Red_Zero

Every one has been focusing on the costs of these new things. Sure they might be cheap in and of themselves but why are all these things shown in 3x3 rooms?!

This is the biggest problem facing my SG personally and a 3x3 room on an 8x8 plot is just not going to be happy. Plot sizes are gonna have to either come down in an order of magnituted of cost or be eliminated all together. My small-aspiring-to-be-moderate sized SG has managed to fill most of our plot as it but making the jump to the next size would require selling off most of the base and placing us back to square one.

This means that the cost of the items is irrelevant if the cost of the space needed to place the items is astronomical for small or moderate SGs!


Personally I would like to go up a few plot sizes so we could at least add a decorative room without compromizing room for the functional stuff the SG values.

[ QUOTE ]
I understand your sensitivity, and I think by role he means "you excel at that" not "that is all you can do". Controllers excel at control, but they buff quite well. Tankers excel at aggro management, but they can put together a mean ST melee chain. Scrappers excel at melee damage, but can manage aggro, etc.

I think it's key for Blasters to be able to pump out significantly more damage when they close to melee than when at range. I'd just like to move the ranged chan up a bit so the difference between melee and ranged chains is a bit less than it is today.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I agree with "you excel at that" and not "that is all you do", I must say that the strong melee component directly conflicts with the first part.

The problem with having both range and melee attacks is that while you can use ranged attacks in melee, you can not use melee attacks at range. Having the strong melee component really does serve to sap strength from the ranged component. People often say that the Energy secondary is good at supporting the ranged component, yet over half of it is really about melee. In truth, the Energy secondary does not support the ranged component well at all, it mearly supports it better than the other secondaries with the possible exception of Devices, and infact, the Energy Secondary supports melee much better than it does range, proof being the amount of blappers who choose it for such.

Overall, I really do think it is illogical and backwards for a blaster to have melee attacks that are significantly stronger than thier ranged attacks. Melee attacks should be few and designed as "Oh NO!" powers that allow them to get out of melee combat and retreat back into ranged where their true strength should lie as dictated in the concept of being a ranged damage fighter.

The easiest of move to "fix" blasters would be to bring up ranged damage on par or slightly in excess of melee damage.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I like a number of the ideas you present. Many simply won't happen, for a variety of reasons, but some are quite doable. When I get out of my current mountain of work, I'll re-read this and try and implement some of it.


[/ QUOTE ]On a different note, it would be interesting to know what Ideas you thought were interesting Castle. You don't have to say why you didn't like some of the others but it would be interesting to know which ideas got a nod even if we don't know why.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'll second that. Still waiting for some reply on the lists that he picked up too, especially the questions. Would definately like to see Castle's take on those.

And it was basically a change to the PvP combat text since in PvE the combat logs don't report pet actions. You would have to be on the recieving end of the Assault Bot smashing you to see it. That fact only added to a lot of the confusion.

BTW, how many of you people have been smashed by an Assault Bot?

I don't think power tweeks are going to do it for Electric, though cutting back the animation time on some of the attacks a bit is in order. Sometimes you just need to replace instead of fix.

Move Short Ciruit, Tesla Cage and Voltaic Sentinal all to the Electric Manipulation set. Those powers belong there and remove some of the melee attacks to make room for them.

Replace those powers with Shocking Bolt, Static Discharge, and add an addition single target moderate to heavy single target 80' ranged attack to round out the attack set.

I'm pretty familar with the general arguments and rational, but I don't buy into them. I after the fundamental philosophy here, and I don't want to accept the status quo. All range does is give you 100% defense verus melee, and well MOB is shorthand for Mobile Object, they can move into melee and they all ranged attacks as well, so they are far from defenseless from ranged attacks. And think about it, does having high damage melee attacks mearly serve as a rational to lower your ranged damage then if you did not have them available from the power sets?? Ranged attacks are just as valid in melee as they are at range, nothing in the game mechanics says otherwise, so why would you need both? Defenders and Controllers may have lower damage but they also have a prevailance of Buffs and Debuffs which augment the amount of damage they can deliever in total as well as many sources of damage mitagation allowing them to drag out the fight longer. I think there has been too much compromise in the Archtype design of Blasters, an that the actual threat of them spinning out of balance is way exagerated considering their level of risk and vunerablity and propensity to generate aggro, something they had to give Tankers an inherent powers to keep the Blaster from taking it all.

I should give proper credit to, and I believe the name was SFC_Stanley for making and compiling that list. I know a lot of work went into it and that he was particularly disappointed when it was not picked up after several weeks. I mearly saved it before it disappeared into the digital black hole of deletion in hopes that this day would come for it to be reposted and have his work vindicated to some degree.

BTW, does anyone know if he is still around or has left (or if I even have the spelled right?)

I hope _Castle_ picked this up too, because I would like see the response as I am sure more than a few other people would be as well considering that many of the questions embody the core of some very heated and very long and repeated threads. Reposting this here because the everything seems to be migrating here and the other thread is apparently dieing off.

[ QUOTE ]


I can explain why some things work the way they do.



[/ QUOTE ]

Ok.

Why do Blaster have so many Melee-centric attacks (melee or near-melee PBAoEs) when they are suppose to be a Ranged focused combatant? Does this not create an un-synergistic Archtype?

What is the purpose of the range disparities between longer range powers (excluding Snipe attack) in the same power sets like charge bolt and lightning bolt or Burst, Slug, and M30 Grenade other than to annoy the player? Is there any real, purposeful or effective consideration here that contributes to game balance or play in any significant manner?

Explain the support logic and fallacies behind "Range = Defense" theory. How is this balance out with defenders and controllers who also have range as well as support/defense powers?

The power curve of Blasters start off strong in early levels, flatline at about midlevel, and fall off at high levels in comparison to other Archtypes and MOBs. Is this veiwed as a problem? Is there any way to fix the power curve at the higher levels and how would it have to be done? Does not Defiance exaggerate this trend?

MOB ranges scale with level. Especially at high levels, Mobs can attack a Blaster without the Blaster even being at his/her most extreme range and well outside his or her mean range. Is there any real purpose to this?

What do blaster get, being a primary combatant, for not having a support/defense powers to defend against aggro and mitagate damage?

What is your view of the community's response to the inherent power of Defiance, and how do you think it compares with other inherents and the reaction of other Archtype communities to their inherents?

It has been mentioned by Statesman that there was work being done on reworking Blaster Secondaries with the option to respec into the new Secondaries. Is there a timeline and has any work progressed on this?

Perception is a new aspect to the game that is becoming more important and intergrated into the game play. Being aware of your situation is vitally important for Blasters. Can you discuss this and if it would be important for Blaster to have high levels of Perception and if so how it could be done?

[ QUOTE ]
I can explain why some things work the way they do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok.

Why do Blaster have so many Melee-centric attacks (melee or near-melee PBAoEs) when they are suppose to be a Ranged focused combatant? Does this not create an un-synergistic Archtype?

What is the purpose of the range disparities between longer range powers (excluding Snipe attack) in the same power sets like charge bolt an lightning bolt or Burst, Slug, and M30 Grenade other than to annoy the player? Is there any real, purposeful or effective consideration here that contributes to game balance or play in any significant manner?

Explain the support logic and fallacies behind "Range = Defense" theory. How is this balance out with defenders and controllers who also have range as well as support/defense powers?

The power curve of Blasters start off strong in early levels, flatline at about midlevel, and fall off at high levels in comparison to other Archtypes and MOBs. Is this veiwed as a problem? Is there any way to fix the power curve at the higher levels and how would it have to be done? Does not Defiance exaggerate this trend?

MOB ranges scale with level. Especially at high levels, Mobs can attack a Blaster without the Blaster even being at his/her most extreme range and well outside his or her mean range. Is there any real purpose to this?

What do blaster get, being a primary combatant, for not having a support/defense powers to defend against aggro and mitagate damage?

What is your view of the community's response to the inherent power of Defiance, and how do you think it compares with other inherents and the reaction of other Archtype communities to their inherents?

It has been mentioned by Statesman that there was work being done on reworking Blaster Secondaries with the option to respec into the new Secondaries. Is there a timeline and has any work progressed on this?

Perception is a new aspect to the game that is becoming more important and intergrated into the game play. Being aware of your situation is vitally important for Blasters. Can you discuss this and if it would be important for Blaster to have high levels of Perception and if so how it could be done?

I posted this a while back and it reflects a lot on something that goes to the core of the Blaster Archtype, and I feel is appropriate for a repost here:

[ QUOTE ]

I believe the fundamental core of the Blaster's problems actually is due to an early game misconception based in an overarching emphasis on melee combat. The game designers felt that Blasters, if they could do everything at range it would make them immune to too many of the threats that would be presented in the game. This of course was actually due to their own self imposed error by trying to make the core of the game mostly melee based rather than a mix of both melee and ranged early on (a fact that has greatly changed). It was theorized by them that if an archtype like the Blaster could do everything at range and thus have no reason or incentive to enter melee ranged combat and avoid any mob approaching them and trying to engage in melee combat that Blaster could avoid all risk, thus Blasters would become the dominate Archtype because it would be all reward and no risk. This, of course, we all know is false now. People will choose melee Archtypes for love of melee Archtypes if nothing else.
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However, the legacy of that decision was built into the core of the Blaster's powersets, limiting the amount of ranged combat the Archtype could do. Melee attacks for Blasters then had to be more powerful than what should have been thier main line of attacks otherwise it would make very little sense to be entering melee when your ranged attacks were more powerful to start with. This is also exasterbated by the circular logic of smashing/lethal, where the attack being most resisted must be harder hitting and because they are harder hitting must be more resisted.
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This results in an Archtype that has two powersets that do, in effect, the same function, damage, whether it be at ranged or melee, with the irony being that ranged attacks are just as damaging at point blank as they are at great range (which could have a kernal of a core concept that could have made a better inherent). This left the Archtype with no support powerset for either range or melee. Nothing to blunt or mitigate damage or threat, or to support the Blaster in general, essentially creating a bi-polar Archtype who's powersets wanted it to be in both range and melee at the same time.
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This gets even more exaggerated by the fact that Power Pool sets are also designed with a particular emphasis on denying ranged attacks and are chocked full of melee attacks. Any melee based or non-melee based archtype can easily and early on supplement their attack chains with Power Pool powers for melee attacks. This is great for Controllers now with the inherent power of Containment, as well as Defenders, neither of which have strong melee components to begin with, and both with various mez powers, Buff/DeBuff abilities, even self heals, defensive forcefeilds, and even pets.
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None of this may have actually mattered if not early on in the game's history had the Blaster Archtype not been the fastest of the Archtypes to mature. With only one skill to master, damage, and only 40 levels to go, the learning curve was much less for the Archtype. Many mob types lacked sufficient ranged fire power or even ranged attacks, and other Archtypes did have problems that at the time did need addressing in order to get them up to speed, and a single bugged power (smoke grenade) did not help the Blaster's assumed image of being overpowered and thus in no need of improvement anytime soon.
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But as this game has matured, the melee component emphasis of the game became overpowering. Game threats where amplified in order to provide enough risk to keep the melee Archtypes in check, and in supreme irony, it was melee, not range, that broke the game, thus the Global Defense Adjustment and Enhancement Diversification.
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Now that that is over with, maybe this error in design philosopy can be recongized. The Blaster Archtype needs to be redesigned in its own right and not with the misconceptions that it would overshadow other Archtypes, or detract from them, or be subservient or only complementry to them, or that melee needs to be the core of the game, or that they are immune from risk by being at range (which it is most definitively not!)


[/ QUOTE ]

Three things I think could help with what is illustrated above are:

[*]A Power Pool (not epic) which Blasters can supplement and diversify their ranged attacks from early on, rather than relying on only a single power set for such.[*]Bring Ranged Damage up a notch or two so it is a more significant source of damage compared to Melee.[*]Replace the inherent power of Defiance with something else that has better synergy, is intuitive rather than counter-intuitive, complements the Archtype rather than highlighting its weakness, and does not decrease in effectiveness as a function of level progression. [/list]

[ QUOTE ]

Oh, and I'm going to look at Blasters now that I've gone through the consolidated Defenders bug list. You guys got one?

[/ QUOTE ]

I saved this from a while back, I don't know how currently applicable is but not much has ever changed with blaster so here goes.. (The following is a quote but the quote box messes with the format)


Given the change to enhancements upcoming, not sure how relevant some of this is. Having said that, I am still going to follow through updating this as much as possible.

Please add your feedback!

I will update again soon!

Hey all Blasters.. I thought it might be good to put our thoughts down on what are issues are as of right now.

You can enter a Bug, Balance issue, or Wishlist item for any of the powersets.

Please, enter all of your Blaster issues in this post.

Thanks!


General bugs affecting Blasters - unresolved

Bug: The Defiance meter does not seem to be working properly. It goes up regardless of your current health at times.

Bug: Defiance itself seems to kick in when your health is at 100%. You also seem to lose Defiance too soon, even when your health is in the red.

Balance: Quality of life issues are important and have been addressed by the developers in the past. While dramatically increasing the range of an attack like Blaze (20') would not be realistic without some other change to the power, there are other powers where the range equalization would not be such a drastic change.

For example: Charge Bolt is 70', Lightning Bolt 80', Ball Lightning 80'. I ask you what is the purpose of Charge Bolt having 10' less of range and would it really be game breaking to increase it to 80' to match Lightning Bolt and Ball Lightning?

Second Example: Take Assault Rifle, Burst 90', Slug 100', Buckshot 40', M30 Grenade 80', Bean Bag 60', Sniper Rifle 150', Flame Thrower 40', Ignite 30', Full Auto 80'. That's a huge mess of ranges and it servers very little purpose. It would be better playwise to have ranges fall into the same catagories like so: Burst 90', Slug 90', Buckshot 40', M30 Grenade 90', Bean Bag 90', Sniper Rifle 150', Flame Thrower 40', Ignite 40', Full Auto 90'. (submitted by Red_Zero)

Balance: Leadership Pool: Maneuvers seems to have no effect whatsoever when used by a blaster. It does not appear to boost either blaster defense OR the defense of teammates in the AoE. Further testing is probably needed, but "within the margin of error" for 200 attacks would still put maneuvers 4-slotted with white +DEF enhancements at under 3% Defense, which is completely worthless. (submitted by Orinn)

Balance: Leadership Pool - Blasters should get bonuses at least equal to Defenders for Assault and Tactics as these are qualities that define Blasters. It seems to be preferental treatment that any Archtype should benifit more from a Power Pool power than other Archtypes. If this is to be the case then what Power Pool powers do Blasters benifit more from then other Archtypes? (submitted by Red_Zero)

Balance: Range - At even base level, all blaster powers seem to be easily outranged, outshot, and outdamaged by controllers and defenders. Blasters are supposed to be the strongest damage period (defiance not included), and, keeping with the "range is a best defense" theory, should have the best range and better accuracy. Boosting bases on all three parts of the blaster poolsets would make a blaster comparable to the other ranged poolsets. (submitted by Shylar)

Wishlist: It would be nice if Defiance would kick in earlier. The way it works now seems to promote poor gameplay of new blasters. It is also the only inherent power based on the AT's health, and Blasters are one of the most squishy AT.
Wishlist: Range - If we are going to be a ranged AT, no attack should be less than 60 or 80 feet. PbAoE in the primary is an anathema to the entire concept of a "ranged" blaster. (Submitted by Concern)

Wishlist: Range - Statesman has said our defense is range, yet range means nothing to an AT that can be outranged by the enemy & self-roots with our attacks. Make range mean something! And if we are ranged, why do so many secondaries have so many melee attacks? (submitted by LaughingBoy)

Wishlist: Defiance - Defiance needs a lot of work. For a lot of Blasters, we're already near the cap. And to get any benefit from it, we need to be nearly dead. This does not promote good game play. An inherent that wasn't tied to our health like most of the other inherents would be better. (submitted by LaughingBoy)

Wishlist: Secondaries (General): Secondary powers should support the blasters ranged concept either by helping keep enemies at range, or destroying enemies that venture close enough to hurt the blaster in melee. (submitted by Concern)

Wishlist: Movement: Movement is paramount to blasters. The blaster should not have long animation times on attacks or should not be rooted by attacks that do have long animation times. (submitted by Concern)

Wishlist: Blaster issue PvP: Why are blaster's toggle droppers melee oriented. Since we are blasters we should have a few toggle droppers that are not melee based for every power set. (submitted by DarkLordTrilogy)



General Blaster Primaries - unresolved



Assault Rifle - unresolved

Balance: Unnerf Full Auto. This was the one power that made AR nearly on par with Fire Blast. With it it in its current state, AR is a poor man's Fire blaster. (submitted by Pseudotron)

Balance: Ignite is just bad mobs run from it like burn and since the patch is so small they only take 2-3 ticks of damage- fix ad a slow component to it so they run out slower and actually take some damage from it. (submitted by Saint_O_Killers)

Wishlist: Smashing/Lethal resists are very high throughout the game, since most of AR's attacks are S/L we are not able to do the amount of damage other powersets can do.

Wishlist: It's an incredibly difficult animation process but one wonders if you can't design animations so that the weapon doesn't disappear. The big problem is also the long animations, particularly the ones that root. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Wishlist: Ignite: This was once an impossibly useful power and now seems much less useful. If it's meant to be a teamwork power (controller immobolizes), a little more area would be nice. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)



Ice Blast- unresolved

Bug: Blizzard: Every primary has a nuke, they drain all end and leave you unable to recover end for a short time (10 seconds). Blizzard drains and doesn't allow you to recover for the duartion of the blizzard + 10 seconds. blizzard's duration is 20 seconds so that is like 30 seconds we have to go without end recovery. (submitted by Icerian) NOTE: THIS MAY BE FIXED NOW.

Bug: Bitter Freeze Ray: The Foe freezes before the animation is done. (submitted by MageStorm)
Balance: Blizzard doesn't stack up with Nova or Inferno. If you are defeated before Blizzard ends, Blizzard stops (which is very easy to do because you don't have any endurance). (submitted by Sockem)

Balance: Blizzard doesn't get any bonus from Aim and Build Up making it less effective then other Nuke-type attacks. (submitted by Icerian)


Fire Blast - Unresolved

Bug: When a Storm Def used freezing rain and Snow storm, then I used Rain of Fire, the mobs regained their full running speed to flee the radius of FR. (submitted by Orochi)
Balance: The animation for Flares is far too long for its damage. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Balance: Blazing Bolt: Many players find sniper attacks too situational and bypass them--they are difficult to fit into a normal attack chain. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: The range of Blaze is practically in melee. While its understandable that it might be slightly overpowered if it had the standard base range of 80 ft., increasing its range to 40 ft or so would make it an actual ranged attack. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: INFERNO takes FAR too long to activate (animation time). Seeing it's a PBAoE, one cannot hope to fire it off if there's any aggro going on. (submitted by Fyreblast)

Wishlist: Rain of Fire should either do more damage, or do its damage faster. As it currently stands, this power really only useful for area denial and attracting more than your share of aggro. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)



Electrical Blast – Unresolved

Bug: When I use Short Circuit while invisible, mobs notice me when I begin the attack animation instead of when it actually goes off.

Bug: Voltaic Sentinel does the same damage for blasters as it does for defenders. (submitted by Axterix)

Balance: This set was supposed to be killer in PvP but we understand that isn't the case. The damage seems to be lacking. Most notably, it has only two single target attacks and a snipe. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: Weak melee attacks in the secondaries without a useful secondary effect serve no purpose and should be replaced with something better. (submitted by Axterix)

Wishlist: /elec: the %chance of sleep needs to be raised to be on par with /energy. also the end drain portion needs to be raised as well. with a higher s/l to energy damage split on our attacks, our secondary effects should be boosted in order to balance the set. s/l is the most resisted damage type in the game, and our energy damage output isnt that high. (submitted by Macron)

Wishlist: I'd like to see Charged Bolts' animation changed to that of Neutrino Bolt's. It would be kinda entertaining to quickly zap a mob, and would help increase Electric's overall ability for ranged combat. Also increase range to 80'. (submitted by Angry_Citizen)

Wishlist: Post ED wishlist: An enhancement that would increase the amount of time that a certain end drain power stops end recovery. (submitted by DarkLordTrilogy)

Wishlist: Post ED wishlist: Add either a higher base end drain to various elec blaster powers, or add an end recovery to some of elec blaster powers. (submitted by DarkLordTrilogy)

Wishlist: keep the -endurance drain on elctric blasters the same as/elec defenders. I know they added the increased -end on defenders to help "augment their defencive capabilites", but -end is also crucial to the elec blaster (especially since the ED adjustment and it's effect on our number one -end power Short Circuit) (submitted by colorichard)



Energy Blast - Unresolved

Balance: Power Burst: very short (20') range forces near melee out of a blaster. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: Energy Blasts are too slow compared to Fire and Ice blasts doing the same amount or even less damage. Knockback is not 100% so that advantage is hit or miss at best. (submitted by MageStorm)

Balance: Power Bursts Range and Damage are both less than a faster activating Bitter Ice Blast. (submitted by MageStorm)

Wishlist: Power Push have a disorient added to it. It would increase the synergy of the Energy Primary and Secondary. (submitted by MageStorm)

Wishlist: Explosive Blasts damage increased and the scatter knockback be changed to knockdown. This is the most unfriendly team power short of a peacebringer. (submitted by MageStorm)

Wishlist: Energy Torrent: an AoE that throws everything back is team unfriendly. Energy blasters work around this but many would prefer knockdown instead of knockback. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Wishlist: Explosive Blast: a low damage, high knockback attack is about as team-unfriendly as you can get. Wishlist: this attack should do knockdown and not knockback. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)



Archery - Unresolved

Bug: If the power isn't recharged and you try to use it, it does the animation anyway. (submitted by Mister Weekly)

Bug: When missing an attack, the word "miss" will appear above the mobs head before the arrow leaves the bow. This causes instant aggro from the mob before the shot is fired. (submitted by Dingly_Dang)

Bug: Archery's snipe: After the animation, there is a non-trivial "dead zone" of time when you cannot activate another power. This time is so extensive that, unlike other blasters, buffs like AIM will wear off before a second attack can be made. (submitted by Predicant)

Balance: The endurance usage for the damage done is too high. This set underperforms other blaster sets in terms of being able to deal damage efficiently. (submitted by Dingly_Dang)

Wishlist: Animation times of attacks needs to be shortened. Especially since no secondary uses a bow, the redraw times are terrible. (submitted by Dingly_Dang)



Sonic Blast - unresolved

Balance: Shout: very short (20') range forces melee type ranges. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)




General Blaster Secondaries - unresolved

Bug:

Balance: Although difficult to do now and implement a
Balance of Blaster secondaries in terms of powers / magnitude / effect. The 9th Tier power is a single target Boss Class mez effect. Offer Buildup at level 4 in every secondary not just Energy. (submitted by deadboy_champion)

Wishlist:



Devices - unresolved

Bug: Trip Mines in Devices do not work all the time, sometimes enemies walk right over them without them going off.

Bug: When laying trip mines sometimes you stay in the kneeling stance even after you have laid the mine.

Bug: Smoke Grenade counts as an attack. While it does not add aggro by itself, it does suppress all other forms of stealth and itself, severely limiting its usefulness. It is non-sensical for a stealth power to eliminate stealth. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Bug: Web Grenade. Graphics bug. Causes the avatars neck to extend like a turtle. (submitted by Dr_Rockstar)
Balance: Each other secondary get their toggle knocks at 4 and 10 devices gets theirs at 28 and 35. every other one knocks off multiple togges and is easy to use mines and time bombs knock one toggle and you have to get your opponent to stand in the right place at the right time while being vulnerable while setting it. fix take toggle knock from time bomb and put it in tazer. (submitted by Saint_O_Killers)
Balance: Auto turret does low damage has terrible range , is immobile lasts very short time and costs 50 end. fixing any of these would be nice what i would like to see is a jagger like device that has the unlimited lifespan of other pets. honestly what kind of shoddy device maker builds things that explode after 2 min of use. (submitted by Saint_O_Killers)

Balance: Tripmine/Timebomb - Every other Blaster secondary has NON-Interruptible Toggle dropper - consider reducing the animation time and/or making them non-interruptible? Again would this make Devices Blasters too powerful in both PvP and PvE? (submitted by deadboy_champion)

Wishlist: Taser is the only melee attack in Devices, and is widely considered to be sub-par unless you have Beanbag from the AR primary. Perhaps increasing its damage to higher than 1 brawl might increasse its utility without making it overpowering. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Wishlist: Make taser drain endo. the ONLY reason anyone takes taser is to stack with beanbag (which is pretty cool in it's own right). i say give it that same kind of synergy with electric blast. besides...it's a taser. think about it. (submitted by dropped_dee)

Wishlist: Please, for the love of Satan, change the looping sound for Targeting Drone already! (submitted by Steel_Inferno) NOTE: THIS IS NOW FIXED.

Wishlist: Allow Auto Turret to be slotted with Taunt enhancements. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)
Wishlist: how about granting Targeting Drone a boost to perception (similar to Focused Accuracy) (submitted by deadboy_champion)

Wishlist: Wish list: Devices Blaster uses a combination of Smoke Grenade and Cloaking Device to achieve invisiblity in the ring. How about granting CD the same level of Invisiblity as say Superior Invisibility at an increased Endurance Cost. Smoke Grenade is often too hard to use in the Arena especially when one is busy setting traps. However would that make Devices Blasters too powerful in the Arena? (submitted by deadboy_champion)



Ice Manipulation - unresolved

Wishlist: Frozen Aura: a melee AoE sleep as an ultimate secondary power? At the very least make this ranged. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: Ice Patch: long animation which, admittedly, is shorter than it's big brother attack Ice slick. But comared with
Caltrops--an power that seems to be of equal utility--it is an issue. Wishlist: a short range for this power so it can help tank frieds out without putting the blaster in AoE hell.(submitted by Siberian_Gale)

Balance: Freezing Touch: Pointblank hold defeats the "keep the enemy back" nature of this secondary. Wishlist (possible): make this a total focus kind of power with a potent hold added instead of a disorient. Ideally the hold would start before the attack, making this a very nice 0-range freeze. (submitted by Siberian_Gale)



Fire Manipulation - unresolved

Bug: Fire Sword Circle has a long (2 seconds?) pause after its animation, during which the blaster cannot attack. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Balance: Balance: This entire set really needs to be reworked. Many of the powers are designed for use by tanks, and are nearly suicidal when used by blasters. (submitted by Steel_Inferno)

Balance: Hot feet this 38 power is a joke give them greater fire sword or something useful. (submitted by Saint_O_Killers)




Energy Manipulation - unresolved

Bug: Power Thrust accepts Knockback enhancements, but they do not enhance knockback at all. (submitted by Pulsewave)



Electrical Manipulation - unresolved

Balance: Increase Shocking Grasp's damage slightly, by a Brawl point or two. At least on par with Charged Brawl, a level two attack. Also give it an 80% chance to add another magnitude of hold, like with Total Focus' disorient. These changes would help make Shocking Grasp worth the 20 point endurance cost. (submitted by Angry_citizen)


For Discussion

Questions: Defiance: it was told to us that it would kick in sooner than 40% but that was never implemented. (Submitted by Magestorm)

Hover has a number of advantages that Flight just doesnt have. No Movement Supression, Low Endurance usage, quick short stop which allows for quick use of interuptable powers, high manuverablity and control, and the lower speed can be more useful than high speed all the time as there is not throttle control, Hover makes an extremely good tight quarters combat movement power and with 6 slots Pre-ED good for tactical movement on mission maps and keeping up with teams and being able to retreat without changing movement modes. However, Hover's speed has always been extremely slow, which is why Pre-ED it was 6 slotted alot, and even people who 6-slotted it still took Flight for more speed. Boosting Hover's base speed would not be bad if done reasonably because it still would not be in competition with other movement powers. Boosting Flight's speed could be done as it is much slower than even Super Jump which is actually the 2nd slowest major travel power in the game. ED impacted Flight a bit too as it took a 4 slots to truely max the speed out, though 3 slots gave you the majority of the speed with a small remainder left. Given that Flight's speed cap is at 54 mph and Super Jump is at 74 mph with Super Speed at 84 mph, I would say that adding an extra 10 mph to the cap would not be outrageous to Flight as well as changing it so that you can max out Flight with only 3 SO's as there are no other speed boosters for Flight like Swift, Hurdle, and Sprint for Super Jump and Super Speed.

I'm really wondering if Stalkers had something to do with it. Since the effect of does no damage attributed to the user, would it be possible to catch mobs in the effect without breaking thier Hidden status? With Intergration, Stamina, and 3 End Reductions + 3 KB for fun it might have been possible for them to sneak up, then lock the target into a permanent state of knockup then take care of things at thier leasure with out the target having a chance of recovery. If so, that might have constituted the "Exploit", effectively eliminating any and all risk to the Stalker character in question.

Anyone have any comments on this theory?

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Why? There was a PVE exploit involved with it, and this fix takes care of 90% of the issue.

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That's a rather interesting statement. Can't really think of anything that you could use it for to be so effective as to grant the label of "Exploit". Its particularly hard on the endurance and a bit chaotic to use (which is why its fun.) Considering the low popularity of the power, that must have been one heck of an exploit. Aw well, I guess I will have to see this change works out.

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Or if you really wanted to make a whole new power out of it, go for Glide.. an auto power that cannot be turned off, and just makes you fall at 50% slower, and take no damage when you touch ground. It could also provide the faster knockback recovery that Fly/Hover currently has, even while standing on the ground.

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I really like the idea of Glide as a power but I wouldn't want to replace Hover with it. Glide would be a good additional power to add to the pool, though I wonder at how it would act with the Rooting of powers, Rooting and Gliding would look really wonky.

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GROUP FLIGHT - End any scaling. No additional cost for each teammate.

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A few other things they should also do with Group Flight is either:

A) Change the centerpoint of the powers emination so that it trails and follows you allowing teammates and pets to stay more in towards the center of the effect instead of the edge when following.

OR...

B) Increase the speed at which pets and teammates (and NOT the user) follow allowing them to maneuver around or closer to the user when following as well as allowing them to catch up to the user instead of loosing distance.

As well as...

C) Install a NO ACCEPT GROUP FLY option for Players!! This will allow people who would really, really like to use this power with all its other draw backs without unintentionally greifing other players! This is an important QOL issue.

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I've noticed this too on Whirlwind before this patch...some clarification would be great. I loved this power on my MA/SR.

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If thats the case, then it had to be fairly recently if not the last patch. Granted, Whirlwind isn't a very popular power but it is rather fun, and when I do use it I count on it I expect it to act a certain way. There is a very big difference between knockup to knockback that affects how a melee character uses it. What I want to know is when did this undocumented change happen and why? Its things like this that can make it hard to seperate game bugs from designer changes.

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Hover: We might buff it some, at some point. However, it should never be an effective travel power.

Flight: I'll talk to geko about it. No promises. (I got spoiled by the Holiday Jet Pack, too!)

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WOW! Just knowing and issue is an issue is pretty sweet. I had Hover 6 slotted for speed and Flight was also maxed out for speed. Hover never made a great outdoor travel power but is was good for tactical movement in missions. I really would like to look forward to getting a small boost to Hover. Getting a boost to Flight would definately be awesome.

One thing however, since we are on the issue of the Flight Pool, what about the issues involving Group Fly. Its very clumbsy to use for Masterminds right now and using it on teams aggrovates teammates who do not want to fly, and they have very valid reasons for not wanting to! The worst thing you can do to a teammate is give them a travel buff they don't want and that's no small deal.

Whirlwind has always done knock up, now it is doing knockback. I did not see any patch notes on this change. I do recall some discussion about the changes being made to the way knockdown works because of ragdoll physics but understand it was suppose to be reversed. Is this an unnoted patch change or a bug?

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They were thinking something along the lines of "...carnies, Malta AND KoA in one group!"

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OH! OH! So something like a Knives of Artemis Combined Master Zeus Illusionist Titan?! That would be...

(*Red_Zero is has been sent to the Hospital before being able to finish this post.*)

Numbers aside, Defiance simply lacks synergy.

The risk simply outweighs the reward.

It is counter-intuitive for a no-defense based Archtype and benifical to work against it.

It is undependable in a time of need.

Unlike other Inherents, it is less useful as level progresses and threat levels increase, further exaggerating the damage scaling problem of the Archtype from 1st to 50th level.

Good tactics and playing style render the Inherent power inert and inactive, thus granting no benifit or functionality.

It does not mesh well with the kind of attacks that could help garrentee elimination of the immediate threat. High end attacks like nukes (that apparently can be interupted if the blaster dies during the animation), or snipe attacks (same deal), or melee attacks which propel the blaster further into risk and danger than away from it.

And finally, The Kings of the Face-Plant need no further encouragement to promote such a bad habit.

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increase ... Burn damage.

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/emote Drops Jaw in disbelief

This is The Gestalt base for CoV. Not a very big base right now but is functional and growing. Looking forward to getting a plot upgrade so we can start adding decorative rooms. Its a real shame there are no 2x2 or 2x3 decorative rooms right now.

<ul type="square">
Base Layout

Control

Hallway

Entrance 2

Entrance 1

Infirmary 1

Infirmary 2

Power 1

Workshop 1

Workshop 2

Transport[/list]

All the pictures should be after the 2nd upgrade. The changes are suttle, such as the Battle Drone having 3 blasters on one hand and a 3rd red light on top, the Protector Bot having that green arching bolt on its back and the Missle Pods on the Assault Bot.

Robots Redux