Shazbotacus

They're really far apart in animations and "rate of fire." They are not the same.

Pretty much, there's a lot of variable animations cycled through each power we could make a whole powerset with them. If not, we have the regular Mastermind/Thugs pistols animations to fall on for some well-aimed single target shots or for special effect bullets that do like CC or explode something.

Playing Thugs makes me jealous of Enforcers' paired machine pistol style. I'd absolutely love it if this could be a powerset for players; at least four attacks already exist with animations.

An archetype has many powersets in primary and secondary categories, that's what I want to say. I would have to hash together a powerset to be more specific. I might be able to do that later.

1 & 3.) That really depends on the set. Ninjutsu has melee defense on one toggle and ranged and AoE defense on another. Electric Armor has S/L/E resists on one and E/Neg, something else, you know how armor sets are laid out. 2 & 6.) That also depends on the set, and it can be as varied as Mastermind henchmen are. 5.) Sentinels and Soldiers of Arachnos are ranged-capable archetypes with mez protection. 7.) Also depends on what armor set or theme we're taking from. Invulnerability might be Dull Pain for example. Was I supposed to give an outline for a specific powerset as an example?

All right. Primary: 1. Basic Armor Set Toggle 2. First Main Henchman (Debuff and/or CC focus) 3. Basic Armor Set Toggle 4. Upgrade for First Main Henchman (Ideally complements basic powers) 5. Status Protection for Player is advised here 6. Second Main Henchman (Debuff and/or CC focus) 7. Survivability Power, specific to associated armor theme, for Player 8. Auxiliary Henchmen (1-4 henchmen providing light damage in total) 9. Upgrade for Second Main Henchman (Ideally complements basic powers as well) It'd be most likely that the CC available to main henchmen would be largely if not only single target in nature, and debuffs may be area effect and mostly if not entirely focused on reducing enemy offense. I'm not opposed to throwing in defense debuffs, for example. Edit: I'm not opposed to the idea of switching primary to secondary and vice versa. That's sensible as well.

I gave it an edit for clarification, sorry for the late fix.

What do you mean? Dominator primary is control and secondary is assault. I don't see what's so unstoppable about what I proposed. What I got in mind is this: two main pet summons, one each, that provide mitigating debuffs or controls doesn't matter what and that can vary depending on the specific set. Two upgrades, one for each, to make those main pets better at what they do. One auxiliary pet summon that might call between 1 and 4 henchmen, depending on how much chaff that set should thematically summon, that provides supplementary, but not great, damage that has no associated upgrades. There's five powers. The remaining four powers are survivability for the player: mez protection, standard defense/resist/regen toggles, self heals, etc. There's your whole primary powerset. The primary powerset exists to give you survivability, directly and indirectly, and the player commands their henchmen to attack targets depending on who they want locked down and who they want some extra damage done to as they try to defeat that target. The secondary powerset is Assault or Melee, maybe Blast but that makes less sense, and I honestly don't care which. I don't expect the henchmen to wield the mass lockdown power of a full Controller, that would be insane. It doesn't have to be that way. Similarly, I don't expect the player themselves to have a great amount of survivability. I expect the combined effects of the armor and light CC/debuffs can provide a fair level of survivability given proper tuning. Same for damage when factored with the chaff henchmen chipping in. For an example, picture this. A player with an adapted Mercenaries primary and Rifle Assault secondary. The player has two pets that use less-than-lethal munitions that debilitate a few foes, and the player has armor to take hits from the rest. The primary set also has a Rifleman chipping in some light damage alongside the player's own attacks. Or the player is a Necromancer, and has two undead sorcerers inflicting mostly Terrorize and -To Hit debuffs, allowing the player to select who's most dangerous and should be shut down first. The player attacks with, say, dark assault with four zombies chipping in damage alongside.

I mean, my idea was to have the armor toggles in the pets set instead of attacks. The attacks for the player go in the secondary offensive set. This archetype couldn't be treated like a conventional Mastermind that we all know, it'd have to be something else and seen differently. The henchmen might progress in a different way, they might not use the same upgrade and tier scheme and formula at all, starting with a new AT gives us that freedom.

This is something I've been thinking about. I know the role of the classic Mastermind is to support pets because they're squishy as you all say, but I still think something like this can work and I've mentioned it on the Discord channel. It just needs the powersets tailored to allow the player to take the lead. Replace the attacks and special buff in a pet set with defensive powers and change the pets to do something other than damage to the enemies they are told to target. In my head, this'd be okay if the player provided damage, generated aggro, and had their own defense toggles and other survivability powers. Pets, meanwhile, would provide proactive mitigation via debuffs and CC and maybe some supplementary damage. In that way, pets help their own survivability in the same way Necromancy's Lich does: by debilitating enemies' ability to do harm Dark Defender style, and this helps the player as well. The player uses damage, their own armor toggles, and perhaps even an aggro generating inherent to take the enemies on and withstand their attention, and the pets help them in doing this as well.

It is really sad.

Mercs are crap lmao. But yeah, having pets at that level uuuuh what if it were an epic pool? Thoughts? You can control which archetypes get it like that, though Mastermind with Mercs/something/Mercs would be lmao if an unnecessary stress on servers.

BR/EA/Mercs Sentinel would let me be something like Master Chief with UNSC Marines and I love the idea.

This would be lovely to have.

It's been a long while, maybe I should bring this topic to light again. Thought about making a new thread but I don't have much new to add.

That's pretty much it. Also, if we could get a fix for the Roman chest detail pieces over the Baggy chest type, like I'm pretty sure I've seen Cimerorans wear, that'd be great. Bonus points if those Baggy type Roman armors get sent over to Robes as well.

These are some agreeable thoughts on Sentinel.

Looks neat, Starhammer.

omg yes I love that.

I'm on a vehicle fix lately and I wanna drive things. I'd like a mix of on-foot/mechanized gameplay for in and out of closed environments. Like, imagine flying a Chaser through CoT/blue caves just ugh no

I'm gonna just do this for fun if nothing else. Does anyone else look at the Longbow Chasers or Sky Raider Skiffs and think "I want to pilot that?" I do. I really do. City of Heroes already has a transformation mechanic in place that gives the player a set of powers with their new form, see the Kheldian archetype, so I figure that can be used for entering one's vehicle "form." Perhaps something like a Malta-esque robo mech could be considered a vehicle set, or anything else I haven't thought of. Might even consider other forms for an actual shapeshifter and have vehicles for your tech/natural origin heroes. "But just make a Kheldian!" Your only choices there are being a ghost squid monster from space or being a ghost lobster monster from space, so... Vehicle/Alternate Form vs. Extravehicular/Regular Form Capabilities Kheldians do different things between their human, squid, and lobster forms, so I figure it'll be the same here. Exactly what each form does, however, could be a thing that varies between powersets like how Masterminds have it with Ninjas and Thugs going hard on damage while Necromancy is more focused on crippling -To Hit debuffs and CC. I imagine this archetype would have power picks that are used in one form or the other. Perhaps the primary powerset would be powers for being in your vehicle/alternate form and secondary picks are extravehicular/human form powers? Whatever the human/extravehicular form is, I envision the shapeshift/vehicle form to do the brunt of damage, especially area effect damage. Support might be more the domain of the human/extravehicular form, possibly even single target damage. I really wanna know what you guys think of anyone's interested in the theme here. Possible Primary Powersets and Forms/Vehicles Right off the top of my head a Longbow Chaser or Sky Raider Skiff, probably with different or customizable colors, comes to mind. Good for Tech/Natural. Transforming into some kind of, for lack of a better term, "Hulk" might be on the table, but let's try not to be too on-the-nose with our Bruce Banner knockoffs. There's our Science or Mutant origin, or even Natural if you're a space alien or something. Could also do something like one of those animated totem-and-mask creatures from the Banished Pantheon, or a demon ala Circle of Thorns or those summoned by a Mastermind. Both sound very Magic origin leaning. Inherent Power? I honestly don't know here. Help me out. Mock up powerset So we're all probably gonna have different ideas in the end about how to do this if anyone else but me is interested, but here's my take. Chaser Pilot Armed with machine guns and launchers for various munitions and payloads, the Chaser is a small but potent machine of air supremacy and a deadly ground attack craft capable of threatening the toughest villains out there, especially with high tech aftermarket modifications. Taking this powerset gives you a free power upon entering the game with your character that allows you to pilot your aircraft right from the beginning. 1. Rotary Cannon -Fast-recharging burst of lethal damage over long range 2. Plasma Burst -Medium-recharging shot of magnetically contained superheated plasma over long range that hits for a high amount of fire damage. 3. Canister Shot -It's Buckshot but from a larger bore. 4. Incendiary Grenade -High damage targeted area-of-effect that does higher-than-normal fire damage but over a somewhat long amount of time (six or so seconds.) 5. Evasive Maneuvers -Toggle power that grants high defense against ranged attacks. 6. HEAT Rocket -A sniper attack, being interruptible with higher damage if used out of combat but lower damage and instant cast if engaged. The high explosive anti-tank warhead of this rocket does extreme fire damage to one target with a jet of molten copper upon impact and detonation, defeating armor meant for kinetic weapons. 7. Ablative Armor -Your craft generates a shell of ablative armor designed to absorb impacts and break off the hull, providing a layer of absorb hit points. 8. Repair Nanites -Toggle regeneration buff that powers an onboard nanite swarm and directs them to quickly repair battle damage. 9. HE Cannon Barrage -Rain of Fire-esque damage over time that lasts as long as the activation/firing time of the power. Select a location and saturate it with high-explosive shots from your rotary cannons, doing high area effect damage. Basically a mix of Full Auto and Rain of Arrows. Conclusion I'm in love with the idea but don't expect it to happen and don't know exactly what I'd do beyond the basic premise of having an armed (and armored) vehicle to pilot. idk that's about it

Oh I guess that makes sense. Sort of. I find it hard to believe Commando's knockback amounts to that much.

Demons have better resistance, healing, and crowd control than Mercenaries. How in the world did Mercenaries rate safer than them? Let alone safest of them all? That makes no sense to me. I don't get it.

A Mercs/? Mastermind is just a gimped ?/ Defender rn 😂

Pretty much. And "middle of the pack" doesn't account for their Ninjas-tier survivability, just their damage.