Death of the true nuke... what if? Why not?
By
Aura_Familia,
Posted on: 2010-09-12 15:01 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Everything.
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Originally Posted by Edana
What are you trying to nuke?
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They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
A True Nuke on a Blaster with Aim/BU can be good because that combo can actually wipe out many things in seconds.
A True Nuke in Dark Blast without Aim is terrible. Yes, I understand it also debuffs tohit but Corruptor's secondary is too important to lose all the endurance for that "so-so" damage.
So basically, unless I am /Kin with FS, I won't take true nukes on Corr and Defender but it's just me.
As for sets like Assault Rifle, Archery and Dual Pistols, well, they have one thing in common... lethal damage! I mean I still hear people complaining about lethal damage. I think it's ok for them to have "semi-nukes". It diversifies the sets more.
But the semi-nuke on Fortunata is godly... lol Another reason Fort is so good.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Originally Posted by Edana
There already is a version of Blizzard on the 1 minute mini-nuke recharge timer of RoA and Full Auto; you get it at tier 6 and it's called Ice Storm.
-Ice Storm, A nuke? And you are comparing it to RoA and Full-Auto! Don't make me laugh. |
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
You can take my Build Up, Aim, Inferno combo from me when ya pry it from my burning, dead fingers!
I'd say leave Nukes as they are, with an increase in target-cap, accuracy and damage, to make them actually a bang worth the buck. -I honestly don't mind the PBAOE nukes staying as they are. A target cap and damage increase would be very welcome. I still say though, that the recharge should be lowered a bit as well on the PBAOE's. |
How about we leave them as is, and just push for the -recovery to be removed or toned down? The endurance crash and long recharge should be more than enough compensation for their massive damage, so let's just get rid of the -recovery period.
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I think you are missing the point of the thread, I feel these entirely skippable and situational tier 9's should be overhauled into something more useful. Maybe not all of them, but at least for the sets that could REALLY use another consistent AoE. And once again, I'm jealous of Rain of Arrows.|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
How about we leave them as is, and just push for the -recovery to be removed or toned down? The endurance crash and long recharge should be more than enough compensation for their massive damage, so let's just get rid of the -recovery period.
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:EDIT: Forgot to add that I'm looking for people's thoughts, so explain the reasons for way you feel you do.
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Oh, I get the point. What I'm saying is that the -recovery period is one of the biggest reasons these powers are situational. |
Originally Posted by Solie
I think you are missing the point of the thread, I feel these entirely skippable and situational tier 9's should be overhauled into something more useful. Maybe not all of them, but at least for the sets that could REALLY use another consistent AoE. And once again, I'm jealous of Rain of Arrows.
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You may want them altered to be closer to RoA or Full Auto, but that's not likely to happen for most sets. That still doesn't mean that the -recovery is a draconian price to pay for the power of a full nuke, and it doesn't mean that this far more likely buff can't happen.
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Removing the crash and the -recovery would fix the power somewhat for defenders and corruptors, but that would hardly do anything for blasters. You can already pop a blue or two and finish off the remaining baddies. That still leaves it in situational territory due to the stupid recharge, and thus a skippable power. No damage is enough for a power that takes 3 minutes to recharge when fully slotted.|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
Oh, I get the point. What I'm saying is that the -recovery period is one of the biggest reasons these powers are situational.
You may want them altered to be closer to RoA or Full Auto, but that's not likely to happen for most sets. That still doesn't mean that the -recovery is a draconian price to pay for the power of a full nuke, and it doesn't mean that this far more likely buff can't happen. |
:edit: Sigh I forget stuff too often. Yes if nothing is changed ever, then at least the crash and -recovery should be removed, that isn't asking for much.
Here's the thing though, these skills don't just do damage; they also have massive secondary effects.
- Inferno has a DoT that increases output by over 50%.
- Thunderous Blast has massive -endurance and will shut down the recovery of most enemies for 20 seconds.
- Psychic Wail is a mag 3 stun and neuters recharge.
- Atomic Blast is a mag 3 hold and adds massive -defense.
- Dreadful Wail is a mag 3 stun and also debuffs resistance.
- Black Star effectively grants the equivalent of soft-capped defense through a ToHit debuff of 50% for Corruptors and 62.5% for defenders.
The powerful secondary effects on these nukes is one of the reasons the recharge is so high, and I would not want to see them removed or reduced if the skills were to become less potent with a correspondingly lowered recharge. So no, I would not want them to become something like RoA, FA, or HoB. I want them to decimate a spawn like they currently do, whether it's through damage or potent secondary effects. And right now, there is only one reason that I don't use a nuke every time it's available: 20 seconds of no recovery. The Nuke on my Fortunata is not situational, I use it every time it's up for both the Mag 3 stun and the opening damage, and I do this because there is no -recovery period.
Regarding the yard sticks you have used in the Nuke debate-- RoA and Full Auto have NO secondary effect and are entirely lethal damage. HoB has a variety of minor secondary effects, none of which even approach those of a true nuke, but also has a higher recharge because of this. In fact, take note that HoB has twice the recharge of RoA and FA, an attribute which seems to pay for the access to exotic damage and secondary effects. If the damage of the current Nukes were lowered, they would probably still have a 4 minute recharge just to pay for their exotic damage types and powerful secondary effects.
Furthermore, Furtunatas received a cashless nuke in exchange for drastically reduced damage potential-- it's at Defender levels of potency rather than their 1.0 AT modifier. It also has a full 6 minute recharge, so even with a dramatically lowered damage the skill was not granted a reduction to recharge.
Given these metrics that are used for balancing Nukes, particularly where the potency of secondary effects weighs on recharge, I feel the best approach is to simply remove the -recovery period and maintain the skill's current level of -endurance, which ranges from -40% to -100%. There is no reason a Nuke has to be used by sacrificing your next 20 seconds of gameplay.
This subject was brought up not too long ago,
and I am in agreement with the folks that suggest removing the crash.
Personally crashless nukes being offered up on many newer sets could be a way to test the waters regarding this type of power. I am not a gambling man, but I would wager that if a true poll was taken (and only the Devs know for sure) of people who play sets with "crashing" powers (nukes or unstoppables), that we would find a majority skip these powers. The reasons for skipping them is that they are ; A) Situational and B) overcomming the downsides are not appreciated by everyone (especially solo).
I would suggest some possible change options;
A) Make Defender and Corruptor Nukes have blaster strength damage, but remain "true nukes".
or
B) Make Defender nukes "crashless" at the current damage and modify all defender nukes to be at "defender" strength damage (or corruptor as applicable) instead of some being at Blaster strength.
P.S. : If there was a problem with Defenders/Corruptors having "crashless" nukes while blasters did not, then make them all "crashless" but make the recharge "unenhanceable" like Strength of Will (Willpower tier 9).
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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I am in the camp with you on fixing "Nukes" to make them more attractive for typical builds, but I have to disagree somewhat on one of your comments.|
Originally Posted by Solie
I still argue that turning Thunderous Blast into a 60sec mini-nuke would fix Electric's lackluster AoE problem and would give it another decent drain to go along with Short Circuit. Ice's AoE, while a lot better than Elec, is still sub-par, Blizzard deserves to be at most on a 120 timer. I've not even touched on Psi, which has almost as mediocre AoE as Elec.
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Electric is not that lackluster on AoE Damage IMO. Where is lacks: It doesn't have a "big-hitting" single target attack (other than the snipe). Voltaic Sentinel took the place of having this kind of big hitter, and although some would argue that the dps of VS more than compensates for the lack of another single target attack, I disagree. And the reason I dont value VS as highly as a big hitting attack is that VS spreads its damage around, and there are times (ALOT of times) when I need to take down a target as fast as possible.
I can understand why some would call Electric's AOE lacking though, and that is due to Short Circuit having such a dual purpose. You can slot it for damage and reduce your draining strength, or slot for drain and not have another decent AoE.
how to fix Electric.... different thread perhaps
P.S. I am under the impression that you are advocating that weaker sets get pushed up to the performance of a set like Ice. Although I would not complain, its more likely that the damage dealing strength of Ice will be "toned" down to match the other sets.
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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:edit:The comment on Lightning Rod/Nova is with both having 99% dmg and build up+LR, build up+aim+Nova
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Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
Here's the thing though, these skills don't just do damage; they also have massive secondary effects.
The powerful secondary effects on these nukes is one of the reasons the recharge is so high, and I would not want to see them removed or reduced if the skills were to become less potent with a correspondingly lowered recharge. So no, I would not want them to become something like RoA, FA, or HoB. I want them to decimate a spawn like they currently do, whether it's through damage or potent secondary effects. And right now, there is only one reason that I don't use a nuke every time it's available: 20 seconds of no recovery. The Nuke on my Fortunata is not situational, I use it every time it's up for both the Mag 3 stun and the opening damage, and I do this because there is no -recovery period. -I don't think anyone takes the nukes for those debuffs, they are redundant, that can't be the reason for the high recharge since Nova only has knockback(I always thought the secondary effects of a powerset had light impact on how powers are balanced, since those effects are an added bonus). Plenty of powers have that, see under your next paragraph. Regarding the yard sticks you have used in the Nuke debate-- RoA and Full Auto have NO secondary effect and are entirely lethal damage. HoB has a variety of minor secondary effects, none of which even approach those of a true nuke, but also has a higher recharge because of this. In fact, take note that HoB has twice the recharge of RoA and FA, an attribute which seems to pay for the access to exotic damage and secondary effects. If the damage of the current Nukes were lowered, they would probably still have a 4 minute recharge just to pay for their exotic damage types and powerful secondary effects. I now direct you to Lightning Rod, which does over 250 less damage than Nova and has knockdown (mids), though it's an 80% chance. The difference is it can be used 4x as much as Nova, that is a TON more damage. It does Fire and Electric, and a great deal more of it than RoA's Lethal. That might be because it's melee, I don't know, but when you compare Lightning Rod to your paragraph, it just confuses me. I don't have a problem with Lightning Rod existing, it's just the numbers don't add up well for these true nukes, especially for the support classes. Given these metrics that are used for balancing Nukes, particularly where the potency of secondary effects weighs on recharge, I feel the best approach is to simply remove the -recovery period and maintain the skill's current level of -endurance, which ranges from -40% to -100%. There is no reason a Nuke has to be used by sacrificing your next 20 seconds of gameplay. -Again, I can only hope they could at least do this. |
Nova is the weakest of all Nukes (but it looks so pretty). It should probably do more damage to the targets, having a final tick of damage be assessed to foes about 2 seconds after its animation to emulate the impact of getting slammed into the walls/ground.
As for Lightning Rod, I feel that it and Shield Charge offer too much AoE potential for melee toons. However, they are only doing full damage to a 10' radius. The nukes are hitting 25' and 30' for full damage while having superior secondary effects.
And yes, secondary effects on skills within a set do not play a role in the recharge/balance equation. But the nukes do NOT have normal secondary effects, which are generally multi layered and greatly amplified relative to the sets they are in. Not every attack in Radiation Blast has a mag 3 hold attached to it, nor does every attack in Dark Blast offer -62.5% ToHit. (And again, Nova should be buffed by either having its damage increased with a delayed tick, or have a mag 3 stun added to it.) While the Mag 3 hold/stun on some skills might seem superfluous, compare that to the mag3 AoE holds for Dominators and Controllers-- these skills just offer mez and little else and still have a 4 minute recharge. Blasters/Corruptors can get massive damage and a mag 3 mez.
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That's why it's so good.
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Originally Posted by Solie
Although it has this very annoying end crash and incredibly long recharge!
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Oh, noes! 20 seconds of having to pop a couple of blues and selectively using skills instead of spamming them, how horrible!|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
There is no reason a Nuke has to be used by sacrificing your next 20 seconds of gameplay.
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Really, the only nukes that should be looked at for reducing or removing the crash (and, of course, lowering the power) are the ones for melee archetypes' defense sets (since if there's anything alive after the nuke wears off, even popping blues isn't going to be effective enough to get your defenses up and running in any useful capacity, much less attack or do anything to keep aggro; ranged characters at least have running time or a melee in the thick of things to keep stuff off of them while their defenses are down).
Well, the problem is that true nukes are not enough better than than the new mini-nukes they've created to make them worth the long recharge and crash. Sure, I can kill everything but the bosses in a 8-man-sized group of +1 or +2s with Aim+BU+inferno, but I can do the same thing with Aim+BU+RoA+Explosive Arrow+Fistfull of Arrows. The difference is that the latter doesn't leave me with no endurance and can be used every other group or so, rather than every 3-5 minutes. I think the real solution here is not to turn true nukes into mini-nukes, but instead to buff them to the point where they are worth the complete end crash and extremely long recharge times. That way, they still feel like different things.
I'd love to see true nukes buffed to the point where a blaster nuke slotted with 3 damage SOs (i.e. no aim or buildup or fiery embrace or any other damage buffs) could take out an entire 8-man-sized even-con group of minions, lieutenants, and bosses by itself (well, assuming you hit them all). That means with aim and buildup, you'd be taking out full groups of +3s, and killing everything but bosses in groups of +4s. That kind of power would definitely be worth the long recharge and major end crash.
I thought about respeccing out of Inferno on one of my Blasters (fire/en/elec) on the grounds that I did basically the same damage (eg dead minions, near dead lieuts, annoyed bosses) with firebreath, fireball, static discharge.
Then I ran into a situation where I had a large-team spawn to the left of the doorway and another one to the right, and I needed BOTH the aoes AND inferno.
Sold!
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
used to have nukes, respecced out of every one of them on EVERY toon that could get them.
I've found better things to take.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
... they're freeing up three power slots real soon now. Gonna take 'em back?
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Originally Posted by Edana
Accuracy? Aim->Buildup->105% base hit chance nuke not enough? What are you trying to nuke?
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Originally Posted by Starflier
Everything.
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If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
And even your still dead, 'cos you're now in range of Rise of the Phoenix!
I'd say leave Nukes as they are, with an increase in target-cap, accuracy and damage, to make them actually a bang worth the buck.
Seriously though, would be nice to lose that 95% hit chance cap on powers with nuke length recharges.