Just throwing things out here without much thought ATM, but...
I love blasters. I have 5 of them, and a 6th on the way when WB goes live. There are about four issues with blaster performance, with a fifth a consequence of one of the others: Snipes, crashing nukes, mezzes, melee power creep, and frequent death. So here's vague, half-baked ideas! (or completely baked, like my brain. Due to the heat out there. Ugh. 86F...)
Snipes: If snipes got a treatment similar to what Stalkers got with AS I would be fairly happy; some way to justify using them in an attack chain. Perhaps no-interrupt and faster activation when you have a given number of stacks of defiance, at a tradeoff of lower damage. I liked the idea upthread of a splash fear attached to an out-of-combat snipe, as well; and maybe also a thematic bonus to being buffed with BU/A.
Nukes: Crashing isn't fun. I'd perhaps be willing to accept a soft crash? Removal of the -recovery? Arcana has already hit this balance question with ULTIMATE MATH in another thread somewhere, but my search-fu fails me at the moment.
Mezzes: Probably actually my lowest priority of all the blastery issues, but is a major topic of discussion here. I'm surprised no one has mentioned scaling mez resistance as an idea for Defiance 3.0. Mez resist is "weaker" than prot, and thus may be a compromise with the devs' hesitation to actually give us prot.
Melee Power Creep: We're no longer kings of damage, and the ability to attack from range is WAY over-valued in the metagame; especially considering that every mob has at least one ranged attack. Melee would probably burn down the fora if they were nerfed to compare to us, so clearly we must be buffed. How? More damage doesn't seem to be the solution. What about making range into an advantage again? How do critter ranged attacks compare to ours? Maybe increase our range as a whole? Improve kiting ability?
Death: Ties in with mezzes, because most of the time, we die because we've been mezzed. I take Flame Mastery for Rise of the Phoenix whenever I can, but clearly it's not ideal; never mind that RotP is the best rez in the game. I shouldn't need it, for all my preaching of turning low HP into a WMD. What if we could defiantly get back up? Think Domination, for HP and mez prot, after death, proportionate to the defiance stacks before death. Charging it up somehow... and probably tricky to code.
Discuss. And I apologize for any heat-addled lack of clarity. I'll probably come back to this when I'm more coherent later.
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It would definitely help, and it's a small enough change that the devs might go for it. |
Originally Posted by newchemicals
Good idea with helping with the mez problem certainly less complicated than some of the ideas here. You think that is really enough though?
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It also doesn't require them to add any code that doesn't already exist. Since, after all, it's just a smaller amount of the same thing a break free or Clear Mind already does.
So, no new code, just a repurposing of existing code.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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My point is not really about what requires more resources; but that it's my understanding the developers set a brick wall on animation changes for balance issues. Mind you, I think they recently shortened Gravity>Propel animation, so there may be exceptions. I doubt they will ever approach a full set wide animation change though, ever.|
Originally Posted by Garent
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. |
You can suggest anything you want, but it helps to know where to not focus much time if the devs already said that's not an option.
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I would suggest that nukes be changed to a half-crash (like Willpower's T9) with absent or severely reduced -recovery.|
Originally Posted by AlishaShatogi
Nukes: Crashing isn't fun. I'd perhaps be willing to accept a soft crash? Removal of the -recovery?
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Also, as previously stated give sniper attacks the Assassin's Strike treatment.
More mez protection would be a good way to help make blasters more hardy without making them too overpowered (although it would be tricky to balance). IMO, this would make them much more "even" with defenders/corruptors; it would make the "more dmg" that blasters exchange for buffs/debuffs more useful and usable.
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In general, yes. But my recommendations at the start of the thread were based on the presumption that the devs are working on blaster changes as we speak, and will likely be beta testing them for I24 at some point. Now would be a good time to be brainstorming ideas that aren't just stand-alone solutions to perceived blaster problems, but also various options and ideas that could be integrated into whatever the devs have decided to do, which could steer those efforts into the directions we want.|
Originally Posted by Garent
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. |
As with all game changes, the devs are extremely unlikely to throw out what they've done in favor of a completely new idea, and they are extremely unlikely to suspend an idea several issues while they work on a long-duration modification of that idea. So if someone wants X, I would ask why they want that X; what purpose does it serve, and what are all possible options for generating the same result.
For example, if the intent of altering animation times is to reduce them, is that to increase the DPA of the attacks? Is that to increase blaster single target output? If so, are there other ways of delivering a similar result without tampering with animation times across the board? For example, in a discussion somewhat related to this I suggested to the devs that one thing to consider was to boost the Blaster defiance buff for tier 1 and tier 2 attacks. The idea was that if the intent was to increase their damage, one sideways way to do that was to increase their damage buff which increases blaster damage overall. Modifying the defiance buff rules for tier1/2 attacks costs no endurance and no recharge. It doesn't require modifying animations or cast times. It boosts powers every blaster has at least one of, and the game already strongly encourages blasters to take both. Its basically the blaster version of the Storm Kick trick.
It isn't perfect for a variety of reasons, but its a way to increase the value of those powers without altering animations or recharge.
My intent was to get people thinking about the intent of their suggestions, and focusing on brainstorming as many possible ways to generate that intent, so that if their suggestion proves to be impossible or unlikely, their intent might still find their way into the blaster changes in some other way, by integrating with what the devs already intend to do in an interesting and palatable (to the devs) way.
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Going in line with the blasters changes we see coming (finally caught up!) with the survival mechanics and new snipes, something that would be really easy to implement (I think) would be slight changes to aim/bu (rather than the initial complicated ones)
First, for blasters only. Aim/BU moved to a 72 second base recharge (Like Claws stalkers).
Second, blasters only, since I've been playing a lot of another game with cool downs that provide those short (but key) buff/mitigation bursts. Give Aim/BU a cleanse effect for mez along with maybe 3-5 seconds of weak mez protection.
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While I have heard they can't do a cleanse effect, I think they can. A very brief mez protection (like your suggestion, 3 to 5 seconds) along with a very large amount of mez resistance. That said, I am not sure how useful that would be and I do think it would be frustrating on those occasions when you hit Aim, the mez is cleansed, but 5 seconds in another mez lands. If Aim and BU were given mez protection, I'd just rather it be for 10-12 seconds.
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Originally Posted by MrLiberty
Second, blasters only, since I've been playing a lot of another game with cool downs that provide those short (but key) buff/mitigation bursts. Give Aim/BU a cleanse effect for mez along with maybe 3-5 seconds of weak mez protection.
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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.
I was thinking that myself, but I thought I also read about adding possibly mez supression in PvE (similar to the way it works in PvP I'd guess, basically you are held, and after that point you can't be held again for another 10 seconds, though confuse and fear are on different mez timers). That might not have been a dev post though an only a suggestion.
Additionally, something worth addressing should probably be Build Up/Aim Strength.
As it stands for build up its: Peacebringers at 72%
Brutes, Tanks, Stalks, Spiders at 80%
Scrappers and Blaster at 100
When could be Brutes/Tanks 80% Stalkers/Spiders 90-100% Scrappers 100% and Blasters 112.5% or something like that.
(Dom's only get one build up power, not counting dark assault because rather than to hit it provides +special, but I seem to recall Elec Assault only buffing like 65% damage.)
With Aim, blasters at least have the highest dmg mod. It is something like 42% for corrs, 50% for defenders and VEAT's and 62.5% for blasters, so maybe 62.5 buffed to 75%
(Dominator's Aim from Thory Assault is 42% )
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It was indeed a dev post. And it was the news on the coffee talk that got me the most excited, because it's the direction that I wanted them to take to address the discrepancy between those with mez protection and those without.
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Originally Posted by MrLiberty
I was thinking that myself, but I thought I also read about adding possibly mez supression in PvE (similar to the way it works in PvP I'd guess, basically you are held, and after that point you can't be held again for another 10 seconds, though confuse and fear are on different mez timers). That might not have been a dev post though an only a suggestion.
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Coming very late to this thread and not sure if his has been replied to yet or not, but a power similar to Hide would work here, but instead of +invis it would give -aggro. So the opening power on each volley would cause no aggro.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
You need to qualify that some what. Once you hit the soft cap on defense with insps loading up more provides little benefit.
A damage buff from eating reds is the same. If the increased damage output doesn't allow you to defeat at least one class of mob in one less shot you still face the same amount of incoming damage. |
This is very similar to a suggestion I made for a chance to stun on all AoE's which will ensure that alpha strikes are staggered. You could have 75% chance for 1s stun, 50% chance for 2s and 25% chance for 3s (Non stacking). So at any one time only a portion of the group would turn around and shoot you in the face, giving you chance to kill a few before all the damage comes.
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At the moment tier 1 and 2 blasts fire through any mag or type of mezz. This can sometimes be handy, but more often than not, whatever is still alive long enough to have me mezzed, stays alive long enough to run up and finish me off.
I would happily trade this infinite tier 1/2 mezz protection for something which simply triggers a mezz 'wipe' at say 25% HP. This would allow me to attack with the best stuff i have when i need it most (or hit insps and run away).
Hopefully this ties in with the reluctance the Devs have always had about giving blasters permanent mezz protection, whilst improving survivability. It would also mean that there is still benefit in having BF's and mezz buffs from team members - you don't want to drop to 25% health if you can help it and you can still get mezzed after the mezz 'wipe' triggers. So it's usefull, but still with a weakness to balance it.
Thinking back to how defiance 1.0 worked (or didn't work), this would also incentivise you to get your HP back above 25% to benefit from the next mezz 'wipe', instead of the old defiance 1.0 issue of dropping HP to leverage it.
(Hopefully this fits with all of Arcana's rules too).
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