What can you do with a problem like a Blaster?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-06-05 15:04 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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This is pretty much pure nonsense.|
Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Okay, I will quantify that with - all those I've played, I've never had any problems fighting x8s on melee ATs (which would exclude stalkers, since I've never taken one past level 18) - and I'm no buildmeister and don't consider myself skilful.
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I mean you can do it against certain enemies with certain non-optimized ATs, or against most enemies with most optimized ATs, but to present like anyone can roll into a random X8 mission and plow through it no problem just because they're a melee character is bunk.
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Getting off topic but perhaps you're only understanding 'pulling' as shooting at something and then breaking LoS or something.
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Generally between two and three in a randomly generated spawn. In a spawn with two MIs, there's no way to kill them fast enough to prevent them from spawning pets while solo consistently with most builds. The probability is very high that you'll easily find yourself facing at least eight attackers wielding non-positional psionic attacks. And those non-positional attacks are mezzes. Anything without capped psionic defense or huge psionic resistance *and* very high mez protection is going to have trouble.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Arcanavile had the hyperbolic idea that the original poster couldn't fight +4x8 because His/Her SR scrapper would get destroyed by large numbers of bosses hitting. Well you don't get large numbers of bosses from a single +4x8 spawn.
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As to the entire discussion about pulling, both melee and ranged archetypes can pull. However, claiming to be able to defeat a spawn X without specifying that you intend to pull them apart is being deliberately misleading. Every archetype can pull apart a spawn and fight it in smaller chunks, which means every archetype can theoretically defeat a spawn of any size.
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Generally, when I stand in the open and shoot stuff, I call that attacking, not pulling. While I may not aggro the whole spawn that way, it certainly becomes more likely and each enemy I continue to attack in the open increases the likelihood of the entire spawn aggroing. What do you call pulling?
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Getting off topic but perhaps you're only understanding 'pulling' as shooting at something and then breaking LoS or something.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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That or massive ToHit debuffs that last the duration of their phasing. My Storm corruptor manages to solo multiple MI under the premise she has some lucks and breakfrees to use preemptively and even then, it's a slog of a fight.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Anything without capped psionic defense or huge psionic resistance *and* very high mez protection is going to have trouble.
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
What do you call pulling?
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I pull on my DP/Fire all the time. Piercing shot 1 or 2, shoot one down, hold the other, shoot a new target, kill it, rehold the 1st...it's all at range with the premise of not drawing the attention of everything at once so that ST effects like holds or high powered attacks increase your chance of survival.
That isn't to say my DP/Fire can't just rush into a spawn and HoB everything to death, but that's a nuke. Nukes aren't recharged every spawn. Whatever kill speed they entail is just a temporary bonus of ranged sets. I wouldn't include it among Blasters' ordinary speed...not even their average.
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Which was exactly the point. An SR scrapper has maybe a 50% greater passive survivability. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Generally between two and three in a randomly generated spawn. In a spawn with two MIs, there's no way to kill them fast enough to prevent them from spawning pets while solo consistently with most builds. The probability is very high that you'll easily find yourself facing at least eight attackers wielding non-positional psionic attacks. And those non-positional attacks are mezzes. Anything without capped psionic defense or huge psionic resistance *and* very high mez protection is going to have trouble.
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| As to the entire discussion about pulling, both melee and ranged archetypes can pull. However, claiming to be able to defeat a spawn X without specifying that you intend to pull them apart is being deliberately misleading. Every archetype can pull apart a spawn and fight it in smaller chunks, which means every archetype can theoretically defeat a spawn of any size. |
For all I know the OP is playing ICE/*/Electric and using 2 holds to lockdown the boss. Once again cheating ?
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No, but going slower than someone who doesn't need to use lower damage controls. While you are busy kiting, pulling, mezzing, other ATs are killing. You know this, I have seen you argue the same thing many times.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
For all I know the OP is playing ICE/*/Electric and using 2 holds to lockdown the boss. Once again cheating ?
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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No argument.
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
No, but going slower than someone who doesn't need to use lower damage controls. While you are busy kiting, pulling, mezzing, other ATs are killing. You know this, I have seen you argue the same thing many times.
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If an Ice/Energy Blaster is locking down a +4x8 Carnie spawn with holds and stuns, that's not cheating, that's miraculous.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
For all I know the OP is playing ICE/*/Electric and using 2 holds to lockdown the boss. Once again cheating ?
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If by 'lock down a spawn' you mean killing everything and mezzing what can survive the onslaught, I do that pretty often...not on +4/x8, mind you (only a part of a handful of my characters manage that at all) but on spawns up to x6 and at most maybe +1.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If an Ice/Energy Blaster is locking down a +4x8 Carnie spawn with holds and stuns, that's not cheating, that's miraculous.
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But of course, that's with SBE improving my hold so I can keep multiple bosses held at once. If I'd had another hold, I could manage to lock down a lot more...and my Sonic/Ice/Munitions actually probably could lockdown a +4/x8 spawn if I slotted him with the same SBE Lockdown proc...hold bosses, sleep minions.
It's even possible with Ice/Energy/Munitions. Not miraculous.
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Which is much less impressive, thus much more believable.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
If by 'lock down a spawn' you mean killing everything and mezzing what can survive the onslaught, I do that pretty often...not on +4/x8, mind you (only a part of a handful of my characters manage that at all) but on spawns up to x6 and at most maybe +1.
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My City Was Gone
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LOL why didn't you just rewrite what I said to the lock down the whole map with shoe laces.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If an Ice/Energy Blaster is locking down a +4x8 Carnie spawn with holds and stuns, that's not cheating, that's miraculous.
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Not sure if that's a jab at the blasters I use or a jab at soloing at x8 in general...I'll just say I rarely min/max to solo at maximum. I just make the character as effective without going out of my way to aim for performance and pick the difficulty to which offers a decent challenge and is fun.
As was mentioned, I could probably lockdown a +4/x8 spawn on my Sonic/Ice/Munitions if he was able to actually survive long enough to use his powers...that just requires building up survivability. The important point was he has the aptitude of mezzing many foes and then picking them off at his leisure. I'm sure certain combinations of Ice/Energy/ can do it too, relying on Power Boost to lengthen holds and using an epic like EM Pulse, Sleep Grenade or whatnot to trap many more.
It's just a matter of building a Blaster to do that...it just requires choosing certain powers and slotting them.
Where that leads to, however, is discussion of the effectiveness of such tactics on a Blaster. The powers work, but at a bare-minimum. They can effectively hold some *for a time* but the recharge of these powers are prohibitive or the duration is limited. I still think, if this is reviewed and revised, it will turn Blaster survivability around without straight up granting them armor...if armor is needed is a new matter entirely.
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no jab, just noting that yours is a believable claim, unlike the one advanced by the post being discussed.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Not sure if that's a jab at the blasters I use or a jab at soloing at x8 in general...
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My City Was Gone
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... By further cementing the mentality they need to be 'bad' Dominators/Controllers? Increasing their mezzing capability is going to put one or two of those three ATs into the dog house. It wouldn't even be complimentary, as Dominators and Controllers can AoE gimp a spawn out, while the blast would have... single target focused CC?|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Not sure if that's a jab at the blasters I use or a jab at soloing at x8 in general...I'll just say I rarely min/max to solo at maximum. I just make the character as effective without going out of my way to aim for performance and pick the difficulty to which offers a decent challenge and is fun.
As was mentioned, I could probably lockdown a +4/x8 spawn on my Sonic/Ice/Munitions if he was able to actually survive long enough to use his powers...that just requires building up survivability. The important point was he has the aptitude of mezzing many foes and then picking them off at his leisure. I'm sure certain combinations of Ice/Energy/ can do it too, relying on Power Boost to lengthen holds and using an epic like EM Pulse, Sleep Grenade or whatnot to trap many more. It's just a matter of building a Blaster to do that...it just requires choosing certain powers and slotting them. Where that leads to, however, is discussion of the effectiveness of such tactics on a Blaster. The powers work, but at a bare-minimum. They can effectively hold some *for a time* but the recharge of these powers are prohibitive or the duration is limited. I still think, if this is reviewed and revised, it will turn Blaster survivability around without straight up granting them armor...if armor is needed is a new matter entirely. |
I don't know. It rubs me the wrong way to give them more of the core design point of two other ATs. Unless they just give the Blaster set Hold/Stuns/Etc the "Clobber Treatment". A far more sane alternative being the "Cobra Strike Treatment".
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This still doesn't compute with me. What does it matter what Dominators and Controllers do? |
Originally Posted by Reppu
... By further cementing the mentality they need to be 'bad' Dominators/Controllers? Increasing their mezzing capability is going to put one or two of those three ATs into the dog house. It wouldn't even be complimentary, as Dominators and Controllers can AoE gimp a spawn out, while the blast would have... single target focused CC?
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The problem is Blasters can kill many weaker foes but stronger foes they cannot kill as fast and have trouble surviving against. That isn't to say give them a means to mitigate every hard foe (EBs and AVs are still an issue) but in the general situation, why should the Blaster have limited options to answer that situation? The only real option if you don't have KB is to kill the target first, which is hardly an option at all.
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| I don't know. It rubs me the wrong way to give them more of the core design point of two other ATs. Unless they just give the Blaster set Hold/Stuns/Etc the "Clobber Treatment". A far more sane alternative being the "Cobra Strike Treatment". |
And 'the Clobber Treatment' entails shortening the duration of the mez while significantly boosting the damage, an ultimate loss of options for mitigation. And the 'Cobra Strike Treatment' entails giving up 100% mez for only a chance to mez, another loss of options for mitigation.
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Because if you're only talking about locking down one boss in a discussion about taking on +4x8, then rather than stating the ridiculous, you're instead stating the irrelevant.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
LOL why didn't you just rewrite what I said to the lock down the whole map with shoe laces.
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The numbers are there to let you lock down one boss very quickly and the second in good order.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Because if you're only talking about locking down one boss in a discussion about taking on +4x8, then rather than stating the ridiculous, you're instead stating the irrelevant.
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I am trying to figure out how to survive 7 seconds in order to cast all that mez, meanwhile nothing else in the spawn has even been touched. +4s do not die fast enough to maintain inspiration rush. Sure, you could start with a full load of inspires and maybe go two or three spawns using inspires, but after that, splat. And using inspires to survive means wasting time on mez is likely counterproductive.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
The numbers are there to let you lock down one boss very quickly and the second in good order.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Quote:
My thought was pretty straightforward pull off the lts and minions, hold one of the bosses fight a running battle with the other.
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I am trying to figure out how to survive 7 seconds in order to cast all that mez, meanwhile nothing else in the spawn has even been touched. +4s do not die fast enough to maintain inspiration rush. Sure, you could start with a full load of inspires and maybe go two or three spawns using inspires, but after that, splat. And using inspires to survive means wasting time on mez is likely counterproductive.
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IMO, that's unacceptable. Not going to touch on the capacity of other ATs, but there is not enough time to do that on a viable basis without using inspirations as a crutch.
Not even speaking about +4 but something far more reasonable, a Blaster would have to have the damage capacity to deal with many of the weaker foes outright, the control and recharge to deal with a boss in a timely manner as well as the self survival to live the full activation of all of the above while having the endurance management to sustain their inferior control while hammering on the attacks.
It's an uphill battle on both ends, to put down the foes and to keep the foes off you. While you're doing that running battle with the boss, you're also forced to spam the hold/stun on the other target just to keep it contained long enough to deal with the other target.
It wouldn't just be an improvement to Blaster's viable mitigation of they had potent ST control to rely on, but a QoL improvement as the Blaster would then spend less time having to use their holds and/or not requiring the acquisition of multiple control powers *just* to quickly contain *one* target.
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By +4x8, I meant +4x8.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
If by 'lock down a spawn' you mean killing everything and mezzing what can survive the onslaught, I do that pretty often...not on +4/x8, mind you (only a part of a handful of my characters manage that at all) but on spawns up to x6 and at most maybe +1.
But of course, that's with SBE improving my hold so I can keep multiple bosses held at once. If I'd had another hold, I could manage to lock down a lot more...and my Sonic/Ice/Munitions actually probably could lockdown a +4/x8 spawn if I slotted him with the same SBE Lockdown proc...hold bosses, sleep minions. It's even possible with Ice/Energy/Munitions. Not miraculous. |
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So you're saying since I don't currently have a Blaster that actively performs at that metric, it cannot be done?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
By +4x8, I meant +4x8.
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I don't think I said that. Let me check:|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
So you're saying since I don't currently have a Blaster that actively performs at that metric, it cannot be done?
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| If an Ice/Energy Blaster is locking down a +4x8 Carnie spawn with holds and stuns, that's not cheating, that's miraculous. |
I'd judge a +4x8 Carnie spawn as being at least three to four times more dangerous than a +1x6 spawn, which makes the comparison basically meaningless (your effects are cut roughly in half at +4 relative to +1, while the critters are hitting for nearly two thirds more net effect between purple patch upscaling and heightened accuracy; this doesn't factor in the fact that x8 has significantly more bosses and Lts than +6).
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Pulling may not slow down a purely single target build (but even then, I'd think it would be faster if you did not have to pull).
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.