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Scarlet Shocker

By Scarlet Shocker
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Scarlet Shocker

Scarlet Shocker

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I was musing as I am oft wont to do and I came up with an interesting name for a character: Mesmermaid... I'm guessing you don't need me to explain in too much detail what her power sets should be.

 

I thought to myself "I should try and make that in CoH" - so I logged in and tried to roll something appropriate.

 

It's harder than it seems. Mind control/Psychic powers are readily available, as is Water Blast. But combining the two is not possible.  It seems they are all primary (or secondary) sets (depending on your perspective and AT selection)

 

After a few abortive attempts at... something I gave up and thought I'd throw it out here as a concept for you good people to get your teeth into.

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

I deliberately haven't shared my own thoughts into her abilities and powers, nor her looks. I have my mental concept but I'd really like for you guys to share yours without my colouring your ideas. Feel free to share everything.

 

 

 

 

There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator but only a fraction of people understand that.

 
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Mjolnerd

Mjolnerd

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My first thought was also a Water Blast/Mental Manipulation blaster.

 

Of course, mermaids aren't really known for spraying water all over the place. So you could just go with psychic powers and a mermaid-inspired costume. Or lean into the "siren" aspect of mermaids and use some combination of psychic and sonic/symphony powersets.

 

It's also worth mentioning that ancillary/patron powers can help fill some thematic holes -- all psychic powers and also MIND SHARKS!!! for example.

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Formerly of Virtue, now on Excelsior:

Ace of Spades | Adamant Eve | Arch-Rival | The Bee | Blackbelt | Citizen Arcane | Core | Ctrl Alt Defeat | Daddy Longlegs | Diamant | Drop Dead Gorgeous | Freak Accident

Galactrix | Great White Shark | Heavy Machinery | Highway Star | The Howl | Inter-Galactica | Ion Maiden | Knockout Artist | Krakatoa | The Night's Templar | The Pact

Paroled McDonald | Sentinelle | Virtual Boy | Volcaniac | White Widow | Yucatan

And my most recent 50, Doctor Roswell (Psychic Blast/Atomic Manipulation blaster, 16 August 2024)

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SeraphimKensai

SeraphimKensai

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2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

That's where my head went.  Symphony/Psychic dominator.

I concur, with the added caveat of Leviathan as a patron set for Waterspout/Sharkskin, and Coralax. With enough recharge, which the OP would be chasing for permadom anyways, it's possible to get Coralax summon perma.

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FFFF

FFFF

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hmm... I guess I went a bit of different direction.

 

Mesmermaid, I took more literally as a mind control, fighting maid. Mind control/martial assault dominator?

 

Intimidate foes with your fearsome mind powers and if that doesn't work, kick em by the short hairs?

 

Sort of a riff of this character: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/56505/maid-to-kill

Edited by FFFF
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Scarlet Shocker

Scarlet Shocker

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10 hours ago, Snarky said:

I was just looking at this urinal and it said Zurn. You should make a water blaster named Zurn.  Yellow colored powers of course.  You are welcome 

 

My urinal says "Armitage Shanks" but that's not true either! 🤣

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There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator but only a fraction of people understand that.

 
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Scarlet Shocker

Scarlet Shocker

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17 hours ago, Fade said:

Is a water blast/mental manipulation blaster off the table?

 

*coughs* I'm going to be totally honest and say I didn't even notice that Mental Manipulation had been ported to Blasters - so no, not off the table, ignorance on my part. I did not look at blasters because a) I didn't think there would be powers to fit and I don't personally see the character as being all about the damage, more about control/debuffs - a somewhat sneaky thing that is untrustworthy.

 

 

14 hours ago, Mjolnerd said:

My first thought was also a Water Blast/Mental Manipulation blaster.

 

Of course, mermaids aren't really known for spraying water all over the place. So you could just go with psychic powers and a mermaid-inspired costume. Or lean into the "siren" aspect of mermaids and use some combination of psychic and sonic/symphony powersets.

 

It's also worth mentioning that ancillary/patron powers can help fill some thematic holes -- all psychic powers and also MIND SHARKS!!! for example.

 

I had not considered the siren powers but this fits well with my internal concept - I do like the idea of a Symphony/Mind control character but that seems realistic only as a dominator - which I have minimal experience of so it would be a cool thing to try.

 

 

12 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I concur, with the added caveat of Leviathan as a patron set for Waterspout/Sharkskin, and Coralax. With enough recharge, which the OP would be chasing for permadom anyways, it's possible to get Coralax summon perma.

 

This was kind of a core part of my thinking. Sharks - an affinity to Mako - the power of the ocean rather than Leviathan.

 

I had also considered "Force of Will" pool as the primary component of her mental side - which is doable but then leaves gaps in other sets making it difficult to get other powers in.

 

I'm seriously impressed by your input guys, many thanks. I am going to enjoy experimenting

 

 

There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator but only a fraction of people understand that.

 
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Shred Monkey

Shred Monkey

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Posted

As an alternate option, I'm thinking Staff/Dark/Leviathan Scrapper or Stalker.  The staff has a trident option.  Color the dark powers to be watery tentacles.  I like Stalker/Scrapper over Brute/Tank because I've always wanted to have an excuse to use Waterspout.    The "mental" part comes from controlling spirit sharks and water-like defenses.

 

Might be a fun build, too.  Good synergy in that you can get defense bonuses from staff to layer on the Resists from your secondary.

 

 

 

 

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Active on Excelsior:

Prismatic Monkey - Seismic / Martial Blaster, Shadow Dragon Monkey - Staff / Dark Brute, Murder Robot Monkey - Arachnos Night Widow

 

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Frozen Burn

Frozen Burn

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Posted

@Scarlet Shocker, Since Blaster (my first go-to) is off the table... Here are some options to consider (you could make a whole Mesmerpeople city!)....

  • Controller:
    • Primaries:
      • Symphony
      • Mind Control
      • Ice
    • Secondaries:
      • Cold
      • Pain
      • Sonic
      • Storm
  • Dominator:
    • Primaries:
      • Symphony
      • Mind Control
      • Ice
    • Secondaries:
      • Icy Assault
      • Psionic Assault
      • Sonic Assault
  • Defender (inverse for Corruptor):
    • Primaries:
      • Cold
      • Pain
      • Sonic
      • Storm
    • Secondaries:
      • Ice Blast
      • Psy Blast
      • Sonic Blast
      • Storm Blast
      • Water Blast

There are mods available for sonic blast banshee screams, which might fit.

 

 

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Fade

Fade

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Posted

People are giving a lot of great suggestions in this thread. I dig a lot of the Sonic/Symphonic ideas, and using Leviathan Mastery or Force of Will as well. While the Water/Mental blaster might be closer to what the OP originally asked for, I think some kind of sound-based set would be even more interesting. I like the idea of pairing something with Storm Summoning, or even Empathy might be suitable as a psychic-ish support set.

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Oubliette_Red

Oubliette_Red

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Posted
12 hours ago, FFFF said:

Hmm... I guess I went a bit of different direction.

 

Mesmermaid, I took more literally as a mind control, fighting maid. Mind control/martial assault dominator?

 

Intimidate foes with your fearsome mind powers and if that doesn't work, kick em by the short hairs?

 

Sort of a riff of this character: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/56505/maid-to-kill

 

No idea why but when you mentions "maid" I thought vacuum and created a Grav/FF Controller named Dyson Sphere.

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Dislike certain sounds? Silence/Modify specific sounds. Looking for modified whole powerset sfx?

Check out Michiyo's modder or Solerverse's thread.  Got a punny character? You should share it.

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tidge

tidge

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I had also considered "Force of Will" pool as the primary component of her mental side - which is doable but then leaves gaps in other sets making it difficult to get other powers in.

 

I Like Force of Will, it's a very viable Pool... especially for characters that make have lower DPS scales. Wall of Force is very suitable as an early-ish Cone attack that can use %damage.

 

My immediate thought was to lean into the Water set early, and then end up leveraging a Psychic Patron/Epic pool. The trick would be to find an AT whose Epic allows the kind of things you want at that tier.... or as was written, lean into the Mind/Psychic early and then leverage Mako's pool for more "aquatic" things.

 

I wouldn't rule out Pain or Sonic with a Mermaid type character.

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Scarlet Shocker

Scarlet Shocker

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4 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

As an alternate option, I'm thinking Staff/Dark/Leviathan Scrapper or Stalker.  The staff has a trident option.  Color the dark powers to be watery tentacles.  I like Stalker/Scrapper over Brute/Tank because I've always wanted to have an excuse to use Waterspout.    The "mental" part comes from controlling spirit sharks and water-like defenses.

 

Might be a fun build, too.  Good synergy in that you can get defense bonuses from staff to layer on the Resists from your secondary.

 

 

 

I did think about the trident option - the issue there is I'm not keen on melee toons generally and I dislike how staff fighting plays for me, but it's still a great suggestion.

 

 

There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator but only a fraction of people understand that.

 
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Scarlet Shocker

Scarlet Shocker

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I've created a few iterations across servers to try them them out and see how they play.

 

I'm currently having a LOT of fun in Khalisti with a ToT team with a Symphony/Mental Dominator

 

Interestingly, adding Wall of Force gives me a good choice of cones so I can get a nice number of bad guys lined up and give 'em the works so to speak, then pick the remainders off with ST powers.

 

This could be fun.

 

I love how many great suggestions you guys have come up with - this one is red side - but do you think there's mileage to be had in a aquatic based mind control SG?

 

 

There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator but only a fraction of people understand that.

 
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Scarlet Shocker

Scarlet Shocker

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8 hours ago, Frozen Burn said:

@Scarlet Shocker, Since Blaster (my first go-to) is off the table... Here are some options to consider (you could make a whole Mesmerpeople city!)....

  • Controller:
    • Primaries:
      • Symphony
      • Mind Control
      • Ice
    • Secondaries:
      • Cold
      • Pain
      • Sonic
      • Storm
  • Dominator:
    • Primaries:
      • Symphony
      • Mind Control
      • Ice
    • Secondaries:
      • Icy Assault
      • Psionic Assault
      • Sonic Assault
  • Defender (inverse for Corruptor):
    • Primaries:
      • Cold
      • Pain
      • Sonic
      • Storm
    • Secondaries:
      • Ice Blast
      • Psy Blast
      • Sonic Blast
      • Storm Blast
      • Water Blast

There are mods available for sonic blast banshee screams, which might fit.

 

 

 

 

This is a testament to the amazing flexibility of this great game. I love how you're thinking too!

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There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator but only a fraction of people understand that.

 
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kelika2

kelika2

Posted
Posted

No.

But you can try a water/dev blaster and use all the techy costume stuff you can to keep your fishy self breathing and flying

since water blast is a pretty self contained set you wont use your secondary much

caltrops is great for whirlpool

target drone is great all around, consider taking leadership assault at some point to stack that +dmg

field op can be a water/steam based cloak

not sure if tripmines works while flying

gun drone is a nice addition to damage

 

you can skip everything else unless you wanna go super roleplay and recolor smoke grenade to be a fine mist or making a macro to be scared of your own taser or something fishgross with web grenade

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UltraAlt

UltraAlt

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Posted
On 10/13/2023 at 5:41 PM, Scarlet Shocker said:

It's harder than it seems. Mind control/Psychic powers are readily available, as is Water Blast. But combining the two is not possible.  It seems they are all primary (or secondary) sets (depending on your perspective and AT selection)

 

What about a psi blast/storm corruptor? or a storm/psi blast defender?

Storm is sort of a cousin of water.

 

And I see other people are already going with the option of using other power sets and just claiming them to be psi.

 

22 hours ago, Frozen Burn said:

Here are some options to consider (you could make a whole Mesmerpeople city!)

 

 

There is that AE mission arc ... I think it's called Secrets of the Lake

If someone posts a reply quoting me and I don't reply, they may be on ignore.

(It seems I'm involved with so much at this point that I may not be able to easily retrieve access to all the notifications)

Some players know that I have them on ignore and are likely to make posts knowing that is the case.

But the fact that I have them on ignore won't stop some of them from bullying and harassing people, because some of them love to do it. There is a group that have banded together to target forum posters they don't like. They think that this behavior is acceptable.

Ignore (in the forums) and /ignore (in-game) are tools to improve your gaming experience. Don't feel bad about using them.

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Scarlet Shocker

Scarlet Shocker

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On 10/15/2023 at 2:39 AM, Luminara said:

Mind/Poison controller, Symphony/Poison controller, Poison/Psychic defender, Psychic/Poison corruptor.

 

I played one once. I took it to level 49 and realised I just could not go with the slowness of it, no matter how strong it was, so it was consigned to Toonheaven

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There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator but only a fraction of people understand that.

 
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  • 10 months later
Scarlet Shocker

Scarlet Shocker

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At the risk of necroing my own thread, I wanted to give an update on this one.

 

With the arrival of Marine I found the perfect assimilation for Mesmermaid - obviously a Mind/Marine

 

She exists on Indom along with her compatriot, a Plant/Marine known locally as The Bladderwrack  - so I'm hoping great things from them both.

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There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator but only a fraction of people understand that.

 
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