New Power Set: Wild Inspiration (Defender Primary)

[AgentForest]

I was thinking about how there are several sets that have different "modes" to switch between, like Dual Pistols, Bio Armor, and Staff Fighting, but there wasn't a support set operating the same way.  So I came up with one.  These powers could probably be rearranged, but I tried to match the general pacing of other sets, having "Adaptation" or "Swap Ammo" come toward the middle of the set.  I also really wanted a support set that didn't feel like magic, technology, or over the top "super."  Something to match Savage Melee, Beast Mastery, and Archery as more natural origin sets, but something uniquely for supporting teams.

 

Wild Inspiration

(Defender Primary, Controller/MM/Corruptor Secondary)

 

1. Hunter's Mark: You mark a single enemy, debuffing most of their stats a small amount.  Damage, ToHit, Defense, Resistance, Recharge, and Regeneration.  These debuffs are all rather small unless you have a Wild Tactic in effect.  If Pack Tactics is active, the target is singled out for hunting, lowering Defense, Resistance, and Regeneration significantly.  Whenever you or an ally damage the target, they take some minor lethal damage-over-time (stacking).  If Herd Tactics is active, the target is singled out as a threat to the rest of the team, granting awareness of the danger, and lowering the enemy's Damage, ToHit, and Recharge by a far greater amount.  Whenever you or an ally attack the target, the attacker gains a weak heal-over-time (stacking).  If Survival Tactics is active, the debuffs remain small, but you personally take vastly reduced damage from the target, and deal far more damage to them. 
2. Mighty Roar: You inspire nearby teammates with boosted Speed, Recharge, Damage, and Resistance.  These buffs are small, but increase based on which Wild Tactic is in effect.  Pack Tactics increases the Speed, Recharge, and Damage boost.  Herd Tactics increases the Resistance boost, and causes a heal-over-time effect.  Survival Tactics increases all of the effects, but only applies them to you (including the heal-over-time from Herd Tactics).  This boost only lasts a short time, but is usable fairly often, like Temporal Mending.
3. Establish Territory: Location PBAoE that creates an area that buffs allies inside.  This would work much like Faraday Cage, dropping an area for several minutes that only has a 10 second cooldown or so, allowing it to be repositioned often but not constantly.  This grants a small boost to Defense, Resistance, ToHit, Damage, Recharge, Recovery, and Regeneration while inside.  Under Pack Tactics, the Damage, ToHit, Recharge, and Recovery boosts are larger.  Under Herd Tactics, the Defense, Resistance, Recovery, and Regeneration boosts are larger.  Under Survival Tactics, the boosts are all stronger, but only for the caster.  Everyone else gets the weaker buffs.
4. Wild Tactics: Picking this power grants you access to 3 "stance" toggles to modify your other moves.  I could see possibly moving this to the first power selection, but then each toggle would need to do something of its own, outside of altering other powers, otherwise it would be useless at level 1.  Not that people are level 1 for long.
   1. Pack Tactics: Toggle that increases offensive prowess of the team.
   2. Herd Tactics: Toggle that increases defensive prowess of the team.
   3. Survival Tactics: Toggle that allows the user to focus on themself in a time of crisis.
5. Instinctive Bond: Toggle that links you and a single ally, granting them increased stats based on which Wild Tactic is active.  Pack Tactics grants Damage and ToHit.  Enemies near the target also have reduced Defense.  Herd Tactics grants Regeneration and a steady trickle of Absorption over time.  The regeneration is granted in a small aura around the target, but the Absorb shield is only for the bonded target.  Survival Tactics gives this person increased Threat, while lowering your own Threat generation and granting the caster Regeneration and a steady trickle of Absorption.  It also causes both you and the bonded target to lower the damage of all enemies around yourselves, and if you damage an enemy, they are marked for bonus damage from the bonded ally, consuming the mark.
6. Cornered: Grant someone an absorb shield.  If Pack Tactics is active, the ally gains a large boost to Damage and Recovery.  If Herd Tactics is active, the ally gains a larger shield, with a bonus based on how much HP they're missing, and a Regeneration buff.  If Survival Tactics is active, you gain the absorb shield as well as the ally, but they get no further bonuses, while you gain Damage, Regeneration, and Recovery.  If you have no ally to target, this effect will still be cast on yourself, but only if you have Survival Tactics active.
7. Alertness: A toggle allowing you to hone your senses and alert your allies to enemies.  This grants a bonus to ToHit and Perception for you and nearby allies.  If Pack Tactics is active, the ToHit bonus is larger.  If Herd Tactics is active, the Perception bonus is larger, and the move also provides basic Stealth (does not stack with other stealths, blah blah).  If Survival Tactics is active, the ToHit and Perception bonuses are small for others but large for you, and you gain significant stealth, as you are aware of enemy line of sight and can keep to the shadows.
8. Posturing: Grant yourself and your ally a buff based on which Wild Tactics are active.  This effect will remain EVEN IF you change your tactics, basing the buff on the toggle active at the time of casting Posturing.  Pack Tactics grants Damage, Recharge, and ToHit.  Herd Tactics grants Defense, Resistance, and Regeneration.  Survival Tactics grant you and only you Recharge, Recovery, Regeneration, and Resistance.
9. Tooth and Nail: PBAoE Toggle that grants weak but stacking bonuses to allies around your character.  Under Pack Tactics, every time an ally in range attacks or is attacked by a target, they gain a small, stacking bonus to Damage for a short time.  If an enemy dies within this area, allies gain additional Damage stacks.  Under Herd Tactics, every time an ally attacks, they gain a small amount of Absorption, and every time they are attacked, they gain a small amount of Resistance.  If an enemy dies within this area, allies heal over time (stacking).  If an ally dies within this area, remaining allies gain more Absorption and some Defense.  Under Survival Tactics, any time an ally takes damage, you personally gain Damage.  Any time you take damage, gain Regeneration.  Any time you attack an enemy, gain Damage and a small amount of Absorption.  If an enemy dies within this area, gain additional Damage stacks and a heal over time (stacking).

[MTeague]

I like the concept, the power names, and the stances. 

And I like that it's modestly flexible. About the only origin I can't justify off the top of my head is Technology.

• Character could be a magical hunter, or a primal spirit,
• or it could be just a very skilled outdoorsman, paired with either Archery or even Assault Rifle.  
• or the product of an "Isle of Doctor Moreau" twisted experiment for science
• mutant senses cover pretty much anything you handwave

 

I do wonder if it's.... too busy.  Buffing too many things, debuffing too many things. 

That said, I also appreciate that you specfically did not list numerical %'s.  Devs would need to tweak any such numbers anyway.

 

I guess all in all, mark me down as cautious approval.

[Steampunkette]

This kind of powerset would inspire me to make a "Savage Lands" team.

 

Savage/Bio Stalker, Shadow/Savage Dominator, Plant/Nature Controller, Savage/Bio Brute, Wild/Sonic Defender, and a Beast Mastery/Nature or Beast Mastery/Wild MM.

 

Tun everywhere we fight into a Jungle and prowl in it.

[AgentForest]

21 hours ago, MTeague said:

I do wonder if it's.... too busy.  Buffing too many things, debuffing too many things. 

That said, I also appreciate that you specfically did not list numerical %'s.  Devs would need to tweak any such numbers anyway.

 

Yeah, I was cautious of giving exact numbers to things, as this set has so many small boosts all piled up that it would probably need playtesting to figure out amounts.

That said, yes, I wanted it to be a very broad support set that can tweak how well it does something in particular.  Bio Armor is also similarly complex, with some powers doing new things if a different Adaptation is active, but usually just changing the values of existing effects.  So I ran with that idea.  It's definitely complicated, and I can't fault the devs if this is a bit too much for a fan-made set, but I know that mechanically, it could be done, and it would need very few new assets, if any.  But it would be a pretty large undertaking for any programmer, heh.

[HelBlaiz]

I love the idea of the set having a couple team support modes as well as a solo mode. Number balancing would be tricky, but that just means some more time on beta. A few of the mechanics sound like they'd need some custom coding, specifically the Survival tactics ability to make a target less dangerous to you and only you. The game doesn't really have that sort of mechanic in place.

[Captain Paragon]

Count me in I love the idea of the set theme the complexities of powers give me another reason to make a troller or fender. Definitely sign me up on this one! Great work. Dark/Wild already got some characters I could remake for it. 

Edited April 27, 2021 by Captain Paragon

[Steampunkette]

5 hours ago, HelBlaiz said:

I love the idea of the set having a couple team support modes as well as a solo mode. Number balancing would be tricky, but that just means some more time on beta. A few of the mechanics sound like they'd need some custom coding, specifically the Survival tactics ability to make a target less dangerous to you and only you. The game doesn't really have that sort of mechanic in place.

OH! Yeah.

 

That doesn't work at -all-. No way for it to function in the CoH Engine without designing a whole new system.

[AgentForest]

On 4/26/2021 at 5:06 PM, HelBlaiz said:

I love the idea of the set having a couple team support modes as well as a solo mode.

 

Yeah, my inspiration for this was how Dual Pistols and Bio-Armor have toggles that may not be as useful to all classes in all situations.

A Defender won't get a lot of scaling out of Incendiary Ammo, but at least it's there when they need it.  Their Chemical Ammo damage debuff will be pretty solid though.  A Blaster's Chemical Ammo won't be that impressive, but at least it's available to them.

A Stalker may not care to use Defensive Adaptation much, if ever.  But at least it's there if it's needed when soloing, or if the tank dies and aggro is all over the place.  A Tanker will love Defensive Adaptation, but if their team has a lot of buffs from supports, they may just switch to Offensive Adaptation and be just fine.  But it normally won't help with their role.  The whole point is that the versatility is there.

So for a support set, I tried to figure out what a support would try to do.  On the one hand, they help the team survive, so Herd Tactics came to mind.  They also tend to help defeat enemies, and I incorporated a Pack Tactics toggle.  Then I was like, "What would the third toggle be?"  Something more situational, meant to help you when other strategies may not be working.  Like a Stalker switching to Defensive when the tank is down, what would a support do?  Panic mode.  Focus on keeping themselves alive so they can fall back and maybe teleport the team to safety after they get out.  Or maybe when they're the only one left and they're backed into a corner, they just have to fight it out.  So I built the Survival Tactics idea around a support cutting off the foot to save the body, lol.  They start focusing on themselves when threatened.  This could also be used for soloing, opening up some fun options.

[AgentForest]

On 4/24/2021 at 11:59 PM, MTeague said:

About the only origin I can't justify off the top of my head is Technology.

 

For Technology Origin, I feel like you could theme the set around being a battlefield commander, using shouts, targeting optics, recon, leadership, communications, and other utilities to enhance your team's effectiveness.  You could theme the bond with an ally as a "brothers in arms" sort of thing.  Not as blatantly obvious as the other origins, but definitely workable.

[AgentForest]

On 4/26/2021 at 10:28 PM, Steampunkette said:

No way for it to function in the CoH Engine without designing a whole new system.

 

Well, the only thing that would be challenging would be Survival Tactics + Hunters Mark that changes how much a single enemy does to you specifically.  But we already have a mechanic essentially doing this, though indirectly:

Mastermind Pet Defensive Stance

Whenever an enemy attacks you while your pets are in Defensive Stance, a portion of that damage (based on the number of nearby Defensive pets) is immediately removed and stored in a buffer variable.  This damage reduction is ONLY for you (not when those enemies attack your pets or other players).  Then, the amount of damage stored in that buffer variable is divided among nearby Defensive pets.  (NOTE: This is partially speculation on my part, as the mechanic, code-wise, could just be that each pet is subtracting a set percentage of damage from enemy attacks onto itself, but mathematically the result of each pet in Defensive taking a set percentage away from the damage and giving it to itself is the same as just dividing the damage stored among all Defensive pets equally.  Either way it's coded, both algorithms could be repurposed for this mechanic.)  You could essentially just steal from that algorithm.  Mark an enemy, and if they attack you, a portion of that damage is whisked away to... nowhere.  Coding-wise, have a buffer like for MM Defensive Stance where the damage reduction is stored, but don't actually give it to any pets.  Just wipe the buffer.

If one wants to be really lazy, the easiest way to code it would be a tad more risky but workable: Simply make it so that if a player with Survival Tactics on takes damage from the Hunter's Mark target, that player heals for X% of the damage dealt immediately.  So a strong enough move could still power through what's left of your HP, but if you survive that burst, a portion of the damage is undone, sorta like Spectral Wounds, but instant.

Edited May 13, 2021 by AgentForest

[Steampunkette]

1 hour ago, AgentForest said:

 

Well, the only thing that would be challenging would be Survival Tactics + Hunters Mark that changes how much a single enemy does to you specifically.  But we already have a mechanic essentially doing this, though indirectly:

Mastermind Pet Defensive Stance

Whenever an enemy attacks you while your pets are in Defensive Stance, a portion of that damage (based on the number of nearby Defensive pets) is immediately removed and stored in a buffer variable.  This damage reduction is ONLY for you (not when those enemies attack your pets or other players).  Then, the amount of damage stored in that buffer variable is divided among nearby Defensive pets.  (NOTE: This is partially speculation on my part, as the mechanic, code-wise, could just be that each pet is subtracting a set percentage of damage from enemy attacks onto itself, but mathematically the result of each pet in Defensive taking a set percentage away from the damage and giving it to itself is the same as just dividing the damage stored among all Defensive pets equally.  Either way it's coded, both algorithms could be repurposed for this mechanic.)  You could essentially just steal from that algorithm.  Mark an enemy, and if they attack you, a portion of that damage is whisked away to... nowhere.  Coding-wise, have a buffer like for MM Defensive Stance where the damage reduction is stored, but don't actually give it to any pets.  Just wipe the buffer.

If one wants to be really lazy, the easiest way to code it would be a tad more risky but workable: Simply make it so that if a player with Survival Tactics on takes damage from the Hunter's Mark target, that player heals for X% of the damage dealt immediately.  So a strong enough move could still power through what's left of your HP, but if you survive that burst, a portion of the damage is undone, sorta like Spectral Wounds, but instant.

Spectral Wounds doesn't work like that.

 

Spectral Wounds does 1.5 Magnitudes of Damage, immediately, and 0.5 Magnitudes of -Damage 10 seconds later. Don't ask me how the Paragon Devs got it to do -Damage, but it probably has to do with the Special Typing. If it were created, today, it would probably just be 0.5 Magnitudes of Healing to keep it clean.

 

It doesn't "Store a percentage" to undo. The value it erases is fixed and based on the baseline damage of the power (Ignores enhancements and other buffs)

 

As far as doing the Mastermind Bodyguard thing: That shit is SORCERY and no one can convince me otherwise. You can't pay me enough money to dig into the fucking Mastermind end of the CoH code. No, sir.

 

But if I had to hazard a -guess-?

 

It most likely creates a special damage reduction shield on the player with a value based on the number of "Bodyguard" pets within range that reduces the damage first before the remaining damage hits the player, then functions as a logic-gate that has a damage proc based on magnitudes that it then "Chain Lightnings" to each pet within range. That Chain Effect probably targets in the same way a Mastermind's Pet Buffs do, hitting only the MM's MM Pets. Each of which has their own special damage reduction shield that triggers to reduce the damage from the full power attack by a specific amount before the remaining damage passes on to their normal resistances.

 

I.E If a Mastermind has 1 pet within range and takes 100 points of damage it is "Split into 3 shares" and the Mastermind takes 2 shares. A fancy way of saying 2/3rds. So the Mastermind gets a 33% Special Damage Resistance applied to the damage and takes 66% before other damage resistance kicks in to reduce it further. The effect then hits the pet as a Chain Lightning style effect to deal 100 Damage, but the pet has 66% Damage Resistance against it, and takes 33.

 

If the mastermind has 2 pets within range it's 4 shares. The Mastermind's resistance increases to 50% and the pets resistances each increase to 75%. MM takes 50 from the 100 that hits him, then each pet gets hit for 100 and only takes 25.

 

Mastermind has 6 pets out and takes 2 shares out of 8 or 25% of the damage. (100/8=12.5. 12.5x2=25). 100 damage hits the Mastermind, 75% Special Damage Resistance. Chain lightning. Each minion takes 1 share or 12.5 damage because they've got 87.5 "Special Damage Resistance" applied before normal DamRes.

 

Easiest way to handle it would be Stacks of Special Damage Resistance based on an Aura power for all pets within range. Each pet provides a smaller bonus than the first pet, sort of like Invuln.

 

But that's all supposition based on what I know about the game's systems.

[AgentForest]

On 5/13/2021 at 5:12 PM, Steampunkette said:

It doesn't "Store a percentage" to undo. The value it erases is fixed and based on the baseline damage of the power (Ignores enhancements and other buffs)

 

I never said Spectral Wounds stored a percentage in a buffer.  I said that having a separate heal after the fact could be used to have a SIMILAR EFFECT to Spectral Wounds, as a work-around for my first proposal, which was regarding an entirely different method of calculating the damage.  It would definitely be easier than using a Mastermind style method of separating out some damage to go elsewhere.  Instead of the MM Defensive method, it would be possible to just have a heal arrive immediately after the attack that scales with the damage of the attack.  This wouldn't be as clean and pretty, but would effectively be doing the same thing mathematically at the end of a fight.  Enemy dealt 100 damage to you, but it has Hunter's Mark on, so it's attacks are flagged to heal anyone with Survival Tactics on for, say, 25% of the damage dealt, so you take 100, heal 25, and ultimately took 75 damage.  Again, it's not pretty, but it's functional.

Regarding the Mastermind Pets, I did say I'm not sure specifically what method was used to split up the damage.  There are several ways you could code it.  I only suggested how a similar mechanic could be used for Survival Tactics + Hunter's Mark.  We already know that the game has a way of splitting damage up so that a player gets less of it than they were supposed to, if certain conditions are met.  It isn't outlandish to make it so that anyone marked by this ability who attacks someone with Survival Tactics on has the damage they deal split off into a separate location that is just dumped.  So if the Hunter's Mark target hits the person with Survival Tactics on for 100 damage, they take 75 damage, and the other 25 is just lost to the ether.

Yes, "special damage resistance" mechanics could be used here too, and might work better.  I was just giving a few possibilities for how to implement it, not all the possibilities, and not necessarily the best ones.  Just the first that came to mind.  If a "special damage resistance" mechanic exists in the game, perfect.  Use that.

[Steampunkette]

For the Spectral Wounds method to work every power in the game that could do damage to the character would have to be rewritten to include the heal effect.

 

For the Bodyguard method, as I believe it works, you'd need to redesign the way damage is dealt to all characters. Otherwise it would just be an extra 25% damage resistance to everything because there is no structure, currently, for keeping track of which NPC is dealing how much damage.

 

In either case a massive undertaking for a single power.

 

You're not the first person to suggest reduced damage from a specific target or retributive damage on being hit. The devs have said it can't be done with the way the engine works.

 

I highly suggest coming up with a different idea for that power until they're able to do something that ambitious.

 

 

 

[Steampunkette]

An important thing to note: The Devs are working with the code they have, as much as they can. They're not writing massive code-changes into the game that change a ton of baseline functions.

 

In fact the most recent big change they've made, that I'm aware of, is allowing Repel to work in Reverse.

 

So while there could be "Several ways to code it" that's asking for a much bigger change than the creation of a powerset. 

 

I'm not saying it's impossible to write the code to make it work. I'm saying that it's unlikely to be done anytime soon so you should try to aim for what the engine can already do.