Time Bomb - I don't get the Hate
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-06-28 16:10 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Probably has to do with the 9 second cast time, and 8 seconds of interrupt. Also the 6 minute base rech doesn't help. Might as well just lay down 2 trip mine's.
<:[ shark goes nom nom nom ]:>
[QUOTE=theOcho;3409811]As to the REAL reason I'll be leaving, I'm afraid it is indeed because Tamaki Revolution dc'd on me during a RSF.[/QUOTE]
Except you cant lay down two trip mines. Not on the same mob, unless your incredibly lucky. The first one will trip off instantly, scatter the mob, and draw aggro. That, and it doesnt recharge that fast.
Nine seconds really isnt that long. I was literally just testing it. And 8 second interrupt isnt a problem; thats why the set has two powers that effectively give you complete stealth.
If people are griping because they are trying to lay it in the middle of combat...well...I don't really have an answer for that other than one of my trademark facepalm pictures.
It's a nuke. It should be treated as such. I.e with a little tactical thought. If you cant get a team to simply wait while you tag and bag a mob with it...well, thats probably not a great team anyway, because it means they arent listening.
*shrug*
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
 |
To tell you the truth, I've never leveled a devices blaster. I was mainly going off of my experience with traps on fenders and corrs. That may not be fair though, considering they're soft capped and have poison trap :P
<:[ shark goes nom nom nom ]:>
[QUOTE=theOcho;3409811]As to the REAL reason I'll be leaving, I'm afraid it is indeed because Tamaki Revolution dc'd on me during a RSF.[/QUOTE]
You lay the trip mines in the mob's path, and you pull the mob. You can get quite a large number of trip mines that way. Also, I <3 my Gun Drone on my 50 Ar/Dev 
It puts out good damage and can actually have MULTIPLE out
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
|
Quote:
First - What enemies where you fighting that that tactic worked? I've never seen that kind of tactic actually succeed - in the late game enemies, there ALWAYS seems to be something with +Perception enough to cut through even Smoke Grenade & the Cloaking device, and/or there's that one or two that didn't get affected by the smoke grenade and end up alerting the others.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Having finally tested out an AR/Dev build at higher levels... I can honestly say, I don't now understand all the hatred Timebomb gets. Unless I'm getting it confused with Gun Drone, that is...which I admit, really doesnt gell so well IMO.
I mean, looking at it (and playing with it) Time Bomb, paired with the other Devices powers, is basically a fast recharging crashless nuke. You smoke grenade a mob, run in with Cloaking on, set them up the bomb. Run back to cover. Wait. Enjoy the fireworks, and mop up the remnants with some full auto heavy fire or a few grenades. Whats with all the hating? Is it just a 'Have to have DPS noaw!!' thing, or what? Because on the last run it one shotted even con minions. Without any Build up. That doesnt look bad t'me... *shrug* |
Second - Yes. "DPS now" is the name of the game for Blasters. Especially on teams. Devices as a whole does not play to the niche that Blasters have grown into, and Time Bomb is a particularly spectacular failure in that regard. Nine seconds to cast (eight of which are interruptable) and then a 15 second timer. There are only two ways to really use this - the tactic you used (which, as I mentioned, is very risky and has a low actual success rate) and trying to time a pull onto the bomb - which is safer, but very likely to end in the bomb going off and hitting nothing.
I'm all for having a Devices set, even if it doesn't fit the mold of the rest of the Blasters. But the set is long overdue for an overhaul, and Time Bomb is the most visible problem power in the set. (Mostly because it has been inflicted on another set...)
-This Space Intentionally Left Blank.-
No matter what setting you are on you should have a rough idea of the least amount of trip mines or tripmines + timebomb req'd to take out a few minions to the entire group. Sometimes I stack timebomb and trip mine together, sometimes I pull to tripmines and to a timebomb.
In teams I have used it only a few times, an instance where a Icetank was tanking +4 or +5 Malta for one and he wanted a low fight duration on himself, he pulled 17 of them out and they all got one laggy nukefest.
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.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by OneWhoBinds
First - What enemies where you fighting that that tactic worked? I've never seen that kind of tactic actually succeed - in the late game enemies, there ALWAYS seems to be something with +Perception enough to cut through even Smoke Grenade & the Cloaking device, and/or there's that one or two that didn't get affected by the smoke grenade and end up alerting the others.
Second - Yes. "DPS now" is the name of the game for Blasters. Especially on teams. Devices as a whole does not play to the niche that Blasters have grown into, and Time Bomb is a particularly spectacular failure in that regard. Nine seconds to cast (eight of which are interruptable) and then a 15 second timer. There are only two ways to really use this - the tactic you used (which, as I mentioned, is very risky and has a low actual success rate) and trying to time a pull onto the bomb - which is safer, but very likely to end in the bomb going off and hitting nothing. I'm all for having a Devices set, even if it doesn't fit the mold of the rest of the Blasters. But the set is long overdue for an overhaul, and Time Bomb is the most visible problem power in the set. (Mostly because it has been inflicted on another set...) |
Well, apparently Cloaking + Smoke Grenade works against level 41 even con Rikti Drones. Which are the absolute sh*t for +Percep, in my experience. I guess YRMV. But I certainly wouldnt call the tactic I used 'risky'. The mobs (CoT + Rikti in this case) just milled around, wondering why it had all gone dark....and then wondering who lite the fireworks up
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
|
Quote:
Rikti Drones actually don't have +perception, they just ignore Stealth powers (that's why they don't attack you from an increased distance like Snipers).
|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Well, apparently Cloaking + Smoke Grenade works against level 41 even con Rikti Drones. Which are the absolute sh*t for +Percep, in my experience. I guess YRMV. But I certainly wouldnt call the tactic I used 'risky'. The mobs (CoT + Rikti in this case) just milled around, wondering why it had all gone dark....and then wondering who lite the fireworks up
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
|
I think the biggest problem most people see with it is the wait time. A trip mine you set, you pull and it goes BOOM. A time bomb requires a bit more planning and requires the team to actually be patient enough to give the thing time to go off. I have watched a few Tanks trying desperately to actually HERD only to have half the team rush forward and start attacking before he could get back to the spot where he said.. "Herding to here!" Way too many players now that want to put on track shoes and see just how fast they can zip through a mission so asking them to sit still while a bomb counts down gets frowns and possibly even negative comments.
I have an AR/Dev Blaster and just based on the comment my friends made as I was leveling I went with trip mines and skipped the Time Bomb completely. Can't say I regret the decision since I play with a really good herding Tank. He picks a spot to herd to and I start laying mines. I sit back ready to hit Full Auto and then the mob hits the mines. Add in any AoEs thew rest of the team has and the mob vanished quickly. I've used them very nicely to protect the Reactor during Respec trials. Wave hits and a few reach the reactor and then go flying half way across the room before they ever get to do any damage.
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Time Bomb I just think the majority of the players out there don't want to sit and watch the bomb tick down before they get to DO anything.
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon
it takes 100 years to set up, goes off whenever it darn well feels like it and usually misses most of the enemies in its AoE. It might have some minor situational utility for a set that didn't already have Trip Mine. In /dev it is redundant and useless.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
after you plant timebomb next time try to guess were the hardest target (boss) is gonna get tossed to and plant a trip mine there. Death Mages in FF feared my fire/dev, I would smoke a CoT mob, plant a trip mine were I knew the mage would land at, set up time bomb, set anther trip mine on top of the first, wait, profit.
My problem with Time Bomb is that it's not an interesting power to use. It's got a 9 second cast time and a 15 second delay. That means a total of 24 seconds from when I press cast until the boom. I would MUCH rather spend those 24 seconds doing something more interesting than placing a time bomb and waiting for it to detonate. In the same time frame I could use FA, Flamethrower and Buckshot then start on mopping up the bosses.
I didnt enjoy Time Bomb (or Trip Mine for that matter) on my Energy-Device blaster because I prefer a steady pace while playing.
Devices was setup...setup...setup....mop-up!
Just wasnt to my taste.
all this aside, one of the funniest groups I was ever on had a device blaster who did exactly what you describe Techbot. We entered the mission and the Blaster cloaks up and disappeared. We moved thru the mission and every now and then could hear the bombs going off and gunfire. On several occasions we saw the invisible blaster fly by us followed by a few mobs, only to watch them hit a trip mine that was carefully placed before we arrived. When the mission complete bell sounded, we had only explored half the map.
Some folks in the group were not impressed, but I was laughing my *** off.
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
It's a nuke. It should be treated as such. I.e with a little tactical thought. If you cant get a team to simply wait while you tag and bag a mob with it...well, thats probably not a great team anyway, because it means they arent listening.
*shrug* |
No thanks, rather just shield charge the spawn for near instant defeat, while doing considerably more damage than TB and have it recharge over 4 times faster.
Poor teams rarely run in to situations where TB is the most efficient strategy to employ. It almost never happens on good teams.
Which leaves solo'ing. It can have some application in that environment, sure. But if you are basing your solo strategy around a 360 second recharge power then that might be indicative of other more prominent problems.
Two things:
1) shameless plug about my Devices discussion in the blaster-forums here.
2) I think there is a HUGE problem when there is a power that requires you to wait 24 seconds for an explosion that does less damage than 2 trip mines at once....
Quote:
Considering that Trip Mines will stick around for 4m20s and has a base recharge/cast cycle of 25s, you can easily get ten trip mines to hit a spawn at once by laying them out and then pulling. After enhancements, you could easily slap down 2 Trip Mines and blow them in the same time frame as Time Bomb requires to hit once.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Except you cant lay down two trip mines. Not on the same mob, unless your incredibly lucky. The first one will trip off instantly, scatter the mob, and draw aggro. That, and it doesnt recharge that fast.
|
Not to mention, it's not too hard to get Defense enough to lay a Trip Mine in the heat of battle. Time Bomb requires twice as much prep time (and thus twice as many chances at failure, even if you do have high Defense), and then you still have to wait for it to actually go off. By which point the spawn will be dead.
Nine seconds is a long time when you consider what you could be doing with your primary in that time period.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
If people are griping because they are trying to lay it in the middle of combat...well...I don't really have an answer for that other than one of my trademark facepalm pictures.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
It's a nuke. It should be treated as such.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
In /dev it is redundant and useless.
|
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Quote:
Ok, I'll admit that is funny, but I think it also illustrates the problem with Time Bomb (and to some extent the rest of Devices). The Blaster wasn't playing on the team, he was soloing inside a mission which happened to contain other people. A Devices Blaster can potentially solo much larger spawns than most other blasters (assuming he's willing to take the time to set it up) but those tactics just don't work on a team except in very limited circumstances or if the Blasters doesn't stay with the team.
|
Originally Posted by Biospark
all this aside, one of the funniest groups I was ever on had a device blaster who did exactly what you describe Techbot. We entered the mission and the Blaster cloaks up and disappeared. We moved thru the mission and every now and then could hear the bombs going off and gunfire. On several occasions we saw the invisible blaster fly by us followed by a few mobs, only to watch them hit a trip mine that was carefully placed before we arrived. When the mission complete bell sounded, we had only explored half the map.
Some folks in the group were not impressed, but I was laughing my *** off. |
Quote:
Your attempt to sway people here with all of your points deserves a self-facepalm.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Except you cant lay down two trip mines. Not on the same mob, unless your incredibly lucky. The first one will trip off instantly, scatter the mob, and draw aggro. That, and it doesnt recharge that fast.
Nine seconds really isnt that long. I was literally just testing it. And 8 second interrupt isnt a problem; thats why the set has two powers that effectively give you complete stealth. If people are griping because they are trying to lay it in the middle of combat...well...I don't really have an answer for that other than one of my trademark facepalm pictures. It's a nuke. It should be treated as such. I.e with a little tactical thought. If you cant get a team to simply wait while you tag and bag a mob with it...well, thats probably not a great team anyway, because it means they arent listening. *shrug* |
That last part of your post absolutely shreds any credibility you have on this topic. NO blaster is such an intergral part of any team dynamic that 7 other players should stand by for 9 seconds so the blaster can drop all the even-con minions every 100 seconds or so with a perma hasten build.
In your mind 7 other people not waiting while you plant bombs is a negative reflection on them as gamers?
I hope in the future you refrain from offering up such garbage posts. I won't speak for anyone else but I cannot imagine most reasonable forum goers not marking your posts as perma-ignored.
Quote:
Wow. Thanks for basically slamming any right I have to an opinion.|
Originally Posted by milehigh77
Your attempt to sway people here with all of your points deserves a self-facepalm.
That last part of your post absolutely shreds any credibility you have on this topic. NO blaster is such an intergral part of any team dynamic that 7 other players should stand by for 9 seconds so the blaster can drop all the even-con minions every 100 seconds or so with a perma hasten build. In your mind 7 other people not waiting while you plant bombs is a negative reflection on them as gamers? I hope in the future you refrain from offering up such garbage posts. I won't speak for anyone else but I cannot imagine most reasonable forum goers not marking your posts as perma-ignored. |
I guess the ammount of times I've seen blasters say 'Nuking next mob' or the like is just a figment of my imagination then.
The thing is, your misunderstanding my intentions. I'm not trying to 'sway people'. I'm just saying that, having tried it, I now don't understand the hate quite so much. I'm not saying people are wrong to not like it. People will still take powers that I avoid like the plague, and vice versa. I was merely interested to see why other people didn't like it so much.
The answer to that seems to be 'It takes too long'. Thats fair enough. Eachy to their own.
But kindly refrain from insulting me. Thanks.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
|
Quote:
Meh, maybe thats why I like it then. I play a Bots/Traps MM |
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Ok, I'll admit that is funny, but I think it also illustrates the problem with Time Bomb (and to some extent the rest of Devices). The Blaster wasn't playing on the team, he was soloing inside a mission which happened to contain other people. A Devices Blaster can potentially solo much larger spawns than most other blasters (assuming he's willing to take the time to set it up) but those tactics just don't work on a team except in very limited circumstances or if the Blasters doesn't stay with the team.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Meh, maybe thats why I like it then. I play a Bots/Traps MM
|
Erm, don't Traps MMs get Detonator instead of Time Bomb?
I'm confused*
having a 50 ar/dev blaster i'll say this. LRM rocket is a better choice...
time bomb is a iffy power, when it works it's awesome, but sadly it rarely works...
Quote:
Only thing I'd like to add to this discussion is that, when a Blaster says they're nuking, it's most likely (actually, in my experience, it's always) with the primary powerset. On a team, the amount of time it takes for Time Bomb to go down then be set off, the group could just be taken down through regular means. Regular Blaster nukes though are fast and easy damage which can be quickly deployed.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
I guess the ammount of times I've seen blasters say 'Nuking next mob' or the like is just a figment of my imagination then.
|
Solo, Time Bomb's okay, especially if you're AR/, but most who make their opinion known team.. In which case, it's next to useless unless it's a bad team that can't handle itself or so good it just throws the bomb in there for the hell of it.
I am the Blaster, I have filled the role of Tank, Controller and Defender
Sometimes all at once.
Union EU player! Pip pip, tally ho, top hats and tea etc etc
Quote:
I was more of a joke about how 'teams' for MMs, especially Bots/Traps, are sometimes refered to as 'Those other seven pets that dont follow orders' |
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
Erm, don't Traps MMs get Detonator instead of Time Bomb?
I'm confused* |
Not to say I'm against something that'd make Time Bomb more workable. Maybe something like the Crab Spiders Omega Maneuver, which is very much made of win.
But Time Bomb is also fairly decent at making fireworks too, IMO anyhow
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
|
Having finally tested out an AR/Dev build at higher levels... I can honestly say, I don't now understand all the hatred Timebomb gets. Unless I'm getting it confused with Gun Drone, that is...which I admit, really doesnt gell so well IMO.
I mean, looking at it (and playing with it) Time Bomb, paired with the other Devices powers, is basically a fast recharging crashless nuke. You smoke grenade a mob, run in with Cloaking on, set them up the bomb. Run back to cover. Wait. Enjoy the fireworks, and mop up the remnants with some full auto heavy fire or a few grenades.
Whats with all the hating? Is it just a 'Have to have DPS noaw!!' thing, or what? Because on the last run it one shotted even con minions. Without any Build up. That doesnt look bad t'me... *shrug*