Responses from an Elec/Elec/Elec blaster.
First off, love a lot of what you said. Can't comment on most of the other pools because I was very limited in my playing hours for a whole year and only played my primary for the most part.
[ QUOTE ][*]Elec: Lightning Field - This changes from a PBAE damage aura to an Enemy Targeted Damage Aura (similar to Defender EF and DN) (2)
[/ QUOTE ]
Disagree. One PBAOE toggle for damage isn't bad. And while I don't do PVP much, if I ever decide to go PVP crazy, I might want this power with 3 ACCs in it to try to protect me from stalkers...
[ QUOTE ][*]Elec: Thunder Strike - Ranged (2)
[/ QUOTE ]
Agree If: No change to damage. It is delicious with it's damagingness. I'd sooner dart in, splatter some one, and dart out again, then lose the damage value.
[ QUOTE ]
I understand your sensitivity, and I think by role he means "you excel at that" not "that is all you can do". Controllers excel at control, but they buff quite well. Tankers excel at aggro management, but they can put together a mean ST melee chain. Scrappers excel at melee damage, but can manage aggro, etc.
I think it's key for Blasters to be able to pump out significantly more damage when they close to melee than when at range. I'd just like to move the ranged chan up a bit so the difference between melee and ranged chains is a bit less than it is today.
[/ QUOTE ]
While I agree with "you excel at that" and not "that is all you do", I must say that the strong melee component directly conflicts with the first part.
The problem with having both range and melee attacks is that while you can use ranged attacks in melee, you can not use melee attacks at range. Having the strong melee component really does serve to sap strength from the ranged component. People often say that the Energy secondary is good at supporting the ranged component, yet over half of it is really about melee. In truth, the Energy secondary does not support the ranged component well at all, it mearly supports it better than the other secondaries with the possible exception of Devices, and infact, the Energy Secondary supports melee much better than it does range, proof being the amount of blappers who choose it for such.
Overall, I really do think it is illogical and backwards for a blaster to have melee attacks that are significantly stronger than thier ranged attacks. Melee attacks should be few and designed as "Oh NO!" powers that allow them to get out of melee combat and retreat back into ranged where their true strength should lie as dictated in the concept of being a ranged damage fighter.
The easiest of move to "fix" blasters would be to bring up ranged damage on par or slightly in excess of melee damage.
Witty, good ideas however States already said the melee attacks aren't going anywhere.
We're also trying to devise changes that won't gimp our mentally impaired blapping brothers. 
[ QUOTE ]
Responses from an Elec/Elec/Elec blaster.
First off, love a lot of what you said. Can't comment on most of the other pools because I was very limited in my playing hours for a whole year and only played my primary for the most part.
[ QUOTE ][*]Elec: Lightning Field - This changes from a PBAE damage aura to an Enemy Targeted Damage Aura (similar to Defender EF and DN) (2)
[/ QUOTE ]
Disagree. One PBAOE toggle for damage isn't bad. And while I don't do PVP much, if I ever decide to go PVP crazy, I might want this power with 3 ACCs in it to try to protect me from stalkers...
[/ QUOTE ]
It's only good vs stalkers who are too 'stupid' to account for AoE auras in their builds. Unfortunately because it needs a to-hit check it's easy enough for stalkers to stack defenses.
It's kinda' like wearing a kevlar vest that's only 10% finished. It'll block a couple bullets but you can't count on it to save yer butt.
That being said I'd gladly sacrafice it in its current form for toggled DoT targetted aura.
Keeping it as is (a very weak, high endurance PBAoE) for the singular use of MAYBE stopping a stalker wouldn't justify not changing it IMO.
Fix in the fewest possible moves?
1. Build an Ice/Energy blaster.
That's one move. What do I win? 
[ QUOTE ]
That's one move. What do I win?
[/ QUOTE ]
Most likely one or more of the PvP badges...
But you bring up a good point. The problem really isn't with all blasters as much as it is a decent number of the builds and the powers within those builds. /Fire is a weak secondary, but buildup in /Fire is fine. /Dev is a weak set, but Targetting Drone within that set is fine. While the primaries can be fixed by things like Pilcrow#5 (which solves the AR/, Archery/, etc. problem without causing balance issues like an overall +DMG boost would do), the secondaries probably need to be fixed on a power by power basis (and by fixing the powers that are broken instead of buffing ones that are already more than impressive, unless you're planning on completely writing off the casual player).
I just want to be able to roll up a blaster without automatically clicking on the /Energy or /Dev secondary (or /Electricity if I'm making a blapper). I'd love it if all of the other secondaries were even close to those for sheer utility and general niftiness.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If nothing else, remove some of the To Hit and transfer it over to Damage. It that's what it takes to keep the damage boost around 50%, I think that would be fine.
[/ QUOTE ]
Uh... a constant 50% damage boost would be overpowered compared to what anyone else gets. The existing equivalent to build up-as-a-perma-able-power is claws/' follow up, which gives +33% damage and some accuracy.
The +acc on targetting drone is already pretty low, lowering it further would kind of suck.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't care what the numbers are. I was just throwing out 50% as a suggestion because it compared well with Rage. If you feel like 30% is better, then that's fine too. But again as I said that should be the MINUMUM.
Pre-ED one of the advantages given was that you could shift the Accuracy Enhancements in your attacks over to Damage. Thus at the very least the benefit should be that one one SO Enhancement, which is 33%. Do you believe that the benefit should be less than the effect of one Enhancement?
And AFAIK Follow Up has exactly the same damage bonus as all other Build Up-type powers, or 100%. As I play a Claws Scrapper, I'm pretty sure that I'm seeing double base damage.
As for Targetting Drone's To Hit bonus being low, I'm not too sure about that, either. It is at least high enough that it was considered to be the equal of an Accuracy Enhancement. And unlike damage, it can be Enhanced. I can see an obvious difference (I hit with it on, I don't with it off) so it must be significant, and that's without enhancement.
Maybe I'm overestimating it, but whatever it is, cut it in half, and put that half on +DMG. I'm sure that'll work out.
[ QUOTE ]
I don't care what the numbers are. I was just throwing out 50% as a suggestion because it compared well with Rage. If you feel like 30% is better, then that's fine too. But again as I said that should be the MINUMUM.
Pre-ED one of the advantages given was that you could shift the Accuracy Enhancements in your attacks over to Damage. Thus at the very least the benefit should be that one one SO Enhancement, which is 33%. Do you believe that the benefit should be less than the effect of one Enhancement?
[/ QUOTE ]
Just posting to point out the slight fallacy of this argument. Prior to ED, 6-slotted+TD vs. 5-slotted meant 300% instead of 266% -- a constant 12% incremental advantage from that extra slot. To compare, adding a 6-slotted buildup (30 second recharge) to the 5+acc slotting gave you 10 seconds of 366% plus 20 seconds of 266%, or an average of... 300%. This is why it was considered equivalent -- it literally was. Then you had the other factors like what killed the buff -- for build-up it's slows (reduces the uptime), for TD, it's toggle drops and status effects to drop the buff and force you to recharge and retoggle it. These were also fairly equal, I'd say.
Now, TD loses the slotting advantage, but build-up lost some of its uptime, too. Now, you could say that build-up allows 10 seconds of 300% damage and 35 seconds of 200% -- for an average damage of 222%. So build-up is, over time, a 22% (base damage) buff. In the past, the average-over-time of build-up put the build-up blaster right on par with the TD blaster's slotting -- so I don't see why TD should be more than 22%. In addition, detoggling's getting an upcoming adjustment, while slow is as effective as it ever has been. Toss in the perception buff in TD, and honestly, I'd have a hard time justifying 15% by the numbers.
Saying "but it used to give us an extra SO's worth of damage" is disingenuous. It fails to take into account the diminishing return of slots -- one extra slot's worth is a bigger difference when you're sticking it on top of 3 slots than it is when you're sticking it on top of 5, and build-up lost plenty of efficiency with ED, too thanks to more limited uptime, without even considering the frequency of fights that last 40 seconds (enough to squeeze in two build-up periods pre-ED) vs. those that last 55.
I'm not against Targetting Drone getting damage, particularly if the perception love gets spread around somehow, but please think about what you're asking for in the right frame of mind and be reasonable. 
[ QUOTE ]
The devs have admitted that the Blaster secondaries are sub-par and promised again and again to fix them. But they haven't yet because, I suspect, they see it as a lot of work.
So, this thread is about fixing the blaster in the easiest ways possible. The quickest, dirtiest set of changes you could imagine to make Blasters what they should be. Imagine you're Statesmand and you have decided to fix the whole AT over in time for I7, so you have limited development time. What would you consier that needs to be changed and how would you change it?
What I think
- [*]1) Blasters need to be able to make a better ranged attack chains with their primary and secondary combined, than could be made with just the primary.[*]2) Blasters need to be able to deliver more AE, or at least more of it at range.[*]3) Controls and Debuffs are part of a Blaster's arsenal for a reason, and if they need more protection, that is where it should come from[*]4) It is more appropriate to share more of a Blaster's Defensive "strengths" (control, debuff) with other blasting ATs than to share more of a Blaster's Offensive strengths with other blasting ATs.[/list]
Overall
- [*]Build up increases range by 40% and is slottable for range. (1)[*]A 10th power is added to each Blast set.[/list]
We will Add a 10th power to each blast set. This power will be available at level 16 to everyone who has access to that set will have access to the new power. The goal is to put another Debuff or Control in the primary, where it will help Blasters protect themselves better without increasing the DPS of the other ATs that share the Blast set.
- [*]Archery - Add Flash Arrow from the Trick Arrow Set (3,4)[*]Sonic - Add Sonic Siphon from the Sonic Resonance Set (1)[*]AR - Add AIM (1)[*]Elec: Add Single Target, ranged version of Storm: Thunder Clap (3,4)[*]Energy: Add Energy Aura: Repulse (3,4)[*]Fire: Move Combustion from the secondary here. Make it slottable for Fear (retreat, not cower). (See below for secondary) (3,4)[*]Ice: Add Ice Tank: Icicles. (2)[*](FYI) Dark: Single Target Fearsome Stare[*](FYI) Rad: PBAE Lingering Radiation[*](FYI) Psi: Spectral Wounds[/list]
We will make the following changes to the secondaries.
- [*]Dev: Targeting Drone - +DMG added (1)[*]Dev: Time Bomb - Time Bomb is targetable and if it is damaged by Fire, Energy, or Smashing damage, it goes off early (2)[*]Elec: Charged Brawl - Changed to a ranged attack of same BI (1)[*]Elec: Lightning Field - This changes from a PBAE damage aura to an Enemy Targeted Damage Aura (similar to Defender EF and DN) (2)[*]Elec: Thunder Strike - Ranged (2)[*]Energy: Energy Punch - Replaced with a longer ranged version of Power Burst (1)[*]Energy: Boost Range - Replaced with a click version of PFF that cannot be perma'd[*]Fire: Combustion - Replace with Burn (2)[*]Fire: Blazing Aura - This changes from a PBAE damage aura to an Enemy Targeted Damage Aura (2)[*]Fire: Burn - Replace with Fire Imp, a click power that summons a single imp (duration and recharge parallel to Phantom Army). (1)[*]Ice: Ice Sword - Becomes Ice Sword Circle, same power, but a PBAE (2)[/list]
This is almost entirely shuffling powers that already exist in the game around. And where you aren't shuffling, you're using existing power effects so you can leverage existing animations.
The net result is one more power (usually to protect Blasters) in the primary and more ranged damage (AE and ST) in the secondary to buff up the amount of damage Blasters can do AT RANGE wihtout increasing the damage delivered by other blasting ATs and also without increasing Blaster BI.
Now, while I welcome critiques of my suggestion, I'm more interested to see how you would fix Blasters with minimal effort.
[/ QUOTE ]
The issue with your solution to the primaries is youll see, there are enough times you can choose a power so you can take every power in both sets and 2 powers from a power pool (ideally travel power related) and 4 powers from an epic pool. Not that everyone chooses their powers this way but thats how it was set up. Of course, if they wanted to let us get another power that'd be fine
As for the secondaries, there are some things that really shouldnt be done. Blasters don't need Burn. Its the same thing with Blazing Aura. If we were to get a "fear" power it should be something with a ranged fear.
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
[ QUOTE ]
Here's some ideas:
1. Replace the most useless power in each scondary with:
Burst
Duration - 15
Recharge - 60
Burst sends a jolt of energy through your system, freeing you from status effects and protecing you from them for a short time.
Basically a Break Free on a timer. Replace Burst/Energy with element/secondary specific terms.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is a fantastic idea! This would fix me completely in PvP (well except for the whole Stalker situation )
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I PM'd Castle about a week or two ago.
He's pretty busy with Blasters.
[/ QUOTE ]
Howabout some other devs? Hope he's sharing the burden if he can at all.
Anyways, I hope he has some news soon. I'm pretty sure the devs are aware that there are imbalances with Blaster primaries and secondaries, I just hope they care enough to fix 'em in a timely fashion, and open-minded enough to think that they should at all!
[/ QUOTE ]
I PM'ed Geko maybe... 3 or 4 months ago asking him if he could post where they were at on looking at Blaster Secondaries (high/low priority, if anything was being done yet etc.) No reply... is it true he turned off PMs?
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I PM'd Castle about a week or two ago.
He's pretty busy with Blasters.
[/ QUOTE ]
Howabout some other devs? Hope he's sharing the burden if he can at all.
Anyways, I hope he has some news soon. I'm pretty sure the devs are aware that there are imbalances with Blaster primaries and secondaries, I just hope they care enough to fix 'em in a timely fashion, and open-minded enough to think that they should at all!
[/ QUOTE ]
I PM'ed Geko maybe... 3 or 4 months ago asking him if he could post where they were at on looking at Blaster Secondaries (high/low priority, if anything was being done yet etc.) No reply... is it true he turned off PMs?
[/ QUOTE ]
Last time I tried PM'ing him he wasn't taking them... this was a while ago though. Can't say anything about now.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I PM'd Castle about a week or two ago.
He's pretty busy with Blasters.
[/ QUOTE ]
Howabout some other devs? Hope he's sharing the burden if he can at all.
Anyways, I hope he has some news soon. I'm pretty sure the devs are aware that there are imbalances with Blaster primaries and secondaries, I just hope they care enough to fix 'em in a timely fashion, and open-minded enough to think that they should at all!
[/ QUOTE ]
I PM'ed Geko maybe... 3 or 4 months ago asking him if he could post where they were at on looking at Blaster Secondaries (high/low priority, if anything was being done yet etc.) No reply... is it true he turned off PMs?
[/ QUOTE ]
Bwuh? When did the lizard start taking PM's? He hasnt taken them in years.
Heroes
Dysmal
Lumynous
Sam Steele
Pluck
Wile
Slagheap
Pressure Wave
Rhiannon Bel
Verified
Stellaric
Syd Mallorn
Villains
Jotunheim Skald
Saer Maen
Jen Corbae
Illuminance
Venator Arawn
Taiga Dryad
Tarranos
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I PM'd Castle about a week or two ago.
He's pretty busy with Blasters.
[/ QUOTE ]
Howabout some other devs? Hope he's sharing the burden if he can at all.
Anyways, I hope he has some news soon. I'm pretty sure the devs are aware that there are imbalances with Blaster primaries and secondaries, I just hope they care enough to fix 'em in a timely fashion, and open-minded enough to think that they should at all!
[/ QUOTE ]
I PM'ed Geko maybe... 3 or 4 months ago asking him if he could post where they were at on looking at Blaster Secondaries (high/low priority, if anything was being done yet etc.) No reply... is it true he turned off PMs?
[/ QUOTE ]
Bwuh? When did the lizard start taking PM's? He hasnt taken them in years.
[/ QUOTE ]
Can't be bothered with the unwashed masses?
Bah, let us eat cake!
Brother of Markus
The Lord of Fire and Pain
The Legendary Living Hellfire
Fight my brute!
[ QUOTE ]
You have every right to express your opinion and dislike my own. But unless you have some survey of the blaster population, would you be so kind as to express your opinon as yours and not some mandate from the Blaster community?
[/ QUOTE ]
And do you have a survey of what exactly blasters do want, before running off with a half a page of what you consider your best suggestions. You had your opinion, that would basicly to me, and im sure to others that enjoy the fun of playing both at range and in melee, would ruin the sets. And this is also not the first thread started lately dealing with these issues, issues that the suggested resolution to would again, in my opinion and reading this thread alot of other blasters as well, would not be acceptable.
And i have a energy secondary. And to me, adding two powers that if i choose i can take in my epic sets, that of PFF and repulsion is a waste, and if i had to give up any other powers to have them added is completely not acceptable.
I know the ideas that i put forward are not original , or even really my own exactly. They have been suggested time and time again for over a year. But they seem to be ideas getting lost in the recent flurry of "take this from us and give us this" posts. Posts that deal in ideas offered by a few in the blaster community that are seeking to have melees effectivness dropped in blaster sets, in order to gain what they feel is more range. I dont agree. I love the melee, and i love the way blasters currently play. I love the variety, to me anyone can fight in melee with defense sets, good players do it well without. And i love the challenge.
Can i live with no mez protection, sure i have done it for 2 years almost. Can i live with no added damage to range, sure but it would be nice to see a better scalling damage curve. Can i live with power burst being only 20 foot range? Yes because i move in and out of melee and close range using my secondaries its really never been a huge issue for me. But 50 foot would be nice. Would i give up anything your suggesting i do, to have any of these things happen...... H E L L NO!
And that is my opinion.
And the reason why exactly would the door be closed on having scaling fixed as you said? Perhaps because after Defiance was introduced there was a flurry of threads saying it sucks and fixes nothing, and now we arent ever mentioning that issue anymore, we are disscussing removing this power for that.... add this here and take that there posts. Well my opinion is stay on target. Full fill the thread title you suggested, change little to fix alot. Your suggestions change alot for what to me is little if any gain with what I would have to give up. And you might say you havent suggested dropping any melee damage, but exactly what makes you think that the same devs that believe that dominator damage is scaled well are going to give us a long ranged high BI attack with out some cost for it coming from somewhere? To me we should be looking more at minor QOL type fixes rather then asking for complete overhaul. THings that can be slipped in instead of tearing apart sets and rebuilding. Cause after seeing how some sets in COV run, i honestly dont want them to pay to much attention to what my blasters can do.
Trust me, defience still sux, and is completely useless to all Blaster builds. The fact of the matter is, it's the most useless, and unseeable Inheirent out there. You only really see it in PvP, and the masses aren't that much into PvP.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You have every right to express your opinion and dislike my own. But unless you have some survey of the blaster population, would you be so kind as to express your opinion as yours and not some mandate from the Blaster community?
[/ QUOTE ]
And do you have a survey of what exactly blasters do want, before running off with a half a page of what you consider your best suggestions.
[/ QUOTE ]
Nope.
I also didn't tell the devs to ignore other people's opinions. And I did not suggest that other opinions expressed in the thread were misguided and representative of only a vocal minority of the population.
You, meanwhile, did all those things in your very first paragraph:
[ QUOTE ]
Please just ignore them. Really blasters have a couple main issues that dont require totally ruining the sets as these few posters that keep reguritating the same ideas to change blasters to THEIR ideals keep posting.
[/ QUOTE ]
You are welcome to express your own opinion and your opposition to mine. When you start telling the devs to ignore it because you claim it reflects the opinion of only a "few posters", you cross a line from expressing your own opinion to claiming you know what is and is not a minority opinion. And strongly imply that your opinion represents the majority.
[ QUOTE ]
You had your opinion, that would basicly to me, and im sure to others that enjoy the fun of playing both at range and in melee, would ruin the sets. And this is also not the first thread started lately dealing with these issues, issues that the suggested resolution to would again, in my opinion and reading this thread alot of other blasters as well, would not be acceptable.
[/ QUOTE ]
Lots of blappers have had the same knee-jerk reaction you did. I'm not sure I blame them with so many proposals here to get rid of the melee attacks entirely. But, I'd like to point out that my proposal does not eliminate melee attacks entirely, and keeps the best attacks in each secondary at melee specifically to maintain the high risk/high reward playstyle of blappers. You may not find it fun, of course, but the statement that it ruins the sets because you can't play at both range and melee is not accurate. You will have fewer melee-only tools and more both ranged tools, which can be used at melee as well, of course.
[ QUOTE ]
And i have a energy secondary. And to me, adding two powers that if i choose i can take in my epic sets, that of PFF and repulsion is a waste, and if i had to give up any other powers to have them added is completely not acceptable.
[/ QUOTE ]
Processed Meat Man said something very similar, and you will see that my later proposal changes the sets less radically for that very reason.
[ QUOTE ]
I know the ideas that i put forward are not original , or even really my own exactly. They have been suggested time and time again for over a year. But they seem to be ideas getting lost in the recent flurry of "take this from us and give us this" posts.
[/ QUOTE ]
Which is why I attempted to avoid that with the 10th power trick. And, in my revised proposal (which you don't seem to have read yet) you will find even less radical changes.
[ QUOTE ]
Posts that deal in ideas offered by a few in the blaster community that are seeking to have melees effectivness dropped in blaster sets, in order to gain what they feel is more range. I dont agree. I love the melee, and i love the way blasters currently play. I love the variety, to me anyone can fight in melee with defense sets, good players do it well without. And i love the challenge.
[/ QUOTE ]
I believe that such challenge should be embraced. I simply think that the deferential between the best ranged chain one can make and the best melee chain one can make should be smaller. If you will read on in the thread, you will see that, after reading others' opinions, I propose converting a single ST and a single AE in the secondary to ranged. Same BI, etc., simply add range. That should not lower the Melee attack chain at all (since the ranged power will still work at melee), but should increase the strength of the ranged attack chain so it is closer to the melee chain.
[ QUOTE ]
And the reason why exactly would the door be closed on having scaling fixed as you said?
[/ QUOTE ]
It may not be. It's possible the devs would consider raising the base BI of Blasters or change Defiance. I consider it unlikely, but it's possible.
[ QUOTE ]
[W]hat makes you think that the same devs that believe that dominator damage is scaled well are going to give us a long ranged high BI attack with out some cost for it coming from somewhere?
[/ QUOTE ]
What price did Scrappers pay for criticals when they were given the Boss-Killer role? The devs have said aloud that they consider the secondaries an issue, I think they may indeed consider putting some love there without some giveback. They've said they're happy with Defiance. They raise other ATs BI, but didn't raise ours. I think they're happy with the overall AT stats and think there are only issues with individual powers and sets. My solution focuses where I think they are open to change.
If your opinion differs and you think that they might change base BI or the inherent, that's the route to go. Certainly, it would be much simpler to improve the Blaster ranged attack chain if they simply raised our ranged BI by 10%. If you think they would consider that, that's the way to go. My opinion is that they won't do that.
1) This has been mentioned before, but carrying over the 30% unresistable damage to PvE is brilliant in its simplicity. I have a 50 AR blaster, it would solve sooo many problems. Furthermore, it would give blasters something unique that the other damage dealing AT doesn't have, without taking anything away from scrappers. Hell, make that our inherent, I'd trade in Debtfiance for "Armor piercing" in a second.
2) A slight increase to the damage in the slower-activating single-target sets (Energy, Elec, and Sonic) to compensate for the longer activations would bring these sets more in-balance with Ice and Fire. A sizable increase would be unbalancing, especially since they're shared with Defenders and Corruptors, but I'd be happy with 10%.
3) Standardize range for the low-level blasts. What logical reason is there for Charged Bolts having shorter range than Lighting Bolt? Or the stupidly short range on Flares?
4) Chain-mezzing in this game is out of control and NOT fun, and not just for Blasters. If it was just bosses we could compensate by carrying a breakfree or three, but chain-mezzing by Lieutenants and MINIONS (Sappers, anyone?) needs to be seriously looked at. It's worse than getting one-shotted IMO.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
Pilcrow, might I suggest reposting your revised proposals in a new thread as to avoid newcomers to your thread being confused when they read your first post and assume that you haven't made any revisions?
Also: Thou doth sucketh because thou art an Illusion Controller. Yea.
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*
Given the redname post, there's no chance of people stopping their responses to the OP. That's what Castle responded to (even though I doubt that's all he read).
I've put the updated proposal in my siggy. And when cuppa gets back, I'll ask her if we can edit the first post. Until then...punt!
[ QUOTE ]
Question though... if we debuff an enemy's range uhm... won't they just close with us? >.> And hurt us in melee?
I could be wrong; I've never used Hurricane myself (I haven't gotten my storm defender high enough yet); but it seems to me that if you end up dropping an enemy's range; all they'll do is get closer. And then you are no longer at range at all. Which uhm... yeah... <~_~> I could be wrong though; not meaning to bash it; just not understanding is all.
[/ QUOTE ]
I dont believe i suggested debuffing range. I think you might have my posts mistaken with another. My main point is i really dont want debuffing, debuffing is a corruptor, i hate corruptors. I love the fast damage(melee and range) with no defense(or low).
But I am a firm believer that melee doesnt spell doom or gloom for blasters. Its a matter of picking and choosing, mixing it up so your not the sole point of agro to a mob. In peregrine island my blaster can drop into a group of 8-10 even level minions/lts and off them using a combo of melee and range. (and a insp or two for mezz protection)
People complain about powers like Energy torrent being to situational. But i find it to be a great power, atleast in PVE. with build up and aim energy torrent is quite a viable opening attack, It knocks most of a mob on there buts and does enough damage to take atleast a third to half the HPs from even cons. And frankly when i feel that i can easily be soloing 2-3 times the number of mobs that the 3:1 goal that this game is ment to be centered on I truely dont want alot of attention drawn to the AT. Unfortunately if the COV ATs are any indication of a greater sense of the game balance the devs are currently invisioning, when a massive overhaul of secondaries is completely, i can guarentee we will lose more then we gain.
Blasters are damage, not debuffing, not controling, side effects are in support of our main cause, DAMAGE. we do in my opinion fulfill that role. We could fill it slightly better with few tweaks, but sweeping changes to secondaries will net a negative result in my opinion.
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not against Targetting Drone getting damage, particularly if the perception love gets spread around somehow, but please think about what you're asking for in the right frame of mind and be reasonable.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, after testing of Follow Up I found it to be far different than what I expected. It wasn't 25%, but it was far closer to 40% than 100%. I still suspect my figures because it was an odd number, not a multiple of 10, but I have to reach the conclusion that Follow Up, as it can be used as part of an attack chain without interrupting it, has been adjusted to be lower accordingly.
By that logic, the proper value for Targetting Drone would be closer to 30% than 50%. As I said, I was taking Rage as my comparison, and not Follow Up or Assault, which might actually be a better foundation. So consider "what I'm asking for reduced to a more reasonable level".
I will also add that such an addition, particularly without a reduction in Acc would obviously mean more Endurance. So a bonus aroudn 15-20% would probably be easier to add with no other significant changes. I kind of suspect that's all the devs would consider adding anyway.
QuiJon, chill.
Regardless of whether you agree with any of the suggestions in the original post or not, there's nothing wrong with posting a lot of stuff in a brain-storming session. Castle already said a lot of Pilcrow's suggestions won't be put into effect for a variety of reasons. Let's wait and see what they do choose to implement before panicking. If you disagree with anything Pilcrow suggested, point out what problems it causes and suggest a counter-proposal.
Defiance hasn't been forgotten. I suggested a change to it earlier in the thread. Namely, I think Defiance should work more like Vigilance, and damage taken by teammates should count towards a Blaster's Defiance meter in addition to the damage the Blaster takes himself. I like the idea because it not only makes Defiance more useful, but it helps solve a problem being brought up on the Tanker forum: Tankers who forego offense to build a pure meatshield don't feel they contribute enough to the team, so there is no point in building anything but a Scranker. If a meatshield Tank has a greater potential to increase a Blaster's damage than a Scranker, problem solved. (Well, partially.)
How keen the devs are on that idea I don't know, since they would have to completely rework the percentages where Defiance kicks in and how much it boosts our damage, but Positron has said that the devs want to have more powers in the game like Oil Slick Arrow, where a teammate with a fire power can set the slick alight, in addition to the power's native abilities. In Defiance, they have a golden opportunity to do this. I'm holding out hope that they'll take it.
[ QUOTE ]
The devs have admitted that the Blaster secondaries are sub-par and promised again and again to fix them. But they haven't yet because, I suspect, they see it as a lot of work.
So, this thread is about fixing the blaster in the easiest ways possible. The quickest, dirtiest set of changes you could imagine to make Blasters what they should be. Imagine you're Statesman and you have decided to fix the whole AT over in time for I7, so you have limited development time. What would you consier that needs to be changed and how would you change it?
[/ QUOTE ]
I would drop the punch melee range attacks in the secondaries. We're not Scrappers. In their stead, I would suggest at least one type of each attack:
1) A Hold attack of some sort, minor damage but great Hold. The last attacks on Energy and Electric are Hold-type punches. If we could get these for Range, that would help keep Blasters out of melee damage.
2) An automatic boost, passive running like Health/Stamina from the Fitness pools, that increases range. The Range Boost on Energy secondary is a nice idea, but it's a clickable power that I've kept forgetting to click. If it was an auto boost I'd have kept it.
3) Would it kill us to have some sort of defense buff power like Cloak from Devices established to all other Blaster secondaries?
MA Author: Look for my eight arcs under @Witty Librarian!
Hero Cleanup Protocol estory now available! Through Smashwords.com and most ebook retailers!