newchemicals

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Blasters do not need to make any special slotting or enhancement changes to gain the benefit that sniper shots will get in I24. Unless they want to min/max the benefit. In which case, as with all min/maxing, you're on your own.

The only powerset combination that is unlikely to have either Build Up or Aim and thus may not be able to gain this benefit in some measure are AR/Dev blasters who have neither BU nor Aim. But their build burden is tiny and for that teeny change they end up with the best sniper option of any blaster, by a large factor.

Originally Posted by Zombie Man

I would think that a good balancing act would be to require everyone to do two things to get to (nearly) perma SpeedSnipe. So, pick two of the following:

1. Tactics
2. Kismet
3. Build-up
4. Aim
5. Some other ToHit buff in you primary, secondary, or pool powers.
6. Some new ATO or Proc or Universal IO Set that has +ToHit.

If Blasters' Tactics were bumped to 10%, then everyone would be in the same boat. Although, Devices gets off easy since they'd only need one thing: Targeting Drone.

Originally Posted by Zombie Man

So, your plan is, after Tactics and Kismet, make Blasters find 4% more +ToHit, have Corruptors hit the sweet spot, and make Defenders find 10% more +ToHit.

So, basically, your plan is to continue to have Defenders never take the Snipe power.


They could always change Tactics for Blaster to 10%, like for Corruptors. This way, Blasters can have the Snipes always 'speedy' like Corruptors and Defenders without resorting to a second power.

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

Giving Defenders a reason to pick something other than Sonic Attack is a good outcome of the changes. It's probably a good thing that Sonic Attack on Defenders (and maybe Corruptors) gets less of a boost, considering how one Defender blast set is far superior to the actual buff and debuff sets at delivering one of the most desirable debuffs in the game, on a class that specializes in buffs and debuffs.

Originally Posted by Tater Todd

Yeah...I think +22 or was it 25? To Hit is a Tad to high. I think he needs to make it more accessible across the board.

+15% To Hit seems very reasonable even for non /Device and /Energy Blasters...and all the other ATs. You can reach +15 To Hit with just tactics and Kismet alone...depending on Aim or Yellows seems...It just doesn't seem as impressive and as handy as the Assassin's Strike Change. It might be just me though.



I don't know...I still don't think it would break anything if he lowered the To Hit requirements.

Originally Posted by Xprom

Personally I think they are just polishing a turd. How many Brutes, Scrappers or Tanks do you see without their T9 attack. None. Why should it be any different for Blasters. Yet they refuse to fix the problem and address other "issues".

Fix it all the first time guys.

Originally Posted by Zombie Man

Why 22%?

Because on a Defender, Tactics six-slotted with 50+5 ToHit is 21.96% ToHit.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

Much as it kills me to agree with Another_Fan he does have a point about Assault Rifle. AR is one of the sets that really benefits from the buff since it lacks a traditional 3rd Blast (instead having Ignite which has pros and cons compared tot he more traditional blasts). Paired with Devices AR is sitting pretty since it can get permanent fast-snipe and bonus snipe damage and with Energy it can have the Tactics/Power Boost combo you discussed. However with other secondaries the lack of aim means it'll have half the fast-snipe time of other primary/secondary combos.

Unlike AF I'm not going to say that this is the end of the world but I'm also not 100% convinced that it helps AR when paired with a non-Devices set.

Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare

Honestly somewhat (not utterly) underwhelmed by the +regen/+recov. Using it on my /WP Brute I find that without much (or any) Res/Def to go with it (or running middle ground regen numbers); you're still going to eat dirt.

Would've preferred something like [front-loaded] Healing and/or Endurance over Time or even a degrading Absorb effect.

Originally Posted by Garent

As a person biased towards defenders, I already have my whining prepared. I fully expect for the general low power of ranged sets to be addressed through some kind of increase to blasters. I will then unleash torrents of whine about how corruptors and defenders deal less damage than controllers at high levels. There will be so much whine that everyone will become drunk off of my ramblings, and will begin to have discussions over what kind of cheese will best accentuate the flavor of X whine or Y whine.

On a more serious note, Arbiter Hawk's handling of peacebringers didn't give me a lot of confidence. I'm hoping his handling of blasters goes better.

Originally Posted by MisterD

Your opinion is that they need fixing (and I am sure its all nice and backed up by data, good for you). And then you say..'not to convince the world they NEEDED fixing'. Which is it, they are or are not in need, you cant have it both ways. If you are trying to convince the Devs to fix them, clearly you think they DO need it, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

I don't think they need anything..a conclusion I came to after the crazy notion of playing blasters.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Yep, my history is eight long years of greedily demanding ridiculous and unjustified buffs without any basis, experimental data, quantitative analysis, or in-game experience-informed judgment.

At some point, you have to draw the line: you can't save everyone. I could work towards addressing defense issues in the game, and I could explain why the ultimate solution to those problems was fair. But at some point, I had to conclude the people saying it wasn't necessary, and I should learn to play with the game as it is, and if they don't see the problem I must be wrong, were not in the grand scheme of things necessary to convince. At some point, I simply had to let it go. The game is better off now: that's what matters.


I said, when I first decided to start talking about Blasters, that not everyone would agree there was a problem, and would probably never agree that any change made was necessary, or judicious, or even a good idea. And that was ok, because my goal was getting them fixed, not convincing the entire world they needed fixing. The devs have taken a step. Maybe its enough. Maybe its not. Maybe blasters will need even more. If so, my priority will be to convince the devs to do more. It will not be to convince everyone they need more.

The people who don't want these changes, or think they are excessive, will just have to learn to play the new blasters. And just like everyone could learn to play them the way they are and survive, everyone can also learn to create the appropriate level of challenge for themselves. Being unable to challenge ones self in this game is no different an intellectual failing as being unable to overcome those challenges when presented.

Originally Posted by flipside

This should be a simple technical question for most, but I'm being forgetful and thickheaded today so please excuse the simple question(s).

I'm currently running Windows XP on a 32 bit processor. My understanding is that the max addressable RAM for Windows XP is 4GB. To get anything larger, I need to get to a new version of Windows. I'm considering ponying up the money for Windows 7 Home and believe that should allow me to up the max addressable RAM to 32GB? And that is not affected by the 32 versus 64 bit processor.

Is all of that correct?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

I think whatever it is, it has to become available no later than level 22, when SOs become available and the game shifts into blaster mulch-gear.

Originally Posted by Fulmens

There are a lot of threads that get bogged down in a lot of discussion of how much damage, relatively, Blasters do compared to other AT's. Is it 10% more than Scrappers? 20% more? How much, and how much should it be?

Everyone agrees, pretty much, that it isn't a good trade for 20% the survivability. (I'll go through that number in a minute.)

The reason for this thread is to discuss how much more survivability is needed to give Blasters something close to a level playing field, and how do we get it to them?

I phrased that carefully. A lot of people have said things in these discussions like "Blasters just die, get over it." Or "My blaster is fine." Or "ur doin it rong".

Blasters shouldn't accept a distant last place in survivability in return for a damage benefit that's small enough to argue about- they shouldn't accept a distant last place in survivability PERIOD.

Someone has to be last. I recognize that. It's going to be Blasters. I recognize THAT. But the gap shouldn't be so ludicrous.

Talking about L50, with several Incarnate powers, is not the point. Talking about builds that a specific primary/secondary combination can pull off (elec/en endurance drain, or ice/ice "survive the alpha, survive the fight" combos, or whatever) is not the point. Talking about builds that require IO access, eleven specific powers, and 46 slots, or whatever the "capped range" numbers are, is not the point.

The POINT is that a median Blaster using SOs and a median Scrapper using SOs are not even close.

I did a quick calculation and a level 32 SR scrapper is about four times tougher than a level 32 Blaster with a REALLY conservative build for the Scrapper.

How much tougher is a typical Defender? They have to give up a lot of offense AND they have to take a lot of time setting toggles and whatnot, but for Rad, Darkness and Storm I could easily make a case for factor-of-four. Maybe a factor of ten.

How much tougher should Blasters be, and how should we get there? I think a factor of two is not unreasonable; and if the technique we use to get there gives a few loopholes that make killer builds possible, I don't think that's a bad thing.

We haven't had a Blaster FOTM since they fixed a POWER OF TEN bug in August 2004, when the game was four months old. It's not something I'm afraid of.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

So thinking out loud about mez. An interesting question to ponder is why mez kills. I think it kills blasters because the only way blasters survive is to keep attacking, either defeating or disabling attackers. Shut off offense, and blasters become extremely vulnerable (preventing movement is another problem) Defiance 2.0 attempts to partially mitigate that by giving the blaster offensive options even while mezzed.

But it kills melee for different reasons. That's all part of it, but the bigger issue is that it detoggles them, stripping most of their protection away. They get mez protection to prevent that from happening at all.

So we have attack while mezzed, and mez protection. And then we have the controller version, which is alpha mez them before they can mez you. Are there any other ways to reduce the threat of mez besides those three?

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

I posted in the S&I section with an idea for a blaster Defiance tweak.

My idea was to leave it pretty much unchanged, but add a small amount of mez protection to the most crippling mez types (Hold, Stun, maybe Sleep) that is determined by the number of Defiance stacks you currently have, up to 7.

Each attack you make gives you mag .5 protection to those types, and if it stacks up to 7 you can gain mag 3.5 protection, provided you can consistently keep attacking. Leave the ability to fire the first 3 attacks while mezzed as well, so you can maybe break a mez that lands by attacking through it.

It works with the "offense is defense" idea, in that while you are actively laying down damage you are more difficult to mez, but if you let up at all you give your enemy an opening.

The majority of my blaster deaths occur toward the beginning of a fight, when an inconveniently timed mez reduces me down to only being able to use my first 3 attacks against a full spawn. This idea would reduce the frequency of that happening, probably by a not-insignificant amount.