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(I also agree that Targetting Drone needs +DMG)
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A great number of people agree with you. I'm not one of them (I think Targetting Drone is a great power as it is and that there are other powers in /DEV that need buffs or tweaks instead), but it does seem to be a commonly proposed solution to the /DEV problem.
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I would buy that if Build Up got +perception, which is something only devices currently gets. Except, I really think its Aim that deserves +perception, and I'm not sure if BU/Aim blasters should be getting two +perception powers.
The best solution to this quandry? Swap BU for Aim in blaster sets, so that Aim is in the secondary and BU in the primary. Then its the secondaries with the (primarily) acc-buffing power, and now they can all get some element of +perception (and maybe range), and BU, the more damage-boosting power, is in the primary. That actually helps defenders as much as blasters, especially at lower levels (at lower levels, damage boost is much more helpful than accuracy boost, and both powers boost accuracy "enough" at lower levels).
I have often thought that BU and Aim are sufficiently similar mechanically that blasters should really get one or the other, and the slot replaced with something interesting. I have a thought there, but that's another post.
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I disagree with Pilcrow's assertion that more ranged attacks should be included in the Secondary, because as I see it, there are at least two attacks in the Primary which more properly belong in the Secondary. The Blaster Secondary (Devices excepted) is equally derived of melee attacks and control powers, and so the short range (point blank actually) Burst attack and the single target Control (2 and 3) would seem to more properly belong in the Secondary. In fact, the single target Control is in some cases redundant with Defender Primary Powers. The best example of this is Power Push and Force Bolt, only one of which needs to be taken.
The only issue with putting the ranged Control powers in the Secondary seems to be that Secondary Powers, even Control based ones, are either melee or PBAoE. (Again, Devices is the exception) This, I believe, is the other issue with Blasters. Their Secondary control powers, while useful, require them to move into melee to use them. Thus they are encouraged to be Blappers in order to use their holds as defenses. While I can see the logic behind this, there is a greater risk in stunning a foe and moving into melee, and thus greater reward, the fact that a Blaster has NO DEFENSES AT ALL, while at range, proves to be the largest issue after level 30.
Thus, my suggestion is that instead of adding ranged attacks to the Secondary, make more of the current Control powers ranged. This would bring the other Secondaries more in line with Devices, which is already longer ranged. I believe it is the ATTACKS that should remain melee, and the Secondaries should be a combination of melee attacks, and ranged Controls.
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Well, as the thread moved on, Ive moved away from moving powers from set to set because of the chaos it will create for existing builds, but were we to put that back on the table, I would suggests that you're doing it the wrong way. Blasters are supposed to be about premium ranged damage. Giving them exclusive access to premiere ranged damage in their secondaries would make them unique in their own role. Giving them ranged control there and more damage to those who share the blast sets the squishie ATs instead.
If we are going to put moving powers around back on the table, and we want Blasters to be unique ranged damage dealers, the best way to do that would be to put a strong, steady attack chain in the primaries and the strong situational stuff into the Blaster secondaries where others cannot get at them. For example, you could move the snipe and nova to the secondary (along with that control power) and then you can bring three attacks (immobilize, 1 melee and 1 PBAE, for example) over from the related secondary (or their closest equivalents for NRG and DEV). This makes the primary more like a Dominator set, and the secondary becomes a mix of control and premium attacks instead of control and melee attacks. Thus the secondary supports both the melee playstyle and the pure ranged playstyle, instead of forcing people to blap to use half their secondary.
Now Defenders and Corruptors have a fuller, stronger, regular attack chain (albeit one that requires melee to gain full benefit) which resolves the problem you noted for them (weak attack chains). OTOH, they lack those situational damage powers that can wow a team offensively the same way Speed Boost and AM wow a team on the buff side. These new Blasters will have some powers unique to them that will make them more powerful soloers (snipe) and also more interesting to their team (nova) by leveraging damage powers instead of buffs or controls. All this managed in a way that increases AT diversity and the interest in having all ATs on the team, instead of compressing AT diversity and making the ATs more and more blurred.
Again, I worry about the chaos of a solution that moves that many powers around and have moved away from it. I toned that down as the thread went on. But the mechanics aren't where I really differ from you so much as the goals. If you're looking to improve Blasters, shouldn't it expand upon their specialty (dealing premium ranged damage)?
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You touched on a very good point. Power boost for a blaster is of limited use. Why? Not because the buff isn't strong. But because the way the majority of such buffed effects work for blasters is cumulative over time -- the actual benefit of one knockback, or one slow, or one non-SC drain, is low. It's only your ability to pile them up that helps you out. A 15 second boost to that... not always attractive. Make it a toggle? Must-have (and overly strong).
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Yeah, power boost is definitely an odd duck. However, if they increased all of our secondary effects, or added more secondary effects, then maybe the current version of powerboost would become rather useful.
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Totally agree. Power boost would certainly be more attractive if what it boosted was more readily noticeable in the small doses you can fit into power boost, or, of course, if the doses you could cram in were higher (ala boost range being permable, though not necessarily to that extent).
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I really liked your analysis on conserve power. It is a bit more on the purist side for my own tastes. And by purist, what I mean is that you truly expect that the effects of the power be closer to "perma" than "situational".
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Indeed. I don't think anybody reading the power list when they picked up the game thought "wow, that's a great power to have, say, 30 seconds on a 10 minute recharge!" It did get a boost way back when to 90, and was almost great with 6-slots and perma-hasten. The hasten invariably increased your attack rate and you still needed stamina anyways to keep up, though. 
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For the few of us who actually have conserve power, I expect we use it as a bonus power to be combined with stamina already planned in the mix.
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To be clear, I *do* have conserve power, and I *do* combine it with stamina. Blapping can take a lot out of you, and I don't have the luxury of treading water against a couple guys while I wait for endurance to replenish like a scrapper or tanker often can. The way things tend to shake out, though, I rely on my stamina'd output the majority of the time, and conserve power is relegated to a trouble button -- a sub-optimal use (because it's more effective if you've got blue already and can burn the blue you've got AND the blue you're recovering at the discounted rate), but one that I find better than reaching for it while I'm in a crash cycle.
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(It would be fantastic if conserve power is a complete substitution for stamina, but that would be asking for too much).
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Why? I don't get this argument -- do other sets feel that asking that a secondary power out-perform a pool power is "too much?" Kinetic shield is 12.5 defense base, weave is, what, 3? Is kinetic shield "too much?" Tough for a tanker is 15% resistance, temp invulnerability is 30%.. is temp invulnerability "too much?"
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Besides ... if we are truly utilitarian about our endurance usage, then we'd realize that a lot of our stamina's endurance recharge is wasted every time we go AFK, or take a break waiting for someone who went AFK.
What I mean to say is that there is actually a lot of good opportunities to take a break and socialize with your fellow heroic MMORPGers.
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I don't know about you, but I don't click conserve power then, either. I do get what you're saying, and that's that click buffs afford some degree of control over when you use their typically stronger effects. But in extreme durations with long downtimes, I find that caution and unwillingness to be caught with your pants down and it unavailable to you evens out -- I go through a lot of fights where I could use conserve power but hesitate, that stamina works for me.
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Of course ... if they do reduce the downtime of conserve power, that'd be gravy!
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This is my general feeling. It's not a make-or-break deal, but I do feel disappointed. I certainly picked the set because it looked like it would afford me the ability to marathon-fight without having to rely on stamina on top of it.. And it certainly is described in a more significant way than, say, power sink, which I showed (admittedly rough, since I don't have a definitive recovery per hit number) numbers for, though power sink outperforms it (as I mentioned, to the degree you'd expect compared to stamina).
I guess I've gotten to the point where I've suppressed my discontent to a simmer on the back burner of my mind. It's no longer the focus of my crusades, but if it were righted it would certainly feel like a long-standing issue had finally been resolved and that they did right by me.
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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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My issue is with the word "role." It implies that melee attacks should be the rare exception to the rule, not a valid choice a blaster might make. It says that blappers are either broken, or evidence that the blaster sets are broken, because by definition they cannot fulfill the blaster "role."
I still think the blaster role is "damage" and it should be a valid choice for every blaster to decide if for them their blaster will be "AoE damage" or "single target damage" or "long range blaster" or "short range blaster" or some combination of all of these, and each of them should have a valid advantage over the others.
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But ranged damage IS the Blasters role according to Statesman:
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I went away from the computer to check on some CoV stuff and *wham* I received 5 or so PM's asking "what is the Blaster's role?"
Answer - Ranged damage. Now, the issue is more specifically - what does a Blaster do that a Scrapper can't already do? Or, even worse, is a Scrapper inherently "stronger" than a Blaster. We want each Archetype to have a well defined role, and part of our Scrapper testing is aimed directly at this.
Secondly, I have no intention of removing melee attacks - it's just a "perception" by some Blasters that some of the Secondary Sets aren't as useful as Devices or Energy Manipulation. This is a rather frequent refrain in PM's (and the occasional forum post). This is something that we should also explore...we want all the Secondary sets to be fun. - Statesman
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Furthermore, neither he nor I see a conflict between a Blaster having a ranged damage role and melee attacks being an important part of Blaster's capabilities. Blappers are not broken because they focus on melee. Secondaries aren't broken because they have melee in them. I haven't said that, Statesman hasn't said it.
But he has said the Blaster role is ranged damage.
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Spines scrappers have more AoE than other scrappers, but no one says all other scrappers are inferior to spines scrappers. Spines and claws have ranged attacks, but no one considers them superior to all other scrappers just because they have ranged attacks. In a similar vein, I do not think that blasters should be heavily weighted towards AoE damage, or heavily weighted towards higher range. Designating any "role" for blasters other than "damage dealer" tends to do so, even if not everyone intends it to be so.
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Well, then, wouldn't it be ideal for the secondaries to improve both ST and AE damage, both up close and at range? Wouldn't ideal secondaries have tools to improve the attack chains of any of those 4 "kinds" of damage?
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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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Interesting thing about giving it to the MoBs: they already did give it to the MoBs, you just might not be thinking that they did.
Relatively recently, the devs changed things so that -perception now affects players in PvE the way it does in PvP: critters can actually disappear from your view if they are beyond your adjusted perception range (or they actually turned on the -perception in critter powers, something). The net result is that, in effect, critters debuff range now. They do because range and perception are linked: you can't shoot at what you can't target, even if you actually have much longer range.
But this isn't symmetric. (As I mentioned to Castle once before) -perception doesn't affect critters the same way: once aggroed on you, critters can target and shoot at you even if their "perception" is debuffed to zero: the game doesn't force critters to "see" you to shoot you.
Critters can force you to close to extremely close range before they become targettable - critters can actually become totally untargettable for short periods of time. But players cannot do the same thing to critters, because of AI restrictions (the critters always somehow have to "know" where you are).
Debuffing range is an alternate way to get the same effect, and by giving that effect primarily to blasters, it enhances their ability to attack from range.
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Hmmm, so what about debuffing PER instead? If the effects are that similar, it seems to me to make a lot more sense that a rapid barrage of incoming damage will addle thier minds making it hard for them to get their bearings than that it will break the muzzle off their rifle.
All that said, let me emphasize again how interesting and worthwhile this -range idea is. I don't want the places where I disagree with you to overshadow my admiration for the cleverness of the notion. It might, all by itself, be the solution to the whole "blast debuffs are meaningless" issue that plagues Defenders just as much as it does Blasters.
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If they boosted our range, what would happen to the people that slotted 3 Ranges into their attacks? What if those same people picked up Boost Range? What if at that point you're hitting stuff so far away the game just becomes a joke? What if in PvP you can hit people from on top of buildings and chase them down from such a far distance away that they have no chance to react? Would everyone be accepting that?
If we increased the effects of our control powers, would the Controllers feel like we're stepping on their toes?
If we took away some of the melee and made it ranged, would everyone with a Blapper be happy or upset? How long would it take the average person to adjust to a new playstyle? Would everyone who doesn't read the forums be in agreement of what is going to happen if they're power changes?
If Power Boost and Conserve Power were made so that we could use them more often, would we just never run out of endurance and have greater control than some of the Controllers? If we buffed our control and then buffed Power Boost, would it be too powerful? Would we be too powerful with close to limitlesss endurance?
I like a lot of the ideas in here, but I mostly like the ones that just change some numbers. The whole range thing is now really starting to bother me in that if we get a boost in it, it would take a long time to test and retest and make sure that it won't break the game down the line. I would lean more towards the "range increases with level" option since it's in the late game that guys like Malta and Nemesis start to really screw with us. Early on fighting Family and Tsoo? Pfft, please. Anyways, I put out those questions to see if people are thinking about these things when they make their suggestions. Like I said, some of the ideas in here are creative and sound fun, but there is a big difference between what we can write and hypothesize on the boards than what actually will work out overall in the game.
If you think I'm overthinking all this, let me remind you that Cryptic isn't one to just take an idea and throw it into the game. From all of the people who I've brought into the game, every single of them has agreed that for the most part, what Cryptic puts into the game is well designed and thought out. I'm sure if you asked Castle how many scenarios and overall schemes run through their heads when implementing just one little change, he'll tell you it's not just 2 or 3.
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I suspect that thinking like this is why he said that SOME of the ideas might work and others definitely will NOT work.
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I suspect that thinking like this is why he said that SOME of the ideas might work and others definitely will NOT work.
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No, more like:
1: allowing a Blaster to put a ranged DoT toggle on a mob can allow you to risk-free kite a +4 boss around some indoor areas just by circling some large central blocking item. Or to DoT a SR Stalker who can't drop into Hide, and whose defense is useless (though I suppose they could make the DoT have to roll to hit).
2: making all ranged attacks 40+ range allows someone to chain 3 Ice Blast attacks with Charged Brawl, all with 1.5 or lower activation times, and with 3 of them at 4 BI or greater. In other words, you'll blow a squishy away at range after Build-Up/Aim, in about 6 seconds. At least now you have to worry about Hurricane, Repel, closing to where the pets aggro on you, etc.
Those are just the balance issues, not even looking at animation work. There are some ideas that are nice, but will require some sort of limitation... that's why I was looking more at an area-drop field than a mob toggle, and at 20 range for any secondary attacks that get range. Because otherwise, we will see some balance problems.
Possible solutions, BTW:
1: make all ranged attacks from the secondaries use animations such at the throwing animation from Impale, thus the slower animation makes them less effective at burst damage in PvP. Or at least have them fire fast, and block new powers for a second after. Anything that prevents them from creating a ranged one-cycle squishy killer.
2: make the toggle DoTs roll to hit, and have relatively short range... not just to apply, but have them drop the toggle if you go too far. Most of the exploits I can think of with them involve the extended range at which a toggle will remain, compared to the range at which you can apply it. For example, putting a DoT toggle on a boss, then Flying over their heads out of shooting range.
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Hmmm, so what about debuffing PER instead? If the effects are that similar, it seems to me to make a lot more sense that a rapid barrage of incoming damage will addle thier minds making it hard for them to get their bearings than that it will break the muzzle off their rifle.
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Because as I mentioned, debuffing perception doesn't affect critters the way it should, because of AI limitations. If you attack a player, and then hit them with smoke grenade, you'll disappear and become untargettable. In fact, Night Widows do exactly that to players. But if you attack a critter, and then hit them with smoke grenade, they will still target and shoot at you, because perception isn't consulted for critters when determining if they can target you or not. I think it should, but Castle points out that there are AI limitations that would make that non-trivial to do (this is true for all critters: masterminds are partially immune to smoke grenade's -perception, because their pets are also AI-controlled critters, and "immune" to -perception).
Debuffing range is a way to simulate the fact that you've reduced the accuracy of the foe in such a way that they cannot reasonably expect to hit you beyond a certain distance away. Debuffing perception would be another way to do that, if debuffing perception affected critters in PvE under combat conditions (debuffing critter perception only affects whether or not they detect you to aggro on you in the first place, and whether or not they continue to be aggroed on you: once aggroed, they will shoot you up to their maximum range or until they lose aggro).
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Seems to me the logical place to put in would be the snipes.
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Pil, dont forget that two sets dont have snipes. Ice and Sonic.
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[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore, neither he nor I see a conflict between a Blaster having a ranged damage role and melee attacks being an important part of Blaster's capabilities. Blappers are not broken because they focus on melee. Secondaries aren't broken because they have melee in them. I haven't said that, Statesman hasn't said it.
But he has said the Blaster role is ranged damage.
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My definition of "role" is: blasters will be designed to function most optimally when performing their role, and may perform at significantly lower levels outside that role. Its an operative definition: it says how to optimize blasters.
But that might not be the definition Statesman is using: if it is, then:
"it's just a 'perception' by some Blasters that some of the Secondary Sets aren't as useful as Devices or Energy Manipulation"
contradicts the statement about role, because if blaster role is ranged damage, and blasters should therefore be optimized around ranged damage, then the appropriate metric to judge the secondaries is how they support ranged damage. And only energy and devices really do a good job of that: energy has boost range and power boost (PB can help keep foes at range: it can boost knockback and holds in primaries to do so), and devices has caltrops and autoturret (the only real ranged attack in the secondaries).
However, its possible that Statesman is using "role" in a different way: to mean "a capability unique to blasters irreplacable by other ATs" - even if it isn't the *only* capability, or even possibly the *best* capability.
If that is how the blaster "role" is being carved out, then I can accept that the blaster "role" is being ranged damage. It would mean that blasters should do enough of it to make its effect not directly replacable by other ATs, but it would not mean that blasters couldn't be potentially even better at other things if they wanted to (i.e. blappers).
But I'm sensitive to the fact that as long as this subject has been tossed around the forums, there have been people that have said:
"Blasters are all about range, and therefore the melee attacks are just plain wrong."
So long as the blaster "role" isn't used to justify eliminating the inherent risk/reward option that currently exists for blasters, I won't argue the "role" issue strongly.
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[ QUOTE ]
Again, I worry about the chaos of a solution that moves that many powers around and have moved away from it. I toned that down as the thread went on. But the mechanics aren't where I really differ from you so much as the goals. If you're looking to improve Blasters, shouldn't it expand upon their specialty (dealing premium ranged damage)?
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Well, I have not followed the thread, as my primary reason for replying was _Castle_'s response. If we assume that the concensus here is that moving powers around is a Bad Thing (TM) and that _Castle_ gets that, then I have no argument. My comments were mostly about NOT moving powers around, although I might have expressed it that way.
For instance, while I might have said that Burst and Control may be more appropriate in the Secondary, I recommended a SOLUTION that left them were they were. I increased the range of Burst, and the damage of the Control power to make it a combination control/damage Power like Crippling Axe Kick.
Likewise, my suggestion to adapt the existing Secondary Powers are designed around changing them as little as possible. We do not need to change the purpose of the powers, their effects, or even their names. All my suggestion entails is increasing the range.
As for your primary point, I am with Arcanaville in insisting that the design philosphy of the Blaster is offensive punch at all ranges. You cannot give a Defender or Corruptor a melee attack, because it would violate the design philosophy, that Defenders and Corruptors have attacks and debuffs at range. Their weakness is that their powers aren't built for close in fighting. (Quite frankly, they're too well defended for it to be an adequate risk)
You may be afraid of making Defenders (I doubt that) or Corruptors more powerful by raising their damage, (and ironically your alternative of including melee attacks would do that as well) but the characteristics are the same for all three ATs. If a Blaster is forced to build an attack chain from his weakest three attacks then the other Ranged fighters are as well. You've got to take the bad with the good, if you are afraid of too much damage overall, the perhaps a damage boost (maybe raising Defiance sooner) would be more appropriate.
I'll let the devs determine whether Corruptors would need to be rebalanced after getting a damage boost. I'm pointing out where the damage discrepancy IS, I'll leave it to the devs to decide to take my suggestion or go with something else.
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I suspect that thinking like this is why he said that SOME of the ideas might work and others definitely will NOT work.
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No, more like:
1: allowing a Blaster to put a ranged DoT toggle on a mob can allow you to risk-free kite a +4 boss around some indoor areas just by circling some large central blocking item. Or to DoT a SR Stalker who can't drop into Hide, and whose defense is useless (though I suppose they could make the DoT have to roll to hit).
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Dude the time it would take them to get away with that they could EASILY earn more exp hunting crap closer to their own level.
As for the stalker... he'd have to hit us and hopefully get a stun. It's part of PvP. Just like stalkers don't think it's a big deal that people have to have a specific build to fight them...
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Possible solutions, BTW:
1: make all ranged attacks from the secondaries use animations such at the throwing animation from Impale, thus the slower animation makes them less effective at burst damage in PvP. Or at least have them fire fast, and block new powers for a second after. Anything that prevents them from creating a ranged one-cycle squishy killer.
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Stalkers... brutes, properly built slotted tanks, scrappers... all of these are easily squishy killers. The only difference being they need to get close.
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2: make the toggle DoTs roll to hit, and have relatively short range... not just to apply, but have them drop the toggle if you go too far. Most of the exploits I can think of with them involve the extended range at which a toggle will remain, compared to the range at which you can apply it. For example, putting a DoT toggle on a boss, then Flying over their heads out of shooting range.
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Why should it be any shorter than any of the other targetted toggles?
And again... someone'd need to be pretty lame to go that route. Did I miss something in the thread? Are we asking the ranged DoT toggled field be uber or something where hovering over a +4 boss and waiting for our DoT to whittle away his health is a viable form of gaining exp?
Seriously dude... not trying to bust your chops but the idea of it just makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Like I said above... whatever exp I can get from 'field exploiting' on the boss... I can get FASTER by fighitng things closer to my level.
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allowing a Blaster to put a ranged DoT toggle on a mob can allow you to risk-free kite a +4 boss around some indoor areas just by circling some large central blocking item. Or to DoT a SR Stalker who can't drop into Hide, and whose defense is useless (though I suppose they could make the DoT have to roll to hit).
make the toggle DoTs roll to hit, and have relatively short range... not just to apply, but have them drop the toggle if you go too far. Most of the exploits I can think of with them involve the extended range at which a toggle will remain, compared to the range at which you can apply it. For example, putting a DoT toggle on a boss, then Flying over their heads out of shooting range.
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Aren't anchors supposed to drop if you break LOS? I thought that would deal with the problem of kiting around an obstacle to keep the aura up with no risk. I could be wrong.
I've no objection to the notion of "have them drop the toggle if you go too far" or even with too far being shorter in distance than the debuff auras.
As for each tic rolling a ToHit, that's how it works on those powers today. No reason it should change.
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2: making all ranged attacks 40+ range allows someone to chain 3 Ice Blast attacks with Charged Brawl, all with 1.5 or lower activation times, and with 3 of them at 4 BI or greater. In other words, you'll blow a squishy away at range after Build-Up/Aim, in about 6 seconds. At least now you have to worry about Hurricane, Repel, closing to where the pets aggro on you, etc.
make all ranged attacks from the secondaries use animations such at the throwing animation from Impale, thus the slower animation makes them less effective at burst damage in PvP. Or at least have them fire fast, and block new powers for a second after. Anything that prevents them from creating a ranged one-cycle squishy killer.
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At 30 MPH (doesn't sprint + swift hit ~this speed?) you can close a 75' gap in 1 second. The game can certainly survive short range (20 =~60' right?) and I'd argue it can handle 45 (If you can eat one attack as you close, you can eat two while you close).
Changing the animation is less appealing than using short range, since the point is to punch up the damage in the chain. Would be better to do less range or to increase end per HP cost.
I wonder if it would be possible to do something else for Blasters. Well, not just Blasters, but any AT really.
Each time an attack is queued and released, the user of said attack gains a small resistance to the damage type of that power. Power Pool powers, Brawl, and temporary powers are not eligible. The buff starts at the activation time and ends once the animation is complete. The resistance doesn't have to be high, but noticeable say 4%.
Since the overlap is almost negligeable, attack combinations really won't stack resistances, but steady attack streams may provide a continuous buff during the cycle.
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(I also agree that Targetting Drone needs +DMG)
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A great number of people agree with you. I'm not one of them (I think Targetting Drone is a great power as it is and that there are other powers in /DEV that need buffs or tweaks instead), but it does seem to be a commonly proposed solution to the /DEV problem.
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I would buy that if Build Up got +perception, which is something only devices currently gets. Except, I really think its Aim that deserves +perception, and I'm not sure if BU/Aim blasters should be getting two +perception powers.
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Since Targetting Drone is a toggle power, the +DMG would be much lower that 100% anyway. I would say that it needs to be lower even than Rage's 80%. Cut it down to 50% or lower and I doubt it'll be greatly overpowered with the inclusion of +perception in the comparison.
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.
Remember also that Targetting Drone cannot be compared to Aim/Build Up COMBINED, only against one or the other. (Comparison to Build Up would be more appropriate, since it's the one it is replacing, but it is also the one it is least like)
I'd also like to add (although it's converse to the discussion about +perception in Drone) that while I do agree that -perception doesn't help the Blaster deal with aggro that he already has, Placate was a rather powerful tool developed for Stalkers to deal with that very issue. Again, this is just a suggestion and the devs will have to be very careful that Placate is not too powerful an effect for Blasters to use, but it is something that could be considered. Or a -aggro effect could be implemented, although Placate doesn't work that way, and its possible there's a reason for that. (CoH doesn't seem to want you to be able to get rid of aggro once you have it, merely avoid it or surpress it for a moment)
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I wonder if it would be possible to do something else for Blasters. Well, not just Blasters, but any AT really.
Each time an attack is queued and released, the user of said attack gains a small resistance to the damage type of that power. Power Pool powers, Brawl, and temporary powers are not eligible. The buff starts at the activation time and ends once the animation is complete. The resistance doesn't have to be high, but noticeable say 4%.
Since the overlap is almost negligeable, attack combinations really won't stack resistances, but steady attack streams may provide a continuous buff during the cycle.
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Wouldn't fix blasters but that brings up another issue I have. I have all 3 ele blaster powers yet I have no inherint resistance or defense against ele? Come on.
I'm amazed charged armor doesn't DoT me while it's on. ::snicker::
But that's for another thread...
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I'm sensitive to the fact that as long as this subject has been tossed around the forums, there have been people that have said:
"Blasters are all about range, and therefore the melee attacks are just plain wrong."
So long as the blaster "role" isn't used to justify eliminating the inherent risk/reward option that currently exists for blasters, I won't argue the "role" issue strongly.
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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.
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Aren't anchors supposed to drop if you break LOS?
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No, they aren't. They break based on distance only. The fact that LoS isn't required for anchored debuffs was one of the reasons my Dark Defender could herd most of monkey island in PI back in the day.
It's also the key to clustering mobs for AoEs. You smack your toggle debuff on a foe, then dance around a corner. As the foes come around a corner, they tend to cluster up, making hitting them with an AoE easier. This works particularly well with Tar Patch of course. My corrupotor uses this to pull a room full of mobs onto a Tar Patch before using Blizzard on em.
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Aren't anchors supposed to drop if you break LOS?
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No, they aren't. They break based on distance only. The fact that LoS isn't required for anchored debuffs was one of the reasons my Dark Defender could herd most of monkey island in PI back in the day.
It's also the key to clustering mobs for AoEs. You smack your toggle debuff on a foe, then dance around a corner. As the foes come around a corner, they tend to cluster up, making hitting them with an AoE easier. This works particularly well with Tar Patch of course. My corrupotor uses this to pull a room full of mobs onto a Tar Patch before using Blizzard on em.
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Thanks for the 411.
I would definitely expect that a damaging anchor toggle would need to perform an LOS check on a regular basis. Perhaps not each tic (lag might screw that up) but every few seconds and drop if LOS is broken. It may be appropriate for you to be able to maintan a debuff when safe from return fire, but not an anchor damage power.
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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.
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If that's what you are saying, then I definately agree with it. The truth is, many of the powerful attacks that Scrappers are able to build their chains with are the ones Blasters get in their Secondary. But they cannot be used in a chain at range. A Blapper currently has the advantage because it is easier to build stronger chains with melee attacks in the mix.
There should be a choice, but not a choice between "I can close to melee" and "I can use Blast, Bolt, and Ring of Fire". And really, the damage doesn't have to be THAT much damage. You do no more damage with an attack that hits harder, but takes longer to recharge. But you FEEL more effective. (And more importantly, you can do something else instead of having to spam your weak attack all the time)
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Since Targetting Drone is a toggle power, the +DMG would be much lower that 100% anyway. I would say that it needs to be lower even than Rage's 80%. Cut it down to 50% or lower and I doubt it'll be greatly overpowered with the inclusion of +perception in the comparison.
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.
Remember also that Targetting Drone cannot be compared to Aim/Build Up COMBINED, only against one or the other. (Comparison to Build Up would be more appropriate, since it's the one it is replacing, but it is also the one it is least like)
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+50% base damage continuously would be overpowered even when compared to stacking BU and Aim together. BU and Aim simply don't add that much damage over time: its all burst, but with a cost people ignore: they both have activation times large compared to recharge.
Lets look at the best case for BU and Aim: BU cycling continuously, and 3-slotted for recharge, and constantly hastened (which cannot happen continuously anymore). That's a 90/(1 + 0.95 + 0.7) ~= 34 seconds. And about 1.2 second activation (1.17). Ditto for Aim. And BU = +100% base damage, and Aim +66% damage.
So lets assume the blaster does 50 damage per second (in whatever units) unslotted, and therefore about 100 damage per second 3-slotted with damage SOs (close enough for our purposes).
In 35.2 seconds, the unenhanced blaster does 1760 damage, and the enhanced blaster does 3520 damage.
Cycling BU as fast as possible, the unenhanced blaster does:
1.2 * 0 + 100 * 10 + 50 * 24 = 2200
the enhanced blaster does:
1.2 * 0 + 150 * 10 + 100 * 24 = 3900
For just Build Up, BU adds 2200-1760 = 440 damage in 35.2 seconds to the unenhanced blaster, or 12.5 dps. In base damage terms, that is +25% damage. To the enhanced blaster, it adds 3900-3520 = 380 damage in 35.2 seconds, or 10.8 dps: 21.6% base damage (why less in the enhanced case? because the activation time penalty for the enhanced case is higher because the enhanced blaster is giving up more damage during that 1.2 seconds that BU is activating).
Aim is even lower. Aim + build up combined don't reach +50% base damage over time. And this assumes perma-hasten, which also doesn't exist. BU's real contribution to long term damage over time is closer to +15% at higher levels. Its better than a +15% damage over time, because burst damage benefits blasters more (due to lower damage mitigation), but that is its real numeric dps over time benefit (at least factoring only the damage).
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+50% base damage continuously would be overpowered even when compared to stacking BU and Aim together. BU and Aim simply don't add that much damage over time: its all burst, but with a cost people ignore: they both have activation times large compared to recharge.
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Rage has an 80% damage bonus, and no one says it's overpowered. Or maybe they do, but the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, and SS+Rage Tankers and Brutes are not all levelling twice as fast as everyone else.
The main aspect of this is that Aim/BU do not HAVE to be up all the time. Typically you are not constantly in combat, so in the time it takes the two powers to recharge, you can be back in combat again. Also typically you will not use the Powers unless your most powerful attacks are recharged, and so the period of time in which Aim/BU are active will almost invariably include those attacks. So to merely compute how long you can keep Aim/BU going over time and divide that by the amount of time it takes it to recharge, to determine the average damage boost, is somewhat misleading.
(I would also like to see a calculation in which BU is not used every possible time it recharges, but every time the most powerful attack in the chain is recharged. I would make a guess that the overall damage would actually be higher than what you calculated above, because you will not be interrupting the DPS of the chain all the time)
Now, part of Rage's 80% damage is that it comes with a 10 second forced downtime in which you CANNOT attack. And so a toggle power that does not have a downtime would probably have to be much weaker than that. However, 30-50% would probably seem to be about the right level, given that you may have to take away some of the to hit bonus in order to get the damage bonus that high.
By way of comparison, a Sonic or Dark Defender can get a 30% damage boost which lasts a short period of time, while Rad can actually maintain a damage boost (I don't know what it is for certain, but I'm sure it's within the same range) as a toggle. So I think we could say that 30% would be the MINIMUM. A 30% boost in damage is really not that much, it is only twice the boost of Assault.
Remember, that's 30% even when you are NOT attacking. The low level of the boost I think compensates for the fact that it is available, even when you aren't making use of it. (And I can attest to the fast that Assault is a VERY low level boost. I use it because I have no other choices to boost my damage, but it certainly doesn't give me more damage than Aim or Build Up, and remember you computed Build Up as being a 15% boost)
Yeah but Rage is a click power that can be slowed and thus diminish its use. Also, Rage also is "balanced" by that 10 second period of "You can't do squat".
My bet is that any dev that would consider something like adding a +50% damage boost to a TD would be "Okay so what's the downside to now balance this power".
Then again, I've been wrong before 
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Since Targetting Drone is a toggle power, the +DMG would be much lower that 100% anyway. I would say that it needs to be lower even than Rage's 80%. Cut it down to 50% or lower and I doubt it'll be greatly overpowered with the inclusion of +perception in the comparison.
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.
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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.
Hence, why I suggested it being a +25% damage boost earlier in this thread...
Seriously, what's with all the people jumping on this thread now that _Castle_'s posted to it? I mean, it's not like he doesn't read most of the threads around here - he probably posted here after reading the discussion, finally seeing one with more than one actual doable idea. 
@Shenalia
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Proud member of the Triumphant Defenders Coalition.
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(I also agree that Targetting Drone needs +DMG)
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A great number of people agree with you. I'm not one of them (I think Targetting Drone is a great power as it is and that there are other powers in /DEV that need buffs or tweaks instead), but it does seem to be a commonly proposed solution to the /DEV problem.