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Well none actually, all tier 3 blasts are being 'normalised' to a range of 80ft but this will also apply to snipe sets such as fire's blaze, also im not sure if the activation time on tier 3 will also be brought into line. Sonics Shout comes to mind.|
Originally Posted by SadronMeldir
My apologies if my search-fu is weak. I've seen this addressed many times over the last few months but I wasn't sure if it's been definitively answered.
With the snipeless primaries such as Ice, what changes are being made to ensure they don't become under-performers? |
What has been said is that i24 will be watched closely to see if the non snipe sets ((ice,sonic,Dual pistols there the ones I can remember :S)) are under performing and then steps will be taken. (I imagine in Ice/ particular case this will mean making the hold do more damage , but thats just my guess))
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Originally Posted by SadronMeldir
With the snipeless primaries such as Ice, what changes are being made to ensure they don't become under-performers?
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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
That seems unfortunate, but maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit here.
When I looked a while back, the community seemed pretty certain that Ice would be dropping to nearly the bottom of the pack. Is the jury still out on this?
For damage? It should be above average for most players. Bitter Ice Blast is that good. Blizzard is also still going to be exceptional.
Compared to builds that max out the use of snipes, it will fall short on single target damage. It's AoE will be OK, but still lower than many other sets.
Ice has significant mitigation built in, so it is arguable it should be at or near the bottom when just damage is considered.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
A problem as I see it for balancing these sets against sets with snipes is what metric would they use?
Would they balance it against them assuming that the snipe set has perma snipe? If they did that then Ice Blast would outperform the sets with snipes if the build failed to obtain Perma Snipe.
You can't just give Ice Blasts universals boosts to counter Perma Snipe, since Perma Snipe is an outlier performance wise and not every build will achieve it.
A quick fix might be to give Ice Blast/Sonic/DP etc some sort of damage boost if they also maintain the 22% To-Hit number. Ice for example, might get a damage boost and lower cast time on Bitter Freeze Ray if they maintain 22% To-Hit.
Fast recharging and crashless nuke you can fire off from around a corner out of sight and then add another damage patch on top of that.
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I recently rerolled my Ice/fire into a Water/Fire. You're making me regret this.
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Fast recharging and crashless nuke you can fire off from around a corner out of sight and then add another damage patch on top of that.
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Water can do the same thing.
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Originally Posted by Tormentoso
I recently rerolled my Ice/fire into a Water/Fire. You're making me regret this.
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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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So Psi Blast and Dark Blast get to have significant mitigation and snipes? |
Originally Posted by StratoNexus
Ice has significant mitigation built in, so it is arguable it should be at or near the bottom when just damage is considered.
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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Will the snipe change move them significantly above Ice? My understanding is Psi Blast and Dark Blast are considered poorer performers now, and a relative boost might be just what the Devs are looking to do.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
So Psi Blast and Dark Blast get to have significant mitigation and snipes?
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If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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Good to know. Still, it sounds cooler with ice shards.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Water can do the same thing.
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Geyser > All|
Originally Posted by Tormentoso
Good to know. Still, it sounds cooler with ice shards.
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Seriously, it's the most impressive looking T9 Nuke in the game, IMO.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Ice is rather significantly failing to be improved in any way except the nuke change - which is not negligible. Ice for Corruptors and Defenders is at least arguably being nerfed, since IIRC they were using the Blaster versions of Ice Storm and Blizzard. As far as other changes go, though, Ice has neither a snipe nor a short ranged tier 3 attack to be buffed in i24, and I expect it to be a rather poor performer until the devs start evaluating sets that were not adjusted or were not adequately adjusted (Elec Blast says "Hi!") in the first round of Blaster buffs.
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Originally Posted by Shady Sam
Well none actually, all tier 3 blasts are being 'normalised' to a range of 80ft but this will also apply to snipe sets such as fire's blaze, also im not sure if the activation time on tier 3 will also be brought into line. Sonics Shout comes to mind.
What has been said is that i24 will be watched closely to see if the non snipe sets ((ice,sonic,Dual pistols there the ones I can remember :S)) are under performing and then steps will be taken. (I imagine in Ice/ particular case this will mean making the hold do more damage , but thats just my guess)) |
TEH WERDZ ON SKREEN HURTZ MI BRANE!
Pulled this from the beta thread about snipes. Snipping all but the relevant parts:
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Originally Posted by Arbiter Hawk
With regards to Blast and Assault sets that don't have access to a Snipe blast, they will definitely be high on our list of sets to add mechanics to in the not-too-distant-future. We're committed to making Snipe powers worth taking for the powersets that have them, and we're committed to working on the balance of powersets, Archetypes, and the game as a whole, so rest assured that if your powerset of choice needs QoL fixes or performance tweaking, it will be on our list.
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If Ice/Ice isn't underperforming now, why would it be underperforming when it's not getting nerfed?
I ask this as someone who preferes DP, which looks to me to be getting up to Ice Blast levels of ST DPS, while still being hampered by mostly Lethal Damage.
The sustains however are intriguing me. While blast Primaries pretty much bore me, the added survival being given to Blasters with the sustains stacked with IOs has me wondering if I may enjoy blasters more.
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It doesn't need to be nerfed in order to fall behind. All that it needs to happen is to not get a buff when (almost) everyone else does.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
If Ice/Ice isn't underperforming now, why would it be underperforming when it's not getting nerfed?
I ask this as someone who preferes DP, which looks to me to be getting up to Ice Blast levels of ST DPS, while still being hampered by mostly Lethal Damage. The sustains however are intriguing me. While blast Primaries pretty much bore me, the added survival being given to Blasters with the sustains stacked with IOs has me wondering if I may enjoy blasters more. |
If non-snipe having sets are considered "balanced" against snipe having sets currently, when Snipes are viewed as lackluster bordering on useless, then how can they be anything but underperforming when Snipes are improved to be "fairly useable" to "Outstanding" (depending on build)?
This is admittedly far more the case when it comes to Defenders and Corruptors.
@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too
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Because it's relative. Just because something is on the 'bottom' compared to other sets doesn't mean it's bad. There are -always- going to be underperformers in the game because someone ends up being on the bottom. That doesn't mean it's unplayable. |
Originally Posted by Oathbound
It doesn't need to be nerfed in order to fall behind. All that it needs to happen is to not get a buff when (almost) everyone else does.
If non-snipe having sets are considered "balanced" against snipe having sets currently, when Snipes are viewed as lackluster bordering on useless, then how can they be anything but underperforming when Snipes are improved to be "fairly useable" to "Outstanding" (depending on build)? This is admittedly far more the case when it comes to Defenders and Corruptors. |
It's easy to make it -sound- bad by using terms such as 'falling behind' or whining that other ATs are boosted more, but it doesn't change the fact that everything is still getting raised. The non-snipe sets are still getting the range boost and non-crashing nuke, so however playable they are now is getting boosted. There is a bottom, but what 'the bottom' constitutes has been raised.
To be completely arbitrary, let's make up a term called performance factor. Say as of I24 that Snipe sets get a rating of like 8, non snipe sets are 6. Sure, they're 'the bottom'. But when the min. performance factor needed to have little problems in the 1-50 run is -5-, then it means little that they're 'on the bottom'. That's essentially what we're looking at.
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But are non-snipe having sets currently considered "balanced" against snipe having sets? What if the snipe buff is seen partly as a way to redress longstanding balance concerns?|
Originally Posted by Oathbound
If non-snipe having sets are considered "balanced" against snipe having sets currently, when Snipes are viewed as lackluster bordering on useless, then how can they be anything but underperforming when Snipes are improved to be "fairly useable" to "Outstanding" (depending on build)?
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Speaking strictly for myself, if (before I knew anything about the sets) someone told me "Ice has a less-resisted damage type and has a lot of defensive mitigation (slows and holds)," I'd honestly expect it to be on the lower end of the damage-dealing range, as a tradeoff for those goodies.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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Honestly, I'm wondering if you're trolling at this point, because it's been explained to you often. Relative performance is important to many people. If my set is #2 for damage now, but then goes to #10, then I have every reason to be upset. You may not care, but others do.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
If Ice/Ice isn't underperforming now, why would it be underperforming when it's not getting nerfed?
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The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Except that being #10 still means you're STILL kicking butt and taking names and contributing to teams in a meaningful way. |
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
Honestly, I'm wondering if you're trolling at this point, because it's been explained to you often. Relative performance is important to many people. If my set is #2 for damage now, but then goes to #10, then I have every reason to be upset. You may not care, but others do.
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The whole argument boils down to "but his shiny is BETTER". And we've been told, REPEATEDLY, that they're going to look at non-snipe sets once the snipe issue is settled.
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Ice Blast is a Blaster primary. It's not even widely regarded as the best Blaster primary - that goes to Fire Blast in most discussions I've seen.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
If Ice/Ice isn't underperforming now, why would it be underperforming when it's not getting nerfed?
I ask this as someone who preferes DP, which looks to me to be getting up to Ice Blast levels of ST DPS, while still being hampered by mostly Lethal Damage. The sustains however are intriguing me. While blast Primaries pretty much bore me, the added survival being given to Blasters with the sustains stacked with IOs has me wondering if I may enjoy blasters more. |
I think i24 has established that "not even the best Blaster primary" is by definition an underperformer. We'll have to wait and see how big a difference snipes and long range t3 blasts make on other sets to see whether getting sustain in its secondary is enough to make Ice Blast perform on par with the new performance expected of a Blaster Primary.
I will be extremely sad of the devs see Ice Blast performing badly, decide "Oh well, it has lots of mitigation and doesn't need to perform well," and leave it be. That said, I don't expect it to happen. There are lots of people who chose the set more for good single target damage and low-ish but not terrible AoE damage who don't deserve to have their choices invalidated because every other choice got buffed past it.
TEH WERDZ ON SKREEN HURTZ MI BRANE!
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Once again, "lots of mitigation" is performing well in some sense. If you mean "lots of mitigation" and "better damage than other sets which have less mitigation" then you're asking a bit much.|
Originally Posted by Jabbrwock
I will be extremely sad of the devs see Ice Blast performing badly, decide "Oh well, it has lots of mitigation and doesn't need to perform well,"
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If you're asking for "lots of mitigation" and "pretty good damage," you might already be there. I don't know what the Devs think about Ice, but I do know that the Devs consider mitigation desirable (as do many players).
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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I asked the question of the math inclined folks and it looks like Psy Blast and Dark Blast will be doing well and have very good mitigation while Ice will just be doing bad. So this argument is debunked.|
Originally Posted by Sailboat
Once again, "lots of mitigation" is performing well in some sense. If you mean "lots of mitigation" and "better damage than other sets which have less mitigation" then you're asking a bit much.
If you're asking for "lots of mitigation" and "pretty good damage," you might already be there. I don't know what the Devs think about Ice, but I do know that the Devs consider mitigation desirable (as do many players). |
Arcanaville said Ice needs a buff (although she qualified it), Starsman said Ice needs a buff (no qualifier). Ice is getting screwed.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
I totally agree that it is all relative. Blasters may still be effective this is true, but the blaster changes are being made in response to the feedback that, relative to other archetypes, the blaster class was under-performing. That's not to say that blasters were/are bad in their current state, but rather that they seemed to lag behind in comparison. The point is that relativity matters when considering if a powerset should be eligible for a buff.
Now, this would quickly turn into an arms race between sets if they were all focused on the same thing. It becomes a tradeoff. Single target DPS, AoE DPS, Debuff and Control are the core things I consider when picking a blaster set. In the case of Ice, I knowingly took a bit of a dive in AoE in trade for some very nice relative single target damage and some decent control to boot.
With the blaster changes in i24, my role doesn't really change per say and I'm sure I'll still be able to do a passable job. Heck, with the crashless Blizzard, a lot of new possibilities might arise. It's just unfortunate that they'll be on the lower end of single target and AoE DPS because every set should rank either high in one or the other (or fall mid-range for both).
With all that said, I still love the set. It does sound like the devs will be watching things closely and I have hope. Positron sounds like he has a lot of great things coming down the pipeline to give older powersets some love so we'll see!
My apologies if my search-fu is weak. I've seen this addressed many times over the last few months but I wasn't sure if it's been definitively answered.
With the snipeless primaries such as Ice, what changes are being made to ensure they don't become under-performers?