Steampunkette

Getting the first power in your secondary is literally hard-coded into the game. It was one of the biggest stumbling blocks in developing the Arachnos Soldier/Widow ATs.

I wouldn't give them +recharge... It's gotta be something applicable to the power in question. Like giving all the Jump Powers a stacking increase to the Jump Height of all the other jump powers. Or the range of Spring Attack. Just reduce Spring Attack's range by 20% and have each other power grant a 10% increase to the range of Spring Attack. That way the first two powers required to unlock it don't actually affect it's range, but the other two powers can increase it's range if you take it, kinda like the damage buffs to the Fighting Pool Attacks. 15% recharge tied to Superspeed means people would be foolish enough to try and justify the end cost in combat for the 15% recharge buff. Sure your attacks hit faster, but you run out of End faster! Whirlwind definitely. Maybe make it give a big 'recharge hit' every time you hit someone with it for 1 second each? Like 90% Recharge boost for 1 second when you bounce someone. Since each bounce costs end... Could be interesting.

I'm with Redlynne on this one. That said, adding a smide of Recharge to the other powers in the Superspeed pool would be okay. Like +10% recharge for 20 seconds after using Flurry. Or +15% recharge while you have Superspeed toggled on. Things like that would be nice. Obviously Burnout wouldn't provide a recharge boost.

... you know... every spawn location on the map is in a specific, defined, location. Allowing the Sentinel to highlight spawn areas on the map would make them nearly indispensable on large clear-all or multi-hostage maps. The function already exists for the "Last Spawn", so I -imagine- it could be expanded to show all map spawns, Green and Red.

While I understand and accept your interpretation it still doesn't FEEL like that as a term. Perhaps because so many of it's applications are nouns compared to the single Verb form. Intrigue as an atmosphere, Intrigue as a synonym for Mystery, Political Intrigue being a noun, too. Compared to "Make a secret plan". I'm going to use my big superheroic powerset to Make a Secret Plan! This Secret Plan involves LIGHTING MYSELF ON FIRE Very Sneaky. No one will ever see it coming! Also: Strength is a synonym for Firmness, but I don't expect Superstrength to describe mattress density or Superspeed to be a hilariously potent narcotic. P.S. I hate that Stalkers get Fire Armor. How does Fire help you Stealth around? The human-sized inferno should light up the area and show everyone EXACTLY where you are. The Fire Melee I'm totes cool with, narratively. But fire armor stealth? Bluhhh...

I dislike Intrigue as a set name! We've got Manipulation, Blast, Defense, Control, Assault, and stuff. Intrigue isn't... 'active' enough? Like... It's more like an Atmosphere than an Activity. When you intrigue someone it means they're interested in you, which is not necessarily something you've done, and Intrigue as a concept is like Mystery. Powersets are kind of named after what they do described in an active term. Not a passive one. Which is why I stand by Projection. Particularly since it's Manipulation-Adjacent. And yeah, the Threat Level doesn't 'require' a passive power. It's a character function. But so is the Arachnos Soldier 'Basic Training' that gives them the Recovery increase. You still need a player-focused 'Informative' power to let people know that it's a part of their character to inform their playstyle, that's all I was saying, there. If we make the Threat Level low there's nothing player-facing that they can check to see unless we actively show it to them. As to Biostem's "Distract" and "Misdirection" ideas: Distract would need to spawn a pseudopet to aggro the group and draw them over to the chosen location. But there are a couple of problems with it: 1) The enemies would use Ranged Attacks, first, then close to Melee, attacking the Pseudopet which could kill it. Or at the least would ruin the illusion of going over to check out a thrown rock. 2) As soon as that Pseudopet was gone (Whether killed or despawned by timer) they'd aggro onto the Striker because the pseudo-pet is directly tied to the Striker. They'd start with the ranged and melee on you. Misdirection could work? Putting out a click-based control effect and building Containment into all of their powers... But there's 2 problems with that: 1) It wouldn't feel like one of your powers since it wouldn't be "Fire Misdirect" or "Psionic Misdirect". Just Misdirection. 2) Some powersets have a -whole- lot more control than others (Ki Projection has 0 Control effects) which means they'd benefit more from the Containment effect. (The containment effect has to be baked into the powers, not the inherent, in order to function, though -maybe- with the Doublehit mechanic of Assault Hybrid we could finagle something) Now if we wanted to do a "Replace Build Up" thing with a set-styled Misdirect AoE Placate buff... that -could- work? But it might feel a bit ... weird. How do you Fire-Placate? I never take Placate on any of my characters who aren't supposed to be Psychic 'cause the Jedi Mind Trick Stealth Retreat is just -weird- for anyone else. Except Smoke Bomb. That one's fine. All of -that- said... What did you think of the proposed powersets?

Let's see if he likes any of the suggested alterations, first, Zepp!

I'm suggesting two inherent abilities: Stealthy: A passive 35ft auto-power Stealth. This would not reduce the character's visibility, but would affect NPC Sight Ranges. Compare to Stalker Hide powers at 150ft. They'd be able to get as close to enemy NPCs as someone using the Stealth power from the Stealth Power Pool before being spotted. Overlooked: A function of the character's design, rather than a passive power, their Threat Level would be set to .75 and Threat Multiplier set to .25. This makes them not only terrible at tanking (Gaining only 25% of a Taunt Power's Effectiveness) but excellent at shedding aggro. The "Reverse Fury" would need to replace one or both of these, depending on it's damage level. Maximum Fury on a Brute, for example, is 200% additional damage. Could we reasonably have this character archetype double or triple the damage of their opening salvo? Particularly if we're giving them both Aim and Build Up for increased Burst DPS? Meanwhile setting it at a lower value, say 80%, might sound more reasonable, but with Build Up, Aim, and a Sniper Power (Which several Assault Powersets have) could result in a massively outsized initial attack. Even with a lower damage scale (say .95 instead of 1.125) they could easily equal or beat a Blaster's opening shot. Personally I'd rather leave their Damage Values and Defense Levels as fairly 'static', barring Sets, of course, and instead target their inherent on how they play, rather than how much damage they deal or take.

I feel like the Preparation Bar as sort of a 'Reverse Fury' could work, but it means that your first fight in the average mission will be "At full power" and every fight after that is going to be 10-15 seconds later, which won't be much time to build Preparation in. I don't think we could do a 'Defensive Reversal' mechanic, though, where you get more defenses as the bar drops in combat. If only because any well built Striker is going to be able to cap defense or resistance pretty easily through sets and render the defensive benefits moot. Personally I like the passive stealth. It's present, it's nifty, but it won't be a -huge- change to things. For a Team Benefit I would say give them a lower Threat Level and Multiplier. Masterminds, Blasters, Defenders, Controllers, and Corruptors all have a starting threat level of 1 with a .5 Taunt Multiplier. Tankers have a Threat Level of 4 with a Multiplier of 1. Only Brutes and Stalkers have a Multiplier that high, even Scrappers have a .75 Taunt Multiplier. Well, okay HEATs in Dwarf mode get the Multiplier of 1 but that's it! So how about an AT with a Threat level of .75 and a Multiplier of .25? It would allow Strikers to shed aggro like water off a duck's back (on Teams) because they wouldn't be able to steal the threat off of an active Defender if their life depended on it. The threat formula is: Threat = Damage * Debuff Mod * AT Mod * AI Mod * Range Mod * (TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000) AT Mod is where the .75 would go in, lowering the overall value of Threat generated.

Iiiiiiiiiiiinterstink! So one of my quasi-educated guesses was right, there is an absolute limit of melee and ranged pet AI per set...

I prefer the passive stealth approach, myself. Anytime you have a clickability it feels less like an inherent part of the character and more like just another power. At least it does to me. That said... Maybe a character boost function which increases the duration of controls the quantity of knock-back the power of secondary effects including + defense + resistance + regen + recovery for all powers could be pretty nice... Even fully enhanced you could pop that before I fight to increase the effectiveness of your various defensive controls and defensive powers as well as your sustain.

To express why ki projection has no controls: vectored defenses are powerful on their own. Vector the defenses and control effects would make this particular set more powerful than others.

The more I think about this archetype the more I want to play it... Have a few more Projection Powersets. Energy Projection (Italics indicate changed powers) Tier Power 1 Kinetic Shield (Toggle, +Def S/L/E) 2 Crushing Field (TAoE Immob) 3 Dampening Field (Auto +Res S/L/E) 4 Aim 5 Energize 6 Stun 7 Gravity Distortion (Ranged Hold) 8 Boost Range 9 Energy Transfer (Melee Damage) Big on Locking down the battlefield including Single Target controls for Bosses. Fire Projection (Italics indicate changed powers) Tier Power 1 Fire Shield (Toggle +Res S/L/F/C) 2 Fire Cages (TAoE Immob) 3 Healing Flames (Self Heal) 4 Fire Sword (Melee Damage) 5 Aim 6 Cauterizing Aura 7 Consume 8 Burn 9 Hot Feet All about that sweet, sweet, Self-Healing and Area Denial. Electrical Projection (Italics indicate changed powers) Tier Power 1 Charged Armor (Toggle+Res S/L/E) 2 Chain Fences (TAoE Immob) 3 Grounded (Auto +Res E/N/KB) 4 Lightning Field (PBAoE Damage Toggle) 5 Aim 6 Force of Thunder 7 Jolting Chain (Chain Knockdown) 8 Power Sink 9 Shocking Grasp Endurance Manipulation, AoE Soft Control, Single Target Hard Control. Umbral Projection (Italics indicate changed powers) Tier Power 1 Dark Embrace (Toggle+Res S/L/N/T) 2 Fearsome Stare (Cone Fear) 3 Cloak of Darkness (Toggle Stealth) 4 Shadow Maul 5 Soul Drain 6 Touch of the Beyond 7 Dark Consumption 8 Dark Pit 9 Soul Transfer Really good at stealing from the enemy and making them quake in fear. Nuclear Projection (Italics indicate changed powers) Tier Power 1 Alpha Barrier(Toggle+Res S/L/T) 2 Strong Nuclear Force (AoE Immob) 3 Gamma Boost (Auto +Reg/Rec) 4 Ionize 5 Beta Decay 6 Metabolic Acceleration 7 Ground Zero (PBAoE Foe Damage, Ally +HP, HoT) 8 Radioactive Cloud 9 Irradiated Ground (Toggle PBAoE Damage Patches) Big focus on Damage and some minor controls. Ki Projection (Italics indicate changed powers) Tier Power 1 Danger Senses (Toggle+Def AoE/R) 2 Burst of Speed (Teleport Damage) 3 Shinobi Iri (Toggle Stealth +Dam) 4 Storm Kick 5 Reaction Time 6 Inner Will 7 Ninja Reflexes (Toggle+Def Melee) 8 Throw Sand 9 Eagle's Claw A No Control set with three defensive toggles.

I -kind- of agree, I kinda don't. So long as those attack powers aren't part of the Assault Set to start with it gives you some great room to cobble together attack chains. Take Psi Assault and Psi-Projection. Mind Probe, TK Thrust, Psi Blade, and Greater Psi Blade allow you to build a decent melee single target attack chain. Meanwhile an Ice/Ice Agent or Striker wouldn't have the same ability to put together a melee chain, but instead gets more comprehensive Control Effects, giving both sets some differences in how they play within the Archetype. Both characters would also have -very- different approaches to control powers. With Mass Hypnosis, World of Confusion, and Telekinesis, the Psionic Striker can shut down extra spawns, confuse people they're near to, or push enemies around. They change the battlefield by cutting off attacks and moving people around. The Ice Striker, on the other hand, uses Ice Patch, Shiver, Freezing Touch, and Frozen Aura to keep the battlefield right where it is, and screw over the enemies standing on it. By having variety in the control quantities and attack quantities we can create more 'Defensive' or 'Offensive' Strikers and, really, that's just bloody brilliant, to me!

... I just had an idea to make this not only fit concept, but still press towards taking the travel power version: Limited duration use. Not limited uses or it is gone after 5 hours of game time, but the power shuts off. So instead of Superspeed at level 1 you get Speed Burst. It's a click power that increases your run speed significantly, has a recharge time of 10.5 seconds, no animation time, and a 10 second duration. Give it a nominal end cost to use it and give it a 20 second stacking debuff applied to your character: If you use it while you have the Debuff Active you lose 5 more endurance per stack. At 5 max Stacks you'd lose 25 end per use in addition to the nominal fee, making it costly to use while trying to fight. Same thing for Flight. And Superjump. The odd man out being Teleport, but we could give "Short Range Teleport" a 3 second recharge between uses and no hovertar. Still give them lower values than the Real powers. Still make them not Slottable at all. Still make it so you can't change their style. It kills the 'autorun Fly and AFK while you go from North Indy Port to South Indy Port option for people who don't take the travel power, but it still makes them -useful- in niche situations and for RP purposes. Like say you're on a team with a bunch of MMs who are blocking a door and you need to escape before you die but don't have the end to use Teleport? Pop Short Ranged Teleport to get out of the door and the frying pan! got enemies jumping levels in a Warehouse or Arachnos map? Click the Short Flight power to zip up and take care of them for less End per Second than regular Flight. Runner with a Debuff Toggle on him? Click that short duration speed buff and catch up to him before he can get help.

It'll also require either a Travel Power Vendor (Or we could make it a money sink on the P2W vendors) or some sort of pop up window to select your reward, like the DFB Screen, for the task of 'Rolled a character'. IF we did this, I'd vastly prefer it be a 'Temp Power' so you can't edit the appearance of it or spend slots on it at all.

And a level 1 character who is brand new to the game can't use them. It's a Money Sink. Implement this, and the Money Sink stops working. I suggested this idea could be a decent Money Sink early in the thread, but the thread has staggered onward, regardless...

I can agree that it could have it's recharge lowered... But not below Seeds of Confusion. Drop it to120 and that'd work just fine. And definitely don't reduce the XP share -that- low. MAYBE down to 20%, but beyond that... no way. Seeds of Confusion has a low recharge rate for 2 reasons 1) Aggro 2) No second Confuse Because the set doesn't also have a Single Target Confuse power it can't stack the power for bosses, so an easy perma minion/lt confuse is pretty acceptable by comparison. But Mind Control? It's got the second Confuse Power. So it doesn't -need- fast as hell easily stackable AoE Confusion. Bringing it down to 120 seconds gives it a nice place in the order of things, though. With a single Set you can increase the duration to 60 seconds and reduce the cooldown to around the same time, meaning you use the AoE Confuse once every few spawns. Those who strive for Permadom could probably get that 120 seconds down to about 30 with a duration of 60. Seems good to me.

Sure. I mentioned that upthread. But even if you do .01% of the enemy's health you get 75% of the XP. For a Mind/Psi Dominator that's throwing down the confuse then following it up with a Psychic Scream, then twiddling your thumbs while they murder each other.

They're both Superior and Inferior to pets. Superior 'cause they do more damage, especially if you make a whole group fight itself. Inferior because they won't take a bullet for you, and will happily kill you when you roll a bad ToHit check, and cost you a fraction of the XP from killing enemies.

But they're not equal circumstances. Confused Enemies are not pets. They don't function like pets. The Confuse on them has a time limit and accuracy plays a role and they can and will break loose and come attack you if you're also using Dominate to dish out some damage of your own. Those Fire Pets? Those are also entirely separate and controlled entities that con as enemies to the NPCs. They become targets of attacks separate from you by enemies that are not Mezzed. Confused targets might fire on targets that aren't Confused, but that enemy that isn't Confused? Coming after you. Not his Confused Allies that have dealt more damage to him, not the Fire Imps that hit him that you don't have. You. Certerus Paribus my ass. It's a False Equivalence. You're trying to equate Confused Enemies with Pets and they just aren't. Apples and Oranges. And no matter how much you'd prefer oranges have a skin than a peel it doesn't quite work. You didn't realize this was a false equivalence so I apologize. I'm just stunned that you didn't notice.

If you do 10% of the damage the target takes before he dies you get 77.5% of the XP when a Confused Enemy does 90% of the damage to the target. 90/4=22.5% If you do 1% of the damage required to kill the target you still get 75.25% of the XP for killing it. 99/4=24.75 If you do 0.1% of damage to the target you still get 75.025% of the XP. 99.9/4=24.975 Anyone who tells you Confuse is some big XP waste is someone who doesn't understand how confuse works. And yeah. The Fire Controller can stand back throwing out holds indefinitely while his pets kill things where the Mind Controller can't do the same thing with Confuse. But that's an EXTREMELY SPECIFIC situation that intentionally frames two dissimilar situations as being equal. I.E. False Equivalence. But you knew that before you described it, and only described it in order to make a case where no case actually existed. And in -that- case you could toss some Damage Procs into the two confuse powers you have and start stealth-murdering entire groups faster than a Fire Controller while being totally safe and gaining most of the XP from a given enemy.

You do get reward. You get slightly reduced reward, but you get reward. And you clear the spawn a LOT FASTER than the Fire Controller relying on his pets to do damage. Confused Opponents only count for 25% of the damage they do to the enemy. If you have a target with 100hp and your team and someone else's team each does 30 damage and 70 damage, respectively, you get 30% of the XP for that enemy and they get 70% of the XP for that enemy. But if it's a Confused Minion dishing out 70 points of damage the XP is reduced by 70/4=17.5%. You're putting out 30 damage out of 100 and getting 83 XP out of 100. Does it result in an XP Loss per Minion? Yes. Does it result in an XP Loss per Minute? No. Because you move on to the next group 70% faster than a Mind Controller who -isn't- using Confusion (in the hypothetical 30/70 split) You don't really "Lose" anything, unless you -exclusively- confuse the enemies and just stand around while they fight it out. So long as you're also tossing out some damage with Dominate and Mesmerize (Or if you're a Dominator WHOO BOY can you chuck damage!) you'll be fine.

Let's see if this tickles your fancy, @Replacement, I renamed the Manipulation Powersets 'Projection' because they're not Manipulation once you add in defensive powers. Ice Projection (Italics indicate changed powers) Tier Power 1 Frozen Armor (+Res Cold, +Def S/L 2 Frostbite (TAoE Immobilize) 3 Hoarfrost (+Max HP, +Res Toxic) 4 Frigid Protection 5 Build Up 6 Ice Patch 7 Shiver 8 Freezing Touch 9 Frozen Aura With a low-level toggle and a self-heal with +HP tied to it, the archetype gets some survivability which interacts with Frigid Protection's Absorb function. With a single toggle they get 12.75% Defense and 22.5% Resistance which is nice but without multiple powers working with it just isn't much at all, and the +HP of Hoarfrost also comes with a fairly large self-heal (Starts at 40% though we could downgrade it to 30%) As for Psychic... Psychic Projection (Italics indicate changed powers) Tier Power 1 Mind Over Body (Self+Res S/L/P) 2 Mass Hypnosis (TAoE Sleep) 3 High Pain Tolerance (+Res All+HP) 4 Psi Blade (Melee Psi) 5 Concentration 6 Drain Psyche (PBAoE +Regen/Rec) 7 World of Confusion 8 Greater Psi Blade (Melee Psi) 9 Telekinesis (TAoE Hold/Repel) For the Assault Primary of Psychic we'd need to replace Drain Psyche, perhaps with Psionic Tornado? But aside from that this set would work just fine. It would also probably be the MOST control-centric of the Projection Powersets... But I think that's appropriate for Psionics. They get their Sustain later 'cause of how powerful it is, and the debuff it applies... For their Ancillary Pools we can mostly do Support/Defense. Augment what they have and give them some team-benefit. Mastery of the Mind Tier Power 1 Heal Other 2 Heightened Senses 3 Healing Aura 4 Link Minds 5 Strength of Will Mastery of Chill Tier Power 1 Ice Shield 2 Arctic Fog 3 Frostwork 4 Sleet 5 Hibernate Mastery of Flame Tier Power 1 Cauterize 2 Temperature Protection 3 Thermal Shield 4 Blazing Aura 5 Rise of the Phoenix Mastery over Energy Tier Power 1 Transfusion 2 Energy Drain 3 Siphon Power 4 Speed Boost 5 Overload

What if instead of Hide as a basic power at level 1, we give them an inherent stealth buff? No invisibility, no defense value increase, but a passive 25-35ft stealth bonus. Stalkers get 150. We can make the inherent suppress in combat and give the Striker a 12.5% damage buff while the effect is active. Minions have a perception radius of 45ft, so they wouldn't notice the Striker 'til they got within 10-20ft of them, giving the Striker time to position well and get off a nice attack on them. Lieutenants have 50ft, so it's not much further. Even Bosses/EBs/AVs only have 54, baseline. But certain perceptive groups, like Arachnos, Knives of Artemis, and Rularuu with all their eyes, would see right through the stealth 'cause they're more alert! And if someone -wanted- to do a Stealth-Centric build they could just pick up Stealth from the pool or Superspeed to get the added stealth values. (35ft additional stealth would let them stand next to most enemies without being spotted) Then we give the AT a tier 1 defensive power, a tier 3 defensive power, and a tier 4 or 5 "Sustain" which works with the defensive powers to keep them standing. Now those defensive powers don't have to be a simple toggle. We could give them Autopowers or Clicks. Though with how click-heavy the sets are going to be between Assault/Manipulation I think toggles might be a good idea. Or a Toggle and an Auto. Shuffle in the Debuff Auras, the Control Powers, and the additional AoE or ST damage of higher power melee attacks from the secondary... I think it could work.