Winterminal

He was mocking another user based on their comments in a different thread in the Archetypes and Powers Discussion forum. In essence, he was sarcastically saying what the aforementioned user would probably say in this thread if he saw it. It was sarcasm, though admittedly easily mistakable since there was nothing to denote it as such except for the jab following that paragraph.

She's done it again. Everything she said makes total sense, and is true. Though, with that said, I like the suggestions given by StratoNexus as more feasible ways to boost Blasters without simply adding "moar dmg!"

Truth FTW.

And yes, I suppose I should have just used the Dominator analogy

Technically, he is playing a Control Heavy Primary with a ST oriented Secondary, but that's just semantics I agree with everything else you said.

Shubbie, if you want your Ice/Ice to measure up to your TA/Archery in terms of "awesome," you need to use and abuse Freeze Ray and Bitter Freeze Ray (you are a blaster that can hold a Boss faster than some controllers!), use Shiver and Ice Patch around corners, and then pick up Cold Mastery in the 40s and slot up Flash Freeze. Do all that, and I can all-but-guarantee your blaster will feel like a damage-maxed Controller, rather than "useless."

There's nothing wrong with your playing. Due to the lack of mitigation in both Fire Blast and Energy Manipulation, all you could do before now is hit 'em hard and fast. I also think that both Recycle and TrainRobber are correct in saying that your two examples are particularly tough groups of enemies with a varied bag of tricks.

For Carnie bosses (by which I'm assuming you mean Dark Ring Leaders and Master Illusionists) you have to take them out first. Dark Ring Leaders don't have a whole lot of protection other than their high hit points, so inspirations will be your best friend against those attacks. Master Illusionists have that terribly annoying phase effect (noticeable by when they go semi-transparent), and they summon all those pets. My advice: Take out any minions with them first, as they are just annoyances. Hit the MI whenever the phase is down, and when it is up, only focus your attacks on the Phantasm pet, as it will stick around even after the MI is dead. The pet Illusionists are untouchable and disappear quickly, you cannot hit the Decoy Phantasm, and the Dark Servant pet has a short duration.

For Paragon Protectors, there's two tricks to defeating them. First, as before, inspirations are your friend, and will save your butt from those hard hitting attacks since you are without mitigation for the moment. Second, when they activate Moment of Glory (that "deflection shield" you were talking about that made all of your attacks miss), activate Aim. The extremely high To Hit bonus you get from that power is usually enough to make Moment of Glory useless to them. It is a wonderful feeling making their "god-mode" power worthless

As was stated before, I would use your Ancillary Power Pool to get yourself some mitigation. If you want to stay thematic, the Fire pool will give you both Bonfire and Char, not to mention Rise of the Phoenix to put you right back in the action even if you die. But if you don't have a particular concept in mind, I highly recommend Cold Mastery. Flash Freeze is practically the solo artist's best friend, as you can freeze all minions and LTs. for a long time (once slotted), then just take them out one by one. Frozen Armor adds some impressive defensive numbers (by blaster defensive standards), and Hibernate one of the best panic buttons in the game.

Another blaster-necessity that you may have been able to do without up until now, due to your power set choices: Pulling. Blazing Bolt can sometimes help thin out a mob, by pulling one or two enemies to you, before attacking the whole thing. I know, as a fire blaster you just want go in there and turn them into cinders with AoE attacks, but this tactic may be useful to you in the next 10 levels.

That's all I have for now. Let us know if things still aren't working out!

Only a Sith deals in absolutes...

Honestly, I'm with Grey Pilgrim on this one. With the design of the many ATs in this game, superfluousness is essentially based on opinion alone. If you think Blasters are under-performing as an archetype, then play an AT you think will be more contributory. If the former is true and you have an actual idea about how to improve the AT, the Suggestions/Ideas forum is over there.

I've never taken enhancements into account for a character's concept either, mainly because it has been so irrelevant to the character's concept that it didn't matter. But on this particular character, I had an idea in my head that it might look very cool to see his powers slotted with the same chemicals/radiation that probably gave him his powers to begin with (Xenon, Gamma, Barion, etc.)

It's like I'm looking in a mirror...

For conceptual reasons, I took some non-traditional powers and slotted them up (i.e. Focused Accuracy, using it for GSFC set with the +Build Up), while ignoring some other more tank-traditional powers (Tough, Weave, Combat Jumping), and that might have something to do with my current frustration I think I am going to have to find a happy medium between staying true to my concept, and making sure I am a valuable asset to a team.

Considering I have yet to do much experimentation with dual builds, this is probably my opportunity.

I agree with you. In truth, it isn't a huge deal, and my explanation may have been long-winded and misleading. In essence, I was/am just asking if any of the experienced tanker players here, who may have played both SO and IO builds, had noticed a significant difference in their performance depending on what they had slotted.

I can definitely work IO sets into my character's concept, that's no problem. However, if there is not a noticeable discrepancy, I would just as soon buy up a bunch of SOs and consider his build "complete" than use up more inf. and time searching the market and such for the IOs and the necessary salvage.

I see my post may have been read more cynically than intended. The idea I meant to convey was more along the lines of, "Wouldn't it be amusing to watch a bunch of characters in farmer-like clothing take down the Lambda Sector?" as opposed to, "Let's mock the repetitive design of the Incarnate trials by all dressing up as farmers!!"

That being said, in response to your post: Electric_Knight summed it up rather well. To make your analogy work, it would be like repeatedly playing the same hands in a poker game, except only the amount of the bets will vary. Similarly in sports, it would be as if you were playing the same person/team in basketball, and they execute the same plays repeatedly, except whether or not they score on certain plays will vary. Neither scenario is realistic: poker is a game of chance and the cards are randomized after each round, and the opposing basketball team would eventually change up their tactics/plays once they realized that you had them figured out.

In essence, you have inadvertently given us a possible way to make the trials a little less repetitive: randomize their events. Maybe one time we have to defeat Siege first, then Nightstar, then stop the prisoner escape, then the second time the prisoners are escaping first. Maybe those Acid and Pacification Grenades don't always spawn in the same places on the map. Maybe all of the third reactor's temp powers are in one bunker, but it is randomized for every attempt. Honestly, I am just brainstorming here, but that seems like a legitimate way to make the Trials a little more spontaneous without offering too much new stuff to test (since the events of each trial would be the same, it would just be mixed up a little bit).

Standard Code Rant obviously applies.

If more people get on-board, I'm going to organize an event: A night of farming iTrials where everyone in the league must dress the part.

It pales in comparison to collapse or swoon. The character puts his/her hands on their knees, looking at the ground, panting. If I could figure out how to get a decent screen shot off my Macbook, I would post an image of it, as well as some other cool stuff. Really nice stuff from those who have already posted though!

I see what ya did there

Methinks I need to make an ironic costume if/when I run another trial.

If by "really hard" you mean "taking a long time to kill" then yes, the 54 enemies would be "really hard." Upon i20 launch, the most level shift anyone had was +1, and everything was "really hard." Now, with all the incarnate abilities and level shifts on the Trials, we are a lawn mower and the IDF is grass. Having things be "really hard" on a system that enables us to use our Incarnate abilities in multiple other places might not be such a bad thing.

I cannot sign off on this. We have to remember, not everyone is going to want to fully kit-out their Incarnates with every power nor with T4s everywhere, and we should not be excluding any players from much, especially with CoH Freedom on the way and Incarnate content being exclusively for VIP customers.

Quoted for truth.

I'm very glad to see that we will be getting a ST hold blast in the set, and that Torrent will not be its own power. Outside of that and the powers that they have told us will be in Dark Manipulation (Smite, Shadow Maul, Midnight Grasp, and Dark Pit) I am not making any assumptions nor getting my hopes up for anything until it hits test.