I24 Snipe Alteration Suggestion

And I say, people that are unwilling to alter their power usage to the circumstances of an encounter should *NOT* be balanced around and the devs should toss their grievances aside when balancing the game.

The devs should be focused on making a GAME and a GAME is not repeatedly pressing the exact same button configuration over and over again until you get to the point you have to push an arrow key...which even then is looked down upon by so many for no apparent reason but some foolish hunger for fast rewards.

If I could, I'd spit on the quoted opinion and kick sand in its face...Just saying

Points to Dual Blades (where the sequence of attacks grants different effects and misses are not factored in so must be dealt with on the fly), Street Justice/Staff Fighting/Water Blast (where certain attacks grant points that power up other attacks and misses are not factored in), Titan Weapons (where attacks not only animate slower in certain situations but are completely unavailable to use in certain situations) and Stalkers (Assassin's Focus changes the potency of Assassin's Strike if you're not hidden and the status of your Focus will change on the fly within ever 10 seconds depending on animation times).

So that there, that argument of yours, is *NOT* supported by the developer's goals.


Well, they would have to overslot for ToHit + add a Kismet to achieve it which is rather specific and off the wall. I know on the few Defenders I have and the Corruptors that have it, I didn't purposefully slot over ED cap for ToHit just to get close to 22%...then add a Kismet to close the rest.

Frankly, I feel your motives are overly emotionally driven. Yeah, I can make my posts sound dramatic but they're usually to make them more interesting to read. But you seem to express a position far more weighted in emotion than particularly bias.

The point of the changes to blast sets is, they are to help blast ATs. Defenders and Corruptors are included in that and the snipe changes are meant to be a buff for them too. They're still a buff for Blasters, but then Blasters have never needed a high damage single target attack...they have other options for something like that and adding another option, while helpful, isn't their only option. Corrs and Def don't have other options...they only get their 1 attack set. Which isn't to say the snipe changes are for them or they deserve more damage, it's just the snipes will actually make more of a difference for them...similarly to how insta-Assassin's Strike helped Electric Melee and Spines a lot more than it did Martial Arts and Energy Melee.

Your perspective is corrupted because you think the snipe changes are suppose to have weighted buffs for different ATs depending on their state in the game. That is not what the snipe changes are for. Arbiter Hawk even said during that coffee talk that these changes were aimed to make snipes more fun and usable for people that like snipes (paraphrasing: it was more like 'these changes are to make snipes fun'). Although he did not say such: By extension, these changes aren't to buff everyone but to buff people that like and use snipes. Most likely, those aren't the twink min/maxers looking for the highest DPS...that's probably why, if they aim for exploiting the new shiny, the returns probably won't be worth the cost of investment and will be dropped by those min/maxers in the long run.

Other changes to blast sets (sets without snipes were mention, Dual Pistols was mentioned, Electric Blast's Voltaic Sentinel was also mentioned, we now know nukes are crashless) are in the works too. What the goals of those changes are is another question ripe for the next online coffee talk.

Well at least you admit my argument as superior. Thanks!

1. I have not repeatedly said what you quoted. I said it once.
2. You made a similarly absurd statement in the other direction, but I didn't use it as an excuse to harp on your credibility per se; in fact I used it as an illustration of how unproductive such discussion is.
3. The Snipe change is illustrative of the problems that Blasters face. It also happens to be the most obvious subject around which to discuss Blaster issues right now.

Because I keep mentioning the snipe buff, it doesn't follow that I require the Blaster to benefit as much or more from the snipe buff as other ATs do. It is not inconsistent to object to the snipe buff given the surrounding context as we currently understand it, while at the same time acknowledging that a hypothetical, supplemental buff might moot my objections.

If you're convinced that I'm biased, then feel free to demonstrate through argumentation that my position is irrational. It is an ad hominem -- a distraction from the discussion at hand -- to continually harp on my bias as such. Incidentally, it also makes you sound patronizing. As the saying goes, "Show, don't tell."

No, it is only given your fixation with personal bias that the above-quoted paragraph even begins to make sense. A balance change must be rationally defensible on its own merits. More specifically, if a balance change is designed to improve sets or powers, across ATs, then there must be a solid rationale for deliberately applying that improvement unevenly. Simply pointing out that the balance change isn't aimed at Blasters is pointless; the question is why the balance change appears to be aimed at support ATs.

Allow me to remind you how this entire line of discussion started: Eldagore popped into the thread and had absolutely nothing else to say in his first post, except that we were all idiots for failing to understand that the snipe change isn't aimed specifically at improving Blasters. Which, apart from his tone, would be a fine point to make in combination with an argument justifying the snipe proposal, but no such argument appeared in his original screed. My only point is that his original post assumed its own conclusion, justifying a proposed balance change on the basis that the developers proposed it.

Nevermind that the change isn't even in open beta yet; nevermind that the change -- and the underlying reasoning for it, whatever that reasoning may be -- presumably isn't set in stone.

No, I believe that Blasters need a buff the most, not necessarily that they need to benefit most from the snipe change. That is a critical distinction. No one, that I'm aware, has gone to any effort to argue that Defenders and Corrupters should benefit less than Blasters from the snipe change, per se. Everyone who objects, as far as I can see, is objecting to the fact that Defenders/Corrupters benefit more than Blasters.

I'm sure you can play word games to make it look like someone is actively promoting the idea that Blasters should benefit more from the snipe changes specifically, but you and I both know that isn't the issue at hand.

I suppose we should wait another eight years for an engraved invitation to discuss Blaster issues, rather than bringing up the issue in the midst of a discussion about a Blaster-relevant balance adjustment set to occur in the same patch with a long-awaited Blaster balance pass?

This is sophistry. The developers went out of their way to make sure that the power remained situational for Blasters, but not for Corrupters and Defenders. In other words, the devs went out of their way to place a conditional limit on the Blaster's portion of the generalized buff. In other words, the devs went out of their way to moderate the buff for Blasters.

Why did the developers do that? We don't know at the moment. The explanation could be as innocent as you seem to believe. Then again, the explanation might echo the historical trend -- which is that the developers are typically possessed of an irrational fear of unconditional buffs for Blasters.

Now! On to brighter talk: Roy will pitch at least 8 innings tonight, and he will give up no more than 1 run. So it is written.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I like the snipe change mostly because it sounds like fun- it makes a kinda sucky power into one that's at least interesting. I'll be shoe-horning Snipe back into my ar/dev's build once this goes live.

That said, anyone who'd take 'insta snipe' over a real Build Up is HIGH ON PAINT THINNER.

I'd get more *useful* damage from Building Up one application of Full Auto on a big spawn than I'd get using an Insta-Snipe for an entire mission.

But it's a buff, and it sounds fun, so I'm looking forward to it.
Does it bug me that corrs and defenders benefit from it too?
No, why should it?
It'll be fun on my corrs and defenders too- I'll probably stick it back in the Goat's build. although it won't really do anything for his efficiency.

I don't really get the big drama over the 'insta' part.
It's a change that makes the power more appealing, to some sets more than others. It's single target, so it isn't really a game changer however well or poorly it works out for this or that character. They want some power combinations to be able to get it relatively easily, for others it's more conditional.

So what?
It isn't intended to "save" blasters, it's intended to make a lame power very few people take into a better, more fun power that more players will like.

R/e the 'big picture' for blasters, to paraphrase the powers guy The Buffs Will Continue Until Performance Improves.

Sounds good to me!

I don't think this round will do it, but both the announced changes are helpful, seem fun and as long as I've got the assurance that more buffs will be forthcoming if these don't do the trick I'm content enough.

That's a very convincing rebuttal to an argument I never made. Here, let me bold the part you obviously missed:

Obviously, you must think I'm a giant FREAKING IDIOT, if you really believe that I would argue that players should never have to adjust in combat. The point here is that, short of monitoring your ToHit bonus constantly in the power attributes' window, there's no obvious way of knowing whether your snipe will be fast-cast or slow. The very functionality of the power can vary dramatically based on circumstances that are not only beyond the player's control, but that are also arbitrary and unintuitive.

(The difference between ToHit and Accuracy probably isn't even clearly understood by a large proportion of the player base).

I stand by my position that the snipe change as currently constituted is unnecessarily punitive from a qualitative standpoint. Feel free to disagree with that; qualitative issues are, after all, largely subjective -- but don't act like a gratuitous and externally-dependent qualitative change to an AT that has existed since launch is even remotely comparable to the pre-existing qualitative quirks of sets that were designed around context-dependent mechanics. You wanna know what Blasters' inherent situational awareness involves? Surviving.
So you reshuffle a few slots. Oh well. Lost in all of this is that fact that, even if Blasters were given Defender-equivalent access to perma-fast Snipes, the Blasters would incur a much greater average build cost, given that fewer of them are prone to take Tactics in the first place.

(And no, by the way, a Defender doesn't have to overslot Tactics and slot Kismet. Defender Tactics has a base value of 12.5%. At the ED soft cap, that corresponds to a +ToHit value of roughly 19%. Add 6% from Kismet, and you're well over the 22% barrier-to-entry for perma-fast Snipes. Corrupters on the other hand, do have to mildly overslot Tactics.)

Irrelevant, but thanks for sharing. I'm over-dramatic? Interesting you'd say that, after you said the following:

Personal attacks? Check. Melodrama? Check. Physician, heal thyself.

So on the one hand, I'm clouded by unreasoning bias because I think the Snipe changes should take into account the over-arching balance of the ATs in question -- but on the other hand, you're arguing that Defenders and Corrupters deserve perma-fast snipe more than Blasters because Blasters already have more high damage attacks.

Self-contradiction. For the record, I think the Snipe change -- really, any change that goes across ATs -- should be presumed by default to give even benefit to those ATs. If the idea is to buff the power sets, after all, then it should buff those power sets evenly.

But if there are extenuating circumstances, then obviously any balance change should take those circumstances into account. What I object to in this instance is the idea that Defenders and Corrupters deserve a bigger buff from Snipes than Blasters do, not because I believe it's impossible that Defenders and Corrupters need more damage, but because the reasoning for rationing the buff to Blasters isn't obvious to me.

You appear to be of the opinion that Blasters do enough damage as it is, and that therefore any damage buff that is proliferated to damage sets in general must be reduced (or packaged with qualifiers) for Blasters. If so, then fine; I'm not really interested in rehashing all of the obvious reasons that Blasters are the traditional red-headed step child of CoH. I've done that enough in this thread.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Let's look at some of your quotes:

And then a post with no value except to elicit an emotional rise:

I'd look at your own post history before claiming someone's "motives are overly emotionally driven" as you put it.

The point is that a ranged attack posture was designed, from day one, to be intrinsically inferior to a melee attack posture. Perhaps aspects of that design were unintentional (we all know that activation times weren't on the original devs' radar, for instance), but the design speaks clearly for itself.

If the presumption is that melee attacks are riskier by definition, then it is reasonable to assume that melee ATs were given their defenses as compensation. The design history of the game supports that theory; for example, all of the talk that, say, Unyielding Stance (from Invulnerability) was required for Scrappers and Tanks to do their job ultimately resulted in the developers changing Unyielding to a permanently sustainable and essentially no-strings-attached power.

And if the melee ATs were given their defenses as compensation for their having to close to melee range, the obvious corollary is that ranged ATs have been deprived of personal defenses for the very same reason. Obviously, most ranged builds have access to various defensive measures (usually proactive ones, like controls and debuffs), and obviously, the IO system gives ranged ATs access to high levels of personal mitigation -- but the over-arching design of ATs is pretty eloquent on the subject of range-as-defense.

Blasters were given melee attacks because they were supposed to be the paragons of damage dealing, and therefore it makes a certain amount of sense that they'd have a surfeit of attack powers.

But the main issue is that it's taken 8 years just to get the developers to admit that having Blasters attack consistently from 80 feet isn't a balance problem. Even though there was no good reason to believe that it would be a balance problem. So melee ATs were compensated twice for their supposed range disadvantage; they were given better pound-for-pound attack sets, and they were given defenses, and they were given (near-)comprehensive status protection.

I could easily accept the idea that melee ATs deserve better offensive sets (all else being equal -- damage scalars and whatnot). I could also easily accept the idea that ranged ATs shouldn't have defenses and mez protection. Both is a little much to stomach, though. But hey, it looks like we're slowly coming out of the dark ages.

See my response to Leo.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

In the coffee talk that demonstrated insta-snipe, an orange ring appears around the snipe power when the corresponding ToHit requirement is met. All you need to do is have the power in your tray and when you get enough bonuses, you'll see the power is lit up.

You don't have to monitor your attributes to see that you have insta-snipe available.


I didn't say you were over-dramatic, I said *I* can be over dramatic but then I also said it was more or less to make the discussion more enthralling and more likely to elicit response and discussion (perhaps said in fewer words).

I said your stance seems more weighed by emotion and bias. To me, these snipe changes don't sway me one way or the other. It doesn't make them great powers and if it were deemed that blast set snipes *MUST* be very potent and a never-skip power, I feel the devs may have swung and missed. That is to say, I'm not particularly for the ToHit requirement but I'm not against it either. I can see things being changed, like the amount of ToHit, the sources of ToHit (make it so BU gives insta-snipe without needing to slot for ToHit or at least not as much investment as it would currently take) or change the requirement all together. But as they are now, the changes aren't unevenly weighed against Blasters because Blasters were not the target of the buff. People that take snipes were the target of the buff.



That's why your stance is corrupted. Defenders and Corruptors don't get perma-fast snipe for free either. Everyone will have to change their approach if they are going to exploit insta-snipe, so that you think I'm saying Def and Corr deserve more is only valid if you think they deserve more situationally aware powers. Blasters can take and use insta-snipe but they have other non-situationally aware means of doing damage.

The only over-arching balance concern I'd even be worried about is if this change improves Def/Corr DPS leaps and bounds beyond Blasters. Beside that, the only thing the changes should account for is whether the snipes become a more fun tool to use than it currently is.

Well, all things considered, what Blaster blast set has a snipe but also doesn't have Aim (or equivalent)? Assault Rifle. Okay, what about for Defenders/Corruptors? Assault Rifle, Dark Blast, Psychic Blast. If you want to make an argument about equivalency why not bring up an argument like *that*? That actually has more ground than complaining that some Blasters and some Defenders and some Corruptors can get insta-snipe perma while some Blasters and some Defenders and some Corruptors can't. Because whether you can achieve perma-insta snipe is irrelevant to what the snipe changes are there for. Having a means to achieve that state without pools or outside buffs *might* be more a concern.

I'll go with Hawk's response, I happen to agree with him.

Fair enough.

Yes, an unsupportable and irrelevant ad hominem. Do I preface my disagreements by saying that I think you're intellectually compromised? No, because it's enough simply to say why I disagree. That is the basis of rational argument.

So you agree with me in broad terms.

Then why set the ToHit barrier at 22%? Why not 10% or 50% or 70%? Why is it an amount that's just barely attainable by every Defender and Corrupter with investment in a particular power pool, and an amount that's unattainable to just about every Blaster build except on a temporary basis?

Either you think the fast-snipe mechanic was targeted (in part) at support ATs, or you believe that the developers didn't think it through. Either explanation is possible, but not both.

It's only a problem if Defenders/Corrupters can beat Blaster damage by leaps and bounds???

Blaster damage output should be compared with Scrappers, Brutes, and Dominators (and possibly VEATs), and Blaster damage should be unambiguously better than all of those ATs'. If there's even a hint of a ghost of a question about Defenders and Corrupters competing favorably with Blasters, then Blasters have a dire need of improvement.

What makes you think I'm not concerned about non-Snipe sets? That is exactly part of the problem here: the snipe change is so conditional, so reliant on varying build exigencies, that you can't possibly nail down a sensible compensation for non-snipe sets. The fact that the snipe change is uneven across ATs only compounds that problem.

The truth is that the conditional nature of the buff, if it is intended to be a major single-target-damage buff, is unfair to everyone involved, even Defenders and Corrupters. If the buff is supposed to represent a marked improvement to blast sets' single-target DPS, then it will potentially stand in the way of a more generalized improvements, improvements that would apply to builds that cannot (for whatever reason) leverage insta-snipe consistently or even regularly. For example, if the insta-snipe mechanic is supposed to give Devices a justified extra boost, then that's great -- but what about Devices characters without a snipe? I guess they're just SOL.

But Corrupters/Defenders still have an advantage with respect to leveraging that insta snipes. And I don't understand why.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I think the snipe mechanic was targeted wholly at players that either have and use their snipe currently or wanted to take the snipe but didn't have the room in their build for it.

Even with the change, I don't feel if a player's build didn't have the power slots to take snipe before, that this will suddenly require their build to shift. It *will* make it tougher of a choice to skip or take the snipe somewhat, though.

And I say this fully aware that not all Def or Corr take Leadership now and fewer take and fully slot Tactics. Just because a support AT *might* be able to leverage insta-snipe with pool power selection doesn't mean they'd want to or even have the room to or even desire the damage the insta-snipe provides.

Remember, snipes are single target and cost damn near as much as a targeted AoE attack.

Right, because it's rather irrelevant if Def with insta-snipe can push close to a Blaster without...if the Blaster can then take advantage of insta-snipe on teams and put more space between them and other support ATs.

Beside that, usually support ATs aren't focused on DPS which further widens the difference between them.

IMO, even if your defender or corruptor leverages insta-snipe more, it's only because you're supporting the team while doing it. Support have a tough job, you see. They have lots of things to be concerned with in an encounter so giving them an offensive toy to play with is, more or less, making their job just a bit more fun (if they so choose to use it). Saying Blasters should benefit more or equal sounds, more or less, like one expects Blasters to have *ALL* of the toys and have *all* of the fun and equal or more fun on top of all the fun they have now since they have no one to worry about except themselves.

I'm not speaking on the devs' behalf, this is all just my opinion of the reaction to these buffs but I feel they seem fine and better than the alternative (just make the snipes standard attacks) because that would certainly require a change in everyone's build rather than being optional.

If they change the requirement, I have no qualms with either. I wouldn't want it to be trivially easy though, but it'd be nice if equivalent -Def on the target also triggered the insta-snipe. Since -def is the same as ToHit buff, and it'd give -Def a useful purpose in the course of the game.



Firstly, I don't think this is chiefly a buff to ranged sets' single target damage. This is a QoL improvement to snipes and not much else.

Secondly, it's already shown that your stance against this particular change isn't quite there. That this will stifle other justified changes to sets? Well, short ranged blasts are getting a buff...Voltaic Sentinel was talked about getting a buff...nukes are getting a retooling...they even talked about Devices in the threat about the coffee talk and specifically about Time Bomb being retooled. Dual Pistols is having animation work done and the devs mentioned, if the changes to snipes push performance up by a wide margin, the sets without snipes will get a buff to keep them competitive.

If you have concerns or complaints about the snipe change, why bother with arguments like 'this might keep other things from being changed'? That's already been proven untrue.

I have to laugh at that. You now have a situation where if a blaster decides to go left and the defender running tactics decides to go right, the blaster loses his attack chain, and that is a quality of life improvement for you ?

This is clearly a single target damage buff and a really significant one for anyone that can use it reliably. The numbers don't lie, but I have noticed that the people who want to push this as being well done have attempted to rename it anything but what it is.

I

The problem is that those two concepts are inseparable. If the snipe change is to be a conditional buff requiring special effort to leverage, then the magnitude of the damage improvement must be large enough for the effort to be worthwhile. But if it's too large a damage buff, then it might get in the way of more generalized improvements that are otherwise justified. That's a difficult line to walk.

Nukes were sorta the same way for a long time. In order for Nukes to be worth the crash for a large portion of the player base, they would have had to be increased to absurd levels of damage. So the devs took the sensible opposite approach, removing the crash instead of raising the damage.

Drain Psyche is another good example. The devs have said that Drain Psyche in its present form is too powerful at the high end, but they've expressed a reluctance to change it (presumably due to potential player outcry) even in I-24, when all other Blaster secondaries are slated to receive a consistent survivability boost. So people who use Drain Psyche to its fullest will be happy, but everyone else -- the people who aren't interested in blapping, or don't farm large-spawn maps -- end up losing out. In the case of Drain Psyche, its high peak performance (as far as we know at this moment) stands in the way of an improvement at the lower end. Hopefully that situation will change as I-24 goes into Beta testing.

I expect blast sets to be improved as blast sets, not improved more or less for this-or-that AT unless there's a clear reason for the disparity. I also believe that Blasters are in a far worse position than support ATs are, balance-wise. Do you disagree with that?

It sure sounds like you do, what with your accusation that I want Blasters to have all the toys (as if Blasters already have more "toys" than support ATs). If you don't think that Blasters are worse off than support ATs; if, as you imply, you think that support ATs are worse off than Blasters, then we have an irreconcilable difference.

Thanks. I missed the part about the UI. I don't agree with all of his reasoning, but I appreciate your finding the quote for me.

Although it makes a certain amount of abstract sense that the snipe would become less cumbersome in a team setting, I'm still left to wonder why the less cumbersome version should be usable on a permanent basis for some ATs and not others.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Yeah, pretty much. Seems like the very opposite of a quality-of-life buff; the snipe change is a quantitative, or if you prefer, a purely mechanical boost that requires special circumstances and/or build synergies to leverage. If you can leverage it full-time, then sure, it becomes a QoL improvement, but as an improvement to snipes as a whole class? It's an incentive to jump through hoops, an invitation to inconvenience.

So the question becomes whether it's worth the effort to jump through the hoops, and if it is worth the effort, then clearly the resultant boost to your single-target damage must be significant.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

I dont really want the last word, but a few things you say put words in my mouth so I feel obligated to correct them. First, "doesnt deserve" and "doesnt need" are not the same thing, and one is what I said and one is what you twisted my words to say to try to help you weak arguments. I have no issue with blasters getting more ST DPS, but i do not feel they need it. That is hardly the same as "Blasters should not get a ST DPS increase". Again, one I said oand one is what you twisted my words to say. So, i admit nothing, at least not in the context you are trying to shroud around my statements.

Speaking of admitting, I am glad you have decided to basically retract your off topic argument about ST dmg you made using Energy Transfer. How you made the jump from my statement about St vs AOE in a reward/time balance metric to a power that was changed to fit into inter-powerset balance(totally unrelated to what i was saying in the first place) i will never know. Write it off as "scarcastic comment" or whatever, you went on to try to save it in later posts. I never took it seriously anyway as it was apples to oranges.

Blasters are the dmg specialists? I do not think anyone has ever found a quote to back that up from a dev anywhere. i think it is the perception players have of the AT, and maybe even what most players want out of the AT. If the devs agree or not, I dont know. If they will make changes to pursue that end, i also do not know. Right now I think they are happy to work on making blasters not die so freegin much.


"I simply posed the logical extension of your argument, which is that Blasters definitively don't deserve a damage buff (even a single-target-damage buff, even though single-target damage doesn't matter) because Blasters are getting a defensive buff in I-24. My point was that Blasters are vastly outclassed defensively right now, and only have a marginal damage advantage, which means that clearly you expect the defensive buff in Issue 24 to be massive."

that quote there is exactly why I wrote my first sentence. That was never my argument, it is the one you have been trying so hard to make my argument. My argument, as from my very first post here, is that the two items SHOULD NOT BE TIED TOGETHER because snipes are for all AT's, and blaster changes are for blasters only. You, and others of a like mind irrationally railing against this snipe change as though it creates the grand injustice of this generation simply refuse to look at the snipe change apart from the blaster buffs.

Certain builds was a reference to certain high end IO builds, typically farming builds. I should never have posted that, as the game is not balanced around them anyway. Average Joe blaster vs Average John brute, On SO's or even partial IO builds, the blaster will wipe a spawn faster, by a good amount.

As for your list of build up replacements, I think you are in short company when it comes to that idea. Go pole the blaster forum, with the suggestion of "replace all versions of build up with freezing rain" and see what kind of response you get. The utility of what you are trying to compare, is not even something you can try to compare.

Also, energy manipulation gets build up. And has to use power boost, and very, very high recharge IO bonuses to get what people keep trying to call perma fast snipe. Clicking aim, build up, and power boost in sequence, intermittently, would be mildly disruptive to an attack chain anyway, and rather annoying to boot, all to try to leverage a 20% increase in ST DPS. You can also do this with enough targets in Soul Drain I hear. Either way, sounds like a "cost" of its own. Bottom line, devices is the only blaster secondary that gets the snipe mechanic without specific efforts to achieve it, or a not-insignificant amount of IO's, or both.

SO, anyway, I am sure I "misunderstood" your malaise shrouded arguments yet again, so feel free to point out how and where by changing your point of perspective on your own statements once again.

Yes, as of currently, Snipes are either openers or pulling tools. The changes allow for snipes to be used as damage tools in some circumstances. That those circumstances aren't 'whenever I want and how I want it' is not a quality of life approach, that's simply entitlement.

I've seen the numbers. That doesn't trump the cost. Therefore it's an option, not a necessity. If the buff were so significant, then surely this means the damage improvement possible for Defenders and Corruptors outstrip anything a Blaster is capable of ever accomplishing under all circumstances? And therefore we should all throw away our Blasters and pick up Corruptors instead? Is that what you feel the numbers prove?

Because if so, then perhaps we should nerf this snipe change before it gets out of hand...but then, I don't see these changes as being the significant shift you seem to believe they are.

Well, you did mention the old dev team didn't balance with regard to cast time. That the new dev team has basically equated quick animations to damage offers a means of granting a magnitude of damage improvement that isn't tied directly to points of damage dealt nor damage buff values.

If they wanted a simple magnitude of damage improved, they *could* have made a % of ToHit unlock a buffable proc of extra damage while keeping the attack interruptible...but that doesn't make the power fun or improve the quality of the attack.

That the power is circumstantial to begin with is apart of the fun of using it. It's thematic and useful and adds a new element of improvement besides just damage and recharge that is quantifiable.


I do disagree with you but I'll pick the actual option I agree with and not the hamstrung ones that you feel support your argument: blast sets are marginal for all applicable ATs which include Blasters, Corruptors and Defenders. So blast sets are being improved, not just the snipes in the blast sets.

What I really do hate is when people look at changes in a vacuum. And you're looking at the snipe changes in a vacuum. Yeah, forget that Dual Pistols doesn't have a snipe and is having its animations looked at. Forget that crashing nukes are being made crashless and sets like Electric Blast suddenly have a 'wipe the spawns blue bar clean' button every couple of minutes while doing a ton of damage. Forget that powers like Atomic Blast and Psychic Wail will be able to shut down spawns if not outright clear them. It doesn't matter that the tier 3 blasts are getting their range improved and powers like Voltaic Sentinel are going to get looked at and Time Bomb might be turned into a toggle and blasters are getting huge regen/absorb/recovery buffs from their secondaries. No, this is about frelling snipes and how frelling unfair a deal Blasters are getting.

Yeah, I've heard you guys say how huge the snipe changes will be. And yeah, they're still not looking huge from here.

I solo and I use them. What I'm not doing is wasting slots in them to increase the to hit buff in them Just so I can take ANOTHER attack that I don't need, that is only going to be non-gimp IF I slot up and use Aim and Build up for a purpose that I only use aim and build up for when fighting Mog'd Paragon Protectors.

Without fast snipe the snipe power is just as situational (and just as gimp) as ever. With fast snipe it's only marginally better than a range 80 tier 3. Range 80 tier 3 costs nothing you don't all ready have to achieve. Not the case with fast snipe.

Ergo - perma fast snipe > tier 3 > partial fast snipe > standard snipe.

Ie: without perma its not better than the tier 3 which means snipe won't be in the build which means 0 benefit from the change.

No its an expression of the fact that I have a sense of humor. Especially when you consider snipes have a base 150 foot range and tactics has a 60 foot radius.

For most blasters all the snipe changes are just PITAS. You can say all you like that devices needed the boost but Energy Manipulation is now border line overpowered. Oh and as you like pointing out snipes are still very end expensive but energy manipulation is now getting a conserve power that can be made permanent. So what was already arguably the best secondary for blasters will now be far and away the best secondary hands down no questions.

Defenders and corruptors also have more sets with end recovery/management tools so once again they gain even more than blasters.

Face it this is just Arbiter Hawk trying to unnecessarily over complicate things thinking it would be fun and instead getting caught in his ridiculousness. Its important to get this fixed before it makes it to beta.

The same goes for Drain Psyche. Most of the people I know just don't build /mental blasters because they want to put loads of effort into making second rate farmers.

Irrelevant. If the Snipes exist in fast-snipe form, then the developers must take them into account when they look at single-target-damage balance. That the snipes are inconsistently available muddies the waters, but it doesn't mean that the devs will ignore the existence of fast snipes (IE. "the numbers") for the purpose of determining intra-set and intra-AT balance.

Holy distortion, Batman. How do you get from, "I see no reason that support ATs should receive more benefit from the Snipe change than Blasters," to, "The Snipe change makes support ATs unreservedly better than Blasters?"

Yes, I feel the overall balance of the game (right now, before fast-snipes) heavily favors Corrupters over Blasters. Yes. I feel that in some instances, Corrupters do too much damage relative to Blasters, given their other advantages. I feel that Blasters are not strong soloers and not strong teamers and are generally the most reliant-on-external-influences AT in the entire game. You obviously disagree, which means that you might as well be from a different planet; we're unlikely to agree about anything, ever, with respect to game balance. We're scarcely speaking the same language.

The fact that you think a buff to a single-target attack is not designed to be a buff to single-target damage sort of drives home the irreconcilability of your perspective with mine. But hey, this isn't new: earlier someone else bizarrely insisted that the balance of single-target damage is unimportant in a discussion centering around a single-target attack, and he's still flailing around trying to justify himself. I leave it to the reader (all two of them still following this thread) to decide which of our positions is more rational.

What I hate is when I get accused of opposite sins in the course of the same conversation. First I was looking too much at the surrounding context for the Snipe changes (see quote below). Now I'm guilty of looking at the Snipe change in a vacuum. Both accusations can't be true, which leads me to infer that neither is.

All of those buffs you mention (with the exception of one as far as I'm aware), apply equally to Defenders/Corrupters/Blasters. So if your intent here was to imply that I'm some sort of petulant ingrate for ignoring such a massive list of Blaster improvements, you've sadly failed. Bonus points for counting the nuke buff at least twice to lengthen your list, though!

The buff to Dual Pistols is particularly instructive, because one must assume that part of the reason for the DP buff is that other sets are getting fast snipes.

This quote, by the way, is not at all what I think, and more accurately defines the position you've chosen, whether you realize it or not. The poor support ATs deserve an extra toy, donchaknow.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Build up beats TD all hollow for every thing with the possible exception of PvP. If I could switch TD out for build up I'd all ready be respecing.

As a blaster the inspiration tray is ALL READY a part of my attack chain.

Virtually no one that I play with uses inspirations on a blaster in that way. Yellows have only 3 purposes in the game, Mog'd PPs, CoT ghosts, and Night Widows.

There are only 3 insps I carry as a blaster: Reds, purples, and break frees. EVERYTHING else gets converted into: reds, purples, and break frees.

Using yellows to convert snipe to insta-snipe is a waste of resources

No different than it is now. You can for all intents and purposes replace smoke grenade and cloaking device with a single IO plus Super Speed. I usually skip CD simply because it doesn't open up phase shift.

TD can be replicated with a Kismet and a single proc in Aim.

Half the powers in devices can be successfully substituted with single IOs. Most of the remaining powers are tedious and non-team friendly to use. The only "really good" power in devices is caltrops.

I'm sorry, but trying to say that perma fast snipe is a fix for device blasters (at the same time that it is practically free for defenders and corruptors but for no other blasters) is like saying that a little spackle fixes the San Andreas Fault.

Clearly you have never played Bejeweled not watched anyone that does like it play it.

The point being made here is that this is a game and the goal is to have fun. Taking slow snipe and using slow snipe is fun (if you didn't think so you wouldn't have taken snipe in the first place). Getting perma fast snipe would be fun. That in between stage would be frustrating as all get out.

I kind of compare it to food. Milk is good. Cheese is good. That in the middle, rotting, disgusting looking, curdling stage? That, I'll take a pass on, thanksverymuch.

While I agree it is an invitation to jump through hoops, I do not think it is a demand. Going from occasional fast cast snipe to always fast cast snipe has benefits, but even at the current known animation times the benefit is not so large that it makes ignoring the invitation a bad choice.

Because when setting it up so that it could be made perma with /Devices, corruptors and defenders ended up their incidentally? And because the difference between occasional fast cats and perma fast cast is not huge, it was decided that it falls within a reasonable balance range?

Those are my guesses. You could PM Arbiter Hawk, he may answer.

I don't believe it's a demand either, but fast-snipes aren't a quality of life improvement. What you can say is that they're an improvement over the old Snipe mechanics, but those aren't synonymous statements.

In other words, if you can get perma fast snipes, then you will experience an improvement in your mechanical performance and (apart from the initial investment to get perma-fast snipes in the first place) you will receive that mechanical improvement conveniently. If you cannot get perma fast snipes, if you can only leverage them inconsistently, then you will also receive a (somewhat smaller) mechanical improvement, but you will have to put up with some inconvenience in return for it. Fast snipes do not force people to inconvenience themselves, but the mechanic can't be described as a convenience, either.

(* - Dominators who don't invest in Psy Mastery will generally not fall into either group. ToHit buffs are so difficult to come by for that Archetype that fast snipes are unlikely to affect them much at all.)

On the other hand, as things stand right now and if I understand the numbers correctly, the fast snipe does represent a signficant single-target-damage buff to Blasters, even if those Blasters can only leverage fast snipes on a temporary basis. That's either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. People who care about their single-target damage will likely feel like they have to pick up the snipe now.

The first is my guess.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

^This.

People seems to be fixating on Devices vs Other manipulation sets, when it's really more of an issue with Defenders and Corruptors vs Blasters.

Defenders and Corruptors get a markedly higher benefit from this change than the majority of Blasters, when Blasters are the AT that specifically needs improvement at the moment.

I say this as someone with a myriad of Defenders and Corruptors (all of which could benefit greatly from this change, provided they have a snipe in their set) and not a single Blaster above level 12. This change disproportionately favors the support archetypes.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too