Quixotik

I did a Safeguard mission today where one of the thieves was a fast moving Arachnos Drone and the other was a named villian Scrapper who fought me. I defeated the Scrapper, but the Drone was long gone. I opened the bank door to follow and the mission failed. So not possible to win if the Drone gets away? The Drone didn't carry any loot and I think it was faster than me anyway. Didn't have time to target it. Shouldn't it have stayed to fight also? It just seems like cheap shot to have a Drone whiz round a corner and you lose in that split second.

Okay, I took a different Blaster who had Knockback attacks, two melee Stun attacks. Took 4 Lucks, Strength of Will, Righteous Rage, Keen Insight. I was able to keep Ice Mistral stunned most of the time, got my final attack in just as she activated Powersurge. Obviously I learned from experience, but I don't think the Archery Blaster would be so Luck-y. I couldn't have kept Ice Mistral stunned or stopped any attacks with Archery's non-secondary effect and Powersink would bypass the Lucks = dead. Hmmm, give Archery Blast a secondary effect like all the other Blaster sets maybe? Secondary Effect = Damage Mitigation = a Blaster's only defense. And, Archery is not as powerful as most other Blaster sets. Double-Draw time (you draw the Bow, you then draw the Arrow) and first two attacks are too fast for a Double-Draw time animation.

Anyway, the other Blaster completed all the side missions, defeated all the Vandals, defeated all the street Mobs, searched for anything left behind for 5 minutes, zone was cleared, left with 90 seconds to go. Isn't there a badge for clearing out a Safeguard mission?

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Also, what is an Lt level Boss doing with Powersurge?

The same thing Minion level 7th Generation Paragon Protectors are doing with old-school MoG....

Mobs with teir-9 defenses are not new.

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Well, no. Ice Mystral also appears as an AV for large teams so it is not just a PP. She spams status/mezz attacks and Powersink as the Lt version, kills you, then runs to getaway Mole instead of just standing there. I don't mind a challenge, but this was a Heroic setting 'Mission' which played out as an Impossible Level Mission. That's what is wrong.

Maybe these are only supposed to be played by Scrappers and Controllers? I thought Heroic ment ANY Archetype.

Anyway, I took an Archery Blaster (first mistake, no Damage Mitigation/Secondary effect) got killed three times, still couldn't stop the Elite Lt. AV. However, any of my same level Scrappers would have had no real difficulty and that is what is very wrong with CoX.

The Dev's say, well, all AT's are not created equal so we have a difficulty slider instead. Then they ignore that because they don't want Scrappers to have it too easy or because they really want the mission to be equally challenging? But wait, the AT's aren't equal so the missions will never be equally 'challenging', they will just be a base line 'mediocre' because what is mediocre for a Scrapper is very challenging for a Blaster or some Defenders. So you see, if challenging missions is what the Dev's want they will have to balance the AT's first, otherwise they will need to start adhereing to what is a mediocre level of challenge for the stronger AT's as the base line of difficulty.

Other than that it was great. I thought the Mole Vehicle was very cool and thought, what if: You could arrive at this Mole Machine in some other mission arc, then the team takes control of it and rides in it to Nemesis's underground HQ for a huge battle after emerging from a copy of the Mole at that location?

I said this when they were on Test. The Safeguard missons are not designed for most AT's and they do not Scale down in difficulty because the Bosses are generally overpowered. I am sure some teams would have fun, but when set to Heroic they should be solo-able by any AT. It's nice to have a team, but teams are not always available.

Also, what is an Lt level Boss doing with Powersurge? Don't ya think that makes Ice Mystral an Elite Boss? "Oh yes, ha-ha, didn't mention that we give the Lt. Brute virtual god-mode if you come close to beating it after making three trips to the hospital. Guess you should have picked Regeneration for your Blaster."

I thought the point of having a Test server was keeping unplayable content off the Live servers.

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Why does everyone keep saying "Dominators need a damage boost but not to Blaster levels"?

Our holds have pathetic, minor to moderate damage. Even at a blaster base damage they would do very, very little. Compare that to Fire sword Circle or Total Focus or several other blaster secondaries.

Blasters have an entire set devoted entirely to damage. 5-8 damage abilities at range, compared to maybe 4 that a dominator gets outside of holds. The damage of our ranged abilities doesn't come close if we stick to a ranged chain (and I constantly gripe at dominators that refuse to melee)

No final-tier nuke. trust me, even at blaster base damage, that final tier nuke makes a HUGE difference.

No Boost. Most get aim. Most blasters get aim+boost (and there is no way in heck a dominator, even under the effects of domination and an aim, and even a couple of reds, can pack the punch of a boosted nuke)

So, in short, even if we got the base blaster Damage we would still not be outdamaging blasters at range, and doubtful we would be outdamaging scrappers at melee either (except dark, but that's a special case cause dark scrappers have better controls than dominators)

If you want to 'even it out' then make domination not affect your damage output. In fact, a lot of people would love this change as it would allow them to work out a more 'stable' style of fighting, particularly against minions.


But I don't think giving Dominators a blaster's base damage would negatively impact blasters or corrupters in the slightest, and at least on LRSF and other SF's they would be desired for their nice damage output, even if their holds are... less stable than desired.
Blasters would still outdamage in range and melee, controllers would still out-control, Scrappers and brutes would still outdamage in melee and outdefend, stalkers would still pick off the bosses better, corrupters would still outbuff, masterminds would still outtank, Kheldians would still do...whatever it is Kheldians do.


Seems like a neat, elegant solution to me, Doms would be wanted for their single target controls and area damage

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I agree with you 100%.
For solo missions dominators are just gimped ice/* blasters. A few holds and weak damage. If ice blasters can get good holds and great damage why cant we? I dont think that it would be overpowered. For the most part I think it would balance out the aggro issues we have, mobs would have an actual reason to go postal on us instead of going postal when being tickled by an aoe immobilize.

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Well yeah and Blasters should get Hide and Assassin's Strike. It makes perfect sense if you think about it since Blasters get no resistance or defense or mezz resists and Stalkers get all that and about the same hit points. Most Blasters can't even Hold foes for that matter.

They are too powerful now. You'll see.

Sirens Call: Hit some untargeted Mobs with AoE DeBuff, maybe some minor damage, but under 20 points of damage to be sure. This translated into 9000 XP Debt or about 3.5 Mission Complete Bonuses for this toon. I think that is wrong for stray AoE DeBuff in a PvP zone to award debt so high. The Mobs were in no danger.

I will say challenge is fun when you have the opportunity to shine in overcoming them... at least as far as gaming is concerned. Just getting beaten to a pulp is not a challenge, it's merely a device that eludes to a challenge. In otherwords, you can play a super-powered character and still be very challenged. And challenge is only as good as the rewards for completion. The trick is to balance it all.

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Mr. XX...

As per the missions I ran last inght.. and I have to admit, it was with some of the most veteran players I know...

I was pretty much taking down bosses, AND it's lil minions.. and the scrappers and tanks were cleaning up my messes

of course I have a mantra that I live by... You cant get hit, if your opponent cant lift thier arms.

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I have an Elec/Elec too, lvl 41, and I am not saying it's bad, it has Thunderous Blast fully slotted and Powersink and Short Circuit slotted with End Mods for draining, which is a nice trick, but it could never keep up with the AR/Nrg. And only because of the difference between Full Auto and Thunderous Blast's recharge and endurance restrictions. Other than that, I'd have to say Electric's pre-32 powers are better than AR's.

I don't expect the Nukes will be changed, but I thought I would point this out since the AR/Nrg is so much more enjoyable to play in PvE, especially with a full team or on a TF.

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Probably the best way to answer this is to refer to comics -- When The Human Torch 'goes nova' he puts everything he has into it and pretty much knocks himself out. That's the 'feel' these powers are meant to reflect.

As for MoG, no comment at this time.

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Yes, but they can only hit 16 foes now so, IMHO, the Torchy feel is gone.

Shouldn't they be changed to something more functional like AR's Full Auto or Archery's Rain of Arrows? I know when I play either of these Blasters I can contribute much more to teams than with the other Torch-styled Nukes.

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And when I say contribute more with AR/NRG or Archery/NRG I mean I am contributing something that no other AT or Blasters with standard Nukes can and that is rapidly respond to suppress large numbers of foes. True they are mostly minions, but both sets offer good single target attacks and cones for mopping up the remainder, but Bosses, AV's are the Scrapper and Tank targets and that is usually all my AR/NRG will leave behind. Blasters are supposed to be damage dealers without equal and the AR/NRG with Full Auto is, but the Blasters with 6 minute recharge, zero-endurance Nukes that only hit 16 foes (now) are easily over-shadowed on teams by Scrappers and Controllers for damage dealt/abilities, or so it seems to me sometimes.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth of insight.

Blasters I am playing...

lvl 41 Elec/Elec
lvl 37 AR/Nrg
lvl 39 Ice/Nrg
lvl 35 Archery/Nrg
lvl 33 Nrg/Nrg
lvl 30 Ice/Dev
lvl 29 Archery/Dev
lvl 21 Fire/Nrg

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Probably the best way to answer this is to refer to comics -- When The Human Torch 'goes nova' he puts everything he has into it and pretty much knocks himself out. That's the 'feel' these powers are meant to reflect.

As for MoG, no comment at this time.

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Yes, but they can only hit 16 foes now so, IMHO, the Torchy feel is gone.

Shouldn't they be changed to something more functional like AR's Full Auto or Archery's Rain of Arrows? I know when I play either of these Blasters I can contribute much more to teams than with the other Torch-styled Nukes.

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The thing about Nova is that the damage varies by mob. The 1st tick of smashing damage and 1st tick of energy damage are guaranteed. There is a 75% chance of a 2nd tick of energy damage, plus a 50% chance of a 3rd tick of energe damage (if the 2nd tick occurred). Based on my testing, these percentages are applied on a mob by mob basis - there is not a uniform test against all mobs in a spawn. It is quite possible for Nova to leave lieutenants alive if they only get hit by the initial ticks.

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And, am I right that Aim and Build-Up have lowered Accuracy buffs now?

Fixing Force Fields maybe? I think they were broken back in April '04 or something and I notice Corrupters did not get this set which should be a natural fit really.... except Force Fields would need to be on the level of Elude to actually have any effect in PvP.

My fix is to have Force Bubble debuff accuracy or allow FF Defenders to shoot out of Personal Force Field, but be unable to run Dispersion Bubble and PFF. Anyway, Force Fields are completely eliminated/nullified by Aim or any other Accuracy Buff and that is all an FF Defender gets. No Heals, no Damage/Recovery buffs. Anyway, not giving Force Fields to Corrupters is not a Fix.

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heh, maybe it is a BUG, but what I find in I-7 is that the only thing that can't attack at zero endurance is ME! Or other players. Mysteriously, at level 40-44-ish, PvE mobs still have alot of devastating attacks with zero endurance and I am guessing they would even after being Drained by 8 Elec/Elecs since Electric Drains can't do negative side draining (meaning negative integers). It's not in the Coding.


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No, the problem is that there are actually two endurance draining effects: actual endurance drain, and endurance recovery suppression (debuff). Drain to zero is not a big deal for many critters, because they really don't have a lot of attacks in the first place. Usually, they hit you with their one and only attack (or two, maybe), and then they are going to have to wait about 5 seconds (depending on the critter) regardless of what you do while it recharges. If you drain them to zero, but they still have recovery, they can recover enough endurance in a few seconds to have enough to fire that one attack again. That's all they would have the endurance to do, but that's all they can do anyway. If you only had one attack, you wouldn't have much endurance problems either.

To really stop a critter cold, you need to drain them to zero, and *also* debuff recovery so they can't get that endurance back on a time scale comparable to how long their attacks recharge anyway. And that's the hard part.

It isn't really a question of "unfair" in the sense that critters play by different rules, because they do play by our rules. Rather, its almost never the case that players are really fighting one on one fights.


Here's one way to look at it: if players are "balanced" around fighting three minions, then in fact, those three minions have 300 endurance: triple the endurance, and triple the recovery rate, of the average player. Its as if players were constantly fighting masterminds, who also have the same endurance circumstances (namely, their pets are almost never out, so its as if they have almost unlimited endurance).

In a certain sense, if players are balanced against multiple critters, critters should actually have less endurance per critter. Consider a level 50 blaster facing off against 3 even minions. The blaster has about 1200 health, the minions have about 400 (430) each; in a sense, the blaster is facing off against something with approximately the same amount of health as he does (but that "thing" is more vulnerable to AoEs, of course). But he's facing off against something with 300 endurance. I think its possible someone didn't think about endurance balancing in the same sense they thought about health bar balancing between players and critters.

That doesn't necessarily mean critters should all have 33 endurance, but it does suggest that in actual fact, its the *fact* that critters play by the same "rules" as players, but players aren't balanced against fighting them one on one, that is part of the fundamental problem with endurance drain.

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I don't think this is it since I have drained Bosses to zero then hit them with Balled Lightning and Thunderous Blast, both of which stop recovery and the Boss still keeps hitting with a variety of attacks for extreme damage... like 50% health from one ranged attack by a +1 Malta named Opal Blue, followed immediately by two more= faceplant from a Boss with zero endurance from Short Circuit (3 End Mod), Powersink, Balled Lightning, Thunderous Blast. If this isn't a BUG then it's a big joke being played on anyone who would think the Endurance Drain in PvE does anything at higher levels. They should either allow Endurance Drains to work or pull the effect out of CoX. Anyway, I shelved my level 41 Electric/Electric because it's a joke or a BUG ....at the moment.

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As for Electric, I'm of the belief that when the Dev's try to consider balance they have to factor in what a full team of (insert powerset here) would look like. Imagine 8 Electric blasters if Short Circuit did 100% drain, or if every attack drained 25% End (these numbers are just to make a point). They would be un-killable even on Invincible.

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heh, maybe it is a BUG, but what I find in I-7 is that the only thing that can't attack at zero endurance is ME! Or other players. Mysteriously, at level 40-44-ish, PvE mobs still have alot of devastating attacks with zero endurance and I am guessing they would even after being Drained by 8 Elec/Elecs since Electric Drains can't do negative side draining (meaning negative integers). It's not in the Coding.

I think they need NEW Secondaries. Here's my idea for one called Range Manipulation

Anyway, I think the Dev's see Blaster's Secondaries as a back-burner thing at best, although they may be piecing things together bit by bit.

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why not get rid of entangling arrow and replace it with a heal?

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Don't make Trick Arrow like all the other Defender sets. Make it do holds and debuffs etc. better than every other set.

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Why not keep Entangling Arrow, but have it transfer health also like a Vampiric Arrow (similar to Twilight Grasp, but with an Immoblize instead of debuffs). It could transfer ticks of Health maybe while the Immobilize was active for a new twist on healing.

In any event, my level 28 TA/Archery has no Temp powers except Throwing Knives because he has to do only missions with teams mostly and thats just the way it panned out. He's done Synapse (got booted from first Synapse attempt for no heals), Psyche, Moonfire, looking for a Citadel since 26, no luck yet. Right now I drop a mission every week and take timed ones and let the timer run out. If I am about to level I go get three missions to do at Heroic minus one level. I know level 30-ish is usually difficult, but this is unprecedented difficulty.

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And as for Microsoft turning games to crap, I think you have them confused with Sony.

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*sneeze* Planetside *sneeze*

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The Core Combat expansion, anyone?

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MechWarrior. You should all Fear that because M$ got control of that and just sat on it like an 800 pound gorilla. Seven years since a new MechWarrior game for the PC came out. A game that was once #1 in sales.

I do not think adding -Regen to one power will be enough.

TA is underpowered for a Defender set for a number of reasons and you need look no farther than Radiation Emission to see why. Radiation EM does everything TA does to debuff foes. It does it faster, since there is no need to fire off an arrow when you do it with toggled powers leaving the Rad EM defender free to Heal, Buff their Team and themselves and actually attack with powers that that are damage boosted 25% by AM. Even so, that Heal equals a huge amount of damage mitigation which the TA Defender gets none of since it has no Heals or Buffs. And as mentioned. Rad EM gets very powerful -Regen too boot included with a toggle. So almost every debuff that TA has is in Rad EM and in Rad Em, they are applied in a way that favors CoX gameplay's activation times rather than Arrow by Arrow. On top of that Rad EM gets powerful buffs to Recovery, Recharge, Damage, Healing for their teammates and themselves. This allows them to solo missions which frankly, I can't do with TA even on Heroic sometimes.

Now I am all for the concept of a Defender with no Heals or Buffs, but just a very deadly array of debuffs, but TA's debuffs are no more deadly than Rad EM's and take much longer to apply and maintain.

So the set is seriously flawed for a Defender primary and you Cryptic Developers need to decide which powers in TA need to be made more powerful and on a scale you would never before consider for a Defender. You made this powerset to have no Heals or Buffs, now stand behind your idea and make it the very best debuffing set that a Defender could take. If you say that would destabilize gameplay in general then make TA a Blaster Secondary and tone it down a bit.

I really don't think it is a Defender set. It's lack of any Heals also affects the AT's playability meaning you get defeated by more than 3 minions very easily and that means you have great difficulty soloing your missions on Heroic which is too high for my level 28 TA Defender. He is approaching the Debt Cap on Heroic. It's that weak. I usually wait for my Missions to age a level or two before attempting to solo them.

Maybe you sould give TA Defenders the ability to drop 5 missions per week instead of one? I am not sure, but I don't see any action on your part to fix the set and it is way overdue. Make it work or make all the TA Defenders into TA Blasters which is what they should have been in the first place, IMHO.

(just tacked this to the last post)

Trick Arrow should be more effective at buffing damage and debuffing resistance than Radiation Emission since Trick Arrow has no Heals, Rez, or Team Resistance/Recovery Buffing, and really does nothing more than Radiation Emission, it just uses more powers to achieve less effect. Perhaps Glue Arrow should have a minus Resistance or minus Regen added to it and Oil Slick Arrow should recharge quickly and last longer.

Minus Regen seems to be what most TA users request so add that effect to Glue Arrow, it fits the power and makes some sense.

In any event you Dev's need to make TA a better Resist Debuffer/Damage Buffer than Radiation Emission is since TA has no team Buffs or Heals or Rez. Teammates have to know that the TA Defender is the best even though it can't heal or Buff them like other Defenders. I can't tell you how many teams have added me as a teammate and then complain about not getting any Heals from you, you are useless, get a real defender please. Getting booted off a team is rare, but one was a Synapse TF.

One issue here to think about is that players don't understand TA until they play one. Consequently they rush ahead of TA's debuffing and wonder why they all died this time, eventually blaming the TA Defender as useless. Telling them to wait is not effective.

Bottom line, when you make a Defender set that only debuffs Foes, it better do that much better than the sets that also heal and buff teammates. Not nearly as good, but best and easily best.

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O_o What server you playing on? I haven't seen a blaster with devices in the past 3 months. (besides my main)

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I continue to fiddle around with my Ice/Devices Blaster, but it's pretty weak now that Enhancement Diversification has been dumped haphazardly onto all Blaster powersets with no adjustment to the Sets that were obviously Nerfed. Devices/ No Build-Up or Damage Buff and no way to slot extra Damage in the primary set anymore (also Archery, no extra Damage slotting, no secondary effect to slot for). I don't see how the Dev's can say Devices wasn't hit harder by ED's imposed Damage capping. They are just not interested in boosting any Blaster due to PvP and Devices is a fearsome PvP set even if it is a trickster's playing style.

What's over-powered in CoX is Assassin's Strike. Damage is reasonable, but AS's delivery is much too easy for a power that is "supposedly" Interruptable, but I have been AS'd by Stalkers who were jumping over my head, not flying, not hovering, but jumping and I am thinking, Interruptable.... right... by what? Gremlins?

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I8 Test Server Notes:
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• Many objects in the game which were meant to be immune to Teleportation have been made so. This affects several powers in the Traps Secondary and Gadgets secondary for players.

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Emphasis added.

Last time I checked, there is no Gadgets secondary. There is, however, one called Devices. Freudian slips like this and folks wonder why some hold the belief that the devs don't seem to know the Blaster AT all that much.

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I posted this suggestion for a Gadgets Pool Power on the 12th, odd huh? Anyway, Devices-Gadgets, I bet it means no more TP-ing Auto-Turret which makes it less useful than Electric's Sparky.... so pretty useless in a game that forces you to do things like take Stamina, Travel Powers, Perception Powers and THEN you get to pick things like Auto-Turret and Sparky and these powers are lacking, so skip 'em both. Maybe they should lower the recharge for Auto-Turret as a "Balancing" move?

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I have to agree, I tried it out last night in Hollows on a level 8, and maybe I just need driving lessons, but it was faster just to run for the most part it seemed. Its a help if you need a quick vertical boost, no doubt, but I was unable to see any real boost to forward/horizontal movement....any tips..?

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The only problem with the Jumpjet is that it only boosts Jump and Fly powers for forward velocity. Jump for Sprint is very low so not much good for a basic starting toon. This makes the power fairly useless half the time since only Jump, Combat Jumping, Superleap, Fly, and Hover will get the speed boost. Does nothing for Superspeed or Run powers.... except the elevation of course.

I would have settled for the Low-G pack. Thats pretty cool.

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Does the pack increase normal flight speed? if so by how much?

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How much exactly I am not sure. I got the feeling I was maybe a bit faster than Superspeed and it certainly makes Hover a travel power while it lasts and this works for lowbies too.

The toon did not have Swift and no Flight Speed Enhancements, but made it across Siren's Call (lengthwise) before the buff ended using Fly.

I don't have a problem with Bodyguard. I think the MM's need it and gameplay is better overall. I usually switch it on if I get into trouble with my MM. It allows me to be more of a participant in battles since I get some protection from my pets when I need it.

However, I play alot of Alts... alot. All made and levelled the hard way and I think MM's are most similar to Blasters. The damage doesn't spike as much, but it seems about equal over 10 seconds after viewing the results. Masterminds get Bodyguard/Supremacy. Blasters get Defiance which is nothing compared to Bodyguard/Supremacy's many Buffs that are always there working if the MM is near his pet army.

So I think Bodyguard is fine and all the other Inherents should work as well as Bodyguard. If not then Bodyguard will be seen as a very unbalanced Inherent. MM's need it, but many of the older AT's need something as nice and as applicable as Bodyguard and they are just being ignored at the moment.