James_Firestone

I have a SR scrapper that I only play once a week on a SG only team, with a bubbler, and I can tell you that during the roughly 3 hour play session I practically guarantee Iwill have what I usually term as catastrophic defensive failure.

IE every mob in the group will hit me at once, generally with some form of AOE or cone since we have an inv tank in the group.
It is like an Alpha-Strike that can happen at any time.

So yeah it does have an effect on defensive builds, it is practically a guaranteed amount of debt that none of the other folks in the group have to face.

I’m not screaming that the sky is falling but honestly I’ve started to notice that I’m lagging behind the group in leveling and the other 7 folks have a dead pool on me and bet on when it will happen, “I have 75 minutes in this week!”

Sometimes I even join in.

A hit-streak breaker seems reasonable idea to me although it would probably be horrible to implement.

Replying to the red-name post since there are already people calling other people nazi’s and thus destined for removal of posts.


In the time honored tradition of “you can’t please everyone”, I have to say that it seems that some of you are taking the comic a wee bit too seriously.

Do you stop every crime you see as you wage your holy crusade against the evil of Paragon?
On your way through Eden to get your Hammi’os do you thrash every bunch of Crey, or DE mobs you come across?
No, not likely.
You leave them for someone else.
I can practically guarantee it’s not even because “some other hero will do it”. (Which is pretty non heroic in and of itself.)
It’s because as Positron himself said, “those guys are all grey.”

So really, some suspension of disbelief is in order here.

I enjoyed the opening scenes of the new series because I felt it was in fact spot on.
All the heroes are effectively immortal, some even more so than their powers would entail, and since the villains are too, no one really uses much restraint in their power usage.

I can’t count how many times I have slashed, eviscerated, or split open my opponent’s head while I merrily go on my way. Could or would I do that if I knew that what I was doing was fatal? Maybe, maybe not depends on the character.

How often do you get KO’d in CoH? I when not playing my scrappers, who tend to eat floor more because I like to push my boundaries, I do usually eat at the dirt café’ once every few sessions. Maybe more if we are doing a TF or Trial. You know what I do when that happens?

Nothing

I wait till the rest of the team mops up to pop an awaken or accept a res from a team-mate.
Maybe if it was particularly stupid of me or others on the team I will be annoyed but beyond that I really don’t care too much.

This general disregard is exactly what the opening scene shows, (not liking the tie-in doesn’t make it any less a tie-in) and even the greatest of Paragon’s hero’s aren’t immune to it.
It’s easy to fight crime when you know that you are stronger or faster or immortal. That’s not what makes you a hero.
The characters in the comic have lost sight of what made them heroes and are trying to get it back.

Is that a little ambitions for a 3 comic arc?
Probably but that’s what we have.

Not all “heroes” are particularly heroic, and they all have their own reasons for putting on the costume not all of them are even good reasons, some reasons may even be quite bad. Even the “heroric” ones can still have personality flaws.

Superman is usually seen as the “Boyscout” but he would like nothing better than to be able to punch Lex Luthor in the face every single time he sees him, and sees Lex’s every action through paranoia tinted glasses. Does that diminish Superman as a hero? Maybe maybe not, but it has more than once caused a lot of problems for him.

Batman would like to think that every thug he pounds into the street is one less kid who sees his parent’s shot in the street, but even more he’d like to have had his dad pound Joe Chill into the street of that alley. Does that diminish him as a hero? Maybe, maybe not, but which would you choose life as a rich kid with a great family life or a obsessive compulsive skitzo who has to go out and pound on people to find some semblance of inner peace?

Some people like Superman, some people like Batman. Some like both.

Are there plot holes in the story? Yes there always are… see my previous statement about suspension of disbelief.

Positron is still dangerous because he is still made of antimatter, (that didn’t change any more than the length of Manticore’s hair did when the spell was cast) but no longer has the ability to control it.
(Maybe I’m wrong here but this is the impression that I get.)

Sister Psyche’s host, without her powers is not able to maintain personality dominance in her own body which is why she is going crazy,

Synapse, apparently bases his whole self identity on his powers, is it a little lame? Yeah but it happens, he was fairly traumatized by Crey.

Mantacore (in the comic) is a bit of a butthead as mentioned by a previous poster but every team has one.

Is it really any surprise that the citizens were nonchalant about the heroes’ departure?
If you had super powered thugs running around destroying your town and they were constantly being either ignored by heroes or furiously engaged by other heroes you would probably be pretty happy that all of them were gone too so you could live a normal life?

I highly doubt that the writers of the comic have distain for either the game or you personally, nor are they likely trying to ensure that your ethnicity/religion/creed/sex are marginalized; they are just trying to tell a story that appeals to them and hopefully you as well.

So enjoy it, or don’t and even feel free to discuss how you don’t like it but try and keep the persecution rap to a minimum please.

Ok
It seemed a little angry to me but it is not always easy to tell in text vs hearing someone talk. Such is the internet. No harm no foul.

I do want to say I am all in favor of blasters getting some love both PVE and PVP but I just don’t want to over do it so that a nerf comes around 3 months later.

Yes knock-back sucks for everyone who isn’t using it but seeing as how they just turned in on for PVE sadly it probably isn’t going away, more’s the pity although I secrtely have a place in my heart for “Mob Bowling” with shockwave, but don’t tell anyone I'll deny it.

I can appreciate that the 500% dam cap seems like a slap in the face, I just don’t know if that alone compelling enough to them to change it.

I personally would gladly give you my extra 100% damage if it finally ended all the /regen hate that exists in the game (not pointing fingers just a general statement).

I think that many of the problems in the game now are due to some of the fixes in the end of beta. I don’t think anyone had total immunity to status effect before they gave it to /regen because the set was at the time so weak. So it worked out that everyone had a hole of some kind in their status defense, and integration was a click like Practiced Brawler and vulnerable to sleep I think (long time ago). Then Tanks complained that they have holes in their status resist but /regen didn’t, or they couldn’t move and now most of them minus fire/ have complete mobile protection.

It seems to me that Blasters should have some kind of status immunities too maybe not holds or knockdown but at least sleep and maybe stun since the ranged sources of status, I believe were mostly added in Issue 2. But this is a catch 22 as Statesman doesn’t want blasters to have status protection and made sure of it in removing it from the APP, the only way to make it more even would be to put a hole back in everyone else’s which isn’t likely to happen either. Even the statuses wouldn’t be a real issue if they weren’t so prevalent.

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The dev's have made it clear that when something was supporting the role of an AT that it would be improved. Punchvoke, and taunt for tankers, Katana improvements for scrappers not to mention stacking armor. Exactly what was the price for stacking armor? Oh, that right, there wasn't one other than the inherent cost in the armor themselves that was always there. The devs are very willing to change something for the better without doing a give and take.

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True, and I know that people like to throw out range is a defense, and people then say no it isn’t. I personally believe that yes it is a defense but it isn’t that great and shouldn’t be your only one. It seems to me that range as a defense was engineered so that you could effectively protect yourself by using the surprise attack to gank mobs in 1 or 2 attacks leaving only a boss or maybe a lt to even get a shot off at you, but in the late game it just doesn’t scale well, because instead of 3-4 mobs in a pack you eventually start doing it to 20 or so mobs and it is unbalanced. How do you fix that without capping damage from AOE or effected targets, or some other non pleasant thing?

Statesman has admitted that the game kind of goes to crap once everyone gets SOs because the trading of enhancements never really caught on like it was supposed to due to it being easier to just sell them and buy what you wanted.

I know first hand with my WS that I can use the range and damage of the cone then AOE to pretty much mop up a small to medium size group of mobs and maybe 1 will survive 2 if there is a Lt or boss. In that example range does act as a defense but it only works until they get closer. Luckily I can be moving back as I fire and coupled with the longer range of the AOE I can generally keep them at a distance in an open area, or if I have a hallway, if not… Mmm yummy carpet.

This goes back to extremes and how they really don’t work well for balancing things out and a better need for layered/degrading defenses but that is a whole ‘nother bag of snakes.

As to Dark Armor stacking and the end cost not being an added negative maybe it wasn’t an additional negative per say since it was there, but since they didn’t stack before and they do so the net effect is a new negative. But that’s just semantics :-p

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Hi, I have a warshade too. As a matter of fact I found the War Shade three form to be so easy I went straight for the human only form to find a challenge after playing my blaster. Warshades are a little hard to play in the early levels but after you get nova it is pretty easy compared to a blaster in the 30+ game. You would really have to play a blaster to understand.

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You could just as easily say a 1-29 blaster is easy to play compared to a blaster in the 30+ game and make the same statement, and it seems to me that is the crux of the problem.
Blasters seem to mature early-mid game, and most everyone else matures mid-late game. It seems to me that this is the biggest problem. By the time that everyone else is in their prime Blasters are lagging behind, and this is largely due to other sets defenses coming into maturity while blasters don’t have any.

How about this option, instead of the ridiculous amount of stuns/disorients in the late game, what if they were replaced with more –acc or slows which are less immediately lethal to a blaster?

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I wasn't angry. Check out freedom fury's thread on Blasters in CoH if you want to see a furious post. As to your logical explanation it ignores the stated reason given by the devs for the damage caps being the way they are. It is similar to saying well I believe the sky is blue because venus is green.

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Ok. Like I said, no harm no foul, and States’ reason is his own and not mine which was way I didn’t use it. But he is a dev so his reason trumps mine.

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Even doing only lethal damage you are putting out damage comparable to blasters. Or you will be once you slot your powers.

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If I could put another 6 slots in my claws beyond the 6 I get I still wouldn’t be doing comparable damage to Blasters. :-p

But I see what you are getting at, and respectfully disagree I don’t have real numbers but I would be curious what a non-crit BS headsplitter’s numbers (BI 7.22) vs the comparable AR single target in the range of a Ignite (BI 6.66 lower but uses less resisted fire damage), or a Blazing Bolt (BI 8.91) from fire. The brawl index alone would seem to tell that tale, and the difference in Scrapper and Blaster versions of build-up (assuming it isn’t a /devices but they give up buildup for an acc boost) would only make that more favorable for the Blaster.

Again I am all in favor of helping blasters in the late game I just don’t want to do it in a way that is going to open them up to a nerf. I’m all nerfed out for a while.

Jeese man kindly point out the line in my response where I insulted you mother and I’ll go edit it out.

I’ll try to keep my responses civil even if you don’t.

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You do realize that the current range on melee attacks is 10' right? That is basically just doubling the range. No lessening of the power needed. Why, Because we are supposed to be about range and putting it up to 20' is just a bone thrown in that direction.

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Doubling the range of an attack without any adjustment in the damage seems reasonable to you?
Having Mobile status resit seemed reasonable to Inv too but they had to give up -5 def to get it.

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Greater than the Diameter of Footstomp. The range of Footstomp is PbAoE. The reason behind this is if I want to hit a guy behind the tank and it gets knocked back by Foot Stomp I want to be able to shoot him from range without having to possibly go through melee opponents to get that guy. I have no doubt that AoEs from Malta grenades will be going off around the tank and I don't want to be near him. That is why I asked for that range specifically.

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Again show me in my post where I said this was a stupid request, I seem to remember thinking it sounded like a good idea. In any case being a scrapper I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess at how often I had to chase down a mob because some blaster knocked them across the room, I believe the most typical response to this issue is, tough. Why should I use lesser attacks just for you? Why should the tanker adjust his attacks for you?

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I got news for you. The cap is not helping you, unless you play with Sould Drain or you have a kinetics defender on tap. Why exactly do you think you need the potential to do more damage than blasters? Your boss killing role is made evident by your criticals. The reason you have your cap is because Statesman said that you had more risk. Please, come back and tell me that you have more risk than a blaster in melee or ranged. You do lethal damage? So does AR. You do smashing damage? So does energy. You are not alone in having damage types that are resisted.

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I did say most, and also Scrappers tend to deal solely smashing or lethal where most Blasters deal at least mixed damage types. AR is obviously the exception, but it also has flame thrower and ignite too. Out of curiosity, how would you then benefit from this cap then without someone to buff you? Why should it matter if as you say it is so useless? Do you want to have an additional 100% of damage that you can’t achieve without help too?

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Yes, you are indeed wrong. Take a look at AR animation times or for that matter Fire and Energy animations. The only set that has fast animations is Ice. Even then you have wonderfull rain animations that root you. Not to mention the snipe animations that root.

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Wow I guess putting in my post that I was absolutely positive that without a doubt I was correct was a dumb move, oh wait I didn’t say that, but either way I stand corrected.

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The real issue with nukes is that they are not usefull in every combat. I mean every combat. Blasters have enough problems and the last thing they need is a situational damage power that is good for clearing minions. Jeez like our AoE we have in our primary is not already good for that. Why in the world would we need these solo unless we wanted to go nuke a hazard zone mob of minions. Only when we were doing that every one got pissed. So why not simply make them a usefull high damage attack that is a small AoE but does at least Head splitter damage with the same endurance cost and recharge so that we can do some real damage to bosses with our attack chain. Having a fast animation would be a requirement of course. We are not friggin Sayans running around with Kamaya maya blasts.

Not to mention that having another boss killer attack would be really usefull in PvP.

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Maybe I misunderstood you in that respect, if you are willing to loose a fair amount of damage or change them to cones then I could see this becoming more of a possibility.
However, if you think that just because you wouldn’t run from mob group to mob group to do it, that no one else would be inclined to do so then you are in all likely hood wrong. The blasters I team with regularly have their big-bang slotted so that it is up within a few seconds of engaging the next set of mobs, and if not then defiantly by the next set, and I’ve never noticed it lacking in damage to achieve this, and in a large group of mobs of all ranks the only ones standing afterwards tend to be bosses and maybe a Lt if it missed.

The dev’s have made it pretty clear that if you want something boosted that you are going to have to loose something.

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This fact is glaringly obvious. I wish I could say go make a level 40 blaster and take it for a spin but you can't do that. It is obvious that playing on the scrapper side you really don't know what it takes to play a blaster. Having seen friends use nukes is not the same as useing them and dealing with them.

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Ouch, well I guess that says it all, I am a complete moron and totally unable to extrapolate based on either experience or conversations with blasters what it is like to be a blaster.

Oh wait I can, because I currently have a Warshade, and as much as being a blaster must suck based on your statements, I doubt it is as painful as having to deal with Quants/Voids that purposely hide out of range and sight, have sniper range, and can 2-3 shot, and stun you, its sort of like having a Lost Pariah in every mission you have from lvl 1-50 and until issue 4 comes out a -30% resit to all damage.

Seriously if I had been negative in any way in my replies then I could under stand your anger, but I wasn’t and the only one that I really disagreed with was the damage cap, and I gave a logical if not in your eyes good reason.

*edited to fix some lame spacing

I have never played a blaster past 10 but I have played with more than a couple and here is my thoughts on these changes (forgive me if this has already been addressed)

From Concern

This is what I would like to see happen to blasters.

1. Impliment PvP damage resist bypass in PvE.

I’m not sure how good of an idea this is, but I’d be willing to see how it plays out, it will most likely happen in CoV anyway.

2. Increase the range of all primary powers to be greater than the Diameter of Foot Stomp. Greater.

Again this seems reasonable if range is supposed to be your defense, but I’m not sure what the range of foot stomp is.

3. Take all PbAoE status effects and toggles in Blaster Secondaries and make them summonable drops or target toggles. Other than cloaking device of course.

Seems reasonable as well, but would probably entail a shorter duration to balance.

4. Make all current melee attacks have a range of 20 feet, either by changing the animations or just letting them have the range. Increase the damage on Melee AoE attack powers again.

The thought of someone being able to use Bone Smasher or Total Focus on me from 20ft away is pretty disturbing, but if you want more range on these then the damage or duration or effect would have to go down a bit.

5. (stolen idea) Give each single target attack a -10% res that lasts 5 seconds. This not only helps boost the blasters damage a minute amount but also allows the blaster to help a team. Thus encouraging teaming.

I like this idea because it does help the blaster and the team without giving any undue defense to the blaster. As long as you couldn’t enhance the – res I imagine it wouldn’t be too over-powered
My only caveat being that an attack that lowers res shouldn’t also be able to bypass it, so an either or would probably be ok.

6. Swap the damage caps of blasters and scrappers.

This is where I have to disagree with you and here is why. IMO it seems Scrapper damage types are far more resisted than most Blaster damage types.

All scrappers deal smash or lethal with a smidge of negative or toxic here and there, and pretty much everything and its mamma has resists to smash/lethal some DE and carnies aside. Also if we are supposed to be the boss killers (not my idea talk to States about it) then we need to be able to do that, and the extra cap helps this, and really this only comes into play when someone is using Fulcrum shift as far as I know.

7. Remove the rooting effect from blaster attacks.

Definitely, this already works for Khelds as long as you are in movement when you fire you are not rooted but if you are stationary you are rooted.

8. Faster activation times on powers for blasters.

Aren’t your attacks already faster than anyone else’s? Not really sure on this but I could be wrong.

9. Making level 32 nukes into more useable AoE powers like Head Splitter or Full-Auto and less situational all end consuming powers.

I’ve seen tons of Novas, ect and really them being PBAOE isn’t that much of a pain in a group, and I know my friends use them solo too, there simply has to be some risk for the ridiculous amount of damage those powers do, I may be able to get behind a short range targetable version of this but it would have to be pretty short.

Just my 2inf which may or may not mean anything to you.