Blasters why melee

[beradical]

There are some ATs I just dont get, and some I feel didnt age well into today's mature end-game. But the Blaster is one of the better ATs, where the developers were able to craft powersets that have solid baselines, but can be exceptional through skillful gameplay. Many of the elite melee sets score well by using mechanics such as combos, finishers, frenzy, momentum, etc which are more busy and complex than straight button mashing, but yield greater results. Blasters become elite by skillful gameplay leveraging the best of their ranged and melee.

 

Of course you should play your toons how you want, but I fricken love my blaster because of the melee - he has a fantastic array of melee, ranged, ST, TAoe, PBAoe, location AoEs and dmg toggles. All of these allow me to craft specific solutions to various challenges, and create combinations of ludicrous damage output. Higher challenges will always yield higher rewards. And if this toon were ranged only, I personally would not find it nearly as fun and enjoyable.

 

If some of you find yourself struggling in melee or feeling esp squishy, try prioritizing soft-caps first, then flesh out the rest of your build needs. The Scorpion Shield makes it really easy to cap S/L/R and that is all I need to rarely die, and only occasionally take mid-battle naps. The reason we get mezzed so much is honestly, we just need a break from carrying the load of the whole damn team pewing away with their mediocre damage.

[XaoGarrent]

I'm late to the party, but it really just boils down to Blaster melee numbers being really, really, really, really big. I'd say the only competition Blasters have for raw damage in melee is a handful of AoE centric Stalker builds.

 

Unless you're playing Dev or TA (until they nerf it anyway) avoiding melee on a Blaster is a huge waste. Especially these days where you can comfortably get Scrapper-ish defense/resistance through IOs, and self healing isn't even completely out of the question. Not to mention that having pretty much every type of attack in the game makes slotting large IO sets and getting the specific bonuses you want way easier than it is on a character with an armor secondary.

 

I keep putting off making a Blaster with more of a melee focus, and I keep regretting it, because I keep running into IOed Blasters that are just doming fools like it's going out of style. You'd be surprised how fast IOs + a support AT on the team can hit the soft cap for a Blaster. An IOed Blaster with Fort is basically the damn grim reaper.

Edited November 13, 2020 by XaoGarrent

[Shred Monkey]

On 11/4/2020 at 2:42 PM, S33k3r said:

If a Blaster is a master of all damage, what is the point of a Scrapper -- what niche do they fill?

I ask myself this question every time I make a new toon. 

 

So far, on homecoming I have only 1 level 50 scrapper, and his name is DBELECdonotplaythisguy or something like that, stuck on the backpage of my character screen.

[Doomguide2005]

1 hour ago, Shred Monkey said:

I ask myself this question every time I make a new toon. 

 

So far, on homecoming I have only 1 level 50 scrapper, and his name is DBELECdonotplaythisguy or something like that, stuck on the backpage of my character screen.

😁  well my main on Live ... nostalgia and she was SR.  Soon as they give 24-7 defdebuff resistance of 95% to blasters I'll have to consider revisiting the question.  Until then I'll enjoy the visceral sensation of jumping into swarms in defdebuffers like Cimerorans and shredding them with my Claws.

[Shred Monkey]

8 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

😁  well my main on Live ... nostalgia and she was SR.  Soon as they give 24-7 defdebuff resistance of 95% to blasters I'll have to consider revisiting the question.  Until then I'll enjoy the visceral sensation of jumping into swarms in defdebuffers like Cimerorans and shredding them with my Claws.

A Scrapper stands gloriously among a swarm of charging enemies.  A Blaster stands gloriously over a pile of fresh bodies.

Edited November 14, 2020 by Shred Monkey

[therealtitanman]

I usually use melee AOE when surrounded or melee when all range in recharge. barely use melee.

[Lusiphur Malache]

On 10/27/2020 at 5:27 PM, Nemu said:

When you learn to play melee blasters you will want to play nothing else.

This is so true my main is nrg/nrg/elec blaster.  I enjoy playing him, but it gets kind of boring because there is nothing i can't reach and if I can reach it, it might as well be dead.  Now I have a dark/martial/soul  blaster and it is the first toon I play everyday, hell some days it is the only toon I play.

 

I was intent on creating a blapper because I remember the curious looks from teammates back in the day when you could count blappers on 1 hand.  Burst of Speed is a joy to use, recently I learned that given enough room I could snipe a target and beat the beam there with BoS.

 

A range only blaster is taking a chance everytime he goes to use a nuke.  With BoS, oppressive gloom, and reaction field, setting off a nuke is as easy as a walk in the park for my blapper.

 

Give a blapper a try, I hear Ninjitsu is a ton of fun.  I don't know for sure but with i27, maybe blapping with combat teleport will be possible.

[Runebound]

On 10/27/2020 at 8:59 AM, TygerDarkstorm said:

Despite the misconception and the character creator labeling them as ranged, blasters are the masters of ALL damage, as Apparition said.

You're right that Blasters are now the masters of damage in general, but they really were a ranged AT.  It's not just the character creator that lists them so. In the old Paragon Wiki page on Blasters, before listing the Primary Powersets, it says

Quote

A Blaster's primary power sets are designed specifically for ranged attacks.

 

That's how they were in Live. But now, of course, they do quite well at melee, with powersets increasingly gauged towards close play. Crysis has an interesting take on why Blappers now flourish:

 

On 10/31/2019 at 3:33 AM, Crysis said:

Blasters were my thing in Live, but the Homecoming Blaster is a completely different kind of AT than it was back on Live, and this is all because of the Sustain.

 

Back on Live the /Mental Manipulation Blaster secondary had Drain Psyche which was Foe -Regen/-Recovery and Self +Regen/+Recovery.  To my knowledge, this was the only Blaster secondary with that kind of power.  Now ALL Blaster secondaries have a Sustain power that’s similar, with most (all?) being a toggle.  So many ways to slot it as well.  You can drop +END uniques in there, things like Performance Shifter or Panacea, and get a significant amount of +REGEN/+RECOVERY from that single power.  I’ve even done some frankenslotting on it with things like Preventative Medicine proc, Numina and Miracle procs etc.  

 

Sustain powers are truly a game changer.  Build for at least one good positional or typed +DEF and between the two survivability is very high and Blapping is highly effective.  Some primaries, like DP’s T9, even up your DEF during delivery of the power which, coupled with your Sustain, makes you quite tanky.

 

With a relatively high investment in +DEF IO sets, Blasters are quite capable of soloin’g many TF’s, farming, etc.  Times have changed!

 

 

 

As a ranged player, I'm really glad some powersets still have the option to play at a distance, but posts like Nemu's above and Jeneki's about jousting in-and-out of melee make me want to try a melee option as well.

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Runebound

[Flask]

[Doomguide2005]

Blasters, like any and all characters, consist of not just a Primary.  They also have Secondaries as well as Pool and Epic powers.  

[Haijinx]

Blasters have the best Melee attacks in COH.

 

So it makes sense to Melee with them.

 

The right question is "why not melee?"

[Carnifax]

11 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Blasters have the best Melee attacks in COH.

 

So it makes sense to Melee with them.

 

The right question is "why not melee?"

The answer to that is usually a combination of safety and it interferes with my cones. A lot of secondaries don't have great AoE so staying at range and focusing on AoE + cones can be a great option too.

 

Which is great. I have one insane blapper and one floaty ranged death bringer and will pick whichever I'm in the mood for.

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, Carnifax said:

The answer to that is usually a combination of safety and it interferes with my cones. A lot of secondaries don't have great AoE so staying at range and focusing on AoE + cones can be a great option too.

 

Which is great. I have one insane blapper and one floaty ranged death bringer and will pick whichever I'm in the mood for.

Its true you can make a good ranger as a blaster.  If thats what you want.

 

But really I see the "blapper" as the default setting. 

 

And pffft safety.  

[Carnifax]

3 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Its true you can make a good ranger as a blaster.  If thats what you want.

 

But really I see the "blapper" as the default setting. 

 

And pffft safety.  

My blapper is way more fun to play. Did a +4 PuG ITF yesterday which was stacked full of dps and it was ridiculously fun. If anyone died I had vengie and the p2w Rez anyway 😁

[Chebeck]

To offer another perspective here, the main reason I don't intentionally try to melee things on most blasters: Cones. 

 

Some of the powerset's best attacks are midranged cones, and to get the full coverage, you're limited to a certain range and often a certain angle, at which point you can use the second cone on many sets, which the current speed of play determines is "The End of that Group". 

 

Sure, you can (and I do) mix it up for that Extreme ST melee on some bosses or that AV/Hero, but often ST's are extremely devalued in current state. And that Stalker probably already nailed the Boss mobs to the wall while I was coning the lighter duty stuff.

 

Honestly surprised no one else mentioned this for real until Carnifex a few posts up. 

[BlackenBlue71]

If you don't want to melee, take Devices as your secondary. Not only do you have a stealth power (Field  Operative) built into the set, but there aren't a lot of melee range powers. Powers you can use at close range, yes, but you don't necessarily have to.

 

On my Electric/ Devices Blaster, I do use Taser, but only if my other stuns/holds are on cooldown and an enemy happens to be close enough to me.  If you think you're going to be attacked at close range, drop a Trip Mine right in front of you. I like to hit enemies with Tesla Cage, then drop a Trip Mine at their feet. I use Trip Mine and Time Bomb together to take out multiple enemies at close range. Time Bomb has a 5 second timer, so you really have to use it at close range, but if Field Operative is active, you can sneak up behind enemies and drop the bomb.

 

On the other hand, I have a DP/MC Blaster, and love to melee on him. He's a walking Hong Kong action flick. My Sonic/Ninja Blaster, I do use the sword attacks but only because they apply debuffs. I do hit and runs on that one.

 

 

[ClawsandEffect]

On 12/12/2020 at 5:25 PM, BlackenBlue71 said:

On the other hand, I have a DP/MC Blaster, and love to melee on him. He's a walking Hong Kong action flick.

 

 

Right there with you. My DP/Martial is one of my favorite characters to play, and the only one that doesn't have a go to attack chain. I like stringing his attacks together randomly because it makes any given fight feel more realistic. 

 

His theme is that he's a mutant teleporter like Nightcrawler, but decided he needed guns to supplement his fighting ability. I jump around with Jaunt all the time and run Speed of Sound full time. 

[Wavicle]

Sentinels for Ranged only, or Tactical Arrow or Devices on Blasters.

[BlackenBlue71]

9 hours ago, ClawsandEffect said:

Right there with you. My DP/Martial is one of my favorite characters to play, and the only one that doesn't have a go to attack chain. I like stringing his attacks together randomly because it makes any given fight feel more realistic. 

 

His theme is that he's a mutant teleporter like Nightcrawler, but decided he needed guns to supplement his fighting ability. I jump around with Jaunt all the time and run Speed of Sound full time. 

Did you have to put an extra slot into Stamina because of keeping Speed of Sound on? Or do you carry extra blue inspirations?

[brasilgringo]

16 hours ago, ClawsandEffect said:

Right there with you. My DP/Martial is one of my favorite characters to play, and the only one that doesn't have a go to attack chain. I like stringing his attacks together randomly because it makes any given fight feel more realistic. 

 

His theme is that he's a mutant teleporter like Nightcrawler, but decided he needed guns to supplement his fighting ability. I jump around with Jaunt all the time and run Speed of Sound full time. 

did you take Combat Teleport instead of, or in addition to, Burst of Speed?  because BoS is basically Combat Teleport 1.0 with minor changes, from what I understand.  I use it on my DP/MC to port into mobs all the time.  And you can proc-slot BoS for damage.

Edited December 31, 2020 by brasilgringo

[ClawsandEffect]

8 hours ago, BlackenBlue71 said:

Did you have to put an extra slot into Stamina because of keeping Speed of Sound on? Or do you carry extra blue inspirations?

No, the recovery boost from Reaction Time is enough. I slotted it the same as I did Stamina with an extra Performance Shifter proc. Never have any endurance problems. 

2 hours ago, brasilgringo said:

did you take Combat Teleport instead of, or in addition to, Burst of Speed?  because BoS is basically Combat Teleport 1.0 with minor changes, from what I understand.  I use it on my DP/MC to port into mobs all the time.  And you can proc-slot BoS for damage.

Nope. Didn't have room in my build for another power pool. Burst of Speed and Jaunt has been just fine so far. 

 

I use BoS as an extra AoE attack. I burn all 3 uses in a row and then fire Hail of Bullets. Usually kills everything but the bosses in any given mob. 

Edited December 31, 2020 by ClawsandEffect

[TheMoncrief]

I think the obvious answer to the thread title is "Why not?"

 

Blasters have melee attacks. They do a ton of damage. They are better equipped than ever before to survive using them - and even in the past they could survive using them easily enough in teams with the right buffs flying around. So why not melee?

[DocRadio]

On 10/27/2020 at 8:41 AM, Spectre7878 said:

I have come to love blasters. I use to always play dominators and controllers because well I am a control freak hehe. The one thing I never understood about blasters is their secondary power set and some of their T9 powers. A blaster in my opinion should always want to that range. They make no sense going in melee since we have very little defense until IO sets. That being said. I wish all blasters T9 powers were ranged. Secondary sets can be melee if need be but I personally don’t like getting in melee to do my nova power. Wish they could give us a choice or change T9. That’s just my wish

Enhancement sets that boost defense make getting up close and nasty a whole lot safer. My Rad/Atomic and Pistols/Martial blasters practically live in melee. I open up most fights at range then close to melee distance. And even before I began to build for defense I would still close in for the occasional heavy hitting melee attack. To this day I miss them when playing sentinels. Feels off somehow.

[Karumac]

On 11/3/2020 at 2:25 PM, beradical said:

Also, unrelated, I just learned that "blapping" means melee. I thought it was a term for blasters because they talk so much sh*t in pvp lmao. It's why I originally came to hate the AT back on live.

So just cause I didn't see anyone bring this up, the origin of the word Blapper is Blaster + Scrapper. Just cram those words together and you get Blapper.

 

I also move that because a Sentinel is basically just a Scrapper with a Gun, they should be called Scrasters, cause Scrapper + Blaster.

[TheSpiritFox]

My favorite blaster rn is DP/Mental

 

Between drain psyche, psychic scream, the PBAOE nuke and other AOEs of DP, i made a hover blaster with bonfire designed to bonfire a group, hit the pbaoes, and then hover up to shoot down then hover back down to drop more PBAOEs. 

 

Like, it is a blaster designed to play in melee a good bit. I got it as close to the ranged softcap as possible for hover blasting and use CC to protect myself in melee, but I do my best damage either in melee or close ranged but not actually in melee to use my cone attack.