Martial Arts for Blasters

Well I think you are going to have that even without the I24 changes.

From a completely non scientific sampling there are considerably fewer people who are willing to argue that blasters don't have problems and are unaware of the problems than there were when I started arguing for blaster buffs in I12. Back then when I would point out blaster weaknesses I could count on at least a couple dozen people vehemently arguing the greatness of the blaster AT or its unmatched potential. Now you see very few on that side of the argument and a few names that have stuck around have differently nuanced positions. I would guess that most people who roll blasters going forward will have a much better idea of what they are getting into than the old description of the AT ever gave them. They could still stand having their numbers on the rankings adjusted but that is minor.

I don't dispute this, but very few blaster combinations come close to this and almost none of those using older power sets. Sustain makes them a little better but the people playing them are left with suffer or reroll.

Compared to the other classes that don't have mez protection or even Dominators that do have mez protection and incredible overall mitigation as well ?

I have been advocating a power that allowed Blasters to break mez for a while. I think the cool down is too long but I applaud this design decision. I'd like to see it propagated to some other secondaries though.

The new Blaster IO that procs mez protection will also help. I don't know if I like a design where much of your effective mez strategy comes from one IO though.

Low level melee is squishy until they get SOs at 22 and it is harder to kite. Except for Brutes since Fury is tuned for end game and makes them hit really really hard at low levels.

With DFB, though, the new low level seems to be from 20-30 so maybe you are right. Maybe I am thinking old school.

Yup. The only question is whether the sustain + Defiance 2.0 is enough to correct that lack of everything including mez protection.

Still think Inner Will, as I've come to understand it, will be a clunker of a power, though.

This is mostly a semantic nitpick, but it seems to me that the ability to toss out AoE controls and/or debuff whole spawns into the stone age qualify as much better "partial protection[s]" against mez.

If I get mezzed against a single target, then sure, it's a bonus that I can keep attacking. But Defiance 2.0, in my experience, can be characterized as more a reminder of the powers I can't use when mezzed than as a tangible benefit in mez-heavy situations. Rational or not, my perception is that Defiance 2.0 is most likely to help in situations I'd survive regardless. The fact that I can spam Flares when I get mezzed right before I'm about to unleash AoE fury on multiple opponents? The futility of that consolation adds insult to injury.

It's like having someone smirkingly hand you snorkeler right before your plane crashes into the ocean.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Yeah, it's definitely a nice buff for blasters but it feels to much like trying to balance the AT through gear. In many ways I think I'd have preferred it if the T1 and T2 Blasts had gotten that as an inherent ability at a lower proc rate with the IO being a way to enhance an inherent ability by allowing the Blaster to either increase the proc rate in one of their first two attacks or allow one of their later attacks to also proc.

So all Blasters would be able to get three points of mez protection by using their first two attacks but IO'd Blasters would find it easier to maintain.

That's probably more of a specific limitation of Fire Blast than anything else. Most blaster tier 1 and tier 2 ranged attacks have some form of secondary mitigation built into them on top of damage. On Energy Blast, Assault Rifle, Beam Rifle, Dark Blast, Ice Blast, Psionic Blast, and Water Blast you have two bites at the apple: you can outright kill the target you're shooting at, or you can apply significant damage mitigation through a secondary effect or debuff.

And that isn't counting the secondary tier 1 which in most cases is a ranged immobilize and should be able to keep one or more attackers out of melee range while you're mezzed (or in the case of power thrust knock them out of melee range).

I think the classic portrayal of Blasters as being so fragile they always get killed in the blink of an eye promotes a false sense that only mega survivability buffs would even be noticed. But that's not true: in actual fact blasters die far more often from the death of a thousand cuts (or at least twenty or thirty cuts). D2.0's ability to shoot at targets while mezzed generally both softens the blow of being inactive while mezzed by making the blaster not actually inactive anymore, and also helps reduce the impact of mez on both offensive output and damage intake, which helps overall survivability.

Dual illusionists used to be extremely dangerous prior to D2.0 because unless you had a break free to deal with them, they could chain mez you to death. That's far less likely now, because the damage output you can generate under D2.0 while mezzed is usually high enough to kill them before they can blind you to death. While that's an example of the impact of D2.0, in now way is it limited to individual niches such as that (nor would I call that a niche either: its basically inevitable and common in Carnie missions to face that combat situation).

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

D2.0 might be less efficient, but we don't yet know that the combination of D2.0 and mez-immune sustain is less efficient. The problem with D2.0 might have always been that we expected too much from it. Every archetype has an array of mitigation tools. Mez protection is just one piece of the puzzle for melee archetypes, and not one they think about constantly and specifically. Its just one among many protective powers. Archetypes like controllers and defenders don't have a mez protection substitute, they just work completely differently and have a totally different array of powers that work together. D2.0 needs a supporting cast of characters to go with it to make a whole, and we need to see if Sustain is enough to make D2.0 + Sustain a strong duo, or if the pair needs a little more support to make the whole work well as a team.

Absolutely. Like you said before, Blasters lack everything; mez is just one of the most obvious attendant side effects of that lack. Maybe the new toys in I-24 will make D2.0 better, and vice-versa.

I was just rambling about D2.0 by itself, which probably wasn't fair.

(I have a feeling that Clarion will still be my no-brainer pick for all Blaster builds, though. )

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I have a feeling that's NOT changing for plenty of blaster players in I24.

While I agree that the overall buffs to RANGE (not just blasters) changes the game significantly for blasters, I don't think the mez issue is changing all that much.

But to be honest with you combined with tier 1 and 2 blasting while mezzed AND break frees, I've (personally) never had that much trouble with mez on my blasters.

And yes this includes the ones not built to be soft capped.

I disagree. I took Radial Rebirth on my blaster and haven't looked back (I do have Clarion as well but I only really use it on the Underground trial). Given the choice between managing my mez protection with inspirations and managing my health with inspirations I find it much easier to use break frees and emerges. The Regeneration tail on Radial Rebirth really makes a huge difference.

Indeed. My melee blaster with both Blazing Aura and Hot Feet has Clarion. With Cauterizing Aura no longer de-toggling when mezzed, that would mean I'd only have one toggle that shuts off when mezzed. I am likely going to build a Barrier and see if I prefer that to my Clarion after I24 hits.

My ranger blaster has Rebirth (my other level 50 blasters are still works in progress and are not yet to the level of Destiny).

If you like the regen tail on Rebirth, the sustain coming in I24 is going to be larger than that. It should be good.

Yep. In fact my experience with Radial Rebirth is the reason my first reaction to the changes was "that is AWESOME" whereas a lot of other people seemed to feel that it was a useless change.

Given the strength of the Sustains, I'm very likely to be switching from Rebirth to Barrier on Incarnate blasters. The problem with Barrier has always been that it couldn't bail me out of a low-health jam, but with the sustains that will be less of an issue.

It's definitely minor. If you don't have something to reduce your incoming damage from full spawns, even using health inspirations as fast as you can won't keep you alive, and on blasters you will likely not even get the opportunity thanks to mezz.

The thing is, who's going to jump from having a build that can barely take on x2 to attempting a x8 spawn? That would be nuts. What is true is that the sustain will take what you have now, whatever that is, and more or less double or triple its strength. If you can only take on x2 now, you might be able to take on x4 in I24 which is a huge difference. But if you can take on x5 or x6 now, you will have a shot at a x8 full spawn (the numbers scaling is not linear due to quadratic alpha damage). The presumption is that if you are at that level now, you must have some means of dealing with alphas now, and that will be amplified in I24.

I play with Rebirth now, and I can say with certainty that even the back half of the buff that will be comparable to the I24 buff makes a significant difference to survivability. The notion that most blaster deaths happen due to an instantaneous alpha burst is simply not true. Its incredibly rare. In fact, I've tested how long it takes critters to kill mezzed or undefended blasters quite a bit. Even three mezzing bosses combined can't kill a blaster in one mez duration generally.

I'm gonna guess perma-stunning Malta would be an exception here ...

Don't know how x2 to x8 came in. I was talking about the benefit when fighting full size spawns and build's that were already in the ballpark.

What are you using as the mez duration ? Aside from my own experience which is highly biased, I have looked over the shoulder of the wife while she plays. Mez from full size spawns is overwhelmingly what kilsl her, and that confirms my own experience about blasters getting killed while mezzed.

The sustain regen buff amounts to roughly 30 hp/sec (400% regen, ~1500 hp blaster). Regen isn't a goal for my builds but they typically run in the 200% range and 16 hp/sec regenerated. So if I am fighting a spawn that will kill me in 30 seconds that is roughly 66 hp/sec past my shields. The sustain power would increase my survival time to 75 seconds, but if I take a mez or lose the shield that would increase the dps I am taking to 330 + less the passive regen and would mean death in about 6 seconds.

Edit: Depending on your build barrier may also provide better mitigation than rebirth. I don't dislike rebirth but I mostly use it as a giant respite that is available every 2 minutes.

Edit: You wouldn't be hoverblasting would you ? That considerably changes things

Or KOA or Carnies or COT or Arachnos or Freaks ect. I guess she was talking about the norm?

I personally avoid most enemy groups on my blasters.

This must make it really hard to level.

It's a good strategy, think of it as playing a mastermind.

Those numbers imply 80% damage mitigation. No one said Sustain would replace 80% damage mitigation, but that's not the same thing as saying its "minor." By your own numbers it radically increases what you can take on normally. In the situation where you are mezzed, it would not help greatly but if that actually happened to you often you'd be dead all the time. The same things you're doing now to mitigate that situation will still work in I24, but Sustain will have a significant impact on your sustainability beyond that.


For me personally I tend to run near the limit of what my build is capable of. Which means no matter how much survivability you give me, I'm going to occasionally exceed that level. Rebirth buys me out of a bad run of the RNG or a miscalculation, which is something Barrier can't do as well. Theoretically speaking Barrier could allow me to average higher survivability, but my playstyle would tend to "spend" that extra survivability rather than keep it in reserve for emergencies.