The lower recharge is the problem. Blaster melee attacks are traditionally long recharge high damage.
Thunderstrike is the melee pbaoe of tge set. As is DT and LD. Don't get too hung up on Tier.
Explosive blast is a level 26 power, Fireball is level 8? Something like that. But they are very similar outside of sec effect.
Eng gets Energy punch AND Bone Crusher, both hit harder than Storm Kick.
The groups are also a lot smaller and you have tools to either fight at range, grapple bad guys to you or leap to them.
Fun game, but feels more like a single player game with a nice level 10ish coop mission.
I have 50s of every class so I could play through all the stories.
The other side of the Who will die story.
Getting to beat up the Shining Stars.
Getting to beat up Manticore
Getting to beat up Manticore when he says you are in his way.
Getting to beat up Manticore when he says he will easily defeat you.
Red side doesn't suck, its just empty.
That's why side switching became a thing.
Still putting limited resources into the least used side seems a bad use of resources
Better off using volunteers or something.
The other tiers are the ones with the dramatic differences
Storm kick compared to Bonesmasher is embarassing.
Blaster Dragon's Tail compared to Blaster Thunderstrike is just pitiful.
They should swap out Stun for whirling hands.
Give stalker EM the same stun chances as everyone else in the other attacks
And same as the other ATs fix ET animation.