Watchdog

I think you're arguing two extremes. I think Chaos' understands exactly what you're saying, with the caveat being that we're talking about the secondary effect of the set's attack chain. Your points all hold up perfectly as long as you concede that what you're proposing still requires a shot of a major -END power (SC/TV/PS/EMP) for a blaster to leverage their secondary effects in quick fashion.

He's not saying they have to be out of END completely, but rather that to get them to a point where their ability to attack is meaningfully limited would require several applications of a secondary effect, regardless of the type of endurance debuff.

In other words, without SC or TB, the -END component of the other ELB powers will never, and should never, be enough to drastically curtail critter END before the DMG of those powers kills them outright. Making that so would be a drastic, overpowered change to -END for blasters.

ELB's up-every-fight-unenhanced attack chain already has a power that leverages the effects of -END very well, and you can take it very early on. The nuke change will add to that very nicely and make it ranged, to boot.

So I don't think the devs need to reinvent the -END wheel to address the shortcomings of Electricity Blast. The -END amount of its most-used attacks could be cranked up some, but that's really all that's needed, in my opinion.

I couldn't agree more. A lot of what we're discussing here, especially regarding -END, presumes that fights are lasting longer than blaster encounters typically should. I'm iffy about enhancing those effects to enable players to better leverage the results because I think it takes the AT away from its design.

In other words, some of the suggestions mentioned here for boosting the effects of -END would make Electricity Blast the only blaster primary that could reasonably be built around its secondary effect. And while I find the notion of that VERY interesting, it doesn't really suit what a Blaster should be.

I mentioned something like this in an earlier post. I think you could take the current iteration of -end (which can be leveraged very well in conjunction with other powers), maybe dial up the occurrence and frequency of the mini-hold that happens in the wake of some ELB powers (that couple seconds where the critter just stands there shaking), and maybe even toss in a rare occurrence of the chain effect you and others have suggested.

But even if it's just the mini-hold, I like this idea more than getting into the very involved and complicated effects of -END being bandied about recently. I would LOVE to play a toon that had those abilities, but adequately explaining their actual affects in the short power descriptions would be very challenging.

Keep the -END that the powers have. Those effects can still be leveraged to profound effect with SC/TB/PS/EMP for players that want to go that route. But adding other defensive affects adds some diversity and versatility, which I think fits well into the design of ELB.

I hope they don't do that. I know it may sound counter-intuitive coming from me, the guy that wants another attack, but as far as ELB goes, I've always been happy trading damage for versatility. I want that more diverse ranged attack chain, but I also love the many ways this set can be approached from this build perspective or that one. I don't want that to change.

That sounds fun, but maybe the jump shouldn't have the full DMG of the original blast. Maybe just its original DMG value, unenhanced. I'd want to avoid ELB's secondary effects going from being among the very worst immediately to being far and away the best.

This would be very nice, and I wouldn't mind Charged Bolts dropping to 3 seconds, either. The ranged chain is serviceable as-is in the late game when everyone heaps on +recharge. I'd just want to smooth that out so that it's good for players at low levels, too.

Or they can stay as-is in accordance with an additional attack you can rely on, which brings me to...

I would be fine keeping the recharge of CB and LB as they are if these changes were made, with the catch that I'd also want the range to be pushed out to 80ft in i24. If Cage gets these changes an no tweak to range in i24, that would be a /facepalm, in my opinion.

The saving grace of VS for me was that the nature of ELB pretty much forces you into melee range a lot of the time. So having VS tag along to blast stuff is a decent little benefit. The knocks against it for me is that the DMG is so small (even enhanced) that it's easy to skip it (or not miss it when you forget to re-cast), and its duration is so short that you feel like you're in a constant state of re-summoning.

So for me, I would just crank up its duration (no overlap/stack) to at least 2 minutes, preferably 4, and maybe dial up the damage a little or give it another worthwhile attack.

Yes, please.

I can't say that I recall definitively, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case. If you fired Short Circuit, yes, absolutely. But on their own, blasts wouldn't drain an opponent before they killed them. Maybe bosses, but I don't think so. I'm getting old, but I'm pretty sure.

I don't think it's impossible to make useful. And I also find it useful in certain circumstances now (but only with the big drainers; not with any other powers).

What I'm saying is that making the -end secondary effect of blasts so powerful that they become so useful that they could stop even a minion from attacking BEFORE the blasts themselves killed the minion... That would probably be overpowered.

Minions are an extreme case, but even doing so with an LT might be too much. It would go from being the most worthless secondary effect to being the best, in my opinion, and by a pretty huge margin in most cases.

Now, if the set had a more plentiful and efficient attack chain, the individual effects might stack up enough to yield those types of results in a more gradual fashion. As it is, you've only got 3 blasts and 2 of them are on long timers. They would have to have A LOT of -end to have the level of drain that would be useful.

Otherwise, they must be coupled with a large-draining power to yield those types of worthwhile results. With TB on a shorter timer and no crash, that's certainly one way to go (assuming the DMG isn't dropping spawns outright). Otherwise it's just SC and PS (if you're EL2). Either way, having to pair it with other powers (especially point-blank ones) isn't exactly in keeping with the design of the set and AT.

I think I've been clear. I thought you meant you wanted to fix endurance drain.

But it's not something that can be fixed. Fixing something implies that it once worked properly. It NEVER worked the way I mentioned earlier. The -end aspect of ELB attacks were never substantial enough to make any worthwhile difference on their own. And to be honest, if they did go that far with it, it might make ELB overpowered, but would more likely just be redundant.

It's never going to be so powerful that the -end will drain an opponent before the corresponding attacks kill them. So at best it'll simply be a better iteration of what we have now; that the -end component of attacks will only be worth a squat once you've drained your opponents with other powers. And while that sounds awesome for Defenders, it's really only a worthwhile playstyle for Blasters if they're looking to amuse themselves with a personal character concept. It'll only VERY rarely be an approach that will be more efficient than straight damage or using holds.

If you're suggesting something other than that, then it's going to be something more along the lines of a complete re-working of how -end has always worked in this game, which I find more far-fetched than your assertion that the devs might pull a snipe change if it's not well-received or does not sufficiently address the problem they were looking to fix.

So instead of asking me what you mean and leaving me to assume all of the above, why not share?

I'm not supporting that, either. Again, I feel like I have to point you to the title of the thread. I'm specifying Zapp because we're talking about Electricity Blast. I think it would be fun to discuss what we might replace snipes with in the other sets, but that's not the point of the thread.

Again, it's not that I don't care about other sets or that I feel ELB is the worst-ever set that needs a lot of specific dev attention. I'm addressing the set in particular because it's the topic of the post. I think other Blaster sets could also use some attention, and I'd be happy to share those thoughts in a thread titled "Blaster Changes Don't Fix [INSERT SET HERE]."

Hold that thought.

Now go back and actually read what I said:

I'm fully aware that virtually every Electricity Blast power has a drain component, but only Short Circuit and TB's even amounted to anything meaningful. So if you're advocating turning the drain of those powers into something significant on their own, that's another discussion entirely. That would be a ground-up re-imagining of what endurance drain has ever been with this set.

Aside from the powers that are specifically designed to drain large amounts of endurance, the -end component of ELB's attacks was never something that would shut an opponent down before the DMG component killed them outright.

So again, meaningful endurance drain only exists point-blank prior to level 32. If you want to make that no longer true, I would LOVE to have that discussion. That sounds like it could be a lot of fun, but it's also something that would benefit from having a more efficient attack chain.

I was just tossing out ideas based on the mechanics of the game right now. End drain is broken. As much as I love my drain powers, the -end component of my attacks can no longer even keep a target drained once I've sapped them down to zero with SC/PS.

My original post (my first in years) assumed that that would continue to be the case; that -end had been busted for so long that it didn't feel like something anyone was interested in fixing. And whether I like it or not, that makes Short Circuit and Power Sink far less useful than they had been in the past.

So yeah, if that was going to remain the case, I would possibly be okay with them making some sweeping changes to Short Circuit, so I tossed that idea out there to see what people thought. They didn't like it, had some suggestions of their own (including making Zapp a regular blast), and I heard what they said, realized that there were some things I hadn't considered, and suggested something else.

That's the point of discussion, no? I didn't dig in and refuse to acknowledge other points of view, did I? No, I listened and came around to a suggestion that I think works a lot better...

*I* actually use Short Circuit. I LOVED Short Circuit. It was one of my faves years ago. But they took a hammer to the stuff that makes it great. It's not what it used to be. If they want to fix that, GREAT. But they haven't yet. I based my suggestions on what is currently the reality of the situation.

I know there are. I'm a numbers guy, so I'm not thoroughly opposed to it, either. My suggestion is just easier on everyone. Many people are not going to understand how to get the most out of that change. Many people are not going to be happy about the lengths they have to go to to get the most out of that change once they DO figure it out. It's undoubtedly a can of worms, and I think it's best left unopened.

I am one of those people. It'll never be my favorite power, but a longer duration and maybe some addition to its overall effectiveness would go a long way toward making me like it more.

Look, I get that my first post turned you off. But I conceded that that wasn't a great idea pretty quickly and moved onto something else after more discussion and consideration. If you're going to remain hung up on an idea I have admitted several times was ill-considered, I don't know what else to say.

Change. Not changes. One change. They are already changing Zapp to function more along the way that I'd like it to function. All I'm saying is make it an outright change instead of the new snipe mechanic they're proposing. I find it unnecessarily complicated.

Furthermore, making this change to ELB's snipe opens the door to address the shortcomings in other sets that have snipes, too. Some of those sets could use another straightforward attack. Others could use something else entirely, regardless of what it is.

Yes, I also mentioned that I think it would be nice if they revisited the DMG/END/RECH balance, too. With fewer powers to choose from, it would help if they were up a little faster to give the ranged chain more flexibility. It would be nice if they did this, but I would absolutely settle for Zapp functioning as a standard blast (I don't even care if it's a full-blown Tier 3 or something somewhere in the middle -- just something I can make a ranged chain with).

So again, my suggestion is really just the one change. I'm trying to keep it simple because I AGREE with you guys about the other stuff, too. End Drain needs attention, SC's animation needs to be reduced, VS needs a longer duration, TC might need a tweak or two, and so on.

As a whole, the set could use a lot of work. But prior to them announcing i24 changes, I never spoke out about ELB needing specific attention at all. I just figured now that they ARE making some changes, why not discuss which changes might benefit the set the most.

And really, given the change they're already making to Zapp, why is what I'm suggesting so outrageous? Why do you feel that my request means that I want the set balanced around some other paradigm?

I do not want that. The changes that the devs are making are doing that already. They're making Zapp more of a straight-ahead blast that can be used at 80ft (and beyond). I'm just saying make it an 80ft blast, period. No tricky prereqs or complicated mechanics. Just an 80ft blast.

Given the i24 changes, what I'm advocating isn't much different.

Prior to the proposed i24 changes, I never suggested any changes to this set. Now that they're making changes, I'm just saying make them ones that serve the set well based on its shortcomings.

I don't think it's been specifically ignored. This is a thread about Electric, so I'm arguing from the perspective of someone playing this particular set. If this was a thread about another Blaster set that could use some individual attention, I would have different suggestions with the same goal in mind -- addressing unnecessary weaknesses.

The thing about Electric that always frustrated me was the lack of a decent ranged attack chain, so that's what my suggestions are aimed at. There might be other ideas that accomplish the same result, but the proposed change to snipes or changes to powers that don't affect the ranged chain (SC, VS), don't cut it for me.

"Blaster Changes Don't Fix Electric" seemed like a good place to talk about the things Electric needs that aren't included in the upcoming blaster changes.

I think that's looking at it through the lens of a level 50 character (especially the ultra recharge build part). During the leveling process, yeah, it helps to have an array of 80ft ranged attacks, especially one that hits as hard as Power Burst.

You're right about its comparison to Power Blast. But you know what's cool? Having 2 powers like that to compare to each other, that you can use back-to-back to blow stuff up. Does it matter to me that the DPA of one is less efficient than the other? No, because it's another attack in my chain that makes me that much more free to choose the power I want to use next or NEED to use next.

NOT having a decent attack chain means I don't even have the choice. I'm just stuck recycling the same busted chain over and over.

Right, so I need a high-endurance toggle and specific slotting/enhancement choices to make use of the most-desired aspect of an attack, as opposed to just having an attack that doesn't force me to pick other specific powers and spend slots and craft enhancements to use.

I totally see what you're saying and don't disagree, but think of the lower level blasters. They count, too. The game is not and should not be balanced around the powers and builds and slots that you MIGHT have late in the game. Think of the new player or, God forbid, any player that decides to play through the game as intended instead of powerleveling to 50. An endurance-heavy toggle is a big deal to those players. New players have very little hope of even understanding how to get the most out of their post-i24 snipe.

You're absolutely right, but that's not the point. The point is that you can choose to not even care about how Power Burst, Power Blast, and Sniper Blast compare to one another, take all 3 and have an even more diverse, efficient, and effective attack chain.

There are blaster sets that do not have that choice. And that would be okay if the choices they DID have resulted in a good ranged attack chain. Electricity has neither.

I disagree that Power Burst, or ANY Tier 3 blast for that matter, is a power that tons of people skip, and would argue that those that do skip it do so later in the game when their build allows for enough recharge to not miss it in their ranged rotation.

And I'm also betting that many of the people that have skipped Tier 3's will go back and pick them up once their range is extended to 80ft. With super-high recharge and little concern for endurance late in the game, I think a lot of the people looking to drop a post-i24 ranged attack (and I still doubt that number is huge) would be just as likely to drop their Tier 1 blast than their Tier 3. Still, I think most would take them all and get full-on blast-happy.

I agree with all of this. But the title of the thread makes most of it moot. There ARE things about this particular set that need a little love and are not addressed by the upcoming changes. I think it's the ranged attack chain and disagree that its most glaring shortcomings are in the animation of Short Circuit (which I feel MANY ELB blasters don't use all that often) or the performance of VS (a power that many ELB blasters don't like and/or don't take).

I agree with you on the snipe change and it's potential upside. But I loathe the mechanics of the change and think it will be misunderstood/off-putting to newer players and players that don't focus on the numbers-side of the game or obsess over the nitty-gritty specifics of their builds.

I say just make it an 80ft blast. I don't care if it's classified as a Tier 3 or something more akin to whatever the hell Dehydrate is supposed to be. That's how I feel from an ELB perspective.

In general, I still say drop snipes altogether and retool/replace them with something each set that has one needs. ELB needs another attack. For Energy and Fire it could be something else entirely to make them more unique. Or heck, maybe it IS another attack. I don't care if their chain is better than ELB's as long as ELB's is good. Right now it's NOT good. CB/LB/BL is a crappy ranged chain and you can't fix that by tweaking Short Circuit or Voltaic Sentinel.

Those powers may need some love, too, but it doesn't fix ELB's substandard ranged chain.

Right, so we're now relying on 4 quick buffs/casts every minute or so: VS, Aim, Buildup, and now Clap.

Imagine a superhero movie...

HeroGuy walks into a CoH warehouse. He does his little wavy-arm thing to summon Voltaic Sentinel. He walks around the corner and spots the first group of enemies. He does the Aim animation. He does the Buildup animation. He does the Lightning Clap animation. All 3 in a row, before he engages anyone.

Now imagine that from the beginning of that mission to the end, he stops roughly every 45 seconds to do ALL of those 4 animations over and over and over again, in AND out of battle.

Question: Does this make him appear more like a superhero or a spastic with SEVERE, uncontrollable ticks?

That's a nice sentiment and it's true in a lot of cases, especially from a broad perspective. But for fans of Electricity Blast, this has certainly not been the case. The ranged deficiencies of its non-existent attack chain, the beating it took when End Drain was hit, the inherent imbalance of the efficiency of the set when compared to the majority of others... These are all problems that have been pointed to a lot and never addressed.

To be clear, I love how connected and responsive the devs have been to their fan base since the launch of this game overall, but there are some glaring issues of imbalance and failures of game mechanics that have gone on for years, giving people concerned about them no reason whatsoever to believe that they'll ever be addressed.

With regard to Electricity Blast, those issues may be relatively minor, all things considered, but they're made to appear worse and worse with the advent of new sets and changes to others. And with things like the broken melee pet AI that have been big issues forever, one starts to wonder if the devs have just given up on certain things.

And I get that balance is subjective and that certain things can be explained away thematically, but certain things are just obvious. If other sets get 60% more ranged attacks AND faster recharge times, that is not balance. And if the upcoming slate of changes improve performance evenly for most sets but more for a handful, the sets receiving more love SHOULD NOT BE THE ONES THAT ARE ALREADY PERFORMING THE BEST IN THIS AREA. It should be the ones performing the worst.

In other words, it could easily be argued that sets like Fire and Water should benefit the least from these changes, or not at all. But not only are they benefiting from these changes, they're benefiting MORE than the sets that have fewer ranged options AND slower recharge times.

So it's taking the existing imbalance and making it worse.

Look at my Water vs. Electricity scenarios above. After the proposed changes, a level 20 Water Blaster will have their heaviest-hitting ST attack double in range, making it wildly effective and much safer to use. A level 20 Electricity Blaster could see no improvement at all. Yes, his snipe might be able to be used mid-fight under certain circumstances or in accordance with at least one other power, or as a result of a very specific build. To see that benefit all the time or most of the time, he's locked into making certain power, slotting, and enhancement choices.

Water gets a huge performance bump with zero consideration of any of the above.

Fire, Energy, and other sets will get the same bump Water did, PLUS the same bump Electricity gets, on top of already having more ranged powers to choose from and more efficient recharge times.

So the worst-performing sets benefit the least. Does that feel like balance to you?

And the "Well go play another set instead" argument gets old, too. "If you want X, Y, and Z go play the sets that have X, Y, and Z." This set should stay functionally inefficient and less attractive to players... why, exactly?

Which gives Short Circuit situational utility on teams with no support. We can all sit here and fondly recall that one time, at band camp, when Short Circuit was an awesome power. And I get that it still has some utility now, but its actual utility for a Blaster is extremely situational at best.

No, it's a redundant survival tool for a Blaster. When solo, it's only safe to go point blank when your target is held. A held target can remain held, as all Electricity blasters have at least one, and upwards of three, good perma-capable holds to choose from.

Situationally, yes, that pesky Elite Boss that's resistant to holds but susceptible to drain is a perfect candidate for SC. I get that, and like I said it DOES have some utility. But I can just as easily choose another power, save the slots, and pop a couple inspirations to drop that EB.

Again, this is a set with a perma-capable hold and access to many other nifty tools that can easily replace the utility of SC. And I'm not opposed to keeping SC around with some improvements. This was just one "what if" I had to increase the set's ranged attack chain.

That's an assumption, just like those that assume that everyone takes VS. Not everyone uses Aim and Buildup every time they're up. In fact, I would argue that a very significant percentage don't; that use them primarily when gearing up for a snipe or nuke, or in those teams where you're standing there shooting an AV for a half hour and have nothing better to do but pop whatever powers you have handy.

I think a lot of Blasters play in most situations without a lot of concern for those types of powers, and that it should not be a mechanic that the devs should focus on. I'm sorry, but I think it's silly that very soon we might have a situation where every blaster is stopping every 30 seconds to do the Aim/Buildup dance and/or randomly clap their hands for a survival buff. It's going to look like a gaggle of Tourrette sufferers.

It's silly.

That's what I want. That's what electricity doesn't have. Give me a third blast to go with my first two SO I CAN MAKE AN ATTACK CHAIN. Electricity is one of a very few sets where this is a glaring problem. I feel like I've said this a lot, so I'll put it on its own line in bold so it's clear...

I want a ranged attack chain that does not suck. ELB's current attack chain sucks, and it can only be called an attack chain if you include a 16-second AoE that MUST be used almost constantly as a single-target attack.

I've been playing Water Blast over the last few days, and with i24 it'll have 5 80ft ranged attacks in its chain (with 3/7/8/10/16 recharge), plus a short-range cone for giggles. And that's before you figure the nuke in. Fire will have 4 80-footers plus the snipe tweak, with a 2/4/10/16 cycle.

ELB will have its same crappy 4/8/16 chain, along with a snipe that you can maybe use mid-combat if it's a full moon and there are two or more runners on base.

I want a ranged attack chain. It doesn't have to be as cool and flashy as a 3/7/8/10/16 chain with a built-in heal and a stacking mechanic that adds extra damage and effects. I just want another attack to form an actual, working ranged chain that isn't horrible.

And the recharge times could use a little love, as well. Since you're confused about what I want, I'll elaborate on this a bit, too.

I'm a lvl 15 Water Blaster looking at a standard solo spawn. I might open with my AoE for the knockdown to open things up. Depending on who falls down, I might polish off a minion real quick or focus on dropping the LT. As this unfolds, because I have more powers to choose from AND quicker recharge times, I'm able to choose the power I want next, or the one I need to drop the next target. I'm able to think a move or two ahead, adding a little tactical/strategic fun to the mix, and I can heal myself without skipping a beat. And none of this factors in the Tidal Power mechanic, which also adds to the fun and tactics.

I'm a lvl 15 Electricity Blaster looking at a standard solo spawn. Every encounter is the same. I have to open with my Snipe because otherwise I'll never use it. Then I'll chase it with my AoE just to get its recharge started since I only have 3 attacks to choose from. My ranged attacks don't have secondary effects that help me, and my point blank power forces me to take damage I have no heal for. So after the AoE, I have to always choose the guy who poses the largest threat, fire my next two blasts, which won't drop him because he's a LT, so I kite for a moment to wait for something to recharge. And that's how the fight ends, hitting whichever power recharges next. No real tactics, just a repetitive sequence of events that gets old quick.

If the recharge times were a bit more palatable, that would help some. It wouldn't be a solution, but it sure as hell wouldn't hurt. What I really need is another attack in addition to the streamlined recharges so that I can choose powers strategically and efficiently.

Again, this is strictly looking at it as a ranged set. I know I can factor in punches and stuff from my secondary, but so can the blasters that have awesome ranged attack chains. That isn't balance. That's ignoring the long-standing problems of existing sets while fixing other sets AND rolling out new sets that make these problems seem worse.

My Electricity Blaster was my first toon 8+ years ago and I still enjoy playing him at times. But now that I've played all the Blaster sets a bunch, most to 50, I'm at a point where I look at Electricity and simply cannot explain away its deficiencies anymore. I have a soft spot for it, but I'd never recommend it to a new player because it is literally one of the very worst blaster primaries, and its ranged attack chain is far and away its most glaring issue, especially when compared to those of the vast majority of other sets.

Sorry for the novel, but I'm trying my best to explain myself...

Agreed, but if we're vocal about it, I expect this to change before too long. We can mail stuff between our toons now, so we know they're open to doing these types of things. Given that this game is pretty much all about playing multiple characters, this seems like a no-brainer, especially now that SG/VG membership is more transient than ever with the alignment system.

How about an option when a character is without a SG to join any SG that our other characters have invite permissions to?

On a similar note, I'd also love to be able to set my personal SG to not have leadership roles expire (or at least longer possible duration), and to be able to promote/demote offline characters so that I don't have to log in so many toons to make organizational changes.