Steampunkette

You -cannot- give them Defensive Benefits as the core function of their Inherent Power apropos of nothing. NO ARCHETYPE gets anywhere -near- that level of benefit from their Inherent power. Not even Brutes with their Fury or Scrappers with their Crits. It would be akin to granting them the benefits of the entire secondary powerset of Scrappers -IN ADDITION- to their own Manipulation Secondary Powerset. Sorry it's not clear, the above outburst is in relation to trying to cram all of the defensive needs the AT will have into the inherent "Misdirection". As to Stealth: It only applies to Perception which determines initial aggro range. If you're a Stealthed Blaster firing a range-enhanced Sniper Shot from half a county away the entire group you're attacking is still going to aggro on you because you have engaged them. Doesn't matter if they can't "See" you by their perception range. They know where you are. And they're coming.

Time to Kill < Time to Die That's the most basic metric in City of Heroes. Every mechanic in the game is built around shortening one and lengthening the other. Every damage buff or res debuff is meant to make the Time to Kill lower. Ever defense buff or accuracy debuff is meant to make the Time to Die higher. The most basic piece of TTD/TTK for anyone to understand is that the player takes 12 Mag 1 attacks to die at level 1. A Mag 1 attack deals 8.3 damage modified by Archetype or Enemy Type. Some enemies and players throw Mag 2 attacks (16.6) at level 1. Sometimes those magnitudes are broken up, like 4 hits of 4.15 from a machine gun burst. But the total values remain the same. A character with 22.5% resistance to a given Mag 1 attack is going to take 6.5 points of damage from that attack. The number of Mag 1 attacks needed to kill that player goes up to 15. The number of Mag 2 attacks goes from 6 to 7. Mag 3s goes from 4 to 5. You get the idea. So you just take the average level 1 spawn of 3 minions and a Lieutenant, determine the recharge times, animation times, and damage values of their attacks, and create a timeline. These attacks include both ranged and melee attacks, both of which can be fired in melee. That timeline gets adjusted by movement rates and attack ranges. But since we're talking about melee it's fairly safe to say that you'll be within 6 yards which is the unadjusted move speed per second of NPCs and PCs so they'll be on top of you within a second. At which point they're all going to swing on you. Then you have the PC's timeline, which includes both brawl and their available attack power(s) as well as any defensive abilities they get. Blasters have at least 1 control based tier 1 power available to them. Whether it's a knockback attack or an immobilize, these attacks reduce incoming damage by a set amount (Immobs mean only ranged attacks can hit, KB means no attacks hit for a certain duration, then ranged attacks, then a movement period before melee attacks which could be interrupted by additional ranged attacks) Most other ATs don't. Scrappers don't immob or push enemies away, so they rely on a static defensive ability to reduce incoming damage by a relative amount (Defense means some attacks deal no damage, resistance means all attacks deal less) Set up the timelines and go. I used to have spreadsheets for this kind of thing, but that was several years and a hard drive ago...

So. Big thing! The AT is going to need some defensive powers to survive in melee. Blappers on the whole tend to eat floor until they've picked up some defensive capabilities unless they're fighting +0x1 solo. (I don't need someone to pop in and describe how their level 1 blapper soloed the ITF or some such, you are the exception rather than the rule). This is because Blasters aren't designed to Blap, players are just silly and stubborn. And a big part of the reason is AoE. Whether it's AoE control effects aimed at the 'Tank' (regardless of AT) or Fireballs and Whirling Hands. Blasters are designed to stay at range and keep enemies at range for the most part, with a few 'They got close and I can't get them away so I need to MURDER THEM FAST' powers particularly in the upper tiers. Your Total Focuses and whatnot. This archetype is built around having both ranged -and- melee attacks as it's primary. Which means that to do good damage they can't stay at range and plink, falling back as enemies get close. They've got to get into melee to mix things up for their full damage potential. And that means being exposed to more melee attacks and AoE attacks from level 1 onward. There's not a single Assault Set that doesn't have a melee attack available at level 1, so there'd be people who take that and go to to toe with whoever they're fighting. Without -some- defensive powers that player's probably going to feel like a weak scrapper. We'll also be giving them melee attacks in their secondary powersets as you can see in the suggested sets I put up there. Which weights the archetype, overall, -towards- being in melee. So yeah... some defensive capability is basically required, and we can't try to pile it all into the Inherent. Somethings got to give or else the AT will break. We can't leave all the defenses to level 50 on a character designed to hit things in melee. It's just not reasonable. All the positioning in the world won't save you from punching a boss and getting ganked by his 3 friends. Mez protection is something they might need, yeah. I didn't pass it out like candy because of powers like Inner Will. But if you peek over at Electric you'll see Grounded is one of the defensive powers they get. I think any mez protection they get should be fairly small, to start with, or narrowly aimed at hard control abilities like Holds or Stuns. Perhaps giving them an inherent +1 mez protection value (Giving them Mag 2 which would stop the -first- application of almost any control effect, but make stacking super effective on them) could work, with certain powersets getting other bonuses to specific mez protections, like Ki Projection's Inner Will as a form of Break Free or Grounded's increased protection against KB and Immob. You don't need to playtest an Archetype with no defenses and the presumption of jumping into melee to know there's going to be problems. Unless you plan to hand out hard control AoEs with low recharge times in their secondary tier 1 slot, they're going to get their butts kicked by simple math.

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.