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A little love for Gadgeteering?
thisiscraftaaa
Posts: 240 Arc User
As a quick note, I attempted to post this but apparently it's around 7.8k characters too big to post, so I'm going to just... split this up into two posts! With a wait of a little while between posts to not be flagged as spam by the auto-mod! Again! I get the sneaking feeling this is not how the forums are generally expected to be used, but oh well, here we go! So.
While the advent of Sonic Beam was nice, Gadgeteering is still in an odd spot, where Sonic Beam isn't even as good as Assault Rifle on its own, and Pulse Beam Rifle- while technically parsing minutely higher on its own- falls behind noticeably when using the intended Advantages plus other, auxiliary powers (read: DoT appliers and refreshers, defense debuff appliers, so on and so forth) and even worse when put in a situation in which one has to stop attacking and block regularly (which is most of the endgame experience) or when enemies are dying quickly enough to not be able to properly reach Pulse Beam Rifle's backload. (PBR needs a target to survive up to a 4 to 4.5 second interval to reach its full backload, otherwise it falls flat if, for example, a target lives for only 2 seconds, or only 6 seconds, so on and so forth.) And even beyond that, Gadgeteering has a significant lack of even decent AoE. The only two powers in-set that are functional enough as AoEs to actually use are two Slashing damage powers, Ricochet Throw and Throwing Blades, which leads us to another issue entirely.
Gadgeteering wants to use Particle damage, except it also wants to use Sonic damage, except it also wants to use Slashing damage, and also it wants to use Crushing damage, and occasionally Fire or Toxic damage. Or Piercing damage if you count PVDs! Unlike most other sets, its damage types are incredibly widely scattered. So! We have Sonic and Slashing, both of which also aren't really Gadgeteering's forte, and don't really mesh well with most other Technology powers as those revolve much more primarily around Particle, Crushing and some Piercing, and if you're running Gadgeteering you're almost definitely running either Targeting Computer or potentially Quantum Stabilizer or Electric Form, leaning aggressively into either pure Technology or strongly into Particle damage, and on top of that, Ricochet Throw has to sacrifice some of its damage to act as a ranged Slashing applier, and the one Sonic debuff applier in-set is so bad we had to have an Ultimate PVD for it introduced just to get people to use it at all. We have Particle and Crushing, which gels well with Technology in general and with almost everything in general, respectively, but Gadgeteering's Particle options are, and I'm going to be blunt, weaker than they should be, and Gadgeteering lacks defense debuff appliers for Particle and Crushing both and has to steal these from other sets just to make due. Gadgeteering has Toxic damage, but this is quite minimal, and mostly sees use as an accessory to Targeting Computer Qularr Toxic Rifle builds at best. Gadgeteering has even less going for it in the way of Piercing, where you effectively just make a pure Munitions or Archery build and throw a PVD on top of it, like Qularr Toxic Rifle with Infernal builds half of the time, but more lackluster due to energy cost issues and range plus mobility issues.
In short, Gadgeteering has a noticeable identity problem. And while it might not be the most creative or intelligent way to go about things, I'd like to propose a solution with the modifying of a few existing powers and/or the creation of a few new powers. I was originally going to write up some flowery, extravagant presentation like I've done with my PVD suggestion threads in the past, but I've decided to just trade aesthetic and wild ideas for tamer ideas and getting my point across. So with that in mind, allow me to raise a few possibilities to give Gadgeteering a bit more of an edge. (Because seriously, beaten out by baseline Assault Rifle, let alone Two Gun Mojo, let alone any of the maintain powerhouses like Soul Beam or LArc or Qularr Toxic Rifle? Let's show this set at least a little bit of love.)
Firstly, modifying and buffing existing powers.
I opened with talking about Pulse Beam Rifle and I'll fixate on that for just a short while here. See, Pulse Beam Rifle is almost great, but its one crippling problem is that it's so massively backloaded that when showing up to content where you have to block frequently, like for examples Teleiosaurus or TT Black Fang, your damage output is effectively cut in half, and unlike Power Armor, your overall damage output isn't both stronger and more mobile than every other set to compensate for this. So I'd like to present a few ideas here, under the assumption that not all of these would be implemented, but that any one of them could be implemented, to either give Pulse Beam Rifle a slight upgrade in general, or to balance it out to being fully functional even in situations where one has to stop attacking regularly.
- Add an extra source of damage to Pulse Beam Rifle. Honestly, it wouldn't be some massive overpowering buff, but adding a Plasma Burn target-application chance to Pulse Beam Rifle comparable to something like Two Gun Mojo's Furious self-application chance would be one way of giving it a little nudge in the right direction, and a little extra compatibility with Laser Sword's set.
- Remove Pulse Beam Rifle's backloading. Hear me out. I don't mean remove as in "make all its ticks as pathetically weak as the first." I mean remove as in equalize. On an example character that does, oh, 230-505 based on pulse, just average it out to (230+505)/2=367.5 each tick. Then convert the escalating 5% chance+sev bonus per tick to an innate flat 20% or 25% higher chance+sev. This doesn't remove Pulse Beam Rifle's identity as "the weird funny crit laser" but it does allow it to function much better in situations where its user is forced to block constantly without actually increasing its DPS whatsoever. Of note, Finite Improbability Engine would need to be tweaked to match this, but honestly, just making it give a flat extra 5% chance+sev to all ticks and keeping the Bane-esque effect would be fine.
- Introduce a new 2-point Advantage that makes Pulse Beam Rifle deal 30% higher damage against targets afflicted by Burn Through or Disintegrate, to match Assault Rifle's adv of 30% for 3 stacks of Furious, Qularr Toxic Rifle's 30% for 5 stacks of Poison on the target, Two Gun Mojo's 30% for continually maintaining or 35% for hugging the target in melee range, Sonic Beams' 30% against targets affected by Deafening, and a myriad of other powers- both melee and ranged- with advs that make them do 30% higher damage under specific criteria that you'd generally already want to aim for when using their base powers anyways due to how they interact with the set as a whole. And yes, I am aware that Gadgeteering doesn't really have a source of Burn Through or Disintegrate, but that could be remedied by giving such to existing powers or to entirely new powers (which I'll get to in a little while) or by simply mixing and matching Gadgeteering with PA and LS powers like you're already meant to do.
Next, let's talk about various other oddities in the set and what I might propose to do with them. And first I'd like to address Experimental Blaster and its AoE counterpart, because these are both incredibly strange and a relic of old CO's more casual nature that don't work out well any more with how the game is balanced now. Both of these I'll address together, because my ideas for them are rather similar to each-other.
- For Experimental Blaster as a baseline, it rewards tapspamming, but beyond that isn't really interesting. If charged, it deals less damage, but throws in random Knocks, Confuses and Stuns, as well as the whole "1% teddybear transformation" effect, and the Death Ray advantage that likewise is a strange holdover of those olden casual times. For Experimental Blaster, I would propose introducing two advantages: one 2-point Adv that would apply Disintegrate and a single stack of Plasma Burn to the target at any charge level (including tapping,) and one 2-point Adv that would apply the Radiate effect (seen also on Cybernetic Tether) on tap; this would allow Experimental Blaster to function as a decent damage utility for Pulse Beam Rifle while remaining in-set, and would also see some use for- potentially- both PA and LS builds for its utility.
- Secondly, I would like to introduce a more exotic and unusual 2-point Advantage to this device to play up a more utility-oriented side, something along the lines of "Laser Designator," which would make Experimental Blaster, when fully charged, apply a debuff to the target in question that would increase the Critical Chance of incoming attacks to that target by 2.5% and the Severity of those attacks by 5%, as well as applying a 2.5% Dodge Chance and a 5% Avoidance penalty to the target in question. This would last 15 seconds, be refreshed/reapplied on subsequent full-charges, and could only be stacked once per player, stacking up to three times total no matter how many players attempt to apply the effect to the target. (Gadgeteering's painted as something of a supportive, buffing powerset so let's play into that some too.)
- For Experimental Burst Ray, the mobility of this power is good but its range- being a 30-degree cone with 50 feet of range- is somewhat lacking for its lackluster damage, with Ricochet Throw and Throwing Blades both significantly outperform this power both in utility and pure performance, both in-set and especially out-of-set (as both of those powers perform uniquely well with Night Warrior, designed to do so as they are.) As such, my suggestion for this is two-fold. Firstly, baseline Experimental Burst Ray's Overcharge should no longer lock the weapon out, but instead increase its energy cost by something like 20% per stack and widen the cone by 5 degrees each stack (45* at full stacks) while still increasing its damage as normal, and add a 1/3rd-per-stack chance of applying a stack of Plasma Burn to all targets hit on full charge, and its Arcturus Cooling System Adv should instead negate the energy cost increase of stacks and give a small charge speed buff with each stack, something like 5% per stack.
- Nextly, I would introduce a 2-point Advantage for Experimental Burst Ray to give it a little more utility outside of throwing large numbers at things directly. While Experimental Blaster covers helping others make the bigger numbers happen, for Experimental Burst Ray something along the lines of "Debilitating Flash" comes to mind; removing the damage bonus of Overcharge stacks and decreasing the power's baseline damage significantly and removing the Plasma Burn application chance suggested in the prior paragraph for good measure in exchange for making Experimental Burst Ray full-charges guarantee a Snare and Disorient on all targets hit, as well as- likewise when full-charged- a Paralyze on all targets hit.
Now for other oddities of the set to potentially toy with. I'll address these all in their own individual little paragraphs since they're, at least to me, not nearly as noteworthy but I still find something could be done with them to make them more interesting or useful in a variety of ways.
- Tractor Beam. Let's be honest, the fact that it has an energy cost of "lol" doesn't negate the fact that we're in a spot where adding new powers is something that apparently takes ages to do, and we're sitting on perfectly usable VFX and animations with something like this, which might as well not exist in its current state, doing basically zero damage on its own and where single-target repels and reverse repels are all but entirely and objectively useless for PvE (I can't speak of PvP but I'd assume this is rather useless there as well almost all of the time) which leaves Tractor Beam as one of those powers that simply nobody ever takes outside of for the joke. So! I would suggest two 2-point Advantages for this to make it more useful generally speaking, and they're A. entirely redundant, and B. probably violate some sort of unspoken balancing rule. That is to say, give it an Advantage that makes its Maintain longer but makes it apply Burn Through at the end of its Maintain, and then give it another Advantage that makes its Maintain longer but makes it apply Disintegrate at the end of its Maintain. Or, alternatively, I, I present this idea: introduce a 2-point Adv that removes the reverse-Repel and massively nerfs (read: increases) energy costs, but also removes the cooldown time completely and drastically buffs Tractor Beam's damage. For this, I would suggest 3x base, which should put it at a hair over Single-Minded 2GM, which has the same range but does not self-root while using (and 2GM does still get 25%/tick Furious at R2+Adv,) which in turn is a hair over Concentrated Shots Rapid Shots, which self-roots while using just like Tractor Beam but has 100' range instead of 50', which is in turn a hair over Uncompromising Assault Rifle, which has 100' range and allows half/slowed mobility. (For comparison, on a Heirloom'd test character in the powerhouse on live, R2+Single Minded 2GM would be ~1123.2 per tick, R2+Concentrated Shots Rapid Shots would be 1116 per tick, R2+Uncompromising Assault Rifle would be 1071, while only-50'-range self-rooting damaging Tractor Beam- let's call it "R2+Charged Particle Projector" Tractor Beam would be 399*3, or 1,197 per tick.) Seriously. Tractor Beam looks cool, sounds cool, and is a hair away from being beyond usable. Please give us reasons to use it.
- Orbital Cannon. See, Orbital Cannon is almost great, but just not quite all the way there, at least in my opinion. Just a tiny little bit of tweaking would make it utterly immaculate, so my suggestions for it would be immensely simple. One: incorporate the Radiate effect into it baseline: ten seconds of a minimal extra chance for more Plasma Burns applied to up to five targets at once would be nice for mixing with Laser Sword, since, and let's be honest, we have very little proper application of Plasma Burns to multiple targets for the sake of Particle Smash or Ultimate Particle Smash and this would be better than nothing. Two: let's sprinkle in a little extra flavor; give us a 2-point Advantage that makes Orbital Cannon leave a Secondary Pyre Patch (like those of Strafing Run, Incendiary Grenade, Flaming Pumpkin, etcetera) where it strikes. It could just be fire-based, but let's be honest, it'd be way better if it were a new variant that did Particle damage and had Plasma Burn application chance instead of Clinging Flames application chance, which would make this perfect for feeding mass Plasma Burn rupturing. You will be seeing this "Particle Pyre Patch" idea come back later on. Three: introduce a 2-point Advantage that makes Orbital Cannon apply Disintegrate to everything it hits, and makes Anvil of Dawn- if taken- continually reapply/refresh Disintegrate. This would make Orbital Cannon amazing for Plasma Burn rupturing builds, and useful for anything using primarily-ranged Particle damage in general, and for a power with a long cooldown, it's a well-deserved way of getting more out of it without just buffing its damage, when Orbital Cannon already hits decently hard (but suffers from requiring a full charge to fire off, which is liable to be interrupted in many cases.)
- Gas Pellets. These are particularly odd little things that, for an almost exclusively ranged powerset, demand melee range to make the most of them, and are otherwise incredibly close to Gas Arrow, save for doing more damage per tick and Snaring instead of debuffing Perception. For these, personally, I would make them targeted rather than nontargeted, and increase their range to 50', to make them something closer to a shorter-range, smaller-area, higher-damage alternative to Gas Arrow (which I must again emphasize is a way better power despite the lower damage.) I would also increase their duration to 12 seconds if not to 16 seconds, and slightly decrease their damage (while still keeping it higher than Gas Arrow) to compensate. And, for a little smidgeon of flavor, let's give it another 2-point Advantage, "Fear Gas," that gives Gas Pellets a high chance of applying Fear with each tick and a low chance of either Confusing or Corrupting targets with each tick.
- Particle Mine. This and its Munitions counterpart of Mini Mines are true oddballs. Of course, while I think Mini Mines is bad and in need of a buff too, I'm here to talk about Gadgeteering, not necessarily buffing other sets. So, Particle Mine is... weak! It's got a low-to-moderate cooldown, doesn't hit particularly hard and only deploys at your feet, making it have similar problems to Gas Pellets. Its only Advantage, Ejector Module, knocks enemies away decently hard when it goes off, which ranged DPSes don't care about in the first place (or actively hate because AoEs require mobs to be close together) and melee DPSes- who are more likely to use Particle Mine in the first place since they're the only ones meant to be in such close range- will all hate it by default. So! I'd like to propose several little tidbits. Firstly, a buff to baseline Particle Mine. A slight extra bit of damage, perhaps, or just make it always apply a stack of Plasma Burn to all targets hit at least, and for the love of god, please either make it entirely immune to damage since it has 13.5k health at level 40, no "I'm A Pet" buff, and can and will be instantly eaten alive by things like Therakiel's anti-pet aura mechanic, or at least just make it immune to explicit anti-pet effects like Therakiel's aura. Secondly, it has a knock-back Adv, but let's give it another 2-point Adv, call it something like "Hawking Implosion," and have it- on detonation- knock up to 5 enemies within 25' towards its detonation point, making it more of a helpful utility for melee and ranged alike. Lastly, let's give it some of the traditional advs. Throw Radiate in there, give it something for Burn Through or Disintegrate, and we're good! Just like that, Particle Mine is way more useful.
- Chainsaw Gauntlet. I'm going to be honest, this one is super-close to perfect already, I can't think of any large or sweeping changes I'd make. Give it some baseline Bleed application chance of up to 30% or 35% per tick at R3 or something like that, get rid of that awful Open Wound Advantage, give it an Advantage that makes it do 30% more damage to Shredded targets and gains slightly more Bleed application chance against them, and maybe for good measure give it one more Advantage that makes it do another 30% more damage if only hitting one target for good measure, and voila, you've just created a very fun monster.
- Strafing Run. Ahh, this is an oddball of a power for sure. It's almost, almost perfect, like a better Orbital Cannon, but it's just not. Quite. there. Between the massive energy cost, and the clunky "click on the ground to place, and if there is no ground, have fun with that" usage method, it's got problems. So with that in mind, firstly, I'd like to say: please, please just make it a normal click-power that is placed automatically on a selected enemy within valid distance when used. Secondly, given the very strong and clear synergy with the entirety of the Fire set, I'd like to raise the thought of a 2-point Advantage that would make Strafing Run apply 3 stacks of Engulfing Flames to all targets it hits, and an extra 1-point Advantage that would make it spawn an at-rank Lava Pit (hot and fresh from the Hydra power, just minus the Hydras) beneath the target in addition to the Pyre Patch.
- Implosion Engine. A case of simply being neglected when powers that do its own job but better are introduced, I'm going to be blunt. This is an easy fix. Scale it up from 12 seconds to 16 seconds, squish its Crushing damage and Pull into single ticks every second instead of two ticks a second and increase the damage and pull strength to compensate. And for good measure, to make it really stand out, give it a 2-point Advantage that lets it apply/refresh Overpower to targets within 10ft of its center with each tick. That's all you really need to do. Implosion Engine is almost great but it just gets outdone by everything now adays due to the power creep that came with unlockable Ults and Ultimate PVDs. So please, let's show the dusty old vacuum cleaner a little love.
And with that, a break from this post to the next.
While the advent of Sonic Beam was nice, Gadgeteering is still in an odd spot, where Sonic Beam isn't even as good as Assault Rifle on its own, and Pulse Beam Rifle- while technically parsing minutely higher on its own- falls behind noticeably when using the intended Advantages plus other, auxiliary powers (read: DoT appliers and refreshers, defense debuff appliers, so on and so forth) and even worse when put in a situation in which one has to stop attacking and block regularly (which is most of the endgame experience) or when enemies are dying quickly enough to not be able to properly reach Pulse Beam Rifle's backload. (PBR needs a target to survive up to a 4 to 4.5 second interval to reach its full backload, otherwise it falls flat if, for example, a target lives for only 2 seconds, or only 6 seconds, so on and so forth.) And even beyond that, Gadgeteering has a significant lack of even decent AoE. The only two powers in-set that are functional enough as AoEs to actually use are two Slashing damage powers, Ricochet Throw and Throwing Blades, which leads us to another issue entirely.
Gadgeteering wants to use Particle damage, except it also wants to use Sonic damage, except it also wants to use Slashing damage, and also it wants to use Crushing damage, and occasionally Fire or Toxic damage. Or Piercing damage if you count PVDs! Unlike most other sets, its damage types are incredibly widely scattered. So! We have Sonic and Slashing, both of which also aren't really Gadgeteering's forte, and don't really mesh well with most other Technology powers as those revolve much more primarily around Particle, Crushing and some Piercing, and if you're running Gadgeteering you're almost definitely running either Targeting Computer or potentially Quantum Stabilizer or Electric Form, leaning aggressively into either pure Technology or strongly into Particle damage, and on top of that, Ricochet Throw has to sacrifice some of its damage to act as a ranged Slashing applier, and the one Sonic debuff applier in-set is so bad we had to have an Ultimate PVD for it introduced just to get people to use it at all. We have Particle and Crushing, which gels well with Technology in general and with almost everything in general, respectively, but Gadgeteering's Particle options are, and I'm going to be blunt, weaker than they should be, and Gadgeteering lacks defense debuff appliers for Particle and Crushing both and has to steal these from other sets just to make due. Gadgeteering has Toxic damage, but this is quite minimal, and mostly sees use as an accessory to Targeting Computer Qularr Toxic Rifle builds at best. Gadgeteering has even less going for it in the way of Piercing, where you effectively just make a pure Munitions or Archery build and throw a PVD on top of it, like Qularr Toxic Rifle with Infernal builds half of the time, but more lackluster due to energy cost issues and range plus mobility issues.
In short, Gadgeteering has a noticeable identity problem. And while it might not be the most creative or intelligent way to go about things, I'd like to propose a solution with the modifying of a few existing powers and/or the creation of a few new powers. I was originally going to write up some flowery, extravagant presentation like I've done with my PVD suggestion threads in the past, but I've decided to just trade aesthetic and wild ideas for tamer ideas and getting my point across. So with that in mind, allow me to raise a few possibilities to give Gadgeteering a bit more of an edge. (Because seriously, beaten out by baseline Assault Rifle, let alone Two Gun Mojo, let alone any of the maintain powerhouses like Soul Beam or LArc or Qularr Toxic Rifle? Let's show this set at least a little bit of love.)
Firstly, modifying and buffing existing powers.
I opened with talking about Pulse Beam Rifle and I'll fixate on that for just a short while here. See, Pulse Beam Rifle is almost great, but its one crippling problem is that it's so massively backloaded that when showing up to content where you have to block frequently, like for examples Teleiosaurus or TT Black Fang, your damage output is effectively cut in half, and unlike Power Armor, your overall damage output isn't both stronger and more mobile than every other set to compensate for this. So I'd like to present a few ideas here, under the assumption that not all of these would be implemented, but that any one of them could be implemented, to either give Pulse Beam Rifle a slight upgrade in general, or to balance it out to being fully functional even in situations where one has to stop attacking regularly.
- Add an extra source of damage to Pulse Beam Rifle. Honestly, it wouldn't be some massive overpowering buff, but adding a Plasma Burn target-application chance to Pulse Beam Rifle comparable to something like Two Gun Mojo's Furious self-application chance would be one way of giving it a little nudge in the right direction, and a little extra compatibility with Laser Sword's set.
- Remove Pulse Beam Rifle's backloading. Hear me out. I don't mean remove as in "make all its ticks as pathetically weak as the first." I mean remove as in equalize. On an example character that does, oh, 230-505 based on pulse, just average it out to (230+505)/2=367.5 each tick. Then convert the escalating 5% chance+sev bonus per tick to an innate flat 20% or 25% higher chance+sev. This doesn't remove Pulse Beam Rifle's identity as "the weird funny crit laser" but it does allow it to function much better in situations where its user is forced to block constantly without actually increasing its DPS whatsoever. Of note, Finite Improbability Engine would need to be tweaked to match this, but honestly, just making it give a flat extra 5% chance+sev to all ticks and keeping the Bane-esque effect would be fine.
- Introduce a new 2-point Advantage that makes Pulse Beam Rifle deal 30% higher damage against targets afflicted by Burn Through or Disintegrate, to match Assault Rifle's adv of 30% for 3 stacks of Furious, Qularr Toxic Rifle's 30% for 5 stacks of Poison on the target, Two Gun Mojo's 30% for continually maintaining or 35% for hugging the target in melee range, Sonic Beams' 30% against targets affected by Deafening, and a myriad of other powers- both melee and ranged- with advs that make them do 30% higher damage under specific criteria that you'd generally already want to aim for when using their base powers anyways due to how they interact with the set as a whole. And yes, I am aware that Gadgeteering doesn't really have a source of Burn Through or Disintegrate, but that could be remedied by giving such to existing powers or to entirely new powers (which I'll get to in a little while) or by simply mixing and matching Gadgeteering with PA and LS powers like you're already meant to do.
Next, let's talk about various other oddities in the set and what I might propose to do with them. And first I'd like to address Experimental Blaster and its AoE counterpart, because these are both incredibly strange and a relic of old CO's more casual nature that don't work out well any more with how the game is balanced now. Both of these I'll address together, because my ideas for them are rather similar to each-other.
- For Experimental Blaster as a baseline, it rewards tapspamming, but beyond that isn't really interesting. If charged, it deals less damage, but throws in random Knocks, Confuses and Stuns, as well as the whole "1% teddybear transformation" effect, and the Death Ray advantage that likewise is a strange holdover of those olden casual times. For Experimental Blaster, I would propose introducing two advantages: one 2-point Adv that would apply Disintegrate and a single stack of Plasma Burn to the target at any charge level (including tapping,) and one 2-point Adv that would apply the Radiate effect (seen also on Cybernetic Tether) on tap; this would allow Experimental Blaster to function as a decent damage utility for Pulse Beam Rifle while remaining in-set, and would also see some use for- potentially- both PA and LS builds for its utility.
- Secondly, I would like to introduce a more exotic and unusual 2-point Advantage to this device to play up a more utility-oriented side, something along the lines of "Laser Designator," which would make Experimental Blaster, when fully charged, apply a debuff to the target in question that would increase the Critical Chance of incoming attacks to that target by 2.5% and the Severity of those attacks by 5%, as well as applying a 2.5% Dodge Chance and a 5% Avoidance penalty to the target in question. This would last 15 seconds, be refreshed/reapplied on subsequent full-charges, and could only be stacked once per player, stacking up to three times total no matter how many players attempt to apply the effect to the target. (Gadgeteering's painted as something of a supportive, buffing powerset so let's play into that some too.)
- For Experimental Burst Ray, the mobility of this power is good but its range- being a 30-degree cone with 50 feet of range- is somewhat lacking for its lackluster damage, with Ricochet Throw and Throwing Blades both significantly outperform this power both in utility and pure performance, both in-set and especially out-of-set (as both of those powers perform uniquely well with Night Warrior, designed to do so as they are.) As such, my suggestion for this is two-fold. Firstly, baseline Experimental Burst Ray's Overcharge should no longer lock the weapon out, but instead increase its energy cost by something like 20% per stack and widen the cone by 5 degrees each stack (45* at full stacks) while still increasing its damage as normal, and add a 1/3rd-per-stack chance of applying a stack of Plasma Burn to all targets hit on full charge, and its Arcturus Cooling System Adv should instead negate the energy cost increase of stacks and give a small charge speed buff with each stack, something like 5% per stack.
- Nextly, I would introduce a 2-point Advantage for Experimental Burst Ray to give it a little more utility outside of throwing large numbers at things directly. While Experimental Blaster covers helping others make the bigger numbers happen, for Experimental Burst Ray something along the lines of "Debilitating Flash" comes to mind; removing the damage bonus of Overcharge stacks and decreasing the power's baseline damage significantly and removing the Plasma Burn application chance suggested in the prior paragraph for good measure in exchange for making Experimental Burst Ray full-charges guarantee a Snare and Disorient on all targets hit, as well as- likewise when full-charged- a Paralyze on all targets hit.
Now for other oddities of the set to potentially toy with. I'll address these all in their own individual little paragraphs since they're, at least to me, not nearly as noteworthy but I still find something could be done with them to make them more interesting or useful in a variety of ways.
- Tractor Beam. Let's be honest, the fact that it has an energy cost of "lol" doesn't negate the fact that we're in a spot where adding new powers is something that apparently takes ages to do, and we're sitting on perfectly usable VFX and animations with something like this, which might as well not exist in its current state, doing basically zero damage on its own and where single-target repels and reverse repels are all but entirely and objectively useless for PvE (I can't speak of PvP but I'd assume this is rather useless there as well almost all of the time) which leaves Tractor Beam as one of those powers that simply nobody ever takes outside of for the joke. So! I would suggest two 2-point Advantages for this to make it more useful generally speaking, and they're A. entirely redundant, and B. probably violate some sort of unspoken balancing rule. That is to say, give it an Advantage that makes its Maintain longer but makes it apply Burn Through at the end of its Maintain, and then give it another Advantage that makes its Maintain longer but makes it apply Disintegrate at the end of its Maintain. Or, alternatively, I, I present this idea: introduce a 2-point Adv that removes the reverse-Repel and massively nerfs (read: increases) energy costs, but also removes the cooldown time completely and drastically buffs Tractor Beam's damage. For this, I would suggest 3x base, which should put it at a hair over Single-Minded 2GM, which has the same range but does not self-root while using (and 2GM does still get 25%/tick Furious at R2+Adv,) which in turn is a hair over Concentrated Shots Rapid Shots, which self-roots while using just like Tractor Beam but has 100' range instead of 50', which is in turn a hair over Uncompromising Assault Rifle, which has 100' range and allows half/slowed mobility. (For comparison, on a Heirloom'd test character in the powerhouse on live, R2+Single Minded 2GM would be ~1123.2 per tick, R2+Concentrated Shots Rapid Shots would be 1116 per tick, R2+Uncompromising Assault Rifle would be 1071, while only-50'-range self-rooting damaging Tractor Beam- let's call it "R2+Charged Particle Projector" Tractor Beam would be 399*3, or 1,197 per tick.) Seriously. Tractor Beam looks cool, sounds cool, and is a hair away from being beyond usable. Please give us reasons to use it.
- Orbital Cannon. See, Orbital Cannon is almost great, but just not quite all the way there, at least in my opinion. Just a tiny little bit of tweaking would make it utterly immaculate, so my suggestions for it would be immensely simple. One: incorporate the Radiate effect into it baseline: ten seconds of a minimal extra chance for more Plasma Burns applied to up to five targets at once would be nice for mixing with Laser Sword, since, and let's be honest, we have very little proper application of Plasma Burns to multiple targets for the sake of Particle Smash or Ultimate Particle Smash and this would be better than nothing. Two: let's sprinkle in a little extra flavor; give us a 2-point Advantage that makes Orbital Cannon leave a Secondary Pyre Patch (like those of Strafing Run, Incendiary Grenade, Flaming Pumpkin, etcetera) where it strikes. It could just be fire-based, but let's be honest, it'd be way better if it were a new variant that did Particle damage and had Plasma Burn application chance instead of Clinging Flames application chance, which would make this perfect for feeding mass Plasma Burn rupturing. You will be seeing this "Particle Pyre Patch" idea come back later on. Three: introduce a 2-point Advantage that makes Orbital Cannon apply Disintegrate to everything it hits, and makes Anvil of Dawn- if taken- continually reapply/refresh Disintegrate. This would make Orbital Cannon amazing for Plasma Burn rupturing builds, and useful for anything using primarily-ranged Particle damage in general, and for a power with a long cooldown, it's a well-deserved way of getting more out of it without just buffing its damage, when Orbital Cannon already hits decently hard (but suffers from requiring a full charge to fire off, which is liable to be interrupted in many cases.)
- Gas Pellets. These are particularly odd little things that, for an almost exclusively ranged powerset, demand melee range to make the most of them, and are otherwise incredibly close to Gas Arrow, save for doing more damage per tick and Snaring instead of debuffing Perception. For these, personally, I would make them targeted rather than nontargeted, and increase their range to 50', to make them something closer to a shorter-range, smaller-area, higher-damage alternative to Gas Arrow (which I must again emphasize is a way better power despite the lower damage.) I would also increase their duration to 12 seconds if not to 16 seconds, and slightly decrease their damage (while still keeping it higher than Gas Arrow) to compensate. And, for a little smidgeon of flavor, let's give it another 2-point Advantage, "Fear Gas," that gives Gas Pellets a high chance of applying Fear with each tick and a low chance of either Confusing or Corrupting targets with each tick.
- Particle Mine. This and its Munitions counterpart of Mini Mines are true oddballs. Of course, while I think Mini Mines is bad and in need of a buff too, I'm here to talk about Gadgeteering, not necessarily buffing other sets. So, Particle Mine is... weak! It's got a low-to-moderate cooldown, doesn't hit particularly hard and only deploys at your feet, making it have similar problems to Gas Pellets. Its only Advantage, Ejector Module, knocks enemies away decently hard when it goes off, which ranged DPSes don't care about in the first place (or actively hate because AoEs require mobs to be close together) and melee DPSes- who are more likely to use Particle Mine in the first place since they're the only ones meant to be in such close range- will all hate it by default. So! I'd like to propose several little tidbits. Firstly, a buff to baseline Particle Mine. A slight extra bit of damage, perhaps, or just make it always apply a stack of Plasma Burn to all targets hit at least, and for the love of god, please either make it entirely immune to damage since it has 13.5k health at level 40, no "I'm A Pet" buff, and can and will be instantly eaten alive by things like Therakiel's anti-pet aura mechanic, or at least just make it immune to explicit anti-pet effects like Therakiel's aura. Secondly, it has a knock-back Adv, but let's give it another 2-point Adv, call it something like "Hawking Implosion," and have it- on detonation- knock up to 5 enemies within 25' towards its detonation point, making it more of a helpful utility for melee and ranged alike. Lastly, let's give it some of the traditional advs. Throw Radiate in there, give it something for Burn Through or Disintegrate, and we're good! Just like that, Particle Mine is way more useful.
- Chainsaw Gauntlet. I'm going to be honest, this one is super-close to perfect already, I can't think of any large or sweeping changes I'd make. Give it some baseline Bleed application chance of up to 30% or 35% per tick at R3 or something like that, get rid of that awful Open Wound Advantage, give it an Advantage that makes it do 30% more damage to Shredded targets and gains slightly more Bleed application chance against them, and maybe for good measure give it one more Advantage that makes it do another 30% more damage if only hitting one target for good measure, and voila, you've just created a very fun monster.
- Strafing Run. Ahh, this is an oddball of a power for sure. It's almost, almost perfect, like a better Orbital Cannon, but it's just not. Quite. there. Between the massive energy cost, and the clunky "click on the ground to place, and if there is no ground, have fun with that" usage method, it's got problems. So with that in mind, firstly, I'd like to say: please, please just make it a normal click-power that is placed automatically on a selected enemy within valid distance when used. Secondly, given the very strong and clear synergy with the entirety of the Fire set, I'd like to raise the thought of a 2-point Advantage that would make Strafing Run apply 3 stacks of Engulfing Flames to all targets it hits, and an extra 1-point Advantage that would make it spawn an at-rank Lava Pit (hot and fresh from the Hydra power, just minus the Hydras) beneath the target in addition to the Pyre Patch.
- Implosion Engine. A case of simply being neglected when powers that do its own job but better are introduced, I'm going to be blunt. This is an easy fix. Scale it up from 12 seconds to 16 seconds, squish its Crushing damage and Pull into single ticks every second instead of two ticks a second and increase the damage and pull strength to compensate. And for good measure, to make it really stand out, give it a 2-point Advantage that lets it apply/refresh Overpower to targets within 10ft of its center with each tick. That's all you really need to do. Implosion Engine is almost great but it just gets outdone by everything now adays due to the power creep that came with unlockable Ults and Ultimate PVDs. So please, let's show the dusty old vacuum cleaner a little love.
And with that, a break from this post to the next.
The fact that the forums refuse to tell you how close you are to the character/post size limit until you attempt to post something that happens to be too big- and the automated spam filter will immediately completely lock you out of posting long-term if you attempt to post or edit posts too close to the character limit- is genuine agony.
This is my cry for help
This is my cry for help
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"Diffused Particle Ray" is the most reasonable suggestion here by far, and hinges on the idea that at least the suggested Plasma Burn application changes are applied to Pulse Beam Rifle, since this is meant to be Submachinegun Burst to current Pulse Beam Rifle's Assault Rifle, or my suggested changed PBR's mixed Assault Rifle/Two Gun Mojo. Diffused Particle Ray is a 50-foot 45* fully-mobile (no slowing or self-root) cone Maintain that does Particle damage every 0.5 second tick and has- depending on the rank- a 10%/20%/30% chance per tick to apply Plasma Burn to each target hit. As this is meant to be SMGBurst to Pulse Beam Rifle's AR, it would inherit whatever unusual qualities PBR has: if PBR has backloaded damage then this would likewise have backloaded damage, and if PBR has a ramping crit chance and severity bonus then so would this. (Though I'm going to be honest, the "equalized with Plasma Burn" PBR I proposed is far more appealing a thought, and Diffused Particle Ray would likewise be more suited to just having lower base damage than its Munitions counterpart but compensating for it with Plasma Burn application chance and built-in higher crit chance and severity.) Of course, with that said, its Advantages as I'd imagined them would be mostly a mirror to Submachinegun Burst's as well. Continuing onto those...
- 2-point Advantage: "Radiation Poisoning" a close mirror to Aggression, Diffused Particle Ray now has a 15% chance per tick to cause targets unaffected by Deadly Poison to suffer from Deadly Poison. This chance increases to 100% to targets within melee range. (Might I propose a buff to both this and Aggression to make the application a constant? Stopping at only one stack is... incredibly stupid. But I digress.)
- 2-point Advantage: "200 RADs for the Road" a close mirror to Assault, Diffused particle Ray now refreshes Particle Burn on all targets hit with each tick. Simple and clean, and very useful for Plasma Burn rupture builds. Need I say more?
- 3-point Advantage: "Particle Barrier" a close mirror to Wall of Bullets, Diffused Particle Ray gains a ramping shield while maintained, getting stronger and stronger towards the end of the maintain and expiring quickly once no longer maintaining Diffused Particle Ray.
- 1-point Advantage: "Focusing Lens" a close mirror to Boogeyman, Diffused Particle Ray now gains a 20% chance per tick to apply or refresh Clinging Flames on each target hit.
- 2-point Advantage: "Finite Improbability Engine" Diffused Particle Ray now gains the same bonus critical chance, severity, and random debuff application that Pulse Beam Rifle has when you take Finite Improbability Engine on it. The only differencing being, Diffused Particle Ray deals less damage but hits multiple targets at a time. Enjoy!
"Micro-Singularity Bomb" is a simple beast, truth be told. The thought was that, well... for both melee and ranged, for both Fire and Crushing, the meme, the myth, the legend itself of Incendiary Grenade exists to be a total "bro just take this" power. So... why not apply that same love to Gadgeteering? To that, I present to you the Micro-Singularity Bomb, a thrown not-grenade which deals a small amount of split Crushing/Particle damage, sporting 50' of range and hitting a 15' sphere; Knocking secondary targets towards the primary target and applying a stack of Plasma Burn to all targets hit, and in return experiencing a 12-second cooldown (slightly longer than its three Munitions counterparts.) A lovely little utility already, but the butter for the bread is in the advantages, which is meant to be beneficial to all things Gadgeteering, so strap in for a total mess of various Advantages.
- 2-point Advantage: "500 RADs" Micro-Singularity Bomb now applies Burn Through to the primary target and Radiate to all targets, but increases the energy cost slightly and increases the base cooldown time by 3 seconds. (This can stack with Shrapnel Shell.)
- 2-point Advantage: "Shrapnel Shell" Micro-Singularity Bomb now applies Open Wound to all targets hit and applies Shredded to the primary target, but increases the energy cost slightly and increases base cooldown time by 3 seconds. (This can stack with 500 RADs.)
- 2-point Advantage: "Hawking Radiation" Micro-Singularity Bomb now creates a Pyre Patch expy at the location of the primary target. This expy is a Secondary Pyre Patch, like that of Incendiary Grenade, Strafing Run, Flaming Pumpkin and more, but instead of dealing Fire damage and sporting a small chance (10%/sec) to apply Clinging Flames, this one deals Particle damage and sports a small chance (15%/sec) to apply Plasma Burn.
- 2-point Advantage: "Superradiant Scattering" Micro-Singularity Bomb now applies Negative Ions to all targets hit and spawns a Static Field rune underneath the primary target.
- 2-point Advantage: "Download" simply applies Download to the user when Micro-Singularity Bomb is used. This one seems like a no-brainer, if kind-of a throwaway in most cases.
"Tracking Bug" and now we're getting into the particularly funky ideas, the total "wow I've been awake 30 hours and wouldn't it be cool if this was in CO" brainrot that always manifests during those wee late hours. This is, at least on the outside, a Particle-damage Fire Snake expy, sporting the same 100' range and 25-second base cooldown and 16 seconds of up-time, if apparently even weaker on the cover, trading guaranteed Engulfing Flames application chance and 10% Clinging Flames application chance for a pitiful 8%/10%/12% chance based on rank to apply Plasma Burn to targets and simply moving faster based on rank on top of the usual 20%/20% damage increase. But, even moreso than Micro-Singularity Bomb, the butter for the bread's in the advantages, to which I will now proceed without a moment's further stalling.
- 2-point Advantage: "Saboteur Subroutine" Tracking Bug now applies something akin to the Sigils of Ebon Weakness effect to up to 5 enemies within 10', with their movement speed and damage dealt eating up to a 100%/100% debuff at maximum based on the Presence of the user. In exchange for giving this crippling power to something that, like Fire Snake, technically can't be killed, Saboteur Subroutine decreases how quickly Tracking Bug is able to move, requiring it to be used closer to its target and for its target to not move around too much, lest it simply walk out of the effect. (I'm looking at you, Black Fang.)
- 2-point Advantage: "Fissile Material" Tracking Bug now regains some of its Fire Snake glory, gaining a 20% chance per second to apply-slash-refresh Disintegrate to enemies with each tick, and an extra 10% Plasma Burn application chance added to its innate application chance of it. However, just like Saboteur Subroutine, this Advantage debuffs Tracking Bug's maximum speed, forcing it to be used more up-close and personal to make proper use of it.
- 2-point Advantage: "Support Protocol" Tracking Bug now gains an effect comparable to Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary, providing a resistance bonus against Knocks, Holds and all incoming damage of up to 20% at maximum based on the Presence of the user to up to 5 friendlies within 10', as well as providing a tick of healing every second, something in the realm of half that of a R1 Healing Rune. In exchange, Tracking Bug now becomes a friendly-targeted power, and must be used on yourself or an ally; following the ally in question similarly to Fire Snake's Fiery Path. In exchange, Tracking Bug loses all base offensive capability, no longer doing small ticks of Particle damage every second or attempting to apply Plasma Burn, though Advs giving Tracking Bug a secondary effect (I'm thinking of Fissile Material as I type this but this goes for everything here) still work fine. This does not debuff the movement speed of Tracking Bug.
- 3-point Advantage: "Remote Recharge" and this is the exciting one. Remote Recharge turns Tracking Bug from a click-DoT invincible pet into a click-toggle-DoT invincible pet. This does eat up your Toggle slot for the purposes of Sparkstorm with the relevant Advantage, for Ego Blade Pandemonium, and similar-such effects. (This does mean that Remote Recharge isn't compatible with three-slot PA, sadly.) The way Remote Recharge functions is that the initial deployment of Tracking Bug costs its initial burst of energy, and there is no further energy tax for the first sixteen seconds of its up-time, during which it functions as normally. Past 16 seconds though, and with no upper limit to up-time, Tracking Bug starts to consume a baseline of 15 energy per second from its user, automatically de-toggling and expiring if this energy cannot be supplied. The 25-second-base cooldown only starts on the expiration of Remote Recharge Tracking Bug, not on the initial activation of it, which means that a long-enough up-time cannot be used to mitigate any effect that forces Tracking Bug to de-toggle.
And last but not least, just one more little tidbit, "Sentry Turrets" is a simple idea. A mash-up of ye olde Munitions Bots and any offensive Sigils you can think of, these turrets attack one foe within 100' with laser pulses for a small amount of Particle damage every tick, along with dealing a slightly larger tick of split Crushing/Particle damage (sweet, sweet rockets) in a 10' sphere on their target every four seconds. They sport the same deployment time as regular Sigils, and the same 25 second up-time and 30-second base recharge time, but in exchange for this unusual behavior of theirs they're even squishier than regular Sigils. They'll sport the same usual kit of advantages as Sigils, so I won't mention the whole "Mystic Transference Inner Peace Accelerated Metabolism" deal that you can assume still applies just fine in the same way I haven't mentioned how these other powers I've suggested would have Accelerated Metabolism and Challenge. You get the idea. They will, however, have a wee little bit of a gimmick to them beyond this.
- 2-point Advantage: "Desperation Detonation" when Sentry Turrets die or run out of time and naturally expire, they release a swarm of mini-mines, similarly to Munitions Bots, that detonate when enemies come too close, dealing a small chunk of Fire damage.
- 2-point Advantage: "Artillery Strike" Sentry Turrets now no longer use their basic Particle damage laser pulse. Instead, all the damage they would have dealt is added to their rocket attack, resulting in slightly lower overall damage but much more pronounced (in a sense) AoE damage centered on their selected targets.
- 2-point Advantage: "Napalm Bomb" Sentry Turrets' missile strikes now leave miniature pyre patches behind that have a 5% chance per tick to apply Clinging Flames and do a small tick of Fire damage every 2 seconds, lasting exactly 4 seconds (just in time to expire right as the next set of missiles are fired.)
And that's everything! Fundamentally, the "heart" of my suggestion here, the only thing I'm saying as a this absolutely needs to happen instead of a this would be cool, is that slight buff to Pulse Beam Rifle and the advent of Diffused Particle Ray as an AoE match for it. But I insist, Gadgeteer deserves love and all of this is written solely to spark ideas of how to actually give it that love. (Admittedly, Celestial and Earth need it way more but I'm not even sure where to start with that, so I've elected to ignore them entirely for now.) And I've written all this up solely to stir up thoughts and talks about what else could be done to breathe life into a very dead-in-the-water powerset that's currently just purely and utterly overshadowed by its more reliable, less scattered counterparts.
So, can I interest anyone else in raising thoughts and ideas, tame or ridiculous?
This is my cry for help
Might be a weird idea, but what if we have an option that leans towards that combat style? MSA's the powerset's EU, so why not embrace the whole cooldown gimmick? Give the powerset some powers that are high-burst, with a mid-low cooldown - high enough that it isn't spammable, but low enough that it can be used consistently - and make a bunch of them, so that players can rotate between using each power. This would make it play more like other MMOs with cooldown watching, though.
That or just less guns please.
In terms of adding more stuff to Gadgeteer, I'm all for making Technological counterparts to the various Sorcery powers. Gadgeteer is supposed to be the Technology Support set; so lean heavily into heals, buffs, and debuffs; and to make it feel more like an assortment of tools, add technological counterparts to Sigils and Runes.
Give us an Experimental Pistol that acts as an alternate Energy Builder, and an Experimental Bomb that inflicts radiation damage iand a random status effect on targets within ten feet of where it lands. But also develop a synergy between the On Next Hit powers and the Experimental Weaponry, similar to the synergy that exists between Sneak and the Boomerang powers: if you use an On Next Hit power and then the next power is an Experimental Weapon, it changes what the Experimental Weapon would do: activating the Toxic Gadget and then firing the Experimental Rifle not only adds Toxic damage to the rifle's damage; it converts the rifle's damage to Toxic, and gives a good chance for it to apply Deadly Poison. Trigger the Sonic Gadget just before firing the Experimental Pulse Rifle, and the Experimental Pulse Rifle will inflict Sonic damage instead of Particle damage and have a decent chance of inflicting Deafening to everyone who gets hit. Trigger the Miniaturization Gadget just before firing the Experimental Pistol, and as the Pistol generates energy for you it also causes the target to turn into a teddy bear, guaranteed. These changes replace the usual random selection of status effects; the idea is that when the Gadgeteer activates his On Next Hit power, he's fiddling with the Experimental Weapon to calibrate it for a specific use; and for one shot, the Experimental Weapon is guaranteed to operate reliably, in a manner consistent with the On Next Hit power that was used to calibrate it.
Then add a few more Gadgets, to get the rest of the elemental and energy types: a Cryonic gadget that adds Cold damage (and, when applied to an Experimental Weapon, has a chance to apply Chilled); an Incendiary Device that adds Fire damage and a chance for Experimental Weapons to apply Clinging Flames; an Electrical Device that adds Electrical damage and lets Experimental Weaponry apply Negative Ions; and a Radioactive Device that adds Particle Damage and a chance for the Experimental Weapons to apply Plasma Burn. Maybe even a Force Gadget (Crushing Damage and an Experimental Knock-Down), a Vortex Projection Gadget (Crushing damage and an Experimental Repel from a powerful blast of air), and Razordiscs (Slashing damage and an Experimental Bleed). If you really want to get wild, let your Gadgeteer stretch the boundaries between technology and mysticism (though these Powers might be best left as Unlockable Powers): a Psychotronic Gadget could allow your next attack to inflict Ego Damage, and your Experimental Weaponry to Stun the target(s); a Darkforce Generator could let your next attack inflict Dimensional Damage and an Experimental Fear debuff; a Lightforce Generator could let your next attack do Dimensional damage and your Experimental weaponry to apply Illuminated; and your Technosorcery Gadget could inflict Magic damage and apply a random Curse (it's magic, after all; you expect technology to make it reliable?)
All of these On Next Hit Gadgets can be used with any attack; it's just that they do more with the Experimental Weaponry.
That thoroughly covers the Debuff and Crowd Control options, I believe; and by selecting the right ONH Power and an Experimental Weapon, you can synergize with virtually any power set in the game. Heck, with the Lightforce Generator, you get to turn your Experimental Weapons into a means of healing your allies. Still, you might want something more than the Bionic Shielding, Resurrection Serum, Medical Nanites, Support Drones, and possibly Lightforce Generator if you want your Gadgeteer to be an effective Healer. The Support Drones thing is great when they target who you want them to; but getting them to target the right person is awkward and takes time that you may not have. The Bionic Shielding is great if it's already up when the target is hit; but it's useless if the target is already hurt. And the Resurrection Serum only works if they're already dead. The Medical Nanites do a good job of healing people immediately around you; but you may need to heal them right away and without them being nearby.
So I present to you the Stim Rifle. This is a Single Target Heal that takes the form of an Experimental Rifle (unless the designers want to give it its own skin) that instantly heals one ally for a large amount all at once; but then immediately goes on cooldown for an appropriate amount of time. Think of it as a technological version of Conviction, except that it targets an ally instead of yourself, and doesn't boost maximum health. If you target an enemy with it, it becomes a Tranquilizer Gun, inflicting Piercing damage and applying Sleep, with the same cooldown afterward.
Another possibility is Gray Goo, a disassembler nanite. This is a Rune that you place, perhaps as a grenade; enemies who enter the Gray Goo immediately get afflicted by a Slashing DoT and risk Shredding.
I said that the ONH stuff thoroughly covers the Debuffs, right? Not necessarily. I present to you the Neuralizer: hold it up in the face of an enemy, and he becomes Confused as his memories of where he is and what he's doing gets altered. Doesn't work on the big guys, unfortunately.