Electric-Knight
-
Posts
4379 -
Joined
-
And also remember that some of us do not drop every very often, despite not having any defense.
-
In fairness, when they do something good... it's good/great... but if it's not, they're not going to salvage it just because it's them.
I love some of Burton's stuff, but his camp/tribute/goof-ons tend to be movies that I don't enjoy and/or have no interest in (Ed Wood being the large exception on that score for me).
I'll forgive them for slip-ups if I get a Sweeney Todd every now and then.
Dark Shadows is just one I knew I'd avoid (unless I saw glimpses that made me think differently - which did not happen).
I was surprised to see the trailer for the full-feature-length Frankenwiener... Don't recall if Depp is in that. Seems a bit thin to stretch out for a full length movie...
-
Yikes!
Fortunately, it should still be just as good then.
I won't spoil it by telling you that Hulk is Captain America's father!!
-
Quote:Alright, now my brain hurts!Originally Posted by Zombie Man
This is the second time I let a friend convince me to see what's playing at the IMAX in NYC simply because it's IMAX even though I was pretty sure it was going to be awful. The other was The Rock vehicle, Journey 2: The Mysterious Isle, whose plot was as inexplicable as Dark Shadow, but, at least it was marketed as pre-adolescent fantasy.
...
I am disappoint, Zombie. -
Quote:Hmm, I took them as meaning that nerdrage was a cause of people making the threads with misleading titles!Originally Posted by Sailboat
That's funny, because everyone else also gets annoyed by being misled. How odd that anyone would think it has something to do with nerds!
Haha, I could be wrong though!
-
Quote:Originally Posted by Leo_G
Sooo you like being gimp.
Sorry, EK, jk Haha!
There's an element of truth to it though... not "gimp", but underdog, for sure.
I also realize that, if/when Blasters are brought up to balance in performance a little, adjusting the difficulty should allow me to still have the fun I have with them.
I just think that element of danger should, and will, remain for the AT, so long as they keep to the Glass Cannon as much as can be within reason.
People who hate Blasters right now... May not ever love them when/if they are adjusted. Hopefully they won't continue to hate them, of course, but not everything is for everyone... And the Blaster should keep its balance based around as much offense as can be managed at the expense of defense. The scale just seems to need a bit of tipping in the Blaster's favor compared to the other ATs. Some more damage (through several means) and top it off with whatever increments of survival assistance is needed for a level scale.
Also, us 'gimps' laugh at the prettyboy wimpy min/maxers!
Of course it is easier if you optimize things for yourself... but easier does not equal better! -
Eh, so I ended up posting a rambling reply anyway...
Here's a more direct answer:
A Blaster over a Dominator or Corruptor because the Blaster is fullout offense, both Primary and Secondary, which gives you more options for how you wish to damage your opponent(s) than any other AT.
There's also no real gimmick to use their powers effectively... where as the Dominator relies on Domination to obtain greater ability.
The Corruptor can fire its ranged attacks, but lacks any ability to sock the enemies in the face and, more importantly, their Secondary powers are entirely support (often times not even for the benefit of yourself when playing solo).
The Blaster is the soloist's death-defying ace dog-fighting pilot. -
Quote:I started typing up a rambling reply to this, but I'll just say this:Originally Posted by Tater Todd
Another_Fan can you explain to me why I would want to roll a Blaster rather than a Dominator or corruptor?
If this question was directed at me, at least...
Beyond the thrill of playing the glass cannon in this game (which I do very much enjoy), the Primary and Secondary are both loaded with nothing but straight-up OFFENSE/ATTACKS.
No needing to screw about with controlling, debuffing before you can do your thing...
Just find your target(s), decide if you're going to start at range or up close... and unleash whatever you feel like from your large arsenal.
If you like options and style and the thrill of being the underdog and surviving fights without a full Health bar... Blaster is the best choice in this game.
I love it... Most of the time, I wipe the floor with my enemies, but I enjoy it even more when it's tough... Maybe a green inspiration to save me... the last enemy drops while I just have a sliver of health... That's being a hero! That's why!
-
Quote:No, actually, that problem seems to be anything but mine.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
If you have a problem with people looking at the numbers and noticing what's being given up that problem is entirely yours.
-
Silly Tater Todd!
Don't you know that anything less than what you can do is simply letting yourself, your team and the city of Paragon down?!?
17% resistance, Tater Todd! How dare you insinuate that this isn't worth making certain power pools a requirement!
You think you have a choice?? You're simply choosing not to play right!!
Play or don't play... but don't ruin our game by refusing to improve yourself to the minimum required degree, which is the maximum, of course... Because everyone knows, anything less than what you can do... is simply not enough.
-
Quote:If you look at my other replies about this, that is pretty much what I'm suggesting as well.Originally Posted by Another_Fan
To be completely honest, it really doesn't seem to be balanced around much of anything.
If anything blasters had their offense lowered with defiance 2.0. People that could play on that life and death edge were well rewarded with defiance 1.0
The whole you can't ramp up blasters damage is a canard. Its a meme being promulgated by people that either have an agenda or just haven't thought things through. Its pretty clever to the idea in circulation.
It goes like this.
1. To be balanced off damage alone blasters would need an absurd amount of damage (insert absurd amount here).
2. This amount of damage would destroy the game
3. So "We cant give them anymore damage"
The problem is of course in going from giving blasters absurd damage, and giving them more.
At the very least the blaster ranged modifier could be increased by 10%-15% and the melee modifier brought up to match. This seems fair since the melee toons don't actually have to use their ranged modifier they just get their melee modifier for ranged attacks.
If you then say that's not enough, well then you can give them some extra survivability to go with it.
At that point you aren't doing silly things to fix the AT, like "Every Blaster a sniper" or changing what people initially enjoy about the AT, or at least what I enjoyed about it, "The sheer joy of being nothing but damage"
I'm hoping they might be able to get more damage for Blasters by adjusting the higher tiered attacks a little bit, but I agree about increasing the damage modifier.
The only thing I said in my previous post was that covering the entire gap of the offense/defense balance is not possible through damage only.
The average damage among ATs is too high to allow something enough damage to balance out ZERO defense.
And I'm pretty sue that is all that Arcanaville has said on the matter as well. I think everyone agrees more damage is best... but it'll probably take a bit more to really bring them up to snuff.
Again, I feel weird talking about blasters this way, because I do play and enjoy and succeed with them as is.
However, I can't argue that there is a drastic difference in the ease in which I succeed, compared to other ATs. -
Quote:Oh, I understand where you're coming from now. Thanks! My apologies for not fully grasping why you were speaking from that angle.Originally Posted by Antigonus
I agree completely that they shouldn't be used for balancing the baseline performance. However, in this particular case, using them does give us an idea of what to expect from the possible changes many people are asking for. As I said, if people are using those tools available and not seeing a significant improvement in performance, that could indicate mez is not the issue and that giving Blasters inherent mez protection/resistance won't solve the problems they are having. However, we can't determine that if people aren't actually using those tools because of a preconceived bias against them. Because people aren't using them, all we are seeing reported is the worst case scenario.
Yeah, I've never tried using those things to counteract mez... Now you've got me thinking about trying it, just to see (as it's never really been a complaint of mine... other than against Master Illusionists maybe, hehe). -
Quote:Alright, you're making some big mistakes by making pretty wide generalizations.Originally Posted by Antigonus
In what way is build variety crippled any more than it is now with virtually every build on these forums being essential cookie cutter copies taking the same four pools for maximum defense?
First of all, you're lumping the entire forum community into one pool, and then you're using this generalization to speak for the balance of an AT for the rest of the entire playerbase.
A lot of us do not even come remotely close to copying any of these cookie cutter builds posted on the forums.
And again, many people play the game without IO set bonus for optimal performance.
People play this game by taking powers that seem fun and/or fit the overall concept of the super-powered character they wish to create.
This game is not balanced around IOs. IOs add to the extremes and variances we can go to, but they are not the basis for AT balancing.
Again, you say all of this from the basis that anyone and everyone is taking CJ and/or any powers that give defense. This is not true and should not be the basis for AT balance.Quote:Originally Posted by Antigonus
The irony is that they are already taking Leaping for CJ, so it's not like it's a big stretch to take two more powers from the set to give a significant improvement in survival. There's no crippling whatsoever. As I stated earlier I managed a build on mids that had both defense and mez resistance in good numbers with no significant sacrifices in performance.
Do you only read and/or reply to the hyperbolic posts, because I see a lot of intelligent discussion about the realities of the situation and a lot of people that are not for all-out inherent protections for Blasters.Quote:Originally Posted by Antigonus
It seems to me that mez, in regards to Blaster performance, has been dramatically overblown on these forums. Yes, it is a problem that needs to be addressed. But it seems to me that if it was really as bad as some would have us believe, than why do people seem to work so hard to avoid taking the very best tools they have to alleviate the problem? That makes no sense. If mez was such a crippling issue, wouldn't people go out of their way to make it less so? What I see is that people recognize that there is a problem with Blasters, but they don't really understand what all that entails. They see that they are getting mezzed more than they think they should, and that is the thing they recognize. That is the thing they can most easily see as being a hinderance to performance, so that is what they grab onto. Then they come here crying WITCH! WITCH! and demand that something be done to fix the problem despite the fact that the devs have already provided powerful tools to fix it. The problems with Blasters go far beyond just mez, but that is the one issue that people are focusing on like a laser beam. Just giving Blasters inherent mez resistance won't fix Blasters underperforming.
There is a wide variety of opinions on these issues.
And many of us in partial agreement also have extremely different preferences, opinions and experiences with Blasters.
For example, while I agree with Nethergoat on some things... I do not feel as though I have to work in order to enjoy my Blasters (and my Blasters are my favorite characters! My main character is an E3 Blaster that I play most of the time I am logged on... he has NO IOs and NO pool powers for defense... go figure!).
The "problem" I see with Blasters is simple.
They are supposed to be Superb Offense and No Defense.
All the other ATs (we're talking BARE-BONE ATs here. Strictly the AT's powers only) were brought closer to the Superb Offense while the Blasters remained with No Defense.
It's been surmised that a Blaster's damage can't really be beefed up enough to compensate for having NO Defense, compared to all the other ATs' damage levels while having much more solid defenses and abilities for mitigation... Because the damage levels required for that balance would make encounters too trivial (sure, they'd have no defense... but if they one shot entire Boss spawns... it might not be enough of a weakness!).
There is a disparity...
And, no... I do not believe that Mez is the real issue. I think being able to withstand or avoid more of a beating is in order in some way (if ofensive damage, alone, is not an option).
Arcanaville's suggesting of quick bursts of mini-mez on our target is an interesting one to give some more survivability in the form of offense.
Regardless, anything done to Blasters right now, needs to include some offensive damage improvements (as small or large as they can be right now).
Anything else should come in small increments to reach the final balancing on the scale, in my opinion.
Bringing in Pool Powers and IO bonuses isn't anything unique for Blasters... and they shouldn't be used for balancing Blasters with other bare-bone ATs' performances. -
Quote:Yeah, the variety throughout the powersets, while one of the greatest aspects of the game (in my opinion) does make any such ideas quite problematic.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Changing snipes and nukes can be part of the solution, but they can't be the focus of the solution for the simple reason that not all primaries have snipes, and the secondaries have different kinds of nukes. There's lots of room to improve Nova, but almost no room to improve Rain of Arrows. Thunderous Blast and Blizzard would require totally different thinking to revise, as would Overcharge.
However, what about Thunderous Blast and Blizzard make them require such a drastic revision? The mezzing affect? Being Ranged?
Thunderous Blast is a nuke that I think works wonderfully and one I'd like to see remain as it is in design.
As I've said, I'd love to see crashing nukes made more powerful. Even if they want to make them cost more or recharge slower... Nukes should possibly create a greater safety for the user.
I don't know... maybe nukes should be made into a self-revive power as well.
I'd just like to see nukes take care of any situation, short of EBs and above... Maybe more damage the lower your hit points are... Something that will fire off and leave you safe for a while, whether that means everything is defeated or just simply mez'd for a good while... or if it gives you an invulnerability or heal or something to just retain the ginormous aspect of the power while being more reliable. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Ironblade
OMG! You don't turn off those annoying pop-ups on the right side of the screen?!?!?!
Also... that was me...
Let me just mess with photoshop for a bit and I'll post the pic...
-
Quote:True! Yeah, my addition is really not necessary and is a bit redundant when you spell it out like you have.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Its possible, but it might not be necessary. Blasters can already shoot while mezzed. If those attacks can incapacitate mezzers, that eliminates chain mez *and* it reduces the damage the blaster takes while mezzed. It sort of puts the blaster in a "defensive" mode of trying to use two or three attacks to keep the enemy off balance until the mez breaks, which I think is all by itself a reasonable thing to have happen. It would actually be a case of mez acting in a non-binary manner, something that has been suggested for the game for almost as long as the game has existed.
Really, Energy Blast almost has the type of brief mez that you're suggesting, doesn't it (in the form of KB)? I say almost, because there are a number of factors that make it quite different.
Yeah, as much as I love Blasters as they are, if anyone is going to talk about "balance", they have to recognize the blatant imbalance that exists right now with the Blaster's damage to defense ratio.Quote:Originally Posted by Nethergoat
a quick comment on concerns about blasters being "too survivable":
if pretty much anyone can tear through pretty much anything in the game from 1-50 playing a scrapper or brute (and to greater or lesser extents stalkers, tanks & some controllers & corrupters), I'm not seeing the "unbalancing" aspect of blasters being able to do the same thing.
I guess I'm not seeing the "balance" advantages of an AT that spends most of its time being mezzed or running back from the hosptial.
I still want to see that imbalance worked out through the Blaster's offense as much as is possible. Mainly because I am not convinced that this game needs to abandon the model of a theoretical glass cannon.
Exactly! I wasn't sure my intention was understood with how poorly I worded that, heh.Quote:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I've always thought that, or at least for as long as I've fully grasped the game's offensive mechanics. Blaster ranged attacks tend to have lower than average DPA (single target), that DPA doesn't always improve significantly with tier (alternatively, they tend to lack high DPA ranged attacks that can be cycled), and they even collectively tend to lack actual range. Outside of 40 feet, my energy blaster has only three actual attacks usable in theory: power bolt, power blast, and explosive blast. That's a couple too few for non-invention builds with high recharge, in other words almost everyone else.
I'm hoping that maybe some of that problem can be remedied by altering Snipes into something like the Stalker's Assassin Strike, but I'm not sure if that's going to be possible and I'm not sure how much it will realistically do.
Turning the Nukes into better fitting Tier 9 attacks just doesn't sound right for me... but that would be another way to try and remedy the lack of higher Tier attacks that one can fit into a Blaster's chain/forte.
Unless there's also room for changing one, or more, other blast power within each and every Blaster powerset.
My thinking cap is only half on, at the moment... -
Quote:Agreed!Originally Posted by Doctor Roswell
Wow, these are some pretty serious discounts.
All on stuff I either already own or don't need, so I won't be partaking personally, but still... very nice.
Very nice sale prices! Nothing that I need or want, but I'm not complaining!
-
Quote:Very interesting. And I agree with the idea of coming up with a different way to make offense defense, beyond damage.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The *obvious* concept is "offense is defense." Except its not, not intrinsically, because this game's mechanics don't really allow for damage to do that in a way that's balanceable. But we can make that statement work if "offense" isn't just damage. In a sense, controllers implement "offense is defense" as well - their offense includes control.
That's why I suggested, in another thread, that the blaster "offense is defense" concept be extended to counter-mez. Add short duration mez pulses to blaster attacks so that blasters can partially neutralize targets they are shooting at but only while actively shooting at them. That carves a specific kind of mez away from Controllers, leaving controllers the kings of long-duration controls: basically the fire and forget controls.
The counter-mez is a very interesting idea... I like that concept a lot.
Could that possibly be applied to break out of a mez as well? If we blast the enemy responsible for mez'ing us, we break it. Maybe one for immobs and two for holds. I'm not sure if that is feasible at all, but I just thought I'd mention it.
I very much like the idea of filling in more of the gap between our glass-ness and the other ATs defenses through the Blaster's offensive abilities... and adding in extra effects beyond damage seems necessary (as damage alone would require way too significant an increase... as has been said repeatedly, hehe). -
I still stand by the idea of adding on both sides of Offense and Defense.
I don't know that solid mez protection is the way to go (it may be, but I'm certainly not convinced).
- Some increase in the damage modifiers (both range and melee).
- A change to Snipes to make them something that can provide a significant amount of damage into regular combat (I've really begun to think that the attack type setup for Blasters is a major culprit... The Melee ATs' offense include big hitters as they level up, but the Blaster doesn't really get that sort of progression. Making Snipes into something like the Stalker's Assassin Strike could be good, possibly?
- Change Nukes to either crashless or bigger and badder (and keep the crash). I, personally, very much like the flavbor of the crashing nukes, but it seems to me that the damage numbers are vastly beneath what they should be for the costs/crash. Shore those numbers up and that again may contribute to a more powerful cannon, to help against the nature of being glass-like.
- Small increase(s) in defensive survivability... possibly just an increase in Health. Possibly some for of mez protection.
- Possibly add a few more attacks into the Blaster's ability to fight while mez'd.
I do understand that the offensive side can only be increased so much before it is ludicrous... but I think we should travel toward that edge.
Hopefully that and some minor defensive adjustments can bring about a semblance of them being... maybe not a Glass Cannon, but... since we have a bunch of cannons running around in the form of other ATs... maybe a Fiberglass Cannon.
I concede that, if we want to reach true balance with the other ATs, the glass may have to be pretty much undone. However, I very much would like to see as much of a boost to Blaster offense as we can before we balance the rest out (even if the rest is included with the entire balancing pass. I just mean that I want it to lean on the offensive side as much as possible). -
Quote:This is what I was going to say!Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Why is this in the General Discussion section? It belongs in the Suggestion forum!
Now I have nothing else to offer...
Hehe, actually, while I do agree that some people often use this forum for suggestion threads, some of the examples you listed do not fall into that category, in my opinion.
For whatever reasons, there seems to an idea that the Suggestions Forum is for solid, figured-out, suggestions.
Where-as people seem to prefer vague suggestions, seeking further feedback within the General forum'
And then, there are a bunch of people who just want people to see and respond to their posts, so they put anything and everything in the General forum.
-
I hope we're told how/when we'll be able to get this stuff again relatively soon.
I'm close to Tier 9, but not close enough, unfortunately.
It's a shame that prepaid subscription time doesn't get us the tokens upfront, as buying points does. I'd have this stuff already, if that were the case.
I'll gladly plunk down money for prepaid subscription, but I have no need, nor desire, to throw that amount of cash for points.
Thanks for letting us know though.
Oh, also... is that you in your new forum avatar, Damz?
-
Quote:Hehe, please put down the booze, Forbin.Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I respectfully disagree. The only way I can see drawing your conclusion from what the person I quoted posted would be to ignore the first part of his sentence which you edited out to make it sound as if he said something else. I'll quote it again in it's complete format.
Since the topic of this thread is copyright violations, that sentence looks likes it's implying Blizzard got to use the term "orcs" because they used it before Tolkien got the copyright on it.
If the person I quoted didn't mean to imply that then he should have worded his post more carefully.
This really isn't a matter of disagreement. You are wrong.
Here, check it out:
You're translating this completely incorrectly.Quote:The only reason WoW can have orcs is because it was a very obscure alternative name for an ogre before Tolkien revived it.
His statement:
The only reason WoW can have orcs is because...
The reason backing his statement:
...it was a very obscure alternative name for an ogre before Tolkien revived it.
There is a reason why WoW can use "orcs", a name you may think would be trademarked by Tolkien's work...
And that reason is because it was actually a word (albeit with rare usage) before Tolkien's works, which subsequently revived the word into usage.
Capiche? -
Quote:Actually, I'm sorry to tell you that everything is wonky over here too, haha!Originally Posted by Traska
Thank you. I thought I'd slipped into Praetoria where everything is wonky.
Especially since I see that I told Forbin he was "suffering from reading comprehension"!! LOL!!
I think we were the ones suffering from "reading comprehension" in this case, lol.
*lack of reading comprehension is what I was probably looking for...
-
Quote:Hehe, Forbin, you're suffering a bit of reading comprehension there. No worries, we all make mistakes... even drunken squirrels.Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Way to not pay attention. That whistling sound you are hearing was the point going over your head.
Tolkien did not revive the usage of the term Orcs after Blizzard used it in it's games as the person I quoted implied.
Tolkiens "revival" of the word predates the very existence of Blizzard Entertainment who created the Warcraft games in question by 40 years.
As you quoted, he said,"it was a very obscure alternative name for an ogre before Tolkien revived it"Quote:As already pointed out, a name from mythology is not copywrited. The only reason WoW can have orcs is because it was a very obscure alternative name for an ogre before Tolkien revived it.
That "before" that you are so confused about is not about Blizzard and WoW being before Tolkien... It is about the word being obscure before Tolkien brought it into the somewhat common vernacular.
All this said... I don't find the inclusion of WoW to really have been worth any of this as I don't think there was any question about the validity of using the word "orc"... but they didn't say what you thought they said.
I hope that made sense! -
Quote:Actually the line you quoted makes me happy.Originally Posted by Sentry4
I have a problem with this line. It's very...straight forward. It also assumes there is no solution for both parties.
It's a little insulting to the game developers to tell the playerbase that the CoX team cannot find any solution to this problem.
I have more faith in the CoX team to fix this, meaning I don't believe that line I quoted.
They're smart people, they'll find a way to make it less annoying. You should be telling people that you're aware of the situation and the developers are thinking of a way to accommodate everyone.
The above line will only make people angry, as it implies that time and thought will not even be wasted on the subject, and their opinions on the matter are worthless.
They know and understand the different opinions, but they believe in what they're doing and it makes me happy, because I think there's a small amount of people who actually find it to be a problem and they're not going to be bullied into worrying about "Oh, dear... the few times when we 'spam' our red admin chat, some few people would prefer not to have to see it". They want the admin chat to be unavoidable, for the reasons stated.
Unavoidable does not mean avoidable by choice.
Unavoidable so that no one can ever accidentally opt out of it.
I know it is tough, but we're just going to have to deal with it. I'm pretty sure it is okay.
Also, it makes me very happy when they deliver the truth, no guesswork for us, no matter who will or won't like it.