Leo_G

I'm trying to figure out a way to make my character as transparent as possible so I can pretend he's transforming into the pet. No, he doesn't do it to travel around or anything like that. It's a debilitating curse that forces him to change, and he's not very effective when he does.

Funnily enough, the character is medium sized so, with Beast Run having him hunched over, he can practically stoop forward into the pet.

Meh, it'll work until they release a white tiger transformation power...eventually.

You know, I was posting stories of Carnie animal tamers before it was popular...and Carnies with floating mask spirit thingies before the Carnival of Light's debut.

Lol that was the whole backstory of one of my characters, being the only animal empath in the carnies and the only Ring Mistress to take the rank of Monster Charmer.

*sigh*

Who is this sexy man with the lustfully rich voice and wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and boots?

Yes, that's what TJ is wearing. I'm looking at him right now.

No, where the first failing was with the team leader overestimating his team and setting the mission difficulty higher and higher after every mission. But it's great you *think* you know a lot when you actually haven't a clue.

I'm all for tough unwinnable odds in games, just makes one a better player as they experience more of the game. Having the team wipe isn't 'failed', it's only when the team is demoralized enough to quit have you failed. Despite the rough mission with lots more debt, we finished then lowered the mission difficulty for the next one.

That is success if I ever seen it. The mission was accomplished, the leader learned what not to set missions to for the team and everyone was richer (I hope) from the experience.

If taunt from the tankers couldn't save that team, your measly confront wouldn't either. And I'm certain, had I been on a team with you, I'd most likely be saving your rump too if not actually pulling your Scrapper's weight in kill speed because you're wasting the majority of your time 'Confronting' mobs instead of hitting them.

I suppose you'll make yourself seem like a good team player but you won't be as good a damage dealer as any of my Stalkers, Blasters, Dominators or Scrappers.

Lol this is exactly what I point out every time to New Dawn but never get a response. None of her hypotheticals ever amount to anything but rescuing n00bs. I can rescue n00bs on my Blaster.

In fact, yesterday we had 2 Tankers, 1 PB, 1 Scrapper, an Emp and 2 blaster (one of those was me). I don't remember the setting of the mission, but practically everything was purple longbow (I'm thinking it was a tip mission, save Polar Shift, cave map with Longbow + CoT). Anyway, we come up to a spawn with 2 Warden Emps and they roadblocked us, killing us quite a few times with their forted up spawn.

So I pulled some breakfrees from my e-mail, asked everyone to pass me reds, asked for Fortitute, sucked down the inspirations and just nuked the *******. "Moving on..." is what I said while the others were like "Well that worked..." and were more surprised I 'solo'ed it.

What does that prove? That probably half of them were newbs if they had inspirations left to use, and I went and saved them. Doesn't prove anything beyond that. You can save n00bs with practically any power if you know what you're doing. Confront/taunt isn't some special 'save teh n00B' button and frankly, the whole 'scrappers are selfish and only want the spotlight' attitude isn't any better than the 'taunt stopped the orphanage from imploding, rescued the cat from the tree and baked us cookies simultaneously!' mentality.

That...infuriated me. I don't know why, but it does >_>

In a craftsman competition, it's the results that are judged, not the tools used. A competition to see who makes the best coffee table or who can craft the best thing using only dremel tools.

It'd be like having a contest to see who solos a GM the best or who has the best application of -ToHit or area damage. The point being, how many varied entrances would Blaster have in many areas of competition?

For GM soloing: /mental.../mental and /mental

For debuffing and self mitigation? For area damage, yeah there'd be some varied entries. And how much else can blaster perform well at?

It's not really gamer slang though, just slang in general, or the cynicism of the modern age. Speaking in hyperbole seems to be popular; someone saying I abuse the internet because I'll google any thing or use it to get directions to where I need to go even when I probably know where I'm going (probably being the key word) doesn't sound as far off as me saying I abuse my grandma's motherly nature to do my laundry when she asks. Am I truly 'misusing' any of those? (note: I could easily go to the laundry mat myself but she knows I hate folding/hanging clothes) But I will say, out loud to her face 'thanks for letting me abuse you :P'


As for Drain Psyche, 2HB, I think one of the main reasons it's overpowered is because it has to be. If it weren't, it'd barely be a drop in survivability for Blasters. If the power wasn't a 'per target' buff but instead something like Howling Twilight (a wide AoE debuff but with a 1-shot self buff that only needed 1 target for max power and could not scale), the +regen would have to be so ridiculously high to be even noticeable, you have to start asking why that is. Why would you need high amounts of regen for it to be at all noticeable? Is it because Blaster base survivability is so low? Perhaps they haven't the tools to leverage normal ranges of a +regen buff? They have so few other utilities of note?

2 out of 10 primaries does not equal 'almost no powers'. Only Energy Blast and Fire Blast have no hard mez powers.

That said, when I mentioned Overpower on Blaster mez, I meant a SBE proc version, not controller's version. Meaning there would be some sort of feature that scaled the chance higher on foes like bosses, so while you may not have as many mezzing powers as a Controller, you'd have the ability to apply that extra mag mez more situationally when needed (i.e. on a boss that you *need* to mez *now*).

Just wanted to play devil's advocate here:

Would the devs hand every Blaster a Rain of Arrows equivalent? Well they handed every Stalkers an Energy Transfer equivalent. They handed every character the Fitness pool...

Forcing Blasters to aim for high recharge to gain high benefits? Take a look at the entire Dominator AT.

AT wide fixes, while nice, are sh*t in the long run. But then there are just some circumstances where nobody cares about qualitative differences and uniformity is just easier.

That said, I'd like Blasters to get the Controller inherent rolled into their's. Not Containment, but the Overpower (+mag mez) added to all their powers. Soloing my DP/Fire/Cold Blaster recently, I had thought to skip Suppressive Fire (DP's mez utility power) but slotted for hold (since I use either cryo or incendiary ammo) + the SBE Lockdown proc, I can 1-shot hold most bosses well enough that I can fight 2 bosses a spawn now. If I cold just do that naturally (high chance to 1-shot hold bosses) I wouldn't even need IOs.

Well, if Rage only lasted 10 seconds instead of 2 minutes, you may have a point.

But frankly, I never liked any of the Aim or BU powers. They're boring and don't have much of an effect besides burst damage. For an AT specialized in controlled burst damage (such as Blaster or Stalker), having a window of high damage can make a difference. For ATs focused around consistent damage, powers like Soul Drain, Power Siphon and Follow Up are more useful and interesting.

List how many -regen powers are slottable for -regen, then.

[EDIT] And my perspective is, Drain Psyche is awesome but only if you have mitigation to utilize the +regen. It's great on Doms *IF* you can lock down the foes to take advantage of it. DP on a Blaster is probably not as effective.

But Seeds isn't a 'Super Control Power', it's a mid tier soft control that is suppose to be on par with powers like Flash Fire, Ice Slick and Dimension Shift.

Anyone with experience using confuse powers already know the cost to use Seeds is quickly paid for by the power itself. The advantage of kill speed overturns the cost in experience *easily*.

I mentioned Carrion Creepers too. Roots is strong as well but not overly. Lethal damage is resisted a lot so it's not overperforming by that much. The real issue with Roots is Containment.

And all of them have their drawbacks: One is fear and can be temporarily broken by damage, the other is a disorient. Confuse powers run on immobilization mods, IIRC, so their duration is longer. Disorient won't last the recharge of the power by a long shot, but they both come with the same advantage: stopping 100% of foe damage to your team. Confuse comes with the side benefit of foe buffs affecting you, however.

But that was the point of my post. Old CoX couldn't make a buff to boost *only* SS powers. It could only make a blanket buff to simulate advancing strength. Changing it would, in fact, be a nerf even if SS the set worked much better. The broken combos made with Rage today wouldn't work like they did.

Same with Drain Psyche. I have a feeling, it wasn't in the design goal of the power to debuff regen by such a large degree. It was merely intended to boost the survivability and utility of ATs that don't get much passive mitigation in their sets (Doms and Blasters). To change it, even to improve it by adding scaling debuff resists but removing the -regen, would ultimately be a nerf to GM soloing Blasters and Doms. It's what's stopping (or retarding) real changes to real problems.

I think the difference between TW and SS is going to be damage cap. SS beats out TW primarily because of Rage's ability to boost damage while TW trails behind it some. But find a way to buff damage and TW will pull ahead.

Footstomp and KO blow are good, but the entire TW set is better...and it's hard to call TW overpowered since it's unique buff mechanic is limited to its own powers.

So SS is strong because its few powers are carrying the set and it uniquely modifies other powers outside of the set to above their intended capabilities. TW is a strong set but only modifies itself...however outside buffs (slotting, incarnate buffs, procs, inspirations) push the sets potential higher than SS, which frankly seems fair.

Then one has to ask how that's fair. Is it fair that TW has such high potential? You'd have to take in its drawback too; momentum cannot be maintained, momentum is limited to TW attacks, TW is a weapon set and therefore has redraw (a potential momentum adversary), TW is heavy on endurance. All in all, it strikes a fair and conceptual limit on the set with strengths and weaknesses that make the set *feel* like it's suppose to.

SS on the other hand, boosts the damage of powers, such as Gloom and AoEs like Electric Fences, a point most likely beyond the sets intended capabilities. Not only that, but the literal strong point of SS (Rage) doesn't even make sense. Why does having abnormally/undeniably high physical strength somehow make electricity hit harder or dark powers to be more harmful and more accurately? The only reason Rage ever existed was because the limitations of the game's engine had few actual mechanics to simulate the sets theme...but now, I'm fairly certain *something* could be used as a 'stand in' for Super Strength's theme of 'abnormally/undeniable physical strength'...however, it would turn out to be a 'nerf' because many of the benefits the set once had will no longer be there. The SS set would work *better*, fit thematically and still be balanced but some of the combos (SS/Fire//Soul,/Mu, etc) won't be as ridiculous.

What does any of that have to do with Blasters? It was mainly to highlight what you're showcasing. Soloing that GM had little to do with Drain Psyche shoring up your survivability problems with +regen and probably only marginally aided your endurance...and *THAT* is what Drain Psyche is *FOR*, giving a Blaster/Dom lots of Regen and Recovery, *NOT* dropping regen. Basically, you're heralding a limitation on the game's engine (to be able to slot the +regen of he power, the -regen is affected too) and not the true intended potential of a set.

I'm not even commenting on what Blasters themselves can do or what you did in the video (I didn't even watch it...like I want to sit and watch some 20+ min video of boredom), I'm commenting on game balance itself. The reason you posted the video is to demonstrate that some Blasters are great so don't touch yours, and I say bollocks. You're only trying to grasp a hold on your -regen, just like Plant Control holds onto its Seeds and SSers hold onto their Rage. The difference between them and you is, you're trying to hold back an AT with you.

Oh! My MA/SD Scrapper has the Leadership pool, Grant Cover, Aid Other and Resuscitate as well as the teleportation pool, including Recall Friend. Does that make my Scrapper better than others?