New Power Set: Tentacle Blast (Blaster Primary - stop laughing!)

[AgentForest]

Been reading a lot of cosmic horror lately, and saw an unfortunate glaring hole in the CoH power options for such a character.  For customization reasons, I feel like the color palette could have the first color chosen for the tentacle, and the second for the portal it comes from.  There could be a drop-down option to change between a physical tentacle or a spectral/translucent one.  Perhaps you summon Lusca to attack your foes (base color palette), making reddish tentacles jut out of water.  Perhaps you worship Cthulhu, and ghostly green tentacles reach out of eldritch portals.  Perhaps you are possessed by a demon who uses oily black tentacles from the shadows.  Regardless of the source of your powers, you attack at a range using these tentacles, and can even use them to grab your foes.  I was at a loss for a solid name for the power set, as not all blast sets need "blast" in the name, but felt that I should include "blast" for clarity purposes as people browse the forum titles.

 

Tentacle Blast

(Blaster/Corruptor/Sentinel Primary, Defender Secondary)

 

Baseline Mechanic: All damaging attacks from this set apply a stack of "Impending Doom" to the target.  Once someone reaches 3 stacks, they get the Fear condition and have their resistance to all damage reduced for a short time.  This fear duration and resistance debuff scale with archetype, so best on Defenders, weaker on Corruptors, and weakest on Blaster/Sentinel.  Further applications extend the duration of the effect, rather than stacking magnitude.  If this is too strong, it could require more stacks or something.

 

1. Tentacle Swipe: Weak single-target Smashing/Toxic damage.  A tentacle pops out of a hole near the target and smacks them.
2. Tentacle Lash: Moderate single-target Smashing/Toxic damage.  A tentacle pops out of a hole near the target, slaps them up into the air, then back down.  Similar to Lift/Levitate in that it attempts a knock-up, but if the target resists this effect, the animation would still look sorta like a two-hit smack from the tentacle.  Damage is dealt in two strikes over the duration.
3. Abyssal Grasp: Basically Tenebrous Tentacles, but as Smashing/Toxic DoT instead.  Shorter immobilize duration.  Perhaps more octopus-looking tentacle designs if we want to get fancy.
4. Thrash: PBAoE moderate Smashing/Toxic damage with a chance of knockdown.  You could possibly have two versions of this, one with tentacles erupting from your character in all directions, and another where they burst out of the ground around you, lashing out at nearby enemies.
5. Fathomless Pursuit: Toggle +ToHit that causes all attacks a chance to spawn a small tentacle near the target that attacks nearby enemies for minor damage for a short time.  This chance is greater for single-target abilities, so that not every target of an area move spawns 10 or so pets each time.  That would get out of hand.  This wouldn't provide any serious burst like an Aim power would, but provides a more consistent, reliable damage and to-hit bonus instead, while keeping with the power fantasy of summoning an endless onslaught of grasping tentacles.
6. Tentacle Slam: Narrow cone high Smashing/Toxic damage.  Like Piercing Beam, this is a very narrow cone with solid damage, as a large tentacle slams down over a straight line toward/through a given target, and anything else in its path.
7. Crushing Tentacle: Single-target Hold, high Smashing/Toxic DoT.  A tentacle reaches up and wraps around a target, holding them helplessly in the air until they can break free.
8. Prey Seeker Tentacle: Summons a persistent pet that follows you around until defeated or resummoned.  This pet is a single moderately sized tentacle that attacks targets, tending to focus the last one you attacked.  This could also be worked in as a toggle pet sorta like the redesigned [Electric Blast] Voltaic Sentinel.  Either is fine.  If it were a persistent effect like a Controller pet, I wouldn't want it to have the durability, damage, or utility of one.  This is a damage set, after all, and it's not a T9 power.
9. Tentacle Eruption: Location AoE severe Smashing/Toxic damage.  A mass of enormous tentacles burst out of the ground at an area of your choosing, throwing enemies into the air as they thrash around dealing damage for several seconds.  The knock-up and maybe a third of the damage happens when cast, but more damage continues for the duration to any enemies who fail to escape the area.

[KaizenSoze]

In before the jokes.

 

Good idea. I think they could re-skin the whip and dark assault powers.

[AgentForest]

1 hour ago, KaizenSoze said:

In before the jokes.

 

Good idea. I think they could re-skin the whip and dark assault powers.

 

Yeah, almost all of these moves could easily be created by simply reskinning existing powers, and any new models needed could be found from the Lusca tentacles (though a smaller, lower poly version would be needed for the quantity that would potentially exist in a fight), preventing the need for creating entirely new assets.  I was tempted to put this in the Eco-Friendly Powerset Recycling thread, but it would require far more work than just copy-pasting moves.  There'd be actual artist time investment here, as they'd have to map a model not currently used in most powers to new animations.  Even if the mechanical effects are pretty similar to other moves.  But I don't see it being much harder than creating Earth Blast was.

[AgentForest]

And yeah, to get the jokes out of the way, I know this will lead to hentai themed characters, lol.  That's inevitable.

However, I've already seen characters like that, like a Pain Domination/Dark Blast Defender who spams Tenebrous Tentacles and is in an anime schoolgirl outfit or dominatrix outfit named Hentacles or whatever other pun you can think of.  I know.

But that's not a good reason to avoid making a power set like this available, lol.  There's something cool about cosmic horror that few games ever embrace, and even more rarely let you personally use.  Maybe you want to play a cultist of the Great Cthulhu, seeking to release him upon the Rogue Isles.  There's also something exciting about calling on a deep ocean beast to assist you in combat, especially in a setting where there literally IS a giant octopus character.  Maybe you're an Aquaman type hero who wants to tame Lusca to protect the city, and don't want to be stuck with a trident or Water Blast to have that ocean theme.  Maybe you just are an amoeboid alien species who attacks with pseudopods.  Nothing in the game really lets us have that aesthetic quite yet, and this would also provide some unique mechanics we don't currently have in a blast set.

I think all of that is worth suffering the handful of short-lived joke characters that will result, lol.

Edited February 23, 2022 by AgentForest
(Edited for clarity)

[Coyotedancer]

My Death Mages approve of this idea. 😆

[AgentForest]

2 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

In before the jokes.

 

Oh god, I just realized this was my 69th post, fml... 😅

Edited February 23, 2022 by AgentForest

[The_Warpact]

Wasn't there tentacle pie back on Live? I just want tentacle appendages. 

[MTeague]

 

Many fall in the face of chaos. But not this one. Not today.

[Mezmera]

You're wanting to steal Lusca's shtick?  I think she may want to have a word, bring your floaties.  

[Crasical]

I'm conflicted because I have a character, Sable Tentacle, who's just hit 43 who'd be perfect for this set and I'd have to reroll 'im.

 

Plus side: It'd be perfect for him
Con side: He's 43 and I'd have to reroll him

[Alchemystic]

Dont ask how I know this but for maximum tentacle-y-ness you want a Dark/Plant/Soul Blaster or a Plant/Dark/Soul Dominator.

 

That is all.

[biostem]

How difficult is it to rotate and/or reorient power effects?  Could you take the various dark powers that have the tendrils, basically rotate them so they're vertical, place them in front of your typical attack animations, and now you have a kind of dimensional portal looking thing...

[AgentForest]

On 2/24/2022 at 2:35 PM, Crasical said:

Plus side: It'd be perfect for him
Con side: He's 43 and I'd have to reroll him

 

My solution is to make an alternate universe version of the same character, lol.  On a different server if I want the name still, but otherwise I tend to just explain it as a praetorian double, lol.

Edit: This could explain why I have over 125 characters...

Edited March 2, 2022 by AgentForest

[AgentForest]

On 2/25/2022 at 10:17 PM, biostem said:

How difficult is it to rotate and/or reorient power effects?  Could you take the various dark powers that have the tendrils, basically rotate them so they're vertical, place them in front of your typical attack animations, and now you have a kind of dimensional portal looking thing...

 

I'm not entirely sure, but many of the assets already exist, so the hardest part of making this power set is mainly putting the pieces together, and optimizing it so it doesn't lag computers to hell.