Crashless Nukes *Might* Happen

Care of the latest dev chat highlights:

"They've moved away from the Tier 9 nuke type penalties. Synapse has been thinking about maybe lessening the crash from the nukes. But if they did that, they'd have to lessen the damage."

I must say that I would be in favor of this. I don't mind the weaker nukes like RoA, HoB, and Full Auto, because they don't have a crash. I do have crashing nukes on my Energy and Electric Blaster, but I don't use them all that much because of the crash. If those were removed, they would probably be used in my arsenal often, like their Judgement powers.

What do you all think of the idea? I think we'd like it, given past Blaster discussions, but I am curious to see what everyone else thinks.

Well lets me just say that I dont want a crashless inferno if they reduce the damage. As a fire/em legacy blaster I've tweaked my end costs and recovey thru Io's, that the loss of damage would not make up for the panic button and Alpha I occasionally use it for. There is something to be said for being able to go into a large group of NPC's and nuking while knowing that only the bosses are going to survive, and even then said bosses are going to be less a quarter of their health. You know this is cause my secondary effect is, you know more damage anyway.

Other than that if they do this on a case by case basis. I actually wouldnt have a problem with something like electric not having a crash in thunderous blast nor in blizzard. My problem would arise in the PBAOE nukes that need to be big so that anyting else is either dead or severly hurting since if the crash was lessened to a extent, your still in the middle of a not quite dead group of angry NPC's. Maybe if they added a 5 to 10 second mag 4 unenhanceable stun effect to all PBAOE nukes so that your not sitting there starkers while they are ripping you to shreds.

I would like it, but I can understand the point of view of people who don't mind the crash and would dislike a change lessening the damage.

For that matter, I don't buy the argument that nukes would need to do less damage if the crash was lessened. If the idea is that this amount of burst damage without a crash is gamebreaking, what of Shield Charge + Judgement + Musculature, or Judgement + Musculature significant res debuffs? Either of these will do the same damage as a damagecapped Nova, without a crash, on ATs with superior survivability options. Yes, incarnate powers, yadda yadda, but still. Would crashless blaster nukes truly mess the level 32-45 game balance? Is that argument even plausible when we compare it to the disparity in performance between various powersets within the same AT in this game?

Please no... I pick crashing nukes for one purpose: to blow the hell out of a spawn. I do like the crashless nukes but when I grab Nova or Inferno it's because I want to make an entire spawn disappear in a huge explosion...

Eh, I don't think I'd dig it if the damage was lessened.

It's very easy to Nuke, pop a blue, use an endurance recovery power, and continue on my merry way. The crash is very manageable, especially since I don't run a ton of toggles on blasters anyway.

Nope.. I want my nukes just the way they are thank you.. I dont want less damage..

BU/Aim BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Pop a blue.. keep it moving...

i personally would prefer all the nukes be crashless, i usually avoid taking nukes that have crashes because the crash is just so annoying

best option make 2 options, one crashes the other doesn't. Once you pick one the other is greyed out like how some SOA powers currently works tech is already there why not.

Heck yes I'd take a crashless nuke. While I have the nuke on my Fire/EM blaster, and have it slotted up (Eradication) thanks to the crash I probably only use it once a night. Mostly it's there now as a set IO mule.

I'd be absolutely good with moving it's damage to on par with Rain of Arrows if it became something I could actually use every time it came up.

Simply scaling back the old nukes to the crashless nuke model seems like a missed opportunity. (This goes double if they end up like DP's tier 9.) If the problem is not enough bang for the buck, more bang is as good a solution as less buck.

So while I don't like making powers work differently for different ATs, I did have a random thought.

What if nukes were extra affected by the various ATs' inherents? Defender nuke end crash reduced by Vigilance, Corruptor nuke scourge triggering off higher HP targets, Blaster nuke giving a huge defiance self-buff and its crash delayed for the defiance duration?

I was just about to ask about this. My Beamer got a level bump and I enjoyed not having a crash. I also enjoyed double nuking with Burnout. I'm with Nihili. There's no reason the damage should be reduced. Maybe increase the recharge time a bit, but if you lower the damage you're just gonna piss off people either way.

I think the real reason for this possible change isnt what blasters want so much as how others view blasters. I have only one devoted blaster though i have tried many different power combos over the years. What I found long ago was that I wouldnt use the nuke or snipe enough to justify them at all. Some here say well its easy to nuke pop a blue and be on thier way.

Yet the reality is any end crash is a bad thing especially if you run a few toggles. I myself have long favored the steady stream of dmg by not using a nuke and focussing on my main aoes and melt mobs so fast I never worry. Judgment gave me a nuke end game which certainly has been nice and really made my choice to not carry the natural nuke of my set seem all the wiser.

The age of the holy trinity is long past and blasters as a warrior caste need to be retooled abit. I would have no issues with nukes being changed abit, but I also would like to see more 2ndary sets for blasters with the diverse uses that mental manipulation have. Self healing/end recovery and controls plus strong dmg. that is what more blaster sets need.

hell take out somethign worthless from devices and give it a self heal like from the med pool but no interupt and about 2 times the base effect and then that set would see alot more use to be sure by more then concept toons.

I'd be tempted. First the spawn clearing capabilities of Nukes are greatly exaggerated. Without some big external damage enhancers everything below lieutenants is dead, lieutenants may be dead depending or will be affected by secondary effect, bosses will be hurt, Elite Bosses will go “what was that”, Arch Villains and Giant Monsters just look at you and say “Seriously dude, you thought that would hurt me?” Second while the crash can be mitigated I wouldn’t mind having a tier 9 power with no crash.

Think about it, even with lesser damage then now the damage is still enhanceable where Judgement is not and will probably still be greater than the Judgement powers. Having a Tier 9 that is more damaging then Judgement but that can be fired with the same abandon and similar frequency would be nice.

>.>

Inferno should be renamed to Meteor Storm and just be an RoA clone with a different graphic/damage type

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I mean, I know I wouldn't object to that

One thing to consider -- most of the crashing nukes are PBAoEs, and as far as I know, the popular crashless ones are ranged (Assault Rifle and Rain of Arrows). I'm not sure about the Dual Pistols crashless nuke...I think it's PBAoE, but it also seems to be less popular, going by the forums at least.

A crashless PBAoE nuke with reduced damage might mean exposing yourself to a lot of danger and still not killing the spawn -- sort of a poor compromise.

If they change inferno, I would rather see it become an uber fireball attack, rather than a PBAoE. Part of the balance for increased damage is the fact you have to be eyeball to eyeball with your targets to use it.

Apart from inferno and blizzard, crashy nukes barely do more damage than crashless nukes. Okay, by most standards "half again" isn't "barely" but they pay well over 50% more of a penalty, seeing as they have a penalty at all and crashless nukes do not. They recharge three times more slowly than hail of bullets, and six times more slowly than rain of arrows or full auto. Ironically, hail of bullets, rain of arrows and full auto also keep the blaster safer than many crashy nukes, between their range or their defense buffs. Only blizzard and thunderous blast have the same advantage. Thunderous blast, of course, doing less damage than its cohorts in exchange for this.

Really the main case for crashy nukes seems to be their strong thematic tie to comic books. Who doesn't love it when the hero, in his direst need, summons forth the strength to overcome the odds while being left drained? Very dramatic and all that. One cannot make an objective case against crashy nukes if the reason a player likes them is something like this, but one can point out that in the comic book it's perfectly plausible that the hero will have defeated all of the villains with his mighty attack, whereas in CoH chances are good that there are going to be some villains left, probably within spitting distance.

I personally am all for crashless nukes. When I compare what my Archer can do every
Now there are a couple crash of nukes that do there job really well 1. Inferno and 2. Blizzard

Other than that, most of the nukes leave too much standing to have to also deal with the endurance crash.

Full Auto        :  534.0 /  60s
Rain of Arrows   :  814.4 /  60s
Hail of Bullets  :  761.3 / 120s
Thunderous Blast :  961.4 / 360s : -End
Nova             : 1102.8 / 360s : KB
Psychic Wail     : 1102.8 / 360s : -Rech 11.3s Mag 3 Stun
Atomic Blast     : 1102.8 / 360s : -Def 11.9s Mag 3 Hold
Dreadful Wail    : 1102.8 / 360s : -Res 11.3s Mag 3 Stun
Inferno          : 1707.4 / 360s : None
Blizzard         : 1809.7 / 360s : -ToHit -KD -Rech (During)

I would really dislike if they reduced nuke damage in exchange for making them crashless. Yeah, they would probably be 'better', but they wouldn't be anywhere near as fun.

I don't have the AoE factor and damage/recharge formulae available at the moment, but if I recall correctly the nukes actually don't do as much damage as the formula says they should (on the other hand, the actual end *cost* (ignoring the crash) is, if I recall correctly, not as much as it should be). If they remove the crash, honestly all I think would need doing is somewhat increasing the 'normal' endurance costs. If a scrapper is allowed to BU-SC-LR for somewhere between 400 and 1000 damage (depending on how close they enemy is to the center) every 45 seconds with no crash, I don't think it's unreasonable to let a blaster aim-BU-nova for about 1100 damage 4 times less frequently with no crash.

As of now I almost always skip crash-laden Nukes unless I am using them as set mules. My Fire/En has Inferno for the same reason he has Blazing Bolt - because he had them when he hit 50 in I1. Otherwise I would have ditched both of those long ago. My Cold/Sonic has Dreadful Wail because he also has Heat Loss. Everywhere else I have a crash-laden Nuke it is there only as a set mule.

IMO all the crash-laden Nukes need a major buff of some sort (as do all the Snipes). But instead of getting rid of the crash they should just change it to something easier to live with than flat-lining your blue bar and zeroing your Rec for 15s. Say replace the -1000% Recovery with -50 MaxEND and -100% Recharge for 15s and reduce the END cost to a flat 35 END or so to avoid the do-toggle (the reason I hate crashing Nukes on Defs and Corrs).