Blasters and mez - Are we going about it wrong?

Yes, my bad. I was looking up the power descriptions on ParagonWiki which shows them as resistance, and not protection. I should have checked Mids first.

Defenders have SO many Tools to keep them from getting mezzed that it's not even funny. I'm talking about powers that keep them safe as well as toggles like Dispersion Bubble that adds layered safety against Mezz.

Dark/, Storm/, Traps/, Force Field/, Radiation Emission/, Time/ and sometimes TA (lol) all have ways of significantly reducing or stopping incoming Mez on a LARGE SCALE. What blaster secondary can do this? What's the point of playing an Archery/MM Blaster when my Archery/Dark Corr can fight a mob that's twice the Blaster's size and level and live to tell the tale!

I'm not asking for Blasters to become Corrs I'm just saying that there's not enough incentive to Play a Blaster over the other Squishy ATs. The AT needs a little help and we all know it.

I'm waiting for someone to say that Dominators and Stalkers were just fine before their improvements oy lol.

Probably unlike others, I actually see this as a working possibility but I feel it works primarily out of that feature being set utility overall.

You later mention the fact that the support sets that grant mez protection for the ATs that get it don't all flock to it primarily because there are other sets that provide other means to avoid mez. It may not be direct mitigation from mez, but Dark Miasma, Storm, Time and the like have *strong* self-mitigation effects that can extend to avoiding mez...at least enough to patch over other mezzing situations with inspirations easily.

It's arguable FF, Sonic and Traps is superior for their mez protection (or at all in a lot of cases), but it proves that if some sets for Blasters granted some utility in the form of right out protection, it works on precedence. The problem that arises, though, is mez and self protection in secondaries is different proportionally to Blasters. For Defenders, their primary is full of mitigation for themselves or teams to varying degrees...For Blasters? Healing, Mez protection, Def/Res and comprehensive defensive debuffs (-ToHit, -dmg, -rech) are a premium, especially healing and mez protection.


All that aside, and fixating on the actual effect mez has, another idea: What if mez actually affected each AT differently?

ATs like Scrappers, Brutes, Stalkers and Doms, if they suffer from mez, they'd gain a kind of temporary 'lock' that would occur for x.x seconds after escaping the mez. This 'lock' would suppress their ability to use their full offensive might, perhaps locking out a certain number of primary (secondary for Doms) powers but leaving the tier 1,2 and 3 (or whatever) powers.

ATs like Corruptors or Masterminds gain a temporary 'fizzle' power that occurs for x.x seconds after escaping mez which basically creates a chance for their secondary powers to have no effect if cast during that period.

The Controller AT gains a temp power of 'suppressed' which only causes a period (notably longer than the other 'lock' and 'fizzle' power) where Overpower and Containment will not go off.

For Tanker, it's just like now. If one manages to get mezzed, the universal 'toggle suppression' and 'offensive toggle drop' occurs, after which they receive no negative consequences.

For Defenders, having Vigilance grant some kind of rolling mez resistance would mean, for ever tic of time they're under the effects of a mez, they get some stacking mez resistance to all. Beyond that, they suffer exactly like Tankers.

Finally, for Blasters, and if all of the above is out of the realm of possibility then just do this part and leave everyone else alone...Blaster's Defiance not only allows them to use some of their powers while mezzed (tier 1s and tier 2) but their offensive toggles do not drop...and none of their toggles suppress...basically, if a Blaster gets mezzed (and they most likely will in the face of), the only effect they recieve is limited movement/function while mezzed. Their armor or offensive toggles stay on and after they escape the mez, they receive no negative consequence.

Frankly, if many of the other damage ATs get a pass to ignore mez in most situations, I think it's fair if Blasters are only somewhat inconvenienced by it and not completely shut down. Along with giving their attacks some means of building resistance to mez through Defiance and I, personally, wouldn't even mind being mezzed on my Blasters.

I have asked that same question myself many times over the years, so I'm well qualified to now answer it. This is actually a very easy question to answer given the current state of the art of City of Heroes game balance. The answer is that whoever is affected by mez, the archetype designed to have the absolute least amount of protection should not be it, because doing so makes them too vulnerable to being defeated compared to other archetypes which have either vastly superior protection, vastly superior countermez, or vastly superior buff/debuff.

That's not a conjecture, that's a proven theory. Since its the only theory that explains the facts, which are that prior to D2.0 Blaster performance was lower than any other archetype, and that major underperformance correlated with higher than average mezzed, higher than average deaths and debt, and higher than average death while in the mezzed state, that proves unambiguously that the net strength of the tools provided to blasters provides far less survivability than any other archetype, and that the lack of survivability is not compensated for by an increase in offensive prowess that translates into higher kill speed and higher reward earning speed.

Those are facts. Those facts allow us to reject speculation, guesswork, and anecdotes that fail to match the facts. Are defenders more vulnerable to mez than blasters? Answer: unambiguously not. Does controller mez do a better job of countering both mez and damage than blaster damage and secondary effects? Answer: yes, unambiguously.

We know - not guess, but know - that for the players of this game on average, having some offense and either lots of control or lots of defense or lots of buff/debuff is vastly superior to having some offense and some more offense, and we know why: being dead neutralizes all other advantages.

So when the archetype that gets no defense, and no control, and no buff/debuff, also has no mez protection, we know what happens: it underperforms. And we also know that even taking the dramatic step of allowing that archetype to shoot three powers when mezzed doesn't overpower the archetype: in fact it doesn't appear to do enough to balance it against its peers. Because being mezzed is just a secondary issue: the real issue is that it makes the blaster more vulnerable to being defeated by actual damage, for which the blaster has the least amount of ability to respond.

Other archetypes are protected from mez, or they act to prevent mezzers from acting, or they react to the deleterious effects of mez by impairing the ability for attackers to kill them, or they recover from the deleterious effects of mez by healing. Blasters can only try to reengage offense after mez wears off. And we know that's not enough, so we can discard that as being a valid option.

That's how easy it is to reason the answer to this question from the facts, rather than from guessing what does and doesn't work. Put simply, the answer to the question "who should be vulnerable to mez" is "no one except blasters are as critically vulnerable to mez, and NO ONE should be so critically vulnerable to mez." Eliminating that critical vulnerability does not eliminate the threat of mez, it simply softens it to the point of not being game-breaking for just one archetype.

And the underperformance datamined prior to the D2.0 changes was literally game-breaking. As in "high enough to violate the limits of the game design." As I stated at the time and as Castle communicated to me, Blaster underperformance was datamined to be so high, the devs were essentially compelled to address it, because it lay outside the tolerable range of performance.


And incidentally, that thing you bolded? Meaningless to this game's design. Meaningless in the on-paper sense of happening too late to matter, and meaningless in the in-game sense of even at the levels where it is accessible blasters still underperformed everyone else. Reality trumps theory. If blasters *actually* underperform I frankly don't care if they *could* avoid underperforming. That they underperform is reason enough to reexamine them: its the canary in the cage that says that even people who have no problem with them are likely being penalized, just not in a way they can detect because their playing skill masks that underperformance. Even I thought that at least solo not-debuffing defenders would underperform blasters on average. They did not, which means my skill at playing blasters masked the fact that on average blasters perform so poorly they can't outdo empathy defenders crawling along with unbuffed defender ranged attacks.

That is *nightmarishly* bad performance. And all because in all probability empathy defenders have a heal, and that alone means they live when most blasters die.


The only reason I don't support mez protection for blasters is because its too binary, and because its too passive in terms of simply nullifying mez. Rather than existing near melee archetypes in terms of protection, I believe blasters should exist out past where controllers and defenders exist: where Defenders have tools to deal with mez and damage with buff/debuff and Controllers with less buff/debuff and more offensive control, Blasters should go all the way and deal with mez and damage by neutralizing the attackers with offense. Its just that that offense cannot be all damage, because the only way to nullify targets with damage is to kill them. Offensive effects that can neutralize attackers without killing them are easier to balance, while retaining a unique gameplay option encapsulated within blasters. But its not because I think mez protection for blasters is game breaking, and the notion that if blasters aren't vulnerable to mez to the degree they currently are then mez becomes a worthless game mechanic is not supported by the facts or an objective analysis of the design of the archetypes of this game, and neglects to factor in the information we now have about how the archetypes perform, or at least performed, relative to each other.

Not true. Foresight has mez resistance in a passive. Wolf Spider Armor, Crab Spider Armor Upgrade, and Bane Spider Armor Upgrade have mez protection in passive powers.

And in terms of whole archetypes, Kheldians have Cosmic Balance has mez protection scaling with team members.

Also, Resilience has both mez resistance and mez protection in a passive and it has existed in that state for almost as long as the game has existed, which means the devs "broke" that rule practically from the beginning of time.

No that isn't even a particularly well thought out conjecture.

Defiance 1.0 encouraged blasters to be suicidal. It rewarded players for being near death. Defiance 2.0 changed that entirely around. While your conclusion may or may not be correct, the way you are trying to get there isn't even close to being correct.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

And yet those are still powers that must be taken to be used, and as such not "free".

I am going to have to ask that you clarify this.

Having read some of your responses since, I do not think it means what I thought it meant. Here is how I read it:

Blasters get resistance shields. There are ATs that do not get resistance shields. Why should blasters get mez protection while those other ATs do not?
And my definition of resistance shields are powers that resist damage.

I look at this in the opposite fashion. Blasters were once found so weak it was felt they needed some form of inherent mez protection. Since that was the goal, the only real question now is did they give blasters enough mez protection? It is already an intent that blasters get some form of inherent mez protection. That, in my opinion, strengthens the argument for adding true protection.

I see where you are going with this and it's been brought up before and it's an awesome Idea but it would actually be under-performing in means of protection. Critters automatically move into melee anyway once they fire off their Alpha shots. Also Blasters don't come equipped with AOE group immob so in maps like caves or cot a blaster's -Range power would be useless.

The only time when -Range would be useful is if you had a way of AOE Sniping them ...the debuff needs to be a lot like Flash Arrow because you don't want to alert them before you get the first attack off.

Blasters do not currently get mez protection/resistance shields in any set. Other non-melee oriented ATs do get some specific power sets that offer mezz protection/resistance through resistance shields, the caveat being they must take and use those shields which some people consider to be less than optimal. My question is why should Blasters get free mezz protection/resistance as an inherent power, which is what many have been asking for, when those other ATs do not. In fact no other AT gets free unconditional mez protection/resistance. My preference would be for any mezz protection/resistance that is granted be done by adding it to existing powers.

I would actually like to see blasters get a Mez release power; essentially a power that mimics a Break Free inspiration with a longish recharge. They gain a tool that helps deal with Mez that requires some skill to use, it's different than other ATs, and it isn't just blatantly handing them Mez protection. The biggest issue is trying to shoe horn another power into their pools.

If you want an option that impacts actual builds the least then here is one off the cuff thought:

What if build up powers like Aim and, well, Build Up had mez protection as part of their effect, and they could be activated while mezzed?

Of course you would also have to do some special case fixes for primaries and secondaries that lack those abilities. You'd have to add a special case for Dual Pistols, for example, and /Devices. But I feel that adding fixing up those special cases wouldn't be that hard.

If you want a more annoying solution, then make snipe powers give 20 seconds of mez protection. I don't like that as much either from a thematic or functional perspective, but it would certainly make snipes useful.

You'd still run into issues where you'd need to offer alternate solutions to the special case sets of Dual Pistols, Ice Blast and Sonic Attack.

There's a very nice variety in the makeup of both blaster primaries and secondaries. Unfortunately I think that might also be part of the problem since there can be a large disparity between the capabilities of the 'good' builds and the not so good ones.

I would agree. Anything we do to blasters has to help them both teamed and solo. The best possible options would be ones that worked in both arenas. In a distant second would be having mechanics that worked well teamed and a second set of independent ones that worked solo.


Three problems. First, it scales oddly. Being mezzed to mag 2 is no worse than being mezzed to mag 3 - you're still mezzed. Far more deleterious to blasters is mez duration rather than mez magnitude, because most blasters don't have any mez protection so any level of mez magnitude is equally bad.

Second, the three powers that Defiance 2.0 allows the usage of were carefully considered. Opening that up beyond that starts to create both balance issues within the archetype and outside the archetype. There's a huge difference, for example, betweeen unlocking Energy Torrent at tier 3 and Telekinetic Blast at tier 3 and Irradiate at tier 3. Blaster primaries aren't balanced around primaries being structurally identical at every single tier.

Third, given their previous experience with D1.0, the devs are unlikely to want to experiment with a blaster change that in any way encourages building threat against the blaster.


In general, I'm not keen on team-scaling buffs for blasters because I think their problems don't get substantively worse on teams. They are just a little different. In general, I'm not opposed to adding damage to blasters: I think too many archetypes already encroach on blaster damage. However, I believe the additional damage should be mainly a token gesture: adding more damage should be what we do because blasters are supposed to be the unequivocal damage masters, and right now they aren't the unequivocal damage masters: that's debatable. It shouldn't be debatable. But I think adding damage should only be done to address that specific issue: its just not possible in my opinion to resolve blaster survivability issues with increased damage, so there's no point in increasing blaster damage past the point where their offense becomes preeminent. In fact, increasing it too high could hamper efforts to increase their survivability (because while damage alone can't resolve their survivability issues, too much increased damage *combined with* some increased survivability could cause them to overperform).

This would be a meaningful objection if the devs hadn't datamined blasters as being underperforming before Defiance 1.0 was introduced. That was why we *got* Defiance 1.0 in the first place, along with increased health.

And yet Cosmic Balance which I mention and you conveniently clip from you quote doesn't have to be "taken" and thus is "free."

The other powers contradict your other statement:

And I'm assuming practically everyone who read your post assumed that's what you meant by "free" in the first place. But regardless what you meant, there are mez protection powers that do not need to be activated as a click or toggle, and there are mez protection powers that are free as in do not need to be explicitly taken by the player.

Why do Brutes get an inherent damage buff power. No other archetype gets to have such a huge damage buff without having to take a power.

Blasters can shoot with limited attacks while mezzed. No other archetype can do that. Why are they allowed to do that if no one else is? Because they needed something, and the devs wanted to give them something unique.

Let me repeat: the devs wanted to give them something unique. Why does anything get to do something no one else does? That's usually the reason why. Whatever we do to Blasters, being something unique to them is very high on the list of things that should happen. If its something anyone else can do, or everyone else can do, its probably not worth doing for Blasters.

I always shook my head at that inherent of the Blaster AT. "You can use your 1st and 2nd Primary Power, and your 1st Secondary power while Mezzed!" while mostly every other AT has "You practically cannot be mezzed and can use ALL of your powers! YAY!"

Sure, though. A Defender, Controller, and Corruptor are just sitting ducks when mezzed, but... in the case of the Controller and Corruptor at least, their inherents are just so beyond superior.

Yet it is very conditional in it's availability, which you conveniently don't mention, making it technically free, but not often available since not all PBs want to team. Hardly the definition of a useful ability, but ok I'll grant you that.



Well see I'm trying to get across that something should be done beyond simply piling more inherents on top of the heap that Blasters have become. I mean really, how many inherent abilities are they going to get? How well has that worked so far? But sure, instead of fixing the real issues, lets just keep throwing inherents at Blasters and see what sticks. Then we can listen to the other ATs complain that they only get one inherent ability and it's not fair blah blah powercreep.