Elemental Weapons Power Sets and Whip powersets

[Lumicat]

My dream list:

1. An elemental melee weapon set. Using the animations already present but you can set it so that it is fire, ice, stone, etc. I always like fire melee because of the 3 swords attacks and it would be cool to have a full set. Picking an elemental set also gives you the typical secondary effects so fire would be DOTS, ice would be slows, etc. I love the mallet from stone melee and hopefully it could be applied to that as well with maybe the Battle Axe melee set.

 

2. A whip powerset that is a bit like how claws is melee with some range. There are currently 3 animations for whip I think. So it may not be feasible to create animations for the other powers but having a hold power could be taken from the mastermind set.

 

3. It took me awhile, but I am beginning to like dual pistols gimmick of switching between ammo types. Staff, and bio also have different effect toggles. I would like to see that implement in older legacy powersets.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Lumicat said:

An elemental melee weapon set

Going along with your mention of the ammo swap mechanic from dual pistols, I think a "Beam Sword" set, (using either broadsword or katana's animation), where you could change the element type of the sword, (energy, fire, negative energy, and maybe ice or toxic), would work very well.

 

4 minutes ago, Lumicat said:

A whip powerset

I'm not against this idea, but animation work is probably one of the most time-consuming aspects of development.  There have been several proposals already to use the existing 4 whip animations from demon summoning, in something like an assault or manipulation set, interspersed with some other powers, to make a complete set, without needing much in the way of new animations...

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Lumicat said:

. A whip powerset that is a bit like how claws is melee with some range. There are currently 3 animations for whip I think. So it may not be feasible to create animations for the other powers but having a hold power could be taken from the mastermind set.

Whips are tricky. The Live devs said they were going to give us a whip set, then they faceplanted into all the problems flexible weapons like whips have in games like this, and wound up making the Demon Summoning set instead to give us whips. Champions Online gets around the problem by simply making their chains spun around the character and having no other function, doing damage and repelling enemies, but only having 1 power (found in 2 power sets that are identical except for the chain's visual) that do this to avoid having to deal with how whips work. So while having whips to use in melee against our foes would be fun and really nice to have, the problems of working something like that as an actual whip for melee attacks makes that rather unlikely.

 

  Edit:

20 minutes ago, Lumicat said:

3. It took me awhile, but I am beginning to like dual pistols gimmick of switching between ammo types. Staff, and bio also have different effect toggles. I would like to see that implement in older legacy powersets.

I'm glad you like Dual Pistols now, but I am against adding its mechanics to legacy power sets. New power sets that are built with that mechanic in mind? Sure. Old sets that currently don't have that? No.

 

Edited October 30 by Rudra

[biostem]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

I am against adding its mechanics to legacy power sets

What's interesting is they kind of did an end-run around this by giving sets like martial assault "envenomed blades" or stone armor, "brimstone armor" for scrappers/sentinels/stalkers, which adds extra elemental damage.  I agree that existing melee sets shouldn't have this function shoehorned into them, but I wonder if some hypothetical new armor set include such a mechanic, (for instance, imagine a "storm armor" set with a toggle that caused you to deal extra energy or cold damage)...

[Rudra]

10 minutes ago, biostem said:

but I wonder if some hypothetical new armor set include such a mechanic, (for instance, imagine a "storm armor" set with a toggle that caused you to deal extra energy or cold damage)...

 

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

New power sets that are built with that mechanic in mind? Sure.

 

[kelika2]

Swap Ammo for weapons sounds nice and all but I think it should be more solid than that, more punishing to say the least.

 

Like at character creation if you want a beam sword you are stuck with energy/lethal for that characters life.  Lightsabers are more finesse than pure strength, an ice katana will have a different feel than an earth katana and a fire broadsword is going to weigh less than a rusty toxic broadsword.  even then who would pick an original broadsword after this unless they buff the base like adding a lethal dot to everything and so on.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, kelika2 said:

Swap Ammo for weapons sounds nice and all but I think it should be more solid than that, more punishing to say the least.

 

Like at character creation if you want a beam sword you are stuck with energy/lethal for that characters life.  Lightsabers are more finesse than pure strength, an ice katana will have a different feel than an earth katana and a fire broadsword is going to weigh less than a rusty toxic broadsword.  even then who would pick an original broadsword after this unless they buff the base like adding a lethal dot to everything and so on.

Well, given the comic book setting CoH takes place in, I don't think things need to be treated so realistically - a minimum height and body scale character can wield a titan weapon just as well as the largest character can, not to mention that said giant weapon can be anything from an actual sword to a rail road crossing sign, yet still be just as effective.  Some sort of "variable weapon" is not so far fetched...

[kelika2]

5 minutes ago, biostem said:

Well, given the comic book setting CoH takes place in, I don't think things need to be treated so realistically - a minimum height and body scale character can wield a titan weapon just as well as the largest character can, not to mention that said giant weapon can be anything from an actual sword to a rail road crossing sign, yet still be just as effective.  Some sort of "variable weapon" is not so far fetched...

The other thing is that Swap Ammo takes up the buildup slot for pistols.  if you take away buildup for all those sets there will be.. more complaints

[biostem]

1 minute ago, kelika2 said:

The other thing is that Swap Ammo takes up the buildup slot for pistols.  if you take away buildup for all those sets there will be.. more complaints

Well, I think we're talking about hypothetical new sets, here, (at least, at this point, I am), not retrofitting existing ones.  Still, I get your point, but that's the great thing about having options...

[kelika2]

1 minute ago, biostem said:

Well, I think we're talking about hypothetical new sets, here, (at least, at this point, I am), not retrofitting existing ones.  Still, I get your point, but that's the great thing about having options...

Assault Rifle getting Aim for like 5 minutes almost broke the internet

 

plus itll get more confusing if you break them down even more like giving Katana only access to lethal/toxic/fire, broadsword smash/fire/ice, mace smash/lethal/etc and so on

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

Assault Rifle getting Aim for like 5 minutes almost broke the internet

 

plus itll get more confusing if you break them down even more like giving Katana only access to lethal/toxic/fire, broadsword smash/fire/ice, mace smash/lethal/etc and so on

Please, drop the notion of retrofitting an existing set.  I, at least at this point, am talking about wholly new sets.  Yes, they may use existing animations, but that's about it...

[kelika2]

Just now, biostem said:

Please, drop the notion of retrofitting an existing set.  I, at least at this point, am talking about wholly new sets.  Yes, they may use existing animations, but that's about it...

we have a lot of weapon sets as it is, and if it were to be made only fire would come out on top and the rest will just be there

like swap ammo

[biostem]

Just now, kelika2 said:

we have a lot of weapon sets as it is, and if it were to be made only fire would come out on top and the rest will just be there

like swap ammo

Huh?  I use the different ammo types, and not just fire.  Still, the great thing is you can stick to what you like, and others would have options.  Further, it is possible this hypothetical set could tweak the effects to be more balanced and/or to provide variable effects...

[JasperStone]

These are from my Girlfriend  From Hell

 Corruption Ranged, Light DMG(Fire), Minor DoT(Toxic), Foe -Resist(All)
You lash out with your whip, firing a bolt of hellfire and corrupting your victim's very living essence. This attack deals minor fire damage, causes minor toxic damage over time, and reduces their damage resistance for a short time.

 

 Lash Close, Moderate DMG(Fire), Light DoT(Toxic), Foe -Resist(All), Knockdown - You channel unholy energies into your whip and Lash out at your foe dealing high fire damage causing toxic damage over time. Lash has longer range than most melee attacks will reduce the target's damage resistance and also has a chance to knockdown your target.

 

Crack Whip Close (Cone), Moderate DMG(Fire), Light DoT(Toxic), Foe -Resist(All), Knockdown - You channel hellfire into your whip and make an impressive sweep causing high fire damage to enemies within a wide cone and also cause some toxic damage over time. Whip Crack has a larger range than most melee cones. Targets that are struck will also have their resistance to damage reduced for a short time, may suffer toxic damage over time and may be knocked down.

 

 

Maybe pull in from other Hellions maybe the Arsons? 

 

Knife Melee, Moderate DMG(Lethal) - Basic stabbing and cutting blade.

 Revolver Low-Accuracy, Ranged, Moderate DMG(Lethal) - Small caliber side arm. Not very accurate.

 Molotov Cocktail Ranged (Location AoE), Light DoT(Fire) - The Hellion has set you on fire with his Molotov Cocktail!

 Kerosene Ranged, Heal Fire - Hellions Arsonist use this to reset fires. change this to a self heal or AllyHeal?

 

Since I don't code, What are the challenges with porting over to a set? 

I know balance needs to addressed and what ATs it should be part of

[OEM61]

Just out of curiosity...

What if they could just add FX to the existing weapon sets?
No other changes.  The sword looks like it is a fire sword but it's mechanically identical to any other broad sword.  The axe looks like an ice axe but it's just a different looking battle axe.

Would that satisfy those of you wanting such a thing?

We have fire, ice, and lightning melee sets, to name a few (some featuring weapon FX).  We have multiple melee weapon sets.

A "laser sword" set would feel differently to me, but with lightning, fire, ice, dark, radiation, etc. melee out there, making a whole new set around a weapon-shaped delivery system for these damage types  just seems like a dubious return on investment to me.
Making some new FX for the existing weapon sets feels like an easier thing to do, and the FX can be rolled out over time as well.  No need to get everything done at once.
 

[Rudra]

35 minutes ago, OEM61 said:

What if they could just add FX to the existing weapon sets?
No other changes.  The sword looks like it is a fire sword but it's mechanically identical to any other broad sword.  The axe looks like an ice axe but it's just a different looking battle axe.

To an extent, we already have that.

 

[OEM61]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

To an extent, we already have that.

 

Well there it is.  Or "there some of them are" as the case may be.

I have not looked at any of those since since way back, and still don't think I ever got beyond the "dabble and delete" phase with a broad sword toon once.

This makes it even harder for me to see the point of making an "elemental weapons" set.

Edited November 1 by OEM61

[megaericzero]

1 minute ago, OEM61 said:

Well there it is.  Or "there some of them are" as the case may be.

I have not looked at any of those since since way back, and still don't think I ever got beyond the "dabble and delete" phase with a broad sword toon once.

This makes it even harder to see the point of making an "elemental weapons" set.

Yeah. I'm more of the mentality, personally, that we should use power customization rather than separate sets for these.

 

For those that want the elemental damage on the weapon sets, the interface slot exists. It does suck that you can't use it until level 50, so the character concept will feel hollow until then, but it's there.