Arcanaville: Can a Brute, with no expiring buffs (Build Up, powers from secondary, powers from support characters, anything but Assault) 1-shot even con minions with any non-nukeoid AOE powers? Shatter, and Arc of Destruction look close.
The obvious question behind the question is if anyone can, on a 6-10 second timer, 1-shot even con minions in bulk. I think Mace/Shield Brutes can do it. And of course in the 2-shot category, more than half of Brutes can do it.
Why are their best AOE attacks better than our best AOE attacks? Fire Blasters can two-shot minions, with Assault and some defiance.
I'm not even talking about nukes. I'm talking about Battle Axe, I'm talking about Claws, I'm talking about Mace and Fiery Melee and Titan Weapons and... and... FFFFffffuuuuu....
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
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Semi-relevant but not directly related to the current topic or your post: I hate shield charge.
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Originally Posted by Fulmens
The obvious question behind the question is if anyone can, on a 6-10 second timer, 1-shot even con minions in bulk. I think Mace/Shield Brutes can do it. And of course in the 2-shot category, more than half of Brutes can do it.
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Hey, no problem. I will endeavor to be more clear and avoid mixing comparisions. I have edited the post for clarity. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I think you're going to want to refamiliarize yourself with how much damage Rain of Arrows does. And I'm going to want you to not compare base damage to damage capped damage.
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Hmmm, refamiliarize myself with how much damage Archery's Tier 9 attack does? You can't just give me the answer? Should that be per activation or over a peticular period of time?
Actually, I did this last week and more, preparing a brutally long post with numbers from Mid's comparing all blaster T9 base damages, a list of approx peak personal buffed damge (aim BU IOs), a third comparision adding some temps and then mentioning other +dam options (inspir, SG & team buffs). Only to come to the conclusion that I had wasted 30-40 minutes. So I parsed it down.
"The nukes that do have a crash are rather big per application." (per activation was pretty clear IMHO). Your own numbers for Nova show an approx endurance cost of 120. If I had 60 end at activation it makes sense I'd be completely out of endurance. Even if I was at 105%. I'm over simplifying it.
I guess I could have added how Tier 9s fell into basically three categories.
#1 - Lots of damage over a period of time with minor mitigations (-rech, scatter)(500-544 base dam)
#2 - Lots of damage with decent mitigating effects (312-375 base dam)
#3 - Faster recharge, crashless, lesser damage per activation, minimal if any mitigation (225ish base dam). The third type could be fired at will, endurance permitting.
Yes, yes, yes, rain of arrows is more damage over an extended period of time, say two minutes. 6-7 activations for 225 (base damage) > 1 activation of 500 (base damage). I get that.
However that makes at least two assumptions. 1) Targets will survive for at least the 2 minutes. 2) No other attacks are made during that time frame.
A proper comparison would have to incorporate an optimum attack chain for each of the T9s as if there were no crashes to really be apples to apples. Frankly that makes me tired just typing it. (end, rec, buffs with timers, survivability, is the target moving, etc.)
No need to examine down to decimal places to understand that in the most general sense, more damage = more cost in activation, rechage and/or endurance. And in some cases even a penalty (Many T9s, Energy Transfer, even Oppressive Gloom come to mind)
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I would like to see someone attempt to make this case objectively, as opposed to just matter-of-factly.
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Using the definition, 2b specifically, as per thefreeditionary-dot-com via google as published 04-June-2012AD.
Blaster make big boom, use up all power. Exhausted, need rest.
Tru
Great game while it lasts.
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Given the limits of your statement, I don't think so, but its close. Arc of Destruction does about 108.27 base damage at level 50, and with 1.95 slotting and +160% fury that would be 384.36 damage, only about 89% of the health of an even con minion (430.8). To get there, AoD would need a total of about 3.98 damage buff. Assuming 1.95 slotting, that is about 2.03 more. With 85% fury and +170% damage, a slightly higher buff than I assumed above, you'd be about 33% damage strength shot of the one-shot.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
Arcanaville: Can a Brute, with no expiring buffs (Build Up, powers from secondary, powers from support characters, anything but Assault) 1-shot even con minions with any non-nukeoid AOE powers? Shatter, and Arc of Destruction look close.
The obvious question behind the question is if anyone can, on a 6-10 second timer, 1-shot even con minions in bulk. I think Mace/Shield Brutes can do it. And of course in the 2-shot category, more than half of Brutes can do it. Why are their best AOE attacks better than our best AOE attacks? Fire Blasters can two-shot minions, with Assault and some defiance. I'm not even talking about nukes. I'm talking about Battle Axe, I'm talking about Claws, I'm talking about Mace and Fiery Melee and Titan Weapons and... and... FFFFffffuuuuu.... |
This question is level-dependent, though, so I suspect its possible that at lower levels the one-shot might be more possible.
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Fortunately, I didn't oversimplify it, demonstrating that Nova's endurance cost is too high, and its recharge too long, even by the devs own rules for normal conventional attacks. Assuming those aren't supposed to be just normal attacks but special attacks that are intended to be better than normal attacks, the crash and recharge they are set to has no defensible justification in today's game.|
Originally Posted by __Tru__
Actually, I did this last week and more, preparing a brutally long post with numbers from Mid's comparing all blaster T9 base damages, a list of approx peak personal buffed damge (aim BU IOs), a third comparision adding some temps and then mentioning other +dam options (inspir, SG & team buffs). Only to come to the conclusion that I had wasted 30-40 minutes. So I parsed it down.
"The nukes that do have a crash are rather big per application." (per activation was pretty clear IMHO). Your own numbers for Nova show an approx endurance cost of 120. If I had 60 end at activation it makes sense I'd be completely out of endurance. Even if I was at 105%. I'm over simplifying it. |
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ob·jec·tive - 1. Of or having to do with a material object. 2. Having actual existence or reality. a.) Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic. b.) Based on observable phenomena; presented factually. Using the definition, 2b specifically, as per thefreeditionary-dot-com via google as published 04-June-2012AD. Blaster make big boom, use up all power. Exhausted, need rest. |
Except its not supposed to be. The devs cannot simply apply a penalty to an attack with no reason. The historical excuse was that they didn't know what they were doing, which they did not, an excuse the current dev team has no right to assert. The numbers say nukes are broken. "Big boom now blaster fall down" may be a reasonable argument for you, but it does not meet the minimum requirements for a suitable justification from a game developer over the age of six.
As I went to the trouble of actually calculating, rather than simply describing, what the damage and recharge of the nukes directly imply their cost structure should be, I believe a reasonable challenge to those calculations would be something that actually refutes them, rather than forgets they exist.
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Ok, so I want to give some personal observations to counter some of these arguments that blaster damage is fine and any increase to their damage output would break the AT and make them advance faster than intended.
First, let me point out that in my a little over 4 years playing I have got 5 toons to 50 out of the 60-something toons I currently have, and that isn't counting all those I deleted before getting them to 20. 3 of those 50's are blasters (energy/energy/force, archery/energy/munitions and fire/metal/flame) the others are a corruptor (elecric/kinetic/electric) and a stalker (ninja/ninja/body). My next higest toon is, as of last night, a L42 scrapper (elecrtic/electric/body).
All 3 of my blasters leveled fairly slowly in the post L20 game. and all 3 had a mix of teaming and soloing experience. Neo, the energy blaster, got there through a mix of soloing and SG teaming, Tess, the archery blaster almost exclusivly soloing and Psi, the fire blapper almost exclusivly teaming.
Tess and Neo have recently been playing through the incarnate arcs repetedly, and already have a good amount of incarnate powers, but generally run at about +0/x2-3. Thanks to rain of arrows Tess moves through all the non-eb spawns faster than Neo, who has nova, but exceedingly rarely uses it, and take about the same amount of time when it comes to the EB's. Tess can 2-3 shot most 3 man even spawns, Neo can 3-4 shot most 3 man even con spawns but can take much more of a pounding than Tess. so in essence, it kinda evens out.
Now Shock Tactic, My electric scrapper who I was playing last night (in a duo PLing my partnersarchery/trick arrow corrfrom 17-22) was running tips at +0/x5 totally obliterating one spawn after another with little pause, 2 shotting spawnswith several LT's, 3 shotting is there were bosses present. DE, Arachnos, Longbow, Circle, they al melted before the might of lightning rod>thunder strike(>jacobs ladder or havok punch, depending on the situation). No stopping between spawns waiting on recharges or to heal/recover. If I got low on either I would just fire energize off, or slip in a power sink into the attack chain.
The difference in sustanable kill speed was simply astonishing. Even my partner was amazed at the difference between how quickly my incarnate blasters take out spawns and my non 50 scrapper does. Even with an unfinished build and some temp plain IO in my biggest AoE's till I can get the obliteration recipes for them from the AH. Purpled out Neo and Psi and purpled/hamied Tess can only dream of reliably and consistantly taking out spawns like that.
As blasters are 'supposed' to be the ranged equivalent of a scrapper, untill they can perform at that level no-one can say they have too much, or even enough power.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Then it's time for them to get off the cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Given the limits of your statement, I don't think so, but its close. Arc of Destruction does about 108.27 base damage at level 50, and with 1.95 slotting and +160% fury that would be 384.36 damage, only about 89% of the health of an even con minion (430.8). To get there, AoD would need a total of about 3.98 damage buff. Assuming 1.95 slotting, that is about 2.03 more. With 85% fury and +170% damage, a slightly higher buff than I assumed above, you'd be about 33% damage strength shot of the one-shot.
This question is level-dependent, though, so I suspect its possible that at lower levels the one-shot might be more possible. |
I currently have an Axe Brute and a Mace Brute under 20 and after Fury builds they can definitely 1-shot even-con or even +1 Minions. As I'm running them at +0/X2 right now I can keep Fury at +80% with no problem and over 100% is not uncommon. The rest of the slotting is DOs at the moment. No damage auras or red Insps required...
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
Fulmens specified AoE powers, though. Sure, you can one-shot minions with a good ST attack, that's easy.
Unless you really are oneshotting minions with Whirling Axe/Mace just from Fury; it's been a while since I played a lowbie brute, but I don't remember Fury being THAT good.
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Originally Posted by St_Angelius
As blasters are 'supposed' to be the ranged equivalent of a scrapper, until they can perform at that level no-one can say they have too much, or even enough power. |
From what Arcana said, this was one of the ways the Devs realized that Blasters were underperforming; leveling speed. Time spent dead and time spent mezzed were likely the other two.
I agree completely with your statement. Truth be told, I can understand why balance is so difficult and why the Devs haven't achieved it yet in a game this complex. They like to work from the risk vs. reward formula yet the squishy types ALWAYS take more risks. Blasters take more risks than anyone because they have the least amount of mitigation.
I like apples to apples comparisons so I ran some numbers:
At level 22 a Minion has 202 Health. A Blaster using Power Burst at lvl 22 with lvl 25 SOs (1 each Acc, End, Rech and Dmg) does 176 damage or about 87% of the target's Health. Not tough to believe that the other 13% would come from Defiance. All of this assumes NO Resistance on the part of the target which is seldom true. The rest of the attack chain (Power Bolt, Power Blast and Torrent) would be enough to defeat another Minion under the same circumstances. Casting and recharge times dictate that the Blaster could do this forever with enough End. Essentially that's 1 Minion defeated every 4-5 seconds as a baseline.
A Scrapper with Broadsword at the same level and with Hack, Slash, Slice and Parry in his attack chain will be defeating foes at roughly the same speed or perhaps a bit faster since the Secondary I chose was Regen and Quick Recovery alleviates possible End issues.
Two characters, 2 attack chains with 3 ST and one cone AoE each, all slotted with +3 SOs at lvl 22. They both defeat the enemy at approximately the same rate or close enough on paper. However the differences are important:
By lvl 22 EVERY melee character has access to Status Protection while Blasters can have CJ, Acrobatics and IOs for SOME protection.
Many of the Melee Secondaries have some form of self-heal, End recovery or both by level 22 or soon after. Blasters get no self-heal and those that get an End recovery power get it later.
Scrappers have 14 Primaries and 9 Secondaries while Blasters have 11 Primaries and 7 Secondaries.
The kill speed calculations above make NO allowances for the enemy fighting back. With little Status protection and no defenses the Blaster will be at a much higher risk for roughly the same reward. He will be more injured (which consumes Greens, forces Rest and prompts the player to include self-heal Pool powers in his build), tired (which consumes Blues and forces Rest) and mezzed (forcing down-time even if the character survives) than the Scrapper.
There will always be outlying data from other sets (by lvl 22 a Fire Blaster can have 3 AoEs and 3 ST attacks but will have fewer slots to spread around and Dark Blast gets a damaging self-heal at lvl 28). However I think that it's clear that comparing Scrappers to Blasters is a losing game for the Blasters. Scrappers can inflict the same damage or more with less risk and that clearly breaks the Dev's Risk vs. Reward formula.
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
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Exactly the point I was making, with better math thrown in. Now, I may not be as good with the math as, say, Arcana is, but I'm good enough. But then, I'm a firm believer that obverved results are are more reliable than on paper figures. As you demonstrate, on paper, scrappers and blasters should have a roughly equal kill speed, but in practice that is rarely true as scrappers have the tools necersary to keep on scrapping almost non-stop, but blasters have to slow down, stop, or use outside help, like insps, to even come remotely close. |
Originally Posted by Comicsluvr
From what Arcana said, this was one of the ways the Devs realized that Blasters were underperforming; leveling speed. Time spent dead and time spent mezzed were likely the other two.
I agree completely with your statement. Truth be told, I can understand why balance is so difficult and why the Devs haven't achieved it yet in a game this complex. They like to work from the risk vs. reward formula yet the squishy types ALWAYS take more risks. Blasters take more risks than anyone because they have the least amount of mitigation. I like apples to apples comparisons so I ran some numbers: At level 22 a Minion has 202 Health. A Blaster using Power Burst at lvl 22 with lvl 25 SOs (1 each Acc, End, Rech and Dmg) does 176 damage or about 87% of the target's Health. Not tough to believe that the other 13% would come from Defiance. All of this assumes NO Resistance on the part of the target which is seldom true. The rest of the attack chain (Power Bolt, Power Blast and Torrent) would be enough to defeat another Minion under the same circumstances. Casting and recharge times dictate that the Blaster could do this forever with enough End. Essentially that's 1 Minion defeated every 4-5 seconds as a baseline. A Scrapper with Broadsword at the same level and with Hack, Slash, Slice and Parry in his attack chain will be defeating foes at roughly the same speed or perhaps a bit faster since the Secondary I chose was Regen and Quick Recovery alleviates possible End issues. Two characters, 2 attack chains with 3 ST and one cone AoE each, all slotted with +3 SOs at lvl 22. They both defeat the enemy at approximately the same rate or close enough on paper. However the differences are important: By lvl 22 EVERY melee character has access to Status Protection while Blasters can have CJ, Acrobatics and IOs for SOME protection. Many of the Melee Secondaries have some form of self-heal, End recovery or both by level 22 or soon after. Blasters get no self-heal and those that get an End recovery power get it later. Scrappers have 14 Primaries and 9 Secondaries while Blasters have 11 Primaries and 7 Secondaries. The kill speed calculations above make NO allowances for the enemy fighting back. With little Status protection and no defenses the Blaster will be at a much higher risk for roughly the same reward. He will be more injured (which consumes Greens, forces Rest and prompts the player to include self-heal Pool powers in his build), tired (which consumes Blues and forces Rest) and mezzed (forcing down-time even if the character survives) than the Scrapper. There will always be outlying data from other sets (by lvl 22 a Fire Blaster can have 3 AoEs and 3 ST attacks but will have fewer slots to spread around and Dark Blast gets a damaging self-heal at lvl 28). However I think that it's clear that comparing Scrappers to Blasters is a losing game for the Blasters. Scrappers can inflict the same damage or more with less risk and that clearly breaks the Dev's Risk vs. Reward formula. |
Now, no, I don't necersarilly think blaster should get huge damage increases, but like Arcana has put forward, they need some form of built in tools, be they inherant changes or changes to powers, to allow them to keep up.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Then it's time for them to get off the cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it.
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I understand your post and I like the concept of attacks providing active mitigation. It invokes, to me, the concept of covering fire to force enemies to duck and limit return fire.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
There exist other options to modify the blaster role that have no game integration, balance problems, or cottage rule issues whatsoever.
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Currently active mitigation comes through control, typically favored by controllers and dominators, or debuffs and/or healing, typically favored by defenders and corruptors. Mechanics like this already exist in many other archetypes. Cold and Psi, for example, reduce recharge just by attacking. Dark reduces ToHit. Dominators have many controls built into their damage powers.
Would that mechanic, as much as I personally like the concept, just make blasters in practice Dominator-light? Wouldn't it just push blasters down the same path as Doms, just with less control?
If it would, would that even be an issue? In a game where we can have Brutes, Tanks, Scrappers and Stalkers all basically doing the same thing with different flavor and Defenders and Corruptors being almost identical I wonder if it would even matter if blasters became more Dominator like.
Edit: As an aside, I don't really think adding extra mitigation to their attacks would be a role shift in the vein I was talking about.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
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No, or at least I try to pretend they don't. |
Originally Posted by JohnnyKilowatt
Soldiers of Arachnos don't count?
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Do you think the devs would try to move blasters to be more like SoA?
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
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Yes and no. In extremely rough terms, you could say Dominators went down the same path as Blasters, but in a better way.|
Originally Posted by Moonlighter
Currently active mitigation comes through control, typically favored by controllers and dominators, or debuffs and/or healing, typically favored by defenders and corruptors. Mechanics like this already exist in many other archetypes. Cold and Psi, for example, reduce recharge just by attacking. Dark reduces ToHit. Dominators have many controls built into their damage powers.
Would that mechanic, as much as I personally like the concept, just make blasters in practice Dominator-light? Wouldn't it just push blasters down the same path as Doms, just with less control? |
But there are significant differences to gameplay, and its illustrative to look at Controllers to see the difference. Although both Controllers and Dominators on the surface have the same control set, they don't actually because of a critical difference: containment. Controllers and Dominators both have control sets, but Controllers use theirs as their primary means of dealing damage. Dominators have assault sets that are generally more efficient at dealing damage. So from a gameplay perspective, Controllers deal control and get offense automatically, and buff/debuff when they need to. Dominators deal control and get some offense from that, but have a separate offensive option in the assault sets.
Blasters would be like Dominators in that they would have two offensive sets, one ranged focused and one melee focused with some utility powers. Dominators would have two offensive sets, one control focused and one melee/ranged attack focused. But Blasters would also be like Controllers in that while Controllers primarily deal control and get damage for free, Blasters would always be dealing damage and get control for free.
And distinct from both of them, while both Controllers and Dominators would possess long-duration control which means they would have the means to control some targets while attacking others, Blasters would only have the means to control targets they were actually attacking, and only while attacking them. In that sense, their gameplay would be very much like old school blappers, but with a ranged option.
I mentioned counter-mez, but the proposed addition to blasters in the other thread was more sophisticated than just adding counter-mez. It added it in a specific way:
1. It would only be added to single target attacks
2. The effect would center on the target, and affect up to a small number of targets nearby in an AoE, similar to gauntlet
3. If no such targets exist, the effect would trigger additional damage on the target.
The idea here is that Blasters have AoE as an option, and this idea doesn't change Blaster AoE at all. But it improves single target attacks in two ways: it makes single target attacks have AoE mitigation (to a degree) and it also makes single target attacks deal more damage when that AoE mitigation is unnecessary (because there are no targets to affect). And because this is bonus damage within an inherent effect, its a way to increase Blaster single target damage without tampering with any blaster attack's endurance costs or recharge. It would be like containment, only in this case the concept would be concentrated fire. If you shoot a single target attack at three targets, you'll damage one and splash counter-mez on the group. But if there's only one target, the full force of the attack "concentrates" on the lone target dealing more damage to it.
That, combined with D2.0's ability to shoot two single target ranged attacks while mezzed, would make Blasters distinct from Dominators. Dominator persistent control would give them advantages, Blaster higher ranged AoE modifiers and concentrated strikes would give them an different advantage. Ultimately, high magnitude and duration mez would still make Dominators more survivable at the high end, but Blasters would have significant advantages and a unique playstyle over Dominators in a not insignificant range of performance below that.
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Conceptually that is interesting, but I would not want to have to implement that system in a way that would be efficient for the server. Your suggestion would force all single target attacks not only send out AoE messaging to check targets in range, but to depend on the response from those targets, or worse the lack of response from non-existent targets, to resolve before figuring out base damage on the main target. If the CoH code base can do that efficiently I will be suitably impressed. I wouldn't think it could though.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Yes and no. In extremely rough terms, you could say Dominators went down the same path as Blasters, but in a better way.
But there are significant differences to gameplay, and its illustrative to look at Controllers to see the difference. Although both Controllers and Dominators on the surface have the same control set, they don't actually because of a critical difference: containment. Controllers and Dominators both have control sets, but Controllers use theirs as their primary means of dealing damage. Dominators have assault sets that are generally more efficient at dealing damage. So from a gameplay perspective, Controllers deal control and get offense automatically, and buff/debuff when they need to. Dominators deal control and get some offense from that, but have a separate offensive option in the assault sets. Blasters would be like Dominators in that they would have two offensive sets, one ranged focused and one melee focused with some utility powers. Dominators would have two offensive sets, one control focused and one melee/ranged attack focused. But Blasters would also be like Controllers in that while Controllers primarily deal control and get damage for free, Blasters would always be dealing damage and get control for free. And distinct from both of them, while both Controllers and Dominators would possess long-duration control which means they would have the means to control some targets while attacking others, Blasters would only have the means to control targets they were actually attacking, and only while attacking them. In that sense, their gameplay would be very much like old school blappers, but with a ranged option. I mentioned counter-mez, but the proposed addition to blasters in the other thread was more sophisticated than just adding counter-mez. It added it in a specific way: 1. It would only be added to single target attacks 2. The effect would center on the target, and affect up to a small number of targets nearby in an AoE, similar to gauntlet 3. If no such targets exist, the effect would trigger additional damage on the target. The idea here is that Blasters have AoE as an option, and this idea doesn't change Blaster AoE at all. But it improves single target attacks in two ways: it makes single target attacks have AoE mitigation (to a degree) and it also makes single target attacks deal more damage when that AoE mitigation is unnecessary (because there are no targets to affect). And because this is bonus damage within an inherent effect, its a way to increase Blaster single target damage without tampering with any blaster attack's endurance costs or recharge. It would be like containment, only in this case the concept would be concentrated fire. If you shoot a single target attack at three targets, you'll damage one and splash counter-mez on the group. But if there's only one target, the full force of the attack "concentrates" on the lone target dealing more damage to it. That, combined with D2.0's ability to shoot two single target ranged attacks while mezzed, would make Blasters distinct from Dominators. Dominator persistent control would give them advantages, Blaster higher ranged AoE modifiers and concentrated strikes would give them an different advantage. Ultimately, high magnitude and duration mez would still make Dominators more survivable at the high end, but Blasters would have significant advantages and a unique playstyle over Dominators in a not insignificant range of performance below that. |
Edit: I am specifically talking about doing this as a side effect for all blaster single target effects. I understand there are some big ticket powers that do similar things - like Fulcrum Shift. Those are typically limited to longer cooldowns.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
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Are you basically proposing some form of unenhanceable mez that lasts about cast time + 1 seconds or something like that?|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
...Blasters would only have the means to control targets they were actually attacking...
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Also, got to say I'm not convinced with the conditional AoE Mez or ST extra damage. I sort of like the Gauntlet style AoE mez in general, though.
(NVM, reading your reply in the other thread... why are we spreading all this stuff accross 3 threads anyways?
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I've been thinking of ways to do this efficiently: pseudopets might be one way, and dealing the damage and then using a scaling healback would eliminate the need for target messaging or grantpowers. It ultimately might take some new tech to do this in the most efficient way possible.
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Originally Posted by Moonlighter
Conceptually that is interesting, but I would not want to have to implement that system in a way that would be efficient for the server. Your suggestion would force all single target attacks not only send out AoE messaging to check targets in range, but to depend on the response from those targets, or worse the lack of response from non-existent targets, to resolve before figuring out base damage on the main target. If the CoH code base can do that efficiently I will be suitably impressed. I wouldn't think it could though.
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Lots of different threads that purport to ask different questions, but they all tend to lead to the same basic places: mez protection for blasters, buffs for snipers and nukes, changes to the way blasters play, discussions about whether blasters need any help at all, blasters within the context of the modern city of heroes game.
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Originally Posted by Starsman
Are you basically proposing some form of unenhanceable mez that lasts about cast time + 1 seconds or something like that?
Also, got to say I'm not convinced with the conditional AoE Mez or ST extra damage. I sort of like the Gauntlet style AoE mez in general, though. (NVM, reading your reply in the other thread... why are we spreading all this stuff accross 3 threads anyways? ) |
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I think you could just have the initial power do damage, give a trait or invisible power, and create a small AoE attack that did the mez and caused all affected targets to themselves create an AoE attack for a small amount of damage that only affect someone with the trait/invisible power.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I've been thinking of ways to do this efficiently: pseudopets might be one way, and dealing the damage and then using a scaling healback would eliminate the need for target messaging or grantpowers. It ultimately might take some new tech to do this in the most efficient way possible.
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The user would see the main damage in the target then a bunch of small numbers - one for each surrounding target. This would mean that no special messaging (other than the AoEs themselves) would have to be sent back to the target. It also would have an exponential server hit based on the max targets.
Honestly I don't think the bonus damage on the main target is worth the server performance hit. A small AoE mitigation is probably enough.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
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Depends on your point of view. Scourge costs a lot of resources, as does the SR scaling resistances. Powers like Tactics are relatively expensive as well. Its a question of degree, and its worth at least the mental exercise of determining the most efficient way to implement such an effect before dismissing it. It wasn't the main aspect of my suggestion, but I thought it was a good addition if it was feasible. A two-for-one that my suggestion creates with concentrated damage is a better balance between single target and AoE attacks, and that's been a long-standing thorn in my side.
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Originally Posted by Moonlighter
Honestly I don't think the bonus damage on the main target is worth the server performance hit. A small AoE mitigation is probably enough.
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[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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I see them as skirmishers (mixing ranged with melee) and should be treated as such. 1 armor in secondary, and one anti-mez would compliment this role. Keep caps on def/resists the same, and remove crash from the nukes. ad recharge if needed, but as a blaster you should be constantly able to do some damage, and spike when need be. Maybe take something from the doms, and have a build up pool with a button for WTFOMG damage mode with crash instead of having it on the nuke. this gives a sustained, and a burst option.
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Originally Posted by Sir Hextor
Blasters' primaries should outperform in Ranged Damage all other ATs with exceptions being made for damage outliers (Debuffs, Criticals, Containment, etc.). AoE and ST should be significant and sustainable (recharge and END).
Their secondary should provide mitigation, nowhere near the level of Controller or Dominator primaries or even support sets, but enough that through adequately leveraging their secondaries, they can better perform their primary role of damaging things at range. Some of those secondaries should allow players to stay in melee range, with good melee attacks and melee based mitigation. Some should support a more ranged playstyle. All should be more or less balanced. This is the area I see needing the most dev attention with an eye to seriously bending the cottage rule to make the sets that are outliers in their performance perhaps toned down a little and the rest of the underperforming sets brought up more in line with the overachievers. Of course, I'm pretty limited in my Blaster experience since they are such a pain to play (one 50 Blaster [DP/MM] and one stalled out in the mid 20s [Fire/Ice]) but the lack of mitigation makes me instead choose to play another Ranged AT, and that's with two of the arguably most mitigating secondaries offered. The secondaries need some real help. Perhaps the primaries could stand to have their numbers tuned up a little bit, but the secondaries are really sucking wind imo. Also, all my opinions are based on play with SOs. IOs should turn the game up to 11 (like they do). Balance should be around SO numbers and play (one of the reasons I don't see anything wrong with Drain Psyche is because without +recharge you can't have it anywhere near perma or even 50% up time). EDIT - Forgot to add one thing to Primary discussion. I really feel like Nukes ought to be crashless across the board, but especially so Blaster nukes. They really ought to be able to nuke and keep on kicking butt. |
People tend to think of controllers/dominators as two sides of the same coin, but in terms of functional playstyle I've always seen blasters/dominators as a more valid comparison. Without buff/debuff/armor both are limited to damage and active mitigation with each AT having more of one and less of the other.
The problem is not so much a lack of blaster damage as a lack of enough active mitigation to be the flipside of dominators that they should be. That's my answer to this thread's subject: blasters should have more damage and less active mitigation than dominators (but enough to be survivable when combined with their higher damage).
So TL;DR: I agree in general with Arcana and others who want to fix the AT by adding active mitigation (of some kind).
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Blasters share these powers with other ATs. The problem is blaster Primaries and Secondaries need to be made for blasters not defenders and corruptors.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
So the rationale for why the crashing nukes crash is apparently that Blasters are such dangerous high-performing characters that the devs had to take their most powerful attack and triple its recharge and increase its endurance cost, and do so in a way that made the most vulnerable archetype even more vulnerable for an extended period of time.
I would like to see someone attempt to make this case objectively, as opposed to just matter-of-factly. |
Edit: Just consider the whole range is the blasters defense credo. Well Range is not a corruptor or defenders defense. Blasters shouldn't have to share short range tier 3s with them. If you design a set that is going to be paired with potent buff debuff abilities it needs to be different than the same set coupled with just more damage.
Personally, I'd like to see every Blaster nuke split into 2 Powers. One is the standard AoE nuke...the other a ST form of the same thing. Maybe ST isn't the right wording...more like an 8' radius or something.
Both start with a 360 second Recharge and OMG damage. The AoE version would drop everyone under a Boss like butter. Bosses would be hurt but alive. The ST version would melt Bosses like butter and put the hurt on EBs. The AoE version would have a crash, the ST version would simply have horrendous End cost (like 60).
A Blaster with both now has 2 options. He can dissolve a spawn but leave himself vulnerable or he can dissolve a Boss and a close underling or two for a hefty End cost but stay in the fight.
The high recharge means that without Speed Boost or other outside buffs the Blaster will never get close to being able to do this every spawn or even every minute.
No, this will not even begin to address Blaster issues. I just want to try it and see how well it works...
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