Chrondeath

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maybe it isnt one of those exclusive things.....

as for the new power sets.... a red name has neither confirmed or denied that list.

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That sounded like a confirmation to me...closer than anything we usually get from Statesman, at least....

I'll be disappointed if we can't make a Bow blaster (and I'm a little iffy on whether there are enough "Trick Arrow" ideas to make a full Defender primary without becoming hokey), but if it means Sonics go to Blasters...

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1. You can already do this, take the Speed Pool Power "Whirlwind" and run it before any other animation changing toggles(fly/hover) and you will no longer root when attacking. You will also knock up enemies who close to melee.

Be careful on the endo cost though

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O_O

You're joking. That would be almost worth picking up and six-slotting with endurance reduction if it didn't sound like a bug waiting to be fixed. I'll have to give it a try on Test sometime--forget about the combat benefits of non-rooting attacks, the added fun factor of being able to strafe targets like that would make it worthwhile...

Darn it, now I have to find out what the base endurance cost on Whirlwind is. Are we talking Stealth-level, Flight-level, or Instant Healing-level? What about with all endurance reduction?

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I just want a freaking point blank power burst/blaze attack for Assault Rifle. I could really use the single target damage....

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Didn't you get the memo? Apparently, range is the solution to all the blaster's ills! It's inconceivable that anyone could ever want to use short- or melee-range powers like Blaze and Bonesmasher, so clearly, you don't actually want something like that.

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Here's one thing that strikes me odd as hell. why do the put ranged holds in certain blaster primaries?

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Maybe it's because they're -ranged- holds, and the blaster secondaries are *MELEE*?

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dude... why are you even bringing this crap up. you know and I know that comic book blasters don't translate in coh.

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Hey--you run with the analogy, you don't get to pull this card when it turns against you. Them's the rules.

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they use melee attacks about as often as wolverine uses an assault rifle. Hell I haven't seen the Iceman use a melee attack since that ridiculous club he had when he looked like frosty the snowman.

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Gambit never seemed shy with his staff to me. And I don't think I've seen Cyclops run screaming like a little girl because a thug got through to the back ranks. Nobody in comics fears melee in general--they may not run happily into it, but they don't live in mortal terror of something getting close to them (which, I get the impression, is how you "range only!" people would rather have us be).

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How bout the martial arts skills Storm used to defeat Cyclops and become leader of the Xmen when she lost her powers, for one example? Cyclops removing his visor for PBAE goodness. Dazzler's PBAE Flash. Gambit's Staff.

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Probably should have been clearer in my question. I'm taking issue with the idea that the comic-book blaster melee attacks are always a "last resort", and so Blasters in COH should always have to stay out of melee.

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it's just a "perception" by some Blasters that some of the Secondary Sets aren't as useful as Devices or Energy Manipulation.

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If "by some" you mean the vast majority, then I would say I agree with you.

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Well +1 isn't "vast". 3 bad, 2 good. At worst. Otherwise, the majority turns around, and it is equally "vast".

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I think the "some" he's taking issue with is "some Blasters," not "some Secondaries."

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I have to admit I haven't done her yet, but so what? She's in an outdoor map or something? Or a cathedral? What prevents the scrappers from superjumping up to her?

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No, the real reason you don't want Scrappers for Arakahn is that she has a heal that's based on the number of characters in melee range. She'll shoot back up to full health every time she uses it if there are too many people in melee with her.

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I honestly don't know why it isn't:

Controller: Control/Buff
Defender: Buff/Ranged
Blaster: Ranged/Control

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The Range/Control combination, along with the Range/Defense combination, is what broke freeform power selection and made them switch to the AT system in the first place.

That said, I suspect some of the observations made in that article (about how Range/Defense and Range/Control make things too easy) might not necessarily hold in the game today.

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Here's what we came up with:
1) Range is largely irrelevant.
The superior range of the Blaster is only a factor for the first sequence of attacks. After that any enemy that decides to get close can.

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And this is why I can't agree with all the people who seem to think that if only our powersets were more focused on range, we'd be doing great. If we don't go into melee, melee comes to us--ditching the melee attacks or making them ranged isn't going to change that.

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If a Blaster had to stay away from melee, then his melee attacks would be more like the melee attacks of comic book Blasters. Something they use as a last resort, but would really rather avoid using. Plus, those who WANT to build in a little extra melee defense (or get some from a Defender) can use melee, if they want to.

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Which comic book Blasters are you referring to? What "last resort" melee attacks do they use?

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PS - States: This is one of the rare times that a post of yours actually left me MORE confused than before.

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What, you've never seen any of those posts that demonstrate why they're called "Cryptic"?

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Energy follows closely for the array of self-buffs, not melee damage (though I hear it's solid for that, too... But when a Chief Soldier kills you in one hit, do you really want to get that close to him?)

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Yes, you really do, because after you land Total Focus on him, he's going to stagger around long enough for you to take him out. If you hang back, he's going to be more than happy to two- or three-shot you with his ranged weapon unless you get a backup defense from your primary (which you definitely don't, if you're Fire/*).

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I've read plenty of people say otherwise. One player being able to do it is way different than the majority. Similar to the way some Blasters don't have a lot of problems post-lvl38 but the majority of others do.

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Where? Every post I've seen by someone with Total Focus has been a rave review of the power, and none of them have mentioned having to take the Fighting pool to use it.

Again, I'm not saying every blaster melee power is great and must be preserved. What I'm opposed to is the idea that some good powers need to be removed, just because they're melee.

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Well Energy manip. has the advantage of actually stunning the enemy. This is a huge advantage. A lot harder to do with fire's horribly slow animations.

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I'm not defending all attacks based solely on the fact that they're melee. If the Fire melee attacks suck, then they need to either get fixed or replaced (or both). I'm saying that I don't want to see the GOOD melee attacks (Bonesmasher, Total Focus) replaced with crappy defenses or nerfed so they can be given range.

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Too much mez makes melee too risky.

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What enemies have mezzes that only work in melee? Malta tasers are the only ones I can think of. Too much mez makes EVERYTHING risky.

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Getting one shotted doesn't help either. In a good team, yes, you can get away with some melee, but if the team is that good, you should have nice clumps of groups begging for AoE damage.

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Hit and move, don't stick around in melee range. It works, and it's fun as heck.

And AOEing that huge group of mobs in a team is going to get you killed much faster than blapping will, unless you have an incredible tank spamming taunt for you. (Not saying I don't do it, mind you--my normal strategy in that situation is to AOE until it's down to bosses and Lts, then use good single target attacks--including melee--to take them down.)

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If I melee all the time, why not play a scrapper, then I get mez protection, a higher damage cap and better defenses.

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Who says you have to melee ALL the time? Personally, I like having both ranged attacks and melee attacks. Scrappers don't get that. (Kheldians do, but Kheldians have worthless base damage unless you want to put up with clunky form-shifting animations every few seconds.) Switching between range and melee is great fun.

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For someone to even make good use of these melee powers, they have to take the Fighting pool.

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This is bull. I manage just fine without the Fighting pool, and most of the */Eng builds that I've seen do so, as well. I haven't heard anyone make this assertion before, and it certainly doesn't match my experiences.

Now, if you were to say that good use of melee powers requires Stealth/SS, I might have to agree there....but so do Inferno, Time Bomb, Blaze, Firebreath (as an opener)...

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Secondly, I have no intention of removing melee attacks - it's just a "perception" by some Blasters that some of the Secondary Sets aren't as useful as Devices or Energy Manipulation. This is a rather frequent refrain in PM's (and the occasional forum post). This is something that we should also explore...we want all the Secondary sets to be fun.

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Whew....thanks for clearing this up, Statesman. I got a bit worried after reading the first paragraph there.

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And, of course, there's the complaint that some Secondaries have too many melee attacks - something that the Blaster avoids at all costs.

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Aiee!! Please don't get this impression. Total Focus and Bonesmasher are the two best attacks I have, melee or not.

Are there some bad melee powers in the secondaries? Sure, and I'm sure that replacing them with something useful is a good idea. But please don't think that every blaster wants all melee attacks removed.

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It took me forever to realize that I should be submitting spelling and grammar collections not through their regular support choices, but by hitting the File Bug Report.

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Wouldn't mention it if it wasn't for the irony, but did you mean "corrections" here?

I suppose you could be submitting collections of corrections, though....

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Whats a level 50 Incarnate doing fighting at most level 20 Clockwork monsters?

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Getting stomped by Hellio^W Outcasts, apparently.

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Are you KIDDING me!? What do you think being a hero is!? Do you think being a Superhero is like walking through a field of dandelions?! Being a hero has its ups and downs. It's a live by the sword die by the sword kind of life.

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Which you know from personal experience, I take it?

Last I checked, superheroes, in general, are fictional characters. If the good guys win and the bad guys lose, it's because the writer wants it that way. If the good guys die in spades, that's also because the writer wanted it that way. There are no real superpowered heroes who are going to stand up and say "No, that's not the way it goes."

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I'm telling you, it is a GREAT storyline that is addicting because instead of wondering, "Who is going to get defeated this issue" you wonder, "I wonder what hero will be leaving for good this issue." They thought of a very addictive story line with I give them a good round of applause for!

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Why is it a more attractive comic just because main characters can die?

Still doesn't explain how they "turned off" a Natural hero's powers...the thug's guns work, but my Assault Rifle doesn't?

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Don't forget losing most of your hit points. I'm sure States would have enough hp that even without defenses to take a few bullets from obviously lower level bad guys.

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Heh...my first thought on that panel was "Hah, the tank gets a taste of what it's like to be a Blaster...Who's squishie now?"

I don't think I like the direction this comic is going. What are the rest of the comics going to do, now? They're just going to leave the spell up, and the whole series is going to be about normal joes who happen to wander around in their underwear? Or the spell goes down, and we go back to happy-go-lucky villain bashing?

This "everything goes to hell" idea might be OK for a single arc, but the blurb seems to suggest that the writer doesn't think the comic is worth making unless he can kill people off at the drop of a hat, so I'm not hopeful here.

I have to admit that I am a bit...concerned at the half-debt in missions, but not on the street, thing. I don't see it as a solo vs team thing (and I'm rabid about my ability to solo), and I'm not really against the change.

It just seems to me that if you were to ask what deaths are most arbitrary and not under player control, the answer would be deaths during travel from running into excessively high-level mobs. Hollows groups spawning on top of you, snipers out of sight range in Founder's Falls or Crey's, DE outside your mission entrance, Rikti camping your contact...for a mission-running player, those are going to be the deaths that hurt most under the new system, and they're the ones that the player has the least amount of control over.