Martial Arts for Blasters

Indeed, first thing I thought of was this thread and spring escape.

I beat you to it by two months, actually. But when I read the suggestion, I did grin a bit - I really wanted to post in this thread a good "What if I told you..." Morpheus meme, but I have a healthy fear of the wrath of Black Pebble.

Shamelessly, not only does Arbiter Hawk steal my past ideas, but also my future ideas as well. He's probably currently implementing that thing I'm going to come up with in November, that's going to be awesome.

It actually ended up looking like this:

So how did I do really?

Crane Kick/Cobra Strike/Eagle's Claw vs Ki Push/Storm Kick/Eagle's Claw

I think I did pretty good here. I took three single target MA attacks and spiced them up a bit. Arbiter Hawk did a similar thing. I stuck in a Crane Kick as a Power Thrust variant for power one, and Arbiter Hawk did likewise. However, I have to concede Arbiter Hawk made the cooler power with Ki Push. My version did 1.0 DS, AH's version will probably do similar to Power Thrust, or about 0.8 DS. I added Cobra for the stun, Arbiter Hawk added Storm Kick. And we both set Eagle's Claw as the tier 9. Arbiter Hawk added -range to EC, while I did to Crane Kick. Personally, I still think -range would be better in Ki Push than EC: -range combined with knockback: it seems to be obvious synergy to me. Overall, I consider this an A-.

Dragon's Tail

We both added DT as the primary PBAoE attack. I added it at tier 8, AH added it at tier 5. But I consider this to be a bullseye, albeit an easy one.

BU vs Reach for the Limit

I just added a conventional Build Up. Arbiter Hawk decided to get creative and swap it for a BU-like proc. I like it personally: it makes the set flow more smoothly which is something I think is appropriate to Martial Arts in general. I wish my MA scrapper had it, actually. But this is a clean miss.

Blinding Powder vs Throw Sand

I added BP but with damage. Arbiter Hawk seems to have added BP but with the effect changed from confuse to stun. I find it interesting we were inspired by the same root power, but went in different directions with it. I consider this to be a near-miss, but a decently close one.

Disrupt Chi vs Reaction Time

I think if I knew about Sustain when I formulated this powerset I would have come closer to Arbiter Hawk's version. AH added a PBAoE debuff toggle and I added a click. If I knew about sustain, Disrupt Chi would have been a toggle and the sustain toggle. I was thinking of adding an offensive and a mitigation effect: -res for offense and chance for stun for defense. AH's version is sustain, slow, -recharge, and a +recharge burst on toggle off. I think both have similar root ideas, but the powers then go in very different directions. Overall, I like AH's version better than mine. I would say I got close spiritually, but not in terms of actual power design. C+.

Spring Escape vs Burst of Speed

I really like my idea: I think its one of my best power suggestions. I like Arbiter Hawk's version more. The triple execution thing is an extremely good idea in my opinion, as it opens up a lot of interesting tactical options for blasters. But I will still pat myself on the back for having reached the same basic conclusion as AH regarding this basic option. I think this is remarkably close.

Siphon Chi vs Inner Will

Clean miss. I went for an extra ranged immobilize as a utility power, Arbiter Hawk pulled out the big guns and added a situational break free+heal. I like it, but I would have thought it was outside the devs' comfort zone when I posted my suggestion. I've recalibrated that notion as of now.


Overall, I think I got pretty close to AH's version. At least when it comes to Martial Arts for Blasters, I think we were thinking along similar lines, and in all seriousness that's with completely independent lines of thought. I didn't know AH was working on MA for blasters until after I posted the suggestion, and I don't think AH was aware of any of my ideas regarding MA for Blasters until I PMed him the suggestion soon after posting it in this thread. I don't know if I should be pleased about that, or frightened. But I would say I scored four effective bullseyes (the three melee attacks and dragon's tail), two surprising close misses (spring escape and blinding powder), one in the ballpark but nowhere near the plate understandable miss (Disrupt Chi, which was formulated before Sustain), and two clean misses (Siphon Chi and Focus Chi vs Inner Will and Reach for the Limit). On a scale of one to nine I'd score my effort about a 5.5 out of 9.0

I believe the current recharge for the power is somewhere between 480 and 600 seconds. Its a once every five to ten minute escape from trouble. That's a long enough recharge for mez breaking that I think saying its so powerful it either needs to be nerfed or everyone else has to have it is exaggerating the net effect.

Simultaneous with granting Martial Combat a very infrequent mez breaker Arbiter Hawk also softened the threat mez has by making the sustain powers very strong and unsuppressed under mez in I24. That means the true benefit of Inner Will in I24 will be significantly lower than it would be if it was introduced in I23.

Synapse said something to me way back in January I think when I was discussing blasters with him. He said that the "blaster metagame" was going to be radically different in I24, and therefore I should be careful about extrapolating too much about the blaster state into the next issue. He didn't clarify at the time, but its obvious that for the most part he meant at least that:

1. Blasters were getting very large survivability boosts via Sustain effect.

2. Blasters were getting a hedge against mez by virtue of Sustain not being suppressable.

3. Power pools were being altered, altering the build options for blasters (among other archetypes)

4. Ranged sets were being improved, increasing the viability of stand-off blasting

Those are enough simultaneous changes alone to change the blaster landscape significantly. Ignoring who benefits more from what for a moment, in absolute terms the game blasters are going to be facing in I24 is radically different. Until we all test it and rethink the blaster metagame of surviving in combat under I24 conditions, we shouldn't jump to conclusions on what the impact of any one particular thing will be out of context. In I23, Inner would be an exceptional stand out power. In I24 it might be a good, but not game-changing power.

Yeah, even if the recharge were 60 seconds, I can't see how the power would be obviously balance-altering by itself. The forum's (over)reaction to Blasters' getting a heavily conditional mez break power, when other ATs are given full time near-immunity to mez, strikes me as bizarre.

If the cycle time of Inner Will is as you say, I'm not even sure I'll take the power. Style considerations aside, Burst of Speed is the major selling point here, IMO.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I would agree. I think I'll make a */MC Blaster just because of Burst of Speed.

If Inner Will stays at the recharge time it is now (480, 600? seconds) I might not take it.

I don't see the point in breaking 1 mez (yes and getting +special but that's not huge to me) every 5 or so minutes. Carry a BF and have a longer lasting mez protection! ta-da!

*shrugs*

We'll see

What is the duration of the protection ? At 480 I still could see it being a game changer. I would have no trouble bringing that down to once every 120 seconds while still having significant positional and typed defense on a blaster. At 600 it is probably a skip.


The sustain powers are nice but from everything that has been said they are small potatoes compared to blaster difficulty with mez. Losing 15+ points of defense when blasters get mezzed really hurts them much more than the sustain is going to help.

For an extreme case just take a blaster on a mother ship raid and note how much time you are spending mezzed because you just happened to be standing to close to the actual target.

Well blasters certainly are getting changes but from what I have seen the changes make me want to play corruptors/defenders even more than I will want to play blasters.

The sustain feature is really nice and with the exception of /Mental should free up slots in everyone's build or at least provide some flexibility.


Well with the numbers you are stating for it and without the duration, at the low end of the recharge range it sounds quite good and the high end its moving to exceptional effort to make it not that great.

The ranged changes as announced really do favor buff/debuff charcters more than blasters. Of the three changes there is only one that blasters can get significantly more out of, that would be the range increase for T3 blasts. Even in that case only Energy Manipulation can get more out of it by using boost range. The crashless nukes let buffer/debuffers maintain their toggles through a nuke, and all their combos can access a power boost type power. The snipes have a double benefit of actually increasing their damage more and being easier leveraged.

From what I got from the video; it is an insta-breakfree and NO protection from mez afterwards...just mez resistance (which we all know is almost worthless).

So if you get hit with a hold, use Inner Will and get hit with a sleep or hold again, you're still mez'd.

Thanks

That sounds like a near complete skip then. Just another case of the Devs realizing where the blaster's big problem is but dancing around it rather than addressing it.

He later stated that it does have a top end limit (maybe mag 10), so you won't be able to use to to break free from things like GW's hold or AM's Timestop.

Yup, sounds like Inner Will is the equivalent of an extra Break Free every 8-10 minutes, not counting the heal. The heal could be immense (even a full bar), and I still don't think I'd take the power.

When I read the description of the power, I thought the cycle time would be more along the lines of 60-90 seconds, which would make the power useful as a spot heal or a mez break or both -- but if the cycle time is significantly longer than that, then it'd be hard to justify using the power for just one of those purposes. I'd feel compelled to wait until I needed both a mez break and a big heal, and if I find myself in that situation regularly enough that the power is useful, then ironically the power is also almost certainly inadequate. In other words, if I find myself both mezzed and below half health every few minutes, then chances are I've bitten off more than I can chew. Better to lower the difficulty to avoid the situation than it is to take a power that'll occasionally help me deal with that situation.

Clarion Destiny is still mandatory, as far as I'm concerned, for all Incarnate-eligible Blasters.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Oh good. Wouldn't want a long-recharge niche power on a weak AT to have any unique applications, after all.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

You know you can stack enough clear minds to get better than mag 100 protection (esp on a toon that already has some protection). I wonder if that could be used during a keyes trial to attack Anti during the time stop.

I think its significant but I do not have specific numbers. My understanding is that it offers the Mez+1 mez break for several seconds, and a significant mez resistance effect for longer (to reduce the duration of future mez and to help decay the current one).


That's more of a min/max issue: most blasters do not have soft-cap defenses to detoggle. For most blasters, most of their survivability in I24, more than half numerically, is going to come from sustain, which won't suppress.


Some of the changes slant towards other archetypes but they still benefit blasters significantly. And actually, blaster *preference* doesn't seem to be as serious of a problem as blaster *performance*. If the changes make blasters stronger and also increase the perceived favorability of defenders and corruptors that might not be all bad. Blasters appeared to be more popular than corruptors and defenders by a wide margin in terms of players rolling them initially, but then suffered problems harsh enough to cause many players to abandon or significantly slow their play of them. Increasing their performance would help with that problem, reducing the issues that encourage abandonment. But its also fine if less people initially rolled blasters in the first place and started rolling defenders and corruptors, because those two archetypes were rolled far less often than blasters in the first place.

An I24 where less people rolled blasters, but more of those that did were happy with them, would be a double win in my judgment.

I don't agree. Controllers, Defenders, Corruptors, all work just fine without mez protection. Its possible to make archetypes very powerful that do not have intrinsic mez protection. The blaster problem wasn't lack of mez protection, it was lack of everything including mez protection.

In I24 they won't lack everything anymore. And Blasters also have the closest thing we currently have to "partial protection" from mez: their intrinsic regeneration mitigation doesn't suppress, and they can shoot three attacks while mezzed. They still lack true mez protection, but they have significant mez mitigation now.