A blasting idea

raighn

Ok, so as we've all noticed by now Blasts have been getting reworked into Buff/Debuff utility powers... Thats fine and all and seems like a decent direction for them to go... however...

What if Blasts were adjusted to function more like Shard Burst & Tactical Missile giving them a small 5'-10' Sphere AoE centered on your target... perhaps with half chance to apply their debuff to each additional target. Like Shard Burst & Tactical Missile they would still be considered single target attacks for specs & on-next-hit powers. The AoE damage, again like Shard Burst & Tactical, would deal a fraction of the main target damage.

I'd like for the disussion to be around the effects of such a change rather than if it shold or shouldn't be done... lets be civil about this please.

spinnytop

Doing this would homogenize Blasts too much. It would make them all too similar to one another in my opinion. I'd like each st to retain its own identity.


PS - trying to moderate responses generally doesn't work out well, but I went ahead and stayed within the bounds of what you asked for.

raighn

The current direction for blasts is homoginizing them into Buff/Debuff utility powers as is... and pretty much all of them already do function identically to eachother...

I see this as an oportunity for blasts to become a nice tool for debuffer builds by giving them a chance to spread their debuffs via a small radius low damage AoE... 0-100% chance on charge to debuff main target, 0-50% chance on charge to debuff AoE targets... could even be dropped to 0-25% or 0-15% for the AoE targets if needed...

spinnytop

raighn said:

The current direction for blasts is homoginizing them into Buff/Debuff utility powers as is... and pretty much all of them already do function identically to eachother...

I see this as an oportunity for blasts to become a nice tool for debuffer builds by giving them a chance to spread their debuffs via a small radius low damage AoE... 0-100% chance on charge to debuff main target, 0-50% chance on charge to debuff AoE targets... could even be dropped to 0-25% or 0-15% for the AoE targets if needed...

So.. you're giving reasons for why you think this should be done?

championshewolf

Homogenizing isn't a bad thing, per se. There shouldn't be a reason why blast A is better than blast B. If blast A attacks faster, that's ok, as long as the damage of blast A is relative to blast B's slower attacks. Each can have their own staples to that make them unique, but in the end, I should not be feeling inferior because I chose blast A instead of blast B. They should relatively fall within the same amount of damage to each other, and be good for their own directions.

Each power set has unique effects tied with them and that helps to differentiate them.

That being said, splash damage, which is what is being asked for, should be done only if it's thematic, and splash damage should only happen at a cost of main damage. It's AoE after all, even if it is a small area. You aren't going to convince me that a Straight Shot should do splash damage as well, it's an arrow. Just like you aren't going to convince me that Ego Blast should do splash damage to. There has to be sense before just slapping a modifier to something willy nilly.

And to make it clear I am comparing equal tiered powers to each other, not some tier 0 to a tier 3. The differences there should be obvious. I am talking like ice blast and straight shot comparisons, for instance.​​

spinnytop

championshewolf said:

That being said, splash damage, which is what is being asked for, should be done only if it's thematic, and splash damage should only happen at a cost of main damage. It's AoE after all, even if it is a small area. You aren't going to convince me that a Straight Shot should do splash damage as well, it's an arrow. Just like you aren't going to convince me that Ego Blast should do splash damage to. There has to be sense before just slapping a modifier to something willy nilly.

Agreed.

raighn

Fair enough...

So looking through each blast...

Blasts that would be completely thematic to have splash damage:
Fire Strike
Earth Shard (already does)
Tactical Missile (already does)
Power Gauntlet
Chain Lightning (already does, sort of)
Infernal Blast

Blasts that could be thematic to have splash damage:
Ice Blast
Gust
Force Blast
Eldritch Blast

Blasts that are in neutral territory:
Shadow Blast
Rebuke

Blasts that are questionable for splash damage:
Experimental Blaster
Mind Break
Ego Blast

Blasts that don't make sense for splash damage:
Straight Shot
Ricochet Throw
Burst Shot

magpieuk2014

I wouldn't be in favour of this, because I know how the change would pan out; the developers would feel the need to balance the extra amount of damage done to multiple (rather than single) targets by removing the specific debuffs and advantages these powers currently give. Given that most of the power sets already have excellent AoE attacks and that the advantages of certain low level blast attacks are massively significant when dealing with powerful enemies (Power Gauntlet's interrupt, for example), it doesn't seem like a great idea. Sorry.