Focused Feedback: Blaster Secondary Revamp

[Placta]

18 hours ago, Nemu said:

I have a feeling most of the posters rooting for Dynamo replacing FOT are of the hover blasting crowd (don't get all triggered, read further below). I have absolute confidence the pure ranged crowd would skip FOT if it went to live regardless of whether it got modified in it's current beta state or not as long as the PBAoE tag sticks.

It's not just ranged/melee; with Homecoming I learned to stop worrying and love the blap, but I still have no use for Thunder Clap. With sustain, I reluctantly took and grudgingly kept Force of Thunder, and only use it out of combat power except in extreme need. Honestly if they took the knockback/stun out and left it as a pure clicky sustain power – a bad change that would make people mad and I'm not advocating it – I would like it better.

 

 

[Draeth Darkstar]

19 minutes ago, Placta said:

It's not just ranged/melee; with Homecoming I learned to stop worrying and love the blap, but I still have no use for Thunder Clap. With sustain, I reluctantly took and grudgingly kept Force of Thunder, and only use it out of combat power except in extreme need. Honestly if they took the knockback/stun out and left it as a pure clicky sustain power – a bad change that would make people mad and I'm not advocating it – I would like it better.

 

 

Agreed, but I've already expressed my deep and abiding hatred for Thunder Clap / Force of Thunder being hedged into an all-melee set.

 

The whole reason I play an /Elec blaster is to run in and blap. I don't like being forced to run away to avoid scatter.

 

Edited October 25, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[Eva Destruction]

I don't want to start  the "knockback is fine" vs "knockback is the devil" argument again, but....

 

I think it might be time to start looking at melee powers that do scatter knockback and think about changing some of them to knockdown.  These powersets were created in 2004.  It was a very different game then.  Levelling took a lot longer, there was no end game, range actually was a defense through much of a Blaster's career, and the blapper playstyle was considered suicidal insanity.   Things have changed, a lot, we have actual defenses now, blapping isn't a weird niche  playstyle anymore, high level enemies are deadly at range. 

Specifically with Electric manip, you have two powers that do scatter, if you take them both that's two slots you have to spend on KB-to-KD IOs if you want to get rid of it,   (And with new FoT having its chance of KB reduced you don't even get the mitigation of knockdown for the cost of that slot).  It's kind of against the spirit of a set that excels in melee to send everything flying to the four winds.  Yes, many Blasters still prefer a ranged playstyle, but not all sets are ideal for every playstyle, and /Elec shouldn't have to cater to ranged players at the expense of the melee players that it's best suited to.  If ranged players want their KB back, let them spend the slot.

[Seed22]

As an aside from elec manip. I thoroughly enjoy the prospect that blasters can now crit through shinobi. I havent tested much else with Ninja but thats a welcome change already! 😀

[XaoGarrent]

Hey, I realized a silver lining to the TA nerfs: We can dump the gimped crowd control and pick up defense granting toggles and other power pool stuff that allows us to slot global procs. It's not a great trade for those that make thematic characters, but this set just became one of the top twinking sets, it's basically made for munchkins.

 

From this patch onward TA is going to be basically a prime candidate for being used as a mule set. Take the buffs, pull net arrow off your power bar (less to manage on an AT with two attack sets is always nice), leave most of the rest in the trash can. Grab the usual suspects and IO it to basically be a ranged scrapper.

Edited October 26, 2020 by XaoGarrent

[Draeth Darkstar]

Feedback on other stuff, now that I'm not just thinking about /Elec

 

Atomic: Big nerfs, but they were well deserved in this case, IMO.

 

Dark: I'm still not in love with Touch of the Beyond being the sustain power, but in a world where it has to be, these are good changes to it.

 

In a perfect world, I wish the sustain would get moved to Death Shroud, Soul Drain, or Dark Consumption, and the Dark Manipulation version of Touch of the Beyond also get the Dark Melee changes from the patch notes, re:

 

Quote

•  Touch of Fear
  • Now a melee targeted AoE with a 10 target cap (16 for Tankers)
  • Now deals negative energy damage over time
  • Fear duration reduced by roughly 50%
  • Cast time increased from 1.17s to 1.97s
  • Only the main target will be affected by the Fear and ToHit debuff
  • Now accepts Targeted AoE Damage sets

 

Devices: I've never super liked the taunt-turret, but regardless, having it have 80% resist all is awesome.

 

Energy: It would be nice if Power Thrust could get the same buff Ki Push did, since on live, Ki Push is already a clone of Power Thrust that is in every way better already.

 

The Stun improvements are kinda weird, but also kinda cool. I would personally rather have had the new Power Crash replacement that Energy Melee got, but I know not everyone likes blapping as much as I do. Regardless of whether or not that happens, though, it would be pretty sweet it Blasters could get these changes in /Energy (and if Dominators could get the Bone Smasher animation time reduction in /Energy Assault)

Quote

•  Bone Smasher
  • Cast time reduced from 1.5s to 1.27s
  • If used with Energy Focus: 100% chance for stun and applies a weakening (-special and -regen) effect to the target
•  Total Focus 
  • Total Focus has a 100% chance to grant Energy Focus (even if power misses)
  •  Energy Focus
    • Energy Focus is consumed when casting certain Energy Melee powers in order to provide bonus effects (Energy Focus is not consumed if the power misses)
    • Energy Focus expires after 15 seconds

I've said my piece on Electric, so I'll skip that in this post

 

Fire: I'm not surprised to see no changes, the set is very popular. Still, I wish Combustion could get some animation time reduction, it's so dreadfully long for a PBAOE.

 

Ice: I LOVE that the Blaster version of Frozen Aura does damage now. Ice is so behind the curve for damage contribution, and this helps.

 

I would really love to see Freezing Touch get its recharge increased to 15-20 seconds with a commensurate damage boost, and Frozen Fists taken up to 10s with a .83 activation time like the other quick punches as well. Ice would still not be as good as the other blappers, but it would be close, then.

 

I would love to get Ice Sword Circle in this set in place of Shiver, but I know that's probably too big of a change to ask for.

 

Martial: The Ki Push change is nice. Again, it'd be nice if Energy's Power Thrust could have the same buff, since this was a clone of it that was already better.

 

Mental: I'm honestly surprised to see a Mental buff since the set is so good already, but this does bring it more in line with the newer sets. It does really highlight that some of the old elemental sets are much worse even with the current round of changes, though.

 

Ninja: These changes are all just awesome. The only thing I could ask for is a small increase to the radius of The Lotus Drops, since most Blaster PBAOEs are 10 and this one is still 8 like a Melee set.

 

Plant: Great changes. The control nerfs were deserved and the animation improvements are incredible. I like the new power order, too.

 

Tactical Arrow: The nerfs are largely warranted. I do really like the addition of the Oil Slick Arrow and the combining of Agility and Gymnastics. I will echo that I'd like the movement control buff for Gymnastics back, though, please. It was a very cool feature of the set that didn't directly increase its combat power but made it more fun.

 

Temporal: Mostly good changes. I don't really like the nerf to End of Time since it's the only AoE the set brings, but it is on par with most Blaster PBAOEs, so it's not unreasonable, either.

 

[Nemu]

1 hour ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

Agreed, but I've already expressed my deep and abiding hatred for Thunder Clap / Force of Thunder being hedged into an all-melee set.

 

The whole reason I play an /Elec blaster is to run in and blap. I don't like being forced to run away to avoid scatter.

 

 

I offer a team up so I can see where you are coming from and you can see where I am coming from.

 

Offer's on the table, global @Nemu and I have Jezebel in my sig on torch, everlasting and excelsior. Same offer goes to @Placta and anyone else that dislikes TS and FOT.

 

 

[Draeth Darkstar]

10 minutes ago, Nemu said:

 

I offer a team up so I can see where you are coming from and you can see where I am coming from.

 

Offer's on the table, global @Nemu and I have Jezebel in my sig on torch, everlasting and excelsior. Same offer goes to @Placta and anyone else that dislikes TS and FOT.

 

 

I totally get where you're coming from - I just hate being forced to slot Thunder Clap for KB-KD and use a non-damaging power constantly in combat or risk losing my sustain.

 

I actually suggested in another post that Force of Thunder be changed to a damaging PBAOE and knockdown instead of a long cooldown stun and knockback. I don't see anybody asking for the latter, but the former would fit both your playstyle and mine, for example.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[DougReyn]

On 10/24/2020 at 2:41 PM, Jimmy said:

Atomic Manipulation

 

•  Positron Cell
  • Hold changed from Mag 3, Scale 12 to:
    • Mag 2, Scale 10 (non stacking)
    • Mag 1, Scale 6 (stacking)
•  Radioactive Cloud
  • Recharge time increased from 90s to 180s
    • As an AoE hold it should always have had a higher recharge similar to other Blaster Manipulation AoE mez powers
  • Hold changed from Mag 3, Scale 12 to:
    • Mag 2, Scale 8 (non stacking)
    • Mag 1, Scale 5 (stacking)

I copied my Rad/Atomic Blaster over and did some testing on these changes.

 

• Positron Cell:
  In my build slotted it for proc damage as i do on most holds.
  
  Live: Does nice damage with procs, reliably holds bosses if stacked with itself.
  
  Beta: Still does nice damage with procs. Does not hold bosses anymore on it's own. It probably could for very short times if slotted for hold duration. Still stacks nicely with Rad's nukebased hold.
  
  The skill is still nice, mostly due to reasonable proc slotting options.
• Radioactive Cloud
  
  Live: This skill is the perfect pbaoe hold. Trumps anything that controllers or doms can field. Long hold, short recharge, useful mag. Way to strong for a blaster. In my opinion the aoe holds in control sets should be modelled after this skill for the control sets. (Controller aoe holds are pretty weak currently)
  
  Beta: The higher recharge is ok. Still lower than the controller ones.
  I was worried at first, but the skill is still a nice addition to the set. Still holds minions and LTs fine enough and stacks well with rads nuke.
   

Overall the set still works, everything just got a little more dangerous, but not too much. So I´d say works as intended

 

[Nemu]

7 minutes ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

I totally get where you're coming from - I just hate being forced to slot Thunder Clap for KB-KD and use a non-damaging power constantly in combat or risk losing my sustain.

 

I actually suggested in another post that Force of Thunder be changed to a damaging PBAOE and knockdown instead of a long cooldown stun and knockback. I don't see anybody asking for the latter, but the former would fit both your playstyle and mine, for example.

That part I completely get and I can get onboard that.

 

I've expressed several opinions in this thread if you care to read through them. I don't want to keep repeating the same things over and over, I'm not that old...

 

yet...

 

😄

[Keleko]

5 hours ago, Nemu said:

Seems to be triggering off certain procs. I noticed the animation going off every time a FF proc triggered off golden dragonfly, as well as defiant barrage proc, guassian's proc and I bet any of the other procs that grant a passive buff.

 

On the other hand /Nin feels very good now for melee blasters now that the damage is balanced against blaster formulas. The 20% chance for critical might be a bit overtuned when applied to all attacks, Might want to consider relegating it to /nin attacks or upping the crit rate on select sword attacks to add more incentive to go into melee.

Remember you're not getting a Build Up in exchange for playing /Ninja.  So 20% of the time for 80% extra damage is about equivalent to having Build Up and pushing it every time it is available.  It just procs the extra damage randomly instead of when you push the button.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Keleko

[Nemu]

6 minutes ago, Keleko said:

Remember you're not getting a buildup in exchange for playing /Ninja.  So 20% of the time for 80% extra damage is about equivalent to having Build Up.  It just procs the extra damage randomly instead of when you push the button.

I posted that comment without doing any math but I can takesies backsies. Yes you are correct, 20% is around the ballpark. I think it's the visuals display of consecutive crit messages that made me feel like it was doing more.

 

Time to stop feeling.

[Lockpick]

I just did the new Villain arc with my Archery / TA blaster and thought I would give an update on play style before and after.

 

I transferred from Live to Beta and did a respec.  I had 2 slots in what used to be gymnastics, but were now in OSA.  I created the same build I had before, but took OSA at 49.  The arc I was on limited me to 39, so I did not get to use OSA during the arc. 

 

Electrified Net Arrow

I didn't really have issues except with one power - ENA.  In the first mission, I was using ENA at the beginning and was thinking the change wasn't as bad as I thought.  However, the longer I played the more impact I felt from the lack of range on ENA.   I won't say this power is useless without the range, but it is certainly much less useful than it is on HC Live.  I am currently slotted with 6 Thunderstrike.  I respectfully request that the range be increased.

 

Ice Arrow

I don't use Ice Arrow, so cannot comment on this one, although I expect people that do use will also not like the range change.

 

Upshot

I didn't really notice a big impact with this adjustment.

 

Flash Arrow

I didn't really notice a big impact with this adjustment.

 

Gymnastics

I slotted a LoTG and a Reactive Defense proc.  I didn't really notice a big impact with this adjustment. 

 

ESD Arrow

I didn't really notice a big impact with this adjustment, because I don't really use it that often.  I think changing it so it has a hold on robots and a stun on non-robots is not a good design change and would suggest to leave it as a hold.  What is the problem you are trying to solve by making this adjustment?

 

Oil Slick Arrow

I did try it before I took the mission and just lit it with a Blazing Arrow.  I expect I'll keep it with one slot and either put an Annihilation - Res or Overwhelming Force Damage / KD.  Again, I don't know the problem that is trying to be solved here and would argue the original powers were fine as they were.

 

Spoiler

Tactical Arrow

•  Electrified Net Arrow
  • Range reduced from 80ft to 50ft to be in line with other Blaster Manipulation T1 Immobilize powers
  • Endurance cost increased from 5.2 to 7.8 to be in line with other Blaster Manipulation T1 Immobilize powers
•  Ice Arrow
  • Range reduced from 80ft to 60ft to be in line with other Blaster Manipulation ST mez powers
  • Recharge increased from 12s to 16s
  • Hold changed from Mag 3, Scale 12 to:
    • Mag 2, Scale 10 (non stacking)
    • Mag 1, Scale 6 (stacking)
•  Upshot
  • +Recharge buff reduced to from 30% to 15%
  • +Damage buff reduced from 100% to 81.25%
  • +ToHit reduced from 20% to 15%
•  Flash Arrow
  • This power's effects are no longer irresistible
•  Gymnastics (Replaces Agility)
  • Gymnastics and Agility have been merged into a new toggle power
  • Provides knockback protection, a 1.75% defence buff, a recharge bonus, a movement speed buff and some slow / mez protection
  • If you previously had Agility, you now have Gymnastics
•  ESD Arrow
  • Hold now only applies to robots.
  • Hold changed from Mag 3, Scale 8 to:
    • Mag 2, Scale 8 (non stacking)
    • Mag 1, Scale 5 (stacking)
  • Added Stun against non robots:
    • Mag 2, Scale 8 (non stacking)
    • Mag 1, Scale 5 (stacking)
  • Now accepts Stun enhancements and sets
•  Oil Slick Arrow (Replaced Gymnastics)
  • Similar to the Trick Arrow version, but does not have a defence debuff and only has a 15ft radius
  • If you previously had Gymnastics, you now have Oil Slick Arrow

 

 

[Blackbird71]

@Lockpick For Flash Arrow, how often did you find its effects were resisted?

 

The first thing I do in nearly every fight is lay down a Flash Arrow so that I can then make attacks at a safe range without being instantly swarmed, and even single out targets if needed. If even some of the mobs resist the -Perception, my survivability can go down fast. 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Blackbird71

[Recovery8]

After some more testing I really don't think OSA is a *Bad* call for TA but it's not the most interesting nor the most fitting for the set. It's the T8 of a different set which makes it feel kinda cheap and like a cop out of what a T9 should be. I would have rather seen something unique given to TA to give it more of its own identity over trick arrow. Not sure what I would want for a T9 as I'm sure some more creative types could brainstorm that but the range loss here really does hurt TA, I don't understand why ever manip set has to be homogenized, someone else said it but this really is feeling like the DnD 4th edition problem. 

[Heraclea]

6 hours ago, Placta said:

It's not just ranged/melee; with Homecoming I learned to stop worrying and love the blap, but I still have no use for Thunder Clap. With sustain, I reluctantly took and grudgingly kept Force of Thunder, and only use it out of combat power except in extreme need. Honestly if they took the knockback/stun out and left it as a pure clicky sustain power – a bad change that would make people mad and I'm not advocating it – I would like it better.

On my electric/electric blaster, I've always used Force of Thunder in connection with Stealth; my basic method with the character is to enter the center of the spawn unnoticed, stun them with Force of Thunder, drain them with Power Sink, and then get out of there and nuke them, picking off the survivors as needed. 

 

With Dynamo this fails immediately and gets me killed.  On test my Dynamo is uselessly slotted now with Sudden Accelerations, which I added specifically for the -KB.  I did not take Lightning Field, did not want or need it.  This change breaks the cottage rule, makes stealth unworkable on /Electric blasters, and messes with existing builds badly.  It would probably be better for the character to dump the sustain power entirely, build for recovery and regen the old fashioned way,  and spec into the diminished version of Lightning Clap.   It is unlikely that I will spend the inf and merits to do that to the broken character; likelier that the blaster will be simply cashiered.  

[Blackbird71]

17 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

This change breaks the cottage rule, 

I think this update in general has shown that the cottage rule is out the window. Lots of powers have been changed into or replaced with something completely different. 

 

Make of that what you will. 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Blackbird71

[macskull]

1 hour ago, Blackbird71 said:

I think this update in general has shown that the cottage rule is out the window. Lots of powers have been changed into or replaced with something completely different. 

 

Make of that what you will. 

I don't think it's been thrown out, I think it's been adjusted. In the case of Tac Arrow, two powers were combined into one and a new power was added to replace one of the two. No significant existing functionality was lost (except the movement control/friction aspect of Gymnastics which was removed because otherwise the power would be mutually exclusive with leaping powers like Combat Jumping). With the Elec changes the set still has a sustain power, it is just getting moved from a click power to a toggle. Force of Thunder is basically back to what it was prior to I24 except now it's a guaranteed stun instead of a 50% chance and it can stun lieutenants instead of just minions.

 

The best argument you can make for a cottage-burner in these patch notes is the change to Long Range Teleport, where an existing pool power was completely replaced with a different power except the power it's replacing has been made available in a different form. Funny enough, the only actual times I can think of where a power was replaced wholesale and the original power disappeared never to be heard from again were the Gravity changes shortly after launch (Fold Space was replaced with Singularity) and the Presence pool changes in I24 (Challenge replaced with Pacify), both of which occurred under Cryptic/Paragon management.

[csr]

I finished a pass on the Blaster sustains to see if they were suppressing when mezzed and otherwise functioning as expected.  There were some surprises.  Anything that was unexpected or out of the ordinary is highlighted in orange.  I tested with unslotted level 22 toons in AE against foes with Hold and Sleep powers.

• Atomic Manipulation / Metabolic Acceleration:   Nothing suppressed when mezzed.  Even the +Rech buff remains when mezzed.
• Devices / Field Operative:  The Regen and Recovery did not suppress.  15' of Stealth occasionally reappeared even when I was mezzed.
• Darkness Manipulation / Touch of the Beyond:  As a click buff nothing suppressed.  The listed Fear/Terrorize Res/Prot was never applied.  The +Reg buff is scaling off of the target's level.
• Energy Manipulation / Energize:  Another click.  It works as expected.
• Electricity Manipulation / Dynamo:  The Regen and Recovery buffs don't suppress, the damage and END drain do.  [Edit:] The power no longer appears to do -END despite the description.  (I need to test to see if I can figure out why I missed it in the original pass.)
• Fire Manipulation / Cauterizing Aura:  The +Rec doesn't suppress, nor do the heal ticks (which break sleep as expected).  The damage suppresses.
• Ice Manipulation / Frigid Protection:  The +Rec and Absorb don't suppress.  The slow does.  The Absorb appears to be ticking every 0.5 seconds for 1/4th the expected amount instead of every 2s.
• Martial Combat / Reaction Time:  The +Rec and Absorb don't suppress.  The debuff does.  The Absorb appears to be ticking every 0.5 seconds for 1/4th the expected amount instead of every 2s.
• Mental Manipulation / Drain Psyche:  Same old Drain Psyche.  A click with no suppression of the buffs.
• Ninja Training / Kuji-In Toh:  Another click buff working as expected.
• Plant Manipulation / Wild Fortress:  The +Rec, Absorb, Confuse Prot and Toxic Res don't suppress.  And the Absorb ticks every 2 seconds for the expected amount.
• Sonic Manipulation / Sound Barrier:  The Rec, Sleep Prot, Resists and Absorb all continue to work when Held or Slept.  The Absorb ticks at the 2 second rate. [Edit:] There is no "Floaters" option for this power in Power Customization.  All of the options (Original, Bright, Dark) produce floaters.
• Tactical Arrow / Eagle Eye:  The sustain components (Reg and Rec) do not suppress.  The Acc, Per and ToHit Debuff Res all suppress.
• Temporal Manipulation / Temporal Healing:  The buffs (Rec, Reg Debuff Res and Rech Debuff Res) and Absorb do not suppress.  The effects other than the Absorb disappear at times.  They turn off on occasion when standing around doing nothing.  They also sometimes turn off shortly after zoning.  This is unrelated to being mezzed.

Edited October 26, 2020 by csr
Correct an error and an oversight

[Chris24601]

8 hours ago, XaoGarrent said:

From this patch onward TA is going to be basically a prime candidate for being used as a mule set. Take the buffs, pull net arrow off your power bar (less to manage on an AT with two attack sets is always nice), leave most of the rest in the trash can. Grab the usual suspects and IO it to basically be a ranged scrapper.

And this right here is why the current changes really need to be looked at... when someone seriously suggests that only snagging Upshot, Eagle Eye and Gymnastics and skipping everything else for Pool powers is a better option, it’s a sign the set may have been over-nerfed.

 

And I’m going to reiterate that based on just posted comments there’s at least half-a-dozen players of the set with the opinion that these changes so fundamentally change the way they enjoy playing that they’d shelve or even re-roll their Tac Arrow characters over these changes.

 

The range reductions seem the most universally unpopular, with those expressing that sentiment more than willing to accept other restrictions on the powers in trade for keeping the range (i.e. they accept the need for nerfs, just different nerfs that don’t change the fundamentals of the set’s playstyle).

 

The addition of oil slick seems rather split... some people have said “yay! Oil Slick!” while others are “this just doesn’t mesh with the current playstyle at all... so another skippable t9.” The fact that it’s a weaker version of what a Corrupter can get at 35 or a Defender at level 26 that you can’t even take until level 38 doesn’t do it any favors either.

 

Also valid is the feedback about flash arrow being resistible having a huge effect on playstyle not for the -to-hit (which can be compensated for with slotting), but the -Perception (which cannot be fixed with any slotting). I know I used to use it as a limited stealth option when I wanted to bypass certain spawns on a mission and even at higher levels I use it for aggro management (flash then snipe the mobs on the edges who won’t alert the main spawn) way more than I’ve ever relied on the -tohit part.

 

Perhaps removing the -tohit but leaving the -Per unresistable (making it more akin to a smoke grenade in its effect) would be an acceptable compromise?

 

And the criticism on slotting for ESD arrow is something I hadn’t even considered, but is entirely valid... You can slot for Stun OR Hold, but not both if you want to use full sets. I’m also wondering at the line of thinking on Stun vs. Hold as the only effective difference is that stun lets the target stagger around a few feet and wouldn’t stack with other holds on the same target.

 

That really does drop it down to a situational use power depending on your slotting... not something you really want to see in a t8 you can’t even select until level 35.

 

My suggestion? Make the ESD arrow the tier 9 capstone and let it keep its hold and then look at something more like the poison gas arrow as the tier 8.

 

Or, how about instead of poison gas... how about a sleep gas arrow? No debuffs (so no aggro), just a sleep effect to allow for bypassing spawns and more tactical pulling in a different way than flash arrow allows.

 

Honestly? One of the things I like about Tactical Arrow is that it plays more like the early days of Blasting where you pulled from around corners to try and limit the number of mobs coming at you at once and where the point of Power Thrust was to keep the melee mobs away from you long enough for you to blast them.

 

It’s a set designed for that “keep your foes at a distance” playstyle that pre-invention, pre-sustain Blasters had to use if they didn’t want to be “carpet inspectors.” Some people really like that style of play and Tac Arrow is a way to do that style without the need to invest in IO sets because you have many more interesting means of mitigation than just IO-ing yourself to the defense softcaps.

 

Another thing the current Tactical Arrow does extremely well is make up for many of the shortcomings in the Archery primary set. Specifically, it doesn’t require redraw when switching between primary to secondary powers and it adds a reliable source of damage types that are stronger against foes who traditionally resist lethal damage pretty heavily (specifically undead/ghosts and robots).

 

The range nerfs interact particularly badly with Archery in that they disrupt common attack chains where ENA is in the rotation specifically for the energy damage it deals at the same range as the primary attacks.

 

Like one of the previous posters I six-slot my ENA for a damage set (Blaster’s Wrath) and the immobilize is just gravy; it could be a slow instead and I’d still have it in my rotation for the energy damage because robots and CoT spirits are a PITA for the primary Archery attacks.

[Draeth Darkstar]

After playing with Energy Melee for a few hours: gods, please let /Energy Blasters have the Energy Focus and Power Crash goodies. You could even make Power Crash and Stun mutually exclusive picks instead of replacing Stun to satisfy the folks who want that neat boost range + power boost AoE stun thinger and let me blap my heart out. Please, please, pleeeeease.

[XaoGarrent]

32 minutes ago, Chris24601 said:

And this right here is why the current changes really need to be looked at... when someone seriously suggests that only snagging Upshot, Eagle Eye and Gymnastics and skipping everything else for Pool powers is a better option, it’s a sign the set may have been over-nerfed.

Well, that and maybe glue arrow and the new oil slick, but yeah. If you're not taking TA specifically for the buffs now, you probably should be looking at another set. All it does well now is the buffs.

 

TA's gimmick has always been on shaky ground. It's a set that leans heavily on low damage control powers, on an AT where control powers are and have been universally mediocre at best... And this AT is an AT that does damage very well, about all it does well, and it exists In a game where more damage is always appreciated. It's always been in this situation where it needs to break the rules to be competitive, and in this case the rule it's breaking is actually a bad standard that should be overturned anyway. 

 

And here we are, stuffing the square peg into the round hole.

 

Even if you put near controller level duration and recharge controls on Blasters, those powers would still be significantly worse, because of no critical control, and no domination. Bosses are typically the only thing you really want to use single target control on outside of solo play, so if you can't lock them down quickly for a meaningful duration, there's no point in even firing off your control powers. Control is so strong on Controllers and dominators not because they can stack the control, but precisely because they don't need to, often times they can just point at a hard target, or many less hard targets, and just straight up make them stop doing anything for 10 seconds.

 

Blaster controls are already a losing proposition out of the box, and then you get massive nerfs on top of that and it's just no bueno. Better to ignore most control and go for more damage. The devs don't seem to understand that the old devs spreadsheets and standards were actually really bad, very unrealistic and ideological, in a lot of ways.

 

EDIT: Also, I'm going to steal "carpet inspector." That term is great. 😄

Edited October 26, 2020 by XaoGarrent

[CaptainLupis]

Before I go a testing, can someone let me know what the "scale" refers to in regards mez? Does it mean unenhanced duration? If not if anyone could point me to an explanation of what it is it would be much appreciated as I tried a search and couldn't find anything useful. Cheers.

[Vanden]

4 minutes ago, CaptainLupis said:

Before I go a testing, can someone let me know what the "scale" refers to in regards mez? Does it mean unenhanced duration? If not if anyone could point me to an explanation of what it is it would be much appreciated as I tried a search and couldn't find anything useful. Cheers.

Scale is the base duration of a mez, then it's adjusted by AT mods and character level to get the actual duration in-game.

[CaptainLupis]

Just now, Vanden said:

Scale is the base duration of a mez, then it's adjusted by AT mods and character level to get the actual duration in-game.

Thanks.