BrandX

Originally Posted by Diellan_

That's exactly what it is. Ball Lightning has a really fast animation time, and on an "IO" build (which I'm guessing means perma-Hasten), it recharges fast enough that you can make a chain that includes it. Only in that case do you wind up significantly better than Energy Blast, and that's only because Energy Blast sees almost zero improvement from recharge, because its single target blasts all have very similar DPA.

Originally Posted by Primantiss

Would this not hold true to pretty much any Snipe DPA improvement?

If all snipes were suddenly turned into a "T4" blast, with no interrupt or wind up at all, it would still favor Corruptors.. The only way I could see Snipes favoring Defenders is if the devs decided to add hefty debuff values to them, values that were drastically juiced up on Defenders.

Corruptor vs Defender balance issues aside, I don't see what the problem is with Snipe being more powerful on a Corruptor, it's kind of their thing to do more damage, is it not?

Regardless, if changes like this come down the tube my Time/Rad defender is likely to be very happy, A quick snipe should help fix her rather lackluster single target DPS woes.



-Edit -

Not to mention, reaching the magical number on Defenders is a bit easier, and saves a few slots. (think it just takes 2 slotted Tactics, and Kismet, where corrs have to have something like 4 slots)

Originally Posted by Another_Fan

I have never really felt pain from times -regen its pretty easy to stack 3 or 4 time crawls on a target if you are on a team.

Originally Posted by Rakeeb

They know it, just don't have a need to do anything about it, typically. They can set the hold duration to match the power.

I did see, above, a poster outlining that Electric Blast and Energy Blast do near the same amount of damage. I don't have a lot of time now to follow up on that, but in the morning I'll be checking it out.

EDIT: No offense to Umbral, but I don't know where he was getting his numbers for an Elec Blast attack chain, so it's hard for me to use it as a point of emphasis.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

I doubt it. Most Scrappers/Stalkers can only hit 22% by using Build Up so it's going to be a very limited period you can FastSnipe in. Now admittedly during that period it's a 2.3 damage scale with a 1.33s cast time (2s for Mace Beam) which does compare favorably to the heavy hitters in most sets so it may have some value there but it's going to be hard to make it a part of a regular attack chain.

I guess some Stalkers might take it to give a strong opening by doing Build Up -> Assassin's Strike -> Snipe.


Claws Scrappers could as well but they'd have to deal with the redraw.

Originally Posted by Another_Fan

My fire/time corruptor is going from broken to plaid. If it was marginal to pick a blaster for teams before its now pretty dang black and white.

Originally Posted by DMystic

The PPP snipe was terrible because of the ridiculously long interrupt time.

Originally Posted by Equality_NA

And Dominators/Defenders

Originally Posted by Sevenpenny

So what? Disney is going to be making live action versions of all their animated movies? I guess they really have run out of original ideas...

Originally Posted by Rakeeb

I'm genuinely (non-sarcastically) interested in how you got this. Where did you see that it was a Top 5 set, what led anyone to say that? It's a low damage set with bad cast times and no practical secondary ability... Endurance Drain on encounters that mean anything is essentially nonfunctional.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Don't get me wrong, I REALLY tried to like Blaster. I got an AR/Dev/Muntitions to 50, I got an Energy/Energy/Foce to 50, I got a Fire/Fire/Flame to 50, I got a Pistols/Electric/Electric to 42, an Ice3 to 42, and my experience just kept getting worse and worse with all of them. By far the easiest of those to play, counter-intuitively, was my Fire/Fire/Flame since I could easily take out those pesky Gunslingers and Mentalists and so forth before they became a problem. Char one Malta Spec Ops, Blaze + Fire Sword the Gunslinger, lay into the Spec Ops before he wakes up.

And it worked when I was still having to have my Brutes wait between every two fights and my Scrappers take so many endurance reduction slots. Then inherent Fitness came around, and all of my Scrappers and Brutes and especially my Masterminds became ten times better. All of a sudden my Brute could do what my Blaster could - wipe out huge spawns quickly - and all it took was a spawn or two to get moving since I didn't really need to stop and rest. And then the Fury changes happened which made gaining and maintaining Fury up to 75 was very easy. All of a sudden my Masterminds could resummon mid-battle and NOT run out of endurance. Then their upgrades became AoE. Then they became much cheaper and their buffs became AoE, too. Then Stalkers gained amazing damage AND more survivability AND Demoralisation on every Assassin's Strike even if the target died.

And all this time, my Blasters were playing the same way they played back in 2005 - very slowly, very carefully, dreading any and every encounter. See, my Brutes really didn't care too much what they fought. Mentalist, Gunslinger, Mushroom or basic soldier. Sure, they all had different quirks to them, but at no point did I have to stop and say to myself "I really don't want to do this..." Because that's what was going through my head while playing a Blaster all the time. Oh, no! What's around that corner? Oh, no! A boss! Oh, no, an ambush! Help! With a Brute or a Scrapper or a Mastermind, the most I'd think was "Boss, huh? Bring it on!"

I get why people like Blasters as a "challenge," but what they did to me is make me feel weak, insignificant and afraid. I had to work twice as hard to be only half as good... Or I could go play a Scrapper and be awesome and welcome more enemies. With my Blasters, especially in the 40s, every fight felt like a boss fight, and it was so, so draining. I ran through the Mender Ramiel arc with my Fire/Fire/Pyre, and despite making good time, I simply never enjoyed the experience. In fact, it was so unpleasant that's more or less what made me scrap all my Blasters, no pun intended. And having seen Praetoria, and seeing what the late game was becoming and how the game damn well EXPECTED me to play well on the top end of the difficulty scale... Yeah, playing characters that were struggling to impress me even at base difficulty just wasn't gonna' happen.

And it still won't. It'll take more than a token downtime mitigation tool and a non-crappy Snipe to get me to return to that AT. As a point of fact, it'll probably take a whole new AT that's either Range/Defence or Assault/Defence.

Originally Posted by Lightslinger

I am not extremely ungrateful, I've repeatedly praised the other buffs, even coming around to support the +Regen idea which I didn't so much when I first heard it. You and other's are trying to frame anyone who doesn't wholesale support this as ungrateful brats when we're just asking for something different.

Blasters need help, there's a pretty good consensus on that (not 100%, but still a clear majority agrees on that fact). I am merely stating that this +tohit mechanic takes what would've been a great buff to Blasters and drags it down.

Forget Stalkers, I'm just using them as a model and a precedent because their AS buff was similar. It's a simple question I'm asking; Why is the +tohit Quick-Snipe better than the simple Quick-Snipe I'm requesting?

Originally Posted by Reppu

Assassin's Strike is not a 'decent power'. Assassin's Strike is blatantly overpowered. Combined with all the other Stalker Changes, it was "Way too much".

Scale 5.4 Damage in 1 Second every few seconds is kind of broken. Assassin's Focus probably needs to go and AS shouldn't be given special critical hit conditions. But not the time or place.

The Snipe change is good and is meant to be a Team Boosting thing, and a more situational solo thing aside from a few specific cases.

Blaster SPECIFIC solo and team boost is their added Regen/Recov/Whatever.

Enjoy!



Don't cry foul because I'm using terms that is describing a lot of what people are harping on and on about. You DO want an I-Win Button out of the Snipe. That is what your proposed change is. If you want to be treated like an adult, quit being a spoiled child and realize you are asking for the same change to Random Power Set Power that happened to another AT's Core Power.

And, you did blatantly lie, because Blaster Primaries and Secondaries do supply mez-style powers within them. Not to the extreme extent as Corruptors and Defenders, obviously, but they do.

Unless you're ignoring Ice's Slows, Dark's -ToHit, Energys -KB, and so on and so on. And what the individual secondaries bring as well.

Blasters do get those type of powers, they're just weaker because that's the trade off they make.

Originally Posted by Leo_G

I think you're overestimating the snipe changes (and the fact not every user of them will always have them fast-cast solo or teamed). Remember: ToHit debuffs exist.

Also, they did mention, if the snipe changes helped more than they anticipate, changes to sets without snipes may be in order. I've been brainstorming possibilities already that I may post up before the beta rolls around.

Originally Posted by Rakeeb

I'd love to see the outliers brought in, Strato, but they don't have the stones to do it.

See: Kinetics, Fire Control, Illusion, Super Strength, Fiery Aura, and I'm sure there's a dozen others I haven't listed that fold the game's mechanics over sideways.

Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon

Harbiter Awk confirmed an animation time revamp for DP. I'm happily curious to see how it'll work.

Originally Posted by Tater Todd

I think it has to do with Arbiter Hawk actually. He loves to make fun powers but...I think that he's always far to cautious...or just over gimmicky at times.

Why is he afraid to make this perma? This should be for Team AND Solo play. He's trying to make it "Sometimes" Solo. It doesn't even seem worth it on most toons.

Originally Posted by NightSable

Interesting with the targeting drone + kismet, I think you could be around the magic 22% to hit pretty easy perma. Devices seems like it is finally getting a little love. The new survivability powers sounds great too.

Originally Posted by RaikenX

Depends on if they do, in fact, decide to tweak the animation times. Having ES kick off faster at 80' range? Yes, please.