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By the same token, I tend to favor solutions I believe will actually work, won't cause greater problems, and have a decent chance of being implemented by the developers. What's complicated and unproven to you may not be to me.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Yes I know. It's like saying that aspartame is an alternative to sugar but only blasters are on a diet. Then overlooking that aspartame reduces kidney function in some people, causes migraines in others, can increase the likelihood of heart disease in some, can frequently cause preterm delivery in pregnant women, has some studies showing that it doesn't help with weight loss, and is a mild metabolic poison...... but at least it isn't sugar.
I personally like to avoid complicated and unproven solutions when simple proven ones exist. The more complex something is the more likely it is that something will happen or that something else will go wrong which leaves the problem in place (or a worse one) until the next time the devs have a chance to make a pass at it, say 2+ years down the road. Edit - and mez resistance doesn't prevent mitigation from offensive toggles being lost nor does it prevent existing mitigation from defense/resistance toggles from being suppressed. We need a solution that doesn't make so many of the powers we get to pick useless. Mez resistance vs mez protection has the same issues that you site between damage resistance and defense. Blasters are combat ATs forced to enter combat by their design. They should have the same tools that the other combat ATs have perhaps just not at similar levels. |
I've been down this road before. I pleaded with the devs not to make so much defense available, and especially to everyone. They basically didn't listen. What they did do was decide everyone now has too much defense and is adding tohit buffs back into the game at an accelerating rate. The same tohit buffs I worked for years to remove in the first place are back with a vengeance, and with them defense sets are starting to feel the cracks.
I don't plan on living long enough to be able to repeat this experiment enough times to be statistically certain. I'm plenty certain enough now.
In any case, I know mez protection is not the only way to solve this problem, because two out of the four hero archetypes solve this problem without mez protection. And their tools are so much less likely to be tampered with. I know they work because I know they did not have performance numbers in the toilet with Blasters prior to D2.0. Their solution is actually in many ways so much better than mez protection because its active defense, and active defense is a lot harder for the devs to nerf away.
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I wouldn't be too sure about that either.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
By the same token, I tend to favor solutions I believe will actually work, won't cause greater problems, and have a decent chance of being implemented by the developers. What's complicated and unproven to you may not be to me.
I've been down this road before. I pleaded with the devs not to make so much defense available, and especially to everyone. They basically didn't listen. What they did do was decide everyone now has too much defense and is adding tohit buffs back into the game at an accelerating rate. The same tohit buffs I worked for years to remove in the first place are back with a vengeance, and with them defense sets are starting to feel the cracks. I don't plan on living long enough to be able to repeat this experiment enough times to be statistically certain. I'm plenty certain enough now. In any case, I know mez protection is not the only way to solve this problem, because two out of the four hero archetypes solve this problem without mez protection. And their tools are so much less likely to be tampered with. I know they work because I know they did not have performance numbers in the toilet with Blasters prior to D2.0. Their solution is actually in many ways so much better than mez protection because its active defense, and active defense is a lot harder for the devs to nerf away. |
Total focus nerf comes to mind, Power Boost's KB removal nerf, Acrobatics nerf all relatively recent and if not targeted directly at blasters (we know that 2 of the three were for sure) then targeted in such a way to adversely affect blasters the most while potentially "looking" even handed.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
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None of those things are what the other archetypes use, as evidenced by the fact that those things did not adversely affect defender or controller performance. They use pervasive and cumulative non-damaging effects.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I wouldn't be too sure about that either.
Total focus nerf comes to mind, Power Boost's KB removal nerf, Acrobatics nerf all relatively recent and if not targeted directly at blasters (we know that 2 of the three were for sure) then targeted in such a way to adversely affect blasters the most while potentially "looking" even handed. |
You can't take away defender and controller survivability all in one jump because there is no target for the devs to hit. Total Focus was an outlier, and thus vulnerable. When I asked Castle why he was taking away one of the best defensive tools away from Blasters when they clearly needed defensive help, his reply was basically "should blaster survivability come down to a single power that not all blasters can have?" And he was right - and wrong. It shouldn't, although that doesn't mean we should be taking away the very thing the archetype needs. But that's what made total focus vulnerable: it was a great power in a good blapper set that was seen as an extremely good offensive and defensive power. It was famous, and thus also a bullseye.
Whatever Blasters get, it should be easy to add, difficult to remove, and impossible to neutralize without neutralizing Defenders and Controllers as well, so they all rise together or fall together. Mez protection ironically doesn't do that, because Defenders and Controllers don't have it: you can target Blasters without affecting them. You'd affect Scrappers and Tankers instead (I'm not forgetting the red side, its just easier to keep the comparisons to one faction at a time) but they have carte blanc to have as much mez protection as they need.
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That makes no sense. If blasters are relative under performers whatever boost they get should overwhelmingly benefit them to the exclusion of other ATs that demonstrably don't need it currently. It should be fine grained and easy to adjust if needed in the future.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Whatever Blasters get, it should be easy to add, difficult to remove, and impossible to neutralize without neutralizing Defenders and Controllers as well, so they all rise together or fall together. Mez protection ironically doesn't do that, because Defenders and Controllers don't have it: you can target Blasters without affecting them. You'd affect Scrappers and Tankers instead (I'm not forgetting the red side, its just easier to keep the comparisons to one faction at a time) but they have carte blanc to have as much mez protection as they need. |
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It is not mutually exclusive to grant Blasters a buff that benefits them more than anyone else, but is also something they lack and other things have more of at the present time. The specific mechanics of how it happens can be unique to Blasters for gameplay purposes, but that doesn't mean the intended benefit has to be unique in a broad sense.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
That makes no sense. If blasters are relative under performers whatever boost they get should overwhelmingly benefit them to the exclusion of other ATs that demonstrably don't need it currently. It should be fine grained and easy to adjust if needed in the future.
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So for example if Blaster gained significantly better ranged soft control or defensive debuff, that would be something other archetypes have - controllers and defenders in particular. But that would be a buff that explicitly focused only on Blasters and would benefit them exclusively.
But if Blaster survivability included control and debuff tools, then the only way for the devs to make critters more dangerous to blasters would be to make them more dangerous to defenders and controllers also - by making them more resistant to debuffs and control. There's no easy way to single out Blasters, as there is now.
Its a form of defense in depth. We want to give blasters a better set of tools to keep themselves alive, but the question is which tools. Mez protection seems to be dangerous to give to blasters to me, because they will always play second fiddle to the melee archetypes in that regard: its so easy to make critters that overwhelm blaster mez protection but not melee mez protection, because mez protection is so binary in nature (its not absolutely all or nothing as some people have pointed out, but its not that far away from being that either). Soft control is not binary, you cannot make a critter that ignores blaster soft control but not defender and controller soft control: it doesn't generally work like that.
To put it another way, mez protection is brittle, and Blasters would probably be served with a less brittle tool: something that bends before it breaks. Given how mez protection works and given how melee archetypes treat mez protection, its likely that mez protection would fracture far more easily under the weight of future content than soft control, debuff, or other non-boolean effects.
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I don't foresee a problem with letting Soul Drain, PBU, etc. have mez protection for their durations if BU/Aim have the same for their durations.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
(RE: Mez protection in all BU/Aim type powers)
This presents the problem of what to do with Assault Rifle, Dual Pistols, Devices and Darkness Manipulation. The first 3 lack these powers and the final one has a recharge of 120 seconds and a duration of 30 as opposed to 90 seconds and 10 seconds for all other power sets that have these type powers. |
True, sets without BU/Aim would be impacted. The availability of Soul Drain, Power Build Up, etc. in APPs doesn't help that imbalance much. Perhaps sets lacking BU/Aim are due for a balance pass anyway?
In any case, I'm favoring cross-AT solutions because when the devs look at one AT in isolation at a time, weird disjointed fixes happen. Like stalkers getting a maxhp buff for reasons that are 100% applicable to blasters as well, but blasters getting no maxhp buff. If they'd taken a cross-AT approach, i.e., check all the ATs to see which ones had maxhp caps only 33% higher than their base maxhp, they would've seen two ATs were affected. Similarly, I'm sure some of these blaster issues apply, partially if not fully, to other ATs, even though nobody's talking about those other ATs right here and now.
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I'm all in favor of making blaster mitigation active mitigation. The only problem with active mitigation though is the staying active part. That still comes down to a mechanic to avoid or prevent mez and also the possibility to break out of mez quickly enough to save oneself by resuming active mitigation.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
It is not mutually exclusive to grant Blasters a buff that benefits them more than anyone else, but is also something they lack and other things have more of at the present time. The specific mechanics of how it happens can be unique to Blasters for gameplay purposes, but that doesn't mean the intended benefit has to be unique in a broad sense.
So for example if Blaster gained significantly better ranged soft control or defensive debuff, that would be something other archetypes have - controllers and defenders in particular. But that would be a buff that explicitly focused only on Blasters and would benefit them exclusively. But if Blaster survivability included control and debuff tools, then the only way for the devs to make critters more dangerous to blasters would be to make them more dangerous to defenders and controllers also - by making them more resistant to debuffs and control. There's no easy way to single out Blasters, as there is now. Its a form of defense in depth. We want to give blasters a better set of tools to keep themselves alive, but the question is which tools. Mez protection seems to be dangerous to give to blasters to me, because they will always play second fiddle to the melee archetypes in that regard: its so easy to make critters that overwhelm blaster mez protection but not melee mez protection, because mez protection is so binary in nature (its not absolutely all or nothing as some people have pointed out, but its not that far away from being that either). Soft control is not binary, you cannot make a critter that ignores blaster soft control but not defender and controller soft control: it doesn't generally work like that. To put it another way, mez protection is brittle, and Blasters would probably be served with a less brittle tool: something that bends before it breaks. Given how mez protection works and given how melee archetypes treat mez protection, its likely that mez protection would fracture far more easily under the weight of future content than soft control, debuff, or other non-boolean effects. |
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Active mitigation works for many defenders, controllers, and corruptors. It works for dominators who aren't perma-Dom (although they still need it much less). I'm not saying that it should be necessary to make blasters into a clone of any of those ATs, just that the model works already.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I'm all in favor of making blaster mitigation active mitigation. The only problem with active mitigation though is the staying active part. That still comes down to a mechanic to avoid or prevent mez and also the possibility to break out of mez quickly enough to save oneself by resuming active mitigation.
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And therin lies the problem. We think we know what Blasters need. We have ideas as to how to give it to them. But they're just ideas right now. We can't come to any sort of consensus and I think part of the reason for that is the wildly different play styles. Personally I like fighting at range so my vote would be for Mez protection of some kind that worked at range. As the enemy drew closer this would diminish.
Great for me, horrible for blappers. We won't be able to find a single solution that works for everyone but if we can find one that covers MOST Blaster players and styles then we might have something.
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
To use a somewhat tired metaphor, I feel that troubled ATs in general need to build "out" and not necessarily "up."
The main source of balance issues is direct comparability. While I feel Blasters need a buff, I think this is in part due to a speciality pileup that makes several ATs too directly comparable too each other. The main pileups involving Blasters looks like this right now:
Blaster-Stalker-Scrapper-Brute-Tanker
It's not lost on me that three of the five ATs involved in that pileup are (until recenty) usually labeled as the most in need of help. They are too comparable to each other and too easy to line up into a simple list. Meanwhile, Dominators and Corruptors do not appear on this list. They don't appear not because they aren't damage dealers but because both have other abilities that make them incomparable to each other. Is a Corruptor better than a Brute? There's no possible answer to that question.
In the discussion on Tankers, my suggestion for fixes was to derail the line up. The question is not about whether you can make Tankers "better" or "worse" than Brutes. It's about rendering that question impossible to answer by making direct comparisons impossible. That is why for Tankers specifically my position is that they need to become force multipliers a la Defender-lite. My solution for the Defender/Corruptor pileup is the same: fix balance issues by pushing the ATs apart. Otherwise you're just engaging in a tug of war that will never be completely resolved.
As another example, a lot of people maintain that Stalkers should be the least survivable melee AT and Tankers the most. But in my model, you derail this. For those two ATs, you might give them something like a 50% chance to ignore death patches (one is agile/tricky and the other very durable) they happen to get caught in. That adds "survivability" without being trapped on the generic "survivability train." Scrappers and Brutes will likely scream "where's mine?" but that expectation of predictable damage-to-survivability models in all situations is exactly what needs to be shut down. In fact, adding survivability is part of what Hide was always intended to do and never was very successful at due to how easy it is for other ATs to get invisibility if they want it.
What this means for Blasters I don't know. Blaster's issue is not just the main pileup, but that Dominators and Corruptors have other qualifications. Corruptors in particular are likely to benefit from any changes to nukes and both would benefit from snipe changes.
I decided to provide some actual in game play and choices I made to show what if anything defeated me and why.
I am running an Energy/Ice blaster at 0x3 with Bosses.
I went level 1-10 on 2 DFB runs and chose Defense and Recovery as buffs, I was never defeated playing strictly at range.
I have taken the powers:
Power blast, burst, torrent, aim, chill blain, chilling embrace.
I finally had my first defeat at level 13 because I was held and slept by a +1 Lost boss and he closed to melee range and the sword killed me. I was still at nearly 50% health until he closed. Mez killed me.
Game is playing a bit laggy and finally crashes - new issue blues. I am off to work and will return to the second Midnighter arc mission later.
I will update as I go and remember I am playing strictly at range - out of melee reach unless forced to and only then until chilling embrace earns me some space or I am mezzed and killed.
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Y u no BF? And he should have never closed into melee with you, since you could have Chillblain'd him even after getting mezzed.|
Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
I finally had my first defeat at level 13 because I was held and slept by a +1 Lost boss and he closed to melee range and the sword killed me. I was still at nearly 50% health until he closed. Mez killed me.
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This isn't rocket science.
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Haven't you ever had a critical attack - a mez, or the attack that will finish off a mob in a single blow - miss? With the consequences being anything from taking another 10-15 seconds to end the fight all the way to defeat?|
Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
Y u no BF? And he should have never closed into melee with you, since you could have Chillblain'd him even after getting mezzed.
This isn't rocket science. |
As far as breakfrees go, you don't always have them.
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If I'm fighting Lost I sure as hell will always have at least 1 breakfree on hand on any non melee AT. If you know you are going to be fighting an enemy group with mezzes on a toon without mez protection and you don't bring provisions to deal with it, then it's your own fault you died.
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Originally Posted by BellaStrega
As far as breakfrees go, you don't always have them.
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Getting Mez'd on my Blaster sucks.
Now to get off topic...
Arcanaville I just noticed the Misfile link in your sig:
"In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile..."
...And it makes me happy. I read a lot of webcomics now and the number keeps growing, but Misfile and Girly were my firsts... I'm still sad Girly ended after such an amazing run, but the archive isn't too massive to crawl through again.
Back on topic...
I don't like getting Mez'd on my Blaster. Here I am being a boss and doing all my AoEs, then I have to stop cus the enemy politely asked me to stop with a single Dominate, and I said "OKAY BRO, ITS COOL I DIDN'T WANT TO USE THAT FIREBALL ANYWAYS, I JUST POPPED BUILD UP AND AIM CUS THEY LOOK COOL MAN" I want to rain death and despair upon my enemies with no interruptions, also make me do more damage, and make me tougher, kthx.
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At level 13 how many breakfrees can you carry?|
Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
If I'm fighting Lost I sure as hell will always have at least 1 breakfree on hand on any non melee AT. If you know you are going to be fighting an enemy group with mezzes on a toon without mez protection and you don't bring provisions to deal with it, then it's your own fault you died.
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Also should I leave every mission and get more when I run out?
To stop a BOSS it takes at least 2 applications of an Immobilization to stick. He held me and also slept me. If you missed it I was running at 0x3 with Bosses. That means almost every spawn has a boss.
So yes, I was defeated but only once in 13 levels and that was due to a hold. Now if I ran at 0x0 with bosses where you only get an end boss - I would be undefeated. That is not my goal to play safe - I want to run the edge of disaster and see what causes my defeats. One defeat and it was due to a mez.
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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
If I'm fighting Lost I sure as hell will always have at least 1 breakfree on hand on any non melee AT. If you know you are going to be fighting an enemy group with mezzes on a toon without mez protection and you don't bring provisions to deal with it, then it's your own fault you died.
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Ok, so you load up with BFs before a mission. At lvl 13 I think you can carry 8-10. Over the course of the mission you encounter Mez 12 times. None of your Insp drops has tripled so you can't craft one. Now then...what do you do?
I admire the poster for running X3 with Bosses at that level. However what we should be looking at is how would every other AT do under the same circumstances?
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
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Having banner text show up on the screen when a Blaster dies while mezzed that reads "Its your fault you died" is not likely to be considered a reasonable balancing option for the archetype.
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Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
If I'm fighting Lost I sure as hell will always have at least 1 breakfree on hand on any non melee AT. If you know you are going to be fighting an enemy group with mezzes on a toon without mez protection and you don't bring provisions to deal with it, then it's your own fault you died.
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We already have a good mechanism for that for Blasters: Defiance 2.0. If the active mitigation mechanism is something put into most or all single target blaster attacks, its going to be in the two ranged primary attacks blasters are allowed to use when mezzed. |
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
I'm all in favor of making blaster mitigation active mitigation. The only problem with active mitigation though is the staying active part. That still comes down to a mechanic to avoid or prevent mez and also the possibility to break out of mez quickly enough to save oneself by resuming active mitigation.
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Currently, being mezzed means Blaster offense is degraded down to the point where you have basically two or three attacks with which to kill your attackers before they kill you, or at least last long enough for the mez to expire. With splashing counter-mitigation effects in those two powers, the equation changes to using your D2.0 attacks to simply continue to hit the most dangerous targets, and keep them from damaging you too much until mez expires. That's a significantly better option for two reasons: splashing effects mean you can affect more targets than the one or two you could normally engage with tier1/2 blasts, and offensive counter-mitigation would allow you to gain some benefit from your attacking besides maybe killing the target, which is a binary benefit: either it dies or it doesn't.
I've actually been conducting a long-term experiment on my own blaster to see if this actually works. Since I19, I've been playing a build that takes both Bolt and Blast (not all energy blasters do) and builds for ultrahigh recharge. When I do get mezzed, even if I have a break free most times I will try to see if simply using those two powers, cycled as fast as possible, can keep me alive until the mez expires. And they can. Sometimes, and if I switch from trying to kill the most dangerous target, to cycling through everyone and trying to hit as many targets as possible whether I kill them or not. The problem is that even with the ability to cycle those two powers almost by themselves without gap, they are just single targeted and their knock has only a low probability of firing. And most blasters are not going to have +150% recharge to use them that often.
But a mitigation effect that happened all the time or nearly so, that hit multiple targets with each shot, that could be fired while mezzed (as the tier 1/2 attacks can be), that I think would work for everybody.
Mez would still be dangerous. You'd lose all your defensive toggles. And mez would still negatively affect blaster performance: you'd lose all your AoEs and most of your single target damage when mezzed. But you would have a way to stay alive long enough for the mez to expire. It would be less likely to kill you.
Better yet: this is just as useful even if you are not mezzed. This is not a break out of mez power that if you're not mezzed has no benefit. You can use this *proactively* to try to *prevent* mez, by using it to go after the mezzers directly.
About the only thing its likely to not be useful for directly is boss fights where everything else is dead and its just the boss left. Which is why I've suggested that it should do one more thing: when there's only one target left and there's nothing to splash, it should turn around and hit the intended target harder. Still working out how to do that, though.
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Great thought Arcana but I would have the splash do just one thing slow movement.
Then they are slower to reach you while you are mezzed. This allows you to fight them at range even with your plinking attacks - I always slot my first attack 1 acc, 3 damage, 1 recharge and my secondary 1st as 1 acc, 1 recharge.
Give me a slow where the boss had to work harder to reach me with the sword I might have won that fight.
I would have while mezzed your tier one and 2 attacks slow movement as they hit in an AoE equal to say fireball. The logic is your foes are careful to approach the wounded blaster and aren't sure he isn't playing possum and not really hurt. It's like approaching that lion you shot is it really dead............
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I would have it do different things for different primaries, based on their theme.|
Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
Great thought Arcana but I would have the splash do just one thing slow movement.
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Whatever it is, it should have some amount of soft-control or actual control. Because movement slow alone wouldn't prevent chain mez. One of the things shooting while mezzed should allow a blaster to do is at least attempt to prevent more mezzes from landing. That requires interfering with the enemy's ability to either shoot at you or affect you (i.e. prevent attacks from firing, or debuffing either tohit or effect strength to prevent attacks from landing or dealing their normal effect).
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I think you just won the thread, and the solution.
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I would have it do different things for different primaries, based on their theme.
Whatever it is, it should have some amount of soft-control or actual control. Because movement slow alone wouldn't prevent chain mez. One of the things shooting while mezzed should allow a blaster to do is at least attempt to prevent more mezzes from landing. That requires interfering with the enemy's ability to either shoot at you or affect you (i.e. prevent attacks from firing, or debuffing either tohit or effect strength to prevent attacks from landing or dealing their normal effect). |
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
Quote:
Here is a copypasta of my post from page 2 of this very thread. LOL, it reminds me very much of my comments to Arcanaville in the snipe thread. Way to go Arcana! You fixed it again!! hahaha|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
I think you just won the thread, and the solution.
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From page 2:
IMO, mez protection for blasters needs a mega overhaul, to the point all the current inherent mechanics go out the window and something new comes into play. Just what that is is obviously a much contested issue.
that being said, if we come to find ourselves totally unable to remove our thought patterns from 7 years of history and simply cant think of a better way to do things then defiance, some other things should occur. if we remain true to the "use these 3 attacks while mezzed" idea, then IMO we should be allowed an immense increase in allowable custimization of the 3 powers we come to rely on so heavily. if, solo, i am to remain locked into a power bolt-power blast-power bolt-power blast-etc themed attack chain due to inherent mechanics, then I think i should be able to customize more then color on these powers.
Tier one and two blasts do not grow enough with the character. Certainly, enhancment slotting grows them for a while, but as a character approaches lvl 25 or so, the powers are basically peaked out. Some alteration to function can be achieved with set bonuses, like excessive rech bonus or the like, but even this does not alter the animation times or rooting times or secondary effects.
Maybe those things should change as level increases. maybe animation time should slowly reduce for tier one and two attacks on blasters so that when mez becomes so common, you have grown those powers to compensate. maybe while defiance is in effect under mez, secondary effects of those powers should be magnified, or made 100% chance. More secondary dot dmg for fire, 100% chance of knockback for nrg blast, greatly increase endo drain/transfer on elec blast, etc. More effects, and animation time reductions. The higher level you get, the more important position becomes to survival, and reduction of cast time and root time would accomdate this.
basically, if the blaster AT stays the course on defiance/mez, then the blaster AT really should allow the tier one and two powers to grow to a power peak that is significantly higher then current, and significantly higher then other AT tier one and two comparitively as the other AT are not so heavily reliant on those powers.
End copy.
It's almost like I suggested the tier one and two attacks get better chance of their secondary effects(based on the set they are in) and are improved to help blasters win in a mez state, and also improve the defiance blasts in other ways as the character lvls up to help the blaster stay on top of their game instead of slowly becoming weaker in those situations as level iincreases. /sarcasm
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Yeah, actually I've been saying that for a lot longer than that. In fact, I was signalling my intent to focus on control and secondary effects almost a month ago specifically:|
Originally Posted by Eldagore
Here is a copypasta of my post from page 2 of this very thread. LOL, it reminds me very much of my comments to Arcanaville in the snipe thread. Way to go Arcana! You fixed it again!! hahaha
From page 2: IMO, mez protection for blasters needs a mega overhaul, to the point all the current inherent mechanics go out the window and something new comes into play. Just what that is is obviously a much contested issue. that being said, if we come to find ourselves totally unable to remove our thought patterns from 7 years of history and simply cant think of a better way to do things then defiance, some other things should occur. if we remain true to the "use these 3 attacks while mezzed" idea, then IMO we should be allowed an immense increase in allowable custimization of the 3 powers we come to rely on so heavily. if, solo, i am to remain locked into a power bolt-power blast-power bolt-power blast-etc themed attack chain due to inherent mechanics, then I think i should be able to customize more then color on these powers. Tier one and two blasts do not grow enough with the character. Certainly, enhancment slotting grows them for a while, but as a character approaches lvl 25 or so, the powers are basically peaked out. Some alteration to function can be achieved with set bonuses, like excessive rech bonus or the like, but even this does not alter the animation times or rooting times or secondary effects. Maybe those things should change as level increases. maybe animation time should slowly reduce for tier one and two attacks on blasters so that when mez becomes so common, you have grown those powers to compensate. maybe while defiance is in effect under mez, secondary effects of those powers should be magnified, or made 100% chance. More secondary dot dmg for fire, 100% chance of knockback for nrg blast, greatly increase endo drain/transfer on elec blast, etc. More effects, and animation time reductions. The higher level you get, the more important position becomes to survival, and reduction of cast time and root time would accomdate this. basically, if the blaster AT stays the course on defiance/mez, then the blaster AT really should allow the tier one and two powers to grow to a power peak that is significantly higher then current, and significantly higher then other AT tier one and two comparitively as the other AT are not so heavily reliant on those powers. End copy. It's almost like I suggested the tier one and two attacks get better chance of their secondary effects(based on the set they are in) and are improved to help blasters win in a mez state, and also improve the defiance blasts in other ways as the character lvls up to help the blaster stay on top of their game instead of slowly becoming weaker in those situations as level iincreases. /sarcasm |
And specifically mentioning adding it as splash effects in single target attacks just like propel. But how about I just offer up what I suggested to the devs directly, which I'm free to post since I'm not specifically reposting their replies:
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1. Improve the Blaster tier1/2 ranged attacks. Honestly, they are the bread and butter single target attacks, and they are the only ones usable when mezzed. But with the recognition that Arcanatime governs the actual damage over time of those attacks, I believe they should be sped up a tad. Not a radical amount, and not so much that the animations would have to be totally overhauled. Generally, just one or two frames of animation except in one case. Right now, the "standard" tier1/2 ranged attacks have cast times of 1s and 1.67s, and recharge times of either 3 or 4 seconds for tier 1 and 6 or 8 seconds for tier 2. The most common case is 1s/4s and 1.67s/8s with damage 1 DS and 1.64 DS. In arcanatime terms, both have DPA of only about 0.84 and 0.89 respectively, and DPS over the cycle (without recharge) of 0.2 and 0.17. The 3s/6s attacks are worse: they average about 0.7 DS/sec in DPA. I would like to see those attacks get closer to 1.0 DS/sec in terms of true animation time. You could do that by reducing the cast times of those attacks from 1.0 to 0.83 and from 1.67 to 1.4 for the 4s/8s pair, and from 1.0 to 0.76 and from 1.67 to 1.15 for the 3s/6s pair. This shaves one animation frame from the 1s/4s attack, two frames from the 1.67s/8s attack, two frames from the 1s/6s attack, and 4 frames from the 1.67s/6s attack. Only the 1.67s/6s attack has a radical reduction in animation frames, but this would increase those attacks to between 0.9 and 1.05 DS/sec in DPA. Keep in mind that many melee attacks exceed those values. I know animation is tough to change, so you could get the same results by fiddling with damage. But then you fiddle with recharge, and that's a bigger disruption to players. 2. Improve AoE effects I pretty much have given up on figuring out a way to make single target competitive with AoE: it just can't be done with all the restrictions and cottage rule limitations. But I can still try to make single target competitive with AoE by adding AoE effects other than damage - which don't alter the endurance or recharge of the power. My best idea so far is to add a Gauntlet-like effect to blaster single target ranged and melee attacks that doesn't actually do anything. It just applies a null effect. The reason for doing this is that you can then allow blasters to slot procs into those attacks that *would* affect multiple targets. So lets say Power Blast affected up to two additional targets surrounding the primary target. If I slot chance to hold or chance to end drain into Power Blast, while the damage would hit one target the proc would hit three (potentially). I could slot chance for knockdown into total focus, and it could knockdown targets surrounding the blaster. It would be a special form of power customization: customized AoE side effects (and my thought was 2 additional for ranged, 5 additional for melee - gotta be careful with ranged because you have things like chance for build up out there). There's also an incarnate advantage here because I'm guessing Interface debuffs would flow into those targets as well for blasters. Its AoE, and then again not AoE. Its more secondaary effect, although the secondary effect you can slot a proc for includes damage procs. The problem, of course, is that it relies on the invention system. |
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Throw out the inventions and give each blaster primary and each blaster secondary a designated special mitigation effect, even fire. Then add that effect to all single target ranged and melee attacks as a gauntlet-like special effect. AR: chance for knockdown Energy: chance for knockup Electric: chance for sleep Fire: chance for fear Ice: chance for recharge debuff/movement slow Psionic Blast: chance for stun That sort of thing might work. I shoot him with power bolt, there's a chance the guy to the left and the guy to the right get knocked up. I Fire Blast that guy, there's a chance the two guys behind are momentarily terrorized. That would add survivability without defense and AoE effects without AoE damage, and doesn't rely on slotting or the invention system. But it could still *benefit* from the invention system for those that decided to use it. It would need to be carefully tweaked so that it didn't stomp all over controllers, and you'll note I did not make the Ice effect "hold" because that's too hard a control: I'm aiming for soft-controls that have mitigation benefits here. And even Fire/Fire would have some mitigation. By keeping the effect concentrated in single target attacks, you prevent blanketing everything with Blaster AoEs. And if it seems too unfair to players who have built focused on AoE, implement the converse: for AoE attacks, only the target of the AoE is affected by the secondary effect. That has nice symmetry. Single target attacks with AoE secondary effects, and AoE attacks with single target secondary effects. |
In any event, I did not suggest speeding them up with level because that's basically impossible (I did suggest to Synapse to reduce their cast times overall), and I did not suggest increasing their chance to generate secondary effects because some sets don't have any to increase, and in either case I did not think that would be enough effect anyway. So its almost like you suggested exactly the same thing I'm discussing, except for all the details being different.
Incidentally, the list of effects above was a brainstorm: I've changed my mind on some of it. Today I would suggest psionic's effect be Chance for Confuse and Fire's effect be Chance for tohit debuff, range debuff. And the chance for the effect to go off would depend on the size of the effect. If it was small and target limited to a small number of targets, close to or equal to 100%. If it was larger and could affect more targets, it would be proportionately smaller than that. In all cases, the rule would be that boolean mezzes would be short duration: on the order of 2-5 seconds. Debuffs would be longer, 4-8 seconds depending on the debuff.
As I've said, though, I've continued to evolve the idea. I've added the additional feature that if the splash has nowhere to go, the target is hit with more damage instead.
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I personally like to avoid complicated and unproven solutions when simple proven ones exist. The more complex something is the more likely it is that something will happen or that something else will go wrong which leaves the problem in place (or a worse one) until the next time the devs have a chance to make a pass at it, say 2+ years down the road.
Edit - and mez resistance doesn't prevent mitigation from offensive toggles being lost nor does it prevent existing mitigation from defense/resistance toggles from being suppressed. We need a solution that doesn't make so many of the powers we get to pick useless. Mez resistance vs mez protection has the same issues that you site between damage resistance and defense. Blasters are combat ATs forced to enter combat by their design. They should have the same tools that the other combat ATs have perhaps just not at similar levels.
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