It seems very counterproductive for a melee Archetype to have half of the powers in their APP cause scatter.
In that regard I would still go for Fireball before ever picking -any- Rain type power on any melee.
@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
I'm not super fond of the powers you picked, but I'm a fan of any suggestion involving more APPs for scrappers. We have far too few of them atm.
If we could, I'd prefer to see at least one of them comprised of self-buff/debuff type powers rather than the anemic ranged attacks that we've currently got (thanks to the low scrapper buff/debuff modifiers).
Not self buff (already had in secondary), other.
I'd like to see some stuff from Thermal along with a couple of the Blast skills in scrapper fire, personally.
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
Too many blasted alts to list, but all on Virtue.
[ QUOTE ]
Not self buff (already had in secondary), other.
I'd like to see some stuff from Thermal along with a couple of the Blast skills in scrapper fire, personally.
[/ QUOTE ]
"Self-buffs" as in "offensive self buffs similar to Focused Accuracy," which we've already got two versions of. Something akin to Rage from SS (with the doubled recharge that follows with being in an APP) would be nice, at least in my opinion, especially since it wouldn't be possible to stack, forcing the crash to happen.
I'd still prefer an other-buff/support Aux more than Stuff That Is Already Had. Especially considering that something like Rage will probably make its way across during Proliferation.
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
Too many blasted alts to list, but all on Virtue.
Meh. I'd like to see Scrappers get APPs that contribute as much as those of the other ATs.
Blasters get some shields, decent damage, and control. The shields and other defensive powers are just universally useful because they provide a decent baseline of additional survivability, and the extra damage and control stack well with the existing stacking and control in Blaster primary/secondaries.
Controllers get damage and survivability. The damage gives them decent damage dealing capabilities that doesn't conflict with their holds (if held: damage; if not held: control). The survivability blends very well with their support secondaries and is also simply useful for the same reason that Blasters like it.
Defenders get additional survivability and bonus support capability and self buffs with a couple decent attacks thrown in. It's pretty self explanatory. Survivability from the APP shields is awesome. The self buffs and attacks make soloing/blastfending much nicer. The support capability (re: hard and soft controls) mesh with the straight support from their primaries.
Scrappers (and Tankers as well) get a few anemic control powers, some painfully weak debuffs, and pitiful ranged attacks that don't mesh well at all with how almost every Scrapper/Tanker runs (re: using the melee attacks from their primary). Tankers at least get some use from the ranged attacks because they have Gauntlet attached to help get/keep ranged aggro.
Every other AT gets powers from their APPs that contribute to the functionality of the APP without being in direct conflict with and oftentimes working synergistically with the ATs primary and secondary powersets.
'Far' too few?
One less than everyone else?
Poor scrappers. 'Far' too few indeed.
[ QUOTE ]
'Far' too few?
One less than everyone else?
Poor scrappers. 'Far' too few indeed.
[/ QUOTE ]
If we're talking APPs rather than any of the Epic Power Pools (re: blueside only), it's not 1 fewer. It's 2 fewer than Blasters and Defenders and 1 fewer than Tankers and Controllers, which is more than "One less than everyone else?" especially when that 1 accounts for a 25% reduction in options (or 33% increase depending on your vantage point).
In my opinion, the aux pools for every class do what they were designed to do - fill holes.
The things you list for all those ATs that are not melee all give them what tankers and scrappers already get from their primary and secondary - protection, and occasionally build up. The things that scrappers/tankers generally lack are Control, Team Buffing, and Ranged/Ranged Area Effect damage.
I'd like to see an aux pool that focuses on buffing/debuffing, healing, and the like, because I feel that tankers and scrappers already get heavy amounts of the things that are so highly valued in everyone else's aux pools, and because there are already a bunch of aux pools that give control and ranged/ranged AE damage.
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
Too many blasted alts to list, but all on Virtue.
Tankers should get Rain of Fire in their mastery pool... Unfortunately that would be WAY too powerful, since Tanker Taunt with it's -range component forces foes to stay inside the Rain of Fire.
Try it yourselves. I've got a 34 fire blaster who constantly teams with my boyfriend's tanker. They just STAY piled on him, no matter what.
Though a scrapper set with Rain would be a GREAT emergency 'get offa me!' move, as enemies flee, pell-mell, giving the scrapper time to escape while still hurting ALL of his foes. And if there WAS a tanker on the team with the scrapper... well. Rain would become a large area high damage attack!
-Rachel-
[ QUOTE ]
Okay, so the title's a joke. I don't really expect the Scrapper Fire APP to be named "Pyro Mastery." Even though that is only one letter off from the Tanker equivalent, Pyre Mastery. And perfectly captures the essence of the Scrapper mentality.
Anyway, whatever name the Fire APP ends up having, here's what I'd like it to look like.
<ul type="square">[*]Fire Blast : As Blaster power (damage reduced). Basic requisite single target ranged attack.[*]Hot Feet : As Controller/Blaster power (radius reduced). Even with the endurance drain, this is something that would be extremely useful. My only concern is that Caltrops vastly overpowers it (much cheaper for endurance, placeable, stackable, similar damage level). Still, I'd cheerfully take this power for some characters.[*]Rain of Fire : As Blaster power (damage reduced?). It may sound odd, exchanging what is certainly a better attack in the Tanker APP (Fire Ball) for this power... but I just can't see how any Scrapper could pass up the opportunity to make it rain fire.[*]Heat Exhaustion : As Corrupter power (recharge increased?). A lot of people were probably expecting to see Melt Armor here, but the tanker version of the power is so pathetically weak and slow-charging it's hardly worth bothering with (especially now that we have that delicious new -res PBAoE proc, which can slide right on in to Blazing Aura). I doubt the Scrapper version would be much better. So, instead, a single-target debuff, hearkening back to the olden days in which Scrappers' class role was bosskilling. Yeah, it won't be as good as Corruptor or Controller HE, but... I'd hit that.[/list]
[/ QUOTE ]
I think instead:
char
Ring of fire
fire blast
rain of fire
fire ball
I wish they would also add in rain of fire for the controller APP.
[ QUOTE ]
The things that scrappers/tankers generally lack are Control, Team Buffing, and Ranged/Ranged Area Effect damage.
[/ QUOTE ]
The problem with 2 of those 3 things is that they aren't really all that useful to Scrappers/Tankers. Control does very little to contribute unless you have multiple sources to add up the mag. Team buffing values for bother Tankers and Scrappers are so low that any effect they get from those are going to be reduced to pretty much nothing, plus, basic "team buffing" is easy enough to access via the Leadership pool and is probably better than any kind of APP team buffs because they don't directly interfere with a Scrapper's primary role (re: damage). Ranged/AoE damage suffers similarly.
The primary reason that Blasters, Defenders, and Controllers work well incorporating additional attacks from the APPs is that they oftentimes don't have complete attack strings (Blasters less so, but, more often I see the APP attacks being used by Blasters to fill in on AoE attack strings). The APP attacks aren't trying to take the place of powers that are already better and involve being in melee for use.
The only Scrappers that I know of that regularly take the attacks from the Scrapper APPs are AoE farming scrappers (Spines/* and Claws/* normally) that just want a third AoE so that they can kill an entire spawn in a single string.
The APPs are less problematic for Tankers though because all of their attacks have Gauntlet attached, which means that all of those pitiful ranged attacks they can get that are general downgrades compared to their primary attacks for damage can be used to either replace or augment Taunt for getting/maintaining ranged aggro. Scrappers get no such benefit.
Honestly, the whole hole-filling argument doesn't really fly with Scrappers. Scrappers aren't missing ranged attacks (which, 90% of the time they don't need because most can't get a full ranged attack string which would make them actually useful) because ranged attacks are simply another way of dishing out damage (which they have no problem doing). The only "holes" that Scrappers have, as an AT, are debuffing, which would require that any APP powers they get have a much higher debuff scalar to counteract their pitiful AT debuff scalar, and control, which would require that enough be present in a single APP to make it feasible to use them without serious detriment to the primary function (or make them toggles, which is what I'd prefer them to be). Control powers that Scrappers get shouldn't interfere with their primary role, which isn't likely going to happen, but it is what happened with every other AT's APPs.
Huh.
Okay, first off, this set does come with a significant debuff power -- one that improves survivability, no less, since HE has a pretty hefty -dam component.
And I'm with Zhao_Yun. Scrappers already have everything they themselves need to solo. They are, in fact, the only blueside AT which essentially guarantees this out of the box. There are soloable builds for other ATs, but that's not quite the same thing.
The only hole that makes sense for them to fill is their lack of support powers. The other classes get powers that make soloing easier; Scrappers should get powers that make it easier to team. I set up the power pool I suggested here in 'traditional' format because I think it's too difficult to get that change through the pipeline, as it were. But if I had my way, the set would have Thaw and possibly Forge, Cauterize, or Power of the Phoenix. (Edit: To get this into the five-power mold that other APPs have, I'd drop Fire Blast and, yes, sadly, Rain of Fire, replacing them both with Fire Ball. I'd prefer Thaw and Forge, but I'm afraid Forge would be pretty anemic as a Scrapper power, so unless it would be permissible to buff it, I'd likely end up with Thaw in T1 and PotP as a second T2.)
[ QUOTE ]
char
Ring of fire
fire blast
rain of fire
fire ball
[/ QUOTE ]
Not gonna happen. That's two significant ranged AoEs -- and why would you want ring of fire? Especially over Hot Feet?
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It seems very counterproductive for a melee Archetype to have half of the powers in their APP cause scatter.
[/ QUOTE ]
Those powers also cause Slow (and Hot Feet further, inexplicably, causes -fly). And the scatter's not really so bad. To compare, Hot Feet has a magnitude 3 Afraid and RoF has a magnitude 5, compared to Burn's magnitude 50 -- and enemies will typically charge right back into a Burn patch after leaving it on my /FA scrapper.
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'Far' too few?
One less than everyone else?
Poor scrappers. 'Far' too few indeed.
[/ QUOTE ]
If we're talking APPs rather than any of the Epic Power Pools (re: blueside only), it's not 1 fewer. It's 2 fewer than Blasters and Defenders and 1 fewer than Tankers and Controllers, which is more than "One less than everyone else?" especially when that 1 accounts for a 25% reduction in options (or 33% increase depending on your vantage point).
[/ QUOTE ]I'm too used to the redside. In which case, of fourteen ATs, two have two more, ten have one more, and two have none at all.
I dunno, doesn't feel like the 'far too few' is warranted. It's just ONE POOL.
Scrappers will never get Hotfeet.
If I was designing Pyre Mastery for Scrappers, it would look like this:
41: Fire Blast
41: Ring of Fire
44: Fire Ball
44: Melt Armour
47: Char
I think it's funny when people ask for hot feet, like they've never tried to melee with it on. It's about as counterproductive as Gale to typical scrapper play. I keep thinking it comes from fire/kin envy. I've got it on my fire/fire blaster, and lemme tell you, if he didn't put things down faster than all but the most ridiculous scrappers, he'd be really, really annoying people. Maybe it's just damage aura envy. People who play Shields and Invincibility wanting a damage aura, perhaps?
And Weatherby, don't you think that that epic has the vice that the power they all want comes early, and the late power isn't exciting?
[ QUOTE ]
<ul type="square">[*]Fire Blast : As Blaster power (damage reduced). Basic requisite single target ranged attack.[*]Hot Feet : As Controller/Blaster power (radius reduced). Even with the endurance drain, this is something that would be extremely useful. My only concern is that Caltrops vastly overpowers it (much cheaper for endurance, placeable, stackable, similar damage level). Still, I'd cheerfully take this power for some characters.[*]Rain of Fire : As Blaster power (damage reduced?). It may sound odd, exchanging what is certainly a better attack in the Tanker APP (Fire Ball) for this power... but I just can't see how any Scrapper could pass up the opportunity to make it rain fire.[*]Heat Exhaustion : As Corrupter power (recharge increased?). A lot of people were probably expecting to see Melt Armor here, but the tanker version of the power is so pathetically weak and slow-charging it's hardly worth bothering with (especially now that we have that delicious new -res PBAoE proc, which can slide right on in to Blazing Aura). I doubt the Scrapper version would be much better. So, instead, a single-target debuff, hearkening back to the olden days in which Scrappers' class role was bosskilling. Yeah, it won't be as good as Corruptor or Controller HE, but... I'd hit that.[/list]
[/ QUOTE ]That is pure HAX.
A single target ranged attack right out the box.
A PBAoE toggle that has solid damage and -Speed.
Directly followed by a damaging Location AoE that also gives -Speed
(No other APPs in the game start out like this and if the player has Burn and Blazing Aura from /Fire? LOL)
Yes, my AT has some of the best damage in the game and criticals to double that awesome damage, but now I can Debuff you on top of it all!
Yeah, the Devs should get right on this.
Whatever is it you're smoking, put that stuff down. Scrappers should get the exact same version Tanks do minus Melt Armor.
Virtue: The-Invictus (Blue)
The Emissary of Justice - Level 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
The Emissary of Justice. - Level 50 WP/Fire Tanker
Mesmerius - Level 50 Psi/Mental Blaster
Nucleoa - Level 50 Rad/Son Defender
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(No other APPs in the game start out like this and if the player has Burn and Blazing Aura from /Fire? LOL)
[/ QUOTE ]
Except, you know, Weapon Mastery. Which has a placeable ranged -slow -fly damage dealing debuff that can double stack.
You know what else would be great? A PBAoE stun effect that combos with Blazing Aura. It's like a slow, except all they can do is stagger around, not attacking!
Oh, wait. That's what /Dark Armor gets out of the box.
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Yes, my AT has some of the best damage in the game and criticals to double that awesome damage, but now I can Debuff you on top of it all!
[/ QUOTE ]
Yep. Just like Broadsword, Katana, Claws, Spines, Dark Melee, Dual Blades, Dark Armor, Shield Defense, Willpower, Dark Mastery, Body Mastery, and Weapon Mastery... all of which have debuff effects.
Man, what's with the lack of extrapolation that goes on here? Pay attention to the game the way it's played. C'mon, it's not that hard. Sure, it requires a little bit of reading and a little bit of math, but I promise you, you can do it with just a tiny bit of effort.
Edit:
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I think it's funny when people ask for hot feet, like they've never tried to melee with it on.
[/ QUOTE ]
It comes from using Burn. I think primarily a /Fiery Aura would want Hot Feet, because the additional Afraid is a small price to pay for the Slow. And I don't feel bad at all for wanting //Fire Mastery to combo with Fire/Fire. Spines/ and /DAs could also get some use out of it, and possibly some of the higher-taunt secondaries like /SD, /Invuln, or a /WP with a dam proc in the aura.
I've seen a lot of ridiculous arguments in my time, but this is pretty up there.
[ QUOTE ]
Except, you know, Weapon Mastery. Which has a placeable ranged -slow -fly damage dealing debuff that can double stack.
You know what else would be great? A PBAoE stun effect that combos with Blazing Aura. It's like a slow, except all they can do is stagger around, not attacking!
Oh, wait. That's what /Dark Armor gets out of the box.
[/ QUOTE ]Weapon Mastery starts with the following:
A low damage Targeted AoE slow.
A zero damage Immobilize.
A ranged attack.
You're suggesting:
A ranged attack.
A solid damaging PBAoE slow.
A medium damage Targeted AoE slow.
Dark Armor doesn't have a combination like this APP would allow.
No power combinations should have access to Burn, Blazing Aura, Hot Feet, and Rain of Fire except for Fire/Fire blasters due to the risk involved. End of story.
[ QUOTE ]
Yep. Just like Broadsword, Katana, Claws, Spines, Dark Melee, Dual Blades, Dark Armor, Shield Defense, Willpower, Dark Mastery, Body Mastery, and Weapon Mastery... all of which have debuff effects.
[/ QUOTE ]Not like Heat Exhaustion.
Virtue: The-Invictus (Blue)
The Emissary of Justice - Level 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
The Emissary of Justice. - Level 50 WP/Fire Tanker
Mesmerius - Level 50 Psi/Mental Blaster
Nucleoa - Level 50 Rad/Son Defender
[ QUOTE ]
Weapon Mastery starts with the following:
A low damage...
You're suggesting:
A solid damaging...
[/ QUOTE ]
Let's get some numbers there, shall we?
@50
Caltrops base cast deals 2.78 per second at an endurance cost of 9.75, with a duration and recharge of 45s, with a -80% movespeed effect and -jump and -fly. Assuming slotting for damage and recharge, that works out to 5.41 dam/sec with a cycle time of 23 seconds. Since it can then be double stacked with roughly 95% uptime, we'll look at it as though it were so: 10.8 dam/sec, -96% movespeed, and an endurance cost per second of uptime of 0.43. It is an auto-hit power.
Assuming Hot Feet were slotted for damage and endurance cost, it would deal 27.1 base damage per cycle time (2s) at an accuracy of 75%. This works out to an average damage per second of 10.16. It has a 70% movespeed debuff, -jump and -fly, and costs 0.53 (enhanced) endurance per second.
The powers are very similar. Using SOs (which are what are assumed for this), Hot Feet is in all ways worse than Caltrops. Including damage. Please be a bit more thorough before offering comparisons you have not examined.
Those are the only two powers which lend themselves to comparison; I'm not sure what you hope to gain by comparing the other initial powers of the pools. You might as well try and compare the first three powers from Energy Mastery and Darkness Mastery and conclude that one or the other of those two is imbalanced because it isn't an exact duplicate of the other. If you want to compare secondary effects, the first power from Darkness Mastery is a cone KB with a higher magnitude and shorter recharge time than the cone KB that's the T3 in Energy Mastery! And it comes with an additional tohit debuff! What could the developers have been thinking?!
[ QUOTE ]
due to the risk involved.
[/ QUOTE ]
A Fire/Fire/Fire blaster will have 30% S/L resistance from their APP shield. A Fire/Fire/Fire scrapper will have 35% S/L resistance from their set shields. What exactly is it that amplifies the Blaster's risk -- that additional 5% resistance the Scrapper gets? Or the does the fact that the Blaster can attack from range some how make it seem 'riskier'?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
due to the risk involved.
[/ QUOTE ]
A Fire/Fire/Fire blaster will have 30% S/L resistance from their APP shield. A Fire/Fire/Fire scrapper will have 35% S/L resistance from their set shields. What exactly is it that amplifies the Blaster's risk -- that additional 5% resistance the Scrapper gets? Or the does the fact that the Blaster can attack from range some how make it seem 'riskier'?
[/ QUOTE ]The other eight powers in Fiery Aura. Fail.
Scrapper also gets....
Mez protection
Capped Fire resist
Cold/energy/negative/toxic resist
self-heal
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
|
[ QUOTE ]
The other eight powers in Fiery Aura.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ahh, yes, those eight powers Blasters don't get. Powers like Rise of the Pheonix, Burn, Blazing Aura, Consume, and a damage booster.
Oh, right.
[ QUOTE ]
Fail.
[/ QUOTE ]
So, as long as we're not calling the three powers they don't share "eight" with a straight face: the issue here is not risk versus reward. Fire Blasters routinely kill entire spawns without entering melee range or even being subject to return attacks. Would adding this set disrupt parity? No, not unless HE were unchanged from its support-AT form. The "arguments" suggesting it would are uncritical reactionism; go call adding Darkest Night to Brutes a game-breaker, and see how far you get.
Not to derail the thread... But A Point of Order?
My SR Scrapper can walk through multiple sets of caltrops without taking any damage when Elude is up. They are not auto-hit.
-Rachel-
Okay, so the title's a joke. I don't really expect the Scrapper Fire APP to be named "Pyro Mastery." Even though that is only one letter off from the Tanker equivalent, Pyre Mastery. And perfectly captures the essence of the Scrapper mentality.
Anyway, whatever name the Fire APP ends up having, here's what I'd like it to look like.
<ul type="square">[*]Fire Blast : As Blaster power (damage reduced). Basic requisite single target ranged attack.[*]Hot Feet : As Controller/Blaster power (radius reduced). Even with the endurance drain, this is something that would be extremely useful. My only concern is that Caltrops vastly overpowers it (much cheaper for endurance, placeable, stackable, similar damage level). Still, I'd cheerfully take this power for some characters.[*]Rain of Fire : As Blaster power (damage reduced?). It may sound odd, exchanging what is certainly a better attack in the Tanker APP (Fire Ball) for this power... but I just can't see how any Scrapper could pass up the opportunity to make it rain fire.[*]Heat Exhaustion : As Corrupter power (recharge increased?). A lot of people were probably expecting to see Melt Armor here, but the tanker version of the power is so pathetically weak and slow-charging it's hardly worth bothering with (especially now that we have that delicious new -res PBAoE proc, which can slide right on in to Blazing Aura). I doubt the Scrapper version would be much better. So, instead, a single-target debuff, hearkening back to the olden days in which Scrappers' class role was bosskilling. Yeah, it won't be as good as Corruptor or Controller HE, but... I'd hit that.[/list]