Another_Fan

LOL. I have some nice bottom land in the everglades for you. Real reasonable prices

Lots of redundant powers that don't work as well as the similar powers other ATs have ?

Just how much this is going to help blasters is a giant question. 3 power picks is a hardship for most builds, 3 power picks and a pool is going to be a very hard choice

We really have no idea what the overall intent is. While it is really nice that Synapse was wiling to address our concerns and soften the impact of the changes, thinking that we know the overall intent or this wasn't part of other changes coming down the pike is nothing but wishful thinking.

That number seems very low and at a guess would have to involve not fully accounting for all the places where inf can be squirreled away. Especially since scrappers are the most popular archetype and a popular farmer as well.

You are very likely correct about sales for SBEs going down. They have lost several of their selling points, and are now in many real ways inferior to in game earned enhancements. You have to either store them in your email or on characters, you can't trade them or sell them on the paragon market, and you can't boost them with boosters. So of their three advantages, attuned, safe from nerfs, superior procs, two are gone. It would be a minor miracle if sales didn't take a hit. I am sure that developers were aware of this and considered it before making a change, so from their perspective it must be important enough to mandate it.

On the other hand if you compare how Synapse handled this to how Castle handled the BotZ nerf, Synapse stands head and shoulders above. Castle pretty much went with "Heres a crap sandwich and no you can't have mustard". What's more Castle was willing to launch that as a pearl harbor on everyone that wasn't in closed beta and their close friends that found out about the change. The only reason he talked to players about it at all was people leaked it and posted to the boards. When he did announce and respond to questions he had two answers No and Meaningless BS that was meant to let the gullible read what the wanted to into it. I remember very well his blowing off questions about the fact that people in closed beta had been able to liquidate their holdings in advance, and that with the way the set was used people would likely need several respecs to correct their builds.

This time around the change is far superior and while I don't doubt there are people that will be hit for performance with it, also there will be others that are going to have improvement and a larger number that won't have a noticeable change. From the way things look now, its going to hit just the fastest cycling powers, even that should be in the tolerable range.

That said, it would be nice if the new procs only considered the part of recharge from alphas that is subject to E.D. not the part that ignores E.D. . The recharge from alphas already gets lots of penalties.

We have plenty of high damage, high survivability options that aren't blasters. If you insist on having tank mage = Ranged High Damage + High survivability, all kinds of corruptors come to mind and any reasonably well built mastermind.

Edit: Missed post above.

Thank you very much

This looks really good. It means that I won't be nagged to death to redo builds so double thumbs up from me, but I have one question.

Can we get the area factor formula ?


There is one floating around the boards that states

Area Factor = 1+(0.15*Radius)-(0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30)

From your examples

Dark regen radius 20 full arc

Example Area Factor = 4

From Formula Area Factor = 4

But

Footstomp Radius 15 full arc

From Example Area Factor = 2.5

From Formula Area Factor = 3.25

Is the formula we have incorrect ? If so can you share the correct one ?

That would be great.

So if your landlord, decided that electricity was bad for the environment and cut it off to the rental you are leasing, you would be fine with it ? After you had paid him to install a larger air conditioner ?

The concept is the same. You purchase something that is changed to the point where it is no longer what you bought after purchase. I can't imagine how anyone can argue this a legitimate right of the seller.

Neutrino bolt has a base recharge time of 1.5 seconds

An apocalypse proc currently in neutrino bolt has a 33% chance to go off

A 6 PPM proc current system will have a 15 % chance

A 6 PPM proc new system on a 200% recharge build will have a 5% chance

Damage for neutrino bolt goes from 77 points to 47.

Someone speed boosts me, hits me with a fortune and drops an ageless my proc rate drops to 3 3/4 %

Think of it as a slot machine. You play a slot machine that is advertised as paying out 1 in 3 times. You find out it was actually paying out 1 in 30 times.

Sorry you lost my money for store bought IOs with the performance shifter changes. Imagine if your car manufacturer remote flashed its firmware so it couldn't tune to your favorite radio stations ? Then met your complaints with clauses from your finance contract ?

In the case of a car radio I would likely sue, represent myself pro se and take it out of the company in their costs. In this case I'll just not buy IOs anymore.


The new changes while by no means a a crime are much worse, they are blunders.

Let me illustrate why. I have alts. Alts all over the place. I am not alone in this. When I go to play my Emp/Rad defender with procs in his attacks and all of a sudden those attacks aren't doing much of anything because the procs aren't firing that is going to be a problem. I won't be able to play that toon. When I go to play my Crab Spider that has the Achiles chance of proc slotted three times and my attacks are no longer working in a way I recognize, its going to be a problem for me.

So what the changes mean for me are lots and lots of respecs, lots of redoing builds, lots of time not playing the game, many many broken toys.

I have to wonder what was the compelling reason to annoy your players ?

Why not ? Every other AT in the game is. Masterminds even get to be several tankmages.

1000 points = $12.50
2000 points = $25.00

If you are going to give damage auras to blasters they really should have mez protection to go with them.

"So tasty you can't ignore its awesomeness"

It would also demand changes in devices and AR as well. As both of those sets would see further relative performance loss. Anything you couldn't combine the snipe with aim and buildup would be way behind the curve.

Hopefully you don't get your way. 4 out of 12 primaries don't have snipes. While there is nothing wrong with snipes getting better to the point where they are worth taking as a choice, I really wouldn't want to feel forced into having every one of my blasters be a sniper or have them be seriously gimped.

Except for blast sets that don't have snipes. It also begs the question just how many people who play blasters want to embrace being a sniper ? Assassin's strike was the signature power every stalker took. Snipes are a power few blasters take.

Base recharge = 120
Duration = 30

120/30 = 4 = 1+ recharge
Recharge = 300% that is quite a bit of recharge

Softcapped to 4 types of damage and a position with approximately 200%+ global recharge ? And the resist shield ?

Doable but i'll bet there are some real and painful compromises in that build. There is still the problem of defense failure which rapidly takes the build from survivable to non survivable.

You do have world of confusion and psychic shockwave if they were able to be wedged into the build. But you don't have have the kind of mitigation that usually comes along with a melee primary

I really can't say more one way or the other without seeing the build

PvP must of bought him a vacation home.

Sorry you have to put mental in a situation where everything is just right for it and everything is very bad for the melee AT to get that kind of comparison.

Mental needs many targets for drain psyche to shine, you also need to be fighting targets that are doing damage you are strong against, most likely smash lethal, and last don't have Mezzes that bypass your defenses.

One good mez and you will go from having 9/10 attacks miss you to 6/10 missing you. You also have Zero defense debuff resists so once that stun/hold/sleep lands you can expect that 6/10 to change to 9/10 hitting you in short order.

Edit: You also need a ridiculous amount of recharge to make drain psyche work for you

Fire is unarguably the best single target primary for blasters. The problem is its still poor compared to what the ATs that are actually good at single target damage can do. Its like making a school bus for off road racing.

Classic Castle, do what is easy instead of what is right. I swear that guy always seemed to make changes as if he got bonus points for aggravating players.

Look at the tank "improvement" its tied to using what is usually the worst attack tanks have. The /psi doms needed more than just the overpowered psychic shockwave altered. When that was changed the low tier attacks with their incredibly resisted damage needed changes as well.

Just goes to show you can completely violate the spirit of the cottage rule, by changing what a set is good at, without violating it on any individual power.