dugfromthearth

so I ran through the Marauder mission again, same result.

I petitioned, a GM appeared. Let me say how cool it is that they appear as police drones.

GM hunted around - I had no idea that 2 of the giant doors in the room opened. They don't really go anywhere, each just has a tiny room with one spawn.

mission complete.

Now both my characters are unstuck - very happy with the GM's help. But unhappy that when you file a petition it does not say that you should wait online for a response.

ran the Laura Lockhart arc with a team, my missions. In one mission there is a computer terminal. The other said it said the team leader needed to talk to it. So I clicked on it, got nothing. We could not complete the mission. That mission cannot be dropped.

I tried again solo after it reset. Same problem.

I petitioned and logged. This was a week + ago

Today my other character could not complete a Marauder mission in PI. Cleared the map but it said I needed to defeat all villains. Swept it several times - no villains. Mission cannot be dropped. Filed a petition.

Went back to my other character. Filed a new petition on the stuck mission. A GM contacted me, we went into the mission. The mission text says to find Laura. I clicked on the computer - still nothing. The GM told me to click on the body on the ground. I clicked on it - it was Laura. That let me click on the computer and get through the mission.

I wasn't doing it right. In my defense, there are a ton of bodies in that mission and the rest do nothing and they all look the same. But it worked. I was just doing it wrong.

Now I'm wondering if I missed something in the Marauder mission.

the axe gang is okay, but the Buddha's Palm far outclasses them

snipes are despised currently by players who min/max, the players who have tons of influence and drive up prices in the AH. So snipe enhancements are dirt cheap, they have to be given away.

but suppose snipes suddenly became good. People were suddenly interested in slotting snipe IO powersets. And not just on new characters - tons of characters were suddenly respeced to use snipes and they all need IOs.

hypothetically speaking, what snipe IO's and sets would be the good ones. The ones that forward thinking players might stock up on now while prices are low?

quick take. Note that "needs no help" means compared to other blasters sets, not compared to other AT's which is a different discussion.

Sonic Blast - used for teaming, does the most total damage there where -res helps everyone. Has a clear niche, needs no help

Ice Blast - a control set. Bitter Freeze Ray should get the snip treatment. Make it fast activating with 22% to hit. Ice then has 2 good single target holds for good control and the DPS would go up a lot. That would fix the set and seems obvious.

Energy Blast - the knockback issue. Given that there will 13 blaster primaries with Water, there seems room for a niche knockback set. That said, animation time is an issue.

Electric Blast - the sapping set. Given that there will 13 blaster primaries with Water, there seems room for a niche sapping set. But I think the real fix to this set is to redo VS to be like Haunt. Cast it on a foe and it goes after them until they are down, then goes after others. Makes the damage reliable at least part of the time.

I might try an ice/ice blaster again. I liked the control plus damage, I hated having to wait to recover health.

I am also excited for any improvement to DP. I liked the set but gave up on it eventually. I won't play a blaster with it, but I may redo a corr with dp.

ironically I am not looking at any sets with snipe. My other corr is sonic.

I have an ipad. It is just okay. I can play sudoku on it and watch netflix.

But really I want to play CoH. And my laptop is too big to carry around everywhere.

If I could carry a tablet and pull up CoH whenever I was bored - that would be amazing. Even if it is wifi only, I'm in Seattle so every block has 2 starbucks with free wi-fi.

anyone playing CoH on anything besides a desktop/laptop already?

I assume blaster snipes do more damage than defender snipes. So damage wise blasters will still be ahead.

if defenders start competing with blasters in terms of damage done - that's an issue.

also the:
* get and slot snipe
* get and run tactics and pay the END
* 3 slot tactics
* get Kismet

is a substantial price to pay for this attack. There is nothing trivial for defenders to add this to a build.

don't make snipes instant under domination. A lot of work was put in to make domination not be so uber by not making it affect damage.

making snipes instant under domination will undo that work and make permadom that much better once again.

Are the i24 changes expected/hoped to be enough to fix blasters? (Recognizing that snipeless sets may need a special look.) Is this step one of a fix, or is this all that is planned?

AR/dev moves into a top tier combo
/dev moves into a top tier secondary from the bottom
fire/ ST damage gets even better and stays tops

elec/ becomes better but stays at the bottom, it may be considered "viable" looked at alone but is not competitive. It remains for sappers only.

ice/ drops down to bottom tier status as its strength was ST damage and lacking a snipe it does not keep up with the others

DP we just don't know - it depends on animation times

MM - gets lowered as it gets no improvement, but it is probably still a top tier although /dev may be better for combos that use snipe

the other secondaries we don't really know - it depends on how big the healing and END effects are in each, but in theory the changes should be balanced (we know they won't be in practice)

snipe change
- let me see if I have this right. Snipe has a 3.67 activation time with 3 seconds interruptible. Does this mean it will have a .67 activation time? Recharge time is 12 seconds. With a recharge enhancement, hasten, or other it will be usable a couple of times in a fight.

looking at NRG, the sniper blast does more damage than any other ST attack. It's activation time would be 1.3 seconds - which is reasonably fast for the set. So this would up the damage a blaster could do.

short range attack change to 80'
- needed. Seems a bigger boost to defenders and corr's though who have no other melee attacks. It highlights the problem blasters have with half their powers being ranged and half melee. It makes most of the secondary powers unwanted if you are trying to go only ranged. Not bad for blasters, a good idea, but not game changing.

+regen/+END powers really will be determined by how much +regen and +END. Drain Psyche is considered stupidly good. If the others are as good, this could "fix" blasters for a lot of people. In particular, sets with +regen even out of combat (not based on hitting a foe) may significantly reduce blaster downtime and heal them between fights so they have much better survival.

Overall I think this is a significant improvement to blasters. It skirts the whole issue of ranged/melee and blasters having no second role. But given the popularity of the blaster AT idea, if it fixes them enough it might be enough. I, personally, will stick to corrs.