Pulse Beam Rifle vs. Experimental Blaster

the1egend1ives

After picking up both Pulse Beam Rifle and Experimental Blaster, I cant seem to shake the feeling that EB is tremendously underpowered compared to its rifle counterpart. PBR is a continuous stream of nonstop damage, while the attack rate with EB is just soooo slow and doesn't make up with enough damage. I wanted to see if anyone else felt differently on this topic.

P.S. The reason I picked both is because I really want the Laser Sword, and it seems that the only way to get it is by picking up two ranged abilities.

selphea

Laser Sword is under the Power Armor set is it not?

You shouldn't have to pick up PBR to get it. Just start with Laser Edge or Power Bolts.

flowcyto

the1egend1ives wrote: »

After picking up both Pulse Beam Rifle and Experimental Blaster, I cant seem to shake the feeling that EB is tremendously underpowered compared to its rifle counterpart. PBR is a continuous stream of nonstop damage, while the attack rate with EB is just soooo slow and doesn't make up with enough damage. I wanted to see if anyone else felt differently on this topic.

P.S. The reason I picked both is because I really want the Laser Sword, and it seems that the only way to get it is by picking up two ranged abilities.

yeah just getting a PA energy builder will unlock laser sword w/o needing other PA powers.

As far as Exp Blaster (even if you may end up not getting it or PBR)- its good w/ Death Ray when tap-spammed. Its charged dps is actually a bit lower than other blasts (which is quite bad), but the extra dmg procs from taps make it quite good w/ Death Ray. Only major downside to it, imo, is that the random teddy-fication can slow down killing when it (rarely) procs (that and you can't stack Concentration w/ tapped abilities if the enemy is too close).

Unknown

This content has been removed.

meedacthunist

Really, EB needs a 0 point advantage to enable its random proc removed.

It's not a bad power, but this random proc is a terrible, terrible idea.
Players should have an option to get rid of it.

I know that devs don't like 0 point advantages, but this power desperately needs it.

Can't even fathom why anyone thought that it's a good design in the first place.
From its mechanic working with DR added, to the visual effect not sitting well with every theme.

jellycupsowbug

I wonder what happens if you teddy Hi Pan and knock him over an edge. All of the trash reappears. Does he also? Is he still teddied if he comes back? Does his health reset? Why is this power never accounted for in new alert content by the developers or the hard core players when it's mandatory on one of the AT's and has respectable damage?

crypticbuxom

If no one can confirm Hi Pan being Teddied, then Tumorboy did his job even better than we thought.

flowcyto

Yup, the fact that its a unskippable power for a *PREMIUM* AT is reason enough to allow an option to remove the teddy proc. On something like Cybermind, an Inventor would be forced to use the Burst Ray for single-target dps if they wanted to avoid breaking the encounter, and that's just silly.

For Hi-Pan's alert, I imagine he'd reset at least to the nearest bar of health, but yeah its def possible he could completely reset.

theravenforce

crypticbuxom wrote: »

If no one can confirm Hi Pan being Teddied, then Tumorboy did his job even better than we thought.

Hi Pan can be teddied and knocked, however if he is knocked over the edge...I'm not too sure, but it's likely he'd reset himself. But I know knocking his teddied form into the bell thing is annoying enough especially when it wears off, you have to re teddy him and knock him out of there again.

I have both PBR and Experimental Blaster on my pet build and I love them both. They each have different uses. PBR mainly sees use in boss fights for the debuffing it does with the advantage (such as lowering super stats).

Experimental Blaster has one of the very few confuses which actually work in the game and can interrupt via knock up/stun and can do decent damage. Death Ray is a massive saver in some instances and allows you to do insane damage to some targets aka, entire HP gone :P

Experimental Blaster's teddification has uses (especially in PvP) but on the whole it is the most powerful CC effect in game, which comes with a consequence ofc, but I would be against removing it from the power entirely.

Perhaps have a 1 or 2 point advantage which removes teddification and instead adds a chance to gain random debuffs like PBR's FIE?

Having said that...The simple solution would be to stop it from affecting Comic and Legendary foes. SV's and lower can be chewed through easily.

bluhman

meedacthunist wrote: »

Really, EB needs a 0 point advantage to enable its random proc removed.

It's not a bad power, but this random proc is a terrible, terrible idea.
Players should have an option to get rid of it.

I know that devs don't like 0 point advantages, but this power desperately needs it.

Can't even fathom why anyone thought that it's a good design in the first place.
From its mechanic working with DR added, to the visual effect not sitting well with every theme.

It was completely fine, up until timed content became a mainstay thing in alerts. And then even worse after the game was filled up with complex major bosses that aren't supposed to move, or at least not move far.

Aside from wasting craptons of time in Smashes with the weird Damage Resistance, the targets also becoming non-knock resistant means that a randomly procced teddy form, combined with a zealous Might character, and fights like F&I and Alerts become way more difficult. And in the case of Cybermind and Lemurian Invasion, outright broken.

So yes, they should just remove that effect.

meedacthunist

Well, I wouldn't say it was ever entirely fine...

It does makes mobs more durable, so the power is actually gimping yourself if your toon happends to not be a DPS oriented one.

Ironicaly, this is what Cryptic did with their Gadgeetering poster child paid AT, where this specific flaw of this power is very visible.

And then there's a thing of a character concept - teddy bear effect is just very obnoxious and hard to ignore with any non-cheesy character theme.

In the end, it's a very annoying proc, in more than one way. Especially now with alerts.

chalupaoffury

bluhman wrote: »

It was completely fine, up until timed content became a mainstay thing in alerts. And then even worse after the game was filled up with complex major bosses that aren't supposed to move, or at least not move far.

Aside from wasting craptons of time in Smashes with the weird Damage Resistance, the targets also becoming non-knock resistant means that a randomly procced teddy form, combined with a zealous Might character, and fights like F&I and Alerts become way more difficult. And in the case of Cybermind and Lemurian Invasion, outright broken.

So yes, they should just remove that effect.

Not even zealous. Lots of us are rocking 400+ str, even a roomsweeper tap is enough to blow stuff ~70 feet or more. Even a misclick is enough to totally ruin a dockside dustup on those toons. Source: I had it happen.