Low DPS blasters

[nihilii]

On 11/7/2021 at 9:01 PM, Maelwys said:

My point in the last post was not that Fire Blast is bad.
It was that Fire Blast is only THAT far ahead of the rest of the pack whenever you're (i) soloing and (ii) restricted to only using SO enhancements.

 

Your point is clear, but your argument is incorrect. If anything, Fire Blast pulls further ahead the more IOs and incarnates you use.

 

Fast animation high damage attacks benefit more from recharge slotting, because the ceiling for the maximum amount of recharge you can add to improve your attack chain is higher. Likewise, being able to afford the endurance consumption of chaining high DPA stuff cranks up the practical damage you dish out.

 

The supremacy of Fire Blast is so uncontested, it is the top powerset even on Defenders. Defenders, with their absurdly low base damage mod; who therefore benefit most from procs (which are lacking on Fire, and more prevalent on many other blast sets).

 

On Blasters? It's not even close. At the high end, you have Fire Blasters and then you have everything else.

There are edge cases, but handwaving ill-defined team content in new difficulty settings cannot save other Blasters. You can make any primary impressive compared to some unoptimised player average, but a Fire Blaster with the same level of optimization will outperform that first Blaster.

 

For all the OP's argument might come from the wrong place, there's definitely a balance problem with Blasters - with Fire Blast specifically. Look to the Sentinel rework for a successful rebalancing. With much tamer and normalized DoTs (and boosts to other powersets lacking T3s), Fire Blast is still a highly desirable choice but not the uncontested #1.

Blaster Fire Blast is the prenerf Titan Weapons of ranged ATs.

[DarknessEternal]

Everything @nihilii said is exactly correct and why Fire Blast needs to be nerfed.

[Maelwys]

14 hours ago, nihilii said:

Your point is clear, but your argument is incorrect. If anything, Fire Blast pulls further ahead the more IOs and incarnates you use.

Fast animation high damage attacks benefit more from recharge slotting, because

I'm very tempted to respond here with several pages worth of PPM math and a link to a spreadsheet.

Instead, I'll merely point out that +recharge is NOT the be-all-and-end-all of IO slotting; and that my argument earlier was not that other Blaster powersets > Fire; but that their performance isn't as far ahead of the rest of the pack in the actual game as they are in FUBARczar's chart screenshot.

My reasoning for this is:

(i) Compared to some other powersets, Fire Blast gains a lower damage multiplication effect from heavy investment into IOs (e.g. its attacks cannot take the same sheer amount of multiple damage procs compared to Ice or Dark) and to a lesser extent from Incarnates (For example: their optimal attack chain Blaze->BlazingBolt->Fireball wants +400% recharge. Taking Spiritual or Agility Alpha rather than Musculature Alpha will go a large way to getting there; at the cost of raw +damage).

(ii) Fire's DoTs are difficult to leverage on teams because often things end up dying before the DoT ends. (This is a similar effect to "overkilling" or "corpse blasting", but it's much more difficult to compensate for/work around).
 

Quote

The supremacy of Fire Blast is so uncontested, it is the top powerset even on Defenders. 

Only in a vacuum. 

For example: @oedipus_tex pointed out earlier that Sonics -res debuff is substantially higher on the Defender AT than on Blasters. 

If we're talking solo raw damage over time against a target that you can't kill in less than a few seconds, then naturally Fire Blast will have an advantage. It's the no-nonsense DPS powerset. But it's not the most team friendly powerset; and its ST attacks take only one damage proc outside of uniques: Gladiator's Javelin.

 

2 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

Everything @nihilii said is exactly correct and why Fire Blast needs to be nerfed.

Assuming this post isn't lacking its [sarcasm] tags, I'm not railing against Fire Blasters - I played one on Live for years.
Their damage output and power selection is actually pretty well balanced compared to the others.
What isn't well balanced (and has NEVER been) is animation time.
If the HC team did a balance pass over the various ranged powersets to address animation time...? (Even if it was not to actually adjust the lengths, but to make them interruptable by a subsequent power activation after a certain duration; like what happens with redraw!) Well, I could definitely get behind that.
 

Edited November 13, 2021 by Maelwys

[nihilii]

8 hours ago, Maelwys said:

I'm very tempted to respond here with several pages worth of PPM math and a link to a spreadsheet.

 

You could! I don't think this would successfully address any point I've made, but why not. Although a Fire Blaster should use procs, Fire Blast supremacy has little to do with PPM math, simply because the attacks are so strong to start with procs represent a smaller part of overall damage output than on just about anything else.

It is not my point +rech is the be-all-and-end-all of IO slotting. It is my point Fire Blast has extremely high DPA attacks, and the Blaster AT in particular has very high self +damage mod.

I'll reiterate, your earlier argument is clear. It just isn't accurate. Fire Blast is *further* ahead than the SO screenshot suggests, once IOed out and incarnated out.

 

Regarding (i), you never want to take Spiritual or Agility on a highend build. This is because +recharge alphas mess with your proc rate. It's better to stick with Musculature and chase recharge elsewhere.

Blaze -> BB -> Fireball is technically an impossible chain, and not optimal. You'd always have a gap before Fireball, even at the recharge cap. Not to mention slotting FB for full recharge destroys its potential proc rate. It's far better to include at least one extra power from your secondary or epics, for self-sustainability.

On fast moving teams, and considering moving around, target selection, rotating Aim/BU, yes, you will likely chain these three attacks. But you never want to build for a hypothetical solo attack chain of these 3.

 

Regarding (ii), on a team minions/lieuts are going to evaporate no matter what. Dots have some effect on bosses, greater effect on EBs still, and so on. It's "corpse blasting" against mobs where corpse blasting doesn't matter, and extra damage against mobs where you need the extra damage.

If anything, the animation times of Blaze and Fireball are a hedge against corpse blasting.

 

9 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Only in a vacuum. 

For example: @oedipus_tex pointed out earlier that Sonics -res debuff is substantially higher on the Defender AT than on Blasters. 

 

I would argue here you are precisely judging the powersets in a vacuum. Sonic -RES is incredible on Defenders... on paper. Have you played endgame /sonic and /fire Defenders? Here's what happens for me: I quickly realise even with procced out Dominate, my practical damage still struggles to catch up compared to the same Defender running Fire Blast, because that -RES takes time to build and to maintain *and* I have other actions I want to do with my primary, compared to Fire Blast keeping its 100% potential from the very start of any encounter; and I lack a true targeted AoE (let alone a TAoE with the fast cast and damage of Fireball).

There is basically opportunity cost to Sonic attaining its full potential, while Fire allows for maximum flexibility.

 

9 hours ago, Maelwys said:

What isn't well balanced (and has NEVER been) is animation time.

 

Yep. Much of the overpoweredness of Fire Blast boils down to animation time. Then we throw DoTs in there, and the combined selection of excellent staple choices (T3, TAoE, snipe).

You could disregard the existence of animation times, and argue in spreadsheet terms, DoTs and Fire Blast are not overpowered. I can see the logic in that take.

 

Personally, I like to think about the ingame reality more than how the game "should" be balanced ideally; in that light, animation times aren't changing anytime soon. DoTs, living outside the damage formulas, are the most suitable candidate to point finger at, especially as we have an example in Sentinels of a successful rebalancing mostly tackling that aspect and leaving the rest untouched (ok, the Sentinel snipe also got gutted with Repel...).

[DreadShinobi]

11 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Instead, I'll merely point out that +recharge is NOT the be-all-and-end-all of IO slotting; and that my argument earlier was not that other Blaster powersets > Fire; but that their performance isn't as far ahead of the rest of the pack in the actual game as they are in FUBARczar's chart screenshot.

My reasoning for this is:

(i) Compared to some other powersets, Fire Blast gains a lower damage multiplication effect from heavy investment into IOs (e.g. its attacks cannot take the same sheer amount of multiple damage procs compared to Ice or Dark) and to a lesser extent from Incarnates (For example: their optimal attack chain Blaze->BlazingBolt->Fireball wants +400% recharge. Taking Spiritual or Agility Alpha rather than Musculature Alpha will go a large way to getting there; at the cost of raw +damage).

(ii) Fire's DoTs are difficult to leverage on teams because often things end up dying before the DoT ends. (This is a similar effect to "overkilling" or "corpse blasting", but it's much more difficult to compensate for/work around).
 

 

 

Fire blaster DoT damage can essentially be considered free proc slotting without actually slotting a proc. It is free damage, with a delay.

I am not at all concerned if my target dies before all the DoT ticks come through because the target is dead

If I didn't have a DoT to finish off the last bit of health I have to spend more endurance and more time casting another ability to finish off the target

I am very unlikely to corpse blast with a 1 second cast ability like Blaze. It rarely happens. I absolutely do not care if a single DoT ever ticks on a dead target. 

I am far more likely to corpse blast and feel punished for corpse blasting with a 2 second cast ability than I am to corpse blast with a 1 second cast ability.

Fire does not need procs to pull ahead in dps. The difference in proc potential between ice and fire [on a blaster] for example is actually smaller than most realize because fire blast powers typically slot well with 2 dmg procs and also rake in tons of set bonuses and good enhancement value.

A well built fire blaster will absolutely find more room for defensive set bonuses, +dmg set bonuses, +rchg set bonuses, and global procs than a set that requires procs to compete with the damage potential of fire, and fire will still pull ahead with the additional proc potential of other sets.

Procs benefit from -res. Procs do not benefit from +dmg.

Blasters are an archetype based on high damage modifiers and typically have low access to -res to amplify proc damage.

Defiance works to boost your base damage and does not synergize at all with any slotted procs.

Blasters are not an archetype without a secondary.

Blasters love having fast animation attacks because it allows your attack chain to incorporate more secondary attacks which often have very high DPA like energy punch, charge brawl, bonesmasher, etc.

Other archetypes can do better with slower animating attacks, like scrappers, because it pads their attack chain. Slower animating attacks allow the rest of your attack chain to recharge allowing for a lower necessity on global recharge. Blasters do not need this because of how many high DPA attacks they have between their primary and secondary combined.

Never ever ever ever ever ever take spiritual or agility over musculature or intuition radial on a blaster. They are an archetype based on their high damage modifier and defiance.

Archetypes like defenders are better suited to take advantage of heavy proc load because a single proc can often increase your average damage in a power more than a 33% dmg buff to that power even without factoring enhancement diversification - ie choosing a dmg proc even when that power isnt ED capped on enhanced dmg value.

Defenders have a more narrow margin between their enhanced damage % + their damage buff value and their lower damage cap that puts yet even higher value on damage procs.

Blasters absolutely want to hit 100-130% dmg enhancement value on their attacks. They have a damage modifier and damage cap that supports this. This means certain attacks that are epically useful with 4-6 dmg procs on defenders like Freeze Ray, Bitter Freeze Ray, and Bitter Ice Blast do not function the same way for blasters as they do for defenders.

Defenders (et all supports) have secondaries that are either chalk full of powers with high -res like cold domination, poison, and storm, they have easier access to -res procs, or they have access to significant self dmg buffs like Fulcrum Shift, Overgrowth, and Soul Drain that can put them at the dmg cap even with attacks that are not slotted for +dmg at all providing room for effective proc usage, they have access to better modifiers on assault and tactics to assist in this, they have better modifiers in powers like tough, weave, maneuvers, combat jumping, and ancillary shield that allow more room for procs via a lower necessity in chasing defensive set bonuses compared to a blaster, some defender secondaries allow even easier access to miraculous defensive stats while still finding room to put 20+ dmg procs in their build, which blasters absolutely cannot do. Many support secondaries offer permanent +tohit or infinite endurance that allow them to ignore such slotting in their attacks to make room for procs in ways that blasters cannot do. 

Blasters should fit in damage procs when they are /comfortably/ slotted. 

Blasters should avoid making massive build sacrifices to proc load their attacks the way other archetypes can because the tradeoff is not an insignificant one like it can be for others.

A proc loaded ice blast defender may have very low opportunity cost compared to a fire blast defender, but a proc loaded ice blast blaster will have a higher opportunity cost when comparing to a fire blast blaster.

And everything that @nihilii writes is bible.

Edited November 14, 2021 by DreadShinobi

[Maelwys]

This has gotten firmly into Granny Smith vs Tangerine territory.
 

To recap; briefly:
 

Earlier on in this thread, there was a conversation between FUBARczar and Erractic1 about the Sonic Blast primary. Erratic1 pointed out that Sonic has some decent attacks prior to the T9 Nuke; and was not in as "horrible a position" as FUBARczar claimed. FUBARczar then posted a screenshot of the chart produced by Galaxy Brain (as pointed out by Kachooman). Oedipus_Tex asked if that chart represented solo clear times, and I pointed out that it did... but "with SO enhancements only (no IOs, no procs, no incarnates, etc)."
 

In that exercise by Galaxy Brain, the purpose of the chart (as-stated at the very top of the thread) is: "the premise of these tests are to isolate Ranged Primaries as much as possible to gauge their "realistic" base performance in a given mission environment." Note the specific goal there - it is not ranking a Sonic Blaster versus a Fire Blaster versus an Ice Blaster, it is ranking the Sonic Blast Primary versus the Fire Blast Primary versus the Ice Blast Primary. Secondary and Epic powers are purposely not used.

I am 100% not contesting that a few of of the powers contained within the Fire Blast powerset are particularly brilliant in terms of DPA, and that therefore whenever you include the Secondary and Epic pools, those particular powers can contribute to an excellent attack chain and a better character.

The chart used a particular mission; but things such as player ability and playstyle and enemy type and mob positioning are all going to factor in there. We could look at Fire Blast's attacks versus other sets's attacks (both fully procced) to show the difference in raw additional damage from IOs that each can theoretically gain (e.g. the below for Ice Blast; only looking at primary attacks in isolation and assumes recharge % slotting in the actual attacks = 0. It doesn't factor in "attack chains", but the recharge times at various global recharge rates give some indication of uptime/availability).

Or we could model the likes of Water, Rad, Dark, etc. since all have multiple AoE attacks which can take multiple useful procs (Rad can even become a better -res debuffer than Sonic: Irradiate by itself can take both Achilles' Heel and Fury of the Gladiator)... but endless screenshots of spreadsheets don't actually answer the question of "Is my blaster going to deal more damage if I take the Fire Blast Primary?"

The answer to that question is obviously going to be "yes" the vast majority of the time. 
But attempting to model the difference in actual total performance between SmokeyMcFirePants and SuperScreechySonic-san is a whole other ball game.

I have indeed played Blasters and Defenders rather extensively over the years on live (and a few on HC too, although my playtime is extremely restricted these days compared to a decade ago; so I usually prefer to roll any new builds up on my private i24 box). My two favourite Blasters on live were a Sonic/Elec/Ice Blapper and a Fire/Ice/Fire engine of destruction; and I played a Sonic Defender a lot as well. All of which were IO'ed up the wazoo. 
I'm aware of the differences in performances and playstyles between actual characters. And that that is a much different conversation than "Primary A is x% better than Primary B with SOs and y% better with IOs". It's considerably trickier to objectively rank two completely different builds let alone opinions about which feels more powerful or which you enjoy more.

We could spend umpteen more pages trying to pin down acceptable baseline character builds and then work out the best slotting possible for several different attack chains per character; but a Fire Blaster is always going to be top tier at damage output -  I'm not debating that in the slightest. 

So with all that in mind, I'm not sure it's going to be all that helpful to continue this particular tangent any further.
 

---------
 

However... the conversation about DPA might be worth continuing?

There are a few powers within the Fire Blast set which are total outliers: Fireball, Blaze, Blazing Bolt, possibly Inferno (its base damage is excellent, but its a bit of a playstyle question whether PBAoE > TAoE). 

Individually each of those have a few "peers" across the other powersets...
 

Fireball: Other sets have things like Ball Lightning and Irradiate; and some ranged hoverblaster setups might find cones nearly as easy to position... but by and large this deserves its reputation. Long Range, Low Arcanatime, Wide Radius, Easy to position. 
 

Blazing Bolt: a top-tier snipe; although other powerset snipes can trump it one-on-one due to additional damage proc opportunities (Moonbeam, for example).
 

Blaze: Base DPA is ridiculously high. A few other powers can contend with it (Freeze Ray and Bitter Ice Blast spring to mind) but those exist in a set that doesn't have Fireball. 
 

...but much of the ranking of the Fire Blast powerset comes from the fact that it contains all of them simultaneously.

Since DarknessEternal brought up the notion of "nerfing" Fire Blast earlier... would it be more acceptable to rebalance such powers by increasing their animation time (like they did on Energy Transfer back in the day) or to lower their damage output?

[My preferred solution would still be to establish some kind of balanced relationship between Animation Time and Damage across all powersets; but that would obviously be a major undertaking!]

[DarknessEternal]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

Since DarknessEternal brought up the notion of "nerfing" Fire Blast earlier... would it be more acceptable to rebalance such powers by increasing their animation time (like they did on Energy Transfer back in the day) or to lower their damage output?
 

Yes, because then we wouldn't have Blast animation times except Fire Blast which does more damage and is faster, we'd just have Blast animation times and Fire Blast just does more damage. 

 

The double whammy of the most damaging powers AND the best animation times is just unacceptable.

Edited November 14, 2021 by DarknessEternal

[oedipus_tex]

Is Siren's Song now autohit? I usually skip that power but if it got the autohit buff in the next issue I'd consider it a must-take.

[Haijinx]

On 11/13/2021 at 4:45 AM, nihilii said:

 

Your point is clear, but your argument is incorrect. If anything, Fire Blast pulls further ahead the more IOs and incarnates you use.

 

Fast animation high damage attacks benefit more from recharge slotting, because the ceiling for the maximum amount of recharge you can add to improve your attack chain is higher. Likewise, being able to afford the endurance consumption of chaining high DPA stuff cranks up the practical damage you dish out.

 

The supremacy of Fire Blast is so uncontested, it is the top powerset even on Defenders. Defenders, with their absurdly low base damage mod; who therefore benefit most from procs (which are lacking on Fire, and more prevalent on many other blast sets).

 

On Blasters? It's not even close. At the high end, you have Fire Blasters and then you have everything else.

 

IOs let you focus on using more Fire Balls in between your more Frequent Infernos and less time using the slower AOEs like Fire Breath and Rain.  

 

Also it makes the Set self supportive with just Primary attacks for ST damage for those cowardly erm careful Ranged only Blaster types. 

 

Assuming you are going for perma-hasten of course.

[Haijinx]

On 11/13/2021 at 4:33 PM, DarknessEternal said:

Everything @nihilii said is exactly correct and why Fire Blast needs to be nerfed.

 

This must be wrong because Beam Rifle / Bio Sents are better than Fire Blasters, see the Original Post.  

[CloudMouse]

On 11/12/2021 at 12:57 PM, A Cat said:

So you two are loud ninjas.

 

...

live free.