Operative AT - I repackaged the old Striker with a new identity!

[Steampunkette]

30 minutes ago, Zepp said:

I think that would work (maybe even dropping to 0.5 and a 0.25 multiplier), for passive stealth (automatically stealthy or linked to their secondary T₁?), what exactly do you mean? If we are going with just a "Reverse Fury" mechanic, it would have to be on a timer of about 8s or less (similar to Stalker Hide).

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.

[Zepp]

That sounds reasonable. What I would like is for @Replacement to rewrite the proposal (with inherent and any adjustments made since the OP) in a new post so I can cite it when I add this AT to the list.

[Steampunkette]

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

[Replacement]

Sorry. Big day at work (I even took a nap in the middle then went back to it).

 

12 hours ago, Zepp said:

As someone who proposed a straight Manipulation/Assault AT, I actually do agree with you. The two issues are crossover and redundancy. Some of the manipulation sets are too offensive oriented to be useful for a toon with Assault. Adding in a couple defensive powers allows you the flexibility to make this less problematic, I was just making sure that we realize that it is going to require some caution in the development of "Projection" (I would have gone with "Intrigue") sets...

As I mentioned, the powers that are necessary to remove, because they already exist in the Assault sets, are what make time travel possible the defensive or stealth options possible. The overlap in function is actually quite preferred, for me. I feel it's important to preserve that some Manipulation sets lend themselves to more direct confrontation, while others are more control-heavy, and others (devices) are more technical. Instead of being paired with ranged attacks, they're paired with ranged and melee.  

 

In my mind, the goal and appeal has been how much of the sets can we try to keep, and just how far from "blap-leaning blaster clone" can we go just by focusing on Stealth and positioning?

 

Also, I REALLY like calling them "intrigue" sets

9 hours ago, Zepp said:

One idea would be something like Preparation: you have a bar that outside of combat grows to increase damage and to hit, engaged in combat that buff declines and you have increased defense, resist, regen, recovery, absorb, and control duration. That way you enter the battle "surprise" your enemy with an offensive buff and as you "learn" your enemy your defensive abilities improve. That provides the previously discussed alpha aoe boost with help for sustain. The -threat could be on top of that and help provide aggro management.

This could be cool. If it doesn't fill fast, it could also refill when your party gets kills. So that it serves as a fast reset to going into the next fight, but still making it so extended conflicts (like AV battles) still see you needing to duck out for a moment every now and again.

4 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

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.

 

I don't know about the threat multiplier, but the threat level need not be classified as passive. It's just an attribute like damage modifiers.

 

I like the idea of the passive stealth, but I feel like the secondary tier one should be something like Misdirection. 

 

Talk me out of it. I just think it would create an interesting dynamic where the Stalker emerges FROM stealth for murder and the agent (or harrier or saboteur or skirmisher or striker) instead is focused more on always retreating to stealth/placation.

[Zepp]

Well, @Replacement if you are interested in adding a "Misdirection" T1, perhaps look at the sets that @Steampunkette put together, remove the build-up-ish power and replacing it with Misdirection. Misdirection could be a combination of AoE placate and power boost? So it would be offensive or defensive, depending on the situation. I think that would give you what you are looking for. I think the base stats, minimal threat level, and decent damage would mean that a weak inherent passive stealth maybe with some +Perception, would be justifiable.

Edited September 25, 2019 by Zepp

[Steampunkette]

6 hours ago, Replacement said:

Sorry. Big day at work (I even took a nap in the middle then went back to it).

 

As I mentioned, the powers that are necessary to remove, because they already exist in the Assault sets, are what make time travel possible the defensive or stealth options possible. The overlap in function is actually quite preferred, for me. I feel it's important to preserve that some Manipulation sets lend themselves to more direct confrontation, while others are more control-heavy, and others (devices) are more technical. Instead of being paired with ranged attacks, they're paired with ranged and melee.  

 

In my mind, the goal and appeal has been how much of the sets can we try to keep, and just how far from "blap-leaning blaster clone" can we go just by focusing on Stealth and positioning?

 

Also, I REALLY like calling them "intrigue" sets

This could be cool. If it doesn't fill fast, it could also refill when your party gets kills. So that it serves as a fast reset to going into the next fight, but still making it so extended conflicts (like AV battles) still see you needing to duck out for a moment every now and again.

I don't know about the threat multiplier, but the threat level need not be classified as passive. It's just an attribute like damage modifiers.

 

I like the idea of the passive stealth, but I feel like the secondary tier one should be something like Misdirection. 

 

Talk me out of it. I just think it would create an interesting dynamic where the Stalker emerges FROM stealth for murder and the agent (or harrier or saboteur or skirmisher or striker) instead is focused more on always retreating to stealth/placation.

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?

Edited September 25, 2019 by Steampunkette

[Zepp]

Intrigue is a synonym for manipulation... Political intrigue is the core function of an agent or spy... it is also a verb which means to make secret plans to do something illicit or detrimental to someone. This is especially appropriate if we replace the buff ability with Misdirection (as an AoE placate with power boost).

[Steampunkette]

10 minutes ago, Zepp said:

Intrigue is a synonym for manipulation... Political intrigue is the core function of an agent or spy... it is also a verb which means to make secret plans to do something illicit or detrimental to someone. This is especially appropriate if we replace the buff ability with Misdirection (as an AoE placate with power boost).

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...

Edited September 25, 2019 by Steampunkette

[Replacement]

Where I currently stand:

 

While I continue to feel like their overall survival isn't a huge issue (and that is something we could only know via playtesting), what does continue to concern me is being mezzed to death.  I think a mez protection toggle in the t3/4 slot will protect them far more than the stat-buffs of a few armor toggles.  It encourages the reliance on sustain and shifting combat ranges - and they don't have a Blaster's Defiance to just ignore it.

 

A note on Build Up -- I would want this left in the Manipulations for sure.  I think the AT will need it.  There are a few Assault sets with Build Up, and we would just replace those entries with a power build up.

 

12 hours ago, Zepp said:

That sounds reasonable. What I would like is for @Replacement to rewrite the proposal (with inherent and any adjustments made since the OP) in a new post so I can cite it when I add this AT to the list.

 I was actually against this, as I was quite set that an inherent on an AT like this could only possibly be decided after testing revealed their weaknesses, so I didn't want to do a firmer write-up.  That said, I like enough of the ideas of this thread that I'm going to take a stab at it in a follow-up post.  If it still fails, we'll go from there.  But considering we have 3-4 active posters, it's not the end of the world if it doesn't make your list.

 

1 hour ago, Steampunkette said:

I dislike Intrigue as a set name!

 

All of -that- said... What did you think of the proposed powersets?

When I was first thinking about how much I would turn Stalkers into a Cottage, given a chance, I was thinking about how their secondaries should be called "Infiltration" sets, with a naming scheme that reflects how they perform their job.

 

Intrigue works particularly well if you stick with a name like Agent (or Operative why haven't I thought of that one until just now bold letters are fun) that indicates an agenda and a goal.  And indeed, I feel that's the biggest difference between this and, say, a Scrapper.  Part of the thematic separation is "I have a goal and will use any means necessary."  It ties their wide variety of powers to their unique fighting style.

 

But personally, folks.  I'd probably call it Manipulation until it starts causing confusion.

 

Speaking of names, please feel free to suggest better AT names.  It's obvious Agent isn't really liked, and it was more of a placeholder anyway.  Here are the google search terms that should give you hits on this AT (not names):

Spy, Undermine, Skirmish, Sabotage, Inside Job, Sow Discord, By Any Means Necessary.

 

I like the power sets, Steampunkette.  But I still think the armor toggles can be avoided, and where my brain is currently, I think it will be necessary.  That has a cascading effect: I really like your Epic Pool write-ups, but they will probably need to each have a defensive toggle added there instead.

 

--

 

Also, I agree about /fire Stalkers being silly.  Maybe we can convince them to rename it "Smoke Aura."

[Steampunkette]

24 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Where I currently stand:

 

While I continue to feel like their overall survival isn't a huge issue (and that is something we could only know via playtesting), what does continue to concern me is being mezzed to death.  I think a mez protection toggle in the t3/4 slot will protect them far more than the stat-buffs of a few armor toggles.  It encourages the reliance on sustain and shifting combat ranges - and they don't have a Blaster's Defiance to just ignore it.

 

A note on Build Up -- I would want this left in the Manipulations for sure.  I think the AT will need it.  There are a few Assault sets with Build Up, and we would just replace those entries with a power build up.

 

 I was actually against this, as I was quite set that an inherent on an AT like this could only possibly be decided after testing revealed their weaknesses, so I didn't want to do a firmer write-up.  That said, I like enough of the ideas of this thread that I'm going to take a stab at it in a follow-up post.  If it still fails, we'll go from there.  But considering we have 3-4 active posters, it's not the end of the world if it doesn't make your list.

 

When I was first thinking about how much I would turn Stalkers into a Cottage, given a chance, I was thinking about how their secondaries should be called "Infiltration" sets, with a naming scheme that reflects how they perform their job.

 

Intrigue works particularly well if you stick with a name like Agent (or Operative why haven't I thought of that one until just now bold letters are fun) that indicates an agenda and a goal.  And indeed, I feel that's the biggest difference between this and, say, a Scrapper.  Part of the thematic separation is "I have a goal and will use any means necessary."  It ties their wide variety of powers to their unique fighting style.

 

But personally, folks.  I'd probably call it Manipulation until it starts causing confusion.

 

Speaking of names, please feel free to suggest better AT names.  It's obvious Agent isn't really liked, and it was more of a placeholder anyway.  Here are the google search terms that should give you hits on this AT (not names):

Spy, Undermine, Skirmish, Sabotage, Inside Job, Sow Discord, By Any Means Necessary.

 

I like the power sets, Steampunkette.  But I still think the armor toggles can be avoided, and where my brain is currently, I think it will be necessary.  That has a cascading effect: I really like your Epic Pool write-ups, but they will probably need to each have a defensive toggle added there instead.

 

--

 

Also, I agree about /fire Stalkers being silly.  Maybe we can convince them to rename it "Smoke Aura."

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.

Edited September 25, 2019 by Steampunkette

[Replacement]

Here's an iteration based on both, the ideas of a decaying inherent, as well as inherent stealth, and my own fears of needing mez protection to do their job.

 

Primary: Assault (almost completely untouched.  Any Build Ups need replaced with Power Build Up; few changes otherwise)

Secondary: Manipulation with some necessary changes.  Explained in the bullet points below.  It's up in the air if these are big enough to warrant a name-change.  I'm sticking with /Manipulation for now.

Inherent: Preparation, Advantage, Plans, Ploys, whatever you want to call it.  This is a "reverse fury" that is always building and is lowered by actively fighting.

• Bar is always building so we don't have to deal with in/out of combat flags, and so it remains useful in longer engagements.
• Attacks reduce the bar.
• You gain a bonus to the secondary effects of powers, to melee damage, and to stealth based on the size of the bar.
• Each nearby enemy (say, within ~15-20') reduces how much Preparation you gain per tic to actively promote 2 ranges of combat (get close to use the melee damage buff; make some distance to build faster)
• Low natural Threat level.  Totally optional whether or not this is included in the descriptor of their passive.
• Powers from Manipulation that overlap with Assaults are removed.  The gaps this creates are explained below:
  • T1 becomes a Misdirection clone.  This resets your bar to zero and converts it to placate duration.
  • Tier 1 ST immobilize is converted to a Tier 2 aoe Immobilize or equivalent (typically, this is the Controller Tier 3)
  • T3/4 Mez protection.
  • All other Manipulation powers, more or less what @Steampunkette has put together in this thread.  This is mostly identical to modern blasters, but may end up with a few more control powers here and there.

 

Design notes and tuning points

 

--If it's too flimsy as seems to be the fear, we could always add defensive benefits to the t1s and 3s.  E.g. the Misdirection also gives 30 seconds of high defenses, the mez protection comes with a persistent small Resistance buff.

--The key is setting the melee/ranged modifiers, and tuning their survival, to a point where they want to be at both of their effective combat ranges, slipping back and forth.  This feeds sharply into the idea that a high Preparation bar increases the effectiveness of their Sustain power to keep them going back to the fight.

 

--I could be mistaken on how the engine/ai works in regards to Stealth, but my thinking is that standard Stealths suppress on-hit, and that's why the rest of the group sees and joins in.  If the passive created a weak Stealth effect that doesn't suppress, you could feasibly take out a guy before his friends notice.

Trade-off: assuming you average something like 1/3rd of a Stalker's stealth numbers, you're much more vulnerable to them simply turning and seeing you - this, along with the constant decay from attacking, should make it very hard to abuse. 

The hope is that you could use this as way to essentially use the opening moments of a fight to stack the deck.  Start dropping your high damage and limited controls and break an alpha before it fully comes together.

--Having the Misdirection move empty out the bar is a big departure, but it's another place where I think it creates some really interesting gameplay loops and decision points.  The one tuning point to add here is that it should probably suppress the "aura" portion (the reductions in growth rate based on nearby enemies), and may warrant a +bar growth rate in addition.  Something to really make the bar swing could be fun.

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by Replacement

[Steampunkette]

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...

[Steampunkette]

12 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Here's an iteration based on both, the ideas of a decaying inherent, as well as inherent stealth, and my own fears of needing mez protection to do their job.

 

Primary: Assault (almost completely untouched.  Any Build Ups need replaced with Power Build Up; few changes otherwise)

Secondary: Manipulation with the following updates:

• Removing powers found in the Assaults

-

-Some other slight modifications later on in power trees, to either emphasize shifting combat ranges or to include some more light control.  See Steampunkette's power sets for some examples.

Inherent: Preparation, Advantage, Plans, Ploys, whatever you want to call it.  This is a "reverse fury" that is always building and is lowered by actively fighting.

• Bar is always building so we don't have to deal with in/out of combat flags, and so it remains useful in longer engagements.
• Attacks reduce the bar.
• You gain a bonus to the secondary effects of powers, to melee damage, and to stealth based on the size of the bar.
• Each nearby enemy (say, within ~15-20') reduces how much Preparation you gain per tic to actively promote 2 ranges of combat (get close to use the melee damage buff; make some distance to build faster)
• Low natural Threat level.  Totally optional whether or not this is included in the descriptor of their passive.
• Powers from Manipulation that overlap with Assaults are removed.  The gaps this creates are explained below:
  • T1 becomes a Misdirection clone.  This resets your bar to zero and converts it to placate duration.
  • Tier 1 ST immobilize is converted to a Tier 2 aoe Immobilize or equivalent (typically, this is the Controller Tier 3)
  • T3/4 Mez protection.
  • All other Manipulation powers, more or less what @Steampunkette has put together in this thread.  This is mostly identical to modern blasters, but may end up with a few more control powers here and there.

 

Design notes and tuning points

 

--If it's too flimsy as seems to be the fear, we could always add defensive benefits to the t1s and 3s.  E.g. the Misdirection also gives 30 seconds of high defenses, the mez protection comes with a persistent small Resistance buff.

--The key is setting the melee/ranged modifiers, and tuning their survival, to a point where they want to be at both of their effective combat ranges, slipping back and forth.  This feeds sharply into the idea that a high Preparation bar increases the effectiveness of their Sustain power to keep them going back to the fight.

 

--I could be mistaken on how the engine/ai works in regards to Stealth, but my thinking is that standard Stealths suppress on-hit, and that's why the rest of the group sees and joins in.  If the passive created a weak Stealth effect that doesn't suppress, you could feasibly take out a guy before his friends notice.

Trade-off: assuming you average something like 1/3rd of a Stalker's stealth numbers, you're much more vulnerable to them simply turning and seeing you - this, along with the constant decay from attacking, should make it very hard to abuse. 

The hope is that you could use this as way to essentially use the opening moments of a fight to stack the deck.  Start dropping your high damage and limited controls and break an alpha before it fully comes together.

--Having the Misdirection move empty out the bar is a big departure, but it's another place where I think it creates some really interesting gameplay loops and decision points.  The one tuning point to add here is that it should probably suppress the "aura" portion (the reductions in growth rate based on nearby enemies), and may warrant a +bar growth rate in addition.  Something to really make the bar swing could be fun.

 

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.

Edited September 25, 2019 by Steampunkette

[Steampunkette]

Also, I'm sorry! It was 12 Mag 1 attacks to kill at 8.6 with the 12th attack overcoming natural regeneration over the course of the TTD.

 

My mistake!

[Replacement]

Misdirection isn't their inherent; it's their secondary's T1.  

 

Hide has defensive benefits and is always up.  Giving their Misdirection defensive benefits at a cost of their bar makes sense.

 

But I'm still not convinced they need it.

 

I'm not a big hot shot "I've soloed gods and giant monsters" type of player.  But I have been playing a dark blast/martial blaster a lot.  Let me tell you about my experiences:

* For most of this character's career, I've had nothing but basic Invention Origin enhancements and a KB Protection enhancement.  This is not an optimized build.

* I melee so much, I always have a ranged attack available.

* I do mostly solo, but I have played in some full parties.  I do not die to aoe (at least not since level 20.  Absorb shield is small but very powerful).

* What does kill me is Holds.  Mind you, as a /martial, I have a free Break Free on a ~90 second timer.  I also have Ki Push that launches people trying eat my face to the other side of the room.  The fact I can do this while mezzed saves my life semi-regularly.  But still, when I die, there was a lot of mez involved.

 

This tells me that most standard content is quite survivable, and that mez is the issue.  Sustain powers are meant to get you back in the fight faster, and their inherent power boost should make those effects stronger as well.

 

If they have a survival problem, it will be levels 40+, and even then probably only certain task forces I've never blapped.  Which, for me, confirms that armors belong in their Epics.

 

Edit: Important - The issue with armors is it allows them to use ranged attacks in melee.  This would undercut the whole point of the AT and become their first order optimal strategy.

 

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by Replacement

[Replacement]

24 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

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.

What I was referring to and asking about wasn't the guy I shot - I'm more interested in his friends.  

 

I am unsure if CoH has a "pack logic" that makes it so if I shoot one guy, the other enemies within that spawn automatically have perfect perception.  I don't think so, though.  The intent and hope is that savvy players could use the decaying stealth (as opposed to binary stealth) to, say, Total Focus the guy that wandered away from his friends, then still first-strike the rest of the pack instead of being caught in animation.

[Steampunkette]

5 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Misdirection isn't their inherent; it's their secondary's T1.  

 

Hide has defensive benefits and is always up.  Giving their Misdirection defensive benefits at a cost of their bar makes sense.

 

But I'm still not convinced they need it.

 

I'm not a big hot shot "I've soloed gods and giant monsters" type of player.  But I have been playing a dark blast/martial blaster a lot.  Let me tell you about my experiences:

* For most of this character's career, I've had nothing but basic Invention Origin enhancements and a KB Protection enhancement.  This is not an optimized build.

* I melee so much, I always have a ranged attack available.

* I do mostly solo, but I have played in some full parties.  I do not die to aoe.  

* What does kill me is Holds.  Mind you, as a /martial, I have a free Break Free on a ~90 second timer.  I also have Ki Push that launches people trying eat my face to the other side of the room.  The fact I can do this while mezzed saves my life semi-regularly.  But still, when I die, there was a lot of mez involved.

 

This tells me that most standard content is quite survivable, and that mez is the issue.  Sustain powers are meant to get you back in the fight faster, and their inherent power boost should make those effects stronger as well.

 

If they have a survival problem, it will be levels 40+, and even then probably only certain task forces I've never blapped.  Which, for me, confirms that armors belong in their Epics.

 

Edit: Important - The issue with armors is it allows them to use ranged attacks in melee.  This would undercut the whole point of the AT and become their first order optimal strategy.

 

 

If armor is COMPREHENSIVE it will allow you to stand in melee shooting and punching people.

 

If you've got a 22.5% resistance to Smashing/Lethal/Psionic you're still going to get chewed alive by CoT's Fire and Negative because it bypasses your defenses. So does the Freakshow's electric attacks and Crey's Cryo Beams and Energy Blasts.

 

Also allow me to also direct you, here: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Hit_Points

 

Blasters get more Hit Points than most of the ATs in the game. Scrappers, Brutes, and Tankers beat them out with Stalkers tied for fourth place. They didn't start out with that many HP, though. Originally they had the same number as Defenders. It was people's relentless Blapping that caused an HP increase to the AT overall, putting them on par with Stalkers.

 

2 minutes ago, Replacement said:

What I was referring to and asking about wasn't the guy I shot - I'm more interested in his friends.  

 

I am unsure if CoH has a "pack logic" that makes it so if I shoot one guy, the other enemies within that spawn automatically have perfect perception.  I don't think so, though.  The intent and hope is that savvy players could use the decaying stealth (as opposed to binary stealth) to, say, Total Focus the guy that wandered away from his friends, then still first-strike the rest of the pack instead of being caught in animation.

CoH has a pack logic. It isn't perfect, but it is present. Sometimes if the damage lands right during a clock-cycle the other members of the group won't register the hit because their ally will already be running toward you rather than being hurt, but if it has KB on it the whole group is coming your way. Also Holds and other mezzes.

 

If you'd care to test the theory just take any regular blaster into the game and attack a group of minions from range with a single target attack. Blaster base range is 80, Hellion Minion perception is 45 and LT is 50. So you'll be outside of their sight-range when Snap Shot or some other single target ranged attack goes off.

 

Sometimes the single minion will be the only thing aggroed. But usually the whole group will come running.

[Replacement]

In other games, I would describe that as "linking" behavior -- they don't detect you directly; they detect that their ally has turned aggressive.  Regardless, if it works, cool.  If not, it doesn't have too big of an impact.

 

I keep thinking about an Absorb shield as a way to communicate "you have overstayed your welcome and you need to drop back and plink," but I feel like that would require a lot of rethinking of other bits, and it still probably wouldn't play well with sets that have their own +absorb.

 

Anyway, there's more to my last take than the lack of Armor toggles.  Multi-prong incentives for switching up combat ranges, the passive actually making the Sustain power stronger, the trade-off of Misdirection costing your bar...  I feel like it's strong-but-limited, will play uniquely, and cleaves closely to the power sets on which it's built.  

Edited September 25, 2019 by Replacement

[Steampunkette]

@Replacement

 

Can you describe your blapping style for me? How do you survive melee combat against multiple enemies as a blapper?

 

Do you do a lot of Jousting, that is to say jumping or flying past enemies, clicking a melee attack, and landing some distance away when the attack hits?

 

Do you typically fire off one melee attack, then bounce to range, then hit whoever gets near you once or twice, then fall back further?

 

Do you teleport in with Burst of Speed, fling a single melee attack, teleport again, melee, teleport again, melee, flee to range? 

 

Do you use your Dark Attacks to spread -ToHit (essentially giving yourself some defense), then teleport into melee to fight, then run out to throw some more darkness?

[Replacement]

In a team setting, which is actually where survival is far harder, I do a lot of burst of speed>dragon tails.  I then typically jump to a point where a dark cone attack is favorable.  If I were back-line blasting, I would end up at roughly that same point for the cone attack anyway.  At that point, much of the group is broken and the risk isn't too high in engaging single threats or small groups as dragon tail comes back up.  That said, I do shoot quite a bit in full teams.

 

In my more typical solo-duo-trio scenarios, I start most fights with a slow-snipe>burst of speed.  In these scenarios, I rely heavily on knockdowns and my absorb shield and I'm only leaving melee range to get more people caught in my cone, and then back in I go.

 

One thing that's worth noting is a blapper like that... I'm running Tough/Weave/Dark Embrace and even Oppressive Gloom, and that's a lot of damage mitigation, which makes my absorb shield last longer between refresh ticks.  The only flaw I really see in removing armors from the base pools and moving them to epics is that they make Fighting pool more or less mandatory, as well as the epics (since even I would want armor toggles included, there).

 

But hey, then Unyielding and Integration went and set a precedent for me to be fine with including minor defenses in the mez toggles.

Edited September 25, 2019 by Replacement

[Replacement]

I changed the title to Operative.  It's at least a small step-up.  I can change it a billion more times.

[Steampunkette]

5 minutes ago, Replacement said:

In a team setting, which is actually where survival is far harder, I do a lot of burst of speed>dragon tails.  I then typically jump to a point where a dark cone attack is favorable.  If I were back-line blasting, I would end up at roughly that same point for the cone attack anyway.  At that point, much of the group is broken and the risk isn't too high in engaging single threats or small groups as dragon tail comes back up.  That said, I do shoot quite a bit in full teams.

 

In my more typical solo-duo-trio scenarios, I start most fights with a slow-snipe>burst of speed.  In these scenarios, I rely heavily on knockdowns and my absorb shield and I'm only leaving melee range to get more people caught in my cone, and then back in I go.

 

One thing that's worth noting is a blapper like that... I'm running Tough/Weave/Dark Embrace and even Oppressive Gloom, and that's a lot of damage mitigation, which makes my absorb shield last longer between refresh ticks.  The only flaw I really see in removing armors from the base pools and moving them to epics is that they make Fighting pool more or less mandatory, as well as the epics (since even I would want armor toggles included, there).

 

But hey, then Unyielding and Integration went and set a precedent for me to be fine with including minor defenses in the mez toggles.

Did you Blap the same way before you got your 3 different defensive toggles? Did you stay in Melee at level 10 or 15 just as much as you do at 40+?

 

Did you die more often at those lower levels, or have you spent your whole career almost never dying?

 

I think that's where things might be at issue. You've got a specific experience based on a specific powerset combo -and- dipping into 2 different pools to get 3 defensive powers in order to survive as well as you do. Other Powerset Combos might not be as survivable. Mind/Psi, for example. Or Energy/Nrg. You're running a blapper with 3 defensive powers, 1 major debuff power, and a primary that focuses on wide area cone -ToHit that all augment your survivability.

 

But I'm not talking about Power Pools and Ancillary Pools, here. I'm talking about the -BASELINE ARCHETYPE- and it's survivability. If you expect every player playing this AT to -need- Tough and Weave and other Defensive Powers that you're not giving them to survive...

 

Imagine you're a BRAND NEW player. You've never played City of Heroes, before, but you've heard from friends how amazing it was and what a travesty it was that it got canceled so you decide to download it. Operative sounds like a cool class and you get a lot of flashy attack powers so you grab it. You don't know that you need Tough and Weave to survive. You don't even know how power pools work, yet.

 

The Archetype has a BUNCH of Melee Attacks. Like 3-4 in the Primary and 2-4 in the secondary. So you grab them and run into melee and die. A Lot. Because you don't know that you -have- to do Tough and Weave and maybe Maneuvers and you're not high enough level to dip into the Ancillary Power Pools. You don't know that Scrappers and Stalkers have a separate powerset built on surviving, at this point. You just think you're doing it wrong.

 

So you try jumping to ranged between melee bursts. And that -kind- of works but you still wind up dying a lot 'cause you don't have a lot of ranged attacks, just 3-5, and eventually you have to go into melee. There's no Armor in this game to put on to get higher defenses. What gives? Why are you still dying?

 

How long are you going to keep running back from the hospital before you say "This is stupid" and either give up on the game or reroll to a new AT?

 

If you want the AT to fight in melee, jump to ranged, dive back into melee, you need to give them the tools to survive, there. Yeah Tough and Weave exist in the game and anyone can grab them, but they're meant to be options, not mandatory choices for baseline function.

[Replacement]

2 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

But I'm not talking about Power Pools and Ancillary Pools, here. I'm talking about the -BASELINE ARCHETYPE- and it's survivability. If you expect every player playing this AT to -need- Tough and Weave and other Defensive Powers that you're not giving them to survive...

I mean, I did say the flaw as I see it is that tough/weave become near-mandatory.  I mention these things not like I'm happy with them; I'm objective.  I see the flaws and seek ways to minimize them.  The purpose of discussing is to improve the final package; not to be right.

 

Just to answer the survivability questions: the game changed at 20 with the Sustain coming online.  And while, these days, I really notice (I'm 41 or so, btw) the +Absorb and love it, back at 20, it was really the Endurance boost that made me stop dying.

 

The Epics are obviously Epics.  They come online right as the game starts ratcheting up the challenge to match, and it would be the same here.  I honestly usually forget to tag things with Blasts for the -ToHit, but yeah, this is obviously a combination built for blapping.

 

Just to confirm, for those in the stands, what we have is:

 

1) A static stealth passive, an armor toggle, and a misc survival trick (self-heal, stealth toggle, limited mez protection, that sort of thing)

                                                  vs

2) A decaying power build up + stealth bar, a generous aoe placate, and a mez protection toggle (that may have some minor protections built in, in-line with Unyielding's roughly 5% resist buff)

 

Which makes me feel, again, like I need to head back to the drawing board and see if I can power budget some way to give them a somewhat decent Absorb Shield that builds out of combat.  The idea would be that, while Resistance lets you keep taking hits and reducing them, Absorb takes the damage once and tells you to get out of Dodge.

 

[Replacement]

Off-the-cuff resolution:

• Add segments to the Preparation bar.  Each segment gives +1 mez resistance.
• Pay for the power budget by removing the melee damage bonus from Preparation (much as I liked the incentive, it will basically be impossible to avoid melee attacks, and we can set the melee scale above their ranged.  Plus it makes it a little too much like a reverse-Fury).
• Use the armor toggle like @Steampunkette shows in her Projection powers at T1.
• T3/4 becomes the Misdirection move.
• I really like lists

We lose only a small amount of per-set identity (and for the record, I really did like seeing all the neat stuff you put in that spot), but I think it's a darling that can be killed to unite their gameplay expectations.  This starts them with some oomph, gives them a new AT trick right around the time they start to notice how much harder a Stalker hits, which should carry them until the Sustain truly starts setting them apart.

 

And assuming they lose the Bar pretty quickly, that means staying in close means losing the ability to leave (as their likelihood of getting locked down by mez increases).  This should put it more on par with what you could expect a Blaster to have that's using their +Mez protection ATO (which is to say, just enough to make you less annoyed at the game).

[Steampunkette]

1 minute ago, Replacement said:

Off-the-cuff resolution:

• Add segments to the Preparation bar.  Each segment gives +1 mez resistance.
• Pay for the power budget by removing the melee damage bonus from Preparation (much as I liked the incentive, it will basically be impossible to avoid melee attacks, and we can set the melee scale above their ranged.  Plus it makes it a little too much like a reverse-Fury).
• Use the armor toggle like @Steampunkette shows in her Projection powers at T1.
• T3/4 becomes the Misdirection move.
• I really like lists

We lose only a small amount of per-set identity (and for the record, I really did like seeing all the neat stuff you put in that spot), but I think it's a darling that can be killed to unite their gameplay expectations.  This starts them with some oomph, gives them a new AT trick right around the time they start to notice how much harder a Stalker hits, which should carry them until the Sustain truly starts setting them apart.

 

And assuming they lose the Bar pretty quickly, that means staying in close means losing the ability to leave (as their likelihood of getting locked down by mez increases).  This should put it more on par with what you could expect a Blaster to have that's using their +Mez protection ATO (which is to say, just enough to make you less annoyed at the game).

What does the Misdirection move -do- exactly?

 

PBAoE Placate? Create a Pseudopet to taunt/distract? 

 

There's been a lot of suggested Misdirections. We need to narrow it down to explicitly decide what it is.