Starsman

Hopefully you never get the ability to manipulate water in the real world because you would entirely waste that ability.

Someone inside water starts swimming; you just move the water around inside the sphere so he can’t move. Swimming is achieved by propelling yourself in a direction and is heavily impaired by current (if you attempt to swim against it.)

All you, as a trained water manipulating mutant, needs to do is make that water sphere be constantly rotating and steering in multiple directions, making swimming impossible (and also resulting in the character rotation I suggested above.)

The uniqueness of the set is one definitive issue. Another is that "remixing" it as part of a proliferation effort is not as easy as regular set proliferation either.

At the end of the day even new sets are proliferations with tweaks. Dual Blades was a copy of Claws with many changes stacked on top (why the structure and some end discount "bugs" are still visible.)

So a remix that creates a Martial Manipulation set may be almost as much work as just creating a brand new Manipulation set.

On top is the fact that devs seem a bit reluctant to create a new set that has no unique mechanics. If they made a Martial Manipulation set they may want to design some unique thing for that set.

They can also just toss their hands in the air, copy paste powers and call it a day, but I think they have certain level of pride that pushes them to make something that’s cooler than that.
At the end of the day, they may be more likely to create a Water Manipulation set than a remix of Martial Arts.

I can easily visualize a floating water ball caging an enemy in midair (hold), the enemy turning inside as he would with the Soul Storm power, only with a sphere of water as visual FX.

I can also see a stabilized water sprout keeping you from moving (immob)

You can play with the effects too and soak the enemy in chilling water that makes him shiver, barely able to counter attack (fear with different animation.) Not too far from Stone "Sleeping" foes with Salt Crystals.

I'm sure if you decide you want to make a control set with water, ideas will be the least of the problems. Art would be the biggest one, and perhaps coming up with some uniqueness for the set.

How would that be? An AoE immob would keep more foes at range. It's not like the ST immob does not alert others in the spawn.

Can't I dream?

But on a serious note, for one I'm not saying it has to be huge Mez Protection. Can be something small, like what you get from Acrobatics for KB prot without any resistance. For seconds: blasters once nearly got mez prot with one epic but i got removed over concerns that it would be the only way to get mez prot as a blaster, and therefore it would be a requirement to get that specific ancillary set over all others. Don't remember the exact power, just recall Arcanaville talking about it.

Fair enough, although I still don't think I agree with the ST bonus damage under that road-map either. I certainly would not be amazed about a blaster getting a damage proc against critters that have no one standing by them.

Tossing spaghetti to the wall this crossed my mind reading your post:

What about a mechanic that not only adds splash mez to all single target blaster attacks with a low hit cap (5?) but also if every single attack did splash or piercing damage?

I note piercing simply because it is not very thematic for every bullet and arrow to detonate on impact.

Actually... I guess the "splash mez" and splash damage both would have to be on the same area schema (cone or target aoe.)

When Dual Pistol came out this was not possible, but I noticed playing Titan Weapon Tank that now the target of a cone can have special effects applied only to it (Bruise.)

So...

Archery, Assault Rifle and Dual Pistols (perhaps also Beam Rifle) can be piercing based while the rest are all splash on hit... bonus points if all affected foes by the splash effects get a big text pop-pup like Pierce or Detonation respectively.

That may, from a third point of view, be a bit more "WOA what you just did there?!"


BTW, may have already been brought up loads of times but this is my personal wishlist for other blaster nuisances (imho):

• I'd love to have all ranged attacks range normalized with perhaps a bonus over other ATs (all but snipes that is.) Currently having any attack have a short range sort of simply limits all my attack's to that minimum.
• I would love to see a much shorter animation time for snipes (all ATs) (it's OK to retain interrupt, BTW can we have interrupted attacks just do partial damage now?)
• Remove nuke's crashes and lower recharge to be in line with Rain of Arrows (All ATs)
• Turn ST immobs AoE (5 max)
• Make all armors in the blaster Ancillary Powersets add mez protection (hold/stun/immob.)

Are you basically proposing some form of unenhanceable mez that lasts about cast time + 1 seconds or something like that?

Also, got to say I'm not convinced with the conditional AoE Mez or ST extra damage. I sort of like the Gauntlet style AoE mez in general, though.

(NVM, reading your reply in the other thread... why are we spreading all this stuff accross 3 threads anyways? )

2 important things:

1) The blaster is level 40. No incarnate abilities, just generic IOs. Part of the goal was precisely to reality check some high end yet close to middle ground build.

2) It may be important to note I very often play Tankers with Dominators as a second most common AT, then Scrappers. That may give a bit of perspective on what kind of survivability levels I'm used to. Although got to say... not sure what AT would be more vulnerable than a dominator if he fails to mez... Defenders or Corruptors maybe? Not played either considerably so can’t tell how survivable they can be solo.

If we follow that trail of crumbs, though, we fall back forced to re-balance individual sets, though.

There are some simple things like turning the ST immob into AoE but even that gets into issues with IOs (turning them into targeted AoE instead of ST damage.)

If we give control tools to attacks over the sets, we may push some sets that had low damage but strong control into a corner.

Granting a potential universal mez proc of some sort may sound appealing off the top of my head (we have the tech now) but may again be redundant for some sets. Not sure though.

It does sound more natural than building up mez resistances or status protection via attacking, though. At least from where I stand.

I think it's fair to note that many Controller and Mastermind builds can get personal mez protection, in addition the mastermind pets take most the hits (mez included) for the mastermind while the controller gets to mez first (with my doms, I find mezzing them first is way more valuable than being able to use domination the rare cases I manage to get mezzed.)

So, perhaps that is part of the key: giving blasters more mezzing power can offset things, and after Doms got that buff, why the heck no?

Edit to add:

I undusted my fire/fire blaster this weekend. Mind you, fire/fire is the worse survivability blaster due to near total lack of mitigation effects and relying nearly entirely on killing fast. The experience was worse than I remembered. Sure, I may be rusty but I guess there is a reason I have hover in the build. Using it was the only way I managed to get any decent survivability.

I think the alternative would be a very horrible world.

BTW you bring a good point about dominators. I think the two ATs are extremely similar despite their huge differences, and perhaps Doms may be a good place to look at while coming up with potential suggestions.

Blasters already are heavily dependent on their secondary effects for survival... it may be a huge amount of work but perhaps we can convince the devs to amp up the level of control blasters get. May be an easier task if the new amplified control tools are restricted to the secondary set (since there are way fewer of those.)

I always think the Tier one Immob power all blaster get should be an AoE that affects up to 5 foes, for one.

All the versions of what I brainstorm above would grant the blaster up to Mag 12 protection to all control effects but knockback. This would include immob.

As for knockback... I sort of would love it personally if we were able to amplify the knockback instead of reduce it. It would never be an option because most people would hate it (it also may mess with Acrobatics low protection) but should I be knocked back, I personally rather be sent far than fall on the toes of my foe. Too many would see it as a nerf so it is not an option.

BTW: I been on and off (with bigger offs than ons) for almost/over 2 years now. The forums seem to have gotten worse instead than better at keeping me logged in. I am constantly having to re-log-in while browsing this place. What gives???

In my experience, I die on my blasters more often than not because I can't act. Mainly: because I can't move.

With a melee character, If I find myself in a bind, I can run around easily and use the world to my advantage, block line of sight to rest (more possible mostly in teams) or simply be able to take an inspiration.

With a blaster, if I'm in a bind I tend to be darn too binded (mezed) not even able to swallow an inspiration other than a break-free one (and it is too slow to use that just so you can take a heal.)

I think I agree with Arcana that Mez is a huge issue for blasters, not because she says so but because it correlates with my experience with blasters. (BTW there may also be a HUGE issue with Nova-type powers too, they are irresistible to use, and may as well come with a self-destruct label.)

Even with limited damage, if I was able to maneuver and use attacks secondary effects while affected by mez (up to certain realistic point) I would die way less (maybe I personally would die less often than I do with a scrapper.)

I think your hope is about redesigning every secondary or primary to have more useful effects. Although some sets may need help, I don’t think that [redesigning every power set to accommodate these tools] would be a realistic project.

Not trying to force or shoehorn the idea, if it does not work it does not work, but my idea is not make blasters "pay" for it, my goal is just to make mez less binary without eliminating it. (If I was able to do that for the entire game I would, specially for big raid/boss content)

I do agree with a more active approach, that’s why I recommended a click instead of a passive that automatically did the job, blaster survivability is usually the result of actions (other than secondary effects a result of their secondary set utility powers.)

With unlimited resources and development time and unknown engine capabilities (I know a lot has changed since I last poked under the hood) how would this sound:

Mez "don't affect blasters" inherent.
Passive power.
Give blasters a "fury bar" that goes up only based off offense (like doms).
The higher the fury bar is, the higher the magnitude of mez you can ignore, with, let’s say a max of 12 mag.

However, if you are affected by a percentage of that mag hold, you will be penalized with a damage debuff. The debuff will be fixed and a percentage of the current max.

Example: Furry bar at 8mag stun protection and you get stunned mag 4, you get 50% of the damage debuf. If you are at mag 12, that same 4 mag stun will result only in 33% of the max mez damage debuff. (not sure if I'm explaining this clearly enough.)

Perhaps up to a max of -60% damage debuff (although should you hit that max you likely also get mezzed since the prot will be overwhelm.)

Goal is that your mez protections are feed by your offensive actions, but mez is not entirely ignored.

Why I insist on not entirely ignoring mez? It has come up many times over this thread. Mez is becoming more and more often a bypassable thing. Eventually this may either lead to making mez useless or the devs may feel forced to ramp up mez to a point where we back to the start.

It would be a one stop revisit point that can be tweaked (lower the mag of the debuff)

The way i see it, I'm not penalizing. As I replied to A_F, right now you get mez you get zero damage. With this we increase that damage from zero to standard minus something. Mechanically it's a penalty, but from the result point of view, I see you getting all your mobility and a most of your damage back.


I guess the damage debuff can be a curve based off levels, like they did with the buff to Defenders. Can't do much about min-maxers being hit less harshly, but that's been how most penalties in this game worked for a long time anyways. By now I'd call it part of the game to be able to mitigate penalties disproportionally with mix-maxing.

You give up all your damage while mezzed. I proposed a way to only give up 15% (and in debuff form, this is heavily mitigated by buffs and enhancements) so you don't entirely ignore mez.

Technically a fully enhanced blaster with just SOs would give about 7.5% damage for the ability to snap out of a hold.

I stand corrected then!

Not saying I disagree with the points but I was under the impression that resilience used to only have resistance, the protection being added during its buff a while back... is my memory that rusty?

I said for ages that power should be given the "WarMace/Clobber treatment" (now I can add Cobra Strike as another reference to pull from.)