Blaster Abyssal Gaze recharge/damage off?

[Uun]

I know there's a formula to balance recharge and endurance vs. damage. Something seems amiss in the blaster version of Abyssal Gaze. See comparison below to similar blaster powers (high damage w/ mezz), as well as the sentinel version of the same power. Whether or not the blaster version of AG should do more damage, the 20 second recharge seems way off relative to the damage it does.

 

 

[arcane]

If anything, I’d rather it get more damage than have a lower recharge. Hands off my precious perfect proc rates 🙂 Not sure it’s hurting for either, but, if you insist something must be done.

Edited September 29, 2021 by arcane

[Uun]

10 minutes ago, arcane said:

If anything, I’d rather it get more damage than have a lower recharge. Hands off my precious perfect proc rates 🙂 Not sure it’s hurting for either, but, if you insist something must be done.

I would be fine with more damage at the same recharge. I'm not insisting something must be done, it just seemed like somebody fudged a calculation. 

[Replacement]

That's actually intentional on Blaster and you just hit the perfect conflux of exceptions to rules. Buckle in!

 

Most attacks designed as "mez first, damage is the secondary benefit" perform under scale (intentionally low damage), such as Control and Support set attacks. 

But we have a veritable army of exceptions:

 

1) You would be seeing this same low damage on the Corruptor and Defender versions... Except those versions of the set don't get Abyssal Gaze at all!

 

2) Sentinels. One MAJOR change in every Sentinel version of a blast set is their ST mez power is given a low cooldown (8ish seconds usually) and full damage scale, so it functions as DPS and mez at the same time.  

Example: Archery> Stunning Shot.

Blaster: 15 damage/ 20 seconds

Sentinel: 86 damage/8 seconds

 

3) Ice is weird.  Ice was given 1 full scale damage mez hold, and 1 extremely fast recharging hold. All in the name of no snipe and just-ok aoe I suppose.

I still think this was a mistake and is a large part of why Controllers are so rare.

 

4) and 5) There have been times when underperformers had these types of powers buffed to full damage (Martial Arts) and there have been high-tier attacks given full rider mez as part of their appeal (Bitter Freeze Ray, Total Focus), especially slow-activating attacks. 

I'm pretty sure Radiation Blast falls into the former category but could be wrong here. 

 

Did I miss anything? Yep, 6) Beam Rifle was p2w.

I hate to be that blunt, but it was designed with obvious advantages over other sets, including full-scale mez from day 1.

 

So there you have it: a lot of people disagree with intentionally kneecapping these powers, and it's worth having the conversation on if this "rule" has been violated enough to just die quietly, but it is known and intended.

 

Full list of blast sets using this rule as of this writing:  dark, dual pistols, archery, sonic, energy, AR, electrical, and psi.

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

Full list of blast sets using this rule as of this writing:  dark, dual pistols, archery, sonic, energy, AR, electrical, and psi.

Archery, Energy and Psychic all have high damage (~133 dmg) ST attacks in addition to snipes. Dual Pistols gets a high damage ST attack plus a high damage narrow cone. People generally skip the low damage mezz in all these sets unless they slot them as proc bombs.

 

AR doesn't get a high damage ST attack in addition to its snipe but gets 4 cones/AoEs. Electric doesn't get a high damage ST attack in addition to its snipe but gets Short Circuit and Voltaic Sentinel (and is widely considered to underperform as a blaster primary). Sonic gets a high damage ST attack but no snipe and 3 low/moderate damage cones (and is also considered to underperform). Again, people generally skip the low damage mezz in all these sets unless they slot them as proc bombs.

 

Dark doesn't have a high damage ST attack in addition to its snipe, but gets two 88-102 damage ST attacks with secondary effects (hold and heal), both of which do less damage than the T2 attack. The mezz doesn't fall into the skippable low damage category (although I suppose it could be slotted as a proc bomb).

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, Uun said:

Archery, Energy and Psychic all have high damage (~133 dmg) ST attacks in addition to snipes. Dual Pistols gets a high damage ST attack plus a high damage narrow cone. People generally skip the low damage mezz in all these sets unless they slot them as proc bombs.

 

AR doesn't get a high damage ST attack in addition to its snipe but gets 4 cones/AoEs. Electric doesn't get a high damage ST attack in addition to its snipe but gets Short Circuit and Voltaic Sentinel (and is widely considered to underperform as a blaster primary). Sonic gets a high damage ST attack but no snipe and 3 low/moderate damage cones (and is also considered to underperform). Again, people generally skip the low damage mezz in all these sets unless they slot them as proc bombs.

 

Dark doesn't have a high damage ST attack in addition to its snipe, but gets two 88-102 damage ST attacks with secondary effects (hold and heal), both of which do less damage than the T2 attack. The mezz doesn't fall into the skippable low damage category (although I suppose it could be slotted as a proc bomb).

Yeah, that would be "the conversation." These things you're saying are all reasons to add it to the "exclusion" list with your other examples. But that is Suggestion territory.  The current damage/recharge is not a bug. Though I realize that's basically me asserting all of this without documentation, so my apologies on that front.

 

However, I think the Sentinel damage is wrong.  Comparing to the other similar mez attacks available to Sentinel, Abyssal Gaze deals lower damage with a higher recharge. So that's interesting.