A new Archetype (The longest of longshots)

[Billbailey96]

So I have no expectations of this being a viable option, I am just spitballing here. What if a scrapper but instead of an armor power set you give them secondary powersets that blasters have? Maybe edit out some of the melee powers, but I think holds and some debuffs would be neat. Granted you are the glassiest of glass cannons but boy the DPS might be something to see. 

[LightMaster]

Wouldn’t that be redundant with the Blaster Archetype? The thing about the Blaster is that it specializes in DPS more than any other ATs, including the Melee oriented ATs, by sacrifying survivability for Holds, Self-Substain (for self End management), miscelleanous stuff but especially Melee powers. The Melee powers within their Secondary alone, alongside the Self-Substain, is what allows the Blaster to go full-on DPS and bravely take on the foes heads-on.

 

The Blaster’s Melee powers aren’t as powerful as Scrapper’s or Stalker’s Melee powers as the latter two can Crits for double damage. And the Dominator, the other non-Epic AT capable of both ranged and melee through their Assault secondaries, have a slightly higher Melee scalar than Blaster. That said, the Blaster does have Defiance for small Damage Bonus and capable of shooting down distant or fleeing foes. Not to mention that obviously the Blaster has the second highest Ranged scalar behind the Bright/Dark Nova forms.

 

Not all Blaster Secondaries have Melee powers of course, with Archery being purely ranged, but it is still an important aspect about the Blaster to keep in mind.

 

And of course there is the Blapper style, a Blaster that mostly or only uses their Secondary to focus on the Melee powers, is popular for a reason. While not perfectly viable for 4-Star contents afaik, it is an alternative playstyle few complained about as it not only gives an exhilerating playstyle that not even the real Melee ATs has, but it proved to be pretty good in their own right, especially if the Blapper doesn’t completely neglect their primary.

 

tl;dr Blaster is and should remain top DPS, Blapper exists, is fun, and works remarkably well, so an AT with Melee primary and “Ranged + Hold + Self-Substain” secondary might be redundant.

Edited Thursday at 02:29 PM by LightMaster

[skoryy]

Yeah, you're just re-inventing the blapper. If you're thinking of melee primary with a couple secondary ranged, that's what the epic and patron pools are for.

[MTeague]

There's nothing wrong with asking. But.... yea, I would not hold my breath on this one.  

 

Inventing a new Archtype means inventing a new inherent. Carefully curating several powerset combinations to find viable options. Trying to find some niche for the new AT to thrive in, and frankly, we already have trouble giving each of the 4 exisitng melee sets their own niche (Tanker, Brute, Scrapper, Stalker).  All things are possible, and maybe the devs will consider this an intruiging challenge. But I don't consider it likely. 

[tidge]

It would be nice to get Martial Combat on some other ATs... not sure what the best path forward would be.

[MTeague]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

It would be nice to get Martial Combat on some other ATs... not sure what the best path forward would be.

It is my favorite Blaster secondary. 

Though I have a tendancy to mispell it as Marital Combat, which sort of recalls "Mr & Mrs. Smith"

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, MTeague said:

It is my favorite Blaster secondary. 

Though I have a tendancy to mispell it as Marital Combat, which sort of recalls "Mr & Mrs. Smith"

...

And now I'm picturing a new movie called Marital Kombat with modified original Mortal Kombat songs as soundtrack....

[FupDup]

The main new AT we'd need is Melee/Support, with an inherent to help them bulk up a little. My idea would be for it to reflect a portion of teammate buff powers (and heals) back at the user, and solo players could target enemies for the same effect. And maybe a bit of baseline mezz resistance. Epic pools would be a mix of ranged and control powers. 

[skoryy]

3 hours ago, MTeague said:

Though I have a tendancy to mispell it as Marital Combat, which sort of recalls "Mr & Mrs. Smith"

 
Marital Mastermind: Summon Wife, Summon Mother-In-Law, Summon Marriage Counselor...

[ThatGuyCDude]

39 minutes ago, FupDup said:

The main new AT we'd need is Melee/Support, with an inherent to help them bulk up a little. My idea would be for it to reflect a portion of teammate buff powers (and heals) back at the user, and solo players could target enemies for the same effect. And maybe a bit of baseline mezz resistance. Epic pools would be a mix of ranged and control powers. 

Yes indeed.  Assault (the Dominator Secondaries)/Support (the Defender Primaries) performs quite well as boss sets in Architect Entertainment... there's room for something interesting for players to come out of that.  I've also seen suggestions for Melee as the primary with a mashup of Control and Support as the secondary.  I could see Blaster Secondary/Defender Primary making for an interesting power assortment, too, though it's not a combo you can test in AE (pity).  An inherent that echoes the support abilities back on the user, perhaps with a proc rate based on 'Peril', sounds like a good fit.

[FupDup]

22 minutes ago, ThatGuyCDude said:

Yes indeed.  Assault (the Dominator Secondaries)/Support (the Defender Primaries) performs quite well as boss sets in Architect Entertainment... there's room for something interesting for players to come out of that.  I've also seen suggestions for Melee as the primary with a mashup of Control and Support as the secondary.  I could see Blaster Secondary/Defender Primary making for an interesting power assortment, too, though it's not a combo you can test in AE (pity).  An inherent that echoes the support abilities back on the user, perhaps with a proc rate based on 'Peril', sounds like a good fit.

I'm talking pure melee primary and pure support secondary, no "half and half" compromise sets like Rebirth did with their Guardians (they did Assault/Composition, the latter of which was a split of armor and support). You've got epic pools for ranged attacks, and the buff reflection thing takes care of armor. 

[Billbailey96]

So I want to re-approach this from another perspective. After looking at another AT suggestion forum I think it would be better to explain what I want and how I think it would be better. Essentially I want a "Rogue" type AT, i.e a archetype that does damage in melee through a series of Debuffs  and DoT's, though I don't want you to think I want a stealth class, that's the stalker's territory. An idea for the inherent would be a version of scourge and domination to a point, the idea meaning you do more damage to any enemy you already have a debuff on. I think this would also work in team play by allowing combos set up by controllers and dominators. (Edit: Spelling)

Edited 2 hours ago by Billbailey96

[Forager]

I see the ROGUE in there for sure.

 

It sounds like dominator assaults as a primary and secondaries with a combination of debuff and weaker controls, similar to Blasters' /devices would be the ticket.

 

The other blaster secondaries would have to be Devicified.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I think it would be neat to get Blaster and Dominator secondaries on some other type of AT.  It would help me to get more familiar with them, and it would also make it easier to weed out the overpowered from the underpowered.

[Major_Decoy]

I think Dominator Secondary/Blaster Secondary would be interesting. The inherent would have to provide some form of mez protection, I think. Blow Out? if you spend enough time mezzed, you violently escape?

[biostem]

You'd almost need a new secondary that sort of split the difference regarding additional melee attacks and self-support to survivabiltiy tools...

 

What if we went silly with this idea;  Blaster manipulation sets as BOTH the primary AND secondary, only you can't pick the same one twice???

[The Witchfire]

Seems to me that we MIGHT be overthinking this.  Granted I've been away from the game for a long time, but isnt this basically what the Arachnos Wolf Spider's primary set is?  Maybe the simple option is to give the blaster an option for a mixed range primary set similar to that. 🙂

[biostem]

1 hour ago, The Witchfire said:

Seems to me that we MIGHT be overthinking this.  Granted I've been away from the game for a long time, but isnt this basically what the Arachnos Wolf Spider's primary set is?  Maybe the simple option is to give the blaster an option for a mixed range primary set similar to that. 🙂

I mean, it's more like a munitions assault set, (dominator secondary), IMHO...

[The Witchfire]

1 minute ago, biostem said:

I mean, it's more like a munitions assault set, (dominator secondary), IMHO...

Fair enough, but am I that far off in thinking it wouldnt be hard to adapt something along those lines as a blaster power set?

[biostem]

1 minute ago, The Witchfire said:

Fair enough, but am I that far off in thinking it wouldnt be hard to adapt something along those lines as a blaster power set?

Like assault rifle?

[The Witchfire]

21 minutes ago, biostem said:

Like assault rifle?

Well, the OP wanted a mixed ranged and melee AT, thats why i was thinking of something along the lines of the Arachnos Soldier AT power set adapted for blasters.  They have ranged and melee attacks.  They play alot better tha. Champions Online's 'Specialist' AT also. LOL.

[biostem]

6 minutes ago, The Witchfire said:

Well, the OP wanted a mixed ranged and melee AT, thats why i was thinking of something along the lines of the Arachnos Soldier AT power set adapted for blasters.  They have ranged and melee attacks.  They play alot better tha. Champions Online's 'Specialist' AT also. LOL.

Agreed that Arachnos have melee & ranged, but only of a very specific variety, (AR or spider limbs), but if you want something besides that, maybe Dominators with their assault secondaries...

Edited yesterday at 02:06 AM by biostem

[Neji_Hawke]

Me personally I wouldn't mind a new AT but in my case I was thinking more of a frontline healer/buffer. So it would be: Primary: Armor, Secondary: Heal/Buff, as well as 2 AT specific powers to help at the start. And a passive power that buff's the cool down of power per enemy and ally in range up to 12 (2% per, capping at 24%) 

AT specific power:
Counter Blow: Melee Minor DMG Smash, chance Foe disorient, Self +Def Smashing & Lethal
Swift Kick: Melee minor DMG Smash

Example of power setup with changes:

Primary - Dark Armor
Dark Embrace = No change
Death Shroud = No change
Murky Cloud = No change
Obsidian = No change
Dark Regeneration/Obscure Sustenance = No change
Fog of Darkness = Toggle PBAoE Team stealth, +Def all, +Res immob,
Cloak of Fear = No change
Spirits of Darkness = PBAoE +Def all +Rez (Mez, Energy, Neg, End Drain) 
Soul Transfer = No change

Secondary - Empath
Combatant Aura = PBAoE Minor DMG energy, Ally +DMG +To Hit
Heal Other = No change
Yield Pain = Melee Minor DMG energy, Foe -Regen, Self +Regen
Resurrect = No change 
Clear Mind = No change

Saviors Grace = PBAoE Ally +Def all, +Res Slow
Recovery Aura = No change
Regeneration Aura = No change 
Adrenalin Surge = PBAoE (small) Ally +End, +Regen, +Rech, +Res(Slow), Self -Rech -Regen


This AT would probably rely on Fighting and travel pool power offensive powers to do any real fighting. But it could be interesting and fun to play one of these, specially in TFs and Trials. Also I picked Empath for the example cause I felt like it would have the least amount of power that could be made into an offensive power set. I did look at Force Field and instantly first power, Personal Force Field convert to Crushing Field (cone dmg, -def, -res), Detention Field to Warping Field (ranged dmg, -def, -res). And the other power set kind of have power sets that can have powers stolen from to give it some offensive powers. But yeah, if any of the Dev's like this idea, I am more then willing to help figure out powers and balancing it all out. 

[Rudra]

26 minutes ago, Neji_Hawke said:

Me personally I wouldn't mind a new AT but in my case I was thinking more of a frontline healer/buffer. So it would be: Primary: Armor, Secondary: Heal/Buff, as well as 2 AT specific powers to help at the start. And a passive power that buff's the cool down of power per enemy and ally in range up to 12 (2% per, capping at 24%) 

AT specific power:
Counter Blow: Melee Minor DMG Smash, chance Foe disorient, Self +Def Smashing & Lethal
Swift Kick: Melee minor DMG Smash

Example of power setup with changes:

Primary - Dark Armor
Dark Embrace = No change
Death Shroud = No change
Murky Cloud = No change
Obsidian = No change
Dark Regeneration/Obscure Sustenance = No change
Fog of Darkness = Toggle PBAoE Team stealth, +Def all, +Res immob,
Cloak of Fear = No change
Spirits of Darkness = PBAoE +Def all +Rez (Mez, Energy, Neg, End Drain) 
Soul Transfer = No change

Secondary - Empath
Combatant Aura = PBAoE Minor DMG energy, Ally +DMG +To Hit
Heal Other = No change
Yield Pain = Melee Minor DMG energy, Foe -Regen, Self +Regen
Resurrect = No change 
Clear Mind = No change

Saviors Grace = PBAoE Ally +Def all, +Res Slow
Recovery Aura = No change
Regeneration Aura = No change 
Adrenalin Surge = PBAoE (small) Ally +End, +Regen, +Rech, +Res(Slow), Self -Rech -Regen


This AT would probably rely on Fighting and travel pool power offensive powers to do any real fighting. But it could be interesting and fun to play one of these, specially in TFs and Trials. Also I picked Empath for the example cause I felt like it would have the least amount of power that could be made into an offensive power set. I did look at Force Field and instantly first power, Personal Force Field convert to Crushing Field (cone dmg, -def, -res), Detention Field to Warping Field (ranged dmg, -def, -res). And the other power set kind of have power sets that can have powers stolen from to give it some offensive powers. But yeah, if any of the Dev's like this idea, I am more then willing to help figure out powers and balancing it all out. 

Not viable. Lacking attacks and relying on power pools to get attacks isn't making an AT with holes you can plug with power pools, it's making an AT you HAVE to go outside the AT to make viable.

[Neji_Hawke]

5 hours ago, Rudra said:

Not viable.

It would be a viable AT just very weak on damage output. It would kind of be like a Master Mind who's pets keep dyeing. As it is the powerset combo I exampled above would have 6 damage based powers but they all do minor damage. Other power combos could have more, without tapping into pool powers.

But mainly this AT would be very team oriented instead of solo. While solo it would take forever to clear mission, it can be done. the fact it needs to rely on pool powers doesn't make it a non viable AT. Your playstyle makes it a non viable AT for you. For me who likes to be support It would be an awesome AT to aid the tank right at the front line and hit the boss with a few punches (tho my damage would be hilarious low). It's more of a matter of playstyle then not being viable, cause again even without pool powers it will have offense, just not a lot to take down AV's like you are probably use to with other ATs.