Attention Blasters!

I think the idea would be that you need a normal chain, and then can occasionally improve on that through the fast cast snipe. This is not really a bad thing, unless you feel builds are too tight to manage it. I think there is a build cost, but I do not think it is as high as you are concerned about.

You will still be able to have an excellent chain without the snipe and can occasionally improve it by throwing the snipe in when appropriate. Would it be even better damage-wise if you min/max to always have the improved snipe? Yes. But again, that is a min-max only perspective. The better snipe will not be hurting builds that operate below the all the time fast cast or, if you are min-maxing and feel it is hurting, you don't choose the snipe, instead choosing what you think is better.

The snipe will be a viable choice. Useful for non min/maxed builds. Can be min-maxed to be very useful or min-maxed out of a build for other stuff one deems more important. I think this snipe change will have a large amount of people on both sides of that build decision.

That is right, a fair amount of builds will still choose to skip the snipe after this change and that is a good thing.

But is allowing the power to be useful once in a blue moon really making them desirable? Particularly forcing you to use them with Aim or BU in most situations?

At level 50.

At level 18 when you get the snipe you are still looking at 60-70s recharge on Aim or BU assuming you slotted them, which puts the snipe on a 30s recharge if you take and slot 3 different powers.

Then I am led to believe that you also need 3 +tohit SO's in BU, so the cost is 6 slots in BU, 3 in Aim and probably 6 in the snipe which until the really high levels doesn't work.

They should have made snipes useful and not reliant upon some gimick. Someone else suggested making them work like T3 blasts when you have low tohit and like powerful but fast acting snipes once your tohit is high enough. Then people would always take them, but occasionally get a bonus. Currently it feels like a penalty even more than it did when they were totally useless.

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Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

A_F, would you feel better if snipes, outside the 22% did acceptable damage so they are "OK" attacks? Lets say something perhaps in the 0.75 to 0.9 DS Per Activation second.

It seems like Starsman is the 'someone' I mentioned in the post above.

Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

I think you are misusing the term blue moon.

Calling a superior power like Build Up "useless" unless you have a "massive recharge" build is borderline delusional.

That was my point.

Absolutely. I would probably want a 1.0 DS so they at least were on a par with T1 and T2 blasts, they do have a 12 second recharge time.

Edit: Its the whole master switch aspect of the new snipes that is objectionable (well and the fact that they are really gifts to defenders and corruptors ATs that didn't need it)

At low levels I stand by it being useless (Or close to useless) because it is only up once a mission.

But it still misses the point and is a tangent we don't need to go down any more.

Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

I think if you removed 1.5 to 2 seconds from the current Interrupt time and walked away, it could have been done. That is not as fun, IMO, but it would work out mathematically. With the current interesting mechanic, I would recommend they also remove 1 to 1.5 seconds from the interrupt for when it doesn't fast cast.

How about at level 23? Or lets be generous, level 25?


I have sugested something along those lines a few times accross these threads, although never said T3 so I guess some one else also had the same idea. Note I am not arguing the viablity of the snipe, i do think it's too situational still, just was commenting on skipping those powers on damage oriented builds.

Even if the animation was slower for the "regular" version? (Still with the dps range I noted, just saying it potentially would have variable cast time like Titan Weapon attacks.)

Edit: And I do think the snipe issue is an issue with every single offensive ranged set that has a snipe. This is not a "freebie" for characters that never had it. Heck, a lot of defenders, corruptors and dominator builds will still see this as useless since without team buffs they will never be able to se that ToHit buffing.

I couldn't find your exact post (These blaster threads are moving quickly!), but I assume it was you that I was trying to remember. I think you might have mentioned it would give elec a 3rd blast, which was what prompted me to put T3.

Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

I did say that part, that it would basically kill 2 birds for Electric Blast.

I agree with what you are saying but I think you are misunderstanding what I was trying to say.

In snipes case the situation is do I have a yellow, is the guy with tactics in the room, am I going to have to wait till my +to hit powers are recharged ? And if I do will I be able to finish the spawn before they run out ?

With melee its I have to take down this guy first, then that guy or maybe I want to wipe the minions quickly then deal with the boss.

In one case you are just responding to the spawn you are fighting, in the other you are responding to the spawn you are fighting and hoping that you have the right situation.

And damage has caps. Once you reach that cap, +dmg doesn't do anything else for you. With other aspects to improve damage, such as speeding up animations a la Momentum/AS/Snipes or just adding extra damage ontop of it a la Fiery Embrace, you can boost your damage with +dmg buffs *AND* other stuff.

Wow, I'm surprised people so focused on optimal performance skip over the simplest logic.

As long as the DPA was around 1.0 DS and the attack wasn't longer than 3 seconds (ideally not longer 2) that would be fine.

Dominators really got the worst of the snipe changes.

"Useless at low levels" is a far cry from "useless except for massive recharge builds".


And once per mission is still handy for boss fights.

In this post-inherent stamina, ninja run, travel powers at 4 world most builds have plenty of room to take powers even more situational than build up at low levels.

Somehow I don't find it a bad thing that Dominators may feel the least benefit.

I definitely prefer the idea of the attack being 2.5 to 3.5 seconds and doing really high damage rather than faster animating and lowering the damage (if keeping the fast cast mechanic).

The whole post though was talking about low levels, so I would have assumed you knew that is the situation I was talking about.

Granted this is the internet and context doesn't always go over well, so seeing someone right about BU being useless does deserve a 'WTF are you mad?!'.

Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

I actually have that on one of my scrappers. Shame that is TW so would cause all sorts of problems even if it did turn out as a good attack.

Princess Darkstar - Proud Member of the Handprints of Union, the #1 ranked SG in Europe!
British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

TW Doesn't suffer from redraw during Momentum.

I think we are getting somewhere here...

So, what I am gathering is you dont really care THAT much about specific attach chains, or situational pre-fabricated chains, as long as you can recycle the attack power selection in less optimal chains, right?

In a different way than you may think. Remember for Dominators, snipes are not interruptable and are basically ranged 20s recharged Total Fucus. For a domnator that cant leverage the new snipe mechanic, this is a pure nerf.

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say it is no change at all? They didn't actually make dominator snipes worse.