sturmcrow

Hopefully shortened that quote string, about to head to bed but I was not trying to make a gotcha comment. The Archetype was listed as a Ranged one even in CoH literature. Sure they have short range powers but short is not the same as melee. Yes the secondary has some melee powers (of which most are pointless compared to the Primary nukes). The melees are inefficient and not really fitting, there are better ways to make a character that uses ranged and melee hence why in the suggestion thread for them I suggested (as have others) that the melee powers be replaced. I don't want to argue about semantics, not my intent, I was just trying to say that the majority of the live Power pools are ranged and not melee, and that actually being Support, as listed on the CoH page for Blasters would be better and more useful power pool choices in their Secondary.

Blasters are not a ranged DPS archetype, they are a DPS archetype. That means DPS at any range. Melee attacks are not a problem, the problem is them not being worth the risk. I agree they are not worth the risk, I disagree that the AT isnt Ranged focus, the Primary power pool are Ranged attacks. Scrappers Primary pool is Melee attacks. Sure you can play a blaster with melee attacks but that doesnt fit the overall design behind Blasters, glass cannons. But the Blast sets aren't pure ranged. Really? Could have fooled me, I just looked at all the Primary power pools and they are ranged powers. Even the CoH site says: Hit Points: Low Damage: High Primary Power Category - Ranged Secondary Power Category - Support That sounds like a Ranged DPS type to me *shrug*

Agreed and I would extend that to AE, it doesnt affect you if you dont want to use it. I am looking forward to crafting missions in AE because that appeals to me, I have not used it to PL and I dont plan on but I would never take that away from others. Not sure why people would even think they would create a new server with special rules just for a few.

Blasters are not a ranged DPS archetype, they are a DPS archetype. That means DPS at any range. Melee attacks are not a problem, the problem is them not being worth the risk. I agree they are not worth the risk, I disagree that the AT isnt Ranged focus, the Primary power pool are Ranged attacks. Scrappers Primary pool is Melee attacks. Sure you can play a blaster with melee attacks but that doesnt fit the overall design behind Blasters, glass cannons.

The problem with the melee attacks in Ice Manipulation (and some other blaster sets) is they're pointless. Ice Blast deals 102 damage on an 8 second recharge. Frozen Fists deals 91 damage on an 8 second recharge. It isnt needed to fill an attack chain, so why are you in melee to deal less damage? Energy Melee gets this mostly right. Bone Smasher has a 14 second recharge, but deals 144 damage. Blaps need to have a longer recharge and hit harder to make the risk of entering melee worthwhile. Particularly given the changes to snipes, the blaps need to be re-examined to make them useful. Dealing the equivalent of a tier 2 blast in melee range is poor design. At minimum, the following powers need changes to recharge and damage to give them a niche. Ice - Frozen Fists, Ice Sword Martial Assault - Storm Kick Mental - Mind Probe Ninja Training -Sting of the Wasp, Golden Dragonfly Others might need tweaks, but these are so redundant and low damage as to be waste of power choices. I agree, I think all the Manipulation sets need a rework to replace the melee powers with ranged (attacks/debuffs) or buff abilities. Ice sword etc are not really suitable for a ranged dps Archetype. There is plenty of inspiration in comics to come up with non-melee powers. 2nd level could be replaced with a Ranged Minor DOT -SPD -Fly ; snaring runners or attackers is useful and makes sense for ice 4th level could be a weaker Block of Ice; maybe change damage value and raise recharge time 10th level, move Shiver to here; Not sure why it is so late in the Ice Manipulation set, it is a cone slow 28th level, give them Arctic Air (I think this is better than Chilling Embrace but if people prefer that maybe improve it and put it here) 35th level, Glacier with a much longer cooldown than the Ice Control version or maybe an AOE Immobilize -Recharge if people think an AOE hold is too good. Note I dont play /Ice Blaster but I did play several blaster in live and playing a Beam/Devices one now and I would think the manipulation powers should have similar utility

Posting /JRanger to people's ideas is a shitty way to avoid dialog. I am all for this, I too, worry that NCSoft may do something to the popular open servers because of how many people are playing on them. Also in some parts of the world it IS winter in July so what would it hurt to have more events?

The only person coming across as a jerk is you, I join the discussion and you reply with a meme. Guess I know from now on not to try having a dialog with you since you resort to insults instead of discussing my points. Force Bolt is bad, it needs to be improved or replaced. Not sure why saying that is so controversial when other posters have literally said the same thing. The same with me suggesting that absorb belongs on FF powers, others have stated as such. ::)

Are you talking about Force Bolt here? Because that power does NOT really count as a damage dealing power. I'm pretty sure it does less damage than the Origin Temp Powers.... which suck. I am...It's minor smashing which is about as good damage as most (not all) tier 1 attack powers. I'm just saying that it does any damage at all, and given it's recharge time (Fast), it's in the top 2 of DPS of any support set (strictly speaking from a damage produced POV, not damage enabled). No, no isn't. You are arguing against improving a power that does 1/5th the damage of Controller tier 1 attacks, about 1/12th the damage of the blaster tier 1, less than 1/6th what the Defender does with its Secondary tier 1, etc. So no, it is nowhere close to any of the tier 1 power pools attack. And you say that it is the top 2 dps of any support set, support sets don't do damage! There are two attacks Gale (a cone knockback) and Force Bolt, so doing 3 points more damage then a cone isnt really good because a cone can hit many targets.

Pretty sure I said keep Repulsion Field and maybe improve it a little. Force Bubble is the one I think needs to be massively fixed as well as Force Bolt. To the other poster I also said that I can see why some people like Detention Field, I just find it lackluster.

So empathy can solo? Kinetics? Not all sets were created to solo. I played when this game came out. Force bolt is not useful for soloing. People with this set have to rely on their other power set to carry them solo through fights. Most of the power pools in this category have little to no attack powers and instead have support powers based on buffing and debuffing sometimes with a little damage included. FF is really the odd man out, the only one with a power comparable is Storm Summoning and that is a cone of knockback. People complained none stop in Live and when I played my FF/Energy Defender recently on Indom I got lots of complaints even though I was hovering above cause guess what enemies move and they get knockbacked based on that position. Knockback was heavily weighted when the game was created and the powers using it were never balanced against others that CC and Damage. Looking at stuff that was developed later in CoH's life makes it apparent that they started to come around about knockback.

I have to disagree with a lot of the conclusions by OP First Force Bolt is a joke and should be replaced. Minimal damage and knockback is a bad power and no group wants it happening. Second the last three powers all do roughly the same thing, knockback and knockback is B A D. Compare Force Bubble to the final power in similar categories and it really becomes how apparent how bad it is. In other Defender Primary/Controller Secondary pools the final power is a complete battle altering power, usually debuffing multiple enemies and buffing the team at the same time. Force bubble repels bad guys, not equivalent at all and worse when you look at Repulsion Field/Bomb the absurdity and poor design really become apparent. Looking at similar sets, it becomes easily apparent what fixes Forcefield needs. It needs absorb added, preferably an absorb that increases in strength as you level up either as a replacement or included in one of its powers. Force Bolt needs to be replaced with a group offensive buff (or the AoE absorb shield). Knockback is not CC no matter what the original Devs thought of it. Keep Repulsion Field with maybe some modifications and change Force Bubble entirely (you know what we would be cool and AoE intangible bubble that allows your team to move in an out of it freely). I know some people might not like it being similar to Dimension shift but maybe include a buff to allies in the AoE because how fitting would it be for Forcefields to create an bubble that locks down enemies inside, I think very fitting. I also think Detention Field is pointless, most groups dont care about a single enemy and burn through groups to fast but I can see how while leveling it might have its uses. I would prefer it replaced with something that helps the group or an ally like most of the other powers in this category. Right now you could make a Forcefield character and just stack some group buff toggles and go on follow which is boring. Adding or changing abilities so the player has to be more interactive, such as refreshing absorbs or debuffing enemies/buffing allies mid-fight.