Is is wise to choose device as a second power?
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Technically its not weaker. The real problem with devices is the time/utility trade off. Devices is some where in the sub-basement there. Its a substantial outlier by a magnitude or 2.
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Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
Well, if by 'awesome' you mean 'weaker than every other blaster secondary', then I guess I can see your point..
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-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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You really can't compare Hot Feet to GFS with that type of chart. BA vs. Confront, really? Consume vs. Confront? Combustion vs Cremate? Your pictured charts are as meaningless as saying that Blaster FS deals more base damage than scrapper FS. |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
They say a picture is worth a thousand words heres 2000.
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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.
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Originally Posted by StratoNexus
You really can't compare Hot Feet to GFS with that type of chart. BA vs. Confront, really? Consume vs. Confront? Combustion vs Cremate? Your pictured charts are as meaningless as saying that Blaster FS deals more base damage than scrapper FS.
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Thats right you can't, and I wasn't. I was comparing the damage output of the sets.
But if you would like something of equivalent comparison lets try Blazing Aura
13.9/activation on a scrapper
vs 11.1/activation on a blaster
The scrapper also has mezz protection, so his aura is actually going to be doing the damage more often.
It really gets bad when you factor in the effect of crits on fully enhanced powers.
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You did the BA thing because you know that is a pet peeve of mine, right? |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
It really gets bad when you factor in the effect of crits on fully enhanced powers.
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It sometimes makes me go, "Buh?" that my /Blaze mastery Fire Ball is so much more devastating than my Fire Blast/ Fire Ball.
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.
Dev is just plain bad all the way around.
I just logged into my first char. A lvl 50 ar/dev blaster and did a respec to get him working again. After wasting 3 hours working on his enh to get it right i tried to do the incarnate quest line.
My poor blaster was torn apart. The smoke grenade is utterly worthless and the mines take way to long to do anything. After dying 5 times ive totally given up on my favorite toon. Its just not worth the stress of getting this steaming pile of crap to work anymore.
Now this is not my only incarnate char. All of my other chars have been able to solo the quest line.
Only take devices if you have a roleplay reason for doing so and know that its going to suck being it from the start.
I just wish i could respec out of it.
Love my Arch/Devices !!!
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
The quoted post of seeb's explanation of what's wrong with devices is exactly how I feel about assault rifle.
Devices is very bad. Every other powerset has quite a lot of useful powers, devices is a leftover powerset from a time when the game was very different and still hasn't been touched. What countless arguements otherwise have pointed out time and time again is that some people like to play bad powersets.
That said: a device blaster helped my fire/fire/fire considerably with caltrops on a BAF. Thanks for slowing mobs so I could AoE them. Many, many sets could do it just as well, but thanks you /dev blaster for bringing that one power to the table. While you stand there summoning things that never appear and otherwise being useless, you at least allowed me to blast nice groups of targets.
Devices isn't bad at all. It just isn't the best Blaster secondary. If you're not playing MM in PVE, then you're making an imperfect choice. If you're not playing EM in PVP then you're making an imperfect choice. People build Blasters with other secondaries (okay, maybe not in PVP) and their Blasters somehow manage to survive and even excel, regardless of whether they run multi-billion inf builds or straight SOs.
But how can this be?!
It's simple: this game isn't so difficult that you have to choose the best possible powersets and slotting or fail. Play what you want and have fun.
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Well yes and no.|
Originally Posted by streetlight
Devices isn't bad at all. It just isn't the best Blaster secondary. If you're not playing MM in PVE, then you're making an imperfect choice. If you're not playing EM in PVP then you're making an imperfect choice. People build Blasters with other secondaries (okay, maybe not in PVP) and their Blasters somehow manage to survive and even excel, regardless of whether they run multi-billion inf builds or straight SOs.
But how can this be?! It's simple: this game isn't so difficult that you have to choose the best possible powersets and slotting or fail. Play what you want and have fun. |
Blasters aren't the best possible choice of damage dealer to begin with. All their secondaries are either substandard, redundant or both. Even so, Energy manipulation, Ice, Fire, Electricity aren't all that far apart from each other.
If you could make a graph of merit* you would get something like this
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| ||| ___|_________|||____ Dev elec/ice/en/mental
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You struggled with the arc therefore its crap? What about the however many who've only just got theirs to 50 after making one a couple of months ago who got through it no problem? I think maybe we should look at your build. |
Originally Posted by Psycho_killer
Dev is just plain bad all the way around.
I just logged into my first char. A lvl 50 ar/dev blaster and did a respec to get him working again. After wasting 3 hours working on his enh to get it right i tried to do the incarnate quest line. My poor blaster was torn apart. The smoke grenade is utterly worthless and the mines take way to long to do anything. After dying 5 times ive totally given up on my favorite toon. Its just not worth the stress of getting this steaming pile of crap to work anymore. Now this is not my only incarnate char. All of my other chars have been able to solo the quest line. Only take devices if you have a roleplay reason for doing so and know that its going to suck being it from the start. I just wish i could respec out of it. |
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.
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So many of you who say /dev is just fine say this. Allow me to retort.|
Originally Posted by streetlight
Play what you want and have fun.
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What I want to play is a working /devices powerset, and it's impossible to have fun with it broken like it is. While I love to make a thematic build, I'm not going to play a theme that is so broken that it hinders people around me just so I can say at least I followed my hearts desire. That is not fun to me.
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How is it broken? Because it doesn't support the "Go! Go! Go!" mentality that declares speed to be the most important thing? And it in no way hinders people around you, unless you stupidly expect people to hang back to let you drop Time Bomb or a Gun Drone.|
Originally Posted by Comfort
What I want to play is a working /devices powerset, and it's impossible to have fun with it broken like it is. While I love to make a thematic build, I'm not going to play a theme that is so broken that it hinders people around me just so I can say at least I followed my hearts desire. That is not fun to me.
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Web Grenade, Caltrops, Taser, and Smoke Grenade will help your group at all times, as will your Targeting Drone (by virtue of making it easier for you to hit things and to take out stealthed foes that others can't see). Cloaking Device will, especially if you toss on an IO or Super Speed, allow you to stealth missions for speed runs.
Trip Mine, Time Bomb, and Gun Drone are really for solo use and are very effective at what they do - even if they're slow. And given the extra safety given by Trip Mine and Time Bomb, slow is no big deal.
I love device. My fire/device is by far my favorite character to play. He sits at 49% def to s/l and has 85% global recharge. I think device is great for solo/stealthy/ranged/hover blasters.
Having only 4-5 powers in Device that are worthwhile makes it that much easier to build in my opinion.
Cloaking device, is great as it give's some defense on top of stealth (every bit helps) and give's a spot to throw a LoTG +rech, and a stealth IO isn't going to do all this.
Targeting drone gives tohit debuff resistance, tohit buff and +perception, and a buff to snipe attacks (if you use yours). As a blaster, if your not hitting anything, well, your useless. The tohit debuff resistance, no matter how small, is great.
Caltrops, great for every occasion and its amazing how much mitigation this one power can provide.
Webnade, typical immob thats always useful.
From devices, this is all I really need. For someone else, they might want more, but then, pick another set. Thats why we have so many sets to choose from. If device doesn't work for you and your play style, then reroll and try another one. For me, it works, but I stay at ranged and hover blast.
I'm glad it's different. They need to improve some of the powers in the set for sure, but don't change it to much. If every secondary was the same, what would be the point of having different sets anyway.
Lets look at fire sword:
Blaster: 131.2 damage
Scrapper: 82.6 damage
Blasters are higher
And