Blasters suck, the movie.
By
Abyssus,
Posted on: 2012-03-30 17:12 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Well as I struggle to get WeGame to DL again, I can chime in here to say "No no, blaster really do suck."
I decided to take my Non purpled, non pvp, non ATO IO'edout, non incarnated without even an alpha Fire/MM blaster to Monster Island. Here is what I found on my first, agonizing try. 4-5 seconds down time on drain psyche is too much. So I brought out a Kin to hit me with SB. I figure rather than transfering billions worth of IO's for a test or reinstalling the beta/test client why not take 10 seconds and dual log.
25+ agonzing minutes later, using a chain of Blaze/Blast/Ball mix/mash up with no damage procs and no gaps, using a whopping 5 greens and 2 break free's the GM was dead. Okay to be fair I could have stopped at the 2/3rds mark and said "yeah I got this, let me go try to record it" but I saw it through until the thing dropped. It was sad to see how much ground the GM would make up during a Drain Psyche miss, even using it during Aim as far as my cycle went I think I had 4 misses during the fight.
For giggles, I then took my purpled pvpIO'ed proced/incarnated out Fire/EM blaster out to PI, blasted the GM for a minute solid and watched the HP bar budge only to be filled back up at the next regen tic. Knowing full well what would happen, I then switched out to my IO'ed to the gills/incarnated out psi/em and did the same thing. Who would have guessed it, but my moderately IO'ed (no purples/pvp IO's) Energy/Energy and Ice/Fire blasters didn't fair any better.
At this point I'm decently convinced if you can pack in enough recharge to perma drain psyche while keeping your S/L defense softcapped, most mental blasters could reproduce this feat if they have the patience (And there was a lot of patience involved). Maybe not an Elec/Mental or a AR/Mental, but It'd be interesting to see if things like Ice/ Beam/ Rad/ Energy/ could pull it off.
At any rate, couldn't get the client to DL, if anyone has trouble believing this feat was so easily reproduced with a sub par build, I'm more than willing to go back and do it again to prove someone wrong on the internet, because I'm mature like that. 
Adding in Overpower at the moment would do next to nothing at all- perhaps in conjunction with Arcana's suggestion it would be useful. Overpower is useful for Controllers because almost every power they have can benefit from it, the exact opposite is true for Blasters.
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I think Beam and Ice would specifically perform better. Ice because (if I recall) it is the most single target focused, and Beam for the resistance debuffs.
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Originally Posted by MrLiberty
Well as I struggle to get WeGame to DL again, I can chime in here to say "No no, blaster really do suck."
I decided to take my Non purpled, non pvp, non ATO IO'edout, non incarnated without even an alpha Fire/MM blaster to Monster Island. Here is what I found on my first, agonizing try. 4-5 seconds down time on drain psyche is too much. So I brought out a Kin to hit me with SB. I figure rather than transfering billions worth of IO's for a test or reinstalling the beta/test client why not take 10 seconds and dual log. 25+ agonzing minutes later, using a chain of Blaze/Blast/Ball mix/mash up with no damage procs and no gaps, using a whopping 5 greens and 2 break free's the GM was dead. Okay to be fair I could have stopped at the 2/3rds mark and said "yeah I got this, let me go try to record it" but I saw it through until the thing dropped. It was sad to see how much ground the GM would make up during a Drain Psyche miss, even using it during Aim as far as my cycle went I think I had 4 misses during the fight. For giggles, I then took my purpled pvpIO'ed proced/incarnated out Fire/EM blaster out to PI, blasted the GM for a minute solid and watched the HP bar budge only to be filled back up at the next regen tic. Knowing full well what would happen, I then switched out to my IO'ed to the gills/incarnated out psi/em and did the same thing. Who would have guessed it, but my moderately IO'ed (no purples/pvp IO's) Energy/Energy and Ice/Fire blasters didn't fair any better. At this point I'm decently convinced if you can pack in enough recharge to perma drain psyche while keeping your S/L defense softcapped, most mental blasters could reproduce this feat if they have the patience (And there was a lot of patience involved). Maybe not an Elec/Mental or a AR/Mental, but It'd be interesting to see if things like Ice/ Beam/ Rad/ Energy/ could pull it off. At any rate, couldn't get the client to DL, if anyone has trouble believing this feat was so easily reproduced with a sub par build, I'm more than willing to go back and do it again to prove someone wrong on the internet, because I'm mature like that. |
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I've been trying to think of things that would also raise the average though, such as my idea of including Triage beacon and Acid Trap in Devices (or a variation self affecting hybrid of the two using appropriate scales.) I see what you're saying, but applying these would raise the average along with the highest possible options for all Blaster sets.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
No, but I don't think we're going to come to agreement on this. You view the blaster archetype as containing powerset options for the players. The decision is to play a Blaster, and then its up to the player to pick the "right" powersets to deliver the performance they want. If even one single powerset combination delivers a particular desired performance level, you view Blasters as an entity to be "fine" overall, and the only problem really is the diversity of options available.
But I don't view Blasters that way. I think they should be represented by their average, not their highest possible options. The blaster archetype should have a set, or a set of sets of features that every powerset should contain and be able to leverage. Otherwise, assuming Archery and Mental didn't exist, you could say Blasters were not the king of damage, but if I buff just one powerset, well now they are. |
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In one sense, that's mostly a semantic difference in terms of describing the archetype: its either underperforming with some exceptions, or it performs fine except for all the exceptions where it doesn't. But that difference also contains an approach difference that is significant. I believe when an archetype underperforms, you should try to fix the archetype with archetype-wide solutions. In your approach, there's nothing wrong with Blasters that individually buffing every primary and every secondary wouldn't fix. The problem is one of those is practical, and one is not. The devs are not going to attempt to solve an archetype-wide blaster problem by handcrafting solutions for each primary and secondary, nor are they going to add massive tier 9 aoe and a drain psyche equivalent to each secondary. But these are such extreme outliers that there's no *other* way to really approach what they can do. You can't emulate -regen with other effects: other effects would be stronger in some cases and weaker in the extreme ones - the very extreme situations you are using to demonstrate its power. Similarly the devs aren't going to just hand a Rain of Arrows equivalent to every blaster: even if they did that wouldn't address problems below level 32, and it would force blasters to build for ultrahigh recharge to see most of the benefit. And there's a huge difference between perma DP and non-perma DP: when its perma its up when you have to use it again. If its non-perma, using it exposes most blasters to extreme vulnerability. That's probably a large part of its intrinsic design tradeoff. |
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| And even after all of that, that would only solve the problem of making maximum potential roughly equal across the board. It would leave behind the problem of addressing normal players' blaster problems during normal leveling, which have a higher priority to resolve. I think its pushing the limits of reasonableness to say that in exchange for blasters dying more often and giving up all other options besides damage, they *eventually* and *sometimes* become the king of damage. In my opinion, nothing is worth that particular prize. |
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But those things get *better* as they add tools, they *start* off pretty good.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
See, this can be applied to other things also and is not just a Blaster issue: Dominators don't truly shine until they get perma-dom. Super Strength is a fairly weak set with no AOE's until it gets Footstomp, whereas Claws has Spin almost out of the box. This means that Super Strength can be more challenging to level, but the question becomes whether or not it's worth the tradeoff of the eventual performance- I am a fan of setting goals with my characters and working towards those goals, though I can understand others not feeling this way. Anyways, it'd be the same for Blasters on an AT wide level if the idea I've presented was implemented. I'm not disputing that it probably wouldn't be as time-effective, but I am a fan of spending more time for what I feel would be a more appropriate resolution.
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Also youtube finally did its thing: Ill/Rad vs Quarry. And in not-too-terrible-on-the-eyes 720HD (the original is about 1040). Gonna see what happens with a proper interface power next.
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Well Explosive Arrow, RoF, Fireball, that DP tAOE, etc. are all very potent powers to have at the low levels and useful as "band aids" to stand in for a nuke IMO. The question becomes the survivability balance: Personally, as I level the Blaster in my experiment, I plan on picking my attacks conservatively, focusing on end redux and stamina slotting and picking up my pool toggles early on in the build. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
But those things get *better* as they add tools, they *start* off pretty good.
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| Also youtube finally did its thing: Ill/Rad vs Quarry. And in not-too-terrible-on-the-eyes 720HD (the original is about 1040). Gonna see what happens with a proper interface power next. |
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i call h4x! Your lower DPS Controller defeated it in less than half the time of the top damage dealing AT!</totallymissingthepoint>|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
But those things get *better* as they add tools, they *start* off pretty good.
Also youtube finally did its thing: Ill/Rad vs Quarry. And in not-too-terrible-on-the-eyes 720HD (the original is about 1040). Gonna see what happens with a proper interface power next. |
Nice video, much easier on the eyes.
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2 out of 10 primaries does not equal 'almost no powers'. Only Energy Blast and Fire Blast have no hard mez powers.|
Originally Posted by Mad Grim
Overpower is useful for Controllers because almost every power they have can benefit from it, the exact opposite is true for Blasters.
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That said, when I mentioned Overpower on Blaster mez, I meant a SBE proc version, not controller's version. Meaning there would be some sort of feature that scaled the chance higher on foes like bosses, so while you may not have as many mezzing powers as a Controller, you'd have the ability to apply that extra mag mez more situationally when needed (i.e. on a boss that you *need* to mez *now*).
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A Fire/Ment or anything else that deliberately optimized a ST chain would probably have a competitive time with the Ill/Rad, but that doesn't make it any less impressive. I only worried enough about my ST output to be able to down big game, period, not aim for fast times. For the way I play and utilize my Blaster, having enough ST to down a GM is icing on the cake- Archery is primarily an AOE set. I feel that the AOE output I gain by playing Archery is worth the slower times on big game, once again just being able to do it without outside help is good enough for me. I'm sure eventually I'll optimize my Fire/Ment for the sake of being more competitive for things like this, but for now he collects dust on Virtue while I Rain my Arrows.|
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
i call h4x! Your lower DPS Controller defeated it in less than half the time of the top damage dealing AT!</totallymissingthepoint>
Nice video, much easier on the eyes. |
And hey, don't make fun of my graphics. My computer is old and sensitive, and he can hear you. (You should've seen how they looked before the card upgrade... ick.)
Although... while Rain of Arrows is powerful, I want to point out one thing.
100% Rain of Fire = 250 Damage
100% Fireball = 160 Damage
100% Fire Breath = 220 Damage
100% Rain of Arrows = 450 Damage
100% Fistful of Arrows = 114 Damage
100% Explosive Arrow = 112.5 Damage
I won't deny Archery pulls ahead, buuuuuuut Fire wins in Single Target hands down and, while it's AoE is delayed a bit due to Rain of Fire, it's not really that far behind. Arguably not at all.
But I guess this further proves the disparity. And remember, Fire Blast is equal to an average melee set.
BALANCE.
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I think the comment was more meaning that blasters 'generally' have only one control power in their primary as opposed to very few primaries having control powers. So only very few individual powers in the blaster primaries would benefit from overpower as opposed to most powers in the controller primaries.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
2 out of 10 primaries does not equal 'almost no powers'. Only Energy Blast and Fire Blast have no hard mez powers.
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I don't agree with that exactly, since the ability to even occasionally control a boss in one shot could be very helpful. I just think that if you're shooting for a general 'across the board' blaster buff then it should be useful across all the powersets.
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I think i was one of the few people who actually enjoyed Defiance 1.0. |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Defiance 1.0 was bad. And that (and what it encouraged) led to what, IIRC, got the devs to revamp it - excessive deaths. (I *believe* that was the main measure they gave - blasters were dying far too much.)
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I kind of play on the edge, rarely healing myself, with the keep on truckin' kind of attitude. Defiance 1.0 made my life so much easier. It was like having free damage JUST for playing the way i do. It was fun :[
I'm not saying that the new defiance is bad, it's helpful. I'm just wondering if anyone else out there misses the old one.
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i don't deny that, but just pointing out that ill/Rad is not the highest DPS Controller combo ST or AoE. Hell, in a GM fight it doesn't get any containment damage at all and still defeated the GM in less than half the time. Reslotting to focus on ST damage is still unlikely to halve the time to defeat the GM since the only thing that allowed even that speed was the -regen which can't be doubled beyond what you currently have and i don't think you could more than double your ST DPS with a different build.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
A Fire/Ment or anything else that deliberately optimized a ST chain would probably have a competitive time with the Ill/Rad, but that doesn't make it any less impressive. I only worried enough about my ST output to be able to down big game, period, not aim for fast times. For the way I play and utilize my Blaster, having enough ST to down a GM is icing on the cake- Archery is primarily an AOE set. I feel that the AOE output I gain by playing Archery is worth the slower times on big game, once again just being able to do it without outside help is good enough for me. I'm sure eventually I'll optimize my Fire/Ment for the sake of being more competitive for things like this, but for now he collects dust on Virtue while I Rain my Arrows.
And hey, don't make fun of my graphics. My computer is old and sensitive, and he can hear you. (You should've seen how they looked before the card upgrade... ick.) |
Also, i have to ask if this means that you want to redefine the Blaster AT as the kings of both damage and debuffing? It's really only the debuff in a single power from a single set that allowed you to defeat the GM, so the only way to make that possible across all Blasters would be to add strong enemy defense debuffs to all Blaster secondaries in either the form of -regen and/or -res. Otherwise optimally built Blasters are still doing barely greater damage than other damage oriented ATs with far, far less survivability, and still far below the performance of lower DPS ATs with stronger debuffs against hard targets. Which makes them barely better than other ATs at a few things and worse, often by a large margin, at everything else.
Your Archery/Mental build is impressive. The problem is that the immediate thought that comes to mind whenever i say that is "For a Blaster."
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You are not alone.
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Originally Posted by Bionut911
I'm not saying that the new defiance is bad, it's helpful. I'm just wondering if anyone else out there misses the old one.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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He was calming down >.> rather uncalled for. Was turning into a quite nice conversation.
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Originally Posted by Miyabi
"This message is hidden because TwoHeadedBoy is on your ignore list."
Now THERE'S a QoL change many of us could benefit from. |
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Yes, that is what I meant. Blasters don't get enough controlling abilities to benefit that much from a controller inherent- They would benefit, yes, just not that much.
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Originally Posted by Oliin
I think the comment was more meaning that blasters 'generally' have only one control power in their primary as opposed to very few primaries having control powers. So only very few individual powers in the blaster primaries would benefit from overpower as opposed to most powers in the controller primaries.
I don't agree with that exactly, since the ability to even occasionally control a boss in one shot could be very helpful. I just think that if you're shooting for a general 'across the board' blaster buff then it should be useful across all the powersets. |
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Look. I know I was being a jerk earlier in the thread, and I feel bad about it. I wrote an apology on the previous page but I'll say again that I was out of line with a lot of my comments.
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Originally Posted by Miyabi
"This message is hidden because TwoHeadedBoy is on your ignore list."
Now THERE'S a QoL change many of us could benefit from. |
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Originally Posted by Schismatrix
i don't deny that, but just pointing out that ill/Rad is not the highest DPS Controller combo ST or AoE. Hell, in a GM fight it doesn't get any containment damage at all and still defeated the GM in less than half the time. Reslotting to focus on ST damage is still unlikely to halve the time to defeat the GM since the only thing that allowed even that speed was the -regen which can't be doubled beyond what you currently have and i don't think you could more than double your ST DPS with a different build.
Also, i have to ask if this means that you want to redefine the Blaster AT as the kings of both damage and debuffing? It's really only the debuff in a single power from a single set that allowed you to defeat the GM, so the only way to make that possible across all Blasters would be to add strong enemy defense debuffs to all Blaster secondaries in either the form of -regen and/or -res. Otherwise optimally built Blasters are still doing barely greater damage than other damage oriented ATs with far, far less survivability, and still far below the performance of lower DPS ATs with stronger debuffs against hard targets. Which makes them barely better than other ATs at a few things and worse, often by a large margin, at everything else. Your Archery/Mental build is impressive. The problem is that the immediate thought that comes to mind whenever i say that is "For a Blaster." |
Well for me, I wouldn't say that Blasters necessarily even deserve to beat debuffers as it is now. I feel that normalizing all blaster Nukes around RoA and implementing methods of comparable or equally useful powers to Drain Psyche would be good enough- It would mean that Blasters had enough single target power to potentially solo the hardest ST spawn class in the game, while having the potential to pump out AOE damage that would *generally speaking* surpass all others on comparable budgets- I'm not saying it would or should be perfect, but I do feel that it would be "good enough" to reasonably reclaim the crown in a general sense.
Now, as for survivability, Shadow Meld going into a Blaster epic pool would be a huge step in the right direction IMO. For me, it would make my obviously special case Blaster- Purpled and PVP'd to the gills- Essentially uncontested in his role. If all nukes in blaster primaries were normalized around RoA, access to Shadow Meld would mean that the threat of defeat during the cast time was alleviated. As it is now, soloing 54x8's, I can Clarion>Aim>Toggleonfly$$(get to the spawn)$$toggleonhover>Drain Psyche>RoA>que Psychic Shockwave while casting>Concentration>Mop-up. When I'm on a farm or for some other reason past the aggro cap, I'll que Fences before shockwave to make up for my lack of taunt aura and set up a cluster for max FF chances from Explosive Arrow.
Now, sometimes the burst damage from certain enemy groups is enough to take me out during the ROA cast, but if I can get through it the spawn is doomed guaranteed. This is where Shadow Meld would come in, as close to a guarantee as would be reasonable that I survive the case time. If Blaster Nukes were normalized around this standard, and Shadow Meld was granted in EPP's, the high end Blaster performance could be replicated at least every third spawn even on a SO budget.
Of course, this is really only addressing high level performance and is a very situational example. It's by no means a "be all, end all" fix for all Blaster discrepancies. I do think it would be a step in the right direction though.
I know Arcana already pointed out the time and resources things like this would take VS. buffing the whole AT somehow and then doing tweaks after, but there are so many folks screaming "Nerf!" at Drain psyche when, personally I feel it is granting Blasters a set of skills that *all* sets should have access to, and nerfing it would be in the wrong direction. I know Arcanaville isn't one of the people suggesting this, but the line of thinking being tied in by most people with the "Buff the whole AT" sentiment seems to be tied to "And nerf Drain Psyche" to an extent that it makes me uncomfortable, moving in the completely opposite direction than it should be moving in.
Without actually buffing the Blaster AT itself (which I believe is the proper way to go about this), there would be no real reason to nerf Drain Psyche. However, if you do buff the AT in such a way that it performs at least average, then adding Drain Psyche into the mix migh be a bit too much. I am wavering on whether or not to nerf it now- a second look reveals that it actually isn't like a regen tank move. Yes, it can out-do their regen %, but Blasters have such a low amount of health in the first place that it only translates in Willpower tank levels of regen in the end (on an estimate, of course).
And with Arcana's suggestion, stopping to use Drain Psyche puts a hole in your control, though a small one. Along that buff line, I believe it is a fair trade-off: Drain Psyche lets you regen your health and end incredibly fast, but in order to use it you must actually stop attacking and let the enemy attack you in much more force.
And somehow... life moves on.
Loved your video.
Hated your arguements.
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Looking back, I hated them too. Once again, sorry to everyone. I felt like I was being attacked and my accomplishment was being written off, but I realize that my attitude in the first place is what lead people to come at me from the POV they did.
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Originally Posted by Xiang Shao
And somehow... life moves on.
Loved your video. Hated your arguements. |
Awesome job! Soloing a GM is just that!
Now question time
Can you do this with a Blaster who isn't /Mental?
Can you do this with a Blaster that's Assault Rifle or Dual Pistols with and without using Mental Manipulation?
What about Electrical Blast?
Can I do that with the use of /Devices, /Ice, basically anything that isn't /Mental, or are people limited to picking one secondary to be awesome?
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Awesome job! Soloing a GM is just that!
Now question time Can you do this with a Blaster who isn't /Mental? Can you do this with a Blaster that's Assault Rifle or Dual Pistols with and without using Mental Manipulation? What about Electrical Blast? Can I do that with the use of /Devices, /Ice, basically anything that isn't /Mental, or are people limited to picking one secondary to be awesome? |
We're picking one secondary to be awesome, and I'm suggesting that the performance of this one secondary is the standard that other Blaster secondaries should be buffed to the performance level of, in a nutshell. Details can be found within my last few posts. Theoretically speaking as of now, any blast primary can accomplish this same feat assuming perma Drain psyche.
And forcing them to take those powers, when most primaries don't have those control powers, isn't any better.