Dev Chat Summation: BLASTER CHANGES

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

And it's also the source of my irreconcilable problem with them - an AT which is designed to be fragile with the expectation that others will exist to take the damage just doesn't work for me. OK, it CAN work if - like in the case of Masterminds - I'm guaranteed to have "others" who will follow my orders to the letter and exist at my beck and call, but that's not the case for Blasters.

In general, I don't consider having a crippling weakness of some kind to be a decent way to make something unique. Having a strength that no-one else has, sure, but when you give someone a crippling weakness - and getting permaheld and killed kind of is - is not something an AT should brag about or indeed be balanced around. Especially not when the game likes to toss multiple elite bosses at you, as it has done recently.

To me, Blasters (and to some degree old-style Stalkers and Stone Tankers) are a backwards argument. People often seem to praise an AT's weakness as a benefit, when what they're really praising is the strength this weakness allows the AT to have. And like I said before, there's really no way Blasters are going to get much more damage than they already have. Even now, with just their basic powers and no nukes, a lot of Blasters can damn near insta-kill a lot of spawns. Fire Blast, especially, with Fireball, Fire Breath and Rain of Fire.

The problem that Scrappers and Brutes outdamage Blasters isn't really down to Blasters not having enough damage, it's down to them not being able to USE that damage in any real way. Even on a team, between errant AoE status effects and AoE damage and the dangers of melee, a Blaster just can't afford to dish out as much. I myself have been able to put TOW Scrappers to shame simultaneously with a single Electric/Electric Blaster without too much effort, so I know the damage is there. That's what pisses me off so much - I KNOW what Blasters characters can, I just never get to do it.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Agreed. For example, a sword is not much use if you have no arms. And Blasters can't blast if they are already faceplanted. Or perma-mezzed.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Or, you know, use aim or buildup.

I can't tell if you're really serious in implying a Blaster buff should be dependent on Inspirations...really?

Also, a question, will a Blaster not running any other +tohit be able to use the quick Snipe with Build Up or Aim only? I don't have the numbers available at the moment and I'm curious.

Also, how is being able to fire the quick snipe whenever while in combat worse than having to use +tohit? That's what I'm lobbying for and I'm simply not seeing the other side of the argument, I'd love to be enlightened and would be glad to be wrong on this.

I'm talking about a permanent quick-snipe available in combat, its what I'm lobbying for and what many others would prefer. Its what people will build towards because it is the better option. Corrs and Defenders will easily get it, Blasters will not.

Dependent? It's an option. Why are so many players against Inspiration use? That is seriously a 'thing' and it's a very annoying 'thing'.

Here's a news flash: Not everything needs to be catered to the soloists. I've said this many times and I'll say it many times again. If you team with at least ONE other person with sufficiently slotted tactics (Or less if you use Kismet +6%), you have your shiny instant cast scale 2.7 Beam of Destruction.

Is it easier for Defenders and Corruptors and Dominators to obtain 22% ToHit perma? Yes. They still need to eat a Kismet, but yes.

Is it impossible for Blasters to? Yes, with out targeting drone. Except...

At high recharge levels, rotating your Aim and Build Up can provide an ample enough of +ToHit to allow saturation of the Instant Cast Snipe. At 170% Global Recharge and slotted +Recharge in Aim and Build Up, you have them both at a 25 Second Recharge, allowing you to have a 5 second dead period between hitting the one you used first again and repeating the cycle. This drops down further depending if you went up to +200% Global Recharge, which is difficult but not impossible.

Or you pop a yellow for that brief dead period

So... bumpkis on you all? Think outside of the box on "WE NEED 22% PERMA ToHit" and go "Well we can also just rotate Aim and Build Up and have it practically perma too", or is doing more work the issue here? Boosts your damage up too so /thumbs up.

I do not think the design intent is to have it Perma with out extreme building in mind for Defenders, Corruptors, and Dominators (AKA Maxing out Tactics + A Kismet IO), nor perma on Blasters with out Targeting Drone. if they WANTED it to be easily perma, they would have just made snipes Scale 2.7 Instant Cast "I WIN HUR HUR" buttons.

If you're in a team, there is an extremely strong chance you have it anyway. If you're complaining for the sake of being TEH UBER SOLOIST, bumpkis again. Rotate Build Up and Aim and get over it.

And eat a Yellow.

And yes I know Build Up is +15% but I assume you took Tactics.

None of the ATs can get it with out the usage of IOs, and if you're using the IO route Blasters can almost get it with chaining Aim and Build Up. Your argument fails because you're forcing the inclusion of an IO outside of Time Manipulation's Farsight.

THIS always grates at me. While mez'd a corruptor can...? Nothing. A defender can...? Nothing. A Blaster can... continue to use T1 and 2 from their primary and T1 from their secondary. Blast away.

Because the Blaster Community ignores the weaknesses of other AT and only harps upon their "strengths" and "why Blasters suck."

Really, this community is turning out to be, shock and awe, extremely ungrateful. Here's a newsflash, again, for those of you comparing the Snipe Change to the AS change.

Are you ready?

You're not Stalkers. Get over it. AS was a core power to the AT and it needed to be readily and easily available to use because the Stalker AT sacrificed, generally, an extremely good AoE for a garbage power.

Snipes are not a core power to the Blaster (or other Snipe using AT) AT. They were just extremely weak powers. Their buff is a boon, and you need to stop comparing a Random Power Set Power to a Core Design Power of Another AT.

I am not extremely ungrateful, I've repeatedly praised the other buffs, even coming around to support the +Regen idea which I didn't so much when I first heard it. You and other's are trying to frame anyone who doesn't wholesale support this as ungrateful brats when we're just asking for something different.

Blasters need help, there's a pretty good consensus on that (not 100%, but still a clear majority agrees on that fact). I am merely stating that this +tohit mechanic takes what would've been a great buff to Blasters and drags it down.

Forget Stalkers, I'm just using them as a model and a precedent because their AS buff was similar. It's a simple question I'm asking; Why is the +tohit Quick-Snipe better than the simple Quick-Snipe I'm requesting?

Some Defenders and Corruptors have access to mez protection, no Blasters do.

Some Defenders and Corruptors have access to Buffs and Debuffs that greatly reduce the chance of incoming mezzes, no Blasters have that.

I and many others were extremely excited about the Defiance 2.0 change that allowed us to use our T1 & 2 powers while mezzed, I haven't forgotten that and I'm not ignoring it.

Because the design intent was to make it situational soloing, and more likely to be permanent in teams. Only ONE Support Set allows a Defender/Corruptor to do Perma Insta-Snipes solo, and that's Time.

Just like only ONE Blaster Secondary does, Devices.

Do not mention Kismet. That is an IO and this is not an IO consideration. If you mention it, I point at 170% Global Recharge Aim/Build Up Rotations and this conversation ends immediately.

You team with one other guy with Tactics going, and you're golden.

If you're soloing, it's a bit more situational and requires a bit more play with it.

Design Point: Not always ready unless you went LolDevices (or are a Time Manipulation user.). That was the design choice. If they wanted to make it an I Win Button, it would be Assassin's Strike.

Which is a dumb power.


1) True. Force Fields (considered to be a weak one-trick pony), Sonic Resonance (read Force Fields), and Traps (the exception).

2) Blatant Lie.

Because inspirations aren't always available. I went through the same with discussing Incarnate content - why don't you just use inspirations? Because they're kind of sort of single-use only, and they don't drop nearly as often as people insist they do. When I use inspirations, I run out, especially if I need to use inspirations in order to fight effectively. Yes, that's even with combining them.

And that's actually one of the biggest problems Blasters have - the need for inspirations. I was told that a Blaster with a purple inspiration or two is a lot easier to play... And it is, but I don't get a purple inspiration drop once every 60 seconds, and I don't get three of a kind of anything else every 30 seconds, either. Blasters also really benefit from Break Frees to deal with status effects. Blasters will now also really benefit from Insight inspirations, as well. There's only so much that an inspiration tray can carry and that drop rate can account for, and leaving to buy more is very counter-productive. Yes, I could walk half a mile out through the twisting halls of Oranbega, travel to a vendor, travel back to the mission and then trek half a mile in again, but it takes so long that any advantage they may have given me is simply wasted in travel time.

The fact of the matter is that any Blaster I have ever played burns through his or her inspiration at rate many times greater than any non-Blaster character I have and, crucially, at a rate far greater than drops can compensate for. And indeed, that's working as intended. Inspirations are consumables, it's why they disappear when you use them and you can only carry a finite amount of them. You're not supposed to be able to benefit from their effects constantly, you're supposed to save them for special situations, or at the very least use them sparingly. I'd love nothing more than to run with an Insight inspiration active all the time, and not just on Blasters, but I've yet to find a way to actually do this consistently.

It's not that other ATs can do more while held than a Blaster can, even discounting the ones that don't get held to begin with. It's that what a Blaster can do really isn't all that useful. The Defiance attacks firing though status effects are quite literally only ever useful for ending a permahold, but the problem of a permahold isn't that it lasts forever and you can never get free. In fact, most "permaholds" are only permanent because they end in death and prior to that last about 5-10 seconds.

The thing is, a Blaster lives or dies by the action he takes, and a hold simply prevents you from taking action. You can't move away from what's punching you in the teeth, you can't stun that high-damage enemy over there, you can't kill the minions dropping your health. All you can do is toss out weak attacks that really don't have the kind of damage a Blaster needs to survive. Oh, sure, Flares may have pretty good DPS all on its own, but DPS doesn't count for much when you're so reliant on burst damage to remove dangerous enemies from the field.

There's nothing quite as fun as shooting at a gunslinger and having him freeze you for 10 seconds before your attack even animates. What then? Just the Gunslinger himself deals so much damage he can flatline you in a few seconds, and he's usually accompanied by people with grenades and rifle or, even worse, giant robots. And that's not even mentioning those lovely 45s long stun grenades. That's when I get told to use inspirations, and I do. Thing is, break frees drop really frequently that your average Malta mission robs me of all the break-frees I have by about the mid point, and from there on I'm keeping my fingers crossed, or otherwise take a long break to go buy some more.

There is only a single instance in this entire game where "permahold" itself is a problem, and that's a Malta Sapper. Sappers don't deal damage, or if they do it ain't much, but they rob you of your endurance, shut down your status protection and proceed to keep you held FOREVER. Long ago, in a distant land where Break Frees didn't exist and only Iron Will inspirations could be found, the only real way to solve this was to log off and reset your mission. And the only reason this is a problem like that is because you can't die and thus can never get away. In every other situation, it's not the hold that kills, it's what it prevents you from doing to avoid getting killed that... Well, gets you killed.

---

I really don't want to speak about Defenders and Corruptors and so on since those I never really even wanted to play to begin with as they had much the same problems, and indeed had it much worse a lot of the time. What I've fought for since I started playing Blasters was to NOT tag them as a team-only AT, because they really do function well enough on teams. But as I watched the Extra Credit video this week which talked about how awesome it was to get five friends together and fly a straship together, the only thing I could think of is "I don't HAVE five friends, let alone five who play games." That doesn't get in my way when I play any of the other ATs I do. If it will when I play Blasters, then not playing them was the right decision.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

So, essentially, it being a decent power makes it dumb? Well, then let's hope the whole game gets dumber because I'd rather have fun than play a "smart" game.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Dude, get out of this insulting and condescending mode and have an adult conversation with me, I have not once insulted you yet you constantly use phrases like "ungrateful", "HUR HUR I WIN", "TEH UBER SOLOIST", and now "Blatant Lie", if you really don't support what I'm saying then debate it.

How is it a Blatant Lie that -tohit, -recharge and +Def will reduce incoming mez attacks? Most Defs and Corrs will have access to a buff or debuff with those attributes and they absolutely do effect gameplay, its what those ATs do.

Assassin's Strike is not a 'decent power'. Assassin's Strike is blatantly overpowered. Combined with all the other Stalker Changes, it was "Way too much".

Scale 5.4 Damage in 1 Second every few seconds is kind of broken. Assassin's Focus probably needs to go and AS shouldn't be given special critical hit conditions. But not the time or place.

The Snipe change is good and is meant to be a Team Boosting thing, and a more situational solo thing aside from a few specific cases.

Blaster SPECIFIC solo and team boost is their added Regen/Recov/Whatever.

Enjoy!

Blaster Primaries and Secondaries do supply mez-style powers within them. Not to the extreme extent as Corruptors and Defenders, obviously, but they do.

Unless you're ignoring Ice's Slows, Dark's -ToHit, Energys -KB, and so on and so on. And what the individual secondaries bring as well.

Blasters do get those type of powers, they're just weaker because that's the trade off they make.

Whoa.

Good. That's what Stalkers needed.

By the way, what exactly are you talking about when you say "all the other stalker changes"? The scaling crits? The PBAoE suppression in hide? Those two things happened long before the AS change and the max HP boost, and Stalkers were STILL way underpowered then.

We will enjoy, I will enjoy. With these current changes I'll spec into Tactics, chew a lot of yellows and flat out love my new snipe. But, we're in Alpha right now and I believe that there's a better way to apply this buff.

I want it perma, even with it perma Blasters will still most likely be behind other ATs in damage and survivability but that's OK, we'll be much better off than before.

Show me that a perma-quick snipe would make Blasters over-powered and I'll admit I was wrong and move on.

Some good shields and mez protection in Blaster secondaries? Now we're overpowered and City of Blasters returns. I understand why the devs are so leery of handing Blasters easy mez protection. Some more Damage will improve Blasters, but they'll hardly be overpowered because of it.

Assassin's Focus. That thing that causes AS to be a Scale 5.whatever in 1 Second monster. The AS change by itself with out this added mechanic would have been perfectly fine. Assassin's Focus was overkill.

Design Intention is not always What You Want. It was made fairly clear the intention was to give blasters more of a situational edge in solo, and more of an obvious edge in teams. Snipes were "okay" solo, and were HORRID in teams. This was meant to make them pack more omph in teams. While Solo, you have the option of hitting Aim, going nuts, Build Up, going nuts.

If you are the only person in a team packing Tactics, that IS unfortunate. But, it was a Situational Change, not a Always Be Ready GOGOGO Change.

MAYBE it will be changed. Scale 2.7 in less than 1 second (I think it's 0.64 or something insane) is going to be extremely frightening to swallow as "Always Ready". But as it is I think the 22% To Hit "Lock Out" is the only thing that'll keep Snipes from being hit with the nerf bat.

Hard.