Ask Anything: Ranged Blast and Blaster Manipulation Changes

Because the game isn't balanced around softcaped blasters. Also, snipe change is a snipe change not a blaster change.

For what it's worth I think Body Armor is the power in munitions that really needs buffing. It's an auto resistance power for an AT that has the lowest resistance modifiers and only gets one resistance power at all. It's 25% stronger than it should be and it's still to weak to bother taking. The simplest fix would be to replace it with a Temp Invulnerability clone.

Sleep Grenade is ok (so far as sleep powers go anyway), the real problem is that it's a sleep power in an APP that is (thematically) meant to be paired with a AoE heavy primary. Still, I wouldn't object to getting it replaced with Stun Grenade .

Let's see. Your post talks about a "something-something long range aoe buff." What kind of answer do you want to that? It's so vague there's no way TO answer it.

And then you make a comment about more secondaries - not a question, more a request.

And you wonder why that wasn't answered, and then get snippy about it. Hmmm. How about "Next time, be a bit more precise in what you are asking so they can come up WITH an answer, assuming they're allowed to comment on whatever it is." (Something they're not allowed to do with future powerset plans, generally, until they're nearing release.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

/this. The snipe change affects other ATs as well (my defenders and corruptors are going to love it.)

Also, how does it "gimp other ATs?" Seriously?

See my Guides and Tutorials

What if the mez mitigation works like defiance 1.0? The lower the HP the easier for the blaster to get out of the mez. That sounds defiance-y enough to me.

I have a few questions I hope don't get too lost in shuffle overnight...

1) Since Body Armor from the munitions APP is of much lower base value compared to the toggle shields in other APPs, would it be possible to make Body Armor cover all forms of damage and not just s/l? that would certainly give some incentive to take Munitions IMO.

2) Earlier you said:
Can you explain that a bit more in detail? As in, is it not simply a matter of changing a number value for a specific power for a specific AT? And would it be so bad to up those values? Since you're trying to shore up Blaster survival, if Blasters generally had a higher mod for defensive/buff powers (stuff like combat jumping, maneuvers, tactics, etc) than they currently do, wouldn't upping the base values help a bit? The base numbers they have right now are so pitifully low that even enhanced to the ED cap they are very lackluster.

1) I have Aid Self on a majority of my blasters. It has 2 purposes that I use it for. One is the stun resistance granted by the power the other is to heal damage taken after combat.

Will the sustain power be roughly equal in utility to Aid Self? (I guess the real question is, will I regret dropping Aid Self to pick up sustain? If they aren't roughly equal the answer is probably a yes).

If they are roughly equal would you consider adding the same amount of stun resistance to sustain so that we can pass up the medicine pool and take our secondary powers instead?

2) Myself and blaster players like me see mez as the single most debilitating issue for blasters and it is by definition NOT FUN because while you are mezzed you don't get to play.

The worst possible time to get mezzed is at the beginning of the Alpha response because you are much more likely to be defeated by the alpha response and follow up if you get mezzed immediately after you make your first attack.

A common tactic is to hit Aim + Build up and launch all of your AoEs. This allows you to take out the majority of minions in the spawn allowing Offense to be the Blaster defense. The remaining mobs are damaged and if you are mezzed you "may" still be able to take out the remainders using defiance.

Would you consider adding a mechanic (if it is possible) that grants a blaster 5-10 seconds worth of "break free" at the time suppression begins? (this would allow us to finish unloading our Alpha strike and reduce the follow up threat) I think if that were possible it would solve a majority of the alpha mez issues.

Hmmm. I can appreciate wanting to keep this relatively consistent between the secondaries, but I wonder if a little leeway might be granted to put these into more logical powers. As the previous poster pointed out, Lightning Field makes a bit more sense and at least syncs up Fire Manipulation. I understand your reasoning for wanting it in that level range, but I think I would prefer the Sustain ability being put in a more logical power and leaving it up to the player to choose when to take it over the alternative we have for us.

Yeah, a joking hyperbole not calling out anyone and with a smily is considered non-hostile therefore neutral on the internet.

I think my question was pretty simple. It was even short. I made it on my phone in like 2 min. "Any plans to address blaster's in-combat sustainability?" was my question and the rest was basically an explanation of what I'd consider in-combat sustainability.

Perhaps you could make it a toggle that detonates the bomb when it is shut off; also it would detoggle automatically after 10 seconds. Possible?

I think gathering up the energy and having it course through you in such a way as to buff you is represented fine with the current animation and FX. That said, the Lightning Rod animation and effect would be even better and still works for the current effect of Lightning Clap.

It likely wasn't answered because the answer is obvious. Did they announce changes that would address blaster's in-combat sustainability beyond the help the regen/abosrb/heal buff will provide? No. So your answer is, "Not other than the current announced changes at this time."

Plus your question is kind of answered here:
Just because he didn't reply directly to your post doesn't mean he failed to address your question.

I'm genuinely trying to help you out here:

This is a question, but the answer is very obviously: yes, what was announced on the stream.


This is not a question: this is a statement that in your opinion what was announced won't go far enough. Which implies your previous question was rhetorical. You know what the plans are, you just believe they are inadequate. Which is a fair opinion, but not a question. More importantly, it neutralized the prior question as being possibly rhetorical.


This isn't a question at all, but a suggestion.


Questions that Arbiter Hawk can answer would be questions like:

Do you have any plans to buff blasters beyond what was announced, if it turns out testing shows the announced buffs are not strong enough?

Which incidentally, the answer is "yes."

Do you believe your buffs will make blasters survivable against spawns with multiple bosses, and if not what level of difficulty did you test your changes against?

I'll let Arbiter Hawk answer that one, if he chooses. But I would say that the buffs won't take you from dying against an Lt and a minion to defeating two bosses simultaneously. But they might take you from being able to defeat one boss but not two, to being able to survive a fight against two. How high the buff will take you depends on where you are now.


Look at the questions Arbiter Hawk actually answered:

They tend to be direct questions allowing for direct answers without the need to have a specific presumed perspective. The only actual post I saw Arbiter Hawk reply to that wasn't a direct question like that was the one about mitigation, but that's because once you get Arbiter Hawk talking about damage mitigation, yak yak yak you might as well get comfortable.

But seriously, you're not being ignored. You posted something the devs tend not to respond to: a question that was part challenge. Perhaps you did not intend it that way: if so I hope pointing out the fact that there are ways to better direct the question will help in the future.

Also Dark Manipulation should be able to use Death Shroud instead of a single target attack that could end up forcing the player to lose out on a good alpha strike attack, or lowering dps in prolonged fights due to interupting attack chains in order to make sure their buff is up. The down side of this is the current design may allow for those powers to have higher values that would go down due to being changed to an always available toggle buff.

Which is why we need to test it

This. I highly doubt that any changes will ever be made to drain psyche to make it better. Yeah it requires hitting multiple enemies to be awesome, and takes forever to recharge. That is what keeps the awesomeness somewhat balanced.

If drain psyche were to add the simplicity and up-time of these new powers while losing its peak performance, it would really limit what my current characters are capable of when **** hits the fan.

Dom snipes are something I find nonviable, 'skip-able' powers. This change sounds perfect--warts and all.

I didn't ask "Did they announce..." I asked "Are there plans..." and I ask in what regards "facing multiple dangerous targets". I know what was announced, obviously. If not specific enough, I'm asking if more sustainability would be added *beyond* the actual functionality being added. I.e. if the sustain mechanics added aren't enough, are they just going to buff the regen higher or address it through other means.

It's not a rhetorical statement. If the sustain mechanics are deemed enough and Blasters are meant to deal with tougher threats through other means than survival (i.e. damage) then the answer would be no.

The way Hawk explained the sustain mechanic describes a feature to keep you fighting, not a direct answer to common high threats like Ring Mistresses, Archons, Zeus Titans and the like. Even my Doms and Stalkers have issues with them, and I'm much better at playing those.

Now if he chose to make those threats the counter to the sustain feature as a price for the additional functionality it provides, then leaving bosses as the personal weakpoint of the AT would return back to the answer being no.


I didn't ask that because he already answered that.

Although an interesting question, I didn't ask that because I'm not particularly interested in it (unless he has tested against multiple tough targets and found the changes *did* allow him to face such threats...to which I'd begin to think the changes are too drastic).

I simply ask *if* facing multiple mezzing, debuffing and/or highly resistant foes simultaneously was going to be a point to address with these new sustain mechanics. Because some regen isn't going to make a huge difference when a Ring mistress drops a mask of Vitiation on you and the strong men follow up soon after with boulders and super strength attacks.


Oy oy oy. Why are you coming here picking apart my posts? If you're trying to help me, like you're implying, stop pretending I'm talking non-sense.

I've been talking about Blasters using mez to counter strong threats like the ones I mention for weeks. Don't pretend I'm just now bringing it up. Heck, if you are trying to help, then you already know my question has an angle to buff blasters' mezzing abilities.

Of course, I'm open to lots of suggestions to counter the threats I mentioned, I just don't think you'd have to make/buy a specific blaster build (like mine) designed to either 1-2 hold a boss, 1-shot hold a boss or mass control the whole group. It'd be better if some sort of similar functionality were built into the basic function of the AT.

If they did this and actually removed the knockback or turned it into knockDOWN it would make a lot more sense and would still mesh thematically..

I would actually consider taking the power and possibly dropping VS in my build.

On the topic of "fighting your way out of it, if I could suggest that firing off the T1 and T2 attack powers while mezzed gradually builds up some sort of status protection? My first thought was that you could "unmez" yourself up to your T3 powers, then T4, etc, but I can appreciate that this may not be possible.

Anyway, just my initial reaction to the phrase.