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Thats the thing if they cut the animation time down it does not look as good of a power. The defense thing or the untouchable state thing would work the best for it as well as a huge damage increase. I can see them making this nuke use 1/3 of your end bar instead of the full thing.
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Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Okay, look at it from the devs' point of view. If Hail of Bullets is indeed underperforming, why would they give +defense to it (which doesn't match up with any other blast set or how it works currently, something that they are unwilling to change much)? Why not just cut down the animation time, lower the recharge, or reduce the animation, etc.?
If you want to argue that it does not do enough on its own, go for it. But then state how to improve it by the numbers (again, damage done, KB chance, chance for random damage, recharge, etc.). Work with how sets are already set up and work, rather than throwing a dart at the wheel of "random buff that might work thematically." I can wish all I want for Full Auto to make mobs cower in fear from the sheer amount of bullets being fired at them (even though that could make sense "thematically), but that doesn't mean it's going to be listened to, or adopted, by the devs. When Full Auto was buffed recently, it had its animation time reduced, for instance. I can see the most traction happening from damage, recharge, or the extreme range of damage that it can do, personally. The animation is longish, but around what most of the nukes are. For balance, it just needs to be on par with what all those nukes can do (which is where the real debate comes in). |
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
Quote:
Dude lets be realistic here. We all know they arent going to buff this set again till about 3 years from now after they either get tired of the qqing about HoB deaths or they get around to buffing blasters again. All hope for this powerset went out the window the minute they pushed it live just so they could get more GR pre-orders. Right now the only way I can make this set work for me is to pair it with psionic manipulation for the drain psyche, psych shockwave + HoB combo or to do it as a kinetics corrupter. Any other combination is just asking for deaths.
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Originally Posted by Novawulfe
Duel pistols is technically still in the development stage, the Devs are more than likely judging the player base usage and the feedback, and deciding if they should bring it up to other set standards or leave it as a below the average, flashy set like they did for duel blades.
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Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
Quote:
No. DPs fine the way it is. In fact it's probably one of the most well balanced sets I've seen in the game.|
Originally Posted by MentalMidget
If the dual pistol is designed after Wanted/Equilibrium type style of combat, it would make sense that the attacks be defensive as well. The +def would be only active during the longish animations.
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It's not, however the "perfect" power set.
Then again, the perfect power set would be boring as all heck
It's 106 miles to Grandville, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing faceless helmets
... Hit it ...
... Hit it ...
Never happen. Starts with a B. Blaster. No Defense from Primary.
However, Dual Pistols does not scale well and is not usuable at 32 up (more or less) at the present damage output. Simply not enough damage from Hail of Bullets to make the jump. Blaster nuke PBAoE's must either nullify or destroy minions or they fail. Fail=XP Debt and easy to reach XP Debt Cap using HoB as a nuke.... because it doesn't nuke.
Quixotik
"I did not say this. I am not here." -Guild Navigator
Quote:
Go pay attention to what happens when you run stealthed into a group of mobs to fire off Inferno or Nova. You click the power icon, your character starts the animation, and all the attack rolls against the targets in the AoE are made. Any mobs you miss aggro right then; if you're lucky and hit them all, they all stand there clueless until the animation finishes. At that point, all the damage for the attack is dumped on your targets (modulo Fire's DoT effect). Then, the survivors get to shoot back at you. If you've done the standard Build Up/Aim/nuke routine, and the mobs are all even-level minions, there's likely not to be any survivors to shoot at you.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I have seen people mention Inferno's "upfront" damage many times. This is wrong. All the other PBAoE nukes deal zero damage until after the animation ends. The Wails are 2 seconds, Nova and Inferno are 3 seconds.
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Now do this with Hail of Bullets. You run stealthed into the middle of the group and click the power, and you start your animation. The attack rolls against each target for the first tick of damage are made. Anyone you miss aggros at once; if you're lucky and hit them all, you do a fraction of their HP in damage because each tick of damage is nowhere near enough to defeat them, and they all aggro and shoot back at you while the remainder of the ticks of damage get rolled for. Meanwhile, you're standing there, frozen in the attack animation, unable to even try to get away, taking fire from every mob in the group, because you have to wait for the animation to complete before you find out whether you did enough damage to defeat them. If you've done the standard Build Up/nuke routine (no Aim), and the mobs are all even-level minions, every single one of them survives at least long enough to shoot at you once.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
So, it sounds like people know what happens when they push the Hail of Bullets button, but the problem comes more from not planning for what happens afterward well enough.
If you're on a team, try not to take all that aggro yourself (let someone else grab the alpha). That should be a standard tactic with every nuke anyway. If you're solo, plan ahead accordingly: use other powers to up your defense and get some mitigation during the animation. This is why I generally use M80 before Full Auto on my AR Blaster: I have less return fire during the longish animation (and this worked well BEFORE, when Full Auto had an animation longer than Hail of Bullets!).
For each damage tick to have a hit chance (if that is how HoB works) might not be the best setup, and the damage range can be less extreme, but the devs are never going to put something in place that lets us run around with our head cut off. To do anything well usually requires knowing how things work, and then planning/acting accordingly.
In short, HoB probably needs some love, but not as much as some of the doomcryers imply.
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
Quote:
Solution: do not use Hail of Bullets as a nuke, because it is not a nuke. Problem solved.
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Originally Posted by Quixotik
Fail=XP Debt and easy to reach XP Debt Cap using HoB as a nuke.... because it doesn't nuke.
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Quote:
Stealth is not a Fire Blast or an Energy Blast power. Since you get to tack things on, so do I.|
Originally Posted by srmalloy
Go pay attention to what happens when you run stealthed into a group of mobs to fire off Inferno or Nova.
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Go pay attention to what happens when you activate HoB a split second after one of your other teammates takes the alpha. And you can do that every minute instead of every three minutes.
Solo, I have had no issues running into the center of a spawn clicking HoB followed by either FSC or Bullet Rain. During my 30s, I ran at +1 / x3 with bosses. During my 40s, I have been running at +1 / x6 with bosses. In my 40s I have TP and Hot Feet to aid me, but HoB is not recharged every spawn, so I get to use Bullet Rain + FSC a lot, and somehow I still do not die, even though they take longer to animate together than HoB. In my 30s, I did not have any appreciable defense. By my early 40s, I did have about 16% ranged and 8% Sm/LE.
I do use inspires, but since I turned up the size of the spawns they drop like crazy when solo, so I have them to burn.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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Would have been awesome Both avenues should have been pursued DP as is as a blast set(but buffed) and Gunfu in the style of Spike Spiegel as a melee set sadly the devs have poo poo-ed the idea for years...
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Originally Posted by BloodFairy
Dual guns that "borrow" gun kata animations yet the purpose to shoot in those ways, is to avoid other trajectories blah blah like it says on gun fu or the equilibrium site, yet the blaster is weak as hell. Those guns should have been mixed with melee pistol attacks and made scrapper, brute and I guess tank. So we could at least stand up to things and pretend we dodged it, without getting 2 shotted each spawn. If not, take it out of the game, do it right and put it back in on the right classes. It has no business in there if it's only half done, fast design. Added with no understanding of what it even should be like or is about.
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Quote:
Then why is it a PBAoE and not a Cone or aimed AoE and why does it do less damage than RoA and Full Auto and take twice as long to recharge? Dual Pistols is far from finished. Saying I should not use HoB as a Nuke, which it is supposed to be, does not fix what is broken with DP.|
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
Solution: do not use Hail of Bullets as a nuke, because it is not a nuke. Problem solved.
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Dare I say DP was rushed into a premature release? Anyway, my level 33 DP/MM is a XP Debt collector of the first order. After working on it all double XP weekend, I have shelved it. Not by choice really. Just dosn't work.
Quixotik
"I did not say this. I am not here." -Guild Navigator
A better way of phrasing it is to not use it like Nova or the other traditional nukes. It's like RoA and Full Auto, in that you will want to use it in conjunction with other powers to drop mobs quickly. The faster recharge offsets their not doing as much damage as Nova, et al.
If any tweaking is done, it will be more minor than anything, as it is still going to be set up like RoA and Full Auto.
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
Not had a problem getting killed with the nuke, even on the really bad PUGs. I decided to push my DP up to a +8 hero setting and found myself getting beat down pretty hard. Did a respec and added in tough and weave, threw a few more defense IO sets in there to get me up to about 25% defense to melee and now I can do just fine on a +0+8 (no boss) mission.
So, I think the defense argument is pretty moot. I do agree that the damage needs to be beefed up quite a bit as well as being more front loaded. I think about 75% of that damage needs to happen pretty quick, with the rest of the potential 25% being the dot. Hitting Build-Up and nuke should not leave white minions standing around with 10% health.
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Yah.
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Aha...Ahahahahahahahaaaa..
Oh dear. This can really be summed up in one word; /jranger |
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There are plenty of reasons. Even more so with full auto (which needs no buffs). While it's entirely possible that dual-pistols will not be a poplular set as a whole 6 mo after everyone has access to it (i.e. near the ned of the year), I don't see anyone spec'ing out of their nuke with any regularity... especially since it's crash-less.|
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
QFT. There is no reason why Hail of bullets shouldnt give like a 45% defense to all for the duration of the animation or an untouchable state for the duration of the power. Hell they could do the same thing with full auto. I predict in 6 months most blasters would end up respecing out of Hail of Bullets due to the poor damage to the amount of times it gets you killed ratio.
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Can it use tweaks? Yes.
Is it a useless power? No.
Will it consistently get you killed? Only if you're doing something wrong.
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That's a personal problem. A good craftsman does not blame his tools.|
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Right now the only way I can make this set work for me is to pair it with psionic manipulation for the drain psyche, psych shockwave + HoB combo or to do it as a kinetics corrupter. Any other combination is just asking for deaths.
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As a set, dual pistols can use some work, especially at the high recharge-IO level. But it's still a prefectly viable set. DuPi/Dark, DuPi/Rad, DuPi/Traps, DuPi/NRG and DuPi/Ice all work just fine, though none will be long-term fotm builds. And that's just what I and god friends have played/tested.
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The purpose of using Stealth was to illustrate the difference in how the powers draw aggro vs. their outgoing damage, not on what happens if you jump into a spawn and immediately draw aggro from your presence, then stand there taking fire while you activate your nuke. The best approximation in game of analyzing the power's effects in isolation, since using a spawn of mobs too low-level to aggro on you when you enter the spawn doesn't give you good data for survival rate against incoming aggro. But sure, let's throw in the use of Fire Manipulation powers, and then continue to discuss the way Inferno and Hail of Bullets draw aggro versus their delivery of damage without other powers or the mobs' perception aggroing them on you.
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Stealth is not a Fire Blast or an Energy Blast power. Since you get to tack things on, so do I.
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"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
Quote:
Except that it's set up neither like Rain of Arrows nor like Full Auto. With Rain of Arrows, you target a location, go through your animation, (aggroing anyone in the beaten zone that you miss), then as soon as the animation completes, you're free to move while a pseudo-pet performs the rain, delivering attacks and damage against anyone still in the beaten zone. With Full Auto, you target a mob, start your animation, and everyone in the beaten zone that you hit takes all the ticks of the DoT while they all aggro on you. With Hail of Bullets, you start your animation, aggro everyone in the beaten zone, and stand there waving your guns around as a pseudo-pet performs the rain, delivering attacks and damage against anyone in the beaten zone. HoB is like a spatchcock combination of the characteristics of Rain of Arrows and Full Auto -- it has the circular AoE and 'rain' damage effect of Rain of Arrows with the 'stand their and take return fire' animation style of Full Auto. |
Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
If any tweaking is done, it will be more minor than anything, as it is still going to be set up like RoA and Full Auto.
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The problem is that, with the rain effect for damage, where each tick is a separate roll, you average much less damage on an individual target than an all-or-nothing roll. If you have a straight DoT attack that has four ticks of damage and can expect to defeat a white minion, you have a base 75% chance to hit that mob, and hence a 75% chance to defeat it with the DoT. If you have a rain attack that has four ticks of damage which over the four ticks does the same damage as the DoT, each tick has a 75% chance to hit, making the overall chance that all four ticks hit to defeat the mob only about 31%. Raising the chance-to-hit to 90% only increases the chance of defeating the mob to about 65%. Where the rain gives you an advantage is that you don't entirely miss as much. With a straight DoT, you have a 25% chance to miss each target, doing no damage. To do no damage to a target with a four-tick rain, though, you have to miss four times -- a 0.39% chance. (For the number crunchers, a 31.6% chance of all four ticks hitting, a 42.19% chance of three hitting, a 21.09% chance of two hitting, a 4.69% chance of only one hitting, and a 0.39% chance of missing completely). You wind up with many fewer defeated targets, but many more wounded ones.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
Maybe for HoB add in a possible stun effect? Something that lasts for a second or two with each bullet being able to stun? I'm not a numbers guy, so I can't say what % it should be, but it's a suggestion.
Quote:
What did you intend this sentence fragment to convey? I do not understand it in isolation, nor in the context of your post.
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Originally Posted by srmalloy
The best approximation in game of analyzing the power's effects in isolation, since using a spawn of mobs too low-level to aggro on you when you enter the spawn doesn't give you good data for survival rate against incoming aggro.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
I think "It is" is missing at the front of that sentence.
Quote:
Possibly. There are a few other likely changes that make sense too. Before I respond, I want to make sure I understand what he is trying to say. |
Originally Posted by Hallowed
I think "It is" is missing at the front of that sentence.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Quote:
Often doesn't kill +0 minions?!?!
Originally Posted by Silas
HoB goes off, often doesn't kill +0 minions and makes them very angry.
I'm hoping you're saying that due to lack of Build Up on Corruptors/Defenders, if not....whaaaaaa!?!??!?!! And even then...SERIOUSLY?!
I kill EVERY +2 minion EVERY time with HoB on my Blaster! Unless it's like...some special faction with minions that have high S/L resistance!
Every time I cast HoB in a full +2/x8, things just fall dead around me! Do you have enhancements in HoB? xD
Quote:
When on a team, you are not the only person pushing damage powers.
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Originally Posted by Bright Shadow
Often doesn't kill +0 minions?!?! I'm hoping you're saying that due to lack of Build Up on Corruptors/Defenders, if not....whaaaaaa!?!??!?!! And even then...SERIOUSLY?! I kill EVERY +2 minion EVERY time with HoB on my Blaster! Unless it's like...some special faction with minions that have high S/L resistance! Every time I cast HoB in a full +2/x8, things just fall dead around me! Do you have enhancements in HoB? xD |
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Quote:
...I didn't say anything about being on a team.
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
When on a team, you are not the only person pushing damage powers.
On my current DP/Mind Blaster, I solo at +1/x3, +1/x4, or +2/x3 if I'm feeling brave. I have HoB up every second group and usually by the time HoB finishes, most, if not all, minions are defeated.
Depending on the ammo you choose, your build, and your powers, you may not have the same results. But saying "Often doesn't kill +0 minions" is a very, very, very unrealistic exaggeration on Blaster, and somewhat of a hyperbole on Corruptors and Defenders. This is of course assuming that the players knows how to use/slot HoB effectively.
EDIT: I just looked over my build in Mid's Hero Planner, and with Concentration, I'm doing 555 Lethal damage with HoB. And that's excluding the Fire effect from Incendiary Ammo. This is more than enough for most minions. At the very least, it's more than enough for +0 minions. Granted, I do have a 28% Damage bonus from IO Sets and Assault, but that should leave the average Dual Pistols Blaster at around 490-520; which is still more than enough for +0 minions.
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!