City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Honest Blaster Questions/Research

Another_Fan

By Another_Fan,
Posted on: 2012-03-07 10:21 in Blasters

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight View Post
Not really, there is a glass ceiling for damage. Blasters are near it. Getting enough damage to make up for the lack of survivability would push us far over that ceiling.
I strongly disagree with this. There are already many melee sets that can do more damage than most blaster sets, both in burst damage and sustained DPS. Blasters are nowhere near the 'glass ceiling'.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight View Post
The amount of damage required to give the survivability comparable to other ATs would mean that we'd be one shotting minions, 2 shotting lieutenants, and 3 shotting Bosses.
I hate to tell you this, but my scrappers can already one shot minions and two-shot lieutenants. They can't 3-shot bosses because bosses have way to many hit points for that. I would say that dropping a boss in 3 hits, and one-shotting minions and lieutenants would be about right for blasters. Especially considering many enemies are capable of two-shotting a blaster easily.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight View Post
The problem can't be solved by increasing blaster damage without breaking the game. That means that other things are needed instead.
No, I'm pretty sure buffing blaster damage would work just fine. It certainly isn't going to break anything.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by firespray View Post
I hate to tell you this, but my scrappers can already one shot minions and two-shot lieutenants.
Not consistently. One-shotting a 430 health minion at level 50 requires the equivalent of about 6.9 DS. Assuming slotting in the area of +100% damage, that would then require an attack of 3.45 DS to one-shot a minion outside of a critical. Only one scrapper attack hits that hard - concentrated strike.

For Headsplitter to one-shot an even minion at level 50 outside of a crit (which will only happen 15% of the time) would require a net damage strength of 2.65 - in other words 1.95 slotting, and then +70% damage on top. That's atypical, and there's not many attacks that hit even that hard.

Outside of criticals, which only usually happen 5%-10% of the time, Scrappers have the same melee damage modifier as Blasters have ranged modifier, and their attacks hit for similar scale numbers. Scrappers tend to have higher DPA due to having slightly faster attacks on average, but the amount of damage they do per attack per target is not that different from Blasters. A little higher on average maybe, but not enough to radically change the number of attacks per kill.

[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Not consistently. One-shotting a 430 health minion at level 50 requires the equivalent of about 6.9 DS. Assuming slotting in the area of +100% damage, that would then require an attack of 3.45 DS to one-shot a minion outside of a critical. Only one scrapper attack hits that hard - concentrated strike.
No, I can't do it all the time. It takes buildup on my fire/sr scrapper, which is only up about a third of the time IIRC. My dark/shield can do it more consistently since he has both soul drain and AAO. And both are admittedly purpled to the gills and have T3 or T4 incarnate abilities in all their slots.

However, my point was that what Miladys_Knight was using as an example of game-breaking amounts of damage is already available, and isn't breaking anything.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by firespray View Post
No, I can't do it all the time. It takes buildup on my fire/sr scrapper, which is only up about a third of the time IIRC. My dark/shield can do it more consistently since he has both soul drain and AAO. And both are admittedly purpled to the gills and have T3 or T4 incarnate abilities in all their slots.

However, my point was that what Miladys_Knight was using as an example of game-breaking amounts of damage is already available, and isn't breaking anything.
The difference between being able to do it one third of the time and all the time is essentially a three-fold increase in damage. Just because X is ok, doesn't mean 3X is also ok.

Also, for Build Up to be up a third of the time requires +200% recharge, or if BU is slotted at least +100% global recharge. That's not typical, and certainly not typical while leveling up.

Just because something exists, doesn't mean its valid to allow everyone to have it all the time. Right now someone somewhere is at the damage cap, the resistance cap, and the defense floor. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be game-breaking to allow everyone to have that all the time.

To be honest, though, I'm not fond of the phrase "game-breaking." Pouring lemonade into the servers is game-breaking. Many things violate the game design constraints without doing things the players would consider "game-breaking." Its a mostly meaningless term because players think anything that doesn't literally make their PC explode or their eyes bleed isn't game breaking. I only use the term to refer to things so eggregious they cross the line of excessive and enter the realm of the completely ludicrous.

The reason why "sometimes" is radically different from "always" is that when you can do something extraordinary sometimes, you still have to deal with all the rest of the time when you cannot. Allowing Blasters to use Nova is not the same thing as allowing them to use Nova continuously. One shotting a minion occasionally is not a big deal. One-shotting them all the time is essentially being able to negate their threat without them being able to react, and increasing kill speed constantly in a way that would radically increase the performance of the player.

[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

 

Posted

Great, now I can think of nothing but continuous Nova.

 

Posted

Arcanaville, you know where I stand on this, but I may not have talked about it much in the last five years.

I play about as many Fire/* blasters as non-Fire blasters. And I am seriously considering *more* Fire Blasters.

Why? firebreath/fireball is "erase the minions" territory. I'm old school, I hit fireball first because traditionally, I was mezzed/knocked back/dead by the time the fireball was supposed to land.

I can takedown a boss and 8-10 minions in twelve seconds if I do it right.

I have PLENTY of damage... on a Fire Blaster.

The handwave numbers I work with are that a Blaster does around 20-30% more damage than a Scrapper, at 1/6 the survivability. Those numbers (probably) change when you get to level 45+ . By which time all the Blasters have given up long ago, or settled for dueling +3 Snipers and bouncing Death Mages, gloomily firing off Nova in a group of minions every three minutes... OK, maybe I do need to level up a blaster "normally", which I have not done in like five years. Because that was a LONG time ago.

Can Energy/* two-shot AOE minions, second shot while they're knocked back, and stay quasi safe during their alpha? I vaguely remember they could at some point do that, but I don't know if that's the case in this brave new world, that has such Blasters in it.

Additional question: Are we teaming for half the TIME or are we teaming for half the XP? Because if (say) soloing is three times as slow to gain XP, we're talking about a considerable difference.

Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.

So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Grim View Post
Great, now I can think of nothing but continuous Nova.
Toggle Nova: You Can Have Instant Healing Back, Regens.

[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Toggle Nova: You Can Have Instant Healing Back, Regens.
I could just waltz through just about anything in the game and laugh maniacally as all perish.

Where was that topic again?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fulmens View Post
Can Energy/* two-shot AOE minions, second shot while they're knocked back, and stay quasi safe during their alpha? I vaguely remember they could at some point do that, but I don't know if that's the case in this brave new world, that has such Blasters in it.
I don't recall two-shotting minions with my energy/dev blaster using AoEs. Of course, I don't have build-up and I didn't have both AoEs back when I could six slot for damage.

If you're looking for safe though ... energy/dev is certainly that.

MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fulmens View Post
Arcanaville, you know where I stand on this, but I may not have talked about it much in the last five years.

I play about as many Fire/* blasters as non-Fire blasters. And I am seriously considering *more* Fire Blasters.

Why? firebreath/fireball is "erase the minions" territory. I'm old school, I hit fireball first because traditionally, I was mezzed/knocked back/dead by the time the fireball was supposed to land.

I can takedown a boss and 8-10 minions in twelve seconds if I do it right.

I have PLENTY of damage... on a Fire Blaster.

The handwave numbers I work with are that a Blaster does around 20-30% more damage than a Scrapper, at 1/6 the survivability.
Fire's Dot is good for 40% more damage than normal, albeit on a DoT.

Outside of Fire, its unclear who does more damage. It comes down to number of AoEs and the DPA of single target attacks, depending on what you're looking at. And actually Scrappers and Brutes tend to have just as many AoEs: some powersets have more and some less. But they tend on average to have significantly better DPA these days since animation acceleration made them faster.

My guess is that the average blaster edges out the average Scrapper, but there's a ton of overlap across all the powerset combinations. Lots of Blaster combinations beat the average Scrapper, and lots of Scrapper combinations beat the average Blaster.

That's probably not supposed to happen if Blasters were properly designed.


Quote:
Those numbers (probably) change when you get to level 45+ . By which time all the Blasters have given up long ago, or settled for dueling +3 Snipers and bouncing Death Mages, gloomily firing off Nova in a group of minions every three minutes... OK, maybe I do need to level up a blaster "normally", which I have not done in like five years. Because that was a LONG time ago.

Can Energy/* two-shot AOE minions, second shot while they're knocked back, and stay quasi safe during their alpha? I vaguely remember they could at some point do that, but I don't know if that's the case in this brave new world, that has such Blasters in it.
Against zero resistance targets, up to the low/mid 20s or so. Then health outpaces torrent + explosive blast by just enough to make that iffy. I remember in the old days leaving things with a sliver in Talos once I got into the high twenties, and that hasn't changed much since then, even with Defiance 2.0.

But I will say the scatter from that is overestimated, and the mitigation from torrent and explosive blast is among the best multi-target offensive mitigation you can get as a blaster, short of Siren's Song. As long as you are not facing knock resistant targets.


Quote:
Additional question: Are we teaming for half the TIME or are we teaming for half the XP? Because if (say) soloing is three times as slow to gain XP, we're talking about a considerable difference.
I don't know the answer to the question of what the average rate of teaming is for Blasters. What I was told was that it was not *too* dissimilar to the average of other archetypes, but I don't know what that is, or what "too dissimilar" means.

I don't think the average blaster solos three times slower than the average player in general though. That would be extreme. I think its fair to say its worse that 20% slower, and better than one third the speed. But that's unfortunately a lot of ground, and I don't think I can be more specific than that.

[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

 

Posted

I think he meant soloing in general gives three times less xp than teaming, which is probably true for blasters.

 

Posted

Quote:
Outside of Fire, its unclear who does more damage. It comes down to number of AoEs and the DPA of single target attacks, depending on what you're looking at. And actually Scrappers and Brutes tend to have just as many AoEs: some powersets have more and some less. But they tend on average to have significantly better DPA these days since animation acceleration made them faster.
*Cough* Archery.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fulmens View Post
energy/*, hmm. Maybe I'll go En/Mind. That gives me decent defense FOR A BLASTER. Other suggestions?
That depends. Are you trying to see how good it can get, how bad it can get, or what the average likely is?

How good can it get? Sonic/Mental. Sleep, drain, repeat. Probably good performance right from the start, and on up through leveling. Sirens Song at 18, Drain Psyche right on cue at 20.

How bad can it get? Electric/Fire. Very little mitigation against typical leveling targets (drain is not an effective mitigator against minions and Lts usually), without the bonus of ranged fire offense. I think its the death trap of Blaster combinations for all but the most experienced players.

What's the average? Probably something like Rad/Electric or Psychic/Ice. Decent primary and decent secondary, no wild synergies or conflicts. Rad/Electric is the more balanced ranged/blapper. Psychic/Ice is a more ranged melee-avoidance combo.

For the average, sticking with the Energy Blast primary I would go Energy/Ice, or Energy/Electric. For the best case, Energy/Mental or Energy/Dark. For the worst case, Energy/Fire. Good luck making Fire work with Energy.

[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
That depends. Are you trying to see how good it can get, how bad it can get, or what the average likely is?

How good can it get? Sonic/Mental. Sleep, drain, repeat. Probably good performance right from the start, and on up through leveling. Sirens Song at 18, Drain Psyche right on cue at 20.

How bad can it get? Electric/Fire. Very little mitigation against typical leveling targets (drain is not an effective mitigator against minions and Lts usually), without the bonus of ranged fire offense. I think its the death trap of Blaster combinations for all but the most experienced players.

What's the average? Probably something like Rad/Electric or Psychic/Ice. Decent primary and decent secondary, no wild synergies or conflicts. Rad/Electric is the more balanced ranged/blapper. Psychic/Ice is a more ranged melee-avoidance combo.

For the average, sticking with the Energy Blast primary I would go Energy/Ice, or Energy/Electric. For the best case, Energy/Mental or Energy/Dark. For the worst case, Energy/Fire. Good luck making Fire work with Energy.
On my list of mez durations compared to patrol hours my character that has the highest mez length is an Energy/Elec/Fire named Fusion Debt. Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast, Thunderstrike, Lightning Clap, and Bonfire are all slotted FOR KB (each is 6 slotted with Kinetic Crash). The reason her %s of being mezzed are so high is because she survives while mezzed longer than any of my other blasters because she is hovering over Bonfire.

She's still vulnerable to taking too much damage over time and all mez does is reduces her kill speed (and therefore her offensive mitigation) so she spends more time alive but mezzed and doesn't suffer a hit point crash as fast as the others.

It actually works fairly well because her mitigation (Bonfire) remains intact even while mezzed which is pretty unique in blasterdom.

-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson

 

Posted

You know, I was actually designing a Grav/NRG Dom to work that way. Named him Knockback Man. It is very effective if you only plan to -solo-, but with a name like that people tended to not invite :P

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy View Post
*Cough* Archery.
Archery has higher AoE potential, yes. So does AR. Other Blaster sets have far less, such as Psychic or Electric.

[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight View Post
On my list of mez durations compared to patrol hours my character that has the highest mez length is an Energy/Elec/Fire named Fusion Debt. Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast, Thunderstrike, Lightning Clap, and Bonfire are all slotted FOR KB (each is 6 slotted with Kinetic Crash). The reason her %s of being mezzed are so high is because she survives while mezzed longer than any of my other blasters because she is hovering over Bonfire.

She's still vulnerable to taking too much damage over time and all mez does is reduces her kill speed (and therefore her offensive mitigation) so she spends more time alive but mezzed and doesn't suffer a hit point crash as fast as the others.

It actually works fairly well because her mitigation (Bonfire) remains intact even while mezzed which is pretty unique in blasterdom.
It conflicted with my blapping a bit, but I used to love Bonfire. At one point, I decided to burn freespecs on my main by rotating epics every time a new freespec was going to be issued, so I eventually took them all. Bonfire was one of my more interesting phases. I especially loved "cornering" with it. You could just keep punching them with bonesmasher and total focus and they would just keep bouncing off the wall and right back to you.

[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Grim View Post
You know, I was actually designing a Grav/NRG Dom to work that way. Named him Knockback Man. It is very effective if you only plan to -solo-, but with a name like that people tended to not invite :P
I have a mind/earth dominator that uses knock a little less scattery. Levitate, Spears, Mallet, Heavy Mallet, Tremor, all deal knockdown or knockup. You practically have to commit suicide to die on that combo.

That's not even counting the holds, sleeps, and confuses she hands out.

[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

 

Posted

En/Fire... *twitch* my second serious character was Energy/Fire. I'm fairly experienced, I respecced Boom Baby more than, possibly, all my other characters put together, I left her alone for about three years... and I couldn't make it work. Sneak sneak sneak Build Up Aim Fire Sword Circle Explosive Blast... meh.

I'm looking for a good suggestion for a strong secondary to retry Energy Blast. Because I may not have given it a fair shake last time.

Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.

So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight View Post
On my list of mez durations compared to patrol hours my character that has the highest mez length is an Energy/Elec/Fire named Fusion Debt. Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast, Thunderstrike, Lightning Clap, and Bonfire are all slotted FOR KB (each is 6 slotted with Kinetic Crash). The reason her %s of being mezzed are so high is because she survives while mezzed longer than any of my other blasters because she is hovering over Bonfire.

She's still vulnerable to taking too much damage over time and all mez does is reduces her kill speed (and therefore her offensive mitigation) so she spends more time alive but mezzed and doesn't suffer a hit point crash as fast as the others.

It actually works fairly well because her mitigation (Bonfire) remains intact even while mezzed which is pretty unique in blasterdom.

I love bonfire on my fire/dev blaster. Perfect on the ITF for keeping them cimerions out of melee I can't count how many times it has saved my butt and on on the BAF during the prisoner escape phase no minion gets by.

I love bonfire just standing in the middle of a circle of burning flame blasting everything as it run towards you only to get flung back it might be one of the most epic feelings I get in this game.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
The difference between being able to do it one third of the time and all the time is essentially a three-fold increase in damage. Just because X is ok, doesn't mean 3X is also ok.
Not true at all. When buildup is active, I do roughly 300% of base damage for the power (100% base, +100% for buildup, +100% for slotting). When buildup isn't active, I do roughly 200% of base damage. Buildup being active one third of the time means on average I would do roughly 233% of base damage. So going from buildup active a third of the time to buildup active all the time would mean my damage increased roughly 30% over what I normally do. That's a long way from a three-fold increase in damage.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Also, for Build Up to be up a third of the time requires +200% recharge, or if BU is slotted at least +100% global recharge. That's not typical, and certainly not typical while leveling up.
I realize this, and even mentioned myself that these characters were pretty high on the performance spectrum.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Just because something exists, doesn't mean its valid to allow everyone to have it all the time. Right now someone somewhere is at the damage cap, the resistance cap, and the defense floor. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be game-breaking to allow everyone to have that all the time.
Nowhere did I say that blasters need to be able to do that kind of damage all the time. I was simply countering the hyperbole that was posted as an argument not to buff blaster damage. While I feel that blasters need a damage buff (among other things), I don't think it needs to be that large to make them competitive. There's a lot of room to work with between the damage an average blaster does and the damage a purpled-out, fully-incarnated dark/shield scrapper does. The former shouldn't equal the latter, but I think it could be moved closer without hurting anything.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by firespray View Post
Not true at all. When buildup is active, I do roughly 300% of base damage for the power (100% base, +100% for buildup, +100% for slotting). When buildup isn't active, I do roughly 200% of base damage. Buildup being active one third of the time means on average I would do roughly 233% of base damage. So going from buildup active a third of the time to buildup active all the time would mean my damage increased roughly 30% over what I normally do. That's a long way from a three-fold increase in damage.
My DM/SD Brute regular one-shots minions with Midnight Grasp... The exact same setup mentioned above of "high fury + AAO + Soul Drain" (and unlike Build Up, Soul Drain can be up all the time). AAO really busts my chops: why in the world is a Defense set providing better offense buffing than anything Blasters get access to? See also: why don't Blasters get Fiery Embrace in /Fire? Etc. etc.

Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich

Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Outside of Fire, its unclear who does more damage. It comes down to number of AoEs and the DPA of single target attacks, depending on what you're looking at. And actually Scrappers and Brutes tend to have just as many AoEs: some powersets have more and some less. But they tend on average to have significantly better DPA these days since animation acceleration made them faster.
And even still, Beam Rifle quite possible beats out Fire for single target damage, given -Resistance debuff (and that's not counting the -Regen).

Quote:
Against zero resistance targets, up to the low/mid 20s or so. Then health outpaces torrent + explosive blast by just enough to make that iffy. I remember in the old days leaving things with a sliver in Talos once I got into the high twenties, and that hasn't changed much since then, even with Defiance 2.0.

But I will say the scatter from that is overestimated, and the mitigation from torrent and explosive blast is among the best multi-target offensive mitigation you can get as a blaster, short of Siren's Song. As long as you are not facing knock resistant targets.
Yeah, I regularly did the Explosive Blast + Energy Torrent combo, and that pretty reliably knocked the entire spawn back, leaving them still clumped together. Then I would follow that up with Static Discharge (with Boost Range), resulting in dead minions. It was a great combo, and surprised a lot of people with how much AoE carnage I could cause as an En/En blaster.

Global @Diellan - 5M2M
Mids' Hero/Villain Designer Lead
Virtue Server
Redside: Lorenzo Mondavi
Blueside: Alex Rabinovich

Got a Mids suggestion? Want to report a Mids bug?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by firespray View Post
Not true at all. When buildup is active, I do roughly 300% of base damage for the power (100% base, +100% for buildup, +100% for slotting). When buildup isn't active, I do roughly 200% of base damage. Buildup being active one third of the time means on average I would do roughly 233% of base damage. So going from buildup active a third of the time to buildup active all the time would mean my damage increased roughly 30% over what I normally do. That's a long way from a three-fold increase in damage.



I realize this, and even mentioned myself that these characters were pretty high on the performance spectrum.



Nowhere did I say that blasters need to be able to do that kind of damage all the time. I was simply countering the hyperbole that was posted as an argument not to buff blaster damage. While I feel that blasters need a damage buff (among other things), I don't think it needs to be that large to make them competitive. There's a lot of room to work with between the damage an average blaster does and the damage a purpled-out, fully-incarnated dark/shield scrapper does. The former shouldn't equal the latter, but I think it could be moved closer without hurting anything.
Problem with your reasoning is that mob damage output is binary. If the mob is still alive even by 1 HP it still does full damage.

To buff blaster survivability with damage output you need to increase damage out put in such a way that it takes 1 less shot to defeat EACH mob 100% of the time. If a 25% buff to damage doesn't reduce number of shots required it looks like a buff but doesn't function that way since it still allows the mobs to put out the same amount of damage in the same time which is still going to kill the blaster before the blaster can kill the spawn. (Teamed is a different situation since there are other ATs playing with differing damage outputs.)

The amount of damage buffing required to get to that point is high enough that the devs probably won't even consider that as an option. That's what I mean by glass ceiling, the devs won't promote blaster damage high enough to increase survivability with damage, because it looks too high (and is too high when you switch to a teaming situation).

The next option would be to reduce the time that it takes the blaster to cast the number of shots required to defeat a MOB. It would have to happen in such a way that the blaster can cast the required number of attacks fast enough to reduce the number of attacks the mobs get to use by 1. That means speeding up all the animations of all the powers in all the blaster sets while keeping the animation times the same for all other AT that share the powers. That is far too much dev time and probably won't fly because of the way that might affect the other ATs.

That leaves reducing the amount of incoming damage and mez that hit a blaster. Traditionally the way to do that is by adding resistances, defense, and mez protection something the dev mind set is against and lots of the player base too with the ZOMG, no tank mages, BS that gets spouted all the time.

That leaves us looking for a solution by creating a 4th option since the first 3 are off the table.

-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson