dangeraaron10

I support this. Specifically a raven or some other bird or flying creature.

Thank you. And you make some good points about the pet number. I feel like if there was only going to be 2 pet powers and one upgrade power, I imagine the Tier 3 would be removed since the Commander is supposed to be the boss man/boss lady. Though every set would be better served if the low level minions got axed for the Tier 2 and 3 ones to remain. I do, however, like the idea of all the pets being there (so nobody who likes the Pet Primaries can't get one of the pets they like) and removing upgrades as most of the damage comes from the player.

THE COMMANDER PET / ARMOR ARCHETYPE "Leading by Example" Give me a summary! The Commander is an idea for a new tanking-centric archetype utilizing primarily Pet power sets and secondarily Armor power sets. The Commander differs from the Mastermind by focusing all the attention on him or herself while henchmen act as support. While such a playstyle can be played by specifically built "Tankerminds", the Commander exemplifies this playstyle and offers a true tank AT that is competitive with Tankers and Brutes. This is achieved through native threat generation via the Commander inherent "Beacon" (which I lovingly call "Petvoke"), where by all threat ordinarily gained by your minions will instead be redirected to you so long as your pets are nearby. The Commander trades in the relatively weak attacks of the Mastermind for stronger melee attacks to help form an attack chain to keep you swinging throughout the fight. And while the Mastermind has the ability to enhance his or her minions with one of two upgrade powers, the Commander gains access to Taunt as well as a special power shared between all powersets called "Rally", which summons all of your henchmen to your side with full health. While Mastermind henchmen deal more damage and have more attacks than Commander henchmen, the Commander him/herself is stronger and tougher than a Mastermind. Give me the stats! Base HP (at Level 50): 1606.3 (Tanker=1874.1, Brute=1499.3) HP Modifier: 1.5 (Tanker=1.75, Brute=1.4) Max HP Cap: 3,373.3 (Tanker=3534, Brute=3212.7) Max HP Modifier: 2.1 (Tanker=2.2, Brute=2) Melee Damage Scale: 0.9 Ranged Damage Scale: 0.9 Damage Cap: 500% Survivability: 9 Melee Damage: 6 Ranged Damage: 2 Crowd Control: 2 Support: 2 Pets: 7 Inherent: Beacon Commanders have an inherent ability focused on gathering threat and taking the heat off their henchmen: Beacon. Where as Masterminds increase the Accuracy and Damage of their henchmen within a certain distance of themselves (in addition to damage sharing when in Bodyguard mode) via Supremacy, henchmen within the same distance (60) to the Commander will redirect all threat they generate through their attacks to the Commander. In addition, your presence inspires your henchmen and unnerves your foes, granting an Accuracy and Defense bonus to henchmen within Beacon range of the Commander. Your followers are more likely to hit and less likely to get hit in your presence. Unique Ability: Rally Replacing the Tier 9, the second upgrade power, in each primary is a power unique to Commanders; Rally! Rally acts as a Recall Friend power that summons all active henchmen to your side and completely refills their health. In addition to restoring your henchmen's health, Rally will raise the DEF(All) and RES(All) of your henchmen for a short while. Primary Powers: Pets The Commander uses Pet Powersets as its Primary Powerset. This includes all Mastermind Primary Powersets: Beastmastery, Demonology, Thugs, Robotics, Necromancy, Ninjas, and Mercenaries. Commander Primaries are far from a carbon copy of Mastermind Primaries, with the key differences being: The Tier 4 and Tier 9 Upgrade powers from each Pet Primary has been replaced. Upgrading pets is and should stay a Mastermind feature as Masterminds are meant to support their pets. Rather, Commanders replace these powers with Taunt (as the new Tier 4 across all primary sets) and Rally (as the new Tier 9 across all primary sets). The Tier 1, 3, and 5 Ranged powers have been replaced with Melee powers of similarly themed Melee powersets. Most of these melee attacks are single target but some AoE does exist in certain sets. This is to provide the Commander with a single target attack rotation. The unique Tier 7 power in each Pet powerset has been repurposed to directly benefit the Commander as opposed to buffing henchmen. Here are a few examples of what a Commander Primary powersets might look like: Thugs Tier 1: Initial Strike Tier 2: Call Thugs Tier 3: Heavy Blow Tier 4: Taunt Tier 5: Sweeping Cross Tier 6: Call Enforcer Tier 7: Gang War Tier 8: Call Bruiser Tier 9: Rally Ninjas Tier 1: Sting of the Wasp Tier 2: Call Genin Tier 3: Gambler's Cut Tier 4: Taunt Tier 5: The Lotus Drops Tier 6: Call Jounin Tier 7: Kuji-In Toh Tier 8: Oni Tier 9: Rally Beastmastery Tier 1: Savage Strike Tier 2: Summon Wolves Tier 3: Maiming Slash Tier 4: Taunt Tier 5: Vicious Slash Tier 6: Summon Lions Tier 7: Fortify Pack Leader (improves you rather than your pets) Tier 8: Summon Dire Wolf Tier 9: Rally Mercenaries Tier 1: Pummel Tier 2: Soldiers Tier 3: Buckshot Tier 4: Taunt Tier 5: Bayonet Tier 6: Spec Ops Tier 7: Serum (improves you rather than your pets) Tier 8: Commando Tier 9: Rally Necromancy Tier 1: Shadow Punch Tier 2: Zombie Horde Tier 3: Smite Tier 4: Taunt Tier 5: Shadow Maul Tier 6: Grave Knight Tier 7: Soul Extraction (sacrifice 25% health to summon a Lich equivalent Soul, rather than a dead henchman) Tier 8: Lich Tier 9: Rally Demonology Tier 1: Scorch (or Melee Whip equivalent) Tier 2: Summon Demonlings Tier 3: Cremate (or Melee Whip equivalent) Tier 4: Taunt Tier 5: Incinerate (or Melee Whip equivalent) Tier 6: Summon Demons Tier 7: Hell on Earth (improves you rather than your pets) Tier 8: Summon Demon Prince Tier 9: Rally Robotics Tier 1: Barrage Tier 2: Battle Drones Tier 3: Energy Punch Tier 4: Taunt Tier 5: Bone Smasher Tier 6: Protector Bots Tier 7: Repair (instead of fully healing henchman, you give yourself a +Recovery and +Regeneration buff) Tier 8: Assault Bot Tier 9: Rally Secondary Powers; Armor Exactly what it says on the tin! Commanders get Armor powersets as their secondary powers, and have the same power picks and only slightly smaller values as Tankers, but better than Brutes. Commanders also gain access to Energy Aura and Ninjutsu! Nothing special or gimmicky here! Powersets are Bio Armor, Dark Armor, Electric Armor, Energy Aura, Fiery Aura, Ice Armor, Invulnerability, Ninjutsu, Radiation Armor, Regeneration, Shield Defense, Stone Armor, Super Reflexes, and Willpower. Epic Pools Epic Pools are designed to give a given AT access to powers they don't normally have access to. Commanders natively have access to single target (or cone) melee attacks, defensive powers, and summons. Commander Epic Pools focus on additional attacks including at least one Ranged attack and one AoE attack in each pool. Several pools also include Immobilization powers or debuffs. The first two powers are acquired at level 35 with no prereqs, the second two powers are acquired at level 41 with having to take one of the level 35 powers, and the last power requires level 44 and at least 2 other powers from the rest of the pool. Power placement on the lists are intentional. Burn Mastery Fire Breath Char Fire Ball Fire Cages Rain of Fire Frost Mastery Ice Blast Block of Ice Sleet Shiver Ice Storm Artillery Mastery Burst Taser M30 Grenade Targeting Drone Time Bomb Assassination Mastery Shuriken Focused Accuracy Web Grenade Smoke Grenade Exploding Shuriken Radiation Mastery X-Ray Beam Superior Conditioning Electron Haze Physical Perfection Neutron Bomb Plant Mastery Entangle Thorn Burst Strangler Roots Toxins Leviathan Mastery Arctic Breath School of Sharks Bile Spray Spirit Shark Jaws Water Spout Mace Mastery Mace Blast Web Envelope Disruptor Blast Power Boost Web Cocoon Mu Mastery Electrifying Fences Mu Bolts Electric Shackles Mu Lightning Ball Lightning Soul Mastery Gloom Soul Tentacles Soul Storm Darkest Night Dark Obliteration I got some questions! Q: Seriously though, Tankermind is a thing. Isn't a Pet/Armor AT redundant? A: Masterminds can be built to be quite tanky, but so can every AT to an extent. Masterminds don't have native threat generation and are geared more towards supporting their minions. Commander offers an AT choice that is better suited to this playstyle. Q: How will Commanders fit in with Tankers and Brutes already vying for a team role that's not needed in most content? A: Commanders offer an interesting alternative to existing options that rewards micromanagement with unmatched threat generation, as well as a different take on pet classes that opens up new themes for player concepts. Q: What new character concepts can this make that can't be replicated with something else? A: Masterminds are a quintessential villain concept overall, and it might be difficult to get into the Mastermind mindset as a hero. The Commander is a leader, rather than a manipulator, and can come off as more inherently "heroic". In addition, being able to combine henchmen, melee attacks, and armors can open up some interesting and thematic combinations such as Thugs/Willpower, Demons/Fiery Aura, Necro/Dark Armor, Ninjas/Ninjutsu, etc. Conclusion! Thank you for taking the time to read through my proposal. This was a fun thought project of mine that I finally got around to posting. I know actually adding a new AT is likely not going to happen, let alone one with Pet powers, and that other AT suggestions have more popularity (like Melee/Support or Assault/Composition). Still, I think the Commander could fulfill a fun niche and allow more character concepts to come to life that a traditional Mastermind or Tanker falls short of.

Thanks for this. I've thought I seen people mention proccing out Cryo Freeze Ray before (though it's generally followed up by recommendations to proc out a hold that has higher base damage than Cryo) but that's something to keep in mind. Using a combo of Ignite and LRM Rocket while hoverblasting sounds very Star Wars Bounty Hunter to me and that's a good thing.

I asked the same question on Discord but got mixed reception on whether or not you skip Ignite. Either way, I think I'm going to go AR/Dev. I tried Beam Rifle/Dev and while it has better numbers than AR I find Beam Rifle really boring. AR has a mix of damage types and effects. I'm not worried at all about the damage.

I'd rather go for an option that "propogates for all costume slots" feature that Greycat said. Feels like a less roundabout way of fixing the admittedly annoying problem of having to adjust all your stances and pool powers in every individual coustume post character creation. If your change was implemented at least I could wait to pick up costumes until after I picked up a travel power to do minFX and save it. Edit: Not trying to poo poo on your idea or anything but I think a propogate costume part button is a more elegant solution. And that is a big part of how HC devs do new features. Ease of implementation is one thing but they care just as much if not much more so about an elegant implementation. Can't have all your new game features held together with the code equivalents of duct tape and bubblegum!

Gonna roll up my not-Transformer if such a thing ever happened.

I support this.

Either that or let you select between 3 to 5 preset options per minion. Like have standard robots, clockwork, and arachnobots to pick from. Or for human henchmen they might have different themed outfits or even a different gender (female and huge options for example)

What if doing low level missions auto exemplared you and locked you out of higher end abilities and enhancements? That way not only do levels match but power selection matches too?

If nothinng else, its nice to get some insight on how these costume pieces work under the hood. Thanks for this.

This post inspired me to revisit my electrical robot overlord. Bots/Elec/Mu. All I have to do is struggle until I get an upgraded Assault Bot with Electric Fences! :'D

I support! I support more options for tails in general. When I thought "stinger tail" I thought of a scorpion tail but a bee butt is cool too.

I support this 100%

I had a thread on this forum called Large Animated Tails, I'd love to also throw in larger versions of existing tails as well. All the tails look bad on Huge characters! Hopefully more options can be added in the future but it seems like the devs are a bit far off from creating entirely new costume pieces.

Fantastic job, guys! I was hoping to proliferate the Beast animations somehow so I could use it in combination with Combat Jumping and Super Jump, and now I can fit those into my build while maintaining the Beast animations. Excellent work! Plus, the sprint customizations opens up a whole slew of new possibilities! I think someone mentioned ice sliding ala Frozone which sounds awesome.

Not sure if this has been mentioned but I'm testing out Fold Space in Atlas Park and I noticed that with large enough groups, you'll sometimes bring the mobs to you stacked in a straight line pointing away from you, making only like half of the enemies in range for your average AoE on a Melee toon, even a Tanker. And if you don't follow up with some sort of control rather quickly, the enemies scatter immediately.

It's a bit more contentious on Discord concerning these changes.

I'm all for that, too! In general I'm all for opening up more powers for Novas and Dwarves to use.

This "Teleport the room to you" concept sounds amazing! +1 for Black Dwarves being able to use the Warshade equivalent of this power. With these changes as they stand I'd attempt to throw down a Mire, use this power, shapeshift as quickly as I can into Dwarf to throw down a second Mire and then smash. During that shapeshift time, things could get dicey. If Dwarf could do the WS room-teleport ability, it'd make Dual-form and Tri-form WS all the more great. Personally? I think the Dwarf Teleport power should be replaced by a Dwarf equivalent of "Fold Space". Then allow Dwarves to use the inherent travel powers of their respective AT, Energy Flight for White Dwarves and Shadow Step for Black Dwarves. If that were the case, you'd probably see a lot more Khelds running Dwarf, if not Tri-form. Also, if Shadow Step doesn't have the "untouchable" component that Teleport does, that'd be great to add as well to bring it in line. Though I think it was covered in the patch notes.

If I cared about practicality I wouldn't be running around in colored undies, now would I? HELIPACK!!!

This guy knows what's up. Let me get a helipack like Ratchet n' Clank!

And there's nothing wrong with those types of players. Nothing. Wrong. At. All. CoH is one of the few MMOs that is welcoming of that sort of player. The one who just likes to make costumes, the ones who just like to use the game as a chat room while having an awesome looking avatar. Roleplayers who don't really want to bother with the combat portion of the game (and plenty of RPers that do RP while doing missions, of which I'm a big fan of but I like the mellow stuff too). All valid, all have a home here in CoH. If you want achievements or badges for a day's hard grind, fine, be my guest. Not costume parts, please. We're playing an ancient game that a few awesome people resurrected from the grave (just like someone did to this thread), I'm not here to grind away and pump my dopamine, I just want to look cool and punch Hellions. I make a big stink about this because of what I said before: the developers are volunteers that can't readily add new costume pieces or assets to the game willy nilly. Even the new Freakzohk stuff in the works are reskins and not new assets. If they did make a huge breakthrough and actually add new stuff to the game I'd be pretty livid if only a portion of HC's playerbase have the free time or desire to do the repetitive old content to get them. "But danger, we'd add new costume pieces to NEW content to grind!" If you want both of those things, that's a pretty tall order, even from our talented devs.

That's what I meant. An option to disable buff FX on yourself, that way you can throw out those neon colored Thermal buffs to know exactly who is and who isn't buffed with what but the people on the receiving end don't get blinded by your flames. I also wouldn't mind a copy of Null showing up in Atlas Park and Mercy so you don't have to go to Pocket D to talk to it.

People in my town do trick or treating at around 4pm. Kids go home when sun goes down. I do like the fact that it's NOT perma-night for an entire month.