Blaster's Munitions Mastery is an awful ancillary powerset.

[Neogumbercules]

Mobile and at work but as I sit here on my break I will do my best to explain quickly why it's so bad (old arguments from a million years ago still apply).

 

Body Armor: this is an inoffensive free resist buff and IO mule, but IMO the free nature of it does not justify its lower resist values compared to something like Temp Invul or Fire Shield. It's especially worse than the defense buffs from something like Frozen Armor because defense is so much easier to stack. It'd be a worthwhile sacrifice if the set had other powers worth taking, alas...

 

Cry Freeze Ray: This is the only standard power in the set that's comparable to the other APP holds. You could argue it's worse due to redraw (it does draw a gun IIRC) , but overall it's simply passable.

 

Sleep Grenade: In my opinion this is the first truly awful power in Munitions Mastery. First, there's a weapon redraw. Secondly, I always felt the value of sleeps was dubious at best. 99% of the time your first action against a group of enemies is to open up with a huge AOE based alpha strike or a melee guy is gonna run in and grab aggro. What does a sleep afford you at this point? The enemies were already blissfully unaware of your presence. This power adds nothing for the player. Compare it to Bonfire or repulsion bomb slotted for - KB. It's vastly worse. Bonfire provides massive AOE control and good damage. Repulsion bomb gets you good KB/KD and a disorient. Force and Electrical get you God-mode powers. As far as the "utility" power in the set, it's garbage.

 

Surveillance: Finally, a decent power. Oh wait, Flame Mastery gets an AOE version of this power, and the whole rest of the powerset is better than anything else in Munitions? Damn!

 

LRM: Okay, I suffered through MM and finally got to the good power. BIG ASS AOE. Sounds great. Except let's see... Awful recharge time (4 bloody minutes), mediocre damage (and it just so happens that it's purely s/l damage as an end-game power that the majority of enemies are highly resistant to) high endurance cost, especially if you clicked too soon after moving and and accidently triggered its ridiculous interrupt penalty. In my testing on Justin there is absolutely no situation where I would use LRM over literally any other AOE. It's impossible to use in combat and I would take a KD slotted Bonfire over LRM any time, period.

 

I don't have a lot of suggestions right now, as I think the community can come up with better ideas but I think on a general level I would improve sleep grenade by maybe making it a stun instead of a sleep, make surveillance some kind of AOE, and remove the interrupt from LRM and change it to a Targeted AOE ability instead of a sniper ability, reduce the range, recharge, and add fire damage.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I agree with the overall assessment, although I disagree with your interpretation of some powers.

 

Body Armor: I agree that this power basically brings the entire set down on it's own. The basic logic that Auto resist powers need to be weaker than toggles is valid but the problem here is that Blasters only get a single defense power and an auto power is so weak it's basically worthless. This is then compounded by the I24 changes, since Blasters now get a ton of extra recovery they don't even particularly care about the end cost of running their armor toggle anyway. Personally I would prefer to just change it to a toggle and make it a clone of Temporary Invulnerability but I can understand that some people may not like that. So keeping it as an auto power I would do one of two things. Either keep it as S/L but buff the resistance to 12%-15% or keep the resistance the same but make it cover everything except psionics. Now the second option would be OP on a melee character but for a blaster I think it's not unreasonable.

 

Cryo Freeze Ray: I agree with you , this one is fine. If I were making changes I'd give is a slow debuff as well but I don't think that's a critical change.

 

Sleep Grenade: This one is interesting. Prior to I25 I would have disagreed and said that the AoE nature of it justified Sleep being a bit meh. The problem is that since then we've gotten several new Blaster secondaries that have proper AoE mez powers in them already. So I'm softening on the idea of giving Blasters some mez abilities. That being said, I'm not keen on making this a Mag 3 AoE Stun but I would propose making it a Mag 2 stun with a debuff of some sort (maybe -ToHit or -Damage) to put it on a par with Repulsion Bomb. Basically it's a power that stuns minions and debuffs Lts and Bosses to reduce their damage.

 

Surveillance: Ok, this one I'm going to have to disagree with you on. Yes, Melt Armor is AoE, but Surveillance has a much shorter recharge time and a larger resistance debuff. Overall I think it's fine. Blasters don't really need an AoE resistance debuff anyway, they are much more likely to want a single target debuff for taking down bosses. So overall I think Surveillance is fine as it.

 

LRM Rocket: So first off, I think the comparison to Bonfire is unfair. The KB to KD proc basically broke Bonfire as a power, so you're comparing a mediocore power to one that's incredibly OP at this point. That being said I agree that LRM is underwhelming. Part of the problem is the I24 changes to nukes. Previously the core difference between weapon sets and non-weapon sets was that weapon sets got a crashless nuke that had a shorter recharge and less damage compared to the nukes in other blast sets. LRM was originally balanced around that and in that context it was ok but now that all sets have a crashless nuke it's weakness is more obvious. So overall it needs some combination of more damage and less recharge. I'm ok with the interrupt, it makes it interesting to use (got to time it right with the tank) but the damage and recharge aren't really worth it.

[jack_nomind]

imho, nearly all the APPs are bad and about half or so of the PPPs are.  So, sign me up easily for 'would change.'

 

Doubly so for more/better LRM.  "Pull out a rocket launcher and fire it at someone" is such an iconic comic-book moment (Harley Quinn, Punisher, Buffy the Vampire Slayer...) that it should just feel way more satisfying than it does.

[srmalloy]

I suppose it depends on what you're building for. My first character, back in 2004, was an AR/EM Blaster that I'd tricked out with an eye to Jack Emmert's comment "Range is a Blaster's defense". This became less true after virtually every mob got a ranged attack; I think she was the only character I had that got Zookeeper in its original 'defeat 10,000 Rikti monkeys' form. Still, as I had Snipe and LRM slotted, with Boost Range, I could hit targets so far away that I couldn't actually see them -- more than 250m for Snipe and 273m for LRM. With Build Up or Aim, I could one-shot a mob in a spawn and be too far away for the rest of the spawn to aggro.

[Vanden]

I haven't used the APP, but based on the numbers I see on paper, Munitions Mastery does indeed seem to be a pretty bad APP. I am going to agree with Adeon that Surveillance is one of the good powers it gets, however. It also lets you see enemy combat numbers in the Combat Attributes window, in addition to the debuffs.

[Elthenar]

Min max reasons aside, one of the things that really and truly pisses me off about LRM is that I took it expecting to pull out.....an LRM. Kind of like the Council guys have and a few others. Instead, I hit the button and my character draws a bead with his damned assault rifle. C'mon man, whoever thought that one up at Cryptic/Paragon needs to be hit with a hot mop. That was such an easy thing to have gotten right...

[Solarverse]

Min max reasons aside, one of the things that really and truly pisses me off about LRM is that I took it expecting to pull out.....an LRM. Kind of like the Council guys have and a few others. Instead, I hit the button and my character draws a bead with his damned assault rifle. C'mon man, whoever thought that one up at Cryptic/Paragon needs to be hit with a hot mop. That was such an easy thing to have gotten right...

 

Wait, didn't it used to be a Rocket Launcher on Live?

[Neogumbercules]

My memory of it was it used the Franken gun. Unfortunately when I was playing on Justin I wasn't really paying any attention to my character, just the paltry damage numbers being displayed against my council enemies.

[Errants]

Min max reasons aside, one of the things that really and truly pisses me off about LRM is that I took it expecting to pull out.....an LRM. Kind of like the Council guys have and a few others. Instead, I hit the button and my character draws a bead with his damned assault rifle. C'mon man, whoever thought that one up at Cryptic/Paragon needs to be hit with a hot mop. That was such an easy thing to have gotten right...

 

Wait, didn't it used to be a Rocket Launcher on Live?

 

Another AR/Nrg/MM melee-less from Live here. It used the Frankengun, it was hilarious to use with a spotter and BR/BU to snipe invisibly... and it sucked. It it weren't for concept (B B Hood - Darkstalkers/MvC tribute toon), I'd've gotten something better. The entire Munitions pool is... Meh.

[Novacat]

Body Armor: It's auto-category made it acceptable back before i24 where the lack of endurance cost was an important component, but the values can no longer make up for this in a world of IOs AND Sustains.

This is in part because Body Armor not only has the lowest values - it (perhaps more importantly) offers NO protection whatsoever other than +Res Smash/Lethal.

Its closest analogue, Temporary Invulnerability in Force Mastery, may be a toggle, but offers 21% base to both - 240% the base value of Body Armor. All other resist types either offer more than double the resistance to at least three damage types (such as Smash/Lethal/Energy) OR a 10.5% base defense buff against two or three AND resist to one or two more types to add to it.

 

Cryo Freeze Ray: Worst of the epic holds. Possible Redraw aside, it's also the weakest. All other blaster ancillary holds (and there's six of them) have a combination of higher damage (second worst damage is Shocking Bolt at about 5.5x the output of CFR while knockout blow hits for a devastating 198 base at 50), same or longer duration, longer range, and/or additional special effects, such as Web Cocoon which while non-damaging has a nasty -50% recharge and speed (and kills flight like most web things).

Several are +2 endurance cost base, but that matters not, and Char stands out with a 1.32s cast, 68.82 damage, 14.3 base duration and a range of 80ft

 

Sleep Grenade: A bit iffy but can compare to flash-freeze. .4s faster cast time, 6s longer duration and 20ft longer range, but half the damage and a 15ft rather than 25ft radius. The duration can help a bit against the resistances on bosses and the like, but it's harder to catch a large group as well. Still, in some ways one of the better powers here by virtue of not being a half-assed heavily nerfed excuse version of another power.

 

Surveillance: Set isn't really worth it for just this, but it's a good power, I think everyone agrees

 

LRM: Desperately needs to get at least a partial snipe treatment. It's not actually that bad a power overall - though smash/lethal it's still a long range AoE with the damage of two fireballs, but that 6s cast time (with 4s interrupt and no access to interrupt reduction in the Sets due to its targeted AoE category) really makes you feel its age as a power especially over on Justin with the beta snipe changes in play.

-Also, if there's any way to port the council launcher or any of the missile launchers (on various mechs) as a 'weapon' for this, it would make everyone's day because goddamn. I can't even have a different gun from my beam rifle selection for this either, trying to choose forces both sets into one weapon costumewise.

 

So, all in all, the set needs some help. The first two powers are in critical condition and easily can turn folks from the set because they don't make the remainder worth it, while the capstone isn't actually near death much as it may have lost some of its lustre there.

[Elthenar]

Has anyone tested LRM on Justin under the new snipe changes?

[Ry]

They could apply the snipe changes to LRM rocket and it would save that entire set tbh, I want to use LRM but it takes so long to aim/fire by the time I am ready to shoot with it the mob in front of me has already been killed by the team. I dont mind the damage type and the long recharge can be jimmied around a bit with the right build but that casting time is torture. That's all I'd want fixed. Please and thank you!

[Solvernia]

They could apply the snipe changes to LRM rocket and it would save that entire set tbh, I want to use LRM but it takes so long to aim/fire by the time I am ready to shoot with it the mob in front of me has already been killed by the team. I dont mind the damage type and the long recharge can be jimmied around a bit with the right build but that casting time is torture. That's all I'd want fixed. Please and thank you!

 

Aren't epic snipes already affected by the change? I know Moonbeam in Soul Mastery is.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

They could apply the snipe changes to LRM rocket and it would save that entire set tbh, I want to use LRM but it takes so long to aim/fire by the time I am ready to shoot with it the mob in front of me has already been killed by the team. I dont mind the damage type and the long recharge can be jimmied around a bit with the right build but that casting time is torture. That's all I'd want fixed. Please and thank you!

Aren't epic snipes already affected by the change? I know Moonbeam in Soul Mastery is.

They are but LRM isn't considered a snipe so it doesn't have the changes applied to it.

[Solvernia]

They are but LRM isn't considered a snipe so it doesn't have the changes applied to it.

 

It should be considered a snipe. Benefitting from fast snipe would make it actually usable. Even a max-recharge build can only get it to 60-75 seconds recharge, so it's not exactly OP by any means.

 

At the very, absolute least, cutting the animation time in half from 6 to 3 seconds would make it bearable to use.

[Sunsette]

LRM absolutely needs that change -- it and a buff to Body Armor would transform the APP.

[Novacat]

Cryo Ray feels like the odd man out as well. It's an inferior model to the other epic holds, and has nothing special to show for it. If it had something, anything, to give it its own niche. To make someone somewhere go "I want that one" even if just a bit.

 

As for the armor, dumb thought but what if it was an inferior version of the bane-spider armor? Like 2% all resists, Mag 1 protection and 5% Max HP?

[srmalloy]

They are but LRM isn't considered a snipe so it doesn't have the changes applied to it.

 

IIRC, the power description specifically states "sniper" in its effects, the same as Sniper Rifle, so even if the power's damage is Targeted AoE rather than single target, it should inherit all the Snipe characteristics and changes.

[Solvernia]

They are but LRM isn't considered a snipe so it doesn't have the changes applied to it.

 

IIRC, the power description specifically states "sniper" in its effects, the same as Sniper Rifle, so even if the power's damage is Targeted AoE rather than single target, it should inherit all the Snipe characteristics and changes.

 

 

Not a snipe. So it shouldn't get a fast snipe option. However, like I said -- cutting the interrupt and cast times in half, to 3 seconds (which is reasonable for a nuke power) would make it a fantastic 'opening nuke'.

 

Body Armor should also probably get some energy resistance, like how NPCs with high tech armor (malta, arachnos, etc) get S/L/E. I don't mind that the resist is a little low, given that it's an autopower and not a toggle. But if people really want it buffed, then maybe rename it something like 'Power Armor', make it a toggle, and give it some Energy resist.

[srmalloy]

 

Not a snipe. So it shouldn't get a fast snipe option. However, like I said -- cutting the interrupt and cast times in half, to 3 seconds (which is reasonable for a nuke power) would make it a fantastic 'opening nuke'.

 

Hmm. Makes me wonder how ParagonWiki has managed to retain incorrect power information. You would have expected that someone would have fixed it in the time since the pool was released.

[Ry]

Even if its not regarded as a snipe, cutting the cast time/interrupt would still help make this power actually worth getting. Its a freaking rocket launcher, it should be way cooler then it is but sadly its weighed down in its current state. I know its not a massive priority for the team but I'd like to see this set get some buffs, I wont kick and scream if it doesnt but I'd be so happy if it did. Either way, thanks for keeping this thread going guys :)

[Novacat]

Was anyone able to figure out (maybe if we summon Arcanaville) the exact meaning of that 'standard damage design formula'? Can't help but feel LRM's 240s would at least place it at odds with that - it has 165.5% the recharge of a nuke after all.

 

Still, much as that's the power I personally want to see fixes on the most, it's body armor that's probably the most in need of some repairs.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Was anyone able to figure out (maybe if we summon Arcanaville) the exact meaning of that 'standard damage design formula'? Can't help but feel LRM's 240s would at least place it at odds with that - it has 165.5% the recharge of a nuke after all.

You don't have to ask Arcanaville, Leandro posted the formulae in the guides section. Now a quick note regarding recharge, in general powers in Epic pools have double the recharge they should for their damage, this is to make them weaker than equivalent powers in primaries and secondaries. So when applying this formula to an Epic power you should halve the recharge before plugging it in.

 

Standard Damage Formula

0.2*(0.8*Recharge+1.8)/AreaFactor

 

Standard Area Factor

Spheres: (1+(Radius*0.15))

Cones: ((1+(Radius*0.15))-(((Radius/6)*0.011)/5)*(360-Arc))

 

In any case lets run the math. LRM has a damage scale of 2.49, a radius of 20 and a recharge of 240s.

 

Now if we solve for recharge we get a nominal recharge of 60 seconds. Now as I mentioned above powers in Epic pools generally have their recharge time doubled compared to the value they have in Primary or Secondary sets so we'll double the recharge to 120seconds however this still gives us a recharge value that is half the actual recharge of LRM.

 

Now playing it the other way, if we take the current recharge of 240 seconds, halve that (Epic pool penalty) and apply the standard damage formula we get a damage scale of 4.89 or just under twice the current damage.

 

So yeah, I'd say that there's room to either increase the damage or reduce the recharge within the realm of the standard damage formula.

[Novacat]

Where does one find the damage scale for each power to plug in, though? Because the damage output doesn't match a lot of the time.

Take wolf spider's Single Shot for example. SDF gives a result of 1. The AT has a multiplier of 1.000.

At level 50 it does 55.61.

Charged Bolts on a Blaster would be 1, with an AT multiplier of 1.125. It does 62.56.

So it's not a straight "level x this", there's a 5.61 (which x1.125 does add up to 6.31) tacked on for those two Tier 1s.

Likewise, Lightning Bolt has 1.64 according to the formula, but on a blaster does 102.6.

 

Do ALL attacks have a base of 5.61 that's separately multiplied as per the scale and AT and added the attack's original result? Is it perhaps only partially applied (even after the above and area multipliers) for nukes? Does that actually hold for other levels than 50 after 20 when the AT scales are full applied?

[Adeon Hawkwood]

You're basically on the right track. The base damage at level 50 is 55.61. That means that a power with a damage scale of 1 used by an AT with a damage scale of 1 will deal 55.61 damage.

 

So Single Shot for a Wolf Spider is a perfect example of a damage scale 1 power on a damage scale 1 AT. Similarly Charged Bolts is a damage scale 1 power on a damage scale 1.125 character so it does 55.61 * 1 * 1.125 = 62.56 damage.

 

Now let's take Lightning Bolt. A power with a recharge of 8 should have a damage scale of 1.64. So on a blaster we do 55.61 * 1.64 * 1.125 = 102.6 damage.

 

You can find the damage scales for each AT at each level here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20161103150217/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/tables.php?mod=Ranged_Damage