Blasters vs Corruptors vs Defenders

How do these 3 ranged specialists fit into the game? Blasters should do the most damage, but I've often thought their secondary sets are quite uninteresting.

Can a corruptor come close to the damage potential of a blaster?

Why have a defender when you could have a corruptor?

Blasters exist so that buffing defenders have something to do on a team.

Post invention system and Going Rogue there was no reason to roll a defender instead of a corruptor. The incarnate trials have changed that. The better Defender buffs are again useful (but only in that part of the game) and can be useful for the entire team and not simply for the squishy blasters.

Certain corruptor combinations can both outdamage and out survive a blaster.

Scrappers significantly out survive blasters, many of them can out damage a blaster too especially if you figure survivability into the equation. A defeated blaster's damage output is zero.

On an individual level, corruptor damage can be competitive with blaster damage depending on the corruptor's secondary set. On a team level, a corruptor can pull ahead when you consider the corruptor's ability to act as a force multiplier and boost the overall team damage output. Defenders have lower individual damage, but can make better force multipliers in a team.

Personally, I have a hard time trying to play a blaster now, after having played a corruptor and a dominator (which you didn't mention but can also be competitive damagewise). IMO, when compared to corruptors and dominators, blasters just don't bring enough to a team.

Blasters need a buff, plain and simple. The minor damage advantage blasters hold over corruptors and defenders is nothing compared to the buffs/debuffs corruptors and defenders have.

My solution would be to remove the massive crash for all blaster nukes (and buff the ones that don't have the massive crashes now). This would signifigantly boost blaster aoe damage and increase the effectiveness of the at.

Interesting points so far.

Which corruptor secondaries would allow a corruptor to over take a blaster? I'm guessing that /Kin is fairly obvious.

Which secondaries give good survivability ?

Well I can say this. I have an AR Device Blaster, Traps AR Defender and I am working on a DP Traps Corruptor at 31 atm.

My Blaster is doing 30 points of damage with Full Auto.
My Defender with Full Auto is doing 1/2 at about 15 points of damage. It is actually a bit less maybe 13 even.
Between the Corruptor and the Defender it was much easier to obtain full positional Defense Cap with the Defender.

I have not yet tried my blaster on the fire cyborg farm to see what he can handle. I do not think that my blaster though can handle the 4/8 setting or even 3/8 setting that my defender can. I do think just looking at the DPS though that my blaster will probably kill mob much faster and I might have some safety in the sense if I kill them faster I will have less to contend with in return. But I don't think there is much wiggle room if things go bad as there is with my Defender. I think with the defender I can literally turtle up waiting for my endurance to come back to do something, where as on my blaster I do not have that kind of luck. Of course I think all of that is because of secondaries.

The difference I think comes between obtaining defense a bit faster and less slotting with a Defender compared to a Corruptor. I think with a defender your giving up DPS but your gaining in other areas for example you can slot a power to gain you some regen or recovery or maybe a bit more hit points.

With a Corruptor your getting a semi nifty advantage of Scourge that kicks in below 50% health. But I see it being a bit more effective against big bosses, EB and AV then just regular rank and file. At lower levels I think Scourge does more to piss off a bunch of baddies and directs them at you and that sucks because at lower levels you don't have access to all the controls you would like and the tank / brute also is lacking so it does nothing but make you dead sometimes. It becomes an issue when you fire off an AOE and you scourge mobs at 50% mark. They are just enough alive to take there vengeance out on you.

As I mentioned and you somewhat commented on.. It really does depend on the secondaries. I think you could make your statement just within blasters persay. My Archery Energy Manipulation blaster is much better then my AR Device. Both have Range Defense cap but boost range and the ability to obtain range defense cap much easier with my Arch EM allows me the ability to pick up Aid Self. So I can run away and heal myself, where as my AR Device has no such luck. He can run away but still needs a green inspiration regardless. I do not think they can ever make it where everything is a good as the other set.

I think everyone laid out the roles, but I will say one thing, it really comes down to what you like. I am recently back and ran my first lam last night. So much firepower and even tough groups went down so quickly, that it seems you either had time to debuff or deal damage, but likely little time to do both, except for Maurader at the end. If this is the end game like content, I will certainly rethink what characters to bring forward. I cant imagine playing a melee toon, both me and my lapttop are too slow for it.

I played defenders for a long time. My first three characters were defenders and two were kins.

Defender damage is not good. It's never been good. By the time I finished my rad debuff animations all of the minions in a group were long dead if a good blaster or two were present. Then, thanks to me, the bosses would melt, but wiping out the 2-3 bosses in each group hardly required my debuffs.

When people say that defenders outdamage blasters they seem to be assuming 100% buff and debuff uptime, which simply isn't possible, and even if it were you'd be spending so much time focusing on that aspect of your character that you wouldn't be spending much time blasting.

The really frustrating part is that Controllers end up outdamaging defenders. I honestly don't know why people still play non-dark defenders.

If you want to blast, play a dom or a blaster. If you want to buff/debuff, play a defender, if you want to keep a team alive, play a controller, and if you want some middleground, play corruptor.

Comparing the various ATs is akin comparing different fruits.

A Sonic/Kin Corruptor with IOs is going to out-damage an Electric/Devices Blaster with -1 SOs.

A Fire/Em Blaster is going to out-damage a Forcefields/RadBlast Defender by such a large factor it's not even funny.

A Dark/Dark Defender is probably going to get more mileage (not necessarily do more point-for-point damage, but will be far more survivable and useful) than an Ar/Pain Dom Corruptor.

The comparisons are mostly between Corrs and Defs. Defenders have higher buff/debuff numbers, but Corrs do more raw damage, which is more important solo than on a team.

Blasters -usually- put out more damage than either AT, but short of a few self-defense abilities and panic buttons, don't bring much to a team. The only exceptions might be some AV fights where the rest of the team doesn't have significant regen debuffs and the Blaster's damage is the only thing keeping the AVs health dropping.

The fairest comparison to make would be to roll one of each with similar power-picks. The closest I can come up with would be Energy Blast coupled with Devices/Traps. I'd even give a nod to Psi Manipulation for its debuff and control potential, but Corrs and Defs don't have anything thematically similar.

Some very interesting points have been raised thus far.

On a good team, with a good tank does a blaster need his own survivability? Not everyone was made to solo equally afterall.

Do the reduced effectiveness of corruptor buffs compared to defenders make a big deal?

Oh yeah, well my dad can beat up your dad.

I tend to compare Blasters to Dominators, myself. Just as Corruptors and Defenders can be described as ranged damage/support and support/ranged damage respectively, Blasters and Doms are paired as damage/active mitigation and active mitigation/damage.

My personal preference is for Doms, these days; the damage is somewhat less (for the most part, though I believe the current theoretical highest sustained ST DPS is on a Fire/Fire Dom), but the active mitigation is much, much better (again, with exceptions - Son/EM blasters are sick puppies). Blasters need looked at, in my opinion.