I really don't like the sniper changes.

[earthaddy]

This is probably a stupid question that may have been answered a ton already, but if sets with a snipe get insta-snipe, what do sets without a snipe get?

 

I'll ask again.

[Orivon]

What if sniper powers become instant cast if you are in closer range. IRL it's easy to aim at something if you're closer to it.

 

Funny you should mention this, because over the years this was not the first attempt at making snipes more useful, and triggering fast snipe based on range was one of the first things attempted. It was also the most universally detested. Runner goes away, suddenly the snipe cast time changes without notice. Someone knocks something out of fast range, the same. To make things worse, the game has no way to base the ring highlight on target attributes, so its not possible to light up the ring to let the caster know he is close enough for a fast snipe, other than to try.

 

No different if a melee toon has something knocked out of range I think, but at least the snipe could hit them, but they would have to aim a precision hit (or if they have enough +tohit, insta snipe).

 

Thank for the reply dude! To bad we can't base it off target attributes. I think just leave sniper powers as there were in i24 with the +tohit bonus=insta. If people want something out of their build, they have to focus on it and with so many buff with IO sets and incarnates, it's easier to fill holes in builds. Plus, it seems like everyone takes the leadership pools these days.

[Mezmera]

This is probably a stupid question that may have been answered a ton already, but if sets with a snipe get insta-snipe, what do sets without a snipe get?

 

I'll ask again.

 

If you look in the latest patch notes thread in these Beta forums you'll see that in their detest of this nerf to their snipe dominators have caused the powers dev to want to give dominator secondaries a pass over to help enhance some performance peaks and valleys.  Most dominator secondaries are hopefully getting a few light brushes which has got to mean those without snipes too I would assume.  Details aren't in until they are further along but it seems the topic of your question will be getting some attention. 

[eldriyth]

What if sniper powers become instant cast if you are in closer range. IRL it's easy to aim at something if you're closer to it.

 

Funny you should mention this, because over the years this was not the first attempt at making snipes more useful, and triggering fast snipe based on range was one of the first things attempted. It was also the most universally detested. Runner goes away, suddenly the snipe cast time changes without notice. Someone knocks something out of fast range, the same. To make things worse, the game has no way to base the ring highlight on target attributes, so its not possible to light up the ring to let the caster know he is close enough for a fast snipe, other than to try.

 

Well said. As somebody who played a blaster for a good while back on live servers, snipes always used to be a pain in the ass in various situations that you had no control over. This change is rather awesome and I hope it goes live. People who are against it obviously have no idea what a brute can do right now in comparison to this AT.

[Dan Petro]

What if sniper powers become instant cast if you are in closer range. IRL it's easy to aim at something if you're closer to it.

 

Funny you should mention this, because over the years this was not the first attempt at making snipes more useful, and triggering fast snipe based on range was one of the first things attempted. It was also the most universally detested. Runner goes away, suddenly the snipe cast time changes without notice. Someone knocks something out of fast range, the same. To make things worse, the game has no way to base the ring highlight on target attributes, so its not possible to light up the ring to let the caster know he is close enough for a fast snipe, other than to try.

 

Well said. As somebody who played a blaster for a good while back on live servers, snipes always used to be a pain in the ass in various situations that you had no control over. This change is rather awesome and I hope it goes live. People who are against it obviously have no idea what a brute can do right now in comparison to this AT.

 

And scrappers with average primaries and no external buffs out here listening to people talk about how good brutes are and how OP blasters might be.

 

 

You strike Warhulk with your Eagles Claw for 1144.16 points of smashing damage!

You stun Warhulk with your Eagles Claw!

You deal Warhulk a critical blow with your Eagles Claw for an additional 1144.16 points of smashing damage!

You burn Warhulk with your Fiery Embrace for 447.71 bonus points of fire damage!

You blast Warhulk for 158.11 points of bonus negative energy damage!

You blast Warhulk for 107.44 points of bonus negative energy damage!

 

[Mezmera]

And scrappers with average primaries and no external buffs out here listening to people talk about how good brutes are and how OP blasters might be.

 

 

You strike Warhulk with your Eagles Claw for 1144.16 points of smashing damage!

You stun Warhulk with your Eagles Claw!

You deal Warhulk a critical blow with your Eagles Claw for an additional 1144.16 points of smashing damage!

You burn Warhulk with your Fiery Embrace for 447.71 bonus points of fire damage!

You blast Warhulk for 158.11 points of bonus negative energy damage!

You blast Warhulk for 107.44 points of bonus negative energy damage!

 

 

Right?  I don't want to see ANYONE get nerfed!  But this is where they feel it necessary to start?  Dom's snipes.  Really..?

 

I wouldn't call undue attention to your kind, who do you think they're coming for after this? 

[earthaddy]

This is probably a stupid question that may have been answered a ton already, but if sets with a snipe get insta-snipe, what do sets without a snipe get?

 

I'll ask again.

 

If you look in the latest patch notes thread in these Beta forums you'll see that in their detest of this nerf to their snipe dominators have caused the powers dev to want to give dominator secondaries a pass over to help enhance some performance peaks and valleys.  Most dominator secondaries are hopefully getting a few light brushes which has got to mean those without snipes too I would assume.  Details aren't in until they are further along but it seems the topic of your question will be getting some attention.

The topic of my question was "what are the primary sets that don't have a snipe in them getting?" Didn't say a word about dominators. You know, like Water Blast and Pistols. What do they get?

[arcanaville]

This is probably a stupid question that may have been answered a ton already, but if sets with a snipe get insta-snipe, what do sets without a snipe get?

 

I'll ask again.

 

If you look in the latest patch notes thread in these Beta forums you'll see that in their detest of this nerf to their snipe dominators have caused the powers dev to want to give dominator secondaries a pass over to help enhance some performance peaks and valleys.  Most dominator secondaries are hopefully getting a few light brushes which has got to mean those without snipes too I would assume.  Details aren't in until they are further along but it seems the topic of your question will be getting some attention.

The topic of my question was "what are the primary sets that don't have a snipe in them getting?" Didn't say a word about dominators. You know, like Water Blast and Pistols. What do they get?

 

I may be way out of the loop with recent events but I can say that the reason why snipes were looked at in the first place before shutdown was that the feeling was that sets with snipes contained a soft penalty in having a power that was only situationally useful but was taking up an important early spot in the ranged attack set, particularly blaster primaries.  Modifying snipes were an attempt to address this problem with snipes specifically, a problem non-snipe sets did not have.  This was essentially an attempt to address a design glitch surrounding snipes, not an attempt to buff an entire archetype that accidentally missed half the sets.

 

I may bear some small responsibility here as my focus in the game had shifted from defensive sets to offensive attack sets, in particular ways to look at and measure the damage output of various sets factoring in the reality of attack chain limitations.  Snipes kept coming up again and again as being problematic when looking at how the meta of the game had transformed into one where teams were "steamrolling" much faster than originally intended.  Also, and this would take a long time to rehash, there's the "four attack rule."  It takes four attack powers you can cycle reasonably on average for a player to not be idle a lot.  What we would call a "mostly full attack chain."  Many ranged sets couldn't get there if sniper attacks were not somehow "normalized."  Its more complicated than that, but that was a factor as I recall.

[earthaddy]

This is probably a stupid question that may have been answered a ton already, but if sets with a snipe get insta-snipe, what do sets without a snipe get?

 

I'll ask again.

 

If you look in the latest patch notes thread in these Beta forums you'll see that in their detest of this nerf to their snipe dominators have caused the powers dev to want to give dominator secondaries a pass over to help enhance some performance peaks and valleys.  Most dominator secondaries are hopefully getting a few light brushes which has got to mean those without snipes too I would assume.  Details aren't in until they are further along but it seems the topic of your question will be getting some attention.

The topic of my question was "what are the primary sets that don't have a snipe in them getting?" Didn't say a word about dominators. You know, like Water Blast and Pistols. What do they get?

 

I may be way out of the loop with recent events but I can say that the reason why snipes were looked at in the first place before shutdown was that the feeling was that sets with snipes contained a soft penalty in having a power that was only situationally useful but was taking up an important early spot in the ranged attack set, particularly blaster primaries.  Modifying snipes were an attempt to address this problem with snipes specifically, a problem non-snipe sets did not have.  This was essentially an attempt to address a design glitch surrounding snipes, not an attempt to buff an entire archetype that accidentally missed half the sets.

 

I may bear some small responsibility here as my focus in the game had shifted from defensive sets to offensive attack sets, in particular ways to look at and measure the damage output of various sets factoring in the reality of attack chain limitations.  Snipes kept coming up again and again as being problematic when looking at how the meta of the game had transformed into one where teams were "steamrolling" much faster than originally intended.  Also, and this would take a long time to rehash, there's the "four attack rule."  It takes four attack powers you can cycle reasonably on average for a player to not be idle a lot.  What we would call a "mostly full attack chain."  Many ranged sets couldn't get there if sniper attacks were not somehow "normalized."  Its more complicated than that, but that was a factor as I recall.

 

That's all well and good, but even if there was some minor disparity, suddenly making that massive damage attack instant pulls them ahead in a major way. Ain't nobody saying dual pistols was overtuned before this buff to the other sets.

[arcanaville]

This is probably a stupid question that may have been answered a ton already, but if sets with a snipe get insta-snipe, what do sets without a snipe get?

 

I'll ask again.

 

If you look in the latest patch notes thread in these Beta forums you'll see that in their detest of this nerf to their snipe dominators have caused the powers dev to want to give dominator secondaries a pass over to help enhance some performance peaks and valleys.  Most dominator secondaries are hopefully getting a few light brushes which has got to mean those without snipes too I would assume.  Details aren't in until they are further along but it seems the topic of your question will be getting some attention.

The topic of my question was "what are the primary sets that don't have a snipe in them getting?" Didn't say a word about dominators. You know, like Water Blast and Pistols. What do they get?

 

I may be way out of the loop with recent events but I can say that the reason why snipes were looked at in the first place before shutdown was that the feeling was that sets with snipes contained a soft penalty in having a power that was only situationally useful but was taking up an important early spot in the ranged attack set, particularly blaster primaries.  Modifying snipes were an attempt to address this problem with snipes specifically, a problem non-snipe sets did not have.  This was essentially an attempt to address a design glitch surrounding snipes, not an attempt to buff an entire archetype that accidentally missed half the sets.

 

I may bear some small responsibility here as my focus in the game had shifted from defensive sets to offensive attack sets, in particular ways to look at and measure the damage output of various sets factoring in the reality of attack chain limitations.  Snipes kept coming up again and again as being problematic when looking at how the meta of the game had transformed into one where teams were "steamrolling" much faster than originally intended.  Also, and this would take a long time to rehash, there's the "four attack rule."  It takes four attack powers you can cycle reasonably on average for a player to not be idle a lot.  What we would call a "mostly full attack chain."  Many ranged sets couldn't get there if sniper attacks were not somehow "normalized."  Its more complicated than that, but that was a factor as I recall.

 

That's all well and good, but even if there was some minor disparity, suddenly making that massive damage attack instant pulls them ahead in a major way. Ain't nobody saying dual pistols was overtuned before this buff to the other sets.

 

I don't have numbers handy anymore, but the preliminary analysis I did in I24 beta suggested insta-snipes would not unbalance the blaster primaries overall.  That's not to say that every set with a snipe was underperforming and every set without one was overperforming, but the net result of the changes made all blast sets closer together as a whole.  If the result after the changes created new outliers, those were intended to be addressed separately.

[Profit]

EarthAddy, I don't know if you remember Arcanaville from before, but if Arcana makes a statement about this game, the design, or the numbers, then you can trust it over anyone else, even the original devs.

 

Course, if you don't trust it then the following math that Arcana can come up will literally melt your brain where you stand.

[Widower]

EarthAddy, I don't know if you remember Arcanaville from before, but if Arcana makes a statement about this game, the design, or the numbers, then you can trust it over anyone else, even the original devs.

 

Course, if you don't trust it then the following math that Arcana can come up will literally melt your brain where you stand.

 

Doubt Arcana at your own risk. The Homecoming team takes no responsibility for any brain-melting that might occur as a result of doubting Arcana.

[arcanaville]

I don't think this is a fair characterization of my posts.  I used to melt eyes, not brains.  It is not my fault the brains were immediately behind those.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

It's ok, I've got a ward to protect me against math, my eyes don't melt but I do get gas.

 

I don't have numbers handy anymore, but the preliminary analysis I did in I24 beta suggested insta-snipes would not unbalance the blaster primaries overall.  That's not to say that every set with a snipe was underperforming and every set without one was overperforming, but the net result of the changes made all blast sets closer together as a whole.  If the result after the changes created new outliers, those were intended to be addressed separately.

If I recall correctly one set that was pointed out as possibly overpowered was Assault Rifle due to the incredibly short cast time on Sniper Rifle with the interrupt removed. I know that was fixed here by giving Sniper Rifle a more reasonable cast time even with fast snipe.

[arcanaville]

It's ok, I've got a ward to protect me against math, my eyes don't melt but I do get gas.

 

I don't have numbers handy anymore, but the preliminary analysis I did in I24 beta suggested insta-snipes would not unbalance the blaster primaries overall.  That's not to say that every set with a snipe was underperforming and every set without one was overperforming, but the net result of the changes made all blast sets closer together as a whole.  If the result after the changes created new outliers, those were intended to be addressed separately.

If I recall correctly one set that was pointed out as possibly overpowered was Assault Rifle due to the incredibly short cast time on Sniper Rifle with the interrupt removed. I know that was fixed here by giving Sniper Rifle a more reasonable cast time even with fast snipe.

 

I believe that was reported as broken in the I24 beta.  If memory serves AR had the funky snipe going back to the beginning of time, and no one wanted to mess with it because it wasn't a big deal and hardly noticeable prior to fast snipe.  I'm pretty sure the devs would have changed that before I24 went live had the shutdown not occurred.  I also think Dual Pistols, which EarthAddy mentions, was highlighted as a set to watch out for after go-live for performance.  Actually I think people were complaining about DP prior to that, but there wasn't complete consensus and we had a number of back to back to back Blaster tweaks that complicated the situation.

 

Now that I think about it, AR had another issue going into I24.  Inventions were turning AR into an AoE powerhouse, and combined with fast snipe was going to make certain high performance IO builds single target powerhouses as well.  That was something I think Blasters in general were starting to raise eyebrows on.  Memory says AR worked well in practice but looked bad in theory until "Arcanatime" analysis showed the set was much better on paper than the old numbers suggested (comparatively speaking: "Arcanatime" showed some sets like Ice were not as good as original calculations suggested).

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Now that I think about it, AR had another issue going into I24.  Inventions were turning AR into an AoE powerhouse, and combined with fast snipe was going to make certain high performance IO builds single target powerhouses as well.  That was something I think Blasters in general were starting to raise eyebrows on.  Memory says AR worked well in practice but looked bad in theory until "Arcanatime" analysis showed the set was much better on paper than the old numbers suggested (comparatively speaking: "Arcanatime" showed some sets like Ice were not as good as original calculations suggested).

I don't know how the numbers work out but I think you're correct (not that I'm complaining). A high recharge build always gave AR a lot of AoE damage, and adding the Alpha Slot made it even better since Cardiac or Intuition let you boost the range of the secondary cones. Fast snipe definitely pulled up the single target damage as well, back on live I was using buckshot to fill out my attack chain whereas now I can go Sniper Rifle > Burst > Slug > Burst

[Captain Powerhouse]

If memory serves AR had the funky snipe going back to the beginning of time, and no one wanted to mess with it because it wasn't a big deal and hardly noticeable prior to fast snipe.  I'm pretty sure the devs would have changed that before I24 went live had the shutdown not occurred.

 

They actually did. AR snipe animation has not been touched since shutdown. They never got around to changing the Cast Time in the power definition, but the actual animation was rooting for 1.67 seconds during that final week of i24 beta, before all servers got killed.

[CR Banana Man]

If memory serves AR had the funky snipe going back to the beginning of time, and no one wanted to mess with it because it wasn't a big deal and hardly noticeable prior to fast snipe.  I'm pretty sure the devs would have changed that before I24 went live had the shutdown not occurred.

 

They actually did. AR snipe animation has not been touched since shutdown. They never got around to changing the Cast Time in the power definition, but the actual animation was rooting for 1.67 seconds during that final week of i24 beta, before all servers got killed.

 

Confirmed. I made an ar/elec thinking it would be 0.67 and stripped it as soon as I realized it wasn't :(

 

 

[Arcadio]

Is there a reason the to-hit damage scaling can't just go all the way back to the original damage scale? Speaking as a dominator enthusiast, it is notably difficult to get that high to-hit permanently. And for builds which can make that happen, to be rewarded with a 2.76 damage scale power instead of a 3.56, it feels like a slap in the face. Dominators need something to build towards besides perma-dom which, since it no longer adds damage, just doesn't interact with most of the secondaries.

[Dan Petro]

Is there a reason the to-hit damage scaling can't just go all the way back to the original damage scale? Speaking as a dominator enthusiast, it is notably difficult to get that high to-hit permanently. And for builds which can make that happen, to be rewarded with a 2.76 damage scale power instead of a 3.56, it feels like a slap in the face. Dominators need something to build towards besides perma-dom which, since it no longer adds damage, just doesn't interact with most of the secondaries.

 

As a balancing rule of thumb, damage is generally tied to the recharge time of a power.  More recharge = more damage.  This isn't universally true as some powers like Will Domination from psy blast and Abyssal Gaze from Dark do much less than you'd expect, but generally that is how damage is determined. 

 

@12 second recharge a power should be doing 2.28 scale damage. (which is what fast snipes do on test atm).  Their special to hit mechanic is allowing them to break this rule and do up to 2.76. 

 

If you were to increase the recharge of the power to 15, 16, 18 or 20 seconds you could get closer and closer back to that scale 3.56 damage (with to hit bonus).  But I believe one of the people working on powers said that a QoL pass on dominator secondaries is something being looked at.  So these snipe changes may be an incomplete change to a larger picture where dom's lose some strength in one power, but gain a better overall secondary in the process.

[Tater Todd]

OMG, OMG, OMG Arcana is back!  AHHHHH.  This just made my whole MONTH!

 

*AHEM* I MEAN! Oh cool, good to see you Arcana.

 

If memory serves AR had the funky snipe going back to the beginning of time, and no one wanted to mess with it because it wasn't a big deal and hardly noticeable prior to fast snipe.  I'm pretty sure the devs would have changed that before I24 went live had the shutdown not occurred.

 

They actually did. AR snipe animation has not been touched since shutdown. They never got around to changing the Cast Time in the power definition, but the actual animation was rooting for 1.67 seconds during that final week of i24 beta, before all servers got killed.

 

I was going to post this.  I have an AR/Dev toon with insta Snipe and it fires off like any other Snipe. This was one of the first thing I tested when I first joined the Homecoming Servers.

[Novacat]

There's the recharge to damage part but I've always wondered; what about the cast time component? Was that ever included for damage calculations in any fashion?

 

Because say you have something that takes 3 seconds to fire off, that's a very different DPA an DPS from a 1.32s power. If both are the same, that 3s one better be worth it!

[csr]

There's the recharge to damage part but I've always wondered; what about the cast time component? Was that ever included for damage calculations in any fashion?

 

For PvP yes, PvE no.

[Dan Petro]

There's the recharge to damage part but I've always wondered; what about the cast time component? Was that ever included for damage calculations in any fashion?

 

Because say you have something that takes 3 seconds to fire off, that's a very different DPA an DPS from a 1.32s power. If both are the same, that 3s one better be worth it!

 

Like what was said, for PvE no never.  For PvP post i13 changes the devs did start to look at animation times as a balancing factor for power damage.

 

Most recently they balanced proc rates around cycle time (recharge + cast time).  So they were moving in the right direction at least.  But you still have powers like blaze doing 132.6 base damage with a 1 second cast or Cosmic burst doing 132.6 dmg with a 2.07 cast or Shout doing the same 132.6 with a 2.67 cast. 

[Super Homer]

Like it has been said.

 

For the later part of the game's life, though, devs were aware of the DPS issue, and simply did their best to match up slow animations with higher recharge powers so the DPS was smoother, while also making sure no set ever sat there just waiting for attacks to recharge.