Allow Charged Bolts to build Charged Barrel charges

[DarkSideTOR]

Currently only Grav Round builds Charged Barrel charges if you have it spec'd. With the crazy amount of interrupts other classes have it's hard to build Grav Round stacks, specially when you are locked out of casting it for 4s after certain interrupts. We can still cast CB during this but it doesn't build any charges.

 

I say allow Charged Bolts to generate charges as well. I don't think it'd be overpowered since our damage is already crap when you have a melee slashing your face and watching your cast bar to pop their instant interrupts with low cd timers. Oh and if a developer read this, /WTB an instacast interrupt with the same cooldown timer as pretty much everyone else has. Thanks.

Edited April 9, 2012 by DarkSideTOR

[Sotaudi]

Currently only Grav Round builds Charged Barrel charges if you have it spec'd. With the crazy amount of interrupts other classes have it's hard to build Grav Round stacks, specially when you are locked out of casting it for 4s after certain interrupts. We can still cast CB during this but it doesn't build any charges.

 

I say allow Charged Bolts to generate charges as well. I don't think it'd be overpowered since our damage is already crap when you have a melee slashing your face and watching your cast bar to pop their instant interrupts with low cd timers. Oh and if a developer read this, /WTB an instacast interrupt with the same cooldown timer as pretty much everyone else has. Thanks.

 

I don't disagree with the concept. Charged Bolts already stacks Charged Barrier and can proc Curtain of Fire with the same frequency as Grav Round, so it would make sense that it could also stack Charged Barrel. But to be fair:

 

1. Charged Barrel is only needed when Grav Round is interrupted.
   
2. Gunnery is built around increased use of Full Auto while Assault emphasizes High Impact Bolt.
   
3. High Impact Bolt does not fire more frequently with Charged Barrel buffs, so it is still on a 15 second cooldown.
   
4. With 15 seconds between High Impact Bolt uses, that means you have 10 global cooldowns to rebuild a full stack of Charged Barrels.
   
5. Unlike Gravity Vortex stacks which are target specific, Charged Barrel is a buff on you, so it follows you from target to target until you use it.
   
6. While, like Curtain of Fire, the Charged Barrel stack will expire if it is not used in time, Charged Barrel will refresh with each use of Grav Round while Curtain of Fire only has a chance to proc.
   

 

So while it would be nice if Charged Bolts stacked Charged Barrel as well, it already stacks Charged Barriers and can proc Curtain of Fire. Since Gunnery is not built around the increased use of High Impact Bolt, since the stack stays with you when you switch targets, and since you can build a full stack in half the global cooldowns needed for High Impact Bolt's internal cooldown to finish, along with the other things mentioned, one could argue that the need for Charged Bolts to stack it as well is greatly diminished.

[ArchangelLBC]

Honestly, if the hope is that we'll use Grav Round less, all they would have to do is make the charged barrel buff not disappear on use. Would simplify our rotation allowing us to truly use FA every time it procs without worrying about needing to build 5 stacks of charged barrel, but as nice as it would be a part of me thinks it would make the class less fun overall.

 

 

Charged Bolts giving charged barrel makes a lot of sense though.

[DarkSideTOR]

Exactly, they keep preaching that they want us to use a more varied rotation and yet they keep the same exact mechanics and abilities on our trees...

We need a defense against interrupts and allowing Charged Bolts to build Barrel charges would help us a bit on that end.

[Sotaudi]

Exactly, they keep preaching that they want us to use a more varied rotation and yet they keep the same exact mechanics and abilities on our trees...

We need a defense against interrupts and allowing Charged Bolts to build Barrel charges would help us a bit on that end.

 

Again, I don't really disagree, but let us assume they added Charged Barrel to Charged Bolts. That being the case:

 

Charged Bolts (CB) and Grav Round (GR) both have a 1.5 second channeled cast.

They do comparable damage.

Both apply Charged Barrier.

Both would apply Charged Barrel.

Both have a chance to proc Curtain of Fire.

CB does Weapon damage (Energy) and GR does Kinetic, both of which are mitigated by armor.

 

Granted, GR would still be the only one applying Gravity Vortex debuffs and GR is a Tech attack while CB is Ranged, but if they made this change, the two attacks would be otherwise identical. I am not sure how subsituting one 1.5 second channeled cast for another 1.5 second channeled cast that does almost everything the same is exactly "varying" our rotation.

[ArchangelLBC]

Well the reason you'd do it is that interrupts prevent grav round from being used for 4 seconds, so with this change you could just switch to charged bolts on the fly to keep building charged barrel stacks.

 

 

Otherwise Grav Round is pretty much superior in every way.

[Sotaudi]

Well the reason you'd do it is that interrupts prevent grav round from being used for 4 seconds, so with this change you could just switch to charged bolts on the fly to keep building charged barrel stacks.

 

 

Otherwise Grav Round is pretty much superior in every way.

 

 

I am not questioning the logic behind why you would switch to Charged Bolts when Grav Round is interrupted. The reason is fairly obvious. I am not arguing with it at all. On the other hand, the whole point of having an interrupt is to stop the casting of a skill and prevent casting that same skill for a time, so think about it.

 

Charged Bolts already does virtually the same damage as Grav Round. It already procs Curtain of Fire like Grav Round, and if Charged Barrel is added to it, it would apply all the same buffs. In other words, aside from the attack type and the application of the Gravity Vortex debuff (which may already be maxed on the target), they would essentially be the same skill.

 

If the whole point of a true interrupt is to prevent casting of the same skill for a specific time frame, you cannot really ask that we have a second skill that is identical in almost every way. And, yes, it would not apply a Gravity Vortex, but as I pointed out, when the target already has a full stack of Gravity Vortexes, that becomes a moot point.

 

It would be nice if it did apply it, but we are already fortunate that it will continue to proc Curtain of Fire and apply Charged Barrier. Asking that it also apply Charged Barrel is probably going a bit too far considering the intent of the Interrupt mechanic.

[ArchangelLBC]

It's more a case of in for a penny, in for a pound. Either it should proc Curtain of Fire and Charged Barrel and Charged Barrier (from a RP standpoint a function of a powerful attack going down the barrel, as opposed to grav round where the vortex is a specific feature of the round you're sending downrange) or it should do none of those things.