Blasters surpurflous?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-07-11 23:09 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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So you feel useless on your ice/ice blaster (but acknowledge that TA/arch is "awesome") and start a thread about how superfluous blasters are? I'm sorry you can't play your ice/ice blaster (is it a build problem? post it and let's see), but maybe that's a good reason to start inviting them to your teams. Maybe you'll happen upon someone who can show you how to play/build/not be "useless" on your ice/ice blaster?
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Honestly Im not sure what they need to do.
Im just saying I feel nearly useless playing my ice/ice blaster My Ta/arch however is awesome, and I know ive knocked that set in the past, but after the changes they are finnally good. Ill put it this way, Ive pulled bad teams out and got TF's finnished with my Dom or Def, when a team starts to go bad with my blaster, I just fold it early and dont bother. All subjective but true. Removing nuke crashes is probably a good start though. |
Nah Ive had similiar problems on other blasters, though.
And Im not the only one who knocks blasters.
For years I bashed the heck out of Ta/Arch because it was so weak, and 3 round of buffs later, yeah its good.
Blasters have gotten 1, need 2 more then we will probably be there.
Removing crash from nuke is a great start, judgements are better than nukes... wait.. what..
Incarnate abilities should not be overshadowing core...
Boycott Ncsoft if they close down Coh.
My main character is a blaster, but I enjoy the corruptor playstyle, so I actually do have some sympathy for the OP's position. For what it's worth, here are a few things I did with my AR/dev blaster to get some buffs and debuffs with my damage:
* Slotted Achilles Heel: Chance for Resistance Debuff (in Burst), a -20% resistance debuff.
* Took Surveillance from Munitions Mastery, a -14% resistance debuff.
* Crafted Reactive Radial Flawless Interface for Interface slot. Truthfully I took this for the fire DOT (more damage!) but it does have a 25% chance of a -2.5% resistance debuff which can stack 4 times. Total -10% resist debuff.
So my blaster can debuff -44% resistance; granted that some of it is procs, but they fire quite a lot, because, well, I shoot stuff a lot. Note that a rad corruptor or rad controller's Enervating Field is only -22.5% resistance. Using Surveillance to snoop an AV's real numbers, I often see that I am debuffing an AV's resistance more than "real" debuff toons ... and I am doing blaster level damage.
Granted also that my debuffs are single target, while the rad's Enervating Field is AoE. But if we're in an AoE situation, my Full Auto is much more effective at eliminating the crowds of minions and lieutenants than any non-damaging debuff power.
I also took the tier 4 Musculature for my Alpha slot, for increased damage. Corruptors/controllers can take this too, but it's generally a bad choice for them; as a blaster I benefit from this much more than any corruptor or controller can, because of my higher damage multiplier.
I know it seems tempting for a blaster to take a defensive Destiny, but I took a tier 3 Ageless. This gives me something like an AoE Speed Boost which affects myself, further boosting my damage. I know a rad corruptor can take this too, but in my opinion any sensible rad would take Clarion instead (to prevent their toggles from getting knocked off by mez) which blasters don't need to do because Defiance gives us a kind of mez protection. Even if a corruptor or controller took Ageless, I benefit more from it as a blaster because I do more damage with each attack. As an AR blaster the END refill is just sorta gravy, but it would be pretty huge for an ice blaster - it would completely negate the END crash from Blizzard. Plus, it Speed Boosts your whole team; yay, force multipliers.
I also took the whole leadership pool (Assault, Maneuvers, Tactics and Vengeance); this is perhaps excessive on a blaster, but hey, it makes me a force multiplier, too! It also negates a lot of my squishyness, because as long as I make sure I'm not the first person to die, I (and the rest of the team) get to benefit from Vengeance. I have medicine pool for self-heals and rezzing fallen teammates.
Anyway, this style of play may not be for everyone. But as I see it, I have decent debuffs, a little buffs and heals, and do blaster-level damage; I definitely feel like I'm pulling my weight on a team.
Hope that helps.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
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Blasters have been buffed three times, although technically speaking you could count it as two.|
Originally Posted by Shubbie
Blasters have gotten 1, need 2 more then we will probably be there.
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The first buff happened back around I5ish, when blaster health and damage cap were increased to their current levels. The second buff was the addition of Defiance 1.0. Since they had to go back and change that since they were worried D1 was encouraging blasters to commit suicide, you could argue that D1 doesn't count and its really D2.0 that counts as a buff. But being able to shoot while mezzed and having ranged modifier increased plus having a follow up effect in all attacks definitely counts as a buff.
The real problem with blasters is that fundamentally speaking they are the only archetype that doesn't specifically have damage mitigation written into its archetype definition: that's actually unique. You can quibble individual powersets, but controllers and dominators are assumed broken without control, tankers, scrappers, stalkers, and brutes are all specifically assigned personal damage mitigation powersets, defenders and corruptors are explicitly assigned buff/debuff sets, and masterminds have aggro drawing pets, bodyguard, and actually specifically designed to take some minimum amount of aggro.
Blasters *can* have potentially lots of damage mitigation: Sonic/Ice comes to mind. But fundamentally speaking the archetype doesn't mandate it. An Energy/Energy blapper has tons of active offensive mitigation: I lived that build for over six years. But it takes significant skill to pull off. Meanwhile a Fire/Fire blaster with almost no damage mitigation at all is considered comfortably within the parameters of the archetype definition.
Blasters are supposed to get *some* mitigation by being at range, and supposed to trade better offense for lack of defense. However, the problem with range as a defense is that every single archetype that doesn't have personal defenses *also* has it, or to put it another way every single archetype that is melee-focused also has personal defenses. So while blasters do get range as a defense, everyone else gets the same range as defense *plus* other stuff, or they get straight up personal mitigation. Saying Blasters get range as a defense is like saying they get regeneration as damage mitigation. Sure they do. So does everyone else.
And as to giving blasters more offense, numerically speaking they almost certainly do deal more damage on average than the other archetypes - while they are alive that is. You could argue that an SS/Fire Brute farming build outdamages virtually all Blaster, but that's really a corner case. The more important fact to note is that we know for a fact that extra damage didn't translate into extra survivability: the devs datamined blasters dying far more often than everything else, under all conditions. And the reason why is actually obvious: the game is designed around fast combat. By most MMO standards, even a lowly solo FF/Arch defender tends to kill pretty fast. The game was actually designed around the metric that the players should defeat the typical minion in about three to four "average" attacks, which probably means scale 1.0 modifer 1.0 attacks. Such an attack would deal about 56 points of damage unslotted at level 50, and about 112 points of damage slotted. That compares to the about 430 health of a level 50 minion. At lower levels it takes less attacks, and at higher levels slightly more.
But four doesn't leave a lot of room to speed things up. If a defender is killing a minion in five attacks, and a blaster in three, if you want to improve blaster survivability through offensive boosts alone the next step takes you from three-shotting minions to two-shotting them, then one-shotting them. You enter the realm of degenerate combat where the blaster can literally wipe everything out before the critters can even react: you go from being in jeopardy to being immortal in only a couple of jumps if you are not careful.
If combat was slow, the devs could make blasters kill way faster than everything else to compensate for lack of damage mitigation. But there's almost nowhere to go there because combat is already very fast. And that means Blasters will never have the same survivability/performance ratios of anything else, and still remain blasters. They could keep buffing blasters every single issue, but so long as their archetype definition precludes significant personal damage mitigation and as long as the devs won't allow blasters to contain game-breaking levels of baseline offense, the box they can operate in is likely going to constrain anything they do to blasters to no more than very small tweaks to overall performance.
If I could wave a magic wand and fix it, I would. But if the only way to do that is to make blasters just like everything else: like defenders but with more damage, or like corruptors but with less buffing, or like dominators but with less control, I would rather they remain what they are, even if what they are is numerically less than everything else.
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I am not sure when I came around to this idea, but I think it was sometime in I13 or 14. I was really frustrated that Blasters were not given any real changes in I11, but since I loved blasters from I5 on, I rolled with it. I was livid when I saw that VEATs were basically blasters, with the stuff we suggested in I10 to make blasters better (mostly because while I'd like to play VEATs, I'd prefer to play one based on fire or electricity or ice or something other than clawes, bullets, energy, and/or Psi). Eventually, I realized how awesome it was that blasters were allowed to continue as is.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If I could wave a magic wand and fix it, I would. But if the only way to do that is to make blasters just like everything else: like defenders but with more damage, or like corruptors but with less buffing, or like dominators but with less control, I would rather they remain what they are, even if what they are is numerically less than everything else.
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"Fixing" blasters takes away a big element of their current gameplay, reliance on teammates (or an expensive IO build and good inspiration use). It is tough to reconcile a gameplay element that is as far out of "balance" as blasters, but I think it is kind of cool.
That being said, there are still many, many things that could be done to improve the blaster state without making them just like the other ATs.
Nukes that don't crash (maybe a modestly faster recharge as well).
They could get a bonus to their move speeds, the better to facilitate moving in and out of melee. Possibly even added control and friction.
Snipes with some advantage (for starters, it could gain a defiance bonus that actually represented its full animation time).
Offensive toggles do not shutdown when mezzed, just suppress.
Perhaps some +perception/perception debuff resistance to Aim and maybe even Build Up.
They could regain the endurance advantage they once had over other ATs.
As the AT that is designed to "require" ally support, I think they should be able to benefit from it more than they currently do. While raising the HP cap or resistance cap are ideas along this vein, there are other unique things that could be done that do not infringe as much on making them more like scrappers. The unique things may be harder though, because they would likely require new techs.
More specific stuff could be done for individual sets, Swap Ammo could be made to matter more, /Devices could be given a once over, VS could be made less of a hassle, Blazing Aura could be altered, etc.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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Blasters are less useful to a large-ish team than Defenders or Corruptors until a certain point. That point is generally where everyone has enough buffs / debuffs / heals to survive and plenty of -resist and +damage to boost the team's damage output. Once you hit that point more buffs and debuffs serve little purpose and more raw damage (which gets multiplied by the existing buffs) starts to be a better addition.
For instance, if you took an Empath, a Thermal, a Rad, a pair of Kins, and a Cold and put them on a team everyone would basically be damage capped and immortal. At that point two more Defenders or Corruptors are not going to speed things up as much as two Blasters. But if you don't already have 4+ Defenders or Corruptors then adding one of those will generally boost a team more than a Blaster (or a Scrapper, Brute, Tank, Stalker, MM, EAT, Dom, or Controller). Fortunately, you never actually need a perfectly optimized team unless you're trying something crazy (aka, you're in Repeat Offenders or something 
)... in normal play a Blaster is plenty useful and seeing the massive damage they put out is worth playing one.
Plus if you invest in a high end solo build the ability to obliterate large spawns in about half the time a Brute or Scrapper would take is just plain awesome. 
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
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She's done it again. Everything she said makes total sense, and is true. Though, with that said, I like the suggestions given by StratoNexus as more feasible ways to boost Blasters without simply adding "moar dmg!"
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Too long to quote, just scroll up the page a bit or click the arrow next to the name.
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@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
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There are lots of things that could be done to improve the lot of the people who already like or are good at playing blasters. Adjusting the crash in nukes or rethinking snipes would be one such area, as well as tweaks to movement or endurance (but note that tweaks to base unsuppressed movement rates theoretically have PvP side effects).|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
That being said, there are still many, many things that could be done to improve the blaster state without making them just like the other ATs.
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But none of those things would significantly improve blaster leveling or reward earning performance for midrange (not end game optimized or invention-heavy) blasters, nor would they significantly improve survivability for players that are already challenged in that area. So in that sense, as I said the devs could keep buffing blasters, and there are blaster lovers out there that would appreciate every single buff, but at the end of the day the on-paper offense/survivability ratio of blasters would only change a little. Allowing us to shoot three attacks from mez was probably the biggest buff to survivability and total offense the devs could pull out of their hats.
Incidentally, the crash isn't the problem with nukes (for the nukes that crash). The problem is the powers don't do enough damage for nukes that crash. And even the ones that provide mitigation (i.e. Nova's knock, Thunderous Blast's drain) have effects that last less than, or equal to, the amount of time the power tries to incapacitate the blaster. TB debuffs foe recovery for 20 seconds. It debuffs self recovery for 20 seconds. That's not really a good trade. Nova debuff self recovery for 20 seconds and applies knockback to the targets. No knockback effect that doesn't ragdoll the target into a pretzel in a tree lasts 20 seconds.
You know what a good emergency attack for blasters would be? Shield Charge. Its fast (1.5s vs 3.0 for Nova, 3.7s for TB). It has knockdown. It has absolutely no drawbacks and the blaster could still fight. You can use it every 90s. It even doubles as an escape power because it as a teleport range of 60 feet. It has offense, defense, alpha strike, and escape all wrapped up in one power. And we give it to melee archetypes.
I know there are players that love TB and I wouldn't take it away from them, but I would take LR over TB. If I was designing Electric Blast from scratch with no legacy constraints I might trade TB for a version of LR that had TB's recharge, damage, and drain, and LR's mechanics, KD, and cast time. Maybe not exactly that, but something close to that.
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Thanks Arcana, alot of that said what Im trying to get at, but have failed to.
Boycott Ncsoft if they close down Coh.
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Hear, hear.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Incidentally, the crash isn't the problem with nukes (for the nukes that crash). The problem is the powers don't do enough damage for nukes that crash. And even the ones that provide mitigation (i.e. Nova's knock, Thunderous Blast's drain) have effects that last less than, or equal to, the amount of time the power tries to incapacitate the blaster. TB debuffs foe recovery for 20 seconds. It debuffs self recovery for 20 seconds. That's not really a good trade. Nova debuff self recovery for 20 seconds and applies knockback to the targets. No knockback effect that doesn't ragdoll the target into a pretzel in a tree lasts 20 seconds.
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I think that the crashes on blaster nukes should be a lot harsher - instead of -recovery that can be buffed out of, and a temporary endurance loss, they should cap your endurance at 0 for the duration of the crash. Complete shutdown. And to go along with that they should do two, three times the damage they do now. Something that's actually a massive hit, something that will wipe a spawn or clear out an ambush.
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Alternatively, we used to say in the old days that if Scrappers get to be immortal for a couple minutes, blasters should become raging lunatics for at least one. Today, I would say freem our offense: buff our damage, recharge, recovery, accuracy**, knockback strength***, endurance drain, slow strength, and whatever else I think up that sounds like offense to the caps for say 60 seconds, and then crashes with a hard zero endurance, zero recovery, 100% resistance to endurance and recovery (meaning: no ability to recovery endurance at all) for 15 seconds. And probably 1000s recharge or even more, but who cares.|
Originally Posted by MagicFlyingHippy
Hear, hear.
I think that the crashes on blaster nukes should be a lot harsher - instead of -recovery that can be buffed out of, and a temporary endurance loss, they should cap your endurance at 0 for the duration of the crash. Complete shutdown. And to go along with that they should do two, three times the damage they do now. Something that's actually a massive hit, something that will wipe a spawn or clear out an ambush. |
But I think with modern mechanics, there are lots of new options to give blasters an offensive overdrive that isn't a nuke. Reactive Interface suggests one potential option. Maybe these need to wait for blaster primaries to get a tier 10 power.
** Accuracy, not tohit. Capped tohit can be countered by ultrahigh defense. Capped accuracy would allow us to land on even MoGed targets 25% of the time.
*** Because it looks cool that's why, and at these levels of damage buff scatter isn't really going to be a major problem.
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Indeed. But I had figured we were giving up on equalizing the leveling and reward earning potential. At this point, I am interested in QOL tweaks that are also straight buffs, even though they will not have a major impact on the normal metrics. I am just looking to eliminate the annoying or obviously older design concepts. Not that I would be opposed to Raging Lunatics, but I am more interested in just removing some of the more egregious drawbacks that already exist in the sets.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
But none of those things would significantly improve blaster leveling or reward earning performance for midrange (not end game optimized or invention-heavy) blasters, nor would they significantly improve survivability for players that are already challenged in that area. So in that sense, as I said the devs could keep buffing blasters, and there are blaster lovers out there that would appreciate every single buff, but at the end of the day the on-paper offense/survivability ratio of blasters would only change a little. Allowing us to shoot three attacks from mez was probably the biggest buff to survivability and total offense the devs could pull out of their hats.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Incidentally, the crash isn't the problem with nukes (for the nukes that crash). The problem is the powers don't do enough damage for nukes that crash. And even the ones that provide mitigation (i.e. Nova's knock, Thunderous Blast's drain) have effects that last less than, or equal to, the amount of time the power tries to incapacitate the blaster. TB debuffs foe recovery for 20 seconds. It debuffs self recovery for 20 seconds. That's not really a good trade. Nova debuff self recovery for 20 seconds and applies knockback to the targets. No knockback effect that doesn't ragdoll the target into a pretzel in a tree lasts 20 seconds.
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I don't dislike that type of crash, as I am perfectly happy with Unstoppable, Rage, and SoW. But even if we made the nuke instantly obliterate even bosses or maybe even EBs, they still would not be worth the harsh crash, IMO. I cannot see a way to reconcile Nukes having a crash for blasters, outside of your Raging Lunatic concept. I love the idea behind Inferno and Nova. I even like the idea behind needing some moments to recover from that type of power. But what the nukes do gameplay wise, does not really match the way they work in a story environment and the crash is just inappropriate.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
You know what a good emergency attack for blasters would be? Shield Charge. Its fast (1.5s vs 3.0 for Nova, 3.7s for TB). It has knockdown. It has absolutely no drawbacks and the blaster could still fight. You can use it every 90s. It even doubles as an escape power because it as a teleport range of 60 feet. It has offense, defense, alpha strike, and escape all wrapped up in one power. And we give it to melee archetypes.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan  Cold domination, will do 60% of its total damage from its secondary by debuffing enemies, that is not including the additional damage from the rest of the team. So when an at is deriving most of its damage from debuffing the enemies you call it a primary damage dealer. Good to know where the goalposts are set in this discussion |
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan You missed the example and list of scondaries that do more damage by amplification of the primary than the primary does directly. Look up |
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Originally Posted by William_Valence
If you're talking about the top quote, that's not math. That's a claim, you need to do math to prove that claim. Then you have to compare that math to a real-world ingame senario, then examine the results. You're missing some steps.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
You are talking about 60% damage amplification/player from 2 powers in the secondary, that is before -regen is taken into account, or the added damage output from the rest of the team. If you can't work out that .6x2 > 1 without me explaining it to you, and you can't realize that is just the start of what is there, all the breakdown and explanation in the world isn't going to help.
You might as well just ignore every power that adds, hitpoints, to an at, the fact that they can be buffed to higher levels, or just can plain be built to have more hitpoints |
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| Aett shows, a solo blaster does more damage than a solo corruptor |
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Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Still waiting for a response to my math. I wonder if we'll get it.
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I suppose, I could say WAY TO GO !!, YOU TOOK THE JOHNNY COCHRANE DEFENSE TO A NEW LEVEL ?
If you actually thought I was saying corruptors do more damage solo please look at the highlighted portions of the quote, and consider the material linked to below.
http://www.learnatest.com/shop/KitDe...qNum=2&MBC=MIL
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You seem to need a course in elementary math. I might not be the best teacher on the planet, but that never stopped me from trying.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
What would you like as a response ? You took a comment about corruptors doing most of their damage by buff debuff and decided to impeach it by showing a solo blaster does more damage than a solo corruptor. Whats more you did this in a discussion of the value of blasters on teams.
I suppose, I could say WAY TO GO !!, YOU TOOK THE JOHNNY COCHRANE DEFENSE TO A NEW LEVEL ? If you actually thought I was saying corruptors do more damage solo please look at the highlighted portions of the quote, and consider the material linked to below. http://www.learnatest.com/shop/KitDe...qNum=2&MBC=MIL Here's a course in reading comprehension, It helped my nephew. Evelyn Wood also used to be very well regarded I don't know if they are still in business. |
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
You are talking about 60% damage amplification/player from 2 powers in the secondary, that is before -regen is taken into account, or the added damage output from the rest of the team. If you can't work out that .6x2 > 1 without me explaining it to you, and you can't realize that is just the start of what is there, all the breakdown and explanation in the world isn't going to help.
You might as well just ignore every power that adds, hitpoints, to an at, the fact that they can be buffed to higher levels, or just can plain be built to have more hitpoints |
If you have a debuffer, and for the sake of simplicity let's say it amplifies damage by 60% like you say, let's look at possible teamate options. A corruptor has a .75 ranged damage mod compared to a blaster's 1.125, so the .75*1.6 (that's a 60% amplification) + 1.125 * 1.6 needs to be > .75 * 2.2 + .75 * 2.2, if you want to prove a blaster is a worse choice than the corruptor. So lets see, is 3 > 3.3 ? No? Oh noes!!!! *Flails like a muppet*
WAIT!!! Let's compare this to an ingame situation to see if it's even Possible! What is causing this 60% amplification? My guess is, since you mentioned cold, Sleet. Sleet does -30% def and -30% resistance, for something that someone who has no clue, would say is 60% amplification. Players have a base tohit of 75%, and accuracy slotting to ed caps brings that to 75*1.9493 (not .9493*2) or 146.19, or the tohit cap of 95%. That means with accuracy slotting, the Value of the amplification goes down. Try this again assuming Capped accuracy slotting= (.75*1.3)+(1.125*1.3)>(.75*1.3)+(.75*1.3) or 2.4375>1.95 Yay!
And that's just comparing the blaster's primary against a Corruptor's Primary and secondary! Also, the player's tohit would have to be debuffed to 48% or lower for the defense debuff to even do anything, and even then the first Corruptor is the only one that provides any benefit there, so the blaster gets the same level of buff as a second corruptor!
Outside very specific scenarios, once the ability to mitigate the initial attack is reached, more damage trumps everything else, and it isn't always a given that adding debuff provides more damage than simply adding more damage. A balanced approach is better in more situations than not, and when you're looking for pure damage nothing beats a Blaster.
Also math is hard, I'm not even sure if -I'm- doing it right, you should avoid it until they invent some sort of math helmet or something. Geometry has some sharp corners.
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Originally Posted by William_Valence
*Math*
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
The new incarnate abilities help blasters plaster over weak spots, which is good because the new content practically forces them to do so. While blasters are trying to desperately fix the giant flaws in the AT, other ATs are able to amplify their strengths. |
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
For anyone who doesnt have a few billion influence lying around, making a blaster is an exercise in frustration and pain watching other At's do nearly as much damage for half the work. Not all of us have a few billion lying around. Blasters are weak at their base, not the purple'd out defense capped, number crunching nerd thing. |
Blasters do need a look at. Their inherit is so awful I don't see why so many people think its so great. You still get held to death despite your pitiful tiny attacks that you have access too.
Befor I IO anything I definatly get the basic Single Origined out preview and from my findings between a huge array of lvl 50 ATs, blasters are on the lowest teir. (Thats my from my experience but Im sure many can agree and dissagree)
IMO blasters are stuck in the 90s when the game came out while the rest of the game actully updated lol. They need to be looked at and rightfully so, they have the smallest selection of secondaries compared to everyone else. That shows they havent been looked at enough in a long time compared to the rest.
At least with Dark blast and dark manipulation in the works they might get some fixes in the process. I can hope.
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Erm...
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Originally Posted by twistedlogic77
IMO blasters are stuck in the 90s when the game came out
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@Jay Leon Hart
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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!|
Originally Posted by William_Valence
Also math is hard, I'm not even sure if -I'm- doing it right, you should avoid it until they invent some sort of math helmet or something. Geometry has some sharp corners.
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That was great. Thank you, William.
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Math may be hard for you but reading seems downright impossible.
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Originally Posted by William_Valence
First: .6x2 is not 60% amplification. Next that amplification is only useful if the time it takes to provide it, is less than the loss in DPS you would get from simply doing damage. Also consider that blaster's are amplified as damage dealers, so a blaster on the team might be a better choice than other options. |
Oh? An what did I miss? (Correct answer: Nothing)
As an aside...I like hugs
Murphys Military Law
#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
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Really.... I did a Citadel TF a LONG time ago and when I arrived in Talos I discovered the team consisted of 7 Blasters and 1 Defender (an EMP). t immediate reaction was "Oh my God we are going to spend more time in hospital than on maps." The reality was our damage output was so great we breezed through the thing.. with the help of a very overworked Defender (of course) lol|
Originally Posted by Tramontane
I think the problem here is not that a team without a blaster is unplayable- as you say, no archetype is essential.
Because three Blasters, three Stalkers, or three Peacebringers would be absolutely screwed as a team. The point isn't that my blaster isn't necessary, the point is that he isn't USEFUL. |
Here is my view on the subject at hand.
Scrappers and Brutes survive better and do significant amounts of damage and I actually started here on COH playing a scrapper but what happens when a scrapper fnds himself trapped behind a large group of team mates and can't get at the mobs..... he spends a lot of time trying to jump, hop, skip or whatever to get around and get into range to fight. A Blaster can yawn and chuckle at the back of any pile of team mates and just keep firing away until things are lying on the ground.
My Archery/Ice blaster was able to successfully solo all the way to level 50.... on the trials she now has 2 nukes (Rain of Arrows and Judgement) to cause massive damage to mobs and her AoE attacks along with her secondary powers have made it possible for her to regularly earn rare or very rare reward.
My Dual Pistols Blaster sets her ammo to biological and every single attack does some debuffing along with damage. She actually has three nukes so to speak with Hail of Bullets, Judegement and LRM rocket. Like her sister my Archer she has so many AoE and also has ICE as her secondary that she gets mostly rare and very rare rewar drops on the trials.
And then there is my Fire/Fire/Flame blaster.. my Blapper! Serious amounts of damage and if anything gets near her she lites it on fire and cuts it to pieces with her flame sword attacks. I mentioned ealier that even without judgement she was capable of more than 3000 HP of damamge just running through her attack chain once.. With Ion included she can very quickly deal out over 5000 hp in a short period of time.. and that's without any BUFFS to increase damage output.
TANKS, SCRAPPERS AND BRUTES are the grunts fighting on the front line.. BLASTERS are the artillery chewing up the battle field and everything on it.
There are no usless ATs in this game only players that have no clue or no business playing them. (case in point... EMPs. A good one can benefit any team at any level. The bad ones just make the good ones LOOK bad).
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon
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Originally Posted by William_Valence
Oh? An what did I miss? (Correct answer: Nothing)
As an aside...I like hugs |
That the statement I made wasn't comparing blasters to corruptors.
But nice job, you are pretty good at repeating the analysis others have done, even if you don't understand it, or how it relates to the conversation.
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Originally Posted by Wicked_Wendy
TANKS, SCRAPPERS AND BRUTES are the grunts fighting on the front line.. BLASTERS are the artillery chewing up the battle field and everything on it. |
There is no such thing as artillery in this game. The entire concept of artillery is gaining a range advantage over your opponent and that just doesn't happen with the possible exception of energy manipulation.
Blasters may have been envisioned as artillery, but giving nearly everything in the game the ability to outrange them invalidated that.
Ah ha! I see where my mistake was. I was assuming you were contributing to the coversation of whether or not blasters were surpurlous on teams. You know, the point of the thread.
Instead you were going off on some terribly pointless tangent on the classification of Corruptors as damage dealers, and if their health should count as damage dealer's health.
My bad, I shouldn't have assumed you were adding to the actual conversation.
Murphys Military Law
#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
And yes, I suppose I should have just used the Dominator analogy
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.