Front_Loaded

Thunderstrike looks pretty good so far - the AOE damage component is far higher damage than the blaster version, I'm pretty surprised. The blaster version's AOE damage is about 1.1 brawls, the Brute version is looking something like 2.5. Frankly I'm shocked it's that good!

HAHA "SHOCKED"! I totally did not mean to write a pun there, and it's a groaner to boot!

*Edited by Cricket*

Actually I like the Jacob's Ladder animation, if you watch what's going on you do see a bolt of electricity advance away from your body, between/across your arms and into the target. It's also rather nicely shorter than the other tier 3 big-hit melees, particularly shadow maul. I like it pretty well.

Jacob's Ladder appears to me to be a good bit wider than Shadow Maul. It is no big trick to herd multiple mobs into its cone, and it appears to me to be something like 45 degrees; Shadow Maul always seemed much narrower to me, I never could get multiple hits unless the mobs were in almost a perfect line, with Jacob's Ladder they can be side-by-side and get hit.

By the way "Jacobs Ladder" could use an apostrophe, or are we talking about multiple Jacobs?

Really, really need some variety on the sound effect for Charged Brawl! Hearing that CHIRPY-chirp sound over and over is very unpleasant.

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Is thunder strike supposed to require a target to be in range AND targeted in order to be able to activate? This is unlike any other brute/tank AoE power. Or is it just me?

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Yes, that is exactly how the Blaster version works. The AOE effect isn't terribly useful for damage, but for the knockdown it's fabulous.

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I have a very important qt, or stupid qt...depending on your point of view, for the devs....majority of the powers have end drain...what is the base number for this? and if i am not mistaken this powers can be slotted with End modification ENh (enhancements you place in Stamina)... is this a bug or are this EnH for the END DRAIN part of this powers?

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*IF* it works the same as the blaster versions (and I suspect it does) then it is something like 30% chance to drain one-half the cost of the power. The % chance cannot be enhanced, but the amount drained can. This sort of conflicts with the patch note about endurance drain powers draining a percentage of the target's endurance, and I suspect melee powers with a secondary effect of endurance drain are not covered under that rule change, only powers whose primary effect is endurance drain e.g. Power Sink or Short Circuit.

Edit: this wasn't very clear - electric melees ALWAYS drain some endurance from the target, and that amount can be enhanced. The % chance I was referring to was the chance to transfer some of this endurance to you, and neither the % chance nor the amount transferred to you can be enhanced.

Nice feedback all, looks like I expected (largely the same as blaster electric manipulation look-and-feel). I'm a bit surprised that Thunder Strike is knockDOWN instead of knockBACK but I guess that's an unexpected side benefit (I would have been happy with either).

Not surprised that Jacob's Ladder is a melee-range cone - people were unreasonably expecting this set to out-AOE Fire Melee, which it pretty clearly should not, Fire has no status effects in it at all for damage mitigation purposes.

Yes, oddly, asscheeks made it through the filter. *golfclap*

Man, it's like a big goofy Jenga game. Add this, tuck this in here, pull this out, ...

I don't guess it's going to literally fall over, because some people are desperate for PVP in this game, but ... a 1 in 5 chance to drop a single toggle? Why would my blaster close to melee in PVP now? ... One in FIVE? I guess I'm supposed to cycle my attacks five times to turn off the other guy's Combat Jumping *twirls finger*

Well the pvm is still good anyway!

//Actually, my Defenders do.

That's a very cool description of how you and your friends play your defenders, and I'm happy you're having a good time Multiple defenders/controllers/corruptors is indeed a strong concept, and even though it isn't a popular one it does serve to illustrate just how broken balance is in both PVP and PVM - *IF* you have that critical mass of support ability at once. When you're not fortunate enough to have an overload of buffing (or perhaps wise enough is a better way to say it), I still maintain that mobility is your main defense.

//Whew..I can't even make myself read all that. Shorten it up when possible, guys, sheesh.

When I do that I get yelled at.

//Nothing, slightly, remotely, or even vaguely in my posts, could be construed as whining or complaining about anything.

You're too thin skinned. Never said "whining" and saying you're complaining about something is hardly an insult. Either you like it, you feel neutral about it, or you don't like it (re: toggle dropping on blaster moves). I don't like stacking Vengeance, and I complain about it, does that mean I'm a whining gimp? Lighten up.

//So basically we'vee established, for everyone to plainly see, that the only real difference between Stalkers, whom many blasters - including the ever so vocal Circuit-Boy - claim as being "unfairly over-powered" is that unlike Blasters, Stalkers have to be "Hidden" to be overpowered, whereas Blasters, don't have to even do that much. They fully and unabashedly flex their "over-poweredness" for all to see, and don't even need a situational circumstance like being hidden and undetected in order to pull it off.

You make it sound like the nearly 100% reliable ability to choose when to fight is a punishment, instead of the tremendous advantage it is. People have to specifically build their characters vs. stalkers to even ENGAGE THEM AT ALL. Also writing off the very large advantage in having innate status resist and depending on build, large uninterruptible selfheal/dull pain or high defense. What a poor, gimped class!

//As it stands now, A brute without his defensive toggles, is just a corruptor with 500 more hitpoints, as most brutes do not take passive resists, because the cost effectiveness of them are in the bottom of the barrel. Is this the blasters fault? Of course not. Is it the systems fault? You're darned right it is.

A) Brute's toggles are on for at the very least the first attack, and will mitigate that damage.
B) A brute choosing to skip his passives and then complaining because he doesn't have any protection when toggles aren't running impresses me not at all; you cannot expect the passives to be in the same league as toggles, because they are auto and have no cost. Barking up the wrong tree here, I play tanker extensively and I'm familiar with people looking for powers to skip in their defense set.
C) The brute, again, does not have to stand there like a bozo and do nothing but eat damage while his toggles are down; he can counter-attack, or retreat and retoggle.
D) "just 500 more hitpoints" is a GIGANTIC advantage in pvp. Don't poo-poo this and write it off like it's nothing.

//A tactical withdrawl as you might be alluding to, is nigh unaccomplishable without solid communication. The only groups that can pull that off in MMOs, are SGs with voice comms.

Playing in 3rd person and observing the fight are all it takes. If you see Jimmy the Blaster running/jumping at you and you're a corruptor, you probably don't want to stand there and eat his alpha.

//And I was in the military, so for me the difference is key. Perhaps why I said "Running" isn't a defense. I could have added that a tactical withdrawl is fine, but, that still doesn't ignore the fact that since the field is pretty level when it comes to mobility between villains and heroes, this is much harder to pull off because the other side simply has to give chase. Kinetics for the win I suppose.

Completely untrue, from what you're complaining about. If you get first attack, then you have a very high probability of killing the blaster immediately and ending the engagement, due to his low health and poor defense. Your travel is suppressed, and his is not - but he is not designed to live through alphas.

If the blaster gets first attack, he must aim/buildup - which you can observe - and then land multiple melee moves on you to detoggle you and put you on the ground. If you observe his approach and see aim/buildup being run, you can (as I said exactly in the same way earlier) move out of his melee range and wait out aim/buildup, and then counter-attack during his aim/buildup recharge time. This time HE is suppressed and YOU are not, and you have much more powerful tools for surviving. This is not in any way an uncontrolled flight of panic, it's simply moving out of his melee range (possibly sticking a web grenade on him as you move away). He isn't going to kill you with his ordinary ranged, and you can interrupt his snipe, recognizable animation.

//PS - quotes are your friends.

Better things to do than type {quote}{/quote} 20 times in a post. If it's especially bothersome to you please feel free to not read me.

//This just goes to further the point that, disbarring personal perception completely, it is nigh impossible to come up with a logical argument for the presence of balance, when considering solo, or on one mechanics.

Oh of course it's not balanced, I didn't think that was a real question. Solo is very imbalanced, and in teams it can only get worse - more variables. People talking about PVP balance live in a dream world, it's impossible to achieve in a game with mixed abilities like this one. You don't have true balance unless you're playing a real FPS or a card game or something like that, the playing field is inherently imbalanced at all points and is impossible to level.

//I could tell you that in all my experiences I have been killed more times by an EM blaster, than I have managed to kill them. Although this is my factual reality, without being there to experience it, it seems incredulous. Just as your post with your experiences seem incredulous to me, I'm sure mine does not at all ring true to yours.

No, it rings perfectly true - but I can suggest you alter your tactics and you will kill more blasters. Don't stand there and get pounded is a great deal of it, and carry breakfrees like everyone else is forced to. If you find your travel power is getting negated by things like Web Grenade, take teleport instead, it's un-trumpable. There is simply no excuse for a tank/brute to regularly be killed in solo PVP, you have high hitpoints/def/resist/selfheal and unless you stubbornly refuse to eat breakfrees you ALWAYS have the option to flee. The reverse is not true for the blaster at all, with far lower hitpoints and effectively no resist/def. This is all very much aside from the fact that toggle dropping powers are being nerfed next issue.

//Remember this because it applies to everyone. Running, in any kind of engagement, but especially in team play, is not defense. It is the polar opposite.

I must be blunt - that's stupid. You're saying that when someone you face has Overload or stacked Vengeance running you will just stand there and bang away at them while they will kill you? Rotten tactics. Mobility is KEY in any conflict, thousands of years of military history should make this obvious. In chess, what are the most powerful pieces? The knight and the queen, because of their powerful mobility. Sensible retreat is a core concept of avoiding defeat.

//...blaster simply turns to the Corruptor next to him, and puts the Build up and Aim to good use anyways.

Maybe the corruptor shouldn't stand there like a moron and eat the damage.

//There is an "I-win" formula to open PvP currently.

Another bad one is stacking Vengeance, which boils down to unhittable characters of ANY archetype. I have 2x acc on my attacks, and aim/buildup is still not enough to hit people configured like this when Vengeance is up (4+ misses in a row). When it is not up they simply retreat until it is. Considering that Fear is also a very useful status effect in PVP, it's a pretty effective choice of power pool.

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You said that a Tanker and a Scrapper will almost certainly, to very likely in the least, be able to best the Blaster. You stated that against a Stalker, a Blaster will very likely succeed. So that leaves the Brute as the only AT that could situationally defeat the blaster, according to the scenario you laid out. Am I taking your words out of context? No, I do not believe so, because I am still presenting them in the context that was given in response to my post, even if the response wasn’t to the exact question it probably should have been. So if I took nothing out of context, can I assume from your replies, that currently the only chance that Villain teams have of protecting themselves against a Blaster, is to have a Brute along with them?

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If I can offer my own experiences:

Versus a smart brute or tank, who doesn't choose to just stand there and eat all my attacks, it is not a given that they lose. Aim and Buildup are only 10 seconds, and if I can't kill them in that window then it is likely I can't kill them at all, because I can't put enough damage in them to put them on the ground before they get away and retoggle - and come back during aim/buildup downtime and hurt me pretty bad. Versus a scrapper, the same is true.

They can see the blaster coming, and you can watch for the aim/buildup animation; even if not you know to expect it. If the blaster stands next to you for 2 seconds without throwing any attack, simply move out of melee range and wait out aim/buildup. I do "okay" versus tanks, scrappers and brutes. I am completely dependent on breakfrees or outside buffs to only achieve "okay" - without ready breakfrees I consistently lose, due to being stunned/held and killed quickly. Reverse is not true, tank/scrapper/brute with NO breakfrees/mez buff can kill me consistently - IF he does not stand there and eat my entire alpha, which will pretty much kill anybody if they just stand there. But nobody does this (duh).

Versus a stalker, I can't see them without outside buffs or a lot of +acc inspirations. I don't think it's a reasonable tactic to eat 4 +acc every time I SUSPECT a stalker is in the area, but if I have them then this does work. The overwhelming majority of the time, I simply am never engaged by stalkers unless I basically stand there and allow them to AS me first. I can't flush them out of hiding with my current build, and many popular builds have no potential to do this either (e.g. energy/energy, elec/energy, many combos with /electric as well). Blasters without some autohit toggle e.g. Chilling Embrace or Hot Feet (pretty sure) are at great risk from stalkers unless support by outside buffs.

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So in summation, is not a Blaster better equipped to deal with a Brute than vice versa?

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On a cold day in hell, sure. That is really way different from my experience. If only everyone just stood still and let me see them and aim/buildup/execute entire attack chain, too bad they jump or fly or teleport around like meanies.

//I see alot of talk about Focused Accuracy...I guess you'll have that on auto click eh? though I'd find Hasten better to have set for it...

Toggle powers cannot be autocast as far as I have ever found. There may be some trick that I'm not aware of but I'm pretty sure not.

edit: I see this was addressed but it wasn't really stated clearly why, so I'll leave this.

//Yes, your right, popping insperations should DEFFINITLY be the balance point in PvP and the Devs should ASSUME that all players will be fighting with 1 Breakfree, 4 Yellows, 10 Reds and 5 Purples on at all times.

That argument has a problem - you're in the forum for the AT with no status resist, and you have it yourself - and you have at least one reliable hold/stun if you're anything but Fire/*. Don't complain about having to carry one measly breakfree.

Well it is in fact quite a bit different, because none of the 8 blasters can't get 3 levels of stealth like any Stalker can.

There is that odd word "should" again. Hmmmm!

Edit: Bear in mind I am not arguing that blasters should never be upgraded - merely observing that it is unlikely that it will happen in a way that will make everyone happy. Would I object to having my damage doubled (or quintupled!) - no, I wouldn't mind that. Will it happen?

//*shrug* Should there be any melee attacks to begin with?

A moot point because there are, in fact, lots of melee attacks. If you were the lead designer, "should" might be an appropriate word to use here. "What I want" is probably more correct.

//Thanks for the implication that I'm perceiving an imaginary problem. Disguising an insult in a literary reference doesn't make it any nicer a sentiment, nor any less condescending.

The point was not that your unhappiness is with an imaginary thing, but rather that fighing it is futile.

For reference, my blaster is 46, fire/electric; just came from killing Adamastor with a full team, largely with melee, and at no particular time was I waiting on recharge of attacks. Excuse me I have to get back to my team

//If scrappers are gimped, ...

You missed the sarcasm, sorry. My point was never that scrappers are gimped, I don't think that at all. Was just expressing some irritation at someone dismissing half of a set of data simply because they thought it strengthened their argument.

//The ranged-only blaster is pretty sorry damage compared to a scrapper or a blapper, its only saving grace is that a couple of them on a team -- provided they're the right sets -- can put out impressive minion-sweeping AE damage.

And yet, practically any build of this type that you describe will be better ranged damage than any scrapper - and what power picks were spent on other things rather than shotrange attacks? And why should refusing to take attacks that are demonstrably very efficient and powerful be rewarded?

//You did a straight-up comparison of damage per attack, while ignoring recharges. Take a scrapper vs a blapper over time -- say, on a team facing large spawns rather than solo facing his 3 even level minions -- and those recharge differences play a BIG difference. The entire katana set that you listed recharges in less time than bone smasher, save Golden Dragonfly. Even dipping into their far less spectacularly damaging ranged attacks to mix in with their melees, a blapper can't really flesh out a full attack chain, and this means that the constant good dps from a scrapper set will catch up and often even surpass the blapper.

Uh, I have to disagree from experience. I have enough recharge to run attack continuously if I had infinite endo - which of course I do not and need someone else to buff me for. Power Sink mitigates this but not completely. I am simply not waiting on attacks to rercharge that I have ever noticed. This includes extended brawls with AVs where I'd expect it to be most obvious - never has been, bang bang bang bang bang.

//The poster to whom you're responding is (and has been, the whole post) analyzing the ranged blaster. As such, the melee attacks don't count.

I don't think that's the case at all, and moreover the same poster has been citing that plain old damage is the goal and range is not useful. If I may refresh your memory:
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*WHEN*; just once tell me *when* is "ranged" damage any more important than 'damage' period? The only situation in the *ENTIRE* game where I've found I *really* needed ranged damage was in the Ernesto Hess TF; with the ring of sentry guns.

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So what's the point of this same person discounting the very high damage in the melee range attacks if they admit that range is not especially useful? Making the blaster fight with one hand tied behind their back seems to be the goal here?

The original post by Statesman noted, but it's pretty obvious that long ranged damage is weaker than short ranged damage across the board, for every AT and every set. What now?

Assume this balance was changed for some reason - blaster ranged damage is upgraded to the point where it is very comparable DPA and DPS with the melee attacks. Why would anyone with any sense take the melee attacks then?

Assume Blaster ranged damage is put on par or made superior to scrapper melee. Why would anyone with any sense play a scrapper at that point?

Sorry, I just see little point in demanding massive changes to something that clearly, Cryptic never has and will never spend a lot of effort changing - seems to me it's a pretty sensible design anyway. Good luck with that windmil though...