Soulscorch

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Not at all true. If that were my attitude, I wouldn't even be trying to get some changes through. I can understand why you think that would be the case, though.

In an upcoming patch, here are a few things you'll see:
Increased EDIT:Maximum ranges for attacks like Blaze.
Some improvements for */Fire (No, no powers were switched out. No Fiery Embrace, I'm afraid. )
Some improvements for Fire/*
A very minor improvement for Gadgets...I mean, Devices! (Yeah, it was a dumb mistake -- typing in haste and all of that.)

I have some ideas for other changes/improvements, but there is no ETA on when or if I'll get them in.

Edit: Tyed minimum when I meant Maximum. One day, I'll learn to proofread.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see a lot of people confused as to why love will be shown to Fire/. Well after extensively studying the primary, I have the answer. Brace yourselves...

First, lets take a look at the powers in reverse order in the set:

Inferno: No change here, or all sets nukes would be changed.
Blazing Bolt: No change here, or again, all snipes would have to be changed.
Blaze: This change was already stated by Castle as its range will be increased.
Aim: No change here, or all sets Aim's will have to be changed
Fire Breath: OOOH...potential change here that fits with the change to Blaze. What is the only real complaint about firebreath? The short range. Like Blaze, I expect to see the range of this power increased. Yay!!!
Rain of Fire: Great power? Not really. Will it be changed? Doubtful. Rain powers exist in many sets for many AT's, so I couldn't really see this one being changed a lot from it's current state.
Fireball: Good Range...check. Good AoE damage...check. Reasonable recharge and end cost...check. Nope this power won't change.
Fireblast: Like Fireball, this is a staple power of the Fire/ set that will probably not see any change, and to be honest, none is really needed.

Last but not least...

Flares: OOOH...lots of potential for change here. The crappiest power in the Fire/ set. Low damage and long animation. Could we perhaps see an animation change? Hmm... maybe. As has been stated many times, animation changes take a long time to do. But before you doubt the possibility, this power has been considered crappy for over 2 years now, so that surely has given them time to throw some kind of new animation together. The end cost, recharge and damage are all in line with snap shot from archery. The only difference is the animation time. I'm telling you people, this is the fix to flares that we have dreamed about for so long. It's finally here!!!11!!!!11. (perhaps I'm a bit too excited about a potential minor tweak to a lvl 1 power in a set that I may still not use if it's done)

So to sum up, the fixes for Fire/ will be:

Extended range of Firebreath. Probably to 40 or 60 ft. is my guess.

And the big one we've all been waiting for...A new animation for Flares that only takes 1s!!!!!111!!!!11!!!! *wets himself*


Now, thank you for these tweaks, but the primary that needs the most love is:

Elec

I'll expect an update from Castle on the Elec changes after Thanksgiving

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Regardless, isn't that rather like saying brutes are entirely too dependent on fury, or stalkers too dependent on assassination?

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That's part of the point I tried to make about 20 pages ago. All CoV AT's are heavily dependant on their inherants for their primary function.

The problem is, Dominators are the only CoV AT dependant on their inherant for their Primary And Secondary functions. Everyone else has a secondary function completely independant of their inherants - except Dominators.

Balance our primaries with our inherant, but our secondaries should be balanced by themselves.

That's why I'm completely in favor of reducing the damage boost of domination, and giving us a permanent damage boost in our secondaries. Maybe Corrupter-Stalker level damage with a DO's worth of damage boost from Domination. The main point of Domination should be for the extra controls.

I also think a few more Hp's would help out as well.

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This does not match my experience in I6, nor does it match the early I7 reports coming from Fishw0rk.

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It sure as hell matches mine. If I go on to the field as a Dom, I'm a target. I'm an EASY target. I can only hope to build up Domination if I am to stand a chance of not sucking for a few minutes; but the Domination bar drops to zero on death, so a simple two-shot from any of the plentiful scrapp0rz in RV is enough to scotch that.

Doms are the only AT to have a qualifying round in PvP. Survive long enough and attack often enough to build up Domination, and you might have a chance.

They are the only AT to have a mediocre primary and a mediocre secondary. Other ATs have inherent powers as a bonus; Dominators are the only AT to DEPEND on their Inherent power.

We need some serious fixing, and this was sadly not it.

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I agree. Doms need some PVE and PVP love.

The big defference between COH and COV is that COV AT's all depend on their inherant powers to function well. The big difference between Dominators and all other COV AT's is that Dominators are the only ones that get a double hit against their Inherant, recharge and buildup.

Brutes can use their inherant as they build it up.

Corruptors use theirs whenever the target is below 50%, a minor form of a build up.

MM's use theirs all the time, by just standing their.

Stalkers can pick and choose when to use theirs, and at the most have a 10 second timer after placating a target. But thier secondaries give them the tools to use their inherant whenever they want.

In PVE Doms not only have to attack 45 times (with no decay), but they have to wait 200s (used to be 300) for the power to recharge. Then they get 90 seconds of above average - but not great - damage, and extra magnitude and duration on their holds.

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Frankly I think that the domination boost should be lowered by 50% and have the standard attacks boosted in damage to compensate. The domination bonus of increased duration, mag and endurance refill is enough without making it the sole way for a dominator to deal damage. Give it a minor damage boost rather than a major one and tip the scales for the more attacks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Obviously Dominators are completely dependant upon their inherant to function. Take away some of that dependancy in the form of damage from the inherant, and give it to their base. That way the inherant is still beneficial as far as the primary is concerned - controls, but the dominators secondary functions fine without the inherant.

As it is, the dominators primary and secondary are both dependant on their inherant. What other AT has both their primary and secondary sets dependant upon their inherant?

Brute - primary is affected byt the inherant, secondary is not.
Corruptor - primary is affected by the inherant, secondary is not.
MM - Primary is affected by the inherant, secondary is not.
Stalker - Primary is affected by the inherant, secondary is not.

Dominators are the only one. Fix the secondaries, and leave the primaries to benefit from the inherant, just like all the other AT's. Stop double dinging dominators.

Well, in addition to the end recover PS gives you, It also almost completely drains your enemies of endurance.

I don't remember the exact numbers on PS end drain, but that combined possibly with Lightning Field, could provide adequate end drain fo rthe Elec/Elec brute.

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And yes, I agree that _Castle_ is quite dedicated to his job, and wish that we had someone like that.

...who is our rep, anyways?

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If I were Castle, I'd demand a raise. If I were doing 11 people's jobs I'd want to make sure I was paid for doing 11 people's jobs.

Seriously, if any company has actual plans to hire a person to do a job, there is no way it takes this long to get people hired. (don't know for sure, but I'm thinkin it's been about 6 months since it was mentioned, even longer considering when COV's beta was)

You post a position, hold some interviews, and pick the ones you like. Add another couple of weeks for HR to get their crap together and there you go. 3-4 months max, preferably shorter than that.

Either this was something States really wanted to do, or he was just blowin smoke up everyone's [censored]. When the boss, the head honcho, the main man, the big chief says we're gonna get some people, it really should help to expedite the whole process. Unless if what the boss says, and really wants are two different things.

Since she's not been nominated, am I to assume that Kalimagdalene is not a woman?

That's an awful rude manner to correct somone's numbers.

Relax, take a deep breath, grab some coffee, eat some breakfast, and calm yourself. It'll be a long enough day without getting so worked up at 9am (CST).

I personally enjoy a lot about how blasters currently play. I wish most of them played a little more similarly to my Ice/En. As in, they have a ranged chain, and can deal good damage from a distance, but can also close to melee and really put the hurt on. The control aspects of ice (freeze ray, BFR) and energy (disorients on attacks) are just about the right amount of controls my blaster needs. Once I7 hits, and Ice storm and Blizzard become buffable, I think Ice's AOE will be just fine as well.

I think every set combo needs options like these. They all need range damage, melee damage, and some controls. If they lack in 1 area (devices lacks in melee damage) the need to make up for it in another (gets better strategic soft controls than most sets)



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Charged Brawl – Bring up to BI of Energy Punch. When people think damage they shouldn't just think Energy. Change requires changing some numbers and testing.

Havok Punch – Bring up to BI of Bonesmasher. When people think damage they shouldn't just think Energy. Change requires changing some numbers.

Thunder Strike – Bring up BI to a level between Bonesmasher and Total Focus. It shouldn't be Total Focus level because it comes earlier, can disorient and can do an AoE Knockback. When people think damage, they shouldn't just think Energy. Change requires changing some numbers and testing.


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Aren't these already done? I was under the assumption that:

Charged Brawl BI = Energy Punch BI
Havok Punch BI = Bonesmasher BI

Bonesmasher 7.2 BI / Thunder Strike 8.2 BI / Total Focus 8.9 BI

But I could be wrong. If so I blame Hero Planner.

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Smoke Grenade – Not broken anymore. Does a descent debuff I believe, no change.


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The only change I would like to see from Smoke Grenade is that it doesn't count as an attack. Make it funtion like a Fire Controller's Smoke. No Aggro from it.

Other than that, I completely and wholeheartedly agree with the changes you've proposed. I think these changes would go a long way in fixing a lot about blasters.

Would I like to see some of Pilcrow's changes? Sure. I just think in the idea of "Fewest possible moves" this would be quicker and easier for the devs. It uses existing powers and code, and just tweaks the spreadsheets a little.

A couple of things I would like to see in addition to yours:

I still like my idea of replacing Blazing Aura with Hot Feet, and adding Greater Fire Sword at 38. But we can't always get everything we want.

The electric primary needs some help. I have serious doubts about the end drain fix. Assuming that it isn't fixed to be at least as good as it was post ED. I would like for SC to become a ranged AOE with higher damage (think Firebreath) that's more frontloaded, maybe only 4 ticks of DOT instead of 8. Use the same animation as current, just center it around the bad guy instead of the player. Hell the player could still go through the 3 second animation as far as I'm concerned, just put the special effects around the enemy.

Regardless of the end drain fix, I would like to see VS be tweaked so that it targeted the casters target. Either that, or make it able to take damage and draw aggro to itself.

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Defiance might be fixed by the anti "one shotting" code currently supposedly being implemented. I wouldn't suggest any modifications to Defiance (except fixing the numerous bugs, that sadly the Devs won't be able to find because their internal testing is flawed) until those changes are implemented.

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Why would the one-shotting code fix defiance?

An AS by itself can't 1-shot a blaster.

An AS with 3 (?) rages can, but you'd be left with so few hitpoints that a queued brawl would take you out before you could retaliate. Even if you could retaliate no 1 shot from you would be able to kill the stalker because of the 1-shot fix. It's a catch 22 for defiance. The 1-shot fix may give you a slightly increased chance of using defiance at full capacity, but the 1-shot fix will also prevent it from killing your attacker who will be killing you in the very next shot.

Conclusion: Defiance still sucks dong. It's easy to remember, because defiance and dong both start with d's.

Well the damage in Ice goes like this:

FF - 4.5 BI
Ice Sword - 5.4 BI


That's it. No big BonesmasherHavokpunch power to really put the hurt on anything. It's got a good start, but no grand finale. That's why people are saying replace Frozen Aura with Greater Ice Sword. Mmmm, Greater Ice Sword.

As far as the slow goes on it, in my limited experience, it's not been that noticeable. Probably comparable to the slows on the blasts from the primary. Something that adds to all your other powers, but nothing you'd ever slot for.

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* Ice: Frozen fists - Half and Half again. ~2 BI + Slow. Essentially, Ice Bolt.


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Good News, actually FF does 4.5 BI. So it's essentially Ice Blast. I think there is a thread in the blaster section comparing /fire and /ice, and it's mentioned in there. Plus I've used it and it's true.

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Devices Secondary: No melee
Electric Manipulation: 3 melee attacks
Energy Manipulation: 4 melee attacks (not counting stun)
Fire Manipulation: 2 melee attacks
Ice Manipulation: 2 melee attacks


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Just an FYI

Considering that an attack is anything that does damage, and melee is 5' or less (including PBAOE's with a range >5'):

Devices: 1 maybe attack --Taser - .6944 BI

Electric: 5 attacks --Lightning Field, Charged Brawl, Havok Punch, Thunder Strike, Shocking Grasp

Energy: 4 attacks -- Power Thrust, Energy Punch, Bone Smasher, Total Focus - also not counting stun

Fire: 7 attacks -- Fire Sword, Combustion, Fire Sword Circle, Blazing Aura, Consume, Burn, Hot Feet

Ice: 3 attacks -- Frozen Fists, Ice Sword, Freezing Touch

It seems that melee attacks make up anywhere from 11 - 78% of blaster secondaries. That averages to 4 melee attacks per secondary, which is ~ 45% of a blasters secondary attacks are in melee.

This is actually a lot less than the percent of blaster secondary powers that are to be used in melee. That number would be 26/45 powers that are to be used in melee. That means ~ 58% of blasters' secondary powers are to be used in melee. That seems like quite a bit for a ranged AT.

Lets look at the amount of ranged powers a blaster has available.

My count is 61 total powers blasters have that are ranged (>5').

Total Blater primary powers: 7*9 = 63
Total Blaster Secondary Powers: 5*9 = 45

Total powers: 108

Melee powers: 29 (26 secondary, 3 primary)
Ranged Powers: 62
Other powers (Aim, BU, etc...): 17

*Note Other include Trip Mine, Timed Bomb, Cloak, TD, etc

Percent Melee: ~ 26.9%
Percent Ranged: ~ 57.4%
Other: ~ 15.75%

Ration of ranged to melee: ~ 2.13:1

Now, using the idea that blasters are Ranged Damage, and a Scrappers are Melee Damage let's take a look at their power breakdown.


Code:[/color]

---

 

                Ranged              Melee             Other

Blaster         57.4%               26.9%             15.75%

Scrapper        8.9%                56.6%             34.4%

---

This raises some questions:

If blasters are ranged and scrappers are melee, why do blasters spend over a quarter of their time in melee, while scrappers spend less than 10% of their time at range?

Apparently from the numbers, ~55% is about the amount of powers it takes for an AT to survive it's specialty. Then what makes scrappers more surviveable in a more dangerous situation (their specialty - melee) than blasters in a less dangerous situation (their specialty - range)? It appears the other category is what is providing the difference - which is obvious because that has most all of the scrapper shields.

Now if it is the Devs intention to make blasters a ranged damager, then they will need to rework about 20% of blaster powers into other type powers to increase surviveability. That seems like a lot of work, remaking 1 out of every 5 powers.

That isn't the point of view I hold to. I generally hold to the blaster = damage from anywhere. Which I think looking at the numbers would be eaiser to fix in terms of total changes needed. Mostly these fixes would be tweaks to database numbers and placement, and not a new power.

Blasters already have auras like this in Lightning Field and Blazing Aura. They don't do a whole lot to stop a stalker. At best, you may notice the "miss" above their heads, but by that point, you're probably getting hit with an AS anyway. More to-hit auras would not break AS. They would barely scratch it at best.

Unfortunately I agree with your disagree.

I think the seondaries can be helped quite a lot by just swapping some powers around, buffing Targeting Drone, and giving SG a little love.

A couple of primaries can be significantly helped by increasing the range of the short range attack to 50'.

I think Archery may need a little tweaking of it's damage numbers after the end fix, but I can wait and see on that.

AR needs a little more of a mix of damage types or an Aim power. That's nothing too complicated

Ice is fine.

Elec needs the most help IMO. Especially after this end change to bosses and Lt's. I think it needs a good attack chain, and SC needs to be fixed. Either fix SC by end drain increase, or by damage and range increases.

None of these are major time consuming, new animation develpoing, core game changes. Most are adjusting numbers on a spreadsheet.

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What I think

* 1) Blasters need to be able to make a better ranged attack chains with their primary and secondary combined, than could be made with just the primary.
* 2) Blasters need to be able to deliver more AE, or at least more of it at range.
* 3) Controls and Debuffs are part of a Blaster's arsenal for a reason, and if they need more protection, that is where it should come from
* 4) It is more appropriate to share more of a Blaster's Defensive "strengths" (control, debuff) with other blasting ATs than to share more of a Blaster's Offensive strengths with other blasting ATs.




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I agree with the above statements.

Here are my changes to blasters:

Primaries:

Ice: None - after the current I7 changes

Fire: Increase range of Blaze to 50'

AR: Adjust some of their damage so it's not mostly lethal/or add Aim to the set.

Archery: Increase damage to Snap Shot and Aimed Shot. Also include current I7 changes

Energy: Increase range of Power Burst to 50'. Increase damage of EB and/or ET

Electric: Make end drain meaningful or replace it. Give the set a decent ST attack chain (several ideas already discussed in previous threads). Increase and frontload damage of SC (assuming no end drain changes are coming). Improve VS (several ideas discussed in other threads).

Sonic: Not familiar with set, so no comment.

Secondaries:

Ice: Replace Shiver or Frozen Aura with Greater Ice Sword (essentially add 1 more ST attack with high damage).

Energy: None

Electric: I like your idea for Lightning Field. This is the only power in the set that needs some work IMO.

Devices: Add +dmg to TD. Make SG not count as an attack, thereby breaking stealth. I like the Time Bomb idea you and others have proposed.

Fire: Replace Consume with Cremate. Fix animation bug on FSC. Move Hot Feet to lvl 20 in place of BA. Give secondary attacks a small status protection instead of DOT. Maybe a mag 1 fear that has a percent chance to work with a short duration, but enhanceable like knockback. Put GFS in the 38 spot where Hot Feet was.

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Here's some more numbers for your math-crunching pleasure. These are the modifier values for melee and ranged buffs and debuffs, by AT. A good example of how you can see these in action is with the Aim power, which is shared by Blasters, Defenders, and Corruptors: The damage buff scale for Aim is 5.0, and the to-hit buff scale is 8.0, so using the table below, we get the following values:

Blaster Aim damage buff = 5.0 * 0.125 = 0.625, or 62.5%
Defender Aim damage buff = 5.0 * 0.10 = 0.50 or 50%
Corruptor Aim damage buff = 5.0 * 0.085 = 0.425 or 42.5%

Blaster Aim to-hit buff = 8.0 * 0.075 = 0.60 or 60%
Defender Aim to-hit buff = 8.0 * 0.10 = 0.80 or 80%
Corruptor Aim to-hit buff = 8.0 * 0.085 = 0.68 or 68%



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These numbers seem to disagree with the long standing assumption that blaster Aim adds 100% accuracy adjustment and 62.5% damage adjustment and that BU adds 100% damage adjustment and 62.5% accuracy adjustment.

I would venture to guess that the values for Aim and BU are switched, 8 for Aim acc and for BU dam, 5 for Aim dam and BU acc.

This would mean BU still gets 100% damage adjustment, but only 37.5% acc adjustment?

If they are disagreeing, and your numbers are correct, may I ask how you came up with them? Also are your numbers saying that if a blaster uses Aim or BU, his ranged damage and accuracy buffs will be different than his melee damage and accuracy buffs? If so, then a defender will get more out of Aim, damage and accuracy wise, with ranged attacks than a blaster will. Seems odd

Cool, thanks for the clarification. That makes more sense.

One more thing, I was always under the impression that blaster melee was 10% stronger than blaster ranged attacks. Is that not true, or is it represented differently in your chart somehow?

Are you sure about that scrapper ranged attack column?

Becuase powers like focus and impale would have to have incredibly high indexes with those numbers. Around 10 or so from a quick estimate.

At level 31 my spines/da does lik 120-150 damage with impale 3 Slotted for damage IIRC. So lets say it's a base of 60. If his brawl is 20.77 *.36 = 7.48. That means the index of impale is 60/7.48 = 8.02. That was going with the low estimate. That power may be close to 10, I really can't remember his exact damage.

Are you sure their ranged brawl isnt' the same as thier melee brawl?

If I'm reading this wrong, then please let me know. Thanks

Simple fix for /fire.

Remove BA. Move Hot Feet to 20, so it's available for PVP. Put Greater Fire Sword at 38.

This simple change makes the set look a lot better, and not nearly as gimp IMO. Would it be the best secondary? No, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad as it is now.

If you want to get really picky, replace combustion with a high damage ST attack (similar to BS, Cremate from the Brutes would be nice). I would actually leave Burn in the set. It's fear component could actually be usefull for blasters. Then the set would really live up to the Fire name. All damage, both AOE and ST.

Here's another balance issue for Archery:

Balance: Explosive blast does the same damage as Fistful of Arrows (maybe slightly less according to Hero Planner) for double the recharge and 150% of the endurance. The only differences being ranged AOE instead of a cone and a greater range. This doesn't seem balanced for a level 14 power compared to a level 2 power. Either raise the damage or lower the end cost and recharge time (shortening the range to match FoA would be an acceptable tradeoff).

Has anyone thought of pm'ing Castle and seeing if he would look into some of our concerns?

Things like:
archery
/devices
electric end drain
defiance
and others I haven't listed?

Maybe we could trick ..er... coerce ...er... persuade him to look into a few things for us.

I never said no one posted test results in this thread. I never said many people before didn't post test results in other threads. I know this has been a problem for a long time, and many people have already tested and tried their best to get results. Obviously it's not an issue that has garnered any concern from the devs upto this point.

What I'm hoping for is this reply from Statesman is indicating a willingness to look into the problem. Could I be wrong? Sure. I hope I'm not though. The thing is, if it is our opportunity, then why waste it.

If the Devs tell us they don't see the same problem we do, and ask us to elaborate, why is our response 'We already told you before and you didn't care then, we're not gonna tell you again.'
It seems to me like we're shooting ourselves in the foot.

Since Stateman's response, not one person (including myself) has posted any type of information that would enable to developers to see the bugs in the current form of Defiance. The closest people have come is pointing out that they told us it would start kicking in above 40% and I don't think it currently does (Heck, I'm not even sure the accuracy bonus is really there either).

I'm not saying you guys don't have valid points about how bad defiance is. I'm saying if you want it "fixed" at all, then instead of complaining about it, post some specific tests showing its bugs.

Edit: Missed your post Greymist, good constructive comments. That's what happens when you have a meeting in the middle of a reply.

[ QUOTE ]

Doublechecked Defiance - and its working for us (internally and on live). Can anyone give more details about this issue?

[/ QUOTE ]

I have read this thread. Apparently from Statesman's post, they need more information. I applaud the original poster who did numerous tests showing there are problems, but apparently they still need more data, so let's give it to them.

I think whining and complaining have been shown time and time again to not sway the devs position. If they say they need more information on the bugs, then let's provide them with that information. Opinionated arguing isn't going to get the bugs fixed. Testing and documentation will.

I agree, his response was still vague on what they are looking for in the testing, but I think we have enough compentent testers to give him more information than he'll ever need.

I'm not telling anyone what to post, I'm asking. I'm asking that people take advantage of the first dev post in here in a long time to make a positive change for blasters. Opportunity is knocking, if we don't answer the door, we shouldn't be surprised when it leaves and we're left empty-handed.

Fellow Blasters

Please stop arguing about how much you actually hate defiance for a minute. Statesman came in here and said their testing didn't show a problem with how defiance was working. He didn't say they had a problem with the concept of defiance.

Instead of wasting time and energy arguing about how bad defiance is, someone please go test it and post your results (maybe some screen shots). It can't get the bugs worked out of it if we don't tell them what they are.

They are asking us to define the bugs with defiance. Let's at least get the bugs fixed. I would help myself, but I'm at work all day. We've waited a long time for any type of response on defiance, please don't squander this opportunity.