Request for comments: /devices

On the whole "Cloaking Device can be replaced by pool powers" thing. In my case, no it cannot.

My Sonic/Devices is a hoverblaster, it is baked into his playstyle and his backstory. I don't need Hasten at all, because I have enough recharge that my attack chain is limited more by animation time and I don't rely on Trip Mines.

Why would I take a travel power I have no use for or desire for in order to do what a power contained in my secondary and a Stealth IO can do for free?

Why would I use one of my FOUR power pool choices to do the exact same thing I can do in my secondary for free? And my secondary can do it BETTER, because there is no -speed component.

Yes, you can replace Cloaking Device with pool powers, but why would you waste picks on something your secondary can already do?

I like /Dev in general. I have a couple of 50s with this secondary.

1. TD adds damage to Assault Rifle's snipe. It doesn't add damage to any other snipes.

2. I think it's worth including in your guide that /Dev is the only Blaster secondary where it is possible to take out a spawn using only the Secondary powers, while at the same time you take no damage.

3. I agree that Cloaking Device + a Stealth IO is a game-changing combo when you get it.

4. I used to hate Time Bomb, but the damage and the fact that you don't have to stand in a spawn, plus no End crash redeem it.

5. Fury Flechette wrote a guide on how to be an "anti-Stalker" in PVP, you might want to reference pertinent stuff from her guide.

6. TD vs. Tactics: isn't TD's ToHit buff higher?

7. When the game first came out, there was a mistake in Smoke Grenade's code that made it a 100% ToHit debuff. You read that right: 100%. The first Blaster to 40 (the level cap in those days) was an AR/Dev. A guide called "Level 40 in 4 weeks" -a speed level unheard of in those days- was written for /Dev. The very first "nerf" in the game was a "correction" of the "decimal place error" to 10% debuff. Later it was decreased to its current value as part of the Global Defense Nerf.

8. Trip Mines are much more useful than "toe bombing"; IMHO that's for beginners and the impatient. Toe bombing will not take out an entire spawn with a single mine anyway. Blasters are very good at knowing how enemies respond to initial attacks, because their life depends on that knowledge. You know some enemies want to run over to you, while others like Nemesis or Longbow, want to attack you from range. So, put TMs where you know they will go. I forget the max you can have out without Hasten but I usually lay out at least 3 in a pattern I think enemes will follow after my first volley.

9. /Dev is about planning, patience and exploiting game geometry. Those narrow sewer doors, corners, and anyplace else that makes it hard for enemies to reach you are great. If you have seen the movie "300" or at least know the story, you know how to use /Dev to your benefit.

10. You will get arguments that /Traps is "better" than /Dev. Address your thoughts on that argument up front in your guide. IMHO, /Traps is the "on your knees" Secondary. Every character I've made with /Traps has spent too much time kneeling during the actual fight. With /Dev you set a few TMs and Caltrops and then shift to your Primary.

The runspeed thing was probably more significant at one point. I don't know how the defense compares between stealth and CD.

I think I may give time bomb another look, I had been thinking of using it like trip mines, where it would suck, but using it as the thing you put in the spawn so they come play with the trip mines you already dropped... That has potential.

/dev does a lot of things that USED to be much, much better than they are now. That's my main issue with the set, the times changed and /dev didn't (or not enough, anyway- tweaks like the damage boost to Snipe are more comedy than utility).

And the playstyle it encourages was much more appealing back in the day as well.

One of the friends I started playing with had an energy/devices blaster.
Way back when, debt was real and levels came very slowly. We didn't have modern conveniences like Defiance (old or new) or IOs or even BREAK FREES- we had that dumb thing you had to burn BEFORE the fight, because once you were out you couldn't activate any inspirations. And it wasn't even totally reliable- sometimes you'd get held or slept or whatever anyway.

In that environment, heck yes planting a giant mine field, laying down caltrops and pulling a spawn to its inevitable doom was well worth however long it took to set up. Because there were genuine consequences if you sort of casually wandered up to a spawn and just started blasting away.

/dev is a set out of time, an artifact of a much different game.
Sure it can work in the modern era, but you're making some serious sacrifices compared to the performance available from other blaster secondaries.


r/e the power pool replication thing, Inherent Stamina will further margninalize /dev, as every blaster in the game suddenly has three more power picks to blow on whatever.

Device is subpar when compared to the other sets and Traps BLOWS Device away. A Traps AR is TONS better then any AR Device and I have both at 50. With the new respec my Traps AR Defender is even that much better now.

I think creating a guide for this set is a disservice and will give the impression to new players that Device is good, when it really isn't. Any of the powers that were good in Device are already in Traps followed by even better powers in Traps.

Device As much as it was my first 50 should be scorned and put in a corner until the Devs wake up and catch the hint that Device needs improvement.

If they charged me 9 bucks to be able to swap out Device for another set I would probably pay it.

Its a great concept but just very weak.

The thing is... Weak and strong are not as important to me as "fun for me, with the way I like to play". The point of the guide is not to tell people they should play /dev, but to tell them what they might like or dislike about it. "It's pretty weak now, and traps is better" is certainly a compelling point.

But, strong or weak, it's still really fun for me, and I think it would be better if there were a guide up that actually had the powers the set currently has -- and which pointed out some of the weaknesses. Because no one is about to deny that the set has weaknesses.

As I mentioned in another thread, I wouldn't mind /Dev if it was more of a mitigation set. Changes I'd like to see:

~ Add a decent defense to Cloaking Device. Make it like 3.75 base.

~ Make the pet less annoying to use. Increased the duration and the recharge, and make the animation for summoning it less annoying.

~ Give the set some -Res to make up for the lack of Build Up.

I want a laser futuristic type of weapon primary, and a more futuristic secondary set for blasters, where the hek is all the tech in this game? Sure you got robots mm, then you got gadgets which is alright but not very futuristic, sadly cox is lacking a real type of sorcery and a major lack of tech stuff.

You know what would be cheap?

Give time bomb and trip mines -res.

For the record:

Time bomb, with invisibility-level stealth, is actually pretty cool. I don't think it's an amazing power, it's certainly not as awesome as trip mines, but... It's pretty nice, and in the post-I19 world, the power list isn't as congested as it used to be.