Vanguard Ancillary Power Pool

[biostem]

I'd love to see a special Vanguard Ancillary Power Pool added for all ATs.  It'd require becoming a Member of Vanguard, which corresponds well with the level 35+ requirement of other such pools.  I'm not going to break it down for every ATs, but here are a few examples of powers:

 

Impervium Armor:  Toggle, S/L/E resist.

 

Willie Pete Round:  Deals initial lethal damage, followed by a fire AoE DoT.

 

SIGIL Round:  Deals initial negative & lethal damage, and applies a -max endurance debuff for a short period of time.

 

Psi Bomb: Ranged AoE, moderate psi damage and can disorient targets.

 

Plasma Blast: Ranged, moderate energy damage, -regen.

 

Bayonet: Melee, moderate lethal/energy damage, foe -res lethal/energy

 

Tear Gas Grenade:  Ranged, minor smashing damage, foe hold in an AoE.

 

Flashbang Grenade:  Ranged, -tohit, -defense, disorient.

 

Defense Aura:  I would change this a little from the NPC version, (maybe change the name too) - Make it a click power that deals minor energy damage, has a chance of putting enemies to sleep, drain some end, and debuff recovery.  Have the chance to put enemies to sleep applied LAST, so they don't get immediately woken back up. 

 

There are also a bunch of repurposed claws attacks, which deal energy & lethal damage and apply a -res lethal/energy effect.

 

You could also have one of the generic Vanguard soldiers as a temporary summon as the capstone to each iteration of this proposed set.

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by biostem

[TheZag]

I need a mini combat HVAS or no deal.

 

[Communistpenguin]

4 hours ago, TheZag said:

I need a mini combat HVAS or no deal.

 

i mean, my only problem with this is that I would then need to respec several of my toons the instant it became an option. 

[biostem]

7 hours ago, TheZag said:

I need a mini combat HVAS or no deal.

I'm surprised the Vanguard lore didn't get one, since Longbow gets a Cataphract...

[Vanden]

29 minutes ago, biostem said:

I'm surprised the Vanguard lore didn't get one, since Longbow gets a Cataphract...

 

It would've been a mechanically identical pet.

[FupDup]

IMO Longbow's lore boss shouldn't have been the Cataphract since those aren't iconic to the faction but the HVAS is very iconic to Vanguard. 

Edited April 13, 2023 by FupDup

[Vanden]

So, regarding the idea itself, I don't think it's a bad idea, but I do think there's a whole lot less to work with than, say, IDF/Praetorian Police. Vanguard has a decent variety of attacks, true, but they have nothing that could be an armor toggle for the squishy classes, nothing that would make for good control powers. They have a heavy reliance on weapons, all of which are already available as costume options for the appropriate power sets. In particular, I don't think their signature Claws powers would be feasible for an APP, because I asked Cobalt Arachne (the dev in charge of all the weapon costume stuff) about the possibility of putting multiple weapon costume slot unlocks in an APP, and his answer was, uh, not encouraging. You could make them non-customizable, but that's obviously not ideal.

 

So while I think conceptually, Vanguard is a good fit for a Patron pool, there's just an enormous amount work that would have to be done in order to make it actually happen.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

have nothing that could be an armor toggle for the squishy classes

I literally listed on in my OP.  I see no reason, though, that you couldn't offer a defense version, a la Scorpion Shield, though...

[Vanden]

6 minutes ago, biostem said:

I literally listed on in my OP.  I see no reason, though, that you couldn't offer a defense version, a la Scorpion Shield, though...

 

I meant FX-wise. The NPCs' Impervium Armor is a passive, so no FX are tied to it.

[FupDup]

For FX I imagine it would be like patron armors, but showing the Vanguard logo instead of the patron's logo.

 

Or maybe the sigil effect can be reused for this? I've never even used the unlockable sigil effect so I can't say if it would suit this purpose or not...

[biostem]

1 minute ago, FupDup said:

For FX I imagine it would be like patron armors, but showing the Vanguard logo instead of the patron's logo.

 

Or maybe the sigil effect can be reused for this? I've never even used the unlockable sigil effect so I can't say if it would suit this purpose or not...

Exactly - we don't see Arachnos troops running around with the various patron armors on them - it's an effect that was added after the fact...

[FupDup]

6 minutes ago, FupDup said:

Or maybe the sigil effect can be reused for this? I've never even used the unlockable sigil effect so I can't say if it would suit this purpose or not...

Okay probably not: 

 

 

Or at least it would need to be toned down heavily. 

[biostem]

A better option would be to have the default graphic simply show the Vanguard 'V' logo superimposed over the character, like the Patron armors do, (with an option to not display it, of course).  You could use a variant of that unlockable costume change emote as the activation animation, though...