You can see it if you pull up icon beta and look around. (I don't think the icon mod actually put in damage amounts, but I could be wrong).
Bad example. Icon disables the in-game store availability checks for things that have been unlocked, so it shows a lot of WIP stuff that was
not scheduled to go live with I24.
It seems to me that these "fixes" that were to be introduced in I24 were a bit odd. So many changes (that had been back burnered for years) in one issue?
Yeah, that was kind of the point.
I can think of two obvious possible reasons for this.
One, the devs knew something was up and the game was getting close to closing. This would have been a push for new players to save the game.
Two, the devs were settling the game with an eye to the future issues. As in, they had something planned which would have included much harder content.
Three, they were addressing long-standing disparity issues, many of which were created by melee power creep. As in, melee ATs have gotten many buffs over the years bringing their damage to substantially higher levels than originally possible, not to mention new and clearly overpowered sets like Titan Weapons and Shield Defense.
Ranged sets, on the other hand, were mostly ignored during the same time period and had not seen the same level of increase. When a Brute can do almost as much damage as a Blaster, and have personal defenses to do it much more safely, there's a problem.
Personally, I would have nerfed Brutes. However, the Paragon devs decided to buff Blasters instead, and the other ranged ATs as well to a lesser degree.
When you start looking at the numbers, there was a huuuge increase in DPS on the way for blasters, defenders and corrupters.
Did this "balance" need to take place for those ATs because they were so inferior to the melee and control characters? I'm not convinced of that.
You must not be looking at the same numbers I am. When I compare the I23 data to the I24 data, the only significant changes I see are:
- Fast snipe. Of all the changes, this one has the most impact, and would increase single-target DPS for sets that could make use of it by a decent amount. Not earth-shattering, but decent. It doesn't affect AoE, which is already where Blasters tend to shine.
It also made snipes into something that wouldn't be considered a nearly useless situational power like they were, which is something the devs had wanted to address for a long time.
- Crashless nukes. This was more in response to Judgment powers making nukes functionally irrelevant than anything else. Arcana's arguments about nukes not respecting the damage formula (they should have done much more damage than they did, for their recharge) played into it as well.
What's important to note about this is that while the crash was removed and the recharge was lowered on many nuke powers, the actual damage done went down in I24. So it was a nerf to raw damage but a buff to usability.
- Ice blast was getting some love, by putting damage in Bitter Freeze Ray to make it not completely inferior to and redundant with Freeze Ray.
- Dual Pistols, which was one of the lowest performing ranged damage sets, got some much needed adjustment to its animation times.
That's about it for the shared changes. Blasters of course got some extra utility, survivability, and longevity added to their secondaries. That was also needed, as the design for blaster secondaries hadn't been touched since launch, and was massively outdated.
I was actually speaking specifically to the damage numbers of corrupters I can see in Icon Beta. They are out of whack with the blaster versions. As in dual pistol corrupter damage was higher than dual pistol blaster damage. That kind of thing.
I've seen you post this a few places, but I have no idea what you think you're seeing. As someone who was watching every patch as it came out to do detailed comparison against the previous in order to find any undocumented changes, if Corruptors had been significantly altered I think I would have noticed. Their attack set numbers were mostly untouched from I23 to I24, other than fixing Scourge damage in a couple places where it was calculated wrong.
If you're looking at the in-game power info "real numbers" displays, those have always been hit or miss for whether or not they work correctly. They tended to be a bit buggy and get confused by special mechanics like Swap Ammo or Corruptor Scourge. Check City of Data instead, it was loaded with the final I24 beta build shortly before the shutdown.
