Leogunner

Are you taking into account the live melee damage modifier for Tanker is lower than the melee damage mod for Tanker on beta?

Not necessarily. Like I said before, if you point out what the AT is supposed to do, everything else comes easier. If you want the AT to just have full blown support powers and melee, you can dial back its support a bit but give it high damage and make the inherent a domination-esque break free you have to activate with a build-up bar (you can even give it some absorb). But what you've got is basically a combination of powersets and that's it. I'm trying to get some talk going about modernizing the design to make it fun and interactive. Going back to read my thread on the Interceptor, I still feel it's a worthwhile concept for a wishy-washy tank with some moderate support and a fun offensive edge but not many bit. I can only hope there are some ideas in there someone would bother stealing.

I understand. That's why I criticized describing it mainly through proximity to other ATs. It's just easier if you tell us what it's meant to do best and what it's meant to do worst. Someone with a big-picture sense of balance could chime in with their input and someone with math-centric interests could counter/verify that with some numbers if it comes to that. I can still only assume the Protector here is supposed to be a Defender-lite but with melee attacks and some mez protection and I just feel that's redundant.

That's the case for some hero ATs because they were designed before inherents were a thing. New ATs should facilitate a mechanic to differentiate it from those that fill the same role. Scourge isn't filling a hole for Corruptors, it was designed to give the AT an offensive edge over other support ATs via a mechanic that has a degree of manipulation by the player. Same with Fury, Assassination (even its old incarnation), Domination, etc. Whether or not you view those inherents as "archetype Spackle", you still cannot deny the intent behind those inherents were meant to re-enforce the concept of the AT. Can you say the same about your inherent?

Have you looked into why Defenders are as popular as they are? Not that a Defender player wouldn't try a melee version (but if you ask me, most that like support tend to not like melee...it's why you have many asking to give support ATs Assault sets...because they don't want to be stuck in melee), but I feel the target audience for a melee/support are players that like melee but want to also help their teammates. So having a melee AT that has the lowest offense (you said it'd have the same offense as a Defender, not "almost as good as a Corruptor")...at least I believe Defender is considered the lowest along with non-optimized Controller and petless MM....wouldn't grasp those melee players either. Would it be fun? I have no idea. You seem enthusiastic about it so it's possible. But question in the same vein: could it be boring or redundant? What does this AT have that would be fun? Just having a unique powers combination isn't enough, IMO. You've mentioned placate and juggled around various incarnations but they range from "....eh" to "wow that's bad" (actually, I think there was one that kinda seemed interesting but I don't frankly see how any of it meshes with the concept or direction of the AT as presented). Then your idea's trajectory has been shifted around after various posts so I don't really know where it stands atm. That all being said, I've never been a fan of passive inherents with no dynamic gameplay as suggested with new ATs. Things that passively give you armor is boring to me and reeks of covering up holes in your design.

And this is why I am weary explaining the capabilities of a new AT with a bunch of "it's between this AT and that AT" without describing what the AT can do and can't do. It's it a DPS with some support? A useless support with weak useless offense, oh but it has mez protection? Why would someone be drawn to play it?

Like I mentioned before, there are many ways to approach a melee support AT. Yours seems to be close to mine, the Interceptor, which sacrifices some of the support for armor and mez protection. I made the suggestion before the Tanker changes started being tested but my goal was to make a melee support aimed at being a tank without too much damage. Since Tankers are having their damaged buffed eventually (both in AoE capacity and base damage) if my Interceptor were to fit with the 2 tanks (Tanker and Brute) it'd actually do the least damage while tanking but make up for it with an offensive inherent that rewards it in the off-tank role. I think the reason I like my idea is because I know people like to see Domination, Critical Hit, Scourge and the like float above their enemies showing the impact of their inherent. The interceptor's Full Force inherent would have similar impact with unique results and parameters to activate, adding fun interaction rather than filling a hole left by a specific power combination.

Something with Defender level support but higher damage just replaces Defender. The thing they have going for them is mainly their powerful buffs/debuffs.

Rune of Protection is a sorcery pool power in the final slot. Takes 2 other sorcery powers to get and it acts as a break free for all mez and gives the user a good chunk of damage resistance.

Incorrect. I have both Indomitable Will and Rune of Protection on my ice/TA and it does allow me to break free of mez when I'm not under IW and the visuals are cool. The cooldown isn't tho.

Personal FF already has +resist so there you go.

Some examples of melee/support: Spider-man. He's often depicted in group scenarios as the guy using webs to soften his ally's falls, stick webs to foes faces to blind them, bind things up (people and objects) for various purposes and his prominent attacks are all melee. Beast. He's predominately a support character building devices and using science to help his allies. While he *can* be the Scrapper rushing into a fight with just his melee and his bulky muscles, that isn't even half his character or his capabilities. Neji (because I'm not a filthy american comics purist). Capable of shutting down the chakra flow of enemies by striking specific points on the skin. No chakra, no powers. And he's purely a close-range combatant with only his special "ranged fist" attack where he ejects chakra from a point in the palm of his hand. Rouge. Can she not drain the energy from a foe to the point she can replicate their powers? That's a debuff but it can work to the team's advantage if the power she takes can be capitalized, such as telepathy to invade her foe's thoughts. One might say her power draining is more like a pool power but it's actually her ONLY power! If her only power is a debuff, what does that make her? lol Mr. Negative. Because why are we focusing on heroes. Don't know much about him but he has a healing touch and can charge weapons with his energy along with advanced strength.

If it's a kludge, it's a fun as hell kludge. It provides much needed structure for balance while also facilitating advanced concepts and mechanics (because powersets are a sub-structure of ATs, it's why we have Street Justice and Water Blast and Nature Affinity AND the unique mechanics each of those powersets utilizes). As for why melee/support, it's because people like to support teammates but want more variety. You could say "just give support ATs melee sets" but a new AT tends to come with a different inherent that alters the way they play. It's not just variety of powerset combos but also variety in tactics and variety in playstyle.

Well you did bring up Corruptors' uniqueness. I merely described how their inherent can be considered a uniquely offensive aspect of a support AT. Perhaps you'd want to throw back all the way to the original comment saying how the AT would FUNCTION differently? Inherent status protection is different, but it's also passive (the most passive you can get). Nothing wrong with that....then what ELSE does it do uniquely? FYI, I'm one of the 2 people that upvoted your OP. I haven't been making many comments because I've been sick but now that I'm pretty good now, I make comments to get people talking and if it's a suggestion, brainstorming on improving stuff. Being critical of ideas is a good thing.

I'll share a fact for that: All Assault sets are hybrid sets that share powers with melee and ranged sets with only a handful of unique powers. That's why they exist. Sharing powersets is different from sharing powers.

And why the hell does ANOTHER AT's unique mechanics have to rely on another hypothetical AT's mechanics? The point was making the AT unique in some way and you tried making an example of an AT that DOES have a unique mechanic. I was alluding to the mess of "It's between this AT and that AT in this, it's between this AT and that AT in that..." Just tell us what the AT is MEANT to do and then let the players fondle it to do what they want with it, even if it's at non-optimal capacities than a more specialized AT. Then I'd ask what the absolute frikk a GUARDIAN has to do with trickery and sneaking about? Maybe you didn't have a clear concept or you changed the concept halfway through? That's fine. I'm just saying don't tie your concept to an extremely situational power like Placate. There's not that many people who clamour for it and its effects immediately disappear the moment your own effects start to touch the target which would be VERY likely if you have any kind of persistent debuffs on the field. Also, I don't know how you can play anymore defensively than a Defender without completely cutting your offense at the ankles. If that's the case, why not keep Placate as an offensive tool that's limited so you can actually do something effectively offensively but on a limited scale dubbed by Placate and its recharge?

There's a difference between power proliferation and completely mucking up the ATs. Why not "proliferate" support sets to Tankers? It makes no damned sense but it's the same premise and likely would screw with balance in more ways that we know.

Scourge is pretty unique. Sure, it's just "crits" which both Stalkers and Scrappers do...but no ranged AT does AND it has unique mechanics that trigger it. That's unique. No one said anything about DPS although an argument could be made that having an offensive secondary DOES make Defender a partial DPS AT. But I said hybrid melee and support. Whatever a melee AT tends to try to accomplish could be what one considered "melee" which could also include keeping targets away from other teammembers or acting as a focal point (drawing foes toward you) for the rest of the team. Whether it's meant to be a pure support SHOULD rely on what the AT can't do and then gauge if such a niche is unique. Do we need more pure support ATs? Maybe so...then what CAN'T this support AT do to justify the things it can do? Power Build Up? Why not just scrap placate all together and make a new power instead?

Most enemies people are willing to fight are basically just dumb mobs with brawl. If I were "modifying" mobs, I'd have the abilities they have access to would change depending on the number of teammates + another secret factor. Give them on-death pseudo-pet summons (auto-hit) that decrease status protections, debuff auras that lower damage and movement speed, inherent ally close-range +ToHit and +dmg buff auras, damage auras with low damage but high accuracy and I'd create a unique enemy-only version of Placate-type control that disables the next power from use for a certain amount of time that a player attacks them with.

Basically, this topic has been rehashed many times. Overall, a melee offense, support defense type AT can be done in many ways and its overall effectiveness can vary. The problem is, IMO, is posters get very caught up on proposing "the best" way when what is needed is "a unique" way. People get caught up in making it the best "middle of the road/jack of all trades" when it mostly needs to play differently which is actually harder when you're hybridizing 2 ATs together (a melee AT and a support AT). Because people get caught up with that aspect, they then get caught up in reinforcing said idea in their head and completely forget about the first paragraph (that there are many ways to come at the idea). Another way to come at an idea when presenting it to others is telling us what it DOESN'T DO. I think that's a funny angle because people will get caught up explaining how it fits between 2 ATs at various things. If you tell me what it cannot do, you can justify it for what it can do.

Dimension Shift is a really nifty power. The problem is, people are too dumb and don't know what it does! A swarm or ambush could spawn and start moving toward the team while they are fighting. Me being the Grav guy, I'm usually Wormhole'ing stuff to the team and usually get the drop on ambushes. After cleaning up what's left and push forward, what's the first thing you do when you see a mass of mobs standing still with "Dimension Shifted" floating over their heads? You use all your ranged AoEs on it of course! Luckily, I can choose to turn it off and salvage some of the AoEs. You can also Dimension Shift your allies so that the ambush can't attack you until they are in range your team. Problem with that is, there will be that one guy who rushes at the ambush with *their* "oh crap" button and try to neutralize it. Hopefully, Wormhole rechages soon so I can pull that mob to the team or more mobs to that ambush that the team is about to pounce on. Like I said, it's more that people don't know what the power does therefore they don't know how to use it as a layup opportunity and instead dribble around until you have to shut it off. Why was the Gravity Control user not pulling? I guess it was before level 26?

Best way to try out all these new ideas is to load up the test server and roll them up. Use the slash commands to put them in the level range you want and with as much inf as you need then start playing with it.

CoH isn't/wasn't a Trinity. It is a Quaternity. It has always used DPS, Heal/Support, Tanking and Control as it's 4 corners. The difference between it and your standard MMO is you can lean heavily on either 1 of the 4 to circumvent the 3 other corners completely (not many MMOs out there where you can stack as much tanking to not need a support...or stack enough DPS where you don't need anything else). And I can think of a few support Superheroes besides bubblers or the standard healer or tech support person. Maybe when I have more time to think and type.

To put it bluntly: to give more buffs to the caster via their own powers would require the POWER (not specifically the strength of the buff, but the power as a whole) would have to be nerfed. Consider a defensive AT that takes an armor power has to choose said power (sacrificing a power pick), only affects themselves with it, typically has a constant endurance cost AND are very specialized. For example: Super Reflexes 1 toggle Focused Fighting costs 0.26 END/sec and only buffs melee def by 13.88% unenhanced , defense debuff resistance and confusion protection. On the other hand, a support AT that uses a support power they choose to help their teammates, is often choosing something with substantial or varied effects and often at such a cheap cost, they might as well be free. For example: Force Field's 1 buff Deflection Shield costs 7.8 END, only buffs def by 11.25% BUT buffs Smashing, Lethal, AND Melee defense by that slightly lower number....it also grants resistance to Toxic damage (30%)...and it does that for your entire team with one cast. That's just a basic example. There are support sets that cross the line with it's amount of self buffing (often with a nice helping of foe debuffing) that can make a defender unkillable. You have to tread carefully when considering possible future avenues of improvement and not ignore the balance support powers must abide by. If team AoE buffs suddenly effect yourself, your solo FF defender could have better defense than a SR character while also having the other benefits of the set like AoE repulse, AoE knockdown, AND be able to buff a whole team WHILE having mez protection. Imagine if SR melees started complaining about having self-contained powers and wanting their armor toggles to have huge splash effects, debuffs and/or buffs. Support powers aren't suppose to be your version of armor just like armor isn't supposed to be their version of team support. EDIT: Lol I just looked at my own thread history after being away from the forums for about a month now. I'm the initiator of some many threads getting locked lol. I should probably put that in my post signature.

I disagree. If it does have some sort of reach to non-AT conformist types, it's only in the realm of instant gratification. Because nothing for those types actually changes except getting the powers sooner. I'm not a fan of greater hybridization. I like the concept of opening up new and broader concepts, but not for the sake of hyrbidizing gameplay. There's a difference that I could go on to explain but I'm not sure if anyone would be bothered to want to read my differentiation. Just saying it's "off the farm" doesn't actually make it so. Just because long cooldowns exists in the APP/PPP doesn't excuse the rest of the effects they have on lower level play. That's completely foolish. Also, you still glossed over the other points I made about taking developing or prospecting changes into the mix with regards to stuff like this suggestion. While the AoEs in the Tankers' APP/PPP aren't affected by the beta changes, it will be a huge shift in their ability to munch mob groups down quickly as early as level 8. I honestly have no words for your preposterous example, but I will close with the most simplistic reasoning not yet argued against (because none of my other points really received a counter either way): motivation to keep playing. Part of what keeps people playing a game or a character isn't that they get to do whatever they want within a sandbox (for some games it is). It's that they have a goal or objective to achieve that may require effort (or gods forbid, time). There was another thread about complaining about making the game too easy and they were shouted down because excuses like "you're suggesting I waste my time that I could be spending with my precious kids or feeding the hungry" or that it's introducing needless grind. I made the argument that it's people asking for more and more effort and structure to be removed which is the cause of this sentiment. People tried to argue that no one is doing that...and here we are, requesting the APP/PPP be reduced to regular pools. Next it'll be asking for multiple APP/PPPs. I don't even have to argue that hard because none of you ever make good arguments to upset game balance like you envision. You say it's easier than making a new AT. I beg to differ. Completely screwing over balance for every AT would likely require more effort than introducing a new AT. Because you can limit what a new AT has access to. Giving access to various powers and pools is easy on the outside but requires more work, bug fixing and balancing than you'd think.