Sorry for the doom and gloom, but remember that the big single-target damage buffs for dominators were accompanied by a recalculation of their AoE damage according to Castle's area of effect formula. Which rather harshly penalizes powers that have any significant ground coverage.
So a bigger Zapp is fine, but not so great if it means we get the new Dominator version of Combustion along with it.
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Sorry for the doom and gloom, but remember that the big single-target damage buffs for dominators were accompanied by a recalculation of their AoE damage according to Castle's area of effect formula. Which rather harshly penalizes powers that have any significant ground coverage.
So a bigger Zapp is fine, but not so great if it means we get the new Dominator version of Combustion along with it.
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agreed. I'll stay being aoe death on wheels and a st monster with my blaster thx.
doms can have all the st damage they want( considering they do pretty low aoe), they'll have no one to use it on when they team with my aoe blasters. They will be lucky to even see their name on the kill list heh.
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The numbers Im seeing show this as a decrease in dps over time instead of an increase.
Example:
Sniper Blast: Increased this powers damage scale from 2.76 to 3.56, increased its recharge from 12 seconds to 20 seconds and increased its endurance cost from 14.4 to 18.51.
Old scale 2.76/12rech=.23/sec
New Scale 3.56/20rech=.178/sec
Shots/min Old: 60seconds/12sec rech=5
Shots/min New: 60sec/20 sec rech=3
So youre doing LESS damage over the SAME amount of time for MORE endurance. All snipes would be better served by removing 2 of the 3 accuracy checks they go through for a power that is supposedly going to be more accurate due to the time it takes to make the shot. Missing 2 shots in 5 with %96 to-hit and %1.93 accuracy is ample evidence of this.
This is yet another stealth nerf like Domination received.
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Your math is really, really bad. I know I'm not the first person to mention it, but I have to say it.
1) Your DPS only goes down if you have NO OTHER ATTACKS. Once you have a full attack chain, the only seconds that matter are the ones where you're firing the specific attack.
2) "Less damage for more endurance" implies that you are spending more total endurance for less total damage. 18.51* 3 is in fact less than 5*14.4
3) 2 in 5 misses is not ample evidence of ANYTHING. 200 in 500 is statistically valid. 20 in 50 is statistically plausible. 2 in 5 is freakin' whimsy.
... oh, and I don't remember seeing you around. Welcome to the Blaster forums. I'll be your local inconvenience.
Edited to notice that your math is even worse than I thought. Recharge doesn't start until the activation time finishes, so we're talking about cycle time of 12 (or 20) seconds + 3 seconds (interrupt) + 4.33 seconds (activation), so 19.33 seconds vs. 27.33 seconds. (based on the Red Tomax numbers for Zapp and Sniper Blast.)
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Sorry for the doom and gloom, but remember that the big single-target damage buffs for dominators were accompanied by a recalculation of their AoE damage according to Castle's area of effect formula. Which rather harshly penalizes powers that have any significant ground coverage.
So a bigger Zapp is fine, but not so great if it means we get the new Dominator version of Combustion along with it.
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I don't quite get what you're talking about here. Blaster AoEs are already calculated according to that formula. They always have been. So have Dominator AoEs, except for Psychic Shockwave.
The Combustion thing is something else. It looks like Castle has taken some of Fire's extra "secondary effect" damage from Combustion (and all of it from Flares). I think also on some other powers he's cut that down, but I need to get into the game Real Numbers to see for sure. Anyway, that doesn't have anything to do with recalculating by the formula.
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You know, the current level of Snipe damage, which is to say DPA, isn't all *that* bad. Adjusted for Arcanatime, most snipes do about 70~75% damage of T1 or 2 blasts, and about the same DPE as well. Considering their range and front loaded appeal, and the availability of some seriously cheap snipe sets out there, I'm not so sure it really needs that much love. Then again, I only have a snipe in one of my dual builds on just one of my blasters, so who am I to argue?
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I forgot about Arcanatime. Oops. So I guess they're not quite as bad in the DPA department as I had them. Still not high, though.
Anyway, I think Sam's right, and DPA isn't that important a measure for Snipes, because of their situational use. And sustained DPS certainly isn't. With Snipes, since most people are only going to use them once per encounter, at the beginning, the important thing is the total absolute damage. I'd be totally happy with increased recharge in exchange for making the opening shot completely awesome, even with its drawbacks.
And I still think they should get their rightful Defiance damage bonus. I know it's not really a big deal, but it offends my sense of order and fairness 
.
Is Sniper Rifle from AR also seeing a damage boost?
-Largo
Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian
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Is Sniper Rifle from AR also seeing a damage boost?
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I dunno if you read the OP, is AR villainside?
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Is Sniper Rifle from AR also seeing a damage boost?
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This is only for Dominators right now, so no. They don't have Assault Rifle. IF it were to be applied to blasters as well, then I'm sure Sniper Rifle would get it too.
TBH, the only reason I get snipe attacks on any of my characters is for utility. I'm not even a month old and even I can see they're not much to speak of as a skill in terms of usage.
I get to use them infrequently in teams, and even less solo, opener or closer. Even then, if slotted for damage, I find that I do far more damage with 2 other skills with the same cast time and recharge total compared to snipe.
If snipe has an interrupt, takes that long to cycle and fire off, and slotted, does LESS damage than two attacks that take the same time to get off, somethings a bit off there.
The only other advantage snipe attacks have is range, which 90% of the time isnt used because blasters still have to move into range to follow up a snipe. Time better spent actually getting into range and starting an attack chain instead.
Yeah, I'm on board with the others-a lot of assumptions about other powers go out the window when you consider something wacky like snipes.
If they reworked MoG into something you're supposed to fire right before you go in and take the alpha, then these proposed changes could make snipes more along the same lines. You sneak up, you take aim, you FIRE-and down goes a Lt. Then, you've aggroed the rest of the spawn, and you have to deal with that. But you drop a single target of significance at the outset of your own alpha.
Think Mel Gibson attacking the Redcoats in The Patriot, after his son is killed and the other son is taken away. Drop the commanders first. 
Basically too many 50's to count, but I'm generally a brute/scrapper/tank kind of guy.
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... Castle's area of effect formula ... penalizes powers that have any significant ground coverage
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I don't quite get what you're talking about here. Blaster AoEs are already calculated according to that formula.
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I'm very sure they are not. When Claws was recalculated (19 AUG 2008 patch), power damage levels all changed.
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... Castle's area of effect formula ... penalizes powers that have any significant ground coverage
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I don't quite get what you're talking about here. Blaster AoEs are already calculated according to that formula.
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I'm very sure they are not. When Claws was recalculated (19 AUG 2008 patch), power damage levels all changed.
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Well if you look at claws eviscerate and spin, have nearly the same cast times, endurance and recharge eviscerate only does about 1/3 more damage while affecting one fifth the area.
do you have the formula because it looks like either blasters are operating off very different constants, or a different formula,
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... Castle's area of effect formula ... penalizes powers that have any significant ground coverage
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I don't quite get what you're talking about here. Blaster AoEs are already calculated according to that formula.
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I'm very sure they are not. When Claws was recalculated (19 AUG 2008 patch), power damage levels all changed.
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Do you mean this?
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Eliminated "pause" times from Claws attack animations. Most attacks activate more quickly now (Eviscerate is slightly longer.) Additionally, a balancing algorithm has been applied to the damage of the attacks. In most cases, this means the attacks will do slightly more damage, though for Focus, it means slightly less damage overall.
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That was a different thing. That was a new algorithm--not for just AoEs but for all attacks--taking cast times into account, which weren't part of the original game balance. It hasn't been generally applied, and it hasn't been applied to Dominators.
The AoE formula has always been in the game, and blaster AoEs have always generally followed it. So have Dominator AoEs. Except for Psychic Shockwave.
About "generally": if you look at the DS numbers for AoEs, there are quite a few powers that are off from the formula by some amount. Sometimes the reason is obvious, sometimes not. Fire AoEs get more damage than the formula suggests, just like its ST attacks. DOT damage seems to have warranted a bonus. A very small AoE radius might be slightly higher. Stuff like that.
But none of those differences are huge. The only exception was, again, Psychic Shockwave, to which part of the formula--the divisor that makes AoE damage lower according to the area the attack can hit--was not applied at all. (Blaster PSW was balanced by the formula before it was ported over.)
The other changes to Dominator AoEs are a matter of changing the radius and/or recharge time, and then applying the formula to the new values. In that sense they were "recalculated", but that's all.
Combustion, as already stated, was a matter of removing some of the extra "bonus" damage (in addition to recalculating for the higher recharge). Not sure what that's about. If I were going to worry about negative implications for blasters, that's what I'd be worried about.
Yeah, I'm looking almost entirely at Combustion, not at all at Psychic Shockwave. Avoiding that little can of worms, just ignoring it entirely.
What happened to Flares obscures the reasoning behind the Combustion change, thus the fear and confusion. Is this bad news for big radius AoE attacks (Combustion = 15'), or bad news for fire attack powers (no secondary effects and no extra DoT either), or both or neither or something else? Anyone's guess.
Still, back on topic, possibly good news for snipes. I still would've rather seen autohit introduced to balance out interruptibility, but bigger damage and slower recharges are also a good fit. Though it could be just a side effect of Castle wanting dom secondaries to be slower rechargers, something blasters defenders corruptors and stalkers (PPPs) won't get to share.
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What happened to Flares obscures the reasoning behind the Combustion change, thus the fear and confusion. Is this bad news for big radius AoE attacks (Combustion = 15'), or bad news for fire attack powers (no secondary effects and no extra DoT either), or both or neither or something else? Anyone's guess.
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Ah, okay, I get you.
Funny thing, Flares' power description says it still gets the delayed .3 DS. Might be a text change they forgot to make. I'll take my little Earth/Fire out in a while and watch for it.
Combustion isn't quite as bad as it looks. It gets .5 DS immediate damage in addition to the DOT, which the patch notes didn't mention. Assuming that's unchanged, the DS of the power went from 1.7 total to 1.3 total. Still above the formula value, just by not as much. Of course it's also DOT, so I don't know.
The Fire thing is a little odd, I'm trying to figure it out. Also, I'm not sure I trust the patch notes entirely. I think they have the wrong current value for Blazing Bolt, for one thing. Anyway, assuming their correct, Blaze lost a little "extra" damage in the transition as well--direct damage, not the chance for DOTs, which aren't mentioned at all.
I thought at first that Blaze had as well, but that seems to be something else. Snipes at 12 second recharge calculate to 2.28, but they all get 2.76. I always figured that was a bonus for being a snipe. At 20 seconds they calculate to 3.76, and they're getting 3.76. Still a lot higher, though, so whatever I guess.
My guess is Statesman/Geko (whoever was in charge of powers at launch) added the 3 seconds of interruptibility time to the 12 seconds of recharge, and balanced snipe damage off the total of 15 seconds.
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My guess is Statesman/Geko (whoever was in charge of powers at launch) added the 3 seconds of interruptibility time to the 12 seconds of recharge, and balanced snipe damage off the total of 15 seconds.
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Ah, could be. Could be indeed. (I hadn't noticed how that value matched up for some reason, but now that you point it out it makes a lot of sense.)
Now, about Flares and Combustion again.
Flares, as far as I can see, still does get its .3 extra damage on Test., so the total DS is now 1.3. I hope someone else will test that out so I know I'm not just seeing it wrong or something.
EDIT: I now believe I was wrong about this. It's getting 1.00 DS, just in two ticks, one of .70 and one of .30. What's up with that? No idea.
On Combustion, I was overlooking the fact that there are different versions of the power.
Old Dominator Combustion: .5 plus 8 ticks of .15 (1.2 total). Damage at level 50 70.93
Blaster Combustion: .5 plus 10 ticks or .10 (1.0 total). Damage at level 50 83.41
Tanker Combustion: .5 plus 8 ticks of .10 (.8 total). Damage at level 50 57.84.
New Dominator Combusion: .5 plus 8 ticks of .10 (.8 total). Damage at level 50 75.91.
So it looks like Dominators now have the Tanker version. My theory, and it's only a guess: Castle wanted the total damage of Dom Combustion to be around the same as it is now. He did that by adjusting the DOT, since that was something he could adjust without having to change the recharge or radius.
Or he absent-mindedly switched it for the different version, I guess.
*shrug*
They could make snipes 5 times as more damaging, and it still would be useless 97% of the time.
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They could make snipes 5 times as more damaging, and it still would be useless 97% of the time.
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LOL that 3% though would be absolutely fantastic.
Seriously though if you are a single target blaster that 97% of the time is when you would be using such a beast.
You know sniper shots where not always this bad.
They actualy did have a long range and did some pretty descent damage once.
But now they are simply a hold over from the past that will get you a a good laugh from other people watching you use them.
I realized the death cry for the sniper shots...when i had to send in a bug report becasue my high damage second attack in my blast set had a longer range and did more damage then my enhanced sniper shot.
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Is Sniper Rifle from AR also seeing a damage boost?
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I dunno if you read the OP, is AR villainside?
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Yes, yes it is.
Psychic Kitty:
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You know sniper shots where not always this bad.
They actualy did have a long range and did some pretty descent damage once.
But now they are simply a hold over from the past that will get you a a good laugh from other people watching you use them.
I realized the death cry for the sniper shots...when i had to send in a bug report becasue my high damage second attack in my blast set had a longer range and did more damage then my enhanced sniper shot.
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Umm...How did you slot your Snipe? And your single target blast, for that matter? Unless you heavily slot your single target blast for range and put none at all in your Snipe, this is impossible. In fact, the only Blaster power that I know of that this *is* possible with is Slug, and only by three-slotting it with Range enhancments (putting it at 158.5 units [not sure what unit of measure Mids' uses]).
Random question from a non-snipe user:
What % of an even con minion's health should a non BU / non Aim snipe take (assuming slotted at 95% damage)? Same question for lieutenants and bosses. I've always felt using the two buffs for a snipe was a waste as they took so long I couldn't use it for anything else.
(QR)
Blaster Snipes have a DS of 2.76. That means, at 50, with 3 SOs of DMG in them, they will do 335.21 points of damage.
Assuming no resistances, that means it will take off:
77.96% of +0 Minion HP
39.21% of +0 Lieutenant HP
13.04% of +0 Boss HP
EDIT: Fixed DS value, recalculated.
Head of TRICK, the all Trick Arrow and Traps SG
Part of the Repeat Offenders
Still waiting for his Official BackAlleyBrawler No-Prize
2.67 or 2.76?
-Largo
Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian
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The numbers Im seeing show this as a decrease in dps over time instead of an increase.
Example:
Sniper Blast: Increased this powers damage scale from 2.76 to 3.56, increased its recharge from 12 seconds to 20 seconds and increased its endurance cost from 14.4 to 18.51.
Old scale 2.76/12rech=.23/sec
New Scale 3.56/20rech=.178/sec
Shots/min Old: 60seconds/12sec rech=5
Shots/min New: 60sec/20 sec rech=3
So youre doing LESS damage over the SAME amount of time for MORE endurance. All snipes would be better served by removing 2 of the 3 accuracy checks they go through for a power that is supposedly going to be more accurate due to the time it takes to make the shot. Missing 2 shots in 5 with %96 to-hit and %1.93 accuracy is ample evidence of this.
This is yet another stealth nerf like Domination received.
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why the **** are you doing the DPS for a SNIPE?
A snipe power is something you'd use to quickly get rid of a target, not whittle away at someone, its an alpha, not a filler...