Blaster Epic Pool Balance Passes

[AustinSmith]

Well, this forum post was originally gonna just be focused around suggestions for buffing Munitions Mastery, one of the more unique epic pools in concept with crap execution/power level, but while I was crunching numbers across sets for comparison, it really struck me how there are a few Blaster pools that are...major outliers in power level. So I figured why not devote the time with all my number crunching to go over how each of the sets compare, and suggestions on which ones most need looking at.

 

Section One: Armors

The purpose of an epic pool is to give archetypes access to powers and abilities usually reserved for other archetypes, to help shore up weaknesses in a given archetype. For blasters, clearly that hole is survivability. Given that most of the epic pools are evaluated for their armor variant, and EVERY blaster epic/patron has an armor variant, this is the section I'll be diving into the most.

 

Out of the nine epic pools blasters get, 7 are resistance-based, and 2 are defense-based.

 

Let's breakdown the Resistance-based toggles first, based on their baseline (unenhanced) values:

 

Resistance Armors

Body Armor	8.75% Smashing/Lethal		auto	Pickable at T1
Charged Armor (Electrical)	19.25% Smashing/Lethal	19.25% Energy	0.33 end/s	Pickable at T2
Charged Armor (Mu)	19.25% Smashing/Lethal	19.25% Energy	0.33 end/s	Pickable at T1
Dark Embrace	19.25% Smashing/Lethal	10.5% Negative/Toxic	0.33 end/s	Pickable at T1
Fire Shield	19.25% Smashing/Lethal	14% Fire 7% Cold	0.33 end/s	Pickable at T2
Shark Skin	19.25% Smashing/Lethal	19.25% Cold	0.33 end/s	Pickable at T2
Temp Invulnerability	21% Smashing/Lethal		0.33 end/s	Pickable at T2

 

All armors provide smashing/lethal protection, all except Body Armor have an endurance cost of 0.33/s, some are first pickable in the pool, some require having another power taken before being able to take the armor toggle, some provide additional protection bonuses. Here's how I'd rate them one-by-one:

 

Body Armor - F Tier

This one just plain sucks. Other than costing zero endurance, it offers nothing that other other toggles can't provide, but better. It's got less than half the resistance EVERY. OTHER. ARMOR. PROVIDES.

 

Charged Armor (Electrical Mastery ver) - B Tier

This one I feel is the baseline solid toggle all the others can be balanced around. It provides standard smashing/lethal resistance, and additional strong resistance in next most common damage type after smashing/lethal. It requires a power pick before being able to pick up, but that's the opportunity cost for taking an objectively more premium toggle.

 

Charged Armor (Mu Mastery ver) - S Tier

Hold up, you say. This is exactly the same stats wise as the Electrical Mastery version. Same resistance values, same endurance cost. Why does this deserve to be S Tier?

 

It's strictly better for the factor of opportunity cost. Electrical requires an entire power slot investment before being able to take the armor. Mu lets you take it RIGHT OFF THE BAT. It's got all three premium damage type resistances, and zero opportunity cost. Not only is Mu Charged better than Electrical Charged, it's the single best resistance toggle of all the epic pools due to its types. For tight endgame builds that value every power pick, not being forced to take another slot in the pool before taking the best toggle is HUGE.

 

Dark Embrace - A Tier

This one is definitely an above average toggle. It includes exotic damage resistances to not one but two additional damage types, including Toxic, which is exceptional due to the fact that damage type doesn't have a typed defense. Another reason is this is another freebie first pick that doesn't require another power pick to acquire.

 

Fire Shield - B Tier

Average resistance toggle overall. Needs a power pick in order to be available. Offers additional moderate resistances to two uncommon damage types, which is almost as good as having solid resistance one more common damage type. Not great, not bad.

 

Shark Skin - C Tier

Kind of a below average toggle. Unlike all other patron armors, needs a power pick to be able to actually access it, which is a point against it. The reason I brought this down a notch is because cold is a rather uncommon damage type, so unless the PVP meta is all Ice blasters, the secondary resistance isn't going to come up very often.

 

Temp Invulnerability - D Tier

This is the other toggle that is rather badly another pile of suck. It does have an opportunity cost of a prerequisite power pick, so that makes it worse than a couple other options. The actual upside is an additional 1.75% smashing/lethal resistance against the...19.2% energy resistance of Charged, 10.5% neg/toxic of Dark...yeah that is not nearly enough of an upside to justify a lack of additional damage type.

 

Proposed Changes:

- Change Body Armor to be an equivalent of High Pain Tolerance from Willpower instead of Resist Physical Damage from Invulnerability with the following stats:

7.5% Resistance to All Damage Types

20% Maximum HP

This allows Body Armor to keep its identity of the "enduranceless armor" while also allowing it to differentiate itself from the other armor types. It's probably still not the ideal armor choice for min/maxed builds, but this gives it what it needs to be a fun, thematic armor.

 

- Buff Temp Invulnerability in any of the following three ways: Make it available at level 35 / Boost Smashing/Lethal Resistance / Replace with Mind Over Body from Willpower

Suggested new buffed resistance would be 26.75% Smashing/Lethal Resistance. This is equivalent to the baseline epic resistance (19.25%) plus the value from Resist Physical Damage from Invulnerability (7.5% for Scrapper/Brutes). This would make it an exceptionally strong toggle for those two damage types, but since it needs an additional power pick before being able to be selected, and lack of any other damage type protection, I feel balances it out.

The other option would be to rename the power Mind Over Body, bring back the Smashing/Lethal to the normal 19.25%, and add a new stat of 19.25% Psionic Resistance. My concern with this change is whether Mind Over Body thematically translates to "Force Mastery".

 

- Not a proposed change, but the fact that if choosing a set solely for its armor, Electrical Mastery is completed deprecated by Mu Mastery, it's worth evaluating the rest of the set to make sure Electrical offers some things Mu does not (spoilers, it doesn't, multiple powers in Electrical are strictly worse than its Mu counterparts).

 

And now, defensive toggles evaluation:

 

Defense Armors

Frozen Armor	10.5% Smashing/Lethal	21% Cold Res 7% Fire Res	0.33 end/s	Pickable at T2
Scorpion Shield	10.5% Smashing/Lethal	7% Energy Def 12.25% Toxic Res	0.33 end/s	Pickable at T1

 

Frozen Armor - C Tier

This is pretty comparable to Shark Skin from the Resistance toggles. Baseline defense in smashing/lethal (which isn't saying much, given there's only 2 defensive toggles), and additional resistance in some uncommon damage types. Kind of a below average choice given it requires a power pick before it can be taken, and Scorpion Shield...well, exists.

 

Scorpion Shield - S Tier

If Mu Mastery Charged is the nut pick of Resistance armors, Scorpion Shield is...well it blows Frozen Armor out of the water, and is honestly one of the best defensive toggles in the game, really. There's no prerequisites to picking up this power, it's takeable from the get-go. The secondary effects are the two best I can ask for; Energy being an extremely common damage type, and Toxic resistance gives resistance protection to the one damage type that doesn't have a typed defense. This toggle might actually look overpowered if there was more to compare it to among epic pools, but since it kind of stands alone, it's just allowed to be good, I guess.

 

No suggestions for defensive toggles, really.

 

**Will update post with additional comparisons, perhaps with less detail**

Edited November 18, 2020 by AustinSmith
Added defense toggle evaluation

[Lockpick]

All good points.

 

/signed

[Razor Cure]

The Defensive toggles are BOTH undervalued in your summary I think. Well ok, Frozen Armour (now I reread qwhat you said). The amazing thing about Frozen Armour (and the utterly unfair thing) is that you can slot Resist IOs...meaning if you are building for Def (ranged def, a blasters best friend), those 2 +def IOs go in.

Scorpion Shield can NOT (because of course it cant..it was a redisde only power) do that.

Ice Epic also has some other great powers for blasters (a big heal, a aoe slow and a Cant Kill me power). I know you are talking just about the armours, but I think the rest of the power pool should come into it. Mace really offers little besides ScorpShield.

[Rathulfr]

I've used Body Armor to mule unique/global IOs like Steadfast Protection, Glad Armor, Aegis, etc.

 

[AustinSmith]

15 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

The Defensive toggles are BOTH undervalued in your summary I think. Well ok, Frozen Armour (now I reread qwhat you said). The amazing thing about Frozen Armour (and the utterly unfair thing) is that you can slot Resist IOs...meaning if you are building for Def (ranged def, a blasters best friend), those 2 +def IOs go in.

Being able to slot resist procs does give it some nice utility, which probably would raise it to a B Tier. The point of the tiers isn’t necessarily to classify the armors exactly, it’s more to figure out what’s underpowered and needs buffing, and which are above the curve.

 

I will say, if you’re building for Ranged Defense, Frozen/Scorpion don’t help very much since they boost typed defenses. Can just put the procs in Tough (or a resist armor), and shoot for Ranged Def through IOs.

15 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Ice Epic also has some other great powers for blasters (a big heal, a aoe slow and a Cant Kill me power). I know you are talking just about the armours, but I think the rest of the power pool should come into it. Mace really offers little besides ScorpShield.

I’ll be expanding my evaluation of the pools in additional posts, probably over the weekend when I have time. Short answer is I believe Ice can be buffed a few ways, especially with cripplingly long recharge time of Hoarfrost, and Snow Storm/Flash Freeze being underwhelming debuff/soft control compared to some other sets.

 

Mace does get Summon Spiderlings in the T2 which is kinda unique among the epic pools.

[AxerJ]

One suggestion for Scorpion Armor is allow an even more minimal FX option, please!

[tidge]

My Blaster is using the Force Mastery set as IO Mules. I think it is the only Blaster (Epic) pool that lets you slot both a single Defense and Resistance piece without having to invest slots in a power that can take both types. It also has a second Resistance toggle if you want it. When it came to the selection of Epic power choices and the possible allocation of slots in those Epic power pools choices, I had room for 3 powers and only 6 extra slots. 5 of the slots went to a 6-piece set bonus and the last went to a Global IO choice.

 

My play experience: With consideration to slotting: Generally, I haven't found the need to run my Dark/Time/Force Blaster with Resistance toggles on either via the Fighting or Epic Pool. I suppose I had them on during a successful 3-man Master of the Imperious Task Force run, but I think it was playstyle more than resistance that made the difference in success.

[Vanden]

Blaster Temp Invul might seem on the weak side, given its S/L resists aren't much higher than the S/L resists given by armors that also resist a third type, but don't forget that it can be stacked with Force of Nature from the same epic.

[Epoch Paradox]

I'd also like to see more epic options. The thing that seems the strangest to me is Electrical Mastery for example. The first two options for a primarily ranged AT being a cone and a ranged hold - 2 common powers already in many blaster sets. Leviathan Mastery is similar with another cone option. Electric Mastery seems to insist you go over to Mu Mastery with it's taoe immobile option but it also has a skippable cone. Body Armor seems like a huge increase in lethal damage and a small bump to smashing resist would make more sense.

As the purpose for epic/patron pools is to fill gaps, Ice Mastery and Power Mastery seem to be two of the most well done to suit the intended purpose.

Just my 2inf for the moment.