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LOL!! this is prolly why DP is so underpowerd . people saying sets are overpowerd so the devs just figured they would just "nip it in the bud" an make it weak " hey lets nerf arrows an Ar too ! " an we can rename the game " city of weaklings"
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I think the issue is mosre that RoA and FA are overpowered (especially in these days of IOs) and Hail of Bullets is more representative of where they should be.
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Originally Posted by Hard Kisses
soon the mini-maxxers will abandon the set and move on. i want the concept not the numbers. less DPs the better.
here's to it remaining "sub-par" indefinately :P |
I don't want to bust your bubble but, if your concept has someone who does very little damage and has silly silly animations to go along with it, the concept is comic relief. Think Barney Fife, Agent 86 from get smart, or the goofy gangster from resident evil that's always getting slapped around.
Something flexible with modal choices based on toggles sucks compared to anything that isn't flexible and modal?
Did none of you people ever meet a Kheldian or something?
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Because lords knows, your character is only cool if there's nobody else doing the same thing, special snowflake.
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Originally Posted by Hard Kisses
soon the mini-maxxers will abandon the set and move on. i want the concept not the numbers. less DPs the better.
here's to it remaining "sub-par" indefinately :P |
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The problem is that Dual Pistols isn't in the middle. It has lower base single target DPS than every other Blaster set except Sonic and possinly Electric, and Sonic's -resist more than makes up for its lower base damage. Dual Pistols doesn't get near as much -resist, and none at all with non-Standard ammo. Even using standard ammo against enemies not strong against Lethal damage and with the Piercing Rounds debuff always active you still do less single target DPS than Archery, Energy, Fire, and Ice. You will also do less than sonic after the fight has started and Sonic begins stacking -resist. AR and Electric don't have full single target attack chains, but AR can almost match DP's single target numbers even adding in an AoE (Buckshot) and Electric can beat them with certain secondaries by adding the single target immobilize (which DP can't do as easily since it has a very long redraw). Damage for Incendiary ammo is almost exactly the same as standard + the Piercing Rounds debuff, so even that only helps if you drop back to Standard every 8-10 seconds or so to reapply the Piercing debuf... but then swapping back to incendiary takes time so that still lowers DPS.|
Originally Posted by ShoeTattoo
Thinking long term, its probably better that the devs put new sets into the middle, in terms of numbers and performance, than if they keep pushing the performance envelope up or down with each new set; established sets would lose their lustre over the long run if new sets were obviously and consistently superior, among other potential problems, and players would tend to reject new sets that were seen to lag badly behind more established sets.
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The bottom line is that when it comes to single target damage, only AR and Electric are as bad as DP and they don't even have full single target attack chains. Since swapping ammo to defeat resistances almost never gives more than a 10% damage boost, you're actually better off using Standard (if you use Piercing Rounds) or Incendiary (if you don't have Piercing or the enemy is 50% lethal resistant) full time, and that still doesn't stack up to the other sets.
When it comes to AoEs, DP is still near the bottom. AR, Archery, and Fire have clearly better AoE than DP even assuming you can use Hail of Bullets as often as possible. Rad and Energy are better than DP for AoEs if you only use HoB situationally (as in, when you can do so and not die) and not much worse even if you use HoB a lot. So DP is middle of the road in AoE damage if you have a good tank or some other way of using HoB and not faceplanting and down near the bottom if you don't use HoB more often than a normal nuke.
Being pretty much dead last on single target damage and in the lower third or so in AoE damage isn't what I call a middle of the road set. I don't think anyone is asking for another Fire Blast, we just want slightly better single target damage (a bit higher than Energy Blast while using standard or incendiary and a bit less than Energy Blast with chem or cryo would be fine) and a boost of some sort to Hail of Bullets. Energy Blast is pretty much the "average" blast set, so doing the same overall damage as Energy would make for a decent balanced set.
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636
Stryker summed it up well. Everything I've played as a blaster so far has been from slightly better to immensely better than DP, in my experience. I havent played AR tho, and only paired Elec/ with /Elec/Elec for the mana sap.
I'm puzzled about that, why did they put their "GR signature set" toward the bottom of the pool... It doesnt seem like a smart move to advertise the future of the game.
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Because the signature isn't power and effectiveness, it's the animations + a gimmick power to try and generate enthusiasm.|
Originally Posted by Ehina
Stryker summed it up well. Everything I've played as a blaster so far has been from slightly better to immensely better than DP, in my experience. I havent played AR tho, and only paired Elec/ with /Elec/Elec for the mana sap.
I'm puzzled about that, why did they put their "GR signature set" toward the bottom of the pool... It doesnt seem like a smart move to advertise the future of the game. |
For me it's the absolute worst of all worlds, Low single target damage, low AoE Damage, low to minimal secondary effects, poor synergy with all most all of the secondary sets available, a tier 9 that's primary purpose seems to be to get the user killed, and Gun Fu animations when I was expecting and planning my concepts around Lone Ranger/John Wayne/Malta gun slinger/Arnold Schwarzenegger ish animations.
I despise Psi-Blast for blasters, and don't care at all for Electric blast in any AT that it's available on, but I would solo 2 of each of those toons to 50 before I ever play a DP toon on live.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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So your happy with what conceptually looks right,..it doesn't feel right. ES looks like a move to execute but doesn't fulfil.
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Originally Posted by Hard Kisses
soon the mini-maxxers will abandon the set and move on. i want the concept not the numbers. less DPs the better.
here's to it remaining "sub-par" indefinately :P |
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Well, im on my 3rd one. I have a dp/nrg at 41, DP/fire at 33, and dp/dark at 22. I must say that i like the set. On a team i feel it shines. I was fighting red cons and my HoB is 6 slotted with only 2 oblits atm and i was still wiping them out by the time it was done. Can't wait til i purp one of them out. Prolly the /fire. Chem ammo+fsc+combustion sounds nice.
I'll put this both here and in the archetype portion since I'm not sure which one the devs are reading.
Pros:
1. Very nice animations. Some people have complained of duration, but I enjoy the animations. We'll address damage below.
2. Great sounds. Actually feel like I hit something when I ever I fire. Great for....arresting
3. change Ammo: great idea. really appreciate the fact that it costs nothing to run. Would be great if it counted for a bit more of the damage type though.
Cons:
1. Damage! Damage! Damage! not even in the ballpark for animation times. This is the biggest complaint both for myself and for most of the others I know that have rolled this new set. Needs a blanket boost to damage. To make it subpar within an Archetype that was long ago dethroned by multiple other AT's as the damage king is strange. I've been very happy with most of the recent sets released: willpower, sonic, psionic, electric melee and shields to name a few. They seemed very well thought out and synergistic with most primaries/secondaries. Dual pistols is definitely a step back in that category.
2. Tier 9: While lethal damage sets within this AT already had very long animation times for Tier 9's, once again DP beats them (albeit slightly) and adds double the recharge for not even close the damage. The "Chance for" damage needs to go away, recharge needs to be cut in half and a damage boost would also be nice.
3. Slow: the set feels sluggish despite it's beautiful animations. I wish that for a couple of the powers my hero would just pull out the guns and shoot someone (Indiana Jones style) without all the frills. It would make the set feel quicker.
4. Blasters in general: Now would be a great time to revisit this AT. While the mezzed/rooted ability to fire your first and second powers is extremely nice, defiance itself is somewhat useless for me. Getting rid of the damage portion and adding a blanket 10% ranged defense would be a nice change for survivability. Also, Tier 9's in general need to go up to the level of Rain of Arrows and Full Assault in order to put blasters back on the damage throne. Most of the blasters skip their tier 9s because of the endurance drain/long recharge associated with it. Cutting the timers and drain would go a long way to rebuilding the credibility of the AT.
"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - George Orwell
I have my DP/Elec blaster at 19 now and absolutely love it. Only thing I would change that I have actually experienced (obviously not counting Hail of Bullets) would be to have Swap Ammo an inherent, like dual blades and the combo system. It is essentially the same thing (a unique trait of the set that gives damage/debuff bonuses). Actually it is virtually identical to the combo system in what it offers. There is no reason it should take up a spot that could be used for Aim. Other than that, I wouldn't change everything. Ever set within a class doesn't need to perform the same way.
Try my AE Arc: Out of Place, Out of Time ID#304340.
Leave your Arc title in the feedback and I will check yours out as well.
The nuke is pretty weak. Certainly underwhelming compared to the animation for it.
There is one particular component of the nuke that makes it extremely dangerous that I haven't heard anyone bring up yet: unlike most nukes it starts pulling aggro to you the moment it starts firing, and gets more and more dangerous while you're trapped in the animation and putting out damage. I did drop dead three or four times on teams while the animation was still in the middle of playing, and the damage wasn't particularly great.
Overall, I think the set is not quite as bad as I think some people are implying. Being able to switch ammo types does bring an advantage, though I'm still unsure how much value exactly. I think that in terms of DPA calculations, though, Dual Pistols should always be evaluated with Incendiary Ammo as the base, not Lethal. I did almost all of my shooting with Incendiary as the ammo type and I think most people looking for damage will too.
If I had to compare the set to a buff set it would fall into the Sonic Resonance category for me; in need of some love but not drowning like Trick Arrow.
EDIT: Other quick note. Not sure what to make yet of the fact that this set can slot so many types of IO sets. I'm deeply curious to see w
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That is not a valid comparison. Name another Powerset that bestows an inherent power unto its owner when the set is picked at creation.
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Originally Posted by BloodFairy
they should have given swap ammo as an inherent ability of the guns, not a power you pick. In the place of swap ammo, there should have been a power called AIM. It's weird swap ammo is a power you choose. it's like making domination a power you have to actually pick. It's ridiculous.
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By the way, is it a bug that enemies react to Piercing Shot before you actually fire? I could swear I've seen them react and attack me the moment the animation starts, well before the bullet is fired.
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Nope that's WAI and the reason that long animations can be deadly for squishy toons. Mobs notify on miss which is usually calculated at the begining of the power animation and piercing being a cone gives more chances to miss. Depending on how well you line up targets you'll notice this anywhere from 5% of the time to as much as 15% of the time.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
By the way, is it a bug that enemies react to Piercing Shot before you actually fire? I could swear I've seen them react and attack me the moment the animation starts, well before the bullet is fired.
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-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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I was going to leave this unadressed, but I can't. |
Originally Posted by Primal_Dark
3. Blasters in general: Now would be a great time to revisit this AT. While the mezzed/rooted ability to fire your first and second powers is extremely nice, defiance itself is somewhat useless for me. Getting rid of the damage portion and adding a blanket 10% ranged defense would be a nice change for survivability. Also, Tier 9's in general need to go up to the level of Rain of Arrows and Full Assault in order to put blasters back on the damage throne. Most of the blasters skip their tier 9s because of the endurance drain/long recharge associated with it. Cutting the timers and drain would go a long way to rebuilding the credibility of the AT.
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The bolded part specifically, just no. U want 10% ranged damage? slot two sets of thunderstrikes, I'll take my damage buff thank you, now if you had said to add a 10 dmg increase and forego the damage buildup then sure (not that I think its needed), but giving the blasters ranged defense? (or any for that matter) is ridiculous. Defiance (2.0) is more then enough to keep blasters up to par, and the Tier 9s are just fine as they are as well. They are the only AT that gets their full attack chain by the 20s (barring an exception here or there).
I've only known a few people to have skipped their Nuke and that was usually for a specialty build (PVP, STF, or ITF specific build).
Active 50s:
Zero Defex: DP/MM//Mace Blaster
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Running my Kin/EA gloriously
Come on I21!!!
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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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Hmmmm, well, they will react if you miss, unfortunately. If you do hit them, however, they shouldn't react. There are some annoying situations with this throughout the game, for instance. As a Stalker, mobs can react to your Assassin's Strike (or another attack) before it is done animating... I think this happens with regular attacks out of Hide as well. Attacking out of Hide has enough benefits to be okay even with this, but it's still annoying. Same for any blast power you use.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
By the way, is it a bug that enemies react to Piercing Shot before you actually fire? I could swear I've seen them react and attack me the moment the animation starts, well before the bullet is fired.
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As for Dual Pistols in general, I'm not sure why there is so much beef with its performance. I would have liked to see Executioner's Shot have its animation reduced, and the extreme range of damage in Hail of Bullets be evened out, but it is otherwise a decent set by the numbers (performance, too, from what I've seen in game).
New sets do not need to be on top of the others in the same category, just on par. I don't see a whole lot about Dual Pistols that suggests it's not on par with the other sets. Just different, which is good. I don't want another fire set, or assault rifle. I want a new and fun set, and that is what we got.
*added*
Mutant, thanks for addressing that idea about Defiance. I responded to it in the General Feedback to DP in the open beta forum as well, as that was just... bad. "New" defiance is good and one of the better inherents in the game. No touchy!
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
Correction; if you're hidden, and you miss with an AS, nobody notices.
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Unless they run Archery or Assault Rifle, most of the people I know skip their nukes. With a 360 second recharge and a complete drain of endurance, it's a novelty outside of those sets. I honestly thought when Archery was introduced that there had been a shift in thinking about blaster tier 9s in general, but it seems I was mistaken. There are multiple sets out their, Electric Melee, Shields, Fire that have nukes built into the set that are on par with the damage of blaster nukes but offer no penalty and a recharge of around 60 seconds. |
Originally Posted by MutantX_7
I was going to leave this unadressed, but I can't.
The bolded part specifically, just no. U want 10% ranged damage? slot two sets of thunderstrikes, I'll take my damage buff thank you, now if you had said to add a 10 dmg increase and forego the damage buildup then sure (not that I think its needed), but giving the blasters ranged defense? (or any for that matter) is ridiculous. Defiance (2.0) is more then enough to keep blasters up to par, and the Tier 9s are just fine as they are as well. They are the only AT that gets their full attack chain by the 20s (barring an exception here or there). I've only known a few people to have skipped their Nuke and that was usually for a specialty build (PVP, STF, or ITF specific build). |
As far as defiance is concerned, the defense was simply an idea thrown out there. Like I said in the original post, I agree that it was a great improvement to the inherent, but that the AT in general is still lacking.
"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - George Orwell
Clearly, the people you know and the people he knows should have a fight.
Or maybe you should both pull your heads out and consider other, better arguments than 'All my friends say so.'
I wish Executioner's Shot got 30% lethal containment damage when enemies were stunned, held, or immob'ed. Then we could keep the nice animation and the power would make much more sense. Plus it would synergize well with the set's abilities, the abilities of several of the Blaster secondaries (which have a lot of immobs).
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More of an addition. I was discussing when it lands a hit. It's still kind of annoying that an attacked mob (and his friends) can react to you while you are still animating the attack that alerts them to your presence. Same thing with misses on a snipe, etc.|
Originally Posted by Talen_Lee
Correction; if you're hidden, and you miss with an AS, nobody notices.
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For Executioner's Shot, it was discussed to death on the open beta forums. It's on par with Shout, but about a half second longer than most other similar attacks (Blaze is an outlier at 1 second, but you're not going to get DP on par with Fire anyway for balance reasons). If they could trim a half second off, I'd be a happy camper there, but it's still not that bad... and it does damage on par with those other short range, heavy blasts.
I'm still a little surprised that a few little rough things about DP were not fixed after the open beta, but they may be waiting a bit to see how it goes with the greater game-playing populace. I'm sure they'd rather release it a little weak and then buff it, rather than have it be overpowered and trim it back.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
People who say the set being fine underpowered obviously play the game very, very differently to most.
I RP regularly, I love my concepts, and I won't play anything if I don't love the concept.
But when Dual Blades first came out, I made a DB/Energy Brute, and honestly I have never had so little fun playing this game since. A single spawn would drain all of my endurance, provided I actually survived it, even after getting Stamina. I basically forgot the difficulties even existed since I dared not alter it from the base level. Lieutenants were as strong as Elite Bosses to me.
Much later down the track I had a character who, purely by chance, was thematically EM/WP. Brutes are now my favourite AT.
Yes, it's important that you have a character you like thematically and visually, and I LOVE Dual Pistols' animations. Seem to be one of few, oddly.
But as it is, DP is just... Trash. Comparing it to archery, fire, ice etc is basically comparing DB/Dark to EM/WP.
I'm fine with a mid-tier set - I thoroughly enjoy my AR/Fire Corruptor, in fact - but as others have said, DP isn't mid tier, it's competing for last place.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, Umbral's post on Page 2 with the breakdown of damage comparisons between crashless nukes and PBAoE vs Targetted AoE, AND average damage vs chance damage, complete with a suggested fix... Wow.
Devs, he's just done all of your work for you, tied up with a pretty bow that is a solution that requires nothing more on your part than a few keystrokes of editting to the numbers. That's frankly awesome and I think I'd just have to outright boycott you if you were honestly so foolish as to not take his advice.
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yeah and some of you people who drove this game into the ground are worthy of it? I don't think so. Get your own jobs and stop pretending to know things about development and screwing with this game.|
Originally Posted by Warkupo
Nobody is stopping you from being ignorant if you wish to be. Simply go play the game if that's what you enjoy, and leave the balancing act up to those that enjoy doing that.
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Anyone who doesn't see these guns need to be a little stronger (their guns for christ's sake) is blind.
Thinking long term, its probably better that the devs put new sets into the middle, in terms of numbers and performance, than if they keep pushing the performance envelope up or down with each new set; established sets would lose their lustre over the long run if new sets were obviously and consistently superior, among other potential problems, and players would tend to reject new sets that were seen to lag badly behind more established sets.
I would still have preferred to see better single target DPA for dual pistols before launch, however they achieved that objective. Low end single target DPA hurts the set's performance in the later levels, in particular, when lethal resistance happens to be abundant; that's the kind of double whammy that can make you feel like your character just got nerfed, just by reaching those upper levels. The AOE damage is unexceptional in a good or bad way, which means they probably set the AOE damage about right.