Scarlet Shocker Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 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. The Ghost Slaying Axe. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherspectre in the room, accept no substitutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fade Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 Is a water blast/mental manipulation blaster off the table? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psyonico Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 19 minutes ago, Fade said: Is a water blast/mental manipulation blaster off the table? That was going to be my suggestion. What this team needs is more Defenders Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mjolnerd Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 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. 4 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 | Freak Accident | Galactrix | Great White Shark Heavy Machinery | Highway Star | The Howl | Inter-Galactica | Ion Maiden | Knockout Artist | Krakatoa | Night's Templar | The Pact | Paroled McDonald | Virtual Boy | Volcaniac | White Widow | Yucatan And my most recent 50, Cyber-Security (Shield Defense/Street Justice tanker, 16 March 2024) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yomo Kimyata Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 23 minutes ago, Mjolnerd said: Or lean into the "siren" aspect of mermaids and use some combination of psychic and sonic/symphony powersets. That's where my head went. Symphony/Psychic dominator. Who run Bartertown? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeraphimKensai Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Techwright Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 Not all mer-people tales have beautiful creatures. Some can be monstrous. Maybe that's an angle to consider? I'll add another vote in for water blast/mental blaster. I used that with Aquaphobia, my own (heroic) monster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snarky Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 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 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FFFF Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 (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 October 14, 2023 by FFFF 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Shocker Posted October 14, 2023 Author Share Posted October 14, 2023 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! 🤣 1 The Ghost Slaying Axe. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherspectre in the room, accept no substitutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Shocker Posted October 14, 2023 Author Share Posted October 14, 2023 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 The Ghost Slaying Axe. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherspectre in the room, accept no substitutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shred Monkey Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 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. 1 Active on Excelsior: Prismatic Monkey - Seismic / Martial Blaster, Shadow Dragon Monkey - Staff / Dark Brute, Murder Robot Monkey - Arachnos Night Widow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frozen Burn Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 @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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fade Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oubliette_Red Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 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. 2 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tidge Posted October 14, 2023 Share Posted October 14, 2023 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Shocker Posted October 14, 2023 Author Share Posted October 14, 2023 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. The Ghost Slaying Axe. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherspectre in the room, accept no substitutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Shocker Posted October 14, 2023 Author Share Posted October 14, 2023 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? The Ghost Slaying Axe. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherspectre in the room, accept no substitutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Shocker Posted October 15, 2023 Author Share Posted October 15, 2023 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! 1 The Ghost Slaying Axe. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherspectre in the room, accept no substitutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luminara Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 Mind/Poison controller, Symphony/Poison controller, Poison/Psychic defender, Psychic/Poison corruptor. Get busy living... or get busy dying. That's goddamn right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tidge Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 I have a Mind/Poison Controller... with Force of Will!.... I like the combo but I don't think I could reskin it to be a Mermaid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelika2 Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UltraAlt Posted October 15, 2023 Share Posted October 15, 2023 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Shocker Posted October 17, 2023 Author Share Posted October 17, 2023 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 1 The Ghost Slaying Axe. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherspectre in the room, accept no substitutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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