Protector - Defensive Primaries / Assault Secondaries New Archetype

[Exaltist Ethan]

Protector Archetype Concept

 

I really enjoy playing dominators and using their assault secondaries. In fact, when I do play as a dominator, I often forget to use my control powers and end up dying really quickly due to this. To play well as a dominator I have to train myself to always control enemies before using assault powers. So I was thinking, maybe it could be possible to have a new archetype, similar to Tanker, but instead of melee secondaries, assault secondaries instead. I get the fact that both this and Tankers/Sentinels would play very similarly, but I like the fact the assault powers have a wide range of useful attack powers. Overall I enjoy using assault powers over blast powers, but I just can't get used to dominators and their absolute need to control enemies before attacking them. Overall I prefer to play archetypes that have strong defensive capabilities like Brutes or Tankers, and as of right now Tanker is the only archetype with defensive primaries. 

 

My idea is that you call it Protector.

Survivability: 10

Melee Damage: 6

Range Damage: 6

Crowd Control: 2

Support: 2

Pets: 2

 

Primary Power Sets

A Protector's primary power sets are designed for defense. There are 13 sets. They are:

• Bio Armor
• Dark Armor
• Electric Armor
• Energy Aura
• Fiery Aura
• Ice Armor
• Invulnerability
• Ninjitsu
• Radiation Armor
• Regeneration
• Stone Armor
• Super Reflexes
• Willpower

 

Secondary Power Sets

A Protector's secondary power sets are designed for assault. There are 12 sets. They are:

• Dark Assault
• Earth Assault
• Electricity Assault
• Energy Assault
• Fiery Assault
• Icy Assault
• Martial Assault
• Psionic Assault
• Radioactive Assault
• Savage Assault
• Sonic Assault
• Thorny Assault

 

I don't know what the inherent special for this archetype would be, but nonetheless, I would be very interested in trying something like this. Dominators so far are the only archetype that has the assault power sets and I think this should be changed. 

 

Does anyone agree that an archetype like this would be beneficial to the game? Or is this too similar to Tanker or Sentinel? Let us know if you support a new archetype like this. 

[Vanden]

A fundamental problem with Assault Sets is that since they're split between ranged and melee attacks, they generally don't have enough attacks to put together a ranged chain with no gaps while leveling. This means that when it's not safe to go into melee, their DPS takes a big hit. For Dominators, they can fill these gaps with powers from their primaries, which ends up helping reinforce their role as a hybrid control/damage AT by making them literally split their time between control and damage powers while at range. Without something similar, any other AT with Assault Powers will end up effectively being another melee AT, since they'll always want to close to melee anyway.

[Exaltist Ethan]

39 minutes ago, Vanden said:

A fundamental problem with Assault Sets is that since they're split between ranged and melee attacks, they generally don't have enough attacks to put together a ranged chain with no gaps while leveling. This means that when it's not safe to go into melee, their DPS takes a big hit. For Dominators, they can fill these gaps with powers from their primaries, which ends up helping reinforce their role as a hybrid control/damage AT by making them literally split their time between control and damage powers while at range. Without something similar, any other AT with Assault Powers will end up effectively being another melee AT, since they'll always want to close to melee anyway.

I didn't think of this.

 

I thought that at least while I first engage an enemy I would used a ranged power from my assault powers. Have the upper hand by always attacking first. Then run in and do the more powerful melee attacks later. I thought both would be beneficial in their own ways - if an enemy starts to run away for whatever reason, I could switch to ranged attacks again. When I play my dominators I tend to control enemies first, then used ranged attacks, and if the enemy is still alive, go in close range and use my stronger melee attacks to kill them.

 

I get the fact that ranged attacks can be used in melee range, and if you have defensive primaries the advantage of staying a distance from enemies is no longer there, but there's plenty of reason why ranged attacks would still be useful to someone who has high survivability. I find that when it comes to melee classes in this game there isn't enough diversity in powers overall. There's two archetypes in heroes and two archetypes in villains that are exclusively melee/defense or defense/melee.

 

Homecoming servers introduced the Sentinel archetype and for the first time an archetype that has both ranged and defensive capabilities. I have numerous problems soloing missions on Sentinel and they seem not to do anything really well. I suggest they get a buff attack power because remember their primaries are blast powers. That is a topic for a different thread however. Brutes on the other hand seem to be overpowered. I have a brute that can do missions so fast and quickly the game seems to be too easy with him, and most players when they play the game stick to brutes for this very reason.

 

There's a lot of archetypes overall that do DPS very well but aren't the best tanks. This archetype would give more flexibility to people who want to play on defense. If I were playing this archetype most likely what I would do to kill most enemies is do a ranged assault power at a distance, then when those are on a cool-down, run in with melee assault powers and finish them off. This is significantly different overall to any archetype that only has melee powers because anyone with melee powers has to run in first to attack. And again, if the enemies run away, which they often do, I can switch to a ranged assault power and finish them before there would need to be actually run in on them and keep melee distance.

 

I don't think you understand the full advantage of what assault powers can do and their versatility. As the name suggests a "Protector" could and should be able to "protect" someone from either short or long distances, and an archetype that has these sets would be able to do just that. It's so difficult to play as dominators because not only do I need to control my enemies before I kill them, half of the time I lose control of the enemy as I attack them and then they attack me and I die right away, because the dominator archetype is one of the least-survivor friendly archetypes there is.

 

When I'm soloing as a dominator I'm using all of my powers to kill the enemies, but in groups I'm pretty much focused on my control powers as everybody else defends and kills them for me. There are advantages and disadvantages to every archetype, I get this, but there are four archetypes in the game that are in some way a combination of melee/defense and I'm trying to find creative ways to allow new ways to play it. I considered at first assault primaries/defensive secondaries, but an archetype like that overall would be massively underpowered. Giving people two ways to essentially play defense would open up new possibilities in this game that were once impossible to achieve, and I don't think you fully realize how different this would be to tankers or any other class that is melee/defense.

 

Every time I play a different archetype in this game I feel like I'm playing a whole new game considering how differently they play, and allowing an archetype like this would be allowing people to try an entirely new way of playing, even if it kind of feels like the Tanker archetype. Homecoming made Sentinel, which is essentially a ranged version of scrapper, and most people thought an archetype like this was a good idea. Considering the facts that 1 - Tanker is the only archetype with defensive primaries and 2 - Assault powers are only used with dominators, I think I could make the case that a new archetype like this would play much differently than most melee archetypes, even if some of the powers can only be used in melee. 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Exaltist Ethan

[Rudra]

24 minutes ago, Exaltist Ethan said:

Homecoming servers introduced the Sentinel archetype and for the first time an archetype that has both ranged and defensive capabilities. I have numerous problems soloing missions on Sentinel and they seem not to do anything really well. I suggest they get a buff attack power because remember their primaries are blast powers. That is a topic for a different thread however. Brutes on the other hand seem to be overpowered. I have a brute that can do missions so fast and quickly the game seems to be too easy with him, and most players when they play the game stick to brutes for this very reason.

Hooo boy... the issues I have with this statement....

 

Sentinels lack damage compared to Blasters because they have their armor to keep them alive. That is also why they have reduced range compared to other ranged ATs. Beyond that, I honestly have no idea how it can be difficult to solo with Sentinels. If you want, I am willing to work with you on that, as I am sure others on the forums would be as well.

 

As for Brutes being OP and that being why most players stick to them? ... I'm leaving this alone before I go off on yet another rant. (Brutes aren't OP. I play them because I hate Tankers. Tankers are very hard for me to get into because their attacks are so slow in coming compared to other melee ATs. Have you tried Stalkers, Scrappers, or Tankers? You want things to die fast? Take a Scrapper. Or a Stalker depending on how you develop the Stalker.) (Edit: I said I was leaving this part alone and yet I delved into it anyway. Apologies. I'm leaving this part alone now.)

Edited June 18, 2023 by Rudra

[Luminara]

If you're going to create something new with Assault sets, create something new.  This is just sentinels with extra melee attacks, or scrappers with extra ranged attacks, and we already have that with *PPs.

[Exaltist Ethan]

29 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Sentinels lack damage compared to Blasters because they have their armor to keep them alive. That is also why they have reduced range compared to other ranged ATs. Beyond that, I honestly have no idea how it can be difficult to solo with Sentinels. If you want, I am willing to work with you on that, as I am sure others on the forums would be as well.

I have a sentinel named "Captain Colt" that is one of my best heroes. The problem with sentinel, it seems to me, is that the best/easiest way to keep them alive is to just hover above the enemies and do mid-range blast damage to them. When I do this, playing as Captain Colt, or any other sentinel, seems to be extremely easy. However, because sentinels cannot use their blast damage in long range, I'm often having the problem that if an enemy gets too close it will melee attack me and die. I have thus had to learn with Captain Colt the proper distance to kill enemies. It's frustrating and it's a learning curb. Enemies do too much damage in melee and don't do that much damage in ranged, and if you properly hover above enemies and force them to use ranged attacks, you'll never get killed as a sentinel, but I find that if I'm just running into them in melee or don't hover far enough that they have to attack me in ranged, I often die. Sentinels have moderate ranged damage and moderate defense, which still makes it difficult to defend yourself from three enemies that are doing melee damage to you. There was a time I was exclusively using Captain Colt for awhile and I felt like I was invincible. I cracked the code and found the exact area I should attack as a sentinel. I've been playing as brutes and masterminds lately (what a combo) and forgot how to play sentinels well. I recently tried a new sentinel on a standard solo radio mission and died in it. But I'm sure if I pick up Captain Colt and just remember to keep the enemies at a length from me, the game will be as easy to play as it is with my brutes. The best thing about sentinels is I'm always attacking with them when I'm in groups due to the longer distance of attack, and because I have defensive secondaries I can be an off-tank at times. Maybe the truth is I just misspoke. I'm feeling a little bitter last time I played as a new sentinel and died five minutes into it. I apologize.

 

29 minutes ago, Rudra said:

As for Brutes being OP and that being why most players stick to them? ... I'm leaving this alone before I go off on yet another rant. (Brutes aren't OP. I play them because I hate Tankers. Tankers are very hard for me to get into because their attacks are so slow in coming compared to other melee ATs. Have you tried Stalkers, Scrappers, or Tankers? You want things to die fast? Take a Scrapper. Or a Stalker depending on how you develop the Stalker.)

I just must be really good with brutes. After I figured out that I can use SO enhancements at any level, I slotted my brute, "Superior Civilian", and honestly I can run into three yellow enemies for like 20 seconds and almost never get hurt. I get the fact that the game's difficulty itself can be slided. The only enemies that seem to give me issues are purples, I can't hit them, they hit me a few times, and I die fast. But reds, oranges, yellows, and whites die so fast when I attack them it almost appears as if playing with Brutes is the easy way to play the game. In fact, if you look at CoH: Homecoming Discord, more people choose the Brute role than any other archetype, when they used to force you to choose archetypes to get into archetype-led discussions. And whenever I do a search of players playing on Indomitable, I see that many people are playing as brutes. Maybe you don't like brutes or don't find them particularly good in the game, but I found the secret to success with them, and, to relate to the last paragraph, I prefer brutes over sentinels because I feel like the damage and defense overall is significantly better, even if I have to be in close-range to attack. 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Exaltist Ethan

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Exaltist Ethan said:

Maybe you don't like brutes or don't find them particularly good in the game, but I found the secret to success with them, and, to relate to the last paragraph, I prefer brutes over sentinels because I feel like the damage and defense overall is significantly better, even if I have to be in close-range to attack. 

Scrappers, Stalkers, and Brutes are the melee ATs I play. Just as a heads up. (Corruptors, Blasters, Soldiers of Arachnos, Widows of Arachnos, and Masterminds are the non-melees I play. I don't count Soldiers of Arachnos or Widows of Arachnos as melee, because they are either melee, ranged, or hybrid depending on how you build them.)

 

(Edit: I do have Sentinel and Dominator characters too, but they aren't as fun for me. I now have a single Controller, but that character is languishing at very low level.)

Edited June 18, 2023 by Rudra

[Player2]

If I were going to create a new AT that used the Assault sets, I would couple them with blaster secondaries as the primary sets and keep the assault stuff in the secondary role... make it a support set capable of dealing damage at range but capable of doing some decent blapping when in close range due to having melee attacks in both primary and secondary sets.  As an inherent, give them mez protection and let the damage for the Manipulation primary sets sit high while the attacks in the secondary Assault sets just do damage on par with defenders, basically giving you more options for building attack chains between those non-melee Manipulation powers.  Auto mez protection is their only real defense... they'd still be rather squishy. 

[Rudra]

16 minutes ago, Player2 said:

If I were going to create a new AT that used the Assault sets, I would couple them with blaster secondaries as the primary sets and keep the assault stuff in the secondary role... make it a support set capable of dealing damage at range but capable of doing some decent blapping when in close range due to having melee attacks in both primary and secondary sets.  As an inherent, give them mez protection and let the damage for the Manipulation primary sets sit high while the attacks in the secondary Assault sets just do damage on par with defenders, basically giving you more options for building attack chains between those non-melee Manipulation powers.  Auto mez protection is their only real defense... they'd still be rather squishy. 

Manipulation/Assault? I can actually get behind that. I would limit their auto-mez protection to be more like Blasters in that they can still be mezzed but they can use some abilities despite that, but I still agree with you.

[Player2]

Just now, Rudra said:

Manipulation/Assault? I can actually get behind that. I would limit their auto-mez protection to be more like Blasters in that they can still be mezzed but they can use some abilities despite that, but I still agree with you.

I didn't say it has to be great mez protection.  Get a couple things stacked on you, and boom.

[Major_Decoy]

On Rebirth the "Guardian" archetype is Assault Primary, Amour/Support secondary. It's kind of an interesting archetype, it manages to be not what people asked for when they said they wanted melee defenders but have some interesting options. (there are a number of things I prefer about homecoming, but you're not required to play only on one server) I think the inherent power they gave guardians isn't particularly great, but I'm not sure what I'd recommend in its place. Similarly, the ATOs they designed for it are kind of lackluster. We kind of have the same issue with Sentinel here.

[Uun]

11 hours ago, Exaltist Ethan said:

Enemies do too much damage in melee and don't do that much damage in ranged, and if you properly hover above enemies and force them to use ranged attacks, you'll never get killed as a sentinel, but I find that if I'm just running into them in melee or don't hover far enough that they have to attack me in ranged, I often die. Sentinels have moderate ranged damage and moderate defense, which still makes it difficult to defend yourself from three enemies that are doing melee damage to you.

I think the issue is your build, not the sentinel AT. Sentinels have essentially the same defenses as scrappers and stalkers. You should be able to survive in melee against 3 foes all day long.

[Chance Jackson]

On 6/18/2023 at 7:25 PM, Luminara said:

If you're going to create something new with Assault sets, create something new.  This is just sentinels with extra melee attacks, or scrappers with extra ranged attacks, and we already have that with *PPs.

PPs don't come in until end game & they only give like 1 ST range ability max & might provide a maximum of 2 ranged AOE abilities

Assault attack sets & Armors sounds good to me