Suggestion: Buffs for Blasters!

Reading another topic gave me reason to consider buffs for blasters. Most At's have seen some serious QoL changes but posters like Arcanaville have made a strong case that Blasters were left behind a bit and could use a little more love. Not everything that follows is an original idea of mine but I figured it wouldn't hurt to collect them here so the devs have a more comprehensive list of ideas to look at.

Here's a few quick ideas:

Buildup/Aim Ideas: Give them the Inner Light treatment that Peacebringers got OR for the 10 seconds they are active have Aim give a small unenhanceable defense buff and Buildup give a small unenhanceable resistance buff. A power like Targeting Drone could give a damage buff tacked on (like say a personal leadership: assault power)

Tier 9 Nukes: For blasters only, simply remove the crash from their Nukes and increase the mag of any mez effect associated with them to mag 4. Let those nukes grant survival through mez that's guaranteed to affect most (not all! and not elite!) bosses.

Secondary Effects: Add more soft mez secondary effects to some blaster primary and/or secondary abilities. The Fire Blast set could get a stun added to Blaze (much like radiation's cosmic burst), Devices Taser could have its range significantly increased, Burn from Fire Manipulation could give more than immob protection but also stun and sleep protection as well... nothing says "wake the f--- up!" like standing in fire :P Little ideas like this which don't fundamentall change the basic functions of the powers but let blasters take a little bit from the survivability/mez plate since everyone else seems to be nipping cookies from the damage plate.

I don't really have much problem with most of these suggestions either way. But I think a re-examination of how the Tier 9 Nukes work is sorely needed.

The Incarnate Judgement powers really brought to light just how annoying and archaic the idea of super hard crashes after using Tier 9 Nukes have become. I understand that there needs to be some balancing factors for those high-end powers. But when you line them up them to the Judgement Nukes which have no crashes and quicker recharges then it seems like the Tier 9 Nukes are too overly penalized in comparison.

I don't think they should go as far as to totally remove the crash effects, but I think they need to be scaled back quite a bit - maybe even as far as to reduce their effects by at least 1/2 the current penalty values. In this way the Judgement Nukes will still be better but not by such a gigantic margin.

As it is now I have Blaster Incarnates who never use their tier 9 Nukes because they now have Judgement Nukes which are so much more forgiving by comparison. Something must be done so that tier 9 Nukes are not relegated to being just the grossly inferior alternative to Judgement Nukes.

As said by Lothic, the nuke abilities are rather poor once acquiring abilities like your Judgement power. They have about the same cool down except one is only slightly less powerful yet doesn't destroy your end and/or HP.

Overall I think its about time to let Blasters have some treats from outside the damage jar. Every other AT has gotten a taste of the damage jar yumminess to some degree or another but Blasters have been woefully denied tastes from the other AT's jars. This is primarily why I only have 1 blaster who I almost never play.

I would not keep any nukes changes/buffs unique to blasters. One can make the case that the crash is actually more detrimental to defenders and corruptors, as the nukes are less likey to kill, but leave the defender/corruptor just as open, and also disallows them to use team support abilities. This in a way spreads their penalty to the team's performance/longevity.

I would offer instead that blasters receive a higher max target cap on both nukes, cones, and other AoE's. This alongside a revision to nukes for all archetypes. Some suggest heightening the damage to be worthy of the present penalties, others that the penalties should be diminished. I'm in the latter camp, saying that it should cause no endurance crash or recovery debuff, rather a slight additional endurance cost to powers afterward and a minor -rech/-defense/-resistance debuff.

As for the target cap increase, I would specifically match all cone target caps to AoE caps on blasters, and have both be higher, like at 20 rather than 16. While the benefit of the higher cap would be less useful in many circumstances, (though a matching cone/AoE caps on blaster WOULD be more noticeable) it would mean that in circumstances where other archetypes would be overwhelmed, blasters could blow everything away more easily.

OK when I start seeing things like "annoying" listed as a reason to change powers I know what matter is under me and I am running for the hills.

Yeah, I'll let the devs handle this one...

For Nukes I think the crash should either be changed to a recovery only debuff (such as on EMP Arrow) or even eliminated entirely.

Regarding balance I agree that Nukes would be pretty powerful with no crash but on the other hand if you compare their damage and recharge scales to those of the crash less nukes they aren't that much better (except for Inferno).

Crashless Nukes:
Full Auto: 2.854 damage / 60s recharge.
Hail of Bullets: 3.2688 damage / 180s recharge
Overcharge: 3.5 damage / 180s recharge

The crashing nukes all have 360s recharge and between 4.25 damage scale (Thunderous Blast) to 7.44 damage scale (Inferno) with most of them having 4.875 damage scale.

So compared to HoB and Overcharge they are getting about a 40% damage increase in exchange for having twice the recharge and a crash. The problem is that endurance costs are supposed to scale with damage and the nukes are effectively paying this extra endurance by having the crash but honestly their damage does not strike me as being good enough to really justify the cost (with the exception of Inferno).

So at a minimum I would say change the crash to a recovery debuff (and maybe increase the base endurance cost a bit) or better yet drop the crash entirely and drop the damage a bit if it's really necessary (i.e. for Inferno).

@Techbot Alpha

Based on your last post I am pretty sure there is some kind of misunderstanding in what I have said, which once again dealt specifically with the words annoying and the phrase not worth it being driving forces for the devs to change powers within a powerset.

I am sure however, the devs will be interested in reviewing your posted numbers and have at it with you about that since that is their domain.

I just want blasters to get a damage buff to make them the king of damage dealing again.