Zen_Concern

[ QUOTE ]
Castle replied that the chances of the sets being reworked the way the players were mentioning was not going to happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

Castle said that SOME of the things would not happen and he said that the complete reworking of the powers would not happen in addition to which he said that they are STILL going rework the secondary sets. That is not a maybe, it will happen because the other blaster secondary sets are underperforming compared to EM.

He also stated that there were ideas that could be implimented with ease.

[ QUOTE ]
CoX will be a better place with EM adjusted.

[/ QUOTE ]

CoX will be a better place if the other blaster powersets were improved with EM as a guide.

There is nothing particularly overpowered about stalker, Tank, or Brute EM.

[ QUOTE ]
There are components to the buff/debuff sets that are shared with Controllers that are more effective in the hands of Defenders. Hal fof the Storm set (it's not just Hurricane).

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really, the synergy between controller primary sets and their secondary allows them to use the defender Primary powers as secondary powers to greater effect.

Grave/Storm for instance. AoE immobilize + Snow Storm. Add Freezing Rain. The slow from the immobilize + the slow from the storm + the slow from freezing rain. Even if the target is not immobilized, they are at the slow cap because all three powers produce a slow effect. Ice/Storm is even better since all three of their powers would also give -recharge.

You can go down the line and see how controllers are MUCH more dangerous to the opposing team, yet are still pursued less than the defenders. The reason is that the defender has the least defense for himself and is an easier target which means you can get a kill count faster. Thats it.

[ QUOTE ]
Statesman hasn't talked (ranted) about game balance in awhile, but this looks like a major contender..

[/ QUOTE ]

for the other secondary sets to be modeled after. Your right.

I was thinking about that. In the overall picture deaths may not mean anything simply due to the different playstyles that players have with their ATs but it does still have the impact of travel time if that player is teamed.

So, when looking at team battles, you have to consider that time that the blaster is returning from the hospital. That of course varies depending on where in the map two teams are fighting. It is still a factor even if it is a small one for some of the time.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
3) Datamining -- I looked at Blaster/Scrapper a few minutes ago. In terms of raw kills, Blasters are the better PvP killers, but only if they have Energy Manipulation. Without EM, they are roughly 60% of scrappers numbers. In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.

[/ QUOTE ]
First I think _Castle_ is super cool for responding, even in a thread where we were probably not being as respectful as we could.

On the K-to-D thing, again, I think looking at K-to-D is pointless. If you think about it from a tactical standpoint, it always makes sense to target the most threatening character first. My VG is heavily PVP oriented. When we are in a PVP zone, if an infamous /EM Blapper bounces into the fight, we nearly always switch targets to them to dispatch them before they can 2 shot us. So if you blow up the actual numbers, that Scrapper might have 5 kills to 3 deaths, but that Blapper might have 20 kills to 18 deaths. The Blapper's ratio appears worse in such a case, but it's pretty clear he's better at melee damage than the poor Scrapper.

Since we are picking on the uber power sets, how about datamining Spines/ Scrappers versus all of the other kinds. I imagine Broadsword might be close but I would bet the numbers for Claws, MA, DM, and Katana are pretty far behind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. The lack of a penalty for death makes the K-D ratio a bad way to balance sets. I think a better judge would be the number of kill per hour.

[/ QUOTE ]

Only if you are looking at rewards.

Think about Recluses Victory. If the blaster who dies has to come back from the Hospital more frequently than say, a stalker or another AT then that is time that he is not defending an objective. Apparently objectives are pretty important now, so having an AT that dies fast does make a difference.

I see the thread in the General PvP section is still going strong with all the melee talking points being trotted out.

It will all come up here again too I am sure.

[ QUOTE ]
Scrappers out damage blasters in melee. Blasters AT mod is 1, while scrappers is 1.125. Scrappers also get unresistable criticals of 2x damage 5% of the time, which can be compared to Blasters 33% unresistable damage.

Energy Melee's Stuns coupled with toggle dropping pretty much make the damage a secondary effect. While the blasters (who have little or no mez protections) are used to functioning with break frees active, most scrappers are not, as they rely on their inherent protection powers to keep them safe.

In other words, despite your toggle powers protections, pretend you don't have them and prepare based on that -- because those protections will be knocked down at some point.

[/ QUOTE ]

I got it saved, just for when the arguement comes up again. You know it will.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
AV's resist damage Debuffs HEAVILY, there's something definintely wrong with your math if you actually believe an AV's DPS will be put at 43% from a single Defender.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right. I left the resistance to the damage debuff part out, though not the toHit debuff.


[ QUOTE ]
You need 3 or 4 of the same kind of defenders to Floor +2 and +3 AV's, nomatter what primary you're talking about.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just to be clear, I did not describe flooring the AV anywhere in my post. Nor did I use a +3 AV as my example.

[ QUOTE ]
Have you even spent any real time in all-defender Teams?

[/ QUOTE ]

All Corruptor.

[ QUOTE ]
Your rosey tinted glasses suggest otherwise, expecially when you consider each Defender's -ACC capacity with 3 SO's will drop by 40% as soon as this patch goes live.

[/ QUOTE ]

You would do well to realize that the accuracy numbers I used are based on I7 math, using the reduced schedule enhancers. The tables I pasted match Statesman's to the 2nd decimal place if you use the value for RI and two shcedule B toHit debuff enhancers instead of DN and 3 (which is what I did).

Your feel for what it takes to floor foes doesn't mean much anyway. It's based on today's toHit calculations, which are significantly different. Stacking toHit debuffs is incredibly powerful in I7.

Correcting my earlier statements to account for 20% damage debuff resistance on a +2 AV.

So let's pick a +2 AV. One DDD would drop him to .6016/.9*(1-(0.8*.35)) = 48% of his damage. One character would do that for the entire team. TWO DDDs running DN would drop a +2 AV to 17.48% of his original damage output.

[/ QUOTE ]

What about a couple of masterminds? What about Weaken? What about flash arrow? This nerf effects a hell of alot more than just one set. I wish everyone would get off Dark's nuts and realize that there are other sets where this is a flat nerf that they don't need.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Fury_Flechette:

You ignored quite a few things to be able to say

[ QUOTE ]
Further, most blasters get ranged holds, defenses and additional nukes. I think in the 40+ game, stalkers will have to be, oh, I don't know, a bit more skilled.

[/ QUOTE ]
1) All Stalkers have Mez Resistance of one form or another. This completely negates Blasters' ranged holds. So your first point is moot.

2a) While Blasters get some defensive powers in the Ancillary sets, they have absolutely no Mez Resistance except that which is available in the Power Pools. With the sole exception of Force of Nature, any Mez will detoggle a Blaster's Ancillary defensive toggles.
2b) Stalkers' Patron Powers included ranged Mez powers. This means what little defensive powers Blasters have will be rendered more or less moot.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry CB, but I just see things differently. Blaster + empath > stalker. If it's a skilled team, blaster + empath > multiple stalkers. I've seen it done.

Being able to mez isn't that great unless you can stack lots of them quickly. In the duration of the single break free, a skilled blaster can take out that mezzing stalker who is now out of hide. Blasters don't have to worry about toggles, they just pop the pill and fire back.

Also, stalker mez protection can easily be dropped. The same technique used to detoggle that scrapper can be used on a stalker. Throw a hold, detoggle the mez protection, hold takes effect, finish him off. I've seen it done countless times.

Fire shield, temporary invulnerability, body armor is far from junk. It means that the AS that is meant to kill you doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree and disagree with Fury. I do think that CB is going a bit overboard on how much of a threat stalkers are. Especially when I think about the highend game.

However, I have to agree with him that the shields are not going to be usefull against AS. An AS usually doesn't kill a blaster now, and looking at powers like ET and Impale, it looks like the follow up attacks will kill anyway. The Apps will be usefull, but more against MMs and Brutes than Stalkers, Corruptors or Dominators (pending toggledrop nerf).

An empath is a mighty thing in PvP. I have to agree with FF here. I do believe however that with travel powers suddenly becoming a bit less usefull in PvP with the new villain PPPs and the nerfage of WW that they will become less of a duo than they were. Ill/Emps will still rock the house, make no doubt about it. Emp defenders not so much.

A single stalker with a mez is probably not that big a deal. In a team where the MM has a couple of holds, the Dom has a couple of holds, and the stalker has a hold? Suddenly you can stack mez extremely fast with villains. The PPPs are going to change the way people think about mez. Villains got the ability to spam alot of it. Stalkers really needed ranged utility and they got it, hell, brutes got it.

I don't fear the stalker as much as I fear the Brute that never stops attacking even when he is at range. Brutes complain about Fury but it looks like they may get the ability to really build it in PvP.

Basicly, let me say that you both have good points.

Be fair, Castle was concerned about Hurricane and made that known. The Patchnotes did say that if a stalker had repel resistance that he would not be interrupted. You put two and two together and most people get four.

It has been tested and it has been found that the patch notes are wrong. However, since another patch is comeing before I7 it could mean that the changes simply hasn't hit yet. No confirmation there on what was intended.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So, I've been reading around the tanker forums, get a grasp on how things will be. And I've stumbled upon a couple of sayings that there will be no more detoggling.

First, I was wondering if this was true.

Second, I was wondering if it was just Brawl, or all of them.

And third, if it is true, I think its a huge problem. The only way I can beat a BRUTE is through detoggling him. And I detoggle him through Brawl. Wait until Unyielding or wahtever hes using goes down, then hit him with IS. All toggles go down, I pummel him to death.

Granted, this is a huge OK for all tanks, because this is your biggest weak point. But its also the way for many AT's to beat you, and they cant without it.

And although tanks damage isnt te best (Aside from SS), it still can kill quite a few AT's, Brute vs. Tank would be tough. But Tanks still can dish out some insane damage with PVP specced.

[/ QUOTE ]

Detoggling isn't going away. But, it is being reigned in by a large margin.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll wait till I see how the developers have reacted this time to mass hysteria. Hopefully a "large margin" is the reverse of a "small tweak".

[/ QUOTE ]
Hopefully a "large margin" is the exponential brother of a "small tweak".

[/ QUOTE ]

Please, not tonight Foo, I am in no mood to dance. This headache is killing me. Anyone got a poison trap from /poison to put me to sleep?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So, I've been reading around the tanker forums, get a grasp on how things will be. And I've stumbled upon a couple of sayings that there will be no more detoggling.

First, I was wondering if this was true.

Second, I was wondering if it was just Brawl, or all of them.

And third, if it is true, I think its a huge problem. The only way I can beat a BRUTE is through detoggling him. And I detoggle him through Brawl. Wait until Unyielding or wahtever hes using goes down, then hit him with IS. All toggles go down, I pummel him to death.

Granted, this is a huge OK for all tanks, because this is your biggest weak point. But its also the way for many AT's to beat you, and they cant without it.

And although tanks damage isnt te best (Aside from SS), it still can kill quite a few AT's, Brute vs. Tank would be tough. But Tanks still can dish out some insane damage with PVP specced.

[/ QUOTE ]

Detoggling isn't going away. But, it is being reigned in by a large margin.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll wait till I see how the developers have reacted this time to mass hysteria. Hopefully a "large margin" is the reverse of a "small tweak".

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Are we finally going to see some Blaster fixes after I7?

[/ QUOTE ]

Fixes, yes. Complete redesigns of several powers and/or powersets, no. Unfortunately, what a lot of you are looking for is the later.

I'm (ever so slowly) going through the list you guys put up a while ago. I've referred a couple things to animation for bug fixes. Many things, I'm still scratching my head of how to fix in such a way that they are useful -- snipes are a good example of this. Simply increasing the base damage is dangerous, and we can't make it exempt from ED. So, I'm thinking of workarounds, which I will toss upstairs once fleshed out. Then, if it is approved, I'll be able to make the changes.

That process happens with each and every change (read: not a bug fix) I do.

EDIT: Adding a couple things.
I put in a fix for Endurance Drain that I think you guys will like. It is in I7, because it was a huge amount of data changes.

As for changing secondaries, when I was interviewing for this position over a year ago, this was the thing I mentioned I wanted to 'fix.' It's still something I want to do, but there are a couple technical and design philosophy problems to overcome. The design philosphy isn't easy to change, but it's hardly in the realm of impossibility. The tech side, though, is very much non-trivial. Since I've no control over programming schedules (for good reason, I might add) it is something I cannot do much of anything about.

FYI: my first COH character on Live was (is) a Fire/Fire Blaster.

[/ QUOTE ]

*Points at Poison Trap in the /Poison secondary*

[ QUOTE ]
What do you expect when the Devs increase LT, Boss, and EB end, then weeks later say, "hey, you guys are right, that does kinda mess with end drain. Hmm...never really thought of that. We will uhhh look into changes...soon..."


[/ QUOTE ]


Have you seen Poison Trap from /Poison? Honestly, it shows you just how much the developers waste their time when they push powers like that to market.

Anyone else but me going Dark Melee/Ninjitsu? Already did DA once and I am definately not looking forward to that again. Sorry Kali, I just don't see it being a great stalker set. Maybe Shadow Dweller can save it but it is lacking that final tier panic button.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, there was a typo in the description of a blaster power that is now fixed.

There ya go, bug fix!

[/ QUOTE ]


Oh SNAP!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hell, I'd take one that mildly gives a [censored] about the AT.

[/ QUOTE ]


Well, _Castle_ meets that standard at least:

[ QUOTE ]

RE: Fix the Blaster in the fewest possible moves
I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not just an acknowledgement that change needs to happen, but an announcement of an intent to actually implement some suggestions. That's more than Tankers and Defenders have gotten so far, and they're both clearly hurting as well (albeit, not as long).

[/ QUOTE ]

Until blaster issues are addressed most blasters are going to see a dev saying "I'll look into it later" and merely think "more of the same". We have heard the song and dance Pilcrow. I acknowledge that Castle has helped scrappers and stalkers a good deal however, when it comes to blasters I'll just wait and see. I am not holding my breathe.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
OMG I cant believe I forgot to ask this.

8. What power is on the chopping block in place of assasins strike?
9. Will we keep shadow maul?

I am glad it will be a resist set, finally a stalker that can take a hit without dying so fast after an assasin strike . I know defense will be getting buffed but even then I dont see it making too much of a difference given there is always that 5% of getting completely owned.

[/ QUOTE ]

8. I'm still sticking with my prediction of Dark Consumption, especially since ToF is confirmed to be staying in.
9. Don't see why not, the other sets kept their cone melee attacks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shadow Punch
Smite
Shadow Maul
Assassin Strike
Build Up
Placate
Touch of Fear
Dark Consumption
Midnight Grasp

Just a guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think your going to be right. I would have rather seen Shadow Maul get replaced with a faster cone power but I think they will leave it as is.

I can also see them moving Midnight Grasp up and dropping Dark Consumption into the level 32 spot. Seriously.

[ QUOTE ]
Doubleposting to discuss:

[ QUOTE ]

He's correct about the difference though. The 40-50 game (as opposed to the 1-40 game) is a drastically different beast for blasters than it is for a number of other ATs. Many people who've run blasters through those levels have remarked on the difference as difficulty ramps up and ability to solo drops way down during that level range

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, my experience has been that 41-50 is drastically different, and harder, for all AT's than 1-40 is. [I might even put the tipping point at level 38, when the Envoy of Shadows shows up.]

The 14-16 in my sig is from the "Issue 4 sprint to 50." At some point around level 43 or so [I don't remember exactly] I started counting how many times Boltcutter, my Scrapper, died, vs how many times Aurora Forge [my wife; Fire/fire blaster] died. She died 1.14 times as much as I did.

(She did spend a WHOLE lot more time staring at her screen, mezzed, than I did. And I agree that that is a problem.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to say that my difficulty with my toons went up much higher with my Blasters and Defenders than it did with any other toon. Some of characters didn't even feel the shift when I started fighting Malta and the Knives of Artemis. Some ATs are more resiliant than others is the what I have experienced Solo. In teams, the difference is much less pronounced. I'll give ya that.

[ QUOTE ]
Arc_Salvo: I'm probably misinterpreting something in this post of yours, but I don't see this as proving what you wanted to prove.

[ QUOTE ]
His alpha strike capability used to allow him to handle up to +3's (including LT's) in large spawns with ease (with a couple inspirations), but now, medium (or even small) sized spawns of +2's could kill him if I made the slightest mistake, as could +1's if I got unlucky on top of making dumb mistakes. [snip]

As for my MA/SR main, he did fine as long as I stopped fighting reds and purples, and downgraded to yellows/oranges, and made sure I had plenty of insps for bosses (/SR's main weakness)


[/ QUOTE ]

So with your MA/SR you went from fighting +3s ["red/purple"] to +1s ["yellow/orange" - or bosses with lots of insps] and with your AR/DEV you went from +3s including Lieuts (ie red and purple) to +2s and +1s (ie yellow and orange).

What am I missing?

[/ QUOTE ]

The difference is that he is fighting with Ease with his scrapper. The blaster is on a razor edge of dying or living.

[ QUOTE ]
So that 65% badguy is now hitting 57% of the time. And the new Blaster has 18% more hit points.

The new Blaster survivability is (65/57)* 1.18 or 1.34 .


[/ QUOTE ]

This would be great if that 18% actually translated directly to surviveability. In practice, it is only true over a very long expanse of time (days). The minor health buff in the day to day battles of a blaster simply doesn't matter in the upper levels of the game.

Also, your surviveability seems a bit out of whack. There is a rather large difference between the number of hits you will take when an enemy is hitting 37% of the time and when an enemy is hitting 57% of the time.

The burst damage that a blaster can be subjected to now, is greater than it was before by a rather large margin. Considering the lower HP of a blaster, that has a greater effect on blasters than it does scrappers. It results in death faster.

Your surviveability table also doesn't take into account how much longer it takes a balster to kill an opponent thus lengthening the amount of time that a blaster stays in battle, stays in battle with a weaker level of defense.


Your arguement is that scrappers had their defenses nerfed by a larger percentage. So what?

I will bring up the point that scrappers were overpowered before. If your arguement is that scrappers are balanced now, then my arguement is that blasters are not balanced now. So what difference does it make? Are you worried that the developers are going to nerf scrappers to make blasters feel better or are you just trying to say that you had a worse nerfing than blasters for no other reason than to make sure that everyone thinks that scrappers suffered more than blasters? So what?

I think you missed the point of Quijon's post.

[ QUOTE ]
And along with that 12.5% increase in Scrapper damage, we lost somewhere around 85% of our defenses.

How is that a boost for Scrappers, again?


[/ QUOTE ]

Fulmens, ignoring the bit about health because you don't really don't want to go down that road, let me just discuss a misinterpretation.

If you go back and read Quijons rather well written arguement for a buff for blasters he points out that scrappers had their defenses reduced. In conjunction with losing some of their defense, they got a damage boost to compensate.

Blasters also lost defense (to say nothing of damage). They got in return a damage cap that always should have been that high. I don't see that as a positive. They picked up a few more HP. Realize that blasters weren't happy with the way they were to begin with, and suddenly the piss poor health boost they got is a joke. The developers actually thought that haveing more health would allow blasters to stay in the effects of defiance dureing missions and thus it would boost their damage. If that seems stupid to you, then welcome to the party.

Rather than boost range, or damage with blasters, they instead encourage us to fight when we are at low health.

[ QUOTE ]
On the topic of this necro post. I wrote a while ago, how MMO wizards (Blasters here) get shafted. The reason they get shafted is because it's not possible to give this AT all the versatility that existed in Dungeons and Dragons. There mages could do a lot of things which justified the low armor and HP.

Here Blasters are crippled by the singular focus and role. Ice Blasters do so well because they have a utility, control, that most other blasters lack. */Energy does well in PvP and PvE for much the same reason.


[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely correct if you wanted to make a comparison to D&D. I would rather compare compare the game to Deadlands but that doesn't really matter.

What blasters should have had was a way of manipulating the battle at range with either damage or some kind of status effect. That is how they should have been designed for PvE.

The problem is that this can become too powerfull in PvP. The most that blasters can hope for is the ability to deal more damage at range. That is about it. If anyone thinks the developers are thinking about PvE balance, they are fooling themselves. Everything is being judged by two standards, good for PvE and good for PvP, with PvP taking priority.

I would love for some of the status abilities in the secondary sets to be ranged rather than PbAoE or Aura toggles. It won't happen though since it would allow blasters to kill squishies with almost no problem and that is something the developers don't want.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Scrappers should in no way even come close to Blaster damage output.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's the thing: on average, they don't. Can a scrapper keep it up for awhile? Yeah, of course. Can a blaster do twice the damage in a quarter the time? Yep.

Oh, and mez protection:
1) My regen actually gets mezzed pretty regularly.
2) Play on a team? 5/8 of defenders and 5/7 of controllers can give you mez protection.

The whole point is that although a solo scrapper>a solo defender, a blaster teamed with a controller, tanker, or defender can do more than a scrapper in that situation. Like you say, your huge damage ability comes at a price. Just try to make up for your weaknesses.

[/ QUOTE ]

Uhm, other than when my Blasters use their nukes, I have never been able to do what my scrappers can do with team support.

With proper support, I tank for 8 man teams with my scrappers simply because the team doesn't have a tank. When my /DA Tanks for teams it is a rollercoaster ride but it is also something that at no time can my blasters can come close to immitating. The pace at which my scrapper agros and dispenses with mobs (key word is agro) far outstrips what my blaster can agro with team support.

The additional HP, mez protection, and self buffing toggles when added to what a team offers multiplys the amount of safety a scrapper has compared with a blaster. The same is true if you compare tanks to scrappers. The Tank is heads and tails better at surviving agro.

Add to this the ability of the scrapper to kill quickly and suddenly Ohm's point about scrappers not giving up much for their offense becomes clear. Compare Stalkers to scrappers for an even more interesting comparison.

I just want to make clear that there is a vast gulf between what a scrapper can handle with support and what a blaster can handle with support. It isn't even close.

I am not saying that a blaster cannot contribute to a team, I am just saying that scrapper defenses stacked with team defenses is not being given the credit that it is due.

I do want to make clear that most of my experience is with Spines/DA and Spines/Regen. I have kept my comments limited to scrapper surviveability due to certain arguements about how my Primary biases my judgement. Leaving the amount of damage a scrapper can put out, out of the discussion Scrappers should definately not be threatened by a blaster boost to either their ranged Primary or their supporting secondary sets. Blasters are not relatively equal to scrappers in the benefit they bring to the team in the upper levels.

Also, I have no idea how you get mezzed solo. In a team, it is even less of a worry unless I am a blaster.