Here's another balance issue for Archery:
Balance: Explosive blast does the same damage as Fistful of Arrows (maybe slightly less according to Hero Planner) for double the recharge and 150% of the endurance. The only differences being ranged AOE instead of a cone and a greater range. This doesn't seem balanced for a level 14 power compared to a level 2 power. Either raise the damage or lower the end cost and recharge time (shortening the range to match FoA would be an acceptable tradeoff).
So, I PM'd CuppaJo about making this a stick thread. Here is the reply:
[ QUOTE ]
Do this instead - once you get it fleshed out and colorized and all that send me a link to whatever thread it ends up being in and I will make sure he and all the other devs get it by putting it in a community report.
[/ QUOTE ]
So there you go, a chance at getting the Dev's attention. Keep those suggestions coming!
Ideally, the tank will die precisely as everyone else starts fighting, allowing aggro to be spread evenly among the blaster. -seebs, "How to Suck at CoH/CoV" Guide
I would just like to say that Concern's list, while rather complete in its coverage, contains some items that are much of a personal preference of the person listing the item than actual issues. A good example of such is Freezing Touch - the person who mentioned it may like it to be changed, but it is useful for other reasons than the problems the person has with it. (C'mon, it's possibly the fastest animation hold power in the game.)
Truly, the problems that Blasters have come from three standpoints overall:
- Defiance being mostly useless due to the fragile nature of Blasters
- The secondary powersets are very imbalanced, some of the powers being flawed in design as opposed to the Blaster supposedly being a "ranged" AT.
- Secondary effects from some of the powersets are very limited in use.
To touch on those three points in more detail...
- Defiance increases the Blaster's damage as they lose health, raising them slowly towards their damage cap (which they cannot normally reach on their own). However, it does not kick in at all currently until they are at 40% health or less - and even then, does not truly give any appreciable effect until the Blaster is nearly dead. This, in combination with the Blaster's low defense, leaves them unable to use it without putting themselves at great risk... and if they are already at that risk, an extra percentile of damage or two is not going to save them if the enemy can kill them with one or two attacks.
- Secondaries: I was told by Statesman at E3 last year, when I spoke to him at length in person, that the Blaster secondaries would be reviewed and considered because he admitted that a great number of them were flawed by design for the AT due to being based on melee sets from the CoH beta. It was mentioned that Devices was, to him, the proper mindset for the AT's secondary: utility powers with various use instead of simply another way of dealing damage. The sets that are designed most similarly to this (Energy, Ice - lots of mitigation & utility built in) perform wonderfully except for one or two powers that are weak by design (Frozen Aura, PBAoE low-mag sleep as a lvl 38 power). The sets that are designed in a drastically different way (Fire, to be specific) on the other hand suffer greatly from a distinct lack in survivability on the Blaster's part and in fact lessens the Blaster's survivability in order to be used properly. This was to be addressed, but was instead decided that it was "not an issue" when Defiance was introduced.
- Secondary effects: Some of the secondary effects have flaws in relation to their effectiveness for the Blaster. Each of them have their own problems, some moreso than others.
Energy: Knockback in primary, disorient in secondary. Not many problems with this, aside from the AoE powers scattering enemies and creating problems for teaming.
Ice: The slow effect on all of the primary powers, aside from the Rain powers, is very low in magnitude and duration, causing it to be almost unnoticed.
Electric: Endurance drain is an all-or-nothing gamble on the Blaster's part. It is said to be in design that enemies do not use certain attacks once their endurance drops below a certain point, but this is rarely noticed as the enemies have an impressive amount of endurance recovery. The only way the drain is often effective is that the enemy's endurance recovery is also killed, which is much more difficult to come by. (This is much more an issue in PvE than PvP.)
- Fire: The secondary effect is more damage - in DoT. This, combined with very few powers within the two sets designed for any sort of mitigation, gives the Blaster few ways to truly defend themselves. Any kind of mitigation added to this set would help greatly, even if in a slight manner.
My personal suggestions and wishlist items? Listening to the bug lists given by Concern is a good start, as well as the wishlist items for Defiance and a few other powers (Explosive Blast, Auto Turret, and Frozen Aura come to mind). Other than that...
- Discuss with the design team whether or not it would be possible to cause -Recovery to lessen the amount of endurance being recovered instead of killing said recovery outright. (Same with -Regen, but that's a separate issue.) If so, would it be possible to put a low-mag -Recovery effect onto some of the Electric powers, even possibly in place of some of the outright drain done currently? A little bit goes a long way.
- Add some kind of mitigation to the Fire Manipulation set. Even one power designed purely for mitigation would improve the quality of life for the set by leaps and bounds. Personal ideas: a low duration Fear or Panic effect on one or two powers (You're setting the enemy on fire, after all), or take a power from the Fire Control set and manipulate it to scale it down for Blaster use. (Smoke, or a scaled-down version of Flashfire, would work wonderfully for this purpose and wouldn't be overpowered due to the lack of other mitigation powers to stack with them.)
That's it for now. _Castle_, if and when you read this, we appreciate all that you do for us. Please let us know if any of these ideas and concerns are plausible to the developer side of the community!
@Shenalia
Triumph: Ion Force (SG)
Victory: Evil Triumphs (VG)
Proud member of the Triumphant Defenders Coalition.
Personally i love the knockback on explosive blast.. it's just how the power is..
as for the rest i'm really glad some people have put some of my points under better words 
keep it up!
Most of my complaints have been said so far such as Trip Mine, Time Bomb, Turret, etc, but here goes for my current issues I have:
Devices-
Smoke Grenade needs to allow for range enhancements, especially with it having to be near aggro-range to use.
AR-
Full auto rooting time allows enemies to walk into melee combat and attack before FA animation is complete. Some enemies such as warwolves can be at the furthest range and kill you before the damage of FA completes.
Sniper Rifle has problems. It being lethal (and for AR/Dev not having buildup) makes it unable to function well. Slotting for anything other than damage is near pointless. It is not meant for in combat use and takes a second to fire while you are safe before combat meaning interrupt reducers have no point. You will regain most of the endurance used while waiting to fire, so that isn't a great slot option. It comes with great range as is and with slight accuracy bonus. It recharges between fights, and it is not meant for in battle use so recharge is pointless as well. How is this meant to work?
Epic pool Munitions:
Cryo Freeze Ray animation goes off before you fire.
Body Armor had low damage reduction and one slot type available, with ED it makes it nigh useless in comparison to other epic armors.
Blind Fayth - 50 Necro/Poison MasterMind
Overture - 46 Sonic/Sonic Defender
Demonspark - 42 SS/Elec Brute
SB - thanks for the PM - I dont really have anything to add other than what's been suggested above. One of the wishlist items I requested in Devices has been granted (+Perception on Targeting Drone) so that should be removed.
I cant think of any other suggestions other than a general Balancing of the Secondaries which IMO involves balancing Ice/Electricity/Fire to Energy Manipulation and balancing Post ED Devices vs the Buildup sets (some ideas have been kicked around in Revolver Law's AR/Devices Thread).
@Deadboy
Fire blast issues.
Flares.
Activation and animation for a power that does so little damage isn't balanced. The long root often leads many fire blasters to skip this power altogether. this seriousl hinders the single target damage chain.
Fire secondary. I could write a damned book on what's wrong with it. Suffice to say that it's too loaded with DoT PBAoE's that have long root times and don't do enough front loaded damage considering where they work. NEAR MELEE. It's composed of mostly tanker powers and as far as I'm concerned they can have them.
Keep
Consume
Build up
FSC
Fire Sword
Relegate the rest of the set to the dung pile from whence it came.
Has anyone addressed the 2 second wait time after Ranged shot (where you can't attack) in Archery/ yet? I know it's in Concern and Redzero's reposts of the old consolidated issues thread, but I think it's worth repeating. No other snipe has that downtime to deal with, and I'm pretty damn sure it's a bug.
Arc Salvo: Okay hold one sec guys, we can't just rush in blindly vs these Nemesis, they've got these ranged aoe's tha-
Teammate1(charging in): Shut up, Arc Salvo, you lame*$% Viewtiful Joe wannabe! What do you know?!
Teammate2(also charging): yeah, ST#& arc salvo u PWR RANGR U!
Arc Salvo: *sigh*
Mostly on electric blast:
Bug/Balance?
- Short circuit is a PBAE DoT power -- two factors that normally warrant increased damage -- yet it has the lowest brawl index offered by any blaster AEs, shared with M30 grenade and explosive blast. Is this intentional? Is it intended as a balance to the drain, rather than the damage? If so, is the drain considered that much more powerful a mitigatory effect compared to the knockback on the other low-damage, ranged targetted, instant-damage-delivery AEs?
Likewise, ball lightning's damage is also DoT, and not much stronger. This leaves electric is the only set without a cone as one of its AEs, and thus it can barely break 5 brawl index in an AE combo, despite being DoT (5 tics each) and requiring 3 seconds of point blank time. Intentional and balanced?
- Electric blast also has a very poor single target attack chain. It's not fast animating, like ice or fire, and it's only 2 powers + snipe, unlike ice, fire, and energy. Yet the damage values for charged bolts and lightning bolt are right in line with the other sets' first two powers. Intentional? Balanced?
- Diverging for a second from electric blast, there's one point about energy manipulation that's been sticking in my craw since release. Conserve power stinks. You fire up the game when it's new, look through the power lists, and it's described in an exciting way. It looks like a good power that you could do a lot with, and would help you out tremendously. It's not. Yes, it's amazing when it's up. But it got taken out behind the shed and beaten with a switch with ED, losing both six-slottability in its only enhancement type, AND permahasten. Even before that serious nerf with no mitigatory adjustments, stamina, a pool power, allowed for higher endurance expenditure over time. Yes, that's right. Stamina, a pool power, has *always* been better than conserve power, a secondary, and one might argue from the descriptions, one of the signature utility powers of energy manipulation, along with power boost and boost range. (Heh. Joke's on me. I took elec/energy on Day 1 of live because I thought power boost and conserve power would synergize well and let me blast well. Oops. Turns out the melee attacks synergize better with the blasts by letting me have a full attack chain as a blapper. Oh well.) With various Statesman comments suggesting that utility should be the strength of blaster secondaries, can we get this looked at, so that it at least functions in such a way that it outperforms stamina and doesn't rely on a hasten crutch?
QOL:
- Charged Bolts and Lightning Bolt seem to be misnamed -- Charged bolts is one-handed, and lightning bolt (no s) is double-barrelled.
- Endurance drain is very hard on people without both elec sets. Short circuit and Power sink both took a hit when we lost the ability to 6-slot for drain, and it's an all-or-nothing ability. Stacking both is satisfactory, or using short circuit with power boost. Elec/dev, elec/fire, and elec/ice must struggle, having to either last the 20 second recharge on short circuit to hit a second time, or rely on the enemy to do half the drain.
Furthermore, the -regen on short circuit isn't always enough to keep endurance floored, and there are a plethora of enemies whose "1-tic of regen" attack can do upwards of 75% of the damage of their favored full-endurance attacks. This means that 1 tic is still very deadly, and if you don't have lightning field, you have no good way to pulse drain, and even if you do or you hit with draining attacks, you have no way to ensure that you've timed it right. A simple 10 point negative range for endurance would go a long way to allowing normal attacks to help fill this timing deficiency, by allowing even non-"-regen" draining powers to ensure that the next tic doesn't allow them to let loose with a cheap attack that's almost as good as their expensive ones. Certainly more simple than doing a pass on all enemies' powers to ensure that their endurance costs are approrpriate for their threat level, I'd think.
- Some variation in sound would be welcome. I frequently get sick of hearing essentially the same "zapping" sound with a different duration every time I fire off an attack, and just turn the sound off. I think charged bolts and lightning bolt are the major culprits here. Or maybe it's just a symptom of not having a strong chain of different attacks to throw out.
Wishlist/Conceptual Flaws:
- Please do something to voltaic sentinel. He's timed, yet it takes to long to summon him (and costs too much) mid-combat. He chooses targets randomly, and switches often, when a good blaster needs to mentally plan how much damage he needs to kill target x, and in what order he wants to kill them. In this sense, he's essentially like a 40-second DoT -- sure, he may deliver a lot of damage, but its spread out, and you can't count on it to be done quickly. Additionally, he's unbuffable (will this change with the blizzard-summon buffing patch?), and does lackluster damage -- the defenders mentioned that VS does the same for blasters as defenders, and you acknowledged it and said it will be fixed. But did you notice that the defenders *like* theirs, and blasters don't? You didn't mention whether blasters would get a boost to their VS damage, or defenders would get a nerf...
- Blasters have one role. Deal damage before you've taken a full bar of damage yourself. The high density of mezzing mobs high-game make this a frustrating task. We're a one-trick pony, and mez takes away our ability to do our one trick -- and chain-mez means you can die without ever getting a chance to fight. My pet solution to this, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is to work a break-free-style mez protection into defiance, so that even if we're getting chain-mezzed, at some point we'll break out and get a chance to put up a fight. Take the suggestion as you will, but break frees are not a satisfactory solution to blasters vs. mez. It's a no-win, we can't contain them like a controller can, we can't weather them or protect against them like some defenders, and we have no protective powers like melees. We can maybe kill one as our opening shot, but against 2 or 3, or a non-minion mezzer, it's often a doomed fight.
Balance-
Ice Manipulation provides a couple of useful control powers, but seems to perform poorly when paired with any primary other than Ice Blast. The melee attacks do significantly less damage than their counterparts in other secondaries, Devices excepted. Toggle drop percentages are also lower, though I expect with the coming changes to detoggling in Issue 7 this will become a nonissue.
Frozen Aura is virtually useless due to its PBAoE nature, small radius, and the fact that in most team environments, AoE slept mobs tend to get woke up pretty quickly.
Wish List-
Replace Frozen Aura with Greater Ice Sword. Balance the lower BI of Ice Sword(in comparison with Thunder Strike and Total Focus) by allowing it to hit multiple enemies, a la Headsplitter.
Alternately, replace Frozen Aura with Ice Sword Circle.
My suggestions regarding Blasters:
1) Defiance generally isn't liked by Blasters. I don't mind it, but recognise that it is among the bottom 3 inherent powers as it currently stands. Someone else has already pointed it out, but in order to get a reasonable advantage, you have you be almost dead. And an almost dead Blaster doesn't take much to become a completely dead Blaster.
So, as it stands, Defiance should kick in more quickly. The bar should move proportionally to your health bar - if you have only 50% of your health, the Defiance bar should be 50% full. Now, this may mean reducing the damage bonus that a Definance at 50% range gives a Blaster from it's current level (I don't know the bonuses off by heart) but visually at least it's going to mean more to Blasters to at least see the bar move.
Alternatively, have the current Defiance values kick in from 80% health rather than the current level (40% or 50% I think).
2) My other fix for Defiance will never see the light of day... but what the heck... give Scrappers Defiance and Blasters Critical Hit. Scrappers have the defense and hit points to comfortably sit at less that 80% health, while Blasters don't have that luxury. If a Scrapper starts heading into Defiance territory, they are certainly better equipped to deal with it and able to take more blows than the glass cannon that is the Blaster AT.
Getting Critical Hit would let Blasters deal more damage at any time and better suits their thematic roots as sharpshooting damage dealers. It takes away the issue of requiring low health to use it, which is a major sticking point with Defiance as it currently stands - no Blaster wants to see their health drop to the point where they can actually start using their inherent power.
Besides, currently Defiance + AOE = some fun; Critical Hit + AOE = a whole lotta fun.
3) Cloaking Device's stealth ability does seem kind of weak and gets 'broken through' by enemies way too often. Now, I don't know what effect the I7 defense changes will have on CD's defensive protection, but it does seem a bit hit-and-miss to use as a stealth power.
4) Trip Mine seems to miss an awful lot (thought it bore mentioning again).
5) Replace Auto Turrent (its problems have been mentioned above) with a reskinned Mastermind robot. Seems like a simple way of improving this power while using existing game properties.
[ QUOTE ]
My other fix for Defiance will never see the light of day... but what the heck... give Scrappers Defiance and Blasters Critical Hit.
[/ QUOTE ]
Will never happen because of MoG and Elude and Invinciblity...powers that can buff defense to very high lvls.
I don't know if it was mentioned but archery has the same problem with being almost completely lethal/smashig damage like AR does. Only one power is partially fire(Blazing arrow). It would be great that at least one of the other powers gets part of its damage different from lethal/smashing.
Well, I'll throw my $0.02 in here.
$0.01:
The 25% Endurance Drain in PvP nerf. This needs to be re-evaluated in light of Enhancement Diversification.
$0.02:
PvP one-shotting. Blasters are the perpetrators of it and, much more frequently, the victims of it. A fix to this was promised over two months ago, and that's the last we've heard about it.
40062: The World's Worst PUG
84008: Jenkins's Guide to Super-Villainy
230187: The Hero of Kings Row
No H8 - 08.04.10
@Circuit Boy - Moderator - Pride global chat channel
Further insights into Fire Manipulation's problems, from my perspective:
Combustion: The activation time makes this risky to use, even moreso because of its lower damage. Most of its damage is DoT, which is bad for the Blaster AT; Blasters are focused on killing things quickly, they cannot wait for long DoTs. And as a PBAoE, it is redundant next to Fire Sword Circle, which is faster, does more damage, and toggle drops. This power needs some serious reworking, as it is too Tanker-centric in its current form.
Fire Sword Circle: As stated before, this is a perfectly servicable power, but the unnecessary lag at the end is murderous. This is a widespread animation bug that affects several sets in the game.
Consume: This ability underperforms compared to similar powers from other secondaries, like Power Sink and Conserve Power. Power Sink does the same thing but includes an extremely useful endurance drain attack, while Conserve Power is risk free for arguably greater endurance conservation.
Burn: Difficult to use effectively for little gain. A Blaster has to go to great lengths to build a strategy around using Burn patches safely, but the damage is too little to be worth all the effort. Risk is greater than reward.
Blazing Aura: Thematically inappropriate for Blasters. Similar powers have damage-mitigating effects - Chilling Embrace slows foes, while Lightning Field can be used to keep enemy endurance bottomed out. A Blaster using this power puts himself at incredible risk for very little additional additional damage output.
Hot Feet: While there's nothing wrong with this power being in the Fire Secondary, it has no business being the 9th power on the list. It can be made genuinely useful, but it should be moved down to a lower slot.
It is also felt by many, many Blasters that Fire Manipulation needs Greater Fire Sword. My personal suggestion would be to delete Blazing Aura - because I guarantee NOBODY will miss it - and reorganize the secondary set to include Greater Fire Sword. This set is sorely lacking in effective melee capability.
Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball
[ QUOTE ]
Consume: This ability underperforms compared to similar powers from other secondaries, like Power Sink and Conserve Power. Power Sink does the same thing but includes an extremely useful endurance drain attack, while Conserve Power is risk free for arguably greater endurance conservation.
[/ QUOTE ]
While I have thought it would be interesting to run a numerical comparison analysis between endurance taps and conserve power for a while, let me point out a very pertinent point -- taps are reactive -- you use them when you're low for whatever reason -- while conserve is proactive -- you have to anticipate the need. As such, the proactive will generally be more potent to balance the higher utility of the reactive solution.
I agree, though, if nothing else, consume and power sink should probably have more similar recharges -- these two don't seem balanced against each other very closely.
And finally, I'll be surprised if conserve power actually ends up on top (even though, proactive vs. reactive, it probably should) -- it's less effective than stamina, as I've been saying for a year and a half.
[ QUOTE ]
Well, I'll throw my $0.02 in here.
$0.01:
The 25% Endurance Drain in PvP nerf. This needs to be re-evaluated in light of Enhancement Diversification.
[/ QUOTE ]
Testing this in the arena (with Short Circuit/Power Sink fully slotted 3 drain/3 recharge after ED), there is no possible way that End Drain in PvP can help in any meaningful way. It simply drains too little endurance to be of any effective use, and though the -recovery portion of Short Circuit is promising, because I have no defense or resistance, the remaining 90% endurance (possibly higher) the enemy has left is more than enough to kill/mezz me, since I would have to be in melee range to execute those two powers.
Circuit Boy mentioned, Castle, that in a PM you told him that Endurance Drain was tested at full effectiveness in PvP before the development team decided it was too powerful, and it was lowered to 25% effectiveness. This was before Enhancement Diversivication. It was too low then to be effective. Now, it is even worse. At this point, I dont even consider myself to HAVE a secondary effect in PvP. I just try to kill things quickly and hope that I dont get killed. I don't slot for end drain, because it simply isnt worth it. Can this please be revisited/retested/reevaluated?
This has been stated before in numerous different posts, but Electric Blasters were told that the shortcomings of our set were worth it in light of our ability to end drain in PvP, and then even that ability was taken away from us.
Also, regarding Volatic Sentinel: Please replace it with a short range, high damage blast, or even any blast at all (I dont care if its called Lightning Bolt, Jr.). We are blasters, we dont need "pets". We live and die by how much damage we can quickly generate. Having a floating ball of worthlessness that randomly attacks things at relatively low damage, drawing all the aggro back toward the blaster is not helpful at all. Leave the pets for Defenders/Controllers.
Inferno is a killing machine.
For the user.
Ice and energy have a mitigating effect in them, slow and knockback, so you might be able to get away with using them.
AR is ranged so you're in less danger.. just a little but the range will give you a better chance to run.
With inferno everything that's left standing will beat you down so fast you can't blink twice.
But the nukes in general are skipped by players in their current state. as a fight finisher they're generally useless. Either your health is too low to go in or there aren't enough mobs left standing and the nuke isn't needed to finish the fight.
let alone if there are mezzers in the group.
The only possible use of nukes in in teams and even then it'll usually kill you..
Talking about desperation powers.
I would suggest to find a way to make the nukes more survivable. a temp speedboost so you can run.. a very short high def or a disorient or fear effect for mobs or something.
I mean if someone makes a big blow like that near me i know i'm running! (the same argument that got burn the fear component you're not going to stay in or near that)
I like to use my nuke, i really do.. but it just kills me too often on a lot of teams especially with the nasty new drop.
For the wishlist..
We have nice primaries and the secondarys need more work..
But i would like to see rad on blasters.
Or even dark.. (though for dark to work as a blaster set the animation times could use a bit of a speedup)
I'd also be VERY interested to see a secondary on both.
Ofcourse we'd have to cut out most of the defender powers but for instance dark melee has a lot of nice utility that would make a blasters life a lot more pleasant.
And i'm sure i could come up with a nice rad secondary also.
Though there would'nt be much of a mitigating effect except new ones we invent..
Also maybe it's interesting to look at the keld nova forms compared to blasters.. we are a lot like the nova forms though a bit less squishy (a BIT) but when kelds get into trouble they switch to human and heal and have shields or even go to dwarf form that'll rescue your live a LOT of the times and at least give you an option to run..
Maybe blasters need a clicky that partially phases or shields or speeds up as the OMG have to runaway? or loose agro or..
just throwing idears here now..
[ QUOTE ]
Balance: Leadership Pool - Blasters should get bonuses at least equal to Defenders for Assault and Tactics as these are qualities that define Blasters. It seems to be preferental treatment that any Archtype should benifit more from a Power Pool power than other Archtypes. If this is to be the case then what Power Pool powers do Blasters benifit more from then other Archtypes? (submitted by Red_Zero)
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't believe that blasters specifically benefit more than any other AT for any power pool, but last I remember, scrappers actually benefitted from powers like tough and weave *less* than all others: i.e. less than blasters. I believe this is marginally related to stacking issues and scrapper/tanker comparisons, but everyone else was left alone because they don't have enough base resistance or defense for it to matter much.
[ QUOTE ]
Wishlist: Range - Statesman has said our defense is range, yet range means nothing to an AT that can be outranged by the enemy & self-roots with our attacks. Make range mean something! And if we are ranged, why do so many secondaries have so many melee attacks? (submitted by LaughingBoy)
[/ QUOTE ]
Range has always been a component of, not a defining characteristic of, blasters. Blasters have been defined as fragile damage-dealers. Range has been claimed to be a situational advantage, that blasters can choose to use, or elect not to use when using the higher damage melee attacks. This might not be desirable, but it isn't specifically an AT definition issue per se.
[ QUOTE ]
Wishlist: Blaster issue PvP: Why are blaster's toggle droppers melee oriented. Since we are blasters we should have a few toggle droppers that are not melee based for every power set. (submitted by DarkLordTrilogy)
[/ QUOTE ]
I asked this question long ago, and the direct answer was, as expected, balance related. A blaster that can detoggle a melee AT from range, outside of the range that the melee AT can counterattack, is unbalanced from the dev's point of view.
[ QUOTE ]
Balance: Blizzard doesn't get any bonus from Aim and Build Up making it less effective then other Nuke-type attacks. (submitted by Icerian)
[/ QUOTE ]
This one is supposedly being addressed by the new buff changes coming which will allow powers like Aim and BU to buff blizzard (among other powers).
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
I will throw this under the Blance Heading cause I think it fits there the best:
I am going to second the suggestion (that I believe has been made a few times), for Aim and possibly Build-Up to increase perception. It's not exactly game-breaking to have 10 seconds of perception, and it would be nice for AT's, but especially blasters, that have these powers to be able to take an inherent way to see Hidden things.
As of right now Targetting Drone is all we have unless we want to sacrifice slots for Tactis (which most of us do not). It seems like a majority of the other AT's have someone way to deal with Stalkers in at least a small way in their AT somewhere, or at least can survive an AS at full strength.
Unless we get a crazy re-vamp on some powers, Aim and BU are the only places that seem reasonable for +perception to appear, and I am still curious as to why it wasn't there in the first place.
[ QUOTE ]
It is also felt by many, many Blasters that Fire Manipulation needs Greater Fire Sword. My personal suggestion would be to delete Blazing Aura - because I guarantee NOBODY will miss it - and reorganize the secondary set to include Greater Fire Sword. This set is sorely lacking in effective melee capability.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think this would be a great addition. /fire has one single-target attack, and nothing close to a heavy hitter attack. Something like this or a tf with fire hands would bring warmth to my heart.
... crazy idea here... lose Defiance (since I've only used it effectively TWICE since its creation), pick up something that's Accuracy-related. Stay back and fire calmly, Accuracy is better. Get close and fire too rapidly, get sloppy, Accuracy decreases.
Definitely could use some Perception in our personal Buffs though.
Pinnacle
@Mr.Catastrophe
Defiance is lackluster. It's been well documented, but we aren't going to get crits.
Please fix items
Specific to
AR/anything
Break-Frees do not work against Ritiki Mentalists (possibly Carnies) Holds.
Due to the "Animation" of trying to fire the gun. Please fix this.
Animation times for the AR primary set are way to long
The Gun is beyond ugly and annoying. Please give us an option (I'm begging you and will bake cookies if it will help.)
In general
Knock Back/Knock Down needs to be fixed so that it acts in a reasonable manner.
Currently Knockdown = Nearly no Effect.
Knockback is just as pathetic with spawns jumping up in the middle of the animation and returning fire.
It was an effective damage mitigation strategy (If the Knockback attack actually hit)
In addition, according to the manual, KnockBack attacks "interrupt" enemy attacks. This also does not work, as the enemy attack finishes regardless of the Knock powers hit.
I.E. Specifically it fails to interrupt a Nemesis Snipers shot (no surpirse since LOS does not effect their shots either.)
Either the manual needs an update or the power needs to do as it supposed to.
Please repair it.
Range in general needs to be improved across the board, it is currently inconsistent per attack and makes little sense in general based on our AT's power and the usually always superior ranges of the enemies in PVE.
Rooting. Why? I can understand on certina attacks like Snipes or larger damage Nukes etc. But on the small fast recharge attacks it is rather silly.
I'm serious about the cookies.