Why A Blaster?

Though some might call it cherrypicking sets again, here's a lil story from today.

Pulled out my rad/fire blaster, she's just slotted with 25 or 30 IO's and no sets. Was just gonna solo but got invited to a synapse TF, started with 8, ended with 6, 1:57 time to finish. Team was 1 brute 1 corr 1 stalker 2 defs and me by the end.

Exemped to 20 I still had aim, build up, irradiate, fire sword circle, and combustion as my main aoes. Tier 1 and 2 attacks along with cosmic burst for ST damage.

And this is why I love this blaster build too, as on a team I've got free reign to just go to town, at least 2-3 times a mission i could walk up to the herd the brute made, hit build up, then irradiate for the -def, or just FSC and BOOM! That sound you hear is me flattening an aoe cap worth of dead clockwork. The ST chain was great for smaller fights and helped on bosses, though mostly that was where the stalker was doing the heavy lifting alongside the brute. And the corr dropping freezing rain left and right (ar/storm) was sending the damage tally even higher.

The TF got steamrolled, alongside the time we had a 0 defeat score to boot. But looking back on it, I noticed, hey not a single scrapper, we seem to certainly have no shortage of teamwork and damage piling on though.

So I just can't help but wonder, aside from the bosses which in a couple instances aggroed on me for minor trouble, or more scattered mobs when i had to resort to ST attacks rather then waste end on aoe's for just 1-2, how would the scrapper have outperformed me damage wise overall?

More so as only once when I got ahead and aggroed another group by accident did I even get below half HP the entire TF. So survivability was a total non issue, I had free reign to aoe as much as I wanted. And I had a brute making nice sized packs to just lay waste too.

So for the people who say blasters aren't good enough, too squishy, or don't bring enough damage to a team compared to scrappers, well still waiting to be proven wrong here.

Oh and still having a ball playing them, last time I checked that's still the big reason we play right? =p

Brute: "Man I wish I had burn around now."
Me: "Hey least you got me!"
Brute: "True this."

I disagree with the premise that all a blaster does is bring damage. That really depends on the blaster, the build and the player.

My NRG/NRG brings mitigation through knockback.

My Elec/Elec can totally drain a +2 mob of endurance, He has three single target holds so he can very quickly take any boss out of a fight.

My Rad/MM has some pretty good debuffs with Irradiate and Neutron Bomb.

Ive got everything.. and IMO nothing is as fun or as satisfying as a well played blaster.

I have an interesting case of altitis.. I have lots of toons I want to make.. list them in a book. But I usually play from 1 all the way to 50 and then start another one. Ive been playing since two months after release so Ive been around for a while.

The Rad/Fire has been really really fun. I was playing that until Issue 18 came out and I started an Elec/Rad Controller...

Why would I want to play a Scrapper when I can take a Brute anywhere now?

Face it, some people just don't like playing certain ATs. Personally, I find Scrappers boring and laugh whenever I hear one complain about a Blaster's lack of defenses(it always sounds to me like they're not yet ready to swim in the deep end with the big kids).

I love my Blasters. My 50 Elec/Elec/Elec is a blapping machine of pure seat-of-her-pants awesome, and I have a riot every time I log her on.

Haters gonna hate(and hopefully play on a different team).

Where have you posted hard fact numbers? It's all been 'On this spreadsheet' or 'in theory' when in actual practice, you havent posted anything to back up your claim that scrapper only need reds, and blasters die instantly to mez mobs.

I would really like to see how the APPs don't benefit blasters, as they add mitigation in the form of defense or resitance, or extra mez, which you have yet to actually talk about.

You say scrappers can do everything a blaster can do but better, but your talkin in a vacuum, assuming both the scrapper and blaster are in melee range, when the blaster is best suited to attack from range, far from the hard hitting melee attacks most mobs have.

Where is your actual hard facted evidence that blasters die more often the scrappers?

Where is your actual hard facted evidence that scrappers can out damage Blasters?

Where is your proof in regards to those arguements? All you've stated doesnt answer those questions.

Saying blasters are fun and useful doesn't counter, let alone negate, the statement that blasters are not as powerful relative to most other AT's than they should be.

Which is all that is being said. People saying blasters need improvement aren't saying they are total garbage because nothing in the game is total garbage. So please stop claiming that is their position.

Personally I thought blasters were a lot more fun pre defiance changes when they were really a skill based AT. Not only do I find the new defiance shoot-while-mezzed mechanic to be illogical, it looks absolutely retarded in game. The latter of which is probably a strong contributor to the former conclusion.

I like the fury-lite aspect and the increased range modifier, but would have personally loved to see the damage buff tied to hp remain along with the new fury-lite in exchange for the shoot-while-mezzed. I would have made the hp/damage buff kick in a bit stronger and sooner. That would have made the AT true damage gods.

FWIW blasters should never even have to consider the question "does some other AT do more damage than me?"

Every single blaster set/combo should do more raw damage than any other set/combo from another AT because every other AT has more survivability and/or team forcemultiplication.

The fact that there is even a discussion questioning the prowess of blaster damage (be it st or aoe) is evidence enough to put up a flag. The fact that these discussions go a lot further than questioning their dominance and go so far as to actually refute it should set off alarms.

Case in point. Every single blaster combo should be able to kill a boss faster than every single scrapper combo (assuming the blaster is alive). Every single blaster combo should be able to kill a spawn faster than every single scrapper combo (assuming the blaster is alive). This isn't the case and it is inappropriate as long as every scrapper combo is tougher than every blaster combo, which by default it is.

Overlap of roles and performance in this game is welcomed, but it is a two way street. If you can do as much damage as me then I should be able to survive as well as you (in the most simplified explanation possible).

Lots of toons can infringe on what blasters excel at, but blasters aren't permitted to infringe on what the other AT's excel at. As another example the most control based blaster doesn't hold a candle to the control a dominator can provide, but the most damage oriented dominator can certianly infringe on blaster territory.

While i do agree with you that blasters need to be #1, it'll be really hard to balance anything that way. What you basically saying is a assault rifle/dev blaster should be able to out damage a elec/shield scrapper, due to the fact the blaster as no means to defend themselves the way a scrapper does.

But the blaster does. Cloaking device, trip mine, targetting drone basically negating the need to slot acc, etc. yes, that elec/shield can lightning rod/shield charge basically every group to death, and they can more or less do it from range, (due to the targetting nature of LR and SC) but they aren't stepping on blasters toes to do it.

Blasters offer ranged damage and utility. Sometimes the utility they offer isn't what the team can really use (a field of trip mines may kill that EB in one round, but the setup would take too long on a good team) But that ranged damage is what pulls them ahead.

A scraper is melee damage. A blaster is ranged. While the scrapper is having to actually run into a group to kill the boss, or wipe that spawn out, the blaster can do the same thing from range. Its to different damage 'types' and until scrappers can chain together a full ranged attack chain, they will need the defenses thier secondary gives them.

A blasters biggest 'defense' is range. Learn how to abuse it, Use it to your advantage, and love it.