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Please finish the Laser Sword changes...
blkjackwilliams
Posts: 256 Arc User
Black Jack Williams is a power armor character, that has been Laser Sword/Riccochet Throw since I've been able to have that option.
So, when I came back from a break and saw "New Laser Sword Powers!" I was kind of excited. Maybe Jack would get a power armor upgrade, lose his Micromunitions and Minigun, and go full Laser Sword.
Nope.
I physically winced when I first used the powers. It was painful, and I'm amazed they made it out of testing. Forget for a second that the primary resource builder is random, which is not good for a mechanic that needs to build 4 resources before the big hit when the combat is just -this- quick, but even when you finally have a stack of accelerator, Unified Theory will often (about 3 out of every 5 times when I tested, about 150 straight attempts) consume accelerator, do the spin, and deal no damage.
This seems to happen when the game doesn't fill the charge bar fast enough, and the power continues to completion with no filled charge time.
Then I went to see what they did to Laser Sword itself. The new mini-set may be a dud, but they must have done something cool to Laser Sword to keep it viable in a new meta with a full Laser Sword mini-set, right? Right?
Nope.
Neither Lightwave Slash or Laser Sword proper got anything to make them stand out choices when you now consider 3 new powers added to the theme. Three powers that require each other, and don't play well with existing Laser sword attacks, excepting Plasma Cutter, or even non-Laser Sword powers.
Suggestions:
1. Make Accelerator -not- random. Random is bad when you have to go back and forth so many times to build resources in a game where you could have just 2GMed them for 2k each .5s, or Ice Blasted them for 11k each 2s.
2. Fix Unified Theory's recognition of the Accelerator buff. It dropped far too often to be considered playable. It looks like the issue is, there's too much of a gap between gaining a stack of accelerator, and Unified Theory's charge time being modified, allowing you to start charging before the swap, which then causes a fail when the charge time actually swaps.
3. Give something to Laser Sword and Lightwave Slash. My suggestion would be to make them Hand slot powers. I know by various shenanigans that the animations can override the other power armor animations, allowing for Laser Sword animations while using powers such as Minigun and Micro-munitions. (Or a full charged Riccochet throw w/animation while rocking a minigun, not that anyone would do such a thing :biggrin:) Make it official rather than a sometimes bug.
4. If you do #3, you will need to remove the damage penalty from Laser Knight. It shouldn't have had one anyway, but if I can use Laser Sword and Minigun at the same time, with laser knight, and lose damage, but I can switch to Phalanx defense system, use the same powers, and not lose damage, of course I will.
5. Finally, Lasers Edge. I'd suggest adding a zero point advantage that turns the power into a hand slot power, but removes it's ranged energy generation. Basically, you trade the ability to build energy at range, for the ability to build energy while using your other Power Armor Toggles.
This would give two forms of Laser Sword abilities. Those that synergize only with Laser Sword abilities, and those that synergize with non-Laser Sword abilities.
So, when I came back from a break and saw "New Laser Sword Powers!" I was kind of excited. Maybe Jack would get a power armor upgrade, lose his Micromunitions and Minigun, and go full Laser Sword.
Nope.
I physically winced when I first used the powers. It was painful, and I'm amazed they made it out of testing. Forget for a second that the primary resource builder is random, which is not good for a mechanic that needs to build 4 resources before the big hit when the combat is just -this- quick, but even when you finally have a stack of accelerator, Unified Theory will often (about 3 out of every 5 times when I tested, about 150 straight attempts) consume accelerator, do the spin, and deal no damage.
This seems to happen when the game doesn't fill the charge bar fast enough, and the power continues to completion with no filled charge time.
Then I went to see what they did to Laser Sword itself. The new mini-set may be a dud, but they must have done something cool to Laser Sword to keep it viable in a new meta with a full Laser Sword mini-set, right? Right?
Nope.
Neither Lightwave Slash or Laser Sword proper got anything to make them stand out choices when you now consider 3 new powers added to the theme. Three powers that require each other, and don't play well with existing Laser sword attacks, excepting Plasma Cutter, or even non-Laser Sword powers.
Suggestions:
1. Make Accelerator -not- random. Random is bad when you have to go back and forth so many times to build resources in a game where you could have just 2GMed them for 2k each .5s, or Ice Blasted them for 11k each 2s.
2. Fix Unified Theory's recognition of the Accelerator buff. It dropped far too often to be considered playable. It looks like the issue is, there's too much of a gap between gaining a stack of accelerator, and Unified Theory's charge time being modified, allowing you to start charging before the swap, which then causes a fail when the charge time actually swaps.
3. Give something to Laser Sword and Lightwave Slash. My suggestion would be to make them Hand slot powers. I know by various shenanigans that the animations can override the other power armor animations, allowing for Laser Sword animations while using powers such as Minigun and Micro-munitions. (Or a full charged Riccochet throw w/animation while rocking a minigun, not that anyone would do such a thing :biggrin:) Make it official rather than a sometimes bug.
4. If you do #3, you will need to remove the damage penalty from Laser Knight. It shouldn't have had one anyway, but if I can use Laser Sword and Minigun at the same time, with laser knight, and lose damage, but I can switch to Phalanx defense system, use the same powers, and not lose damage, of course I will.
5. Finally, Lasers Edge. I'd suggest adding a zero point advantage that turns the power into a hand slot power, but removes it's ranged energy generation. Basically, you trade the ability to build energy at range, for the ability to build energy while using your other Power Armor Toggles.
This would give two forms of Laser Sword abilities. Those that synergize only with Laser Sword abilities, and those that synergize with non-Laser Sword abilities.
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Comments
Laser Sword, the SPECIFIC melee combo power, is fine. It's a pain to build around-and at this point, unless it's a 'get out of my face!' button, you really ARE building around it-but it is VERY potent. I say this from experience-very few builds in the game tap for 2.5k-4k on players. Mine absolutely does.
The rest is all valid. I was excited for what they did with Particle Smash 'cuz I really like getting a Light Disc... and then I read how it worked and was sad face because I need a bunch of powers I really don't care for to make it good. But such is life.
The only thing I can REALLY think of is QoL issue with Laser Sword. I'd like it to, like Shred, have a CHANCE to stack Particle Burn on every swing. In fact, ideally, it'd be just like Shred, where one of the toggle buffs makes it twice as likely. It's not really a buff to the capability of the power so much as its a buff to Plasma Cutter, which objectively needs a buff because of how inferior it is to RE due to the Particle Burn stacking mechanic being bad.
Admittedly I primarily wanted this change so that I could use Reconstruction Circuits as my heal on my Laser Sword character without being forced out of combat to do so... and quite frankly I still do... IMHO no Power Armor skillset ability should be affected by Weapon Systems Lockout...
I don't believe they should actually become Hand Slot skills though, just that they should be treated as Hand Slot when it comes to other Power Armor abilities... This way you can use Laser Swords outside of Power Armor builds with no issues, and still use them WITH power armor builds... Honestly what is the harm in permitting a synergy with the rest of the skill within the same powerset? As is, they may as well just split Laser Swords off from Power Armor all together and call it it's own powerset...
I'd even accept a 1 or 0 point advantage on every Laser Sword ability to convert to Hand Slot... preferably 0 point since it's not really changing much... you either can use it with other power armor weapon systems or you can you it with other powerset abilities this way...
Oh I know it's a powerful ability. I'm just concerned with where it fits with the rest of power armor, should the new Laser Sword powers become usable.
It has about twice the damage of other Combo powers, but it also has more than twice the energy cost, and to try to use that at the same time as other power armor abilities would require some build sacrifices. The rule of cool would dictate I make those sacrifices, but I'm cool with that.
But should the new powers become playable, I feel they are interesting enough to draw players to them for their Laser Sword theme. Making Laser Sword a hand slot power wouldn't be because it's weak, it'd be to give it a synergy, and an easy place to fit in into a build. An alternate Laser Sword theme, if you will.
Hand slot wouldn't mean anything other than what you want. Look at Tactical Missiles. It's a hand slot charge power. When you have no Power Armor abilities, it works like any other charging ranged attack, but if you have other power armor abilities, you can tap or charge it while they go off.
That's what I mean by make it hand slot. The only thing that would change is that it could be used while other Power Armor abilities were going, but you still wouldn't be able to use other hand slot abilities at the same time.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
It also means i have what, 2 powers all set up to improve the damage on one so that's three powers for ... boss fights. Because that's really all i find those ones useful for.
I use the laser blades with energy guns from gadgeteer rather than power armour powers (on my hero Space Princess) so i'm not personally effected by power armour synergy personally, but recognise the importance of it for a lot of PA players.
While she has been rescued
what diabolical mastermind
was behind the devious brain-napping of
the Volterrific Dr Cerebellum?