New Sentinel blast set proposal: Nature Blast

[biostem]

8 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

What attack power would the mastermind have if not Seismic then?

 

If you're talking about the hypothetical elementals MM set, then I'd probably go with charged bolts, hydro blast, fireball, then a modified version of meteor, which deals a lot less damage, but also buffs any of your elementals that are in the blast radius.

[UltraAlt]

10 hours ago, underfyre said:

When I set out I didn't just think, "sure would be cool if I could just shoehorn in every damage type available."

 

I didn't think that what you were trying to do, but seemed like that was the end result.

 

I've played some Everquest, but only a very limited amount. It seemed to have a huge amount of power options within a class even to the low level that I played to.

It seems like trying to cram something bigger into a smaller box, if that makes any sense.

 

10 hours ago, underfyre said:

Then replacing Lightning Strike with it. Now there's a Fire AOE instead of an energy AOE.

 

I'm going to loop back around to the reason I chose to read this thread ... because I thought it was about Plant/Spine based Blaster set.

A Plant/Spine set is something that hasn't been done yet.

 

Fire seems to be already covered in THE City, so I don't think that you should lean that way with the set.

At the same time, I know you are trying to copy something form from another game and make that fit into the CoH format.

 

11 hours ago, underfyre said:

No, I mean a Sentinel secondary. But yeah, a defense set. Would it be more feasible as a Support set? Absolutely. But Sentinels are my baby and they get virtually no love. From anyone.

 

Oh, well, I can't say that ever really considered  a Druid being a blaster ... let alone a sentinel.

I guess I see them more as teams support so a Defender or a Controler. 

You seem to be coming more from the damage dealing side.

 

Yes, people have dis'ed on Sentinels, but I play Sentinels, and I find them to be fun to play.

[UltraAlt]

 

2 hours ago, biostem said:

If you're talking about the hypothetical elementals MM set, then I'd probably go with charged bolts, hydro blast, fireball, then a modified version of meteor, which deals a lot less damage, but also buffs any of your elementals that are in the blast radius.

 

Looking at the mastermind power sets, the damage powers seem to be limited to 3.

1) a single target low damage quick recharge ranged attack

2) a single target moderate damage moderate recharge ranged attack

3) a cone attack

[Rudra]

17 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

 

Looking at the mastermind power sets, the damage powers seem to be limited to 3.

1) a single target low damage quick recharge ranged attack

2) a single target moderate damage moderate recharge ranged attack

3) a cone attack

1) T1, yes.

2) T3, yes.

3) T5, is either a cone or a targeted AoE (reference Photon Grenade from Robotics and M30 Grenade from Mercenaries)

(Edit: Also contrast Life Drain ST ranged attack with heal component for Necromancy at T5.)

Edited February 17, 2022 by Rudra

[biostem]

10 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Looking at the mastermind power sets, the damage powers seem to be limited to 3.

1) a single target low damage quick recharge ranged attack

2) a single target moderate damage moderate recharge ranged attack

3) a cone attack

Mercs & Bots get a ranged targeted AoE, (M30 Grenade & Photon Grenade, respectively).  Each MM set also gets some sort of special power, which can also deal or add damage in some way, (Hell on Earth, Soul Extraction, Gang War), while others buff existing pets, (Serum, Fortify Pack), so my suggestion of using a modified version of Meteor from Seismic Blast, isn't that far off, either...

[Naraka]

13 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

 

Looking at the mastermind power sets, the damage powers seem to be limited to 3.

1) a single target low damage quick recharge ranged attack

2) a single target moderate damage moderate recharge ranged attack

3) a cone attack

 

One can mess with this since MM attacks are kind of in a weird place being really expensive for their damage and recharge. Barring future changes, I think you could do nearly anything with those attacks and it probably can be balanced around, like making them non-ranged melee attacks but cheaper.

 

Multiple element attacks kind of reminds me of the first MM preset suggestion I made, the Arcanist, which is kind of an Animus Arcanum flavored MM:

 

 

Yeah, shilling my ideas again. Might as well, it took, like 45min to type and format that shit lol

 

But i played around with the MM attacks in that by turning the 3 attacks into 6 but you are only going to have access to 3 at a time. It also played on the pet upgrade mechanic but that's not relevant to this discussion.

 

There's also a more traditional example of an element's MM using existing powers here:

 

 

 

 

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, biostem said:

Mercs & Bots get a ranged targeted AoE, (M30 Grenade & Photon Grenade, respectively).  Each MM set also gets some sort of special power, which can also deal or add damage in some way, (Hell on Earth, Soul Extraction, Gang War), while others buff existing pets, (Serum, Fortify Pack), so my suggestion of using a modified version of Meteor from Seismic Blast, isn't that far off, either...

I wouldn't call Smoke Flash from the Ninjas set a damage dealer or buff. It is a short radius Placate you can make a single ninja use. (And only the Jounin get any effect from it other than the mobs stop hitting him. And Jounin already have their own Placate.) Then again, Ninjas do seem to be an oddball set....

(Probably why I like them so much.)

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

I wouldn't call Smoke Flash from the Ninjas set a damage dealer or buff. It is a short radius Placate you can make a single ninja use. (And only the Jounin get any effect from it other than the mobs stop hitting him. And Jounin already have their own Placate.) Then again, Ninjas do seem to be an oddball set....

(Probably why I like them so much.)

Isn't smoke flash supposed to allow the ninja that uses it to crit for a certain period of time, thereby dealing additional damage, (whether it works like that in practice, is another story).

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, biostem said:

Isn't smoke flash supposed to allow the ninja that uses it to crit for a certain period of time, thereby dealing additional damage, (whether it works like that in practice, is another story).

Only the Jounin get the hidden status damage bonus from my experience. The Genin and Oni simply avoid being hit by anything that was about to attack but has not triggered it for a brief moment. Then they immediately do a normal damage attack that gets everything right back to smacking them.

 

(Edit: It is why I have taken to never taking Smoke Flash.)

(Edit II: And since Jounin already get their own Placate, and I've seen them use the Smoke Flash I give them, only to follow up with their own Placate, Smoke Flash is laughably useless in my opinion.)

(Edit III: And even with the Jounin, I've only ever seen them get a single attack of increased damage regardless of them using Placate or Smoke Flash. So yeah, I don't count Smoke Flash as a buff or damage or anything other than a skippable slot to better build up my MM.)

Edited February 18, 2022 by Rudra

[Underfyre]

So before y'all continue to go anymore wildly off tangent, the primary concerns are 1) "nature" has a specific meaning in CoH, but is easily rectified with a different name, and 2) do not like the mixing of damage types. 

 

I will cede that adding Toxic damage to the T4 is unnecessary. If I were to bring things "in line" with previously set precedent of other like abilities, Root would be Smashing/Lethal (or pure Smashing, depending on whether you base it off of Strangler or Entangle) and Winged Death would be 100% lethal. However, I think that the concern over the AOE abilities being Energy is petty at best. Like I said, AOE abilities do less damage for more endurance than their single target counterparts.

 

Let's look at the COH resistance sheet here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y2P_lCCQjGlVJHrCUKxSGaa3Ul7FMYhYaPykgtcHz4E/edit#gid=671881607

 

After changing conditional formatting to highlight cells where Fire is more resisted than Energy, there are 170 instances. Out of 1,613. A staggering 10.54%. The average variance of those values is around 20%. Given that Energy and Fire are two of the lowest resisted damage types in the game, I don't think it's a problem.

[Rudra]

AoEs doing less damage for more END cost is not a line of reasoning for mixing a grab bag of damage types. The reduced damage at increased cost would hold true regardless of what the damage types are. I understand you are not trying to make a set that has an attack to exploit every possible mob weakness in the game. And you have even acknowledged the concerns with the set. The use of energy as a damage type is not the problem. It is the wide variety of damage types you have incorporated into the proposed set.

[Underfyre]

Let me pose these questions. Is the set fun? Is the set unbalanced?

[Rudra]

Fun? No idea, never played it. Interesting? Sure, it looks interesting and I would probably try it if it were incorporated.

 

Unbalanced? This is a proposed Blaster set, yes? The Root + Winged Death ability works an awful lot like the Controller's Containment inherent. You're doing double damage to a mezzed target, as built in to the power set to set up and do. (Or as per a Stalker, whichever.) As per the OP, you were trying to find a way to incorporate even more damage types into the set, specifically ice/cold. So you are trying to cover as many damage types as you can. So, unbalanced? ... Mind you this is strictly my opinion, but I would say yes.

[Underfyre]

4 minutes ago, Rudra said:

You're doing double damage to a mezzed target, as built in to the power set to set up and do.

 

No. The set follows the damage formulas. Standard damage for a single target ability with a 16 second cooldown on a Sentinel is 154.26 damage. I have it set so the ability does 1/3 (51.44) of its damage on an un-rooted/held target. The other 2/3 (102.88) happens when held. Due to rounding that comes out to 154.32. 

[Rudra]

That's a T8. Your power is a T7. Those do 120 for a 12s recharge and 145.8 for a 15s one. And your T8 does 168.01 damage with a 12s recharge, blowing right past your argument. Regardless, the overall damage I expect to be modified by the devs if implemented anyway.

 

You obviously enjoyed EQ. You want to experience a class you played there on CoX. That's fine. This is not EQ though. Nor is it WoW, Guild Wars II (Edit: Or whatever was the name of the game NCSoft wanted us to move to when they shut down CoX), or any other game. This is City of Heroes/City of Villains. I'm guessing EQ had a lot of damage types available to the classes. CoX limits that. Regardless of your AT choice and power selections, you have a limited variety of damage types available. This way you excel against some groups or mobs, do averagely against others, and have to fight a little bit harder against yet others. Your proposal includes Smashing/Lethal (obligatory, all power sets have this to at least some extent), fire, and energy. And I could have sworn it listed toxic for the Winged Death, but I'm not seeing it now. Hells, Winged Death doesn't even have a listed damage type, so that could be interpreted as you wanting untyped damage on the set too. (Edit: I know you are not asking for that, just saying it can be interpreted as such.) With you trying to find a way to also add in cold for the stated purpose of adding in more damage types. Apparently not because it is needed or makes sense, but because you think you are lacking in damage variety. All you would be missing is negative energy and psionic.

 

Even Dual Pistols, which has fire, cold, and toxic, only lets the character use one of those at a time. You have to toggle one of the 3 on, it takes a power choice/slot to be able to do so, and that power slot does not grant you a damage bonus, or accuracy bonus, or anything else. It simply changes the way the entire set works. (Well, fire I think improves your overall damage slightly, but not Build Up levels of damage boost.) You want to use a different damage type? Toggle a different one. (Edit: And I think there is a small recharge before you can select a different toggle.) All powers are still using smash, lethal, and a single other damage type (plus associated effects appropriate for the damage type, at the cost of the power's damage).

 

Your power set may as well be called "The Everything Set". THAT is the main problem. That is the issue we have been trying to explain to you. That is why I say this proposal is unbalanced and should not be implemented until fixed, and why I asked you to pick a theme damage and stick to it.

 

(Edit [again]: The damage type toggles for Dual Pistols do have a recharge, but it is a negligible recharge and only applies to the damage type toggle you just disabled. So you can effectively cycle through the damage types more or less at will, but you have to devote an action to changing the damage type each time.)

Edited February 18, 2022 by Rudra

[UltraAlt]

17 hours ago, Naraka said:

One can mess with this since MM attacks are kind of in a weird place

 

17 hours ago, Naraka said:

it probably can be balanced around, like making them non-ranged melee attacks

 

Interesting. With people tanking with pets in defensive mode using melee attacks is a very interesting and usable if only using single target attacks.

 

 

interesting

 

11 hours ago, underfyre said:

1) "nature" has a specific meaning in CoH, but is easily rectified with a different name, and 2) do not like the mixing of damage types. 

 

Yes, what would you call it other than nature?

I don't think Druid would fit into CoH power set names.

 

Well, we already threw the argument against having a variety of damage types out the window.

It looks like you can limit it to 3 or 4 outside of the base smashing and lethal and get away with it based on existing power sets.

I do think that is a bit much, but if it is allowed in other sets then I can't really argue with it.

 

So I would suggest limiting it to 4 damage types outside of smashing and lethal which you can add to powers as a percentage of the overall or not at all.

1) Fire Damage, 2) Cold Damage, 3) Energy Damage, 4) Negative Energy Damage, 5) Psionic Damage.

 

Damage Types

Smashing Damage

Blunt force attacks. Typified by Brawl and other bludgeoning attacks.

Examples: Super Strength, War Mace

 

Lethal Damage

Sharp force attacks. Typified by many weapon based attacks using blades and bullets.

Examples: Broad Sword, Archery

 

Fire Damage

An attack employing radical increase of temperature. Often associated with damage-over-time effects.

Examples: Fire Blast, Fire Control

 

Cold Damage

An attack employing radical decrease in temperature. Often associated with slowing of attack and/or movement rate.

Examples: Icy Assault, Water Blast

 

Energy Damage

An attack utilizing raw energy or an energy transfer. Often coupled with Smashing damage and associated with Knockback/Knockdown.

Examples: Kinetic Melee, Luminous Blast

 

Negative Energy Damage

An attack of anti-energy, typically drawn from the netherworld by "dark" powers. Often associated with reduced Accuracy.

Examples: Dark Assault, Umbral Blast

 

Psionic Damage

An attack upon the mind. When protection from attacks is not comprehensive, protection from this damage type is typically missing. It is often associated with reduction in Recharge.

Examples: Psychic Blast, Mental Manipulation

 

Toxic Damage

Poisonous attacks. The nature of toxins may be either biological or chemical. Toxic damage is unique in the respect that no power currently provides defense to it, so mitigation for toxic attacks is based on resistance to it or defense versus the melee/ranged/AoE nature of the attack. It is often coupled with lethal damage and associated with damage-over-time effects.

Examples: Spines, Bane Spider Soldier

 

In fact, based on that is why I started bringing up the elemental stuff, but I apologize for going in that direction.

It was supposed to be an alternative to what you were suggesting, but your suggestion is entirely based up on the EverQuest Druid powers.

My bad.

 

 

 

[A Cat]

I don't see what the big deal is with the damage types. Damage resistance outside of toxic and lethal is not that bad, or psi for robots which this set doesn't even have. I don't think it would be unbalanced since there is a whole set that has super high damage per animation time and the least resisted damage type with some extra damage on top of that. Very few enemies have actual weaknesses to a damage type. If anything, a toggle to convert all powers to a different damage type would allow you to try and target a weakness or bypass a resistance better than a random mix of damage types in your attack chain. 

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

So I would suggest limiting it to 4 damage types outside of smashing and lethal which you can add to powers as a percentage of the overall or not at all.

1) Fire Damage, 2) Cold Damage, 3) Energy Damage, 4) Negative Energy Damage, 5) Psionic Damage.

Don't know where you are getting 4 from. Dual Pistol has 3, and those are toggles so it is only using 1 at a time. Demons is the only other set I know of that has a wide variety of damage types, and it is also 3. (Edit: And of those 3, only fire and cold are full damage. Dark has to split its damage with fire.) Personally, I'd say limit it to 2, with 3 being an arguable upper limit.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Rudra

[biostem]

4 hours ago, A Cat said:

I don't see what the big deal is with the damage types. Damage resistance outside of toxic and lethal is not that bad, or psi for robots which this set doesn't even have. I don't think it would be unbalanced since there is a whole set that has super high damage per animation time and the least resisted damage type with some extra damage on top of that. Very few enemies have actual weaknesses to a damage type. If anything, a toggle to convert all powers to a different damage type would allow you to try and target a weakness or bypass a resistance better than a random mix of damage types in your attack chain. 

Personally, I don't have any issue with the different damage types - it's theming the set to be in line with other powersets.  "Nature" isn't really appropriate, given sets with similar names, and anything like "Druid" is too niche.  That's why I suggested an "elementals" concept - doesn't necessarily tie you to magic or a specific arcana...

[Underfyre]

5 hours ago, Rudra said:

Don't know where you are getting 4 from. Dual Pistol has 3, and those are toggles so it is only using 1 at a time. Demons is the only other set I know of that has a wide variety of damage types, and it is also 3. (Edit: And of those 3, only fire and cold are full damage. Dark has to split its damage with fire.) Personally, I'd say limit it to 2, with 3 being an arguable upper limit.

 

I bet Hero 1 was rolling over in his grave when they put out Beam Rifle and it had more than a single secondary effect, with its -Regen, -Defense, -Resist, Stuns AND knockdowns. Back in my day out Blast sets only had ONE secondary effect, and we felt lucky to have them!

 

Like I said, Assault Rifle has 3 primary damage types, so maybe slow your roll a bit. This one has Fire and Energy, deal with it. Smashing/Lethal hardly count. I don't count DP in this simply because you have to actively switch between the 4 types.

 

I changed Winged Death to Lethal (instead of Negative) to sync it up with the already established Call Swarm from Savage Assault. Changed the Root to S/L instead of Toxic.

[Rudra]

Assault Rifle has Smash, Lethal, and Fire. And like you said, Smash and Lethal don't count. So it has ONE additional damage type. Anyway, I'm done chasing my tail on this. Hasta la bye-bye.

 

(Edit: So smash, lethal, fire, energy, negative, and toxic, with you trying to find a way to fit cold in.... so yeah. this is all about having every damage type rather than a theme. ... yeah, I'm done with this thread.)

Edited February 19, 2022 by Rudra

[UltraAlt]

On 2/18/2022 at 1:05 PM, Rudra said:

Don't know where you are getting 4 from. Dual Pistol has 3, and those are toggles so it is only using 1 at a time. Demons is the only other set I know of that has a wide variety of damage types, and it is also 3. (Edit: And of those 3, only fire and cold are full damage. Dark has to split its damage with fire.) Personally, I'd say limit it to 2, with 3 being an arguable upper limit.

 

I guess you missed this in the same post

 

On 2/18/2022 at 10:58 AM, UltraAlt said:

Well, we already threw the argument against having a variety of damage types out the window.

It looks like you can limit it to 3 or 4 outside of the base smashing and lethal and get away with it based on existing power sets.

I do think that is a bit much, but if it is allowed in other sets then I can't really argue with it.

 

[Rudra]

7 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

I guess you missed this in the same post

 

 

Guess you missed the part in my post asking where the 4 is from.

 

Edit: "Don't know where you get 4 from." Please, by all means. Enlighten me. Give me the example.

 

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Rudra

[Rudra]

Okay, I found 1 set that actually has 4. Demon Summoning. Summoned pets use a mix of fire, cold, and negative. The MM's personal attacks use fire and toxic. I missed the toxic. Apologies.

 

Edit: Though like I said, the negative splits its damage with fire. So does the toxic. It is 4 damage types though.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Rudra

[UltraAlt]

9 hours ago, Rudra said:

Guess you missed the part in my post asking where the 4 is from.

 

Edit: "Don't know where you get 4 from." Please, by all means. Enlighten me. Give me the example.

 

The Demon Summoning Mastermind set was already brought up in this thread and that is why I said 3 or 4.

 

7 hours ago, Rudra said:

Okay, I found 1 set that actually has 4. Demon Summoning. Summoned pets use a mix of fire, cold, and negative. The MM's personal attacks use fire and toxic. I missed the toxic. Apologies.

 

Edit: Though like I said, the negative splits its damage with fire. So does the toxic. It is 4 damage types though.

 

And, honestly, I think 3 is a bit much as you can gain the other ones from a secondary power (or your characters other powerset) so that you have damage types for every power set if you really wanted them.

 

I yielded and suggested a mastermind power set (a power set where the mastermind controls elementals) that I thought would fit in more with City of Heroes design concepts, but I should have just posted that in another thread. 

 

The reason I was involved with this conversation is that it was called Nature Blast which I thought would be a blaster power with plant-based SFX like the other powers named Nature (or related such as Spines).

 

[have been editing this since I posted it, but was side-tracked by other stuff.]

Edited February 22, 2022 by UltraAlt