Zen_Concern

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Story in a nutshell:
Trick Arrow used to have 4 Targeted AoE powers. That made using the set incredibly difficult (although, it was pretty cool.) During the test period, we decided to change 2 powers to standard AoE attacks. Poison Gas Arrow was one of them.

Originally, Poison Gas Arrow would leave a large pool of gas that lasted almost a minute. Any critter entering the gas cloud would be debuffed and a small chance of being put to sleep every quarter of a second. When we changed it to a normal AoE, though, the chance to sleep was left at it's original level. While that was fine for a power activating 4 times a second, for a one shot chance, it was patheticly (sp?) low.

So, I increased the sleep chance to a 'better' value. It's still not 100% of the time, but you should get between 50% and 66% of minions when it lands.

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I assume you mean TA originally had four Location AoEs; flash, glue, and PGA are targetted AoEs now.

That explains a lot, actually. But I'd prefer the original Location AoE version: a sleep cloud is a bit more interesting, because it synergizes with glue arrow: the slow can keep them in the cloud longer, which means even if awakened, there's still a chance to resleep.

The set is already difficult: trick arrow already has either constant weapon redraws, or the long activation times of archery (which is a potentially worse penalty), and the archery delay already makes arrows sometimes go to targets after they've moved from the spot we wanted to target.

I'd go so far as to say that while Location AoE's require a different skill set, it would actually be easier for me to get maximum effectiveness out of TA if all my debuffs were location AoEs, since given the activation times of the arrow shots, its more likely I can place the arrow exactly where I want with a location AoE than a targetted AoE (targets move, and targets sometimes die and reset queued shots before they can activate, so queueing shots is unreliable anyway), and I can also partially defer TA activation times by dropping location patches and having groups pull into them (or I could pull into them myself when solo).

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After PvPing with TA, I really like that they chaged PGA to a targeted AoE. Believe me when I say that it makes debuffing in PvP much easier. I see what your saying but I can definately see why they changed it. Both Glue and PGA are good powers to have as targeted AoEs although I wish glue would target flyers.

Actually, the sleep in Poison Gas is something I will be testing out vigorously when it gets its update in I7.

When it comes to getting a bubbler out of his bubble, nothing is better than a bit of sleep from an auto-hit power. If the chance for sleep went up, I am going to be a happy camper.

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If you strike Trick Arrow down now, it will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

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Really?
*tries to strike Trick Arrow down*
*can't do enough damage with the arrows to overcome passive regen*

Aww..

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I laughed at this, then had to shed some tears because it was true.

Also, I notice that some people are commenting on LTs. I personaly have not ran into any LTs as far as I know, or if I did, I didn't have any problems with them.

With the bosses however, I whiff with entire attack chains that include rain of fire. The bosses I know without a doubt have something wonky with their defense. Even SR scrappers in PvP and stalkers in PvP get hit by Rain of Fire.

Okaaaaaaaay, so how bout them trick arrow defenders?

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Speaking of smoke grenade problems, I wonder if they're using the original version of smoke grenade. The original smoke grenade had a decimal error such that it, alone, could cap a blaster's defence. I know, I soloed AVs using it. If this is the case, that may explain their exceptional defence.

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I have a feeling it is something of this nature.

I have dropped rain of fire on a night widow and watched not a single damage number pop-up over her head.

Considering how many ticks are in Rain of Fire, I would say that is pretty good statistical evidence.

Kali, I went up against one with my Fire/Elec with SOs and even useing Build-up and aim whiffed an entire attack chain. It wasn't until I came back with a tray of insights and popped 6 of them combined with aim and build-up that I could actually hit her. They have screwed up the nightwidow defense somehow and I think it merits looking into.

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Arcanna, I am very much in agreement that blasters should have their attack chains pretty much laid down by the time they hit their teens but I don't think that blasters need situational powers in addition to what they already have in their secondary.

What you described as a replacement to nova is something that I would consider a great secondary power. I think that blasters can have a good attack chain starting out and then as the levels progress pick up powers that can be helpfull in certain situations. The final powers though should allow them to basicaly upgrade their ranged attack chain at a time when they really need that attack chain to be strong enough to deal with the masses of mezzing mobs.

I am with you in regards to making the first powers the bread and butter, I just think that the bread and butter can get better as time goes on.

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I don't so much disagree with this sentiment as I have a parallel one. I have an aesthetic dislike for a situation where, say, we could make a full attack chain with power bolt, power blast, and torrent at low levels, and then eventually, we can "upgrade" that chain to power blast, power burst, (new) nova. It orphans powers and takes up power slots. I'd much rather "upgrades" come in the form of self buffs, like build up. So I see "upgrades" mostly coming from the secondary: build up, boost range, power boost, conserve power, for example. In effect, I'd rather have my power bolt work better over time, than have my power bolt replaced with a "better" power.

Doing it that way gives us more options to put other powers in the primary that are there just for variety's sake - either situational powers, or powers that aren't necessarily "better" or "worse" but are subject to player taste (i.e. TK verses CAK in the MA set).

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Exactly. One of the best things about City of Heroes is that you don't have a mess of bland "upgrades" that do the same thing as something you already have, only better. You get a power at level 1, you use it all the way to level 50, and it stays useful and effective, though enhancements and coupling it with other stuff.

I don't want to get into a replace mode. Some scrappers are already like this, and I don't like it. I see a lot of builds posts on the scrapper boards that basically take very few attacks pre-, say, 18. This just seems like exploiting respeccability, and tends to indicate that some sets in there are going against the CoH mantra of "high level powers = specificity not just more overall power."

I don't want to see blasters fall into that.

I agree -- help our early attacks build a better chain on their own, and then we can afford to do more situational stuff at the top.

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I understand what both of you are driving at.

I look to scrappers for insperation though when it comes to attack chains simply because they have some very good ones. When players usually say to skip low level attack powers it is usually to pick up a power pool power that may cost more endurance but is better for a variety of reasons. I see very few builds that advocate taking only a few attacks except for perhaps DM but DM can make an attack chain out of all of it's straight damage powers and cycle in it's powerfull powers as they recharge.

Which is what I was looking at in terms of blasters. Sure they get their regular chain starting out but then when they hit the end-game they get their stronger slower recharging powers that they will be able to cycle in as a normal part of their attack chain, not replacing powers so much as displacing them for a short period of time. You couldn't simply make an attack chain with nothing but strong powers, you would have gaps where you would need those quick rechargeing minor attacks.

I also see how Arcana would like the set to play. More of a bag of tricks set than a set that just throws the damage out there non-stop. The secondary would provide the tricks and the primary would deliver them. The /Eng secondary I imagine is what he would like to model the other secondary sets after. Perhaps /Eng with some changes to focus the primary a bit more on range.

Oddly enough, I proposed a defender primary set that would be based off of a similar philosophy. Since they have the power now to make buffs affect other powers, I thought it would be neat if you could make an all self-buff primary that allowed you to give secondary debuff effects to your secondary attack set. Like a Click buff that added slow to your next few attacks for 4 seconds, or something like that. I thought it would have been interesting but the concept was deemed overpowered.

Just wait until these guys get around to looking and debating Trick Arrow.

That will be a good debate. Anyone know what the damage is like in comparison between the Oil Slick of a defender and a the Oil Slick of a controller?

Arcanna, I am very much in agreement that blasters should have their attack chains pretty much laid down by the time they hit their teens but I don't think that blasters need situational powers in addition to what they already have in their secondary.

What you described as a replacement to nova is something that I would consider a great secondary power. I think that blasters can have a good attack chain starting out and then as the levels progress pick up powers that can be helpfull in certain situations. The final powers though should allow them to basicaly upgrade their ranged attack chain at a time when they really need that attack chain to be strong enough to deal with the masses of mezzing mobs.

I am with you in regards to making the first powers the bread and butter, I just think that the bread and butter can get better as time goes on.

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My suggestion? This may be controversial and it may have been said before.. but I think we should get rid of "True" nukes and replace them with Full Auto/Rain of Arrows like powers.


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It's been said before. Yeah, I was the one that brought up how much more usefull it would be for blasters to have non-situational powers like scrappers do in their primary sets.

My rational is different though. We already have situational powers in our secondary sets, so whey do we have situational powers in our primary set? Really, why? That just doesn't make any sense.

So, I advocated makeing the nukes high damage powers of some kind. Perhaps some powers could be designed like Head Splitter but with a range of 40' so that you would basicaly have a line attack but one that recharged fast enough to be used about twice a fight and did head-splitter sized damage. You could hit a boss and cut right through all the minions to get to him.

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Mmmm. Could we make the electric one chain lightning? *falls over drooling and twitching in delight* I've wanted a power that was AE of some sort and animated as a lightning bolt-esque power that jumped from one enemy in its area to the next since, well, I rolled my first character.

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That would be nice to see. Not sure how they would do that though. Well, I could see how they could do it. They could have a bolt animate from you to a target, then that mob generates a bolt spawn that targets the nearest enemy and fires a bolt animation at it and so on.

Yeah, that could be done. I would rather have that than Voltaic Sentinal. Even if it didn't do that much damage.

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My suggestion? This may be controversial and it may have been said before.. but I think we should get rid of "True" nukes and replace them with Full Auto/Rain of Arrows like powers.


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It's been said before. Yeah, I was the one that brought up how much more usefull it would be for blasters to have non-situational powers like scrappers do in their primary sets.

My rational is different though. We already have situational powers in our secondary sets, so whey do we have situational powers in our primary set? Really, why? That just doesn't make any sense.

So, I advocated makeing the nukes high damage powers of some kind. Perhaps some powers could be designed like Head Splitter but with a range of 40' so that you would basicaly have a line attack but one that recharged fast enough to be used about twice a fight and did head-splitter sized damage. You could hit a boss and cut right through all the minions to get to him.

I am fully supportive of the nukes being changed to non-situational powers.

However, I don't think that _Castle_ can actually do anything about the actual design of the sets.

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Awesome Quizzles, sounds like you'd go for getting rid of containment and giving us our pets back

And Concern, there is a big difference between a level 6 and 10 power, and a level 1 and 32 power, even though its much less than before , pets are still something to work for for controllers. if they would decide to change the pet order it would probably not go earlier than the 18 power. Since the hold nerfs of i5 though, id much happier take the pet at 18 and just off the control till 32. But again, that kinda takes away the point of the controller, which is to control, of course i never take those holds anymore so it would work just fine for me :P.

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Exactly why should pets be something to work towards? Are they the goal of the set? I thought controll was the goal of the set?

Not only that but in the case of Ill, Ice, Earth, and Grav, the pets are additional control for the early game either through knockback or straight out and out holds and immobilizes.

I had this same arguement with controllers before containment and now I find that I have it with them after containment.

Are masterminds broken with pets in the early levels? Nope. Although, it should be noted that I am advocating for containment to be removed from Controllers and to simply make the shuffle in powers. It would help give defenders a bit more of a point in PvP and would help controllers, across the board, across most levels. It would also help keep controllers from being too much like blasters and keeps them relying on indirect damage which would a plus for defenders. People wanting direct damage could go and get a defender, those who wanted to do things differently from just smash and blast could go and get a controller. They would actually have different play styles rather than being as similar as they are now.

Nevertheless I suppose I shall whither the never ending complaints that the change would bring about doom to controllers even though I just don't see what they are saying.

Let me try and get you to understand what I see in every powerset EXCEPT CONTROLLERS. I see that their final powers are situational. Can you tell me with a straight face that most controllers don't use their pets as often as they can and basicaly usually never do missions without them? What is the current situational power in Controller sets? Right, their AoE hold that got put on an uber timer. So, move the power that is their damage power (read, bread and butter) to the front of the set so that controllers can have their damage early on (not to mention giving grav it's controll early on) and put the AoE hold in the back like the situational power that it is.

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The intent is probably for Defenders to be way better than Blasters at endurance drain, but you're right. An Elec/Elec Blaster, using his whole suite of endurance-sapping powers, ought to at least take a significant bite out of AV endurance. For that matter, I'm not even sure Defenders can make much of a dent in AV endurance.

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No, not even with kinetics can a defender really make a budge of AV endurance.

This led to a weird power bug with Arahkn (SP?) where she would spam an PBAOE leach that would refill her hit points. It's a power that costs 50 endurance, so the *player* version is hardly ever taken. But she was able to spam it, making it impossible for anyone to fight in melee with her at all.

This seems to be not the case (at least she doesn't spam that power anymore.)

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A defender, a single defender back when Perma-hasten was around could actually drain any AV that used a nuke power. The negative recovery from the nuke combined with a well slotted drain power (pre-ed) that was sped up by Perma-hasten could actually drain an AV, especially if the kinetics defender spammed it with Short Circuit and Transferrence. It took a few applications but you could do it. I know I drained Drek three times. With a Perm-Hastened Kinetics defender slotted for drain. Which is about as extreme as you can get.

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Its the other side of the equation that is much more shaky. Because controllers have similar buffing and debuffing capabilities in their primaries, even if the gap between the two is substantial in numerical terms, it might not be enough to counterbalance controller control and damage across the entire team. I.e. the "break even" point might be 10 or 11 team mates instead, which effectively means there is no break even point. And the main thing throwing off that equation is containment. When controllers had a good chunk of defender buff/debuff, and a lot of control, but low damage, you could argue that was balanced against defender better buff/debuff and higher damage overall. Containment changed that comparison to just buff/debuff vs control *and* damage, and that more significantly upset the balance between the two (i.e. less people cared if controller control was air tight, if they killed slower: above a certain point, control strength had diminishing returns).

Because containment is so dramatic in benefit (it would be almost like giving scrappers automatic criticals) its probably the case that the big question the devs should address is, on average, how do they see controller damage relative to defender damage (and blaster and scrapper and tanker damage). If they see controllers as deliberately designed to do more damage, it would be worth knowing why.


A cruel irony: containment was added because the devs felt "statue fights" were "boring" and therefore, controller control needed to be lessened. With lower control, controllers needed more damage to compensate, and in effect, controllers became much more closely aligned with blasters or corruptors than the original model for controllers.


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I think I brought up these points back when containment was first being introduced. I was told by controllers that the defender inherant ability would solve the issues with defenders.

I still think controllers NEVER needed containment. Not now, and not then. I believe the real problem was that the developers gave them their pets too late in the game and had too many hard controlls in the begining.

I know someone is going to give me flak but I always thought the best idea would have been to move the Pets to the number 1 power slot and move the AoE hold to the number 9 power slot. That, effectively gave Grav controllers the damage mitigation they were missing in the begining, and gave the rest of the sets the damage they were missing in the early game. All without containment.

Some people previous to this would have said that the developers are not going to switch around powers so it will never happen but they seemed to have no problems doing it for the Tank secondary so that arguement is a wash.

If anyone can figure out a good arguement as to why my idea wouldn't have been more balanced to the game and helped to have kept defenders and controllers seperate in terms of what they bring to teams and their play styles please let me know.

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Straight up, even on powers where supposedly defenders have an advantage, my controllers can typicaly get better synergy with their primary useing my primary as a secondary and thus are qualitatively better at useing the power even if they are quantitatively worse.


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I'm not sure that's putting it another way: that seems to be a completely separate issue. And I'm inclined to agree on at least broad terms: the net effect of buff/debuff on top of strong control has a tendancy to benefit teams more than simply stronger buff/debuff. The question is how to address that without nullifying the reason for controllers to exist: control by itself is a fairly strong team benefit, but its become much more difficult for it to have consistent results with recent changes.

This would be counterbalanced by overall better damage on the part of defenders if it wasn't for containment, and frankly while I appreciate containment as a controller, I do think containment has the unfortunate side-effect of dramatically altering the defender/controller calculus in a way I don't want to see for defenders. I.e. I didn't and wouldn't mind my controllers doing less damage than my defenders (at least on average) despite all the "damage is king" crap.

But since fiddling with damage too much creates all kinds of other issues, the best of all possible worlds would be to separate defender primaries from controller secondaries altogether. But since that would require grandfathering and large-scale set engineering, the more likely alternative is to start splitting the sets apart slowly, taking the shared defender/controller sets and slowly boosting the soft control options in them for controllers, and decreasing the buff/debuff components. That would strengthen the buff/debuff advantage defenders should have, while not eviscerating the sets completely for controllers. It would also reduce the direct synergy of buff/debuff on controller pets.

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It seems like every AT gets really good mileage out of their secondary sets.

In the past I was against meddling with the defender secondary and prefered to work on getting an inherant power that would make Defenders shine useing their primary powers.

That however was fruitless, even if it was a damn good idea. Maybe I should re-post it sometime.

In anycase, I think the defender secondary sets could be buffed in ways OTHER than simply buffing the secondary effects. Frankly, it would be nice if the defender secondary sets were made unique through special debuffs that were only found in a few of the blasts in each secondary set.

Let each secondary have an attack that negated knockback resistance for 5 seconds (although a person with knockback protection on top of knockback protection from an armor should be alright), an AoE attack that either debuffed accuracy, defense, or resistance. Then, another attack that would be more focused that could either debuff perception or stealth.

This could be done to make the secondary powers of defenders unique and would play to the developers idea of defenders being the best debuffing and buffing AT in the game. The magnitude of the debuffs could vary per set and which AoE and when the defender got their signature debuffs would vary between the sets.

It would certainly be a reason to really make a defender think about what secondary they are going to get.

Oh, when I say "have an attack" I mean an effect in addition to the normal attack. So all the attack would stay the same but the attacks would have an effect added to them. Like Energy Torrent would negate knockback resistance for instance. Or Dark Pit would also have a heavy accuracy debuff that lasted for 4 seconds. Siphon Life would also drain away perception etc.

Damn Red, you are batting a thousand. I have much respect for your ability to cooly and calmly interact with the developers.

Not many people remember that Blaster damage was buffed in Beta because their Offense/Offense builds were debt machines and range wasn't the defense that the developers thought it was.

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Don't you dare apologize, Castle. You signed on the forums as the Stalker rep, and have since then become perhaps the most up front, honest, and community-friendly developer we have. If the worst that can be said is that your responses don't include apologizing all over yourself for not paying close attention to a problem that people other than yourself made in the first place, then I'll take that, and a second helping please.

For those reading this thread that don't remember when Castle started on this, the man did this research into Defender issues while on his lunch break at work. LUNCH BREAK, PEOPLE! Not only is he up front, but the guy produced more results for the community while eating a sandwich than others had with hours of paid time! And while no, the developers don't owe us explanations far various things, not while they're doing their job, the fact that one would take his free time to do it for us anyway is truly kind and generous.

No apologies, man. We owe you, not the other way around.

-M

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Oh no. That is only half the story. The apology was definately deserved regardless of what he does on his lunch hour. The apology doesn't really have to come from anyone in particular since so many developers got their noses dirty on the issue, it could have been just a general apology from the developers. That would have been great and settled the issue.

If you want to know why some people were so peeved about it, it is because the power was nerfed once and even after it was posted with proof, and screenshots back 4 months after release if I remember correctly showing that it was nerfed, nothing was done. No comment other than the developers saying that it hadn't been nerfed. Only, it had been nerfed.

Then they came out and did it a second time. Again proof went up showing that it was nerfed. The response came back that we had claimed this several times and that the effect hadn't been nerfed. The proof gets shoved in their face by a community that got pushed too far once too often. Then they fess up and admit that it had been nerfed. That one power. Specificaly. No apology was given in regards to the way in which the players were told that they were basicaly wrong and making up the claim. It was the worst dev to player communication that I can remember.

So, his apology is accepted but I will never look at a developer saying "working as intended" the same way again. Working as intended does not mean that it is working correctly it seems from past experience.

Thus, when I hear Castle say that powers are working as designed, I have effectively heard "We don't see anything wrong here". Which doesn't mean a whole lot to me if I do see something wrong. It just means that the developers are not going to address an issue brought before them in a manner that I would like, nothing new about that and the game continues for better or worse.

In regards to him working on his Lunch Break, that is an issue he should take up with his superiors. He should get paid for work rendered unless he is salary, then it doesn't really matter if he works on his lunch break.

Let it never be forgotten that the developers actually owe us, they owe us alot. If we didn't pay and play this game, it wouldn't continue. If we the market was not here, this game would have never been gotten financial capital. We are the reason this game is here in the form it is in. We are the reason they have their current jobs. Last but not least, they owe the people who have the patience to test their game and that even after being told that they are wrong, to have the fortitude to try and show the developer that they are in fact mistaken. That is a dedicated player. The developers should and do appreciate them although you don't always see all the ways that they appreciate some of the more dedicated members of this community.

I'll put it another way for Arcanaville.

Straight up, even on powers where supposedly defenders have an advantage, my controllers can typicaly get better synergy with their primary useing my primary as a secondary and thus are qualitatively better at useing the power even if they are quantitatively worse.

A good example of this would be as burningchick mentioned, A force bubbled controller useing his pets to mitigate agro. A fire Controller who can stack Smoke and Flash Arrow to produce a debuffed accuracy about as good as hurricane and debuff perception tremendously. Ice, Earth, and Fire controllers can all make great use out of the Storm defender powers due to their ability to controll the chaos that a defender doesn't get via Knockback, immobilize, and slows.

Just having a pet allows controllers to use Defender powers to greater effect than any defender could. Speed Boosted Singularity, Animated Stone, Imps, or Phantasm. Or any other buff other power.

In other words, the AT role of the defender being a force multiplier is a joke with the advantage that controller have over defenders useing the defenders own primary. The numbers show that defenders have some advantages over controllers, but those advantages become pointless when one considers how well controller primary powers combine with the defender powers. Someone was talking about how there was a lack of synergy between controller primaries and their secondaries and I just couldn't believe what I was reading. I don't think the word synergy means what they think it means.

Now, after looking at some of he qualitative advantages that controllers have over defenders, the developers fealt it necessary to nerf defender powers that could also controll, I am referring specificaly to Ice Arrow and Petrifying Gaze. Controllers already had the advantage quantitatively, so why did the developers have to nerf the power for defenders?

That is why many of us are calling for buffs to the defender lines of powers. Simply because the developers have given us the shaft in regards to controllers and our role as Force Multipliers. The only time where defenders shine as force multipliers over defenders is in the 1-30 levels. Which is basicaly the first 1/4 of the game. The last 3/4s of the game belong to the controllers.

Defenders need a qualitative boost of some kind. Vigilance wasn't the boost that defenders needed. The inherant would have been a really good time to really make defenders all about buffing and debuffing by applying a boosting modifier to them in some way letting them do their job better but that didn't happen.

At some point someone will mention that I am specificaly speaking about the late game and that in the early game, controllers don't have all the powers that defenders do as early as defenders do. This is a weak arguement because the developers have consistantly balanced the game for the top end in both PvE and especially in PvP.

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Thrid, its been Castle looking into stalkers, then defenders, then blasters. You've had your hand in other projects too. You're also using spare time to look in to these things. It sounds to me like some one isn't doing thier job.


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To be fair, there isn't anyone else really on the job other than Castle. The rest of the development team is working on new and shiny, which I am happy for because it brought me Mayhem missions, I am unhappy that apparently 2 years of pointing out what issues blasters have has gone somewhat unnoticed and that now 2 years later a new addition to the dev team asked us in a condescending way to produce one. As if we hadn't done it before. I don't think Castle understands exactly what it took for blasters to even get Statesman to post here much less actually get any dev interaction to understand why Circuit was being snide about AT representatives.

Now that he is looking I really don't think there is much he can do since blasters are really looking for some concept changes and entirely revamped secondary sets. That isn't his cup of tea since he can't apparently order animation changes, not even to fix the borked Archery animations.

Maybe he can clarify what the developer position is on the blaster role in relation to other ATs and specificaly what the developers believe balances blasters considering the amount of time that blasters spend in melee. If nothing else, he can describe how the developers play their blasters.

It should be noted that this thread should be restricted to problems with actual blaster powers or gameplay.

Try and leave the wishlist items off as much as possible and lets try and identify problems.

I am only saying this as a suggestion, I have participated in many of these threads, and blasters have created several of them. To have Castle come in and ask us where our consolidated list is, frankly very insulting to me. Also, I know that Castle was PMed links to a few threads dealing with blaster issues so for him to come out and ask in a condescending manner where our list was, was a pure insult intended to put down the poster he was talking to.

After the respons to the defender thread, I have little hope that anything will actually be changed as far as blasters go because they made it clear there that they are working on new and shiney and not on making what they already have more fun to play. I don't see the issues of blaster primary ranged powers ever being addressed due to the way the developers have fixated in their minds how much of a value range is (range is actually a very small value and animation time is a very large value but they seem oblivious to this) and they don't want to make changes that will result in precious animation time being taken away from new and shiney things.

Thus, I may pop in this thread here and there but for the most part I am not going to contribute to it. I don't need a developer to tell me that things are going to stay the way they are because the developers don't want to fix the problems, all I need to know that is that the problem still exists and they haven't fixed it yet.

Am I bitter? You bet. I got stabbed in the back again. What was I thinking, trying to improve TA? Well, I am not the whipping boy. I am not going to ask for another.

From Red Zero:

I saved this from a while back, I don't know how currently applicable is but not much has ever changed with blaster so here goes.. (The following is a quote but the quote box messes with the format)


Given the change to enhancements upcoming, not sure how relevant some of this is. Having said that, I am still going to follow through updating this as much as possible.

Please add your feedback!

I will update again soon!

Hey all Blasters.. I thought it might be good to put our thoughts down on what are issues are as of right now.

You can enter a Bug, Balance issue, or Wishlist item for any of the powersets.

Please, enter all of your Blaster issues in this post.

Thanks!


General bugs affecting Blasters - unresolved

Bug: The Defiance meter does not seem to be working properly. It goes up regardless of your current health at times.

Bug: Defiance itself seems to kick in when your health is at 100%. You also seem to lose Defiance too soon, even when your health is in the red.

Balance: Quality of life issues are important and have been addressed by the developers in the past. While dramatically increasing the range of an attack like Blaze (20') would not be realistic without some other change to the power, there are other powers where the range equalization would not be such a drastic change.

For example: Charge Bolt is 70', Lightning Bolt 80', Ball Lightning 80'. I ask you what is the purpose of Charge Bolt having 10' less of range and would it really be game breaking to increase it to 80' to match Lightning Bolt and Ball Lightning?

Second Example: Take Assault Rifle, Burst 90', Slug 100', Buckshot 40', M30 Grenade 80', Bean Bag 60', Sniper Rifle 150', Flame Thrower 40', Ignite 30', Full Auto 80'. That's a huge mess of ranges and it servers very little purpose. It would be better playwise to have ranges fall into the same catagories like so: Burst 90', Slug 90', Buckshot 40', M30 Grenade 90', Bean Bag 90', Sniper Rifle 150', Flame Thrower 40', Ignite 40', Full Auto 90'. (submitted by Red_Zero)

Balance: Leadership Pool: Maneuvers seems to have no effect whatsoever when used by a blaster. It does not appear to boost either blaster defense OR the defense of teammates in the AoE. Further testing is probably needed, but "within the margin of error" for 200 attacks would still put maneuvers 4-slotted with white +DEF enhancements at under 3% Defense, which is completely worthless. (submitted by Orinn)

Balance: Leadership Pool - Blasters should get bonuses at least equal to Defenders for Assault and Tactics as these are qualities that define Blasters. It seems to be preferental treatment that any Archtype should benifit more from a Power Pool power than other Archtypes. If this is to be the case then what Power Pool powers do Blasters benifit more from then other Archtypes? (submitted by Red_Zero)

Balance: Range - At even base level, all blaster powers seem to be easily outranged, outshot, and outdamaged by controllers and defenders. Blasters are supposed to be the strongest damage period (defiance not included), and, keeping with the "range is a best defense" theory, should have the best range and better accuracy. Boosting bases on all three parts of the blaster poolsets would make a blaster comparable to the other ranged poolsets. (submitted by Shylar)

Wishlist: It would be nice if Defiance would kick in earlier. The way it works now seems to promote poor gameplay of new blasters. It is also the only inherent power based on the AT's health, and Blasters are one of the most squishy AT.
Wishlist: Range - If we are going to be a ranged AT, no attack should be less than 60 or 80 feet. PbAoE in the primary is an anathema to the entire concept of a "ranged" blaster. (Submitted by Concern)

Wishlist: Range - Statesman has said our defense is range, yet range means nothing to an AT that can be outranged by the enemy & self-roots with our attacks. Make range mean something! And if we are ranged, why do so many secondaries have so many melee attacks? (submitted by LaughingBoy)

Wishlist: Defiance - Defiance needs a lot of work. For a lot of Blasters, we're already near the cap. And to get any benefit from it, we need to be nearly dead. This does not promote good game play. An inherent that wasn't tied to our health like most of the other inherents would be better. (submitted by LaughingBoy)

Wishlist: Secondaries (General): Secondary powers should support the blasters ranged concept either by helping keep enemies at range, or destroying enemies that venture close enough to hurt the blaster in melee. (submitted by Concern)

Wishlist: Movement: Movement is paramount to blasters. The blaster should not have long animation times on attacks or should not be rooted by attacks that do have long animation times. (submitted by Concern)

Wishlist: Blaster issue PvP: Why are blaster's toggle droppers melee oriented. Since we are blasters we should have a few toggle droppers that are not melee based for every power set. (submitted by DarkLordTrilogy)



General Blaster Primaries - unresolved



Assault Rifle - unresolved

Balance: Unnerf Full Auto. This was the one power that made AR nearly on par with Fire Blast. With it it in its current state, AR is a poor man's Fire blaster. (submitted by Pseudotron)

Balance: Ignite is just bad mobs run from it like burn and since the patch is so small they only take 2-3 ticks of damage- fix ad a slow component to it so they run out slower and actually take some damage from it. (submitted by Saint_O_Killers)

Wishlist: Smashing/Lethal resists are very high throughout the game, since most of AR's attacks are S/L we are not able to do the amount of damage other powersets can do.

Wishlist: It's an incredibly difficult animation process but one wonders if you can't design animations so that the weapon doesn't disappear. The big problem is also the long animations, particularly the ones that root. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Wishlist: Ignite: This was once an impossibly useful power and now seems much less useful. If it's meant to be a teamwork power (controller immobolizes), a little more area would be nice. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)



Ice Blast- unresolved

Bug: Blizzard: Every primary has a nuke, they drain all end and leave you unable to recover end for a short time (10 seconds). Blizzard drains and doesn't allow you to recover for the duartion of the blizzard + 10 seconds. blizzard's duration is 20 seconds so that is like 30 seconds we have to go without end recovery. (submitted by Icerian) NOTE: THIS MAY BE FIXED NOW.

Bug: Bitter Freeze Ray: The Foe freezes before the animation is done. (submitted by MageStorm)
Balance: Blizzard doesn't stack up with Nova or Inferno. If you are defeated before Blizzard ends, Blizzard stops (which is very easy to do because you don't have any endurance). (submitted by Sockem)

Balance: Blizzard doesn't get any bonus from Aim and Build Up making it less effective then other Nuke-type attacks. (submitted by Icerian)


Fire Blast - Unresolved

Bug: When a Storm Def used freezing rain and Snow storm, then I used Rain of Fire, the mobs regained their full running speed to flee the radius of FR. (submitted by Orochi)
Balance: The animation for Flares is far too long for its damage. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Balance: Blazing Bolt: Many players find sniper attacks too situational and bypass them--they are difficult to fit into a normal attack chain. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: The range of Blaze is practically in melee. While its understandable that it might be slightly overpowered if it had the standard base range of 80 ft., increasing its range to 40 ft or so would make it an actual ranged attack. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: INFERNO takes FAR too long to activate (animation time). Seeing it's a PBAoE, one cannot hope to fire it off if there's any aggro going on. (submitted by Fyreblast)

Wishlist: Rain of Fire should either do more damage, or do its damage faster. As it currently stands, this power really only useful for area denial and attracting more than your share of aggro. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)



Electrical Blast – Unresolved

Bug: When I use Short Circuit while invisible, mobs notice me when I begin the attack animation instead of when it actually goes off.

Bug: Voltaic Sentinel does the same damage for blasters as it does for defenders. (submitted by Axterix)

Balance: This set was supposed to be killer in PvP but we understand that isn't the case. The damage seems to be lacking. Most notably, it has only two single target attacks and a snipe. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: Weak melee attacks in the secondaries without a useful secondary effect serve no purpose and should be replaced with something better. (submitted by Axterix)

Wishlist: /elec: the %chance of sleep needs to be raised to be on par with /energy. also the end drain portion needs to be raised as well. with a higher s/l to energy damage split on our attacks, our secondary effects should be boosted in order to balance the set. s/l is the most resisted damage type in the game, and our energy damage output isnt that high. (submitted by Macron)

Wishlist: I'd like to see Charged Bolts' animation changed to that of Neutrino Bolt's. It would be kinda entertaining to quickly zap a mob, and would help increase Electric's overall ability for ranged combat. Also increase range to 80'. (submitted by Angry_Citizen)

Wishlist: Post ED wishlist: An enhancement that would increase the amount of time that a certain end drain power stops end recovery. (submitted by DarkLordTrilogy)

Wishlist: Post ED wishlist: Add either a higher base end drain to various elec blaster powers, or add an end recovery to some of elec blaster powers. (submitted by DarkLordTrilogy)

Wishlist: keep the -endurance drain on elctric blasters the same as/elec defenders. I know they added the increased -end on defenders to help "augment their defencive capabilites", but -end is also crucial to the elec blaster (especially since the ED adjustment and it's effect on our number one -end power Short Circuit) (submitted by colorichard)



Energy Blast - Unresolved

Balance: Power Burst: very short (20') range forces near melee out of a blaster. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: Energy Blasts are too slow compared to Fire and Ice blasts doing the same amount or even less damage. Knockback is not 100% so that advantage is hit or miss at best. (submitted by MageStorm)

Balance: Power Bursts Range and Damage are both less than a faster activating Bitter Ice Blast. (submitted by MageStorm)

Wishlist: Power Push have a disorient added to it. It would increase the synergy of the Energy Primary and Secondary. (submitted by MageStorm)

Wishlist: Explosive Blasts damage increased and the scatter knockback be changed to knockdown. This is the most unfriendly team power short of a peacebringer. (submitted by MageStorm)

Wishlist: Energy Torrent: an AoE that throws everything back is team unfriendly. Energy blasters work around this but many would prefer knockdown instead of knockback. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Wishlist: Explosive Blast: a low damage, high knockback attack is about as team-unfriendly as you can get. Wishlist: this attack should do knockdown and not knockback. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)



Archery - Unresolved

Bug: If the power isn't recharged and you try to use it, it does the animation anyway. (submitted by Mister Weekly)

Bug: When missing an attack, the word "miss" will appear above the mobs head before the arrow leaves the bow. This causes instant aggro from the mob before the shot is fired. (submitted by Dingly_Dang)

Bug: Archery's snipe: After the animation, there is a non-trivial "dead zone" of time when you cannot activate another power. This time is so extensive that, unlike other blasters, buffs like AIM will wear off before a second attack can be made. (submitted by Predicant)

Balance: The endurance usage for the damage done is too high. This set underperforms other blaster sets in terms of being able to deal damage efficiently. (submitted by Dingly_Dang)

Wishlist: Animation times of attacks needs to be shortened. Especially since no secondary uses a bow, the redraw times are terrible. (submitted by Dingly_Dang)



Sonic Blast - unresolved

Balance: Shout: very short (20') range forces melee type ranges. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)




General Blaster Secondaries - unresolved

Bug:

Balance: Although difficult to do now and implement a
Balance of Blaster secondaries in terms of powers / magnitude / effect. The 9th Tier power is a single target Boss Class mez effect. Offer Buildup at level 4 in every secondary not just Energy. (submitted by deadboy_champion)

Wishlist:



Devices - unresolved

Bug: Trip Mines in Devices do not work all the time, sometimes enemies walk right over them without them going off.

Bug: When laying trip mines sometimes you stay in the kneeling stance even after you have laid the mine.

Bug: Smoke Grenade counts as an attack. While it does not add aggro by itself, it does suppress all other forms of stealth and itself, severely limiting its usefulness. It is non-sensical for a stealth power to eliminate stealth. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Bug: Web Grenade. Graphics bug. Causes the avatars neck to extend like a turtle. (submitted by Dr_Rockstar)
Balance: Each other secondary get their toggle knocks at 4 and 10 devices gets theirs at 28 and 35. every other one knocks off multiple togges and is easy to use mines and time bombs knock one toggle and you have to get your opponent to stand in the right place at the right time while being vulnerable while setting it. fix take toggle knock from time bomb and put it in tazer. (submitted by Saint_O_Killers)
Balance: Auto turret does low damage has terrible range , is immobile lasts very short time and costs 50 end. fixing any of these would be nice what i would like to see is a jagger like device that has the unlimited lifespan of other pets. honestly what kind of shoddy device maker builds things that explode after 2 min of use. (submitted by Saint_O_Killers)

Balance: Tripmine/Timebomb - Every other Blaster secondary has NON-Interruptible Toggle dropper - consider reducing the animation time and/or making them non-interruptible? Again would this make Devices Blasters too powerful in both PvP and PvE? (submitted by deadboy_champion)

Wishlist: Taser is the only melee attack in Devices, and is widely considered to be sub-par unless you have Beanbag from the AR primary. Perhaps increasing its damage to higher than 1 brawl might increasse its utility without making it overpowering. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Wishlist: Make taser drain endo. the ONLY reason anyone takes taser is to stack with beanbag (which is pretty cool in it's own right). i say give it that same kind of synergy with electric blast. besides...it's a taser. think about it. (submitted by dropped_dee)

Wishlist: Please, for the love of Satan, change the looping sound for Targeting Drone already! (submitted by Steel_Inferno) NOTE: THIS IS NOW FIXED.

Wishlist: Allow Auto Turret to be slotted with Taunt enhancements. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)
Wishlist: how about granting Targeting Drone a boost to perception (similar to Focused Accuracy) (submitted by deadboy_champion)

Wishlist: Wish list: Devices Blaster uses a combination of Smoke Grenade and Cloaking Device to achieve invisiblity in the ring. How about granting CD the same level of Invisiblity as say Superior Invisibility at an increased Endurance Cost. Smoke Grenade is often too hard to use in the Arena especially when one is busy setting traps. However would that make Devices Blasters too powerful in the Arena? (submitted by deadboy_champion)



Ice Manipulation - unresolved

Wishlist: Frozen Aura: a melee AoE sleep as an ultimate secondary power? At the very least make this ranged. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: Ice Patch: long animation which, admittedly, is shorter than it's big brother attack Ice slick. But comared with
Caltrops--an power that seems to be of equal utility--it is an issue. Wishlist: a short range for this power so it can help tank frieds out without putting the blaster in AoE hell.(submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: Freezing Touch: Pointblank hold defeats the "keep the enemy back" nature of this secondary. Wishlist (possible): make this a total focus kind of power with a potent hold added instead of a disorient. Ideally the hold would start before the attack, making this a very nice 0-range freeze. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)



Fire Manipulation - unresolved

Bug: Fire Sword Circle has a long (2 seconds?) pause after its animation, during which the blaster cannot attack. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Balance: Balance: This entire set really needs to be reworked. Many of the powers are designed for use by tanks, and are nearly suicidal when used by blasters. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Balance: Hot feet this 38 power is a joke give them greater fire sword or something useful. (submitted by Saint_O_Killers)




Energy Manipulation - unresolved

Bug: Power Thrust accepts Knockback enhancements, but they do not enhance knockback at all. (submitted by Pulsewave)



Electrical Manipulation - unresolved

Balance: Increase Shocking Grasp's damage slightly, by a Brawl point or two. At least on par with Charged Brawl, a level two attack. Also give it an 80% chance to add another magnitude of hold, like with Total Focus' disorient. These changes would help make Shocking Grasp worth the 20 point endurance cost. (submitted by Angry_citizen)


For Discussion

Questions: Defiance: it was told to us that it would kick in sooner than 40% but that was never implemented. (Submitted by Magestorm)

Why don't we just revamp the Issues thread that was posted in the thread that Castle posted in?

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Ideally, while certain traits of defender primary powers may be inferior to the controller counterparts, the defender powers should be overall superior to the controller versions.


[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly, and I think the developers know it but are not sure how to approach the issue. Especially with Trick Arrow, it makes a much better Mastermind or Controller secondary than it does a Defender Primary that it is rediculous.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Actually, the way he and others described it, Psi sounds like it's kind of up there with lethal and smashing as a very resisted set. Maybe not as bad as lethal in particular, but very close, imho. And given the low damage Defenders do already, that's a big problem. I mean, I complain about lethal damage being halved with 100% Blaster damage. With your damage being cut down that much with 66% Blaster damage... well... ouch basically! This should get looked into, imho.

[/ QUOTE ]

i totally agree that psy could use a look but after playing a few lethal dmg sets all the way up and reading about TA fenders complaints about their predominantly lethal dmg, I guess I find it hard to believe that psy is that resisted.

[/ QUOTE ]

It isn't resisted in as many mobs. In every mob that does resist it though, it is at a 50% value. It's obscene. Really, it's just sick. The only place where you don't run into these resistances are in the early levels when the set really sucks or a defender is busy taking primary powers to get their bread and butter up and going. So, Psi gets the shaft, almost everywhere and always hard. Lethal gets it everywhere but not usually hard.