Another_Fan
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Quote:Unless the life preserver is glued to an anvil.Originally Posted by Fulmens
If you're drowning and someone throws you a life preserver and you don't grab it, it's hard to make a case they didn't try to make things better for you. -
Quote:As long as the DPA was around 1.0 DS and the attack wasn't longer than 3 seconds (ideally not longer 2) that would be fine.Originally Posted by Starsman
Even if the animation was slower for the "regular" version? (Still with the dps range I noted, just saying it potentially would have variable cast time like Titan Weapon attacks.)
Dominators really got the worst of the snipe changes.Quote:Edit: And I do think the snipe issue is an issue with every single offensive ranged set that has a snipe. This is not a "freebie" for characters that never had it. Heck, a lot of defenders, corruptors and dominator builds will still see this as useless since without team buffs they will never be able to se that ToHit buffing. -
Quote:I agree with what you are saying but I think you are misunderstanding what I was trying to say.Originally Posted by seebs
If you are not attacking a single tough target against which you want maximal sustained damage over a longish period, your attack chain is situational. I assume people don't tell scrappers that because of scrapperlock; it's good enough to have them pushing more than one button.
Seriously, if you are using a fixed rotation, you are almost certainly doing less well than someone who is taking circumstances into account. You will be facing a target that you can massively overkill with a 2-second attack, or kill adequately with a 1-second attack, and if you use the 2-second attack because it's in the rotation, you are wasting time before you get to the next target.
In snipes case the situation is do I have a yellow, is the guy with tactics in the room, am I going to have to wait till my +to hit powers are recharged ? And if I do will I be able to finish the spawn before they run out ?
With melee its I have to take down this guy first, then that guy or maybe I want to wipe the minions quickly then deal with the boss.
In one case you are just responding to the spawn you are fighting, in the other you are responding to the spawn you are fighting and hoping that you have the right situation. -
Quote:Absolutely. I would probably want a 1.0 DS so they at least were on a par with T1 and T2 blasts, they do have a 12 second recharge time.Originally Posted by Starsman
A_F, would you feel better if snipes, outside the 22% did acceptable damage so they are "OK" attacks? Lets say something perhaps in the 0.75 to 0.9 DS Per Activation second.
Edit: Its the whole master switch aspect of the new snipes that is objectionable (well and the fact that they are really gifts to defenders and corruptors ATs that didn't need it) -
Quote:Agreed but I think I miscommunicated. It isn't that melee sets don't have situational powers, Its your melee base chain will consist of 3 or 4 that you take and use and will do your great damage for you. You toss out divine avalanche when you want more defense, touch of fear for extra mitigation and fault. Those are situational powers where the situation isn't all the time.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Well, I know I sometimes use Divine Avalanche and sometimes I don't. I sometimes throw in Touch of Fear other times I don't. Sometimes on my /Stone tanker I use Fault a lot, other times I don't need to. I think you are in error. Melee attack sets have situational powers too
As things stand with snipes their situation is all the time and when you can use them is when the stars align. -
Quote:That would be against melees who can set up their best from the start and then just use damage to get more damage ? Or more importantly go from doing great damage, to truly spectacular damage instead of going from doing meh damage when the situation is wrong to doing good damage when it is right ?Originally Posted by Leo_G
None of those potentially drop off every foe you defeat.
Also, I actually like the mechanic of basically improving your damage directly and not through just +dmg. It actually gives more purpose to ToHit buffs besides indirect damage increase like Rech buffs give. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Leo_G
Mmmm, they don't have rech inspirations though.
You have the base buff machine and Kins. I mean the larger the team the better the chance there will be a kin on it.
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Quote:If you took out a blast from your attack chain to put snipe in, every time snipe is unavailable your damage is going down way down from the original level. Unless you had large amounts of excess recharge you are going to be seeing a 1+second gap in the chain. (Most likely closer to 2)Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Not sure it is true that it will bring damage down ever. Sure, if you use the snipe all the time even when not buffed to make it fast, but I see players do that now. You don't have to push the button just because it is recharged.
If you don't lose a blast you have to come up with a power pick and enough slots to make the snipe work that will be real hard.
The more I look at this, the more I see it as a giant red flag telling people if you want to play this game you should play anything but a blaster. -
Quote:There is the problem for me. Nobody tells a scrapper, oh your attack chain is situational, not even for the combo sets like dual pistols.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Eh, the snipes working situationally and having the situations becoming more frequent as you level up works fine for me. That is a standard of the game, room for growth. I consider it a feature that it works with Aim out of the box (all but one blaster set with snipes has Aim) and then as you level it can be made to work more often through quite a variety of methods. I also like that teaming is one of those methods, by the way.
Imagine if the melee high dpa powers only worked when you had recharge above 70% ? What you don't like the trade off ? well all you have to do is take hasten and it isn't that hard to perma. -
Quote:If it is in your build anyway and is already well slotted, I agree.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
In my opinion, Snipe is a viable choice when the faster cast is situational, say you can use the fast cast version ~3 times a minute. Getting the fast cast available 3 times a minute is trivial. For those who already have the snipe, it is likely they could choose to not change a thing and get that much benefit.
Anything more than that is min/maxing the benefit and like any good min/max situation, you may not be able to have it all. You will have to lose some things if you want to max out the snipe fast cast, or you can settle for a situational fast cast and keep those other things.
That is a mark of great game design, not poor design.
If you have to tear out a power to put it in your build and have it well slotted, not so much. At that point you are trading bread and butter all the time utility for something that is situational and for most combinations will be bringing your overall damage down.
I can agree with good design having players make tradeoffs the problem is blasters have already traded survivability for damage. The snipe change really isn't addressing that. -
Quote:It's not a question of powers becoming appealing its about them not being appealing enough to justify the tradeoffs.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Improving a power that is weak is a bad thing. You heard it here.
Look, I understand what you are saying. Snipes are a situational power like Lightning Clap. I figured they would improve snipe by making it more useful in those situations and possibly adding something so it was useful in a few more situations. Instead they decided to vastly increase the situations it is useful by making it an obnoxious DPA power. Crap, it can still be used situationally from long range but now I also likely want to use it after every Aim or Build Up.
It can be frustrating when powers one has skipped become appealing. That doesn't mean they should leave often skipped powers unappealing and instead buff the powers everyone already has.
For the sake of argument look at a blaster with ranged def in the high 30s low 40s making snipe viable is going to cost 2 to 4 power picks and something like 3 to 4 slots. That can very easily wreck the blasters defense.
Can you build back around it ? Not easily, as it is I am assuming that you are dropping the T2 or T1 blast and replacing it with the snipe. The problem with that is you wind up SOL when you can't use the snipe in fast mode.
So instead of a situational power pick you wind up with several power picks that are just to make that situation work, and your entire attack chain being situational. -
Quote:Originally Posted by StratoNexus
It is simply wrong that /Mental did not get a change as well. Heck, this is the perfect opportunity to fix Drain Psyche!
Give it an upfront regen/recovery amount that doesn't require any targets. 100% regen enhanceable and 50% recovery enhanceable. Then have it give 50% unenhancebale regen and recovery per target hit.
And make Scare and WoC adequate instead of poor.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Airhammer
exactly what I think is the problem.. at least you got something..
I could take a dump in a box and wrap it up in some nice paper and stick a pretty bow on it and say.. he at least I got you a gift... Its the thought that counts...
but what you really got was a box of crap...
Don't get me wrong, I have an Ice/Ment. The only plus side to that one is I don't even have to think about respeccing. Yes I really do understand where you are coming from. You have to take powers that you think are garbage. The only real unambigous win on these changes is the increased range for the short powers. This whole thing is a What the heck were they thinking ? and who was it meant to appeal to ? -
Airhammer, at least you got something. Imagine how the people who took mental for psychic scream feel. They got left out in the cold because blappers also take their set.
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Quote:There is a pretty good chance I wont be taking the snipe. I am not a "Concept" person, and If I were to be the concept would be "Kicks rear and doesn't bother taking names". It's looking like I have to give up far too much in survivability to get this extra damage.Originally Posted by Leo_G
Thought:
You could just not take the snipe. Every power comes with a compromising cost. That you can say "Oh, I can take this control power or OH! I can take this AoE or OOOH!! I can take this snipe!!" is a good thing.
But if you're retrofitting powers into builds, a reexamining of all powers taken is inevitable. If you have a set with a crashless nuke, it's quite possible to skip a cone or AoE and just rely more heavily on the nuke even if you end up with less overall AoE DPS...or if you've got a crashing nuke, skip that.
My builds, thankfully, take powers completely depending on concept and now that I think about it, my Energy/Fire won't be taking the snipe because it doesn't fit his concept (and the power looks puny and weak anyway). He does have Nova and a couple of my other ranged characters picked up their crashing nuke as well as slot and use it.
Maybe you should start fitting in crashing nukes into your build as well in anticipation for new changes? Then you won't have to 'compromise' later?
Taking Blasters in the direction of sacrificing survivability for a small damage boost is exactly the opposite of what I was hoping for in the changes. This does confirm my thought that the snipe changes weren't for blasters but really aimed at corruptors and defenders who do very very well with them. The change will also be really welcomed by the people who like to play blasters because they are always on the edge, I can hardly begrudge them an improvement to the game. -
Corruptors and Defenders made out big time.
They can easily perma the new snipe. Corruptors can drop their horrendously bad T1 powers and use the snipe as part of their ordinary attack chain. Defenders can take all the slots out of their T1 blast powers. In either case they both gain a really significant benefit while giving up next to nothing.
The exception is AR which for all three now has a nice single target chain even though blasters in general have to reach more than the other 2. -
Quote:Aim and build with three SOs recharges in 46 seconds They last for 10 seconds.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
As to whether its worth it or not, my back of the envelope calculations suggest that with just BU and Aim and SO slotting, with or without Hasten you can probably have about 80% of all sniper blast opportunities be insta-snipes. In other words, about as fast as snipe recharges, 80% of the time it will be in an insta-mode. 80% doesn't seem to be all that unusually situational to me, and that's for very low end builds.
I think the paper calculations won't convince most people, though, and people will just need to test drive it on beta to see how often sniper attacks are and are not in the insta mode.
This give you a best case without hasten of 20 seconds every 48.5 call it 48.
In that time you have approximately 7 opportunities to fire off snipe. If you go to the trouble to have an optimized chain to fit the most snipes into a 10 second wind you get 4/7 = 62 %
That is using a generous 7 second cycle time for the snipe. 6 for recharge and 1 for cast.
Good job. That isn't even beginning to calculate the downtime you may have because you are waiting for the snipe to recharge instead of firing a power.
With hasten its 20 seconds every 36. But you are still getting at most 2 shots per window so that gives us 4/6 or 66%
Cycle time is down to 5.5 its that 3rd one that begins at 11 is the problem.
Like I said more of a problem leveling up for blasters than a solution.
That's Not even considering the 15 additional slots you need to make this scheme work or the half a snipe that is left over between cycles. -
Quote:I'd love to see what the cost vs benefit winds up being. Most of my builds already have the leadership pool so I only have to lose two powers I have taken. The question is what to give up ?Originally Posted by BrandX
Sometimes solo? Or, just need to build for it to make it perma. Won't be easy for sure, but for a lot of the combo's looks possible in one way or another.
Do I give up the T2 blast I can use while mezzed ? The T3 Blast, the melee attack that is giving me 3 points of ranged defense ? One of my AOEs ?
You are going to have to give up something you thought was worth slotting, because you will need the slots to put in the snipe. You have to trade off something else that had 3 or 4 slots in it so you can have those slots for tactics and kismet. -
Quote:If the buff is spread out amongst powers in a set, the only people who will get none of it are those that take none of the of the powers. This is opposed having it in one power that you must take.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
You don't have to take it if you don't want to. Just like Regen scrappers don't have to take Integration. Conversely, if the buff is something the devs perceive to be necessary to improve the set, then if its spread out among many different powers only the players who take *all* of them will get the intended buff. Everyone else will not. That's often a worse problem. -
Quote:ROFL, Irony is lost on you I see.Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
You know, A_F, I wish I could say that the intensity of your nonconstructive complaining in this thread were in any way a surprise.
Cool changes. I was pretty sure my water blaster would be a corruptor, now I am less convinced. -
Quote:I said this way back, I said it when the devs said they would look at snipes. It should be something special for blasters. The whole purpose of the AT is to do damage. As things stand blasters don't even gain the greatest percentage benefit out of this change.Originally Posted by Tater Todd
I think Arbiter Hawk needs to seriously lower the required To Hit percentage or reduce it to 0 entirely. It's a bit much to ask all of those ATs to pick up YET ANOTHER POWER.
I understand his intentions and it looked great on paper but it makes things difficult for ALL ATs unless they plan to gives us more power selections and slots in the very near future.
I know that I keep dancing around on what I really want...but looking at the big picture this should be easy for everyone to achieve. -
Quote:This.Originally Posted by Biospark
Why would I want to respec my build to *add* a snipe that is not already there and not try to take advantage of its new functionality ? Stalkers got the good fix, Blasters got hosed
Of course you are correct, no one is forced to take all those powers, but many WILL, and they will also be disappointed. I for one would prefer that the fix to snipes stay within the general use powers of a Blaster and not be leveraged by additional requirements that are very short lived (in the case of Aim/Buildup ) or very costly in powers and slots (Tactics + Kismet ).
Just my opinion
I haven't finished the comparison but not only do blasters have the worst requirements for taking advantage of this, it looks like they get the least percentage benefit. -
Quote:Not really, usually for blasters its best to use aim and build up at the same time before you engage in combat.Originally Posted by Starsman
This is an issue with obsessing over fixed attack chains, not with the game.
Thats one of the reasons I always advocate priority based attack queues over chains, but it's something apparently only Arcanaville ever agreed with (in some posts, she still outlines chains constantly.)
Anyways, there are insane number of things that can force you to alter an attack chain already, including the downtime of hasten or being affected by a recharge debuff or hit by allies recharge buffs.
Attack chain consistency has never been rock solid and this snipe change does not really do much more than add a bit more ripples into that pond.
There are a few reasons for this.
1. If you are taking aoe attacks which deal more damage to a spawn than anything else, this maximizes their damage.
2. Even if you are concentrating on single target the lethality of a spawn is going to be proportional to the square of its size (you have to endure X avg damage* (no mobs in a spawn)*(#mobs in a spawn/time to kill them)). If you can remove as few as 1 with great haste it vastly increases the chances you survive the battle.
3. Once you are in battle each time you are firing aim or build up it adds to the amount of time you have to survive in battle. It's time you aren't doing damage.
4. With this new system you will need another damage power that you didn't before so you can actually do something while the snipe is unavailable. -
Quote:There is a big part of the problem. If we are talking about fixing blasters on the way up this change to snipes is going to do next to nothing. The availability on aim and build up is just to dam low and you need powers that will actually be available.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
For blasters that used to try to build for extra survivability in the first place, the challenge may not be all that bad. Looking at my current (Energy/Energy) build, I take the fighting pool for tough and weave: that's three powers. I'm thinking about dropping them and replacing with maneuvers and tactics. I lose some defense and some resistance, but I'm being handed Energize. Plus I have a high recharge build. Plus I already take Power Boost. That means I should be able to cycle BU/Aim/PB and have perma insta-snipe, plus get Energize, plus I now have an extra power choice.
In a leveling build I would probably not bother initially with tactics and just rely on BU and Aim. Slotted with SOs it shouldn't be too difficult to reduce Sniper Blast's cycle time to under 10 seconds, meaning you can get two shots off during one BU window. So the attack chain might go BU->snipe->other stuff-> snipe->other stuff->Aim->snipe->other stuff->snipe->other stuff. Even though BU and Aim are not collectively up all the time, you could actually buff every use of sniper blast as it became available if you simply waited until snipe was available or about to become available before using BU or Aim. The actual "penalty" for not being able to buff snipe "all the time" might actually be almost non-existent until you get to builds with very fast cycling snipes. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Tater Todd
Wouldn't that be against some form of Code/Law or something?
Blasters are supposed to have lower Leadership Values...wouldn't it be easier on Arbiter Hawk to lower the To Hit percentage requirement instead of changing the values of Leadership on Blasters?
If he did change it wouldn't that make the other ATs angry?
Lower it ? Make it 0. Blasters are supposed to be the ranged damage specialists.