Power Pool Revamp

Looking at the Power Pools, they could use a revamp in IMHO.
Not only does it take till lvl 14 to get a real travel power, but they seem to be disorganized.

So with that in mind ill set forth an idea on how to revamp them for the next 5 years.

The power pools of Flight, Speed and Jumping would be transformed into a Movement Power pool and
the remaining powers added to other power pools.

Using the new power pool setup people would be able to have multiple movement
powers just by selecting more from the movement power pool.

This would stop the selection of a power pool for the express purpose of gaining access
to a specific movement power for their hero.

With respect to the orgainization of the other pools it was done to keep a theme for each pool
and not done to balance playability.

I am not sure whether this idea is viable or not, someone who is good with numbers
or with more insight should be able to judge the consequences of changes this drastic.


NEW POWER POOLS

First, here should be a Movement Power Pool.
Consisting of Super Speed, Super Jump, Fly, Hover and Group Fly
and whatever other powers they create.

Second, there would be a Fighting Power Pool.
Consisting of Combat Jumping, Tough, Weave and Acrobatics, and Whirlwind.

Third, there would be a Offensive Power Pool.
Power Pool.
Consisting of Air Superiority, Boxing, Jump Kick.
To this pool another 1-2 ranged, AOE or DOT attacks would be a nice addition.

Fourth, their would be a Fitness Pool.
Consisting of Hurdle, Swift, Hasten, Health and Stamina.

The power pools of Concealment, Leadership, Medicine, Presence and Teleportation would remain the same.
The total number of Power Pools would shrink by one but I feel your options would increase especially if
new attack powers were added to Offensive Power Pool.

Feel free to rip me if this idea is game breaking or respond with ideas or opinions of your own.

No.

For starters, the power pools are tiered. Why should I be able to get Superspeed or Superjump at level 6, but can only pick Fly at 14, or Teleport at 20 - and must have SS or SJ first? That's a wasted power. The tiering in general just looks goofy.

Second, Kheldians *cannot* pick Teleport or Fly. What are you going to do to that pool for them?

Third, you'd now force (for instance) my Fire tanks, who can grab two pools (fitness and leaping) to take three - one for combat jumping (slight defense, immobilize protection,) fitness, and the travel pool. I've got some characters who already utilize four pools (especially support) - fitness, travel, concealment and leadership, for instance. You'd absolutely break those characters with this.

Fourth, it's FAR too late in the game to make such a major change. You would break *every single character in the game.* For me, *personally,* that would mean going through and having to respec over 170 characters - and I know many people with even MORE, not to mention what people would see on reactivation weekends - "I came back to the game and had to change my characters, so I just didn't bother, later COH." Adding a power to a pool, such as was done with the PPPs and APPs, doesn't have this issue - but that's not what you're proposing.

I believe it was the four year anniversary where we were told there were several *million* characters created. Think about that - then think about having to go through most of them and do a complete respec with these new (and, I have to say it, rather disorganized seeming) power pools.

Last but not least, what are you replacing the 60 (?) month vet reward with?

See my Guides and Tutorials

Interesting concepts but a couple things I see. First, why isn't teleport included in the movement power pool. It's a travel power and I've known plenty of people, myself included, who use it as their only travel power without taking hover to support it for example. Also you have three of the flight powers in the movement power pool so it doesn't really seem like a good "mix" to create this new pool. Based on your suggestion alone I'd probably move Telport in there in place of Group Fly and create a new power pool for group travels where you could add group fly, group tp, create a group sj, and group ss power.

Another issue is this would make the 60 month city traveller badge worthless. Personally I like that the City Traveller badge is such a high time vet reward and it allows access to travel powers at level 6 allowing you to skip the prereq powers. Under this plan you'd have to come up with something to replace that badge and it would have to be something very similar with a reward that allows access to tiered powers earlier and without the prereq.

Again interesting concept, especially if it was something implemented early in the game. But after 5+ years I think it is too late to make power pool changes. You could probably add power pools if they wanted, allow Kheldians access if they don't have it, or maybe even increase it so you could access 5 or 6 power pools, but I think what exists today is pretty much locked.

NVM it was a stupid idea.
Thanks for the quick response.
I figured there was a good reason for not revamping the power pools.

It seems there are numerous reasons why that would be a bad idea.
I forgot about how many alts so people have and what would be involved.
Your right that would cause Chaos with peoples builds.

My problem with not having enough power pool options due to certain powers
being in different pools is not a good enough reason cause massive respecitis.

Feel free to have them delete this whole thread ASAP.

I would have to agree with Memphis Bill on this one. Even if you don't tier the travel powers and make them all available at 6, if you do your first and second Mayhem/Safeguard missions, you'll have Fly and SJ powers that will last you for quite a while. My characters rarely pick up a travel power at 14 anymore and sometimes put it off until their 20s just because I had those temporary ones still working. Just gotta use them conservatively. And I'd end up getting them around lvl 6 anyway.

The main problem I have with this is that generally they have tried to make the pools pretty balanced already and have done so rather well. By having different powers that do different things split into themed pools like this (instead of putting all the attacks in one pool and all the defensive moves in another), they have allowed us to not need to take quite as many pools. If I want my controller to be capable of close combat, I can get Air Superiority with my Fly travel power and not have to get two different pools (Travel and Offense). I can also get Boxing/Kick and Tough and not need to get an Offense set and a Defense set to push my total pools up to three. It's risking the chance to break what we already have working fine and potentially screw up a lot of heroes/villains powers. Good intentions, to be sure, but I just feel it wouldn't accomplish as much positive as negative in the end.

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That being said, I have an idea for the pools.

Add more options in the pools.

Pools have 4 options each. Patron/Epic Pools have been increased to provide more functionality, but not the normal pools.

For example:

Teleport:
1. Recall Friend (Lvl 6)
2. Teleport Foe (Lvl 6)
3. Warp Strike (Lvl 6)
4. Teleport (Lvl 14)
5. Team Teleport (Lvl 20)
6. Rift Jumping (Lvl 20)

Since the other travel pools have an attack move, I thought TP could too. I pictured this move working kind of like a short ranged blast attack, but using melee damage multipliers. You click when within a range of maybe the short ranged blast moves like Cosmic Burst, and your character warps in really fast, attacks, and warps back to their previous position. The secondary effect could be an accuracy improvement over the other pool attacks since you are catching them off-guard.

I also thought adding a final move with some defensive capabilities would be interesting too, since some of the other travel sets have them. Rift Jumping could be a way to avoid an attack by teleporting. Make it a click buff like Build Up, short duration but nice effect. Make it so when activated, your character will disappear when struck, causing the attack to miss, and you will be invisible and phased. After a few seconds or when you next attack, you will reappear in your current location. How it could play out is that the enemy is charging you and you click Rift Jumping. They swing and you disappear. You run a few yards away (travel powers should be suppressed for it to keep it from being overpowered) and shoot back, causing you to reappear. As far as they are concerned, you vanished and appeared behind them, never got hit, and shot back. Some would say this one-time avoidance thing would be dumb, but used right this could make you rather slippery. Not sure what the recharge and all would be on a move like this, but I don't see a minute or 1.5 minutes being unreasonable. Even a melee class would get the benefit of fully avoiding a move, if not also the potential to either run or get a stun in next.

Other pools could do this too. The Flight pool could have a move like "Favorable Wind" that helps team endurance recovery for a short time. Leaping could have a move like "Into the Fray" that will be like Shield Charge, but with a knockdown effect only and no damage. Make the character's movement an arc instead of a straight line and you'd have an effective "dive into the fight" style move. The Speed pool could have a "Counterattack" move. It could be a temporary click buff that causes you to strike the opponent with half damage whenever you are hit, for a short time. There could be a streaky animation of your character, like with Shield Charge, that zooms over and back whenever you are attacked, and the person gets hurt. I figure it could last for a short time like Build Up. Ok, so half damage might be a bit much, considering you could have ten NPCs attacking the tank; for him to activate such a move, that would be crazy powerful, so perhaps just a base damage upon being hit would be better, but I digress. I mainly mean to point out possible additions to the thematic pools that exist.

I'm by no means saying this should be done 100% as I suggested, but merely that having more diverse options in our pools would be great. I'm sure my ideas for new moves would need some balancing, but the general concept I think not only fits the pool, but can be used by most classes just fine while still providing a thematically relevant but new twist on the power set.