Are Blappers Still a Thing?

[Radiaria]

Some sets will make blapping more favorable: Fire/ Energy/ Dark/ Psychic/ DB/ Rad/ Sonic/ will all more or less "force" you into the middle of a battlefield to get the most use out of their T9 nuke.

 

Some sets: Water/ Ice/ Beam/ Archery/ Elec/ AR/ will be much more "range favoring" and unless you take a secondary that strictly reinforces blapping e.g. fire, mental, ninja, you'll be good to permanently stay at range and have no business entering melee at all which does help you survive quite a bit.

 

Is blapping viable? Oh yes it is. I ran an LGTF today on my Ice/Fire blapper and was the only one on my team (as a blapper) out of 8 people, two of which being tanks, who didn't die and that is not because I was a "good baby blaster." I was always ahead of the pack blasting down the Rikti while everyone else lagged behind me. How do blasters become that survivable? Incarnates, IO's and good defense to range/S/L/E RoP and Melee Core will make you pretty damn tanky to where these stupid "blasters don't survive as well as sentinels" rule doesn't apply anymore at 50. There's an endgame to blasters, you've just gotta hang on tight until then.

Edited September 11, 2019 by 3333053222

[TheAdjustor]

On 9/10/2019 at 5:23 PM, Eva Destruction said:

Probably less so now since the big attack has had its range increased from the pre-IO days, and insta-snipe is a thing, so you can actually kill things at range instead of just scattering them everywhere,.  The nuke is still a PBAoE though, and now that you can use it whenever it's up it's still not optimal to play entirely at range.

If you want to do any damage you have to play in melee, the only exception are pairings with tactical arrow which since it doesn't give you any damage doesn't matter.

Edited September 11, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[Eva Destruction]

50 minutes ago, TheAdjustor said:

If you want to do any damage you have to play in melee, the only exception are pairings with tactical arrow which since it doesn't give you any damage doesn't matter.

I was talking about Energy Blast, which does damage even at range although it's not optimal.  I have no idea what you're talking about, since every Blaster pairing has a primary that does damage and allows you to completely skip the attacks in your secondary and still do damage.

[TheAdjustor]

1 hour ago, Eva Destruction said:

I was talking about Energy Blast, which does damage even at range although it's not optimal.  I have no idea what you're talking about, since every Blaster pairing has a primary that does damage and allows you to completely skip the attacks in your secondary and still do damage.

Yes bad damage. I was pretty certain I had conveyed that blaster's like all the damage focused ATs did their best damage in melee. Oh well my failure to convey the concept.

[RaptorCK]

Man, this all takes me back.  I rolled an Elec/Elec blaptroller build shortly after launch, and that was a wild ride.  Tesla Cage was my second-best friend, right after a carefully aimed drop into melee with PBAoEs going off all rolled up with boosted Energy drain.  I only got distracted because I was running an SG off of my main and needed to focus on my Em/En Defender, who I'm currently rebuilding from scratch.  The trick was to open with AoEs, lock down anything that tried to run, punch anything that stuck around, and snipe off the handful you couldn't immobilize.

 

But yeah, IF you don't bite off more than you can chew, a properly tuned Elec/Elec will drop in, turn everything in range into putty, and then punch it into next week, quite literally.  I was often told that I was a bit... nuts for taking on that much effort, but it was fun, so it's all good.  Just... be careful firing off a ranged AoE to lock down that one runaway... it might pull in a bit more than you were hoping for!

[Frostweaver]

Weirdly enough, blappers are STILL a thing. I am working with an electric/atomic  that uses the whole fighting pool. Cross punch is surprisingly underrated when boosted with boxing and kick. I am starting to think that some primaries/secondaries are deigned with blapping in mind.

It's no brute, but it certainly pulls scrapper-level numbers under the right circumstances. if it weren't for the recent Nerf, /MC would be almost ideal.

 

Edited September 21, 2019 by Frostweaver

[Loanet]

I am a Blapper. Although you do tend to eat a lot of dirt until Level 10, you don't actually have to run into battles. You can still snipe, which draws in groups. One of my favourite things to do is a well-timed Ki-Push/Range. They're knocked away and kept away. It will take out any White and some Yellows if you remember your Damage Enhancements.

 

Blappers are good solo-ers.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Loanet

[Crysta Clear]

It's a lot easier to do if you choose a secondary with a defense power in-set, like Ninja Training.

 

I have an Electric Blast / Ninja Training blaster who's managed to softcap all three positionals. Granted, she needs to rely on the 5% portion of her T4 Barrier, but she's positionally softcapped with 100% uptime, and her T4 Diamagnetic further penalizes enemies' to-hit when she attacks them, which can, along with purple insps, ease certain incarnate content where enemy accuracy buffs are a thing.

 

Opening up from stealth with Aim -> Thunderous Blast is amazingly fun to see 800+ damage to ~20 enemies at once, and all of them just fall over. XD

And for the next couple of fights, I'm in melee with Lotus Drops (complete with knockdown proc), Golden Dragonfly, and Short-Circuit, weaving melee powers Ball Lightning and basically never leaving melee combat.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Crysta Clear

[DarknessEternal]

4 hours ago, Crysta Clear said:

weaving melee powers Ball Lightning and basically never leaving melee combat.

Until you get held.  Death is out of combat.

[HelenCarnate]

1 hour ago, DarknessEternal said:

Until you get held.  Death is out of combat.

I rarely get held thanks to incarnate mez protection.  Just have to play like SR and remrmber to click every 2 min.

[Crysta Clear]

That is what breakfrees are for! XD

[Lusiphur Malache]

My first toon on Live was an nrg/nrg blaster that heard all the complaints from all the other ATs.  As luck would have it I got into a pug with someone who was playing a blapper, they were the first I had seen and I asked some questions.  Shortly after I started making my blaster a blapper, I'd like to say it was accepted far and wide, but that would be a lie, think i got more derision and scorn.