And the mask comes off.

[Techbot Alpha]

One thing I have to admit that I've really missed; posts by Arcana.

There's just something reassuringly solid about them. Like you could throw them and use them to take down a charging bull rhino with their weight. And I mean that in a good way!

[Remaugen]

One thing I have to admit that I've really missed; posts by Arcana.

There's just something reassuringly solid about them. Like you could throw them and use them to take down a charging bull rhino with their weight. And I mean that in a good way!

I concur, always good reading.


We're almost there!   

[archaist]

+4x8 was the gold standard for farming with IOd brutes, scrappers, and some controllers. The classes with high resists especially could reach ridiculous levels of survivability when also softcapped.

+2x8 is significantly easier and not even in the same league. Not bad for a blaster though.

(and I'm saying this as someone whose two favorite ATs were blasters and controllers. Melee types with half their powers being passive bored me to tears. Blasters could survive, but required much, much more skill and had to stop doing damage to do things like abuse LoS and the AI)

Hi everyone! I've been a long time lurker on the forums for a few months now, and with all the talk of farming and the balance of blasters I thought I would give my 2 cents about the subject. Not that it means that much xD   

Back in the game I was a major farmer, it was practically all I did. I loved to deck out a character in full purples and farm with it, earning the money for the next farmer I would make, that's how I played CoH - LOL. And I played everything: spine/reg, fire/kin, el/shield, I even learned the ws and had pretty fast clear speeds with him, etc. Most heroes need to reach the softcaps and perma hasten and the accolades were a must for farm speed. I also loved to take peoples mid builds and compare/improve to make mine numerically better until I found the best possible build for farming(Changes to IO sets were a nightmare). However, my fav was always my arch/mm. Everything really needed to be on the +4x8 standard, like codewalker mentioned, and my arch/mm was really the only blaster I had that didn't struggle on this difficulty. While my other ATs could clear pretty easy, even the ws, blasters just in general felt weak in moving from one mob to another because of the lack on single target dps after you had taken out the easier peons.

TL;DR Blasters Single target dmg in the +4x8 mode was lack luster in comparison to other farming ATs.

Sorry for the convoluted post, just the topic that I miss the most about CoH!
We're almost there!   
 

[Lupur]

re: Farming

Err.. I played part-time since CoV and full time once GR came out. ( V1GIL4NT3 4 LYF!! )

The only farming I ever took part in was to lvl up my toons for either proof of concept or re-building ( I may or may not have squealed like a little girl when I read the notes about //Reg being ported to Brutes ).

...

Oh, and also the Rikti Monkeys for the badge.. and the Nemesisses ...

The lure of the shiny compels you!

[Scendera]

You know, if we do ever get CoX back, my very first 50 was a katana scrapper, and I don't think a level went by where I didn't wish I had rolled broadsword.  Hey, now I can finally make Lemon Slice a broadsword scrapper without feeling like I'm behind all my family and friends in levels, haha.   

Ah....thank you actually. I had a broadsword/elec stalker who I had a ton of fun with in spite of her major drawbacks ("Whaddaya mean the Volt Suit doesn't hide the scraping sound?!") but I always wondered if there was something wrong with me that I liked her just fine as broadsword vs katana after having played both. She'd started life as a scrapper, I just for the life of me never got the hang of scrappers, and when hubby wanted to pair a toon...rerolled her stalker. Ridiculously fun.

[Arcana]

There's just something reassuringly solid about them. Like you could throw them and use them to take down a charging bull rhino with their weight. And I mean that in a good way!

There's a bad way?

[Prism Almidu]

Err.. I played part-time since CoV and full time once GR came out. ( V1GIL4NT3 4 LYF!! )

That alignment pretty much does fit Terezi, doesn't it? Playing around in Icon I recently made a couple attempts at John and Gamzee outfits... a shame there's no zodiac chest symbols, but I made do... if I knew how to insert images, I'd share, but I have little experience with forums of any kind.

[Iron-Emerald]

I loved playing my energy/energy blaster and could handle most solo content fine in either standard blasting or blapper mode. One of my most enjoyable memories was a scrapper asking me to help fight an AV in Dark Astoria where I ended up tanking and walloping the AV. (Less impressive than it sounds since I had 3 incarnate level shifts and the scrapper had I think 1.) It really was a fun challenge to work out the best way to cope with different opponents and it felt really fulfilling to finally get a strong build together at level 50 and to feel genuinely tough.

But I was flabbergasted when I got my dark melee / invulnerable scrapper up to higher levels. My blaster was the only high level character I had at the time, and while I could handle the content solo at least it took quite a while going through the 40's since I had to play carefully when the situation demanded it and couldn't crank the difficulty up too much. My scrapper on the other hand just powered through the 40's and got the last two levels street sweeping in Dark Astoria. I remember feeling stunned at how easy it was compared to going through the same content with my blaster. And once my level 50 build was together the scrapper was crazy tough against most opponents. I felt comparatively overpowered, but it was great fun playing +4/x8 and wading into groups to do my 'scrapper nuke'. (Soul Drain + Spring Attack + Dark Consumption + Shadow Maul)

Weirdly I thought the scrapper was underpowered for ages after spending a lot of the 20's fighting circle ghosts...

[Clave Dark 5]

There's a bad way?

I've seen forum posters make comments that are so dense they could be used to kill a charging bull rhino with, so yes.

[HEATSTROKE]

Lots of players had these anecdotes.  They are all but irrelevant to the issue of game balance.  Fascinating and entertaining they might be to other players and the devs, they played exactly zero role in creating or balancing powersets or critter capabilities.

I wasnt referring to game balance.. I was referring to capabilities..

[pinballdave]

There's a bad way?

Rhino poaching is very bad

[KennonGL]

Bells, Whistles, increased Aggo Caps, and a Wombat Master AT.

NOTE: I might be lying.

"I am Wombatman..."

[pinballdave]

"I am Wombatman..."

Remember Wombats are marsupials, so the females have that special pouch. You know for weapon concealment and stuff

[AlienOne]

There was no time in the existence of the game that any archetype wasn't overpowered relative to the game's balance standard for players with sufficient dedication to maximal slotting and optimal gameplay.

The game wasn't designed to be balanced around maximal slotting and optimal gameplay.  It was designed around the median player performance, as determined by watching all the players who played the game and measuring their median performance.  Under that metric, there was never a single moment in the existence of the game where blasters as an archetype were not severely underperforming all other archetypes.  We're talking 25%-50% underperformance.

That's not 25%-50% under the other archetypes.  That's 25%-50% under the median performance: many archetypes were over the median performance, which made the gap between blasters and the higher performing archetypes (i.e. scrappers) higher than that.  The single largest contributor to this underperformance was that blasters were dying at a far higher rate than all other archetypes.  Solo, teamed, low level, intermediate level, high level, max level.  In all types of content.  The numbers say that if you think you were doing well on a blaster, there were ten players doing just as well on every other archetype and a hundred players doing vastly worse on blasters.  If you didn't see this, your experience was not representative of the playerbase as a whole.

The truth is, nobody cares about min/maxers or the power gaming elite, nor should they.  The developers didn't need to care about us.  We could always excel under any circumstances.  The devs cared about the typical player, because those were the ones that kept the lights on.  They represented the bulk of the players, the bulk of the playing time, and the bulk of the subscription revenue.  They needed the game to present a roughly level playing field to them, and that's ultimately where the devs spent most of their energy.  And I would have eviscerated them if they hadn't.

My calculations suggested that in broad strokes, I24 blasters when played by the average player would probably be in the general vicinity of I23 median performance in solo play during leveling conditions.  Slightly under on average, but close enough.  My worry was that the collateral buffs on archetypes like defenders and corruptors would increase the median performance enough to where blasters would fall below the median again.  But I think at least for the average player, blasters would start to become competitive with scrappers as offensively focused characters.

The people already farming +2x8 with blasters?  The I24 buffs would have less of an impact on them relative to average players in most cases, because those players were already reaching saturation levels of power that small to moderate buffs have more difficulty improving.  And if they did, small price to pay to improve things for the other 95% of players.  The same thing happened with the invention system.  It let the 5% become far more powerful, but it also lifted most of the other 95% to moderate levels of performance far more consistent with the newer balance standard for players post-I5 (particularly when it came to soloing).

Quoted, just because....yeah.

This post is like eating a full meal while every other post is like a light danish--sweet, tastes good, but doesn't fill you up.

[Codewalker]

and my arch/mm was really the only blaster I had that didn't struggle on this difficulty.

Funny you should mention that, because I almost threw out arch/mm as an example of the top end of blasters that could be quite competitive with other ATs on SOs alone, when most other blaster set combinations could not.

In fact, MM and the dynamics with Drain Psyche are a big part of what inspired the "sustain" mechanic that was added to the other secondaries. MM itself was not touched because it was already considered okay, and even a bit OP due to how high you could stack the +Regen when target saturated. If MM had been included in the balance pass, that would have had to be nerfed, and they didn't want to do that.

[Thunder Glove]

My first character was an Electric/Electric Blaster.  Regardless of what powers I took and how I slotted him (and even after I finally managed to get him to 50+1 - the game closed before I could get him any further), he was the weakest character I had, in terms of both damage output and survivability.  Even playing him on the Beta server for a while (which included a respec to give him powers from Sorcery) was only a marginal improvement.  He could barely handle x1/+0, and by the end I had him at x1/-1 (with Bosses turned off).

And, again, it's not like he was on SOs.  I had loads of IO sets, and my main attacks were all six-slotted.  I had, at some points, Tough and Weave and Charged Armor.  But nothing helped.  He was weak and fragile regardless of what I did.  He was so terrible that I never made another Blaster ever again.

So maybe one purpled-out Rad/Fire was decent, but I don't think that it means Blasters as a whole were decent.

[Rejolt]

My first character was an Electric/Electric Blaster.  Regardless of what powers I took and how I slotted him (and even after I finally managed to get him to 50+1 - the game closed before I could get him any further), he was the weakest character I had, in terms of both damage output and survivability.  Even playing him on the Beta server for a while (which included a respec to give him powers from Sorcery) was only a marginal improvement.  He could barely handle x1/+0, and by the end I had him at x1/-1 (with Bosses turned off).

And, again, it's not like he was on SOs.  I had loads of IO sets, and my main attacks were all six-slotted.  I had, at some points, Tough and Weave and Charged Armor.  But nothing helped.  He was weak and fragile regardless of what I did.  He was so terrible that I never made another Blaster ever again.

So maybe one purpled-out Rad/Fire was decent, but I don't think that it means Blasters as a whole were decent.

I played an elec/nrg on infinity and an elec/elec on freedom as my first toons to 50. No knockback at range and less aggro than fire. Short circuit, power sink and power boost turned most mobs into statues.

Solo? Power thrust and stuns on the elec/nrg and holds on the elec/elec backed up by power sinks drain and tesla cages 100 percent recovery stoppage.

And no issues at +1, x3ish, but I wasn't set up for soft capped defense. I'd often go with no bosses just to kill faster for drops (even though my firex3 dom, fire/kin controller and elecx3 brute did it better).

If you're looking to take on elite bosses and swarms of Cimerorans... Drains cut through their annoying resistantences. Just remember - you're not a meatshield. My elec/nrg had 1606 hp, nice regen and a number of all around set bonuses but still wouldn't run around on my own in task forces.

[Felderburg]

The EULA between NCSoft and the player did not make your original characters the property of NCSoft.  Instead, it granted NCSoft a perpetual license to use your characters (for marketing purposes and so forth), while you still kept the rights to use them elsewhere - such as in Champions Online or a movie.  Of course, you couldn't copy NCSoft's game assets (esp. costume pieces) into your movie or Champions, so you'd need to use CO's costumes when playing CO or the original artwork from your movie studio's graphics team to display your character in that movie.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/EULA/September_2011

Section 6, paragraph (b), second sentence and beyond applies to your original characters.  The first sentence applies to your non-original characters, such as a Statesman clone (which NCSoft owned but permitted you to use in-game) or "Wulverin3" with an X-Men costume (which they did not allow, due to Marvel's ownership).

FYI, the section is here:

6. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

    (a) You acknowledge, and further agree, that You have no IP right related to any Service, Content, Software, or any combination of the foregoing or parts thereof except the limited license provided in Section 2 above.

    (b) You acknowledge, and further agree, that You have no IP right related to any Account ID, any NCsoft Message Board ID, any communication or information on any NCsoft Message Board provided by You or anyone else, any information, feedback or communication related to the Game, any Character ID or characteristics related to a Character ID, any combination of the foregoing or parts thereof, or any combination of the foregoing with any Service, Content, Software, or parts thereof. To the extent You may claim any such IP right(s), You hereby grant NCsoft a worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, sub-licensable, perpetual and irrevocable license and full authorization to exercise all rights of any kind or nature associated with such IP right(s), and all ancillary and subsidiary rights thereto, in any languages and media now known or not currently known. Your license to NCsoft includes, but is not limited to, all necessary trademark licenses, all copyright licenses needed to reproduce, display, publicly perform, distribute and prepare derivative works of any such IP right, and all patent licenses needed to make, have made or otherwise transfer, use, offer to sell, sell, export and import related to such IP right(s). In addition to the provisions of Section 13 below, You further agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless NCsoft with respect to any claim by third-parties that any such license to any such IP right(s) misappropriates, violates or infringes any third-party IP right or other proprietary right.

My favorite part is the "any languages and media now known or not currently known"... I love the idea of a future language being created, or an ancient language being discovered, and NCsoft saying "we can license your hero in that language!"

I would say that this paragraph is pretty darn vague. But Mercedes Lackey et al. did use characters created in CoH as characters in a wholly unrelated universe, which they were able to do as I recall by setting the universe in a way completely unrelated to CoH. Yes, they were super powered people who had the same names and personalities, but that was sort of it.

[SemanticAntics]

The game wasn't designed to be balanced around maximal slotting and optimal gameplay.  It was designed around the median player performance, as determined by watching all the players who played the game and measuring their median performance.  Under that metric, there was never a single moment in the existence of the game where blasters as an archetype were not severely underperforming all other archetypes.  We're talking 25%-50% underperformance.

That's not 25%-50% under the other archetypes.  That's 25%-50% under the median performance: many archetypes were over the median performance, which made the gap between blasters and the higher performing archetypes (i.e. scrappers) higher than that.  The single largest contributor to this underperformance was that blasters were dying at a far higher rate than all other archetypes.  Solo, teamed, low level, intermediate level, high level, max level.  In all types of content.  The numbers say that if you think you were doing well on a blaster, there were ten players doing just as well on every other archetype and a hundred players doing vastly worse on blasters.  If you didn't see this, your experience was not representative of the playerbase as a whole.

This makes me feel a lot better at my many, many failed attempts at playing a Blaster. I just couldn't ever get them off the ground.

[Ironwolf]

+4x8 was the gold standard for farming with IOd brutes, scrappers, and some controllers. The classes with high resists especially could reach ridiculous levels of survivability when also softcapped.

+2x8 is significantly easier and not even in the same league. Not bad for a blaster though.

(and I'm saying this as someone whose two favorite ATs were blasters and controllers. Melee types with half their powers being passive bored me to tears. Blasters could survive, but required much, much more skill and had to stop doing damage to do things like abuse LoS and the AI)

Except Sonic/Ice blasters. Sleeps, holds, slows, knockdown and knockbacks made this a breeze (pun intended) to play. I would slap a double sleep on them blast them off their feet slap snowstorm on them to make them crawl, sleep them again and repeat. Not always the fastest but easily the safest blaster.