Devs, for the love of...
Make Devices suck less!
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Now you know how it feels to be a Mastermind with ranged pets.
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Originally Posted by Frozen_Burn
1. Gun Drone keeps moving into melee range of its target--it never used to do that! I've been playing /Devices for years and have always enjoyed it and dealt with the lower damage output on the whole in a team setting because it takes too long to set up the devices, but now that Gun Drone flies into melee range and dies a WHOLE lot faster, my damage output is now WAY less than what it was and FAR less than other blasters with different secondaries.
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We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
I don't even think of Time Bomb as a damage power. It's that bad. Possibly the devs have some sort of staked-out position on the subject. ("I will come back and haunt you if you make this power any good." -Statesman. I dunno.)
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Bright Shadow's Official Devices Redesign:
1. Web Grenade: Untouched.
2. Caltrops: Untouched.
3. Taser: Untouched.
4. Targeting Drone: Untouched.
5. Smoke Grenade: Untouched.
6. Cloaking Device: Allow Stealth Strikes when successful attack is made while hidden. Stealth Strike would be weaker than Critical Damage.
7. Trip Mine: Untouched.
8. Time Bomb: Make this power more useful by reducing its cast time to a value even smaller than Trip Mine. The power's damage is already balanced by the fact that it is incredibly hard to time it with the movement of enemies; it doesn't need a massive cast time. It also fits thematically because a bomber usually doesn't BUILD a bomb on the scene. You just place the bomb and press a button to arm it.
9. Gun Drone: Replace with Seeker Drone equivalent.
Blasters getting seeker drones.
Riiiight.
When something good happens to me, I can never enjoy it....
I am always too busy looking for the inevitable punchline...
BEHOLD THE POWER OF CHEESE!
I agree with all 3 points in the OP, Gun Drone needs looking at (as does Time Bomb).
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They actually did internal testing on this ages and ages back. The change to the power's text even made it over onto test, but for some reason they decided against it.
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Originally Posted by Bright Shadow
6. Cloaking Device: Allow Stealth Strikes when successful attack is made while hidden. Stealth Strike would be weaker than Critical Damage. |
MA Arcs: Yarmouth 1509 and 58812
Gun drone needs 1 big improvement.
Remove the interrupt.
Trip mine and time bomb could also do with this.
Devices is the only set in the whole game with 3 powers that have interrupts. I can't for the life of me think of an AT set that has more than 1and the only ones that come to mind are snipes and the assassinate for stalkers. This set has three major powers that are both long to cast and have long interrupts.
My only changes would be a 30-50% damage buff while cloaked with Cloaking Device, Gun Drone's endurance and summon time halved and make Time Bomb be turned into an Omega Maneuver clone.
I am the Blaster, I have filled the role of Tank, Controller and Defender
Sometimes all at once.
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I think all pet AI is borked right now, where they really want to close to melee, for whatever reason. Gun Drone is no exception to that. I do wish they would fix it, though.
And while I love all the new endgame stuff, it'd be nice if some time was devoted to power tweaks and such... I'm sure we'll get some with I20, but we don't get that in previews, usually.
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Though it does give a bonus when paired with AR's snipe, as I recall.
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Originally Posted by Oliin
They actually did internal testing on this ages and ages back. The change to the power's text even made it over onto test, but for some reason they decided against it.
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That's Targeting Drone, not Cloaking Device, if I remember correctly. And the bonus really is minor at best.
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Though it does give a bonus when paired with AR's snipe, as I recall.
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I have a better idea.|
Originally Posted by Bright Shadow
Bright Shadow's Official Devices Redesign:
1. Web Grenade: Untouched. 2. Caltrops: Untouched. 3. Taser: Untouched. 4. Targeting Drone: Untouched. 5. Smoke Grenade: Untouched. 6. Cloaking Device: Allow Stealth Strikes when successful attack is made while hidden. Stealth Strike would be weaker than Critical Damage. 7. Trip Mine: Untouched. 8. Time Bomb: Make this power more useful by reducing its cast time to a value even smaller than Trip Mine. The power's damage is already balanced by the fact that it is incredibly hard to time it with the movement of enemies; it doesn't need a massive cast time. It also fits thematically because a bomber usually doesn't BUILD a bomb on the scene. You just place the bomb and press a button to arm it. 9. Gun Drone: Replace with Seeker Drone equivalent. |
1. Web Grenade: Untouched.
2. Caltrops: Untouched.
3. Taser: Untouched.
4. Targeting Drone: Add a 10% global damage buff to the owner to make up for the lack of the aim power OR program it so that it affects pets and pseudo pets belonging to the caster so that it actually helps you with a good chunk of your secondary powers. Making it so that it doesn't suppress when mezzed so that it actually works with defiance would be a nice touch too.
5. Smoke Grenade: Remove the to hit check roll from the debuff portion of the power. Having it check twice is double dipping and makes the power suck far more than it should.
6. Cloaking Device: Double the stealth and defense values.
7. Trip Mine: 1 second cast time. Remove the interrupt.
8. Time Bomb: 2 second cast time. 4 second count down. Remove the interrupt.
9. Gun Drone: Replace with Malta version. (ie: 1 second cast time, no interrupt, the gun drone stays until destroyed.)
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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Come on! Stealth Strikes would be fun!!! You know you want it!
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
6. Cloaking Device: Double the stealth and defense values.
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I dislike the current devices but those changes are way too much. That would make it more powerful than any other set in the game. |
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I have a better idea.
1. Web Grenade: Untouched. 2. Caltrops: Untouched. 3. Taser: Untouched. 4. Targeting Drone: Add a 10% global damage buff to the owner to make up for the lack of the aim power OR program it so that it affects pets and pseudo pets belonging to the caster so that it actually helps you with a good chunk of your secondary powers. Making it so that it doesn't suppress when mezzed so that it actually works with defiance would be a nice touch too. 5. Smoke Grenade: Remove the to hit check roll from the debuff portion of the power. Having it check twice is double dipping and makes the power suck far more than it should. 6. Cloaking Device: Double the stealth and defense values. 7. Trip Mine: 1 second cast time. Remove the interrupt. 8. Time Bomb: 2 second cast time. 4 second count down. Remove the interrupt. 9. Gun Drone: Replace with Malta version. (ie: 1 second cast time, no interrupt, the gun drone stays until destroyed.) |
Trip mine at 1 second cast will let you continuously drop mininukes. Timebomb at that point is a full on nuke that you can pair up easily. All you need is high recharge and you will be doing more damage with those two powers than complete sets do.
You wind up with something like the old /psi doms destroying everything with psi shockwave.
Time Bomb would be better replaced in my opinion with a triggerable bomb. Place, then a second activation of the power makes it explode (with different tray icon) with recharge of power being based off when the bomb was placed.
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Just jumping in for now to say I agree with ANYTHING that would update Device to today's gaming play style.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
/Signed.
If I could pick just 2 things...
1) A +Dmg buff to Targeting Drone would help from the lack of an Aim/Build-up type power. (Same as the blaster tier "Assault" ....10% would be fine). It would also be nice if the power gave an inherent +Range buff....not as much as Boost Range...but something else to contribute to it's targeting-enhancing-ment-isms. Maybe 10-15% more Range?
2) Reduce the interrupt times on all of the interruptable powers, please. Trip Mine is the only one I bother with now, and it's a 50/50 chance of actually getting it off while in combat.
Timebomb/GunDrone are useless to use while fighting b/c of the interrupts....and TimeBomb requires a tarot card reading before each mob to actually contribute anything worthwhile. GunDrone is all like "hai Reichsman I want to shoot you in your nostrils from 6" away ...."
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Ok I'll marginally give you trip mine, but only marginally. It's damage is only 30 base higher than Thunderstrike and the recharge is identical. The current 9 seconds total cast time (cast + interrupt) is far too much and makes it nearly useless on a team. (Personally I believe that no blaster power should have a cast time greater than 2.5 seconds but that is a subject for a different thread.)|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
I dislike the current devices but those changes are way too much. That would make it more powerful than any other set in the game.
Trip mine at 1 second cast will let you continuously drop mininukes. Timebomb at that point is a full on nuke that you can pair up easily. All you need is high recharge and you will be doing more damage with those two powers than complete sets do. You wind up with something like the old /psi doms destroying everything with psi shockwave. |
I won't give you Time Bomb at all. Scrapper Shield charge is in a defense set, it has a 90 second base recharge, it does 113 damage per attack in a 20 foot radius, it's easily self buffed with AAO (let alone with build up) to double that amount of damage, has an identical chance to do Knockback, and has an un-interruptible 1.5 second cast time.
LRM is a blaster ancillary power. It has a 240 second recharge, does 155 damage, it can be buffed by both Aim and Build up, and launched at the mobs from snipe range (or farther with proper slotting/energy secondary/Incarnate powers).
Time bomb has a 360 second recharge, can't be buffed by powers in the primary or secondary (the buff from Aim doesn't last long enough, nor do the ticks from Targeting Drone ), and does 278 un-enhanced.
RoA by comparison does 225 with a recharge of 60 seconds, 4 second cast time, range 90 feet, and buffable with Aim and Build up.
Time Bomb doesn't even come close in comparison.
Cloaking device is barely better than a single IO and it costs endurance to use (and is therefore suppressed by mez). A serious buff is in order.
The devs know Gun Drone sucks that's why they gave Malta a version that works.....
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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Interesting. I like the idea that it could affect pets.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
4. Targeting Drone: Add a 10% global damage buff to the owner to make up for the lack of the aim power OR program it so that it affects pets and pseudo pets belonging to the caster so that it actually helps you with a good chunk of your secondary powers. Making it so that it doesn't suppress when mezzed so that it actually works with defiance would be a nice touch too.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
5. Smoke Grenade: Remove the to hit check roll from the debuff portion of the power. Having it check twice is double dipping and makes the power suck far more than it should.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
6. Cloaking Device: Double the stealth and defense values.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
7. Trip Mine: 1 second cast time. Remove the interrupt.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
8. Time Bomb: 2 second cast time. 4 second count down. Remove the interrupt.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
9. Gun Drone: Replace with Malta version. (ie: 1 second cast time, no interrupt, the gun drone stays until destroyed.)
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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.
Yeah they needed to fix Devices like yesterday.
"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
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Just to point out that the Malta drone is interruptable, it's just on a very short timer. You basically have to hit the Engineer first before the spawn actually notices you. As long as the Engineer immediately takes damage it'll interrupt Gun Drone.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
9. Gun Drone: Replace with Malta version. (ie: 1 second cast time, no interrupt, the gun drone stays until destroyed.)
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De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Well /shield isn't the best thing to compare it to even /fire isnt the best thing to compare it to. Both of those are offensive defensive sets that really don't penalize the characters that take them sufficiently in an IOed out world.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I won't give you Time Bomb at all. Scrapper Shield charge is in a defense set, it has a 90 second base recharge, it does 113 damage per attack in a 20 foot radius, it's easily self buffed with AAO (let alone with build up) to double that amount of damage, has an identical chance to do Knockback, and has an un-interruptible 1.5 second cast time. LRM is a blaster ancillary power. It has a 240 second recharge, does 155 damage, it can be buffed by both Aim and Build up, and launched at the mobs from snipe range (or farther with proper slotting/energy secondary/Incarnate powers). Time bomb has a 360 second recharge, can't be buffed by powers in the primary or secondary (the buff from Aim doesn't last long enough, nor do the ticks from Targeting Drone ), and does 278 un-enhanced. RoA by comparison does 225 with a recharge of 60 seconds, 4 second cast time, range 90 feet, and buffable with Aim and Build up. Time Bomb doesn't even come close in comparison. Cloaking device is barely better than a single IO and it costs endurance to use (and is therefore suppressed by mez). A serious buff is in order. The devs know Gun Drone sucks that's why they gave Malta a version that works..... |
Anyway I was looking at overall set balance not a particular power. Just from the way you have that set up, You could stealth into the middle of a spawn hit Aim, drop time bomb and drop a trip mine on top of it while its counting down and then fire off your nuke all buffed by aim and or defiance. That is just a bit much looking at past behaviour.
It might not even be wrong but its something that should be done in conjunction with correcting the overall AT.
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I'm pretty sure that what you're describing is an interruption to the Engineer's AI, and not an interruption to the summoning power itself. The same holds true for Rikti Communicators and Sky Raider Engineers: their summoning schtick is the first thing they try to do upon being aggro'ed, but they won't do it if you hit them first.|
Originally Posted by Bosstone
Just to point out that the Malta drone is interruptable, it's just on a very short timer. You basically have to hit the Engineer first before the spawn actually notices you. As long as the Engineer immediately takes damage it'll interrupt Gun Drone.
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At least, that's been my experience. In any case, the player version of the power has too long an activation time, and too short a duration. I happen to have a higher opinion of Devices than seemingly most other posters on this forum, but that's only because I like to play ranged-biased Blasters, and thus I find that almost all Blaster Secondaries are somewhat lackluster, probably the most inconsistently relevant category of power sets in the entire game. A set with native +DEF, +stealth, +ToHit, and the situational capability to lay mine/caltrop fields doesn't seem so terrible in that context.
But none of the above means that Devices couldn't use some improvements. Gun Drone is a prime candidate.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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...for the love of all that's good in this world, PLEASE fix:
Gun Drone!
1. Gun Drone keeps moving into melee range of its target--it never used to do that! I've been playing /Devices for years and have always enjoyed it and dealt with the lower damage output on the whole in a team setting because it takes too long to set up the devices, but now that Gun Drone flies into melee range and dies a WHOLE lot faster, my damage output is now WAY less than what it was and FAR less than other blasters with different secondaries.
First of all... /Devices is SO slow to use because of the long cast times of Gune Drone, Time bomb, and Trip mine... and those are the damage powers of the set! Yes, they do high/extreme damage, but they're no good if you can't use them because you're always interuppted or the team has destroyed the mobs before you finish casting the powers! /Devices doesn't get a "Build Up" type of power so we need all the damage we can get out of the GD, TB, and TM.
In a team setting, the mob is usually cleared before the Gun Drone can really do anything. Yes, you made it so the Gun Drone can fly to the next mob (thank you!) but 10s-15s of the GD's life span is eaten up by traveling (or more, depending) and then in the new mob, it charges into melee and gets itself killed (or times out) and I have to spend another 7s casting and waiting for another one to start shooting (after an additional 2s delay) and... now the 2nd mob is already defeated by my teammates! ...and the horrible cycle starts over again and I never get any really good use out of the Gune Drone.
AV/EB fights were always a perfect time to cast GD since the fights lasted longer and you could get really great use out of it and it KIND OF made up for it being useless going from mob to mob. But with AVs/EBs being more powerful (as they should be) AND the Gun Drone flying into melee range, the GD dies in 1 or 2 shots and is once again useless--and thusly my damage output on the whole as a blaster is FAR less than the damage output of other blasters with a different secondary.
In solo settings, you tend to set up ambushes with Trip Mines, Time Bomb, and Caltrops (which I enjoy!), but it's very difficult to use the Gun Drone because it takes SO long to cast and you're always interrupted. If you set it up ahead of time (before mob aggro), it ruins the "pull" to my Trip Mine/Caltrop ambush because it flies into melee range (and usually gets me killed). And trying to spawn it AFTER I engage the mob is impossible since I'm constantly being interrupted.
Fixing Gun Drone to stop going into melee and getting itself quickly killed is a HUGE fix for this set.
2. The cast time of Gun Drone is also WAY too long. Always has been. 7s for casting (6s is interruptable) and then for some reason there is another 2s before the guns actually start shooting (even when it has immediately locked onto a target after spawning). That's 9s before any damage is done by the Gun Drone. This is FAR too long. It should be 5s max from button push to the bullets flying (so if you can't eliminate that 2s delay after it spawns and before it actually starts shooting, then make the cast time 3s). ...And then Trip Mine should be 3s cast and Time Bomb 7s cast--I think that is a balanced and fair assessment.
3. The Endurance cost of Gun Drone is WAY too high. Always has been. Costing 39end to cast is absurd--especially with 6s of being interrupted and EVERY time you're interrupted you spend that endurance ...for nothing! You can completely drain your end bar after a few failed castings. That is ridiculous! Please, lower the endurance cost of this power and/or make it so that you only spend the endurance upon a successful casting.
Summary:
So basically, the GD has very little use right now. And I can't in good conscience tell anyone to take this power... which I hate, because I love what it was and what it could be... but now it's just not worth it.
Please fix it so Gun Drone does not fly into melee range anymore (begging/pleading).
Suggestion: please lower the endurance cost of summoning Gun Drone and please re-evaluate the cast times of the only 3 real damage dealing powers in the set Gun Drone, Trip Mine, and Time Bomb.