How would you have fixed blasters ?

We were getting improvement in i24 what would you have done.

Here's why I never cared for the changes that were slated.

There were only 2 changes that were actually focused on blasters in the issue that will never come, the extended range power for snipes and the sustains.

The sustains were weak, it was the equivalent of giving blasters about as weak a heal as you could in a game where healing has to be mammoth to have a serious impact. Defense and Resistance are on hyperbolic curves for mitigation. The fact that blasters had the worst base numbers, for defense and resistance and the fewest option for gaining more was the reason they had problems. This is where the problem should have been addressed.

The snipe extended range , fast cast change was WUT ?? Why not just rename blasters snipers while you are at it.

Fixes
General
1. Improve the blaster numbers for the pool/epic powers to at least corruptor levels if not defender levels.


Epic powersets
1. Make the armors all available as tier 1 choices
2. Include some sort of self heal/hibernate power in each set or long duration break free type of power.

Secondaries
1. Standardize the status effects. Change fears to stuns or holds
2. Case by case basis ex electric add some more =recover etc etc

Primaries.
1. Case by case ex, ar change ignite to targeted aoe and bring it in line with other t3s for cast time.

Crashless Nukes, OK
80 foot tier 3s, OK
Moving Armor's around, That would have been really interesting in a good way.
Making Mez viable for more builds, OK

The rest ? If I want to play a scrapper I can play a scrapper.

I have been playing my Fire/Fire blaster on test and I am happy with what they have done,the crash less nuke is fine I can use that when getting mobbed knowing that I can blast anything left alive,with the snip the recharge is a lot faster and the greater range gives you more chance against the guy who takes more than 1 shot,I find my survival is a lot better too shame its never going to reach the live game

Easiest way to fix blasters would have been to shut down the blaster forum and kill the hysterics.

If we're talking about actual AT buffs, not buffing individual sets..

1.) CO/DCUO status removal. Mash a key to break mez.

2.) Raise the HP cap. I mean jeez. Let people build how they want. If you build for teh HP, it will come.

3.) Rebalance all secondaries around /Mental. Same way Light Form works relative to eclipse- The benefit to Eclipse is that there's no crash. The benefit to LF is that it's a low risk power. Keep similar drawback/benefit ratios in mind. That's what the dev's seemed to be doing with i24 though. Except other sets would need a debuff too. /Fire could maybe get a sort of Eclipse/Melt Armor deal, maybe a self +res per target, opponent -res instead of +end that Eclipse grants, but with lower values per target. I'm sure there are other ideas for ranged play but Fire works best in melee anyways. Just one idea.

4.) Increase pool toggle/epic toggle mods. Blasters don't get a fair bang for their buck picking up these powers at all. I'd say match them to what Defenders/Corruptors get.

5.) Come up with some nifty mechanic that applies a stacking crit or dmg buff for using melee powers. Reward high risk power usage.

6.) FFS, let Blasters share the Brute damage cap.

Now, all of this might sound OP to some of you. But that's ok with me.

Much as I'm a fan of blaster buffs, I don't like making special exceptions for the sake of one archetype. That's archetype balance whack-a-mole.

Instead, I would've looked at general balance rules that, although archetype neutral in theory, disadvantage blasters, and likely other archetypes as well, in practice.

For example, archetype damage caps, which reflect an eyeroll quoted "vision" for the archetypes rather than their actual self-buffing capabilities. Blasters have easy access to both Build Up and Aim in addition to Defiance; their damage cap should have been significantly higher than scrappers' and corruptors'.

Plus, since we're not whacking moles, tying damage caps to the presence or absence of Build Up/Aim/inherents helps other archetypes, namely defenders (Aim+Vigilance) and tankers (Build Up), who should both come in at around scrapper level. Blasters get a minor buff, and there's finally a reason to play defender archetype for Kinetics. Bi-winning.

Although I think all ATs should have had some incarnation of Kheld's Dark Sustenance; I think it would've fit Blasters rather nicely.

I would've like to have seen Blasters get adjustments to damage/secondary effects based on the target's proximity to the player.

Blaster Auras having an actual debuff effect (or mez effect on Minion ranks (w/a small chance of mag increase (enough to snag a Lt every once in awhile).

I really liked the implementation of the crashless nuke, the sustain and the snipe changes (although I would've preferred a little differentiation between the ATs).

The snipe change was a change to snipes, not blasters. It was a change to make snipes an viable power selection option for all AT's and not a skipable power for most, regardless of the AT.

Why would there need to be a differentiation between the AT's for that beyond the AT damage modifier? Or am I mistaken, and all the AT's recieved blaster damage level snipes with this change?

As for OP, no idea really, all I know is that blasters were no fun to me, and so I didnt get one past 32 in spite of multiple attempts. Mez was definately a part of the frustration, but I have never whinged about it. I was looking forward to i24 so I could give it another go.

Same value for Instant snipe for all means same value for Tactics for all...
Otherwise , they again up the damage of other archetype and not the blaster one...