Truly Unique Style Powersets

[Naraka]

What do you think of really unique powerset mechanics?  Just curious since I've been reading through some of the old powerset suggestions and a lot of them tend to stick to strict formulas.  Like melee sets tend to run the gamut of 3-5 ST attacks of varying power levels and/or secondary effects and 2-4 AoEs of varying varieties.  Some have ranged attacks too but the sets that stand out are Spines, Radiation and Staff Fighting which have self-anchor toggles that either change your powers or affect foes and Electric Melee which has a target placed AoE.

 

But what if a melee set had a foe-anchored toggle?

 

Or a blast set having multiple interruptible snipes?

 

Looking at buff sets, that is a really wild frontier with some sets having only buffs, some having only debuffs, some having foe anchored toggles, some having placed AoE debuffs, some having placed AoE buffs, and practically every mechanic available under the sun.  I guess it's still missing a Dual Pistols/Staff Fighting/Bio Armor-esque multi-mode set up to change what your buff powers are doing (imagine that in a buff set where you can choose to improve team efficiency or assist primarily to stay alive or a selfish-mode that's more aimed to keep you maybe a select single other teammate safe at the expense of stronger team-wide effects).

 

Or a control set that uses combos (I don't recall any control sets that utilize combo sequences or combo points)?

 

I was thinking of a concept for a blast set that had 1 extra interruptible attack and a "toggle" nuke that moreso triggered extra damage when struck by one of your other powers.  It's just you don't ever hear those kinds of suggestions ever which makes me assume people are just more interested in the well-worn and paved paths than things that are exploratory.  I liked the chaining effects of Shock Therapy, for example, but I think they pandered a bit too hard when they vastly increase the chain amount to make it "feel" like just any old AoE buff set.  Having to prioritize targets and sometimes use the same power multiple times to get every target you intended to should have been the direction to make the set feel truly unique.

[Replacement]

I've definitely noticed how all-over-the-place the Support sets are, and how there was clearly a double-standard between how far they could vary from baseline and, say, Blasts.  

 

Perhaps on a similar wavelength - I've often wondered about "debuff" armor sets for the melee classes, particularly Tanker (since they already ride that weird line of sort-of-Support).  Examples would be "Toxic Emission" as a retooled Radiation Emission, with the toggles made self-cast for the tanking melee ATs and retained as enemy-targeted for the other 3.  "Nether Miasma" or whatever you'd call it, with about half the Dark Miasma powers and a generous targeted AoE that debuffs Ranged damage or ToHit (to help survival until they're within your debuff auras).

 

I really do like the idea of a blaster set that has multiple snipes.  I think a lot of us have had characters that we made AR but grimaced, because we envisioned them more as slow and steady, and definitely not with flamethrowers.  Imagine a Snipe attack that has one charge-up but repeats the fire animation several times -- mechanically, a "Chain" attack shooting multiple nearby enemies.

 

Ok so all of my vehement agreement said, I feel like the Live developers hobbled the game by requiring each new set to one-up the previous ones with new gimmicks (and yet still strictly adhering to the structure of their sets, as you've mentioned).  I'd really like to see Homecoming prioritize low-hanging fruit above cleverness.  Example: I'm sure we'd be happy enough with Crossbows using some Beam Rifle and AR animations, even if mechanically it was basically a copy/paste of Archery.  Once some more obvious holes are filled (example: there should be at least one good fit for Natural origin characters per power set category), I'd love to see them push the limits.

 

About the Chain pandering: The original incarnation was basically a declaration that "I cannot party with Masterminds."  It would have set a pretty bad precedent.  They had to kill their darling to make a set that actually works in the confines of the game as it is actually played, and I applaud them for doing so.

[Naraka]

On 5/11/2020 at 6:36 PM, Replacement said:

Perhaps on a similar wavelength - I've often wondered about "debuff" armor sets for the melee classes, particularly Tanker (since they already ride that weird line of sort-of-Support).  Examples would be "Toxic Emission" as a retooled Radiation Emission, with the toggles made self-cast for the tanking melee ATs and retained as enemy-targeted for the other 3.  "Nether Miasma" or whatever you'd call it, with about half the Dark Miasma powers and a generous targeted AoE that debuffs Ranged damage or ToHit (to help survival until they're within your debuff auras).

I think there could be more variations than just that though, like rather than just standard "debuffs", why not a grant power ability that then infuses enemy skills with buffs that apply effects to you and your allies?  Sort of different from just standard debuffs or aura powers that just benefit the user.

 

Or another idea I had a long while back: an armor set made mostly out of passive abilities that created different bonuses depending on effects you are under.

 

On 5/11/2020 at 6:36 PM, Replacement said:

Ok so all of my vehement agreement said, I feel like the Live developers hobbled the game by requiring each new set to one-up the previous ones with new gimmicks (and yet still strictly adhering to the structure of their sets, as you've mentioned).  I'd really like to see Homecoming prioritize low-hanging fruit above cleverness.  Example: I'm sure we'd be happy enough with Crossbows using some Beam Rifle and AR animations, even if mechanically it was basically a copy/paste of Archery.  Once some more obvious holes are filled (example: there should be at least one good fit for Natural origin characters per power set category), I'd love to see them push the limits.

I don't mind low-hanging fruit either.  I think my issue is partly that as I make more characters, I'm noticing the similarities more than the differences and a lot of the suggested changes is pushing for more of that sameness.  

 

On 5/11/2020 at 6:36 PM, Replacement said:

About the Chain pandering: The original incarnation was basically a declaration that "I cannot party with Masterminds."  It would have set a pretty bad precedent.  They had to kill their darling to make a set that actually works in the confines of the game as it is actually played, and I applaud them for doing so.

I think that was covered by the smart prioritizing of the chain skills moving to players before pets.  At worst, it wouldn't be support not wanting to play with MMs because their chain skills would get diluted but rather MM players not wanting to team because they'd have trouble buffing all their pets since the buffs would skip over them and jump to players instead.  I think the set worked, it just didn't conform to the meta and now the set performs notably similar to a standard AoE buff set.