Varkarrus

ah. whoops. 😞 (here's hoping it gets ported later)

I only just learned about the upcoming Guardian AT because of this reddit post, and was surprised to not see anyone talking about it on these SCORE forums! So I'm starting this thread to start talking about it, as well as compiling any screenshots that show things about it.

The vorpal is based off of the Vorpal Judgement power. Personally I think the attack really should be a teleport, meaning the fact that you temporarily enter melee range is an outright weakness of the powerset

Yeah, the lifesteal is based on how much damage you deal. I feel like there'd need to be some finaggling there or else a level 50 player could one-shot a level 1 enemy and heal to full instantly. That's probably why the mechanic isn't currently used at all. But I feel like the idea is slightly central to the kit...? I think you're right that it may be a little overdesigned and complicated, I guess I had a lot of ideas to throw out there! I guess the T1-T3 could be reworked to just deal flat damage with lifesteal, and no DoT. That'd help reduce the complexity. I feel like Drain Blood is fine the way it is, you can just kinda imagine it as an attack that's performed with a very long animation! I like the idea you have for Assassin's Bite giving Absorb instead of health, I might just incorporate that in! Shadow Warp was fused with the Taunt/Confront/Placate stuff because I didn't want to take away one of their powers to add another non-attack. But I ended up not using Build Up so maybe it would have been fine. Kinda unsure what power I should remove if I want to split it back up again. I'd remove Enthrall but I don't want to take away a ranged power from the Dominators. Could be Enthrall for the Dominators and Nightfall for the melee-ers, but Nightfall is one of their few AoeS. As for Enthrall; the bonus applies even if the target is woken up before you attack them, so the follow up Drain Blood shouldn't be TOO hard to pull off!

Link to the full writeup here! This powerset is focused around draining the health of your victims, shutting them down with damage and crowd control, all while sustaining yourself on their essence! Melee Powers: T1: Bloody Tear Deal damage to a target and inflict DoT. Standing near a bleeding target heals you. T2: Arterial Slash Like Bloody Tear, but with less initial damage and a longer, stronger DoT. T3: Ravage Loads of damage and DoT, and you still heal by being near a bleeding target. However, this ability costs health! T4: Drain Blood Attack a target, holding both you and them for 2 seconds. In addition to dealing high damage, you heal for a significant portion of damage done. Stalker: Assassin's Bite An Assassin move that deals less damage, but can heal you for lots of health if you use it while hidden. It also teleports you behind the target, but as it's already a melee attack, that's more for show than anything else. T5: Shadow Warp Replaces abilities like Taunt, Confront, and Placate. This ability teleports you, inflicts a PBAoE fear, and has an additional effect per archetype. Tankers and Brutes deal minor damage, with Tankers also taunting foes, and Brutes gaining Fury and +Regen. Scrappers gain +DMG and +Recharge for a while. Stalkers placate nearby foes when using the ability, and become hidden after teleporting, but they don't fear targets with it. T6: Nightfall A PBAoE attack that deals damage to targets, draining their health and burning their endurance. Each target hit gives you a buff to recovery! Stalkers get Assassin's Bite at an earlier level instead. T7: Enthrall A ranged attack that deals high psychic damage and makes targets sleep. Furthermore, Enthralled targets will walk towards you while sleeping, and Drain Blood has increased effectiveness on them! T8: Fell Assault Smash down in the target location and temporarily become Slightly more monstrous, giving your T1-T3 attacks an AoE effect! T9: Biting Swarm Turn into a swarm of bats, becoming basically immune to everything except AoE, as you bite targets in a wide area. Deals very high lethal damage over the 6 second duration. Assault Powers: T1: Sanguine Strike Shoot pressurized blood at a target, dealing high damage but costing a bit of health. T2: Bloody Tear T3: Arterial Slash T4: Hellfire Shoot three fireballs in a ranged cone attack with a wide arc. Deals decent damage, but can only target 3 foes at once. T5: Drain Blood T6: Shadow Warp Dominators heal themselves, and gain a buff to damage and lifesteal as their archetype specific bonus. (This is to help make up for their comparative lack of lifesteal abilities compared to the melee variant) T7: Summon Bats / Bat Strike Using this first gives you a trio of bats that surround you, increasing your defense against ranged attacks. It then turns into Bat Strike, which is a very fast attack that turns one of your bat buffs into an untargetable pet that damages foes and heals you before expiring. T8: Enthrall T9: Biting Swarm

I'd made a powerset that explores this concept! It would address the fact that all collision boxes are the same size, by giving heroes who use this an increased collision radius as well as an increased model size cap. I'd wanted to see characters be as large as 16 feet tall, but the gallery you made shows that that isn't quite viable. Also Not only will I +1 this, I will also add: I think they should modify the "Huge" bodytype to include feminine costume parts, add a breast slider, and a toggle to use the female voice. Basically make it so you can use the Huge bodytype for female characters as well.

Three things I would REALLY like to see that would make the job of a support MUCH easier. First off, all debuffs applied by an enemy should have glowing icons, whether they're on you or on your ally. The color of the glow should depend on the debuff; a stat debuff glows one color, and a mez effect glows a different color. This would allow people with Mez cleansing abilities to react faster, whether with an ally cleanse or a self cleanse. In the case of text that says "Held" "Immobilized" etc... I feel there could be more done to make that more visible too. Namely; make it a different color compared to text that says things like "Opportunity" or "Alpha Entangled" Second of all, buffs and debuffs should have a separate glow to signify that you were the one to apply them. This would be a different glow than the debuff ones; not just a different color but a different style too. I imagine the debuffs would have a sorta flamey glow, but this would just be, like, an orange outline similar to the ones some powers get in certain conditions. Perhaps they could also be listed at the fart left on the team window, before any others. Finally, we should see buffs/debuffs on the target window. If you select an opponent, you should be able to see at a glance "Oh yeah, I put one of my debuffs on this target. I don't need to use that debuff again on it just yet". This would have the added benefit of letting you see the details of any self-applied buff that an enemy has. I know there's visuals for many of these debuffs, but with the amount of FX in the game, it can be very hard to tell.

The Power Within : just summons 3 weaker clones of the user.

I have a couple that I made before I started crossposting them to this forum: Tendril Melee Rapier Melee and Astral Guardian Melee

I've seen Clones as an idea proposed for masterminds a few times, but I actually did a writeup for it as a defense powerset, as a solution to a lot of the problems you've faced.

hey, my rock blast powerset (not to be confused with earth assault) has an assault version. I'd link it by I'm on mobile ATM!

Link to the Full Writeup! If you were expecting an earth-based powerset, TOO BAD. When I say Rock Blast... I mean the POWER OF ROCK! This powerset is loaded with wide-reaching PBAoEs to hit many, many foes at once, and it has plenty of sustained damage. However, it doesn't have many focused-damage attacks, nor does it have any Complete Nuking powers. If you DO want to take out a priority target, however, its T9 lets you bash your guitar over the heads of your opponent for tremendous damage. Summary: T1 -- Power Chord: A quick, targeted AoE that can hit up to 3 targets T2 -- Lead Strike: Make three targeted AoEs against up to 3 targets in a cone T3 -- Driving Strum: A quick ranged attack. Once you use it, the attack will be repeated automatically every second for 7 seconds, targeting the nearest enemy. If you get the recharge down low enough, you can even stack it! T4 -- Showtime: Deals damage to enemies in a wide area, and heals yourself. Furthermore, you can gain stacks by damaging opponents with any rock blast power... up to 110! For every stack you have (to a max of 100), this ability is empowered by a small amount. At maximum stacks, you can deal lots of damage and heal quite a bit! T5 -- Switch Genre: Unlocks 3 powers that can each provide a 60 second buff. Death Metal causes your attacks to deal Negative Energy damage, and applies bonus damage as a DoT. The DoT deals double damage to targets below half health Heavy Metal causes your attacks to deal Energy damage, applies to-hit and recharge debuffs, and has a small chance to hold foes for a short duration Power Metal causes your attacks to deal Fire damage, every rock blast power recharges quicker, and you heal for a portion of damage dealt. T6 -- Crowd Pleaser: A wide reaching PBAoE that can be used more often than Showtime. It's not as strong as a max-stack Showtime, though. T7 -- Aggressive Noodling: A channeled ability that deals continuous damage to enemies in a wide PBAoE around you. T8 -- Up To Eleven: The biggest nuke available to this powerset. Deals high damage and a DoT to enemies in a wide PBAoE around you. T9 -- Showstopper: Smash your fucking guitar on Lord Recluse's face and kill him instantly. Consumes all of your Showtime stacks; if you have 100 or more, it also disorients! Archetype Specific: T2 (Dominator) / T6 (Sentinel) -- Face Melt: A short ranged PBAoE cone that can knock enemies back T4 (Bastion) -- Headbanger: A wide reaching PBAoE attack that deals minor damage and can do a brief hold to many foes at once. T8 (Dominator) -- Power Slide: A targeted AoE attack that teleports you to a location, dealing damage and knocking foes down. T8 (Bastion) -- Bass Booster: A wide reaching PBAoE attack that deals decent damage and lowers enemy resist against smashing damage, as well as whatever damage your current genre does (if you use Switch Genre)

https://www.strawpoll.me/18456265 I put together a strawpoll with all of these, to get a sense for which one is everyone's favorite. You can vote for multiple options, otherwise Duo will get all the votes 😛

That'd be a different archetype altogether.

I figure it'd be something like: When you complete it, you get a daily reward for your chosen difficulty + any lower difficulties you haven't completed that day (i.e: if you do easy mode and win, you get the easy reward, then if you do hard mode that same day, you get the hard AND medium reward, but not the easy one) The daily reward would probably be a small number of reward merits, and maybe incarnate salvage on higher difficulties if your team is high level. Outside of that, every time you complete it, you'd get recipe drops and salvage. Also, there'd be several badges for each difficulty, one per minimum level. (i.e: getting the Level 1 Hard Gauntlet badge may be easier than getting the Level 50 Hard Gauntlet badge) And finally, for the Bottom Floor: I forgot to say but I was picturing one of several random arenas: A small arena where you fight a single, very hard Giant Monster, with no / limited adds A medium sized arena where you fight a single archvillain with a trickle of adds A Terra Volta arena where waves of enemies attack and you have to defend a center point, with a weak archvillain at the end. May be tricky because of the time limit, but the timing of each wave could depend on how quickly you eliminate them instead. A large arena where you fight waves of weak archvillains, exactly like Summer Blockbuster An easier version of each arena which appears halfway through the trial when you're on hard mode.

There'd be three versions of this trial: an Easy, Medium, and Hard mode. All three would be available regardless of hero level; the enemies would scale according to the level of the lead player, and you can combine the difficulty setting with level adjustment. The trial's story would simply be some guy offering a training simulation to heroes, using a bootleg copy of the Architect Entertainment server code, maybe with the twist that he streams all of the combat on his twitch channel, while commentating like a game show host, all for profit. Simply put, this trial is a procedurally generated trial with multiple floors, like a random Death From Below. Each floor would have groups of enemies from 1-2 factions, and there'd be an elite boss at the end of each floor. The enemy factions can be anything; even hero-only or villain-only factions, as long as they fall within the level range. At the bottom floor, there'd be an arena with an archvillain and respawning mobs. The difficulty of the trial would come from a time limit, and limited lives. Whenever you are KO'd, you will have a 20 second time limit to be revived by an ally / use an awaken, or else you lose a life, and respawn at the start of the floor. Once you're out of lives, the next time the 20 second timer runs out, you are eliminated from the trial. The time limit is also prohibitively small, but you get a small time bonus every time a mob is defeated, and a larger time bonus whenever your team moves to the next floor. The difficulty setting determines the number of floors, and the number of lives. The time limit would increase on higher difficulties, but scaling slower than overall length; so even though the Easy time limit is lower than the Hard one, you still have much more time per floor on average. As a final note (may be too much?): you can't bring any temporary powers or inspirations with you into the trial. Throughout each floor, there would be glowies protected by mob groups that, when interacted with, give inspirations and/or temporary powers to your team. You can't take either of them with you out of the trial. If you run out of lives, your inspirations are reallocated to your teammates.

What I'd do with T9 Abilities is take everything about them and make it quicker. You pop the T9 defensive buff, maybe it should only last for 20-30 seconds. Then, the crash afterwards should be significantly easier to recover from. Finally, it'd then only take a few minutes to recharge. You can then get into a rhythm; pop the buff when you need to be the most aggressive, then fall back to a defensive position to recover, then get back into the fray until you need to use that buff agin.

Some attacks deal damage, and inflict debuffs. So say you've got a power that primarily deals damage, with a minor defense debuff. You've got two options for which enhancement set you will use, and obviously you're going to increase its damage! Its debuff strength is so low, there's not really much point. So here's an idea: a "Damaging Debuff" family of IO sets. Enhancements in this set would include Damage, Endurance Reduction, Accuracy, Recharge, and Debuff Strength. This Debuff Strength bonus acts like an enhancement that universally covers ToHit Debuff, Defense Debuff, and Speed Debuff. Depending on the ratio of the ability's normal dps, to the the overall baseline effectiveness of the ability's debuffs, this enhancement can vary wildly on how much bonus it grants. Overall, putting 6 slots of a Damaging Debuff set in a power will leave it with less damage than other damage oriented strengths, but if the power has a minor debuff attached, that debuff can potentially become a lot stronger! Inversely, it can be used to significantly increase the damage of a power that's primarily a debuff, while still being able to increase the debuff's strength!

Aw dang, this one's right up there with Goliath Defense as the powerset I want the most! Still, hearing you say that you like it despite it being your least favorite... is actually really high praise! Thanks!

Oh! Good to know. I assumed I'd need to be able to edit the source itself to make custom content. Certainly for some of the things I want to try doing (i.e: goliath defense), I'd need to do that.

Really impressive! I've been looking into doing this for some of my stuff, but I haven't been able to even get the source compiled yet... 😞

Heh, technically you're not wrong. It's just not instant; you might have to spend several seconds or more dealing damage to an enemy before the "mitigation" kicks in. But if you've got enough overwhelming damage, then you don't really need a tank!

This is kinda why I said it was controversial. The way I see it: control reduces the need for a tank, not for a support. In many PvP games, tanks use control since they can't rely on aggro. It just feels like another form of mitigation, just like how damage can be subdivided into ranged/melee, or sustained/burst, or single target/AoE.

The way I see it, there's three Pillars: Damage, Tank, and Support. I'll classify this by: Damage: Dealing damage to foes, directly OR indirectly Tank: Protecting vulnerable allies from enemy damage and debuffs, through crowd control or taunts. Support: Mitigate damage and debuffs, and keep your team able to perform. Generally, a Tank role requires external help in the form of a support. Each archetype either fully focuses on a pillar, or spreads their power budget across them to varying degrees. Pure Damage Pure Tank Pure Support Damage/Tank Damage/Support Tank/Support All Stalker Tanker Defender Brute Corrupter Controller ** Mastermind *** Blaster Dominator ** Scrapper Sentinel* * I put Sentinel as pure damage. Even though they deal mediocre damage, between defense and range, they're the safest damage dealer. Plus, their inherent power means they amplify ally damage. Indirect damage! ** Might be controversial. They "tank" exclusively through crowd control. Some people would consider that part of the Support role, not the Tank one. *** Leans towards Damage/Support. Therefore, there's room in this column for one that leans Tank/Support and one that leans Damage/Tank too. I also excluded VEATs because I'm not too familiar with them (plus, aren't they somewhat versatile?). Do note that while there's 4 Pure Damage archetypes, they all do them in different ways. Sentinels benefit more from having high damage allies to exploit their inherent. Blasters have greater need of a Tank than Scrappers. Stalkers shine better when priority targets need killing. It's totally possible for there to be a new Pure Damage archetype that doesn't step on the toes of the other four.

The LFG tab isn't very usable at the moment. Like, it's called the "looking for group" tab. But you never actually use it to look for a group! You only use it after your group is already found, and even then, only for trials! If you try and use it for a trial or a task force, you'll often end up with the minimum amount of people... and even then only after a super long wait, because it's broken and nobody uses it! So, I think when you queue up, you should be allowed to set a minimum size for the group. It won't give you the prompt until it's found enough people to reach your minimum size. This minimum size will always be at least the higher of your current party size or the minimum number needed for the event. If you're able to press a button and simply wait, until eventually you get a prompt and are teleported to Positron with a full party of 8, then more people will use it too, which will make it even more appealing! As a further thing: let people be in different zones when it activates! This is unrelated to the above thing, but it means someone can go Hunt in a different zone while waiting, instead of hopping around the buildings in Atlas Park without anything better to do. Also means you don't have to wait for people / figure out which instance you're meeting in.