swap ammo (again? still? forever...?)

So in the beta thread that is a catch-all for many powers changes (such as DP animation times, spines tweaks, etc.) a lot of discussion is bouncing around dual pistols and it's needs, since many see it's animation speedups not keeping pace with other sets gaining in snipe-power and/or useful-nukes.

It's touched off another wave of dual pistols suggestions, they're all in there. (yeah, even the "take out the gun tossy in air, please!" cries.) Some ammo swap suggestions too. Seems to be a sore spot for dual-pistols players, might have to do with the perception that the melee gimmicks (street fighting, staff fighting, titan weapons) don't suck by comparison.

As far as DP and it's "need," I personally think it'd be cool if swap ammo provided debuffs/effects, that no other blasters have access to (or rarely).

Don't make one do more damage than another. Make us pick between things that are really hard to compare in effectiveness.

I thought the -damage one was a unique blast set debuff. Maybe another ammo type reduces enemy run speed only, and more strongly than ice blast does, since it would not be increasing attack recharge? One ammo type handing out KB is also defensive in nature, but is it too prevalent in other blast sets to be considered interesting?

What would an interesting defense-enhancing debuff be for incendiary, though? -to hit? *ah, these brightly exploding bullets are blinding me!*
xx-%chance to proc a mag 2, xx-second hold on them? *cough, ah, these explodey bullets feel like when farm/kins use char on me!*
Stacking make-special-last-longer? *ah, these tracers exploding on me are lighting me up, and all their holds/stuns/confuse/etc. are lasting longer on me!*

I feel like properly-balanced choices like -dam, -to hit, -run speed, KB, without any offering increased damage, would be the kind of thing everyone could debate forever on, with no clear victor (and thus, a developer victory.)

Spitballin', but maybe swap ammo shouldn't be handing out defensive stuff, but offensive stuff instead? (You'd hardly guess that now, though, seeing as how new blast sets keep getting handed heals like candy at halloween...) But if all ammos just boosted damage-dealin', what would they do?

Maybe lethals do a DoT (bleeding), toxi does -resist, incendy is a chance to proc an xx-damage fire hit to primary attacks, and icy causes xx-damage every xx-distance the afflicted enemy runs? *ah, my joints are froze, it hurts to run, but I must!*
Maybe one of the ammos, instead of that stuff up there, does that -max HP gimmick in one of those incarnate powers I never take? (so I can't remember which it is?)
(Not going to suggest -def, since I have the impression that it's pretty negligible in the overall scheme of things damage-wise for several reasons.)

My ramblings anyway. I dunno, is there anyone that thinks swap ammo is fine as-is from an intentions standpoint, if not a numbers view? In it's current form it does let the user decide whether to enhance survivability or offense...

swap ammo already technically does that

no other blaster set has access to toxic dmg nor -dmg debuff in the primary (chilling embrace has some but thats only 1 power which is a pbaoe)

the ice and fire ones are sort of repeats but it still gives the set a lot more versatility in terms of dmg, say your fighting infernal one mish then next mish your fighting a lot of DE you got cold dmg for the infernal mish and fire dmg for the DE mish

as it currently is i dont see a reason to change it, why would an ice bullet slow someone more than a direct blast of ice or frost breath? or why would a incindiery round do more than being blasted by straight fire?

I thought the break down was 70% lethal and 30% exotic?

And my experience with them is just that Toxic really doesn't do much mitigation without other -DMG or +Res effects and the Cold Slows just... don't do much, be nice to slap in a bit of -Recharge speed (Or +.. whicever slows their recharge).

I think like perhaps the toxic should do -resists, since thematically toxic damage weakens your body...

Fire should do +dmg because Fire always does +dmg

Ice should do a -recharge effect

Lethal should have a -Def component as lethal always does.

However, I think the -resists and -recharge should be stackable up to say...perhaps 3 times...or make them potent enough it is worth it over the +dmg from fire. For Example...say -resists were between 40-60% that would be something worth looking at over +dmg easily.

Obviously Swap ammo replaces Build-Up in Dual Pistols. It would seem the gained versatility is supposed to account for the lack of a straight Dam+To-hit buff. It makes sense in theory, If you can put out a damage type the enemy has no defenses or resistances against, you hit more often and hit harder.

Ultimately, Fire is the ammo type I see most used when people even bother to use them at all. I personally find the implementation, with all the toggles, kind of awkward and inelegant. But it serves the needs of being able to instantly swap back and forth without having to wait on a recharge timer.

I kind of liked the way the original beta swap ammo worked and wondered if some kind of Scaling thing couldn't be implemented to it to make it closer to a build-up

My Idea:

Turn swap Ammo back into a single, enhanceable, click power with a recharge timer, endurance cost, et-cetera. A sort of "Build-Up lite".

Starting from Standard Ammo you Would go Standard>Toxic>Cold>Fire>Standard with each click. Each Click Auto-Recharges the power(Like Burst of Speed) until you get back to Standard.

Stopping at Any of the "Exotic" ammo types gives you six(or more or less, according to balance) Stacks of "X ammo type"

Single target attacks(and possibly Piercing Rounds) would deplete one stack, while AoE Attacks would deplete the whole thing, thus reverting you back to standard ammo.

Sort of an inverse Combo-building system.

In addition, each Click within the "auto recharge" cycle would add a minor, stacking, to-hit buff(about 1/4th normal buildup) and a "special" buff that increases the secondary effects of the ammo type you "stop" on that would last somewhere in the ballpark of the duration of hasten.

I personally would just give dual pistols back aim. At the moment, swap ammo is just a dummy power that grants the three ammo toggles - thing is, there's no particular reason it can't do something else *on top* of granting the ammo toggles. I would just turn the dummy power into aim (still having it grant the three toggles) and rename it 'reload ammo' or something like that. Seems to me a relatively simple and straightforward fix.