Crashless Nukes *Might* Happen

I'm all for bumping the damage up or making them auto-hit but the crash is part of what makes the nukes feel like nukes.

I think a large portion (if not all) of the Blaster users out there would be quite happy* with crashing nukes if the targeted spawns actually went "poof" when you hit them. Short of taking out EB's and AV's it is completely reasonable that the "ultimate release" of a blasters power would wipe an entire spawn of 10-12 even or +1 mobs off the map, bosses included.




*there will always be grumpy exceptions

We can debate about "How we like to use which kinds of nukes" for days. The real question we need to ask ourselves is: Why now are the Devs entertaining the thought of removing crashes from nukes?

My theory is that the Devs' numbers show that nukes with crashes are not being used often, probably even less now that Judgement has been around for a while. I know that, in my case, this holds true. I use Rain of Arrows at least 10 times as often as other nukes. While half of that maybe to due to the extraordinarily short recharge time, another part of it is that, after I've launched it, I can go right into using any of my other attacks without having to pop a blue, or run in to use some endurance recovery power. And nowadays, I would much rather launch my Cryonic Judgement and be able to keep on shooting rather than launching Blizzard, having to hit a blue, having to re-toggle 2 or more powers and THEN keep on shooting.

In short, I believe that those that use their nukes as often as they are up are in the minority. While "less damage" sounds bad in my head, I know I would use my nuke attacks far more often if I didn't have to worry about any end crash. And considering how seldom I use crashing nukes now, I probably wouldn't notice the damage difference.

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I do want to say this: If such a change were to occur, I think PBAoE nukes and ranged nukes should be treated differently. As has been stated, an Elec/ or Ice/ blaster does not have to worry about being surrounded by anything their nuke does not kill. As to how to do that and keep things balanced between power sets, and in relation to the game, I do not know, there are a lot of variables to consider.

I, personally, would like it as I've never been a fan of the crash. I wonder if they can do something like a 'split' Tier 9, where the player can choose to have the big nuke with a crash, or they can choose the less damage crashless nuke.

Nukes are already criminally underpowered for their recharge according to the damage formula used by most powers. Synapse was probably just speaking off the cuff, I'm sure if he sat down and looked at the numbers he would probably not reduce the damage after all. If anything he might increase it.

The game has changed a great deal since the 'crashing' tier 9s were first conceived. Aggro and AoE target limits, spawn changes, etc. The 'one big boom, then recover' philosophy just doesn't fit any more.

If anything, keep the crash, double the damage and increase the recharge.

What really keeps me from using my Nuke's isn't so much the crash as it's the fact that, even fully slotted, it still won't take out an entire spawn.

The crash fits thematically. Taking Nova for instance. I always looked at it as a last ditch, summon all my power kind of moment. It would make sense that it would leave you a bit winded afterwards. Yet when in practice, it hits more like a slightly built up torrent... and drains you 100%.

For my part, I would rather Nova keep the crash but get effects commensurate with the high cost of a crash.

Some numbers for discussion purposes. The AoE factor of Nova is 4.75. It averages 4.875 damage today. Its recharge is 360 and its endurance cost is 20.8, plus a crash to zero, plus no recovery for 20 seconds.

If we balanced Nova around its recharge, it would do 12.2 scale damage on average. That is about 760 damage unslotted at level 50 for a blaster.

The endurance recovery for a player with 100 max end and with slotted stamina is about 50 points of endurance in 20 seconds. The end cost is thus at least 70 end and on average closer to 110 end (you have to have at least 20.8 end to fire it, and thus the average amount of end you might have when you fire it is the average of 20.8 and 100 or about 60).

If we balance nova around its average calculated endurance costs it would deal scale 4.45 damage. If we balanced around its maximum endurance cost it would deal 6.07 damage on average.

None of this factors in the qualitative penalty of actually being crashed. It just looks at the bare knuckle recharge and endurance numbers, and calculates what the current powers system rules would predict for the damage of Nova. I'm not saying those rules should automatically apply in extreme situations like this, but I am saying they offer guidence as to the question of whether Nova is really being generous with its damage or not. Its not. Even with the crash, Nova is operating under a damage penalty which is being imposed because the devs simply think Nova shouldn't be allowed to do very much more damage than it currently does, and not for any numerical balancing reason.


So is there a non-numeric gameplay reason why Nova should top out at 4.875 average (I'm using Nova mainly because its one of the simpler crash nukes to analyze)? Well, at level 50 that is about 305 base damage. Its *maximum* damage (scale 6.0 if all waves hit) is about 375. Unslotted for damage, it actually cannot even defeat an even con minion (430 health). Slotted to the ED soft cap it deals 595 average, and 731 max. That is enough to defeat even minions, but not enough to defeat even Lts (860 health). So at the moment, if you fire Nova just slotted for damage, you'll probably kill all the minions around (assuming you hit them all) and leave the Lts and Bosses alive unless they were significantly damaged before you fired Nova.

Of course you can use BU and Aim on Nova in theory. That would increase the damage to 1090 average and 1340 max. That is now enough to defeat Lts, but not Bosses. Of course, that sequence takes, by my calculations, 4.5 seconds from the moment you trigger BU to the moment Nova lands its damage on the targets (1.32 seconds for BU and Aim each in ArcanaTime, and 1.83 seconds from the moment Nova is activated to the moment the damage lands, which it does before Nova completes its cast). That's kind of a long time.

And lets look at that in more detail. 3.0 is guaranteed. 75% will get 1.5 more, and 50% will get 1.5 more damage. That means 12.5% of all targets will get just the base 3.0 damage, 37.5% will get all 6.0, and 50% will get 4.5. Or, out of eight targets, 1 will get base damage, 4 will get base plus one wave, and 3 will get base plus two waves.

The BU + Aim + slotted Nova attack deals 671 base, 1006 intermediate, and 1342 maximum damage. One in eight Lts will survive Nova even when the blaster buffs it to about the maximum damage level the standard powers allows, outside of things like damage inspirations and invention damage bonuses. It also doesn't include defiance buffs which will likely be lower than normal due to the time spent using BU and Aim. Its unlikely to boost that 671 to 860.

So the "panic button" Energy Blast attack, that takes 3 seconds to cast and crashes my endurance to zero making me unable to attack effectively without significant outside aid for 20 whole seconds, cannot reliably kill Lts even if it hits even if I buff it with both of my damage self buff powers.

Given the costs of crashing and the enormous latitude the actual balance formulas provide, I don't think Nova deals enough damage to be balanced, and I don't think there is a gameplay reason why Nova has to be curtailed to the level it is now. The level it is at now can't even reliably kill LTs, and I would think a crashing nuke that knocks out a blaster's damage potential for 20 seconds can afford to take out Lts reliably.


Here's one other way to look at it. Nova has a 16 target cap, so when its activated the maximum amount of damage it can deal, in scale points, is 4.875 * 16 = 78 based on its average damage per target. It then at least attempts to suppress blaster damage for 20 seconds with the crash (you can work around the crash in various ways, but this is what the crash penalty intends to do). That means, more or less, Nova can *at best* be considered to be delivering 78 scale damage in 23 seconds (cast plus crash) or 3.4 DS/sec.

The single target damage potential of Energy Blast itself is around 1.0 DS/sec. Torrent, hitting its target cap, can deal 9.6 DS per cycle, and Explosive Blast hitting its target cap can deal 14.4 DS per cycle. Slotting minimally for recharge we should be able to get at least two torrents and two EBs into that 23 second window (fractionally more torrents) which means 48 DS can be delivered by AoEs in that timeframe, burning about 6.3 seconds of Arcanatime. That leaves about 16.7 seconds of single target damage at 1 DS per second, or about 16 DS. Total damage in 23 seconds is about 64 DS.

So Nova only does 22% more damage than Energy Blast could do by ignoring it and just humming along with regular attacks, and that is assuming Nova hits its target cap of 16 targets. If you aren't going to hit at least 12 targets with Nova, you might actually be better off not using it and using your regular attacks instead, assuming you can still fit comparable numbers into torrent and EB.

So from the perspective of "how much damage does Nova deliver" vs "how much damage does it take away by crashing" Nova is "balanced" around hitting 12 targets, assuming you think Nova is only supposed to do as well as your normal attacks do. If you think its supposed to actually be *better* than your normal attacks, you had better hit more than 12, or be really crappy with using your normal AoEs.


So to recap: based on its recharge Nova doesn't do enough damage. Based on its endurance costs out of the entire range of possibilities that would be reasonable Nova does almost the worst possible level of damage. Based on its opportunity cost due to the crash (and its own activation time) it only breaks even with normal Energy Blast attacks if it hits 12 or more targets, and at best it only provides a 20% premium over normal attacks at the target cap. And based on what its net results are in-game verses even con critters it can't even reliably defeat Lts. And without BU and Aim it won't even *usually* defeat Lts.

Do I want the crash removed? No. I want the power to be worthy of a crash. And the numbers say that there's lots of head room to buff the damage without doing anything game-breaking, and both the normal balance rules and normal in-game analysis of its situational use suggest its too low given its usage. If analysis says its too low, and there's no game-breaking limit holding it down, that tells me its a reasonable buff candidate.

Is there *any* reason why Nova or other crashing nukes might be considered too strong to buff? Perhaps. This analysis won't necessarily work for Blizzard: Blizzard is far stronger than most nukes and it was buffed at a time when players strongly devalued DoT. And there are team situations where you can mitigate the crash entirely and buff recharge to the point where blasters in the team can fire nukes almost continuously. But are those reasons to keep the power weaker than it should be for all other circumstances? In my opinion no.

Great! Thanks for the analysis. I think that's the other side of the coin that I have heard before. People seem to want the current crashing nukes to either be like the current ones with a crash, or to do enough damage to justify the crash (I kind of feel the same way about Snipes, to be honest). I guess I'd be fine with either way... just something to justify the crash or make them be up more often and do what the current, non-crashing nukes can accomplish.

I love inferno on my fire/cold, but that is because i can have enough recovery to power right through the crash. Hated the crash on my elec/elec cause you have to pop a blue anyway to fire off powersink, plus piwersink is a tiny aoe.

If I had my way they'd still crash hard, but not right down to zero end. The toggle drop is annoying and in my mind I just add the time it takes to retoggle to the cast time.

As a result i feel i can often do about as much damage with fireball+rof+firebreath+fireball, but with much less restriction.

Unless the plan is to make them like prenerfed shield charge (fast cast,fast rech, built in mitigation to use it, hit really hard still) then i'd go in the opposite direction and like more damage. But i'd mostly just like hem to only take you down to about 5-10 end.

I would rather they lose the crash, since if they were balanced to be worth it most of the time you'd be wasting the powers' potential, and they would approach "too awesome to use" territory.

I love Thunderous Blast just like it is, thank you very much. I do NOT want it to be crashless if it means losing damage.

From a comic book standpoint, it fits Blasters perfectly. Put everything you have into a massive blast that wipes you out, but also wreaks havoc on a lot of bad guys. Situational, but oh so worth it when you decide to make an entire spawn vanish in one massive blast.

The ONLY way I would be okay with a change is if they made it optional. As someone else posted, give us a choice between the crashing, mega damage version, or the crashless, less damage version. I'll pick the crash every time with Thunderous Blast on my main, though I might go a different route with my alts.

I get what people are saying, but thematically, and as just my personal preference, I don't want ANY change to my Thunderous Blast that would lessen its damage at the time of impact. I don't want it crashless, or faster recharge (I have plenty of powers to use, I don't need to cycle my big nuke into a normal rotation), or a rain, just leave it alone, or give me the option to keep it if you decide to make an alternate version for the folks that would prefer it to be different.

tldr: Leave my Thunderous Blast alone! I love it just the way it is, and DON'T want it to change! :-)

-LR

I'll just throw this out there. Just like changing APPs this is a BAD idea. If the devs are going to do this they need to give us a branching tier 9 and let us choose our tier 9.

Guidelines that "should" be followed.

Crashing nukes should be fast activating PBAoEs that do massive damage and they should be on long timers.

Non-crashing nukes should be (non)/TAoEs/cones that do about 1/4 the damage by comparison and recharge 4 times faster.

Doing that means that no-one loses their playstyle.

If this does get done, they need to give full auto a second pass as well.

It has four major problems, narrow cone, 10 target cap, long animation, and lowest damage of all the nukes (low base damage and lack of aim in the the set). A 45 degree cone and a 16 target cap hardly seems unreasonable or overpowering.

I'd be in favor of the crashes going away. Would actually use the powers, then.

I'm with Arcanaville. Make the nukes more powerful and keep the crash.

Why not get rid of the -REC, and have it cost you 20.5 END to cast, with a hit that that drops the rest of your end down to a minimum of 10% END, so you can have END left long enough to pop a blue, without dropping toggles?

I know I don't mind the crash on my Blasters as much as I do on my Defs/Corrs.

Blaster = NUKE EM! \o/

Cor/Def = SKIP IT! *cries*