Regulator - Melee/Support AT

[Thezanman]

I know there have been plenty of ideas for melee/support ATs, but none of them really seemed right to me. The main thing which I feel like I'm missing when playing CoH is a melee AT which doesn't have armor as a secondary, but most of the concepts I see try to combine armor with support, and/or add crazy new mechanics. What I would really like is to just make this new melee/support AT in the same way Sentinels were made: simply take a Corruptor and replace its ranged powerset with melee, making small tweaks to fit the theme where absolutely needed, and changing the inherent power of course.

 

So, I tried to envision the Regulator with that ideal in mind. It would be mostly damage focused with support being secondary, like a Corruptor. As a melee AT without armor, it doesn't make sense to have Confront. At the same time, simply being in melee range inherently poses more danger than attacking from a distance. So, Confront would be replaced with Barrier, a sort of counterpart to Build Up with the same 90 second cooldown and 10 second duration, but instead granting a moderate resistance and defense buff for that time. The idea is to have an active defense mechanic to mitigate alpha strikes and other bursts of damage, without being able to consistently tank like the current melee ATs. 

The inherent power, Regulation, would function similarly to Domination but instead have two "modes" to pick from, allowing you to regulate (get it?) the situation as required. Defensive Regulation provides an aura for a moderate duration which both grants a small resistance buff to you and nearby allies and applies a small damage debuff to nearby enemies. Offensive Regulation is also an aura, but with a damage buff and resistance debuff instead. In order to use either Regulation you need to build up Power either by attacking or by using your support powers, just like Domination. Your Power builds up quickly, and even builds while you have a Regulation aura in effect, but using either Regulation while the other is in effect will cancel the current aura, preventing you from gaining both benefits at once. This means that while you may be able to make the effects of Regulation permanent, you will always have to decide which one is more important at the time.

 

Beyond those two large changes, the Regulator's support powers should be changed to mostly PBAoEs or short cones to fit the theme better, lowering values when needed to make up for the power becoming AoE. Ideally, personal status protection should be added to one power in each support set, as the Regulator will be right next to the enemies and relies on toggle powers staying active to survive. Here is a rough idea of what the Regulator's support sets should look like:

 

Poison:

T1: Alkaloid: Less healing, higher recharge, becomes PBAoE

T2: Envenom: Shortened range to melee (7), increased radius (the radius should be higher on other ATs anyway)

T3: Weaken: Same as Envenom

T4: Neurotoxic Breath: Lower range, wider cone

T5: Elixir of Life: Unchanged (it's pretty much melee already, and I don't think it would be a good idea to make it an AoE revive)

T6: Antidote: Changed to PBAoE (I think status protection powers are currently limited to only affect one target at a time, but I honestly don't see why that's needed)

T7: Paralytic Poison: Shortened range to melee (7)

T8: Poison Trap: Unchanged

T9: Venomous Gas: Unchanged

 

So, with all this in mind, the Regulator would skirt the edges of a fight, debuffing and then defeating priority targets while staying out of the direct line of fire, making use of Barrier to endure unexpected attention from enemies (sort of like a more support-based Stalker). When the situation calls for it, the Regulator will run to the teammates that need help, applying buffs and auras to anyone nearby. 

 

Please feel free to give constructive criticism. I don't really care too much about the details of a theoretical melee/support AT, so long as it is a relatively simple addition like how Sentinel was made. This is only a first draft, so I am definitely open to suggestions about the Inherent power, Confront replacement, and the specific tweaks that would be made to the support powersets.

[Infinitum]

I would do this just for thematic effect, 2 characters WarNG and N8Dogg

 

Oh yeah. Let's do this.  lol

[Leogunner]

7 hours ago, Thezanman said:

So, I tried to envision the Regulator with that ideal in mind. It would be mostly damage focused with support being secondary, like a Corruptor. As a melee AT without armor, it doesn't make sense to have Confront. At the same time, simply being in melee range inherently poses more danger than attacking from a distance. So, Confront would be replaced with Barrier, a sort of counterpart to Build Up with the same 90 second cooldown and 10 second duration, but instead granting a moderate resistance and defense buff for that time. The idea is to have an active defense mechanic to mitigate alpha strikes and other bursts of damage, without being able to consistently tank like the current melee ATs. 

The inherent power, Regulation, would function similarly to Domination but instead have two "modes" to pick from, allowing you to regulate (get it?) the situation as required. Defensive Regulation provides an aura for a moderate duration which both grants a small resistance buff to you and nearby allies and applies a small damage debuff to nearby enemies. Offensive Regulation is also an aura, but with a damage buff and resistance debuff instead. In order to use either Regulation you need to build up Power either by attacking or by using your support powers, just like Domination. Your Power builds up quickly, and even builds while you have a Regulation aura in effect, but using either Regulation while the other is in effect will cancel the current aura, preventing you from gaining both benefits at once. This means that while you may be able to make the effects of Regulation permanent, you will always have to decide which one is more important at the time. 

I'll just say, I think there's a reason some blend armor powers into the concept and it's for the same reason you're leaning on the inherent power and the Confront replacement: the AT would need something that keeps it alive while it hits things in melee. And it's the most straightforward solution.

 

Also, what would you do about buffing sets? The ones that might not have prominent debuffs to keep it alive? 

[Thezanman]

2 hours ago, Leogunner said:

I'll just say, I think there's a reason some blend armor powers into the concept and it's for the same reason you're leaning on the inherent power and the Confront replacement: the AT would need something that keeps it alive while it hits things in melee. And it's the most straightforward solution.

 

Also, what would you do about buffing sets? The ones that might not have prominent debuffs to keep it alive? 

I don’t think it’s that hard to stay alive in melee when you don’t have taunt/damage auras like most of the melee ATs, but it is inherently more dangerous. That’s why I thought of the panic button Barrier, like how Stalker has Placate. I think this is a more straightforward solution than trying to merge two sets, and like I said, my main goal is to create a melee AT without having armor secondary.

 

As for the buffing sets, I believe making a lot of the powers into PBAoEs with reduced values so they can affect self would go a long way to making Regulator feel right, like I did with Antidote and Alkaloid in the example Poison set.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Thezanman

[Leogunner]

2 hours ago, Thezanman said:

I don’t think it’s that hard to stay alive in melee when you don’t have taunt/damage auras like most of the melee ATs, but it is inherently more dangerous. That’s why I thought of the panic button Barrier, like how Stalker has Placate. I think this is a more straightforward solution than trying to merge two sets, and like I said, my main goal is to create a melee AT without having armor secondary.

 

As for the buffing sets, I believe making a lot of the powers into PBAoEs with reduced values so they can affect self would go a long way to making Regulator feel right, like I did with Antidote and Alkaloid in the example Poison set.

You say that in early levels but when you start facing Lts that can hit you for a quarter of your health and stun you at the same time or facing multiple minions that will stack mez, you'll be singing a different tune. 

 

Also The latter solution for the buffs is another implementation and balance compromise. It's not much different from armor except it has to be balanced for a while team. 

[Thezanman]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

You say that in early levels but when you start facing Lts that can hit you for a quarter of your health and stun you at the same time or facing multiple minions that will stack mez, you'll be singing a different tune. 

 

Also The latter solution for the buffs is another implementation and balance compromise. It's not much different from armor except it has to be balanced for a while team. 

The point is you won't be facing multiple minions. Since you don't have taunt auras or as high a base threat as a Scrapper, enemies won't aggro on you, just like a Stalker. As for solo, Blasters can solo just fine without the defensive buffs and debuffs that the Regulator would have, so the Regulator should have no issue. 

 

There's already precedent for fully AoE based support sets. Nature Affinity is a great example: all of its abilities are AoE except for Corrosive Enzymes and Rebirth. It could pretty much be used in my idea of a Regulator unchanged, since I don't think revives should generally be AoE anyway (Howling Twilight excluded). Corrosive Enzymes doesn't even necessarily need to be AoE, since it already has a long enough duration to spread it to multiple targets. Just change Corrosive Enzymes to be melee and you have a perfectly fine Regulator set.

[Jon]

Not saying anything about your implementation of it but I would love a Melee/Support AT in general.

[Leogunner]

14 hours ago, Thezanman said:

The point is you won't be facing multiple minions. Since you don't have taunt auras or as high a base threat as a Scrapper, enemies won't aggro on you, just like a Stalker. As for solo, Blasters can solo just fine without the defensive buffs and debuffs that the Regulator would have, so the Regulator should have no issue. 

 

But blaster has ridiculous damage. Even a Scrapper, with the highest damage in melee and most without taunt auras, can't survive in melee range without armor and mez protection. 

 

14 hours ago, Thezanman said:

There's already precedent for fully AoE based support sets. Nature Affinity is a great example: all of its abilities are AoE except for Corrosive Enzymes and Rebirth. It could pretty much be used in my idea of a Regulator unchanged, since I don't think revives should generally be AoE anyway (Howling Twilight excluded). Corrosive Enzymes doesn't even necessarily need to be AoE, since it already has a long enough duration to spread it to multiple targets. Just change Corrosive Enzymes to be melee and you have a perfectly fine Regulator set.

I'm talking about sets that don't have support that included the caster, like sonic, FF, cold, empathy, ect. Those would have to be changed. 

[Pbuckley818]

Hmm... I wonder how well the slight defensive buffs from the somewhat altered Support powers would combo with say the Blaster Tertiary powers. Maybe that could be tuned to make them more capable of surviving in High end content.

 

Another thing you could do is take some of the Ranged Defense utility of some of the powers like all the knockback and replace them with defensive abilities as well. As all this would be doing is replacing Ranged Defenses for Melee ones. If you look at the powers this could help a lot of powers out a bit. 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Pbuckley818

[Hyperstrike]

I'm not sure about such a build's place in-in game.

It's essentially a Stalker which trades damage for team buff.
So, yeah, it's a boon to it's team.  And it kills slower than a tank...

[Jeuraud]

5 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

I'm not sure about such a build's place in-in game.

I would play this AT, and I kind-of already do, with a 2 Pet Beast MM for Bodyguard and the Fighting pool. I used to do the same thing with MM Thugs, because I wanted Pistols, and switched to Corrupter as soon as they got DP. After playing around with MMs I would prefer an Assault primary, I'm liking having at least one fast attack ranged power, and Sorceries attack is to long.

 

5 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

It's essentially a Stalker which trades damage for team buff.
So, yeah, it's a boon to it's team.  And it kills slower than a tank...

It's Attack is a Primary which is going to put it above the Tank to start with. It also has a Support secondary, which is going to give Buffs/Debuffs. The only reason it would be slower than the Tank is because it was given a ridiculously low damage modifier, kind of like the MM.

 

 

I would prefer an AT that is designed to do what I'm kind-of already doing.