Buff AR

For a very long time now, people have been lamenting AR's lack of an Aim like power, it's weak ST damage, it's slow DoTs. One of the best things going for it was Ignite, which was recently nerfed, making it from a situational power to an extremely situational power, and brings lots of trouble into a slot heavy build when choosing which powers are worth investing in. Now some issues have been addressed with shortened animation times, but the set still has problems.

Flamethrower's DoT is very slow, and the animation time on ignite is long. Any recent buffs to AR are still completely overshadowed by Archery. Archery and Assualt Rifle are very similar sets; they are both natural themed, AoE heavy, follow a close template, and they both posses a 60 second recharge crashless tier 9. Yes, one good thing AR had going for it over the other blast sets before Archery came along, is dwarfed by Rain of Arrows with it's ability to be cast from safety, more damage dealt almost instantly, and it's ability to Scourge on each damage check on corrs. Archery also has superior ST damage in the form of Flaming Arrow, Aim, and the control of AR with Ex. Arrow and the stun arrow. On top of all of that, Fistfull of Arrows causes no knockback, making it mesh much better with an AoE heavy set, and with corr and defender support sets that require enemies to stay inside of debuffs.

I've seen a lot of suggestions to buff AR, and I myself have thrown in my suggestions from time to time. I have not seen this one posed before though, so I figure I might as well pitch in.

Change Ignite to a clone of the Assault Bot's Incendiary Swarm Missile. For those of you who aren't familiar with this power, I will describe it. The bot fires a bunch of missiles from it's missile pod which connects with a single enemy, it then blows up and spawns a little ignite patch underneath the feet of all of the enemies inside of it's radius. I think it has a 16 target cap. Like all area effect ignite-like powers, the enemies attempt the flee the area. Of course it's your job to make sure they don't make it out of the giant fields of flame alive.

The numbers would obviously have to be play tested and worked on in order to make it a balanced change. Cottage Rule wise, it seems to fit the criteria. The power won't change what IO sets or enhancements it can take, and it still does the same basic job; create burn patches.

My suggestion for the animation would be something like the LRM animation only no interrupt time and a clone of the projectiles that fly from the Assbot.

I think this would help AR in that it would solidify it as the undisputed king of AoE without stepping on the ST damage of other sets, give it another option for an all purpose good AoE that doesn't KB, doesn't step on the shoes of RoA, does something other than S/L damage, and works well with the DoT death trifecta of Ignite, FT, and Full Auto.

Not a fourth cone, good, but another area effect. That's Assault Rifle's strength, though, really: casting death in front of the user. One little ignite patch poured out single target damage against a webbed target when I used it and I haven't played in awhile. But I have had my Assault Rifle/Devices almost since day one. While the scatter of multiple patches looks overall harmful to the theme of destroying bunched up mobs since Blasters can't inherently immobilize a group of enemies, this is a nice step up from the current power in writing at least. But a Controller on the team, now, that's just a match made in heaven if what you put forth is implemented. I shouldn't have to say, but group immobilize plus group burn patches sounds like a lot of death and very appropriate to the mass destruction theme.

All that aside, though, I think it's really about time someone just said this: The Cottage Rule can go find a nice, cozy fire to die in. I want my gun, gadgets AND Aim with Build Up. But then again, looking at this from a PvP perspective, I already get stealth, which is invaluable, web grenades and their ridiculous magnitude of -fly that overpowers Hover and a sniper attack, which meshes well with the aforementioned stealth. I'm not all that great in zones, but this just may put me over the top and make /Devices the new zone flavor of the month. Well, not like I wouldn't mind, ofcourse, but the villains getting Aim+Build Up sniped from stealth built in their enemy's power set could turn out to be a very annoying experience, as if I don't harass most Dominators, Corruptors and Widows with their trashed defense enough.

Well, and I don't wanna sound like a downer but, color me skeptical of a nice change our way. At least Flamethrower and Full Auto have been good enough so far in PvE, and stealth sniping hasn't been so terribly underpowered lately in zone PvP (for me atleast, but I'm crazy.) At least I've been doing okay and even seen a good number of other Blasters trying to pick up on the act. I used to be the only sniper ever, now everyone wants in. Go figure.

Okay, if you're still in through my TL;DR, why don't I say something. Cottage Rule, Cottage rule... ugh, well, it may not conform entirely, and it's definitely been put out before, but a 20% critical hit from Cloaking Device or 20% damage buff from targetting drone seems fair enough, whichever. As for Assault Rifle's pseudo-Aim, I'm thinking of boosting the accuracy of attacks to 1.15x like Archery. If you want to hear my over-the-top idea that'll never happen, then just lose Ignite and replace it with Kneel, as in the position in marksmanship. It will... would be a toggle that boosts accuracy and damage by 20%, range defense by 15%, and hurts melee defense by 15% with, like... magnitude >9,000 immobilization to self with a kneeling animation and usable only while on the ground. But not only does this break your silly cottage rule, it'd also need new animations and would probably be hard to code.

Okay, there it is.

Oh, I forgot to think about how users of other power sets with built in stealth like Dark Armor might feel angry and left out if they don't get a critical hit from their stealth power, which they probably don't need. Then again, Bane Spiders also get critical hits from stealth, though it's only on melee attacks. Then again, again, they've been balanced around just that.

Could still have the stealth strike bonus, but have it only work on snipes. TD should give + damage to all the attacks.

Also, an absolutely crazy will probably never be used idea I've always had was to make Full auto a toggle Have it last a maximum of 8 seconds, doing RoA level damage in the first 4 seconds and continue after that to a possible double RoA damage over 8 seconds. It roots you while using, and would consume a base 4.5 end/s while active, but darn it would be fun. And camera spins =D

(actually, another game implemented this already in a way, and darn it's fun too)

I have both AR and Archery at 50, and in no way shape or form is AR outclassed if nothing else for this simple reasons.

Rain of Arrows, is an awesome power but if a team is rolling it basically very hard to use effectively, unless you operate ahead of the team.

Full Auto, select a critter in the middle of the group and go, damage starts immediately.

I play either depending upon the mood, but the AR guy is certainly easier to use and more effective on most high level teams I play on.

I liked the idea one poster had of reducing the cone of Buckshot to like 10 degrees and bringing the damage up to tier 3 blast level.

AR is a pretty solid set, with AOE being its strength (and not just damage, control: my AR Blaster feels safer than some of my other blasters because so much gets knocked on its butt). I really don't have too much to complain about after the animation adjustments.

I do agree that Ignite's animation is far too long. Yes, it has high damage and all that, but I thought that was balanced more by its fear effect, rather than a four second cast. Cutting it back to two, or even three seconds would be nice... it'd make it less difficult to use while solo, that's for sure. Not sure if you could argue that it cuts into your DPS too much on a team, though, since if you're fighting a team, you can be cutting loose while it's doing a big DoT to the AV.

Same thing for Flamethrower's DoT. Seven seconds is an eternity solo or on a team... I frequently forget its in my arsenal, as I rely more on the solid, up front damage of my ST attacks, Buckshot, M30 Grenade, and even Full Auto (it's still three seconds faster than Flamethrower). I fight a lot of Rikti with my AR Blaster, so I do break it out sometimes there (since they don't resist that damage type).

But I really do not see any need to change up Ignite as you are suggesting. AR does not need even more AOE damage: it's quite good there. It really just needs some tweaking for a few of the powers, as I said. Ignite is good to help out for ST damage on teams or solo, and making it AOE (with a massive reduction in its damage potential: there's no way it would stay in the same ballpark at all) would be a nerf to my mind.

Look at the set, you already have a ton of cones with plenty of damage in there, and for Blasters at least, you can pick up LRM Rocket. Ignite as a cone really isn't going to help the set out.

I like ignite for AV's after I've already applied my patron immob enough times that they sit still and I've made sure that everything else is clustered up on the AV and rooted too. Also Toggles and debuffs are all in place. Making sure the AV and all his friends are still immobilized.

This is usually when I look at the mob and just hit Full Auto because the time it takes me to line up a useful application of ignite is about the time it takes FA to recharge on my AR/Rad corr. It's still good for AV's as it's one of the hardest hitting attacks in the game, but having a super hard hitting attack with a stupidly short range, long cast time, small area of effect, that also causes afraid/avoid on mobs, just isn't as cool as the devs seem to think it is.

Going by the description, the first time I used ignite I expected my toon to spray an arc of fuel out of the flamethrower and then either fire a single jet of flame or toss a lit zippo at it and it would to "fwoosh" and set a target on fire.

If ignite was more "Ima set that guy on fire" and less "Ima set that piece of carpet on fire and hope that guy on that piece of carpet doesn't move" I'd probably find more uses for it than just on AV's. Like if the animation time and range were the same but it was made a dot on the target that also gave the target a radius 4 aoe effect attached to their person that'd just be...hot.

Edit: I know a targeted foe-aoe DoT that isn't a toggle is not only a violation of the cottage rule but something that might be impossible to code, but it would fit with power balance based on what the ability is now and would make it worth the cast time and range. Which it is not now.

The only things AR really needs are:

1. Flamethrower's duration reduced. Shorter duration. Heavier DoT ticks. See also: Fire Breath.

2. Full Auto's damage and target cap brought on par with Rain of Arrows. If I can manage to line up 16 enemies, I should HIT 16 enemies. And don't bother telling me that cones usually only cap out at 10 targets. Cones also usually hit harder than TAoEs. So one or the other, devs. Right now it is inferior in every way except endurance cost, and I will gladly pay 5 more end to equal RoA's damage and target cap. Even then, on a corr RoA will still have the Scourge advantage, but there's not much to be done about that.

That's all that needs to be done. With the above changes AR would be solidly better than Arch in AoE, so there is no need to make it better in single target. Want that? Pick a different set. Variety is the spice of life.

I've seen it suggested to reduce the oT part of Flamethrower's DoT a million times and yet it's never happened. I'm not sure why. Comparing the set to archery may not have been the most convincing way to advocate buffs for Ignite but that's what my late-night mind wanted to do (perhaps fueled by RoA jealousy).

Either way, I believe my suggestion to buff Ignite was original and something that I personally haven't seen before so I threw it out there. I think it would completely negate the need to buff any other power in the set and help ignite from being a almost always skip kind of power to a really good power. Of course, it also doesn't violate the cottage rule.

We've all (redside players anyway) seen how amazing those swarm missiles can be.

But of course increase Full Auto to 16 targets and giving Flamethrower what I've called the "midnight grasp" treatment would be welcome changes as well, or in place of my suggestion. I'll point out though, if those two things do happen, Ignite becomes even more of an always skip power.

I've found the AoE in AR to just be really finicky and kind of counter intuitive, that's what annoys me about the set. I've stated that AR is my most beloved and yet most hated blast set. I love the ideas of the powers in the set, I just hate the way they work. I primarily play Corrs but I'm sure these problems flow over to blasters and now defenders as well. Typically on a corr you want to open with whatever buff/debuffs you have, then lay down AoE death on the spawns. You want to keep the foes close and tightly packed for your Full Auto and neatly placed in your debuff radius. That means that for me, I won't open with M30 or Buckshot because it'll mess up spawn placement. So I open with Full Auto and hope my debuffs/buffs or someone else holding a lot of aggro keeps me from getting murdered. Once that power is done, I can open up a can of flamethrower on the enemies which will slowly tick away their health. If I were to use M30 or Buckshot at this point a massive amount of Flamethrower's damage and endurance cost would be wasted if I finish off the spawn. It just puts flamethrower in an odd position, almost like I just don't want to bother taking it anymore. With a big burning AoE like my swarm missile ignite idea, one could lay down controls/debuffs like Fearsome Stare or Tar Patch, Ignite everything, then start up with Full Auto. That right there would be enough to rinse the spawn and M30 and Buckshot could be used to take off the last slivers of health.

This change would definitely put Flamethower into the skip category, which is why I personally believe both flame powers in AR need to be seriously overhauled.

Some things I want to see:

1) Tweak secondary effects on AR to be more useful. Slug could have a slightly higher chance to knockdown and Buckshot should be significantly higher. Stopping power is the whole point of a shotgun.

2) Reduce some of the endurance costs for the set. I have no idea why Flamethrower costs so much, more than freakin' Total Focus! Compare to Incinerate from Fiery Melee, which has a much higher tick rate, but a surprisingly cheap endurance cost (yes I know that's partly because it's single target).

I'd also reduce Buckshot's cost, because it needs to be more capable as both an single target and AoE power. I'd also consider reducing M30 Grenade's cost as well.

3) Tweak M30 Grenade's damage type to something more useful. Smashing and Lethal is just brutal, pick one of them and add Fire.

4) I'd like to see something similar to the OP's suggestion for Ignite, but I'd rather it was just a much larger radius version of itself, otherwise with the same animation. Edit: Actually, I'd really like Ignite's animation to vary from Flamethrower's a bit more (use some of the FX from Melt Armor perhaps), but I'm definitely not a fan of the rocket idea.


I'd suggest something really crazy, like considering an across-the-board damage buff due to the commonality of Lethal resistance, but I somehow doubt that'll happen, sadly.

One suggestion that I had for the set was to change most of the powers from being pure lethal to half smash/half lethal. This would make for a more accurate representation of the kind of damage bullets deal, and be an overall buff to damage because lethal is way more resisted than smashing.

I like a number of the suggestions here, although not the swarm missile one. Neat idea, just not for AR.

Seriously, please god reduce the endurance costs. Flamethrower, for something that animates that slow with it's strange DoT activation, to have such a horrible endurance cost...eesh.
M30 and Buckshot end reduction would be nice, too.

Tbh, it's not that AR is only lethal type, with a bit of fire added in (minimal). It's not that it's endurance heavy, or that if you're fighting lesser but better armoured targets your in trouble.
It's all of them, wrapped into one. I love AR, love the concept, love the potential. But, every time I fire up my AR/Ice blaster, even on teams, I keep getting that nagging feeling that it really isn't delivering it's true potential.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Ah yes, how could I forget the end cost on flamethrower. Massive DPE fail if you finish off your targets before letting Flamethrower tick away on them as well. Honestly, with AR and Traps getting proliferated last issue I was really expecting some tweaks to those sets. I was actually surprised AR was left totally untouched.

Well it's good to see that at least most of us here agree that some powers in AR need at least some tweaking. If we keep it up there's a chance it will at least end up on someone's radar.

I like AR as is TYVM

I'd be happy if they just went ahead and boosted the defuriance up a bit, that'd make up slightly for the loss of aim without changing anything difficult, and without overpowering AR at all.

I guess everything needs to stick to the formula though (sigh)

Touché

Been some time since I played AR toon.

However, I'd give some of the powers end reduction. The set is rather heavy at lower levels.
I'd also give buckshot more range or damage.

I know they fixed up the animation times once already, but you still spend alot of time rooted.
They could have made flamethrower act like a real life flamethrower, after ignition the fire comes out fast as a violent burst.
Anyone who has played with aerosol and lighter as a kid knows what it looks like.