Polearm (Melee power set)

[megaericzero]

Here's (yet) another set I've been kicking around for a while: Polearm

 

This one is largely for theme/aesthetics but thought and care was put into giving it a particular feel. Leogunner and AspieAnarchy have suggested scythe and spear power sets before, respectively. I'd like to do my own take with a more generic set that covers both. Functionally, it's a lethal alternative to staff. Sort of the Battle Axe to Staff's War Mace, though very different in powers.

 

This set might require its own custom animations, making the entire idea a non-starter, but we'll try recycling animations instead. I feel the set's animations should focus on a solid stance and simpler, more impactful strikes that leverage the tool's bladed end. Thematically, a sort of midway between Staff Fighting and Titan Weapons - slower, less flashy, and more impactful swings than staff but still fluid, agile, and mobile compared to titan.

 

Here's the power table:

 

Polearm
You wield a polearm - a regal trident, a powerful scythe, or a trusty spear. Attacks from the weapon will puncture armor and skin, causing extra bleeding damage over time.

 

	Pierce	(Melee) Foe Moderate Damage (Lethal, ignores resistance), Minor DOT (Lethal)
	Rend	(Melee) Foe High Damage (Lethal), -Resistance (All), Minor DOT (Lethal)
	Carve	(Melee Cone) Foe Moderate Damage (Lethal), Minor DOT (Lethal)
	Hone Blade	Self +Damage, +Accuracy, +Special
	Crescent Slash	(PBAOE) Foe Moderate Damage (Lethal), Chance to Knockdown, Minor DOT (Lethal)
	Confront	(Ranged) Foe Taunt, -Range
	Guillotine	(Melee) Foe Superior Damage (Smashing, Lethal), Disorient, Minor DOT (Lethal)
	Javelin	(Narrow Ranged Cone) Foe High Damage (Lethal), Knockdown, Minor DOT (Lethal)
	Plunge	(Ranged) Foe Extreme Damage (Lethal), Immobilize, Minor DOT (Lethal); Self Teleport

The table is for Scrappers. Brutes, of course, swap Confront for Taunt; Tankers swap Taunt and Hone Blade's tiers; Stalkers drop the PBAOE for Assassin's Strike at tier 4, Hone Blade becomes generic Build Up at tier 5, and Confront becomes Placate at tier 6 with all other powers shifting down as necessary. I'd love to let Stalkers keep Hone Blade instead but it seems all Stalker sets give up their special Build Ups.

And here's the detailed power info:

 

 Pierce
(Melee) Foe Moderate Damage (Lethal, ignores resistance), Minor DOT (Lethal)
You thrust your weapon at a foe to puncture through any armor they may have. The damage done by this attack ignores most types of damage resistance.
Damage: Moderate
Recharge: Fast
Suggested animation: a poke; do the Cimerorans have something like that we can use?

 

 Rend
(Melee) Foe High Damage (Lethal), -Resistance (All), Minor DOT (Lethal)
You strike at a foe using your weapon's leverage to cleave through or pop off armor, dealing high damage and lowering their damage resistance for a time.
Damage: High
Recharge: Moderate
Suggested animation: an upward swing like Katana > Soaring Dragon

 

 Carve
(Melee Cone) Foe Moderate Damage (Lethal), Minor DOT (Lethal)
Slice at all foes in a large cone in front of you, dealing moderate damage and causing them to bleed for additional lethal damage over time.
Damage: Moderate
Recharge: Moderate
Suggested animation: the wide, back-handed weapon swing (ex: Broad Sword > Slice)

 

 Hone Blade
Self +Damage, +Accuracy, +Special
Straightens your weapon's blade, greatly increasing your damage and chance to hit for a short time. Additionally, your bleed damage will ignore most types of damage resistance during this period.
Recharge: Long
Suggested animation: generic build up

 

 Crescent Slash
(PBAOE) Foe Moderate Damage (Lethal), Chance to Knockdown, Minor DOT (Lethal)
You lash at all foes around you with one large swing, dealing moderate damage and possibly knocking them off their feet.
Damage: Moderate
Recharge: Slow
Suggested animation: same as Whirling Smash

 Guillotine
(Melee) Foe Superior Damage (Smashing, Lethal), Disorient, Minor DOT (Lethal)
You bring your weapon straight down with full force on a single foe, dealing superior damage and stunning them in the process.
Damage: Superior
Recharge: Slow
Suggested animation: I want to say Titan Weapons also had a two-handed, overhead, downward swing

 

 Javelin
(Narrow Ranged Cone) Foe High Damage (Lethal), Knockdown, Minor DOT (Lethal)
You launch your polearm with incredible force, dealing damage and knocking down both your intended target and anyone unfortunate enough to be in your weapon's flight path.
Damage: High
Recharge: Slow
Suggested animation: the Cimeroran spear-tossing animation (Pulim I think it's called?)

 

Personally, I am wholly unconcerned with "you threw your weapon, now you have to go grab it" for multiple reasons. I don't find it immersion-breaking, in fact that level of immersion grates on me, there are plenty of characters in fiction with ways to recall their weapons (magic, tech, or otherwise), characters could wield multiple weapons and throw a different one than the one they're using or switch to a duplicate if they're using disposables, and the next power (Plunge) is an easy write-off as well for "you jumped to your weapon and grabbed it out of the person it embedded into."

 Plunge
(Ranged) Foe Extreme Damage (Lethal), Immobilize, Minor DOT (Lethal); Self Teleport
You dive directly at a targeted foe and plunge your weapon into them on impact. This attack deals extreme damage to your target, closes even large gaps between you and them, and pins them in place.
Damage: Extreme
Recharge: Slow
Suggested animation: something like Shield Defense > Shield Charge or even Ninja Blade > Assassin's Blade's fast animation (but, of course, you teleport during it)

 

--

 

This set has a few gimmicks going for it. The ubiquitous secondary effect is lethal damage over time. Both the tier 1 power and the "bleed" damage (when using the set's Build Up equivalent) have damage that partially ignores normal lethal resistance, which is my attempt at raising their damage floor and average damage (as the character gets higher in level) without raising their damage ceiling. Hopefully that would be useful as the character progresses through the game and comes across more and more enemies that resist lethal. I don't think it would be too problematic as it's effectively raising damage by normalizing it; mobs that are meant to be truly invulnerable for story beats and other gimmicks are already labeled with things like untouchable or intangible, plus the ignore-resistance is all on minor damage effects.

 

Javelin is like a hybrid between other melee sets' ranged attacks (Focus, Hurl Boulder) and ranged cones (Throw Spines, Shockwave). In a way, it's also loosely related to many weapon sets' tier 8/9 narrow-cone, though having traded raw power to be ranged instead of melee but that's more of a stretch.

 

Speaking of the tier 9, it's a teleport attack. Dunno what other people think of these but I am cool with them becoming more common, especially to make sets feel "zippier" by allowing characters to dive at their next victim or use as an alpha strike when engaging enemies.

 

--

 

For weapon customization, in addition to the existing blade-tipped staff options, we could have:

• Staff's tech staff and trident
• Additional spear options (tribal, knife-tied-to-a-stick, elemental staves, etc.)
• A couple of scythe options (plain, decorated, Halloween)
• Medieval pole-axe
• Whatever you call that symmetrical, double-bladed tool wielded by Thanos in Endgame and Groh in Soulcalibur
• Perhaps elongated Arachnos maces

 

And... that's about it. I'm (still) bad at outro-ing my own suggestions. 👍

[Shin Magmus]

I like it.  It would also be nice if the weapon list for Staff Fighting used more blunt instruments, and then the bladed weapons in that set were moved to this new Polearm set.  It's very weird to pick a clearly edged weapon in your costume and have the powers deal Smashing damage: this is what currently happens with Staff Fighting.

[AspieAnarchy]

Nicely-done!

How did you make those icons, BTW?

 

Hope it's not bad form to share the version I posited some time back!

[megaericzero]

10 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

Nicely-done!

How did you make those icons, BTW?

 

Hope it's not bad form to share the version I posited some time back!

Thanks!

The icons are largely from Titan Weapons; I just copy-pasted them.

 

You're more than welcome to link to your post! In fact, I did in the OP as well.