Some Archetype observations and thinking

[PartyKake]

Out of the archetypes we have:

Melee/Armor

• Brute/Scrapper/Stalker

Control/Support

• Controller

Control/Assault

• Dominator

Ranged/Blasting

• Blaster

Ranged/Support

• Corruptor

Pets/Support

• Mastermind

Armor/Melee

• Tanker

Support/Ranged

• Defender

Ranged/Armor (the new guy)

• Sentinel

 

Looking at this from one point of view (just because), I see this as 4 main primary powersets: Melee/Ranged/Control/Pets, two secondary powersets in Armor and Support (and two classes that deliberatly swap secondary powersets with primary as part of their identity) and two specialty sets in Blasting and assault which help to define classes meant to be more aggressive.

 

That gives us some unused combinations without getting into weird new territory.

 

What do you think these would be called?

Melee/Support

• Guardian? Paladin?

Control/Armor

• Jailer? Oppressor?

Pets/Armor

• Captain?

Pets/Assault/Blasting* (specialty more focused on offense than armor/support)

• Insurgent?

Pets/Control* (specialty more focused on holds/some aggression)

• Overseer?

 

It's kinda fun trying to visualize combinations that might be available under this.

 

Fire Control/Fiery Aura sounds fun.

Beasts/Bio Armor...

Ninjas/Devices?

War Mace/Pain Domination...

Edited April 21, 2020 by PartyKake
defender typo

[Grouchybeast]

I'd describe Blasters as Ranged/Melee/Control.  The manipulation secondaries are largely a mix of melee attacks and controls/debuffs, along with some self-buffs.  Hard to classify, really.

[Doc_Scorpion]

Defenders are support/melee?

[Silverado]

Aren't Melee/Support Bane Spiders and Nightwidows? And Fortunatas kind of fill the Control/Armor role.

[TheOtherTed]

10 hours ago, PartyKake said:

Pets/Armor

I gotta be honest - I couldn't think of a more boring combination, but then I never play MMs anyway.

 

Is pet control dynamic enough to keep that interesting?  If not, how would you spice that up?

 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by TheOtherTed
Too short and too mean

[Oubliette_Red]

9 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Defenders are support/melee?

That's news to my Kin/Archery Defender.

[Coyote]

5 minutes ago, Oubliette_Red said:

That's news to my Kin/Archery Defender.

 

Wait, you've been SHOOTING the arrows at the enemies? There's your mistake, you're supposed to STAB them with the arrows. In melee. 🤣

[Oubliette_Red]

Just now, Coyote said:

 

Wait, you've been SHOOTING the arrows at the enemies? There's your mistake, you're supposed to STAB them with the arrows. In melee. 🤣

That or bows are the New Katanas.

[Fire Chief]

 

37 minutes ago, Oubliette_Red said:

That or bows are the New Katanas.

Sent archer taking the ninja tool mastery in the epic pool 😛

[Without_Pause]

2 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

I gotta be honest - I couldn't think of a more boring combination, but then I never play MMs anyway.

 

Is pet control dynamic enough to keep that interesting?  If not, how would you spice that up?

 

 

No to your first question. Considering the number of MMs rolled which hit 50, I think we would have a new leader in terms of builds which never make it to 50.

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

Is pet control dynamic enough to keep that interesting?  If not, how would you spice that up?

 

I'd have to assume it would be a hybrid defense/melee attack set, but... eh.

[PartyKake]

Corrected the obvious defender typo, thanks everyone.

 

I would think that for the other pet classes they'd get different pet options available to them, probably pets that pull enemies into melee with you so that you could be the tank, in the case of /armor. maybe a taunt aura so that you could really tankermind without worrying about your pets flopping over as soon as they get into combat with DUST

[The Bobby Llama]

Many years ago, I jotted down my own ideas for City of Heroes 2, which would have featured mix-and-match ATs.  Those old notes are very incomplete, but here's the names I came up with for some of your combos:

16 hours ago, PartyKake said:

Control/Armor

• Didn't have one yet for Control/Armor, but its mirror AT, Armor/Control, was Warden.

Pets/Armor

• Overseer.

Pets/Assault/Blasting* (specialty more focused on offense than armor/support)

• Commander.  The Pets/Melee AT would be Warlord.

Pets/Control* (specialty more focused on holds/some aggression)

• Manipulator.  Its mirror AT, Control/Pets, would be Puppetmaster.

For those curious how my idea for CoH2 would have worked:

Spoiler

This was just a rough draft, so keep in mind there are plenty of things that weren't accounted for.

1. You pick your desired primary and secondary sets, and that determines your AT (HP, damage/defense scalars, etc.).  Primary/secondary combos need to have at least one set capable of offense, so armor/support combos are invalid.
2. No more power pools.  Instead, you can give up some powers in your secondary in exchange for powers from any other set.  (But remember they will still be subject to AT modifiers.)
3. Travel powers are their own separate thing in the build, like how Champions Online does it.

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by The Bobby Llama

[PartyKake]

ooh, that's pretty sweet.

 

also, I do like the idea of having another AT with armor as the primary.

[Sakura Tenshi]

I feel like the only ones mechanically viable of those would be pets/control (and that's from personal experience when I made a thugs/mind AV in AE, so NPC modifiers might affect it), everything else seems like it's either going to be a slog to play or extremely difficult to make functional without making them overpowered as possible. Even Pets/Armor which might be a cool idea suffers because MM pets are weak as hell without constant support of a support secondary (or in the case of the example I mentioned: enemy offense being negated via hard controls). This is a bit of a shame since I'd love to otherwise do a staff/nature affinity character (THE ARCHDRUID!)

 

Now, admittedly, this is just thinking about the powersets as they are, it could be viable if the powersets were tweaked a bit, and some might need to be to avoid redundancies with some of the other sets they get paired with, and then there's how their inherent power and modifiers might play out. (melee/support might be more helpful if they had tanker mods for self-defense and self-resistance, making Epic pools and power pools that much more helpful.)

[Twisted Toon]

On 4/21/2020 at 12:55 PM, The Bobby Llama said:

Many years ago, I jotted down my own ideas for City of Heroes 2, which would have featured mix-and-match ATs.  Those old notes are very incomplete, but here's the names I came up with for some of your combos:

For those curious how my idea for CoH2 would have worked:

  Reveal hidden contents

This was just a rough draft, so keep in mind there are plenty of things that weren't accounted for.

1. You pick your desired primary and secondary sets, and that determines your AT (HP, damage/defense scalars, etc.).  Primary/secondary combos need to have at least one set capable of offense, so armor/support combos are invalid.
2. No more power pools.  Instead, you can give up some powers in your secondary in exchange for powers from any other set.  (But remember they will still be subject to AT modifiers.)
3. Travel powers are their own separate thing in the build, like how Champions Online does it.

 

My thoughts on a CoH 2 would be more along the lines of a modular design for character creation.

 

You's start with a baseline. Each AT would add different bonuses and drawbacks to the baseline making them similar, in effect, to what they are now.

 

Then, you'd pick Primary and Secondary power-sets. From pretty much the entire list of set across all current ATs. Which will gain buffs and de-buffs based off the AT that was chosen. Yes, that means you could have an Electric Armor/Electric Blast Tank, a Dark Melee/Force Field Blaster, a Mind-control/Ninja Training Brute, etc.

 

The thing that separates the ATs from each other is the inherent bonuses and power-set buffs/de-buffs that come with the ATs themselves.

 

This would reduce the "duplication" of power-sets, making it easier to actually balance them among themselves. While, at the same time, making it easier to balance the ATs among themselves. Because there wouldn't be a Tanker Dark Melee power-set, a Scrapper Dark Melee power-set and a Brute Dark Melee set.

 

Really about the only issue I see as a real problem child, would be the Stalkers. Since they have an Assassin Strike power in their sets and no one else does. Although, I could see the Snipe subbing for that with the Ranged Combat power-sets. Not to say that there wouldn't be other issues...some would probably use the self gimping by getting an Armor and Buff combo as an issue.

 

Of course, I didn't really get in depth with the theoretical design for this...was just a thought back during issue 6 or 7. I'm sure Arcanaville could find loads of problems with it. (then come up with solutions to those problems, most likely.)

[ABlueThingy]

I have had a number of ideas that reeaaally scream for some kind of melee set to be paired with support.  Even just something like Dominator assault sets ported over.

[Replacement]

At some point I envisioned 4 ATs to represent "Gold-side" (with Sentinel as the 5th).  My thinking was you could sort of map the AT groups to Starcraft concepts (emphasis on concepts, people who played competitively know this falls apart): Blue ATs are like Protoss - Strong and unified, focused on stability and survival.  Red ATs are like Zerg - disposable numbers plus nefarious tactics.  So the Gold side would be like Terran - technical and relying on tactics that stagger and break overwhelming forces.

 

In addition to Sentinel and an obligatory melee/support AT, I also envisioned a Manipulation/Pets AT with fewer pets and a support-heavy passive, the Operative (Assault/Manipulation), and finally the Disruptor: an Armor/Control tank that's less hardy and more... well.. disruptive.  It relied on the T1 control to "detonate" control effects, which is why I needed Control to be the secondary. 

 

The Disruptor concept actually clicked really well but I never got around to posting the full version because... well, what's the point?  If we're going to get a new AT, it... should really be Support (be it paired with Manipulation or Melee).

[Clave Dark 5]

On 4/21/2020 at 6:12 AM, TheOtherTed said:

I gotta be honest - I couldn't think of a more boring combination, but then I never play MMs anyway.

 

Is pet control dynamic enough to keep that interesting?

So this is an unbiased question then.  =D

[TheOtherTed]

10 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

So this is an unbiased question then.  =D

Of course not, but the proposal is interesting nonetheless.  Would you be satisfied with a pet/armor combo?  If yes, what would be the appeal?  If no, what would work better?  For example, would Greycat's suggestion (a hybrid armor/melee secondary) be enough?

 

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by TheOtherTed
word choice

[PartyKake]

The problem with a hybrid armor/melee powerset is that the armor powersets have their armor already split into multiple parts for balance purposes and practicality.

 

you usually have your generic armors (smashing lethal etc) in one armor, you have some more exotic (heat cold energy etc) in another, and then maybe you have the status effect armor in a third power. then there might be an aoe taunt + damage or status effect, a couple passives, and that leaves you maybe three slots for attacks, and that's if you remove the heals, the resist or status condition defense boosters, and the activatable powers or rezzes.

 

If you combine some of those together you instantly make that version of the powerset a lot more appealing than the other armor sets.

If you strip some away, you might make the powerset completely useless by denying it a critical resist or function.

 

That being said it would be really cool to have some sort of elemental pets to go along with fiery aura or ice armor. You could cram 3 elemental melee powers into your pet sets, and that character would work like a tankermind that goes in, absorbs the aggro, and lets their pets do the damage while they endure. You could even modify the pet scaling such that the tier 3 pet is immune to damage but doesn't quite have the same damage output of the normal "mastermind" pets. This solidifies your role as that of a bizarre tank for your group that has lots of moving parts.

Edited April 25, 2020 by PartyKake

[Peacemoon]

I keep thinking you could just add the melee sets to Defenders and Corrupters, for them to choose alongside the blasts. Aslong as the damage numbers were the same, it might be fun. I don't think you need a new AT for that.

I mean, my Rad Defender can go toe to toe with any boss thanks to debuffs, and there are lots of examples of that. Its trickier than ranged blasting but would be doable and fun. 

[ArchVileTerror]

Which Defender Blast Set gets the Broadsword, then?  What if I don't want the Blasts that come with the Broadsword?

That's the whole point, isn't it?  Character themes?  Support/Melee is a popular suggestion not because people want some min-max'y monster of a powerhouse.  They want to complete their character concepts in a more fulfilling and accurate manner.

I know people complain about Sentinels underperforming, but they're still a great Archetype that brings a LOT to the table for roleplay potential.  

[Peacemoon]

22 minutes ago, ArchVileTerror said:

Which Defender Blast Set gets the Broadsword, then?  What if I don't want the Blasts that come with the Broadsword?

That's the whole point, isn't it?  Character themes?  Support/Melee is a popular suggestion not because people want some min-max'y monster of a powerhouse.  They want to complete their character concepts in a more fulfilling and accurate manner.

I know people complain about Sentinels underperforming, but they're still a great Archetype that brings a LOT to the table for roleplay potential.  

Well you could go Storm/Electric Blast or Storm/Broad Sword. Didn’t mean anything more than that to be honest. Not sure what you’d do with the taunt skill, but otherwise as long as they had defender modifiers...!

[macskull]

Other servers have Guardians (Assault/Support with some modifications) and they're pretty reasonable. Too bad we got Sentinels instead...