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).
Epic post. It definitely wasn't the imagination of Blaster players that they were behind other AT's. The running joke about dying was a running joke for a reason.
And you are absolutely right that the top tier players should not be who the game is balanced around.
I would like to mention something though. After reading your post, I started thinking about how I felt after logging into the game and deciding which character to play. Different characters fit different moods. A Scrapper mood or a Controller mood was a completely different thing than a Blaster mood. I had 3 lvl 50 Blasters and I played them a lot. Ice/Ice, Fire/Fire, AR/Dev. (Yep...I went with matching theme most of the time) I certainly never played them when I felt like turning off my brain and just jumping into a fight....that was Scrapper time! My AR/Dev didn't really die much...but that's just because I played him
very slowly as a solo toon. Like...glacial speed. I spent time planning each fight and setting up bombs and caltrops. I enjoyed it very much. Cracked me up to lure a tough boss into a hallway and watch him step on my maze of tripmines. Makes me smile thinking about it right now. Same deal with the Ice/Ice...the holds, sleep, knock-down, and slows made for an interesting experience figuring out ways to defeat enemies that could wipe me out in a stand-up fight. The Fire/Fire...I just got him some defense and used inspirations to kill everything as quick as possible. A lot less thinking there.
I'm not saying I would be against Blaster buffs...you outlined very well why they needed it and a Blaster player has every right to point out how unfair that is. But is it possible that Blasters were a different "flavor" in the game that added something the playerbase enjoyed? As Codewalker pointed out with other facets of the game... was this another fortunate accident that made the game great? i.e.....added to the wide variety of playstyles? I was as frustrated as anyone with Blasters and became a Controller nut after starting with a Blaster. But I eventually figured out how to play them and came to enjoy it when the mood stuck me. Is it possible that players who loved Blasters loved them
because they required more "thinking"? I dunno...just a thought.
Again...not implying "Blasters were fine!". They were clearly behind the other AT's in survival-ability.
I always wanted a Clowns MM set. Can you imagine anything more evil?
When summoned they could all drive up in one little car and climb out one at a time.
Squirting acid flower attack. Confetti bucket confuse attack. One of the little red rubber bulb brass horns used in a sonic attack. Giant mallet. Little ankle biting dogs, it all works!
Just too much fun to be had!
That's friggin' awesome!
I can certainly understand if you started playing a Scrapper or Tank.. and then tried a blaster.. its an immediate shock.. and Level 35-45 feel like an eternity...
I thought I remembered reading that more people started with Blasters than any other AT. (I know I did) So my "shock" was when I tried a different AT and found out how much easier they were!
GRRR, all this discussion about blasters makes me pine for good old Defiance, I wish it could be implemented in COH 1.5 instead of that ultra-lame "able to use T1 and T2 primary attacks while mezzed", old defiance was thousands of times more epic
I found that to be a huge improvement. So many times I was able to get out of a jam because I was able to deal damage while mezzed.
But surprisingly, the toon I loved the most needed the most help to finish those last 5 levels to 50, my Ninja MM did great solo to 45, but could not go past that on her own. Folks would reject MMs for their teams seemingly automatically, and forget ITrials, no one wanted to allow Pets in ITrials.
While I understand, it made me wish longingly for a solo path to incarnate content.
That is what I would like to see the most if new content does come along, a choice of solo incarnate paths. 
I loved MM's as well, but I couldn't help noticing that teams would rather not deal with the pets. They were two of my solo only toons. A solo Incarnate path would definitely help out there.
Wormhole was fun LGTF mission 4, wormholed the Rikti into the Hamidon and sat back and watched the fun.
Love Wormhole. One of the many powers that could give you big laughs.
I played many, many blasters, and really hated the argument that blasters didn't need defense because they had range. It didn't make much difference when the mobs had ranged attacks that could easily neutralize a blaster in just a couple hits (base damage plus DOT).
I used to read that on the old forum. "Range is your defense!". I would immediately wonder why my secondary had so many melee powers if that were true. There is no way the AT was designed to stay at range when you look at the secondaries.
I remember how the boards would explode anytime the subject of Mind Control not having "pets"
came up and how so many folks said that Mind Control was worthless because of it.
Of course, when folks talked about Controller pets, what they really meant was "fire imps"...
Awww! No love for Singy, Poo-Man, Snowman, and all the Illusion pets? I loved those guys! None of them are nearly as dumb as imps either. Way less irritation.
Understand: everyone who believed this believed it was all but obvious. Exactly zero of them could either make it happen in my presence or have it happen while they were chatlogging. It *only* happened when the only thing looking were players, and nothing was actually recording the event.
That instantly made me think of the Invisible Boy from
Mystery Men. (my favorite comic book movie) He could only turn invisible when no one was watching.
See... To make sure Revival plays like CoH... I'm just going to ask Arcana to beta test.
*like* (we need a like button)
I spent all my time in game having fun. Whatever I was doing, it was fun; if it wasn't fun, I stopped doing it.
QFT
...Although I do have to admit I did all the Shadow Shard TF's "just to say I did them once". I suppose the sense of accomplishment afterward does count as "fun" in a way though.
Spider-man "tanked" tons of baddies well above his pay grade thanks to (coughpopularityandhackwritingcough) dodging and bravely running away! Why can't we?!
Also... Inspirations are as good as the writers being on your side on COH. Right?
The ultimate writer-power has to be Batman. There are writers who actually write stories where he can not just survive a fight with Superman for more than a split-second...but actually win! That's gotta be the craziest, most illogical story ever.
