What should the blaster role be?

OK, most of the posts here are approaching the matter from a purely game mechanical standpoint, which is fine, up to a point. However, let's look at things for a moment from within the genre we're playing: superheroes and supervillains. At which point one has to ask, what does the character do beyond blow large holes in things?

From this point of view, one might consider that Blasters and Corruptors started out on the wrong sides of the Red/Blue line. A villain can make a pretty good career as a one trick pony ("I blow stuff up!"), be it as a trusted hench-being, bank robber, or powered muscle of a third world dictator. However, he isn't going to be considered one of the major players until he can do something really interesting. (The Red Threat's gambit to blow up the entire world might count, but we saw how hard the Midnighters shut HIM down. No recurring roles for Boris.)

A hero, on the other hand, really needs to ask himself "What can I do with my powers for others? Sure, the Human Torch can blast Hydro Man into vapor, but what makes him useful is his power stunts of fusing a collapsing construction site into an immobile mass, melting your tennis shoes or tires to the street, or vaporizing the massed gunfire of a bunch of gangbangers before it can injure the hapless civilians.

So, from this point of view, I don't mind too much the construction of the Blaster powersets, except the heavy prevalence of melee powers in the secondaries, and some of the numbers we see coming from the primary attacks. The X-Men's Cyclops pretty much exemplifies our current approach to Blasters. He shoots things. A lot. His mitigation is to shoot things before they can hurt him, and keep the range open, mostly through blasting them back. And when that doesn't work, Jean Grey's gets to use Vengeance.

But to be honest, I really wouldn't want to play Cyclops.

My opinionated answer to the original question:

DC's Starfire or Marvel's Cyclops both define what it means to be a Blaster.

Their primary power is damage at range, and they are excellent at it. Against "minion" class enemies, one or two shots is all it takes, and "lieutenants" don't hold much weight either. Each is also capable of a very explosive attack (T9 style), which tends to leave them a little dazed after using it.

Despite being primarily ranged damage dealers, they are both proficient in hand-to-hand combat, to the point where they can quickly dispatch an enemy that gets too close. However, neither are particularly durable, making close combat riskier and their ranged attacks more beneficial for a longer battle.


I see this manifesting in our game as such:

• Some boosted damage for sets that should be doing more (c'mon, if I shoot someone in the chest with a pistol, they should be a little closer to "dead" than those attacks currently yield).
• Crashing nukes getting a boost to their damage to the point where walking into an even-con mob and firing it off vaporizes minions and lieutenants, and leaves Bosses with 25% or less health.
• Sniper attacks, if their mechanics are left as are, should get a damage boost to the point where (at even-con) they can one-shot a minion, leave a LT. at 50%, and a boss at 75% before enhancements.
• Sniper attacks, if their mechanics are modified, should be made similar to the new Assassin's Strike mechanics.
• Future secondaries bringing a balance of melee abilities, enemy deterrents, and independent self-buffs (i.e. Build Up and Conserve Power, not Drain Psyche and Soul Drain).

Glass Cannon is perfectly fine. That description is very appealing and what attracted most of the people I know to playing blasters.


The problem with it, is whoever came up with it wouldn't know what a cannon is capable of if it shot them.



That is the effect cannon shot had on armored battleship. Seeing as we use the term "TANK" in this game, the Armor on a battleship laughs at the armor on a tank.



This is Fort Pulaski in Georgia after the Union cannons got done redecorating.

Finally mobile cannons are really easy to take out if you can get close to them, BUT



When you charge a cannon company the order goes out to load canister shot.

Imagine a shotgun with an 6 inch diameter barrel firing 1/3rd inch tungsten shotgun pellets. You have to be a certain kind of crazy to charge a cannon position.

Right now we are definitely glass, and kind of ok at range but nothing really special and in no way shape or form cannons or artillery of any kind. Artillery isn't the king of battle because it looks pretty.

"I WIN BUTTON" ?

My vision of the blaster role: reliable offense and burst damage specialist

By 'reliable' I mean that the blaster would continue dealing high damage in most situations by having countermeasures against a variety of defensive strategies. As for burst damage, someone else in the thread already mentioned how iconic it is for blaster-type characters to go all out and be dazed afterwards.

I wonder how having boosts to survivability so long as you keep attacking would work?

Solo:

The Blaster's role for the solo player should be the fast paced enemy destroyer, like taking control of a bowling ball in a world of pins. Combat is fast, enemies go down fast and you come out victorious through superior firepower and aggressive controls (Knockback/down/up, Chance for Mez tied to attacks, high damage making mobs flee), even if you have a bloodied nose.

Team:

In a team, the Blaster should be a reliable damage source with damage available for any given situation, even if their powersets in question don't specialize in it. Single Target, Area of Effect, Cone, Point Blank Area of Effect, Ranged and Melee, if the enemy is at range then destroy them for not letting the Scrappers/Brutes have their fun, if they get in close then show them the error of their ways with superior melee attacks, if you are ambushed then show them they should have dressed in red shirts for all the good it will do for them.

League:

Like in a Team, the Blaster should still be noticeable in a League for always having the attack type/s needed for any given situation. If you're getting swarmed there should be a highly destructive nuke being thrown out which isn't a Judgement, and people should notice. AVs should be going down noticably faster, health bars dropping through sheer force.


Note the key words. Damage, Reliability and Noticeability. Blasters are for those of us who like to deal damage all the time and for it to be noticeably higher than other characters. Currently, I don't feel any more damageing than a good Scrapper, Stalker, Brute, Mastermind, Dominator, VEAT or HEAT.

Ignoring the rest of the post...

Blasters are fine as highest damage dealer with low HP as balancing.

Epics are not influencing the role of the AT
Pool powers are not influencing the role of the AT
Incarnate has abxolutly no effect on the role of the AT

If you take away these three things (as they are not brought in for the balancing of an AT) then the blaster does what the blaster should do. At least at first it seems so. Some AT have gotten higher damage output. The blaster should retain the highest damage output though (for single attack).

These are my thoughts...

Blasters should be ALMOST all Ranged Damage...

I saw an example for Marvel Cyclops earlier...

Let's use that.

VERY RARELY, do you see Cyclops have to wade into battle to fight...in fact I cannot recall off the top of my head a time where he just dove into a fight like that (Not that there probably isn't one, but they are few and far between)

Cyclops also doesn't become drained exceptionally when he really unloads, he just dials up his visor to a higher setting and nails the bad guys. (Crashless T9's)

They should have a few melee attacks, but I feel the secondary should be predominantly ranged as well, with some debuff in it.

Using Cyclops again, he can dial his visor down to a stun setting, if so desired, to not kill but disable...this should be a key component.

If a blasters main defense is to be at range, then they SHOULD be at RANGE.

I also feel that no normal NPC should out range a blaster. I could see some AV with that capability for challenge/concept reasons...but no Minion or LT or even Boss should have that ability. Similar range? Sure. MORE range? Never.

Having played a few blasters, I am confused as to what the concern is here.

In most MMOs that I have played, there are 4 main divisions of team roles : Tanking, Support, Crowd Control and DPS. Blasters very clearly and easily fall into the DPS role, which they share with at least a couple other ATs. Their role is fairly start-forward and the only things that really bother me about Blasters have to do with, one, the decision to make pool powers give different amounts of protection based on AT. My defenders get much more mileage from powers like tough and weave than my Blasters, which is B*@@$#!T, in my opinion. And secondly, there are times when getting perma-mezzed is a real downside. I would like the Buildup powers to act like a break-free; 10-15 seconds of +Dmg/+ToHit and 30 seconds of Status protection.

But besides those two ideas, Blasters are fine and don't really need anything to define their role better.

The Blaster primary role should be damage above all else, with an emphasis on range. I personally think the secondary role should be debuff/control, but not to such a degree as to step on toes of other ATs.

I personally would like to see a greater emphasis on the secondary effects of Blaster attacks. I have played many Blasters, but the most effective has always been my Ice/EM. It had everything needed for devastating damage and survival. Holds, recharge slows, stuns and knockback provided all the mitigation needed to wade into a group and come out the other side in one piece. Dark/EM is along those same lines. The secondary effects, in addition to damage, are what make it work so effectively. Lets buff up debuffing/control secondary effects and add some to those that may not have them. This gives Blasters a very effective secondary role on teams in addition to greater survivability.

Role?

Good gravy...this sounds like the typical idiocy from other games...

but why not....

Blaster Role is DPS normaly.

But that does not mean a Blaster cannot fill other roles depending on the player and powers thay have.

Though some Blasters cannot fit into any roles, becasue they pick specifc powers and make themselves real lousy at doing much of anything....
Thus they get to be the role of SPONGE or LEECH.

I think one fatal flaw in you guys' decision that 'Blasters should Blast'...that's exactly why they're in the mess they're in. Blasters have their problems because they, frankly, can't do much else. They don't get comprehensible self-mitigation and what they do get, they get at reduced value. They can't debuff, they can't control they can't shed aggro and what of those capabilities they may get, again, they do at reduced value.

To put it in another frame: What should Blasters do? Blast? Well, they do that and they still suffer.

I love my Blasters to death, but it's usually through means to broaden them that make them attractive to me...focusing on whatever control abilities they can get, focusing on building self-protection through IOs, exploiting power boost for additional debuff like -ToHit, or using SBE procs to make their hold 1-shot hold bosses.

Along with that stuff, they also blast and do so well solo or teamed. But this shouldn't be some chess game where you're moving all the right pieces to come out with a Blaster than can do more than blast. Blasters should blast *AND* be able to do *something else* with proficiency just like everyone else.