What can you do with a problem like a Blaster?

As my name suggests, I am, or at least have been, a blaster fanatic. My first 50 was a blaster. I have created more blasters than any other archetype. The problem is, I never play my blasters anymore because I feel so...weak compared to other classes.

Other people seem to have the same issues, as there have been numerous people who have stated that they think there is a problem, but here everyone's opinion on the fix differs.

The main reason I think this opinion differs is that traditionally, any time that Blasters have gotten more damage, people have complained about the bad old days of City of Blasters...something that has taken on mythical stature beyond the actual reality of the time.

Here is the thing, Blasters have never been given any defense or mitigation to counter the greater capability of enemies to make you dead over the years. Don't get me wrong, surviving when you were down to one hit-point is a rush...rushing back to that group of mobs over and over again is not.

This is mostly going to be about solo play, as I have played in groups with my blaster where I could...blast...to my heart's content. I even had one semi-permanent group in which I had a Controller and a Defender running for all they were worth to keep up with me as I blasted the enemies into unconsciousness.

Here is the thing about that...A class that can not stand alone is a drag on the team dynamic. I was the only one doing damage in that aforementioned team. There weren't even many holds going out as they tried to keep me in buffs and alive.

I am not here to complain. Mostly I am here to educate and suggest. We need to agree on what "the problem with blasters" is before we can solve it.

Do explain this, I will be explaining what other Archetypes do, in my opinion.

BRUTES
Brutes are damaging power houses. They use their defensive set to get them to the point where their damage makes their defense pointless, because they are one-shot'ting Lts and making bosses cry for mercy.

This is from personal experience. I leveled a TW/Fire brute. I was rarely at 0x0. Often I would be against a group that I could go 4x8 solo. Yes, he is level 50.

To summarize: Brutes use armor to allow them to do damage.

SCRAPPERS
Scrappers are simple, and shouldn't need that big of a description here, but I will try to do so anyway. These are actually my least favorite archetype. Much like the brutes, they are using their armor to allow them to do more damage, where here it is in the form of their crit. The longer they stay alive, the more damage they do, on average, as they chain more attacks together. They never get the one hit kills of the brute, but then they tend to survive a bit longer too.

Summary: Scrappers use armor to allow them to do damage.

Yes, there is a pattern here.

TANKS:
They do a lot less damage, but with their higher initial armor numbers, and caps that only a Brute can match, they are a lot more survivable. They may take forever to kill something, but they have forever to do so.

Summary: Tanks use armor to allow them to do damage.

DEFENDERS:
Defenders are the first of our support classes that I have mentioned in here. They have buff values that other classes drool over. On top of this, they get ranged damage.

Summary: Defenders use buffs/debuffs to allow them to do damage.

CONTROLLERS:
These are by far the safest class in the game to play. They have a mixture of control and buff/debuff that simply makes it so that they own the situation. It takes more patience to play this class as well, since killing takes even longer than the tank or defender

Summary: Controllers use buffs/debuffs/crowd control to stay alive and do some damage.

You are starting to get the picture, so I will summarize the others:

CORRUPTERS: Use buff/debuff to allow them to do damage.
MASTER MINDS: use pets to do damage and allow them to do damage.
DOMINATORS: Use crowd control to allow them to do damage
STALKERS: use stealth/armor/minor crowd control to allow them to do damage

BLASTERS:
So, now we get to the heart of the issue. Blasters. They have no tricks to bring to the table. This is not talking about one or two sets. Sure, there are those powers in some sets that mean a little difference between dead and alive.

The thing is, all of the other archetypes that I mentioned above have these abilities in ALL of their sets. Some are better at it than others, I won't disagree with that, but they are ALL BETTER AT IT THAN BLASTERS.

Sure, you can use Epic pools, IO sets, and other like abilities to alkter this, but then you get a summary like the following:
Blasters use IOs/Epic Pools/Temporary Powers/and a lot of player skill to allow them to do damage.

Notice how this differs from the above summaries? Even if you take out my snarky comment, you still run into the fact that blasters simply have no mechanic in place that helps them to do damage and/or stay alive.

I'm not talking numbers here. All I'm pointing out is that there is something missing from the blaster design equation.

The original design concept was: Blasters do damage.

If that had been upheld, I don't think there would be a problem, but it wasn't. If there is someone who has a "uses X to allow them to do damage" who does more damage than a blaster, then that is a problem. Period.

I don't care about spikes and overall. A blaster following this summary has to do more damage on average. It is not 'should', it is a requirement.

The problem is, then there is the fear that no one will want to play anything else.

Is this a better fear than no one will want to play a blaster? Since that is the direction it is moving. You will end up with nothing but Elitists and Noobs willing to play the class.

So, here we are. We have a summary that has a hole in it that the devs are unwilling to fill because it would get away from the core of what a blaster is.

Here is my first proposition: Make the blaster base damage equal to a brute at 60%-80% Fury. Out enhancements and other people's powers would of course enhance this ability. As threat is based upon range and damage that would mean that a blaster going full out in a team has to worry about pulling agro, especially against a "soft agro"d mob.

Blasters will still die. It will happen. The thing is, unless you re-work the summary and give them some X to allow them to do damage that is going to happen period.

Here is my second proposition: Make the blaster inherent be their X. There are armor powers that work like this currently, so the mechanic is there. The more damage they take, the more resistance they have. You can leave them at their current cap, that's fine. Just then they will have some X that makes it so that they can do damage.

They're still going to die, and there will still be that chest pounding excitement of pushing the envelope just a little further. They will just not die as fast. Unless it is against EBs GMs or AVs, but then everyone dies on those once in a while.

Here is my third proposition: Something similar to my second, but a little more straight forward. Give them a lot of HPs. I mean more than a tank...maybe even twice as many.

Anyway, I figure this is enough for now. I hope I was able to accurately define what I feel is wrong with blasters, and hope that someone out there agrees with me. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

I love my blasters as well. And right now, I am currently running through my electric/energy blaster with force mastery and it is probably my best blaster ever. He does serious damage and I invested a lot of defense into it so he can survive fairly well. I invested a lot into him and I really love playing him.

I have been the same way with Blasters... use to love em... first 50 was a blaster, I have almost every primary to at least 40.

Now I play Corruptors...

/signed

There is a thread like this in the blaster forum which I suggest you look in on

You can have the developers take off a bunch of the penalties they put on the blasters for no particualr reason over the years...other then i suppose becasue whatever developer in charge of the balance wanted their favorite archtype to be better.

That would fix the blasters alot....

I really hated when they reduced the ranges and number of targets a blaster could hit...
Also hated how they reduced damage on some of the attacks that where supposed to do extreme damage...but now they barley do superior damage.

And it didnt help when the current defiance stopped increasing damage output by very much.

Until Blasters get fixed, it is going to be nothing but retreads. I get what you're saying, and appreciate the sentiment, but we need this seen to, and until the devs actually fix the core issue with the blasters, we have to keep on them about it.

I am not in any way saying that the devs don't listen. All I am saying is that it is time for them to take a real deep look at their philosophy for blasters going forward.

It is either time to retire the old concept of Blasters do damage, or it is time to make it true again. They can't keep us where we are anymore without killing off the AT.

What would the experienced blaster players say to a "fix for blasters" that involves drastically reducing the cast time of all of their powers? This further leverages their "kill first" playstyle.

I have been playing with my Kinetic Melee Stalker who has a .67 cast time on her un-hidden AS. The attack goes off so fast you can blink and miss it, and you do massive damage. Apply that concept to Blasters and you have an AT that still has a very heavy focus on damage, gains survivability by further increasing your kill speed (dead guys don't shoot back) and you can squeeze more attacks into your BU-AIM time.

I'm currently leveling a Rad/Fire and am can pretty much kill everything I'm facing with Aim-BU-Irradiate-FSC-Combustion but the problem is I die every time I attempt it during the animation time. Cut those powers down to 1 second animation times and that would be a game changer.

Maybe another idea would be something along the lines of changing defiance to be an added bonus damage proc that deals unresistable damage? Kind of like an always-on Fiery Embrace. It would be a straight 40% or so damage boost, which is also modified by damage bonuses just like Fiery Embrace. That would surely put Blasters comfortably on top of the damage mountain across all level ranges.

Well, I'm gonna be the snarky one...

Oh, so today it's blasters that have the problem again?

Are you sure it isn't the tanks day (cause Brutes to it better)? Or Scrappers (cause brutes do it better)? Or Brutes (cause tanks or scrappers do it better)? Or Defenders (cause Corrs do it better)? Or Khelds (because everyone does it better)?

Oh, it is Blasters day? Yeah. They suck. Must be lame being about being able to softcap and push the highest pure DPS in the game..

OK. snark aside..

The problem is that the game is still, in some fictional alternate universe, based around SOs.. But a notable percentage of the games population don't rely on just SOs. And as long as comparisons are made between SOed alts, and IOed/Incarnated alts, you're going to have folks that feel seriously deficient, regardless of what alt you are playing.

And I don't know what the solution is to try and bridge that gap. I think upping the baseline performance may be part of the solution, but I think that should be done with extreme caution...

You 2 may have a point. I'll refrain from offering my opinion on this topic going forward on account that I just don't know enough to discuss the topic in detail. It seems everyone complains about how their poor AT is treated, tho, and I can discuss in detail about most, of the ATs, but not so much about blasters. I've never liked them, always felt they were overly fragile, and I personally just don't even bother to play them any more. But I've been told repeatedly that they are just awesome, and my impressions are wrong, or a factor of my playstyle. And I've seen some very effective blasters that would seem to support those claims..

So, while your counters seem to have merit to me, I've been told many times I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to blasters. And there is merit to that point. So, I'll bow out, but point out that, as everyone claims their fav AT is the poor mistreated one, you'll have to make a great case... Better than I was able when I pointed out the flaws of blasters...

Good luck..

Madadh: The next time you find yourself in a discussion where the other person's trumpeting the joy of playing a blaster, ask questions.

"How much more damage would you say you do than a scrapper with the same amount of inf sunk in their build?" You'll probably get an answer, if they're being accurate, like "20%" or "30%".

"How much tougher is that scrapper than you are?" You'll probably get an answer like "I don't die [much]" or "It doesn't matter, I kill things too fast" or some variant on "I don't know" or "I don't play them" or "I don't want to answer that question."

The answer, for most builds for most of the game, is "Scrappers are six times tougher, plus the advantage of mez protection."

How much tougher are Brutes? Six times tougher. How much more damage do Blasters do? Maybe 20%. Tanks? Ten times tougher, but at least Blasters do considerably more damage. Corruptors? Maybe only three times tougher, and don't have mez protection.

Six times tougher. 18% less damage. That is not balanced. (Incidentally, we went almost a month before someone brought up City of Blasters on the blaster boards. Yeah, June 2004 was the good month to be a blaster.)

Personally, I wouldn't mind a built-in Momentum similar effect to replace the Defiance damage buff as well as modifications to base range and movement speed; for starters.

[And a reduced/null crash on Nukes; -recov/-regen (or a Burnout type effect) vs total endurance loss]