Kyria_Shirako

Well, it depends.

That 10-15% defense is absurdly strong, and fiercely benefits not only the team, but the user itself. Not taking TT:M demonstrates a dire lack of understanding of the actual function of the game's mechanics and severely weakens the Arachnos Soldier who fails to pick it up. People who liken it to a Rad missing one of their anchor debuff toggles aren't far off the mark.

Would I kick an SoA for not having it? 95% of the time, probably not, especially if they're decent people. Because 95% of the time in big PuGs you do not need a full understanding of the actual function of the game.

I realize we forumites are more number-conscious people, and yet 95% of the time with this game, you... really barely need to understand what you're doing to play. If I was on most TFs and I noticed this I'd probably just ask why, and attempt to encourage them to take it as soon as possible. Most of the time this discrepancy, given how easy this game is, will not be the difference between success or failure. It will be the difference between my approving silence and mild noted disapproval.

The other 5%, though - Master Of runs, for instance - I would definitely not allow an SoA who did not take TT:M on my team. Not having it demonstrates severe flaws in one's mechanical understanding that may go well beyond even the lack of that 10% defense, and in cases where that lack of understanding may actually be the difference between success and failure, I would not trust my fate to someone whose grasp of Defense was yet in need of so much correction as to not take and slot TT:M by 50.

Admittedly, I wouldn't have been as amused had your avatar not been wearing a picture-perfect amused-trickster face.

On the next exciting episode of Why a Blaster:

Arbegla, who has recovered from his amnesia to discover that he is, in fact, a capybara, must confront his twin over the inheritance to the McDuesh fortune, but how will he handle it when he learns Stratonexus' baby isn't his? Meanwhile, Thinkso interrupts Grey Pilgrim's and Another_Fan's wedding wearing nothing more than a cravat and three ounces of Worchestershire sauce. But is the bride actually in love with the condiment-smeared madman?

Stay tuned for the next page of Why A Blaster, only on CoH Forums.

Fine, then let's not speak at specific difficulties.

...As someone whose first love in many games has been blowing things up, I gotta say I've... been a lot happier since I moved away from Blasters. My first 50 was a Fire/Energy Blaster, and I've almost completely stopped playing that version of her since I learned what Scrappers are capable of, except in my rare (about monthly) forays into PvP. As Seraphael notes, Blasters are, at the high-end, kind of in a limbo between several other classes here; they're not just up against Scrappers.

TL;DR: The purpose of a Blaster is to rain destruction down from on high, yet many other classes and combinations do nearly as much (or in some specific cases, more) damage and still provide some other kind of functionality, be it massively increased survivability, crowd control, or powerful team buffs.

My Fire/Shield Scrapper can dive into completely absurd stuff, and thanks to Firesword Circle, Shield Charge, Pyre Mastery, and Against All Odds, it has nearly the same AoE burst damage, crashless. Defiance is nice, but it doesn't help as much in the opening AoE chain nearly as much as it does in single target sustained attack. I feel much more capable of destroying huge hordes in very satisfying ways than I ever did playing a Fire blaster.

I have been far more intrigued by the playstyle of my Plant/Fire Dominator; It feels like I have real tactical choices to make instead of "Blast" or "Run Like Hell." Attempting to keep massive waves on lockdown feels "living on the edge" enough for me. Dominators, on top of that, get temporary (except at the high end, which can make it permanent) mez protection, the ability to spontaneously refill their End bar, better mezzes than a Controller in Domination mode, and still provide very significant damage at a scalar of 1.05 Melee, 0.95 Ranged to a Blaster's 1.0 Melee, 1.125 Ranged. Some Dominator Assault sets (Fire, Electric, Thorns) even have Build Up or Build Up like effects for that opening >spike.

Now, admittedly - I am comparing very specific builds here within the scope of my experience, but Blasters seem to me to be making a massive tradeoff in survivability and functionality for a small amount of bonus damage relative to the benefits other ATs get and give from their non-blast powersets. Heck, in the cases of some specific powerset combinations (Mostly involving Kinetics, which disgustingly lets the entire /team/ cap out on damage - how is Fulcrum Shift still in the game?!) that survivability sacrifice isn't even gaining them damage that another AT can't pump out.


Some thoughts-out-loud on this:

1) I wonder if Nuke crashes need to be that long anymore. They're Blaster superpowers, and yet using one prevents you from being a Blaster for 20 seconds. Personally, I'd trade any Blaster tier nine for Lightning Rod or even the nerfed version of Shield Charge.

2) Seraphael is completely right about blast sets that lack Aim, or worse, secondaries that lack Build Up. The ability to stack your damage to an absurd degree is all too much of the raison d'etre, the creme de la creme, the clef du fromage of what being a Blaster is about. AR, at least, makes up for it by having a ton of cone AoEs, which combined with /Energy's Boost Range can be kind of a beast; I've yet to really see what Dual Pistols for Blasters brings to the table that makes up for that lack. And I have no idea what Devices really brings to the table that makes up for the fact that you can't go "+100% to self damage" every 30 seconds.

3) In some cases there are discrepancies because the pet damage scalar is exactly the same regardless of your AT. I refer here to specific powers such as Ignite, Ice Storm, Rain of Fire and Blizzard; Thus, I have a Traps/AR Defender who not only provides team mez protection, massive defense bonuses, and some of the strongest debuffs in the game, but also has Power Buildup and can output not-insignificant damage with his Blaster-level Ignite on top of Full Auto. I'm also working on an Ice/Kin Corruptor, and have little reason to believe that when she matures it will be anything but utterly ridiculous.

Because of that baffling little tickle I get every time I buy a Purple recipe at 120M, craft it, and sell it to someone for 200M, despite the fact that the recipe is probably still available at 125M.

Because I get to pontificate in kind of a gigglingly speculative way - like I'm about to - just how I made 7 billion off the market in largely this fashion. Who did I make that money off of? Anyone that lazy doesn't seem like they'd have the motivation to get the money to actually buy it in the first place. I can only conclude that the people who buy crafted enhancements at 80M over their recipe value are people who for whatever reason believe crafting tables killed their savior and are forbidden to touch the devil's instrument.

I'm personally all for expansion of player and SG choice, and see no particular issue with cross-beaconing, providing that you code the beacon control panels properly so that heroes/villains cannot go where they're not supposed to.

I see even less issue with allowing Vigs/Rogues into opposite-side bases by team invite, and no plausible issue whatsoever if these options are enabled or disabled at the behest of the holder of the Red Star.

I am very much of the opinion that if you don't like it, don't do it; I find it somewhat distasteful to watch someone argue to restrict the options of others who would wish to use those options in ways A) different from how someone else would apply them, and that B) are not in some way causing harm.

Meh? Really? I think they look awesome. They look, in fact, a little too awesome.

If there's more than one Demon Mastermind in the team, their awesomeness becomes so great that I can't tell what the hell is going on. I've had my *** kicked by human-sized bosses I didn't know were there thanks to the massive swirly flames encompassing everything.

Actually, I agree with this. I play on a large-ish screen at high resolution, and there have been occasions when attempting to Shield Charge or Rain of Fire that I've basically lost the mouse cursor to the visual confusion of CoH battle and therefore have to spend a couple of seconds recentering my aim.

I think we have fifteen pages detailing exactly the magnitude of sheer stupidity the AV/GM running bug represents. I just failed a Virgil Tarikoss with what was otherwise a functional team because we couldn't pin down Bat'Zul. A Virgil Tarikoss. This is the kind of failure that otherwise brings shame on your entire family. I've thought about it; There is no other aspect of the game that I find frustrating within even an order of magnitude.

So far the only TFs I have failed in the last year have failed because of AV scattering when we didn't bring a Tanker or a Brute. When is this crap going to get fixed, or do we have to live with having a Tanker or Brute on absolutely every TF team?

I, for one, cannot possibly thank you enough for this tail, graphics developers. Not without ritually sacrificing charismatic megafauna in a memorable fashion, and zoo staff kind of get upset when you enter the capybara pen wearing nothing but peanut butter and an ornate sacrifical dagger.

...So I'm told.

This is an issue I've had three times today; once during a Positron Part 1. Attempting to re-enter the mission causes the same result - I see the City of Heroes splash screen, it sits there, and then eventually spits me back out to the outside of the mission, unable to do anything, with the message "Mapserver Disconnected."

We petitioned a GM about it the first time; they responded quite promptly, although it took them 40 minutes to fix the issue so we could finish the Positron. But it happened twice more to me today, this time redside on normal early arc/paper missions.

EDIT: If relevant, I play primarily on Virtue.