Sancerre

you can have it always be instant snipe by paying a tax of 1 slot and a 10 million+ pvp IO. but hey thats cheaper than picking up tactics and slotting it up.

you have mentioned this a few times, im not sure what you are referring to. it feels exactly the same. there is no delay. I get 100 ping on indom server and 120 ping on justin. maybe you are much further away and have 200++ ping on justin?? that said, im all for beta version of snipes although it does feel like its cheapening choices. i'll eat the 3 seconds of recharge i guess. not a big deal. the range was the bigger issue for me initially. the 10 second window instead of 15 feels more intuitive as well. i wouldnt often want to open with snipe (mostly because i use soul drain) but its a more realistic gap for the standard gameplay in city of heroes, and i can still fit it in sometimes if i wanted to. i just want to remind everyone slotting out tactics to have perma instant snipe was/is NOT MANDATORY. it was an OPTION. especially for blasters that can rotate aim and build up, this is less of an issue than people make it out to be. if you WANTED perma instant snipe you had to pay the price. just like if i want higher smash/lethal resistances, i would dive into the fighting power pool and pick up tough. Nobody seems to care that hasten is essentially mandatory across the board for any sane person and is a dead-end power pool (unless you want to pick up super speed for stealth purposes). I'm NOT advocating hasten become a baseline power like the fitness tree either nor am i advocating any nerfs to hasten. I'll also remind people, most high end builds will pick up maneuvers from leadership anyways because it is an easy way to get defense and a slot for luck of the gambler global recharge. will people ONLY dump tactics or will they ALSO dump maneuvers? i kind of doubt the latter. a lot of people also love having vengeance.

glad to see the range back on a SNIPE ability. also, im not a balance/designer kind of guy, but giving targeting drone 30% recharge seems excessive. something more like 20% seems more inline with every other powerset that has a recharge bonus built in. I understand its a toggle, not a passive... but still. final note. i dont think many people mentioned it at all, but scrappers also get snipes from the patron pool. i dont imagine many scrapper builds were often utilizing high slotted tactics or even picking up snipe in the first place. but this definitely streamlines scrapper epic/patron power pools especially because shadow meld was such a strong pickup already and moonbeam is just sitting there as a pre-req. not suggesting it needs a nerf on scrappers but just find it humerous the intent is to bring blasters inline with single target damage and yet it also helps along scrappers.

i went with /elec. you get 20% recharge passive, 50% end reduction on everything and ALSO a fill your end bar clicky. solves a lot of the shortcomings of TW. overall the set is a monster if you disregard momentum. constant knockup, tons of AoE and insane single target damage, a defense buff, resistance & defense debuffs. the problem is dealing with momentum. the damage of the set during momentum is awesome. getting momentum is a problem often times. you dont get momentum when you hit absorb bubbles (even if it is a successful hit). you dont get momentum on a miss (which feels REALLY awful) -- that said, chain misses are absolutely disgusting. outside of build momentum clicky, the standard momentum window feels so short. and one of the biggest issues surrounding this is maximizing your attack windows during momentum. anytime you need to press buttons not related to momentum during your window it feels REALLY bad. all that in mind, playing in parties is often very awkward. you might as well not do anything if you dont have build momentum active because by the time you finish swinging, whatever you tried to hit will be dead and your momentum will be half gone by the time you get to the next target and then you'll have to get momentum AGAIN. overall an extremely strong set limited by an extremely frustrating momentum mechanic. as an aside, i dont know if its a bug... but pretty much every attack in the kit has a delayed aspect to it. skills swing around, make sound effects etc, and then it actually does the damage/knockups 1 second later. im not sure why because it doesnt lineup at all with whats happening visually but it can often feel bad if you were spamming a knockup skill as you die and then the mob gets knocked up right after you die.

its already been expressed before this isnt a "high end set IO requirement". also many builds utilize leadership power pool regardless... so often what you are saving here is slots. as with many RPGs there is definitely a huge enjoyment around planning out your build and seeing it come together as you grow. so you are disregarding the playerbase that enjoys that aspect with this mindset. if it was just a buff to everyone, i dont think as many people would be upset. it is a nerf to many blaster /device builds and corrupter /time builds (among others) that likely wont change anything in their builds after the update and get no compensation. i think there are just better ways to go about this.

not a big fan of the snipe concept. its a straight nerf to anyone that has built for it already... and in blaster /dev case they cant reasonably just respec out of a powerset. slow snipe will reasonably never be used because of the nature of the game... very few people will stand around for 15 seconds to wait to snipe something (especially in parties). could you perhaps make those changes tied SPECIFICALLY TO THAT IO. that way if people want it, they can have it (reduced range, increased recharge -- i guess Dom's case is more complicated). Point is you want this change available but you feel its necessary to introduce PENALTIES around it. There are some powerset combinations that will leave their general build unchanged but now just have a nerfed snipe ability. for anyone that was using tactics slotted out the wazoo to achieve instant snipe, freeing up slots might be a blessing... but the same crowd may also be upset with the reduced range and increased recharge.

interested in your thoughts on some powers: flares vs fire blast -flares has lower activation time -fire blast does more damage -either way its more of a filler attack -both recharge fast enough to not worry about whether you might not have a button to press rain of fire vs fire breath -rain of fire always sends enemies scattering in panic -can be good for defensive purposes -can be extremely annoying because stragglers are now all over the place instead of roughly grouped -fire breath cone is initially very small -with clarion boost, the range is reasonably good and the damage is quite high, even if over a couple seconds -activation time on fire breath is long general problem im feeling with rain of fire is that the damage isnt upfront and just sends them running everywhere... so i dont often feel like i want to use it.

just curious on some of the slotting choices. I thought the IOs that activate for 120s need to actually be a clicky or a toggle... not just a straight passive. so they actually work in passive skills?? Example would be Miracle +recovery in Health. also just a general question regarding time's juncture -- is this really necessary to keep on and especially slot out when you have 60%++ defense on everything? or are you more using it for the 20% damage debuff for the few attacks that do roll in? Otherwise looks awesome. giving it a try... was rough trying to solo stuff before chrono shift... but once i hit 39, the build really seems to open up and i imagine its just going to get way better with incarnate stuff and set bonuses. status effects in general, and ESPECIALLY knockdown, are a huge problem currently.

Seems like only the skills that require momentum show all of the detailed info. any of them that do not require momentum are missing A LOT of information, including secondary effects like +defense, -defense, etc. Skill with no momentum required: Skill with momentum required: