What can you do with a problem like a Blaster?

Well what to do with them is pretty obvious. Give them the damage they gave up most other things to get. That said they are the most flexible AT in the game. With a blaster you have the most choices on how you want to do things, and the means to achieve them.

I don't see the legitimacy of people saying the AT is hopeless when it can solo arch villains and giant monsters. The fact that blasters can't do that while on autopilot is part of their charm. Not everyone wants to play something where you can roll your face across the keyboard and still beat the enemies.


What concerns me more is what not to do with them.

1. What not to do, is make snipes the balancing point for sets that have them. I have never chosen a set because it had or didn't have a snipe, and I don't think anyone who did wants to be forced into taking snipes because they are now signature powers.

2. What not to do, take away anything from the flexibility of blasters. After looking at what was done to tankers, stalkers and dominators, I get the impression the devs fear flexibility.

3. What not to do, give the AT more goofy complicated mechanics. These things are fine in powersets where the people who like them can pick them and those that don't can stay away from them. We don't need a ring combo system for blasters. Part of the joy of the AT is that you can just blast. It is bad enough you have to use Build Up and Aim before you start blasting now. If a set does have that kind of mechanic it should be top tier in performance as compensation for the extra effort.

Blasters would be far better off left alone, if the "fix" is to give them one power they must use or some crazy system that got put in because someone fell in love with their own idea.

I am honestly baffled by the posts that talk about "blasters are for advanced players" and "Blaster should be left as they are so I can have an archetype that's harder to succeed with"

First of all, intended or not, that just smacks of elitism. Secondly, parity is important. No one is saying make it "faceroll". But since the devs are not likely to push Blaster damage up to where it "should" be compared to their squishyness, then it is important to shore them up in areas they are lacking. No one wants them to become indestructible ranged attackers, but people do want them to be competitive with other archetypes. It's a flat out fact that currently they are not.

You know that song "Anything you can do I can do better!"? Yea... that's all the other archetypes singing to Blasters. Sure mid's will show you some nice numbers with a billion inf build and /mental manipulation but in actual game play ANY other archetype is going to have an easier time in whatever scenario you can come up with compared to a blaster specifically because they have more tools to work with.

Blasters have ONE power set instead of TWO like everyone else... they have "A Damage Power Set". Sure it has twice as many powers as any one of the two power sets that the other AT's get, and sometimes it has a few odd picks that are pretty decent, but on the whole it's just different ways of dealing damage and frankly the game has evolved beyond just how big your dps epeen is.

A giant epeen doesn't do much good if it doesn't have the stamina to perform :P And that's basically where Blasters are right now... waving around their big sticks and promptly getting deflated by mobs who poor Blasty just couldn't keep up with. Meanwhile Tanky, Trolly, Fendy, Domy, Scrappy, Bruty, Cory, Stalky, Masty, the Kheldy twins and the Recluse twins have all been popping viagra and going strong for years now. They may not have as big epeens but their performance is FAR more impressive than poor Blasty's.

Why are we even comparing a squishy class to a tank class? I don't think that at any point we should be making direct comparisons to SoAs, Tankers, Brutes, Stalkers, Scrappers or Master Minds; just doesn't make sense to me.

I can see comparing it to Doms (which is almost a mirror image; outside of Control); Corrs and Fenders (which lend themselves to similar offensive styles) and Khelds (which would seem to be the 'next step' for Blasters/Doms).


I just don't see the insistence on homogenizing (in general); if the trend continues we'll only have four classes Brute, Controller, Stalker and Corr (plus the EATs). And whether you realize it or not, when you use all these other ATs as a basis of specific comparisons (instead of focusing on the AT at hand of basing any improvement off its own playstyle) that's precisely what you're moving toward.


If I'm rolling a Blaster, its because I have an idea of what I'm getting into; pros and cons. If I didn't want to deal with that playstyle then I wouldn't be rolling him up in the first place; this coming from a person who's just recently been putting time into Blaster toons. If I'm seeking improvements to what's supposed to be a 'glass cannon'; it would be to make the cannon hit harder, faster, longer. If I'm to make an effort to add anything outside of the play philosophy; I would do it in such a manner that it wouldn't alter the playstyle to where I could go with another choice and not notice much of a difference.

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Altering a previous suggestion:

Blaster ranged attacks do damage based on range from caster at the time of attack initiation (far, mid, close and point blank); the closer the target is, the more damage an attack does - This allows the Blaster to have a bit more say on their 'risk (proximity) vs reward (bonus damage)'.

*In addition*, the proximity could trigger a 'chance to' effect (generic effect: far = none, mid = repel+fear, close = KD+fear, point blank = KB+fear; otherwise, it could be based on the powerset itself)

*Point Blank damage would also include a chance for small radius AoE damage around the target