Rad Blast problems...

I can't tell you how jazzed I am about Rad blast becoming a Blaster primary... but I'm also getting myself ready for disappointment, because I was equally jazzed about Psy blast and was disappointed.

That disappointment was due in part because I loved the fast recharge rate of Psionic Dart over on redside, and I really like power sets that play differently rather than falling into generic 'tier 1, tier 2' blast settings. I feel that powers sets should be (relatively) balanced overall rather than individual powers.

Having said that, I just can't see them keeping Neutrino Bolt as is, and what's more I can't see the entire set not getting hit with a nerf bat before it comes over for oen reason and one reason only... the Achilles Heel proc.

-Defense ranged attacks that recharge that quickly piling on the defiance AND having the awesome potential of a few Achilles heel procs just seems a bit overpowered - and while I absolutely believe that you should balance a set based on the powers themselves and not how they might be slotted with expensive IO's, I don't have faith in the Devs to put those kinds of blinders on...

I just don't want to get excited about Rad blast and have it come out as Energy Blast without knock-back. Thoughts?

Don't get excited.

Enough said/seen/heard/believed/blah.

Um... thanks. That's very insightful.

Now I just need to figure out if I shouldn't get excited about Rad blast or if I shouldn't get excited about the potential changes to it.

The Achilles' proc doesn't stack from the same player, so it's not going to be that good. Nice, but hardly overpowered. I'm sure they will change Neutrino Bolt a bit, but they may leave it at around a 2 second recharge. That would give the tier 1 and 2 attacks similar recharge to Fire Blast. I'd personally like 3 seconds and 6 seconds even better for Neutrino and X-Ray... that's still plenty spammable with even normal SO enhancements and it would mean a significant damage boost per attack. The DPA on Neutrino Bolt as it is now would be pretty lousy compared to other Blaster tier one attacks...

Neutrino bolt will be changed, no doubt about it. There was quite a bit of vehement whining over the Ice Blast changes to fit new defiance as well, to no avail.

But there's no way Rad Blast will be as pre-nerfed as Psi Blast. Rad Blast doesn't have the PVPers crying about it.

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But there's no way Rad Blast will be as pre-nerfed as Psi Blast. Rad Blast doesn't have the PVPers crying about it.

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That's because there are hardly any hardcore PvPers to cry about it left.

heh, good point.

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I can't tell you how jazzed I am about Rad blast becoming a Blaster primary... but I'm also getting myself ready for disappointment, because I was equally jazzed about Psy blast and was disappointed.

That disappointment was due in part because I loved the fast recharge rate of Psionic Dart over on redside, and I really like power sets that play differently rather than falling into generic 'tier 1, tier 2' blast settings. I feel that powers sets should be (relatively) balanced overall rather than individual powers.

Having said that, I just can't see them keeping Neutrino Bolt as is, and what's more I can't see the entire set not getting hit with a nerf bat before it comes over for oen reason and one reason only... the Achilles Heel proc.

-Defense ranged attacks that recharge that quickly piling on the defiance AND having the awesome potential of a few Achilles heel procs just seems a bit overpowered - and while I absolutely believe that you should balance a set based on the powers themselves and not how they might be slotted with expensive IO's, I don't have faith in the Devs to put those kinds of blinders on...

I just don't want to get excited about Rad blast and have it come out as Energy Blast without knock-back. Thoughts?

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You can count on the animation/rooting times on Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Beam being 1 second and 1.67 seconds respectively. Defiance requires that. The Devs can play with the rech/end/damage values (to a point) as long as the ratios remain the same.

I would also count on the -def values on all the rad powers being greatly reduced but with damage being increased to compensate and the Hold magnitude and/or duration on Atomic Blast being reduced as well.

I dont see it as a problem.
The Achilles proc sort of compensates for a secondary effect that does very little once everyone's slotted for accuarcy.

-Def is nice against Rikti drones or other defence-packing critters, but against the run of the mill PVE content, most characters have their atacks slotted to hit 95% of the time anyway, because nobody likes missing.
When it works, it works very well, but its situational.

A Sonic/ blaster will still output more -Res than a IO'd out Rad Blaster, without having to use up slots or influence to do so.

I've taken a Dark/Rad Defender to 50 and slotted Achilles procs in Neutrino Bolt, Irradiate and Neutron Bomb and it didn't feel game-changingly big. It felt more like the difference between running Assault or not, its there if you look for it.

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I dont see it as a problem.
The Achilles proc sort of compensates for a secondary effect that does very little once everyone's slotted for accuarcy.

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you mean the proc that cant be stacked?

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I've taken a Dark/Rad Defender to 50 and slotted Achilles procs in Neutrino Bolt, Irradiate and Neutron Bomb and it didn't feel game-changingly big.

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that would be thanks to the awesomeness of dark/.

rad/ needs to have alot of damage going for it to be any kind of useful. its such a disappointment to get a new shiny and it suck. coughpsicough.

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I can't tell you how jazzed I am about Rad blast becoming a Blaster primary... but I'm also getting myself ready for disappointment, because I was equally jazzed about Psy blast and was disappointed.

That disappointment was due in part because I loved the fast recharge rate of Psionic Dart over on redside, and I really like power sets that play differently rather than falling into generic 'tier 1, tier 2' blast settings. I feel that powers sets should be (relatively) balanced overall rather than individual powers.

Having said that, I just can't see them keeping Neutrino Bolt as is, and what's more I can't see the entire set not getting hit with a nerf bat before it comes over for oen reason and one reason only... the Achilles Heel proc.

-Defense ranged attacks that recharge that quickly piling on the defiance AND having the awesome potential of a few Achilles heel procs just seems a bit overpowered - and while I absolutely believe that you should balance a set based on the powers themselves and not how they might be slotted with expensive IO's, I don't have faith in the Devs to put those kinds of blinders on...

I just don't want to get excited about Rad blast and have it come out as Energy Blast without knock-back. Thoughts?

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You can count on the animation/rooting times on Neutrino Bolt and X-Ray Beam being 1 second and 1.67 seconds respectively. Defiance requires that. The Devs can play with the rech/end/damage values (to a point) as long as the ratios remain the same.

I would also count on the -def values on all the rad powers being greatly reduced but with damage being increased to compensate and the Hold magnitude and/or duration on Atomic Blast being reduced as well.

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I think that nuetrino bolt/x-ray beam might get the same treatment archery's first two attacks did, upping them to 3/6 second recharges with appropriate damage increases. (well, snap shot actually got better treatment that it should have - it has a 2 second recharge but does the same damage as shriek with a 3 second recharge). Other than that I doubt they would make any changes to the damage/def debuff that the AT modifiers didn't already.

I mean I don't see why they would change the base DS of any of the attacks other upping them on the first two attacks if they up the recharge and I would expect that, just like sonic blast, the blaster AT mods for debuffs will reduce the def debuffs on the attacks appropriately. Blaster sonic attacks do 65% as much debuff as a defender (13% instead of 20%) so I would expect the rad attacks to be affected the same - for example nuetrino bolt would do 8.125% def debuff on a blaster; x-ray beam, electron haze and nuetron bomb 16.25%; irradiate, proton volley and cosmic burst would do 24.375% and atomic blast 32.5%

The only things likely to change are the animation/root times on the tier 1 and 2 powers for defiance conformation. Probably a 2 and 4-5 second recharge on them.

The blaster damage mod will increase the damage enough that they shouldn't have to adjust damage scales, and the blaster debuff mod will reduce the amount of -def all on it's own.

They specifically went for sets they wouldn't have to do a lot of work on to port because they're busy with power customization and (presumably) Going Rogue. So, in light of that, I don't think Rad will be getting the Psi treatment, especially seeing as they're not trying to cobble together a secondary using some of the attacks from the set.

I could see them removing the stun from CB (as gay as that would be) in addition to changing neutrino/xray

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I could see them removing the stun from CB (as gay as that would be) in addition to changing neutrino/xray

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I doubt it since many of the Blaster primaries have a single target stun in them.

The game isn't build around IO sets.

And they won't nerf entire powersets just because of IO sets. Perhaps they'll make certain sets unslotable, though

One reason I'm so excited about Rad Blast is because of Neutrino Bolt's lightning quick recharge... Got a tentative build planned where I don't even take X-Ray Beam.

Too bad that's not likely to stay the same.

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The game isn't build around IO sets.

And they won't nerf entire powersets just because of IO sets. Perhaps they'll make certain sets unslotable, though

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Shields disagrees.

Power sets are designed with the impact of IOs in mind, while the environment to use those powers is not made harder due to the existence of IOs.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Sure, the devs are supposed to listen to their customers, mister business 101 out there. And if I decide to start suggesting that the devs change the game from being about superheroes and supervillains to being about clowns that is my right as well, and technically Paragon Studios is supposed to pay attention to me. But I hope strongly that they assume a meth-head somehow managed to hack into my forum account and make paper airplanes out of my posts, because I hope they recognize stupid when they see it. I assume they will recognize futile just as accurately.

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But there's no way Rad Blast will be as pre-nerfed as Psi Blast. Rad Blast doesn't have the PVPers crying about it.

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That's because there are hardly any hardcore PvPers to cry about it left.

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Word.

My thoughts on this:

Neutrino bolt will get altered, but I am confident Castle has already schemed a way to get it to fit in defiance and still hold some of its "feel". being able to spam it loaded with procs etc while mezzed wont fly, so it will get slowed some, dmg upped, endo upped, but not to the extreme.
I wasnt of the impression X-ray beam needed much to be in line with defiance.

The AT modifier will take care of the -def and likely CB without further tweaks needed.

Why I will make one- Electron haze will be like fire breath, except with knockback. it is one of the most powerful cones out there, but has an endo cost and animation to match. still, mondo dmage plus instant mitigation? Yessah. The snipe rules, for sound alone. And of course, X-ray beam while mezzed. I am held? EYE LASERS ON YOU!!

Power spectrum could make this set even more interesting visually.

I didn't see the point of making the tier 1 and tier 2 blasts so similar to each other back when Defiance 2.0 came in, and I still don't see the point now. Balancing so many powers strictly around the tiny amount of time a blaster spends mezzed just seems like wagging the dog to me.

Anyway, I think it's reasonable to expect a 1s animation Neutrino Bolt and a 1.67s animation X-Ray Beam (even if I don't agree with it). As long as the debuff durations are increased to match the longer recharges (and maybe go back to the debuff durations on blaster psi dart and mental blast too), I won't complain -- too much. Debuff duration about equal to animation time plus base recharge time is the way to go for minor debuffs like these.

I very much doubt it's gonna see major nerfs, Rad Blast is considered underpowered as is.

If anything, the set should be buffed.