Proposed Snipe Changes - Please no "Magic Number" for useful snipes

I agree with you 99% of the time, but this is that 1% I guess.

I think your using the Pylon thread to equate to single target attack invigoration when its been around much longer then the idea to implement this sniper idea. Further it's a way to determine DPS and nothing more. Nothing is telling anyone they can't test out AOE attacks against a pylon and post the results or start a AOE Pylon thread. That wouldn't infer a upsurge of AOE attacks. It would just infer players interested in having the best AOE chain.

But being an avid forum reader myself I have not read about this shift from AOE to Single target attacks. To me in actuality I read the opposite from the builds that people post. Its all about AOE

With the ability to solo 4/8 I think it's just common sense and nothing more to slot for AOE to kill a bunch of mobs faster. It's not Trash to use single target attacks but it is a bit nuts to attempt to solo 4/8 on just single target attacks. Again nothing make it wrong either, that is the whole point of the game. You do what you want with your account. So though I would never do it. I would be impressed that someone took the time to do it, just to see if they can as a goof.

A smart player will pick up both and slot them accordingly. But at the end there are only 96 slots so you need to pick what is good for your build type.

This is the part we agree on.

The debate we're having (or at least I and a few other people are having) is about that threshold between where "smart player" stops and "expert player" or perhaps in this case "build gymnast" begins. [EDIT: To clarify, this might have been better worded as "smart player" versus "min/maxer."] Not slotting for damage at all is a "choice" but not one many people would be willing to make. Clearly there are some build choices that are definably sub-par from the perspective of game balance, unless someone is going to argue that the developers balance the game around a player with all travel powers and no slotting at all. You can argue the irrelevance of anything, but if a T4 is irrelevant I'd like to establish why that is if T3, T2 and T1 blasts are not.

In my view, when the only blockade to slotting a T4 blast is Tactics and a Kismet, passing it up is self defeating. Particularly in the case of the actual two setsI will be IOing, Dark and Psy Corruptor/Defender Blasts, that don't have another option.

I don't particularly have a dog in the race on whether or not I deserve access to such a blast. I can just assure you that if the power is worth taking (ie was worth the time to recode) and is within my grasp via a magic number, I'm going to hit that number, but not be particularly impressed with the puzzle that has been presented. Some people think putting Tactics in the path of T4is enough to stop people from chasing it, but it's really not that different to me than if the T3 power in Leadership was a high powered T4 blast that you needed 2 prereqs to get. It's a puzzle with an obvious solution like "put damage enhancements in powers," just with a slightly more convoluted path.

There are good puzzles and not so good puzzles and what some of us have said is in the case the puzzle has a somewhat obvious solution that is simultaneously slightly irritating. Hence, comparisons to Stamina.

I would disagree with this also. Before IO's ST dmg was more important because the test of your worth was fighting an AV or GM. Once IO's hit, the reward metric plainly put: the more you kill the more you get. So people started shifting more and more to aoe. When purples came out, it really ramped up.

the pylon thing- mostly that is a ST challenge, because it started with melee characters, who really dont have any aoe to speak of useful enough(or often enough) to make a dent in a pylon, or at least the initial contestants in the pylon game didnt. As other have said, an AOE pylon challenge could be started to compare aoe builds, but IMO the AOE pylon thread is really aliased as the many "best farm build" and "critique my SS/Fire(or similar) farm build" threads. DPS for aoe is only important so much as how fast you defeat spawns, not so much as to how high AOE DPS numbers you can get. Quantity over quality. If for instance(random numbers) 300 AOE DPS will clear your mission in 4 minutes, but 340 AOE DPS will clear it in 3, that is useful. If 340 clears it in 3, and 390 clears it in 3, then nobody will care.

Anyway, my opinion on the relevance of AOE vs ST with snipes in particular was in my last post so I wont go into it again.

Useless? Hardly. i take and slot both single target and AoE blasts, even on Fire Blast users, but when i consider things like DPS i generally don't think solely in terms of single target combat. While i will probably spec in the snipe after the changes go through and might decide to build towards perma fast snipe i won't be too worried about it either way. Hell, i might even try soloing pylons and GMs on my Blasters after this. (Without using MM as a secondary, even.)

My point was that when i think of the DPS of attacks i don't think of only single target in isolation since it's rare that i spend most of my time defeating single enemies one at a time, so stating that BB will have the highest DPS of the set seemed off to me. i guess it's mostly a case of lacking the right mindset to consider only single hard targets when thinking about a powerset.

That said, will the change in the snipe lead to AVs, EBs and GMs offering better rewards over time than groups of lower rank critters? i know AVs have better drop rates, but how does that compare to time required to defeat them? IIRC GMs still give little more than bragging rights for the time it takes to solo them. (That, and the occasional badge for the first time.)

8 players or however many become AoE by multiplication.

Plus, on a large team you're going to have a variety of powerful buffs and debuffs flying around- a big team will mulch pretty much whatever gets in its way regardless of how its damage is focused, although it will certainly benefit from AoEs.

But for normal mission content one highly optimized AoE character can quickly defeat a x8 mission by themselves- that's what I mean by efficiency.

Precisely, which is why it is so important to NOT laser sight focus in on ST dmg comparisons between sets and AT's so much.

IMO, the most important metric for balance to the devs is rewards/time. ST damage does not rock the boat for that metric like aoe dmg can, and to a lesser extent survivability(because you can leverage more aoe if you can survive bigger spawns) thusly, ST dmg can be tweeked upward a little bit, or even maybe a medium bit, and it wont disrupt the balance of reward/time. Giving blasters a bit more ST dmg has a benefit to an average solo player because offense=defense for a blaster(so it will address some of the percived squishyness of the AT), and this can be done without making blasters farming kings. At least thats how I see the 10 o'clock meeting notes on the white board playing out.

Heh.

My comments were/are based on what we have now and what we know of the changes. If Aim and Build Up become auto triggers for Blasters, I'll be more happy with the Snipe changes we can see so far (I think I noted that in another thread... hard to keep track of them all).

And as for the min/maxing stuff, I quite agree, but... there are such things as encouraging certain build decisions. I see enough people figuring out what needs to be done for insta-snipes to be concerned, and can see why they are doing it as well. I also think there are better/easier ways to prevent insta-snipes than the to hit buff. Last, but not least, I prefer the mechanic/power to work consistently. People weight this differently, I guess, but I'd like staple attacks to be more consistent between sets.

That's enough for me to want further work on the proposal, but I'm fairly sure that's going to happen.

Yes, they absolutely will. And unless they modify the current proposal, many will also be VERY disappointed.

See, She gets it

Thanks for making my point about what perma-snipes can bring to a powerset.
To clarify, what does a player DO against a Boss when they DO NOT have a power like Blaze.
Can you point me to a T3 pool power option ?

Please play an Electric Blaster and tell me you don't miss Blaze.

Hey I'm replying to a cat sticking out its tongue at me


Anyway I finished my numbers on the sets that I play


Exec Summary

Least gain fire corruptor at a 23% base damage gain
Largest gain AR corruptor at 120% base damage gain

Those numbers are all base DPS no enhancements no procs and just enough recharge to make the chains work. Aside from the fact you have corruptors gaining more from this change than blasters. They can compound that gain with their debuffs.

This is only true as long as you exclude bosses, elite bosses, AVs, GMs, Reichsmen, and the end trial enemies.


[quote].
-Perma fast snipe, using devices which is mostly what that post shows, totally ignores what build up does for aoe dmg. Go ahaed and make that archery/devices character for that awsome fastsnipe ability. i will continue happily without it on my archery/electric. Fastsnipe is not going to help fireball/firebreath combos, even as it does make fire's ST dmg go up. I would make the comparison of this ST vs AOE DPS thing like this:
[quote]

Energy Manipulation can have perma fast snipe as well and build up it just needs massive amounts of recharge.

It does highlight part of the problem this does very little for blasters leveling up and can leave them even further behind in the late game.

Neither one has trouble dealing with the hard targets in the game, and neither really has to worry about taking them out before moving them on.

My shielder gathers up the bosses from defeated spawns and then aoes them to death. If a blaster tried to do that the results wouldn't be pleasant or particularly effective.

This.

Teamed you have all the AOE you could ever want. Success or failure is determined by can you kill the hard targets.

I have to guess that the people who are saying single target has no weight solo just don't fight anything harder than lieutenant rank.

I can't imagine a polite way to say what I first thought, but I'm just going to give you this, that this is going to happen no matter what.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

What are the Rifle chains you are using?
Because it looks like your no snipe chain is Burst-Slug- wait a lot since you didn't put down any buckshot or ignite numbers.

This was in response to my comment on this giving a "noticeable, binary advantage" to min-maxers. And you know what? I can't think of another case where something so significant is tied so closely to a hard cap. See my comment about 21.85% +hit versus 22.03%.

Exactly on AR. There are 2 problems I have with including those.

1. Burst and slug are 90 and 100 foot range powers buckshot is a 40

2. I have no idea how long it takes people to lay down ignite. I know when I use it there is a perceptible gap to lay down the reticle. It is also a 40 foot range power.

Thanks for the heads up.
I understand the issues with Ignite and Buckshot and the snipe change can be a very strong boost to AR single target, long range damage. However, it would be very unusual for current AR players to only use those two attacks, so most people are not going to be doubling their damage output just by adding the snipe.

Beyond the obviously nicer range ability the snipe offers, I am expecting the snipe to add ~40% to AR if perma and about 15% if situational (the lack of Aim makes the difference between perma and non-perma bigger than sets with Aim). Those numbers may drop depending on where the animation time for Sniper Rifle ends up.

I would agree that it would be unusual if you consider circumstances in all of the existing content. With the newer content having so many area denial effects the short range attacks become more problematic.

I made this point either earlier in this thread or in one of the others on the same topic, so it's unsurprising I'm in agreement here. =)

Single target damage, however terrifically high its numbers are, isn't likely to upset anybody's time/reward calculations. Which is why the carrying on over how EVERYBODY now has to drop everything and roll a /dev so they can leverage this UNBELIEVABLE SOURCE OF DAMAGE is a load of hooey- for instance this change doesn't make /dev MUST HAVE, it just makes it not suck.

It's a definite buff. I expect it to be great on my legacy AR/Dev (and boy does he deserve it after years of wallowing around at the bottom of the rankings). But it isn't transformative and I don't expect anyone outside our small population of min-maxers to tear their hair out rebuilding characters chasing Perma-Snipe.

So?
"it's never been done before so they shouldn't ever do it!" isn't a compelling argument.

It's a nice buff, but nothing most people are going to care about enough to chase. Min-maxers will leverage it, the way they do everything and 'Casual' players will be stoked to get an 'Orange Ring' every once in a while and won't care one whit that they haven't maximized their potential single target DPS- I call that win/win.

I'm not sure who "everybody" is here, or where you're picking up imagery like folks "tearing out their hair."

I'm personally talking about the circumstances of specific builds and not rolling up a new character out of some expectation of being the "best" in the game at something. I don't care about being the "best." I do care about making decisions within the context of specific powersets that make sense based on what options are available. The basis of the concept of strategy is that build decisions are intelligible.


Emphasis mine.

IMO this is a very strange thing to say after saying the buff isn't that big. Tactics on a Corruptor and Targeting Drone on a Blaster are practically the same power for the purposes of achieving the T4 blast. One power can't be highly desirable and the other not, unless that one extra power pick in Manuevers or Assault or running out of pools makes that much of a difference. If that's the argument you want to make, I'd accept it as your opinion.

But I have no way of resolving your comment above with Corruptor and Defender builds for Assault Rifle other than to say that if Target Drone greatly benefits Blasters, Tactics greatly benefits Defenders and Corruptors. I'm not talking about rolling up an AR character just to take advantage of this because it's especially leet, I'm talking about taking advantage of it because it's the best option available when playing that set on those ATs. These are two distinct concepts. You've blurred them many times in your posts and it doesn't do service to the argument.



The image of the majority of players, casual or not, running around with a Snipe that they've bothered to take and slot for damage but don't care about using regularly or notice that it doesn't always work the same breaks suspension of disbelief for me. An argument about how bad you can possibly make a build has no bearing on what the structure should be for the average or the top. It's why, despite your contention that single target damage matters less, pretty much no one advocates that you shouldn't slot damage enhancers in the powers, which achieves exactly the same goal.

The snipe isn't a free power. It has to be picked and costs slots. If you've bothered to take it and put any slots into at all, it stands to reason that you should finish the deal.

Essentially, what you are characterizing as the kvetching of extreme min/maxers is exactly the opposite. It's concern that it is 1) possible to access T4 blasts on a Corruptor or Defender, 2) desirable in many cases and 3) the path to it takes away from the elegance of an IO system with options and build choices rather than adds to it. I don't particularly care if, in the end, they decide to make it no longer possible to achieve with Tactics on Corruptors and Defenders, because for me this is not an argument about level of power or AoE vs single target or any other sidebar raised in this thread. It's an argument about a puzzle with a solution that is both obvious and disappointing.

It's called exaggeration for effect.

And I'm not sure why you're replying to a post that quoted two other people, but I guess I'll roll with it.

IMO it's very strange to characterize my position as saying "the buff isn't that big" since that isn't my position and that's not what I've said.

I don't care about corruptors.
They don't need a buff, but if they get one great.

I don't care about defenders either, although they do need love more than corrupters.


Most players don't care one whit for the numerical structure underlying the game.

It will be percieved as a bonus and nobody's going to lose sleep and howl OMG WHY ISN'T IT ALWAYS ORANGE.....except the min-maxers, who can make it perma if they think that would improve the efficiency of their characters.

This is a very confused, poorly considered paragraph.
Single target attacks have a much smaller impact on game balance and time/reward than AoE attacks, yes. This doesn't mean they're useless, that they shouldn't be taken or if taken not slotted appropriately.

You seem to have a problem with gradations of meaning- "less useful" does not mean "useless".

So by your logic nobody takes a power unless they're going to six-slot it and pack it with max efficiency set IOs?

News flash- that isn't how most people play this game.

Again, I don't care about corrupters or defenders.
And more choices are more choices.
I'm sorry it fails an arbitrary 'elegance' test of your own devising, but I'm sure we'll all somehow manage to carry on.

At this point I'm convinced you're not even sure what you've said. You just seem to be adopting a position that is as oppositional and contrarian as possible.

I don't like being mis-quoted, and I don't like people making stuff up and pretending that's my position.

If you want me to play nice, stick to what I've said and stop making stuff up.