Why A Blaster?

There's one problem with all your math and calculations. This goes for both Another Fan and Arbegla.

Not all scrappers are Electric/Shield, and not all blasters are Fire/Fire.

You can't look at the damage of one aberrent scrapper combo and say it is proof that the entire AT is better. Electric/Shield is by far the best scrapper for AoE burst damage, you can't use it as an example and say the results are typical of the entire AT.

I bet the numbers look a whole lot different when you compare an Archery/Mental blaster to an MA/Regen scrapper. Or a Broadsword/Willpower. There are a lot of scrapper combos that are blown away by the average blaster's damage output, and you're completely discarding the fact that they even exist in your comparison.

So, on that note, all your calculations are completely useless when comparing the 2 ATs as a whole. All they do is prove that an Electric/Shield can do comparable damage to a Fire/Fire blaster. It does NOT prove that any random scrapper is going to outdamage any random blaster, far from it.

A shield scrapper on SOs isn't going to perform all that well. I don't know a single scrapper in those pylon tests that isn't IOed out. Not that I'm endorsing the pylon tests as the definitive benchmark for performance, I think it's a waste of time. Most things in this game die in a few aoe volleys, sustained DPS is only meaningful in maybe 5% of game content, if that much.

Any blaster can softcap defense through IOs, just like shield scrappers achieve soft cap through IOs.

Currently I run my blasters softcapped to range with 50% s/l resist for layered defenses, along with ~50% recharge bonus. I don't see any sacrifices to my offense for this other than the lowered recharge compared to a pure recharge build.

With i19 I can have it all, my fire/elec/leviathan is planned to have softcapped range def, 50% s/l resist, and 80% recharge plus hasten.

Put a blaster on equal footing and the survivability argument holds a bit less ground. I'll concede the deficiency in mez protection though. Unlike a s/l def build, however, when mezzed a range capped defense blaster is still going to retain a significant portion of his def bonuses because he isn't as reliant on the epic shield.

Sure I'm not getting defense to all positions like a scrapper does but the scrapper is limited by being able to do his thing in melee range. You can toss examples like epic or spines or claws but really, if a scrapper stood at the perimeters spamming those attacks then he isn't being 100%.

The blaster, on the other hand, enjoys the luxury of being able to dish out pain from range more consistently, this means that they can be on the offensive even when running away. They can also hop in and out of combat to make use of their secondary. Before anyone makes the claim that melee is bad or thinks they need s/l defense to go into melee, go watch someone joust melee attacks/pbaoes.

In the end it all comes down to how much are you going to invest in your toons. EZ mode is ez mode regardless of AT.

My first AT was a blaster, an Energy / Devices which I painfully brought from 1 to 50, mostly through soloing and before the Defiance changes (toggle dropping age). When I started playing the other ATs, mostly doms, brutes and stalkers, I realized I hate my blaster. In fact, I hate all blasters. From my experience with the AT, I think the problem with blasters is twofold.

1) Blasters almost always seem to get the worst version of a (non-damage) power in the game, which greatly diminishes their controls and therefore, their mitigation. I've always been made to believe the game has Archetypes instead of classes, similar powers with only slight differences but that's not true of blasters. Look for example at Electric/ Tesla Coil, and match it against troller/dom versions - what you get is pitiful damage, less than half its hold duration and significantly lenghtier recharge. And all across the board, it's the same, if it's not a damage power, chances are the blaster version of that power is probably garbage.

Because they don't have direct mitigation, blasters depend on those controls to survive. Why are they so bad? Fire/Fire, for example, actually has only one control, the 1st power of their secondary, Fire Ring Circle. Again, comparing it to troller/dom, it only has mag3 immob (vs mag4), only 40ft range (vs 80ft) and lasts for about 1/3 of their versions. /Electric's Electric fence doesn't even have the -fly the troller/dom version has. And if you think it's only blaster vs troller/dom, look at the tanker's Lightning Clap, with a base mag2 stun + 50% chance for mag3 stun, whereas the blaster's only has a base 50% chance for mag2 stun. Yes, amazingly enough, even tankers have better versions of blaster controls.

Thess discrepancies would be where I'd start, updating blaster controls to other AT numbers, if giving slightly (slightly, not double or triple or...) greater mez durations to trollers/doms versions of the same power.

2) Some Primaries and some Secondaries try to be different, and thus suck. I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, but the truth is Electric/ needs that third attack more than it needed a buggy pet, Energy/ needs to have its AoE attacks changed to knockdown instead of knockback (or some form of protection against /teamkick) and /Devices needs to actually do something in teams other than being invisible and annoying everyone about waiting 15 secs to set up a timebomb. But the devs won't get into this, no matter how many times it's asked, so disreguard this. It's a problem with no solution in sight.

Once again, I'd start with blaster controls rather than giving blasters more damage or mitigations, which will never amount to much anyway. If that doesn't work, we can always go back to whining here in the forums while rolling new doms and brutes.

P.S. If you haven't read the above already, WARNING! WALL OF TEXT ABOVE! MAY CAUSE HEADACHES AND STOMACH ACHES!

Your also discounting the soft controls available to blasters, which most controllers/dom's don't have.

Rain of fire/ice storm screws up the AI of just about any mobs, minion/LT/boss, doesnt matter, they run the heck out of it. So you blast them while they are running.

Hot feet does the same thing.

Archery has increased range on all three of their single target blasts, plus a ranged nuke, which can down most anything from a very safe area.

Energy blast has KB in nearly all its attacks, same with assault rifle (plus ignite has the afraid tag as well)

Elec blast has some -end, which can be used to prevent you from getting hit by the hard hitting attacks.

Ice blast slows that slow down the enemy, allowing you to get more distance between them and you.

Psi blast has similar slows, as well as more soft controls (sleep, KB)

Sonic has -res, which just gives you more damage.

Fire is pure damage

and dual pistols gives you something for any situation (+damage, KB, -damage, and slows)

If your going to play a blaster like a controller with more damage, your doing something wrong. Blasters are meant to be ranged fighters, until its safe to attack in melee, or its possible to kite.

Taking devices for example, i'd toss a smoke grenade, then throw caltrops. then blast with gun drone, and my primary. or i'd just summon the drone right on top of the boss, so it'll take the alpha, then caltrops to freak the AI, then blast.

Eh, controller have very hard controls, and while some are soft, they dont have the damage to take full advantage of them.

KB on a controller means the mobs aren't hitting them, which is true, but they cant deal enough damage to kill all the mobs before the soft controls wear off.

I'll agree 100% that a controller will control better then a blaster, in any situation.

You just can't disregard the blaster's ability to control, even if the controller does it better, as the blaster has the damage to back up the little controls they have.

A dom most certainly could kill things that are soft/hold controlled, but a blaster would do it faster, due to access to AoEs, and such. Maybe not safer though..

Even then, the blaster is hovering. Mez'es don't drop your toggles it just supresses them, which i think we've already been though.

and that same carnie boss, will rip up an SR just as easy.