Varkarrus

There's a few archetypes I'd want to see before this that I feel would be less redundant (A tanky melee defender, a long ranged artillery tank, and a melee mastermind), but I'd like to see something that is to Blasters as Stalkers are to Scrappers. I'm not feeling the idea of a super long ranged sniper that hangs far, far back from the battlefield and snipes important targets: that already feels like the blaster. At the same time, a blaster that uses stealth to get in close and burst down important targets feels too scrapper-y. Rather than jump out with my own entirely thought out concept, I'll just throw some ideas here and prompt some discussion. My idea to give them their own niche: make them a "preparation based" ambusher. I.E: give them controller secondaries, allow them to use them without breaking stealth (or maybe using one starts a 10 second timer before stealth breaks), and give them damage buffs that stack tremendously when doing so. I like the idea of them hanging around the sidelines, wearing down enemies as if they were sitting ducks, before going in for the kill: it's something that would set them apart from blasters, controllers, stalkers, and scrappers alike.

TBH this is why I kinda think assault powersets should be split in two, let people choose ranged powers from one assault powersets and melee powers from another.

It's fake difficulty, though...? Stiff controls and visual clutter can make a game harder, but not more fun. If the game is made harder in other ways without addressing sources of fake difficulty, it becomes too hard and frustrating. If QoL things are done to streamline gameplay, then there's room to make things more difficult in more fun and meaningful ways. Consider macros and bindings; the game would be more challenging without them, wouldn't it? If they weren't in-game, certain things would be harder, and would need numbers adjustments to prevent them from being frustrating. If someone asked for macros and bindings to make the game easier in that respect, would you tell them to learn to play? I would rather be forced to respond quickly to changes in the flow of battle that are immediately obvious, than I would to be forced to keep an eye out for difficult to track information that I have plenty of time to notice and react to. yeah, the cooldown timers were an example, which is why I labelled them as number 0. Health bars on players and pets are great, too! I'd just like a Little bit more info.

I have a general idea for how I'd rework Regeneration, which would also make it viable for use by Tankers. Right now, the problem is Regeneration is a little binary; either enemies deal enough DPS to you to overcome your regeneration, or they cannot. I feel what could be done is to make Regeneration a powerset that can be "tired out." If you aren't killed outright by an alpha strike, the player's regeneration could be high enough to withstand even incredibly high sources of DPS, but the more they self-heal, the more their abilities weaken, go on cooldown, or drain their endurance, until their ability to heal through damage diminishes to nothing.

City of Heroes is quite fun, but it shows its age in many respects. Some are too late to be changed, like the defense and resist formulas that offer increasing returns up to a cap, Or the fact that many attacks cannot be dodged or interrupted once casting begins, no matter how long their animation is. But there are many other QOL changes that could help make the state of a fight much clearer. 0) Ability Cooldowns To give an example; the fact that we can now see the number of seconds before we can use an ability again is one such QoL change I would suggest, if it hasn't already been implemented by the Homecoming team. Very handy! 1) Power Visuals + 2) Area of Effect Indicators Currently, it's hard to tell if certain abilities originate from allies or enemies. I've gotten out of ground-targeted patches cast by allies without realizing. I've also been hit by enemy AoEs in missions such as the Positron 1 Task Force. Allied attacks can't be made invisible, or else players won't know be able to take advantage of them. They can't be color-coded, or else we'd lose the purpose of power customization. Another problem that needs to be addressed is clear, dividing lines to where an AoE attack ends. This isn't wholly necessary for attacks without delays, as by the time the visuals begin, it's too late to step out of range, but it is definitely important for any sort of tick-based or delayed AoE. Both of these problems can be addressed the same way Heroes of the Storm does it: Here, the player, as Kael'Thas, casts flame strike on some enemies. No matter who controls Kael'Thas, the flames are the same green color, but that blue circle on the ground clearly indicates that the flame strike is cast by a member of the blue team. It also gives enemy players an indicator to where the attack will strike so they can step out of reach before it goes off. City of Heroes could do something similar; team-colored ring on the ground where an AoE attack will hit, or blue lines that run parallel to the radius of a cone. If used high enough above the ground, the AoE indicator could float as well, but it should snap to the ground otherwise. I imagine this would be a tricky change, and it'd need to be applied to most abilities in the game, but it would certainly be helpful! It'd also have the added benefits of letting players get an accurate visualization of the AoE of their own powers; seeing a ring created whenever they use a PBAoE will eventually burn its way into their mind, until they can visualize it before casting. 3) Buffs, Debuffs, and CC Being a support in City of Heroes is hard. Enemy health is pretty clearly visible; health bars float above their heads, indicating how close they are to death, and that's all damage-dealers need to worry about most of the time, but supports have a lot more to consider. At least right now, you can look at the team window and see which allies need you to work your healing mumbo jumbo on them, or which ones need to be revived. However, there have been times when I try to heal an ally only for my abilities to not go through because they are halfway across the map. Furthermore, it's nigh impossible to tell which enemies need to be debuffed, and which allies need buffs or CC cleanses. There are little debuff effects on enemies; downwards facing arrows that indicate which stat is being reduced, but in the sheer visual chaos of a City of Heroes fight, it's very hard to see them clearly. I feel many of these problems can be fixed by working some UI magic. Add a toggled option to show ally health bars above their head, colored differently from enemy health bars so you can tell them apart at a glance. Furthermore, include clear, readable UI icons near health bars that list buffs and debuffs. And I don't mean the current per-power buff icons, but rather "universal" icons that indicate things like "damage/defense/resist is reduced/increased etc" or "mez effect applied", preferably with a special outline if you are the source of that buff/debuff. That way, you can look at an archvillain and instantly tell "oh shit it's got a HUGE boost to attack," and then either be "better plop some -DMGs on it or else we'll get a team wipe" if you're a support, or "oh shit I better run away!" if you're a scrapper!

At the moment, I'm with MetaVileTerror; porting existing hairstyles to all bodies should be a higher priority than making new ones IMHO

Oh that LFG queue change is a gamechanger! I was really hoping for that!

When you said The Wobble I thought you meant this

People are saying new content but I'd like to see some reworking / updating of older content. Like, Synapse and Citadel are not very fun TFs but Posi and Penelope are newer TFs that replaced old ones and are amongst the best of the TFs needed for the accolade.

I agree. New emotes would be a good way for the dev team to practice the animation pipeline. This is the one I want to see

Link to the Fully Detailed writeup here! I'd made this powerset concept a while ago, but at the time I was only posting my powerset concepts on reddit. I want to bring it here since I've seen a lot of people here suggest Clones as a powerset concept for Masterminds. I feel cloning is an iconic power that should be represented in City of Heroes... but not as a Mastermind power! In fiction, characters who focus on cloning will swarm their opponents. All clones are disposable and equal; an endless swarm of easily defeated mooks that swarm opponents in unison. Compare this to Masterminds: making a new powerset with pets that look like you just would not match this fantasy. You'd be hanging back, supporting weak mooks, being the vulnerable "head" of an army that should be self-replicating. As a Defense powerset, there's a looser formula to work with. Defense powersets provide survivability for their users. Defense, Resistance, and Maximum Health are the most obvious sources of survivability, but when you think about attributes that gives someone lasting power in a fight, you'll find it includes things like Lifesteal, Regeneration / Self Healing, Enemy Debuffs, Absorb... and maybe extra bodies to take the hit for you! So as a Defense powerset, Cloning's power budget puts a lot of its strength in manifesting additional bodies (which doubles as self healing in a sense), and actively shifts power AWAY from your maximum health (since your health will need to be split amongst your clones), while leaving just enough power in Defense / Resist to mitigate what would otherwise be a overly-crippling weakness to AoE attacks. So here's the TL;DR summary of each power in this powerset (and yes, this is somewhat tl;dr compared to the full writeup): T0: Hivemind This innate debuff is granted to applied to all clone defense characters. Your maximum health, defense, resist, and attack power are debuffed to varying multiplier-based amounts. For every clone you have, the damage penalty is increased, however your overall damage output is always higher with more clones. As you level up, your maximum clone limit increases, and the strength of this debuff increases accordingly. Hivemind provides some protection against AoE attacks; if an AoE attack hits two or more of your bodies, the damage is reduced by a fixed percentage (separate from Resist) that is increased per clone hit. This protection IS somewhat small; I would say that an AoE attack that hits you and all clones would still be far more painful than if you had a different defense power. T0: Bodyhop An 8-second CD innate power. This lets you "swap" with one of your clones. It can be performed while under a mez effect or even while KO'd. The current CD of your abilities is not affected when you swap. IO set bonuses can reduce the CD of Bodyhop, but at reduced efficiency. T1: Summon Clone You passively gain Clone stacks over time at a slow rate; the maximum number of stacks you can have increases as you gain levels. Summon Clone has a very short cooldown, consuming one stack to manifest a clone with identical stats to you. By default, clones ONLY have access to your T1 power from your other powerset by default. Clones use your endurance pool to use their T1 power, but with 90% endurance reduction. They also do not expire, and will remain active even if you are KO'd. You do not receive XP debt until you and all clones are defeated. Enhancing this power with damage / healing / defense / resist enhancements reduces the penalties from Hivemind. Recharge reduction enhancements do not affect this ability's short cooldown, but instead increase the rate you get Clone stacks. Max stacks and clones (excluding self) is 1 at level 1, and 5 by level 50. T2: One For All Toggle: You and each clone gets a small PBAoE aura that buffs Defense against all attacks except Psychic. The buff from this aura only affects you and your clones. T3 (Primary) / T4 (Secondary): Clone Toss (Melee ATs Only) Manifest and throw a clone at an enemy. Does not consume a Clone Stack, but kills your lowest health clone if it puts you past your maximum. The tossed Clone gets a damage and to-hit buff. The CD of this ability decreases as you level up, as clones become increasingly numerous and disposable. T3 (Primary) / T4 (Secondary): Coordinated Assault (Ranged ATs Only) You target an enemy at range, while also manifesting a clone at your location. The target receives a short but massive debuff to defense/resist against your clone's attacks. All of your clones will briefly focus their attacks at that target as well. Like Clone Toss, does not consume a stack, but kills your lowest health clone if you go past your maximum, and the ability recharges faster as you level up. T4 (Primary) / T5 (Secondary): Team Support You end all Mez effects on yourself while gaining a Mez resist buff. All of your clones will also be commanded to seek out one other clone and provide them with the same buff. T5 (Primary) / T3 (Secondary): Clone Expertise Granted earlier than normal for ATs with defense secondaries, since they need the offensive benefits this power grants sooner rather than later. Clone Expertise is a low endurance cost Toggle that allows your clones to use your T2 damage powers, and provides a to-hit buff. While this power has reduced endurance cost, it does make each clone use more endurance since they use your T2 powe.r T6 (Primary) / T7 (Secondary): Team Tactics Toggle: Works just like One For All, but provides Resistance instead. T7 (Primary) / T8 (Secondary): All For One Consume all of your clones. You receive a large amount of healing and stamina, and are refunded some Clone stacks, based on the number of clones consumed. T8 (Primary) / T6 (Secondary): Clone Mastery Works just like Clone Expertise. Allows your clones to use your T3 attack powers, and provides a damage buff. Low endurance cost too. T9: Mitosis The ultimate Cloning technique. Each clone creates another clone at their position, regardless of your clone cap. However, you lose all stacks of Clone Stock and can't gain more for a duration. Furthermore, your lowest health clone constantly takes irresistable DoT. This power only allows you to exceed the clone cap for 3 minutes. Healing/Absorb enhancements reduce the DoT.

I've seen so many people wanting a Clone powerset for Masterminds, and every time I feel the need to say... I don't think that'd work thematically. Compare self-cloning characters in fiction to Masterminds. A Mastermind is an off-support who hangs back and supports their melee / ranged pets. But self-cloning characters in fiction don't have a "head," with any support powers, and instead swarm opponents; engaging in melee combat. I definitely feel Self Cloning is an important powerset, but I think it'd be a whole lot more appropriate thematically to make it a Defense powerset. Here's a writeup I made of it some time ago. Never posted it to these forums but maybe I should...

The system reworking required is pretty worth it, actually. These are all systems that need to be reworked already. Everyone and their mother has complained about how awful cave maps are. When it comes to clipping in other areas, I really don't mind. I would rather be able to play a large character whose head awkwardly clips through some door frames, over no large character at all. A "crouch stance" emote that you can bind as a toggle would be fun if you want to roleplay your character ducking to get through doorways, but not necessary. As for it being a PVP exploit, character model size shouldn't have a gameplay impact in the first place. The hitboxes and LOS scanners should all be the same size regardless of a player's aesthetic choice; there should be no incentives whatsoever to make your character look a certain way for any reason beyond aesthetic. If the size of the visual model itself is an issue, then maybe PVP zones should set everyone to the same size temporarily. As far as systems that would need to be edited before implementing this change go, that's the only one that isn't already something that should be changed.

It's not a secret, but it's also not very transparent. A cursory glance at just this post would make people assume that Zoomer is just an archetype you like a whole lot. If I were the one running this tournament, I would even skip the F/N/I scores for my own archetype, while saying that it's one I made, and then only show the score the other one. That's not wholly necessary, but people knowing that you made the archetype would explain the score you gave it...