New efforts!

[blacksly]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always got the impression that those who considered the archetype broken were min/maxers who exclusively played on maximum difficulty.

No. Arcana has already said just recently, and also many times in the original CoH forums... according to datamining on live characters, Blasters:
- ran up more debt per level
- started more popular than other ATs but ended less popular, which clearly shows that Blasters were tried and dropped as non-performing at higher rates
- leveled more slowly when soloing

The data pretty clearly shows that everyone tried playing them, both min-maxers and less experienced players, and the overall success of players with the AT was lower than the overall success with other ATs.

In fact, I would go the other way: min-maxers are the only ones who can get the most from the AT since the main defense of Blasters is IO sets with Ranged Defense (or S/L), and someone who is making a high-defense build with IOs is pretty much by definition a min-maxer. So only min-maxers get real defense on their Blasters, which means they're the only ones likely to be able to survive well enough to leverage the AT's high damage.

[blacksly]

The main issue with Blasters for me was always flavor.

You're like Cyclops, your answer to every single question is "I shoot it"

Whereas, for say a dominator, warshade, Mastermind and corruptor , you have many different options suck as "I run away, heal, and jump back in, I steal their essence and raise it as my pet, I stun it and beat it down with my undead army", ect.

Good point, but only to a point. Some of the best-performing sets in Blasters were strong specifically because of their other abilities... Ice's controls and debuffs, Mental Manipulation, Dark Blast or Water Blast's self-heal, Sonic's controls, etc. Other than Fire and maybe Archery, none of the sets were that far ahead in damage, so the difference in performance was largely due to non-damage reasons.

[Taceus Jiwede]

I just found that with a good build you overcome some of the mez and damage issues that a lot of blasters ran into.  Not to mention things like Combat Jump, Toughness, Weaving,and then Cloaking Device, and Smoke grenade from /devices really stacked the fights in my favor.  Hell throw some Caltrops at their feet and they are running around in a disorganized mess as you just blast everything into pieces. Laughing maniacally.

I soft capped ranged def on my blaster which helped a lot.  My melee was decent too but I just remember I thought to my self "I'll just kill anything that tries to get too close to me".   And then focused on a balance of recovery, damage, and recharge.  Between the build, accolade powers, incarnate powers, and just years of playing my blaster I rarely died and there was few situations I couldn't handle by myself.   Blasters to me just seemed like they required a lot of time spent with the class, patience, practice, and utilization.

By seriously, I was really excited for i24 :(

[Twisted Toon]

My level 47 Fire/EM blaster didn't ave any defense, other than invisibility granted by Super Speed and a Celerity +stealth enhancement. Which I had put into Super Speed. I chose my fights carefully, and positioned myself carefully before hitting Aim+BU+Fire Breath+Fireball+Bone Smasher+Energy Punch. All aimed at the boss standing right next to me, of course. After that, it was a simple task of mop up. Especially when going after The Family or other mez light groups.

[Mistress Urd]

At least for me, Blasters felt like they got weaker as they leveled. Didn't stop me from playing them but so many other ATs felt like they kept getting better and better as they leveled.

[worldweary]

At least for me, Blasters felt like they got weaker as they leveled. Didn't stop me from playing them but so many other ATs felt like they kept getting better and better as they leveled.

Yes this is a good way to put it.Entropic Chaos did not hit enough on any of my builds to make much of a
difference.Caltrops,ranged defense+hover and Mace Mastery epic did really well on my Devices builds.I
could do more with Defenders and Controllers with less set up time.

[Taceus Jiwede]

At least for me, Blasters felt like they got weaker as they leveled. Didn't stop me from playing them but so many other ATs felt like they kept getting better and better as they leveled.

There was a slump between like 30-45 I would say.  Later in the games life with IO's it didn't seem quite as noticeable.  But once you got to 50 you could really do some fun stuff with blaster builds.  I remember I quit playing for a little bit.  I took a break around the time when Chimera and Drake runs where still going on.  I had a pretty decent build then.  I came back a little while later after IO's and set's were added my character would just get his butt kicked all over the place, he just could not compete.  I ended up first just doing IO's and slowly moving on to IO Set's.  Just the IO build alone I remember being blown away at the huge difference it had made.  Then when I moved on to IO set's it was even more amazing. 

This character that use to hide in the back and practiced great restraint  born from fear of end crashing and pissing off too many bad guys, became an insane force to reckon with.  I even went through a phase where I was determined to show just how great Energy Nukes could be.  Pick the right group and soften them up.  Then run in Nova, Break Free, Pop a blue, pose for bad ass 'as the smoke cleared' scene.

EDIT:  Changed layout to make the post easier on the eyes.

[brothermutant]

If those blaster changes ever went live, I imagine that Nukes would be popped every time they were live.

[Waffles]

Good point, but only to a point. Some of the best-performing sets in Blasters were strong specifically because of their other abilities... Ice's controls and debuffs, Mental Manipulation, Dark Blast or Water Blast's self-heal, Sonic's controls, etc. Other than Fire and maybe Archery, none of the sets were that far ahead in damage, so the difference in performance was largely due to non-damage reasons.

Exactly, but this is also why corruptors generally did much better.

Fire/time and Water/dark for example. Time allowed fire to do maximum damage while maintaining control, recharge and a decent amount of defense, alongside slows and debuffs to compliment fire's lack of mitigation.

Water had the knocks and area effects to compliment Dark's sustainability and crowd control.

Add scorpion shield to both of these, and you have an even more hard to kill mass-killer AT

[HEATSTROKE]

Blaster Life for me.. was fun.. liked living on the edge.. Loved moments like this...

Nrg/Nrg on BAF..

Im onthe North Side Team.. going for the Master Badge.. we have a runner.. on the south side.. no one can get him... Someone get him !!!!

Me: I can see him.. Ive got him.. Your too far away..

Build Aim Boost Range.. SNIPE BAM.. Dead...

WTH... how did you get him from over there...

Me.. three damage range Hami's in every attack and Boost Range son..
No one gets away from me...


Another BAF.. We need someone who can hold a door..

Me. Rad/Fire Blaster.. I can do it..
Them: Your a Blaster..
Me: I can do it..
Them: Leave a controller with him just in case..

During fight..
Them to the Controller: Is that Blaster dead yet..
Controller: This guy is killing the mobs before they get out the door.. Im not doing anything but watching him..
Me: You know when your softcapped to S/L/E/N and have 6 PbAoE attacks... things in your area tend to die pretty fast..

Elec/Elec Blaster on Mission with AV..

We dont have enough controllers.. how are we going to hold the AV?..

Me.. I can do it..
Them.. Your a Blaster..
Me: Trust Me.. I can do it.. let the tank get the aggro.. Ill hold the AV..

Later in Mission.. Fighting the AV.. Tesla Cage goes off.. AV is held almost the whole fight..

How did you do that...
Me: Well see having three single target holds kinda helps with the spamming aspect..

Oh another fun one..

in PI during Halloween waiting for one of the spawms..

Arch.Devices.. planting Trip Mines.. (ridiculous recharge in trip mines btw)
What the heck are you doing..
Me: Youll see...
Spawn hits.. BOOOOOOOOOOOM... Build Up Aim.. Rain of Arrows...

Ok.. I got mine.. you guys handle the rest..

Oh another funtime on a council map..

Fire/Kin Controller.. oh wow there are two mobs kinda close together.. I dont think I can deal with both of them...

ME.. ill take the one on the right.. you take the one on the left..

Team.. Dude your a blaster.. Your gonna die..

Me: Ill be fine..

Controller..Ok man.. but its your funeral.. anyone got vengeance...

Me.. Run in.. Flash.. Mob held.. Take Mob down..

Controller.. WTH was that..

Me: um... Emp Pulse..

Controller.. I need to make me one of those..

Blaster Good times.. Good Times..

[worldweary]

Fire/Kin Controller.. oh wow there are two mobs kinda close together.. I dont think I can deal with both of them...

ME.. ill take the one on the right.. you take the one on the left..

Team.. Dude your a blaster.. Your gonna die..

Me: Ill be fine..

Controller..Ok man.. but its your funeral.. anyone got vengeance...

Me.. Run in.. Flash.. Mob held.. Take Mob down..

Controller.. WTH was that..

Me: um... Emp Pulse..

Controller.. I need to make me one of those..

I laughed at all of the quote but this part most of all because I've said this to others word for word.

[VashNKnives]

Another BAF.. We need someone who can hold a door..

Me. Rad/Fire Blaster.. I can do it..
Them: Your a Blaster..
Me: I can do it..
Them: Leave a controller with him just in case..

During fight..
Them to the Controller: Is that Blaster dead yet..
Controller: This guy is killing the mobs before they get out the door.. Im not doing anything but watching him..
Me: You know when your softcapped to S/L/E/N and have 6 PbAoE attacks... things in your area tend to die pretty fast..

Great post! Especially for reminding me why I loved blasters on BAFs! You know, you all may laugh but I really also loved my beam rifle/energy blaster. Soooo much pew pew pew!!!

[Paragon Avenger]

I have seen several well built blasters.
My blasters, however, could die in an enhancement store, it seemed.

[Rejolt]

I have seen several well built blasters.
My blasters, however, could die in an enhancement store, it seemed.

My skill was dying when no one else died and living when no one else was alive

Mainly depended on having the 5 seconds to get both power boost and short circuit off

[Auroxis]

In fact, I would go the other way: min-maxers are the only ones who can get the most from the AT since the main defense of Blasters is IO sets with Ranged Defense (or S/L), and someone who is making a high-defense build with IOs is pretty much by definition a min-maxer. So only min-maxers get real defense on their Blasters, which means they're the only ones likely to be able to survive well enough to leverage the AT's high damage.

While building for defense certainly helped, Blasters with good knowledge of what their team and enemy is capable of didn't need to rely on defenses to perform their primary role. To me, that was the fun of playing Blasters! Not just melting mobs, but judging when and how to melt mobs according to what I'm facing and the help I'm getting. If I wanted to just deal damage independently of the team there were plenty of better options available.

Though weirdly enough, among my best solo characters was my Sonic/MM/Elec Blaster without any significant defense bonuses. This was due to farming the wall in Cimerora with a cone attack chain which destroyed almost all mobs before they got close.

[Surelle]

I have seen several well built blasters.
My blasters, however, could die in an enhancement store, it seemed.

Haha!  Apparently mine would have been cushioning your fall at the register as yours dropped onto the floor.   ;)

Actually, I think there was a store in Steel Canyon where the roaming Freaks would trample right on in....I really do seem to remember that from launch-era CoH.

[Shibboleth]

Not to naysay the ability of some to get great performance out of their Blasters but one my funniest experiences comes from things not working so well. . . .

Early, when I had friends playing, one of them played an NRG/NRG blaster. Routinely he was a bit early to blast things, not allowing the Tank to secure agro. The other thing he did which was somewhat inexplicable was run into melee to use Bone Smasher. Came to find out he was playing out a character he used to play in a roleplaying game (Champions IIRC). So one time, jumping the gun a bit, he runs up to something big and punches it before the Tanker had done anything. Hilariously the big thing turns towards the blaster and backhand one-shots him.

We used to play with TeamSpeak and the conversation fell to silence. Another friend who had also become annoyed with the blaster's pattern of dangerously grabbing agro and I quickly exchanged whispers in game:

Me: Did you see that?
Him: Oh yeah, I saw that.

I could just tell from his response he was laughing as hard as I was.

[HEATSTROKE]

While building for defense certainly helped, Blasters with good knowledge of what their team and enemy is capable of didn't need to rely on defenses to perform their primary role. To me, that was the fun of playing Blasters! Not just melting mobs, but judging when and how to melt mobs according to what I'm facing and the help I'm getting. If I wanted to just deal damage independently of the team there were plenty of better options available.

Truth.. However even Solo I learned what to do and how to do it. Who to attack and when.. What emeny is most dangerous to me in a group and how to take them out.. Thats the key..

IMO Blasters require more thought and planning than mindless attacking..

[Thunder Glove]

It's interesting that Doms are said to be  better than Blasters but Red side AT's were more powerful as a whole or maybe it just seemed that way because people that played villains seemed to be more knowledgeable overall.

I don't think they were technically meant to be more powerful, but that they were meant to be less specialized than Hero ATs and so wound up being more self-sufficient.  Brutes seemed to be half Scrapper, half Tanker.  Corruptors seemed to be half Blaster, half Defender.  Dominators seemed to be combination of Controller and Blaster (with some Scrapper mixed in).  Mastermind seemed to be part Blaster, part Tanker, part Defender.   Stalkers were sort of half-Blaster, half-Scrapper, but didn't really work as well as intended until their revamp.  (None of those are meant to be 100% exact)

That self-sufficiency may be why I tended to like the Redside archetypes better than Blueside.

[Auroxis]

Stalkers were sort of half-Blaster, half-Scrapper, but didn't really work as well as intended until their revamp.  (None of those are meant to be 100% exact)

I'd say Stalkers were more of a Scrapper+Controller hybrid, since their role was to take down a problematic target quickly.