The problem with the blaster fixed

[Diantane]

Looked at a blaster because of its amazing DPS. Played my first blaster a month ago. It was fire/atomic and currently level 46 when he was abandoned. Stopped playing him because I was sick and tired of creatures putting me to sleep and then killing a helpless blaster. Unless I had a breakfree inspiration (or about 90 of them, I was in trouble). Didn't just give up. Instead I tried to find a better way (and I did).

 

A blaster lacks protection against lots of things including sleep, hold, etc. Now a sentinel has all those protections and also has beam weapon, but a sentinel's damage output is about 25% less than a blaster's. It's just like trying to play as a defender or corruptor. That is until I discovered Bio Armor. With this defense you can play in offensive mode and gain back that 25% difference. It may not be an exact difference, but it sure is nice. My beam/bio sentinel is level 41 and rising. He is a "blast" to play and I don’t get put to sleep. When I hit a creature, I can watch their health drop quickly. It is far better than any other sentinel I have played and abandoned due to lack of DPS (my first sentinel fire/will had to go through every attack three times to kill anything (abandoned at level 38)). The beam/bio sentinel is by far the most powerful sentinel and comes close to tieing with a blaster.

 

Maybe even better. How much DPS can a blaster do if they're dead?

Edited October 14, 2021 by Diantane

[DreadShinobi]

Mez protection for blasters:

Rune of protection

Clarion

Acrobatics

Blaster ATO status protection proc

Ranged defense set bonuses

Defense amplifier

Break free insps

Putting bids on market for larger break frees that have longer duration

Emailing yourself break frees to refill your insp tray if you run out

Killing the threat before they can do anything.

[Triumphant]

Glad you found an AT that you love playing!  I quite like blasters, myself, but I understand the mez vulnerability can be too frustrating for some.  As DreadShinobi pointed out, there are various ways to mitigate this, but if you don't want to futz with it then Sentinels are a great choice (albeit, with less damaging attacks).

[Without_Pause]

 

[Without_Pause]

FYI, yes I have teamed with them. Yes, I made sure to gignore them on both of my accounts.

[Carnifax]

Back in i3 or i4 I came to the same conclusion after trying a Fire Blaster. Blasters sucked, you'd cast your AOE. The Mobs would shoot you, stun you and you'd die. Blasters were a terrible AT which sucked completely. 

 

Happily I got better. 

[Nemu]

Buff Blasters. They are terrible.

[SuperPlyx]

....

Edited October 14, 2021 by SuperPlyx
Was a dumb post and I shouldn't have made it

[Maelwys]

My first Blaster on live was a Fire/Ice because of Ice Patch and Shiver.

 

Those two powers basically let him survive the aggro of nuking everything with Firebreath and Fireball (and corner pulling was a thing too).

 

When he hit 50 he was by far my favourite toon to just hop on and enjoy a TF or some missions with friends. However by then he was never using Ice Patch and Shiver for damage mitigation; but to stop enemies running out of the effect of Rain of Fire. His attack plan was essentially: Locate the biggest nearby mob he can find --> Jump into the middle of it --> Inferno --> Jump into the middle of the NEXT mob and run in little circles until he Faceplants (with bonus points if there's a tank and/or healer trying to stop that from happening) --> Rise of the Phoenix --> Keep incinerating things with Fireball and Fire Breath and Blaze and Rain of Fire until Inferno is recharged --> Repeat.

 

He was totally useless for "Master of [Insert TF here]" runs. But he was a real genuine joy to play. Eventually they even patched things so he could use a few lower-tier attacks whilst mezzed. Bonus!  These days on HC, Blaster's nukes don't floor your endurance/recovery and they recharge faster, so that style of play is even better.

 

Don't think of Blasters as ranged Scrappers. They're their own thing, and they are completely brilliant at precisely three things: Damage, Bedlam, and causing support-oriented teammates to have heart attacks.

 

(Edit: I should probably also point out that I'm aware that "Blappers" exist. I'd a Sonic/Elec Blaster with softcapped S/L defense on live as well... he was survivable, he was effective, he was powerful... and he continuously slept in my ALTs list because he was completely boring to play in comparison to my Fire/Ice!)

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by Maelwys

[Snarky]

On 10/13/2021 at 6:54 PM, DreadShinobi said:

Mez protection for blasters:

Rune of protection

Clarion

Acrobatics

Blaster ATO status protection proc

Ranged defense set bonuses

Defense amplifier

Break free insps

Putting bids on market for larger break frees that have longer duration

Emailing yourself break frees to refill your insp tray if you run out

Killing the threat before they can do anything.

You left out “using strategy” but it may be implied in the wall of answers

[Uun]

Blasters can use the T1 & T2 attacks from their primary and the T1 attack from their secondary while mezzed. Pretty sure this has been brought to your attention in other threads.

[Aurora_Girl]

Doooooont feeeeeed the troooooll

[PeregrineFalcon]

I know that this isn't the suggestions forum, but...

 

[GhostDawg]

On 10/13/2021 at 5:34 PM, Diantane said:

Looked at a blaster because of its amazing DPS. Played my first blaster a month ago. It was fire/atomic and currently level 46 when he was abandoned. Stopped playing him because I was sick and tired of creatures putting me to sleep and then killing a helpless blaster. Unless I had a breakfree inspiration (or about 90 of them, I was in trouble). Didn't just give up. Instead I tried to find a better way (and I did).

 

A blaster lacks protection against lots of things including sleep, hold, etc. Now a sentinel has all those protections and also has beam weapon, but a sentinel's damage output is about 25% less than a blaster's. It's just like trying to play as a defender or corruptor. That is until I discovered Bio Armor. With this defense you can play in offensive mode and gain back that 25% difference. It may not be an exact difference, but it sure is nice. My beam/bio sentinel is level 41 and rising. He is a "blast" to play and I don’t get put to sleep. When I hit a creature, I can watch their health drop quickly. It is far better than any other sentinel I have played and abandoned due to lack of DPS (my first sentinel fire/will had to go through every attack three times to kill anything (abandoned at level 38)). The beam/bio sentinel is by far the most powerful sentinel and comes close to tieing with a blaster.

 

Maybe even better. How much DPS can a blaster do if they're dead?

Switching to sentinel didn't solve your problem. You still abandoned your blaster at level 46. A few more levels and you could have had perma-clarion. A respec could have given you Rune of Protection. Knowing your enemy and leveraging lucks when needed is often a better solution than break frees because they cut incoming damage. I love sentinels for the same reasons you do, but I didn't give up on blasters. In fact I probably have more blasters than any other archetype in my roster. 2 in the veteran levels. One relies on clarion, and the other has so much ranged defense that I rarely worry about mez protection. And she's /Martial, and that set has a built in break free. Mez is annoying in the early game, but as your build matures it's just not that big a deal. Still having issues with it at level 46? That's kind of a you thing. 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by GhostDawg

[Penguin313]

On 10/13/2021 at 8:34 PM, Diantane said:

Looked at a blaster because of its amazing DPS. Played my first blaster a month ago. It was fire/atomic and currently level 46 when he was abandoned. Stopped playing him because I was sick and tired of creatures putting me to sleep and then killing a helpless blaster. Unless I had a breakfree inspiration (or about 90 of them, I was in trouble). Didn't just give up. Instead I tried to find a better way (and I did).

 

A blaster lacks protection against lots of things including sleep, hold, etc. Now a sentinel has all those protections and also has beam weapon, but a sentinel's damage output is about 25% less than a blaster's. It's just like trying to play as a defender or corruptor. That is until I discovered Bio Armor. With this defense you can play in offensive mode and gain back that 25% difference. It may not be an exact difference, but it sure is nice. My beam/bio sentinel is level 41 and rising. He is a "blast" to play and I don’t get put to sleep. When I hit a creature, I can watch their health drop quickly. It is far better than any other sentinel I have played and abandoned due to lack of DPS (my first sentinel fire/will had to go through every attack three times to kill anything (abandoned at level 38)). The beam/bio sentinel is by far the most powerful sentinel and comes close to tieing with a blaster.

 

Maybe even better. How much DPS can a blaster do if they're dead?

a properly built blaster will watch a Sentinel show off & simply say not bad. Now hold my beer. 

 

as to how much DPS can a dead blaster to? depends, how many Rad 'fenders/trollers do you have around?  Because a dead teammate is just a bomb waiting to explode for a Rad 'fender/troller.  

and from experience, with 7 Rad fender/trollers and a dead blaster, the answer is LOTS of damage. 

and then one of them stands the blaster up, dusts them off, and says lets do that again in a minute. 

[Snarky]

run a F-ing Brute. it is the only way you will get the armor you want.  You will still complain about the 'holes' in the armor you pick.   enjoy.

[lemming]

I have blasters that have a pretty good survivability rating though I've seen others being run like tanks.

 

That being said, my favorite blaster tactics are mass destruction since the best way to survive, is kill everything first.  Or have enough recharge that "Rise of the Phoenix" is just a part of the attack chain...

[Crysis]

Have over a dozen Blasters here on HC, most fully T4’d out Incarnates.

 

Can count on two hands number of times I’ve been mezzed that led to my death.

 

As @DreadShinobi listed, on HC, mezz isn’t a problem for a well equipped and played blaster.

 

Diantane, do you need a mentor?  You sound like you could use a good sidekicking.

[Without_Pause]

FYI, I got a En/en blaster to 41 on live with common IOs and playing hardcore. He survived his fair share of near complete team wipes as well. Playing a blaster without restrictions on HC is near cheat mode.

[arcane]

I saw the thread title and guessed the poster.

[MunkiLord]

On 10/13/2021 at 7:34 PM, Diantane said:

Looked at a blaster because of its amazing DPS. Played my first blaster a month ago. It was fire/atomic and currently level 46 when he was abandoned. Stopped playing him because I was sick and tired of creatures putting me to sleep and then killing a helpless blaster. Unless I had a breakfree inspiration (or about 90 of them, I was in trouble). Didn't just give up. Instead I tried to find a better way (and I did).

 

A blaster lacks protection against lots of things including sleep, hold, etc. Now a sentinel has all those protections and also has beam weapon, but a sentinel's damage output is about 25% less than a blaster's. It's just like trying to play as a defender or corruptor. That is until I discovered Bio Armor. With this defense you can play in offensive mode and gain back that 25% difference. It may not be an exact difference, but it sure is nice. My beam/bio sentinel is level 41 and rising. He is a "blast" to play and I don’t get put to sleep. When I hit a creature, I can watch their health drop quickly. It is far better than any other sentinel I have played and abandoned due to lack of DPS (my first sentinel fire/will had to go through every attack three times to kill anything (abandoned at level 38)). The beam/bio sentinel is by far the most powerful sentinel and comes close to tieing with a blaster.

 

Maybe even better. How much DPS can a blaster do if they're dead?

I dunno, multiple people have done solo Master ITFs with Blasters so I think they are pretty good.

[Ironscarlet]

On 10/13/2021 at 8:34 PM, Diantane said:

The beam/bio sentinel is by far the most powerful sentinel and comes close to tieing with a blaster.

 

Maybe even better. How much DPS can a blaster do if they're dead?

 

Beam/Bio was my 2nd char to 50 on HC and that was almost 2 years ago. It is by far the highest damage Sent I have ever built. Coming from a old live Tanker mind set blaster did not fit how I played which was usually very aggressive + I hated dieing (tanker mindset). Sentinel just worked better for me as it looks like you found your AT. Beam/Bio is a great pick .

 

Now after almost 2 years and over 20+ 50s. You know what I did? I leveled a blaster to 50. You can cap almost every blasters range def at close to 45%. When this happens only 5% of attacks can hit you. Building the Blaster takes a lot of coin. Some builds more than others. Once this happen that 45% def really stops a lot of the CC or you can take one of the option the guy said above Clarion incarnate being the most popular. Pretty much what I am saying is after you Build your Sent. Save some coin to build a meta blaster its worth it. Especially if your so close to 50 on your fire/atomic blaster the most meta solo ITF op blaster in the game fully built. (500 mil coin later) 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Ironscarlet