Commander AT

[Papias]

I would like to see a new AT (possibly called Commander). It could have either Tank primary & Controller secondary powers (final pet replaced with taunt) or Controller primary and Sentinel secondary powers (keep final pet). This would be an interesting character for controlling the battlefield in groups.

Edited August 16 by Papias

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Papias said:

I would like to see a new AT (possibly called Commander). It could have either Tank primary & Controller secondary powers (final pet replaced with taunt) or Controller primary and Sentinel secondary powers (keep final pet). This would be an interesting character for controlling the battlefield in groups.

 

Well, Tank primary/Controller secondary wouldn't work directly. The Tanker primary is their armor set, the Controller secondary is their support set. While some Tank primaries do have damage auras, very little as far as a Controller secondary would. (Imagine trying to level an Invuln/Empathy. You'd have ... brawl, and whatever temps and pool powers you'd pick up.)  You'd have a character that would be *painfully* slow to level (and I say that having leveled an Earth/FF controller... ow,) and given the way the game runs these days, would likely be passed up in teams. (Granted, some farmers might like them - a shielded buffbot? And maybe some very specific content, but other than that...)

 

Controller primary/Sentinel (or just control/armor) secondary would be more viable, since you'd be able to ... well, do something 😄  Though I expect the set would be less control-heavy in favor of giving some direct *attacks.* (Yes, I know, many controls do damage.) How they'd specifically look or be laid out, I couldn't say.  But of the two varieties, yeah, I'd say control/armor would probably be more likely.

[SeraphimKensai]

This suggestion has been requested several times before, even including using the name Commander, however it failed to gain any significant traction.

[megaericzero]

18 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Well, Tank primary/Controller secondary wouldn't work directly. The Tanker primary is their armor set, the Controller secondary is their support set.

Gonna give Papias the BOTD that they meant to say Armor for primary and Control for secondary but listed the archetypes instead of their respective primary set categories.

(Or they could actually be insane and suggesting an Armor/Support archetype. It's funny picturing how impossibly slow-but-safe it would be, sporting combos like Stone Armor/Radiation Emission.)

Edited August 16 by megaericzero

[Rudra]

9 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

Gonna give Papias the BOTD that they meant to say Armor for primary and Control for secondary but listed the archetypes instead of their respective primary set categories.

(Or they could actually be insane and suggesting an Armor/Support archetype. It's funny picturing how impossibly slow-but-safe it would be, sporting combos like Stone Armor/Radiation Emission.)

Armor/Support wouldn't be impossibly slow but safe, it would be impossible to do solo missions, but incredibly safe. The only attack you would be guaranteed to have is Brawl. Every other attack would have to be bought from START or gained from a power pool.

 

I'm also  uncertain about giving the BotD to the OP for Tanker/Controller because the OP says Tanker primary and Controller secondary. That is very specifically Armor/Support. Though I do grant that the OP's "final pet replaced with taunt" lends heavy credence to to the author simply being confused since as far as I can remember, only 3 Controller secondaries have pets as in mobs that will follow your character around or chase down enemies, and only 1 of them has it as the final power. However, the second part of the OP with Controller primary and Sentinel secondary, so Control/Armor, is at least viable. Even though you would still lose the Controller's Containment ability and its associated damage boost.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Papias said:

This would be an interesting character for controlling the battlefield in groups.

 

If you mean "a pointless waste of an archetype, incapable of earning XP by itself and bringing nothing to teams but weakened copies of what tankers and controllers have" when you say "interesting", then I agree.

[biostem]

Personally, I think something like MM pets, (with the ranged attacks replaced with melee attacks, and possibly some other tweaks), and armor secondary, would be more dynamic to play.  Alternatively, replacing the MM primary attacks with some sort of combo-armor powers, then a melee secondary, would also fit a "commander" better, IMO...

Edited August 16 by biostem

[JasperStone]

Yes, this has been asked for before  ...

This already exists ... in a way.

Ice/Ice/Ice Tanker - this is one of my mains, and I run it like an Armored Controller

 

Frost at lvl 2 for the Slows. I slot for slows

Ice Patch  lvl 20 - not the beast it once was ... but still good. 

Freezing Touch lvl 22  - A hold that is nice to stack in close quarters

Frozen Aura lvl 26 -  A sleep ... but it can put an instant stop on incoming dmg

 

Ice Mastery

Chillblain lvl 35 - an immob that I have on one build with the proc Chance to Hold 🙂

Block of Ice lvl 35 -  Hold

Shiver lvl 41-  a cone slow I have on a build ... nice to stack on Frost

Ice Storm - AoE Minor dmg, but -rech, -spd

 

This becomes about the mitigation of incoming foes and damage.

It does put you on par with Trollers ... kinda 🙂

 

Take a look at how other Tankers can do this

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 16 by JasperStone
Edit : Ice Patch to lvl 20

[Psyonico]

How did you take ice patch at 8 on a tanker? Its not available until 20

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

How did you take ice patch at 8 on a tanker? Its not available until 20

Probably a Brute rather than a Tanker. The levels line up with a Brute.

[JasperStone]

43 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

How did you take ice patch at 8 on a tanker? Its not available until 20

Mistakenly read Brute table as I was double checking lvls

[TheMoneyMaker]

Wouldn't mastermind primary as the commander secondary be a better choice?  You'd have pets and damage powers to deal damage and level you up.

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

Wouldn't mastermind primary as the commander secondary be a better choice?  You'd have pets and damage powers to deal damage and level you up.

Without the MM's support abilities, those pets are likely going to die horrible, gruesome deaths fairly repeatedly.

[Owl Girl]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Without the MM's support abilities, those pets are likely going to die horrible, gruesome deaths fairly repeatedly.

so what? the cd on summoning pets is super low and as You have established repeatedly in the past, pets dying before being upgraded isn't a significant handicap. just imagine how tanky an AT would be with armour primary and MM pets in bodyguard mode!

[Rudra]

5 minutes ago, Owl Girl said:

so what? the cd on summoning pets is super low and as You have established repeatedly in the past, pets dying before being upgraded isn't a significant handicap. just imagine how tanky an AT would be with armour primary and MM pets in bodyguard mode!

And why would the AT be given Bodyguard Mode when it has an armor set for its secondary? The point of BG is to keep the MM alive. The proposed AT can already do that with its armor.

[biostem]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Without the MM's support abilities, those pets are likely going to die horrible, gruesome deaths fairly repeatedly.

I was thinking about this - what if you did the MM primary, (with melee attacks instead of the current ones), and an armor secondary, with this AT's schtick being that the armor powers extended, (perhaps only to a partial degree), to your pets...

Edited August 17 by biostem

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, biostem said:

I was thinking about this - what if you did the MM primary, (with melee attacks instead of the current ones), and an armor secondary, with this AT's schtick being that the armor powers extended, (perhaps only to a partial degree), to your pets...

Then there would be very little point in playing a MM. Why bother making a MM where you have to keep using your support abilities to bolster and protect your pets if you can just make a Commander and let your pets enjoy the benefits of your armor set while still enjoying the full suite of MM pets and their upgrades? If the proposed AT were changed to an armor and MM pet set, then that is all it should be. Your character gets an armor set and your pets are left to their own devices for survival. No BG Mode, because the AT does not need it to survive like how MMs routinely do. No extending character armor effects to the pets. Just summoned pets, their upgrades, your 3 native attacks, and your armor powers.

 

The whole point of me pointing out that pets will die without the MM's support abilities is to remind others of that. (Edit: Most of the complaints about MMs is having to re-summon pets as needed.) I'm fine with re-summoning as needed.

 

Edited August 17 by Rudra

[biostem]

17 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Then there would be very little point in playing a MM

Well, I think it would offer a different play style, kind of like scrappers or sentinels vs tankers or brutes...

[Rudra]

45 minutes ago, biostem said:

Well, I think it would offer a different play style, kind of like scrappers or sentinels vs tankers or brutes...

I disagree. A Scrapper gets lower caps for their armors than a Brute or Tanker, but gets to hit harder and gets routine crits (even if the ATOs are necessary to get those routinely). A Brute has to work harder to build up their armors than Tankers, but gets a combat driven damage boost. A pet focused AT with an armor secondary, even if that armor set were to use Scrapper caps instead of the requested Tanker or Sentinel, is going to be more robust than a Mastermind. Many armor sets also include a self-heal, which balances out the MM's heal for those MM secondaries that include a heal. (Edit yet again: It won't keep the pets alive, but since the Commander can just soak the damage where a MM can't, then it doesn't matter because the Commander can just summon more pets.) The current pitch for Commander also seems to be all 6 pets with both their upgrades, so the Commander isn't losing out on number of henchmen or their capability. (Henchmen class pets are already weaker than pet class pets, so I doubt an even weaker class of pets would be made.) And with no support abilities for the Commander player to keep clicking to keep them and their pets in the fight, the Commander can focus more on their attacks. Even if those attacks are melee instead of ranged. So while the MM is splitting focus on what his/her/their/its henchmen are doing to limit aggro, spamming buffs or debuffs, re-summoning if needed, and maybe trying to squeeze in some attacks as well, the Commander can just attack, pop the occasional self-heal, not really worry if their pets run off to another spawn because the Commander can probably tank it or endure long enough to leave, and summon replacement pets for added damage if feels like it. That's not just a different play style.

 

Edit: And how much of a partial sharing are we talking about? 10%? 50%? Somewhere else between those? Remember that henchmen also have their own native resists and defenses. So say a Commander gets to 75% damage resists. How much of that 75% is being shared with the pets on top of their own damage resists? Or your Commander gets to 50% positional defense. How much of that will be shared with the pets? Especially with defense-based pets like the ninjas. And after you add in Leadership? (Edit again: A Force Field MM has to renew their shields every 4 minutes. The Commander has to renew their defense boosts for their pets never if they can simply share their armor. Doesn't sound equitable to me.)

 

Edited August 17 by Rudra
Edited to add ", but gets a combat driven damage boost".

[Owl Girl]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

And why would the AT be given Bodyguard Mode when it has an armor set for its secondary? The point of BG is to keep the MM alive. The proposed AT can already do that with its armor.

i just figured bodyguard mode was part of the package of MM pet commands, but let's say we grant that only the Commander AT wouldn't get it. pets dying quickly shouldn't actually be much of a hinderance since iirc your argument for it not mattering in the first place also often includes the reminder that turning bodyguard mode off will increase pet survivability.

in short: pets dying in droves doesn't matter much, my reasoning being based on your prior (fantastic) arguments on the matter.

[megaericzero]

29 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The current pitch for Commander also seems to be all 6 pets

I mean... technically the thread was "Tank primary & Controller secondary powers [...] or Controller primary and Sentinel secondary" (however you want to interpret that) per the OP and just got steered to MM-related stuff. 👀

[Rudra]

Just now, megaericzero said:

I mean... technically the thread was "Tank primary & Controller secondary powers [...] or Controller primary and Sentinel secondary" (however you want to interpret that) per the OP and just got steered to MM-related stuff. 👀

Yeah, but the response I was responding to was for the pitched change to pets + armor. Going back to the original, I've already given my response. About the only thing I have left to say on it until new information arises is that the armor set should be limited to Scrapper, not Tanker or Sentinel. As a control + armor AT, it is plenty robust between its ability to lock down entire spawns on top of getting any armors.

[Owl Girl]

45 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

I mean... technically the thread was "Tank primary & Controller secondary powers [...] or Controller primary and Sentinel secondary" (however you want to interpret that) per the OP and just got steered to MM-related stuff. 👀

yes, but: 

“Don’t leave your child unattended.” 

"In short, any suggestion made in this forum will be thoroughly examined by all of us, changed, ripped up, and added-on to until it’s possible that the resulting idea doesn’t resemble what you suggested in the first place.  You need to allow others to add more consideration to your idea."

nature of the beast.

[megaericzero]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Yeah, but the response I was responding to was for the pitched change to pets + armor. Going back to the original, I've already given my response. About the only thing I have left to say on it until new information arises is that the armor set should be limited to Scrapper, not Tanker or Sentinel. As a control + armor AT, it is plenty robust between its ability to lock down entire spawns on top of getting any armors.

21 minutes ago, Owl Girl said:

yes, but: 

“Don’t leave your child unattended.” 

"In short, any suggestion made in this forum will be thoroughly examined by all of us, changed, ripped up, and added-on to until it’s possible that the resulting idea doesn’t resemble what you suggested in the first place.  You need to allow others to add more consideration to your idea."

nature of the beast.

*shrug* I was responding just in case Rudra was conflating this Commander thread with past threads where the same name is suggested for an archetype that does use henchmen. Not that I don't trust Rudra's memory; just that we've had a lot of duplicate topics in close proximity to one another lately, either by coincidence or one leading to another.

[ThatGuyCDude]

On 8/16/2024 at 10:56 AM, Papias said:

I would like to see a new AT (possibly called Commander). It could have either Tank primary & Controller secondary powers (final pet replaced with taunt) or Controller primary and Sentinel secondary powers (keep final pet). This would be an interesting character for controlling the battlefield in groups.

So, normally when I'm coming up with a new archetype I like to test the power pairing in Architect Entertainment.  I do this by creating boss characters that have the primary/secondary pairings suggested, and then running stealth through test missions with one of these custom characters as an easily acquired friendly target.  I can then monitor how well they handle fighting groups without assistance (since I'm generating no threat on my own) and see how the archetype would fare.
This isn't a perfect way to test an idea, mind, because it doesn't consider other factors like enhancements, necessary AT power replacements, and archetype bonuses... but it does serve as a good first impression.

Problem is... Armor/Buffs (Tanker Primary, Controller Secondary) isn't a character you can actually make in AE: Armor and Buffs [Dominations/Manipulations] are both flagged as secondary to ensure the resulting combat character can actually attack, as neither set has a guaranteed damage source... this makes it impossible to get a first impression of the pairing through Architect Entertainment and also indicates that there would need to be forced AT power swaps to allow such a pairing.  The first that comes to mind is that the Tier 1 secondary power would HAVE to be replaced with an attack [to force the player to take it, ensuring they can fight].  I also believe that the armor primary would need a damage aura in its T1 or T2, just to be able to run missions.

Control/Armor (Controller Primary, Brute Secondary) is something that CAN be tested in AE, though (although I haven't tried that pairing personally).  Sets that I've sent through that grinder thus far that were intriguing were Pets/Armor (Mastermind Primary, Brute Secondary), Melee/Buffs (Scrapper Primary, Controller Secondary), and Melee/Ranged (Scrapper Primary, Blaster Primary)... though that last one was really not much different from a Martial Blaster.

Other possible names for your combo could be Enforcer, Stalwart, or Blocker, since the emphasis appears to be survival and control more than pets--which Commander evokes.

Edited August 17 by ThatGuyCDude