i24 Blaster Changes

And the other part of the argument is "I don't like how they've tied a super-regen effect to one power". Uh? What's the other alternative? Splitting the buff up into little chunks and giving it to more than one power? That'd just make slotting and building harder.

The way I see it, people, is Blasters do *NOT* get an armor set. They won't get one. Period. The end. You're not going to get a mitigation secondary with defense here, HP there, a heal here, regen there. No, you might get *ONE* power that does that and that's it. You can pick up other defensive powers around to help you out to tank stuff but we're not building Blasters up to become tanks so we're not building up their secondaries to emulate an armor set. Period. The end.

The goal of this change was to add something to the AT to help it sustain itself under more stress. A lot of the options added were a good choice, IMO, because it doesn't make them tanky but it gives them the ability to keep up or even push faster. You don't need to muster a whole slew of little effects to get this either, it's wrapped into one power for you. Is it good design to just put 1 'overpowered' buff in each secondary? Probably not, but it's the easier option that's easier to balance around and simplest to take advantage of for new and current blasters.

Curses, I forgot about this one. That's OK, we can fix this. Yeah!

Touch of Fear becomes Land of Fear. A pet that can be place up to 80 feet away and lasts 10 seconds (maybe use that Dark control immob swirly effect on the ground). Every 2 seconds this pet ticks a terrorize and to-hit debuff effect in a 10 foot radius that can affect up to five targets with an 8 second duration.

Plus it grants the caster a long duration regen buff.

So not happening, but it would be the bees knees.

Wouldn't the damage/radius be irrelevant if using it as an HoT toggle (damage becoming the bonus)?

5-slot; 3 Theft of Essence's A/E/H, A/H and proc and the 2 for either Scirroco's A/D/E, D/E or Numina's H/E, H?

Actually a good alternative would have been looking at the average health a blaster finishes a fight with, the average time the next fight starts and then seeing what regen the blaster needs, adjusting it to what they think is a reasonable level and then adding that onto the base regen. Because it seems like the real intent of this change was simply to lower downtime and prevent blasters from having to start a fight while still dangerously low on health.

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!"

If you look at the set however, Dark Manipulation is simply a melee focused set. With Soul Drain, Dark Consumption, the melee attacks and the dmg aura, it just *is* melee. I tried to ask in the little powwow if it required a target to use but I couldn't make the skullthingies.

But I'm guessing the choice to add the effect to that power was a balancing point. DM has decently strong attacks, some extra AoE control in Dark Pit, a dmg aura, a mez/debuff and a heightened dmg buff in Soul Drain, I'd imagine all these factors played into where and how DM got its add-on and thematically, it works.


You should not need to be in melee combat for longer than 60 seconds...hell, you shouldn't need to be there for longer than 30 because that's how long the buff will last in a combat situation.


Uh, Field Operative? And if you want to mention it has a recovery buff, we'll FM has Consume.


It also tics slower, lowering the amount of aggro it might attract. Currently, Chilling Embrace tics multiple times a second, the new aura only tics every 3 seconds.


I think it's fine and concede that you'll have your own opinion.

What makes you think they didn't do that?

I will agree to disagree on DP, many people do.

As for Lightning Clap you are right most combats won't last that long but most teams don't stop for a few seconds in between spawns while you refresh your buffs and it is probably very easy to end up in a fight when you realise the buff has run out, and the way regen works the longer you are without it the worse off you are. I just think they should have taken the time to also make the power itself worth using, so people aren't having to use an otherwise poor power just for this buff.

Chilling Embrace I don't quite see your point about the tics, I think they were slowed down to stop it being overpowered but they won't change how easy it is to wander too close to an additional spawn (Or run across a junction to find a mob in the turning which is suddenly aggroed). I might be wrong on just how big 30' is, but it sounds dangerous. That was more a general observation than a complaint though.

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!"

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.

I am happy. But I was happy without these changes, so that really doesn't count for much.

I am!

If I can replicate Arcana's build, my NRG^2 blaster is going to be an amazing glowy ball of destruction. If still knockbacky. But I like playing Bowling For Council so.

My defender can chain Proton Volley! My corr is getting, uh, faster animations, but that's all I ever wanted with him anyways.

I24 is going to be funtastic.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

I'm happy, only thew out my suggestion, that went unnoticed, or was just too bad for comment, for those unhappy that Defs and Corrs can get more milage out of the insta-snipe.

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.

*ahem*

Oh, sure, that might have made things better for people who haven't got their pride, but let me tell you, it doesn't do me any good. And you should have known that. Your failure to offer me retroactive swimming lessons is a slap in the face.

Well, without slotting, Lightning Clap recharges in 30 seconds. I'm guessing the recharge of Might of Thunder will be the same and am fairly sure the sustain mechanic refreshes but doesn't stack, so you can get the power to recharge in 15-20sec without much slotting. All you have to do is decide when is the most convenient chance to use it. You don't need a few seconds between spawns, you just need 2 seconds at any point you're not fighting.

It isn't the level of regen I was on about, but how the fudged it into each powerset in what I think is an unfair manner. Some sets got good powers buffed, some sets got powers most people skip buffed and so will have to now take powers they didn't want.

Then consider the next round of buffs, they now have powers they don't really want to change.

Simply adding it to the base and saying 'the first step is reducing your downtime' would have probably been widely welcomed rather than derided.

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!"

Unless the life preserver is glued to an anvil.

Thank goodness there's no morality stories about pride before the fall or anything

Have you tried throwing a life preserver glued to an anvil? That's not even realistic! More like "Unless the life preserver is poked with a needle before being thrown out." or something!

Valid for the powers that don't send stuff flying. But even if you can find time to use the power, if I have to take a power intended for combat mitigation I would much prefer it to be changed so it actually worked well as well as gave the regen buff.

KB to KD, or remove it and have reliable stun.

But I guess the beta forums will be a good place for that feedback. Hell it might even get listened to!

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!"

You could drop the anvil from a helicopter hovering above the drowning victim.

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'm happy with it but then I've got a Beam/Dev Blaster and a Time/Elec Defender that are going to make out like bandits.

The range boost for Lancer shot is nice, I'm going to slot Cutting Beam for Range and have an effective combat range of ~75feet. I was working out a new build for him last night, I can softcap ranged defense, get in 70% global recharge and 6-slot Cloaking Device to help maximize regen (actually only 3 slots are being used for Healing and Endurance, the other three are procs and globals).

For the Defender I'm already over the to hit cap due to using Clarion to Power Boost Farsight so it's just a matter of a dropping something to take Zapp (probably Voltaic Sentinel) and adding a Kismet somewhere (to keep me over the limit in situations where Incarnate powers are unavailable). He's already an AoE machine so I'm psyched to add more ST damage to him.

My AR/Dev and Traps/AR characters would also love these changes except I'm probably going to retire both of them (for unrelated reasons).

I will note that there are a couple of Blaster secondary changes I'm worried about. Some of it will probably come out in Beta but in particular I think changing Lightning Clap to a Knockdown power would be an excellent idea.

This is true, but it also is less interesting. While all the powers have a similar goal, I like that they have different mechanical functions and are each unique to their own secondary. This type of thing also lends itself to other theme appropriate suggestions.

I'd recommend we focus our energy on thinking of how to make suggestions that work with the proposed changes or only very slightly modify them, rather than saying throw out the work and testing done up to this point and start over.

Also is the activation time the same for all snipes once you factor out the interrupt time?

The AS changes went live without the AS animations being normalised, I wouldn't want that done again.

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!"