of ways to stay safe. |
I think /dev offers caltrops and a couple bombs that have to be planned. (which is hard to do on most teams)
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/MM has WoC ( but on my arch/mm i hardly see it hit with a full set of purps on it.) A single thrust, and a single fear.
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wrong. burn has fear and does no KB what so ever.
then you're not looking. my reason for breaking down your post is to illustrate that to you. Most of the secondaries(note: spelling) require you to be in melee or close to it to use/get the most effect out of the powers and they're much more than just melee attacks.
Positron's i13 letter: We are trying to make PvP more accessible to new players, while giving experienced PvP'ers the advantage that comes with formulating tactics around the new systems we're putting in place. PvP from now on will be on our priority list. If something isn't working out, we'll be in there tweaking it and making it work, for the entire future of the product, not just Issue 13.
Perhaps something like this?
1. Midnight Grasp - Melee, Moderate DMG(Negative), Foe Immobilize, -To Hit 2. Smite - Melee, Moderate DMG(Smash/Negative), Foe -To Hit 3. Death Shroud - Toggle: PBAoE Minor DoT(Negative) 4. Shadow Maul - Melee (Cone), High DoT(Smash/Negative), Foe -To Hit 5. Build Up - Self +DMG +To Hit 6. Touch Of Fear - Melee Fear, Foe -To Hit 7. Dark Consumption - PBAoE Moderate DMG(Negative), Self +End 8. Black Hole - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Intangible 9. Cloak Of Fear - Toggle, PBAoE Foe Fear, -To Hit |
1. Midnight Snare - Ranged, Single Target Immobolize (this would be a new power)
2. Smite - Melee, Moderate DMG(Smash/Negative), Foe -To Hit
3. Cloak of Darkness - Toggle: Self Stealth, +DEF(All), +Res(Immobilize), +Perception (probably shouldn't have the immobolize protection or at least reduce it to Cobat Jumping levels)
4. Shadow Maul - Melee (Cone), High DoT(Smash/Negative), Foe -To Hit
5. Soul Drain - Moderate DMG(Negative), Self +DMG +To Hit
6. Petrifying Gaze - Ranged, Single Target Hold
7. Dark Consumption - PBAoE Moderate DMG(Negative), Self +End
8. Cloak Of Fear - Toggle, PBAoE Foe Fear, -To Hit
9. Siphon Life - Melee, Superior DMG(Negative), Foe -To-Hit, Self Heal
I'm not sure if that would be balanced it would be but it would definitely be an interesting set to play with a mix of powers not available in other blaster sets.
My dream secondary would be another "natural-friendly" set like Devices, but focusing more on a mix of gadgets and martial arts attacks. Something like:
Dragon's Tail
Storm Kick
Caltrops
Build Up
Crane Kick
Acid Mortar
Smoke Flash
Eagle's Claw
Poison Trap
(Ok, I know that set would probably be overpowered as hell, but I did say it was my dream set... )
But seriously, I really want a secondary with some non-glowing, non-elemental melee attacks. With Dual Pistols being such a gun foo inspired set it's almost unthinkable not to have punches and kicks to complete the picture.
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
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Hi everyone in Blaster land.
Iv noticed that Blasters get the shortest list of Secondaries to any AT in the entire game.It keeps me from bothering with Blasters personally, and why im more drawn to Defenders because of there broad Primary choices.
Id think giving them a few more would be nice, not to mention that theres a few id personally want to use on a Blaster.
The following sets are on my wish list for Blaster Secondaries.
Martial Arts
Dual Blades
Katana
Claws
Thats just what id like Personally.
Anyone else feel there arnt enough secondaries for Blasters?