/momentary derail
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Thee is an issue with the "must stay active" mechanism in Fury and Domination that needs to be looked at, but outside of that I don't see an issuw with Brutes. Mine play very effectively. Perhaps that falls apart late-game however. Mine main brute is in the 20s still.
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1) IMO as someone with several DECENT level dominators, Domination's timer is pretty good. It drops slow enough to really not hurt you. In fact I know some Dominators who's main issue is that Domination doesn't recharge fast enough to keep up with the bar!
2) I know in beta, after the level bump my 24 brute went from merely OK to... "Yeah, and what are you going to do to me little man?" Once he had stamina to keep his toggles running he was ALMOST as good at taking damage as a tank (maybe not LONG term but in the short battles he excelled) AND his damage rocked. Once my fury was up, with the defenses I had the mobs didn't last long enough to get through them.
/derail over
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<reduced to "soccer boy talking out the side of his mouth">
[/ QUOTE ] <recuded to "Pilcrow replying"?
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Dude see... now I had written out this loooong reply myself but thought back to your 'beating empty shirt' comment and reduced it to that one paragraph reply. And here you are replying. :P
Bad Pilcrow Bad! 
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He gave us a real response. He deserved the same.
Guess he really got under your skin. For me, he's just someone who disagrees with me. I meet people like that all the time.
Usually, they're wrong 
I think some of you guys are being rude to SOCKERROCKER. It's great that we all have the ideas we have, but there are some people who, like him, think that the AT doesn't really need that much help. I ask people in game every now and then if they thought their Blaster sucked and they responded with a definitive "no". They loved their char and were happy with the way they were. Any changes to it and they weren't really overly concerned with it.
My other point is, we're the guys on the forums. We're trying to balance this among our little world. I have yet to see someone say, "well what would the casual player who doesn't read the boards and doesn't care about max efficiency think of all this?" There are a million things to consider when trying to change an AT, and I know the point of this thread isn't to find them all or figure out balance, but it really got to me the way some of you were talking back to SOCKER. His original reply got flamed to all hell and back and not one person thought, well hey, maybe he sees something we don't and that makes him think the way he does. And for that reason, maybe we're looking at a change the wrong way. Yes, I know that if the majority thinks something is wrong then there is probably something wrong, but if the minority has a different point of view, there's a reason for it. Anyways, I'm going to get yelled at for sticking up for him, so go ahead.
I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.
He speaks!
Thanks for the words, Castle.
Let me interject my propaganda while you're here: Don't take away mah powahs!!!
Just a random thought, and if my suggestion was already mentioned, feel free to ignore my post (just not /ignore ):
Range scaling with level so that as you went up in lvls the max range on powers would increase asswell.
But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman!
One man's "meh" is another man's "zomg". - Leatherneck
Procrastination meter coming soon.
Sounds like a lot of very interesting ideas. And even got the notice of Castle. Good job Pilcrow, you always have insightful material.
The only one wish I have for Fire Manipulation is that another single target attack gets added in there. While AOE may be Fire's forte, sometimes you need an extra ST melee instead of the endurance intensive AOEs. My recommendation is Greater Fire Sword, which fits with the Fire Sword theme of the set. Maybe replacing Hot Feet? Would love to get Fiery Embrace in there, either to replace Build Up or in addition to it since Fire's selling point is extra damage, but I understand that if it replaced Build Up it wouldn't be fair to the people without Fire Blast.
Again, great suggestions Pilcrow.
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but it really got to me the way some of you were talking back to SOCKER. His original reply got flamed to all hell and back and not one person thought, well hey, maybe he sees something we don't and that makes him think the way he does.
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No you're not going to get yelled at, you're going to get advised of three facts:
1) BOTH Pilcrow and I said that his initial response was NOT helpful, if he was going to say they're 'fine' he needed to expand upon that. WHAT in his eyes makes them fine? We BOTH asked that.
2) His posting here is self serving. If you look at his other posts in other threads, he's got a real thing for blappers right now. Based on his replies in THIS thread I can comfortably surmise that he thinks what we're looking for is going to end up gimping him as a blapper.
3) His PERSONAL experience with a blaster is limited. My main is a blaster and I've played him regularly since I've had this game. I think he (my blaster) could use some love and yes I'm a little irked that someone who's only experience with blasters is teaming and a level 20 is going to tell me my blaster is fine.
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I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.
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...And when you're ready to move onto helping with this, you'll get moved or move to another project just like everyone else. ..*sniffle*
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[I]t really got to me the way some of you were talking back to SOCKER. His original reply got flamed to all hell and back and not one person thought, well hey, maybe he sees something we don't and that makes him think the way he does. And for that reason, maybe we're looking at a change the wrong way.
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You responded to me when you wrote this, and so I must assume you think I am one of those being too hard on him. I would ask you to re-read my initial responses to him, where I ask him for his reasoning. When he failed to include that reasoning in two subsequent posts, I did call him an "empty shirt", but at the same time I defended (twice) his right to have an opinion without having played a blaster through all levels.
I'm always interested in opposing opinions, they often lead to better, more refined ideas.
If I just happend to be the reply to, then that's life. But, if not, you must have read some things into my posts that I did not put there.
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I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.
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I appreciate your not only visiting but posting here. I think, as a result, you will see some other post their ideas as well. I bet some of them will be well worth reading.
It's always hard to tell from this side of the code (let alone the internal balance spreadsheet equations) what is or is not in the realm of possibilities, but I'm glad to see that at least some of the ideas might be able to be leveraged.
If I may shill, Hanged_Man started a similarly constructive discussion about what Defenders want to see in the Blast sets in the Defender forum. Might be worth a read.
Thanks again for your interest and efforts, Castle.
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I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.
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_Castle_, thank you! I had the feeling that you and some of the other Devs had been observing some of the threads being posted by regulars of the forum recently, ever since that post that you were looking to help us out after your recent issues with Claws and such. Just hearing further input from you on what you like and what sounds doable is very, very uplifting. 
@Shenalia
Triumph: Ion Force (SG)
Victory: Evil Triumphs (VG)
Proud member of the Triumphant Defenders Coalition.
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Blasters revised role as ranged damage dealer (vs. previous role of best damage dealer) calls for a boost in range
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I have never been comfortable with that generalization. It implies that blasters should always be at range or seek to be at range, which then implies that all tactical options given to blasters that require melee range are, in some way, "broken."
Although it cannot be reduced to an easy sound-bite description, I believe blasters should more properly function as "damage dealers that have dramatically risk/reward ratios at long range as opposed to close range" - as opposed to scrappers that are "damage dealers that function primarily at melee range but whose mitigation is not generally range dependent." Relative to scrappers, I think a blaster that has no enemies anywhere nearby and firing ranged attacks should do less damage, and be safer, than a scrapper that is in melee range of lots of those things, and contrawise a blaster that is in melee range should do much more damage and be in greater risk than a scrapper.
The problem is that this is tricky to do: in effect the only way to achieve this is to somehow give blasters ranged defenses, but the devs don't want to give blasters defense at all. I've been attacking that problem from a number of angles (perception, scaled defenses, etc), most of which appear to be the kind of things too difficult to add to the game. So I have a proposal that might achieve that in a way that *might* be more palatable to the devs. I haven't had the time to fully flesh it out, but this seems as good a place to toss it out as any:
Give each blaster primary a means to debuff range.
Debuffing range exists in the game (cf: hurricane). The devs added range to all the villains to make sure we can't kite them intrinsicly, but the devs seem much more willing to give out situational, or active protection. If blasters could debuff range, they could *temporarily* gain ranged defense: it wouldn't be true +DEF, but it would be the next best thing. If the ability couldn't permanently debuff range to zero, it would not be excessively powerful: it could be tweaked to provide whatever damage mitigation we wanted.
There are four benefits range debuffing provide to blasters:
a. Ranged defense
Defense without defense. We'd be safer at range because they couldn't hit us from long range. At least, the ones we somehow debuffed.
b. Synergy with blaster secondary effects
Range debuffing synergizes well with a lot of capabilities blasters already have: immobilizes and knockback in particular synergize well with range debuffing.
c. Relative uniqueness
Not a lot of things debuff range, so this doesn't step on defenders as a class.
d. Easy to add
Most blaster primaries have certain logical places to put range debuffing, depending on how strong you want the debuffing to be. For example, short-lived range debuffing (~5 seconds) might be reasonable to put into low damage AoEs, like energy blast's torrent and explosive blast (yet another way to make EB actually worth something). Stronger, longer-lived range debuffing (~10-15 seconds) might be more reasonable to put into single target attacks, like AR's slug. Depending on how strong you want the effect to be, it could be made a continuous ticking effect in powers like rains.
e. leverages "short range" attacks.
"Short range" doesn't matter if we can temporarily make the critters' range even shorter. Tactically, one might see debuff -> move in -> short range attack -> move back -> longer range attack. I like things that give us options, over things that take them away, all other things being equal.
How do we conceptually justify debuffing range? Well, in the real world, range and accuracy are interlinked, but in CoH, range and accuracy are decoupled: you have the same accuracy from point-blank range out to maximum range, and then suddenly your accuracy drops (literally) to zero. Range debuffing is really the second half of "accuracy" debuffing: "real world accuracy debuffing" would ordinarily be comprised of reduced precision aka -ACC and reduced range. So in a sense, -range is a form of conceptual accuracy debuff.
So what do blasters do that conceptually fits in with reducing the accuracy of their enemy? Four things, actually:
1. Knockback/knockdown conceptually ought to rattle a target enough to disrupt their accuracy for a moment or two. Try throwing a baseball while falling down the stairs.
2. DoTs conceptually ought to be a distraction for an attacking target. Being on fire would definitely hurt my ability to play darts.
3. Sudden AoEs ought be be a similar distraction. Boom.
4. Constant fire from blasters, even misses, should rattle attackers, ala the keep-your-head-down approach to combat. A critter might rightly think that the scrapper way over there is no threat, because he's engaged with someone else, and can't reach him. But a blaster can turn around and decide to shoot you at any time. Every time a blaster switches targets and fires at you, that might serve to cause you to concentrate more about staying alive than shooting back, or throw your shot off.
This does give certain opportunities to add range debuffing to blaster sets:
* you could theoretically add it to any powers with knockback
* you could theoretically add it to any powers with DoT
* you could theoretically add it any AoE, balanced against how much damage it does
* you could theoretically add it as an inherent effect on all blaster single target attacks, perhaps always taking effect on the first shot you fire on any target within a certain window of time (but not being allowed to stack, or overlap permanently).
There are a lot of mechanical decisions that would need to be made to ensure this is balanced, but I think it could be made to work out. It would probably have to be introduced slowly though, to ensure it doesn't suddenly overpower blasters.
[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.)
My hat is off to you Pilcrow! Good stuff. I would like to contribute one thing in regards to lethal/smashing damage.
Too many enemies have resistance against this type of damage, it makes things extremely rough for AR/DEV blasters at the higher levels. I bring up DEV because it lacks build up, which when 3 slotted will give a significant boost in power. Straight Lethal and Smashing damage dealers need some love.
The survivability of blasters gets really questionable at higher levels when soloing, at least it has for my AR/DEV blaster. When you compare blasters to corruptors there's a HUGE difference in survivability. The difference I've noticed between an equal level AR/DEV blaster and a Sonic/Dark corruptor is absolutely staggering!
Regards,
Captain Head Explody
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Blasters revised role as ranged damage dealer (vs. previous role of best damage dealer) calls for a boost in range
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I have never been comfortable with that generalization. It implies that blasters should always be at range or seek to be at range, which then implies that all tactical options given to blasters that require melee range are, in some way, "broken."
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Well, unintentionally I'm sure, you've inserted your own subtext there. I've defended the need for melee attacks in the Blaster secondaries, and the need for there to be a better damage potential up close than at range more than once in this thread alone.
The statement means what it says. Once our role was premium damage, now our role is ranged damage. Since that's the new role, please increase the amount of range the AT has access to so they can perform that role better. That's different from "all of our attacks should have range, then".
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Although it cannot be reduced to an easy sound-bite description, I believe blasters should more properly function as "damage dealers that have dramatically risk/reward ratios at long range as opposed to close range" - as opposed to scrappers that are "damage dealers that function primarily at melee range but whose mitigation is not generally range dependent." Relative to scrappers, I think a blaster that has no enemies anywhere nearby and firing ranged attacks should do less damage, and be safer, than a scrapper that is in melee range of lots of those things, and contrawise a blaster that is in melee range should do much more damage and be in greater risk than a scrapper.
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Well, IMO, that's not the state of the game today. Melee attacks generally to 1/3 more damage than ranged attacks. Blasters do not, generally, have 2/3 the safety of a Scrapper when at range.
It's an intersting thought, and it has come down the pike before (some have suggested that Blatserd get decent DEF, but only vs. range, for example) but were I to look at Blasters and assign them a role other than "ranged damage dealer" it would be "team-focused damage dealer". The extreme of this is the */Fire Blaster, with enough AE to burn down Cincinatti, and no way to use most of it without a strong team backing his play. That's, in part, why I like upping the debuffs, because it helps the team, too. That's why I think it's essential to make it easier for him to deliver AE than it is today.
Just where I'm coming from. Not the only right answer.
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The problem is that this is tricky to do: in effect the only way to achieve this is to somehow give blasters ranged defenses
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/note to self: read first, then write
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but the devs don't want to give blasters defense at all. I've been attacking that problem from a number of angles (perception, scaled defenses, etc), most of which appear to be the kind of things too difficult to add to the game. So I have a proposal that might achieve that in a way that *might* be more palatable to the devs. I haven't had the time to fully flesh it out, but this seems as good a place to toss it out as any:
Give each blaster primary a means to debuff range.
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That has potential.
I can see why you want it in the primary (Defenders would go nuts if they couldn't debuff range, too). I can see where it would help them operate better at range. I can see a dev thinking: "that's way too poweful" and another going "well, if we gave it to the MOBs, too...". Well, let's see where you take it.
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d. Easy to add
Most blaster primaries have certain logical places to put range debuffing, depending on how strong you want the debuffing to be. For example, short-lived range debuffing (~5 seconds) might be reasonable to put into low damage AoEs, like energy blast's torrent and explosive blast (yet another way to make EB actually worth something). Stronger, longer-lived range debuffing (~10-15 seconds) might be more reasonable to put into single target attacks, like AR's slug. Depending on how strong you want the effect to be, it could be made a continuous ticking effect in powers like rains.
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Seems to me the logical place to put in would be the snipes.
And, while not logical, gameplay wise I could see putting it into the cone powers. No logic, but it would really put that help where its most needed.
Very interesting ideas, as usual Arcana.
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I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.
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::tackles _Castle_ and give him a big bear hug::
Hey! 
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I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.
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I heart you, Castle.
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I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.
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You know, if you keep responding to reasonable posts with little to no amount of flaming I may have to stop ranting. Think about where you'll be then without my rants.
(thinks about continueing the trend of good cop bad cop with Pilcrow continueing to play the good cop)
On a different note, it would be interesting to know what Ideas you thought were interesting Castle. You don't have to say why you didn't like some of the others but it would be interesting to know which ideas got a nod even if we don't know why.
If nothing else it will give us more food for thought.
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If nothing else it will give us more food for thought.
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/signed
If we know which ones are out of the question we can stop debating those and focus on contributing growing ideas to the ones that ARE doable.
After looking at all the blaster builds, Energy is the most equal of them all, and here's why:
1. All secondaries either do a disorient, like BS, or TF. Not to mention their Disorients stack. So why not take BS, and TF. You would be stupid no to. Not to mention EP and power thrrust have saved my butt more tuimes then I care to admit. You don't need to slot PP that much, an accur, a range and maybe a kb and your set. The rech is incredibly fast as well.
2. CP is one of the most under rated powers in the game. You see tanks, controllers, blasters all grab it if they can. It does make the end usage a lot better. even 3 slotted CP will save you in a long fight. It's greta to have especially for Tanks that have huge End usage in their attacks. *which is about hmm I'd say all of them.*
3. Boost Range in the NrG secondary is under rated: I have seen very few NrG blaster carry this power. For reasons unkown, but why not have a power that let's you attack something from farther away? Plus it's RECH isn't long by any stretch of the imagination. For instance, in the Justin Augustine TF vs Ruladak. I was sniping and attacking him from out side of the room, while an INV/Fire tank kept him busy. We actually finished that TF with a 4 man team.
NrG as a secondary is has what a lot of blasters need to survive IMO. It has self buffs, debuffs= aggro control. It has things most of the blaster nation would like as an alternative to the other power sets.
Let's look at the other sets shall we?
Electric: Most of the powers here are End drain, well that doesn't do blaster a whole lot of good for the most part. With the recent bump to LT's Bosses, and Elites. There are some KB's in there, but not manyShockin Grasp being the uber of the secondary has a weak hold at best. IMO not worth taking Sink is a nice buff, but not that great. havoc Punch is pretty good and Lightning Clap, seem to be good powers ovetr all. But still don't hold water to NrG.
Fire: Fire has one Immob, and ine slow, the rest is pure dmg, and aggro machine. So yeah. That wouldn't do blasters much good.
Ice: I have Ice as a secondary on my Elec Blaster, and I like ti a lot. FF slows foes down and is a toggle dropper in PvP. Sword is good dmg when slotted and another toggle dropper in PvP. Chilling Embrace I love. Granted it acts like a taunt, but the slows are definately worth it in the long run. Snipe with Patch is a great way to deal dmg quickly, and not be harmed, unless by ranged attacks. I notrmally drop it right after I snipe, fall back till the enemies come running for me, the run back to the patch when foesare about there. makes a nice addition. Shiver is all slows and accuracy. It's okay, but Embrace does the same thing just at a shorter range. It's not that great IMO. Touch has a hold, but it's not uber, but does help manage some aggro and has a relatively quick RECH. Aura has a nice sleep. It allows a lot of aggro control, and you can take a group easily with it. One draw back is the accuracy is terrible on it. I suggest 2 accuracies just so it hits and holds more. Ice has a lot of aggro management, which is what we tend to crave more. It's more of a defensive set, which is why it's becoming more popular. But the last of self buffs is a turn off IMO. But I'd have to say behind NrG, it's the best secondary IMO.
Devices: While this was really popular in the eraly release of CoH, it's been nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed again. AR/Dev was the be all of Blassters. Web is a really nice Immob, Caltrops cause slows, and DOPT like crazy, taser was so so. Drone was widely used, but then people found out it got nerfed and dropped it quick. Smoke was great, and used often, Still is a good power to take in some aspects, but has been nerfed so badly, it's a gamble on your playstyle. Mine, was the be all, end allof Dev blasters. You could throw smoke, drop some mines around them, then pull and 80% of a large gropup would be dead. Bomb and Auto turret, weren't widely used, but only had situational usage. Cloaking Device was a must have for Dev blasters. It pretty much eliminated an entire pool for blasters to take, so they could be truly unique.
So now that we've gone through them all. NrG is still leading the way as the best seconadary, because of it's equality in all aspects of playing, followed by Ice in a close second. If the rest opf the Blaster secondaries were more like these, less blasters would whine about their AT's. I still think a blaster type of Placate would be great. But it's still not the answer. I honestly beleieve that if defience could kick in sooner, blaster would be happy, because ya fixing 2 problems at once. We could feel like damage kings again, and still have enough survivability, that people wouldn't complain. I'd say when you're down to say 60% health your defience bar should be about 30% filled. at 50%, defience is at 40%, and so on, Untill ya almost dead like it is now, then your D bar is maxed. I can't wait to hear the feedback from this
Brahma, sink is an EXCEPTIONAL power. I go from just enough to trigger it to full endurance in one shot.
Thunderous Blast... catch a breath, sink off any survivors and voila. A 'free' TB. Also (mind you this is pre-end-nerf) TB could almost if not completely drain almost any of those who survived in the group. Drop my sink to recharge and nothing had any end left.
It really is a great utlity power. Where conserve makes your endurance last longer, sink gives it all back to you with the added bonus of draining enemies (assuming they fix that.)
That's NOT a power I'd want to see taken away.
The targeted damage auras are frickin genius. Nice idea Pilcrow!
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4. This is a newly formed idea, so give me some leverage. A new inherent. No nifty name in mind, just the effect.
+Defense at range (capped at 60' to prevent exploits)
+Damage at melee
What this does is facilitate "risk vs. reward". You risk much less by being at range, but you recieve a reward for being in melee. This way, Blappers don't get screwed. It couldn't be outrageous numbers. Maybe capped at 50% damage and 20% defense.
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This is the best idea for the Blaster inherent I've heard. I'm not too sure about the damage boost for closeness (and 50% is phenomenally too high), but the defense bonus for being at ranged is inspired.
Great idea Blastblaze.
Of course, since the Dev's are unique among anyone who plays this game in believing that Defiance is anything but uselessly absurd (except for going from level 1 to about 7 super fast), it's never going to change. That's too bad because this is a gem.
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I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.
[/ QUOTE ]On a different note, it would be interesting to know what Ideas you thought were interesting Castle. You don't have to say why you didn't like some of the others but it would be interesting to know which ideas got a nod even if we don't know why.
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I'll second that. Still waiting for some reply on the lists that he picked up too, especially the questions. Would definately like to see Castle's take on those.
The list of issues raised by Pilcrow and debated ad nauseum in this thread are all things I've thought needed to be addressed for the past year or so.
The fixes proposed seem to be a wee bit on the complicated side, but taken individually each change seems reasonable. Castle's stamp of approval on at least part of it only sweetens matters.
Good job on the suggestions and revisions. I wish I had something meaningful to add but anything I could say has already been said, with more eloquence and more thoroughness than I would probably manage.
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<reduced to "soccer boy talking out the side of his mouth">
[/ QUOTE ] <recuded to "Pilcrow replying"?
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Dude see... now I had written out this loooong reply myself but thought back to your 'beating empty shirt' comment and reduced it to that one paragraph reply. And here you are replying. :P
Bad Pilcrow Bad!