StratoNexus

Different perspectives for different folks. When an enemy charges my blaster, I have frequently made the joke over voice chat, "What kind of moron charges the lady with Hot Feet, Blazing Aura, and a Fire Sword?" I have always teleported into the middle of spawns and now Spring Attack allows me to do it with damage and control. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a ranged blaster play style, I do it myself. But for many, the best fun of a blaster is using range and melee. /bind ` "targetenemynear$$follow"

I am not wrong about blaster HPs. My main is a Fire^3 with 1847 HPs (at level 50). Tanker base HP at level 50 is 1874. Stalker, sentinel, and blaster base HP is 1205, blasters cap at 1847, the other two cap at 2088. Support base is 1017 and they cap at 1607, except MM, which cap the same but base is only 803. Blaster base HPs has been higher than support for a long time, but the cap increase did not come until I24, so that never hit live in the old days. Hit Points wiki is mostly correct. It is missing the Blaster HP cap increase as well as sentinels, since those never hit live. Blasters soloed the ITF before Incarnates were released. I have only ever duoed it on my blasters. If you take out the Nictus in the right order, that really helps. The auto hit damage pulse really hurts, so prioritize eliminating that one; but when duoing, we have to kill the pet spawner first, otherwise they start killing my ally.

This has not been my experience. Blasters do their best work at close range, where they can easily enter melee when desired and avoid most enemy AoEs. Even without IOs, blasters do not die in melee immediately, unless they are eating all the aggro of large spawns, and if you use your inspires, you can even survive that for awhile. I live near and in melee with most of my blasters even before IOs. I have some range only concept characters, but they are weaker than a blaster who also does melee (although to be honest, even my range only characters like to stay close, otherwise how can I get Fulcrum Shift). It should be noted that blasters have higher base hit points than support characters and a higher hit point cap. So even before IOs, they have a bigger cushion in that aspect. The +hit point accolades help blasters more due to this as well. And if you build for it, you are just 27 hp shy of the Tanker base. The most important aspect of the blaster as currently designed, of course, is how much fun it is to smack stuff in melee but also be able to freely shoot targets at range. Constantly switching targets, being in the thick of the melee scrum, but also being able to turn and Bitter Ice Blast or snipe an enemy who is antagonizing a corruptor and then immediately switch back to the boss that is aggroed on the tank, but right next to you and level it with Havoc Punch. Just because that concept does not work for some people, does not mean it is a wrong or non-complimentary concept.

Reality is you should be testing them against spawns at a more reasonable level of difficulty than +4/x8, because most folks play the game at significantly lower difficulty than that. Blasters do not need to solo the same difficulty as scrappers to be a good AT as designed. I was always fond of Unyielding difficulty back in the day, +1/x2 is what that would be. Before I get well IOd, I typically run at +1/x2 to 5 on most characters, depending on power choices. A few single target focused characters might do +2/x2 or 3 instead. Once I start getting a decent amount of IOs, (which is usually in my 30s, although some characters have leveled a bit faster and did not really get good IO sets until my 40s and end game), I might up the difficulty to +2/x5 or 6. The game is not balanced around +4/x8 content solo and it is unlikely it ever will be. And realistically, you are still saying griddles are designed wrong because you want a pot. Pots exist. Griddles exist. Griddles do not need to be pots.

They made an entire AT now dedicated to Ranged attacks with defense. It is not the Blaster. Asking why blasters have melee attacks instead of xxxx, is like asking why do scrappers just get mostly copies of tanker armor sets instead of a mix of armor and buff/debuff? The blaster AT was designed with melee attacks and that is a reason so many of us love the AT. It was also designed as a team AT, needing allies to be able to leverage those attacks well. You can now use set IOs and they gave blasters better survivability in I24, making the AT much less team dependent than in the past, but they are still basically a more team-friendly AT. It is slightly disingenuous to ask a blaster to be able to solo as well as what was created as the most solo friendly AT. Also, I would love to see a level 42 scrapper with level 45 common IOs solo carnies and malta at +4/x8 without inspires. I am pretty sure they would drop in seconds, outside of a few tier 9 abilities (and maybe even while they were active). Maybe SR could last a bit.

I have to disagree. Blaster secondaries are varied in the same way that Corruptor secondaries vary. Generally speaking Blasters deal ranged and melee damage with some light control, light debuffs, and strong self offense buffs but vary widely in technique (generally, Corruptors deal ranged damage with team buff/debuff and light control, but they vary widely in technique). Both ATs secondaries have a wide variance in how they work, with Blaster /Devices and /Tactical Arrow working much differently than /Electric and /Fire. It is likely that Corruptor secondaries are much more varied, with /Trick Arrow being different from /Traps being different from /Storm being different from /Rad being different from /Kin being different from /Cold being different from /Empathy (etc.). They fit the overall goals of the Archetype, but get there with a great variance of gameplay. This is, IMO, one of the greatest strengths of CoH and it is why for me, the end game is Alting (I play my incarnates quite a bit as well, but without the variety of leveling alts that play differently from each other, this game would become boring for me. I get sick of endgame content if I play it too much (as the weekly strike targets have been recently making me feel, so I have started foregoing them and just play what I want without regard to the extra rewards)). I love my Defenders, it is the AT I have the most alts at 50 and is tied for the most total alts (with Blaster). Blasters are likely my favorite AT, although Defenders and Blasters are like Pluto and Neptune, they vary in closeness to my heart. I love the feel of being able to mix ranged and melee attacks, although I do play a few ranged only Blasters. My Rad/Martial blaster, OTOH, the first 6 attacks in my tray are melee or PBAoE. So good.

I too have experienced the same. However, I still think it is fine for a scrapper to be the main tank on a team and I remember that in the past they frequently were. This was, of course, from a time when a large number of people only had scrappers as an option for a high damage tank. There had been a lot of legacy "scrapper as tank" experience back then. In this new era, it is true that a lot of that has been taken up by brutes instead and that makes a lot of sense, considering that most brute builds are better at aggro control than most scrapper builds on top of greater survivability. I will say, I am not a fan of the idea that scrappers will not get taunt auras in the future. I am not opposed to scrappers with no taunt auras. I am opposed to the idea that they should never get new armor sets that include one. It is certainly reasonable to carefully consider each new armor set and to conclude that the scrapper version should be created without a taunt aura. However, I think it should be possible to also conclude that some new scrapper armor sets would work well by including a taunt aura.

The scrapper aside has made me think of one unforeseen consequence of the new Gauntlet aggro mechanic. It will be a bit harder to shed aggro while staying partially engaged. I know it is anathema to think of a Tanker shedding aggro in CoH, but aggro management is not just about getting it, but also managing your survivability while having it. A great tank knows it is better to lose aggro for a few seconds and survive to get it back, rather than die because you have too much (not every Tanker IOs to undying levels and even then +3 vengeanced Rularuu can hurt many "unkillable" folks, although tanks with RotP might also be an exception). You used to be able to move to a spawn's edge and use smaller attacks and that often would allow some aggro to shed. Now the small attacks, will generate threat just as well as larger attacks, so that technique is no longer possible. This is not a huge concern and I think the benefits of the change outweigh this slight drawback.

Because as the off-tank in the group, you need a way to take some of the aggro off the main tank sometimes? In the BAF there is even an enemy mechanic that strongly encourages rotating aggro, although in that case I would hope the higher damage scrappers deal would allow the taunt effect to work pretty well. It has been many years, but I seem to remember my Kat/Invun scrapper getting sequestered often enough. IIRC, taunt magnifies the "damage felt" on aggro lists. So if a scrapper is seriously outdamaging a Tanker (as one would expect they should be), using Confront should pull the aggro in most cases. That said, if you are trying to pull an enemy off a Tanker that you have not been hitting (which is a common enough desire as an off-tank), that will likely not work so well.

I really enjoyed my Rad/Dual Pistols/Mace defender. Choking Cloud and the debuff toggles worked really well in combination with Hail of Bullets (use toggles to gather, they run into Choking Cloud, AoE enemies).

This is not true. Enemy attacks cost endurance and if they do not have enough, they cannot use them. However, see below. The way end recovery works is by giving you a percentage of your max endurance every so often. Higher recovery shortens the time to gain a "tick" of endurance, not the amount gained per tick (although if you increase your max endurance, that does increase the amount per tick). You can greatly increase the time between ticks with -recovery and even stop recovery altogether with enough -recovery. Powers that improve your recovery, like Stamina, decrease the time between ticks. However, tougher opponents have a bigger max endurance and if you fail to keep enough -recovery to keep the enemy from getting any ticks at all, even 1 tick will give them enough endurance to activate even an "expensive" power usually. It is not that they can activate any power with 1 endurance, but in general, against the opponents that matter, they can activate most of their powers after just 1 tick of gaining endurance. One option to help would be to give some attacks the ability to debuff enemy End costs (i.e. make them more expensive). I know players have this stat and I assume mobs have it as well. That way the enemy could gain a tick and still likely be able to use weaker attacks, but the costly powers would still be out of reach. This way the end drain is still more useful, but not a total hold. Debuffing end costs would also help drain the enemy faster, since their powers cost more and might put some powers out of reach even before totally draining the enemy. I am not sure it is necessary to buff Electric Blast this way, but it should be possible and is not a flatly binary defacto hold, but hopefully a more nuanced method of helping the -Endurance/Recovery work better.

Or be sure to pair it with a secondary that complements the end drain so it is not crap (/elec, /en, /men). I chose to leave it crappy back in the day with my Elec/Fire. I was thinking of going Elec/Atomic this time around, also leaving it as a crappy secondary effect. Sigh. I wonder how well it would work with Mu Mastery, especially Electrifying Fences.

I do not agree with your premise. It sounds like you think all Blaster primaries should deal almost exactly the same damage. I think that significantly undervalues the control and secondary effects of many sets. Sure, on a steamroll team with plenty of buff/debuff, where the team stays mostly together, those effects are devalued. But I play on teams that frequently split up and sometimes on teams with "too little" buff/debuff. I play on teams that even when together-ish, pull the next three spawns. Even with Judgements and nukes, I frequently see enough tough enemies surviving and relatively long engagements due to the multiple spawn aggro that allow blaster controls to be useful often enough that I value them much higher than you seem to. I also play a lot to level up from 1-50 where I see many people running without sets and obviously without Epic and Incarnate powers. My Sonic/Fire blaster back in the day was much safer to level solo and small team than my Fire/Fire, despite the lower damage, thanks to the controls. I am not sure what the "meta" of CoH really is at the moment. In my experience, there seems to be a lot of folks at all levels, with a large variety of build completion levels. Even at level 50 I see a lot of variance in how well slotted and how well Incarnated folks have their characters.

I am interested in seeing the math on how it deals 20% less DPS than "it's closest competitor." What is it's closest competitor, I am not sure what that means? I think it can be fine for different sets in the same archetype to perform somewhat differently. As long as the kill rate is not horrible, the set being a third rate controller on top of low end blaster damage could be a reasonable balance point. It has been a long time since I have played my Elec/Fire blaster, I have not yet played an Electric blaster with the I24 changes to blast sets (but my second 50 on Homecoming was my Kin/Elec defender, so I do have experience with the good snipe and the crashless nuke). Electric blast's end drain definitely pairs better with some secondaries and this is more important than just being able to stack stuns or holds. I know with my Elec/Fire, I did not bother with End Drain, unless I was playing against up levels and usually only when I nuked did it come in handy, to neuter surviving bosses/lts. Obviously on other secondaries you can drain end much faster; my SG mate uses his Elec/En with Power Boost-SC to neuter spawns quickly. Electric Blast surely needs to have lower DPS than Fire Blast. But is it too low currently? Spawn to spawn, VS is pretty lackluster, but against a single hard target it is pretty good. Short Circuit's very large AoE is nice (although the animation time is, IMO, too long). Thunderous Blast can be cast without having to run into the middle of the spawn, which is why I think it has the longer recharge, if I remember correctly, but I agree its animation could be trimmed and/or maybe deal a bit more damage (not Inferno/Blizzard level, but a bit higher maybe). Lacking the big hitter like Blaze was never an issue for me, because I just used melee attacks in my chain and VS was good DPS vs hard targets (unless those hard targets come with ambushes). Being able to reliably add Zapp into the attack chain can only be an improvement over my old experience, where Snipes were terrible. I am a fan of Electric blast and was not disappointed with my Elec/Fire back in the day, but I do know that Electric is not the best damage. I also am not convinced it needs more than it has (nor am I adamant that it is fine as is).

One of the things CoH Tankers have always had thematically is they don't defeat things fast, but they generally are inexorable, because they also don't get defeated often. However, their damage/end ratio was pretty low, so they had to watch their end bar. Often, in addition to doing less damage, they might have to attack slower or run out. At that lower damage, it might have made sense to give them some better end management just to alleviate the boredom of literally standing in the middle of a spawn that cannot defeat you. but having to manage you blue bar and choose efficient attacks, rather than immediate kills. The idea being they kill slower, but last longer.

I think the current rate matches the rate at shutdown, but I may be fancifully misremembering. I think farming is pretty good at the current level of gain, although I could see adjusting it down to 40% instead of 50% (but I honestly do not care either way). I do like that farmers are crafting IOs and selling them as well as their recipes on the market. Thank you all very much for that. At this point I wish there was a setting to gain XP, but not actually change my security level until I hit a trainer. While leveling up in mid-mission is sometimes fun, I often find myself turning my difficulty level up before entering a mission when I am sure to level early on in the mission, because I don't want to fight most of a mission at an easier than desired setting (and then forgetting to turn it back down for the next mission and fighting a difficulty level higher than desired for a mission). Additionally, I have now out leveled a zone three times when I did not want to (and I have successfully actively managed turning off XP when needed for 4 other characters). Yes, I can (and did) use Ouroboros to run the missions I out leveled, but I generally prefer to run missions while in the proper level range plus Ouro does not always get everything right for some of the Praetoria missions. The first time, I thought I had one more level until I out-leveled the zone. The second time I had xp shut off, then turned it back on for one thing but forgot to turn it back off. The last time I swear I had XP shutoff but the settings had reset on the next login (or there was human error, but I am pretty sure I did this correctly). I do not mind turning XP off, but it is very frustrating when a simple mistake causes me to lose out on getting through all the contacts I desire.

I have run the vigilante arc twice, so I could see some different choices when talking to the officer as well as the end choice, of course. First, let me say this was a fantastic arc. I loved the story and the tone had the perfect feel for a vigilante character. More like this please for all alignments. I am looking forward to the rogue arc. My first run through was with my newest Rad/Martial blaster and I was in level for the arc, started 28 and dinged 29 early on and 30 on the last mission. That character in some ways was perfect for this arc as well. He has that kind of Iron Fist feel. I will say I very much felt like I was dealing with one of the Netflix Marvel stories due to the setting as well as my particular character. Since he is progressing through the game primarily with tips and will eventually fall villain (and I plan to turn him back Rogue at least, if not all the way to redemption), he might have been a good choice for the non-heroic ending, but at the last minute I stayed his hand, feeling it was too early in his turning to be that dark (but this ends up being a perfect moment he can look back on and regret not following through, helping push him down a darker path). I loved the cutscene and thought it played out well with Officer Davids and also the way my character was center stage. It really had a good feel, that moment when the hero gets to feel like they made the good choice, despite really wanting to end the villain. The followup with the disappointed contact was well done and highlights the oft-times lonely road of the hero. Mechanically, I ran this at 0/x5. I was able to maintain just enough inspires to keep me moving, but I will say having Inner Will might have put me over the top considering the number of mezzing bosses I dealt with. That said, /x5 is my own issue. I only fell once, in the Vault, taking down the three doors was a bit difficult with the ambushes, but since they reset I was able to rez in the mission and get back moving and managed to finish the mission without needing to hospital. I was about to exit when a different type of ambush started, and I am glad I stayed then to the end to face the the final ambush. I kind of lucked out in the police mission, and managed to click the second glowy before I got overwhelmed. I fought a little, but used the mission exit button because I felt my character would not want to really hurt the police. The ambush in the final mission comes a bit suddenly, but was well telegraphed by the NPC, so I was prepared. So many Singularites at /x5, but I leveled during the first wave, so that really carried me through. A bit of luck, but set to a normal level I would not have seen so many bosses I expect. I liked the variety of enemies, fighting PPD, private security, longbow and, of course, gangsters (as well as one hero). The second time, I ran it as a duo with my level 41 Arch/Bio Sentinel and my friends 50 Inv/SS Tanker. We were +1/x4 or 5. I was leading, so I got to choose the conversations. I was less respectful of the police, but more honest, and I really liked the dialogue of Davids here compared to the first run through where I basically lied to cover myself. Good work on the branches there. My friend had already run it once and also chose the more heroic ending, so we were obviously here for the darker ending. This character is definitely more prone to a final solution, while less prone than my blaster to outright villainy. Since we had both done it before, we took a bit more time to look around. He had not fought all the way through the ambushes in the vault mission, so I encouraged him to stay and we were happy to get that final ambush. We beat on more police this time, but still exited fairly early without facing too many police ambushes. After we cleared the final room in the last mission, we looked around and I happened to look out the window. At that point we were pretty sure how it was going to end, but it was no less satisfying when it played out. The final contact dialogue has the classic "is vengeance worth it" feeling, but also still more "happy" than the heroic ending, a distinction I liked here. Well done. One small critique. I thought the early clues were a bit generic and could have had some more depth. I liked the paragraph for each and thought that was a perfect way to start, but a second paragraph with more details might be nice for folks like me who enjoy the extra depth. One paragraph to summarize the clue at the beginning, so most folks can stop reading at that point, still get the gist of the story and move on with the game, but a second more detailed paragraph might be nice for future clues.

Both of these are still an issue. I just got this power and was disappointed I did not get my range bump.

That is more an argument that bruising is a better choice to amplify tanker and team damage than increased buffs. More people likely use their tier 1 attack just naturally than might take assualt. Bruising being in the tier one (and possibly adding it to the tier 2, as I suggested) allow this to be a regular occurrence for almost all tankers, even if they know nothing about it. Requiring folks to realize that Assault and the long recharge Melt Armor are actually good only benefits those in the know and only benefits those who make very specific power picks. Bruising is automatic and all tankers have it. It could be adjusted to be more often applied, but overall less strong and with added base damage be a win-win.

How do you feel about them having a ~93% relationship to blasters at the cap? It seems odd to have the absolute cap as a hard line relationship to brutes alone, especially when comparing damage/survivability ratios, since the 3 (supposed) best damage ATs have massively less than 90% the survivability of the tanker. I think it might be OK if, fully buffed, the Brute gains a higher damage advantage over the Tanker than the Tanker gains in survivability advantage over the Brute, not only because the Tanker has a bit more ease on getting higher survivability alone but also because of the currently testing larger AoEs and target caps and improved endurance efficiency. Trying to baseline raw damage alone around that 90% target is not a bad starting point, but I think it is missing too many factors to be a final target. The .95 damage scale has a big effect on leveling ease and this will be during a time when no one, not even brutes are coming close to the mitigation a tanker will have. Enemies die so fast in this game, I am having trouble seeing why one of the middle damage ATs needs such a large increase not only to base damage, but also to their best case scenario damage as well as to the number of enemies they can affect with said damage and with the efficiency in which they deliver it. Again, I agree they need more damage. I really want them to solo more efficiently and to bring a bit more damage to teams and something to differentiate them from brutes. I just think everything combined here currently is taking us a few steps too far. The more I test and the more I think about it, the more I really like the AoE/arc increases. I also like the target cap increases (although 7 or 8 for cones may be better than 10, but I like 10 too). 16 may be too much for the PBAOEs, but 13 or 14 sounds weird. I like the new gauntlet a lot; I might miss the 18 foot taunt in my Seismic Smash (which rarely came into play, but sometimes it made me giggle when that guy way over there turned to look at me after I hit his ally), but overall for the AT, the test version is a vast improvement. But the new base damage just feels way faster than necessary, even in the 20s. Dropping a ton of reds in the 40s and going to town was kind of crazy with the new base and the new cap. I am also not really a fan of amplifying the buff/debuffs. It is OK and I can see it thematically, but it is not what I expect from the tanker AT. It makes more sense to me as an AT wide focus when their attacks add the control/debuff, as opposed to optional powers. That said, this seems at least interesting, although it might really accentuate some pools more than they should and could make some epic pools too good compared to others epic pools. It affects a lot of balance points and there is a lot to consider for that change.

Ya ever stand next to a tanker or brute and watch them winding up for KoB and then halfway through their animation hit blaze? It always makes me feel a little bad and a little good.

Overall, I really like the tanker buffs. Soloing mid-level tankers was always frustrating and boring. I am not in much danger, so I want to turn up the difficulty in order to need to pay attention, but turning up the difficulty makes defeating the foes annoyingly slow. Of course, I usually solve this problem by teaming, in which case I always felt fine and had fun. That said, it makes sense to me that brutes and tankers can handle the same job, so there is no reason the tanker AT should be saddled with such low damage when brutes are not so limited. I had a few brutes in the old days, but have yet to make one here. I do have two tankers, a 42 Rad/TW/Earth and a 25 WP/WM/(planned Earth). I think granting extra endurance to the tanker does make some sense for the AT, and would make a lot sense for when they were at a significantly slower kill speed. My experience on test seems to indicate that my higher damage and more efficient AoEs combined with the significant endurance bump might make end management a bit too free. More testing is required before I can say for sure (especially with the smaller AoE buff), but I already barely need to watch my green bar (and at base difficulty I really never need to, unless I artificially increase difficulty by gathering). Now I barely have to watch my blue bar. My bigger AoEs allow me to more easily generate threat. Even my small, fast recharge attacks have a 10 foot gauntlet range rather than 3, 4, or 5 feet, so I am easily and quickly generating hate. This leaves significantly less room for player skill to matter. We still have positioning and good Taunt use to make enemies move toward us, as well as seeing those times when multiple spawns are near each other and reacting to that based on how the team is playing. But hate generation is very automatic now (which I generally like, but as a game, I think there needs to be some resource I am concerned about and managing). In short, higher damage and more efficient AoEs already make me more endurance efficient. Adding to base endurance is a triple threat solution and might be too much when combined. Bruising. I know this was kind of slapped on and to many felt like blah. But I always loved this both when playing a tanker and when playing with a tanker. The concept of knocking off armor or distracting the enemy so a weak point faces the team works great for me. Additionally, since the tier one powers in many cases are damage light so they can recharge fast and allow continuous threat generation even under slowed scenarios, it was a nice little extra for those powers, that really worked for an AT that was mostly team based (but could solo safely, albeit slowly). I will miss it. .95 scale. A large part of me screams it is too much, however .80 is too low. I enjoyed the .95 and did not feel like it was even close to overshadowing scrappers or blasters. There is a part of me that feels tankers and brutes both have too much damage for the levels of survivability they can attain on test, but at the same time, they need the survivability in order to fulfill their team role and they need the damage in order not to be boring. This is not really a dichotomy that can be overcome without deciding to nerf something and I don't really want Brute survivability nerfed, even though I think an 85% resist cap makes more sense for them. I am OK with both tankers and brutes being able to easily step into the tank role (I also like that many scrappers can step into that role as well, and if they can do it at 75%, brutes should be able to easily handle it at 85%, but meh, not dying at 85% means I see no reason to step on the 90% toes, because not dying and not dying both equal not dying, so why create a firestorm). I think the AoE/Arc increase as is now on test is just about perfect, some individual powers may need refinement. I like the Taunt cap at 7, 10 was too much. Gauntlet from each single target power being consistently 10 feet is good and balances the powersets better (it always annoyed me that War Mace and Battle Axe were disadvantaged in gauntlet range compared to some other sets). If it were me I would probably set the damage scale to .88. I would have both the tier 1 and tier 2 attacks each grant a -7% resistance debuff (call one bruise1 and the other bruise2, so they could stack with each other, but not with themselves). They should also stack from multiple tankers, just like Corrosive Enzymes from multiple Nature Affinity users stack, but one user cannot stack it. I think a 10% buff to tanker base damage with the alteration to Bruising is a better overall target then just the straight ~19% increase to base and removing bruising. That also keeps the extra 20 endurance as making more sense, since kill speed solo would drop some.

Back in the day I had a villain corruptor Dark/Dark/Mu. I am considering remaking it as a Dark^3 defender. I tried to increase my hit points and resists to stack on top of good defense (which stacks with all my -to-hit to give me basically the defense cap). Lots of +recharge and +damage to increase kill speed. Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build! Sarah Caste: Level 50 Magic Defender Primary Power Set: Dark Miasma Secondary Power Set: Dark Blast Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Speed Ancillary Pool: Dark Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Twilight Grasp (A) Miracle - Heal/Recharge (3) Miracle - Heal/Endurance (11) Miracle - Heal/Endurance/Recharge (15) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Healing (33) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Endurance/Heal/HitPoints/Regeneration Level 1: Dark Blast (A) Decimation - Accuracy/Damage (3) Decimation - Damage/Endurance (7) Decimation - Damage/Recharge (19) Decimation - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (31) Decimation - Chance of Build Up Level 2: Darkest Night (A) Dark Watcher's Despair - Recharge/Endurance (5) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff/Recharge/Endurance (11) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff/Endurance (31) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff Level 4: Gloom (A) Apocalypse - Damage/Recharge (5) Apocalypse - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (9) Apocalypse - Accuracy/Recharge (37) Apocalypse - Damage/Endurance (43) Apocalypse - Chance of Damage(Negative) Level 6: Combat Jumping (A) Karma - Knockback Protection (40) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) (46) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed Level 8: Tar Patch (A) Recharge Reduction IO (9) Recharge Reduction IO (13) Tempered Readiness - Endurance/Recharge/Slow (40) Tempered Readiness - Range/Slow Level 10: Super Jump (A) Jumping IO Level 12: Howling Twilight (A) Stupefy - Accuracy/Recharge (15) Stupefy - Accuracy/Stun/Recharge (17) Rope A Dope - Accuracy/Stun/Recharge (40) Annihilation - Chance for Res Debuff Level 14: Maneuvers (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed (29) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance (39) Luck of the Gambler - Defense Level 16: Dark Pit (A) Absolute Amazement - Stun/Recharge (17) Absolute Amazement - Accuracy/Stun/Recharge (34) Absolute Amazement - Accuracy/Recharge (34) Absolute Amazement - Endurance/Stun (46) Absolute Amazement - Stun Level 18: Tenebrous Tentacles (A) Superior Vigilant Assault - Accuracy/Damage (19) Superior Vigilant Assault - Damage/RechargeTime (23) Superior Vigilant Assault - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (34) Superior Vigilant Assault - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (36) Superior Vigilant Assault - RechargeTime/PBAoE +Absorb Level 20: Shadow Fall (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed (21) Luck of the Gambler - Defense (21) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance (33) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All) (42) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP (42) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3% Level 22: Night Fall (A) Ragnarok - Damage/Recharge (23) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (25) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Recharge (27) Ragnarok - Damage/Endurance (37) Ragnarok - Chance for Knockdown Level 24: Petrifying Gaze (A) Unbreakable Constraint - Hold/Recharge (25) Unbreakable Constraint - Accuracy/Hold/Recharge (27) Unbreakable Constraint - Accuracy/Recharge (37) Unbreakable Constraint - Endurance/Hold Level 26: Fearsome Stare (A) Siphon Insight - Accuracy/ToHit Debuff Level 28: Tactics (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance (29) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff (31) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance Level 30: Hasten (A) Recharge Reduction IO (43) Recharge Reduction IO Level 32: Dark Servant (A) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Healing (50) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Endurance/Heal/HitPoints/Regeneration Level 35: Dark Consumption (A) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Recharge (36) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Accuracy/Recharge (36) Efficacy Adaptor - Accuracy/Recharge (43) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Accuracy Level 38: Blackstar (A) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (39) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (39) Obliteration - Damage (46) Superior Avalanche - Recharge/Chance for Knockdown Level 41: Dark Embrace (A) Impervium Armor - Resistance/Endurance (42) Impervium Armor - Resistance Level 44: Soul Drain (A) Armageddon - Damage/Recharge (45) Armageddon - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (45) Armageddon - Accuracy/Recharge (45) Armageddon - Damage/Endurance (50) Armageddon - Chance for Fire Damage Level 47: Life Drain (A) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage (48) Devastation - Damage/Recharge (48) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (48) Devastation - Chance of Hold Level 49: Soul Transfer (A) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Recharge Level 1: Brawl (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Dash (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Slide (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Quick (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Rush (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Surge (A) Empty Level 1: Sprint (A) Unbounded Leap - +Stealth Level 1: Vigilance Level 2: Rest (A) Empty Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift (A) Run Speed IO Level 2: Health (A) Miracle - +Recovery (33) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery (50) Preventive Medicine - Chance for +Absorb Level 2: Hurdle (A) Jumping IO Level 2: Stamina (A) Performance Shifter - EndMod (7) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Accuracy (13) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve Level 0: Portal Jockey Level 0: Task Force Commander Level 0: The Atlas Medallion Level 50: Cardiac Core Paragon ------------

Oh good to know, I forgot. Now let's make it's duration 90 or 120 seconds, please.

+HPs is an often overlooked and underrated method of gaining survivability on a blaster, especially on teams. Spillover AoEs that kill squishes, leave you with some HPs. Your overall regeneration is higher. It is effective against all damage, even untyped. An extra 200-300 HPs gives you AND your team more time to respond to your situation, which is often significant, IME. It was a nice change to see the Blaster HP cap increased to 1847, rather than 1607 (although I still think it would have been better to be at the same cap as Stalkers).