Shield Charge, or, Roleplaying Massive Structural Damage

[MistressOhm]

This isn't going to be a treatise on a Shield Tanker build.  Instead it covers one power, one ability, which is Shield Charge.

 

Animation wise, this is basically your Tanker 'leap in and knock everyone down' power, BUT, it acts like a very short Teleport, that also throws a Knock on any mob in the line of travel AND as an AoE Knock at the endpoint.  This means that you don't need Line of Sight for it to work, nor do you have to worry about pathing.  Normally this is a "click someplace and jump there" power BUT, with the right bind and the ability to target-lock something, you can really have some fun. 

 

KEYBIND:  SHIFT+` "powexec_location target Shield Charge"

 

This leads to the following mayhem (all shown off during the Ubelmann the Unknown arc):

 

• Smashing through intervening boxes, crates, shipping containers, and other scenic elements
• Smashing downward through balcony floors
• Smashing upward to balconies from floors below
• Smashing through intervening walls or berms (!)
• Superhero landings by triggering the ability "out of range" and then hovering down until it animates
• Knocking a crowd of mobs off a cohort, by charging to them.

 

At one point I'd whacked a Nightwolf Champion upwards to where he'd gotten stuck in the 'grid' above the reactor area (in the Portal Corp Ubelmann map) and as he worked his way free, now above the grid, I launched myself upward through the grid to knock him on his butt again.  My Corruptor cohort was enjoying the show, a lot. 

 

I am sure that a Villain using such an ability during a Mayhem mission could accomplish a LOT of collateral damage simply by lining up all manner of intervening stuff and then charging to whatever's at the limit of range, through everything else.  Unfortunately, that's the only way I can think of to accomplish actual 'breaking of stuff' as the regular instance maps don't have breakable walls or objects.  (Yet?)  You might be able to simulate it with the physics objects you get from dumpsters and the like, or summoned objects from a Gravity controller.

 

What other things have y'all done with these 'charge into the fray' abilities?

 

 

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by MistressOhm

[Warboss]

Similar to what you do. I use it to "jump attack" building to building/platform to platform (or mob to mob when possible). Can be use in combination with a KD or "grounding" (immob) power to bring down annoying hover-snipers (also used against flying/hovering targets to start an attack then dart around a corner, breaking LoS to get them to follow), once grouped up, AoE them down (new Axe changes work well with this and my ever favorite Fires Sword Circle (FTW!). Used to be able to use it to teleport/attack into things like guardhouses, rooms with windows, etc (not sure if this still works, haven't tried it in awhile).  Used with Lightning Rod for the "Double Boom" affect. Add in Energy Torrent from Energy Mastery and you can run them down (SC), blast them while they're down (LR), then take a step back and knock them down again (ET) (SC and ET can be used either at the beginning or the end, depending on if you want to go bowling (ET) or just smash through them first). This attack chain can be used in any attack plane. With PSi  you can "flip pancakes" using (Mass Levitate) (knock them down, the flip them up). So lots of fun to be had with it. Using it with Axe you used to be able to "juggle" mobs with the KD/KU, haven't tried that with the new changes, you can still probably do it (this is a fun one to watch as well, it's even more fun to do).

[twozerofoxtrot]

I have a SD/MA Tanker with Teleport pool that pops into existence all over the battlefield.  A really fun character to play, but not sturdy enough to main tank hardmode content unfortunately. 

 

One of my favorite applications is when I see a teammate's health dropping but don't know exactly where they are. I can target them and slap my SC: immediately halting damage from enemies in melee or close range. If they're too far away I try again but with Teleport, then Dragon Tail, and maybe SC just for fun.

 

I do something a little different with my keybinds:

 

/bind 6 "powexeclocation target Shield Charge$$powexecauto Active Defense" 

 

This lets me leverage conventional muscle memory to zip to target, but I can still manually place with a click. No new bind to memorize.

 

The latter part is superfluous for this discussion but added in case it helps (evens auto-up AD, odds auto-up Haste ).

 

 

[MistressOhm]

So I threw a Range SO into SC... and discovered that I can charge a mob through both ends of a shipping container. 

 

SC Devs... can you, like, maybe fill these with random objects, please? Boxes of gag gifts from Hong Kong, perhaps?  Thank you!

[BazookaTwo]

I didn't know you could do that! How about Savage Leap? I have a Savage/Shield Stalker that really needs to leverage this stuff. 

[MistressOhm]

I would expect any power that transports you to a specific location when you invoke it, would work this way also. 

 

IOW, if you have to click the ground after invoking Savage Leap, a bind to trigger it on a targeted mob should work.