Golden Azrael

Love your 1st point. Intelligent game management. Spot on. I like the dynamic of managing my Bu, aim and power boost in battle to make snipes instant. I, too, like never having to use full charge. The extra damage on 'slow' snipe is meh for the drawbacks to the changes. The way it currently works makes perfect sense. You intelligently build up your snipe power. From slow to insta through power choice. And slotting. None of it currently requires IO'ing. (Unless you want auto on call 'all the time' instead of most of the time as I have it prior to any IO'ing.) If someone like me can understand it.... :P Anyone can!!! I'm no IO scientist / maths buffer. I'm an SO meat and two veg player. My En/En blaster can pick and choose auto snipe now 'most of the time' and it has no IOs in the build what so ever. I was saving up for the kismet to six slot the tactics. But other than that. All I've done so far is very mainstream. And I'm the 1st to argue democratisation of powers. If you want to really change something? Put all the incarnate powers behind a proper CoHs interface eg. Super Epics instead of that nestle in nestled cluster bleep that is the inc' interface. It's dreadful. I like the idea of incarnates. But the interface sucked eggs. Azrael.

Eloquent and meticulous post. With an elegant solution. Just allow us to x3 SO Tactics. 'DONE.' I'd say, 'wait' and let players have more than a month before changing the something that the dev's themselves had set right. I don't mind the added 1st kill bonus. I don't mind the 'cool' sniper hit graphic. That's in spirit. I don't mind the 2 second activation. They all trim the fat on the snipe power and refine what the dev's had done. But the added recharge, range and stripping out the BU/AIM and Boost Range activation is taking away in my view. How hard is it to boost the numbers in AIM/BU or Tactics to acheive insta-snipe with a description that tells you than this can be done. Same in Snipe. 'Selection Tactics from the leadership pool or AIM or BU and slotting with 'x 3 to hit SOs' will perma-on your snipe into an instant fire weapon. With very shorter recharges the more more you slot for recharge AND a set recharge bonus for a x6 slotted snipe.) A mainstream way of adding to your sniping specialism. If you want something to fiddle with? Put back the knockback boost in Power Boost which, the devs, inexplicably stripped out. Isn't it supposed to boost ALL 2ndary effects of powers? This 'feels' like a backwards step on play ability. This is turning the clock back to i23. :( Azrael.

Ironically, something that DOES need fixing in the Snipe. CAN WE PLEASE HAVE THE SNIPE DAMAGE NUMBERS IN THE MANAGEMENT GAME STAT WINDOW. Snipe dam numbers of all types seem AWOL. (You can tell this was a work in prog' by the devs and they didn't have time to put the new numbers in...) That pet peeve aside. Fixing snipe? uhh. Paragon HAD fixed it. That was the whole point of i24's snipe. SCORE have done plenty of bug fixes. Hundreds probably. But this is the one thing that didn't seem really necessary. You could have an insta-snipe on call through... AIM/BU/PBoost (if en/en) and AIM Inspires. None of those required IOs. Just turn the little used 'to hit' enchancement category that is seldom used in AIM/BU to something useful for snipe. Ie. 3 recharge and 3 to hit auto triggers snipe. Drop kick everything else. Keep the big initial hit. Keep the two second activation. Kill the recharge epoch. Kill the range fussiness. Keep insta-snipe ring on regardless as long as you've slotted AIM/BU for 3 to hits. That's the most logical and easy mainstream non-io way to get it. That hardly 'in game' knowledge. Put it in the AIM/BU. 3 to hits in AIM or BU will trigger auto snipe in the aim/bu power description. Nothing else needs to change. Azrael.

Aye. 'Feels' wrong. Azrael.

I always felt blasters were behind brutes and scrappers. I can see the appeal of the latter. Most of the damage of ranged but without the glass jaw penalties. Cake and eat it territory. By the mid 30s, I gave up on blasters as they were way too brittle and their damage chain was far behind. Ie. Single target specialists without the damage chain to back it up. Or AoE damage which played into a hospital near you. You just had any toggles slapped off you. Stunned. Knocked to the ground and 1 or two shotted while you had your cape pulled over your head and your mask taken off and thrown off into the pier. IT always felt a little humiliating. Where as a scrapper could operate at peak 'most of damage' in a big juicy mob or go toe to toe with a big main single target. Blasters felt miles behind from about 35-50. Sure, you could snipe...but by the time you did? Time to leg it. Enter: issue 24. The last developer issue from Paragon Studios. I'd be itching to try insta-snipe for all those years since shutdown. I'd like to place on record my thanks to Leandro and the Score team for safe guarding the CoH legacy. We're here because of that. Now. Snipe. I've some sympathy with the view of the post above that COH's gameplay should NOT be behind a 'pay wall' of IO nerd-spec. The game was TO, DO or SO and accessible from most shops or contacts. Without going into mids and using arcane science or maths to get something working. However. I've been testing i24's 'insta-snipe' for a couple of weeks now. It feels completely unbroken. I'm running a Leadership pool of Assault/Tactics. The latter 3 slotted. (I'm an En/En blaster by the way...) I can use AIM, BU or even Tactics with an AIM inspire to bring forth the insta-snipe. I can even select Power Boost to get that insta-snipe. That's 4 mainstream ways of getting the insta-snipe up. Hardly behind an IO wall. Sure, I don't have the IO (Unique IO in there yet or the 6 slot) to have it perma-on call....but I can have it mostly on call for the attack chain if I space Aim/BUILD up/Power Boost (I appreciante not all Blaster types have PB...but that's a perk of picking energy?) and AIM inspires. It means I can use the snipe 4 times in a minute of combat or more? My recharge is on about 6 seconds. The range is perfect. You are a snipe specialist after all. Before i24? I wasn't using Snipe at all. Too slow. Too Clunky. Not part of the attack chain. Easily 'nudged' in battle. It was 4 way disaster. The range and timing is 'just in' (pun intended...) time. Combat has been a revelation. The recharge with a couple of SOs in snipe and especially with Hasten(!) is spot on. You get the snipe 'jusssssssst' when you need it. I can insta-bone smasher, nova-snipe...snipe exploding blaster. The combations are endless. The range is fantastic, you can get those straggler runners with ease. That's PART of the fun. I can even use snipe 'head to head' when I have to mobs in my face melee style (the big weakness of blasters...) as part of Bone Smasher to give an extra one-two punch to those tough oponents like Freak Tanks. It plays like a dream. What could go wrong? I was thinking. This is just TOO GOOD to be TRUE. What happens? SCORE, who have barely put a foot wrong since launch. Drop what 'feels' like a nerf. It had to happen, right? Yes. I've been on the test server. I've played it. And, like all great ideas in need of a solution to a problem that didn't exist...it feels... ...like a back ward step. I'm so disappointed. Somehow, someway this doesn't 'feel' as good no matter what the numbers say. So we're back to the 'spirit' of the snipe that sucked so bad. A big dollop of damage up front and wait....and wait...and wait. That's what made it suck so bad in the 1st place. It activates 'faster' so you can wait 'longer' for it to activate again. Huh?! That feels like yayy....2 secs to 'pull' and ....boo.....3 seconds longer (an eon in blaster terms...try adding 3 seconds onto any scrapper melee power...and you'll hear the howls in front of the full moon...) and it feels like an eternity. I even went back to the live server to check. 'FEELS' better to call on AIM/BUILD UP/POWER BOOST upon command. It adds a bit of sophistication to the gameplay. For en/en blasters. You make a choice with powers. I gave up on stun/power push to get Leaderships Assault and Tactics. (Again, these are mainstream game options, no IOs here...) And if you slot Tactics you get an inspire or two away from having it on call in addition. It helps your Build up. It feels like you're building into a snipe specialist. You have the choice. And I came back to the test server. It feels off. By a lot. The Solutions in need of a problem. 1. Recharge time of 9 seconds. It takes ages. Instead of my former 'one-two' punch with snipe in close melee? I'm waiting. And waiting. ANNNND waiting. With AIM/BUILD UP/POWER BOOST. It's insta-cast after you click on those. And my snipe is up after 6 seconds. IN close quarter mob fighting that's great. But 9? Why? It's a massive step backwards. 2. Range. This is another gaping step backwards. Runners? Forget it. You now have to 'get into combat range' which use to be a real pet peeve of mine re: Power Burst which had an insanely short blast range. It's been a joy to use the range of Snipe and the increased range of Power Burst as a double one-two punch. The 'big' (I'll take your word for it) up front hit out of combat range 'is ok.' But it doesn't compensate for step back in range or recharge. At all. Or having the autonomy taken away from AIM/BU/PBoost or popping an AIM inspire. (I do like the 'SNIPE' lettering to let you now you've done a big dollop of damage. That was cool. As a graphical effect to let you know.) 3. Snipe circle in combat range. This feels like it's in the spirit of the CoH game. It's accessible to all. (Should it be accessible to Doms and Defs? They aren't snipe specialists? Blasters are. I say this as a vehement Dom' player. The latter of which I'll come to.) You have the same problem Power Burst ran into with it's overly short range. You have to really creep up in melee range to use it. It feels really awkward to use. The two seconds faster activation...doesn't compensate for this irritating tip-toeing into an arbitrary melee range. Before? You're a snipe specialist. You can hit them close or far away. No fussing. No mechanic to make that so. It was far simpler. Solution. 1. Drop kick the range kludge. It's fussy. It's a step backwards. Am I in yet? (Just in...) Am I in yet? (Just in...on...right there...there you are...) Meanwhile, Death Mage is saying hello....and your runner got away. 2. Drop kick the eon-long recharge. Even with Hasten it takes forever now in combat (melee combat, you know, the area we're far behind scrappers and melee characters?) to activate. Meanwhile, the death mage is whooping your ass. I know, I tried it in P. Isle. Your big hitter takes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. No. No. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. 3. Re-establish the link to AIM/BUILD UP/Power Boost. It played better. In my view. Conclusion. I'm all for the democratisation of COH. I didn't like the incarnate system. I didn't like the fact you had to pay 100s of millions for purple IOS. I would rather you go to Statesman or Ms.Liberty and buy them from her and him or others at a steep premium rather than paying inflated market prices. So, should all snipes have the auto circle in melee combat? Erm. It sounds like a great idea. In practice. It plays terrible. It's slower and has terrible range. It mashes up the attack chain again. Which means you're waiting for your big hitter and using the powder puff attacks on your way to death. YOu've lost the upper hand. It felt like the blaster, with i24 had finally drawn close to scrappers and were almost above water. We're now below water again. It's too slow into an attack chain. How do I know? You know those snipers in Founders? I spent a whole 2 levels doing them. Just them for my two levels. How do I know? I spent 2 levels mobbing in Bricks doing Freak tanks. (Guess, I'm a snipe obsessive. I was that captivated by teh new gameplay.) The current system plays like butter.n Smooth. The test's version is clunky. Need to change the recharge back. Need to drop the range limitation. Re-instate the AIM boosters to bring on the insta-snipe. They make your snipe 'more efficient.' Now you can't earn that extra functionality. It's given to everybody. And it doesn't play as good. As for Dominators. They have crap damage. Let's be honest. There's no way the 'thrown together' sets of some of the Doms were play tested that well. But there are some good ones. Elec and Stone come to mind. Pitch perfect. So. The snipe? Make it insta cast with Domination mode and boost the damage while in Domi' mode whilst you're at it. An elec/elec domi has great control but it's tap...tap....tap....tap....tap...it's torture up to L21. This is an area where I prefer issue '24' to be honest. It sounds like a great idea. But in practice..? ERm.. IF you want to keep the ring of doom... 1. 3 slot 'to hits' in snipe to insta it. That's the most elegant solution. Keep the range. Keep the recharge. There you go. 3 SOs of 'to hit' SOs (nobody uses them now, right?) in snipe to get your auto-snipe on. That's as mainstream as it can be. This in and out of combat range is a bit mushy. A bigger hit of damage for your 1st strike our of melee range is ok. Fine. A bonus first hit because, like stalkers? You catch a mob off guard. And yes. We can keep the loveable "SNIPE" words above teh 1st first victim's heads. Conclusion. The real culprits are the recharge time and range. They make combat kludgy and fussy. Too things blasters can do well without in the 3 seconds it takes us to die. 9 vs 6. Massive difference. It's a nerf. I expected better of Homecoming. And this, in a game where you have the P2W vendor to control your xp rates. The latter is quality of life and choice. This feels like SCORE'S unblemished track record takes a step backwards into 'not quality of life combat.' I know it's beta. But come on. Play it. Test it. Try it. Go back and forth between the servers. Keep the snipe 'SNIPE' word for the big damage 1st hit. Auto it WITH to hits in the snipe. (So you can choose, in a a very non-IO way to boost your snipe for damage x3 and to hit x3 to bring auto snipe online. That way you don't need to slot for acc or for end because most blasters have a new end red' or end mod power.) 6 sec recharge with hasten to keep it kicking ass is the way to go. Drop the recharge thing. Drop the range limit. Both poor. 1 step forwards. 2 massive steps back. Azrael. PS. Been having so much fun with it as is. I like using Aim/BU UP to activate it. PBoost as well. I never used it before live, SNIPE. Because it was slow before and during an attack chain. Now it seems to be going back to that. No thank you.