What can you do with a problem like a Blaster?

No, making blasters more like inverted doms is about breaking the AT of a blaster. That is not what is needed. Having another AT mirror another AT is taking an option away. Taking options away is not a good thing.

Oh, and this is presumed by who exactly? It's certainly not by the playerbase. The playerbase knows darn well, and it is widely accepted that some ATs have more inherent survivability than other ATs. It also is not presumed by the developers of the game. Take blasters completely out of comparison. The remaining ATs do not have parity in regards to their ability to survive. As they shouldn't!

The various archetypes are intended to have roughly the same ability to succeed in earning XP and rewards at the reasonable levels of difficulty played by the average player. This is a bedrock design rule of the game. That is not a guess.

I doubt the average player believes the game explicitly makes some archetypes intrinsically better than others either. That's more of a guess, but one I'm comfortable making.

Your first statement, is mostly false. A bedrock design in the game revolves around teaming. Not soloing +2x6. This is not a guess either.
To take that farther, are you going to tell me that all Defender, Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Tanker, and so on and so on. Are all the powersets within those ATs created equal? No they are not, and that is not a guess either.
Also, 'better' is a very subjective term. It doesn't translate into numbers, especially if it infringes on particular playstyle.

If you're actually a dev's non-red account, feel free to PM me the circumstances under which the performance balancing metrics were revoked, which can be covered under blanket non-disclosure. I will then concede the point publicly.

Conversely, if you're not, you're wrong, period. That rule was even basically publicly conceded by Castle, who provided me with permission to repeat it during the Defiance 2.0 discussions.

Agreed, those discussions are a foundation of most of the current discussion about Blasters on the forums. Those discussions made absolutely clear that the devs take exception to ATs which underperform their peers too much across the whole AT and across situations. They stated in clear terms that Blasters were too far behind other ATs, and that this was a core reason they undertook Defiance 2.0.

Only the devs can tell us authoritatively if Blasters are still behind their peer ATs. However, they have already told us that being behind, at least by some threshold amount, is a reason for change. ATs are not allowed to lag one another by too much.

This isn't particularly relevant. The examples in this thread are not attempting specifically to balance for soloing at +2/x6. What they are attempting to do is use relative performance at those difficulties, which are very high, to reveal and/or explain what happens to Blasters relative to other ATs, and why. Soloing is a simulation of what can happen if you take too much aggro on a team or league. Playing without ally buffs is instructive for understanding what happens when allies cannot or do not provide buffs. When Defiance 2.0 was discussed, Blasters underperformed even when teamed.

On a tangent, whether Blasters still underperform like they did in I10, the devs may not be thinking about correcting a material quantitative problem with Blasters in I24. As Synapse alluded to, the current powers team is less driven by seeing quantitative problems and finding fun solutions to them, and more driven by attempting to see if archetypes intuitively have impediments to their enjoyment that can be corrected without creating numerical problems.

Oversimplifying a lot - because every dev team has factored in all sorts of things into their decisions - I'd say that my impression of Synapse and Arbiter Hawk is that they are looking to review the archetypes in terms of making them provide interesting options and then looking for ways to numerically constrain them to ensure they don't break anything. I believe that is fundamentally the design foundation behind Water Blast's lockout effect. Its there as a safety net to allow them to experiment with new mechanics in a relatively safe way, because the experimentation they do tends to be less quantitatively constrained in the first place.

In other words, lockout is the price we pay to have intrinsically more aggressive and experimental devs (it also helps that I think the current powers team has more resources to get new mechanics implemented than any other in the past, at least as far as I've seen). And I think for an eight year old game, that's a good thing in general.

I don't see how any of this is the case.... I'm not saying I disagree. I'm just saying that you didn't explain you point of view.

My suggestion was based on the fact that almost all (maybe even all) blaster secondaries already provide light mezzing abilities. Some also already provide buffs and or debuffs. Most people that state blasters need fixing cite a lack of survivability, and a lack of an easier way to obtain survivability than almost purely from IO sets, compared to other ATs. Further, none of the folks that state blasters need fixing seem to think that Doms, Corrs, and Defenders need fixing as much or more than blasters. So, therefore it would seem a given that controls, buffs, or debuffs provide the survivability that blasters lack. So adding in those would fix the issue. But adding in primarily buffs/debuffs would make blasters almost identical to Corrs. So that's not a perfect solution. The niche that isn't filled, that blasters already seem to closely resemble is an inversion of the Dom. The already seem to be close to that, but the mezzes that blasters currently have are too few and too weak to give them the desired levels of survivability. So upping it would seem an obvious solution.

I'm not sure if you didn't carefully consider my suggestion, but if not, the above should clarify it, and why I thought it sensible. Or maybe you have a good reason for your position, but choose not to share it. If so, I'd be interested an explanation.

Especially for how having a set that mirrors another is taking away an option. Does having tanks and scrappers/brutes/stalkers mirror each otehr take away an option? If so, how? And if we got rid of one or more of those how do you figure that makes tehre *more* options? Same for def/corr? How is having both a def and a corr less options than when we only had Defs? I really don't understand your position.

Edit: I really am not saying I know all the answers. But we're discussing options, etc, and statements like, "Nuh-uh!!" don't really add anything or forward the discussion. Truthfully, I don't care how or if blasters are fixed since I hardly ever play the AT. I'm not totally convinced that they need fixing. But if they do, the argument I find most telling is about survivability at it's core, so I tailored my suggestion accordingly. Maybe since I don't play the AT I just don't get or have overlooked some key point. If so, you'll have to explain it.

But there are other ATs that also have issues at +2/x6 as well I'm sure.

Controllers unless they take very particular combos (Fire/Kin) I'm pretty sure have WORSE problems than Blasters do at that difficulty. As I'm sure Doms do well (since both ATs lack either mez protection or significant damage output.

Does that mean Trollers are underperforming? I think the issue is what's being used as the example of "The AT is underwhelming". Using an AT attempting to solo +2/x6 and saying "This is what happens compared to other ATs" is a bit...misleading?

+2/x6 isn't an average, it's more of an extreme. I'm not saying Blasters don't have issues, but isn't using a slightly extreme difficulty setting (literally 2 steps from the hardest setting) going to exaggerate the issue and perhaps overplay how bad the issue really is? Especially since +2/x6 isn't remotely close to what the average player plays at.

As for Defiance? I still prefer 2.0 to what I was told 1.0 was (which was long before my time thank god). Could they improve Defiance? Sure. Do I think the currently Defiance is terrible? No.

Given that Synapse has already alluded to upcoming blaster buffs on the beta forums, we can conclude that they are officially still behind.

This would be the sensible thing to do, and in some cases would just mean undoing earlier nerfs, but as you can see by subsequent posts, "sensible" and "blaster" don't really go to together. I wonder what they think "manipulation" sets are actually for?

It is quite a labour intensive thing to do for the developers though, since it means fixing secondaries one by one, rather than doing one thing that has a global effect.

I don't play a ton of controllers, but wouldn't their general ability to lock down groups of enemies make things easier? Possibly slower, but less dangerous.

Also dominators have both decent damage output (1.050 melee damage mod and 0.95 ranged damage mod) and mez protection through domination(as well as though one of their APPs for what that's worth). My dominators play on higher difficulties than my blasters do with less difficulties/accidental deaths.

My Tankers and Brutes would like to have a few choice words with you about that. Blasters need more damage because simply put, they die way too fast without any real form of mitigation. Damage goes up in a linear fashion, but enemy HP goes up in quadratic fashion later on.

Corruptors bring more because as the fight drags on against high HP bosses, scourge kicks in more and more, and they can also leverage their secondary to further help the team/them soloing.

This is very true. Being able to remove one more enemies from a spawn with the primary and then slowly whittle them down makes for safe leveling. The crits from enemies in a mezzed state simply improves the speed. Heck, if the primary is chock full of -DEF like Earth, then the veteran attack powers speed it up that much further. Plus at 32, most controller primaries get a pet who possesses some form of controls and multiple attacks. Stoney in particular has like, 100 mag protection to most form of mezzes when I checked his auto-powers numbers. 100% psi protection too, 80% toxic res, 60% for exotic damages, put a couple sonic bubbles on him and he'll pretty much last forever aside from hard hitting AVs and some EBs.

Blasters... don't get that kind of option.

Huh? I never mentioned a thing about being a dev. But, for the record I am not a dev's non-red account. Nor am I a arm chair dev. Also, I personally would not name drop every chance I had.
And no, my statement is 'not wrong'. The 'bedrock' or framework design of this game, as a whole, certainly revolves more around teaming than it does with all ATs performing at +2/x6. Which is what you had 'suggested'. The fact remains, that all ATs, and the powersets within those ATs, do not all perform at the same level. They never have, they don't now, and it's highly unlikely they will in the future. It doesn't take much looking into gaming history with different characters, classes, and archetypes, that they have had different skills, abilities, survivability, and ways 'to win'. Now, were changes made in this game to make certain ATs 'better' at soloing? Yes. Are those changes ongoing? Yes. Has it ever been stated that every AT, and powerset within, needs to perform at that the same higher end difficulty level? NO, it has not. You even changed it yourself, in a post later to say 'reasonable levels of difficulty played by the average player.
I'll ask this again. To take that farther, are you going to tell me that all Defender, Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Tanker, and so on and so on. Are all the powersets within those ATs created equal?


I'm not sure if you have read the entire thread. But, in this very thread there have been direct comparisons saying, "if I can solo my scrapper/brute on +x/x6 or x8, why can't I do that on my blaster."


Ok, the blaster AT is a unique one in that it doesn't have a mirrored AT. Blaster changes are coming, yes. But, I would hope for something more than just a simple mirror version of an AT already in game. To simply mirror an already existing AT, seems like an easy out to me. None of the other ATs you mentioned were 'changed' to mirror another AT. They came into the game that way. How would that take away an option? It would take away something unique, and turn it into a mirror image. I honestly don't know how else to explain that. I'm not saying there couldn't be some things borrowed from other ATs, or improved upon in the blaster sets. But, to totally mirror another AT would take something away from the blaster playstyle that has been here for years.


I'll gladly speak to your Tankers and Brutes, we can hang out if you like!
But, neither of those ATs were changed to mirror another.

They didn't need to be changed, because the mirrored each other from the start. As did corruptors and defenders.

Stalkers where changed to more closely mirror Scrappers though.


IMO Blasters have always mirrored Dominators, with higher damage backed up by weaker control-as-mitigation. It's just that Blaster control secondaries are so weak some people didn't notice them.

I have. Given what I said, I think it's a fair question. Here's why. If playing solo or on higher difficulties really does magnify quantitative performance differences in AT performance, then the larger the difference in difficulty that two ATs can operate at, the larger the performance difference in those ATs at more "normal" difficulty. Some folks asking that question may not be looking at that question so analytically, but if the question has merit from an analytical perspective (and I believe it does), then it remains a reasonable question to ask.

IMO as well. Especially when setting the AT inherent abilities aside; speaking of which, I'm still trying to make heads or tails of the comparative damage issue that some are pointing to (survivability aside)...

I just rolled another Blaster, just to see what I could sustain for a damage buff from the Defiance 2.0 mechanic. At base recharge, I could maintain an approximate 30% buff [at lvl 12 on a Dark/Fire]. I'm sure that with some basic recharge; I could push that to a consistent 40% (which is nothing to sneeze at; especially considering that you get it for 'free'). Then you toss in your two BU powers (staggered).

Now, am I missing something about their comparable base damages, damage caps or something else that supports the stance that all the other ATs are seriously encroaching on Blaster damage (outside of Brutes)? Please explain.

Oh, my goodness is this not true. It's something like the truth, but you are terribly overstating it. Controllers who can solo at that kind of difficulty include Plant/anything, Illusion/anything and most any primary with /Rad, /Dark or /Time as a secondary. The least helpful primary for soloing is probably Ice and the least helpful secondaries are probably FF and Empathy, though Empathy can be kind of powerful if it's using its buffs on a decent pet.

Here's what I think is a much more true statement. Not all Controllers, Defenders and Corruptors can solo strongly enough to run at such difficulties, based on powerset combo.

Now here's what I think is the competing Blaster statement: Almost all Blaster combos have trouble soloing at such difficulties.

I don't think it's misleading, but I think it can't relay the whole picture. But I do think it's informative if I (or anyone) can take most other ATs, find powerset combos that we can build and play such that they can make decent progress at some difficulty, but it appears harder to find a Blaster powerset that can do that.

Now, if any one player, or even a minority of players has trouble with that, it may not be particularly informative. If it looks like a lot of players have trouble with it, I think that starts to suggest something about Blasters that probably has an impact even on lower difficulties, and maybe even when teamed.

But what if it's comparatively average of what other ATs can achieve? Yes, it's extreme compared to baseline, but what if it's not that much of a stretch for many (or all) powerset combos in all the other ATs? What would that say about Blasters, in comparison?

Alright, what you said in the beginning is exactly what I am getting at here! No other AT has been 'changed' to mirror another AT.

Past that though, it is just inaccurate, stalkers are certainly not a mirror of scrappers.
And Dominators are not a mirror of blasters. You can say there are similarities between those ATs. But the only 'mirrored' ATs we have are corruptors/defenders and tankers/brutes.

You played one recently?


Dominators have control, ranged damage, and melee damage.

Blasters have ranged damage, melee damage, and control.

They share the same def/res mods.

Sorry, I don't see where "not a mirror" is happening...

Holy smokes, look at their powers! Those are NOT mirrored!

Semantics.

Stalkers have a melee damage and a defense set, tankers have a defense set and a melee damage set.

Blasters have a damage set and a "damage support" set, which has a fair amount of very poor control. Just because they don't share the same power sets with primary/secondary switched doesn't mean they don't mirror each other.

No. Simply put. No.
You can't bend the word 'mirrored' to suit your needs here.
This is beyond silly. Defenders/Corruptors and Tankers/Brutes are mirrored, that is it.
It is very specific to what a mirrored set means in this game.

Not as much as you'd think. Scrappers/Stalkers/Brutes/Tanks are all mirrored to some extent.

Corruptors/Defenders are definitely mirrored.



But seeing as how that is 6 ATs out of the basic 10, I'd say that if you gave Blasters some more control options, that even if it DID cause them to become mirrored that it wouldn't be a problem.