Blasters surpurflous?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-07-11 23:09 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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I actually used a lower number for that. 160% damage bonus was the effective bonus for anything that could be killed in 9 seconds or less, 70 % was was for someone that was only able to keep defiance at a 40% level and was using aim and build up but not particularly well.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Just a small calculation note. Things like Defiance and Musculature do not have cast time costs and usually can be factored in directly for reasonable calculations. But Aim and BU do have cast time costs and depending on the situation that is critical. If we're talking about sustained damage output on high level blasters with full or nearly full attack chains, that cast time cost is material. BU's mechanical buff limit on a high level blaster is somewhere around +45% damage, and as a practical matter its going to be closer to +25% damage over time. Aim will be significantly lower than that.
BU and Aim are much better burst damage tools than damage over time tools. |
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I've found that to often be true myself. There's something somewhat entertaining about a failure if you're teamed with the right people. It only really holds true for the first couple failures (and just plain team wipes too) after that though it just gets frustrating and people start getting a little angry.
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Originally Posted by MajorPrankster
I often have more fun, and more laughs, from failing stuff.
The game is not srs b-ness. |
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I did get that, it was simply worthless, since a Blaster does damage ~100% of the time and some the ATs you mentioned - Defenders and Controllers - don't.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
That would have been nice if that is what I was trying to do.
But what I was trying to demonstrate was why a smaller percentage increase in overall performance was less desirable than a larger increase in overall performance, and how you have to look at total performance not some small fraction. Sorry you failed to get that. |
I'm sorry you fail to see why your analogy is worthless.
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Blasters do damage 100 percent of the time ? You are sure of this ?|
Originally Posted by JayLeonHart_EU
I did get that, it was simply worthless, since a Blaster does damage ~100% of the time and some the ATs you mentioned - Defenders and Controllers - don't.
I'm sorry you fail to see why your analogy is worthless. |
Controllers and defenders can't do damage as much of the time as blasters do ? You are sure of this ?
The percentage of time you are doing damage is important why ?
P.S. in that analogy I didn't specify any ats, and the only time applicable was damage done per unit time. It doesn't matter why B was doing half the damage, just that he did half the damage/unit time
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No.|
Originally Posted by Diellan_
Are you trying to say that being a poor performing AT is an advantage?
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What I am saying is that some people take the game far too seriously.
I have played with a friend of a friend who cried every time her character faceplanted. Real crying, tears and sobs on voice chat. Another would literally start yelling in a panic at each and every person that started taking damage. I mean, "OH NO! HEY RUN RUN RUN! YOU GOT HIT, RUN!" kind of crap, every single combat. Another who would try and make us wait before attacking every single spawn until BU and Aim were recharged so that he could ALWAYS perform the 'most effective' attack chain.
Thankfully, I don't have to put up with that crap anymore in my voice chat. In fact, those people won't even talk to me anymore because I had the audacity to ask them to stop telling me how to play and screaming in my ears.
I prefer to play with people that are just having fun, not focused on the minutia of the math behind the game all the time.
Topics of this nature that are little more than veiled attempts to play arm-chair developer by people spreading dissent and misinformation to promote their own agendas irritate me, so I speak up sometimes.
I cannot abide the rules-lawyers in here or in RL. They are a waste of resources IMO.
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But you're not using BaB's numbers because BaB's numbers say that Blasters are created at 16% of all ATs and then drop to 14% active over the same period of time. So if the 30% came from Arcana in this thread, where did the 15% come from? I'm just finding it rather unbelievable that in a game with 10 standard ATs and 4 EATs (which admittedly not everyone has access to) that nearly 1/3 of people are starting Blasters and then half are dumping them. Unless that 30% number includes a lot of first timers who just picked the first AT on the list to get their controls set and familiarize with the game in Outbreak before deleting and remaking their REAL choice... I don't see how the 30% figure can be reconciled with BaB's numbers. |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Arcana uses that as the initial creation rate, you would have to ask her where that comes from.
Bab's numbers are across all levels, so the initial creation rate and the average, square very well as long as there is a sufficient drop off after level 1. |
I'd be curious to know the actual log-in numbers at level 50 for all ATs. Has anything like that been posted recently?
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hahahha, no. Maybe you play with complete morons, but the folks i run with, YES any mix of 8 ATs can be do fine, or straight of any 8 of them.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Pick any 8 and see if there is a point where the meter stops counting deaths.
"COH is so easy that AT doesn't matter.', what you are in effect saying is CoH is so easy it doesn't need to balanced. |
I'm sorry you regularly team with folks who don't know how to play the game. That sounds like a personal problem.
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Not 100%, ~100% - what else would activating a Blaster power do, if not damage? The vast majority are attacks, hence ~100% damage.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Blasters do damage 100 percent of the time ? You are sure of this ?
Controllers and defenders can't do damage as much of the time as blasters do ? You are sure of this ? The percentage of time you are doing damage is important why ? P.S. in that analogy I didn't specify any ats, and the only time applicable was damage done per unit time. It doesn't matter why B was doing half the damage, just that he did half the damage/unit time |
Can Controllers or Defenders deal damage 100% of the time? Sure. Would it gimp them horribly? Sure. Are the vast majority of their buff/debuff powers non-damaging? Sure. So assuming they use all their abilities, they would only be dealing damage ~50% of the time, no?
The % of time spent doing things is important because an AT who spends ~100% of their combat time dealing dmage, will gain a better boost from damage buffs (in this case, Musculature Alpha) than an AT that spends ~50% of their combat time doing things other than dealing damage.
How is this not basic?
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Originally Posted by MajorPrankster
No.
--- lengthiness snipped --- I cannot abide the rules-lawyers in here or in RL. They are a waste of resources IMO. |
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Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
I think they are saying what 99% of the non forums folks are saying: COH is so easy that AT doesn't matter.
Pick any 8 and go to town. I still find the "blasters are poor performing cause of powers that only function in levels 45-50" to be an insanely silly argument. EDIT: SOME primary and secondary sets could use work, but that's true of every AT. |
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Originally Posted by JayLeonHart_EU
Not 100%, ~100% - what else would activating a Blaster power do, if not damage? The vast majority are attacks, hence ~100% damage.
Can Controllers or Defenders deal damage 100% of the time? Sure. Would it gimp them horribly? Sure. Are the vast majority of their buff/debuff powers non-damaging? Sure. So assuming they use all their abilities, they would only be dealing damage ~50% of the time, no? The % of time spent doing things is important because an AT who spends ~100% of their combat time dealing dmage, will gain a better boost from damage buffs (in this case, Musculature Alpha) than an AT that spends ~50% of their combat time doing things other than dealing damage. How is this not basic? |
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I never said it was *good* damage |
Originally Posted by Diellan_
If Blasters were tweaked so that more of their attacks did damage, then this would be correct. If their control powers did damage that wasn't 0.2 or less, or for most of their secondary powers to deal damage in addition to various forms of control/debuff/whatever, then this would be correct. Blasters could do damage ~100% of the time, but their powers don't really support it; in fact, my Brute is the one that does damage ~100% of the time (because he has Soul Drain, not Build Up, Dark Consumption, not Power Sink, etc) because the only powers he has to activate in combat are Hasten, Active Defense, OwtS, and Darkest Night, and those last two I only use when fighting AVs.
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@Jay Leon Hart
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*raises hand* I'm a 53 AR/Dev blaster and I have no other 50's. I've been playing since beta and have seen many iterations of blaster over the years, including the dark days of defiance 1.0.
You need me. Now more than ever you need me. I'm the one who solos crates and containers in Lambda while you all split up in random directions for whatever reason.
You need me to plant mines in intelligent places and times, so that Maraurader lands on a dozen of them when he jumps to that round bunker thingy.
You need me to throw Caltrops all over the sidewalk to slow down escaping prisoners during the BAF, which my AoE will tear apart.
You need me to hold back the flood of reinforcements coming to help Nightshade and Siege while you try to learn how to do damage, switch targets, and look at two health bars at the same time.
You need me dart around the Reactors, plucking power cells and quickly luring mobs away from terminals or simply knocking them all off the platform before Anti-matter gets back.
You need me to do more damage than the disintigrate heals AM for because the healers can't find the giant chat bubble that says "HEAL ME".
Could any AT do one or more of those things? Sure.
Could any AT do ALL of those things? Only one I know of.
DISCLAIMER: The previous rant is not to be taken as a factual statement, only as self-satisfying puffery.
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I'm pretty sure I mentioned it at the time, but the ~35% number was a measurement done soon after launch, when there were only five choices to select from.
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Originally Posted by Zem
But you're not using BaB's numbers because BaB's numbers say that Blasters are created at 16% of all ATs and then drop to 14% active over the same period of time. So if the 30% came from Arcana in this thread, where did the 15% come from? I'm just finding it rather unbelievable that in a game with 10 standard ATs and 4 EATs (which admittedly not everyone has access to) that nearly 1/3 of people are starting Blasters and then half are dumping them. Unless that 30% number includes a lot of first timers who just picked the first AT on the list to get their controls set and familiarize with the game in Outbreak before deleting and remaking their REAL choice... I don't see how the 30% figure can be reconciled with BaB's numbers.
I'd be curious to know the actual log-in numbers at level 50 for all ATs. Has anything like that been posted recently? |
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Not in so many words. Now that you've said it I went back and looked again and I see where you said "...the first numerical anything I did was a population analysis" which would imply that yes, it was back near the beginning of the game. I know I missed that and it seems A_F did as well since he's talking about 30% like it's the current rate and that Blasters then drop to 15% played across all levels, which can't be true... and isn't.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm pretty sure I mentioned it at the time, but the ~35% number was a measurement done soon after launch, when there were only five choices to select from.
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Thanks for clearing that up.
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Its generally been close to 30% of all hero archetypes, but not of course of all archetypes period once that number expanded. If I implied otherwise that was an error.
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Originally Posted by Zem
Not in so many words. Now that you've said it I went back and looked again and I see where you said "...the first numerical anything I did was a population analysis" which would imply that yes, it was back near the beginning of the game. I know I missed that and it seems A_F did as well since he's talking about 30% like it's the current rate and that Blasters then drop to 15% played across all levels, which can't be true... and isn't.
Thanks for clearing that up. |
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I always (mayhaps very incorrectly) assume that blaster creation numbers is weighted by the fact they are first in creation list, and so most often used as name reservation dumps, transfer or prestiage mules, and throwaway accounts by all sorts.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
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So sad to be ending ):
Does this mean Im not make several new blasters when Issue 21 drops ??
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It's possible. But even that aside the creation rate isn't all that useful, in my opinion. If you want to know what people actually think of Blasters, just look at how many appear to be getting played at each level. The numbers initially created or even played in the first handful of levels.... just aren't that useful. Who cares how many get created initially as long as a healthy number are still playing at level 20, 30, 40, etc? What would be the problem? The AT looks TOO attractive? Is that a real problem?
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Originally Posted by tanstaafl
I always (mayhaps very incorrectly) assume that blaster creation numbers is weighted by the fact they are first in creation list, and so most often used as name reservation dumps, transfer or prestiage mules, and throwaway accounts by all sorts.
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If you see a downward trend from creation through combat progressional levels, it could be a sign, depending on how strong the trend is, that the archetype is disappointing players in some way as combat ratchets up in the higher levels. There is a small downward trend noticable in the numbers BaB released long ago, small enough that there's no obvious calamity there, but large enough to believe its probably statistically significant and says something about the archetype's level of difficulty in play.
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Originally Posted by Zem
It's possible. But even that aside the creation rate isn't all that useful, in my opinion. If you want to know what people actually think of Blasters, just look at how many appear to be getting played at each level. The numbers initially created or even played in the first handful of levels.... just aren't that useful. Who cares how many get created initially as long as a healthy number are still playing at level 20, 30, 40, etc? What would be the problem? The AT looks TOO attractive? Is that a real problem?
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MHO: No archetype that some players are enjoying is superfluous. The game is not, in general, so hard that you have to eke out every last point of performance; you can focus on what's fun and run with it.
I have blasters, not because they're necessarily "better" than corruptors or scrappers, but because I enjoy playing them or they fit a theme.
BTW, a side note: I've picked up another MMO that I also play now, and I've learned that I can do this there, too. I just play stuff that's fun, and as long as I'm basically decent at the game, I get groups and have fun. Now I sort of wonder whether my inability to do this back in That Other Game was because I'd not been enlightened or because the game didn't allow it.
CoH, though, remains my absolute favorite game for pure concept play. In CoH, when I see a ninjas/trick-arrow MM with no pets and lacking some of the generally-accepted "good" powers, I don't think "what an idiot", I think "wow, what an awesomely-done archer concept build".
I fail to understand the point of this thread.
If you don't like Blasters, fine don't doesn't bother people who do mostly.
If you want Blasters to be fixed... suggest some fixes.
Personally I think they're great as is, better than a stalker any day.
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What I mean is... I don't think it's that useful to look at the trend from as early as creation or even the first few levels that take people just a couple hours to get through. Just throw that out and look at people who actually seem to be playing the character. At the very least this might throw out a few mules or test characters made as Blasters simply because they were the first on the list.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If you see a downward trend from creation through combat progressional levels, it could be a sign, depending on how strong the trend is, that the archetype is disappointing players in some way as combat ratchets up in the higher levels. There is a small downward trend noticable in the numbers BaB released long ago, small enough that there's no obvious calamity there, but large enough to believe its probably statistically significant and says something about the archetype's level of difficulty in play.
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The point of this sort of thread is usually to justify or make the case to the players and the devs that something should be done. Or.. if you disagree, that something shouldn't be done. |
Originally Posted by Lost Ninja
I fail to understand the point of this thread.
If you don't like Blasters, fine don't doesn't bother people who do mostly. If you want Blasters to be fixed... suggest some fixes. Personally I think they're great as is, better than a stalker any day. |
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Oooh someone talked about a stalker outside the stalker forum.|
Originally Posted by Lost Ninja
I fail to understand the point of this thread.
If you don't like Blasters, fine don't doesn't bother people who do mostly. If you want Blasters to be fixed... suggest some fixes. Personally I think they're great as is, better than a stalker any day. |
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Take the case of a blaster without a damage aura or pets, during the time the team is engaged, they spend time self buffing, using insps, avoiding/shedding aggro. If they are just using aim and buildup as often as possible they are doing damage only 80-90% of the time. |
Originally Posted by JayLeonHart_EU
Not 100%, ~100% - what else would activating a Blaster power do, if not damage? The vast majority are attacks, hence ~100% damage.
Can Controllers or Defenders deal damage 100% of the time? Sure. Would it gimp them horribly? Sure. Are the vast majority of their buff/debuff powers non-damaging? Sure. So assuming they use all their abilities, they would only be dealing damage ~50% of the time, no? The % of time spent doing things is important because an AT who spends ~100% of their combat time dealing dmage, will gain a better boost from damage buffs (in this case, Musculature Alpha) than an AT that spends ~50% of their combat time doing things other than dealing damage. How is this not basic? |
Controllers can actually be doing damage 100% with their pets (if they can keep them alive). Corruptors and Defenders turn the team into their damage by either buffing them or debuffing the enemies.
Pick any 8 and go to town.
I still find the "blasters are poor performing cause of powers that only function in levels 45-50" to be an insanely silly argument.
EDIT: SOME primary and secondary sets could use work, but that's true of every AT.
"COH is so easy that AT doesn't matter.', what you are in effect saying is CoH is so easy it doesn't need to balanced.