What should the blaster role be?

Blasters should be the undisputed kings of all damage. After all, they contribute nothing else and have little survivability.

Currently, some other AT's have a higher damage cap than blasters. Also, some AT's have higher base damage modifiers. Both of these things should be changed. If blasters do the most base damage, and then also get the most benefit from team +damage buffs, there will be zero reason to complain about their performance. And both are very simple changes that require no new coding.

I prefer the blaster role of damage. Just damage. Damn the torpedoes, balls to the wall, offense is the best defense, if I wanted protection I would have made a scrapper, damage.

Ranged or melee, no difference to me. With hurdle and combat jumping the two are practically the same thing anyway.

Risk vs. reward. Oh, I get mezzed or defeated sometimes? So what, that's the risk part.

I'd be happy with Blasters that were twice as tough as what we have now. See, one of the problems with "more damage" is that the Blasters on a team give the entire team the XP, while keeping the debt for themselves. I mean, everyone here could volunteer to play Force Field defenders an hour or so a week, thus fixing the problems with both Force Field defenders and Blasters in the immediate case, but I don't think that solution scales.

Winterminal: The problem is not power creep with time. I was here in 2005, when the scrappers were twenty times tougher than the blasters and the tanks were two hundred times tougher. I don't remember whether I was actually on the team where someone asked "What's that AT with a black skull symbol?" Maybe I just heard the story told here. The problem is power creep with level: when you're trying to threaten a guy with mez resistance 15, you throw in enough mez to flatten a blaster 15 times over. What kills a level 35 Scrapper in 60 seconds kills a level 35 Blaster in ten.

This is a great thread. I think I would approach the answer as though I were building a team for a tough TF. I might think "This TF will go a lot easier if I can find a [insert AT here]." For some, it might be a Tank, for others it might be a Kin, for others it might be a Dom, but almost never is that AT a Blaster. Why? Because right now a Blaster does not contribute enough to a team. Want AoE damage? A Corr or a Dom will be better because they bring buffs or control with almost the same damage. Single target? Scrapper or Brute, please. And the support staff won't have to babysit them to keep them alive.

That last sentence bears more exploration. Your typical Scrapper doesn't care about the makeup of the group. Everyone there is great and will help defeat stuff faster, but he/she doesn't need any particular AT. The Blaster, though, needs a Tank and/or a Healer-type to keep going. And will have to keep careful watch on his inspiration supply. I want my Blaster to be like Iron Man in the recent movies: tough but not invincible, with strong ranged damage.

I think the thing that should differentiate Blasters is strong ranged damage, with a focus on AoE. Right now, just using AoE powers without buffs/debuffs, it's hard to tell that there is much difference between my Corruptors and Blasters damage. Most Blaster powersets have only two AoE blasts, typically a cone and a radial targeted power. When a blaster fires those off, only Bosses and tough Lts should still be standing.

Of all the thread im reading on Blasters and their roles and issues with mez Ive yet to see someone mention Blappers.

Ive never made a Blapper (melee damage = Brute/Scrapper) but I know of some that LOVE to play their Blappers.

The Dev's may not want to alienate those players by forcing a "Ranged Damage only" role.

Actually, the new Hybrid Incarnate slot seems to be a good idea for Blappers. One option for it is something that gives Mez protection in close range. However I suspect that once it goes Live and Blappers get it they'll realize that Mez is only one part of the 'Blaster Death' equation.

If the Blaster Secondaries were more geared towards melee I'd be more inclined to support it but that would put them at odds with the Primaries which are mostly ranged. I think this is part of the problem...Blasters have a very narrow identity ('We do LOTS of damage!') which is being marginalized by other ATs. This leaves Blasters searching for a niche to fill.

Only one way to make blasters, as a damage-only archetype, make sense in a game where every archetype is good at two things. Split the damage role into two distinct and equally important roles, and have both those roles applicable to blasters.

Melee damage versus ranged damage, as I believe most of us agree, isn't the way to do it. The distance at which you can deal damage still isn't that important, despite all the autohit location-based shenanigans the devs put into the game. Doing damage to something all up in its face, versus damage to something from a 2 seconds' jog distance, are easily interchangeable, and aren't distinct roles.

AoE damage versus single target damage is a bit more like it. The roles are distinct; having someone good at ST damage on the team doesn't eliminate the benefit to bringing an AoE damage dealer along. Still, it's hard to place a whole archetype on one side of that divide when damage sets vary so much. If we decide to buff blasters to make them really good at AoE damage, what happens to poor, poor psi blasters? Both roles won't necessarily be applicable to all blasters, so while the line can be drawn that way, doing so doesn't fully address the blaster issue.

So how should the team role be split? Based on the way game content is going, especially in the endgame, I believe the two team roles should be burst damage and sustained DPS. A strong burst damage AT should be able to take down a LT rank enemy in no time at all. And DPS should buzzsaw through bosses and big bads at a decent rate.

So what would it take for blasters to be at the top of the list for both burst damage and sustained DPS? What other ATs would we have to rival? Stalker seems the closest comparison. If we don't measure up to the stalker archetype's survivability, how much should we beat stalkers in burst and sustained damage to even things out?

Group: You are DPS for the team. If you want more than that see Corrupters, Controllers, Defenders and Dominators.

Solo: You should solo at a reasonable pace at x3. It shouldn't take forever. You shouldn't jump to x5 without IO's or Epics. With Inspirations you should be able to take on an elite boss easily.

I think if anything Willpower showed that the health of your character is a metaphor. It doesn't mean that the tough guy regenerates wounds unbelievably fast. It represents that the hero fights no matter what. it is called rise to the challenge. The healing represents him overcoming the odds. It is heroic.

Why don't the secondaries have self heals? /psi is the only one that has something close.

/fire could have a flash heal. Healing flames shouldn't be out of the question. It could represent the melting of bullets, immunity to heat, etc. Blaster HP's are worse than Scrappers and you won't be able to stack it with anything but the fighting pool until 35. Your still squishy. 0x5 could still flatten you. The Epics would let you add a resist or def toggle. But you would be able to use endurance for survivability in a useful quick non intrusive way (I ignore redraw here).

Every secondary and can use that metaphor. It is the reason why the power Drain psyche exist in the 1st place.

It doesn't stop you from blasting. It means you can do the exact same thing an empath can do while solo and grouped. It means your still less survivable than stalkers. They get resist, defense and heal/s. You get damage from range while solo. Blapper's could recover between groups and in combat with them.

It stacks with active controls some sets have.

All of the secondaries could work in a similar way. Healing is a metaphor for your power averting the damage or defying the damage.

The argument that on IO's it is over powered is a ridiculous argument. Soldiers are meh on SO's. They burn so much endurance you want to use rest every group. IO's make them overpowered in a God Slayer way. Same for scrappers, stalkers, and brutes, Doms, controllers, Kheldians, and tanks. A soft capped blaster with an in combat heal is not as overpowered as a softcapped Dark Armour anything, or perma eclipse/phantom army/heatloss with soft cap.

Additionally why does rest still have a cool down? What game purpose does that serve? It still has a long animation before it even starts, and has a cool down? It is suicidal to use during combat. It would help all archetypes at every level. It is a banal speed bump to game play for soloing only. In a group every gets access to things that make resting less needed. It is a bad game incentive to not solo.

Also why are the tier 3 ST blasts so bad DPA? Even blaze is worse than a lot of melee attacks. Is activation time balanced in anyway with the end/dam/rech formula. Why are the blasts so varied across all the blasts sets? Is there even a standard for ST DPS that blasters were supposed to do compared to other archetypes?


And on nukes

To answer the OP question in simple terms.

Damage.

I have read and tried to understand why exactly so many people think they need fixing and I just don't see it. The AT requires some thought to play. That appeals to me. Buttom mashers should play something else. Period.

So my idea here hinges on the idea that a buff to me=a debuff to you basically

1. Increase the range of all blaster powers. Something I've heard mentioned, and also read in the game manuals is that range=Damage mitigation in that it forces enemies to close to melee, this isn't really true, as every enemy has at least one ranged power and most, I've found, have several, with decent enough recharge that they don't need to move from one spot. A blaster's range should be just outside the reach of any non-sniper enemyas a corollary(or an alternative if not feasible/possible to do the first) to this,
2. Add a -range effect to all the "crowd Control" powers blasters get in their secondary powersets. Arcanaville suggested an interesting idea in the MA for blasters thread that a Knockback attack with -range would be a replacement for a tier1 immobilize in the hypothesized set, a very good idea, but why not take it further. If the Secondary of a blaster is to be viewed as supporting the blaster's primary role, that of ranged damage, then giving themselves the advantage in range seems like a good way to go to both protect themselves, and present a value to the team, Namely, that of cover fire. "I'll shoot them before they shoot you"("although, in terms of game mechanics, I'm preventing them from shooting you via non-shooty methods, just don't tell anyone") It would mean that other ranged archetypes would benefit from having a blaster along, as they would give their fellow defenders/ Corruptors, Dominators, Controllers(and Petless masterminds I guess :P) an added measure of security as they played. Further, it would(hopefully) Make tank and melee characters easier to play with, as, when the enemies, with their reduced range, decide to attack the blaster blasting them, they'd have to start closing the distance, giving the Scrapper/Brute/Tank/Stalker ample time to re-engage them and prevent them from attacking the back-row squishies. In keeping with the "squishy" aspect of blasters, This wouldn't take away from the idea of blasters using "active defense" to protect themselves. Speaking of "Squishy"
3. Give a temporary Defense or Resist(pick whichever one makes thematic sense and/or better balances the set) buff and/or some form of mez protection to Aim, Build-up and other self-buff click powers. A big problem for blasters is, again, they die easy. I don't hate the mez problem so much, because Defiance actually helps me a lot, but I'd love some good defenses. But blasters are conceptually weak. They are supposed to hit hard and from far away, and that's it. So how to make these two opposites work? Well, they don't have to be squishy all the time, just most of it, And temporary bonuses to defense sound like just the ticket. Most people hit build-up just before or as they engage a mob. Having a nice, quick boost to defense or resist and maybe some mez resistance would probably help to mitigate alpha, and let you as a blaster gain those precious few moments to finish off the enemy before they finish off you. It would also help as a "panic button" in situations where you find yourself in too deep. Hit Build-up to both increase your defenses to get some extra time and increase your offense to shred through the enemy, and thus eliminate the problem of people trying to kill you in the first place. This also would work well with th e very high damage of the melee attacks. if something get's close, you can hit one of these click powers and then clobber it before it does any decent damage.
4. Increase the radius of damage auras and add some form of soft control where necessary The damage auras are when I'm blapping, but honestly they're just kind of.. there for me the entire rest of the game. They don't really keep anything from hitting me, and they don't really help my primary function of shooting dudes at all. I like World of Confusion, whenever an enemy charges me and then immediately turns around to attack his fellows, it warms my evil little heart. I'd like to see more of that,and I'd also like the range to extend a bit more, just so I can sometimes get use out of it while firing on an enemy. Something in the "Close" range, maybe the distance of Executioner's Shot
5. Damage buff: I feel like Blasters should, at base levels out-perform Defenders and Corruptors in the damage department until things like heavy debuffs and scourge come into play. Sort of the ranged equivalent of the scrapper, without the crits.