Skirmisher Archetype Concept: Assault/Armor Tank

[Steampunkette]

Skirmisher Archetype
Primary Powerset: Dominator Assault
Secondary Powerset: Sentinel Armors
HP: 1400-1500
Max HP Cap: 3,000
Melee Damage Scalar: 1.0
Ranged Damage Scalar: 1.0
Maximum Damage Buff: 500% at 21+

Epic Power Pools: Support/Control, Sustain
Inherent: Skirmish
When you make a ranged attack you gain 1 stack of the Skirmish buff for every 15ft away from the target you are at the time of casting, minimum of 1 stack. Ranged AoE attacks determine distance on your primary target. You can have a maximum of 12 stacks at a time.
Melee attacks consume up to 3 stacks of the Skirmish buff, or 5 stacks for Melee AoE, and gain a scaling damage bonus based on how many stacks are consumed.
If the maximum number of stacks of skirmish are consumed by the power, the melee attack triggers a control effect at Mag 2 with a short duration. The type of control is based on the powerset.
In addition, all of your attacks generate additional threat in an area around your target.

Archetype Uniques: Mag 1 Control Proc, Two stacks of Skirmish on hit.

 

What's the Design Goal?

Conceptually speaking this is an Assault based Tank archetype for something different from the traditional Brute/Tanker gameplay of "Jump into melee, hit attacks until things are dead, maybe hit a self heal"

 

The goal is to keep them moving into and out of melee in order to disrupt the standard gameplay loop and create a more active gameplay style.

 

By using Sentinel defensive powersets we ensure the AT doesn't have scaling defensive capabilities (or damage boosts) based on how many enemies are within 10ft, this ensures you don't feel "Bad" for not being surrounded and at full saturation of your taunt aura that gives you +Dam, +Def, +Rech, or whatever.

 

It also opens up the relative importance of Cone-Based survival powers such as Rebuild DNA to further incentivize moving to range to maximize target counts and potentially gain more stacks of Skirmish. Powers like Dark Armor's "Obscure Sustenance" or Energy Aura's "Energize" could be retooled to be cones or targeted ranged AoEs as well.

 

Why Assault?

Underutilized and really cool, conceptually. Right now there is only one archetype which utilizes Assault powersets, meaning any design spent on an Assault set is dev time devoted exclusively to a single archetype, just like Manipulation sets for Blasters. By spreading that out a little, we get more options for Assault sets, and increase the impact of developer time in designing, and animating, more assault sets.

 

On a personal note: I'd still love to see Kinetic Melee transferred practically whole cloth into an Assault set, with Concentrated Strike turned into a Snipe with a fast moving projectile, and Focused Burst's animation time cut down a bit.

 

What are the Intentions of the Inherent?

Firstly, it encourages long range opening attacks rather than the use of abilities like Fold Space to initiate a fight. 

 

For example imagine a Martial Arts/Ninjutsu Skirmisher opening a fight by using Masterful Throw to get an out of combat snipe off, followed by Explosive Shuriken, then hitting Combat Teleport with the smokebomb alternate animation before dropping a nice Dragon's Tail.

At maximum range (150ft) Masterful Throw immediately provides 10 stacks of Skirmish. Explosive Shuriken only has a range of 80ft, so provides only 6 additional stacks of Skirmisher. You quickly reach the cap of 12 stacks so Dragon's Tail applies a Magnitude 2 Stun to all enemies it hits alongside the knockdown effect, and deals increased damage. Spinning Kick eats another 5 stacks and adds an additional stun to 2-3 enemies, possibly briefly locking down a boss. You're down to 2 stacks of Skirmish and possibly surrounded by stunned enemies.

 

And then you're dumping stacks with Thunder Kick and more Storm Kicks. You can still use Trickshot or Shuriken throw at point blank range to gain 1 stack of Skirmisher per use, but without at least 3 stacks you're not able to apply additional stuns with Thunder Kick, and without 5 you can't stun with Storm Kick or Dragon's Tail. And since Sentinel Armors tend to provide less total defense than the Brute or Tanker versions, you're comparatively vulnerable when you're not adding control effects to reduce incoming damage.

So "Ninja, Vanish" your way out of combat to throw off a couple more ranged attacks, then teleport back in to resume the melee fighting. In this way, the inherent encourages moving back -out- of melee, in order to build up fresh stacks and increase your overall damage and survivability when you dive back in.

 

Your mileage will vary, of course, depending on which specific Assault powerset you're using for a given character. Energy Assault will probably focus mostly on single target attacks to build and spend stacks of Skirmish since they only get Whirling Hands as an AoE attack at all. Though when moving the Assault set over the devs could certainly remove Power Push to move several attacks to earlier levels and add in Energy Torrent or Explosive Blast. Or just bring in Power Crash for more melee AoE.

 

And since the stacks you gain are based on the distance between you and your primary target, cones fired at melee range against targets who are in your face still only grant you 1 skirmish rather  than the skirmish value of the person 40ft away that you hit. So jumping out is almost mandatory.

 

How Would the Inherent be Implemented?

Unfortunately, like Street Justice, each power that consumes stacks would need to have the bonus damage value baked in on a per-stack basis. They'd also need the information on what control effect and how long it lasts baked into the power as well. On the plus side, this gives us some interesting options to make sets different while using the same mechanic by granting the powersets a specific control effect separate from other powersets.

 

On the positive side, because these functions are baked into the individual power, they could be made enhanceable. Ensuring that the archetype's inherent scales. How much additional damage, though, is the big question. For Street Justice you're looking at 5% for the first combo point, a further 7% for the second combo point, and another 13% for the third combo point for a total of 25% more damage on your attacks.

 

I think that might be a bit much for an inherent, especially one where you control the stack build and expenditure. Something closer to 4% per stack, 12% maximum for Single Target, 20% maximum for AoE, might be better, overall.

 

Why make the controls different?

Theme, mostly. Each Assault set provides a specific control effect which reinforces it's theme in order to stack controls effectively, rather than having every melee attack do different types of control. This also makes the sets feel different from some of the other sets within the Skirmisher archetype.

 

Arsenal Assault: Stun

Dark Assault: Fear

Earth Assault: Stun

Electricity Assault: Hold

Energy Assault: Stun

Fiery Assault: Hold

Icy Assault: Hold

Martial Assault: Stun

Psionic Assault: Confuse

Radioactive Assault: Hold

Savage Assault: Fear

Sonic Assault: Confuse

Thorny Assault: Fear

 

3 Fear, 4 Stun, 4 Hold, 2 Confuse. This also encourages teaming with Controllers and Dominators, to whom you can provide additional stacking, though potentially incompletely, in order to lock down groups.

 

How does it Maintain Aggro?

Without a standard taunt aura mechanic, and with no built-in taunt to the Assault Powersets, the Skirmisher is going to rely on a Gauntlet style aggro gathering mechanic in order to maintain aggro. It's certainly possible and potentially reasonable to downgrade that punchvoke down to pokevoke, like Brutes enjoy, but depending on powerset that might make crowd-aggro control practically impossible to maintain. Energy Assault, for example, currently has no ranged AoE and only a single melee AoE.

 

With the ability to make ranged attacks baked into the primary powerset, I feel strongly that removing a ranged power to add a taunt to the powersets is overkill when the inherent could provide punchvoke. Particularly since any enemy that slips aggro and goes off to attack the Defender or Blaster is an opportunity for the Skirmisher to gain some additional skirmish stacks by lobbing a ranged attack at the runner while remaining in melee with other enemies that are currently aggroed.

How would you structure the Epic Power Pools?

I'd actually probably structure them a lot like:

 

1) AoE Immobilize, probably as a cone.

2) Debuff of Speed and/or Recharge, probably as a PBAoE or dropped pseudopet.

3) AoE Buff or Heal (Defensive)

4) AoE Buff or Debuff (Offensive)

5) Signature Power

 

The first two powers give you a choice on how to keep enemies corralled in an area so you're better able to keep them at range while you're building your Skirmish stacks. Different APPs could put these two in a different order, or even bounce one up to 3rd or 4th slot in the progression.

 

The second two powers help to define how you aid your allies to keep them alive or make it easier for everyone to fight your enemies. Something like Rejuvenating Circuit or Link Minds would go in the Defensive slot, Melt Armor or Tar Patch would go into the Offensive slot.

 

The Signature power is your Soulstorm slot. For most other sets it would probably be a Sustain power. Providing Regen, Recovery, more Max HP or Endurance...

 

For an example, consider the following Leviathan Mastery pool:

1) School of Sharks (Cone Immobilize)

2) Arctic Breath (Cone -SPD, -RECH, -DEF, Knockdown)

3) Shoal Rush (Targeted AoE -DEF, -SPD)

4) Soothing Wave (Cone Team Heal, Enemy -DAM)

5) Summon Coralax (Pet)

 

Three really good reasons to jump out of melee, one of which allows you to better target an AoE heal on your teammates while debuffing enemy damage. And two of those reasons to jump out of melee keep your enemies clustered for when you dive back in.

 

What would the Archetype Invention Sets be?

While I'm certainly in no position to go over every set bonus for each set, I did outline the Uniques above. Let me explain a bit more:

 

For the first one we've got a proc chance to just straight up apply a Mag 1 control effect. While this would affect most minions it would not affect Lieutenants, Bosses, or stronger enemies without stacking. However, since it's a Proc chance, you have a chance for your ranged attacks, or ranged AoE, to apply control, which they normally can't do. This would make stacking more viable, and could allow you to reduce Alpha strike damage when you initially engage. Largely invisible in gameplay, it improves your survival. Could have it apply to the power it's slotted into, or have it be a global proc chance. Have it apply 1 Magnitude of all the available control types simultaneously for stacking purposes, and give it a short duration.

 

The second unique would allow any power it's slotted into to provide you with two stacks of Skirmish when it hits. Whether melee or ranged. This could be a good way to ensure your 'building stacks' phase functions better by slotting it into a ranged power so even if it's used at close range you get at least 3 stacks... Or you could slot it into a melee attack, so that after you spend 3-5 skirmish stacks you immediately recover two, allowing you to extend your 'in melee' time.

 

"Important" set bonus: Control Duration increase.

Somewhere in the set bonuses, there should be a blanket universal control duration increase, just like the Sentinel sets have a global +Range buff. Nothing huge or crazy big, but something fun as a treat.

 

But what if that's Too Much Control?

There's certainly a distinct possibility that being able to throw out Mag 2 controls with almost every attack you make being too dangerous if you maximize your time jumping in and out of combat to respectable ranges and maintain consistent uptime. However that could also be heavily mitigated in one of three ways:

 

1) Reduce the magnitude to 1.5. Now you still trap minions with your first control effect, but lieutenants are unaffected, and both bosses and lieutenants require a second hit to lock them down. Any enemy group with control protections, like Arachnos, takes more time to lock down, still. And your windows are vanishingly small.

2) Alter the amount of time the control effect lasts. A 10 second control is powerful, a 3 second control is much less powerful. Especially since you can't enhance for Control Duration.

3) Narrow the power selection that provides the control effects at maximum stacks to one melee AoE and one melee single target power. This one does run the risk of hitting the same wall as the original Sentinel inherent, however.

 

Would this AT be Useful at High End?

It really depends on how high end you want to go. For Radio Missions and Task Forces? It would certainly be a perfectly fine tank. A few team buffs offsets the lower defensive values and coverage of the Sentinel armor sets. Even in the Incarnate TFs they'd be quite capable of serving as tanks for a group. Again, a few buffs close up any gaps and they're able to handle the rough stuff.

 

4-Star TFs might be a little more dicey. 4-Stars are built around characters having big defensive numbers which Barrier and Support characters can provide, but the control effects from the Skirmish inherent would be essentially invisible due to the resistance to controls of most 4-Star enemies. In the event that the control-stacking aligns well, however, you'd have a tank which can reduce incoming damage significantly.

 

More importantly, however, it would increase the viability of bringing a Controller or Dominator to a 4-Star TF without feeling like you're facing quite as significant of a tradeoff in capabilities. Due to the tank's ability to regularly provide control effects to help shut down enemies, even Archvillains to some degree, the tradeoff of strict damage increase to reduced damage intake could be worthwhile. Particularly if the Controller in question has the Kinetics or Marine secondaries.

That said, they'd definitely be rough for specific fights. Like the Dr. Aeon 4-Star TF rumble with all of the important Vanguard characters in one small room. High movement tactics in that situation could result in serious problems.

 

But what about Brutes?

Brutes are in a pretty bad way, it's true. They're a tank with better single target damage than a Tanker when maxed out on +Damage, but a significantly lower target cap and range/area of their attacks. Add in that their inherent, and thus their archetype proc for +Fury, is badly broken. The quick jump to 85 fury and the insane difficulty of getting more than 85 fury means they should probably just get pushed up to 1.0 Damage Scale and get some other inherent, entirely.

 

They really just need an outright overhaul. Making a different Tank AT wouldn't change that. While dev time is a limited resource and Brutes do need overhauling, I think increasing the playstyles available to tank is a worthwhile goal.

 

Please don't derail this thread into complaints about Brutes.

 

But what's the Fantasy Inspiration?

Perhaps surprisingly to some... Batman, Spider-Man, Venom, the Flash, Black Canary, and more.

 

Yeah, Batman's an expert martial artist and Spidey can fling a car. Both of them still fall back to throwing Batarangs and Web Shots when facing strong opponents, deploy control effects, and can't actually take many hits from your Doomsday or Rhino type characters. The Flash is, obviously, a high movement character who combines super-speed punching with tornado blasts or thrown objects. Black Canary's sonic cry is a show-stopping number but she's also a really strong martial artist who mixes it up in fights though that's probably an excuse for the artists to draw a hottie in fishnet stockings doing high kicks.

 

And while Venom is often thought of as a Brute or even Tanker, he uses the symbiote to make ranged attacks throughout his career, including webbing enemies up in black gunk so he can close the gap. All the symbiotes do something similar, though some tend to make the attack sharper than others.

 

And Batman, Spidey, the Flash, and others are often running distraction games to 'Tank' enemies away from vulnerable people or even their own allies to set other characters up for success.

[Dynama]

So overall thoughts; this seems like a way to present a playstyle that isn't present in the game to a large extent and to make that playstyle useful rather than just an affectation.  It's a playstyle I've found in WoW's Demon Hunter before and one that many people enjoy.  I think that's an important component of making any new archetypes.  If it's just going to play like the extant ones, I don't see the point, so bringing something new answers the "why".  

 

As for "how" it's implemented: My main concern with attaching this stick and move kind of style to a Tank will see enemy groups pulling back and forth across the battlefield, since most enemies prefer melee, which disrupts the rest of the team's attempts to use AOEs and ground patch effects.  It can also force melee on your team to constantly chase enemies down, which can be frustrating.  I can see that your design attempts to remedy this by having the Skirmisher apply controls through their inherent; if enemies are stunned, held, or feared, they won't be chasing you down on your retreat cycles.  But those effects probably aren't universally applied enough to keep the enemy groups together, and while it would be fun solo, many teams won't enjoy you playing an AT which breaks up the "herd and smash" model of CoH gameplay.  In that regard, this may be better suited as a DPS AT than a tanking one.  

That said, I don't think something has to be optimal to be implemented.  Players can accept that this kind of tank has a different playstyle and will make different asks of the rest of the group. 

 

For the Skirmisher player, though, I think it might be wise to include some mobility in the AT itself to facilitate getting away from enemy groups.  If you melee a group of enemies and then run away to range them again, and they aren't controlled in any way, they'll just keep up pace chasing you and you'll find yourself still in melee.  A player could use Flight or Combat Teleport or something to get away faster, but that's relying on a pool power to make a core function of the AT work.  Might it be better, taking a page from the WoW Demon Hunter mentioned above, to bake a "retreat" power into the Armor sets for the AT?  I know you're using the Sentinel variations but a -slightly- tweaked power could include a "jump back thirty feet" function in it, with suitable style for the armor set.  Similarly, it might feel better for the assault sets to include a "charge back in" option, though I suspect you'd rather leave that as a feature of individual sets, since some of those already exist.  It would make the whole thing play smoother, though, and if those powers also had some other effect (aoe damage, aoe debuff, control, taunt? something) it would justify using them in the rotation and make it feel more like a rhythm than just "hit a few powers, run away, hit a few more powers, run back in."

 

It's a promising idea and I'm in favor of anything that works to add a new playstyle to the game, so long as that playstyle is fun for the people who want it.

[biostem]

APPs/PPPs already provide ranged options for melee ATs and melee options for some ranged ATs.  Personally, I'd rather see something besides attacks/armor or armor/attacks., but it looks like a well detailed suggestion!

[TheMoneyMaker]

11 minutes ago, biostem said:

APPs/PPPs already provide ranged options for melee ATs and melee options for some ranged ATs.  Personally, I'd rather see something besides attacks/armor or armor/attacks., but it looks like a well detailed suggestion!

Maybe a control/armor or amor/MM pets?

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

amor/MM pets

I can't recall if I made a similar suggestion or just responded in someone else's thread, but one idea was to remove the MM attacks from their primary sets, replace them with themed armor toggles, then give them something like an assault secondary plus a fitting inherent...

[TheMoneyMaker]

5 minutes ago, biostem said:

I can't recall if I made a similar suggestion or just responded in someone else's thread, but one idea was to remove the MM attacks from their primary sets, replace them with themed armor toggles, then give them something like an assault secondary plus a fitting inherent...

I'd leave the MM attacks in and keep the sets intact for the same reason Steampunkette mentions using Assault sets, being that there's only one AT that uses them so it would improve chances for additional content or work in that category since any suggestions for them now are usually met with "why work on something that impacts only 1 AT?"  But maybe change some values like reduce endurance cost since the MM/armored class will likely be running armor toggles and attacking along with the pets, or maybe reduce damage of the pets' attacks so they don't overshadow the true MMs' pets but instead of buffing them with a secondary your pets can share some of the benefits of your armor toggles when you're close enough to them, making them a little more durable.

[biostem]

9 minutes ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

I'd leave the MM attacks in and keep the sets intact for the same reason Steampunkette mentions using Assault sets, being that there's only one AT that uses them so it would improve chances for additional content or work in that category since any suggestions for them now are usually met with "why work on something that impacts only 1 AT?"  But maybe change some values like reduce endurance cost since the MM/armored class will likely be running armor toggles and attacking along with the pets, or maybe reduce damage of the pets' attacks so they don't overshadow the true MMs' pets but instead of buffing them with a secondary your pets can share some of the benefits of your armor toggles when you're close enough to them, making them a little more durable.

Well, if we wanted to develop this AT further, I'd move the attacks from the MM sets to their APPs, so they'd still see some use, and of course you can stick with the APP that fits thematically with the primary.  I wouldn't go with a full armor set because I feel like those have gotten enough of the copy-paste treatment, (with AT tweaks), already...

Edited Wednesday at 11:02 PM by biostem

[TheMoneyMaker]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

Well, if we wanted to develop this AT further, I'd move the attacks from the MM sets to their APPs, so they'd still see some use, and of course you can stick with the APP that fits thematically with the primary.  I wouldn't go with a full armor set because I feel like those have gotten enough of the copy-paste treatment, (with AT tweaks), already...

I would say the full armor set with tweaks, but definitely weaker because of intent to share the benefits with pets, which would be the inherent power of the set.

 

[biostem]

1 minute ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

I would say the full armor set with tweaks, but definitely weaker because of intent to share the benefits with pets, which would be the inherent power of the set.

Well, I wouldn't give this hypothetical AT bodyguard.  I'd probably give the character some version of "punchvoke", then secondarily give the character's own attacks a debuff that, when placed upon an enemy, increases the damage and tohit your pets have against such afflicted enemies...

[Koopak]

Dynama hit several of my points already but ill try to keep everything into loose categories of descending difficulty to overcome. To echo Dynama first, this would be a much better dps AT than tank AT conceptually. I will also be ignoring exact values as those can all be changed easily, and focus on implementation.


Fundamental Design Limits: These are issues that are at odds with the core design of the game and how it is played by the modern playerbase.

• As Dynama said, this playstyle will encourage the tank to move, causing mobs to chase them. Without making the mez provided by the Inherit able to reliably CC the entire pack of mobs, it will cause enemies to move out of AoE patches and complicate targeting. Worse it will split the pack up, making it necessary to now split targets. This has further complications with aggro management listed further down. Mission Maps are also largely not design to accommodate this type of engagement.
• This playstyle inherently is a 'fighting retreat' or 'kite' playstyle, which is incompatible with modern CoH. Granted in the old days pulling to a corner and fighting there sometimes falling back was normal. Today the normal that people expect is 'push forward' play, in when the team is constantly making progress forward and never backing up.

Complications of Implementation: These are issues that added dev time or detract from the experience, they may be addressable, but not easily.

• As Dynama said, this playstyle almost necessitates movement abilities added to the kit, this combined with the likely correct presumption that the benefits of the inherit may need to be encoded into the powers themselves greatly reduces the advantages of reusing Assault as a category, ultimately creating more work rather than less. While that will be true of every new AT proposal, this particular example is expressed as intending to avoid or minimize that issue.
• Current the game is incapable of cleanly supporting dynamic movement during combat, necessitating the point above. If the point above is ignored and no inherent mobility is provided the player must accept 'down time' in their rotation to manually move and deal with the strict and often jarring rooting powers currently demand. Most likely outcome will be ignoring the mechanic entirely unless tuned heavily to enforce its need. Resolving this is likely a systems wide change and to do so cleanly, a big one.
• It may or may not be possible to retrieve the range of multiple targets in an AoE, adding another challenge to sorting the inherent's mechanic.

Balancing Concerns: These are issues that make balancing the AT difficult. This will be the largest section and all of them can probably be addressed but not necessarily easily.

• Punchvoke and Taunt auras as it exists now on Tankers is mostly able to handle general aggro management on a Tanker in most content, on most teams. Note i say most, this is because especially well built DPS ATs can and do on occasion pull aggro from even well built Tankers, let alone Brutes (using Pokevoke) that do not make use of Taunt. Taunt is a mandatory portion of every melee set in the game for this reason, even if the original aggro system was vastly different. This issue would continue to exist on this AT and be unable to be addressed without taking a pool power as submitted.
• In fact the aggro management issue would be worse in this case, using the example of an enemy aggroing onto a defender, or more likely a blaster, the ranged attacks would need the taunt they apply from the equivalent of punchvoke to be significantly higher than the melee attacks to account for the fact that aggro generation is reduced by the target's range significantly. This already combined with the fact that aggro's starting value is damage to make it near useless to taunt an enemy that does the same thing today. Thus this 'opportunity' to gather stacks for the inherit becomes a liability to the team, one likely to happen often if the pack splits like mentioned above. This being a likely outcome and possibly an expectation of play also means the AT requires more conscious effort on the part of the Tank than other Tank ATs to accomplish the bare minimum of their role.
• On the topic of aggro management, the example given of using a ranged attack to start the engagement has further complications due to the above mentioned range reduction is aggro generation. For a ranged ST opener to work, it would necessitate both an AoE taunt effect all Tanker Punchvoke rather than Brute Pokevoke, and an increase in value to account for that range, or for the devs to code an exclusion to the range portion of the logic somehow. Otherwise ranged pulling would require, like taunt pulling today, for the team to wait for the tank to get stable aggro through AoE before joining in.
• Lastly on the topic of aggro management. Tankers and Brutes as it is have an antagonistic relationship with aggro. Even a well built Brute often struggles to pull aggro from a poorly build Tanker on more than a mob or two. This same dynamic will, due to the nature of the threat system, exist for this AT as well, either ensuring it cannot meaningfully protect a new player on a Tanker, or will be unable to be protected by a veteran Tanker.
• Getting into the Mez side of things, the way control works makes balancing it near impossible as it is. Either enough magnitude of an effect is applied to overcome the target's protection, or it is not, and purple patch reduces duration. This means that the mez effects of this AT would need to either be extremely powerful on anything below +4 enemies or nearly useless on anything at +4 or higher, or they would need to be exempt from the purple patch. This will not prevent the mezes from being effected by mez resistance on some enemies groups and in some harder content like 4 stars. Having this mez be core to the AT means any situation it is ineffective means you aren't getting to play the AT, this is essentially the Controller life in 4 star ITF as it is and its not great.
• Slotting for powers if the mez is allowed to be enhancable will make for complex and antagonistic slotting. While I would personally enjoy the build challenge, a large portion of this playerbase sticks to relatively simple slotting, using 4-6 of a single set per power. While Id encourage them to improve, it is a sign that the enhancement system is not conducive to complex slotting like this, where one needs to balance multiple set types in a single power to get meaningful value out of it, which is what will be necessary if the mez effects are not exempt from purple patch since there is no way for them to be balanced to be useful at both +0 and +4 without being over powered without relying on the player to fill the power gap with enhancements or other mez duration buffs.
• Having the type of mez be based on the Assault Set while neat conceptually is problematic mechanically as a proposed advantage is in being able to stack mezes with your Controller and Dominator teammates. However as not all control sets have access to all control types, this doesn't work out in a consistent way, enforcing a team composition requirement beyond simple roles.
• The various mez types suggested are treated as if they are interchangeable in power, this is not the case. Fear, stun, hold, and confuse each have different value in an engagement. Generally speaking it can be argued to go Fear < Stun < Hold < Confuse in terms of power. This will directly impact the validity of any given set.
• Even if the above two points are resolved, for instance if they all provide immobilize, a more reasonable ask, the inherent, in order to not be to powerful will need short duration mezes, even assuming these durations are protected from purple patch and even mez resistance, they will make the stacking logic a low value effect as even 10 seconds is a very short time in a game where optimistically you would get 3-4 attacks off in that time especially after factoring in the desired movement. Anything less would quickly become pointless, as even with stacking this AT's effect will ware off and the effect will no longer be strong enough mag to apply.
• Finally damage. AoEs scaling more damage with more stacks than ST attacks will create many challenges in balancing the damage output of the AT, in many cases it is likely to push AoE attacks ahead of ST attacks for damage, and encourage only using AoE, which could step on the toes of Blasters and Tankers as main AoE sources.
• Assault Sets generally do not have the attacks to comprise entire rotations of ranged or melee only or ST or AoE only, without excessive recharge. While theoretically thats not an issue your in and out fighting will mean you are rarely in melee or range for more than 5 seconds, creating a very erratic playstyle. This encourages using assault entirely in melee until a full optimal build can be done. That is unless the Assault set is significantly adjusted leading back to the points above.

Factual Errors: This is my 'umm awckshuly' section, and is mostly only relevant for further discussion of examples given.

• Sentinel Armor sets are only 'weaker' due to the lower AT scalars Sentinels have, presumably a Tanking AT would have higher scalars. No mention was given to resist cap in the proposal so ill assume 90%. If this AT was given sentinel defense and resistance scalars, hitting caps would be a chore to say the least.

[Rudra]

The MM discussion is not relevant to the OP. If you want to continue discussing it, maybe move it to a new thread or necro the old thread where it is. (And yes, I will say "No" to the MM/Armor proposal just as emphatically now as I did then for the exact same reasons I gave then. If MMs get to have an armor set and their pets get to inherit those armor powers, then what is the point of the current MM AT where we have to keep using our secondaries to keep the pets alive when the new MM AT can simply not worry about that since their pets get the benefits of an entire armor set as inherited from the PC?)

[Steampunkette]

While I definitely agree that it would be easier to make an Assault/Defense damage dealing character than a tank, I do think this would work as a concept.

 

There would absolutely be some issues with the optimal play a lot of people strive for. Runners and patch-placement issues would take some effort to get around. However the game isn't designed to be played exclusively at the cutting edge. We have Knockback for a reason and while you -can- mitigate it with IOs, it isn't required to enjoy the game.

 

Indeed, I think it's more fun -with- knockback, even if it isn't optimal.

 

I feel like a ton of players would make a Skirmisher if it was made available. I don't think it would be anywhere near the most played Archetype, and certainly wouldn't -replace- Brute or Tanker... But the option for a new playstyle, and potentially shifts to the meta to accommodate new playstyles, could be interesting.

[Frozen Burn]

I like the idea of this new AT and it seems that it will play just like a lot of Blappers - going in and out of melee to shoot as well as utilize melee powers. 

 

The only issues i see with this are the "Tank" part and aggro management and armor caps to support being int he Tank role.  If this type of constantly moving AT is pulling aggro and is meant to hold it, you're pulling mobs all over the place as you move around and not keeping them in a concentrated area - like a tank or brute would.  It would actually cause more problems the solve with gameplay - your team would hate you. 

 

Also, Sentinels armors would probably be too weak to handle all that aggro and hate at a 75% resist cap, so that would have to be adjusted.  Yes, some sentinels can handle a lot of hate and aggro, but they have PBAOE powers that rely on surrounding mobs for survival - as noted in OP, the Skirmisher wouldn't have that.  So, Resist cap level would have to change. 

 

I think removing the "gauntlet" and "taunt" ability from the AT and not using it as a Tank is what would make this a viable AT.  Perhaps keep a single target taunt like scrappers, though.  But let this be a bridge between a Scrapper and Sentinel.  I would definitely play one then.  

[Chris24601]

Of note, we already semi- have an AT with a similar concept of melee/range mix + armor; Peacebringers (and Warshades to a slightly lesser degree) so looking at their strengths and weaknesses would provide some insights into what this AT would need.

[Chance Jackson]

I like the concept of the AT except for the Tank role, imo it should be DPS

[UltraAlt]

On 4/9/2025 at 12:46 PM, Steampunkette said:

Arsenal Assault: Stun

Dark Assault: Fear

Earth Assault: Stun

Electricity Assault: Hold

Energy Assault: Stun

Fiery Assault: Hold

Icy Assault: Hold

Martial Assault: Stun

Psionic Assault: Confuse

Radioactive Assault: Hold

Savage Assault: Fear

Sonic Assault: Confuse

Thorny Assault: Fear

 

No sleep, disorient, or slows?

 

I think I would actually enjoy a control powerset with a focus on chance to placate. 

[Elementfury323]

I like the idea of a skirmisher and would definitely make one. This is also how I play my Spines/bio stalker because of throw spines, to maximize target count. Not everyone’s cup of tea but hey it sounds like a lot of fun.

[Steampunkette]

4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

No sleep, disorient, or slows?

 

I think I would actually enjoy a control powerset with a focus on chance to placate. 

Disorients are Stuns. They're just two words for the same thing.

 

Sleeps break too easily with additional damage.

 

As far as Slows that's not really a control effect, but a debuff. The difference comes in the kind of mitigation you get. With a -Recharge or a -Damage debuff, or +Defense or +Resistance buff, you're gaining relative damage mitigation. Reduced incoming damage. But with a hard control, including Sleeps, you're getting -absolute- damage mitigation. Because no attacks are being made while the controls are in place.

 

That said: Icy Assault actively applies slows and -recharge as a secondary mechanic as it stands. Martial Assault gets Caltrops, but also Knockdown from Spinning Kick and Dragon's Tail. Psionic Assault does no movent slow, but much -bigger- Recharge debuffs than Icy. Electrical Assault Saps. Energy Assault Knocks enemies back. Sonic debuffs Damage Resistance and some powers have a chance to hold the target...

 

None of these things would be removed from the Assault Sets under the above suggestion.

[UltraAlt]

9 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

Sleeps break too easily with additional damage.

 

It works the same as fear.

If you attack them, they get one attack and go back to sleep until the duration is completed. (last time I checked)

 

9 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

As far as Slows that's not really a control effect, but a debuff.

 

Okay. I'll give you that.

 

 

[Steampunkette]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

 

It works the same as fear.

If you attack them, they get one attack and go back to sleep until the duration is completed. (last time I checked)

Nope.

 

Sleep breaks entirely. Fear gives you a 1 second window after taking damage once every 3 seconds or so. And if you take damage 10 times inside those 3 seconds you don't get to act until the 1 second window is available.

 

If you are asleep and get hit the sleep effect ends, completely. It's why most people skip using sleeps in any kind of team-content, and practically only use sleep in solo content to sneak past groups.

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Sleep

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Fear

 

If you're asleep-awake-asleep it's because they put sleep on you a second time.

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

It works the same as fear.

If you attack them, they get one attack and go back to sleep until the duration is completed. (last time I checked)

What sleep effect power(s) did you check with? I currently know of one sleep effect power that is constantly trying to apply its effect every second or so. (Static Field in the Electric Control power set.) Most sleep powers check to apply their sleep effect at the start of the power only, so when the sleeping target takes damage, they are free until they are affected by a different sleep power.