Gah! *punt* Get out of here! *kick* Bloody snipes! *shove*

In all my years of playing I've only just recently gotten around to finding a character that I liked playing enough to call my "Main," returning to play her beyond Level 50 rather than getting her slotted out and perfect, then putting her back on the shelf like an obsessive doll collector and turning to the next shiny new project.

And as she's a SS/Fire/Mu Brute, she's essentially made for burning through masses of minions and LT's and bosses at spawn sizes built for 8. So I'm getting piles upon piles of drops.

And just about every mission I find myself with at least one, if not two snipe recipes. I get more snipes than I do more useful things. I most certainly won't get a Heal or a Melee Damage or a Ranged set recipe every mission. But by Cthulhu, I will end up with a snipe.

So I hopped over to Paragon Wiki, kind of curious as to why it was.

And in a moment of jaw-dropping horror, I realized why.

Every. Single. Snipe. Set. Goes. To. 50.

All of them.

All FIVE of them.

WHY?! IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS SMASHABLE AND FLAMMABLE, WHY?!

I've never taken a Snipe attack, I never see people have them in their builds, I don't think I've ever seen one used in an actual mission.

So why, oh dakr powers, WHY are there not only five entire sets devoted to the most loathed and niche of powers, but require five entire distinct sets focusing on them at level 50?

There are three reasons I can imagine:

Scenario 1: Human Error/Oversight
That being nobody gives a damn about Snipe sets in the first place, so when IO's rolled out, no one bothered to take notice that unlike all of the other damage sets, they stretched the full length of dropability.

Scenario 2: We've Been Trolled!
Some designer out there goes to bed at night giggling with glee over the fact that the denizens of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles (And lamenting the fact that the Praetorians have escaped his/her/its malice thus far due to only having the first 20 levels of content) have to deal with these useless things dropping into our inventories en masse.

Scenario 3: Somebody Loves Snipes Way Too Much
I can also picture some poor soul on the Dev team rocking back and forth in a corner, cradling a worn bear with a t-shirt marked "Snipe Powers" and muttering "I love you Snipe Powers, you're my only friend!" and other such simultaneously pitiable and sad utterances.

It's just... baffling to me.

Especially when there are only three 'normal' Targetted AoE sets, and only one with worthwhile bonuses.

Why? Why would you do that?

Why would you give five whole sets to Snipe powers, and leave Targetted AoE's, which people love and adore and build beautiful shines and parade floats to, before exploding them in a mass of Fireballs, Ball Lightning, and Dark Obliteration, out in the cold clutching to Positron's Blast like a freezing little matchgirl to her raggedy blanket?

...

Wait, it's because Positron was CoH lead when the IO system was put into place, wasn't it? Making sure that his signature IO set would shine brightest of all!

I'm onto you Posi! You'll never get away with....

HRMPH!

*is gagged, straight jacketed and dragged away by Longbow goons*

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

I did get an answer once from Castle about Calibrated Accuracy (all accuracy, all the time, and about 40% Damage), to the effect of "It was like that when I got there." I don't know if that really narrows things down, though.

I kinda like snipes. I kinda like snipe sets. Sometimes I'll slot a snipe set.*

*Not Calibrated Accuracy.

But I sure don't get why there are more snipe sets than there are (non-Purple) Targeted AoE sets.

Holy cow, Targeted AoEs are among the most popular powers in the game and many builds have more then one of them.

Here's something else weird though -- people are way too infatuated with snipers in real life, too. In online discussions of bravery in war, people always bring up snipers, the guys who shoot unsuspecting targets from hiding. No disrespect meant to snipers,* it can be an important role, but I'm surprised people prattle on about the "bravery" involved.

*yet

My Dad, however, did lack respect for snipers. He served in World War II, infantry, European theater, and he said that everybody he knew in the war detested snipers, even ones on their own side. The reason was simple -- everyone felt the war itself would be decided by big attacks. Sniping didn't have any measurable effect on the outcome of such events; it just contributed to the day-to-day trickle of deaths, even during "quiet" periods, that embittered both sides, without any chance* of actually determining the war and letting everyone go home.

*unless Hitler stuck his head up, I guess

Hollywood likes snipers too -- I guess it's easier to identify with one individual than with just another helmet hunkered down in a foxhole. And they do have their place, probably moreso in modern "asymmetric" warfare, antiterrorism, and so on. But movies tend to make it seem like one guy with a telescopic sight decides all wars -- not the 25,000 guys hauling artillery shells, or an entire infantry division.

Snipers aren't meant to win wars, they're meant to demoralize the opposition. But let's not derail the thread with that.

And yeah, the popularity of Targeted AoE's as opposed to snipes is one reason why I posted this. After all, you can have a whole pile of TAoE's. An Arachnos Soldier could have Venom Grenade, Frag Grenade, possibly Omega Maneuver if it takes those sets, Electric Fences, and Ball Lightning.

The most snipes anyone can get is, I think, Blasters with two. One from the blast set, and the LRM Rocket from the Mutions Mastery pool. Which uh... is also apparently a TAoE.

Also, if I recall, PBAoE also started out with three non-purple non-PvP sets and got Eradication and Obliteration added in Issue 13, which leaves me baffled as to why TAoE still has the original three also.

After all, if they did it for PBAoE, why not for TAoE?

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

I take and slot snipes on every blaster. I use them solo a lot and on teams occasionally.

Have to agree though, other then Sting of the Manticore they are not worth much. Have to agree on less snipe sets more Targeted AOE sets (Positron's Blast is nice but as the only real option???)

I view the Snipe sets the same way as Range TO/DO/SOs in the pre-Invention era. Regular Range enhancements seemed to drop way more often than any other enhancements and they had one of the lowest sell back prices at the stores.

Without multiple Sniper sets, you couldn't Frankenslot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zombie Man Sniper powers is a good example of something you might want to Frakenslot because there are so many aspects that you want to enhance: ACC, DAM, Interrupt Reduction, Range, Recharge, and even some Endurance Reductions. But the Sniper sets don't cover it all (at least, not as much as I want it to). And so, if you use the triple aspect IOs from different sets, you give up you Set Bonuses, but you gain *a lot* of enhancing. E.g., my Dark Defender has the snipe power, Moombeam slotted, Extreme Measures: ACC/Interrupt/Range Extreme Measures: ACC/Range/Recharge Executioner's Contract: Damage/Range Executioner's Contract: Damage/Recharge Sting of the Manticore: ACC/Interrupt/Range Sting of the Manticore: DAM/Interrupt/Range This gives: ACC: 63.6% DAM: 73.7% (pre-ED 74.2) Interrupt: 76.4% Range: 52% (pre-ED 54%) Recharge: 69% That's 334.7% worth of enhancement. Six IOs (ACC, DAM, Recharge, Range, 2xInterrupt) would have only been 252% worth of enhancements. Sting of the Manticore would have been 293% worth of of enhancements looking like this: ACC: 47.7% DAM: 91.78% (pre-ED 95.4%) Interrupt: 50.9% Range: 12.75% Recharge: 42.4% End Redux: 42.4% Which is a lot less Range, Recharge, and Interrupt Redux that I wanted (with a lot of Interrupt Redux, a snipe can be used often in battle rather than just a lead-off shot). Besides, my Frankenslotting still gives me the bonuses of: 1.5% Recovery; 2% Recovery; and, 12% Regeneration. That extra Recovery is worth not slotting for End Redux.

I suppose, but it just seems very odd that snipes and snipes alone get five sets at level 50. If they need that much IO support to make them viable, wouldn't it mean that they would be massive underperforming with SO's, and thus likely need to be looked at and improved?

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

My guess is that in some feverish dev brain at some point in time, the thought was that they would encourage Snipe use by giving multiple snipe sets, and discourage TAoE use by giving only a few of those.

The early history of CoX is chock-full of examples of devs discouraging successful strategies and encouraging oddball tactics, even ones that were counterproductive and stupid.

My theory is that the Devs didn't want people frankenslotting targeted AOE to get an attack chain of something like Fireball-Firebreath-Fireball-Firebreath.

This does not explain why they made perma-Hasten acheivable, with enough hundreds of millions of inf. It's not a perfect theory.