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I didn't say you said they *needed* to do it, I said saying "since I can one-shot things sometimes, there can't be a problem with making blasters one-shot things all the time" is false.|
Originally Posted by firespray
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.
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I'm aware of the BU calculation. You forgot to include the fact that your damage drops to zero during BU's cast time, which actually makes BU's average damage buff even lower than that. *But* when you get down to the difference between two-shotting and one-shotting, even if that only requires 1% more damage in points, that's doubling kill speed. And kill speed is ultimately what's balanced for, not damage points. Damage points are *usually* comparable to kill speed, but 1% more damage and twice the kill speed is not going to be seen as only 1% more damage. Its going to be seen as twice the kill speed.
Technically, though, I should have said its a three times incremental increase in kill speed. If you are killing things one-third of the time with one shot, and two-thirds of the time with two shots, then killing everything with one shot (of these kinds of targets) equates to an increase in net kill speed of 67%. That's still high enough to make the one not say anything about whether the other is reasonable.
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Honestly, for the best set of options, I would go with the classic Energy/Energy. Boost range can be made perma which gives longer reach on blasts and improves the cone on torrent. It also means when you knock them back you can still hit them. Or you can go blapper: energy punch, bonesmasher, and total focus are a good blapping arsenal (although I think /electric edges it out in total).|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
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. |
Alternatively, Energy/Dark and Energy/Mental would be potentially good choices. In fact, even if you do not want to build around Drain Psyche, Energy/Mental can be a good hover blaster because Mental has decent range for a blaster secondary.
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In theory that would work, but in practice that would be difficult to do with any sort of precision.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
This doesn't seen to follow. You could increase blaster damage so it takes 1 less shot to kill just higher order bosses or ad a random component so it would sometimes take less shots
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Also, the goal should not be to improve the survivability for a single fight, but survivability across an entire mission. That's not precisely the same thing: when survivability is altered randomly, you do not get exactly the same result as you would get if the average benefit was spread out evenly throughout the mission. Variability generates lower survival than that. So a random effect that on average allowed a blaster to kill a spawn 10% faster, say, would not equate to the same overall survivability as something that always allowed the blaster to defeat every spawn in 10% less time all the time. That makes it even trickier to balance such an effect, if precision is intended. If its just about generating a buff of some kind that didn't need to meet a specific requirement, that would work. To this day most people don't know what the SR passive scaling resistances actually do, because they are so complex to analyze. I'm pretty sure even the devs don't know. Everyone knows they do something, and sometimes a lot, but overall? I don't know anyone besides me that's actually looked at that question in detail. But I also don't think the devs were aiming for anything specific, so that wasn't a concern.
Here, it would likely be more of one, if the intent was to generate a specific survivability increase for performance purposes.
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Well, I didn't say that either. It would be great if you would stop putting words in my mouth. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I didn't say you said they *needed* to do it, I said saying "since I can one-shot things sometimes, there can't be a problem with making blasters one-shot things all the time" is false.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm aware of the BU calculation. You forgot to include the fact that your damage drops to zero during BU's cast time, which actually makes BU's average damage buff even lower than that.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
*But* when you get down to the difference between two-shotting and one-shotting, even if that only requires 1% more damage in points, that's doubling kill speed. And kill speed is ultimately what's balanced for, not damage points. Damage points are *usually* comparable to kill speed, but 1% more damage and twice the kill speed is not going to be seen as only 1% more damage. Its going to be seen as twice the kill speed.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Technically, though, I should have said its a three times incremental increase in kill speed. If you are killing things one-third of the time with one shot, and two-thirds of the time with two shots, then killing everything with one shot (of these kinds of targets) equates to an increase in net kill speed of 67%. That's still high enough to make the one not say anything about whether the other is reasonable.
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My point has never been that blasters should be able to one-shot minions all the time. My point has always been that there is room to increase blaster damage so that blasters can again legitimately claim to do the best damage in the game without breaking anything.
If someone can legitimately prove otherwise, I'll listen, but so far no one has.
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I disagree with your premise here, particularly the bolded part. I mainly disagree with it because not all enemies present the same level of threat to a blaster. Barring a few specific enemies maybe, minions are much less of a threat than bosses. And because of the way hit points scale based on rank, damage buffs become more effective at lowering the number of attacks required to drop an enemy as you go up in rank. A 25% damage buff might not change the number of attacks required to defeat a minion, but it would certainly lower the number of attacks required to defeat a boss. And since bosses are considerably more able to kill a character than minions are, that would certainly have a positive effect on survivability.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
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.
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Oh goodie, one of these; always a time saver for me:|
Originally Posted by firespray
Well, I didn't say that either. It would be great if you would stop putting words in my mouth.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
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.
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Originally Posted by firespray
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.
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Hmm. En/Mental. KB cone, -rech cone, KB burst. I like it.
(Is there a better way to do that? Experimentation is needed!)
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Exactly, thank you for pointing out the quote. Nowhere in that quote do I say they should do it all the time, and nowhere in that quote do I say that there couldn't possibly be a problem with that level of damage. I said it sounds about right to me.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Oh goodie, one of these; always a time saver for me:
Since you're now saying you're not saying what you were saying, there's no longer anything that needs to be discussed. Like I said: time saver. |
While my post could have been clearer, you're making incorrect assumptions based upon it.
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Scream is a longer AoE than Torrent, so it can nicely still hit the things you KB generally. I prefer ET, EB, then PsyScream; the two KB powers at the beginning mitigate better and generally clump better, and it makes the long animation of PS easier to deal with (plus, later on, you can ET, EB, and jump in for DS/Shockwave). I just wish EB came earlier in the build. I blame early Build Up! |
Originally Posted by Fulmens
Hmm. En/Mental. KB cone, -rech cone, KB burst. I like it.
(Is there a better way to do that? Experimentation is needed!) |
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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You say this as if they aren't the same thing and without presenting any argument to show why that should be the case.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In theory that would work, but in practice that would be difficult to do with any sort of precision.
Also, the goal should not be to improve the survivability for a single fight, but survivability across an entire mission. |
Logically being able to better survive fights implies being better able to survive missions.
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| when survivability is altered randomly, you do not get exactly the same result as you would get if the average benefit was spread out evenly throughout the mission. Variability generates lower survival than that. |
First you imply that the contribution to survivability from doing more damage is somehow more variable than any other method of increasing survivability.
Then you put forth the assumption that this is something to be concerned about.
First any AT that depends on few or particular powers can have considerably more variability in their survivability than an AT that is depending on overall damage output will.
Controllers and dominators see their survivability from controls go in the toilet whenever they face enemies with mez protection. When it comes to neutralizing enemies they are in a binary situation where they either hit or miss.
Any character that relies on defense can have their survivability trashed by enemies with a source of +tohit.
Extra damage is affected only by resistances and defences something that is shared by everything that is attacking. The only difference is that a character that is doing less damage is going to have to survive even longer.
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| So a random effect that on average allowed a blaster to kill a spawn 10% faster, say, would not equate to the same overall survivability as something that always allowed the blaster to defeat every spawn in 10% less time all the time. |
Blaster's have particular problems in spawns. Its the problem MOBs that the blaster has trouble dealing with that they need help with. Blasters in general don't have trouble killing CoT guides or the various thorn casters. Death mages are a different issue.
Being able to take out their problem mobs faster is going to increase blaster survivability.
I like that. It improves the blaster without destroying the AT. The blaster gains a more effective tool but still has to make good use of it to benefit. It is not an I win button, it doesn't promote mindless button mashing. it keeps the feeling of victory through superior firepower.
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| That makes it even trickier to balance such an effect, if precision is intended. |
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| If its just about generating a buff of some kind that didn't need to meet a specific requirement, that would work. To this day most people don't know what the SR passive scaling resistances actually do, because they are so complex to analyze. |
The maximum achievable benefit is much easier to calculate, personally I have no problem with powers that you have to work to get the best of.
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It depends on how. Direct damage mitigation, for example, increases your survivability in one fight by decreasing your damage over time in that fight, which is extensible to multiple fights. But increasing survivability by increasing kill speed does not decrease your damage over time, it reduces the length of the fight to increase your survivability. And that's *not* directly extensible to an entire mission of those fights.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
You say this as if they aren't the same thing and without presenting any argument to show why that should be the case.
Logically being able to better survive fights implies being better able to survive missions. |
I'm probably wasting my breath here anyway, but I'm in the process of writing this up for a dedicated article so I might as well outline the thought process here. The problem with increasing survivability with kill speed is that reducing the length of the fight doesn't mean the player spends less time fighting. Players tend to move from one fight to the next: they don't tend to wait around. If the increase in kill speed retains the same average damage per second *during the fight* and then shortens the fight, the net result will usually translate into a higher, faster kill speed, but with more fights in less time it will also translate into roughly the same average damage per second over time. If the player used that higher kill speed to slow down, pace themselves as if they had killed slower, then that extra kill speed *would* translate into higher overall survivability. Per window of time, they would kill the same number of things and take less damage (because the targets were alive for less time). But that's not reasonable to expect to happen. Instead, the duration of the fight drops, the damage drop off becomes steeper, but the average damage remains similar within the fight, and bookending those fights together results in a similar damage per second and a similar, not lower survivability per unit time.
In the scrapper secondaries comparison, a mention is made of "sawtooth" damage curves that represent a simplified damage over time curve. The average damage of those triangular damage curves is 1/2 the height of the triangle. Increasing kill speed steepens the triangle, shortening the base, not not changing the average. If you speed up the fights but don't pace them apart to the same distance, damage doesn't go down, survivability doesn't go up.
It can get worse. Using AoEs at the start of a fight can temporarily steepen the damage curve downward, and then cause it to level out. That shape curve has a lower area under the curve, which corresponds to less average damage over time. But using AoEs *later* in the fight creates a different shape: a shallow drop followed by a steep one. *That* curve has more area under the curve relative to the baseline, and that means that generates more average damage per unit time, and thus less survivability.
Bursty or random damage increases won't align to the optimal place for the to occur, which is the very start of the fight. They will occur much more randomly. And when you have periods of higher survivability and periods of lower survivability, that doesn't always average out. It often nets to less survivability.
The reason for that is that you cannot bank health. During periods of high survivability you may find yourself at full health. All the regeneration you could be generating goes to waste. Then when you are at lower survivability periods your health will drop faster than average and you won't be able to average that out with the regen you lost for being at full. If your survivability is more even, you have less periods of full health and low health, and more periods of averaged health when you are most likely to get the most from regeneration over time.
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Gonna say one thing- if you believe you can argue with Arcana on how survivability works, then click the second guide in their sig. Scroll through it a bit. Get your brain put back together, then realize it is hopeless and your time would be better spent elsewhere.
I tried it and got lost somewhere after the initial resistance/def comparison.
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Why democracy fails ?
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Originally Posted by Mad Grim
Gonna say one thing- if you believe you can argue with Arcana on how survivability works, then click the second guide in their sig. Scroll through it a bit. Get your brain put back together, then realize it is hopeless and your time would be better spent elsewhere.
I tried it and got lost somewhere after the initial resistance/def comparison. |
I've always felt the problem with Blasters wasn't that they needed either more survivability or more damage. The problem to me seems to be how easy it is to put together a really bad combination of primary and secondary powers. With scrappers, for example, you have an offensive set and a defensive set no matter what you pick. So it is hard to ever go wrong. But with Blasters you can make a Radiation Blast / Energy Manipulation combo (like I did - because it sounded so cool) and end up with 12 attack powers, multiple power boosts and one fairly lame single target stun. I can't possibly even use 12 attack powers. This is the one toon I have on which I skipped hasten because why would I need hasten. At any given moment I have 7 or 8 powers ready to fire off. But I have nothing that helps keep me alive. On top of that my one really powerful attack drains all my endurance - making the toon even more vulnerable. It is just a spectacularly bad pairing. Being in possession of a dozen wonderful attacks adds no value. All a toon really needs is 3-5 good attack powers. I have way too much frosting and barely any cake.
I do enjoy my Archery / Devices Blaster. Not because Devices is all that spectacular. But I have a few very good attacks in Blazing Arrow, Aimed Shot and Rain of Arrows. Which is all I really need on the offensive side of the equation. And then I have some powers that I can use to stay alive (caltrops, web grenade, explosive arrow, cloaking device, taser, etc.) So the pairing works.
To me the issue then is how easy it is to bungle a blaster compared to how hard it is to bungle most other AT's. Which is why people have such wildly different experiences with Blasters. Some Blaster combinations work great. Other combinations seem impossibly flawed. And those flawed combinations are bound to skew Blaster numbers below the average. I think offering more secondaries like Devices would mitigate this a bit. But no way to really prevent the problem at this stage of the game.
Just my two cents......
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On the other hand it increases the effectiveness of your inspirations and that does extend through the entire mission. All of the time duration inspirations last through proportionately more fights providing proportionately more benefit/mission. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
It depends on how. Direct damage mitigation, for example, increases your survivability in one fight by decreasing your damage over time in that fight, which is extensible to multiple fights. But increasing survivability by increasing kill speed does not decrease your damage over time, it reduces the length of the fight to increase your survivability. And that's *not* directly extensible to an entire mission of those fights.
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Second increasing kill speed allows the blaster more choice over when to be engaged and not engaged in combat.
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| I'm probably wasting my breath here anyway, but I'm in the process of writing this up for a dedicated article so I might as well outline the thought process here. |
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| The problem with increasing survivability with kill speed is that reducing the length of the fight doesn't mean the player spends less time fighting. Players tend to move from one fight to the next: they don't tend to wait around. |
See above for the refutation. Or is your point given greater choice everyone will pick badly.
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| In the scrapper secondaries comparison, a mention is made of "sawtooth" damage curves that represent a simplified damage over time curve. The average damage of those triangular damage curves is 1/2 the height of the triangle. Increasing kill speed steepens the triangle, shortening the base, not not changing the average. If you speed up the fights but don't pace them apart to the same distance, damage doesn't go down, survivability doesn't go up. |
OOPS was that a bad example of people listening to your arguments and having them go wrong ?
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| The reason for that is that you cannot bank health. During periods of high survivability you may find yourself at full health. All the regeneration you could be generating goes to waste. Then when you are at lower survivability periods your health will drop faster than average and you won't be able to average that out with the regen you lost for being at full. |
Think about it you might realize how its done.
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Mob hit points by rank usually increase in a regular progression. ie: a minion has 500, a lieutenant 1000, and a boss 1500 for example.|
Originally Posted by firespray
I disagree with your premise here, particularly the bolded part. I mainly disagree with it because not all enemies present the same level of threat to a blaster. Barring a few specific enemies maybe, minions are much less of a threat than bosses. And because of the way hit points scale based on rank, damage buffs become more effective at lowering the number of attacks required to drop an enemy as you go up in rank. A 25% damage buff might not change the number of attacks required to defeat a minion, but it would certainly lower the number of attacks required to defeat a boss. And since bosses are considerably more able to kill a character than minions are, that would certainly have a positive effect on survivability.
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BUT they also con in a linear progression. So in one spawn the minions may all be white, the lieutenants will be yellow, and the bosses orange. That means that rank also applies the purple patch which means that progression isn't linear anymore. It might take 3 shots to kill a minion but instead of the 6 you would expect to need to kill a lieutenant it takes 7 and instead of the 9 you might expect it to take to kill a boss it takes 11.
Another thing that also isn't being taken into account in your reckoning is that higher hit points totals means that when a higher ranking mob gets a tick of regen it heals for more HP. That can up the required number of shots by another one based on rank especially if the animation times of your chosen power set are lengthier than a more optimal power set.
You have also forgotten to account for higher ranking mobs having a larger selection of powers. They do more damage per unit time and are more likely to have mitigation powers and ALL mobs that are ranked boss and higher are essentially immune to a single application of what ever hard control a blaster may have available.
There are several boss types in the game that have the ability to 2 shot a SOd blaster in melee range and some of those powers have the chance to apply a deleterious secondary effect to the blaster, like mez, further reducing the blaster's ability to survive and sharply curtailing what attacks that can be used and how much damage output the blaster has. Most blasters can't exchange blow for blow and expect to live.
This is the main reason that I believe blasters should have dependable mez protection either as part of their inherent or part of their secondary (or better yet in both)
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
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-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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These are valid points, but I didn't feel the need to account for them because you won't change. Those things are all true now. And they don't change the fact that a modest damage increase will still have more of an effect on the kill speed of bosses than it will on lower ranked enemies. |
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Mob hit points by rank usually increase in a regular progression. ie: a minion has 500, a lieutenant 1000, and a boss 1500 for example.
BUT they also con in a linear progression. So in one spawn the minions may all be white, the lieutenants will be yellow, and the bosses orange. That means that rank also applies the purple patch which means that progression isn't linear anymore. It might take 3 shots to kill a minion but instead of the 6 you would expect to need to kill a lieutenant it takes 7 and instead of the 9 you might expect it to take to kill a boss it takes 11. Another thing that also isn't being taken into account in your reckoning is that higher hit points totals means that when a higher ranking mob gets a tick of regen it heals for more HP. That can up the required number of shots by another one based on rank especially if the animation times of your chosen power set are lengthier than a more optimal power set. You have also forgotten to account for higher ranking mobs having a larger selection of powers. They do more damage per unit time and are more likely to have mitigation powers and ALL mobs that are ranked boss and higher are essentially immune to a single application of what ever hard control a blaster may have available. |
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
There are several boss types in the game that have the ability to 2 shot a SOd blaster in melee range and some of those powers have the chance to apply a deleterious secondary effect to the blaster, like mez, further reducing the blaster's ability to survive and sharply curtailing what attacks that can be used and how much damage output the blaster has. Most blasters can't exchange blow for blow and expect to live.
This is the main reason that I believe blasters should have dependable mez protection either as part of their inherent or part of their secondary (or better yet in both) |
Most of the melee archetypes (barring tankers) do comparable damage to what blasters can do. Logically then, in order for blasters to be balanced with melee archetypes, they'd need to have survivability on par with them. And I really can't see that ever happening. It smacks too much of tankmages, and for good or ill, that concept seems to be considered unacceptable in this game. And even if they did decide to do it, I'm not sure I'd want them too. I like the glass cannon concept, but I want to actually BE a glass cannon, rather than a paper mache shotgun.
So since they probably aren't going to buff survivability enough to bring blasters in line with the various melee archetypes, the next best thing would be to bring survivability up somewhat, and bring damage up as well.
What I've not been getting is why tankmages are unnacceptable. For one, we already have them (ALL the EATs), for two, they still would barely match up to Scrapper damage, and for three they probably wouldn't even be as tough. You can already build any ranged/support or support/ranged character to be a tankmage, so it is already there in multiple forms and the game has not spiraled into oblivion.
Not saying I want them to fix the problem by giving blasters defense sets, because I don't, but I am saying that there is nothing inherently wrong with a tankmage in this game.
Arcanaville said
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Two points: | I'm probably wasting my breath here anyway, but I'm in the process of writing this up for a dedicated article so I might as well outline the thought process here. The problem with increasing survivability with kill speed is that reducing the length of the fight doesn't mean the player spends less time fighting. Players tend to move from one fight to the next: they don't tend to wait around. If the increase in kill speed retains the same average damage per second *during the fight* and then shortens the fight, the net result will usually translate into a higher, faster kill speed, but with more fights in less time it will also translate into roughly the same average damage per second over time. If the player used that higher kill speed to slow down, pace themselves as if they had killed slower, then that extra kill speed *would* translate into higher overall survivability. Per window of time, they would kill the same number of things and take less damage (because the targets were alive for less time). But that's not reasonable to expect to happen. Instead, the duration of the fight drops, the damage drop off becomes steeper, but the average damage remains similar within the fight, and bookending those fights together results in a similar damage per second and a similar, not lower survivability per unit time. |
1) When writing that article, be sure to clarify "incoming" vs. "outgoing" damage - that threw me for a minute.
2) Incoming damage per time is roughly the same, but incoming damage per XP is decidedly different.
Edited: on a different note, what do you think of a Dark/SR scrapper as a "match" for an en/mind blaster?
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Blaster dead and boss at 2/3s health or blaster dead and boss at half health instead. The problem is still blaster dead. I don't care one way or the other if the devs give blasters enough of a damage buff to put them head of scrappers. What I do care about is getting the blaster enough mitigation and mez protection to adequately use the damage they all ready have.|
Originally Posted by firespray
These are valid points, but I didn't feel the need to account for them because you won't change. Those things are all true now. And they don't change the fact that a modest damage increase will still have more of an effect on the kill speed of bosses than it will on lower ranked enemies.
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I'm of the opinion that most of the people that think blaster damage is too low spend most of their time mezzed or dead. The former reduces damage output to a pittance (especially in comparison) and the later reduces damage output to 0.
I just want to be able to use the damage I all ready have continuously just like all the other damage ATs get to do. I think I have enough damage as a blaster if I don't have to pop a rescue power, "bravely" run away, hoard purple insps and break frees instead of converting them to reds, or waste tine returning from the hospital.
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| I'm not arguing that blasters shouldn't get survivability boosts outside of a damage boost. I'm saying they should get a damage boost in addition to boosts in survivability. My reasoning is pretty simple too. |
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| Most of the melee archetypes (barring tankers) do comparable damage to what blasters can do. Logically then, in order for blasters to be balanced with melee archetypes, they'd need to have survivability on par with them. And I really can't see that ever happening. It smacks too much of tankmages, and for good or ill, that concept seems to be considered unacceptable in this game. And even if they did decide to do it, I'm not sure I'd want them too. I like the glass cannon concept, but I want to actually BE a glass cannon, rather than a paper mache shotgun. |
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| So since they probably aren't going to buff survivability enough to bring blasters in line with the various melee archetypes, the next best thing would be to bring survivability up somewhat, and bring damage up as well. |
I know what point my survivability changes from adding raw damage. It's the point where I have 3 or more small red insps active and some of that (perhaps even much of that) comes from the faster rate of receiving insp drops by killing quicker. I can't see the devs buffing blaster damage by 75%.
-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
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Yes, sometimes it may mean that. Other times it will mean the difference between blaster dead and boss with a sliver of health and boss dead and blaster with half his health bar left. It may not be a large effect, but it WILL have a positive effect on blaster survivability.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Blaster dead and boss at 2/3s health or blaster dead and boss at half health instead. The problem is still blaster dead.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I don't care one way or the other if the devs give blasters enough of a damage buff to put them head of scrappers.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I'm of the opinion that most of the people that think blaster damage is too low spend most of their time mezzed or dead. The former reduces damage output to a pittance (especially in comparison) and the later reduces damage output to 0.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I just want to be able to use the damage I all ready have continuously just like all the other damage ATs get to do.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
What I'm arguing is, that if blasters get a survivability boost. they may not NEED a damage boost. I could do it with mez protection alone. I know that from having Clarion on a couple of blasters.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I don't know if that is enough to help the average blaster player but I know that it would make the difference for me and by extrapolation for any other players like me.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Except that the logic doesn't follow because you are only looking at the damage side of the issue. It isn't that other arch types do comparable damage to blasters. It's that they do that damage with MUCH higher personal mitigation.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Except that I don't believe the devs will bring up blaster damage to the level required to give damage based mitigation. I know what point my survivability changes from adding raw damage. It's the point where I have 3 or more small red insps active and some of that (perhaps even much of that) comes from the faster rate of receiving insp drops by killing quicker. I can't see the devs buffing blaster damage by 75%.
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And as I've mentioned before, I don't want a damage buff BECAUSE it will increase survivability. That's icing on the cake. I want a damage buff to make up for the lack of survivability.
As suggested in THB's thread (though not by THB, just to be clear), I've made my complement to my Ice/Ice blaster, a Mercs/Pain MM, and gotten her to lvl10 (same as my blaster).
Nothing much to report again: everything was easy, no deaths. What *did* surprise me is that it took 2hrs to get to lvl10 on my MM when it only took 1.5hrs on my blaster- I attributed that to a combination of patrol xp (I got to lvl10 in 4 play sessions on my blaster, only 2 on my MM), as well as damage types (both are villains, with lethal-resistant Longbow and ice-susceptible Hellions). I'm going to hold off on the experiment for a few days to let the MM catch up in patrol xp, then make a push for lvl15: how many days does it take to get 10 bars of patrol xp again?
Also, just to add some focus to the discussion: what should be the point of the Blaster adjustments, if we get them?
I've seen posts saying Blasters should unambiguously be damage kings on all sets, but what does that mean? On SOs, are Blasters not already damage kings? On IOs, should Blasters *always*, on all sets, be the best damage? Will I expect my Ice/Dev blaster on SOs to easily outdamage an IO'd Fire/Shield scrapper? Should we even be better than Fire/Kin Corruptors, Defenders, and Controllers, who obviously are sitting at the damage cap?
It just seems to me that everyone is comparing average blasters to spectacular (insert AT). Not only that, but they describe average blasters played by poor players that don't use inspirations, even if mezzed, don't break Line of Sight, and just run in guns (arrows, radiation...) blazing and hope they don't die..
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I don't think there is any real consensus beyond move them as close to tankmages as they can fool the devs into thinking they need to be.|
Originally Posted by Zeh_Masteh
It just seems to me that everyone is comparing average blasters to spectacular (insert AT). Not only that, but they describe average blasters played by poor players that don't use inspirations, even if mezzed, don't break Line of Sight, and just run in guns (arrows, radiation...) blazing and hope they don't die..
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In terms of the comparisons yes of course that is what is done to make the case look as strong as possible. Standard Operating Procedure with buff campaigns.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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.)
For the sake of argument lets say our blaster does 200 points per avg shot a boss has 2500 pts, a lieutenant 800, and a minion 400.
It takes the blaster 13 shots to kill the boss, 4 shots to kill a LT and 2 shots to kill a minion. if you increased his damage to 220/shot it would reduce the number of shots to kill a boss to 12, the number to kill a lt to 3 and the number to kill a minion remains at 2.