Starsman, I had a similar idea I tossed in here somewhere, except you could fire it off whenever you want, not just when the bar is full. Shorter mez protection, shorter and less damage, but you don't have to wait. You can do it when you NEED to do it.
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@Boltcutter in game.
Quote:
So thinking out loud about mez. An interesting question to ponder is why mez kills. I think it kills blasters because the only way blasters survive is to keep attacking, either defeating or disabling attackers. Shut off offense, and blasters become extremely vulnerable (preventing movement is another problem) Defiance 2.0 attempts to partially mitigate that by giving the blaster offensive options even while mezzed.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
Starsman, I had a similar idea I tossed in here somewhere, except you could fire it off whenever you want, not just when the bar is full. Shorter mez protection, shorter and less damage, but you don't have to wait. You can do it when you NEED to do it.
|
But it kills melee for different reasons. That's all part of it, but the bigger issue is that it detoggles them, stripping most of their protection away. They get mez protection to prevent that from happening at all.
So we have attack while mezzed, and mez protection. And then we have the controller version, which is alpha mez them before they can mez you. Are there any other ways to reduce the threat of mez besides those three?
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Hmmm... fair enough...|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
They must be playing around with something if Synapse implies he's seen a difference playing his blaster, but that doesn't mean what they've done is all they'll do.
|
I guess one thing I always think about is something similar to The Human Torch. Every time he is going to use fire, he engulfs himself on his flame, protecting him from at least some attacks and not always just fire.
It may make more sense with energy/elemental sets than with physical things like weapons, but what if every attack you inflicted granted you either defense or resistance? Weapon sets like pistols or AR can add positional defense while elemental sets would add resistances.
It would be similar to defiance 2.0, only instead of adding a damage buff it would add a resist or defense buff. Some attacks maybe even add mez protection.
Problem I see is the huge reworking of every power set.
Perhaps its possible to use the tech we see in some incarnate abilities to give every offensive power a 100% proc to resist, ideally if we can categorize somehow the type of target of power that gets such proc (weapon vz non-weapon.)
Also, not directly a blaster buff, but how about we give the Fighting Pool a 5th power that is a mez toggle? One that does not cover KB nor Immob (since we already have those available in other power pool options.)
In addition... what is blaster's resist/def modifiers? I think they are much lower than scrappers. Perhaps they should be higher so they can take better advantage of pool and ancillary powers.
Quote:
Well if the AoE alpha kills everything then mez isn't an issue. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
So thinking out loud about mez. An interesting question to ponder is why mez kills. I think it kills blasters because the only way blasters survive is to keep attacking, either defeating or disabling attackers. Shut off offense, and blasters become extremely vulnerable (preventing movement is another problem) Defiance 2.0 attempts to partially mitigate that by giving the blaster offensive options even while mezzed.
But it kills melee for different reasons. That's all part of it, but the bigger issue is that it detoggles them, stripping most of their protection away. They get mez protection to prevent that from happening at all. So we have attack while mezzed, and mez protection. And then we have the controller version, which is alpha mez them before they can mez you. Are there any other ways to reduce the threat of mez besides those three? |
Being out of range of the mez.
Being out of LoS of the mez. I love using ignite on Nenesis snipers (who don't move) its possible at times to use ignite from out of LoS and watch those poor guys burn.
The last defense is, no be there. If they can't hit, you can't be mezzed.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
Quote:
How long would it take for such an effect to ramp up?
|
Originally Posted by Starsman
Hmmm... fair enough...
I guess one thing I always think about is something similar to The Human Torch. Every time he is going to use fire, he engulfs himself on his flame, protecting him from at least some attacks and not always just fire. It may make more sense with energy/elemental sets than with physical things like weapons, but what if every attack you inflicted granted you either defense or resistance? Weapon sets like pistols or AR can add positional defense while elemental sets would add resistances. It would be similar to defiance 2.0, only instead of adding a damage buff it would add a resist or defense buff. Some attacks maybe even add mez protection. Problem I see is the huge reworking of every power set. Perhaps its possible to use the tech we see in some incarnate abilities to give every offensive power a 100% proc to resist, ideally if we can categorize somehow the type of target of power that gets such proc (weapon vz non-weapon.) |
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I don't think the devs are open to allowing us to attack while not being there.
|
Originally Posted by newchemicals
Well if the AoE alpha kills everything then mez isn't an issue.
Being out of range of the mez. Being out of LoS of the mez. I love using ignite on Nenesis snipers (who don't move) its possible at times to use ignite from out of LoS and watch those poor guys burn. The last defense is, no be there. If they can't hit, you can't be mezzed. |
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Not sure, didn't crunch any numbers. Was a passing idea. I guess blasters would need that effect to ramp up quickly so it would have to be balanced to be that way, perhaps designed in a way that degrades... so you get held or distracted you don't get a binary drop off but perhaps after 5 to 10 seconds of inactivity the entire thing would fade out. It would just require you to be active in order to stay defensive.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
How long would it take for such an effect to ramp up?
|
Another option that crossed my mind is to give blasters a front loaded defense inherent of some sort... perhaps resistance, or defense, or a combination of both that is "always" active. However, you slowly lose it during combat.
The goal would be that a blaster is meant to kill in short fights, but also to survive without instantly killing everything. So, give them the ability to even take a solo sized alpha, the kind of alpha a stalker would survive. Unlike the scrapper, you better start killing fast because you will lose that.
Hmmm.. what if we return the old blaster defiance bar? This time make the bar be full by default out of combat, it degrades by getting attacked, not by attacking.
It refills out of combat. The more full it is the bigger the buff. The buff, ideally, would be based on your primary and secondary following the rules I suggested earlier. A Fire/Devices may have a combo of Resistance and defense, a Fire/Fire would be pure resistance.
Quote:
Well, I did make a suggestion that Defiance not only allow you to use your first attacks while mezzed, but also that none of your persisting effects (primarily toggles) be suppressed while mezzed.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
But it kills melee for different reasons. That's all part of it, but the bigger issue is that it detoggles them, stripping most of their protection away. They get mez protection to prevent that from happening at all. So we have attack while mezzed, and mez protection. And then we have the controller version, which is alpha mez them before they can mez you. Are there any other ways to reduce the threat of mez besides those three? |
It doesn't quite help all Blasters but it can aid the majority defensively and offensively: those who run tough/weave, those that run epic shields, those with damage auras/debuff auras. So that even while mezzed, they can still affect foes with certain powers and defend themselves with certain powers.
Consider it a compromise between having mez protection to mitigate detoggle and using control to mitigate the enemy. A Blaster wouldn't get straight up immunity to a certain level of mez, but they still have strategies to hinder the foe, attacks to throw and/or armor to protect themselves. Or think of it conversely, with mez protection/mass foe management, you have to worry about mez bypassing it and shutting you down completely while the Blaster will often succumb to mez but not have to worry about being shut down completely.
You can even take it a step further: Stalkers use armor (stealth) to highly enable single target attacks, making them 'masters of single target annihilation', so let Blasters use persisting effects to enable their damage (mitigating mez) making them the 'masters of toggles'. For every toggle that drains endurance, the Blaster gets a scaling mez resist per toggle. Every secondary but Energy Manipulation has a toggle in it and Devices has *2* (but lacks BU) as does Fire Manipulation (which only has immobilize and -movement for mitigation) which seems fair.
So yeah. The points I would put to boost Blasters (all points, not just one):
-Rank scaled Overpower for ST mezzes. Higher chance of +1mag mez on bosses and higher.
-Defiance added to so no persisting effects (particularly toggles) are suppressed or detoggled while mezzed. Can still only use the tier 1s and 2 from primary while mezzed.
-Defiance also adding a scaling +mez resist while the Blaster is mezzed per toggle they are running that costs endurance.
Besides that, I'd probably look into making Blasters the only AT with modded maximum endurance. As of now, all ATs start and end with 100 points of END unless a power is used to buff max END. Just like Tankers, who are ranked with the best max HP mod of any AT, Blasters would do the opposite and have higher END. This would have several effects: their recovery would be naturally higher, the dmg/END ratio would shift in their favor...while not giving them dmg it would however make powers proportionally cheaper, they could theoretically run more toggles or run the same amount of toggles with less of a drain to them, it may have an effect on END crashing powers.
Quote:
Some version of that (perhaps not that total) would be the fourth way that occurred to me.
|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Well, I did make a suggestion that Defiance not only allow you to use your first attacks while mezzed, but also that none of your persisting effects (primarily toggles) be suppressed while mezzed.
|
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Very high defense, as used by [some] blasters now, occurs to me.
| Are there any other ways to reduce the threat of mez besides those three? |
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Then I wonder why no one commented on the thought then. I figured it was a perfect compromise as that is the only other debilitating effect of mez (the detoggle and/or suppression of effects and the need to retoggle). Without that, mez is merely a duration where one can't use powers...and *that* is partially overcome by the fact Blasters *can* use 3 out of the 18 powers from their prim/sec.
So yeah, I already don't mind being mezzed or chain mezzed on my Blasters. I have adapted. But it really limits viable strategic builds if powers are constantly suppressed or have to be turned back on constantly...it's practically pointless to try using offensive auras if mez is around. Currently on my DP/Fire/Ice, if my damage auras get shut off by mez mid combat, I simply leave them off as they take too much time during combat to reapply. After everything's dead? Yeah, if I remember...During combat? I might end up wasting the effort.
I'm also curious about the effect of increasing Blaster's innate endurance and what effect that would have on their attacks, recovery and powers that crash END. I figure, at lvl 50, having a base of 125 max END would be sufficient. It would have to scale by level, only having 100 up until perhaps lvl 10 where it then starts scaling up with each level. Then accolades/powers that buff max END would boost by the modified amount. I'd be curious if, with powers and slotting, a Blaster could achieve 150+ END and if they could bypass the END crash of nukes by simply having more END than the crash takes.
Nukes cost 20.8 END and IIRC scales to -100 END by the amount of foes present. With just that, a lvl 50 Blaster would be left with 4.2 END and no recovery at lvl 50. It'd synergize well since one simply had to make sure they had full END before and pop a blue pill right after and would never be reduced to 0. For all ATs but Blaster, the crash would reduce them to 0 instantly.
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Mez resistance in high amounts can help, I know Accelerate Metabolism has saved me from death by mez due to it shortening the length of the mez.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
So we have attack while mezzed, and mez protection. And then we have the controller version, which is alpha mez them before they can mez you. Are there any other ways to reduce the threat of mez besides those three?
|
Defense or to-hit debuffs can prevent a fair amount of mez.
Pets can draw aggro to prevent mez and also if your character gets mezzed enemies will often switch off to an active pet.
AI manipulation can prevent some mez, but that requires a high amount of knowledge and skill.
Toggle suppression rather than shut-off has been a big help, that could be extended to blaster offensive toggles (Chilling Embrace, Lightning Field, Hot Feet, etc.)
Blaze.
Edit: Found another one while searching my old notes from 2007.
Blaster secondary attacks (including Trip Mines, Caltrops, Hot Feet, etc.) all have a -40% mez power debuff which lasts for 15 seconds. (see Benumb)
It wouldn't have to be secondary powers that added -mez power, that was just the idea I had back then.
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.
Quote:
Except adding the DDR to grant cover was a "gimmick" It could have been done by spreading it around to all the other powers.|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
I am fine with that idea, as I said, make the powers better, do not add a gimmick that just adds some bonus for taking more primary/secondary powers. Adding defense debuff resistance to Grant Cover is not the same as suggesting that 4% defense debuff resistance be granted for every shield power taken.
Adding 15% Sm/Le/Fire resists to Blazing Aura, is not the same as suggesting blasters get mag 1 mez protection and 2% ranged defense for each primary and secondary power that is recharged and ready to use. |
Making all the secondary powers better will take quite sometime and considerable developer time. If DPA isn't increased by reducing animation times the blaster will STILL be skipping powers or having them sit unused in the powers tray.
Providing a bonus of some sort for secondary powers taken but rarely used could provide a short circuiting method to both the issue of required dev time and powers unusable because of excessive animation times.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Quote:
Back in the Defiance thread Castle started (in 2007) he said:|
Originally Posted by Starsman
Hmmm.. what if we return the old blaster defiance bar? This time make the bar be full by default out of combat, it degrades by getting attacked, not by attacking.
It refills out of combat. The more full it is the bigger the buff. The buff, ideally, would be based on your primary and secondary following the rules I suggested earlier. A Fire/Devices may have a combo of Resistance and defense, a Fire/Fire would be pure resistance. |
"Effectively increasing the damage of every opening volley by 50 to 75% would help, no?" (He mentioned this in reference to the idea of gaining a damage buff from staying still).
I threw this idea out:
Fervor
Blasters begin their conflicts in a high state of preparedness and/or excitement, but lack the staying power of other ATs. If blaster’s come under assault, they quickly lose their focus and some of the best laid plans may unravel a bit. While blasters always maintain their excellent ability to inflict damage, they do lose some of their offensive edge, but, more dangerously, they become much more susceptible to enemy attacks if they become harried.
The Fervor meter starts off full. Let’s say it has 200 pts.
The Fervor meter regenerates 3 points every half second, if you are not activating powers. If you have activated a power within the last 5 seconds, the Fervor meter regenerates 1 point every half second instead.
Every time a blaster is attacked (including AoEs), the Fervor meter loses 15 points.
At full Fervor, a blaster gains +40% Accuracy, +80% damage, +12% defense vs. Range and AoE, +15% resist all, and 5 mag mez protection vs. Stuns/Sleeps/Holds. I think a linear scaling of these with the Fervor meter would be fine, although one could argue that the defense and resists could scale down at a faster rate, so that they were gone by the time the bar was at half, but the Acc, Dam, and Mez resist bonuses still existed, just at half their normal value.
This rewards a blaster for “smart” play. This rewards a team for protecting the blaster from attacks. A solo blaster can count on Fervor to help them start fights, and they can take the non-suicidal method of utilizing Fervor simply by resting a bit. Fervor should not have a dramatic impact on overall kill speed, because a quick moving solo blaster will lose Fervor. Mezzes will still be dangerous to blasters, especially in longer fights, but at least a blaster will have been able to accomplish something before they get mezzed, instead of the current situation of getting mezzed in the beginning and watching scrappers kill everything.
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.
Quote:
Make it a trade off type power. First double the damage buff provided by defiance.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
Not sure, didn't crunch any numbers. Was a passing idea. I guess blasters would need that effect to ramp up quickly so it would have to be balanced to be that way, perhaps designed in a way that degrades... so you get held or distracted you don't get a binary drop off but perhaps after 5 to 10 seconds of inactivity the entire thing would fade out. It would just require you to be active in order to stay defensive.
Another option that crossed my mind is to give blasters a front loaded defense inherent of some sort... perhaps resistance, or defense, or a combination of both that is "always" active. However, you slowly lose it during combat. The goal would be that a blaster is meant to kill in short fights, but also to survive without instantly killing everything. So, give them the ability to even take a solo sized alpha, the kind of alpha a stalker would survive. Unlike the scrapper, you better start killing fast because you will lose that. Hmmm.. what if we return the old blaster defiance bar? This time make the bar be full by default out of combat, it degrades by getting attacked, not by attacking. It refills out of combat. The more full it is the bigger the buff. The buff, ideally, would be based on your primary and secondary following the rules I suggested earlier. A Fire/Devices may have a combo of Resistance and defense, a Fire/Fire would be pure resistance. |
Now the Blaster starts with Mag 10 mez protection and 25% defense to ranged and AoE and the defiance damage buff is 0.
Blaster begins launching attacks, as the number of damage buffs from defiance increase the mez protection and defense decrease. At a 33% defiance damage buff you are at mag 5 mez protection and 12.5 defense to ranged and AoE. When you hit 66% the mez protection and defense are 0.
The defiance buffs are relatively short term. If you get mezzed they will wear off rather quickly and you'll unmez as your defense increases.
With defiance 2.0 I die most often when hit with an Alpha mez. This would give the blaster tools to mitigate the Alpha mez while still leaving them vulnerable to mez.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Looking back in time is fun. I recently found some old posts I had made. Here is a list of the suggestions I had made in 2007 for fixing blasters then.
Global Blaster Changes
Blasters gain 0.4 endurance to their maximum endurance/level
Aim, Build Up and Full Auto grant mag 4 (at all levels, no scaling) protection from Hold/Stun/Sleep for 12 seconds, and can be activated while held/stunned/slept.
Targeting Drone grants mag 3 (at all levels, no scaling) protection from Hold/Stun/Sleep which lasts 10 seconds per tick (that way it actually might still help when something overcomes it and detoggles it). It also grants 30% resistance to Hold/Stun/Sleep/Confuse/Fear effects for 10 seconds per tick.
Set Targeted Changes
Priority One
Blazing Arrow - reduce animation to 1.5 seconds or less.
Explosive Arrow - reduce animation to 1.5 seconds or less.
Burst - reduce animation to 1.3 seconds or less
Flamethrower - reduce animation to 2.67 seconds or less
Ignite - reduce animation to 2.67 seconds or less
Charged Bolts - reduce animation to 1.3 seconds or less
Lightning Bolt - reduce animation to 1.3 seconds or less
Voltaic Sentinel - reduce animation to 1 second or less
Power Bolt - reduce animation to 1.3 seconds or less
Power Burst - reduce animation to 1.5 seconds or less
Shout - Reduce animation to 1.5 seconds or less
Priority Two
Aimed Shot add 50% chance of mag 3 stun with a 5 second duration.
Fistful of Arrows add -9.375% ToHit to Target for 6 seconds
Energy Torrent the chance for KB on the enemy targeted is increased to 100%, remains at 60% for the rest of the enemies hit
Explosive Blast Knockback changed to KnockUp
Caltrops increase damage by 20%
Cloaking Device make it suppress only when clicking glowies like Energy Auras cloak
Trip Mine reduce animation to 3 seconds; allow power to accept interrupt enhancers
Time Bomb reduce animation to 3 seconds; allow power to accept interrupt enhancers
Auto Turret Reduce recharge to 90 seconds. Reduce animation to 3 seconds.
Chilblain reduce time of ticks to 5 seconds instead of 9.2
Electric Fence reduce time of ticks to 5 seconds instead of 8.2
Blazing Aura increase radius to 10 feet, reduce endurance cost to 1.04 per tick
Consume reduce recharge to 90 seconds
Hot Feet add jump like controller version, consider making it tick every second with half its current damage value
Priority Three
Stunning Shot reduce animation to 1 second or less
Beanbag - reduce animation to 1 second or less
Full Auto Reduce animation to 4 seconds, change damage ticks to correlate.
Tesla Cage- reduce animation to 1 second or less
Rain of Fire reduce animation to 1.5 seconds or less
Ice Storm reduce animation to 1.5 seconds or less
Screech - reduce animation to 1 second or less
Stun reduce animation to 1 second or less
Combustion reduce animation to 2 seconds or less, add a 60% chance for an unenhanceable mag 4 Terrorized effect with a 5 second duration
Frozen Aura Increase radius to 20 feet. Add a 9 second duration mag 1 sleep effect, so that Lts. Are also affected, but for a shorter period of time. Add a 20 second duration -20% recharge, -20% move speeds.
Priority Four
Review animations for possible shortening on the following powers: Aimed Shot, Fistful of Arrows, Slug, Buckshot, M-30 Grenade, Short Circuit, Power Blast, Explosive Blast, Flares, Scream, Shriek, Howl, Shockwave, Fire Sword, Web Grenade, Taser, Ice Sword, and Ice Patch.
If the animation changes are not possible, then try this.
Global Blaster Changes
Blasters gain 0.4 endurance to their maximum endurance/level
Aim, Build Up and Full Auto grant mag 4 (at all levels, no scaling) protection from Hold/Stun/Sleep for 12 seconds, and can be activated while held/stunned/slept.
Targeting Drone grants mag 3 (at all levels, no scaling) protection from Hold/Stun/Sleep which lasts 10 seconds per tick (that way it actually might still help when something overcomes it and detoggles it). It also grants 30% resistance to Hold/Stun/Sleep/Confuse/Fear effects for 10 seconds per tick.
Priority One
Lightning Field add 1.5 scale Defense Range and AoE, 2 scale Resist Sm/Le/En
Conserve Power reduce recharge to 360 seconds; add 1 scale Defense Range and AoE, 2 scale Resist Sm/Le/En/Neg
Blazing Aura add 1.5 scale Defense Range and AoE, 2 scale Resist Sm/Le/Fire/Cold
Hot Feet Add 1.5 scale Defense Melee, Mag 2 protection vs Hold/Stun/Sleep
Smoke Grenade increase to hit debuff to ~10%
Cloaking Device increase defense to 1 scale suppressable, 1 scale non-suppressable
Chilling Embrace - add 1.5 scale Defense Range and AoE, 2 scale Resist Sm/Le/Fire/Cold
Priority Two
Aimed Shot add 50% chance of mag 3 stun with a 5 second duration.
Fistful of Arrows add -9.375% ToHit to Target for 6 seconds
Energy Torrent the chance for KB on the enemy targeted is increased to 100%, remains at 60% for the rest of the enemies hit
Explosive Blast Knockback changed to KnockUp
Caltrops increase damage by 20%
Cloaking Device make it suppress only when clicking glowies like Energy Auras cloak
Trip Mine - allow power to accept interrupt enhancers
Time Bomb - allow power to accept interrupt enhancers
Auto Turret Reduce recharge to 90 seconds.
Chilblain reduce time of ticks to 5 seconds instead of 9.2
Frozen Aura Increase radius to 20 feet. Add a 9 second duration mag 1 sleep effect, so that Lts. Are also affected, but for a shorter period of time. Add a 20 second duration -20% recharge, -20% move speeds.
Electric Fence reduce time of ticks to 5 seconds instead of 8.2
Combustion reduce animation to 2 seconds or less, add a 60% chance for an unenhanceable mag 4 Terrorized effect with a 5 second duration
Blazing Aura increase radius to 10 feet, reduce endurance cost to 1.04 per tick
Consume reduce recharge to 90 seconds
Hot Feet add jump like controller version, consider making it tick every second with half its current damage value
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.
Quote:
If we're going to start talking about mez, I proposed in another thread a while back that enemies should use a mez suppression system similar to what pvp uses. Player can't be affected by another status effect while they already have one on them, there's a hard limit to how long they can be mezzed, things like that. Obviously, powers from archvillains and in trials could be set to ignore this where appropriate. Mez protection wouldn't be such a big deal if rikti and malta couldn't lock down players permanently. Beyond any balance issues, getting chain mezzed is just plain not fun.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
So thinking out loud about mez...
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StratoNexus, I don't think animation changes are an option based on all we have learned about the animation system over the years.
Also, I would never trust, animation time changes that are not recommended by Arcanaville (or myself after a lot of homework) much less would I even consider old animation change requests based on arbitrary desires to optimize specific attack chains.
Quote:
Ironically, a large number of the powers I listed for animation changes in 2007 have already been altered, most of them falling in line with my suggestions. Knowing that animation changes can be problematic, I did also include the, "If the animation changes are not possible, then try this."|
Originally Posted by Starsman
StratoNexus, I don't think animation changes are an option based on all we have learned about the animation system over the years.
|
Maybe I should not have posted that list here, since it is five years old and much of it had already been addressed, but I thought it was interesting to see the 5 year old suggestions and consider it in light of changes that had already happened as well as the continuing blaster concerns (but I am likely prone to thinking that what I have to say is more interesting than it really is
).
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.
Quote:
There was a small window of time where many powers had animation times adjusted, but this was not due to a suggestion or balance reason, but instead as a "bug fix". It was BABs removing extra dead rooted time many powers suffered off, in some cases the cast times actually increased (see Stone Melee.)|
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Ironically, a large number of the powers I listed for animation changes in 2007 have already been altered, most of them falling in line with my suggestions. Knowing that animation changes can be problematic, I did also include the, "If the animation changes are not possible, then try this."
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I think only one power was intentionally bypassed during that process and it was Spine's Barb Swipe, due to fear of buffing that set's damage capabilities.
Quote:
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(but I am likely prone to thinking that what I have to say is more interesting than it really is ).
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I'm just noting the issue with the idea of animation time changes. I saw that list and feared this would derail into suggesting different arbitrary cast times for different powers.
Quote:
Archery was definitely changed for balance reasons. All the tier 1 and tier 2 blasts were also looked at and adjusted as needed for balance (to make them more equal for Defiance 2). Assault Rifle animations were adjusted to buff them. Gun Drone's animation was shortened to make the power better. While I am sure some of those needs were obvious to the devs themselves, I like to think repeated requests by players for quicker animations in a lot of those sets were also a factor.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
There was a small window of time where many powers had animation times adjusted, but this was not due to a suggestion or balance reason, but instead as a "bug fix". It was BABs removing extra dead rooted time many powers suffered off, in some cases the cast times actually increased (see Stone Melee.)
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There was a pass on melee attack sets to eliminate the pauses, primarily in weapon sets of armored ATs. During that pass a lot of oddities were ironed out, some of which affected blaster secondaries (Fire Sword Circle (got worse), Fire Sword (got better), and Energy Punch (got worse) come to mind). But all of the stuff on my list that was changed was changed on purpose to improve the powers.
That said, most of the animation changes I wanted to see have been made already, although I always thought 1.67 seconds was too long for the tier 2 powers (that would be more where tier 3 powers should be). Tesla Cage, Voltaic Sentinel, and Combustion are really the only ones I still feel strongly about (well, I also want my 1.5 second FSC back, but that isn't happening). Technically, I feel strongly about Trip Mine and Time Bomb, but those both have other issues I'd want to see fixed in addition to reasonable animation times.
This is a difficult topic for me to get into. I spent a lot of energy back in 2007 only to see the barest of changes made to the blaster AT (and then saw VEATs made with a lot of the suggestions from that thread). I said then and I will say now, the only way to make them on par without making them dominators is to also give them some regular mitigation in the form of resistance, defense, +HPs, or regen/healing (and now the new absorb could be thrown in).
I love the idea of short duration mez/debuffs on a lot of blaster attacks, but I still think it won't be enough to help as much as "needed".
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.
Basically all this happened about the same time. You will notice that most powers that got buffs were weapon powers with draw animation locks.
Although Archery got huge benefit from those changes, it was mostly fixing of rooted time that lead to the change, not just balance.
Few powers that share the brawl animation also were bugged in their cast time (energy punch being a great example) and had their root times standarized. Basically, all nerfs at the time were bug fixes.
Blaster Tier 1 and 2 are one of the few true examples and I got to admit I didn't look much into how they achieved those. Not sure if they replaced animations with new ones or accepted a shorter root time even if it broke the animation earlier. Arcanaville was heavily monitoring that process so she will know for sure. I recall her saying at the time things like the developers being more likely in fixing issues with idle time than with numeric power balance... or perhaps that was about players perception... was long ago I forget.
Other example of actual balance-targeted animation change would be Broadsword having a few power animations swapped, even that received some negative reactions from players that just liked X power with X damage and X animation, although accepted by many due to the low performance of Broadsword I don't think we will ever see animation swaps again.
The only intentional nerf I recall using animation time was Energy Transfer from Energy Melee.
If a problem with a set can be effectively addressed by modifying their animation times, then that's what we should suggest. Should we expect it to be likely to happen? No, because such a change requires cooperation between multiple people from multiple departments. Should we suggest it anyway? Yes, because we're players and the most that can be expected of us is to be aware that some of our suggested solutions require more resources than others. It's up to people within the company to determine what problems are severe enough to warrant resources, and which solutions will most effectively solve it versus how many resources it requires.
TLDR: Whether it's an option or not isn't for us to decide. We just can't present it as the only solution.
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