Kyriani

The problem is that Blasters don't bring anything but damage to the team... and that damage is lacking in relation to their fragility and in comparison to the other ATs. In plain terms the other AT's can perform just as well as damage dealers compared to Blasters and do so with far more safety and consistency.

The idea is not to change what Blasters are, what they do, or how they do it. The idea is simply to bring them up to par with everyone else. Since the devs aren't willing to simply up their damage to the point where it is worth their fragility and lack of utility... then the obvious changes will be to improve their utility and lessen their fragility in some way.

That does not mean overhauling their secondaries into something totally different, giving them armor toggles (beyond the APP/PPP ones) or giving them comprehensive mez protection. After Blasters get their review and changes they will still generally play the same as they do now... they will just be more effective when doing so.

* I * am not "demanding" anything. And asking for Blasters to be brought up to par with the other AT's is HARDLY "demanding" that the GAME be made easier. Nor do you have ANY clue as to my ability or lack thereof to master ANYTHING.

I did edit that post to say "most" aoe controls are mag 2 for Blasters but regardless... Immobilizes arent going to do much to mitigate damage in the higher levels... ranged attacks at those levels are almost as devastating if not more so especially mez effects. According to Mid's Psychic Shockwave is mag 2 NOT mag 3... but even still it is NOT a reliable control power it is a PBAOE DAMAGE power with a 25% CHANCE to stun for 6 seconds...

A) That's just not true. Not compared to every other AT.

B) YOU are not the metric upon which balance should be based.

This isn't a situation where saying "Lrn2Play" is an acceptable answer
(yes yes you didn't say that I know I know)

It might help if you actually ANSWERED the question instead of just assuming everything you pour out in your little tirades amounts to an answer... just an FYI it doesn't.

Blasters aren't the only ones with continuous aoe chains... so that doesn't qualify as flexibility.

Sure Blasters have some mez effects, but they are largely a) single target, b) if aoe are usually mag 2 and c) just plain not enough to give them survival on par with any other AT... and since their damage output doesn't really make up for that... and because the devs aren't likely to increase their damage output to make up for it... then the only answer left is.... wait for it... to improve their survival IN SOME WAY... not necessarily give them armors or mez protection but TWEAK them in SMALL WAYS to make them better.

I gave very conservative examples of this earlier in this thread:

It's not about overhauling and fundamentally changing how blasters play... its simply tweaking them to bring what they do have up to par.

If you aren't then why does your opinion seem to carry so much weight and the rest of us are completely wrong?

No one here thinks Blasters should lose their melee powers or get armor/mez protection toggles. But you seem hellbent on making sure that not a single precious thing changes for Blasters... even though they DO need some work to bring them up to par with everyone else.

It's not about taking anything away from Blasters or even giving them many things they don't already have. It's about making sure, in their own way, that Blasters can keep pace with every other AT.

Why you think that is a bad thing is anyone's guess.

This right here sounds like a great place to start with some good logic behind it.

And you were?

To add on to this... it is actually important that you do not skip these. Because if you do it's treated as leaving the story arc open (and there's a story mish for each arc) so somewhere in the midst of doing the DA arcs you'll find you cant accept any more missions cause of those arcs being left open.

Ah I see it's the recharge times that make the melee abilities have higher damage. I guess I should have looked at more than just how hard they hit

Maybe you're right... I can only go by the numbers I see in game and in Mid's. But looking at all the melee abilities vs all of the ranged abilities for blasters most of the melee abilities tend to hit harder at similar tiers of the sets than equivalent ranged abilities... maybe the melee abilities just have higher base numbers?

I can see your idea working well... IF they'd replace the melee powers. Unfortunately I just don't believe that is on the table. I agree with you that your idea (if melee powers replaced with more utility/survival) would be the ideal.

As for the ranged vs melee damage... in virtually every case a melee attack or melee aoe of a similar scale is going to do more damage than an equivalent ranged attack or ranged aoe. This is just a fact. Even if both powers say "High" damage the melee will almost always be higher damage.

What I am hoping we see (beyond snipes being made good and all nukes going crashless) is either a mechanic like Arcanaville has been pushing for attacks to have a sort of splash fear/immob effect or at the very least to see some additional tweakage to secondary powers to add proactive survival effects to some of the existing powers. Make them useful beyond just another damage generator... don't be so terrified of letting Blasters have higher mag controls (dark pit and lightning clap for example could be mag 3 and wouldn't be stepping on controller's toes in any real way).

Examples of some possible ideas for Blasters that don't require replacing powers with something totally different:

Energy manip's Stun and Devices Taser could have their range increased significantly to give those sets more single target control without requiring them to get so close to use it.

Boost Range from energy manip could be renamed and have an additional benefit besides just a range increase... maybe it could work as a break free effect?

Targeting Drone could provide some minor mez protection (like mag 2 to stuns or something)

Touch of fear could be made more like Scare from mental manip (ranged fear)

Chilling embrace could have some minor mez protection (like mag 2 vs hold and maybe some recharge debuff resistance)

None of the mez prot ideas give comprehensive mez protection on a large scale to blasters and I think I am being very conservative with them. None of the mez suggestions make them too controllery either. It's ideas like these I think are reasonable to expect to see if and when the time comes that Blasters see some changes.

Don't blasters already have this capability to some extent? And by that I mean... blaster melee attacks/PBAOES far outstrip their ranged attacks in damage. They can already do what you're saying and I think that was originally their intent. It just doesn't work out as well as you might think and the current state of blasters is the prime example.

First of all turning my statement around like that doesn't actually make much sense. Secondly, I have no problem with there being challenge in the game. I do however think there's a problem when only ONE archetype has it to such an extreme compared to the rest. Blasters need parity... THEN we can see about making things more challenging for EVERYONE.

Maybe it's just a matter of perspective. You might be able to finish a mission but you wont do it as safe as another AT and in many cases not as fast either regardless of how many attacks you have. And seriously how many attacks does ANY AT really need? 3 to 4 single target for a full chain (2 in Arcanville's Blaster's case!)? 2 to 3 aoes? Doesn't it seem wasteful to have that glut of extra attacks in both primary and secondary? Don't the melee attacks seem a bit awkward for an AT that is supposed to be ranged and is quite fragile?

You mean the way YOU want it to. And no one is saying or even expecting the devs to rip everything out of the Blaster secondaries and give them toggle shields and mez protection. With that said however, Dominators can typically build for melee OR ranged OR both if they want to AND they have a control primary to boot! I'm sorry but to my point of view that's clearly better than "melee or ranged or both" with NOTHING but insps, pools and temp powers to back you up. Domy has all those too.

And you somehow think a few buffs here and there would lessen your enjoyment?

Melee types are traditionally the wade in and mess stuff up guys. They have survival directly packaged into them. But what about Defenders? Controllers? Everyone else? They ALL have better tools to deal with that mission's difficulty than you do. Sure you may succeed in clearing that mission but The rest of the pack (equally built for survival and IO'd out and using insps/pools/temps) are going to not only do it easier than you and safer than you... they are probably going to do it faster than you as well. And since the devs aren't likely to push your Blaster damage up to the point where you could do it faster than them even though they are safer, then it's time to accept that the only way to achieve parity is to really look at where the Blaster deficiencies lie and do something about them.

I don't think the populace at large is clamoring for that kind of pace/play. However I believe the people who play blasters want some parity. They want to be able to stand at the same height as the other AT's (when built and IO'd out just so). Right now they currently don't.

Ultimately the reason I tend to avoid playing blasters is because it feels like they have only ONE powerset... their damage. They have very little (varies from set combo to set combo) to support that damage with by keeping them alive however. That coupled with very low base numbers from pool/app/ppp defensive abilities means a veritable fortune in IO gymnastics has to be undertaken to even approach (but never match) what every other AT can do MUCH MUCH easier.

Ultimately I don't think its about letting every run rampant speedy aoe fests but more along the lines of letting that power creep that has benefitted everyone else actually TOUCH blasters cause on the whole it seems to have largely missed them.

I can't see immob as a huge mitigation tool when it really matters. Ranged attacks by mobs (specially mez) can be just as devastating as melee if not moreso at the higher levels.

I can acknowledge the heal and to-hit debuffs... but you can't use either if you are mezzed.

The hold for sure is mitigation... but Electric Blast has one as well... and Ice Blast has two. Single target holds, however, don't help much when you meet packs where every single member of the group can mez in some way or the raw damage of just a few is enough to wreck you even if you manage to hold one or two of the mobs before the alpha hits you.

I'm fairly sure the "safe" part comes mainly from Siren's Song (mag 3 cone sleep so you can single target down the mobs while their friends snooze, permable out of the box), and to a lesser extent Screech (single target mag 3 stun easily permable/stackable which is not unique to sonic)

I would say they do... however... those are recent additions and older sets are left behind. And while the newer sets are better they are still hamstrung by the line of thinking that prevents blasters from having GOOD mitigation built in without doing IO gymnastics with set bonuses.

For example, Mental Manip and Darkness Manip are still both saddled with a number of melee attacks that don't really provide more offense or mitigation. But because all blaster secondaries were originally designed like that the devs have tried to keep within that formula while at the same time improving the lack of mitigation as best they can.

The problem is that being unwilling to simply change the formula is what is keeping blasters from being fixed.

I hope you're right. I agree that co-op wouldn't make much sense but there's no reason they can't be shared.

I also love the idea of waking up in the zig or an arachnos prison depending on your alignment and what zone you are in if defeated! Something like that would really make the world feel more immersive.