Snarky

Thats as much of a challenge as flying a level 10 villain into the Grandville Web and trying to kill anything...are you up to it? No! The Challenge Awaits!.... Seriously got better things to do with my time, like relax lol. Been talking to someone in game that wanted to see how my Dark/Dark handled combat. I said sure. They picked an AE arc. I dialed up +4/x8 no AV, bosses okay. Standard for me. Can do any group (some are tougher than others) A couple minutes in I was getting mezzed and had a Death! WTF? That NEVER happens. I used Darks insanely good rez and really started to pay attention. There was Ghost Widow! as EB...but still, her and her arachnos groupies were stacking stuns on me! I started using insp and Rune of Prot/Melee Hybrid with a lot more care and took them down. Then the other 3 EB versions of Recluses Posse in the next room. sigh. Then my friend grabbed their main scrapper and we duo'd the thing 4/8 with AVs. I dont remember dying in there. Maybe I did once. It was a long fight. The Scrapper hit the ground a couple times (mace/rad i think) But we did it, we killed them. I seriously hate challenges lol. that is why I run a Dark/Dark Brute. Vampires are SUPPOSED to kill everything.

Blueside in particular is a snarled mess of contacts, some of which cannot be done, some of which are duplicate contacts and exact same story arcs but with a new contact name on it. This is one of the reasons I have never completed a solo every contact Blueside toon but have done so on Redside quite a few times. Not only is there more volume Blueside (of ahem, a lesser quality) but it is a part time job just figuring out which contacts to do. At least if you are trying to hit them all. Its a sad mess.

That is not "toughest", meanest...maybe. To test for toughest there would need to be a large and varied amount of all the types of damage the game has. Preferable ramping up every few minutes as it cycles through. The longest to take the strain = toughest.

I agree that Cims Debuff Defense really fast on Dark. No Debuff Resistance. Heck, My dark isnt even softcapped to anything. He has great resistance though. And, if we are talking about +4/x8 Cim, which lets get real, we are. Then, they will chew the defense off Dark armor in the first few seconds. My Dark Regen is on a 9 sec pop. I do not carry green inspirations. I do not drop even against mountains of +4/x8, including the mountaintop fight with Cims and Warshades and turtles. Part of this is using Hybrid Melee and Rune of Protection smartlky. But they really just preserve inspirations. I think one of the real keys is running the fear and stun toggles off dark all the time. and GLOBAL accuracy. That stun toggle is crap until you enhance accuracy a lot. Then....it will make a +4 wander around like a drunk. Others will be cowering. The greatest danger for me in that fight are the squids that hang out of my PB range and take shots. If someone is not dealing with them I need to wander over and take the fight to them. As their attacks slow that 9 seconds becomes a short time, not an eternity. The greatest challenge in normal combat I faced recently was in a Q in caves. There were a LOT of Rularuu packed into some intersection and I was solo looking for a glowie. I decided to clear the intersection for those following. They ate my cookies. twice. It was disheartening lol.

I can guess at this a bit (and I have to as I am ignorant of all the tech 🙂 ) There are many things that are possible in the game, but everything takes time. I am currently (and have been since the live forums 🙂 ) tilting at the windmill of getting more ranged Blaster set ups. But i generally try to avoid suggesting things that would add more work on the current team of volunteer Devs. They do a great job. But they do it for the reward of being part of the community. and life is busy.

i have done that. played some seriously gimped Blasters in my day lol. "game balance" be damned

If humans did not want to do things differently then we would still be digging at the ground by hand and scratching on cave walls walls with sticks. The game will change, whether to suit me or not. It is a valid point to bring up fully ranged Blasters and various ways to get there. Whether that be with tree options (and I will give you the fact that may affect play balance....although I seriously doubt to a great extent) or taking something like Assault Rifle or Water Blast and allowing non gun alternate animations and your choice of different damage type.

Yes, I have looked. Never tried. I know it is good. If it was fire I could make a demon out of it. Not my favorite, but definitely in my wheelhouse. But water? No idea what character concept. The only thing that comes to mind is a firefighting robot with bad programming. or who travelled far into the future and came back super (stole that from an ond Star Trek plot...the space probe GOD machine)

Yeah, I sort of get this. I have a fully kitted out Dark/Mental incarnated Blaster in my garage. May redisgn him with the new jaunt? Teleport. He has 5 cones (absolutely love) but every fight, constantly really, i have to be watching my powers/timers to know when to bounce in, charge up buff, PBAoE, bounce out. Not fun for me really. If there was a dark version of AR (no rifle, what are we, savages?) that was pretty much a dark version of all the same powers I would run that in a heartbeat. That is the 'feel' I want from a Blaster. Try as I might (I have 50d a couple on live and here) I do not love AR. I have an epic dislike for weapons, disappearing ones moreso, and guns in particular.

No. You misread what I wanted. I want a FULLY ranged set. But I can see where you are going. You are going to discuss nebulous and undefinable qualities of mystical universal balance which are never quite reachable. Your underlying premise appears to be that you cannot "balance" or even truly fairly compare a ranged power to a point blank power. I completely disagree. Since the character creator screen says Blasters are Ranged, yet you have to drop 1/3 to 1/2 primary and secondaries to avoid non ranged attacks. How is that Ranged? or Balanced?

I am going to be as non Snarky as I can be. YMMV I do not use addons. I did finally start using the map overlay on live to find badges. i got it here as well. But I cant get it to update and so any new badges I hunt through coordinates. I do not use Discord. Everytime i try it is a nightmare. I wont go into details but a thousand dollar comp and a hundred fifty dollar set of headphones should just work...right? Evidently freaking not. I recently joined a big SG and will have to try to get Discord working again. I am really looking forward to that. (That was sarcasm, not snark) I am not dumb. In my past I have even studied mathematics up through multi variable calculus. I still struggle to put IKEA furniture together and everything to do with this comp. In short, thank you for making MODs. I am sure they are great and many will find them useful. I won't even touch them. Not unless you are willing to pay me by the hour to figure them out. Even then....prob going to cost you a bit lol. My point....not everyone is good at modifying things or even want to. The Devs are trying to make the game a comfortable place for everyone. Not everyone will like it. I still am charging the hill of letting Blasters be truly ranged. Wish me luck. I am sorry this change was really bad for you. I honestly am. People who like the game and play are tops in my book. I am sorry you cannot mod it back to the way you wanted it. That does seem crappy. To have something you like and then it gets messed with. But I have lived through the great Brute nerf. Recently discovered Rune of protection, modified my main build to cram it on. Heard they have a nerf for it planned. Game goes on. Hey! You just ran over my toe! "Progress" the voice shouted back.

I think it should just continue forever, for any character that has heard it. That way...they always know...yeah. seriously though. There are some really troubling sounding sets. Sonic Blast? It sounds like it was created by a guy addicted to OxyContin and Speed Metal. It is so intrusive just to be on a team with it. And the set? Unusable to me.

Elec Blast and Radiation Blast (ranged) do the exact same damage as Energy Blast and Dark Blast (PBAoE) tier 9s. Not sure where you are getting your info. AR has always been an odd duck. It is not comparable easily due to it being a cone rather than a circle. Plus, wasnt it crashless right from the outset, built in? Archery is also completely different. I honestly cannot tell if you are unaware of these obvious facts or ...I don't know. But I still feel like I am taking crazy pills. THEY ARE THE EXACT SAME POWER (regarding the original, circular...spherical?...tier 9s) Edit, since this keeps coming up. Add the extra 25 second recharge to the PBAoE to make them the EXACT same at the other ranged AoE tier 9s when you allow them to be Ranged. There. Balanced. Ta Da!

THis rebalancing thing keeps coming up. Zoolander reference. "I feel like I;m taking crazy pills" THEY ARE THE EXACT SAME POWERS. Maybe some are 17% longer recharge than others. only difference. Exact same radius damage etc as in other sets that are ranged. after recharge that will be functionally zero

Oh, it definitely is. I am not Adrian Monk but I am darned set in my ways. To me this is art as much as it is gaming. I can't run any MM besides Bots (which i am horrid at and bored with) I would LOVe an all zombie MM team. Or if I could make costumes (the henchmen from all the old batman TV shows and Venture Bros, not to mention Chaos agents from Get Smart...just waiting....) I have some good Iceman concepts....but i view Ice as a resistance Set not a defensive set and i just ...cannot. So, i have run years of SS Brutes and Tanks and many many many Dark powered characters. THose work for me. I deperately want to use Water Blast.....and have nothing that works....I dont even like water powered heroes/villains. I do not "get" it.

I am terribly sorry I did not mention the 25 second difference in recharge, a considerable 15-17% difference depending on viewpoint. You might consider the fact that after adding recharge enhancements, global recharge bonuses and Hasten the difference is....well, there is a difference. I will be darned. It is still slightly different. You are correct good sir (err...or madam) I apologize. That took way too long though. The apology should be the length of the difference, tops. Hmm.... Here goes "Sor.." Danged. That went by fast.. and point of fact i am a normal sized jerk, quite average indeed. Seriously (and I honestly cannot tell if you were serious in your post 🙂 ) There is no discernable difference between the PBAoE and the Ranged AoE Nukes other than one is ranged and the other is PBAoE The entire building a Blaster as a Blapper from ground up (look at the secondaries...) then adding a couple fully ranged sets like Assault Rifle and calling the Archetype "Ranged" in character creator was weak and borderline trolling. I hate the marketing department. I am (almost) sure the Devs that designed the Archetype would have used a different adjective.

i suspect he is a transmogrified Rikti who is trying to undermine Vanguards authority by giving orders no one will folllow. it is a subtle long term plan. better than anything else i have seen from Rikti though.

it is the perfect thread to post undiagnosable things that peeve you. and much like Oranbega....i thought we were done with this....why are we seeing this again....i hate this one

ranged blasters. the entire archetype was built from the ground up as a blapper and some comedian slapped the Ranged label on it. has pissed me off ever since.

I tried this with electric. It did not feel "dark" because I knew I was missing the dark secondary effects. I know when I am pulling power from the negative material plane to torture the souls of my enemies. After that, everything else is just....meh.

okay.....this is what drives me crazy. 1st) you are wrong. That just irritates me. because 2nd) some sets have the Tier 9 ranged AoE and it is literally just as powerful (arguably) as the PBAoE tier 9s. To me it just looks like random choice by Devs at the start and it happens my favorite power types got PBAoE instead of Ranged. This is the stuff I lay awake at night plotting my next villainous misdeed over.... Compare Electrical Blast Tier 9...Ranged, vs Energy Blast Tier 9 PBAoE vs Dark Blast Tier 9. THe same Damage and Radius. SAME. Difference....Devs originally coded one as PB and the other Ranged. ONLY STINKING DIFFERENCE

Someone needs to add a Task Force in game. We have saved dams. We have saved Nuclear power plants. We need to save gaming servers!!!! The main culprit can be a "network" of Bosses and minions that all have to be wiped with X amount of time or they start recreating themselves. I start to see the issue. I had heard that crypto currency mining is INSANELY lucrative and the requirements for energy to do it is actually increasing global warming. I was like WTF? Comps doing that? But from what I understand they have to crank a truly stupid number of patterns per second to get rich. And they will burn the planet (or some unfortunate group of gamers) or anything else that stands in their way to do it. Villainous Capitalism at its purest.

So they just got run over by street traffic....not even "someone did it?" they just drowned beneath the weight?

A giant. Huge. Enormous. HUMUNGOUS pet peeve of mine is the sets that I have an interest in playing the most (Dark, Energy for Blasters as examples) do not fit my playstyle. When I want to run a Blaster I want to run a ranged Blaster. Period. It is not up for discussion. I know what I like, why I want to run it, the concept, and how I want to play. Much like I will not run an MM until I can have ALL zombie pet army (even if that is not 'the best') I will not enjoy a Blaster that is not ranged. I love Energy Blast. I could (and have) written fiction about Dark magic characters. I have a boatload of concepts for them. But, playstyle, I seriously resent being pulled into melee range. Hmm...enough backstory, to the topic at hand... So, Is it possible for the Dev team to consider making certain powers with options....you either get a PBAoE version of the power or a Ranged version? Or, Is it possible to make a fully ranged set from an original? Take Radiation Blast and modify it as a different set entirely Radiation Blast2 or Radiation Blast Ranged, and turn the two PBAoEs in that set to ranged AoE. A character could only choose the set at creation, as a possibility. Only one permanent choice. Or, if it is VERY flexible, Alternate builds could have one or the other, even though different from a first build. In general discussion rather than suggestions because it is more exploratory that requesty....

The journey is the destination 🙂 Seriously though, it was hell to learn. I ate 2 1/2 years of humble pie daily to get as much self control as I have. And i barely got enough lol. It is kind of like lifting weights. It is not about how much you lift. It is about focus, control, and really taking a boatload of pain. Then it is a good lift. Not if you lift X amount. Training up to the focus, control, and ability to take the pain leads to bigger numbers. But it is the path, not the destination that is important.