StratoNexus

Let me check the guide.

Sonic/Mental and Ice/Mental blasters UNITE!!!

Picturing all the mitigation those particular combinations have makes me wonder if they were kind of OK? That said, in addition to thinking the sustain changes are not enough, I do think Drain Psyche should be adjusted as well.

Will my blaster get mez protection and longer mezzes too from Domination?

AoE is trickier to look at. Electric is obviously not a top performer here, but it does fall into the median and it has some advantages (of course, the PBAoE nature is a strong disadvantage).

Short Circuit does OK damage, is gigantic, drains a ton of bad guy endurance, and can hit 16 foes, unlike most other sets that have a cone which only hits 10 (oddly Irradiate deals a bit more damage, SC is the "correct" amount based on the formula, but SC also has an end discount for the damage it deals (there are other oddities with SC and Irradiate, but I digress)), it just has the painfully long animation. AoEs are not generally judged by DPA, you use your two in a group and move on. From that PoV, Electric's AoE is median.

That said, it and Combustion use the same (beautiful) animation and that animation can remain beautiful, have the exact same overall look, AND easily be 1 to 1.5 seconds faster. Short Circuit with a 1.83s cast (1.98 arcanatime) would be a large improvement not just for less time posing in the middle of the spawn, but also in getting the cycle time down for the drain effect.

So Water has the good AoE and a nice heal. Maybe this will be impetus for them to lower the tier 9 recharge to 2 minutes.
Ice has lots of mitigation and will still be decent single target.
Sonic still improves team damage very well and has lots of mitigation.
Dual Pistols... We will have to see how good the animation changes are, but even I think this could be a problem (and I am a defender of Pistols generally). Maybe this will finally be the impetus to buff Swap Ammo's effects.

My musculature backed tier 4 Pyronic doesn't work nearly as well as this claim lays out. And I have never seen 1 judgement handle mass mobs in the game's harder content. Oh sure, fighting in the ITF at low difficulty, but fighting level 54 IDF or DE or BP? Not as much handling on its own.

It does also have to work for Rogues or for less notoriously horrible villains. That should be considered as well. But I agree removing the pause fine pause would be better in this case (but not really so much better that I worry about it).

Sometimes, not usually. Maybe even rarely. It is likely true that more often than not there should be side effects some people can make better use of than others (and the others get their own side effects they do better than others).

What if the intent is that it is an every so often ability out of the box but those who want can build to have it more often?

It is unfair my Fire blaster gets Blaze. It is unfair my Ice blaster gets Freeze Ray. It is unfair my SS brute gets Rage and Foot Stomp. It is unfair my Grav controller's AoE stun can also position spawns. Lots of things are unfair depending how you look at it.

I am guessing that is how it will work, but that is still a HUGE improvement because right now Blazing Aura shuts off when mezzed.

It looks like corruptor VS can scourge, so it should be very useful against Tyrant (of course, a Fire/Cold corruptor is amazingly potent).

If you have never used VS, it currently is pretty annoying. It has a long cast (3.3s) and only lasts 60 seconds. While it is potent over that time frame and worth it, especially against one hard target, it needs to be monitored because the power will recharge long before the pet dies, but you can only have one at a time out. So you don't just activate when it recharges, but have to pay attention when it drops. Watching my own buff bar for the blinky VS icon and then missing the Air Crackles has happened to me.

The good news is, Hawk mentioned VS is one of the powers they are looking at for possible Electric blast improvements.
I have a Kin/Elec/Mace defender that I love (no VS on this character though), but it is not the type of build for everyone. I have been very disappointed in the Gravitic Interface, which I would have thought to be more effective at aiding me in keeping spawns drained and I have not yet bothered switching to and trying Preemptive (I keep hoping they might make Gravitic useful, since I tier 4d it on two characters, sigh). Ion is the obvious choice for Judgement and Clarion Radial will help increase end drain as well (but then you have that gap in mez protection). Hmmm, Hybrid Support does not grant a buff to end mod like most other +special powers, I wonder if that is on purpose or an oversight. Storm Lore will be helpful with end drain as well and add nicely to AoE damage.

Psy has Aim, it is just called Psychic Focus, so take heart and think the mobs dead if you want.

The snipe change is supposed to improve snipes, not solve all the blaster problems. I think it makes the snipes very attractive while also not making them must haves. The snipe change hits its mark very close, you are looking at the wrong target.

I too wish this was a change for I24. I have avoided commenting on it, because the devs have been clear and upfront by saying "not at this time." However, it is probably not necessary for me to hold this back (I just think that if I was in their shoes, I might be thinking, "come on, we already acknowledged that and said, not now, maybe later").

True nukes being on a longish recharge is OK with me. I don't need them to be up as often as HoB or RoA. But the long recharge is limit enough. None of the crash is necessary, although I do understand it is thematically appropriate. I would want the -recovery eliminated and I think the end drain should be to 10%, instead of 0 (if it wants to be kept for theme). Perhaps add a -33% damage debuff for 20 seconds after nuking for thematic reasons (current nuke's negative can be overcome with a blue, this one could be overcome with a red).

I agree that it lacks consistency. I don't think the variance is very large and I like that the variance has been added.

I think you are incorrect. How the stalker changes work can vary based on a lot of factors. Stalker secondaries have always had some inconsistencies that affected their consistent powers across the board. Placate works a lot better on a defense set than it does on a regen stalker, for example. I've lost my focus when needing to click on my mitigation since regen is an active secondary. My regen benefited a lot more from the max HP increase than some other sets, etc.

I am not sure why you think this; outside of Assault Rifle, every set with a snipe can use Aim. It doesn't have to be perma to be useful. They could use a lockout mechanic to make it more consistent, but I still don't think it is strong enough to worry about and I don't think the variance between builds that have it perma and builds that don't even take the snipe is going to be as high as some are worried about.

This does seem likely. They have mentioned they don't want the kind of mitigation that would allow them to take Alpha strikes in general. That said, with IOs, blasters can get pretty good at avoiding a lot of damage. The I24 sustain addition is not strong enough on its own to survive large spawns, but on a solid blaster build it should be very noticeable. My main concern over this being all they might add is not what my level 50 IOd, Incarnate blasters can do, which I think is going to be quite a bit improved, but rather if this will help blasters (enough) from 20-40+.

Wow. I don't think you are ever going to be happy in this area then. Even melee sets vary by more than that. I am for some buffs to Electric, but I do think being ~20% lower than Fire is fine.

Yeah, but you said Hybrid didn't help Ball Lightning. I never disputed anything about VS and Hybrid interaction and fully support making VS better, including allowing Hybrid to affect it.

I disagree with your timeline and your assessment of how useful the end drain can be (plus the hold in Tesla Cage). I don't think either of us will convince the other, sadly. That said, I like some ideas to improve the secondary effect. Having some of the powers also grant -max endurance looks like it could be very helpful, while still not allowing insta-spawn disabling.

I understand some sets secondaries take hold faster. But not all do. The slows in Ice still allow the full enemy chain before they start helping. Mitigation techniques often take longer to apply than offensive increases, Dark can get some modest debuffing going pretty quick, but can ramp it up even higher with time. It is nice that Beam's secondary effect occurs failry quickly, but that secondary effect cannot negate an entire spawn (yes, yes, death is the ultimate debuff, dead mobs don't shoot back and other boring things that ignore the reality that not everything dies in 12 seconds).

Really? Man if only I had menti... Oh wait.

Oh no. Many of us did. You cannot imagine the joy I am feeling about it. I hope they make Death Shroud, Lightning Field, and Hot Feet just suppress, rather than shut off as well.

So far they all sound good to me, although I have worries about /Dark, even its power sounds good.

Back in the distant past, before I13, we didn't have all these IOd Defense builds running around because you couldn't really get there with what was available. I built my blaster around regen, because one of my problems was the fact that I could survive fights, but then had to wait before engaging more. While I am of the belief that this is not going to be enough, we are getting a lot of regen. This is significant and will be a large help (but blasters have a long way to go), especially on high end builds.

But that last bit is one that bothers me a little. I have a few blasters in the early twenties and those are what I will be transferring to beta to test with (although I will also test with my 50 Fire^3). I am very curious how this will help in the 20-40 range, and I just ran two blasters up (one is at 40 and one is at 32), so I have a fresh basis of comparison.

Well, they likely know more about how many gallons are in there than you or I. I understand their concern with giving too much though. If you give too little, you can feel free to add more. If you give too much, it is harder to take some away. Look at the hand-wringing they are doing over Drain Psyche. This is the perfect opportunity to adjust it so that it helps more at the low end (or even without any enemies needed) while also bringing its ridiculous high end in line. But they are hesitating, and rightly so, because they don't want to take away something they gave us in the past, even though they know they should.

Here are my hopes.
1) They can determine this will not be enough in beta and implement some additional mitigation by I24.

2) If that is not possible (and it very well may not be), that they have a form of additional mitigation laid out and prepped so that after gathering some data on live, if the changes made in I24 turn out not to be enough, they can more quickly implement additional changes (say by late fall) rather than having to wait until I33 to look at blasters again. Use this time focusing on blasters to be prepared and ready to deliver on the statement that the beati... er buffs will continue until performance improves.

3) Increase the blaster ranged dam mod to 1.25 and the melee dam mod to 1.125. Increase the corruptor ranged dam mod to 0.9. Increase the defender range dam mod to 0.8 and give defenders scrapper base HPs and the stalker HP cap. (what? )

Sigh. Define compete. Does it need to be only 2% lower than Fire? 10%? If the DPA is 30% lower is that too far?

I know it likes to be said that drain is useless, but bosses last longer than 12 seconds usually and they can be drained in that time without huge build requirements. Most people agree that Elec has at least some utility so it is OK to be lower than sets with less utility. How much less is acceptable? I am not sure, my gut tells me it should about 20%, but I could see 30% and not be offended. What range of DPS variance should exist between the bottom and the top?

Using Ball Lightning during the leveling process is silly! You heard it here. Look, I know you meant purely for single target attacking, but remember that while leveling Blaze isn't recharging in 4 seconds either. You can see from Umbral's numbers that your point is clearly laid out though, since it is close to the bottom on just SOs.

How does Assault Core not work with Ball Lightning? How does Support fail to add benefit?

True.

Look, when I said Elec should do well against Tyrant, I was trying to say that at the high end (which is where we fight Tyrant) Electric is not terrible and that while other blasters were dealing no damage running away from Flow, VS would still be happily plunking away on Tyrant. I was not saying Elec blasters would outdamage Fire blasters or provide the extra -resist like a Beam could. Just that VS gave them one advantage and that they were middle of the pack, not bottom.

No, my argument boils down to:
I said the snipe changes will allow builds to increase their single target DPS, but the increase is not so large that everyone will feel they must chase perma fast cast.

You then said the new snipe was very strong, the DPA of these things is twice that of any of the other power in most of these sets, and this would widen the performance gap between high end builds and other builds.

I then suggested that the difference in DPS between those who had perma fast cast snipe and those who just have occasional fast cast snipe will not be very large and depending on the builds the perma snipe build might not even be better DPS. I think chasing a perma snipe build will be a viable choice, I don't think it will be the only viable choice.

I'd say it is more like needing 20 gallons of gas to get there and blasters had 12 gallons and these changes added 4 more gallons. The sustain changes are significant, but we will still be scrambling for those other 4 gallons whereas every other AT has 20 or more gallons and can spend their time detailing and adding better parts.

You are adding that one strong attack to a string of others. Overall damage output over 10 seconds is not going to be doubled even from the current situation where you don't ever use a snipe when going for DPS. Builds with perma snipe will not be doing double the damage of builds with situational snipe, but rather will only be some modest and reasonable range higher (and depending on the builds that is not necessarily true, the non-perma snipe build could still be higher DPS). And the blaster secondary with the easiest way to do this does not get Build Up, so it is not pulling ahead as some people seem to be thinking (but hopefully it will be pulling closer).

Thanks for the clarification. I disagree. I like that different secondaries can vary in abilities. If buffing snipes is a special gimmick of /Dev, I am totally OK with that. Other secondaries do things /Devices cannot.

Do you believe all of the following? Because someone believes in each of these, but rationally none of them should be true in a game where we want lots of variety.

Lots of additional AoE effects should be equally accessible regardless of your secondary.
Power Boost should help every primary equally.
Extreme long range attacks should be equally accessible regardless of your secondary.
Higher damage buffing based on the number of enemies you are facing should be equally accessible regardless of your secondary.
Solid levels of control should be equally accessible regardless of your secondary.
Very high DPA, single target melee attacks should be equally accessible regardless of your secondary.
Having two holds for a boss should be equally accessible regardless of your secondary.
Having two stuns for a boss should be equally accessible regardless of your secondary.
Being able to stack cone AoEs should be equally accessible regardless of your secondary.
Being able to stack PBAoEs should be equally accessible regardless of your secondary.

It likely wasn't answered because the answer is obvious. Did they announce changes that would address blaster's in-combat sustainability beyond the help the regen/abosrb/heal buff will provide? No. So your answer is, "Not other than the current announced changes at this time."

Plus your question is kind of answered here:
Just because he didn't reply directly to your post doesn't mean he failed to address your question.

I think gathering up the energy and having it course through you in such a way as to buff you is represented fine with the current animation and FX. That said, the Lightning Rod animation and effect would be even better and still works for the current effect of Lightning Clap.

It is supposed to be limiting. That is why a limiter is used, to limit something. It is not so strong that it must be kept from being perma, but it is strong enough that some limit is interesting. People keep asking for stuff like "let me build to-hit with Defiance so I can get the fast snipe all the time", but the idea is that you don't have it all the time outside of specific builds. Importantly, while it is strong, it is also not so strong that you are seriously hurting yourself if you don't make it perma. Therefore it is not a bad thing if some builds are perma fast snipe and others choose not to be.

When you talk of accessible, are you strictly talking about perma fast snipes? Because fast snipes are readily accessible to every blaster build on a regular basis with out too much delay between the ability to use it (and using a snipe occasionally without fast cast is not a terrible thing).

That argument did not avail me when they changed it on Tankers, but you may have better luck because that is the argument that was used at the time to not also make the change for blasters (ironically, I thought it made more sense to add damage to the blaster version and more control to the tanker version, and I am still confused how that all worked out).

Fire, Mind, and Plant are also solid damage dealers early.

Yes and it should be done both for the QoL help that it gives to most players as well as the reduction it needs to be on the top end. The power of Christ compels you.

Plus you could consider making WoC have a 15 foot or 20 foot radius as well as making Scare's duration ~17 seconds.

The really sad thing is, Tesla Cage's hold duration is currently 8 seconds. I really think all the single target stuns and holds should be bumped to ~12 seconds and Scare and Touch of Fear (or whatever it's new name will be) should be ~17 seconds.

I'd also make Tesla Cage's -recovery last 12 seconds.