City of Heroes - Live Forum Archive

New Powerset Ideas

POST-ACTION

I already posted this in Lady-Jade's Power Suggestion Box, but let's see if I can get more feedback by posting independantly....

For all the Indiana Jones/Castlevania fans out there:

WHIP (Melee)
Available to: Stalkers, Scrappers, Tankers
Set Color: Beige
Animation Notes: 'Flashy' is definitely appropriate for this set, especially as you go up in levels - Dual Pistols overdid it, though.

Whips do inferior damage compared to other Melee sets, but make up for it in speed, low endurance cost, and limited range – the whip has the greatest reach of any Melee powerset, but note that it does not benefit from range Enhancements.

1) Snap – a quick, basic attack with your whip. The stinging pain will temporarily reduce the target's damage resistance. Damage: Minor Lethal Recharge: Very Fast

2) Lash – a stronger but slower attack than Snap that reduces the target's damage resistance. Damage: Moderate Lethal Recharge: Fast

3) Flog – a harder, slower strike with your whip that leaves a deep, bleeding wound, dealing additional damage over time. Damage: Moderate Lethal Recharge: Moderate

4) Trip (Scrapper) – trips your foe, knocking them down and causing them to take damage from the fall. Damage: Moderate Smashing Recharge: Fast
OR
Assassin's Lash (Stalker) – signature Stalker attack. Damage: Special Lethal Recharge: Slow
OR
Taunt (Tanker)

5) Build Up

6) Confront (Scrapper)
OR
Placate (Stalker)
OR
Trip (Tanker)

7) Loop – you swing your whip in a circle around you, damaging all nearby enemies and lowering their damage resistance. Damage: Minor Lethal Recharge: Moderate

8) Crack of Doom – you put all your focus and artistry into this powerful and agonizing attack that reduces the target's damage resistance a great deal. Damage: Superior Lethal Recharge: Moderate

9) Death Spiral – You spin your whip in a wide arc around your head, causing a sonic boom so powerful that it deals heavy Energy damage to and disorients all enemies around you. Damage: High Energy Recharge: Slow

You may notice I didn't give Brutes Whips. That's because they get....

CHAINSAW (Melee)
Available to: Brutes
Set Color: Dark Yellow
Animation Notes: Should be the near-antithesis of Dual Pistols flashiness. Simple, harsh movements, with the exception of Brandish, which is all about giving an exaggerated display.

The Chainsaw is a slow and unweildy weapon with a penalty to accuracy, but the damage it deals is second to none. It leaves hideous wounds that heal poorly, retarding their regeneration rate, and sometimes bleeding for additional damage.

1) Thrust – a simple, relatively quick attack with your chainsaw that slows the target's regeneration rate. Damage: Moderate Lethal Recharge: Fast

2) Carve – a slower and stronger attack than Thrust that leaves the target with a horrible wound that regenerates more slowly. Damage: Superior Lethal Recharge: Slow

3) Mangle – a gruesome attack that wreaks havoc on the victim's natural healing processes, severely reducing their regeneration rate and causing them to bleed for additional damage over time. Damage: Extreme Lethal Recharge: Slow

4) Build Up

5) Whirl – you spin your chainsaw around you, assaulting all nearby enemies and leaving them with nasty wounds and a reduced regeneration rate. Damage: High Lethal Recharge: Slow
6) Taunt

7) Brandish – you rev your chainsaw loudly and wave it around menacingly, causing enemies around you to cower in terror. Recharge: Slow

8) Gore – a devastating attack so traumatizing to watch that nearby enemies may enter a state of shock, snapping out of it if they themselves are attacked. If the target survives, its regeneration rate is drastically slowed, and it suffers a terrible wound that deals additional damage over time. Damage: Extreme Lethal Recharge: Slow

9) Massacre – You swing your chainsaw in an arc, attacking all enemies in front of you, lowering their regeneration rate. Damage: Extreme Lethal Recharge: Slow

Something I think we've needed for a long time:

TOXIC BLAST (Ranged)
Available to: Corrupters, Defenders
Set Color: Pea Green
Animation Notes: Even more than other Ranged sets, this set demands a few different animation options for each power, so you can spit acid, shoot toxic waste out your hands, or just vomit.

Scour your enemies with venom, acid, or toxic waste. This set does average damage compared to other Ranged sets (much of it damage over time), has inferior range, and lacks a sniper power, but makes up for it with crippling debuffs and effects.

1) Acid Spit – a basic attack that corrodes your target's defense. Damage: Minor Toxic Recharge: Fast

2) Venomous Blast – a moderate attack that weakens your target's damage. Damage: Moderate Toxic Recharge: Fast

3) Toxic Cloud – you send forth a cloud of poisonous gas that harms a group of foes and may sicken them into helplessness. Damage: Moderate Toxic (DoT) Recharge: Moderate

4) Neurotoxic Breath – you spew forth a neurotoxin that slows your enemies' movement and attack rates. Damage: Moderate Toxic (DoT) Recharge: Moderate

5) Cobra Venom – assaults your target's eyes with poison; damage is only minor, but their chance to hit will be greatly reduced and they are likely to be completely blinded. Damage: Minor Toxic Recharge: Fast

6) Power Boost

7) Slime Wave – a short-ranged cone attack that does a lot of damage and reduces enemy damage resistance. Damage: Superior Toxic (DoT) Recharge: Moderate

8) Chemical Spill – you cover a patch of ground with toxic waste. Those who pass through it are contaminated, taking serious damage and dealing less damage themselves (this effect persists even if they leave the area). Damage: Extreme Toxic (DoT) Recharge: Slow

9) Venusian Miasma – You saturate the air around you with carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid, creating conditions much like the atmosphere of Venus. Enemies in this miasma take massive Toxic damage over time, are slowed, have their defense massively corroded, and are likely to begin choking. This power costs you all of your endurance, and halts your endurance recovery for a little while. Damage: Extreme Toxic (DoT) Recharge: Very Long

THROWING (Ranged)
Available to: Blasters, Defenders, Corrupters
Set Color: Sandy Grey
Animation Notes: Should be simple and quick, for the most part. Area of effect powers can be more showy.

You have superhuman skill with throwing weapons. While your damage and your area-of-effect capabilities aren't as good as other ranged powersets, you are very fast and very accurate.

1) Rock – you throw a simple stone at your enemy. Damage: Minor Smashing Recharge: Very Fast

2) Card – you throw a playing card with deadly accuracy, leaving a vicious papercut that reduces your target's damage resistance. Damage: Minor Lethal Recharge: Very Fast

3) Potato – you peg your target with a large potato, dealing moderate damage and possibly disorienting it. Damage: Moderate Smashing Recharge: Fast

4) Throwing Knife – you throw a knife with exceptionally deadly accuracy; this attack doesn't have the range of your other attacks, but it does better damage and causes a bleeding wound for additional damage over time. Damage: High Lethal Recharge: Moderate

5) 52 Pickup – you assail your enemies with a hail of playing cards, dealing damage and lowering resistance in a cone. Damage: Minor Lethal Recharge: Moderate

6) Aim

7) Needle – a needle deals little damage, but you can throw it with such incredible precision that it punctures a vital nerve or other vulnerable point in the target, paralyzing it. Damage: Minor Lethal Recharge: Moderate

8) Superball – the superball ricochets from enemy to enemy, gaining momentum and increasing in damage each time it hits. Damage: Special Smashing/Energy Recharge: Slow

9) Vortex of Knives – you launch a volley of throwing knives in a circle around you, dealing superior damage, and possibly landing a lucky shot for even more damage. Damage: Superior Lethal Recharge: Slow

DISEASE (Buff)
Available to: Masterminds, Corrupters
Set Color: Medium Dark Hazel
Animation Notes: No comment, really. Diseases are hard to see.

Diseases can be devastating (or in a few cases, helpful), and are usually contagious, but with the exception of Computer Virus (and Rabies in the case of certain Masterminds), robots and machines are immune to their effects.

1) Creeping Cold – infects the target with a relatively mild, but highly contagious, strain of the common cold. Their speed and chance to hit are decreased for a little while, and nearby enemies are very likely to contract it in turn. Recharge: Moderate

2) Antibodies – incites target's immune system to purge whatever ails it, healing the target. Recharge: Fast

3) Computer Virus – infects an electronic or robotic target with a vicious computer virus that may have any number of devastating deleterious effects. Damage: Special Recharge: Moderate

4) Influenza – reduces the target's speed, damage, and defense. The flu is extremely contagious and may sometimes develop into pneumonia, causing victims to choke helplessly. Recharge: Moderate

5) Vaccine – cures a target of all deleterious effects affecting it, and inoculates it against future effects. Recharge: Fast

6) Invoke Symbiosis – stimulates a defeated ally's mitochondria, reanimating it and protecting it from debt for 90 seconds. The target will benefit from increased endurance recovery for a while after reanimation. In addition, whatever germs and parasites were residing in the character's body are prompted to seek out new hosts, generating a cloud of pestilence that lowers the defense and resistance of nearby enemies. When these effects wear off, the subject will suffer from decreased endurance recovery and attack speed for a while thereafter. Recharge: Very Long

7) Polio – Causes complete paralysis in a target. Nearby enemies may contract a milder version and become immobilized. Recharge: Slow

8) Ebola (Corrupters) – infects the target with a horrible flesh-eating virus that gradually deals massive damage. Nearby enemies may contract a much weaker version. Damage: Extreme Toxic (DoT) Recharge: Very Long
OR
Rabies (Masterminds) – you infect one of your own henchmen with a rapidly-advancing form of rabies (or a software analog, if your henchmen are robots). The target's movement, attack rate, and damage are all drastically increased, but it slowly takes damage and dies. Recharge: Very Long

9) Plague – Unleashes a terrible plague epidemic on your enemies, starting with an initial target and spreading rapidly and at longer range than other contagions. Victims are subjected to slowing, severe endurance loss and retarded recovery, decreased accuracy, and random outbreaks of minor Toxic damage. Damage: Special Toxic Recharge: Very Long

Magneto fans rejoice! I made this not only because I thought it would be interesting to make a Control set that did Lethal damage, but also to give Dominators something to call their own until such time as they get Illusion Control.

METAL CONTROL (Control)
Available to: Dominators
Set Color: Steel Blue
Animation Notes: I think it's pretty self-explanatory.

Imprison and torment your foes by controlling, summoning, and even animating metal.

1) Bear Trap – Sharp shards of metal latch onto your opponent's legs, preventing them from moving. Damage: Moderate Lethal Recharge: Fast

2) Iron Maiden – entombs your opponent in sharp shards of metal, holding them. Damage: Moderate Lethal Recharge: Moderate

3) Needles – summons hundreds of needles from the ground beneath your foes' feet. They are greatly slowed and take some damage over time. Damage: Minor Lethal (DoT) Recharge: Moderate

4) Dominate Machine – Severely damages and disorients a mechanical or robotic target. Damage: High Special Recharge: Moderate

5) Shrapmetal – sprays jagged fragments of toxic metal in a cone toward your foes. The metal's toxicity causes neurological damage that slows victims' attack rates, and in rare cases may result in confusion. Damage: Moderate Lethal/Toxic Recharge: Moderate

6) Electroplating – holds multiple enemies in coffins made of metal shards. Recharge: Very Long

7) Halt Metal – while this power is active, you generate a field that repels metal, significantly increasing your defense against Lethal attacks. Recharge: Moderate

8) Mercury Storm – you cause fountains of mercury to gush up from the ground in the area you target. Not only are enemies in the area slowed and likely to slip on the liquid metal, but some of them will succumb to mercury poisoning, causing confusion. Recharge: Very Long

9) Dancing Weapons – summons 2 random flying metal weapons (either broadsword, katana, battle axe, war mace, chainsaw, or machine gun) to attack your enemies. The weapons are capable of only simple attacks, but they are immune to Psionic damage and very resistant to all other attacks and effects except Energy, which they are only somewhat resistant to. Recharge: Very Long

and of course...be The Doctor!

TIME CONTROL (Control)
Available to: Dominators, Controllers
Set Color: Gold
Animation Notes: Should be the epitome of subtlety. Stasis, for example, should be nothing more than the controller pointing a finger and the target freezing in mid-animation, as though the game crashed for it.

Command the spacetime continuum itself! Time Control is exceptionally powerful, but also very draining. Its powers cost more endurance than other control sets.

1) Relativity Drain – Retards a target's progress through the timestream relative to the rest of the universe. Being cut off from the normal flow of time slows the target and damages the fabric of its reality. Damage: Moderate Negative Energy (DoT) Recharge: Fast

2) Stasis – freezes a target in time, rendering it helpless, and damaging the fabric of its reality in the process. Damage: Moderate Negative Energy Recharge: Moderate

3) Deja Vu – traps the target in a causality loop, causing it to experience “rubber banding” and take damage over time. Damage: Moderate Negative Energy (DoT) Recharge: Moderate

4) Zeno's Arrow – immobilizes enemies in an area of effect centered on you and limits their attacks to melee range. Recharge: Slow

5) Spacetime Rupture – dissasociates a group of enemies from the spacetime continuum, rendering them intangible. This state plays havoc with the fabric of their reality, slowly damaging them while they are trapped. Damage: High Negative Energy (DoT) Recharge: Slow

6) Time Stop – mass hold of superior area and duration Recharge: Very Long

7) Total Perspective Vortex – As Krishna revealed the Truth to Arjuna, you expose your enemies to the totality of spacetime and the infinity of alternate possibilities which extend from every point in every direction. The experience is literally mind-blowing, dealing damage and rendering them incapable of action. Those with this power are unnaffected by others' use of it. Damage: Moderate Psionic Recharge: Slow

8) Tempus Fugit – While this power is active, all nearby enemies' attack and movement speeds are greatly slowed, while you and your allies are hastened to the same degree. Maintaining this power is very strenuous. Recharge: Very Long

9) Doppelganger – You travel a few seconds forward in time, effectively doubling yourself. Due to the incredible strain and risk of cheating time in this manner, your future self can only use your most basic Time Control powers, but can use all of your secondary powers. A side effect of your future self being slightly out of tune with the time around it is that your future self benefits from increased damage resistance and defense. When you are attacked, your future self is subject to that attack as well. If you receive healing or buffs, your future self also enjoys those effects. Recharge: Very Long

What do you think? Watch this space for further ideas and feel free to post your own!