Adeon Hawkwood

No, that's at level 22. All it requires is that you have Aim and Build Up and that both are slotted with SOs. Aim needs 3 recharge SOs while Build Up needs 3 recharge and 3 ToHit.

I'll admit putting that many slots in Build Up at a low level is not necessarily a good decision but even with Aim alone you can have FastSnipe for 10 seconds out of every 45 using just by 3-slotting it with SOs.

Now you can get Build Up doing FastSnipe with a low slot investment relatively early through the magic of Franken Slotting. If you slot it with the following enhancements at level 31 or higheryou get 22% to hit from it and the recharge will be about 50 seconds (that's enhancement level 31, you can slot them at level 28):
Adjusted Targeting: To Hit Buff/Recharge
Adjusted Targeting: To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance
Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control: To Hit Buff/Recharge
Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control: To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance

Alternatively you could just grab a Kismet IO at a very low level (min is level 10 although the level 30 ones tend to be cheaper) which means that Build Up needs less To Hit slotting (a single To Hit SO will do it)

Archery is 1.67s
Assault Rifle is 0.67s
Beam Rifle is 1.4s
Dark Blast, Electrical Blast and Energy Blast are all 1.33s
Fire Blast is 1.67s
Psychic Blast is 1s

The interrupt time is currently 3s for all Blaster snipes.

I'm happy with it but then I've got a Beam/Dev Blaster and a Time/Elec Defender that are going to make out like bandits.

The range boost for Lancer shot is nice, I'm going to slot Cutting Beam for Range and have an effective combat range of ~75feet. I was working out a new build for him last night, I can softcap ranged defense, get in 70% global recharge and 6-slot Cloaking Device to help maximize regen (actually only 3 slots are being used for Healing and Endurance, the other three are procs and globals).

For the Defender I'm already over the to hit cap due to using Clarion to Power Boost Farsight so it's just a matter of a dropping something to take Zapp (probably Voltaic Sentinel) and adding a Kismet somewhere (to keep me over the limit in situations where Incarnate powers are unavailable). He's already an AoE machine so I'm psyched to add more ST damage to him.

My AR/Dev and Traps/AR characters would also love these changes except I'm probably going to retire both of them (for unrelated reasons).

I will note that there are a couple of Blaster secondary changes I'm worried about. Some of it will probably come out in Beta but in particular I think changing Lightning Clap to a Knockdown power would be an excellent idea.

I'm not sure I can agree with using that as a determining factor but I guess it's ok .

Personally I'm happy with how the changes will impact Electrical Blast but then my only EB character is a Defender so I may be biased.

Well with a Blaster you have Aim and Build Up and slotting buts each of them on a 45second recharge. Based on Arcana's calculations this means you can FastSnipe 70% of the time. Not a huge benefit against regular mobs if you save Aim/BU for AoEs but useful for sustained ST DPS.

In any case I would argue that EvilGeko ranked Archery as coming off "well" so logically so must Electrical Blast. In both cases the FastSnipe is the only change (Blazing Arrow is already 80ft) range and so therefore logically both sets should be considered to have gotten the same benefit. Personally I think Elec came out better than Archery since FastSipe is more useful to a set lacking a T3 blast than one that already has one.

I would disagree with this assessment of Electrical Blast, I think it made out Well. Like Assault Rifle it now has the option for a third single target attack that it lacked before. Yes Zapp isn't quite as good as Sniper Rifle but it's still a solid improvement especially when you factor in that unlike AR Elec does have Aim so you can get more FastSnipe uptime for characters without the abiltiy to perma-FastSnipe.

Just remember: the truth is out there.

Speaking of shoulder kitties. That costume part needs to get ported to males. I have a mage who needs a familiar.

I doubt it. They mentioned increasing the range of T3 blasts but didn't say anything about lengthening cones.

On the original topic. I think AR/Dev is the combo that comes off the best. Perma-FastSnipe in a set which lacks a T3 blast AND has a 0.67s cast time on it's snipe should be very fun.

Beam Rifle is also nice due to the auto-spread in it's snipe but may have a problem of to many single target powers.

Out of curiosity, how would you feel if the Regen/Recovery buff had been added to the set as a 10th power but functionally the same as it is now (so a click power with a say 60 second duration)?

I'm trying to figure out exactly why you object to it being in Lightning Clap. Is it because it's a knockback power? Is it because it's a click and you want a toggle? Is it because you're concenred that the wide area will draw to much aggro?

I would amend that to: Every AT has them except for blasters.

I think in many ways this is what is causing a lot of the complaints. Up until now Blasters have never really had any "must take" powers, especially not in their secondary (beyond the forced tier 1 pick anyway). Build Up comes VERY close but it's never been essential in the way that, for example, mez protection powers are for melee characters. This update changes that and now every Blaster secondary has one "essential" power choice.

Now if Blasters had had these powers from launch I doubt we'd have seen any complaints, it would be a standard part of the AT in the same way that mez protection is a standard part of a melee character's build. But since the bonus is being added in now the reaction we're seeing is "why am I forced to take power X, it's horrible".

In any case my response to people who are making that complaint is as follows. You aren't being forced to take power X. Power X is simply being replaced with a new regen/recovery buff (or something similar for some sets) power that also fulfills the old role of power X (for the handful of players who actually liked it). Take a step back and think about it as if the power is just being added to the sets as a 10th power. How do you feel about it now? Is it still bad or is it a nice power that enhances the capabilities of your blaster?

Two things:

Unless I already have a to hit buff (i.e. Targeting Drone or Farsight) my builds already have Tactics and Kismet so I'm fine with it .

On a more serious note they will not all have it because Blasters cannot hit 22% to hit using just Tactics and Kismet. If you six-slot Tactics with 50+5 to hit IOs and take a T4 Alpha with To Hit Buff you get 13.3% from tactics which with Kismet gives you 19.3%.

At the moment there are only three secondaries I can see that can mathematically get Perma-FastSnipe. Devices can get it easily with Targeting Drone. Energy can get it using the Aim/BU/PB cycle stacked with Tactics that Arcana discussed. Dark can theoretically do it with Soul Drain but given the insane focus on Recharge this would require is probably better off without it.

I see where you're coming from but I think it actually makes a lot of sense. I see it like the mez protection powers in Defense sets. They generally aren't particularly interesting but they serve an important purpose and it's pretty much assumed that you'll take them. Now in an ideal world all Blaster secondaries would have them designed in from the start but coming in to add them later I think most of the power choices make sense. All of the powers selected were marginal powers in their sets. Some were more popular than others (Cloaking Device* and Conserve Power for example) but none of them are the critical must-have powers in the set. By adding a strong survivability bonus to them they now become must-have powers which is nice since most Blaster Secondaries are lacking in them. Now if they had added the Devices bonus to Targeting Drone instead of Cloaking Device I'd be in firm agreement with you.

On the specific powers you mentioned I do think some of them may need looking at. Chilling Embrace I think will work out ok, the increased range will make it easier for Ice Blasters to leverage the recharge debuffs to slow down incoming damage and make their absorb better.

For Lightning Clap I'd like to see the Knockback changed to Knockdown. It's still not a super awesome debuff but I don't think it should be. Changing it to KD at least means that Blasters can use it freely to buff their regen without having to worry about causing major disruptions on teams (I like knockback when it's controllable but PBAoE knockback tends to just cause problems). I suspect most /Elec Blasters will end up using the KB to KD IO Proc when it comes out but I'd still rather see it done automatically.

Blazing Aura is the one I do wonder about. For a Ranged Blaster it's ok, heck it's a little extra damage on anything that slips past. The problem is that Fire Manipulation is really a set designed for Blappers and having to run Blazing Aura in melee range is going to give them a lot of extra aggro. in many ways I think the bonus would be better on Consume except that doesn't come until level 28 while every other secondary gets their bonus at level 20 or lower.


*Yes, I consider Cloaking Device marginal. It's a popular power since it makes thematic sense for a lot of Devices characters and you can stick a LotG in it but at the end of the day it's only a slight buff over Stealth and if my Blaster were magically changed to have Stealth instead of CD I probably wouldn't notice.

Well the thing is Blasters shouldn't be able to take large amounts of burst damage. Adding Regen does seem like a sensible change to me, it allows Blasters to stay in the fight longer and avoids the annoying downtime between fights.

As for the amount I think it will make a noticeable difference based on my experience with Destiny. My AR/Dev Blaster has the Rebirth Radial Epiphany Destiny which provides 200%-600% regeneration while it is up (ignoring the first 10 seconds which have 1000%). Using this while playing I have noticed a strong impact from the Regeneration even towards the end of the 2 minutes when I'm only getting 200%. It doesn't stop me from dying if I take a lot of hits at once but it does but it does mean I quickly recover from those hits that I do take.

In theory this change should have a similar effect. The base level appears to be about 240% which then gets to about 350% enhanced. Given that and my experiences with Destiny I am expecting it to have a noticeable impact although I guess we won't know for sure until Beta.

There is some precedence for this sort of change. Dominator Snipe powers have a higher Damage Scale than otherwise identical powers in Blast sets to account for the fact that Dominators have fewer self damage buffs (and now I guess also because they have fewer ways to FastSnipe).

I approve this message.

Oh yeah, I forgot about level boosting IOs. That does make it easier to do.

The "twice as good but up only about half the time" is the bit that concerns me. Assault Rifle is one of two sets that only has two standard single target attacks. This means that its current single target attack chain is somewhat lacking. Even on a high recharge build I find I have to throw Buckshot in every so often to have something to do while Burst and Slug are recharging.

My rough attack chain currently is Burst -> Slug -> Burst -> Buckshot (this isn't optimized, I haven't done actual math on it this is based on what feels right while playing). With fast-snipe it would probably be Sniper -> Burst -> Slug -> Burst.

Now compare to Energy Blast (Energy and Radiation are probably the ones AR is best matched against since they have a slow cast T3 blast and a snipe). EB is going to have a better non-fast-snipe attack chain since it can use Power Burst in place of Buckshot and while it's fast-snipe attack chain is going to be worse than AR's it's still going to be better than it's non-fast-snipe attack chain and up twice as often.

When I get some time maybe I'll do the math on this and see how it actually works out. It may be I'm worrying about nothing. Alternatively it may be that Ignite is enough to make up the difference with a caveat that while it is very powerful it's also semi-situational.

Yeah but now I'm having trouble picking single target attacks. Do I really NEED 5 ST attacks and if not what do I drop?

Single Shot: Usable when mezzed, decent regen debuff for AVs when stacked with Disintegrate
Charged Shot: Usable when mezzed, more damage than Single Shot especially against disintegrated targets
Disintegrate: Like I'd skip this
Lancer Shot: Good damage (and range is getting buffed), high chance to spread Disintegrate, very useful for stunning LTs.
Penetrating Ray: VERY Good damage, auto Disintegrate spread.

Not to mention that Piecing Beam is pretty useful against single targets anyway so it's almost a 6th ST attack.

Maybe I'll take them all and claim I'm only doing it to stack Thunderstrikes. Alternatively I might just not slot Disintegrate very much and plan on using it to setup Penetrating Ray more than for the actual damage. Or underslot single shot and only use it for the Regen debuff.

The problem I have with that argument is that it only has that DPA while your to hit is high. Sure Devices is going to be fine and Dark and Energy can probably pull it off well enough on high end builds. The question is what about the other secondaries? A Blaster with Build Up and Aim can have fast-snipe up about 50% of the time wheres a Blaster with Build Up alone only gets it about 25% of the time.

So it does seem AR is going to get a strong single target alpha attack (which is needs badly) but it's sustained DPS isn't really improving unless paired with specific sets.

Now it may be that this works out well. After all AR does have Ignite which arguably does provide good long term ST DPS already which is why I'm not going to cry doom and gloom until we see it in action.

No that one you'll still need to attack with (or at least that's what was implied in the video). However the duration is 60 seconds so you won't need to use it a lot.

The funny part is I've been leveling up an Beam Rifle/Devices Blaster with the long term intent of retconning my AR/Dev Blaster into a Beam/Devices. Not because I dislike AR but because Beam Rifle fits the character better (and I love the animations). This change is putting a LOT of pressure on that plan since it really boosts the appeal of AR/Dev. And keeping both isn't an option, I now have four versions of the same character and am trying to force myself to reduce that to two so I can actually play him more.

It's tight but they can potentially do it. Base Tactics (and Farsight for that matter) is 10% on Corruptors. The Kismet IO adds another 6%. So the amount of enhancement needed in Tactics is:

10% * X + 6% = 22%
X = (22% - 6%) / 10% = 1.6

Working backwards through ED:

FinalEnhancement = 60 = 56 + (0.15 * (BaseEnhancement - 60))
BaseEnhancement = ((60 - 56) / 0.15) + 60 = 86.6667

A level 50 To Hit Buff IO has an enhancement of 25.5% so slotting four of them be enough to get a Corruptor to the magic 22%.

Also Corruptors do get the option for Focused Accuracy so if they can afford the Endurance then FA + Tactics + Kismet will cover that nicely. A sufficiently high recharge build could even do it with Soul Drain (the one in Dark AMstery, not Soul Mastery) but that's pushing the envelope for build quality.

Much as it kills me to agree with Another_Fan he does have a point about Assault Rifle. AR is one of the sets that really benefits from the buff since it lacks a traditional 3rd Blast (instead having Ignite which has pros and cons compared tot he more traditional blasts). Paired with Devices AR is sitting pretty since it can get permanent fast-snipe and bonus snipe damage and with Energy it can have the Tactics/Power Boost combo you discussed. However with other secondaries the lack of aim means it'll have half the fast-snipe time of other primary/secondary combos.

Unlike AF I'm not going to say that this is the end of the world but I'm also not 100% convinced that it helps AR when paired with a non-Devices set.