Melee/Support AT Concept: Interceptor

[Leogunner]

If you like my suggestion, take a look at a previous post of mine Powerset Suggestion - Reaper Scythe.

Shout out to Replacement for the name suggestion and Rikis on the specialized secondary concept used in the suggestion.

Interceptor

Of the melee type units, you excel in tactical execution and leading the front lines. Your expertise is a boon to those that follow and a saving grace to those that rush ahead. Those not paying attention to you will fall victim to the Full Force of your power, resulting in a slightly harsher sting and a dozy of a reverb as they'll feel the conclusion of your attack two-fold.  Those that feel the force of your blows will be certain to pay more attention.

Interceptor has melee attacks as their primary powerset and a unique set of secondary powers known as Flux.  Flux sets are a combination of team support powers with a bit less reach and personal defense.  Their inherent power is called Full Force.  The Interceptor can be built to focus on support with DPS and has nice power progression early on.  Later in their career, they mellow out and become more capable of supporting a team via tanking and front-line buff/debuff.

• Survivability - 7
• Melee Damage - 7
• Ranged Damage - 5
• Crowd Control - 5
• Support - 8
• Pets - 2

Flux Secondary

Modifiers put this AT above Corruptor level support and at Scrapper level armor and HP.  The range and area of their support-type powers is reduced and some support powers are missing with self defense in its place, limiting the amount of team utility this AT can provide.  Some examples of secondary Flux powersets:

(elephant in the room)

Kinetic Flux (Kinetics+Energy Aura)

1. Kinetic Shield [unchanged] Self Toggle
2. Dampening Field [Combines Dampening Field and Energy Protection]
3. Fluctuated Transfusion [Transfusion + a discount Transference] Range - 15ft; Radius - 20ft; Foe -END, -Regen, Team Heal, +END
4. Siphon Power [Shorter Range] Range - 15ft; Radius - 20ft; Foe -dmg, Team +dmg
5. Power Shield [unchanged] Self Toggle
6. Entropic Aura [Scrapper taunt mag] Self Toggle
7. Siphon Speed [Shorter Range] Range - 20ft
8. Manipulate Density [PBAoE version of Increase Density] Radius - 20ft; Duration - 60sec; Recharge - 180sec; Team/Self +mez res, +res Smash/Energy, -movement
9. Fulcrum Flux [Fulcrum shift with shorter range, radius and lower max affected target] Range - 20ft; Radius - 10ft; Max target - 10

NOTE: Notice the variety of support options available in the set is limited to team heal, +END, +mez resist/smash/energy and +dmg and foe -dmg.  The staples of a Kinetic support is Speed Boost's +Rech/recovery buff and Transference's +Recovery. It gets self mez protection at level 20.

(a difficult example)

Regen Flux (Empathy+Regeneration)

1. Heal & Recovery [Combines Fast Healing and Quick Recovery] Auto +Regen, +Recovery
2. Reconstruction [unchanged] Self Click
3. Pain Absorption [modified Absorb Pain] Range - 40ft; Ally Heal, Self Absorb if target is at or below 33% health
4. Healing Aura [unchanged] Click PBAoE
5. Resilient Integration [Combines Integration with Resilience]
6. Resurrect [unchanged] Ally rez
7. Fortitude [shorter range] Range- 40ft; Ally Click
8. Regeneration Aura [smaller radius, shorter duration, shorter cooldown] Radius - 15ft; Duration - 45sec; Recharge - 200sec
9. Moment of Glory [unchanged]

NOTE: Notice the variety of support here is also limited compared to normal empathy. Also notice the lack of +Max HP which is crucial for a strong Regen melee but gains the ability for self +Absorb if healing weakened allies/pets.  In and of itself, both Empathy and Regeneration are legacy sets that have issues so the resultant combination likely needs tweaks too.  This set would have shorter durations of Instant Healing level regen but could spread it to allies nearby.

(something cool)

Bio Flux (Poison+Bio Armor)

1. Hardened Carapace [unchanged]
2. Environmental Modification [unchanged]
3. Weakening Envenom [Combination of Weaken and Envenom] Offensive Adaptation casts the effects of Envenom and Defensive Adaptation casts the effects of Weaken
4. Alkaloid [unchanged]
5. Adaptation [unchanged] Grants Efficiency, Defensive and Offensive Adaptation
6. Evolving Armor [unchanged] Self Toggle
7. Siphon Antidote [Variant of DNA Siphon and Antidote] Click PBAoE, when Offensive Adaptation is active, it instead targets allies within a 20ft radius with the effects of Antidote
8. Ablative Carapace [unchanged] Self Click
9. Venomous Gas [unchanged] Self Toggle

NOTE: This has quite a few of the tools of Poison minus Neurotoxic Breath and the rez, but at a cost of needing to juggle your adaptation settings. It misses out on some of the strong +Recovery of Bio but provides far superior team support via Venomous Gas.  One thing I was considering is having Environmental Modification's ToHit buff apply to nearby allies if in offensive adaptation too.

 

 Full Force

Saved the good part so hope you're still reading.  To simplify Full Force's effects, it's a variation on Critical Hit and Assassination.  The similarities are, Full Force has a chance to apply additional damage and primary attacks have a chance to build up "Force" that boosts the chance of one of your set's attacks to apply its Full Force which then spends those Force boosts.  But the similarities end there.  Full Force does NOT apply double damage, or even close to double damage.  Instead, it applies a flat minor damage (the amount varies by the set, not each attack) and doubles the secondary effect.  Primary attacks that don't have secondary effects will apply one balanced for this AT.  Some specifics:

• Full Force has a 10% chance to trigger on any attack used and a 15% chance to trigger when attacking a foe that isn't attacking the Interceptor.
• Like Assassin's Focus, there is a chance to gain Force with every primary attack that gives a 25% chance for Full Force to trigger on your set's special "Full Force" attack (stacks 4 times).
• Full Force is calculated on skill use, not target.  When Full Force triggers on an AoE attack, it is applied to all foes hit by the AoE attack.
• Secondary effects are variable. They don't technically apply their effects twice but they won't ever exceed the effects of the original attack. It's mostly up to balance.
• Because the damage of Full Force is flat by powerset, this could result in weak powers with little or no damage applying greater damage than if they critically hit. For example, if a Stalker EM Stun attack crits, it would double the low damage of Stun but if an Interceptor triggers Full Force and the Energy Melee's Force damage is higher, that would do more damage than the Stalker's crit for that attack.

 

Melee Primary 

Modifiers put this AT's melee damage at Tanker level. This AT lacks taunt in its attacks but when Full Force is triggered, it applies a Gauntlet effect on and around the target.  This AT also retains the AoE Taunt power of Brutes/Tanker set but with a lower duration/mag taunt. For simplicity's sake, I'll outline the sets rather than a full write up as they are ultimately the same.

Katana and Broadsword

• Expect their full force to apply double -def and guaranteed knockup/knockdown
• Parry/Divine Avalanche full force would also apply a chunk of +res
• Whirling Sword/The Lotus Drops is the special Full Force attack. When 4 Force stacks are built up, this will hit 100% with Full Force, applying the -def again for 2x the duration

Ice Melee

• Expect this set's full force to apply extra -speed that lasts 2x as long
• Ice Patch can apply damage initially if Full Force triggers and a foe is in its range
• Frozen Aura will apply an additional 2mag sleep if Full Force triggers
• Freezing Touch is the set's special Full Force attack.  It will apply an additional 1mag hold for 2x the duration

Fiery Melee

• When Full Force triggers for fiery melee attacks, it will apply a -secondary effects debuff to the target heals, def buffs, mez attacks, etc for a very short time
• Breath of Fire is the special Full Force attack.  It will apply the above -secondary effects debuff to all targets hit and the duration is moderate

 

Conclusion

The amount and types of secondary effects granted by Full Force are off the top of my head. It could be a plethora of different things but overall, the concept is that it's meant to turn your primary set (melee) into an extension of your support powers in your secondary.  It's also possible that secondary effects from Full Force could be buffs to the team instead of debuffs.  Regarding the configuration of the secondaries, those were also off the top of my head.  But the main goal is to give the Interceptor the ability to be as comfortable as a Scrapper in melee range and being capable of aiding a team but not to the full extent as a legacy support AT could.  There's also the prospect of decreasing the ranges of those support powers.  Many might not put much consideration in just how stifling it is to support teammates when you have to run to them first but it is a dynamic this AT can accomplish and I'd like it to do so for the preservation of those skills' potency.  I wouldn't want the AT to have weaker than MM buffs just because it might be overpowered for a support to have as high survivability.

[Leogunner]

Some more powerset ideas:

 

Storm Flux (Storm Summoning + Electric Armor)

1. Gale [unchanged] wide cone knockback, Foe minor smashing dmg
2. O2 Boost [shorter range] same heal + buff, just half the range
3. Charged Armor [unchanged] self +res to smash/lethal/energy
4. Conductive Shield [unchanged] self +res to fire/cold/energy/neg energy
5. Snow Flurry [toggle self, combination of Hurricane's application method and Snow Storm's effects] PBAoE 25ft foe -speed/recharge/ToHit +special Perfect Storm
6. Lightning Ground [toggle self, a special combination of Static Shield, Grounded and Lightning Reflexes] self +res to psionic/negative energy dmg; +res to disorient, sleep, hold, teleport AND knockback/immobilize; also +res to END drain/-recovery; +special Perfect Storm 
7. Freezing Rain [PBAoE click summon] instead of a placed AoE, this will place the storm at your feet, +special Perfect Storm
8. Power Sink [unchanged] PBAoE Foe -END, -Recovery; Self +END
9. Lightning Storm [pet summon] Pet: Ranged, High energy dmg, foe -END; Self: Perfect Storm

The Perfect Storm mechanic works in that, when you have all powers activated at once, they apply a special +Rech, +Spd, and Heal effect to the player.  So you have to have Snow Flurry turned on, activate Freezing Rain and Lightning Storm all while having Lightning Ground.  This creates the perfect storm and your Lightning Storm pet will fire a bolt at the player every time its recharged that buffs recharge, speed and heals the player (and only the player).  Once the perfect storm is broken (i.e. one of the toggles is turned off or Freezing Rain ends) these special bolts will stop striking the player.

 

Note: This set has a LOT less control compared to Storm Summoning and relies on its +res from its shields and debuffs.  Also note, it has to wait until level 20 for mez protection (ouch) and it cannot heal until it gets its final power at 38.

 

Electric Melee

• Expect their Full Force to take extra END from the foe and more END to the user.
• Remember, when their AoE attacks trigger Full Force, it's per attack.  So every foe hit with Lightning Rod or Thunderstrike etc will take the Full Force effects.
• Lightning Clap would be the set's special Full Force attack and would apply an extra 2mag disorient of the same duration, a guaranteed Knockup and a powerful taunt effect

 

I thought about the Storm Flux set having Thunder Clap as well but it could be reasoned that their ancillary pools could be control oriented and you could put that there.  It could make an Storm Interceptor into a powerful control machine although low damage if they're rotating through AoE stuns.

[Leogunner]

Next up is pretty straight forward:

 

Dark Flux (Dark Miasma/Dark Affinity + Dark Armor)

1. Twilight Grasp [mostly unchanged, just shorter range] Foe -ToHit/-Dmg/-Regen; Team PBAoE heal, 40ft range
2. Dark Embrace [unchanged] Toggle Self +res Smash/Lethal/Neg Energy/Toxic
3. Murky Cloud [unchanged] Toggle Self +res Fire/Cold/Energy/Neg Energy
4. Howling Twilight [mostly unchanged, just shorter range] Foe -Speed/Rech/Regen, mag 2 stun; PBAoE Team Rez, 40ft range 
5. Obsidian Shield [unchanged] Toggle Self +res Psionic/Stun/Hold/Sleep/Terror
6. Cloak of Darkness [unchanged] Toggle Self +stealth, +def All, +res Immobilize
7. Petrifying Gaze [unchanged, same range] Foe mag 3 hold
8. Soul Absorption [reduced target cap] Foe -ToHit; PBAoE Team +Regen/Recovery, 10 Foes max
9. Cloak of Abyss [mix of Darkest Night and Cloak of Fear] Foe -ToHit/-Dmg, mag 2 Fear

 

There are a lot of powers to pull from and I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to go for.  There were a few things I was sure of though: that the set should have the foundation of Dark Armor (i.e. the resist toggles) and it shouldn't have Tar Patch or the ability to rez both itself and the team.  I was against Tar Patch because I feel that is one of the bread and butter components of Dark Miasma so should remain its staple and Dark Regeneration because it would then be unkillable.  I feel the moderate resists of Dark Armor + the -ToHit and boost in Regen/Recovery would make this have a unique spot amongst Dark Builds in the melee category while staying away from overshadowing the strengths of the Dark support builds.  Its tier 9 would have a wider range than Cloak of Fear (15ft instead of 8), double the -ToHit of Cloak of Fear but not as much as Darkest Night (-5% v -10% v -18%) and retain the damage debuff of Darkest Night.  Total, Cloak of Abyss would have -10% ToHit, -28% Dmg and a mag 2 fear.

 

Dark Melee

• This set's Full Force additional damage would be higher than most because it has smaller AoEs.
• Expect the Full Force attacks to apply double the -ToHit when it procs (so -5.25% x2)
• Siphon Life doesn't apply double -ToHit but instead double Heal
• Touch of Fear doesn't apply double -ToHit but instead an additional Mag 2 Fear
• Soul Drain's Full Force applies an additional +3.5% res to -ToHit/-Def/-Regen/-Recovery debuffs per target hit.
• The set's Full Force special attack is Dark Consumption.  When this attack hits Full Force, it applies -ToHit, -Regen, -Def and -Recovery debuffs to every target hit. 

This would be the moderately flexible Jack-of-all-synergy melee set for the AT as it has the ability to synergize with lots of sets just like for the other melee ATs.  The implication with its special Full Force attack is that when it is prepped (by stacking Force with your other attacks) and used, the debuffs it applies are relatively long lasting, like 25-30sec which still isn't much considering the power's 180sec recharge.  This is both to give that power more weight when its used as well as to reign in the Full Force debuffs this set could accomplish as a whole.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Leogunner
Clarify change

[Leogunner]

I'm still considering aspects of this AT and I started to think about its overall role and how it'd compare to other ATs.  I made statements in the OP but didn't put as much thought in it as I have over time.  Still thinking but some thoughts I figured I'd put on paper are its roles, strengths and weaknesses by level.  For those that don't PuG much and tend to skip this to get to endgame, the role stack shifts in level ranges as certain power tiers become available.  For instance, Scrappers might not flip out very often until post lvl 26 when some of their strongest attacks are now available and slotted and likely have some mitigation powers slotted; control ATs can be particularly strong at mitigating damage via simply mass immobilize between ranges lvl 2 - 16 since mobs ranged attacks still haven't become that formidable but this starts to drop off in usefulness as teammates and support mature and immob starts to hinder AoE when not used properly; or the game overall shifts at level 33+ as they get their primary tier 9s.

 

The level ranges I'll post are the basic slotting/power milestones of lvl 1-22, lvl 23-32, lvl 33-40 and lvl 41+.  There are more milestones such as with incarnate unlocks or opening ancillary pools but those, IMO, are less important as the ATs start to become more homoginized in their capabilities and the uniqueness comes in the combination of powers and pools.

 

For the Interceptor:

Lvl 1-22

• Very early, this AT would feel quite powerful as the gap between damaging powers isn't as vast and the amount of HP foes have is smaller.  The reason Interceptor would feel strong is mainly because it'd be an AT with overall moderate self protection with support powers on par with a Corruptor.  This means this AT could keep their allies in the game while still having decent damage.
• This AT would NOT be able to easily tank early on despite its inherent taunting foes.  This is obviously because most of the ATs' powersets has no mez protection until lvl 20.  Comparatively, Scrapper and Stalker get mez protection around lvl 10!
• Shifting between support and attacking inherently lowers the AT's DPS.  This would likely exacerbate when one considers the shorter ranges of those support powers, meaning that this would likely lower personal DPS compared to all other melees but with the benefit of being a multiplier.
• Come level 20 with the opening of mez protection, the role of support and aggro management fully opens but you'd still fall behind the likes of a Tanker or Brute in the same team as you'd likely be able to boost them over yourself.  On a team without either tank, there is still the aspect of obtaining that aggro.  A Scrapper likely would still end up being your tank while you're the wing man striking foes with Full Force when they aren't focused on you.

Lvl 23-32

• SOs and decent basic IOs make this range see a shift in mob difficulty.  ATs like Defender, Corruptor and Controller will have outpaced this AT's support at this point.  Before, the Interceptor had the advantage of armor and them mez protection but by this point, support ATs have their bread and butter slotted, likely support powers you will never get.  This again shifts the role to be more of an "off-support emergency patcher" as your support will likely serve better to keep yourself alive.
• On teams with Tankers or Brutes, your Full Force attacks + support will start gaining you ire from the mobs more often and if you took your taunt power, you could likely take over as tank after the alpha strike.  Taking alphas yourself might still be dangerous, similar to a standard slotted Scrapper...
• Blappers likely would make friends with you as you can keep them alive (much different from a Tanker) and take the heat off of them (more instantaneously than a Brute).

Lvl 33-40

• With full kit and good slotting, expect to lean more on Full Force than your support to keep you alive with your ability to tank coming from unleashing that support along with taunt.
• DPS-wise, you'd need to pick the right powerset combo to be competitive with the moderately set-up Brutes or high-end tankers like Fire or Kinetic Melee (yeah, it would be up there). Don't expect much else, DPS-wise here.  It's a off-support/tank...
• Support-wise, it's actually kind of low.  MM would likely provide more potent support.  But complexity-wise, Interceptor is much simplier and has some unique adaptable techniques compared.
• A team of all Interceptor would be just disgusting...depending on the sets, they'd likely outstrip a team of Scrappers.  A team of Defenders would still eclipse them, however.

lvl 40+

• Not really sure about this because I don't know what ancillary sets they'd have.  Most of the game doesn't change too drastically until Incarnates and I find most of them rather boring. So drawing a blank here...

 

Edited August 6, 2019 by Leogunner

[Replacement]

Interesting stuff.  Thanks for the shout-out.  

 

I have to say, I wasn't keen on the unspecialized nature of it all at first-blush, but I'm glad I read through it.  You did a really sharp job of making sure the "true" supports cannot be outclassed while creating a unique playstyle.

 

The biggest concern I have is seeing a lot of armor stuff compressed down to very few powers.  The storm flux, for example, has all the resist options of electric, collects all their mez protections in 1 power (though I forgive this -- Grounded is stupid), and they get a strong defensive debuff aura.  And this is the core of where I don't really feel great about this: my instinct is "keep it, but make sure the numbers are low."  But that flies in the face of intending it to be capable of pocket-tanking.

 

I'm not really asking for this to be addressed.  This is just a sort of stream-of-consciousness "I realize you need these for it to fill its role but it still concerns me."

 

Other points:

 

•  Full Force should come from activating your secondary powers as well.  Hell, there's a good argument it should only come from using secondary powers, or lowering the base % per stack and having secondary actions provide bonus stacks.  This would shift its focus more to making up lost ground from giving up DPS to help the party.  
  • Anecdote: I play FFXI with my brother (or did until CoH cast Howling Twilight on itself), and he loves to melee on his Red Mage.  He has a very hard conundrum to solve: Proving to others that his DPS is actually really good, but having to intentionally limit his DPS to actually take care of the party.  it's a crappy feeling.  So shifting the passive to incentivizing their unique playstyle seems important, to me.  The last thing I want is Interceptors pretending they're Brutes, with meta mandates to only take the secondaries you don't need mid-fight.
  • I realize this would mean less to some secondaries than others.  There's strong precedent for that.  But it definitely pushes me more towards "bonus stacks for secondary actions."
• Your last post says Infiltrator.  We could use one of those, too (#CottageStalker), but I think that's a typo.
• Redraw sucks.  I would focus on bringing the weapon sets last, just because the disruption is so much higher for this sort of combination.
• Lamentation: You reused a lot of existing powers, which is really good for reducing complexity, but this is still a tall order to implement.

 

 

 

 

[Leogunner]

Thanks for the feedback.  Although I kind of go into detail about the suggestion, it's by no means set in stone.  I'm more just trying to convey my perspective and leave it open to others to put up criticism on what is out of bounds, underpowered, or just a better idea.

 

 

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

The biggest concern I have is seeing a lot of armor stuff compressed down to very few powers.  The storm flux, for example, has all the resist options of electric, collects all their mez protections in 1 power (though I forgive this -- Grounded is stupid), and they get a strong defensive debuff aura.  And this is the core of where I don't really feel great about this: my instinct is "keep it, but make sure the numbers are low."  But that flies in the face of intending it to be capable of pocket-tanking.

 

The Storm Flux was kind of shooting from the hip as I sort of came up with a phrase (the perfect storm) then jammed it into a set concept to kind of alter how the sets meshed.  Overall, it's a rushed concept.

 

Something I will remind you of is, Electric Armor, by itself, is mediocre *especially* without that on-demand heal.  All the Electric Armor characters I made were a SERIOUS slog until I could get that heal (although I'm sure kat/BS or dark melee would make this much smoother, but that's more a testament to those set's capabilities).  So keep that in mind when you're taking the set in.  Also, after I submitted the idea, I re-analyzed just how potent Gale can be and for a tank/melee type with armor, it likely would have to go or severely nerf its range and/or target cap.

 

As for the debuff aura, I had planned for the -ToHit to be much less than Hurricane's (somewhere around -10% ToHit vs the normal -37% ToHit) but if an aura with -movement, -rech and -ToHit is too powerful, I could see removing the -ToHit completely.  Needless to say, it wouldn't have the -range....also, Snow Storm is kinda a mediocre power overall so was trying to give it a bit of something more as compensation for the various things removed.  Without Hurricane and Tornado, Storm Summoning is pretty tame if not bad.

 

But again, this is all malleable.

 

4 hours ago, Replacement said:

 

•  Full Force should come from activating your secondary powers as well.  Hell, there's a good argument it should only come from using secondary powers, or lowering the base % per stack and having secondary actions provide bonus stacks.  This would shift its focus more to making up lost ground from giving up DPS to help the party.  

 

Now this I'll have to disagree on.  Of course, this is all just a hypothetical brainstorm experiment so it's not like I'm shooting you down but while I was considering the AT and its style, some considerations came up and I'm curious what your thoughts would be on them:

• Consider a powerset that is more set-and-forget.  For example, Cold Domination/Ice Armor with 2 powers being team shields, 1 being either a long recharge buff or debuff and having only a single spammable power.  Do you really want to encourage repeated use of powers to get to certain effects?
• Same as above but what if those powers just aren't needed?  Just use them anyway?
• Considering the inherent is giving you extra debuffs from your primary, what if those hinder the need of the secondary?  Players might consider this anti-synergy, your primary's full force hindering foes so you don't need the support powers which give you your full force.

 

I chose to isolate building Force to the primary partly because I feel you should be using your support powers when you need them, not to fulfill some quota...it'd be like tying Assassin's Focus to using one of your defensive powers...the other reason I chose to imagine Full Force the way it is is simply for simplicity.  It's just easier to grasp and explain considering it's suppose to be the "fun" part of the AT and what'd make it feel unique from other melee types.  The intended audience for this AT are players who enjoy melee ATs and I feel typing Full Force to the support powers just forces players to play a certain way...which leads into the next part:

 

4 hours ago, Replacement said:

•  Anecdote: I play FFXI with my brother (or did until CoH cast Howling Twilight on itself), and he loves to melee on his Red Mage.  He has a very hard conundrum to solve: Proving to others that his DPS is actually really good, but having to intentionally limit his DPS to actually take care of the party.  it's a crappy feeling.  So shifting the passive to incentivizing their unique playstyle seems important, to me.  The last thing I want is Interceptors pretending they're Brutes, with meta mandates to only take the secondaries you don't need mid-fight.

 

Were you playing on a fan server?  I went back and recovered my old account and played on the live servers around a year back.  I quit though because I was just running into a lot of roadblocks to complete quests.  Like I'd need some obscure item and trying to buy it off the market was neigh impossible because there were few on the market and prices were a tad out of my price range.  I wouldn't mind going on a fan server and starting over...

 

...that being said, your concerns for characters pretending they are Brutes, I'll ask: is that a bad thing?  I think it'd be great if you can build the AT to do different things at the cost of another.  It likely wouldn't be a very strong Brute but you could try...build it to be a massive wall of a Tank, an offensive oriented Interscraptor or whatever.  That's the beauty of the CoH ATs.

 

4 hours ago, Replacement said:

• Your last post says Infiltrator.  We could use one of those, too (#CottageStalker), but I think that's a typo.

 

Yeah, not sure what I was thinking.  Went back and fixed it tho.