[Review] [Engi] Blunderbuss - Corporeal Damage

[Crumbs]

Hear me out, I’ve got a lot to say and there’s a bit of confusing detail in there so read through it carefully please

I disagree, anything weaponskill for tink/Corp related is not the best idea, the tree deals Corp damage and is usually combined with Grenade which is also supposed to deal Corp damage. The whole purpose of this is so that engi doesn’t have to waste stat points on weapon skill just to remain viable damage wise ( and that’s a lot of WS needed considering we don’t even have Armor debuff) and have no stat points left for a half decent defence.
Meanwhilst magus do as they please, their change spec fully synchronises with their daemonology spec plus they can dedicate their extra stats towards toughness and defends. Engis can’t (we’re talking about 500+ points worth of stats here). You don’t see magus breaking the game with their complete arsenal and you won’t be seeing it from engineer either. It’ll just be less useless as aoe.
If you’ve ever seen a decent aoe engi, it’s because they use friction burn, lightning rod, and napalm effectively, nothing more. All of which magus already has equally as powerful. We don’t need weird finicky stuff, just try what we already know works.

And for aoe Corp damage firebomb is not the skill, because like I said magus has a spirit Blunderbuss and a spirit firebomb.

To person saying that magus version gets disrupted more often, it may be true but only if you have lower INT, I’m aware it’s still tough, and vs healers and tanks it’s a pain, but it’s still far more effective as engineers version does not bypass armor, it’s horrid vs tanks and some mdps and doks, truly. Imagine the damage output possible through stacking all of your dots as change/daemon, everything minus infernal blast dealing heavy spirit damage which is also debuffed by 370+ resist.

One big thing to point out is that engineers group buff does not buff the group against spirit damage, it’s vs elemental. Magus’ version buffs the group against Corporeal, which is engineer’s main aoe damage type. By default 80% of engineer’s aoe damage abilities are nullified vs magus version, the only argument that can be made is that magus have to go through disrupt.

Also I’ve never heard of anyone stacking ws for B.B. that’s just bs. That build doesn’t work and if it did, it isn’t because Blunderbuss is doing worthwhile damage.

I played Krumbo an engi from the past and I’ve played with WBs, 6mans all as tinkerer from rr30 all to way to 70 when I deleted him. I know this classes’ aoe potential better than most. I don’t know why the big scandal or having to scale damage back because it’s going to be too high. Magus already has all of this and more and its not game breaking.

Stacking WS can only be seen as an opportunity for an engi that’s decked to the floor in crit and BS, AKA rr60+ and even then it’s not to take advantage of it but rather again, to remain viable.

Also frag grenade is not a game changer it’s an OK dot, just look at magus’ version for reference. And static discharge deals barely more/the same damage/worse vs no Armor vs Blunderbuss because it has such a low base damage. (another idea could be to make this deal more damage)

To that guy saying that magus aoe deals elemental and spirit, yes they deal elemental but only on the aoe elemental 3sec channel skill which is bad as an aoe and made obsolete by daemonic lash. It is not used

So this is a whine proposal.

You keep spreading misinformation, and selective information...
Infernal Blast also deals Elemental Damage, which is not 'obsolete'
Even at soft capped intelligence disrupts are high- not just at low intelligence
An AM/RP/ZE/SH can all provide resist buffs- not just limited to corporeal/elemental
I could go on...
I'm over it.

This ^.

Majority of the posts on this thread reflect a lack of wanting to preserve balance and more of "MAGUS HAS IT, SO I WANT IT AND IT'S ONLY FAIR".

One of the main rules of the balance forums states DO NOT APPEAL TO YOUR MIRROR. Yet...here we are?

The only person that posted a very reasonable solution was Peter with his tactic proposal. I'm going to repeat what I told Crumbs in another thread: you simply want the best of both worlds. You want to keep the PRDPS aspect because it does give you the ability to assist the mdps/armor debuff train. You also want BB to complement your aoe/pbaoe rotations to achieve the maximum dps potential.

A little ludicrous, no? Why not ask for ALL of your attacks to be corporeal? This way you can also suffer the tragedy of facing the disrupt party, just like your fellow mirror class the "magus". Also, magus does not have M1 concealment, which engies use frequently to get off their ST rotations on a regular basis. It would be beautiful to glean/lash + pop concealment, but surely you can see how silly that would be, no? So, why should you have access to this? You literally would outperform your mirror in every aspect, but that's balance? The whole "armor meta" is a moot argument, this is a team game so go group and assist each other. You can at the very least target healers, which is not an option for magus.

TLDR, there are plenty of things engies have that I wish I had on my magus, but that's not enough to justify a buff to the class.

I believe there is a fine line between appealing to mirror and trying to find a good guideline to judge a class on how it’s performing.

I’m appealing to my mirror in a sense, but what I’m trying to get these two underperforming skills to do, is to try what already works, magus provides a good example. If it’s necessary to lower the damage afterwards then so be it... but so far nobody has actually tried anything. The whole point of this change to these skills is so that Armor doesn’t completely nullify their use.

The only reason you don’t support any of this is because you strictly play magus, and you don’t want to see engi come anywhere near. You’ve made that clear since the first time we spoke. Also M1 protects against casters, what happens if the main threat is melee? Then you use magus’ M1 that is probably one of the best snares out there. And you can use your own reflective M1 to super counter BWs dps, you can also add to that with aegis, and believe me the reflect damage is high. But this goes off the rails as we should only be comparing each other’s aoe potential. Most other aspects are already fair to one another.

Magus is different to engi as it is a class that can deal very high sorc-level burst of pure magic damage ST wise and that’s fine. I know there are a lot of top rank magus claiming the disrupt changes have broken their class, but it’s generally exaggerated because they feel they are less effective (which is true, and still fair). Magus still has the potential to be great when some things are lined up for them such as Pierce Defenses. Its not THAT bad for a magus, that’s all I’m saying. Magus and engi deal their ST damage in their own way.

Also to the guy talking about elemental scream, the skill has surging power which adds 50% crit damage to the skill as an AOE, more than any debuff will get you.

I can’t appeal to my mirror, then the argument remains the same.... Blunderbuss deals no damage, frag grenade deals no damage, and there are no worthy builds to make these skills come up to par.

You think because we have 2 changed Corp aoe skills it’s going to destroy the world? these are not super high damage skills in the first place, they can and will be cleansed. Rifle is still going to be the most appropriate dps spec for engi. Magus buffs the group against this entire element (Corp), in some scenarious it might be that a Corp Blunderbuss isn’t much better off. As I said if the base damage is too high, that can always be altered.

[Dabbart]

Personally, I think this change goes against the “heart” of the abilities, and the Lore. A blunderbuss and Frag grenade uses solid objects to inflict damage. It’s not an energy type, it’s literally metal striking you. The description on each ability illustrates this as well.

Blunderbuss in particular however, is a no CD, no target, AoE ability. It’s the definition of 1button spam Zerg surfing for DB thefts and leeching. Allowing it to hit resistances instead of armor just decreases the overall skill level, as you can spam it over and over for reasonable damage, no target or intelligence required. These are not abilities that require any form of “buff” in my opinion. I have a feeling Bitterstone would perform very differently if this was enacted.

Every physical damage “suffers” against armor stacking, unless you debuff the target. Play in a group and you’ll have an armor debuff outside of a proc. The argument of, “it doesn’t hit hard enough” seems weak to entirely change the form of damage however, imo.

Overall, I do think the Engi, Magus, and SH need some love. I don’t believe this is the way to do it.

Bear in mind, I have never played an Engi, and Beardz is the only good Engi I have played with regularly( No offense to anyone), and I don’t even know his spec...

[Crumbs]

Personally, I think this change goes against the “heart” of the abilities, and the Lore. A blunderbuss and Frag grenade uses solid objects to inflict damage. It’s not an energy type, it’s literally metal striking you. The description on each ability illustrates this as well.

Blunderbuss in particular however, is a no CD, no target, AoE ability. It’s the definition of 1button spam Zerg surfing for DB thefts and leeching. Allowing it to hit resistances instead of armor just decreases the overall skill level, as you can spam it over and over for reasonable damage, no target or intelligence required. These are not abilities that require any form of “buff” in my opinion. I have a feeling Bitterstone would perform very differently if this was enacted.

Every physical damage “suffers” against armor stacking, unless you debuff the target. Play in a group and you’ll have an armor debuff outside of a proc. The argument of, “it doesn’t hit hard enough” seems weak to entirely change the form of damage however, imo.

Overall, I do think the Engi, Magus, and SH need some love. I don’t believe this is the way to do it.

Bear in mind, I have never played an Engi, and Beardz is the only good Engi I have played with regularly( No offense to anyone), and I don’t even know his spec...

To say again, there’s no aoe Armor debuff and this build is aoe, no single target debuff will help its cause. It doesn’t deal high ST damage or even burst for that fact.

You don’t know how B.B. or deamonic lash works. You have to wait 20 secs before you reach your max potential damage and range (means your standing still and actively supported/guarded). You cannot spam the skill alone and expect to make a dint in anything, it’s not how the skill works or how it’s intended to work. You need every single dot you can get on + full DD tactics and gear, for it to even be noticeable damage. Even then, your dots will be cleansed, and your B.B/frag isn’t hitting for any worthwhile damage. Also you’re out of AP, AP tactic and all.

Also to Renork earlier saying that Armor is countered by grouping, that’s actually what makes everyone have insane amounts of it. + everyone uses Armor pots as it helps them survive the highest damage dealers out there - mdps.

[Darosh]

Spoiler:

[...]
A little ludicrous, no? Why not ask for ALL of your attacks to be corporeal? This way you can also suffer the tragedy of facing the disrupt party, just like your fellow mirror class the "magus".
[...]

Just a sidenote:
Damage type does not dictate avoidance check. Take SMs as an example, most of their stuff is spirit based but faces parry checks, or SW Flame Arrow-thingy (elemental damage) facing dodge checks ~ and so on. A BB that deals coporeal damage would still prompt a dodge check, unless manually adjusted by the devs.

Abbd.:
To clarify my point: You could argue for a change to avoidance check as a drawback to any changes proposed, if you fancy it. But considering the very minimum of logic... bullets shouldn't prompt disrupt checks. *cough*

It would be absolutely logical for your aoe damage to face the same avoidance checks. The proposal and discussion focused on "appealing the mirror", with mostly "well magus can X and do X". Again, you can't have your cake and eat it too. None of you have looked at the synergy with other abilities or morales available to you (already mentioned one, which you happened to ignore). I'm sure it would be extremely fun for you and your crew to pop that m1 and aoe the crap out of everyone, but it would only be fun for you and not the players on the receiving end.

I'm not saying bb doesn't need a tweak, but to change its damage type with zero drawbacks is way more than it needs. If stacking WS is a problem, then add a tactic that increases your WS somewhere in the tree.

At first I thought you directly quoted me by accident and went on rambling in a general manner...
Then I realized that you are directly replying to me, so lemme break it to you:

Even though it's: Dwarf = master race, as far as I am concerned, I am not taking sides in this discussion (before or here *cough*). Mind you, I don't even have an Engi I could shill for ~
I merely meant to add some basic information, like the following:
BB is essentially Flurry-lite, higher targetcap but overall the same damage potential, tooltips and, iirc, formulas (it's a straightforward skill, so not much to consider, but the emphasis on weapon DPS and pretty suite mainstat contribution, as someone else pointed out already).

Me taking sides:

Spoiler:

If live morale rates, racial shinies and corrsion procs (now available with Onslaught) were in the game ~ or if guilds other than Zerg would utilize morale pumps, you'd see alot more Engis having a field day with CS+BB.
So meh. I personally do not unterstand the gear argument in regards to WS stacks... It's a lowcost, no CD, dumbfire mdps-AoE mirror on a rdps that can pull and stuff ~ if you want to make dumbfire skills not only reliable, but actually viable you should have to invest accordingly.

If BB was propped up (without any drawback) on the basis of lacking pewpew without setup... you'd open the flood Gates (i.e.: gief stock 9er cap flurry, either with base armor pen or dealing spirit damage, pretty plox ~ muh armor stacking).

[Crumbs]

Spoiler:

Just a sidenote:
Damage type does not dictate avoidance check. Take SMs as an example, most of their stuff is spirit based but faces parry checks, or SW Flame Arrow-thingy (elemental damage) facing dodge checks ~ and so on. A BB that deals coporeal damage would still prompt a dodge check, unless manually adjusted by the devs.

Abbd.:
To clarify my point: You could argue for a change to avoidance check as a drawback to any changes proposed, if you fancy it. But considering the very minimum of logic... bullets shouldn't prompt disrupt checks. *cough*

It would be absolutely logical for your aoe damage to face the same avoidance checks. The proposal and discussion focused on "appealing the mirror", with mostly "well magus can X and do X". Again, you can't have your cake and eat it too. None of you have looked at the synergy with other abilities or morales available to you (already mentioned one, which you happened to ignore). I'm sure it would be extremely fun for you and your crew to pop that m1 and aoe the crap out of everyone, but it would only be fun for you and not the players on the receiving end.

I'm not saying bb doesn't need a tweak, but to change its damage type with zero drawbacks is way more than it needs. If stacking WS is a problem, then add a tactic that increases your WS somewhere in the tree.

At first I thought you directly quoted me by accident and went on rambling in a general manner...
Then I realized that you are directly replying to me, so lemme break it to you:

Even though it's: Dwarf = master race, as far as I am concerned, I am not taking sides in this discussion (before or here *cough*). Mind you, I don't even have an Engi I could shill for ~
I merely meant to add some basic information, like the following:
BB is essentially Flurry-lite, higher targetcap but overall the same damage potential, tooltips and, iirc, formulas (it's a straightforward skill, so not much to consider, but the emphasis on weapon DPS and pretty suite mainstat contribution, as someone else pointed out already).

Me taking sides:

Spoiler:

If live morale rates, racial shinies and corrsion procs (now available with Onslaught) were in the game ~ or if guilds other than Zerg would utilize morale pumps, you'd see alot more Engis having a field day with CS+BB.
So meh. I personally do not unterstand the gear argument in regards to WS stacks... It's a lowcost, no CD, dumbfire mdps-AoE mirror on a rdps that can pull and stuff ~ if you want to make dumbfire skills not only reliable, but actually viable you should have to invest accordingly.

If BB was propped up (without any drawback) on the basis of lacking pewpew without setup... you'd open the flood Gates (i.e.: gief stock 9er cap flurry, either with base armor pen or dealing spirit damage, pretty plox ~ muh armor stacking).

It’s not an mdps mirror of anything, it’s an exact mirror of magus’ daemonic lash. I don’t want to be the only one countering these arguments, but BB is not low cost, to make this skill deal damage, you need max BS, max crit, as much WS as you can get, and then what do you have left for defensive stats? Literally nothing. 500+ weaponskill just to make two skills deal some sort of damage? Two skills that clash with the whole aoe damage type that engi should normally follow?

Nobody can speak for the damage of this skill unless they’ve actually tried to make it deal damage in t4. Show screens or a video of you being OP with this skill if you want to prove it’s fine as it is.

[Darosh]

Spoiler:

It’s not an mdps mirror of anything, it’s an exact mirror of magus’ daemonic lash. I don’t want to be the only one countering these arguments, but BB is not low cost, to make this skill deal damage, you need max BS, max crit, as much WS as you can get, and then what do you have left for defensive stats? Literally nothing. 500+ weaponskill just to make two skills deal some sort of damage? Two skills that clash with the whole aoe damage type that engi should normally follow?

Nobody can speak for the damage of this skill unless they’ve actually tried to make it deal damage in t4. Show screens or a video of you being OP with this skill if you want to prove it’s fine as it is.

Every class has to trade sustain for pewpew.
Flurry and BB deal physical damage and are built on essentially the same combat forumla, unlike Daemonic Lash both take into account weapon dps > mainstat ~ hence me regarding them to be almost perfect mirrors (aside from targetcap and effective avoidance check).
No where in my posts do I state that I'd consider the skill OP ~ I am saying, as in every balance discussion I participate in, that changes shouldn't be blatant buffs and that those proposing should atleast consider reasonable drawbacks to their (more often than not) fever dreams ~ I value consistency and especially my schtick.

Cut the hyperbole, pretty please.

Spoilered myself, in hindsight pretty 'tangent-ish', my bad.

[Athergic]

There is already an aoe corp ability, and blunderbuss can proc buffs from wp and bw and weapons I believe. I disagree with this proposal.

[Crumbs]

There is already an aoe corp ability, and blunderbuss can proc buffs from wp and bw and weapons I believe. I disagree with this proposal.

So can magus.

Will take screenshots and maybe a few clips later this week to show the potential for both

[Karast]

Spoiler:

To add another aspect to this debate in my last warband I did a little bit of testing.

Changing BB from physical to corp is really about mitigation and people should think about what kind of damage we are really talking about.

In a full on dps spec, with trench fighting and full turret buff, with deep tinker. Your crits greatly vary.

On a squishy target: unguard sorc, SH without pet, choppa enraged, WE

You will see higher crits in the 900-1000 range, usually with mitigation around 25-30%

On a medium target: armor tali stacking shaman / zealot / magus / non armor tali dok / mara

You will see crits in the 550-800 range since mitigation starts edging up into the 35-50% range

On a tanky target: Tank S&B / 2h, defensive mara, armor tali stacking dok, SH with gas squig

You will see crits in the 250-400 range as the mitigation hits 60-75%.

With BB going corp you will face a lower mitigation cap, and you won't have any pen. Resist stacking is also pretty easy thanks to big set bonuses, group buffs, and high values on BL so getting 800-1000 is not hard and many run at this level in WB's.

What does this mean for dps?

On the lower end assuming people don't over cap you are going to be seeing the same amount of damage on current squishy targets. Crits in the 900-1000 range.

The big difference is medium / tanky which will be seeing big damage increases.

So the question becomes this, should a frontal cone aoe, with full mechanic buff in a class cannon at 35AP setup be able to crit for 900-1000k?

Please keep in mind this is without guard, detaunt, challenge, or other forms of damage reduction.

If the answer is no, then we need to look at a lot of abilities.

If the answer is yes, then we need to adjust BB.

Shorter version,

What we are really talking about here is how much damage should blunderbuss actually do.

Right now in the best case scenario on a squishy 1000 is a good crit.

The change to corp wouldn't change that since we will see about the same mitigation from resists after debuffs.

The question is should blunderbuss be critting for 1000 against tanks / tanky targets like doks, maras, and the like.

Going to corp drops the max cap from 75 to 40 so a 35% dps boost on tanks and high armor classes. Is 1000 on a frontal cone against tanky frontliners too much?

If we up the armor pen and give it another 10-20% is it okay to up it on the squishes by that much?

[Ramasee]

Karast, a change that creates a resistance from 75% to 45% is not a 35% damage increase. It is actually a 140% damage increase. Before you would do 25 damage, now you do 60. 60 / 25 = 2.4

So letes do some math together. We are going to go with full conq and 3 piece the wind impervious for % mitigation values. We will also add an armor pot onto the 210 armor increase from TWI. Light armor class = 1910; medium is 3010; heavy is 4110. We'll say that you have 300 weapon skill because you haven't stacked it like crazy, and that our corp debuff is nullified by chosen resist buff. Going to use a 500 tooltip value on blunderbuss (mine earlier in a post was 445)

Blunderbuss physical damage (non crit, crits are multipliers anyways):
Light: 330 dmg
Medium: 231 dmg
Heavy: 133 dmg

Blunderbuss physical damage with built in 50% armor penetration (as proposed by someone):
Light: 415 dmg (126%)
Medium: 366 dmg (158%)
Heavy: 317 dmg (238%)

Blunderbuss corporeal damage against 40% end resist (as proposed by OP):
Light: 300 dmg (91%)
Medium: 300 dmg (130%)
Heavy: 300 dmg (226%)

Blunderbuss with 160 weaponskill added via a tactic (proposed by someone, threw in standard number; also not shown here is benefit to frag grenade with this tactic):
Light: 355 dmg (108%)
Medium: 270 dmg (117%)
Heavy: 187 dmg (141%)

Now % armor penetration becomes less valuable the less armor your opponent has, and vice versa. Switching it to corporeal becomes signifantly higher against pugs who may not have the resistance buffs (bad party compositions), or appropriate gear (or hell even genesis with its low resistance values)

------
So the real question is, how much does blunderbuss need a buff, and against which types of targets?