[Review] [Engi] Blunderbuss - Corporeal Damage

[Renork]

To counter: isn't it only very apparent when trying to kill healers? In an rvr setting, isn't most of your damage going to land on 2h tanks and mdps anyway, making the disrupt argument a moot point?

Disrupt is easy to stack and affects ALL spells (oh look, i landed a dot but the ticks were disrupted, yay?) and not being able to target healers is a massive drawback, how is that a moot point from a warband AND competitive pov? Like i said, i’m all for changing all engie attacks to corp/elemental as long as they face the same avoidance checks as magi.

[dansari]

Disrupt is easy to stack and affects ALL spells (oh look, i landed a dot but the ticks were disrupted, yay?) and not being able to target healers is a massive drawback, how is that a moot point from a warband AND competitive pov? Like i said, i’m all for changing all engie attacks to corp/elemental as long as they face the same avoidance checks as magi.

Disrupt is easy to stack up to a certain point (~25%) on anyone but healers (~50%). My point is that healers are normally the last to die if you're fighting in orvr, which is where magus/engy shine anyway. And no one is asking for all engy attacks to be corp, the proposal is about BB and frag grenade.

[Karast]

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)

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

You miss understood my post. You are looking the difference between damage applied, you left out the mitigated value, I.E. total damage value of the skill.

With the same base damage both skills are actually doing the same total damage, just 1 is being reduced by less. Think of a 1000 hit without mitigation, and then apply the mitigation.


Facing 75% you do 250 (out of 1000).
Facing 40% you do 600 (out of 1000).

That's where the 35% comes in. You are doing 35% more of that 1000 total. When moving from 75% to 50%.

I should have made it clearer.

Blunderbuss is currently a junk AoE. It is a high risk frontal cone which takes the full brunt of armor mitigation, and puts you in a front-line position,a high risk position, but doesn't reward that risk with the same kind of damage potential seen in other front line damaging abilities for similar roles.

Changing it will allow more engi's into a WB dps role rather than the current utility slot, but that irks people. They don't want to see change and they largely have no idea what it is like to try to be a front-line engi in a warband environment that honestly sees you as expendable once the magnet is off. As many a warband lead has said before, guards are for BW's and it's cheaper to rez you after.

There is simply no reason why blunderbuss shouldn't be allowed to do reasonable front-line damage, in builds that call for it and are built for it. A dps focused aoe build should be available. They should be able to eb front-line dps'er in a front-line build.

Right now it can't. That is what this thread is about. Those who say blunderbuss shouldn't do more damage, should think about it like this.

If you feel the current AoE potential of blunderbuss is perfectly fine. Should proposals be made to lower the damage on similar abilities on other dps? Should certain careers and certain builds be prevented from being competitive, desirable, or at least reasonably effective.?

If you say things are fine as is, why are they fine? Why shouldn't front-line focused dps builds be competitive between careers?

[Renork]

Disrupt is easy to stack and affects ALL spells (oh look, i landed a dot but the ticks were disrupted, yay?) and not being able to target healers is a massive drawback, how is that a moot point from a warband AND competitive pov? Like i said, i’m all for changing all engie attacks to corp/elemental as long as they face the same avoidance checks as magi.

Disrupt is easy to stack up to a certain point (~25%) on anyone but healers (~50%). My point is that healers are normally the last to die if you're fighting in orvr, which is where magus/engy shine anyway. And no one is asking for all engy attacks to be corp, the proposal is about BB and frag grenade.

Again, why should both blunderbuss and fragmentation grenade be changed to corporeal? What is the reason to increase the aoe potential of the class? You’re looking at it from a biased perspective and not taking into account the synergy of the class as a whole. The class is not underperforming and changing the damage would give it an unjustified buff, especially since blunderbuss benefits from weapon dps.

[Renork]

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?

You miss understood my post. You are looking the difference between damage applied, you left out the mitigated value, I.E. total damage value of the skill.

With the same base damage both skills are actually doing the same total damage, just 1 is being reduced by less. Think of a 1000 hit without mitigation, and then apply the mitigation.


Facing 75% you do 250 (out of 1000).
Facing 40% you do 600 (out of 1000).

That's where the 35% comes in. You are doing 35% more of that 1000 total. When moving from 75% to 50%.

I should have made it clearer.

Blunderbuss is currently a junk AoE. It is a high risk frontal cone which takes the full brunt of armor mitigation, and puts you in a front-line position,a high risk position, but doesn't reward that risk with the same kind of damage potential seen in other front line damaging abilities for similar roles.

Changing it will allow more engi's into a WB dps role rather than the current utility slot, but that irks people. They don't want to see change and they largely have no idea what it is like to try to be a front-line engi in a warband environment that honestly sees you as expendable once the magnet is off. As many a warband lead has said before, guards are for BW's and it's cheaper to rez you after.

There is simply no reason why blunderbuss shouldn't be allowed to do reasonable front-line damage, in builds that call for it and are built for it. A dps focused aoe build should be available. They should be able to eb front-line dps'er in a front-line build.

Right now it can't. That is what this thread is about. Those who say blunderbuss shouldn't do more damage, should think about it like this.

If you feel the current AoE potential of blunderbuss is perfectly fine. Should proposals be made to lower the damage on similar abilities on other dps? Should certain careers and certain builds be prevented from being competitive, desirable, or at least reasonably effective.?

If you say things are fine as is, why are they fine? Why shouldn't front-line focused dps builds be competitive between careers?

Why should other classes be re-evalauted based solely on the damage potential of blunderbuss? Is that your only skill? Theres several abilities that are completely lack luster (hello there warpfire?) I will repeat this again, there should be a major drawback if the damage type gets changed. You should face the same checks that lash does, or concealment should be disabled if using blunderbuss. Interestingly enough the disrupt issue is being minimized by Dansari, yet the armor mitigation is considered a “major issue”? Please, if you played live you should know what real ridiculous armor mitigation was like. This is basicaly the candy land version of armor mitigation.

[Ramasee]

I look at the class's capabilities as a whole rather than just looking at blunderbuss in isolation.

You apply pierce defenses in AoE with grenades, blunderbuss, etc. AoE corporeal debuff, which helps you but also bright wizards. An AoE knockback (that admittedly is more of an interrupt) that deals fair damage. AoE interupt grenade. AoE anti stagger grenade. AoE knockdown. 5s AoE stagger. And of course magnet, AoE pull + snare. Oh forgot the 20% damage reduction for party m2

So you want to do the damage of other frontline (ish) bombers. Lets look at what AoE utility they can bring while doing damage.

Slayers: AoE snare, AoE cd increaser. Party 25% reduced ap cost for 10s.

Bright Wizards: AoE knockback, AoE silence.

Shadow Warrior: In order to do AoEs without cooldown takes a tactic (also smaller radius of attack). Pierce defenses (2nd tactic). 8% party crit (another tactic). Party +20% ap regen for 10s.

AND the ability that you want to buff for their damage increase is spammable with little skill and not that much risk if you get guard. Just like bw or slayer bombing isn't really that much risk with a guard.

Heres a facetious idea that will balance your idea of being a front line dps via blunderbuss:

Spoiler:

Trench Fighting: +15% damage when under 45ft from your target. Blunderbuss now ignores armor. You cannot use grenades when any enemy is within 45ft. Frag grenade, acid bomb, flashbang grenade, firebomb, concussion grenade, and shock grenade.

[dansari]

Renork,
1. Just because the proposal doesn't include the assertion that weapon DPS should be removed from the calculation if damage type is changed doesn't mean that will be the final version if it is in fact put into affect.

2. Just because I main order does not make me biased to the proposal. Most of what I try to do is facilitate discussion.

3. The proposal was moved because DPS engy is lackluster, as has been pretty much agreed upon by the high RR engy mains posting in this topic.

4. The proposal is not about Magus. You continually bringing up Magus abilities or disrupt woes has not gone unnoticed.

5. The "disrupt issue" isn't being minimized. Since most of what you target are front line (with BB at 40ft), dodge/disrupt is normally the same for tanks and mdps, rendering your point moot.

[Renork]

Renork,
1. Just because the proposal doesn't include the assertion that weapon DPS should be removed from the calculation if damage type is changed doesn't mean that will be the final version if it is in fact put into affect.

2. Just because I main order does not make me biased to the proposal. Most of what I try to do is facilitate discussion.

3. The proposal was moved because DPS engy is lackluster, as has been pretty much agreed upon by the high RR engy mains posting in this topic.

4. The proposal is not about Magus. You continually bringing up Magus abilities or disrupt woes has not gone unnoticed.

5. The "disrupt issue" isn't being minimized. Since most of what you target are front line (with BB at 40ft), dodge/disrupt is normally the same for tanks and mdps, rendering your point moot.

And yet, the proposal and subsequent comments have appealed to the mirror (unless balance discussion rules have changed, this has always been a big no?). If you are going to use a class as a striking example (such as magi) on why your class needs to be reworked/buffed/nerfed, then you also need to present their flaws in conjunction with their strengths. In addition, saying that "high rr" engineers have said their dps is lackluster doesn't mean that it is. How many "high rr" players say that their class is weak on a daily basis? Plenty. The rebuttal of "lash is much better on the magus" alone warranted a response.

With regards to the disrupt issue, it IS easier to stack disrupt so landing BB will be easier than landing lash.

Armor values were brought up as a defense on this proposal (which again, simply assist your friendly armor debuffing mdps), which is why I hovered around the disrupt issue. Point is, both classes have their problems, but they also shine in other situations. An engineer can still target any class and has synergy with anyone that can debuff armor (themselves included), while a magus cannot touch healers or anyone that stacks disrupt.

Let me ask you, AB --> FB, LR, FG, BB (assume they are all corp) w/popping m1 and maybe have a tank guarding you (I'm assuming mentioning bomb. turret deployment is unnecessary at this point). So, you have ALL your abilities benefiting from acid bomb in conjunction with popping your m1, which is relatively easy to achieve. Multiply that by the high amount of engineers that play on this server (shocking to see so many if the class is as bad as it is being painted here), and coordinate with your magnet engies. This does not sound like a problem to you? This is not taking into account slotting Pierce Defenses (-15% dodge if they dodge), TF, TR, insert remaining tactic. If blunderbuss does get changed to corporeal, then pierce defenses alone makes it a complete monster.

To be quite honest I'm not at all concerned about changes because I seen Torquemadra evaluate classes as a whole before making any changes and not simply focusing on the minute details. But the fact that the magus class was used as an argument on why blunderbuss needs to be "better" is why my 0.2 cents were thrown here.

Forgot to add (yay edit), Peter DID bring up a good solution that should theoretically alleviate the damage mitigation. However, the beauty of it is that it DOES have a drawback (tactic slot!). The other solutions simply scream "buff" but "don't touch anything else".

[dansari]

All I'll say is that appeals to the mirror are less rampant than you seem to think, since most of the strong arguments I've seen have used data/math to compliment their viewpoint.

[Crumbs]

Dansari and Karast have summarised everything better than I could. Read over their points thouroughly

I’ll say this again, even without comparing to magus, or without any reference point... you will feel the damage on both of these skills is so low it’s not worth the gcd or ap. No matter the spec, no matter the weaponskill, because these abilities don’t fit.

As karast said Corp damage deals more damage to those who are high in Armor. It will likely deal less damage to squishies, a bonus for them.

And magus’ disrupt is fine