st attacks are aoe attacks with a tiny radius. So yes, thunderstrike and gauntlet very much do what I'm talking about.
It may well be that there is a limitation to how many different layers they can do, but two is definitely possible. If they are limited to two then I'd leave it as is and add a higher damaging 10 degree cone.
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Are you sure about that? I've never heard that, but I've been wrong before. Are we sure there's still a radius measurement at all?|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
st attacks are aoe attacks with a tiny radius. So yes, thunderstrike and gauntlet very much do what I'm talking about.
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I say this because I know auto-hit powers don't just have very high accuracy, they simply skip their to-hit check.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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No I'm not 100% sure, but ask tankers that used to 1 shot themselves with ET.
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I have to agree with you on this Sam, I dont think it works the way Frosticus thinks it does, but I gaurantee there is still a radius check. Why? How else would you know that an enemies attributes need to be checked against rolls and power attribute values? I believe though, that it happens at the begining of the attack process which messes with the "layered cone" idea.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Are you sure about that? I've never heard that, but I've been wrong before. Are we sure there's still a radius measurement at all?
I say this because I know auto-hit powers don't just have very high accuracy, they simply skip their to-hit check. |
From what I understand, when an attack is initiated it checks range first. For single target attacks it is just to see if the attack can reach the target, but for cones, I believe it checks to see what enemies are in the cone therefore knowing which enemies to apply power effects.
In order to do what you want Frosticus, namely one attack with multiple ranges, you need to have the attack activate multiple powers. Thunderstrike does this by summoning a pseudo-pet in addition to the regular attack, but cones make it tricky. For this you would have to trigger multiple powers with their own arcs, accuracy checks, and damage values simultaneously. I'm not sure something like that is possible.
Of course that's all assumption based on what has been seen in the game, such as starting a cone attack against two enemies, having one run behind me and one stay put while still hitting both targets. Which leads me to believe the range, arc, and radius checks are the first step in the attack process.
GL all and have fun
Murphys Military Law
#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
Thunderstrike does not use a pseudo-pet and nor does gauntlet. They also don't require separate tohit checks to render the double power effects.
Whether you could translate that technique into cones, I have no idea. I was honestly just spitballing with the suggestion because it is so boring to adjust powers in the way that is always done. The lack of creativity applied where more creativity could be (regardless of this idea working or not) makes me sad.
They could honestly buff AR to the moon and back and I still wouldn't play it as the set is slow as molasses and plagued by redraw, which are my two biggest grievances. But I've heard the same complaints about AR for years from its users. If the idea of layered cones could be done, great. If not, oh well.
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Huh I must have goofed when looking up the Thunder Strike stats, my bad. The only issue I saw was giving different effects/damage values different ranges withing the same power. If that is in fact possible the layered cone idea is an impressive one. I'm just not sure how do-able it is.|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
Thunderstrike does not use a pseudo-pet and nor does gauntlet. They also don't require separate tohit checks to render the double power effects.
Whether you could translate that technique into cones, I have no idea. I was honestly just spitballing with the suggestion because it is so boring to adjust powers in the way that is always done. The lack of creativity applied where more creativity could be (regardless of this idea working or not) makes me sad. They could honestly buff AR to the moon and back and I still wouldn't play it as the set is slow as molasses and plagued by redraw, which are my two biggest grievances. But I've heard the same complaints about AR for years from its users. If the idea of layered cones could be done, great. If not, oh well. |
GL all and have fun
Murphys Military Law
#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.
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Stabbing in the dark here, but there ought to be a way to target an entity directly by addressing its unique identifier, rather than indirectly by reading its identifier from a target area. How it's coded in City of Heroes I haven't a clue, but I would assume that a power listed as single-target simply doesn't read off the radius field.|
Originally Posted by William_Valence
I have to agree with you on this Sam, I dont think it works the way Frosticus thinks it does, but I gaurantee there is still a radius check. Why? How else would you know that an enemies attributes need to be checked against rolls and power attribute values? I believe though, that it happens at the begining of the attack process which messes with the "layered cone" idea.
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It doesn't really serve as precedent, but back in Dual Pistols Beta, Arcana went through the process for applying XX times chance for YY DoT, where it was said that leaving the chance field blank made the power simply skip the effect's to-hit roll. Granted, it's possible single-target is just AoE with an arc of 360 and a range of 0 just like how a "melee" attack is a ranged attack with a range of 7 feet and hard-coded immunity to range-altering effects. It's possible, but it seems unlikely to me, as then it would view "pseudo AoEs" as powers centred on the area an NPC is occupying and taking the reference of the NPC in the area they are called upon, which is doable, but a very roundabout way of doing things, when simply addressing the target NPC directly and then centring an AoE around it if necessary seems more intuitive.
Then again, as Arcana likes to say, when we guess at how things work, we're always wrong, so who knows? It just seems odd to go the roundabout way of targeting a single NPC when you can treat your target differently from everything else in range.
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| From what I understand, when an attack is initiated it checks range first. For single target attacks it is just to see if the attack can reach the target, but for cones, I believe it checks to see what enemies are in the cone therefore knowing which enemies to apply power effects. |
This is actually further proof that single targets are handled differently from targets caught in area effects, as the distance to a target for cone attacks is clearly calculated differently from the distance a cone is able to affect targets at. Then again, it's possible this is a necessary kludge with how cones are rigged and not evidence of how the system operates behind the scenes. I wish Castle would come down to explain, but historically he has been reluctant to just sit down and detail the minutia of the powers system in great detail without a good reason.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Personally, I don't mind creativity as such, and if this is even possible and, indeed, doesn't bog down the servers, then I have little problem with it as a solution. It still leaves niggling problems like the fairly un-useful Ignite and Lackluster Full Auto, but then it gives the set more punch in single target.|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
Whether you could translate that technique into cones, I have no idea. I was honestly just spitballing with the suggestion because it is so boring to adjust powers in the way that is always done. The lack of creativity applied where more creativity could be (regardless of this idea working or not) makes me sad.
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As far as this goes, my biggest worry is balance. You say even centre-line damage would not be as good or efficient as single-target damage, but the problem is that there really isn't a very good middle ground between what we have now and single-target efficiency that people will actually notice.
See, AR's central problem is single-target damage, which only more single target damage can fix, but if you're scaling these changes to prevent cones from being useful as single target damage powers, then you're not really solving the problem, and if you DO scale them as single-target attacks, then you make them overpowered as AoEs. A set with lots of poor attacks will always underperform compared to a set with a few good ones. You're just making it underperform less, which is better, but still not good enough.
If we want to "fix" Assault Rifle, then we'll need need a decisive fix which will make a difference. Just tuning things up won't do the trick. And I'm not sure there's a good balancing point in giving powers extra narrow-cone damage without them being either underpowered or overpowered.
Easy example - look at Piercing Rounds. It does pretty much exactly what you're suggesting, and it's balance is... Ugh! Don't remind me. Good if you can hit multiple people, but it's so costly, slow and inefficient that you're really not going to rely on it to help you with single-target damage any more than you'll rely on Flamethrower to do that. And considering my AR Blaster actually does just that, it should be evident how sad the situation is.
Cottage or no cottage, a power in Assault Rifle will need to give. Maybe it'll be Ignite, maybe it'll be Buckshot... Maybe it'll be Sniper Rifle, who knows? But a power needs to become tangibly better for the set to really shine outside of nuking things on a large team.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Personally, I'd just like them to decrease the animation time on Ignite. I think the power as is works well with the feel of the rest of the set. Assault Rifle is an AoE damage monster but pays for this with weak single target damage (Ignite in palce of a third blast and no Aim). Ignite is essentially the 3rd blast in the set twice about twice the damage of a regular third blast (like Power Burst) but with twice the recharge. This means that AR has much weaker single target damage using normal attacks but they can get comparable single target damage against tough targets as long as they can hold or immobilize the target. This encourages ARs to use AoEs against multiple enemies and only bother with single target attacks against a single foe (i.e. a boss).|
Originally Posted by Seldom
In my experience, most of AR seems pretty good. The Beanbag speed-up helped its utility a lot. The only odd child to me is 'ignite." It's an attack power that actively discourages enemies from getting damaged by itself. Immobilizes make it good, but without those it's very limited in usability. It's also pretty small.
I know it's a longshot, but keeping the cttage rule in mind, what if burn was a low damage +terrorize patch, targeted. The patch does its thing, but the target is given a medium/high damage over time to self power, which attempts to duplicate itself onto nearby mobs for a certain period. This power also has a full-body fiery aura attached. Yes, I'm talking about an 'ignite patch' that literally sets a foe on fire. (That is drenching a foe in burning propellant.) The 'contagious,' nature of the fire mean that once you light an enemy on fire, they run crazed and ablazed, and any foes they brush against also catch fire. It's then an odd sort of AoE, where it isn't an immediate area attack, but can become so when the foe comes near other foes. |
In theory this works well, but in practice it has some issues. Blasters are generally ok, with the exception of AR/Energy they all have an easily spammable immobilize power to setup Ignite (EM doesn't but it provides more single target melee damage to compensate). Defenders and Corruptors are a lot more problematic however. Trick Arrow and Traps are the only sets with an easily spammable immobilizes and TA, Rad and Dark are the only ones with options to hold a boss (which are all less practical than Blasters get). Epics help a bits, Defenders can pick up either Electric or Psychic for an easily spammable immobilize or a less spammable single target hold. Corruptors are worse off since they only get AoE immobilizes or 32s recharge holds.
So given all that I think is a practical reason to change it so that an immobilize or hold is not required but I'd still like to see it designed to be of limited utility on weaker enemies to help maintain the "feel" of the current power. I'd also like to avoid turning it into any sort of real AoE since that would invariably mean it has it's total damage lowered and thus AR would have even more trouble with tough single targets.
My Suggestion:
Steal the mechanic used by the Incendiary Swarm Missiles the Assault Bot gets (but not the stats obviously). Essentially Ignite becomes a single target DoT attack which applies a high DoT (both damage and duration) to it's main target but also summons a small fire patch that damages any enemies entering it. Keep the total damage and recharge roughly the same as the current version but split the damage between the main target and the patch (maybe 80/20). This would mean that it has roughly the same impact as the 3rd blast from other sets when used on a boss but it's unappealing to use on lesser enemies since it has double the recharge of a normal 3rd blast and is a DoT meaning it frequently won't deal full damage to them. Immobilizing/Holding the target is no longer required but does give a damage boost making it desirable.
I have to ask something here - does anyone honestly use Ignite for AoE damage? Because I've neither seen it nor been able to reproduce it more than once in a blue moon, because it has less range than a melee attack.
If we can all concede that Ignite works mostly as a single-target-attack supplement, then why not make it a single-target attack similar to Incinerate, only with an additional melee-range damage aura put on the ignited target?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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While I mostly use it as a single target attack it does also have it's uses as an area denial ability (although some characters have better tools for that). I actually wonder what the developer's intent was with Ignite, the original version (with 4 second recharge) makes me think they intended it for area denial rather than damage but in practice it's primarily a damage power.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I have to ask something here - does anyone honestly use Ignite for AoE damage? Because I've neither seen it nor been able to reproduce it more than once in a blue moon, because it has less range than a melee attack.
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| If we can all concede that Ignite works mostly as a single-target-attack supplement, then why not make it a single-target attack similar to Incinerate, only with an additional melee-range damage aura put on the ignited target? |
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Well, the only thing I didn't like about that suggesting was that you're splitting the damage between the target and the patch, effectively requiring you to immobilize your target in the patch anyway, in the process not really helping the problem with the power in general. If you can concede to putting all the damage into the single-target portion and leaving down a Caltrops-level damage patch behind to serve as area denial, however, then I can get behind that. I get my single-target damage and people get to keep their area denial.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I think my post above pretty much covers my thoughts, the only thing I'd add is that I'd rather it deploy a patch rather than some sort of damage aura. Mostly I just like it more thematically than a damage aura on the target and it also means it keeps a limited area denial effect.
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Or how about something else? Instead of ticking with damage on every cycle, why not have the power infect people with, say, a four-second DoT every time they walk through it like PPD Equiliser Wide-Area Web Grenade? Then anyone just passing through the patch will still incur some damage, whereas everyone immobilised in the patch will incur a LOT of damage.
...
In fact, it'd be nice if that's how Blaster damage auras worked, so that a Blaster doesn't sit his *** in melee and have it kicked in order to get any mileage out of his auras.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The rational for splitting the damage was actually that ignite will deal MORE damage as a direct attack than it currently does. Currently Ignite summons a pseudo pet, I'm not certain if the pet inherits your damage buffs or not but if it does then any with a remaining duration of less than 10 seconds (which includes build up defiance buffs) will only buff part of the damage. Conversely by making it a direct attack that deal DoT any damage buffs you have at the time will benefit the entire duration. Combined with the fact that I personally think Ignite damage is a bit high anyway means I think a nerf to the direct damage is reasonable. Allowing the option to setup the enemy for bonus damage keeps the existing theme a bit more and is essentially an increase in total damage but a decrease in damage over activation time.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, the only thing I didn't like about that suggesting was that you're splitting the damage between the target and the patch, effectively requiring you to immobilize your target in the patch anyway, in the process not really helping the problem with the power in general. If you can concede to putting all the damage into the single-target portion and leaving down a Caltrops-level damage patch behind to serve as area denial, however, then I can get behind that. I get my single-target damage and people get to keep their area denial.
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I did some testing on this a while back (using an Archery Defender) the pseudo pet from RoA does seem to only have a 1.0 base accuracy (using the to hit formula from the wiki and the reported to hit chance in the combat log).
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Originally Posted by Umbral
For accuracy, RoA has a base accuracy of 1.6 (iirc, I'm pretty sure the attack info listed for the pseudo pet is wrong on the accuracy). Full Auto has a base accuracy of 1.35. Point for RoA (unless the pseudo pet is wrong, upon which FA gets a point, albeit a largely useless once since higher base accuracy doesn't really mean much since you're going to be operating at 95% chance to hit almost regardless).
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Buckshot: A pretty good power actually, very fast animation for a blast set and fair mitigation through knockback. I'm happy with it as is, though Frosticus' idea of layered cones (more damage around target) is a good one.|
Originally Posted by Sunstormer
So to summerize, people tend to think either Buckshot, Ignite or Flamethrower needs biggest changes with full auto not so important because its easier to use?
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Flamethrower: Could do with front loaded damage and slightly lowered endurance cost as several others have suggested.
Ignite: I really like IanTheM1's suggestion of turning it into a single target attack, which possibly makes the foe run away, leaving behind a trail of burn patches. This fix alone would put Assault Rifle back into the mix.
Sniper Rifle: Sniper powers are simply outdated and something should be done to make them viable options. Straightup increased damage and/or a chance of critical hits is sorely NEEDED.
Full Auto: Is a cool power, but in some regards lacking in comparison to other nukes. The usage provides absolutely no mitigation unlike EVERY OTHER nuke. Rain of Arrow + Exploding Arrow + Fistfull can be queued so that all will hit virtually simultaneousely, defeating before incoming damage hits. That's TWICE the amount of damage FA does (and we're not even calculating in the lack of Aim in Assault Rifle further increasing the rather large gap between the sets). Nor does it kill like other nukes due to comparatively low damage through a long DoT. Inferno kills outright through extreme damage. Other nukes have some kind of mitigating aspect, from simple knockback to stuns.
Full Auto should provide mitigation as supressive fire, which would best translate to recharge and tohit debuffs - thus reducing incoming damage a little. A small damage increase would also be good. Changing max number of targets from 10 to 16 is an absolute MUST. I seem to recall the already overpowered Seeds of Confusion cone getting that treatment. Last and least; shouldn't Full Auto logically have a defense debuff similar to Burst and Heavy Burst?
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Ignite is a fantastic AoE for any solo blaster who can significantly slow down a spawn. My AR/Dev combines it with a well slotted caltrops to great effect. It would also pair well with /ice.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I have to ask something here - does anyone honestly use Ignite for AoE damage? Because I've neither seen it nor been able to reproduce it more than once in a blue moon, because it has less range than a melee attack.
If we can all concede that Ignite works mostly as a single-target-attack supplement, then why not make it a single-target attack similar to Incinerate, only with an additional melee-range damage aura put on the ignited target? |
And of course on any team with a controller it is worth its weight in gold.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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I have well-slotted Caltrops on mine and I try to use Ignite as much as I can. I still almost never get more than a single enemy in the Ignite patch for more than a dozen or so ticks (out of about 50). Seriously, at a range of 4 feet, it's barely enough to hold one enemy, and while you can hold multiple in it if they're shoulder-to-shoulder, you can't really get them to bunch up like that and STAY like that without AoE immobilize. And I've tried. Believe me, I've tried.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Ignite is a fantastic AoE for any solo blaster who can significantly slow down a spawn. My AR/Dev combines it with a well slotted caltrops to great effect. It would also pair well with /ice.
And of course on any team with a controller it is worth its weight in gold. |
Ignite as an AoE is just not something I've found to be usable as AoE in all but a few corner cases and, more importantly, chance encounters, hence why I brought up the question. I've been dicking around with said AR/Dev Blaster pretty much since before I1. In fact, he was level 34 before I2 hit and took away his Smoke Grenade exploit, so I've been trying to get some use out of Ignite since then. Even at a 3-second recharge, the power was still of questionable use. Now at a recharge of 20, AND the hassle of enemies running out of it, it's more trouble than it's worth.
That's kind of why I've had my eye on it for a fix for some time.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I wouldn't say Buckshot is BAD power in and of itself, but people often look to it because it's practically the only thing in the set that looks like it could be a single-target attack, and it's what the set really needs. I honestly wouldn't mind trading Buckshot for a high-damage single-target attack, but I could see it would be unpopular.|
Originally Posted by Seraphael
Buckshot: A pretty good power actually, very fast animation for a blast set and fair mitigation through knockback. I'm happy with it as is, though Frosticus' idea of layered cones (more damage around target) is a good one.
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| Flamethrower: Could do with front loaded damage and slightly lowered endurance cost as several others have suggested. |
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| Ignite: I really like IanTheM1's suggestion of turning it into a single target attack, which possibly makes the foe run away, leaving behind a trail of burn patches. This fix alone would put Assault Rifle back into the mix. |
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| Sniper Rifle: Sniper powers are simply outdated and something should be done to make them viable options. Straightup increased damage and/or a chance of critical hits is sorely NEEDED. |
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Full Auto: Is a cool power, but in some regards lacking in comparison to other nukes. The usage provides absolutely no mitigation unlike EVERY OTHER nuke. Rain of Arrow + Exploding Arrow + Fistfull can be queued so that all will hit virtually simultaneousely, defeating before incoming damage hits. That's TWICE the amount of damage FA does (and we're not even calculating in the lack of Aim in Assault Rifle further increasing the rather large gap between the sets). Nor does it kill like other nukes due to comparatively low damage through a long DoT. Inferno kills outright through extreme damage. Other nukes have some kind of mitigating aspect, from simple knockback to stuns. Full Auto should provide mitigation as supressive fire, which would best translate to recharge and tohit debuffs - thus reducing incoming damage a little. A small damage increase would also be good. Changing max number of targets from 10 to 16 is an absolute MUST. I seem to recall the already overpowered Seeds of Confusion cone getting that treatment. Last and least; shouldn't Full Auto logically have a defense debuff similar to Burst and Heavy Burst? |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The damage on Full Auto is actually probably the intended performance point for the mini-nukes. Rain of Arrows probably does a bit more damage than is intended, especially when you consider that the real numbers for it assume only 2 ticks of damage will hit (which would put it roughly on par with Full Auto rather than outclassing it by more than 25%).|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Yeah... Full Auto is probably one of the coolest powers in the game, but... It's just not very good to use. It does little damage, it takes too long, it's too dangerous to use and it doesn't hit enough people. Having some kind of protection while it's firing would be nice. A powerful debuff for the duration of the attack would actually be pretty cool and it would make sense. Its damage is just bad, even for a mininuke, and it NEEDS to hit at least 16 targets. With a cone that size, it's a crime that it doesn't.
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The only real problem that I see with Full Auto is that it is target limited to 10 targets when it should be limited to 16 like every other nuke in the game. It's already limited in effectiveness and use by being a cone power (targeted AoEs and PbAoEs are universally easier to use than cones, even if they have a smaller total area of effect). Giving it a lower target cap than the other nukes is just weakening it pointlessly.
To offset the long animation time, you could probably use the Hail of Bullets solution (which is funny when you consider that Full Auto was the precedent I used to increase HoB's damage), though, rather than providing an unenhanceable defense buff, I would probably provide it with an unenhanceable unresistable tohit debuff with the exact same numbers (9.75%/11.25%/15%) to equate to the distraction and reduction in accuracy of your enemies provided by filling the air with bullets (cover fire for your allies and yourself)
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My experience is much different.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I have well-slotted Caltrops on mine and I try to use Ignite as much as I can. I still almost never get more than a single enemy in the Ignite patch for more than a dozen or so ticks (out of about 50). Seriously, at a range of 4 feet, it's barely enough to hold one enemy, and while you can hold multiple in it if they're shoulder-to-shoulder, you can't really get them to bunch up like that and STAY like that without AoE immobilize. And I've tried. Believe me, I've tried.
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I've been farming MA lately and any big spawn pulled onto a patch of caltrops generates ample damage to justify the effort. Not to mention that guys running around because they're on fire don't shoot at me.
Some get out, but some run in.
Maybe it's a numbers game- I've been rolling at +0/x8 the last couple of days, so there are ample targets for my flaming love. =)
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
My problem with Ignite, now that it is no longer spammable, is its cast time. It's just too long for a power like this. A solo character has to factor the cast time of their immobilize, plus redraw, into the cast time (unless you took Cryo Freeze Ray or have a tentacle-spamming fluffy...powers shouldn't be balanced around corner cases though) while a teamed character often finds that the enemies are dead or knocked out of the patch before they have time to take any damage. A 4-second cast time for a power that isn't guaranteed to do its full damage is too long. Compare other "burst" powers (except Shout, that one kinda bites for DPA); even Power Burst, half the cast time, almost half the damage and the enemy is guaranteed to take all of it.
Full Auto. 16 targets. That is all. I would even argue that Flamethrower should be expanded to 16 as well. It's a huge cone. If AR is intended to be an AoE-focused set, and its AoE output is mostly in the form of cones, it can break a few rules, especially since unlike the other AoE sets (Fire, Archery, Rad Blast to an extent) it suffers in the single-target department.
Hmm, a passing thought....add a +tohit +dam buff to Sniper Rifle, kind of like Follow Up? Conceptually, it would make sense, as you've taken the time to get a bead on your targets and can more accurately shoot them where they'd take the most damage.
M30 Grenade: possibly add a slight Fire DoT effect to it? Or replace the lethal component with Fire...this power seems to be considered one of the skippables, so something should be done to make it more attractive within the context of the set without unbalancing it. Adding a less-resisted damage type makes sense to me.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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this I can totally agree with- the activation time is pretty unconscionable.|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
My problem with Ignite, now that it is no longer spammable, is its cast time.
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| Full Auto. 16 targets. That is all. I would even argue that Flamethrower should be expanded to 16 as well. It's a huge cone. If AR is intended to be an AoE-focused set, and its AoE output is mostly in the form of cones, it can break a few rules, especially since unlike the other AoE sets (Fire, Archery, Rad Blast to an extent) it suffers in the single-target department. |
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| M30 Grenade: possibly add a slight Fire DoT effect to it? Or replace the lethal component with Fire...this power seems to be considered one of the skippables, so something should be done to make it more attractive within the context of the set without unbalancing it. Adding a less-resisted damage type makes sense to me. |
if it did good damage or didn't send people flying all over the place (knockdown instead of back, or a stun component or something) I'd certainly give it a chance.
As is it's a power with several drawbacks and no real selling points.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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I find it useful, both as additional mitigation and especially while exemped. I've gotten used to compensating for the scatter knockback....but this is on a character with over 2000 hours logged. It's certainly not attractive to a player new to the set. I easily skipped it on my Corruptor.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
crummy damage + sending people flying all over the map = skip it.
if it did good damage or didn't send people flying all over the place (knockdown instead of back, or a stun component or something) I'd certainly give it a chance. As is it's a power with several drawbacks and no real selling points. |
That said, I would not object to the knockback being changed to knockdown, or at least lowering the mag to that of Buckshot, so at least it'll be knockdown against higher-conning foes (the kind you're likely to face on a team, which don't like scatter knockback).
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I can see it having some utility as bonus mitigation, but I very, very rarely need anything besides caltrops to keep me cozy and warm. Plus as I mostly solo he doesn't exemp much, so I've usually got the full panoply of ar/dev goodness (such as it is) to draw on.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
What Thunder Strike does isn't really what you're suggesting. Thunder Strike doesn't apply effects at two different ranges, it applies one to its entire range and one to the target alone. It's not one effect at 7 feet and one effect at 0 feet, it's one effect at 7 feet and one effect ignoring the AoE component entirely. It's actually the same as what Gauntlet does. I'm not convinced this can be levied to give a power multiple effects at multiple ranges, both because we lack precedent and because each power is given one and only one range characteristic. Thunder Strike does not have two AoE radii. It only has one. And even then, radius and cone angle are not interchangeable, and I'm not convinced it's possible to alter cone angle at all.
As far as Lightning Rod goes, I'd completely forgotten it works on pseudopets. That complicates matters significantly since its effect is not replicable in a cone range setting, at least as far as I'm aware. Castle originally attempted to give Shield Charge a cone effect through its pseudopet, but that fell through completely, which is why it works as an AoE pseudopet attack. I'm not convinced this is something which can be faked with multiple pseudopets.
Then again, re-examining Lightning Rod reveals that all three of its damage effects are all put in the same attack power, so maybe there's something there which I just don't understand. Still, I'm not convinced giving one power multiple effect ranges is possible, as I don't even know how the power works.