Blasters and mez - Are we going about it wrong?

A lot of the Blaster secondaries are pretty bad. They don't offer enough mitigation or protection for you to feel confident when you jump into melee.

I think there's only a few Blaster Secondaries that actually mix well with the AT or the Primary of Blasters.

The secondaries aren't the sole problem for Blasters, IMO. Like I said, it's a lot of little points that add up but secondaries is one of those points.

It's not that the secondaries aren't good, they're just not good enough (IMO). I'd think the closest analog to secondary effectiveness that ranks as good as Blasters is Tankers. Tankers' secondary (melee) while not great, it's still very good and it's hard to argue they're less than that. Not only that, they actually *have* a wide variety of them so if one doesn't suit you, there's most likely another that will do so better.


Blaster Secondaries:

So the first point of issue, is the number of them. There's only 7. Even Doms have more secondaries (1 more). It's less likely that, if one secondary doesn't fit, that another one will barring conceptual element. A mini-point within this point is that the secondaries vary in their application. Some are melee or damage focused, others are mitigation focused and others some mix of utility with something like control, some are ranged some are PBAoE, buff and/or damage with the extreme outlier being /devices as it's a tangent to straight damage.

I don't feel there should be anything to fix this except add more secondaries. Go ahead and vary them, make a secondary that focuses primarily on buff and control, one on utility only, another on purely damage, etc. But there definitely should be more of a focus on secondaries for Blasters as well as Dominators.

I think the second and main point of issue with the secondaries is they don't go far enough. Compared, again, to Tankers who aren't particularly savvy with their melee secondary compared to other damage focused ATs, they still get good aggro management from their secondaries (Taunt is tailor made for Tankers + Gauntlet shoots their aggro above others on a straight-by-the-numbers standpoint) and they still get things awesome like Arc of Destruction, Rage+Footstomp, Martial Arts Storm Kick adds defense to all for them, Power Siphon buffs damage a lot, Fault is a horrendously good mitigation tool...there's highlights in practically all their secondaries. I guess there's also Defender's blast secondary not being that well off but that may have part to do with how blast sets are made-up. For Blaster secondaries, only some have premiere highlights and it usually amounts to sub-par or menial effects like Build Up, Drain Psyche on a moderately low HP scale, Power Boost on effects and defense that again is on a low scale, Hotfeet which is horrendously endurance intensive, etc.

To minimize the need to formulate secondaries, just go through every secondary and when you'd say "Eeeehh, I think that's good enough for them" go in and bump it a little more anyway. Blasters ain't got much else choice so why not make what rag-tag powers they do get into something *really* nice?

Devices...
-I'd say Web Grenade, Targeting Drone, Taser (if you buff Blaster's control mod) and Caltrops are fine.
-Smoke Grenade could use some boosts. Make it into a Blinding Powder Clone, except not a cone and probably without the confuse.
-Trip Mine, speed up its animation. Not going to talk about Time Bomb...
-Gun Drone...why is this thing so clunky? Why is it so expensive and take so much time for a pet with a limited duration? Is it equivalent to some of the tier 9s others get?

Dark Manipulation...
-I have no experience with it, but I it has one flaw I can see that is shared by ever secondary with a certain kind of power...Why is Death Shroud 8ft radius? It should be 15-20ft radius. I don't care, cap it at 10 foes but you should need to be standing right next to something.

Energy Manipulation...
-I think EM is fine, frankly. Not because it's melee focused or utility focused but because it's versatile. If you want to do melee, you can tailor choose which powers emphasize that, or if you want range, you can keep to powers that benefit you better. If anything were changed, I'd probably change one of the powers into a pseudo-ranged power like Stun or Power Thrust so that it keeps to that versatility.

Electric Manipulation...
-The best secondary for Blasters, IMO. For straight up content, it's got melee dmg, it's got debuff and control, and Lightning Field is 20ft radius. If blaster control mods were upped, I feel the secondary would be fine with perhaps some adjustments to utility...adding some +End to self would add variety.

Fire Manipulation...
-It tries. If Blasters weren't plauged by other little problems, this secondary would probably be the best overall for damage...but Burn is slow and close ranged, Consume is long recharging for its utility, Blazing aura is pitiful for damage, and auras as a whole shut off from being mezzed. There's no way around that unless you have mez protection...or if the devs changed it so toggles specifically don't drop for blasters (only suppress).
-The set itself is probably enough to deal damage...you probably wouldn't even need a primary. I could see 1 or 2 powers being modified to add either utility or buff instead of damage to vary this set but it doesn't quite need it.

Ice Manipulation...
-One of my favorite secondaries because it gives Blasters what they need, control and mitigation. It doesn't, however, provide a lot of damage, just Frozen Fist, Ice Sword and Freezing Touch.
-Either add more damage or add more utility or add more control.
-Several of the powers animate too slow...Ice Patch, Shiver, Chilling Embrace, Frozen Aura...for doing no damage and having limited utility and control, it's hard to justify their speed of use.

Mental Manipulation...
-Another I have limited experience with. Drain Psyche is probably too powerful. Fix the debuff on it and perhaps add boost other effects like the stun chance on Psi Shockwave, buff Scare, along with boosting World of Confusion to 15-20ft and I'd think you'd have a better balance vs the set leaning heavily on Psy Scream, Drain Psyche and Psi Shockwave.

Just a few comments on the two secondaries I'm well versed in-

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo_G Devices... -I'd say Web Grenade, Targeting Drone, Taser (if you buff Blaster's control mod) and Caltrops are fine. -Smoke Grenade could use some boosts. Make it into a Blinding Powder Clone, except not a cone and probably without the confuse. -Trip Mine, speed up its animation. Not going to talk about Time Bomb... -Gun Drone...why is this thing so clunky? Why is it so expensive and take so much time for a pet with a limited duration? Is it equivalent to some of the tier 9s others get?

Web Grenade is alright, Caltrops are fantastic.

Targeting Drone's big draw back in the day was allowing you to go crazy slotting damage, which made it great for the binary world of SOs. ED & IOs have seriously eroded its utility. The +per is nice, but.....

Taser stinks, but for an ar/dev like me it's useful for stacking with Beanbag.

Trip Mines are okay for people who don't mind the playstyle they impose. The fact that they don't benefit from Targeting Drone's +acc is shameful.

Smoke Grenade is junk, Time Bomb is junk, Gun Drone is SUPER junk, although it gives a decent bump to Defiance- still not worth the interminable activation time.

Quote:

Ice Manipulation... -One of my favorite secondaries because it gives Blasters what they need, control and mitigation. It doesn't, however, provide a lot of damage, just Frozen Fist, Ice Sword and Freezing Touch. -Either add more damage or add more utility or add more control. -Several of the powers animate too slow...Ice Patch, Shiver, Chilling Embrace, Frozen Aura...for doing no damage and having limited utility and control, it's hard to justify their speed of use.

The only actually good secondary, IMHO.
A couple powers could use tweaks, but for the most part it keeps you safe while you lay waste with your primary.

I'll let others debate about the effectiveness of the secondary but it seems silly to me to proclaim that every secondary except Ice sucks and that if you are good with other secondaries or enjoy them its because you like to play things that are crap.

I just find that comment distasteful and insulting.

Something I think would help blasters:

1. Whats been said before: more secondaries, taking inspiration from Mental and Ice manipulation. Actually have useful utility/auras/minor defenses

2. Enhance Blaster mods: Controls to defender levels, debuffs to corruptor levels Possibly also increase Melee mods.
(and also defender controls buffed to controller mods but thats a different issue(: )

3. Maybe add to defiance a stacking mez resist, have it work similar to the damage buff it gives. Longer animations give more resist. (not protection, leave that to the leaked ATO proc if it does come through to live)

I feel like these 3 things would balance out blasters as a whole.

After much thought I had an idea: Give Blasters a boost while solo that they don't get while teamed.

A team is supposed to help its members. If a team doesn't do that then it's a bad team. This is no fault on the AT at all. However it's solo that most Blasters have trouble IMHO.

Alter Defiance (yes...again) so that the FEWER members on the team the more damage a Blaster does and the more powers he can use while mezzed. At 5+ he gains no benefit (I think ALL Blasters need a damage boost but that's for another thread). At 4 on a team he gets +5% damage and can use T3 Powers while mezzed. 3 on the team means +10% damage and T4 can be used and so on. Solo he gets +20% damage and can use up to T6 Powers from both his Primary and Secondary.

The idea is that the more people on the team, the less any one member should NEED something like self-mez protection and such. The TEAM helps to provide it. But on smaller teams there is less chance of support from the team. Solo of course there is NO support available and the Blaster knows this. He tries harder...digs deeper for that extra something to help him overcome.

I just want to add my two cents - I'd have absolutely no problem with blasters turning into tankmages even though I don't play them. That's what basically all the other classes turned into anyway. The only place it might matter is PVP but they have different rules there anyway so I'm sure they could adjust for it.

Honestly I see no difference in someone fireblasting a mob from 60 feet vs someone sprinting the last 60 feet at 60 mph or however fast we all move and punching them in the face really freaking hard .2 seconds slower.

When is the last time a mob got away from a melee character? That's what we should be asking.

Even the other fellow squishy AT's have ways of stopping or greatly reducing incoming Mezz (there are exceptions like Team buff sets that are not meant for solo play anyway). Blasters for the most part do not UNLESS they find a way to free up their build and take 2-4 power pools to make up for the loss.

Granting Mezz protection to only certain secondaries or primaries makes no sense at all. Why would you play any other set besides the set that grants mezz protection/resistance?