Varkarrus

Yeah, but then that's just super strength. No other melee powers (or ranged, for that matter) work through a pet, and a punch ghost seems to be the most fitting for it.

Thanks! And yeah that sounds like a good idea. I'll do that with the next one I post here.

I think a fun option for customizing Assault Rifle would be removing the weapon and using animations from Energy Blast instead. The idea here would be for if you're playing as a robot / cyborg character, you'd be shooting bullets / fire out of your hand instead.

Against ranged and AoE attacks, that can (effectively) become 91.5%! ... still not a fan of how resist/defense is currently handled in CoH but I just have to suck it up

I actually just finished making my Clone Defense powerset concept today, which coincidentally is basically the same as your idea!

The Astral Guardian Powerset (link) You attack with a physical manifestation of your will that can travel a very short distance away from your body. Any damage your astral guardian takes is reduced, and transferred to you, but you yourself are more vulnerable than usual.

Oh yeah, a Bastion would bring a bit more damage to the field than a Tanker, so you could do solo play as one.

Solo: A valid point. That said Tankers and Defenders aren't fun for solo gameplay either (unless you build the Tanker for damage, which you could do with the Bastion too). Some ATs are just inherently not going to be good for solo play, and that's acceptable. Complicated Inherent? I guess in terms of mechanics it is, yes, though that's partially because I tend to elaborate and go into detail a lot. The tooltip could just read that "the amount of damage shield wall absorbs increases as your ally loses health, and decreases as you lose health. Multiple shield walls stack, with diminishing returns," in that respect, to simplify it for the player. But as for the coding? It actually wouldn't be that bad, unless the City of Heroes source code is even more spaghetti than I hear it is. Finding a specific formula might require some fine tuning. I actually have a coding background so I'm not speaking out my ass here! I did, actually! ... they got ignored. They did get a fair amount of feedback on Reddit though. Also, I did make a "table of contents" for my concepts in general, and may just make a master post here, soon.

The Bastion Bastions are to Sentinels as Tankers are to Scrappers. A Tanker fights on the front lines, gathering the attention of all its opponents, while the backline heroes such as Defenders and Blasters provide support. But if the Tanker is on the front-lines, who is protecting the backline? Enter, the Bastion. As long as you stick close to your Bastion, you’ll be protected from any enemy that the Tanker can’t keep occupied. Furthermore, the front line benefits too; the Bastion brings debuffs and crowd controls to the fight A Bastion can fight on the front lines, but isn’t as effective as a Tanker in this respect. They are a bit less durable, and they can't taunt nearby enemies. However, if your backline is ambushed while your Tanker is away, a Bastion is still much better than nothing. Besides, they have ways of mitigating harm besides taunting; their innate power absorbs damage taken from allies, and they have better crowd control and debuffs. Bastion Stats: Survivability: 9 Melee Damage: 2 Ranged Damage: 6 Crowd Control: 7 Support: 5 Pets: 2 Inherent Powers Shield Wall A Bastion protects its allies simply by being near them. When within a Bastion’s shield wall (a 20 yard radius), you ignore a variable portion of damage dealt. This absorbed damage is reduced, either by 25% (for single-target attacks) or 35% (for AoE attacks), then dealt to the Bastion. This amount is calculated before resistance. The amount of damage that can be transferred to the Bastion in this way depends on multiple factors: The lower your health is, the more is transferred to the Bastion. The lower the Bastion’s health is, the less is transferred to them. Shield Walls stack, but have rapidly diminishing returns. No damage would be absorbed that would put the Bastion below 10% of its health, and no damage will be absorbed at all by a Bastion past that point. No damage is absorbed if the attack would kill you anyways; otherwise that’s the Bastion taking damage for no reason. Furthermore, allies with debuffs within the Shield Wall have those debuffs lessened. This stacks with multiple Shield Walls, but again has diminishing returns. It does not apply to self-inflicted debuffs. Ranged Resistance Bastions take a fixed 15% less damage from ranged, AoE, and non-melee PBAoE attacks, applied AFTER resistance. Taunt A Bastion’s attacks taunt enemies. This Taunt is a bit weaker than a Tanker's taunt, and can only be applied to enemies outside the Shield Wall radius. If an enemy outside of Shield Wall uses an ability on an ally within Shield Wall, they have a high chance of being taunted by the Bastion. Both of these taunts have a lower priority than a Tanker or Brute's taunt. Powersets Primary Powerset: Defense Just like a Tanker, a Bastion’s primary powerset is defense. Overall, a Bastion is a bit less durable than a Tanker, but more durable than a Brute. Changes made to a Defense powerset are rare; they tend to apply to aura and PBAoE powers. As the Bastion won’t often have enemies close to them, these may be modified or even completely reworked. Secondary Powerset: Ranged Damage A Bastion primarily fights from the backlines. Bastions have the same range as a Blaster. However, they deal less damage even than a Sentinel. The following changes are made to powersets: Small AoEs are increased in size Powers that are Debuff/CC oriented with little/no damage will have their damage increased Powers that are damage oriented but have debuffs/CC will have those debuffs made stronger, but high damage powers deal less damage. Powers that heal allies or provide them with buffs will be reworked or replaced. High damage attacks deal less damage, even when accounting for the lower attack power of a Bastion. For instance, a Bastion's Dark Blast may look like this: (abilities in bold come from the Dark Miasma powerset) T1: Dark Blast (Stronger debuff) T2: Gloom (Stronger debuff) T3: Umbral Torrent (Stronger debuff) T4: Howling Maelstrom (New ability similar to Howling Twilight; shorter CD but does not rez allies) T5: Tenebrous Tentacles (Higher damage, longer range) T6: Abyssal Gaze (Stronger CC and Debuff, slightly less damage) T7: Life Drain (Less damage, stronger self-heal) T8: Black Hole (Deals moderate damage) T9: Blackstar (Stronger debuff, much less damage) See My Other Suggestions

That'd be completely different from the Warlord. The primary idea was "Mastermind that fights on the front lines alongside it's minions" and giving armor primary doesn't allow that. Its not that the Warlord is a tanky Mastermind, it's that the Warlord is a Mastermind that fights in melee while protected by lower damage, tankier minions.

Since Sentinels aren't on the Paragon Wiki, I wanted to know if there was any other resources that detail the various Sentinel powersets; especially how they differ from Blaster powersets. I know that Sentinels don't get Snipe attacks, with new attacks that replace them. I believe there's other power differences too; while looking for a resource, I saw mention that the Sentinel version of Tesla Cage deals significantly more damage than the Blaster version. If there's no such resource, maybe it should be added to the unofficial Homecoming wiki, which is currently very lacking.

Trying to explain the stats of this AT is confusing, because when I'm talking about combat capabilities, it's hard to make it clear whether I'm talking about JUST the Warlord, or the Warlord WITH it's minions. The Archetype as a whole has comparable defense and offense to a Brute; probably a bit less offense and a bit more defense come to think of it. Both the Brute and the Warlord fit the role of "off-tank," they just do it in different ways. In terms of DPS, half of the Archetype's damage comes from the Warlord, and half comes from its minions. In terms of durability, the Warlord itself only has three defense powers; it can take a hit better than a Mastermind, but it's still more fragile than most. The archetype's durability comes primarily from its minions, which not only have higher health than a MM's pets, but they can taunt, and they are healed every time the Warlord deals damage. Consider it like this: the Warlord is the "keystone." You take that out, the minions fall too. No matter how you build it, the Warlord itself won't be able to take very many hits (moreso than a Blaster or a Mastermind though). The minions taunt enemies, which helps keep the Warlord alive. The Warlord can choose to hang back and play it safe, but the tight minion leash means it will always be close to the action. Furthermore, doing so means you're only doing half of your potential damage output, and the minions will not receive healing from the WL's innate. If the minions die, all you're left with is a weak scrapper. The other option is to play it risky; by fighting alongside its minions, you are doing your full damage potential, and the WL's innate keeps the minions alive, but then the WL will be taking damage from AoEs and non-taunted enemies, and if the WL dies so does its minions. Both are valid strategies, and switching between the two will be necessary. The reason why you'd play a Mastermind instead of a Warlord is because a Mastermind is easier to build for damage, a bit safer to play (as they stay away from the front lines), and they have team support abilities, and this is true even if you build your Warlord for pure DPS.

I meant it'd make it more like the MM because MM is a Support/DPS. They support, their minions DPS. Giving the WL pets support capabilities would just flip that around; the WL would DPS and their pets would support.

Ah, that makes sense. But now it occurred to me that in a way this would make the Warlord more like the Mastermind, because it'd give the AT some off-support capabilities.

You'd assume correctly. Comparing the Mastermind to the Warlord: Mastermind would have more damage when counting minions, can support allies, and has large coverage due to the long minion leash. A Warlord has more damage and durability than a Mastermind when not counting minions, and has much sturdier minions that can taunt. If Warlords would invalidate anything, they'd invalidate the Brute; both would be a reasonable mix of offensive and defensive power (when counting minions), but while the Warlord has more coverage, the Brute has the advantage of straightforwardness, as the Warlord is vulnerable to AoE attacks and getting its "head" cut off. As an aside, I like PaxArcana's suggestion of making the minions a secondary powerset and dropping the T3 minions, but I wouldn't go so far as to make the pre-existing ones support oriented, because then it isn't a squad of warriors, but a single warrior backed up by a cheerleading squad.

The Warlord Warlords live to lead the charge. Like Masterminds, they are accompanied by a cadre of loyal minions, but unlike them, their minions do not fight alone. Instead of hanging back and keeping their minions alive with supporting abilities, the Warlord fights alongside them in a symbiotic fashion. The Warlord isn’t as durable as a brute, or as damaging as a scrapper, but by fighting, they can provide boosts of morale to their minions. In turn, the minions work to take heat away from their master, and match them in damage output. Inherent Power: Elite Guard All Warlord pets have a weak taunt effect on their attacks. Furthermore, each pet provides a small defense and resist buff to the Warlord. Both of these effects start off strong at low levels, and decrease as the Warlord levels up, to account for their increasing minion count. A Warlord’s pets are motivated by their master’s actions. As a Warlord attacks, a portion of all damage they deal is converted into healing for each minion. The amount each pet is healed by is decreased by a small amount per active pet. AoE attacks also provide slightly less healing per enemy hit. These bonus do not apply with “disloyal” pets, such as Gang War gangsters or Souls Extraction ghosts. Primary Powerset: Minions A Warlord’s primary power sets are designed for summoning. Compared to a Mastermind’s pets, the Warlord’s pets deal less damage, but have more health. They also have a much tighter leash. While the Mastermind’s minion power sets have ranged attack powers mixed in, the Warlord has defensive powers instead. As an example, the Warlord’s Necromancy power set has powers from the Dark Armor powerset. T1: Dark Embrace T2: Zombie Horde T3: Murky Cloud T4: Enchant Undead T5: Dark Regeneration T6: Grave Knight T7: Soul Extraction T8: Summon Lich T9: Dark Empowerment. Beast Mastery -> Regeneration Demon Summoning -> Fiery Aura Mercenaries -> Willpower Ninjas -> Ninja Training Robotics -> Invulnerability Thugs -> Super Reflexes Secondary Powerset: Melee Damage A Warlord’s secondary power set is for dealing melee damage. A Warlord has more attack power than a Tanker, but less than a Brute. Their secondary power set is almost identical to a Tanker’s, however, instead of Taunt they have Hold the Line Hold the Line is an ability that commands all pets to unleash a short ranged PBAoE Taunt. It has a longer cooldown than a tanker’s Taunt. Other Suggestions: Tendril Melee Goliath Defense

Similarly, I'd like them to add a Bust slider to the "Huge" bodytype, and proliferate the various female costume options into it, so that the Huge bodytype could be any gender rather than male.

I think one way to do it would be with more villainside content, i.e strike forces.

It's impossible to say that without concrete numbers. Which is exactly why I downloaded the i25 source code so I can (hopefully) experiment.

I don't want to softkick SR. My goal is the following: Remove the softcaps as some "mythical goal" to reach when making a character build Allow for more versatility in builds; focusing solely in defense, vs solely in resist, vs a mix, each with its own set of pros and cons Reduce the dodge rate overall, and instead decrease damage taken to compensate. It seems silly that so few attacks hit players. It also means a string of bad luck can lead to a player getting two-shotted "spontaneously" Super Reflexes won't lose out in overall survivability because although they will get hit more often, the universal damage reduction will compensate for that. They will still have the highest defense.

The Now: Right now, everyone wants to hit that golden number of 45% defense. The fabled "Soft Cap." So named because at 45% defense, enemies have 5% base accuracy, and no enemy can have less than a 5% chance to hit you. This creates a weird form of increasing returns... to a point where afterwards, basically nothing happens. The Suggestion: Use a logarithmic scale instead. Defense would no longer have a cap. Something like this: Adjusted Defense (AD) = Base Defense + (Total Defense^0.98) - (Enemy To Hit ^ 0.98) Chance to Dodge = 100*0.9895^AD Under this system, a same-level minion's base to-hit could be -50. A player may have 45 defense because they aimed for the old soft cap. Base Defense could be something like 10-20 depending on Archetype. I can already see that this would make more attacks connect, but honestly is it even good Let's math this out. AD = 20 + (45^0.98) - (-50^ 0.98) = 20+41.7 + 46 = 107.7 Chance to Dodge = 100 * 0.9895^107.7 = 67.8% So, like I said, minions would go from missing you 95% of the time to missing you only 67.8% of the time. That said, it'd also mean popping Elude while at the soft-cap would be a whole lot better. Still, the damage they deal would have to be reduced to compensate. So let's do that! Perhaps I'll rework the resistance formula in the same way! I feel like this is going to be what Finally pushes me to look at the i25 server binaries and see what I can modify.

Consider this: Give Sentinel a new inherent, and then, to differentiate Sentinel from Blaster further, replace their Snipe power with a stronger, enhanceable version of Opportunity?

I'd like to be able to see all buff icons on a selected target. Would be especially helpful for people who can do debuffs, since they can see whether or not the enemy is being affected by their debuffs or if they missed. In the heat of battle, it's hard to see these things through pure visuals!

I would LOVE a Seer Run power. That'd be excellent!

I've been spending time making a few powerset concepts! So far, I have two pretty much completely fleshed out (except for raw numbers) powersets for your perusal! I made these for fun, I'm not expecting the homecoming team to be like "Woah hey these are neat lets add these to the game!" or anything, but it WOULD be nice... Tendrils: A "ranged" melee powerset that can hit multiple targets and has strong crowd control. Goliath Defense: A defensive powerset that lets you be Huge. Provides big bonuses to maximum health and several boosts for your team. I've also been working on a few others so expect to see them here in the future