Are alternate powers within powersets possible?

[MTeague]

1 hour ago, DougGraves said:

 

I don't think there should be individual power choices.  I think there should be themed choices like in SoA Crab vs the weaker SoA.

 

I would like to see Defender primaries having two sets - team and solo.  You cannot mix and match.  So you are just balancing the sets.  But it would allow a defender to have a teaming build and a solo build.  You could make a FF defender and be able to solo.

 

Given that we can switch between builds for characters, that seems perfectly reasonable to me. 

My only quibble is the obligatory "FF Defenders can solo right fine!" and the obligatory mention of people doing TF's on solo Empaths, etc. 

 

But choices are good, and I'll take as many as I can get. I like the idea of a "solo path" and a "team path" for misc support sets as that no doubt would make things significantly easier to balance than letting players swap out individual powers on a pick-and-choose basis.  Not every support set would need it.  Poison does right fine solo, as does Trick Arrow.  Still. Anything the devs feel like a) it's a direction they want to go in, and b) they feel they can do a professional job on, I'll roll with. 

 

Another vote for the virtues of Creative Power Re-coloring, too.  I have a Dark / Rad where I wanted inky darkness for the dark blast, not feathery-nethery.  So Rad blasts colored Pitch Black, with a secondary color only a shade or two more blue than black.  Worked quite well.  True, it has no to-hit debuff, but can't have everything.

[Snarky]

7 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

 

Wow, if you're going to be a giant jerk, at least be correct.  Electric blast's nuke has a higher base recharge than the PbAoE nukes (170s vs 145s). 

 

They specifically balanced the ranged nuke's higher safety with a longer recharge, completely intentionally.  

 

Grow up and apologize.  

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.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Snarky

[Snarky]

7 hours ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Sounds like a personal hangup to me. I don't like how Stone Armor is designed, so I used Dark Armor instead and colored the particles to look like sand floating around. I don't care that the set itself is designed to be good against Dark and Psy damage and not Smash/Lethal (with a side of Psy) like Stone because it's the power animations and colors that fill the concept. Requiring that your "dark magic" must also debuff ToHit is a very stringent requirement, even for me, someone who only builds concept characters. You're just restricting yourself unnecessarily to the point of stubbornness.

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.

[MTeague]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

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.

+1 for Monk reference.

also, I thought Get Smart was KAOS agents. But I'll hear what the Chief has to say (under the Cone of Silence, of course...)

 

Water Blast, I've seen several with it colored dull red for a Blood Mage approach if that works for you.  Someone earlier mentioned other coloring for Water Blast / Time Manip to make the water look more like Temporal Distorions.  (which i supposed makes Hydro Blast, for them, a Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey.... Ball.)

 

But I can totally respect the OCD.  It owns me in other arenas, if not CoH.

[ForeverLaxx]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

Oh, it definitely is.

At least you recognize that it's your own extremely narrow view and unwillingness to ignore aspects that don't functionally matter and aren't lobbying to change the sets into something you wished they were.

 

That said, it's very unlikely you're going to get "alternative" power choices for certain sets simply because that would double, triple, or maybe even quadruple the workload to balance those sets. Some ATs already have different versions of sets that other ATs get and due to that need their own specific tuning. Letting you choose a ranged nuke over a PBAoE one would have different values for everything and would have to be balanced not only to the original set's powers but to the rest of the potential alternative choices available. If you allowed 3 or 4 "variations" of a power to exist, you've essentially made a new powerset for every branching choice, increasing the number of, say, Energy Blast sets from 2 (Sentinel is different than standard) to 2^x+1 , where x = however many side picks get added. That's just nuts.

 

The reason this works for VEATs is because that initial "version" choice completely locks out the other tree and the set becomes its own self-contained and balanceable collection of powers. I'm sure it's not surprising that the "Huntsman" choices that precede it are all very basic, non-offensive and non-complicated damage powers. If they had been anything else, it would throw wrenches into the split tree design that didn't need to exist.

Edited March 17, 2021 by ForeverLaxx
grammar

[Snarky]

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

[ForeverLaxx]

10 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Maybe some are 17% longer recharge than others.  only difference. 

Elec Blast deals less damage overall, Archery has a commonly resisted type on top of a nuke that doesn't always deal its full damage to a spawn due to how it works, AR also is commonly resisted and its nuke is an annoyingly-narrow cone, and all of these sets were built that way seemingly intentionally. A ranged nuke was part of their kit and part of the overall set's balance. So ostensibly, you'd have to do balance tweaks to the entire set and any other "power exchanges" you want to make to prevent one version of Energy Blast (in this example) from being far and above some other version of Energy Blast within the same AT.

 

It's really not a simple case of "add range, add recharge, done and done" like you seem to believe it would be.

[Snarky]

11 hours ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Elec Blast deals less damage overall, Archery has a commonly resisted type on top of a nuke that doesn't always deal its full damage to a spawn due to how it works, AR also is commonly resisted and its nuke is an annoyingly-narrow cone, and all of these sets were built that way seemingly intentionally. A ranged nuke was part of their kit and part of the overall set's balance. So ostensibly, you'd have to do balance tweaks to the entire set and any other "power exchanges" you want to make to prevent one version of Energy Blast (in this example) from being far and above some other version of Energy Blast within the same AT.

 

It's really not a simple case of "add range, add recharge, done and done" like you seem to believe it would be.

 

 

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!

Edited March 17, 2021 by Snarky

[Ukase]

On 3/15/2021 at 8:03 PM, Snarky said:

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

I agree with Snarky on this point. 

Ice blast has Blizzard, a targeted AoE psuedo pet, which is simply fantastic. Whereas, Energy, Fire, and a number of other poor blaster secondaries are forced to run into a mob and go nuclear, increasing risk of stun/mez, etc. 

While it's true that blasters have been adjusted here on HC for the better, (Higher HP than live, improved regen/recovery toggle auras, insta-snipes in combat, etc), an option to do things purely at range is certainly not unreasonable. 

That said, whether it's something we want the devs to look into, as opposed to other issues, I can't really say. 

[ForeverLaxx]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

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.

Probably because I've been talking about the full set's balance, not just the T9 in a vacuum. You seem to continuously miss this point because you just want a ranged T9.

 

54 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Ice blast has Blizzard

As it's only good AoE option. Frost Breath and Ice Storm are just not great options by themselves, especially when you consider how strong Ice's single target game is.

[Snarky]

6 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

Probably because I've been talking about the full set's balance, not just the T9 in a vacuum. You seem to continuously miss this point because you just want a ranged T9.

 

As it's only good AoE option. Frost Breath and Ice Storm are just not great options by themselves, especially when you consider how strong Ice's single target game is.

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?

[Apparition]

23 minutes ago, Snarky said:

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?

The character creator has been out of date for a while.

 

That said, have you looked at Water Blast?  Entirely ranged, lots of AoE.

[Snarky]

On 3/15/2021 at 3:01 PM, gamingglen said:

I don't get this.  You can blast them in the face when they are next to you.  I play blasters a lot.  Rarely do I use a melee power, unless I take the Martial Combat secondary set.  I have used melee powers from other secondary sets once in awhile, but it's even rarer I add a second slot to any of them. 

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.

[Snarky]

Just now, Apparition said:

The character creator has been out of date for a while.

 

That said, have you looked at Water Blast?  Entirely ranged, lots of AoE.

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)

[ForeverLaxx]

20 minutes ago, Snarky said:

No.  You misread what I wanted.

No, I didn't. All I did was point out that every "side power option" you want is going to mean additional balance requirements for the team to account for so that Radiation Blast with a "ranged" Irradiate doesn't outperform Radiation Blast with its standard Irradiate. If you wanted to swap any other powers, this just grows for every single pick combination available until you end up with 17 different combinations of Radiation Blast. You don't want to think about that because you don't personally care about the inter-set balance as long as you get your precious "fully ranged" set.

 

24 minutes ago, Snarky said:

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?

As a point of order, the game puts 8 ATs under the "ranged damage" umbrella when you select that option to narrow down AT selection. The blurb in the Blaster selection window only says that they are an "offensive juggernaut" that can deal a bunch of damage at range but can't stay in melee for very long since they're pure offense. The other ATs they list in that category, with the exception of Defenders, Sentinels, and Corruptors, also have melee attacks they can choose (and even some of those blast sets have PBAoE damage powers themselves).

 

This is circling back to your original problem, which is that you're overly restrictive and narrowminded; unwilling to even slightly bend a character's design to accommodate the powersets as they exist in the game. Instead, you want the game to change to suit you, and that's not really a likely scenario.

[Eldyem]

 

4 hours ago, Snarky said:

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.

Atomic Blast (the Radiation Blast T9) is a PBAoE.
 

 

23 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

As it's only good AoE option. Frost Breath and Ice Storm are just not great options by themselves, especially when you consider how strong Ice's single target game is.

Ice's single target hasn't been specifically notable since the snipe buffs (procs aside) as far as I'm aware. Blizzard is the set stand-out, I do not think this was a balancing decision, I think it is just the natural end result of power creep.

 

I will say that while I do not think more power creep is a good thing for the game, I am also willing to say that I'm not sure it'd be bad for the game. I do, however, think alternate choices are a can of worms that the current devs are right to reject, because there's no world where it doesn't immediately devolve into constant begging for very specific RP-oriented powers. It's a lot of dev resources for a small handful of people per individual power, and a massive undertaking to appease only a portion of those people.

[ForeverLaxx]

1 minute ago, Eldyem said:

Ice's single target hasn't been specifically notable since the snipe buffs

I disagree, but even if we take that stance all it really shows is that Ice was initially balanced around the fact it had no real Snipe, and now that other sets get to use their Snipe as a standard attack while in combat, perhaps it's time to revisit Ice for some upward adjustments of its own.

 

Considering it's relative dominance in PvP though compared to other Blast sets, I don't actually see this happening.

[Snarky]

20 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

This is circling back to your original problem, which is that you're overly restrictive and narrowminded; unwilling to even slightly bend a character's design to accommodate the powersets as they exist in the game. Instead, you want the game to change to suit you, and that's not really a likely scenario.

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.  

[arcane]

38 minutes ago, Snarky said:

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.  

You are also free to just skip all melee range powers since you dislike them, power thrust and ki push aside.

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, arcane said:

You are also free to just skip all melee range powers since you dislike them, power thrust and ki push aside.

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

[Jaguaratron]

On 3/16/2021 at 11:13 AM, Faultline said:

It is certainly possible and there is at least one example in the game, Practiced Brawler vs. Master Brawler on Sentinels. I believe there was pushback on the idea because if you start doing that for a lot of powers it becomes a balance nightmare and looks clunky, so it wasn't even ported to other versions of Super Reflexes.

 

Please port to other version of SR, its so clunky to put away weapons to activate mez clicky....

[siolfir]

On 3/17/2021 at 1:11 PM, Snarky said:

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

 

As mentioned earlier some of the power customization options for water blast allow a variety of fluids (blood, oil, someone had beer, etc) and the hand motions and particle effects could represent more than just gathering and throwing water. The damage types are pretty generic, too (smashing, cold, and fire).

 

In addition Energy Manipulation is probably the closest to a pure ranged Blaster secondary since you can ignore Power Thrust and take Build Up, Energize, Power Boost, and Boost Range and then skip the rest of the secondary while still getting good sustain and utility powers. And if something is getting close... well, you had to take Power Thrust anyway, may as well use it.

 

If nothing else, mess with a WB/EM Blaster in the character creator and see if you can get something you like?

[Grouchybeast]

On 3/18/2021 at 7:22 PM, siolfir said:

 

As mentioned earlier some of the power customization options for water blast allow a variety of fluids (blood, oil, someone had beer, etc) and the hand motions and particle effects could represent more than just gathering and throwing water. The damage types are pretty generic, too (smashing, cold, and fire).

 

Water Blast is so easy to recolour that I keep being tempted to use it whenever it's available for a new character, even though I usually try to avoid repeating powersets.  I already have a cow-themed character with Milk Blast, and a clockwork waitress character with Cocktail Blast.