Focused Feedback: Blaster Secondary Revamp

[Neogumbercules]

 Gun Drone

• Now has 80% resistance to all damage
• Taunt aura reduced to 8ft, mag 3, max of 4 targets
• Death explosion now has a knockup component

I would love to see Gun Drone's duration drastrically increased, or just make it a toggle power. The biggest issue for playability is having to resummon it all the time. Giving it another attack or two might be a good idea as well. A Cone or AOE perhaps?

[Captain Powerhouse]

Hello guys, sorry I had not replied here yet but been busy juggling many things (and reading every single post on this thread all today.)

 

I don't have answers for everything right now but I want to clarify a handful of things

When we say we want to give more incentives to get into melee range, we mean that we want the melee powers that blasters get to be more useful. This is not about forcing all blasters to get into melee, but to reward the use of these powers beyond raw concept characters or set mules. No one will be forced to jump into melee range with a set they would not do so in the past. I could had phrased that part of the patch notes a lot better and avoided some confusion.

 

Net Arrow's high range was simply a mistake. There is one set that has some of its powers intentionally at higher-than-standard range, Mind Manipulation, as Mind attacks in this game have had bonus range from the start. You will notice Subdue is still 80ft range.

 

The high CC blasters got was an extreme over-correction from the live state where blasters where forbidden from having reliable AoE mez that was above mag 2, it had to be toned down. What is right now in test is still higher levels of CC out of manipulation sets than was allowed by the live team, just not enough to start stepping into controller or dominator territory with a single power.

 

On the resistiability of Flash Arrow: resistance in this game means that a foe that happens to have 50% perception resistance might have (for example) its view distance cut by -10feet instead of -20feet. They still will have their perception reduced. Device's Smoke Grenade is basically the same, it has always been resistible.

 

Be assured homogenization is not at all my goal, but some deviations from the standard just are too loop-sided. Case in point, we will not be turning every single sustain power into a toggle, much less a passive. Some will be toggles, some will be clicks, some like Mind and Dark will require an enemy to use.

 

Oh, one more thing:
Currently all versions of Total Focus are bugged while flying, 50% of the time they execute the old 3.3 second animation. This will be fixed in the next patch.

 

Don't have a full list of future changes, but there will be some tweaks to a few powers based on feedback compiled from this thread.

[csr]

9 hours ago, kenlon said:

Yeah, I can understand why the devs want, in general, to bring sets in line with each other on things like range, but the extra reach with Tac Arrow is one of it's schticks, and should be balanced around. 

I don't think the extra range was intended to be one of it's schticks.

Edited October 27, 2020 by csr

[csr]

15 hours ago, Frostbiter said:

Frozen Aura:

 

The damage is nice, but the range is terrible. It doesn't even outperform Frost Breath with the terribly short range. I often had trouble hitting more than 2 mobs, even when surrounded. The sleep continues to be largely useless, since any Blaster who can work this power into their rotation already has the defenses to survive using it. Then there's the issue of Frigid Protection breaking the sleep.  😕

I tested this with another Sleep power (Siren's Song).  Frigid Protection doesn't break Sleep.  Do you have a proc slotted perhaps?  If not, it may be a problem with Frozen Aura itself.  I'll try testing that.

 

I think on a Blaster upping the Radius to match a Tanker's at 15' might be a good idea however.

[Vanden]

5 minutes ago, csr said:

I tested this with another Sleep power (Siren's Song).  Frigid Protection doesn't break Sleep.  Do you have a proc slotted perhaps?  If not, it may be a problem with Frozen Aura itself.  I'll try testing that.

 

I think on a Blaster upping the Radius to match a Tanker's at 15' might be a good idea however.

Sounds like it's just the long-standing bug where customized ice colors cause the "sleep effect" ice cube to disappear almost immediately, making it look like the sleep's been broken.

[Chris24601]

31 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Net Arrow's high range was simply a mistake. There is one set that has some of its powers intentionally at higher-than-standard range, Mind Manipulation, as Mind attacks in this game have had bonus range from the start. You will notice Subdue is still 80ft range.

Any chance we can make that TWO sets?

 

Because, as should be readily apparent from the comments and reactions to the comments here, this change is "shelve my main" level disruptive to the style of play that Tac Arrow has provided for the past year and a half. The feedback so far has been on the order of 80% negative by number of posters/reactions to the range changes and those same people have also voiced willingness to see other areas nerfed to compensate for keeping the range. Halve the mez duration. Drop it back to Mag 2. But the 50' range reduction is just crippling to enjoyment of the set.

 

Let 'Range' be Tactical Arrow's shtick (since better control is clearly no longer it). Its actual players, myself included, seem willing to trade quite a bit to keep the range component of these powers.

 

It may not have been your original intent, but range is clearly the most popular component of the set's bread-and-butter powers and sometimes the best things in life happen because of a mistake resulting in something amazing.

[kenlon]

36 minutes ago, csr said:

I don't think the extra range was intended to be one of it's schticks.

 

Even if it wasn't originally intended, the fact that it's been that way since introduction has led to it becoming a defining feature. This is not to say that "It's always been that way," is a good reason to not balance something, but it is a good reason to take into account what a set has been when changing it. I think the extra range that /TA has is something that could be balanced against without breaking the set, and there's clearly a lot of players in this thread who would miss the range.

[csr]

22 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Sounds like it's just the long-standing bug where customized ice colors cause the "sleep effect" ice cube to disappear almost immediately, making it look like the sleep's been broken.

I just tested this with a new toon and that appears to be the case.

[Blackbird71]

@Captain Powerhouse

Thank you for making your intentions clear. Unfortunately this kills any hope I had that Tac Arrow would still play the same way. 

 

Please implement a means for us to change out our power set for a different one. Otherwise I'm shelving a character that I've put a lot of time into. 

[JnEricsonx]

I'm curious, when all these changes happen, am I gonna have to respec my whole character, or do you just get the picks/slots back and then decide where to put them?

[Mystic Fortune]

The means to change a characters AT or powersets within a respec will NEVER happen. That is an unreasonable request.

[Recovery8]

Unintended or not you have to admit it has become something that the community liked about Tac Arrow. It's an archery set, archers don't typically go and bop people in the face with their arrows, despite what TV might show you. I would ask that you reconsider your choices here and just give it back the range it had and make it *two* sets with increased range as with these changes sticking I'll be another one shelfing my tac arrow character. It's just way too noticeable and doesn't feel right with the sets grown identity. Sometimes what wasn't intended ends up being what is. 

[Pzn]

Is the 5% tohit bonus from Shinobi supposed to be suppressed during combat?  It's only applying while hidden like the larger tohit bonus did previously.

 

[macskull]

Just now, josh1622 said:

Is the 5% tohit bonus from Shinobi supposed to be suppressed during combat?  It's only applying while hidden like the larger tohit bonus did previously.

 

Yes, the tohit and damage bonus only applies to the first attack out of the "hidden" status.

[Pzn]

13 minutes ago, macskull said:

Yes, the tohit and damage bonus only applies to the first attack out of the "hidden" status.

Thanks, thought it might have been a bug.

[Blackbird71]

22 minutes ago, Mystic Fortune said:

The means to change a characters AT or powersets within a respec will NEVER happen. That is an unreasonable request.

When the functionality of a set is fundamentally changed so as to no longer play the same way, no it is not an unreasonable request. 

[Runebound]

Ouch. It's tough to follow a post like Captain Powerhouse's above: it's thoughtful and reasonable, and yet I'm finding it hard to say how sad I am in what is, after all, just a game.

 

Maybe it's because, like Blackbird, I found in Tac Arrow what I really wanted in gameplay, and now I've lost it. Changes to other powersets affect more of my alts, but this is the one that hurts.

 

Maybe it's because it feels so unnecessary. In a non-pvp game, nerfs are less pressing: I'm not hurt when another plays a powerset stronger than mine, unless it deeply alters the teaming experience. Nerfs might help players maintain a sense of fairness when a set surpasses others in every way, as with TW, but no one's claiming that for Tactical Arrow. Here the question is about a different playstyle. Whether you think 50' and 60' feet is still distant enough for ranged play, what made the set unique is now reduced.

 

So I'll hold out a wee bit of hope that some range will be restored to Tac Arrow. Even 10' more to ENA and Ice Arrow would let us stay out of aggro range while we set up our openers - one of the most fun aspects of the powerset.

 

Thanks to Captain Powerhouse for his interest in avoiding homogenization. Varied playstyles for different powersets are one of things that makes the game such fun.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Runebound

[insome1]

Please direct me to the right place if this isnt it.

 

But Smoke Grenade on blaster secondary now aggros the uninitiated mobs. I had 65ft stealth on +4 council. Can someone else confirm?

 

Spoiler

 

EDIT::

 

J/K. It was Dark Watcher's Despair chance for recharge slow.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by insome1

[Frostbiter]

8 hours ago, csr said:

I tested this with another Sleep power (Siren's Song).  Frigid Protection doesn't break Sleep.  Do you have a proc slotted perhaps?  If not, it may be a problem with Frozen Aura itself.  I'll try testing that.

 

I think on a Blaster upping the Radius to match a Tanker's at 15' might be a good idea however.

I have no procs in Frigid Protection, no.

8 hours ago, Vanden said:

Sounds like it's just the long-standing bug where customized ice colors cause the "sleep effect" ice cube to disappear almost immediately, making it look like the sleep's been broken.

Possibly. I don't really pay that much attention to sleeps since they so rarely last for longer than two seconds, I just noticed none of the mobs ever seem to go into it. I did play with Frozen Aura some more last night, the range is ok. It would be nice if it had closer to the same radius as Ice Patch. Overall it's a solid power now. I do still hate the foot stomp animation, so it would be nice to get alternates. I could see the Ice Patch animation (well a faster version) working well for it.

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Frostbiter

[Nemu]

Ice Manipulation is really good now.

 

I hesitated to make one on live because it had too many skippable powers and it was also too single target focused. The change to frozen aura is HUGE. This new AoE capacity and the 3 relatively fast animating single target attacks and the powerful mitigation tools in it's toolkit makes this secondary one of the premier melee blaster secondaries once it goes live.

[Frostbiter]

3 minutes ago, Nemu said:

Ice Manipulation is really good now.

 

I hesitated to make one on live because it had too many skippable powers and it was also too single target focused. The change to frozen aura is HUGE. This new AoE capacity and the 3 relatively fast animating single target attacks and the powerful mitigation tools in it's toolkit makes this secondary one of the premier melee blaster secondaries once it goes live.

/Ice has always been fairly solid, the problem has been that it's never had any synergy paired with anything other than Ice/. Hopefully these changes will make it more popular.

[Blackbird71]

I'll say one more thing on Tac Arrow and then I'm done in this thread.  I hope that @Captain Powerhouse and any other devs are paying attention not just to the comments here, but the reactions.  Going off of reactions, the opinions here seem to be overwhelmingly on the side of the TA changes going too far.  Just as one example, my original analysis on page 6 currently has 11 likes and is climbing every day.  Maybe TA isn't what was originally intended, and maybe some of the stats were "mistakes," but please recognize what TA has become, how it is played, and what it means to people.  In the end, I would ask what were these changes intended to improve, and what do they actually improve?  For many players, it's clear that they are making the play experience significantly worse. 

[Doomrider]

13 hours ago, Neogumbercules said:

 Gun Drone

• Now has 80% resistance to all damage
• Taunt aura reduced to 8ft, mag 3, max of 4 targets
• Death explosion now has a knockup component

I would love to see Gun Drone's duration drastrically increased, or just make it a toggle power. The biggest issue for playability is having to resummon it all the time. Giving it another attack or two might be a good idea as well. A Cone or AOE perhaps?

Normally I'd agree about having to resummon it, but with a 1 second animation time every 90 seconds I don't find it too bad, but that's just me. I would take a duration increase. Let me have 3 of these guys out at once please. 🙏

[Moonlighter]

1 hour ago, Blackbird71 said:

I'll say one more thing on Tac Arrow and then I'm done in this thread.  I hope that @Captain Powerhouse and any other devs are paying attention not just to the comments here, but the reactions.  Going off of reactions, the opinions here seem to be overwhelmingly on the side of the TA changes going too far.  Just as one example, my original analysis on page 6 currently has 11 likes and is climbing every day.  Maybe TA isn't what was originally intended, and maybe some of the stats were "mistakes," but please recognize what TA has become, how it is played, and what it means to people.  In the end, I would ask what were these changes intended to improve, and what do they actually improve?  For many players, it's clear that they are making the play experience significantly worse. 

 

I don't know why the range change makes me so salty; it's just a game and I can just shelf the character and play one of my many other characters.

 

 

[zenblack]

The main problem with the TA Electrified Net Arrow change (and to a lesser degree Ice Arrow) is that it makes playing an archer a more cumbersome experience. It ruins the flow of the gameplay that was already different from most blaster secondaries where you would occasional dip into melee intentionally and worked well with primaries who didn't have a PBAOE t9 (Archery). This wasn't a slight walkback on TA's strength, this was ripping out the soul of the set. I find it funny now that you are barely 5ft Range higher with ESA than Taser Dart to light your OSA.

 

My other issue with ENA is that it requires 60% range enhancement to get it back to where it was, or 40% to get it decently ranged again. That is a huge amount. The change feels bad, plays bad, is counter to the set's direction. The change is bad. Because of the tradeoff of not having a melee ST procmonster in the set you had a greater area to work with to play, but at the cost of having a attack chain that used the T1.

 

Let me be clear. I'm not saying that ENA and Ice arrow need to regain 80ft range. I am saying that ENA needs to be given an amount of range. I think 60ft would work (matching Ice Arrow) with the +range built into the blaster ATO's and would allow anyone who wants that extra long range to be able to get it with a minimal investment as opposed to 2+ enhancements.

Edited October 27, 2020 by zenblack