So how do blasters feel about nukes going from scale 6.0 dmg to scale 4.0?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-07-12 12:34 in Blasters
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To be fair, defenders and corruptors needed the help too. Ranged sets were a problem in and of themselves. I do agree that the blaster archetype needs some changes specifically to itself though.
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Originally Posted by Come Undone
While I am for the most part happy with them, I am a bit disappointed at how few changes affect just blasters
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I hate speculating untill i actualy play the changes.
But If they are changing them from scale 6.0 to scale 4.0 damage(thats a 33% drop or on the ones I use a loss of 70 damage)...then i probably wont use alot of the point blank area of effect ones...As i feel there would be no point.
For one reason their range is sub par....another is because they are a point blank area of effect...and why would anyone want to go into the middle of a bunch of enemies if you dont do anything but give your self aggro and cant kill them very well....and with a low health and no real defensive ability...it would be pointless....and a waste of energy.
And the last biggest reason...why would anyone waste time with an attack that will do less damage then a fire ball...or even a sniper shot or for that matter the majority of the attacks they already have and can do at a longer range with better results.
Again i dont like speculating and will have to simply try the changes before I can make an accurate judgement....but hopefully the concept changes are not as stupid as they sound.
Maybe its just me....but I feel when i reach a high level the powers that are made available to me then...better be high level....and it will seriously stupid if scrappers with lower level powers can do higher damage then my supposedly big huge blast.
They already get close....soooo this reduction is going to have me comparing...I am thinking a change from a scale 6 to scale 4 might make them do lower damage then a scrapper.....which will be real sad.
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Nova currently has a 12.5% chance of dealing scale 3.0, 50% chance of dealing scale 4.5, and 37.5% chance of dealing scale 6.0. Its average damage is scale 4.875. Half of the time it will be dealing 11.1% less. On average it will be dealing 17.9% less damage.
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Originally Posted by PsychicKitty
I hate speculating untill i actualy play the changes.
But If they are changing them from scale 6.0 to scale 4.0 damage(thats a 33% drop or on the ones I use a loss of 70 damage)...then i probably wont use alot of the point blank area of effect ones...As i feel there would be no point. |
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Yep wouldn't be the first time either *cough* I13 PvP *cough*.|
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
They fumbled the ball by not undertaking what would have been an incredibly massive code re-write that would have affected all of three ATs?
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I'll also point out that the extra coding they did with Epic Pool powers when they violated the cottage rule there was the RIGHT thing to do.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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If the devs make a change it's not random by definition.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Because why change any power when we can just keep randomly bifurcating the game? Why wouldn't they choose to do that.
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Because changing things, by violating the cottage rule, and potentially ruining peoples character concept, lets us sell more new shineys to the masses?
Taking control of players characters by changing the powers is no different than taking control of the player's characters by proliferating mez without providing a mez avoidance solution.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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The tier 9 nuke changes do not violate the cottage rule.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
If the devs make a change it's not random by definition.
Because changing things, by violating the cottage rule, and potentially ruining peoples character concept, lets us sell more new shineys to the masses? Taking control of players characters by changing the powers is no different than taking control of the player's characters by proliferating mez without providing a mez avoidance solution. |
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I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about and are just tossing about phrases and words in the hopes it sounds like something smart and like a counterargument. Because none of what you said made sense.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
If the devs make a change it's not random by definition.
Because changing things, by violating the cottage rule, and potentially ruining peoples character concept, lets us sell more new shineys to the masses? Taking control of players characters by changing the powers is no different than taking control of the player's characters by proliferating mez without providing a mez avoidance solution. |
I think the changes -sound- great and that it's about time...
The only thing I don't like is that I'm having to figure out how to best alter my 15-20 some odd ranged incarnates that can take advantage of this hehe
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...How DARE they change powers in their own game! As much as we like to go on about 'our' game and our toons and our sets..we dont own it at all. If they decide something needs fixing, either plus or minus..we cant do anything, and should not really expect to.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
If the devs make a change it's not random by definition.
Because changing things, by violating the cottage rule, and potentially ruining peoples character concept, lets us sell more new shineys to the masses? Taking control of players characters by changing the powers is no different than taking control of the player's characters by proliferating mez without providing a mez avoidance solution. |
The devs actually gives us a pretty huge input in changes (most of the time) such as is currently going on with Bioarmour, or the hybrid changes. Using your great argument about how changing powers is 'taking control of our characters' (funny, I never had a Dev suddenly hijack MY PC and start playing my toons), that would mean that after the first draft on any powers, NOTHING would get changed. Ever. Even if it sucked or was broken.
Can you just get over the fact blasters dont need a mez protection?
The only thing I am thinking is "Holy crap, between this and the KB2KD proc, my Radiation/Fire/Fire Blaster just got the biggest buff of any character I've ever played."
Although I'm still waiting to see if he outperforms a Corruptor relative to the loss of support abilities. 
I'm also operating on the assumption that the 22% ToHit to get permasnipe won't be the final plan, which may turn out to be too big a gamble.
But holy-nuking-Bonfire, this character will be putting out insane damage, and quite a bit more safely.
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I assure you, the new nuke damage is much bigger than fireball's damage. Saying that they're going from scale 6 to scale 4 isn't the whole story. As Arcanaville said, what's basically happening is the random damage is being removed and the guaranteed damage is being increased.
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Originally Posted by PsychicKitty
And the last biggest reason...why would anyone waste time with an attack that will do less damage then a fire ball...
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I had a concept, it was the concept of a super hero with lots of powers that all sucked¡¡¡ But now the devs buffed everything and broke my concept¡ How dare they¡¡¡|
Originally Posted by MisterD
...How DARE they change powers in their own game! As much as we like to go on about 'our' game and our toons and our sets..we dont own it at all. If they decide something needs fixing, either plus or minus..we cant do anything, and should not really expect to.
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| Can you just get over the fact blasters dont need a mez protection? |
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... which, despite the statistical average going down, may come close to breaking even on damage for high damage builds, due to some of the old random damage being lost to overkill.|
Originally Posted by Garent
As Arcanaville said, what's basically happening is the random damage is being removed and the guaranteed damage is being increased.
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A very likely damage decrease for low damage builds, though. Certain defenders may find a 4.0 crashless nuke skippable unless the recharge is short enough to bust it out every spawn as a quicker, weaker mini-Judgement.
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Depends on how you look at it. If, for example Nova were changed so that it did 1 point of damage, was given 100 mag KB, and crashed your endurance for 5 minutes it wouldn't "technically" violate the cottage rule because it still does damage, KB and an End crash, so it still has all its previous functions. (and there would still be forumites defending the change. "just use blue pills for 5 minutes", or "always team with a kinetics user.")|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The tier 9 nuke changes do not violate the cottage rule.
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It would certainly violate the "spirit" of the cottage rule since it would completely change the end results of the power within the frame of the game environment.
For me its similar to the Total focus change that took that from being a boss tool, to a high damage power with too long an animation.
The change will completely change the play style of most of my blasters, some of which I have had for a long time. Those who depended on the spawn wiping damage and had endurance recovery tools will be negatively affected. Those that skipped the nuke and can now take it will be positively affected.
This is why I'm in a "meh" mood about the change. It homogenizes the play styles of a good chunk of my blasters.
Over all its probably a good change, after any required tweaks, but I would still prefer more options within my power sets the same as we have always been given for our costumes.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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Sure, as soon as you get over the fact that they do. Arbiter Hawk has as much as said so. He just wants to do it by changing the environment rather than changing the blaster. That just seems like a time consuming brute force approach to me.
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Originally Posted by MisterD
Can you just get over the fact blasters dont need a mez protection?
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-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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Not to jump in on a side in your discussion but I question the "as much as said so" in terms of Blasters with mez protection. I find this hard to accept since having several discussions with him about Khelds made it clear that mez protection was not in their future. I would find it..."interesting" if he had a different/changed stance but only when it comes to blasters. You have a quote?
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Sure, as soon as you get over the fact that they do. Arbiter Hawk has as much as said so. He just wants to do it by changing the environment rather than changing the blaster. That just seems like a time consuming brute force approach to me.
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The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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Or a slower, stronger, mega-Fireball. (Or perhaps more importantly, huge supplemental AoE debuffs/controls for some Defenders.) It's all in how you look at it. |
Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
A very likely damage decrease for low damage builds, though. Certain defenders may find a 4.0 crashless nuke skippable unless the recharge is short enough to bust it out every spawn as a quicker, weaker mini-Judgement.
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Nuke powers are no longer nuke powers in the sense that there's no major downside for using them. Thematically, I'm sure that bothers some people; without a crash, the nukes lose some of their apocalyptic last-resort flavor.
On the other hand, I think some are objecting to the damage loss in part because they don't fully appreciate just how much more user-friendly nukes will be in Issue 24. It's one thing to know the abstract power details; it's another thing to have lived with something one way, for years, and then learn to appreciate a dramatic change on an intuitive level.
Mechanically, nukes will be buffed in Issue 24. It's not even a question. Whatever damage is lost on a per-use basis is more than made up by the decreased cycle time -- even if we ignore the crash. If we don't ignore the crash, then nukes' per-use damage output also becomes less important, from a practical standpoint; if you no longer have to retoggle, and you no longer have to pop blues to fight a recovery debuff, then you're in a better position to kill anything that survives the nuke.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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No, there's the rule the players made up and the rule the devs obey. The nuke changes do not violate the cottage rule the devs obey. The rule the players made up doesn't matter.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Depends on how you look at it.
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1. They did not subtract a beneficial effect that affects general usage or alters allowable slotting.
2. They did not change the tier the power became available.
3. They did not change the mechanical invocation of the power.
4. They did not make severe numerical changes that moots an effect. And the EXPLICIT context of this rule is that normal numerical balancing changes are always allowed under the cottage rule.
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Pretty much this. I'm fine with a little loss of damage, so that my blasters can now use to judgement like powers back to back.|
Originally Posted by Obitus
Or a slower, stronger, mega-Fireball. (Or perhaps more importantly, huge supplemental AoE debuffs/controls for some Defenders.) It's all in how you look at it.
Nuke powers are no longer nuke powers in the sense that there's no major downside for using them. Thematically, I'm sure that bothers some people; without a crash, the nukes lose some of their apocalyptic last-resort flavor. On the other hand, I think some are objecting to the damage loss in part because they don't fully appreciate just how much more user-friendly nukes will be in Issue 24. It's one thing to know the abstract power details; it's another thing to have lived with something one way, for years, and then learn to appreciate a dramatic change on an intuitive level. Mechanically, nukes will be buffed in Issue 24. It's not even a question. Whatever damage is lost on a per-use basis is more than made up by the decreased cycle time -- even if we ignore the crash. If we don't ignore the crash, then nukes' per-use damage output also becomes less important, from a practical standpoint; if you no longer have to retoggle, and you no longer have to pop blues to fight a recovery debuff, then you're in a better position to kill anything that survives the nuke. |
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I think he actually consiers the End Crash a feature...
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
No, there's the rule the players made up and the rule the devs obey. The nuke changes do not violate the cottage rule the devs obey. The rule the players made up doesn't matter.
1. They did not subtract a beneficial effect that affects general usage or alters allowable slotting. 2. They did not change the tier the power became available. 3. They did not change the mechanical invocation of the power. 4. They did not make severe numerical changes that moots an effect. And the EXPLICIT context of this rule is that normal numerical balancing changes are always allowed under the cottage rule. |
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I'd disagree there. NPC mezzes in this game are quite frankly insane. Changing how they work is a better long term solution than just slapping mez protection on every character. Giving Blasters mez protection would be a band-aid not a fix. It would "solve" the problem for Blasters but completely ignores the underlying problems.
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Sure, as soon as you get over the fact that they do. Arbiter Hawk has as much as said so. He just wants to do it by changing the environment rather than changing the blaster. That just seems like a time consuming brute force approach to me.
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Perhaps, although I'm also still unsure what sort of spawn is wiped out by unreliable 4.5 scale damage and isn't by reliable 4.0 scale damage. Its not like the 37.5% of the spawn that is hit by 6.0 scale damage scares the rest of the spawn to death.
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Originally Posted by Starsman
I think he actually consiers the End Crash a feature...
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In a backwards type way, yes I do. The end crash was supposed to be the cost for damage that could wipe a spawn... except blizzard was the only nuke that could consistently achieve that.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
I think he actually consiers the End Crash a feature...
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That is what a nuke is to me. It wipes the board of anything that is a boss and lower and the cost is that it wipes out your end bar for 20 seconds. The gamble should have always been the 5% of stuff you always miss.
The change just gives us (in most cases) a really strong PBAoE. I'll miss my NUKE!!!! the same way I miss defiance 1.0 now that we have defense set bonuses.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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And what nuke does that?|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
That is what a nuke is to me. It wipes the board of anything that is a boss and lower
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Edit: Absolute maximum Nova damage at the damage cap when all waves hit: 62.56 * 6 * 5.0 = 1876.8. Even level boss health at level 50: 2570.2.
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Solo, I'd also pop VS first for some extra defiance and that may have finished anything standing off while I was popping a blue and I'm mis-remembering it as the group being finished by the initial nuke.
I'll admit that that disappointment is based more on feeling than fact so I guess I'll see once it hits beta.
Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with.