Blaster - Energy secondary feedback

[Ukase]

This is not a post about the dps. 
Power Thrust - I see the utility at low levels, but with Halloween and 2xp, didn't see the need to take it. No feedback to offer. 

Energy Punch -  fast, effective. May stun. (mag 2) Stun ability aside, it's good. 

Build Up - no feedback necessary. Almost everyone will take build up, everyone will love the extra damage, and everyone wishes it were permanent but it never will be because we can't have characters being TOO good. 

Bone Smasher - Eh, a little slow, but does nice damage. Better odds of stunning than Energy Punch. Better damage, too. Not surprising. I'd love the activation to come down to 1 second instead of 1.5, but as it is, it's fair enough. 

Energize - available at level 16 instead of level 20 for blasters. I found this nice! But..in a hurry, I pick it without reading the fine print. It doesn't take end mod sets, only healing sets. And it doesn't increase recovery, it decreases end use. Fine. 
But a click? Not a toggle. Why? Because it's an endurance discount, not an increase in recovery. The click is a problem, though. 

This is likely more of a me problem than a problem with the power itself. 

CoH is great in that it allows for the use of many macros, and many binds. Again, this may be just me - but after a while, you make and play a number of characters - there comes a time when there's a power that you could use a certain key to bind it to, but that key is in use for a different power across many other characters. And, ideally, whatever key I'd bind this to, it would be convenient for one of my fingers to reach it. 
UI set up is likely unique for most players who've played this game a while. And having only played this MMO, and never having really played another, other than Champions for a week or so during the shut down, my set up is likely completely different than most - to my detriment. 

But, I use fingers on the number row at the top of most keyboards to execute powers. Targeted AoEs...I use a macro for those, but the macro icon also goes in that first row. 

I did bind energize to the E key, because the E key serves no other purpose for me. I'm sure it does something else for others, but for me, on this character, that's what it does. Fine. But then I get to Boost Range.

Stun - eh, this is a blaster, not a corruptor or defender. The npcs that aren't killable with an attack or two don't get stunned easily. I'd have to lean into the stuns to make use of this power, and that really seems counter-intuitive. True, a stunned npc isn't killing me. Stuns are great when the stuns are the byproduct of damage. This deals some damage, and it's a fair candidate for procs, but the premise is flawed for blasters. I get no joy out of watching a werewolf walk around looking like it got into the moonshine. I am a blaster. I want to kill it, not stun it. I also recognize, this is just me. Some folks love this kind of thing - so don't change it for me (not that you would, lol) The activation for this power is too long at 1.8 seconds. Knock it down to 1 second, and the utility would be much better. I took this power to try it out, but I will respec out of it because when fighting those EBs this halloween, the attack takes too long...it's too late. Now I'm terrorized and left to use the low damage t-1 and t-2. Better or smarter players will likely have better results using this power.

Boost range is a click. This is made permanent easily. And yet, it's a click. As if there were ever a time when we would not want to have longer range. This should be auto. No idea why this isn't an auto power. But it's not, and I don't have a key to use to bind it to. And, I shouldn't have to because, as I said, it should be auto. 

Power Boost - no real problem with this, as is. It's a totally odd power though, because some primaries can make really good use of it, so it's hit or miss on whether any given character should choose it. But that's fine. Not every power needs to be for every character. 

Total Focus - 2.53 second activation time. Really? Now, proc'd - this attack is going to be really nice. 
In context however - middle of the road, proc'd or not.  In the spoiler, if we can trust mids, is a power comparison. One looking at damage, the other damage per activation. 

Spoiler

 

 

So, if you bothered to look, you see it's a nice enough attack, but seeing a large orange number for a blaster isn't that exciting. It's being able to execute it and quickly move on. The attack is slow, and as a result, it's situational. I certainly would be very cautious using this against Battle Maiden in Apex TF and Tyrant in Magisterium. 
Still, it's fair. 

That is my feedback on this set. Certainly blasters don't really need much love right now, but maybe dog-ear this, and unless there's some reason to not make boost range auto, make it auto at some time in the future. 

The primary reason is because there are 10 slots in tray one for powers. There is no space for this one. I have to come up with a suitable bind key, and I can't seem to find one that my fingers can easily reach that don't have another purpose. It's crazy details like these that cause me to park a character and not play them often. Again, that's a me problem, but still, Range boost should be auto. 

[srmalloy]

31 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Boost range is a click. This is made permanent easily. And yet, it's a click. As if there were ever a time when we would not want to have longer range. This should be auto. No idea why this isn't an auto power. But it's not, and I don't have a key to use to bind it to. And, I shouldn't have to because, as I said, it should be auto. 

Fake it by rolling it into an existing bind. For example, I have the following bind in my 'keybinds.txt' file, so it loads for every character unless I specifically unbind it:
 

W "+forward$$powexec_name hasten"

 

This tries to fire Hasten every time you move forward, so unless you're stationary for an extended period (and all it takes to trigger is a quick tap of the 'w' key that doesn't actually move you anywhere), it should fire off when it comes off recharge.

 

Also, Power Thrust isn't really useful as a damaging power (and even less so for jollies, what with Power Boost no longer affecting KB, and ED keeping you from six-slotting it for KB, then going to AP and punting Hellions across the zone with a Power Boosted Power Thrust shot -- "Hellion Golf"); it's more useful as a "get away from me" power that knocks an overly-insistent mob back out of melee range.

Edited Tuesday at 02:07 PM by srmalloy

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Energize - available at level 16 instead of level 20 for blasters. I found this nice! But..in a hurry, I pick it without reading the fine print. It doesn't take end mod sets, only healing sets. And it doesn't increase recovery, it decreases end use. Fine. 
But a click? Not a toggle. Why? Because it's an endurance discount, not an increase in recovery. The click is a problem, though. 

You should be able to put it on auto-fire and have it perma (unless you have another power on auto-fire). There are several other blaster secondaries that also have click sustains.

 

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Total Focus - 2.53 second activation time. Really? 

It was 3.3s until 2020. It would be interesting if they ported the Energy Focus mechanic from Energy Melee to Energy Manipulation so that using Total Focus would buff other powers in the set.

[Ukase]

5 hours ago, Uun said:

There are several other blaster secondaries that also have click sustains.

I know, it's why I tend to not play them. After playing a dom, I've gotten used to not having hasten on auto fire, but to me, Energy is quite clicky, as there are several powers worth taking - but they won't fit on the bottom tray, so I have to find a bind key. I already use several keys for the same power across a number of alts. But none of my alts have these (yet) so it's being problematic. So, for now, it's just too many clicks, and interrupts my flow of dps. And binding a key to movement, I've done that before, and I'm not a fan. I'll figure it out - but I still think boost range should be a toggle or something. Not a click.