Swap ammo way too expansive
By
Dispari,
Posted on: 2010-03-04 20:21 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I think it's a great skill. You get 3 ways to split your damage, choosing between fire, cold, and toxic. You can select Fire for greater damage, Cold for slows and an increased hold, and Toxic for -damage, a debuff which is way undervalued,
I'm not sure what you're missing, but being aware of your opponent's resistance values makes this set even more versatile. The great thing about having both Cold and Fire is that opponents strong to one type are generally weak to the other.
Quote:
And you think it worths a power slot that is unlottable? the side effects are barely noticable and only your secondary damage is affected with no change it it's base value...that's a huge cost for the benefit.
|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
I think it's a great skill. You get 3 ways to split your damage, choosing between fire, cold, and toxic. You can select Fire for greater damage, Cold for slows and an increased hold, and Toxic for -damage, a debuff which is way undervalued,
I'm not sure what you're missing, but being aware of your opponent's resistance values makes this set even more versatile. The great thing about having both Cold and Fire is that opponents strong to one type are generally weak to the other. |
Quote:
Hell, my lowbies set it to ice ammo for taking down Hellions and fire ammo for just about everything else.|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
I think it's a great skill. You get 3 ways to split your damage, choosing between fire, cold, and toxic. You can select Fire for greater damage, Cold for slows and an increased hold, and Toxic for -damage, a debuff which is way undervalued,
I'm not sure what you're missing, but being aware of your opponent's resistance values makes this set even more versatile. The great thing about having both Cold and Fire is that opponents strong to one type are generally weak to the other. |
During beta people were commenting that the swap ammo powers were not slottable, but i'm not sure what people would expect to slot into it. The only thing the toggles do is enable and suppress the different secondary effects of the attacks. The various damage types and effects are built into the attacks themselves.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
Quote:
... wow. |
Originally Posted by GreenGiant
And you think it worths a power slot that is unslottable? the side effects are barely noticable and only your secondary damage is affected with no change it it's base value...that's a huge cost for the benefit.
|
Side affects are barely noticeable?
Yeah. Um. Would you mind spending more than 15 seconds with your avatar in game before running to the forums and making a post?
Quote:
Ummm, the abilities it grants without having to be socketed is itself a benefit. Have you never had a build that was socket-hungry at level 50?|
Originally Posted by GreenGiant
And you think it worths a power slot that is unlottable? the side effects are barely noticable and only your secondary damage is affected with no change it it's base value...that's a huge cost for the benefit.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by je_saist
... wow.
Side affects are barely noticeable? Yeah. Um. Would you mind spending more than 15 seconds with your avatar in game before running to the forums and making a post? |
Quote:
All builts are IO bonus hungry at lvl 50 if you want to upgrade your toon beyond base IO, losing a slot is huge. Of course if you don't care about IO Bonuses, the point is moot.
|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
Ummm, the abilities it grants without having to be socketed is itself a benefit. Have you never had a build that was socket-hungry at level 50?
|
Quote:
I didn't know that but I've read that the damage is lower than most other power sets.
|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
Ummm, the abilities it grants without having to be socketed is itself a benefit. Have you never had a build that was socket-hungry at level 50?
I agree completely. Heck, the set has a HUGE base accuracy bonus as well, scond only to Archery. I wonder if the OP even was aware of that. |
Quote:
Considering that the best IO bonuses generally come at tiers 4 and 5, not having to add 3-5 sockets here will let other skills achieve increased benefits. You aren't making a whole lot of sense with these arguments IMO. |
Originally Posted by GreenGiant
All builts are IO bonus hungry at lvl 50 if you want to upgrade your toon beyond base IO, losing a slot is huge. Of course if you don't care about IO Bonuses, the point is moot.
|
I would again say yes, Swap Amo is incredibly expansive and has significant benefits, one of them being no need for sockets.
And no, it is not expensive.
Quote:
Ok then. It's just that almost everytime I try to use Mid's to achieve goals using IO Bonuses, I run out of powers before I run out of slots.|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
Considering that the best IO bonuses generally come at tiers 4 and 5, not having to add 3-5 sockets here will let other skills achieve increased benefits. You aren't making a whole lot of sense with these arguments IMO.
I would again say yes, Swap Amo is incredibly expansive and has significant benefits, one of them being no need for sockets. And no, it is not expensive. |
It must be because of caltrops that I didn't see must difference with ice while fire ticked like twice only (can't say much about toxic, I didn't check the damage taken with and without).
Quote:
Well, if it had five or six ammo toggles i would have definitely agreed that it was too expansive. Three toggles seems just expansive enough to me.|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
Considering that the best IO bonuses generally come at tiers 4 and 5, not having to add 3-5 sockets here will let other skills achieve increased benefits. You aren't making a whole lot of sense with these arguments IMO.
I would again say yes, Swap Amo is incredibly expansive and has significant benefits, one of them being no need for sockets. And no, it is not expensive. |
i haven't noticed that it's expensive as such. At least one person with a 50 DP/EM Blaster seemed to be able to fit IOs into the build if the screenshot was anything to go by.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
Quote:
The fire round are tricky, as they can tick not at all or up to the full amount possible. In the long run, the Fire DoT will really add up. |
Originally Posted by GreenGiant
It must be because of caltrops that I didn't see must difference with ice while fire ticked like twice only (can't say much about toxic, I didn't check the damage taken with and without).
|
The -damage in isolation is a nice perk, but it really starts to become noticeable when you stack the debuff from multiple sources-- whether that's from other players or a debuff primary/secondary. AVs also don't resist the -damage like the do other debuffs, so this can be pretty useful against them when multiple debuffs are layered.
Lol, I guess you would have preferred the old version of swap ammo that was a click power that cycled from standard>cold>fire>chemical>standard, took around 2sec to animate each shift, cost 5 endurance per swap and was socketable for endurance redux?
Lol, swap ammo is cheap now 
Quote:
OTOH, the old version also allowed you to get Incendiary, Cryo, and Chemical rounds at the same time. Doing so was a huge (constant) damage buff, and turned Suppressive Fire into a one-shot hold for anything except AV/EBs running Purple Triangles, and GMs.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Lol, I guess you would have preferred the old version of swap ammo that was a click power that cycled from standard>cold>fire>chemical>standard, took around 2sec to animate each shift, cost 5 endurance per swap and was socketable for endurance redux?
|
Not that it was intentional, but I'm not sure it was preventable using that system.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Ironically, I found that the KB in the lethal rounds was the most effective mitigation while solo because when it works it works.
Quote:
he he, largely from people who haven't really tried it, or took a look at the numbers.|
Originally Posted by GreenGiant
I didn't know that but I've read that the damage is lower than most other power sets.
|
every set has its fans and its critics and thats fine, its not like your forced to take the set
if you really don't like swap ammo , no one is forcing you to take it. Now with that said.
One of things I see people complaining about the lack of aim, in place of swap ammo, which is interesting, since between its inherent accuracy( second only to Archery), and IO's I can't see that being a big issue, and in beta fire ammo in its current form was proven to provide a more damage boost than Aim does over time( largely b/c people seem to think Aim has a larger +damage than it actually does which can be proven just by looking at the real numbers and understanding that +damage is based only on base damage, and the fact aim can't be made perma).
Next comes the value of being able to change out your damage types, trust, especially with the primary damage being lethal, you will definitely notice a difference when fighting critters with lethal resists( just try playing archery against those critters with only blazing arrow being really effective), and with 3 alternative damage types available, your not going to find critters with strong lethal/cold/fire/toxic resists, odds are pretty good you'll see something like critters with +15% resist vs. lethal, and -15% resist vs. one of the exotic damage types.
In terms of damage ignoring damage types, its in the middle ground between sets with high burst damage but high recharge and those with low burst and low recharge.
Its not a set for everyone, but I think its a welcome addition.
too expansive? You mean you have too many choices ?
/em facepalm *too expansive does not compute*
Being able to swap to something that stacks with your current team's strengths is a wonderful benefit to have. Also being able to change up damage against lethal resistant foes will be a big deal later.
A 100 damage attack will hit for 50 against robots, but if you swap ammo you'll deal like 70-80 instead. A 40% damage buff perma against lethal resistance foes is better than Aim's 62.5% damage buff some of the time.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
Quote:
Really? By my (probably flawed) calculations:|
Originally Posted by Lohenien
A 100 damage attack will hit for 50 against robots, but if you swap ammo you'll deal like 70-80 instead. A 40% damage buff perma against lethal resistance foes is better than Aim's 62.5% damage buff some of the time. |
a 100 dmg lethal attack (actually a 70 dmg +30 dmg lethal) vs 50% lethal resist = 35dmg + 15 dmg letha = 50 dmg
a 70 dmg lethal/30 dmg cold vs 50% lethal resist = 35dmg lethal +30 dmg cold = 65 dmg total, not 70-80dmg >_>
Quote:
His projections might have been off (by only about 5 HP) but that's a 30% increase in damage. Measured over time it's actually a much bigger increase than what Aim would give, although Aim has its own advantages.
|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Really? By my (probably flawed) calculations:
a 100 dmg lethal attack (actually a 70 dmg +30 dmg lethal) vs 50% lethal resist = 35dmg + 15 dmg letha = 50 dmg a 70 dmg lethal/30 dmg cold vs 50% lethal resist = 35dmg lethal +30 dmg cold = 65 dmg total, not 70-80dmg >_> |
What percentage of enemies in the game are 50% lethal resistant? Against enemies with 20% lethal resists and 0% other resists, swapping ammo would boost your damage by 7.5%. Against 0% lethal resists -20% other resists enemies the benefit is only 6%. I have a hard time believing Swap Ammo even comes close to approaching the benefits of Aim, even in an over-simplistic numbers-only comparison.
Quote:
or leadership which is 10% damage, it's really even better than 10% since you make everyone else do more damage too.
| What percentage of enemies in the game are 50% lethal resistant? Against enemies with 20% lethal resists and 0% other resists, swapping ammo would boost your damage by 7.5%. Against 0% lethal resists -20% other resists enemies the benefit is only 6%. I have a hard time believing Swap Ammo even comes close to approaching the benefits of Aim, even in an over-simplistic numbers-only comparison. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by GreenGiant
Ok then. It's just that almost everytime I try to use Mid's to achieve goals using IO Bonuses, I run out of powers before I run out of slots.
It must be because of caltrops that I didn't see must difference with ice while fire ticked like twice only (can't say much about toxic, I didn't check the damage taken with and without). |
You aren't looking at the whole picture. Swap Ammo is available at a fairly low level when most of your powers are still quite hungry for slots. Take it strategically so that you can focus on a power that could truly benefit from getting slotted up quickly.
Keep in mind also that Swap Ammo turns Suppressive Fire into a hold, which can be incredibly useful.
Quote:
Holds are better than stuns because 1) the mezzed enemy does not move, 2) holds are more prevalent and more easily stackable and 3) they provide the ability to slot hold IO sets. 1) is a minor benefit since a single-target mez will not cause AoE scatter. While I haven't tested it personally, the description on the enhancement screen implies that you can slot Hold IO sets in it regardless of whether you have Swap Ammo. If true, then 3) doesn't apply since you don't need to take Swap Ammo to get the benefit. That leaves 2). There's a benefit, no doubt, but is this what you'd call "incredibly" useful?
|
Originally Posted by Warkupo
Keep in mind also that Swap Ammo turns Suppressive Fire into a hold, which can be incredibly useful.
|
In closed beta I did a poll to see what ammo types people used. In order, with enough of a spread to indicate that they are indeed desired in various amounts, this was the order:
1) Chemical Ammo (-DMG)
2) Incendiary Ammo (+DoT)
3) Lethal Ammo (+KB)*
4) Cryo Ammo (-spd/rech)
* = The poll was done before lethal gave any -DEF.
There were only about two people in the thread who skipped Swap Ammo. The secondary effects are noticeable, and useful for different situations.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
|
Quote:
Why would you want to slot it? What on earth would you slot it with? Candy?
|
Originally Posted by GreenGiant
Hi,
I just made a DP for the kick and took Swap Ammo and I don't see the point of buying a power slot just to get almost nothing in return. I understand it can bypass some resistances but it's kind of expansive and there are many lethal sets that do well enough. The worse thing about it is probably that it is unslottable though which is a big handicap at lvl 50 compared to other power sets. Is there something I'm missing about that power or is it really as skippable as it appears to be? thanks |
Hi,
I just made a DP for the kick and took Swap Ammo and I don't see the point of buying a power slot just to get almost nothing in return. I understand it can bypass some resistances but it's kind of expansive and there are many lethal sets that do well enough.
The worse thing about it is probably that it is unslottable though which is a big handicap at lvl 50 compared to other power sets.
Is there something I'm missing about that power or is it really as skippable as it appears to be?
thanks