Well said, and as usual fact based Arcanaville. I have a couple questions. Do the people who put "Ranged" on the character design screen have access to any small amount of the information that you know? Are they planning on changing the "Ranged" description in the character design screen so that new players do not buy a "pig in a poke?"
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The people who type the text into text descriptions in the game believe "close enough" is close enough. Its the same thought process that made someone say that radiation attacks "bypasses some defense" even though at no time in the history of this game has radiation attacks ever had a property that could be described in that way.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Well said, and as usual fact based Arcanaville. I have a couple questions. Do the people who put "Ranged" on the character design screen have access to any small amount of the information that you know? Are they planning on changing the "Ranged" description in the character design screen so that new players do not buy a "pig in a poke?"
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In fact, no game mechanic that has ever existed could have given radiation attacks that ability even if the devs wanted them to have it. The closest thing to that description would be tohit buffs, which sort of "bypass some defense" but its impossible for an attack to have intrinsically higher tohit from the player. It can have higher accuracy, but accuracy does not bypass defense. Radiation powers *still* say in the text window that they "bypass normal defense" when they do nothing of the sort. And this is not accidentally describing defense debuffing weirdly, because it *also* says those attacks bypass defense.
Then again the old description used to say that Super Reflexes can dodge anything regardless of the kind of attack. But that's false, because SR does not have psionic defense: it has no protection against mind control-like attacks and things like Blind. So they updated the description: it now explicitly says SR dodges psionic attacks by name. Because if you're going to be misleading, might as well aim right for being completely wrong.
The game would be less misleading if all the text was in Korean. In any case, the current Blaster description explicitly says "offensive juggernaut." It says blasters can deal a ton of damage from a distance, which they can, but it doesn't say Blasters are explicitly range-focused.
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Unfortunately, the descriptions of just about Everything in the game were written at the dawn of time and written by the Marketing department. They have not been updated for I-22 or anywhere along the way and they are not as intimately tied to the 'reality' that you and I experience.
There are vociferous posters who are fixated on the idea that Tankers should do Brute-like damage (because the old descriptions imply that they should) and, historically speaking, back at the dawn of time, that was how Tankers were conceived as being. The modern reality just doesn't reflect that, as the Devs had to balance Tankers somehow... So they split them into Tankers and Scrappers - neither of which worked quite like the original ideas, but at least they're good, balanced ATs.
We 'enjoy' dozens of such disconnects between the original ideas and how things worked out. That said, can we agree that No AT does more damage at Range than a Blaster? Sure, Controllers, Dominators, and Corruptors (and EATs) can do a lot, but not quite as much, right?
Be Well!
Fireheart
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That's not how Tankers (and Scrappers) were originally envisioned:|
Originally Posted by Fireheart
There are vociferous posters who are fixated on the idea that Tankers should do Brute-like damage (because the old descriptions imply that they should) and, historically speaking, back at the dawn of time, that was how Tankers were conceived as being. The modern reality just doesn't reflect that, as the Devs had to balance Tankers somehow... So they split them into Tankers and Scrappers - neither of which worked quite like the original ideas, but at least they're good, balanced ATs.
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So, I began thinking of heroes in comic books and on the silver screen. I thought about the types of combinations that seemed to fit at least the majority of heroes that I could imagine. They were: Melee and Defense Melee and Ranged Ranged and Buff/Debuff Crowd Control and Buff/Debuff Then, I opened up the floor for anyone to imagine their hero - just from a background point of view. Could this rather simple system capture the heroes that the Cryptic staff had always wanted to play? We found that yup, it succeeded on that level. We tweaked it a little bit though - we decided to break down the combinations into a primary and a secondary role. In particular, we found that melee heroes came in two particular flavors - the big, strong type that could absorb enormous amounts of damage, and the master fighter type. So, we created two combinations, one where Defense was primary, the other where Melee was primary. |
Tankers were always, from the start, envisioned to primarily be able to absorb lots of damage. The intent is even more unambiguous when Jack describes the process of coming up with the names for those archetypes:
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Now it came time to name them. Unfortunately, the super hero genre doesn't have time-tested titles such as fighter, thief, barbarian or bard. We needed to create our own terminology - which caused me a little bit of concern. I could come up with plenty of cool names for Archetypes - Crusader, Vanquisher, Champion, Protector, etc. - but unfortunately, nobody would know what they meant. Fantasy games had the advantage here; all players know what a cleric does because there've been hundreds of games where the cleric was primarily a healer and a relatively decent fighter. But how would a player know what a Crusader could do just by looking at the name? Sure, a player could read a description of it, but that isn't always player behavior. Most people want to get into the game and start playing as soon as possible. They don't want to feel forced to read a lot of text just to understand the basics. Because of this, I decided to name the Archetypes with terms that pretty much described what they did. I avoided flashy, heroic names in favor of evocative ones. Scrapper - a hand-to-hand specialist (Primary Power - Melee, Secondary - Defense) Tanker - could resist damage (Primary Power - Defense, Secondary - Melee) Blaster - does tons of damage (Primary Power - Ranged, Secondary - Melee) Defender - helps protect other teammates (Primary Power - Buff/Debuff, Secondary - Ranged Controller - can affect AI behavior (Primary Power - Crowd Control, Secondary - Buff/Debuff). |
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I think this is definitely true for electric blast. With short circuit and all of the melee attacks, my deleted 50 elec/elec cried out to be played in melee.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I actually think more blasters die because they aggressively go into melee range to use those tempting melee and PBAoE attacks without the experience to leverage them properly.
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But I don't think this plays to a blaster's strength:
(1) The first 2 elec/ attacks can be used while mezzed, but in playing an elec/elec your big ST attacks are goin g to be the high damage /elec melee ones not the wimpy ST elec/ ones.
(2) You have defiance which ups damage the more you attack, but you are going to be doing your AOEs like short circuit fairly quickly upon getting into a spawn, because you want to drain their endurance. So these don't benefit from defiance really.
In short, an elec/elec/(?elec?) blaster doesn't really benefit from defiance much at all if played "properly" and should probably be some other AT entirely. Hence the deletion...
"Hi, my name is Ail. I make people sick."
A partial selection from my 50's on Freedom: Ail = Ice/Traps, Luck = Street Justice/Super Reflexes Stalker, Mist = Bane, Pixy = Trick Arrow/Archery, Pure = Gravity/Energy, Smoke = Fire/Fire Dominator
I'm a little confused by what you are describing and how this is unique to Electric. You should be able to maintain some defiance from mob to mob, and your AOE attacks are generally best used at the start of the fight. It doesn't matter what Blaster set I've played, that's almost always the case, unless there is some troublesome mob that you would be better off mezzing before using your AOEs (but for a lot of sets, an AOE KB attack can do just as well). So I'm not seeing the big handicap you are describing for Short Circuit. Heck, you could leap into range of the mobs with that, activate it and hop at the same time, and be out of melee range if you want. Or you could stay there (which works fine for my E^3 Blaster).
It is nice to use your melee attacks if you have them, but the ST blasts for tier 1 and 2 are not weaker than other, comparable ST tier 1 and 2 blasts.
Guess I don't get the negatives you are supposedly highlighting in that post. Electric certainly does have a more melee centered approach if you want to leverage it well, but I'm not seeing how it doesn't somehow benefit from Defiance.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
I respect you Airhammer, and many of the posters on the boards. I honestly appreciate being able to get feedback from you all and post my opinions. However, I cannot stop myself from just grabbing this snippet to illustrate my Don Quixote attack on the "It Ain't Ranged" Windmill. Hope you do not mind.
Because nothing says "Ranged" like that sentence. You seriously make a good point though. Even as I abused as I have by stripping it down to STs and Ball/Nuke Elec is a decent set. The animations are cool, and I mostly enjoy it. What I do not like about it is that it is a Blapper set. Not Elec's fault. Not Blasters Archtypes fault. I have seen many arguments and points being made about what they will not allow a Blaster to do (holds, mez prot, more damage, and on and on) and good reasons why they should not, and arguments why they should. What I have not seen is anyone explain what design/business decision would not allow them to be "Ranged" when they specifically say on their own character design screen they are "Ranged". They give new players a choice of a "Ranged" character, with all sorts of important, set balancing powers that are melee range and PBAoEs and wonder why they keep dying and falling behind Brutes at leveling. Gee, i wonder. Lets see, could it have anything to do with the fact that you told the Player they were getting a Ranged character and when they chose their powers they were mostly better suited to Blapping? Hmmm. I wonder..... |
Nope dont mind at all...
I agree that if you play an Electric Blaster purely at range that you will not receive the total benefit of playing that Powerset. However i dont think that is a bad thing. The Elec Blaster has a mechanic that other blasters do not and there has always been a "risk/reward" factpr built into the game and for the Blaster one of those risks is going into melee.
And once again i have to point out that the choice of secondary and even Ancillary pools can greatly affect playstyle.. I can play my E3 solely at range and be perfectly safe. I use Ball Lightning and Static Discharge liberally and I can easy hold any two LT's with two ranged single target holds and I can easily hold any one boss with those attacks as well. I can throw down Voltaic Sentinal for some cheap damage that I dont have to worry about.
There are a great many ways to skin a cat. I think a large part of my advantage playing blasters is because my first toon was a blaster.. However they dont all play the same..
Airhammer my namesake is a NRG/NRG who has at least two Dam.Rng Hami's in every ranged attack. He uses boost range all the time.. he is built for range.. BUT if you get close.. expect to get pummeled by Energy Punch and Bone Smasher.. He also uses Power Push liberally to knock foes down. He can fight at EXTREME range and Melee.
Taser was built as a sapper. he can easily drain a +2 boss down to zero end in two attacks. He has enough recharge built in that Short Circuit comes up real fast.. He also can utilize up to three single target holds ( two ranged one melee ) to keep any LT or Boss locked down which keeps him free of a lot of danger.. And he has the propensity to annoy tanks who take to long on a foe by leapin in with Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch to finish their targets off. So he can fight both ranged and melee..
Reactor is built as a PbAoE monster... he is working toward softcap for S/L/E ( almost there ) he has a few ranged attack but prefers to jump right in the middle and use Irradiate/Fire Sword Circle/ Combustion and Burn while Blazing Aura and Hotfeet are running..
And there are still more to talk about.. but as far as Taser goes.. I can stay at range.. or I can get in close.. I let the situation dictate my actions..
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
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If you are playing a more ranged build, you can fire off a few ST attacks before doing AOEs. On my Beam/NRG blaster for example I can do disintegrate a couple of other things before doing AOEs. I think the Beam/NRG seems to benefit a lot from defiance. I use the T1 and T2 attacks and get benefit from using them while mezzed and seem to carry a much better defiance bonus. The character works well. I have tried an FF/Beam defender and much prefer the blaster version.|
Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
I'm a little confused by what you are describing and how this is unique to Electric. You should be able to maintain some defiance from mob to mob, and your AOE attacks are generally best used at the start of the fight. It doesn't matter what Blaster set I've played, that's almost always the case, unless there is some troublesome mob that you would be better off mezzing before using your AOEs (but for a lot of sets, an AOE KB attack can do just as well). So I'm not seeing the big handicap you are describing for Short Circuit. Heck, you could leap into range of the mobs with that, activate it and hop at the same time, and be out of melee range if you want. Or you could stay there (which works fine for my E^3 Blaster).
It is nice to use your melee attacks if you have them, but the ST blasts for tier 1 and 2 are not weaker than other, comparable ST tier 1 and 2 blasts. Guess I don't get the negatives you are supposedly highlighting in that post. Electric certainly does have a more melee centered approach if you want to leverage it well, but I'm not seeing how it doesn't somehow benefit from Defiance. |
With elec/elec, it seems optimal play has you jumping right in at the beginning and short circuiting and ball lightning and then using the melee attacks from electricity manipulation. So the T1 and T2 from the blast set don't tend to come up and you don't tend to get as much of a defiance damage bonus as well in my experience. But the AOEs don't do a whole lot of damage in electrical blast and it just seems to go very slowly. The melee attacks are enough better than the T1 and T2 blast that it is hard to justify taking both and/or slotting the blasts. The character on the whole would seemingly be better played as a (i) Brute if it is the elec melee attacks you like or a (ii) Controller (and possibly dominator) if it is the end draining you like.
Finally, I have a DP/Dark blaster. Attack chain is spring attack --> soul drain --> hail of bullets --> bullet rain, and then finish off the remaining guys in the spawn with ST attacks from the primary. Again, I use and like the character and the character "works". A comparable character might be a DP/Kin corruptor but again the DP/Dark works very well and I can honestly say I prefer this incarnation of the character and don't want to reroll as another AT.
So I'm not disagreeing with you Grey Pilgrim as you seem to have some very good points. Maybe the T1 and T2 from Elec blast are fine but the AOEs are weaker (?) and the set lacks other ST attacks and my playstyle is not leveraging the benefits of elec/elec properly.
I just found in practice that my other blasters seemed to work better and were doing what they were supposed to be doing and didn't seem to be so obviously underperforming.
I do think that all blasters need help but elec blast always seems to suck for me. Is it that elec blast has weak AOEs and only 2 ST attacks? So that maybe the T1 and T2 are fine but everything else is messed up?
It is not a blaster, but my kin/elec defender (not deleted, but not played anymore...as in not played for 4+ years and even then not played much) always just seemed weaker than it ought to be. I like to solo all of the hard arcs and there were some end-game guys (don't remember who now sorry--it has been too many years) he just couldn't get past (back in the day...not sure how it would be now...) I would take my standard "kill EB pack" of a bunch of reds and purples and pop them and just not have the dps to punch through the guy. This didn't happen with other defenders regarded as weak like my TA/A (and certainly not with the strong defenders who are little AV-soloers like rad/whatever and yes probably also rad/elec although I never played rad/elec) so I am at a loss to explain the gimp-ness.
I deleted my elec/kin corruptor before getting to fight recluse at the end of the patron arcs, but that also would have been a good solo test of the character. With the spawn of summoned guys around recluse kin should be at max damage but I still wonder if the character would have been able to do it... Again, this would have been back before people could summon incarnate pets and have reactive proc and all sorts of other things that people can do now.
"Hi, my name is Ail. I make people sick."
A partial selection from my 50's on Freedom: Ail = Ice/Traps, Luck = Street Justice/Super Reflexes Stalker, Mist = Bane, Pixy = Trick Arrow/Archery, Pure = Gravity/Energy, Smoke = Fire/Fire Dominator
I want to thank everyone for the posts here. This has helped me understand my new 50+3 Elec/Elec Blaster a lot better. It has (amazingly!) changed my opinion on Blasters by allowing me to get past the "Blasters are Ranged" hump I was stuck on. With a special thanks to Aracanaville and her meticulous documentation of the history and evolution of the game. I now understand that based on the original design (not the 6th grade reading level inaccurate description) I am indeed purposely trying to build something slightly odd when I go ranged, and therefore should expect to encounter difficulty.
I will be shelving the Elec^3 mostly as I level 2 other Blasters to see if I like them better for Ranged. My first is a Rad/Nrg with a planned Soul epic. Concept is undead raised by nuclear waste (classic night of the living dead) called "Corpse Blaster" As cheesy as that is would you believe concept is king in all my hundreds of alts? If I cannot justify the character/art/story I cannot make it. Thats why the gun/bow blaster are pretty much off limits for me. Although I am working on a deity or angel with a bow concept....
ps, took like 5 seconds after I posted this. i have my Gun Blaster concept. Anyone watch "The Frighteners?" Sergeant Hiles character (R. Lee Ermey) allows me to explain the vanishing + reappearing gun. I am so happy I want to take the rest of the day off and get into the city lol. But, ....*looks at inbox ...that ain't happening heh. So, now to cogitate on AR/Nrg or AR/Devices.
I think AirHammer summed it up best - Different Blasters play *very* differently,
and for my inf, E3 is one of the more unusual (and to me, interesting).
I also agree with him that you *can* play E3 as ranged - if you manage aggro
well, and if you accept that crazy slider settings are unmanageable that way.
If you build it and play it to it's strengths, E3 is much more fluid (and effective)
while varying range (I can farm the Cimoeran Wall with mine played that way) and
making good use of his drains and other melee powers is critical to that success.
As far as a pure ranged blaster, you're describing my Fire/NRG exactly.
With high damage AoEs, cones, very fast T1/T2 attacks, and Boost Range,
he doesn't want to be near anybody. If anybody does come near him, they
get a double whammy of Bonesmasher and Power Thrust, and then I resume
toasting them at range. It works very very well.
Of course, I'm in the category that doesn't think Blasters are "broken". YMMV
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
Elec/ is normally paired with /Elec and I believe that any primary could only need to go well with 3 secondaries.
The Blaster is Ranged-Support, you can't describe /Dev as Melee.Powersink and Shortcircuit are the first two things on my mind and then with Lightning Field I keep end recovery down. That removes the worst attacks from what the Mobs are capable of, causing -DPS just for one. The whole team can benefit from that. If that's not support I don't know what is.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Have't finished the thread, just minor things that popped into mind while reading. (Background: Fourth character, first 50, was an elec/elec blaster who still comes out to play.)
Voltaic Sentinel: Wouldn't skip it. However, I think it was better pre-Defiance 2.0 for the simple reason that, having it out, you could keep putting attacks out while stunned/mezzed. Now, everyone has that trick, so it's just not noticable or unique.
I think I'd like to see two things: Longer duration (or, hey, perma-pet,) and give its attacks chaining.
Damage: Eh. The time I feel low-damage is on my Dark/Electric Def more than my Elec/Elec blaster. But I do think a minor tweak upward would be nice.
And I do love Thunderous Blast. >.>
My two cents.
Some of electric attack sets' problems are debatable, but I think we might all agree on one bit of weirdness that should be fixed.
Electric attacks use the Ones multiplier (i.e. same for all ATs), not the EndDrain multiplier, for endurance drains in PvE. But they use the EndDrain multiplier (i.e. better for Defenders), for endurance drains in PvP.
This can't be right. Why not use the EndDrain multipliers for endurance drains in both PvE and PvP? This would improve, for example, defender Short Circuit from 35% base endurance drain to 43.75%, or corruptor Transfusion from 40% base to 44%, or controller Conductive Aura from 10% base per tick to 11%.
True, using the EndDrain multiplier for PvE doesn't help blasters directly; only controllers, corruptors, and defenders have an EndDrain multiplier greater than One. Still, there's a lot of synergy when more than one teammate is sapping, so elec blasters, scrappers, stalkers, tankers, dominators and brutes stand to benefit indirectly from their better sapping teammates.
==========
One other bit of weirdness I don't like about elec attacks is the random procs, short durations, and limited stackability and enhanceability of the recovery debuffs. No other debuffs have these limitations.
For example, most ice blasts always apply a nicely stackable and enhanceable slow debuff for a duration a bit longer than the power's recharge. Most dark blasts always apply a nicely stackable and enhanceable tohit debuff for a duration a bit longer than the power's recharge. Rad, psy, and sonic blasts follow the same pattern (though psy and sonic debuffs can't be enhanced).
Only elec blast breaks the pattern. Most elec blasts have a longshot chance to apply a recovery debuff for a duration barely half the power's recharge. With 100% base debuff value, even if you're lucky and manage to stack another debuff, it isn't much help. And endmod enhancements are of limited use, as lowering a target's recovery below 0% is useless.
This can't be right. Why not make it work more like every other blast set's debuffs? For instance, blaster Charged Bolts could be improved from 7% end drain and 20% chance to proc -100% recovery for 2 seconds, to 7% end drain and (100% chance to proc) -20% recovery for 6 seconds. At the ED cap for endmod, this would mean 13.65% end drain and 20% chance to proc -195% recovery for 2 seconds becomes 13.65% end drain and -39% recovery for 6 seconds.
It seems like the Issue 0 design of recovery debuffs was to simulate some kind of on/off binary state. Either the target was recovering end or wasn't. But this design has never actually worked. Targets can resist the debuff, or can have more than 100% base recovery. Better to make it work on simple addition and subtraction like all other debuffs.
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You're exactly correct: endurance drain and recovery debuff have been generally seen by the devs as a pseudo mez of sorts: its all or nothing. In dev-speak, its almost like a boolean effect where the endurance bar is the boolean as opposed to the boolean attribute. When we hold something, we "buff" their hold attribute until its greater than zero. When its greater than zero, its on. When its zero (or less) its off. In a sense, when the endurance bar is greater than zero, the critter can act, when its zero, the critter is stopped.|
Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
One other bit of weirdness I don't like about elec attacks is the random procs, short durations, and limited stackability and enhanceability of the recovery debuffs. No other debuffs have these limitations.
For example, most ice blasts always apply a nicely stackable and enhanceable slow debuff for a duration a bit longer than the power's recharge. Most dark blasts always apply a nicely stackable and enhanceable tohit debuff for a duration a bit longer than the power's recharge. Rad, psy, and sonic blasts follow the same pattern (though psy and sonic debuffs can't be enhanced). Only elec blast breaks the pattern. Most elec blasts have a longshot chance to apply a recovery debuff for a duration barely half the power's recharge. With 100% base debuff value, even if you're lucky and manage to stack another debuff, it isn't much help. And endmod enhancements are of limited use, as lowering a target's recovery below 0% is useless. This can't be right. Why not make it work more like every other blast set's debuffs? For instance, blaster Charged Bolts could be improved from 7% end drain and 20% chance to proc -100% recovery for 2 seconds, to 7% end drain and (100% chance to proc) -20% recovery for 6 seconds. At the ED cap for endmod, this would mean 13.65% end drain and 20% chance to proc -195% recovery for 2 seconds becomes 13.65% end drain and -39% recovery for 6 seconds. It seems like the Issue 0 design of recovery debuffs was to simulate some kind of on/off binary state. Either the target was recovering end or wasn't. But this design has never actually worked. Targets can resist the debuff, or can have more than 100% base recovery. Better to make it work on simple addition and subtraction like all other debuffs. |
It *doesn't* actually work like that, although ironically the playerbase itself keep encouraging the devs to think like that. Even your description of drain seems to suggest that the only way in which its not binary is if it doesn't have full effect on the target, and not that actual drain itself could be non-binary in effect. That has to change.
If you look at blast sets, almost all of the mez effects not in an actual mez power are probabilistic (don't occur all the time) and all debuffs generally occur all the time. That's because mez is binary, debuffs are not. So mez becomes intermittent to prevent it from being an absolute always on.
The best way to address that in the long run is to convince everyone that endurance drain is *not* all or nothing. I don't know how to do that for the devs, but I suspect the way to do that for the players is to alter the mechanics of drain so that its more obvious that its not all or nothing. That's one of the reasons I've been a long-time advocate for adding -MaxEnd to drain effects, in addition to or in place of -recovery. -MaxEnd would, I believe, make endurance drain more obviously not all or nothing because of the way it would interact with recovery ticks. If the players start believing drain is not all or nothing, maybe the devs will too, and drain can be designed to be more effective on shorter time scales.
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Oh, wow. I never looked at it that way.
So now that I squint my eyes at any electric attack set, and pretend "-100% recovery" says "mag 2 stun" instead, the way the powers were balanced way back in Issue 0 starts to make some creepy kind of sense.
Just do me a favor and bring me back to reality before Short Circuit starts looking like it's the best mez blast in the game and needs its damage, accuracy, and recharge nerfed to look more like Dark Pit.
Its actually /Dev that is the odd one out having very little to contribute to melee offense, every other manipulation set shows its Melee offense roots intentionally. In fact, while most of the manipulation sets were really ports of Melee attack powersets from Scrappers and Tankers, /Devices was actually a conversion of a totally different thing: the Gadgets origin concept, which became the gadgets powerset which became the devices powerset. To this day, "Devices" is still known as "Gadgets" in the developers' powerset database.
In any case, Electric/Electric is probably the farthest outlier in this regard in having the highest percentage of short range or melee attacks and utility powers. And people have been making ranged electric/electric blasters for a long time. Every other combination swings further towards having more and better ranged options. Some combinations, like AR/Dev, have no blapper option at all. Some, like Fire/Fire, have an option but with no mitigation its a borderline suicidal one. And some, like Anything/Ice have a blapper option that is equally good at supporting a ranged option (i.e. Ice Patch is good for blapping, also good for keeping things at a distance).
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