Super Strength on Scrappers

[Xion80]

19 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

A minor nitpick - no, Spider-Man is most definitely not on the "high end" of super strength levels.  Marvel puts him at maxing out in the 10 ton range.  That's putting him in the same strength range as Beast.  That's not even anywhere remotely close to characters like the Hulk, Thor, Hyperion, Sentry or Gladiator who are at the high-end of the scale. 

 

Totally agree Spider-Man is a scrapper though.

I see him as more of a stalker considering that damage they can put out with crits constantly.  He also be sneaking around. 

Edited Friday at 08:34 PM by Xion80

[Stormwalker]

2 minutes ago, biostem said:

Maybe what we need is an "enhanced strength" set for scrappers - exactly the same as SS, just renamed and with tweaked damage/recharge numbers, and possibly some other set/power mechanics...  😏

 

Probably drop Hand Clap, replace it with something else.  That's kind of a Superman/Hulk special.  Even most of the other characters being used as examples can't do that one.

Edited Friday at 08:34 PM by Stormwalker

[MisterMittens]

9 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

Yup.  Spider-Man isn't at the high end of the strength scale. He's never lifted skyscrapers by one corner or held entire planets together.

 

I don't remember that being in the SS powerset...

[biostem]

4 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

Probably drop Hand Clap, replace it with something else.

Maybe change hurl boulder into a slightly quicker to animate, but less damage ranged attack as well - like you throw a hyper-fast small rock instead...

[Stormwalker]

Just now, biostem said:

Maybe change hurl boulder into a slightly quicker to animate, but less damage ranged attack as well - like you throw a hyper-fast small rock instead...

 

Maybe, but that 10-20 times human strength range is perfectly capable of throwing big rocks.  Though, the idea of picking up a smaller rock and absolutely sending it at someone is very scrapper-like.

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

Maybe, but that 10-20 times human strength range is perfectly capable of throwing big rocks.  Though, the idea of picking up a smaller rock and absolutely sending it at someone is very scrapper-like.

Right - I was trying to think in terms or how a scrapper might employ super strength vs a tanker or brute - the former is more likely to throw a hubcap or wheel, while the latter would just launch the entire car, (even if they were capable of the feat) - purely from a stylistic choice...

[Stormwalker]

7 minutes ago, biostem said:

Right - I was trying to think in terms or how a scrapper might employ super strength vs a tanker or brute - the former is more likely to throw a hubcap or wheel, while the latter would just launch the entire car, (even if they were capable of the feat) - purely from a stylistic choice...

 

I mean, if they were willing to put in a new throw animation (probably a one-handed throw) for it, then you could do something like Propel, where it randomly generates an object from a list of possibles to throw.  Tire (or entire wheel), mid-sized rock, appliance, etc.

 

I don't know that they'd want to put in a new animation, though, and Hurl works just fine for a Scrapper.  It's a matter of how much work they wanted to put in on it.

 

My first impulse for how to implement an Enhanced Strength set would be to take SS, nerf Rage some, drop Hand Clap, and speed up the animations a bit so it's faster (which would fix the poor DPA with a nerfed Rage without requiring other adjustments).  The fact that Scrappers have a smaller AoE radius than Tankers automatically makes a Scrapper Foot Stomp weaker than the Tanker version without any other changes.

Edited Friday at 08:53 PM by Stormwalker
removed extra "animation" from sentence.

[Excraft]

19 minutes ago, MisterMittens said:

I don't remember that being in the SS powerset...

 

It isn't and I didn't say it was.  What I corrected was the assertion that Spider-Man is at the "high-end" of the super strength scale.  He isn't.  He never was.  I provided examples of character who are at the high-end of the strength scale for clarity.   

[Excraft]

24 minutes ago, Xion80 said:

I see him as more of a stalker considering that damage they can put out with crits constantly.  He also be sneaking around. 

 

I don't know if I'd say Spider-Man "sneaks around".  He's more super quick and agile with his reflexes so fast they border on precognition. 

[Stormwalker]

19 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

It isn't and I didn't say it was.  What I corrected was the assertion that Spider-Man is at the "high-end" of the super strength scale.  He isn't.  He never was.  I provided examples of character who are at the high-end of the strength scale for clarity.   

 

It should be noted that I wasn't really thinking of the cosmically strong types when I said that.  I mentally put them in a different category.  Though I recognize I didn't convey that very well.

 

I'll concede this point.

Edited Friday at 09:16 PM by Stormwalker

[Stormwalker]

11 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

I don't know if I'd say Spider-Man "sneaks around".  He's more super quick and agile with his reflexes so fast they border on precognition. 

 

Yep.  We may disagree on his primary, but I think we'd both agree that he's one of the prime examples of a Super Reflexes scrapper.

 

I'd say the Ur-Example, but there's probably someone else who came first that I'm forgetting.

Edited Friday at 09:09 PM by Stormwalker

[Xion80]

21 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

I don't know if I'd say Spider-Man "sneaks around".  He's more super quick and agile with his reflexes so fast they border on precognition. 

Lol, he sneaks everywhere! Movie, game, and comics! 

Edited Friday at 09:21 PM by Xion80

[biostem]

21 minutes ago, Excraft said:

I don't know if I'd say Spider-Man "sneaks around".  He's more super quick and agile with his reflexes so fast they border on precognition. 

Spiderman definitely leverages the element of surprise, or at the very least, misdirection, so while he's not assassinating people, he doesn't typically just stand there and slug it out, either...  One of the reasons I love the scrapper & sentinel versions of ninjitsu - it skirts that middle-ground!

Edited Friday at 09:19 PM by biostem

[Stormwalker]

1 minute ago, biostem said:

Spiderman definitely leverages the element of surprise, or at the very least, misdirection, so while he's not assassinating people, he doesn't typically just stand there and slug it out, either...  One of the reasons I love the scrapper & sentinel versions of ninjitsu - it skirts that middle-ground!

 

I wouldn't say that leveraging the element of surprise or misdirection is exclusive to Stalkers.  Stalkers specialize in it.  I don't think Spider-Man takes it far enough to call it a specialty.  In fact, I'd even say Batman is a scrapper rather than a stalker, and he uses stealth more than Spider-Man does.

 

Some of the Robins might be Stalkers, though (not Dick Grayson, though.  He's a Scrapper if ever there was one.  He enjoys the fight too much).

 

That's off-topic, though, so let me say something more relevant to the topic at hand:

 

One thing that did come to mind regarding the idea of a replacement for Hurl for an "Enhanced Strength" set... if you used a *small* object, like a handheld rock, and wanted to really launch it at someone, you might be able to steal the animation from Claws' Focus for it.  I'm not 100% sure you could - I'd have to go watch the animation again - but it always kinda reminded me of a wind-up and throw animation.  Maybe call the power "Fastball"?

[Stormwalker]

So... thoughts on an Enhanced Strength set for Scrappers (and Stalkers?  I don't see why not)

 

1. Starting with Jab, Punch, Haymaker, KO Blow - these would be faster animating versions of the SS attacks.  As such, their base DPA would be higher than the corresponding SS attacks.  This will be offset by the replacement for Rage later in the set.  Otherwise, unchanged.
2. Replace Hand Clap with one of the following (personally, I prefer the first one, as it's more thematic, but it would require a new animation):
   1. Hammer Strike - a single-target KD punch (an overhand punch to slam the enemy to the ground, or possibly a two-hand overhand strike)
   2. A cone similar to the one from Street Justice (but without the combo mechanic), but with KD instead of Disorient.  I don't have a name for this one yet.
3. Confront in place of Taunt, as expected with Scrapper sets.  Nobody will take it, of course.  Nobody ever does.
4. In place of Rage, one of the following:
   1. Hot Blood - basically, a weaker version of Rage.  Smaller buff, but also smaller crash or possibly no crash.  Possibly not able to be perma'd if no crash.  This suits Scrapper themes, as many (but not all) Scrappers are somewhat hot-blooded.  Exactly how much weaker can be tuned to obtain appropriate DPS with the faster animations for Jab/Punch/Haymaker/KO Blow
   2. Build Up - No explanation necessary.
5. In place of Hurl, one of the following:
   1. Hurl - given the same treatment as Jab, Punch, Haymaker, and KO Blow.  Faster animation.  Possibly a smaller rock.
   2. Fastball - much faster, lower damage, use the Claws "Focus" animation (maybe), throw a fist-sized rock at very high velocity.
6. In place of Foot Stomp:
   1. Crash - Jump up and hammer the ground with all your might.  Animation similar to Total Focus, but maybe less "floaty" (this may require jumping higher to get the activation time right).  Higher damage than Foot Stomp, but less KU (or maybe only KD, since we aren't Superman here).  Smaller radius than Foot Stomp.

Feedback is welcome.  If this gets enough interest/feedback, I might write it up as a fresh Suggestion, but I'd like to refine the ideas some first.

Edited Friday at 10:09 PM by Stormwalker

[megaericzero]

56 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

A cone similar to the one from Street Justice (but without the combo mechanic), but with KD instead of Disorient.  I don't have a name for this one yet.

Perhaps Waylay or Lariat, given SS' other attacks are named Jab, Punch, Haymaker, etc?

Edited Friday at 10:56 PM by megaericzero

[Excraft]

1 hour ago, Xion80 said:

Lol, he sneaks everywhere! Movie, game, and comics!

 

As do any number of other superheroes in the comics.  Even Iron Man has a "stealth armor" variant. 

[Vanden]

57 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

So... thoughts on an Enhanced Strength set for Scrappers (and Stalkers?  I don't see why not)

 

1. Starting with Jab, Punch, Haymaker, KO Blow - these would be faster animating versions of the SS attacks.  As such, their base DPA would be higher than the corresponding SS attacks.  This will be offset by the replacement for Rage later in the set.  Otherwise, unchanged.
2. Replace Hand Clap with one of the following (personally, I prefer the first one, as it's more thematic, but it would require a new animation):
   1. Hammer Strike - a single-target KD punch (an overhand punch to slam the enemy to the ground, or possibly a two-hand overhand strike)
   2. A cone similar to the one from Street Justice (but without the combo mechanic), but with KD instead of Disorient.  I don't have a name for this one yet.
3. Confront in place of Taunt, as expected with Scrapper sets.  Nobody will take it, of course.  Nobody ever does.
4. In place of Rage, one of the following:
   1. Hot Blood - basically, a weaker version of Rage.  Smaller buff, but also smaller crash or possibly no crash.  Possibly not able to be perma'd if no crash.  This suits Scrapper themes, as many (but not all) Scrappers are somewhat hot-blooded.  Exactly how much weaker can be tuned to obtain appropriate DPS with the faster animations for Jab/Punch/Haymaker/KO Blow
   2. Build Up - No explanation necessary.
5. In place of Hurl, one of the following:
   1. Hurl - given the same treatment as Jab, Punch, Haymaker, and KO Blow.  Faster animation.  Possibly a smaller rock.
   2. Fastball - much faster, lower damage, use the Claws "Focus" animation (maybe), throw a fist-sized rock at very high velocity.
6. In place of Foot Stomp:
   1. Crash - Jump up and hammer the ground with all your might.  Animation similar to Total Focus, but maybe less "floaty" (this may require jumping higher to get the activation time right).  Higher damage than Foot Stomp, but less KU (or maybe only KD, since we aren't Superman here).  Smaller radius than Foot Stomp.

Feedback is welcome.  If this gets enough interest/feedback, I might write it up as a fresh Suggestion, but I'd like to refine the ideas some first.

 

What you've come up with here is an entirely new set. If you put this on Scrappers and Stalkers, you've basically satisfied no one, because the players who want Super Strength on Scrappers and Stalkers still wouldn't have Super Strength, and the players who'd want this set on Brutes and Tankers are also left out in the cold.

 

If Super Strength gets ported to Scrappers and Stalkers, it won't have Rage, but otherwise it'll still be Super Strength.

[Stormwalker]

6 minutes ago, Vanden said:

 

What you've come up with here is an entirely new set. If you put this on Scrappers and Stalkers, you've basically satisfied no one, because the players who want Super Strength on Scrappers and Stalkers still wouldn't have Super Strength, and the players who'd want this set on Brutes and Tankers are also left out in the cold.

 

If Super Strength gets ported to Scrappers and Stalkers, it won't have Rage, but otherwise it'll still be Super Strength.

 

I wouldn't be unhappy with SS being ported to Scrappers and Stalkers, as I've said.  With or without Rage.

 

But there are a lot of people who seem to have vociferous objections to this (see the rest of this thread).

 

The idea of this proposal was to produce something they wouldn't object to but would still satisfy my desire to have a Scrapper who has superhuman strength.

[Xion80]

56 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

As do any number of other superheroes in the comics.  Even Iron Man has a "stealth armor" variant. 

How many times we've seen Spiderman lead with a crit attack on bank robbers? How many times he's lead with a joke while hanging upside down between goons he just snuck up on? How many times he's interrupted evil villains schemes in the same sneaky fashion? This is common knowledge, so bringing up Ironman stealth suit means absolutely nothing, as it doesn't refute my statement. Spiderman creeps around.

Edited Friday at 11:53 PM by Xion80

[MisterMittens]

2 hours ago, Stormwalker said:

1. Starting with Jab, Punch, Haymaker, KO Blow - these would be faster animating versions of the SS attacks.  As such, their base DPA would be higher than the corresponding SS attacks.  This will be offset by the replacement for Rage later in the set.  Otherwise, unchanged.
2. Replace Hand Clap with one of the following (personally, I prefer the first one, as it's more thematic, but it would require a new animation):
   1. Hammer Strike - a single-target KD punch (an overhand punch to slam the enemy to the ground, or possibly a two-hand overhand strike)
   2. A cone similar to the one from Street Justice (but without the combo mechanic), but with KD instead of Disorient.  I don't have a name for this one yet.
3. Confront in place of Taunt, as expected with Scrapper sets.  Nobody will take it, of course.  Nobody ever does.
4. In place of Rage, one of the following:
   1. Hot Blood - basically, a weaker version of Rage.  Smaller buff, but also smaller crash or possibly no crash.  Possibly not able to be perma'd if no crash.  This suits Scrapper themes, as many (but not all) Scrappers are somewhat hot-blooded.  Exactly how much weaker can be tuned to obtain appropriate DPS with the faster animations for Jab/Punch/Haymaker/KO Blow
   2. Build Up - No explanation necessary.
5. In place of Hurl, one of the following:
   1. Hurl - given the same treatment as Jab, Punch, Haymaker, and KO Blow.  Faster animation.  Possibly a smaller rock.
   2. Fastball - much faster, lower damage, use the Claws "Focus" animation (maybe), throw a fist-sized rock at very high velocity.
6. In place of Foot Stomp:
   1. Crash - Jump up and hammer the ground with all your might.  Animation similar to Total Focus, but maybe less "floaty" (this may require jumping higher to get the activation time right).  Higher damage than Foot Stomp, but less KU (or maybe only KD, since we aren't Superman here).  Smaller radius than Foot Stomp.

 

Something like this is what I envisioned when I first created the thread, it's not too different from regular super strength and addresses most of the reservations people had about super strength on scrappers.

 

I'd also suggest that another possibility is that rage could be a smaller passive increase to toHit and Damage though I have always liked the risk/reward of rage so I'd prefer what you described as my ideal solution.

[Uncle Shags]

I just want to clarify, because there's been a few references here to "double rage crash".  People are just referring to crash twice as often, not double the penalties, correct?  Because the way I understand it double stacked rage just gives the 10 second crash every 60 seconds instead of 120.  There is no doubled up -40% defense crash.  Maybe no one has suggested that, but that's the way it read to me. 

[Kaika]

I'm sure it will get ported eventually.

 

Not that it's bad but I feel like super strength is one of the most overrated sets in the game, I don't even think it would be OP if directly ported to scrapper and stalker right now. Sure rage is strong but outside of Foot stomp and Knockout blow, which are both just a bit above average, the rest of the sets attacks are ok at best, terrible at worst. Even with and power/epic pools you would likely struggle to put together a high DPS rotation, while other sets have little issue. Rage is really the only thing that keeps it relevant and even thats not really that big of a deal outside of solo play with things like Kinetic support existing. Sets like claws can already reach comparable +DMG numbers with better attacks. Do I think it would be bad on scrapper? Far from it, but I doubt it would be better then the current top end. On stalker, unless the attacks get buffed, it would be likely bad to lower middle of the pack at best, as losing rage for BU would could the set to be pretty under-powered.

 

My guess for the reason this isn't getting ported is specifically because they are planing to rework the set. Why go through all the work of porting a set to another AT if you are just gonna have to go back and change it all. The team is volunteering their time, so time saving measures like "proliferate the set as you rework it so you only have to do it once" seems like something that would make sense.

Edited yesterday at 05:53 AM by Kaika

[Stormwalker]

22 minutes ago, Kaika said:

I'm sure it will get ported eventually.

 

Not that it's bad but I feel like super strength is one of the most overrated sets in the game, I don't even think it would be OP if directly ported to scrapper and stalker right now. Sure rage is strong but outside of Foot stomp and Knockout blow, which are both just a bit above average, the rest of the sets attacks are ok at best, terrible at worst. Even with and power/epic pools you would likely struggle to put together a high DPS rotation, while other sets have little issue. Rage is really the only thing that keeps it relevant and even thats not really that big of a deal outside of solo play with things like Kinetic support existing. Sets like claws can already reach comparable +DMG numbers with better attacks. Do I think it would be bad on scrapper? Far from it, but I doubt it would be better then the current top end. On stalker, unless the attacks get buffed, it would be likely bad to lower middle of the pack at best, as losing rage for BU would could the set to be pretty under-powered.

 

My guess for the reason this isn't getting ported is specifically because they are planing to rework the set. Why go through all the work of porting a set to another AT if you are just gonna have to go back and change it all. The team is volunteering their time, so time saving measures like "proliferate the set as you rework it so you only have to do it once" seems like something that would make sense.

 

The thing with SS is that, well... outside of Rage, the set is honestly not very good (well, it has a lot of potential mitigation in Hand Clap and Foot Stomp, but as an offense set it's pretty weak without Rage).  However, Rage is blatantly, hilariously, overpowered.  It makes an otherwise subpar set pretty good all by itself.  I mean, as I've noted, my Inv/SS Tanker at level 28 has better damage output than some of my Scrappers did at that level, while also being vastly tougher.  When I copied her over to Brainstorm the other day, made her level 50, and filled out her full build plan?  She had far better damage output than she ought to for how tough she was.  And I didn't even proc her out much; her new build plan is based on one of Infinitum's, and it's far more defensive than offensive.  But when Rage is double-stacked, nothing else matters, she crushes everything effortlessly.  It's like playing a Scrapper with Tanker defenses.

 

Personally, I think the reason we never got SS for Scrappers on Live is the Devs didn't want to touch the bear trap that is Rage.  Because if they reworked/nerfed Rage, a lot of players would get very mad.  But they didn't want to just put a band-aid on it by giving Scrappers a modified SS without Rage, either.  So they just kept kicking that can further down the road so they didn't have to deal with it.

 

I think the HC devs will probably address it eventually.  But I suspect (to be clear, I do not have any inside information; this is just conjecture on my part) they're not in a great hurry to do so, because any decision they make will be unpopular with some portion of the player base, and there are plenty of other things on their to-do list which will be more well-received.

 

[Excraft]

7 hours ago, Xion80 said:

How many times we've seen Spiderman lead with a crit attack on bank robbers? How many times he's lead with a joke while hanging upside down between goons he just snuck up on? How many times he's interrupted evil villains schemes in the same sneaky fashion? This is common knowledge, so bringing up Ironman stealth suit means absolutely nothing, as it doesn't refute my statement. Spiderman creeps around.

 

Actually, yes it does refute your statement.  Why else would Iron Man build and use an armor designed specifically for stealth?  Yes, Spider-Man does creep around some of the time.  Other times he attacks head on, just like many other characters.  They'll all use stealth when the situation calls for it and its advantageous.