Classification on melee types

[The_Warpact]

@roleki @PeregrineFalcon @Rudra

 

Ok let's start fresh. My thoughts on it are this, Batman is a stalker, Captain America is a scrapper, Abomination is a brute, Juggernaut is a tank, and Superman is a Incarnate. It could be argued Wolverine is a stalker/scrapper, and just for funsies Deadpool is a DP/MC blaster.

I figured anything to the 1 to 10 ton weight lifting range is a stalker/scrapper (no SS), Brute is up to 100 tons, but, tanks have a different scale based on their invulnerability. Thor yeah he's a Incarnate tank (comics not movie bitch), Hulk is a Incarnate brute.

That beyond 100 ton range is the Incarnate levels or their invulnerability is that high its Incarnate level stuff. Juggernaut all day Incarnate tank.

 

Of course it depends who's writing during that time. Hulk vs. Wolverine comic yeah thats a broot vs a scrapper. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

Wolverine is a Claws/Will Scrapper with the Stealth Pool. Spiderman is a SR/StJ Tanker.

 

Also, HULK SMASH!!! Clearly the blueprint for the entire Brute AT.

[The_Warpact]

20 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Spiderman is a SR/StJ Tanker.

 

 

Going to disagree, he's a StJ/SR scrapper, he can fight but, he's not unstoppable and I've see him plenty of times get beat down.

[Rudra]

Gotta agree with @The_Warpact on the Spiderman bit. He's scary strong and insanely difficult to pin down/hit, but he's pretty squishy to be a tank. Super Reflexes tanks in comics are also at least moderately resilient, more so than Spiderman is typically shown to be.

 

Gotta disagree on Batman though. Batman is a multi-role character. He has a plethora of ranged attacks plus a robust mix of melee. Further complicating it is that he fights openly. He may open with an ambush attack to take down specific foes as he progresses, but he is just as capable at taking them down as quickly without the ambush. He gets no bonus for attacking from Hide. (Edit: Any Blaster or Scrapper, more likely Scrapper, with Stealth or just being sneaky enough to use terrain to mask their approach and drop their targets to avoid aggroing the rest of map would actually match Batman as a character type.) He's a scrapper-blaster hybrid. (Comes from being a gadgeteer type.)

 

Wolverine is a full on Scrapper that overlaps heavily with Tank. Not a stalker.

 

Agreed on Captain America and Juggernaut.

 

Abomination is a tank with scrapper overtones.

 

Incarnate types are... uhm... well... ... moving on....

 

The problem with trying to classify comic characters into CoX ATs is that when you look at it, Brutes are basically a subtype of Tankers or Scrappers. It is just that as a Tanker or a Scrapper, they have some mechanic that boosts their combat ability while in combat. Typically based on Rage. Which is why all the calls about Brutes 'stepping on Tankers' toes' or on Scrappers comes up so often. Brute as a separate intentional archetype does not exist in comics but are defined by their combat style, tendency to lose control, blood-thirstiness, or combination of those traits.

 

Also, Stalkers are specialist Scrappers and Sentinels are the blaster-tanks you see in characters like Doctor Doom (just cut off from his national supply of minions) and Iron Man. In CoX terms, Mastermind as an AT could simply have been a power pool any AT could have taken given the variety of comic masterminds.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Rudra

[The_Warpact]

Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin, mastermind or scrapper? 

[Rudra]

Tanker using Mastermind power pool. Edit: Sure, he's super strong, but he's also ridiculously tough. A willpower or invulnerability tanker.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Rudra

[PeregrineFalcon]

So the reason why I say Spiderman is an SR Tank is because he acts like one. He avoids hits. Taunts his opponents. And the few times he's teamed up he obviously tries to keep the villains focused on him instead of on his teammates.

 

Sure, he clearly doesn't have any IOs or Incarnate powers or even the Fighting Pool, so he's not as tough as some of the other Tanks we've seen in comics, but he acts like a Tank.

[The_Warpact]

I can see your point of view but still going with SR scrapper.

[The_Warpact]

@Rudra Batman would definitely have the presence pool, taunt, fear, aoe fear..

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

See, this is where a lot of people get confused.

 

Superman is clearly a tank, so is The Juggernaut, so is Kingpin. But one is clearly far more powerful than the others. One is an Incarnate, one is just level 50, and the other is probably level 35-ish. But they're all still tanks.

 

People will say that someone can't be a tank because they're not as tough as Superman or Galactus, but they forget that it's more about role than about actual level of power. Just as an example, you could make the argument that Condorman is a level 5 Tank.

 

Can you tell I've had these discussions before?

[The_Warpact]

38 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Condorman

Lmfao boy oh boy that's a blast from the past. 

[roleki]

36 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

See, this is where a lot of people get confused.

 

Superman is clearly a tank, so is The Juggernaut, so is Kingpin. But one is clearly far more powerful than the others. One is an Incarnate, one is just level 50, and the other is probably level 35-ish. But they're all still tanks.

 

People will say that someone can't be a tank because they're not as tough as Superman or Galactus, but they forget that it's more about role than about actual level of power. Just as an example, you could make the argument that Condorman is a level 5 Tank.

 

Can you tell I've had these discussions before?

 

I still think Superman is *way* more than a Tank; if every T4 Tank was Superman, it'd be like City of Viltrumites around here.  He's just too powerful to fit into our sandbox.

 

Even the Hulk and Juggernaut don't REALLY fit, because the Hulk has no damage cap, and Juggernaut literally cannot be stopped.  There are plenty of Tank-like beings (Ben Grimm, Rhino, Piledriver, Gargoyle, a billion others) who are largely interchangeable aside from their personalities/ethos/lore: tough, resilient, and possessing superior offensive capabilities. 

 

But I do like the idea of so-and-so being a Level 35 Tank, and so and so being a 50.  That would explain the wide gaps between a guy like Luke Cage and someone like Namor, then the gap between Namor and Gladiator, and the gap between Gladiator and Silver Surfer.

 

Another thing I need to keep in mind when thinking about these things, is how the lore surrounding well-known characters is very fluid, and so are their capabilities and handicaps.  In the thread where I kicked this beehives little too hard, I had mentioned I was looking at the old TSR Marvel Super Heroes stats, which I think the book I was looking at was from 1986 or 1987.  They had Iron Man weak as hell (don't recall exactly but they were Aunt May-level stats).  I wonder what their ratings for Iron Man would have been in 2016 or so.  I bet they'd have him at Tank level 'toughness' and strength, even though I think he's a Sentinel through and through.

[Luminara]

In the Justice League animated series, I think it was the episode Secret Society part 1, the JL is bickering amongst themselves and attention turns to Superman.  He's accused of being egotistical because he insists on being the first one in when there's a fight.  Superman responds (paraphrased, because it's been three or four years since is watched any of the episodes (RIP, beloved portable HDD)), "It's my job to take the hits so no-one else has to!".

 

Pretty sure that definitively qualifies him as a tanker.

[The_Warpact]

@roleki fully agree on Iron Man as a sent.

 

@Luminara in one of the many reboots of Supes, it was established in Metropolis as Clark Kent and fought an enemy in which he figured he didn't have to pull his punches and was stronger after that. It's clearly level progression. 

[Frostbiter]

If you go back and read the old Superman comics he couldn't fly or shoot lasers out of his eyes. He pretty much jumped around Metropolis and beat up on street thugs like it was King's Row.

[The_Warpact]

2 minutes ago, Frostbiter said:

If you go back and read the old Superman comics he couldn't fly or shoot lasers out of his eyes. He pretty much jumped around Metropolis and beat up on street thugs like it was King's Row.

Definitely level 1 to 10 stuff lol.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

So the reason why I say Spiderman is an SR Tank is because he acts like one. He avoids hits. Taunts his opponents. And the few times he's teamed up he obviously tries to keep the villains focused on him instead of on his teammates.

 

Sure, he clearly doesn't have any IOs or Incarnate powers or even the Fighting Pool, so he's not as tough as some of the other Tanks we've seen in comics, but he acts like a Tank.

Sure, he taunts. However, most of the time Spiderman taunts, it is to anger his foes and keep them off-balance. Also because of his personality. With the side effect of he gets the enemy's attention while teaming. The Scrapper's confront power, given that Spiderman taunts enemies individually to rile them up rather than aggroing everything at once, fits better. There are also times when Spiderman doesn't try to taunt his foes, usually while teaming with others, and instead focuses on picking off enemies. I would argue that Spiderman's schtick is to anger his opponents into frothing, blind rage to limit their combat effectiveness, rather than him being a tank. (Edit: Then again, it has been years since I read any comics, so my data is likely out of date.)

Edited September 8, 2022 by Rudra

[PeregrineFalcon]

25 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

@Luminara in one of the many reboots of Supes, it was established in Metropolis as Clark Kent and fought an enemy in which he figured he didn't have to pull his punches and was stronger after that. It's clearly level progression. 

 

Methinks that someone just ate a couple of  these:  

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

 

Methinks that someone just ate a couple of  these:  

Ah, the episode where he waffle-stomps Darkseid and proves he is more powerful until Darkseid pulls a fast one on him. 👍

[The_Warpact]

Yeah yeah I don't watch any of the animated series. Just comics and that hasn't been for awhile. Now anime on the other hand...

[Luminara]

I'll also add that I believe some archetypal comic book characters can't actually be confined to a single Co* archetype.  How they're defined is entirely dependent on the threat and whether they're teamed or solo.

 

Let's look at Batman.  You can argue whether he's a scrapper, a stalker, a brute, whatever, but that's only applicable to a limited aspect of his activity as a superhero.  As a member of the Justice League, or leading the Bat Family, he's clearly a mastermind.  He's the planner, the organizer, the character thinking ten steps ahead while everyone else is trying to figure out what just happened, and moving his pieces into positions which will ensure that his team wins.  And against a lot of JL antagonists, he's outclassed as a fighter.  In Batman/Superman: Apocalypse, Batman faces off against Darkseid, but he doesn't do it by throwing every kick, punch and Batarang he has, he out-maneuvers Darkseid.  Everything the others were doing was a diversion to give him time to arm Darkseid's own planet-busters, which he threatened to use if Darkseid didn't relinquish Kara.  That has mastermind plastered all over it.

 

Essentially, defining established comic book characters within the boundaries of Co* archetypes isn't strictly a question of their power levels or basic skills, it's whether or not they're part of a team and how they fit into the framework of that team in the context of the threat they're facing.

[Rudra]

The same can be said of any mastermind. Is why I said Masterminds would have worked just fine as a power pool. Their ability to lead and manipulate others is not related to their combat capabilities which branches into the blue side ATs. Any mastermind in any comic is not just his or her minions. Sure, the minions do a lot of the heavy lifting, but the mastermind himself or herself is quite capable even without minions. Whether the combat monster Darkseid, Kingpin, or Doctor Doom are (scrappers, tankers, and sentinels); the scheming manipulator quite capable of talking you into suicide or some form of surrender like Lex Luthor (controllers), or the mental giants of the psychic I can't currently remember the name of (blasters or controllers).

 

Mastermind is a role they play. It is part of their tactician and strategist role. They don't actually need any followers or teammates to do things; they are still very capable characters in at least one other aspect which would be the better basis of what type character they are. The followers and teammates simply make things easier, safer, or provide more options including distance from the event for deniability or to outmaneuver an adversary.

 

At least, that is my take on comic-CoX interfacing.

[roleki]

18 hours ago, Rudra said:

The same can be said of any mastermind. Is why I said Masterminds would have worked just fine as a power pool. Their ability to lead and manipulate others is not related to their combat capabilities which branches into the blue side ATs. Any mastermind in any comic is not just his or her minions. Sure, the minions do a lot of the heavy lifting, but the mastermind himself or herself is quite capable even without minions. Whether the combat monster Darkseid, Kingpin, or Doctor Doom are (scrappers, tankers, and sentinels); the scheming manipulator quite capable of talking you into suicide or some form of surrender like Lex Luthor (controllers), or the mental giants of the psychic I can't currently remember the name of (blasters or controllers).

 

Mastermind is a role they play. It is part of their tactician and strategist role. They don't actually need any followers or teammates to do things; they are still very capable characters in at least one other aspect which would be the better basis of what type character they are. The followers and teammates simply make things easier, safer, or provide more options including distance from the event for deniability or to outmaneuver an adversary.

 

At least, that is my take on comic-CoX interfacing.

 

That makes sense, but there are actual Masterminds in comics along the lines of CoH - characters like the Red Ghost and his Super Apes, or the Golden (née Yellow) Claw and the Atlas Foundation.  Sure, the Red Ghost had powers (he could Dimension Shift himself and wallhack) but without the Apes, he was just kind of feeble.  Golden Claw's secret power was that he was really old, and could use the Dragon Corridor to move around from place to place; any action taken against his antagonists was done via minions, associates, or subtle plans that percolated for decades before bearing results.   Mole Man is another one; he's got a stick and can see in the dark... not very formidable, until you factor in he has all of the extras from Fury Road doing his dirty work for him.  

I feel like Doctor Doom is another character along the lines of Superman who couldn't be pinned to one AT or even multiples... he's a Sentinel (En/WP?) but also a Mastermind (Bots/FF) and some kind of Dominator, but like, if Dominators had access to Illusion and Time powers.  He's a bit of a freak.

[Rudra]

According to data on the Mole Man, he would be a (low level) Staff Fighting Scrapper.

 

Data on the Red Ghost places him as a CoX Mastermind though. However, he can be argued as a low level Blaster too.

 

Edit: Data on Yellow Claw places him as a Martial Arts Scrapper.

Edited September 9, 2022 by Rudra

[biostem]

The CoH archetypes are extremely broad categories that have to account for everything from your "peak human" to your "god-tier" characters.  I mean, is it even fair to try and categorize both Superman and Captain America as "melee ATs"?  I also think a lot depends upon the writer.  Most comic book characters, if translated into CoH, would have one or more unique powers - Wolverine would have something like the old instant healing and a self rez with like no cooldown, which allows him to get right back up from any fight.  Supes would have some sort of damage threshold power, where nothing dealing less than that value would hurt him at all.  Spiderman, in addition to his webbing, would have a unique variant of super reflexes, which had much higher values, (not to mention his wall crawling).  Captain America would have a few shield throw/trick throw powers, and teh ability to deflect enemy attacks back at them with it, and so on...