Blasters surpurflous?

I tend to feel the same, hence waiting so long to respond - you can only bang your head aginst the wall for so long before something begins to crack. It doesn't help that my default stance in threads tends to be somewhat aggressive and stand-offish, so that's never good

Also, I believe the correct response to that thread is "This thread delivers" or some variation thereof.

No, the equivalent is me showing there's a point where damage is more important to a team or at a certain point enough damage makes survivability meaningless and any addition to the team is meaningless, and you continuing to say that blaster's are replaceable on teams. And one better, that I'm ignoring the value of splitting up and not taking TEAM CONTENT on as a TEAM.

Are there issues with the AT? Yeah.

Is the AT obsolete and passed up by every other AT? NO. That's the issue.

If you have specific issues with blasters, you should gather data and pm a dev with the information and a suggested fix. List out, this is problem one. This is why it should be fixed, this is how it should be fixt. This is problem two, this is why...Ect.

Raging about how useless blasters are with nothing to back it up is just a waste of time, and an annoyance. Pull you're fingers out of your ears, and start a rational, reasonable discussion on the topic. (this thread isn't that topic, it's the topic of "Are blasters surpurflous?") I'm sure people will be happy to discuss real issues with actual facts supporting them.

LOL, lets go through this, in a subthread talking about how survivable blasters are you did an analysis of their damage. Even at that you didn't consider that other ATs can just as much damage as a blaster and didn't need the full team to support them doing it.

Now finally :

You can't grasp the idea that it's better to be able to two or more things at once than being able to only do one thing at a time, I have no idea what I can do to help you, except maybe ask how many cores does your cpu have and are they hyperthreaded.

To go back to what you showed, it is that at some point adding a high damage scale AT is better than adding more buff/debuff. Its not even a complete analysis from the point of considering the other high damage ATs versus the blaster. Seeing as Scrappers have the same damage scale for melee that blasters have for range and also crit even when at the damage cap thats a problem.

What you are missing is that I never argued with that.


No that isn't even in doubt. Not by a wide margin.

If you feel that isn't the case argue with Arcanaville here http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...0&postcount=86
Her logic is flat out wrong from the inception but at least I won't have to wast effort on the argument.

Or maybe you feel defiance 2.0 was enough to take the worst to being not the worst ?

First, in a thread talking about what blasters bring to the team, and if other ATs bring more, I did an analysis showing they don't. And even if it was a thread talking about how survivable they are, an analysis of their damage would be warranted to see if they are less survivable while getting damage to compensate.

Also, please, please, please, please, PLEAAAAASE show that other ATs can do just as much damage as blasters. PLEASSSSSE!

You won't because you refuse to back up anything you say, but if you put on that helmet and brave the trecherous calculator to do so, for once, I'll give you credit.

Again, the discussion is if blasters are bringing something to the table that other ATs cant, or do other ATs bring everything blaster's do and more. Blasters bring the highest level of damage available.

The discussion is not, if blasters underperform in solo situations.

Wait, you may have just tried to back something up!

Shouldn't have gotten myself so excited, you're still just spouting off random stuff that doesn't make sense. Blaster ranged mod 1.125 melee mod 1. Scrapper melee mod 1.125. WAIT 1.125!!!!! SCRAPPERS DO MOAR DMG ONOEZZ!!!111!!!1

WAIT! Lets look at a real world situation and see if this is even possible (see what I did there, and if you'd take my advice and actually see if the problem you're preaching exists, then you'd be less laughable)

Electric blaster vs electric manipulation: Charged brawl (scrapper) = 57.8 damage <> Charged brawl (blaster) = 109!

Manipulation is not a strait port to Melee, and you have to check individual powers in their case. I could compare directly between Blasters and corruptors because their powers had the same damage scales which reduced to the AT damage mods. This is not the case for Blasters vs Scrappers. Manipulation sets are balanced differently, and need a much different comparison method. Also, many powers in the set are of a utility nature allowing the Blaster to branch out into other types of effects than just damage.

If you wan't to say other AT's do more damage than blasters, you'll need to prove it. Go ahead, I'll wait.

You really don't need to ask the question, he says why he is like this in this post earlier:

"Granted. I really don't put much effort into most of my replies on this topic. For me its like talking to a young earth creationist, after I have shown them that a volcano has rebuilt itself 4 or 5 times or the eroded strata in the grand canyon whats the point ?

All the creationists do is put their fingers in their ears and start repeating themselves."

He refers to a completely unneeded and incorrect comparison and basically says "I'm right, the other side is wrong and won't even admit it." It's the complete, unassailable bastion of opinion. It negates anything the opposing side would say.

Any evidence to the contrary of his opinion is wrong. It just is. So we might as well give up and quit, because his word is law. Kneel before him, son of Jor-El!

Hmmm what do you know, the scrapper in melee is doing just as much damage as a blaster at ranged.

Go figure

But wait a minute don't scrappers have an inherent ? Why yes they do, its called critical hit. It lets them land double damage effectively giving them a higher damage level for an equivalent level of damage buff.




No blasters bring the highest level of ranged damage. If you feel that ranged damage is somehow better than up close and personal damage, i suppose you could argue the case.

No they underperform in almost all situations. There are a few situations where you can carefully pick your enemies and match them against your powers

OMG you got me I bow before your intelectual prowess your thouroughness your incitefullness.

Oh wait a sec, Blaster charged brawl recharges in 10seconds scrapper charged brawl recharges in 3.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
That wouldn't have an effect on the damage output of a power would it ?? I mean if you were trying to compare powers you might want to mention something like that, otherwise someone might think you are being deceitful.

I mean just on the face there, charged brawl has a .83 second animation, and a 3 second recharge so its going going to fire 2.5+ times as often, so over time its doing roughly 140 damage to charged brawls 109. Hmmm Boy isn't math fun.

Oh I know recharge thats the ticket. Lets see the recharge cap is 500% Well I suppose a few kins will help here, at the cap scrapper charged brawl cycles every 1.43 seconds to blaster charged brawls 2.8 this is looking good for you cheer up. 2x57.8 =115.6 vs 109 Oh noes it looks like you still don't know what damage output is.

so just again

Code:

Damage/cycle time
AT          Scrapper   Blaster
Base        140        109
Max Rech    115.6*     109

*Not considering critical hit blaster doesn't consider defiance because we are talking max buff

Were you trying to show something ? Because when you take your real world situation it doesn't seem to say what you think it does

Indeed this math stuff is fun.

Ill fold the reply to grey pilgrim in here as well. I'd like to see blasters properly balanced relative to other ATs. They trade a boatload of survivability for literally no extra damage. Ideally I'd like to see them get either the damage they were supposed to get, or some of the survivability back.

As to the forums, you have to be kidding. I mean 3/4s of the forumites have near psychotic reactions if you say anything critical and they are willing to go to incredible lengths to prove it. If you remember the defiance 2.0 arguments on the forums you had people saying that blasters who had 0 mezz protection and went around saying "DON'T HEAL ME" so they could get better damage output were just fine.

Look above, the guy comparing charged brawl to charged brawl had to put one had over left eye put his nose up to the screen, and only then could he proclaim "Aha blasters are doing more damage"

Just relative to grey pilgrim

When someone says

And throws it out there to completely mislead when if you look at damage output you get

How would you like me to characterize them ?


Edit: Back at please recycle, the popularity polls, at least the data the devs have given us really don't say what you are saying they are saying. These are very very hard things to get a correct interpretation of, and they are even harder to ask the correct question initially.

For all we know from the information given, blasters could start popular because people think the name BLASTER sounds cool

Did you really just compare a kin buffed scrapper to a vannila blaster and try to use that to prove a point?



Impressive.

In many cases, such as charged brawl, the blaster version has a higher damage scale than the scrapper version. Accompanying this is a higher recharge to fit the Dam/rech/end ratio guidelines. However, the blaster versions get a distinct advantage in DPA. DPA is the Damage per activation time. When you're just firing a single power off over and over, you need to be aware of the DPS (cast cycle) which is the damage / (activation + rech). If you're chaining multiple powers together, you need to be aware of the DPA or the damage/ activation.

It's the DPA of attacks in powersets such as Marial arts that shows the most effective way damage can be delivered is by using the power storm kick as many times as possible, while filling in recharge gaps with the highest DPA attacks in the set. Another example would be Firey melee for scrappers. Assuming all powers are slotted Acc/Dam/Dam/End/Rech/Rech; Scorch looks like good damage due to having the best DPS (cast cycle) but when trying to get the most damage out of the set, it actually hurts damage output to use it. Incinerate has the greater DPA, so you start with it, then you fill in with attacks that take up it's recharge time, while dealing the most damage in that time (DPA). Incinerate has a 6s recharge time when 2-slotted for recharge (SOs). That recharge is best filled with Cremate/Fire Sword/GFS with a .192s gap. Trying to fill this gap with Scorch actually lowers your DPS. Oh, look a 3s rech power with half the damage is less valuable for dps than a 10s recharge power with twice the damage, despite the DPS (cast time) being so much larger for the lower recharge attack.

whodathunkit?

I didn't consider recharge, not because I was trying to pull a fast one. It was because I understand what a Real ingame senario would look like, and recharge is of much less importance than damage. You are completely misleading people on damage output, and you either don't care or don't understand. My guess is some combination of both.

Funny. Really funny, when you compare a situation that, both, isn't representative of how the game is played and compares a power with buffs to a power without.

Please stop pretending you have any clue about what you're talking about. You don't.

No. Once again I suggest basic reading comprehension for you.

I must say I enjoyed seeing you rattle on. Why don't you try the fire /electric attack chain to prove your point. It has the best theoretical damage for blasters.

Honest mistake, I saw the numbers you were using and knew the actual numbers were different. There is a thing called arcanatime. Arcanatime is = [RoundUp(CastTime / 0.132) + 1] * 0.132. This means that the actual animation of Charged brawl isn't .83. It's actually 1.056. When you use the correct animation time, the blaster's version wins at the recharge cap. 3.056/1.656= 1.85 or scrapper gets 1.85 charged brawls to the blaster's one. 57.8*1.85 = 106.93. Not by much, but it wins. Which is still entirely irrelevent, and not an accurate representation of the AT's damage.

I assumed that your results were because you were buffing the scrapper not the blaster. I was wrong. You were still wrong, but I admit I misread what you were saying. At least the first two lines of my post. The rest of what I said is still accurate.

Also, I've shown that you were wrong with your method of comparison. The Damage per cast cycle of one power isn't an accurate comparison of the two ATs damage outputs, even more so when you don't even know what the cast cycle is. You made the claim that scrappers outdamage blasters. Still waiting for you to prove it.

I am not going to provide proof of anything. I will throw some numbers out and let others draw their own conclusions. What higher levels of recharge can do on IO + Hasten builds others will have to calculate if they desire.

The best blaster combo will be Fire/Elec. I will not do a repeatable chain at this point, just a basic attack sequence a blaster might do.
Level 40 common IOs slotted
1 Acc, 2 Dam, 2 Rech, 1 End Red slotted. (Flares has 3 damage and just 1 recharge)
I'll just add in 40% damage across the whole chain for Defiance and the DoT will be averaged in.
Shocking Grasp-Blaze-Charged Brawl-Havoc Punch-Flares
Total sequence time - 6.34 seconds
Power = Name of Power
Dam = Damge per Activation
DPA = Damage per Animation Time (in the total row, it is the DPA for the sequence)
BuD = Damage per Activation after hitting Build Up
BuA = Damage per Activation after hitting Build Up and Aim
If we just use ranged attacks, we can try the following sequence.
Level 40 common IOs slotted
1 Acc, 2 Dam, 2 Rech, 1 End Red slotted. (Flares has 3 damage and just 1 recharge)
I'll just add in 40% damage across the whole chain for Defiance and the DoT will be averaged in.
Flares-Blaze-Fire Blast-Flares-Electric Fence
Total sequence time - 6.73 seconds
A Fire/Elec blaster can pump out some serious hurt. With Breath+Ball it has excellent AoE as well (and can add Rain of Fire for even more juicy spawn melting, if fighting up-level enemies).

Now for a solid armored set, brute Mace/Shield/Mu.
Level 40 common IOs slotted
1 Acc, 2 Dam, 2 Rech, 1 End Red slotted.
I set Fury to 65 and AAO to having 5 people in range.
Clobber-Jawbreaker-Pulverize-Shatter-Mu Lightning
Total sequence time - 8.98 seconds
Respectable output. Only slightly better than the ranger and signifcantly lower than the melee blaster. Crowd Control, Whirling Mace, Ball Lightning, and Shatter provide solid AoE and Shield Charge can add more occassionally.

A more damage focused armored set would be a Fire/Shield scrapper.
Level 40 common IOs slotted
1 Acc, 2 Dam, 2 Rech, 1 End Red slotted.
Ignoring criticals, but including an average for the DoT on FS and GFS.
Fire Sword-Incinerate-Gr. Fire Sword-Cremate
Total sequence time - 7.00 seconds
This ends up modestly better than the ranger and modestly lower than the melee blaster. With FSC and an Epic AoE it has good AoE output and one can add Breath of Fire for a bit more. When I allow Mids to factor in criticals, it comes up with a total chain sequence of 1402, yielding about 200 DPA, which is just about the same as the melee blaster (but I don't know if I like calculating criticals in that fashion).

If others want to spend more time, they can compare Nrg/Nrg blasters and Kat/Elec scraps or maybe Archery/Fire blasters and SS/FA brutes or possibly Claws/Inv Brutes and Elec/Devices blasters.

Isn't it a little disingenuous to consider the scrapper inherent but disregard the blaster inherent, which also buffs damage (and, in fact, in a more predictable fashion than crits)? I see that you specifically call out "at the damage cap" but this is not something a scrapper can inherently reach. If you want to argue that scrappers are especially good on teams with fulcrum shift, then yes, this is certainly true. But cannot be generalized to "scrappers are always better".

It's worth noting that most blasters also have noticably more AoE attacks than most scrappers. If a blaster is hitting 2 targets with the same attack that a scrapper is hitting 1 target, then the blaster is landing double damage effectively giving them a higher damage level for an equivalent level of damage buff. Even more, if the blaster manages to hit 3 targets.

It would be completely disingenuous to do so in the solo case, and in the replies to Mr. Valence's posts I am never really sure what he is arguing, he bounces around like flubber.

In the team case its not really unreasonable to be able to dig up a kin for a team and it only takes one to cap damage for the scrapper or one good one for the brute.

Edit: Just as a note of the irony, the blaster is meant to be the AT that is more team oriented, but their inherent actually gets in the way of their taking full advantage of the team.

You forgot the crit.

If you think that is the only thing you misread in this thread you are deluded.

Speaking of which, I made no such analysis in this thread, I merely demonstrated the numbers you have repeatedly thrown out were irrelevant.

Where are these phantom analyses you speak of ?

Oh, I always thought it came naturally for you.

The alias that occurs at level 50 isn't a sampling problem: its a reflection of an actual fencepost in the data. Unless you turn off XP, there's a practical limit to how long you can play a level 1 before it levels and is no longer level 1. Ditto every level up to 49. However, a level 50 can play as level 50 forever. So its entirely possible for an archetype to be very popular from 1-49 and then suddenly downshift to a lower popularity at level 50. In this case, it can happen if Blasters level slower, and then are played less often at level 50 than other alts, once leveling is over. And that can be strongly influenced by the sort of invention-based end game builds that can be made with other archetypes. For example, blasters and scrappers are pretty close in popularity, so it would not take very much at all for the players that play level 50 scrappers a lot to edge them into first place ahead of blasters. The shift from blasters going from #1 to #3 at level 50 is not as dramatic a shift as it might appear. Only one archetype really has to strongly overtake blasters at level 50 given how close blasters and scrappers are, and it just has to be something people like playing a lot more at level 50 with strong invention builds than blasters. Brutes or Controllers, say (in the past, the data suggested that Controllers tended to gain on other archetypes with increasing security level).

OK, sounds like you agree the damage cap thing isn't valid in the solo case.

Regarding the team case, I see where you're coming from, but if you start considering outside buffs you open a pretty big can of worms. For example if we assume a kin is teamed with the scrapper to always keep him damage capped, couldn't we equally well assume that an empath is teamed with a blaster that keeps Fortitude, CM and AB on the blaster at all times, and throws him an occasional heal? (I don't think this is too outlandish - this is how I buff when I play my empath.) These buffs can make the blaster easily as survivable (or more) as the scrapper, completely negates the END crash from her nova, and lets the blaster use her best AoEs more frequently and for more damage.

Of course, steering the argument in this direction really just muddies the waters because suddenly we're arguing whether kin buffs or emp buffs are better, which is pretty far afield from the original blaster vs. other AT comparison. I think it would be cleaner just to consider each AT on its own.

Though, thinking about it, a case could be made that blasters benefit the most from team buffs; since they have the highest damage multiplier and effectively no defense, resist or healing, they stand to gain the most from +DMG, +RCHG, +DEF, +RES and +REGEN buffs.

This is pretty much my experience. (Though I would include dominators in the running if the +rchg is in the mix.) Blasters can reach the same res/def as scrappers and such provided the right support, but they can more easily produce better damage results. They don't wast time staying within 7 ft of foes as melee characters do, they have fast AoE's with higher target limits and are broader areas those AoE's cover, hitting more enemies faster and to greater effect. Give some good defense, resistance, and/or healing, not to mention maybe some pets and/or aggro-eaters, you've downplayed the need for the armors of melee characters, while blasters just get free rein to blow more stuff up better.

What, we should be playing Rikti Monkeys, then?

Thanks to Secondary Mutation, I've played a Rikti Monkey on a team before. And let me tell you, they're pretty f%^&@#g superfluous.

I still think we should be able to use [Brawl] while Riktified.

(Yes, I've tried.)

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.