City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Suggestion: Buffs for Blasters!

Adeon Hawkwood

By Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-02-24 11:00 in Suggestions and Ideas

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
It should also be noted that Judgment is affected by Musculature alpha increasing it's damage from 491 to 712 and is affected by resistance debuffs.
I did mention that

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Posted

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Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei View Post
See this is where there could be a misunderstanding of what I am saying or not saying so let me try to clear this up right now before it goes any further down this kind of path.

I am not here to defend this or that position per se which if you read up thread, my comments about the pulling out and letting the devs handle this signify this clearly.

I don't see annoying and not worth it as driving forces that will have the "devs" say oh we agree that tier 9 powers are annoying and not worth it and therefore they need to be changed. That is what I am saying nothing more nothing less. There is no need for me to state facts beyond that point because that is the only point that "I" was making period.
You are correct: the fact that powers might be considered "annoying" or "not worth it" do not drive the devs to change things unless that annoyance or valuelessness is extreme.

However, those features would be considered if it could be demonstrated that Blasters needed a buff, and the devs were considering where to focus their attention. I think the case can be made that Blasters deserve *both* a quantitative balance pass *and* a QoL pass, and in that respect both snipes and crashing nukes should be on the table as two of the least practical, and yet most design-significant elements of blaster primaries. It was for similar reasons that the devs paid particular attention to Domination, and Assassin's Strikes, and how Containment functioned in iTrials. These are signature elements of their respective archetypes, and deficiencies in those areas are therefore particularly problematic.

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Posted

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Originally Posted by Hopeling View Post
I'd be a lot more confident in letting the devs handle it if they didn't have 7+ years of not handling it under their belts so far. We have no indication that it's even on their radar.
Blasters are on the devs' radar. I blipped it there personally. When specifically they will get looked at is a question of development resources and time, but I've been told they will consider a pass on Blasters after they've have concluded their publicly stated intent to review the QoL list for Tankers.

Also, Blasters have been looked at in the past, but I believe that what was done was not sufficient to soften Blaster weaknesses while conversely lots of other things have been commensurately buffed in ways which further neutralize Blaster advantages.

In other words, its true Blasters haven't been buffed as much as they should be, but a large element of their problem is not that they weren't buffed, but everything else was in ways that intrude on Blasters as focused damage dealers.

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Posted

Im coming very late to this party.. but I remember back in the day when my Snipe could be slotted Pre-Ed with one Acc and Five damage.. then it was worth the time to fire and the end cost because with BU and AIM I was going to definitely take out at least ONE LT.. That made me very valuable on teams with Airhammer. Sapper.. got him.. Avalance Shaman.. got him.. annoying minion or LT.. done... I could also put a pretty big hurt on a boss.. usually enough to take him out in 3-6 attacks if all worked out well..

And Nukes were actually devastating...

NOW as much as I love my blasters.. they arent nearly the damage kings for the risk involved.. There used to be a very high reward for very high risk... now i can play ANY one of my dominators with permadom and still get very high reward with considerably lower risk since I can mezz mobs.. damage mobs.. cant be mezzed and get massive end recovery...

Blasters should have Snipes totally fixed to be worth a crap and Nukes should get a serious upgrade... Ill even keep the crashes on some... but I want a CRAP TON more damage..

My Tank with a judgement power and footstomp should not be beating things faster than my blaster...

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-

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Blasters are on the devs' radar. I blipped it there personally.
That's good to hear.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
You are correct: the fact that powers might be considered "annoying" or "not worth it" do not drive the devs to change things.
And this is where I ended my statement regarding the issue. People should direct any other issues they have with Blasters, their power and the power creep etc...to the devs radar since they make those decisions.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Airhammer View Post
Im coming very late to this party.. but I remember back in the day when my Snipe could be slotted Pre-Ed with one Acc and Five damage.. then it was worth the time to fire and the end cost because with BU and AIM I was going to definitely take out at least ONE LT.. That made me very valuable on teams with Airhammer. Sapper.. got him.. Avalance Shaman.. got him.. annoying minion or LT.. done... I could also put a pretty big hurt on a boss.. usually enough to take him out in 3-6 attacks if all worked out well..

And Nukes were actually devastating...
When ED went in I made the point of saying that while most people were incorrectly focused on erroneous effects of ED (like the notion that it radically reduced damage output) its real negative impact was in taking away certain slotting options that made certain powers make sense. One of them was the fact that for nukes and snipes there is an intrinsic penalty to giving up damage for recharge, because those are burst tools.

What's interesting about snipes is that even if they were not interruptible, no blaster snipe would be a good option for a normal attack chain because their collective DPA is so horrendously bad. So forcing them to be slotted like any other attack basically reduced them to pulling tools.

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Posted

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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
Maybe. Aim and BU are already really strong already especially on a Blaster which has very high damage mods, it worked for pbs because they have low damage mods.
Fair enough


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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
No.
Why not? The whole point I was trying to make is that EVERY OTHER AT has gotten to take some slices from the "damage" pie. It's about time Blasters were allowed a few pieces of the mez/survival pies.

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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
I don't think the crash of nukes should be completely removed because that would upset the balance between nukes with crashes and nukes without crashes, but the crashes should definitely be reduced in some form or another.
Blasters are already out of balance IMO. Blaster nukes should be different from the other AT's versions because of it.

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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
Blasters aren't Doms.
So what? Again EVERY OTHER AT has gotten to take some slices from the "damage" pie. It's about time Blasters were allowed a few pieces of the mez/survival pies. It's also not like you can use your nuke all the time.

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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
Fire definitely doesnt need mez effects, it's already the strongest primary blasters have by a long shot, if fire got a stun in blaze the damage would be gutted. Taser is fine. Giving Burn stun and sleep protection would be overpowered.
I can't say I agree with anything you said there. Fire can have mez or debuffs without anything being gutted. The mez/debuff doesnt have to be hard controls like stuns it could just as easily be -tohit debuffs. Assuming the damage would be gutted is silly. The point is to improve blasters not trade their dmg for other stuff. Taser having a longer range makes it far more reliable and safer as a mez tool. There is no balance reason not to improve its range. Giving burn stun and sleep protection is HARDLY overpowered. And it also gives a piece of that "survival" pie I mentioned twice now. Blasters NEED to start getting some stuff from those other pies if they want to be balanced. These buffs aren't going to make Blasters invincible... only slightly less fragile.

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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
I'm a strong believe that blasters should still have low base survivability, the problem I see is that other ATs can do as much damage as blasters with significantly better base survivability. Basically Blasters trade their survivability for damage, but the damage they get in comparison to other ATs isn't where it should be. Giving them more mezzing capabilities won't fix blasters, they need more damage, if you want a high damage AT with good mezzing a dom is what you want.
Giving blasters "more damage" and not giving anything to mez/survivability is the wrong way to go. Cause you're just giving blasters what they already have while everyone else is getting what blasters have. It's time blasters get a taste of what everyone else has. Its time to give the notion of "lotsa dmg no survivability" the old heave ho cause frankly no matter how big your numbers might be on paper they are always ZERO if you are dead.

Jem - Ill/Rad Controller Lv 50+3 Nic - Mind/Psi Dominator Lv 50+3 Lady Liberation - Invuln/SS Tanker Lv 50+1 Invicitx - Demon/Pain Mastermind Lv 50+1 Celeste - Emp/Arch Defender Lv 50+1 Nightsilver - DB/WP Scrapper Lv 34 Dusk Howl - StJ/Regen Brute Lv 32 Kyriani - Time/Energy Defender Lv 41Psifire - FF/Psi Defender Lv 50
Star Lighter - LB/LA Peacebringer Lv 30

 

Posted

Wow, Arcana. I couldn't find a suitably mathematical looking ritual circle, but apparently even thinking your name three times summons you kehehehe

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
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Posted

One thing that I think would really help blasters is to give them an inherent power that is actually useful and flavorful and isn't just a weak version of fury.

And fix nukes and snipes.

Personally, I think all nukes should be made ranged and have the crash removed. They'd still be on six-minute recharges, so they wouldn't be overpowered.

 

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Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
Being able to blast while held isn't useful?
Not for nothing but it's really only useful if it lets you kill the mobs before they kill you... outside of that no its actually not useful at all.

Being mezzed means being unable to move and avoid the worst attacks mobs tend to have: Melee. If you can't kill those mobs with your early tier attacks before they kill you then being able to attack while held didn't really help now did it?

Jem - Ill/Rad Controller Lv 50+3 Nic - Mind/Psi Dominator Lv 50+3 Lady Liberation - Invuln/SS Tanker Lv 50+1 Invicitx - Demon/Pain Mastermind Lv 50+1 Celeste - Emp/Arch Defender Lv 50+1 Nightsilver - DB/WP Scrapper Lv 34 Dusk Howl - StJ/Regen Brute Lv 32 Kyriani - Time/Energy Defender Lv 41Psifire - FF/Psi Defender Lv 50
Star Lighter - LB/LA Peacebringer Lv 30

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
Being able to blast while held isn't useful?
Significantly useful, which is why of the four other archetypes specifically designated to be damage dealers (Scrappers, Brutes, Stalkers, and Dominators), all four are rarely if ever unable to use any of their powers due to mez. Blasters get to use three, which is a lot better than zero, and somewhat worse than all.

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Posted

Kyriani says it's not useful, but Arcanaville says it is useful. That means it is useful, because Arcanaville has more posts.

Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.

 

Posted

[QUOTE=Kyriani;4132531]Fair enough


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Why not? The whole point I was trying to make is that EVERY OTHER AT has gotten to take some slices from the "damage" pie. It's about time Blasters were allowed a few pieces of the mez/survival pies.
The point should be to balance blasters with other ATs, not make them carbon copies of every other AT.

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Blasters are already out of balance IMO. Blaster nukes should be different from the other AT's versions because of it.
Blasters are and should be more than nukes on legs, they have 8 other powers in their primaries to use than just nukes. Furthermore Corruptors have nukes in their primary as well, their primaries are just as important to their AT as blaster primaries are important to their AT, nukes need fixing across the board, not just for blasters.

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So what? Again EVERY OTHER AT has gotten to take some slices from the "damage" pie. It's about time Blasters were allowed a few pieces of the mez/survival pies. It's also not like you can use your nuke all the time.
Blasters are pure damage ATs, if you want to be able to mez or buff or debuff as well a blaster is not for you. Blasters are meant to be best at dealing damage, currently they are not, giving them stuff from "mez/survival pies" does not contribute to the overall goal of the blaster nor fix the issue that they have.

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I can't say I agree with anything you said there. Fire can have mez or debuffs without anything being gutted. The mez/debuff doesnt have to be hard controls like stuns it could just as easily be -tohit debuffs. Assuming the damage would be gutted is silly. The point is to improve blasters not trade their dmg for other stuff.
Fire's secondary effect is DoT. Damage is mitigation. Dead enemies cannot dps you. Increasing Blaster dps increases Blaster survivability.

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Taser having a longer range makes it far more reliable and safer as a mez tool. There is no balance reason not to improve its range.
Do you actually know what a taser is?

From wikipedia:
The Taser fires two small dart-like electrodes, which stay connected to the main unit by conductive wire as they are propelled by small compressed nitrogen charges similar to some air gun or paintball marker propellants[clarification needed]. The air cartridge contains a pair of electrodes and propellant for a single shot and is replaced after each use. There are a number of cartridges designated by range, with the maximum at 35 feet (10.6 m).[21] Cartridges available to non-law enforcement consumers are limited to 15 feet (4.5 m).[22] The electrodes are pointed to penetrate clothing and barbed to prevent removal once in place. Earlier Taser models had difficulty in penetrating thick clothing, but newer versions (X26, C2) use a "shaped pulse" that increases effectiveness in the presence of barriers.[23]

Emphasis in bold, a taser isn't a long range device. Originally taser was a melee power, it was buffed to a quite reasonable range.


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Giving burn stun and sleep protection is HARDLY overpowered. And it also gives a piece of that "survival" pie I mentioned twice now. Blasters NEED to start getting some stuff from those other pies if they want to be balanced. These buffs aren't going to make Blasters invincible... only slightly less fragile.
1) Blasters can use their t1s and t2s while mezzed
2) Giving mez protection to a single secondary messes with balance between sets in ATs. Fire manipulation is balanced by having the highest dps output, giving it strong mez protection doesnt make sense. Balance within an AT is just as important as balance between multiple ATs.


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Giving blasters "more damage" and not giving anything to mez/survivability is the wrong way to go. Cause you're just giving blasters what they already have while everyone else is getting what blasters have. It's time blasters get a taste of what everyone else has. Its time to give the notion of "lotsa dmg no survivability" the old heave ho cause frankly no matter how big your numbers might be on paper they are always ZERO if you are dead.
Sorry to tell you this, but blasters are meant to deal damage, they're meant to be the best at dealing damage. They are not. They need more damage. More damage is survivability. Dead enemies cannot fight back. A good blaster will be very survivable. Yes it does take combat awareness. No you don't need "mez/survivability" buffs to make blasters survivable, it's just a different playstyle. If you really want survivability in the form of stats, softcap your blaster to S/L or Ranged defense and pick up clarion/rebirth/barrier and or use powersets that have stuns/debuffs/healing, blasters already have the tools they need, they just need a bit of a buff to their damage modifiers.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
Do you actually know what a taser is?
I know what a Nova is.



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Dead enemies cannot fight back

...

blasters already have the tools they need
When I fail to get the ability to mitigate damage by making everything immediately dead, I will move on to other tools.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
I know what a Nova is.





When I fail to get the ability to mitigate damage by making everything immediately dead, I will move on to other tools.
See this is what I am trying to say.

I understand blasters are meant to be primary damage dealers.

I understand that right now blasters don't do the top damage.

Buffing blaster damage is an acceptable buff... in ADDITION to other things

Blaster damage will NEVER be buffed to the point I think many people want it to be

Because of that... buffs in OTHER areas are what we should be asking for in ADDITION to more damage.

Blasters are not entirely strangers to mez effects. We have powers like Freeze Ray, Bitter Freeze Ray, Tesla Cage, Stunning Shot, Dark Pit, Ice Patch, The various immobilizes, and so on. IF a nuke has a mez effect already... there's no logical reason to object to upping its mag to mag 4 just to improve the chances of survival when bosses are in the spawn. It's not going to turn them into doms or controllers. It's taking what the power does already and just making it a little stronger.

Blasters are not entirely strangers to survival/buff/utility powers. We have powers like, Cloaking Device which provides stealth and defense, Power Sink which drains/restores endurance, Power Boost which buffs secondary effects like defense, mez effects, etc., Drain Psyche which debuffs/buffs regen and recovery, and other powers I could name. The point is letting blasters dip into a bit more things like this will NOT fundamentally change how blasters play or their intended role. It will however bring them up to par with the versatility that all the other AT's seem to have IN ADDITION to an ample helping of "damage pie".

Jem - Ill/Rad Controller Lv 50+3 Nic - Mind/Psi Dominator Lv 50+3 Lady Liberation - Invuln/SS Tanker Lv 50+1 Invicitx - Demon/Pain Mastermind Lv 50+1 Celeste - Emp/Arch Defender Lv 50+1 Nightsilver - DB/WP Scrapper Lv 34 Dusk Howl - StJ/Regen Brute Lv 32 Kyriani - Time/Energy Defender Lv 41Psifire - FF/Psi Defender Lv 50
Star Lighter - LB/LA Peacebringer Lv 30

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyriani View Post
Blasters are not entirely strangers to mez effects. We have powers like Freeze Ray, Bitter Freeze Ray, Tesla Cage, Stunning Shot, Dark Pit, Ice Patch, The various immobilizes, and so on. IF a nuke has a mez effect already... there's no logical reason to object to upping its mag to mag 4 just to improve the chances of survival when bosses are in the spawn. It's not going to turn them into doms or controllers. It's taking what the power does already and just making it a little stronger.
There is precedent for objection. Energy Manipulation's Total Focus used to be mag 4. It was nerfed to mag 3 because the devs felt blasters shouldnt have burst mezzing that is stronger than that of controllers.

 

Posted

How did we get from 'Nukes and Snipes could really used improvement' to talking about Mez?

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
I know what a Nova is.
Are you suggesting that the Energy Blaster tier 9 should involve getting into a car and driving away from the whole mess?

Or is it driving the car into the enemies?

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by MajorDecoy View Post
Are you suggesting that the Energy Blaster tier 9 should involve getting into a car and driving away from the whole mess?

Or is it driving the car into the enemies?
Could be worse.
Could be a Prius

/Jeff Dunham

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanden View Post
Being able to blast while held isn't useful?
It's better than nothing, but being able to use your two weakest single target blasts and an even weaker single target immobilize isn't exactly something to write home about.

 

Posted

The one thing we have to remember is this is a game, something enjoyable to do to pass the time. Being consistantly dead is not fun, nor is your one-trick-pony being out-tricked by almost everything else. Far too many times I've been outdamaged by Dominators, Defenders and even Controllers when playing a Blaster because of the extra tricks they have for dealing damage (Controllable criticals/pets), the self support (Mezzing entire groups for carefree damage) or actually having higher base damage (Blaster Power Blast at level 50 - 102.60; Dominator Power Blast at level 50 - 103.55, from ingame real numbers)

Why am I being outdamaged by a control Archetype capable of completely locking down entire groups, including bosses, before they take damage?

Time and time again I have a character concept who could be a Blaster, I LOVE Blasters, but the number cruncher in me knows it'd be better as a Dominator, or Corruptor, because they can get similar or more damage while being able to get away with far more than a Blaster can with minimal effort and be better in a team because they offer MORE than damage, but still put the damage on the table.

At the very least
* Halve the recharge of crashing Nukes
* Halve the animation time of crashing Nukes
* Increase the base damage of Blaster attacks by at least 10%
* Increase the damage buff of Defiance by at least an extra 3% per stack
* Defiance damage buffs last for 1 minute but cap at 20 stacks

Ideally I would like
* Increase the base damage of Blaster attacks by at least 25%
* Make that bonus damage untyped
* Defiance adds 0.5 points of mez protection per stack, last for 1 minute and stack up to 20 times
* Current crashing nukes have their recharge, animation time AND endurance/recovery crash halved
* Aim and Build Up's durations increased to 15 seconds for Blasters only
* Devices, Ice Manip, Psi Blast and Elec Blast buffed

If I was being greedy..
* Defiance adds 15% regeneration, 10% recovery and 1 point of mez protection per stack, Defiance buffs last for 1 minute and stack up to 20 times
* Defiance changed so that rather than being able to use basic attacks while mezzed, the Blaster now also gains damage the lower their Health and/or Endurance get
* Crashing nukes have their recharge and animation time halved, the crash removed and damage increased by 25-50%
* All Blaster attacks have some kind of soft mez added to them (Knockdown, stun, fear etc)
* Base Blaster health increased to be on par with Scrappers, Blaster health cap increased on par with the new Stalker cap

I am the Blaster, I have filled the role of Tank, Controller and Defender
Sometimes all at once.
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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by DreadShinobi View Post
There is precedent for objection. Energy Manipulation's Total Focus used to be mag 4. It was nerfed to mag 3 because the devs felt blasters shouldnt have burst mezzing that is stronger than that of controllers.
More insidiously, it was because the devs felt Blasters should not be able to neutralize bosses. Scrappers are designed to fight them, Tankers are designed to survive them, and Controllers are designed to control them. Blasters are designed to run from them.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by MajorDecoy View Post
Are you suggesting that the Energy Blaster tier 9 should involve getting into a car and driving away from the whole mess?

Or is it driving the car into the enemies?
It should be a lot more fun when it crashes.

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