Martial Arts and Trick Arrow based Blaster Secondary
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-01-06 17:04 in Suggestions and Ideas
martial arts: yes
trick arrow: yes
martial arrow: no. way to much animation work needed to be done. and i don't really think a set like that would be all that hot.
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I agree it would require quite a bit of animation work (at least if you want to avoid redraw issues). But the question is if you aren't going to combine the two what would you combine them with that doesn't involve new animations? Manipulation sets are a mix of melee attacks, control powers, self buffs and weak debuffs. Not all sets have all four power types of course but to make a manipulation set using either Martial Arts or Trick Arrow you've got to bring in powers from somewhere else to flesh out the set.|
Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint
martial arts: yes
trick arrow: yes martial arrow: no. way to much animation work needed to be done. and i don't really think a set like that would be all that hot. |
I proposed combining them since I think they make a logical pairing and while animation work would be extremely desirable to deal with redraw issues it wouldn't strictly speaking be required. In fact the only primary set where alternate animations would improve the capability of the pairing is Archery, for everything else you'd want the default kick animations anyway and only have to deal with redraw on the debuffs.
So the question is what where would you draw the filler powers from to avoid additional animation work?
to get around the redraw issue: ma/traps mix or dm/traps mix.
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Well Dark Melee and Traps doesn't (to me) make a whole lot of sense, especially when you could do a Dark Manipulation set using Dark Melee and Dark Maisma pretty easily.|
Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint
to get around the redraw issue: ma/traps mix or dm/traps mix.
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Martial Arts and Traps would make a reasonable combination except that Blasters already have Devices. As I mentioned above you could do a set that combined Martial Arts with powers drawn from Traps/Devices and Weapon Mastery bit you would basically end up with Devices with the explosives replaced with Kicking. Basically replace Taser with Cobra Strike, replace Trip Mine, Time Bomb and Gun Drone with three Martial Arts powers and reorder everything for a more sensible progression. The problem is that still would feel like a minor variant of Devices rather than a unique set. In fact if you made a /Devices Blaster skipped the last three powers and instead Kick and Boxing from the Fighting pool you'd end up with something very similar to what you're proposing.
If you can see a way around this please suggest a power progression but I don't see it.
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Traps, not Devices. The two sets do share powers, but only tangentially. To be specific, Traps and Devices share Time Bomb, Trip Mine, Caltrops and Web Grenade, but Traps also brings a few new things to the table, namely Poison Gas Trap, Acid Mortar, Forcefield Generator, Seeker Drones and Triage Beacon. Then again, those are actually MORE technological than anything in Devices short of Auto Turret, and as such even less likely to mix with Martial Arts in a consistent way, at least in regards to theme. They'd likely be more easily combinable with some kind of more technological melee solution, like stun baton, power glove, vibroblade or Saotome Dynamite and I'm going to walk out of the thread before I make even more of a fool out of myself.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Martial Arts and Traps would make a reasonable combination except that Blasters already have Devices. As I mentioned above you could do a set that combined Martial Arts with powers drawn from Traps/Devices and Weapon Mastery bit you would basically end up with Devices with the explosives replaced with Kicking. Basically replace Taser with Cobra Strike, replace Trip Mine, Time Bomb and Gun Drone with three Martial Arts powers and reorder everything for a more sensible progression. The problem is that still would feel like a minor variant of Devices rather than a unique set. In fact if you made a /Devices Blaster skipped the last three powers and instead Kick and Boxing from the Fighting pool you'd end up with something very similar to what you're proposing.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Please keep powersets thematically consistent. Martial Arts doesn't need anything from other powersets to "fill it out". With the exception of Confront it could be a blaster secondary already. Confront could most easily be replaced with a stealth power, for which there is precedent in other sets.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
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Err... No, this is not even remotely true. Martial Arts is a MELEE set, and Blasters haven't been Range/Melee since pre-beta. Even Energy Manipulation, which is one of the most melee-heavy sets, only has four melee attacks and a control to four self-buffs. Martial Arts has six melee attacks to and Confront. Blaster secondaries are Support, and while no-one is really sure what it means, most people will agree it does NOT mean "just melee."
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Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
Please keep powersets thematically consistent. Martial Arts doesn't need anything from other powersets to "fill it out". With the exception of Confront it could be a blaster secondary already. Confront could most easily be replaced with a stealth power, for which there is precedent in other sets.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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But there is nothing stopping MA from being a blaster secondary AS IS right now, except for Confront. There is no single power in the set (besides Confront) which couldn't fit in a blaster secondary. Even if no OTHER blaster secondary would be equally melee focused, it doesn't mean that MA couldn't be that melee-focused set.
If we absolutely necessarily have to change things (which we don't), then we should at least try to stay close to the original MA theme of unarmed combat, not adding a weapon for no good reason. I could go with having web grenades, caltrops, smoke grenades and stealth as a "natural" form of Devices with some melee attacks, but I don't really think that it's necessary.
Regardless of what the other blaster secondaries are like.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
/No to the combination. Having /Trick Arrow as a seconday for Blasters would be quite cool, but having a combination where it'd be possible to have a weapon, 2nd weapon and othe re-draw stuff (MA) then...bah. No.
Do want more Blaster secondaries though.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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I support a Martial Arts blaster secondary.
I agree it should be more supporty than just porting it over.
Maybe Stealth power.
Poisoned Shuriken? -20 res, light damage over time, and either -damage or slow
Caltrops for sure. The Mastermind version that can be slotted full of procs please! 
Build up. If we wanted a more interesting build up, make it a toggle or longer lasting click that provides slightly less benefit and also reduces range.
+3-4 melee attacks
+1 melee stun
OMG! How like, totally kewl are these characters?!1
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Yeah, why don't we port over Dark Miasma AS IS while we're at it? Or Necromancy. Or, heck, why not Dark Blast as a secondary?|
Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
But there is nothing stopping MA from being a blaster secondary AS IS right now, except for Confront. There is no single power in the set (besides Confront) which couldn't fit in a blaster secondary. Even if no OTHER blaster secondary would be equally melee focused, it doesn't mean that MA couldn't be that melee-focused set.
Regardless of what the other blaster secondaries are like. |
Blaster Manipulation sets have certain functional requirements, and while we don't know exactly what they are, we have PLENTY of precedent to be able to tell what they are NOT. And what they are not, among other things, is direct-port melee powersets. They are tagged "Support," so unless you can put in enough powers to at least technically call it support, this will not fly. It's like giving Scrappers a Blaster primary.
Making a cohesive, and above all USEFUL Blaster secondary is more than just dumping a bunch of melee powers a Blaster would outright DIE before getting full use of, not to mention the fact that Martial Arts is not a hard-hitting set, and would be even LESS hard-hitting for a Blaster thanks to AT mods. That, and Blaster melee powers are significantly stronger than their counterparts in other ATs, just on base damage, which would, at the VERY least, necessitate a rebalance of power stats. The dreams of a "pretty much straight port" are pretty much an illusion.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Whatever, just don't add any archery to my martial arts please.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
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Stop and ask yourself though, would a Blaster support set actually get any of the Traps powers that aren't already in Devices? Triage Beacon and Force Field Generator are both team buffs so I can't see them getting included. Poison Gas Trap and Acid Mortar are both extremely powerful debuffs which seem outside the scope of Blaster support sets. Seeker Drones might be viable but they fill the same basic combat role as Smoke Grenade (overall I'd say Seeker Drones are better except for the rare occasions when you need a perception debuff without drawing aggro).|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Traps, not Devices. The two sets do share powers, but only tangentially. To be specific, Traps and Devices share Time Bomb, Trip Mine, Caltrops and Web Grenade, but Traps also brings a few new things to the table, namely Poison Gas Trap, Acid Mortar, Forcefield Generator, Seeker Drones and Triage Beacon. Then again, those are actually MORE technological than anything in Devices short of Auto Turret, and as such even less likely to mix with Martial Arts in a consistent way, at least in regards to theme. They'd likely be more easily combinable with some kind of more technological melee solution, like stun baton, power glove, vibroblade or Saotome Dynamite and I'm going to walk out of the thread before I make even more of a fool out of myself.
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Finally I'll note that Devices is the support set based on Traps; yes I realize that they were created in the opposite order, but thematically Devices is the "Traps Manipulation" set. Using Traps to make a second manipulation set would be like making a second Energy Manipulation set, sure it might have different powers but in has the same basic theme.
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As others have said this simply isn't the case. While we don't have a full list from the Devs on what constitutes a Blaster Secondary there are some obvious design decisions that make them VERY different from melee sets. For example the Tier One power is always a low damage power to keep a target out of melee range. In most cases it's a single target immobilize stolen from a control set although Energy Manipulation has a high magnitude melee knockback power instead. Thunder Kick doesn't really fit the profile, you could probably make a new power that's a re-skinned Power Thrust though (basically Crane Kick with much lower damage and a 100% knockback chance).
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Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
But there is nothing stopping MA from being a blaster secondary AS IS right now, except for Confront. There is no single power in the set (besides Confront) which couldn't fit in a blaster secondary. Even if no OTHER blaster secondary would be equally melee focused, it doesn't mean that MA couldn't be that melee-focused set.
If we absolutely necessarily have to change things (which we don't), then we should at least try to stay close to the original MA theme of unarmed combat, not adding a weapon for no good reason. I could go with having web grenades, caltrops, smoke grenades and stealth as a "natural" form of Devices with some melee attacks, but I don't really think that it's necessary. Regardless of what the other blaster secondaries are like. |
OP, I think you're on the right track but on the wrong AT. A martial arts/archery combo would work well for *Dominators* (because the set would require melee attacks and ranged attacks) but a *Blaster* only needs the melee. So Martial Arts alone, is fine. You'd just need to trim the set down to only a handful of the MA powers (4-5 of them) and then replace the others with powers that are thematic to the set. Archery doesn't really scream martial arts.
If we're going the easy route, take Storm Kick, Crane Kick, Dragon Tail, Eagle's Claw, Focus Chi and Cobra Strike then throw in 3 self buffs (Physical Perfection passive +regen and +recover and add +movement; Fight the Odds passive +dmg as HP decreases;*something*)
If we're going the slightly more difficult route, go the melee ranged debuff via pressure points instead of self buffs. This would require a couple of animations but would probably be more useful solo.
Now, for a MA/Arrow combo set, yes...it's needed for dominators as well as a Katana/shuriken combo set. They need more 'natural' sets and it wouldn't really *need* a matching control set.
I know, I know a Martial Arts based secondary has been suggested for Blasters on many occasions. However I'm bored and I can't recall seeing it combined with Trick Arrow before so at least I'm trying to give it a new twist
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First off why combine Martial Arts with Trick Arrow? A Martial Arts style manipulation set is pretty obvious but the problem is what to use as the basis for the non-melee attack powers. A combination of Ninjitsu and Weapon Mastery would be an obvious choice but the problem there is that (to me) it would feel like devices only with kicking instead of explosives. Given that I think that Trick Arrow makes a good choice, it's relatively control heavy for a buff set which provides the basis for the control powers most manipulation sets have while also providing some suitable de-buffs.
In general I think the set would be a bit like Ice Manipulation, it's relatively control and de-buff heavy set with less focus on damage and self-buffs.
Suggested power progression, powers are basically the same as in the parent set, but I've included a quick summary for people who can't remember:
1. Entangling Arrow (basic ranged immobilize power with a speed/recharge debuff)
2. Thunder Kick (short recharge melee attack with a small chance to stun)
3. Crane Kick (high damage melee attack with a good chance to knockback)
4. Flash Arrow (your basic AoE perception/to hit debuff power)
5. Focus Chi (Build Up by any other name)
6. Glue Arrow (a persistent AoE that debuffs speed and recharge)
7. Ice Arrow (a single ranged target hold with a speed/recharge debuff; Cobra Strike [a melee range stun] might work better here since it is a stun and so would stack with Thunder Kick and Eagle's Claw as well as the stun attack that a lot of Blasters have in their primary)
8. Eagle's Claw (a high damage melee attack that stuns, this one might need changing for blasters i.e. with a higher recharge)
9. Poison Gas Arrow (an AoE sleep and damage debuff)
The main issue with this set is going to be redraw. Obviously some attacks require a bow while the melee attacks and Focus Chi don't. One option would be to redo the animations for the melee attacks so that you wield a bow while using them. The problem is that what Archery Blasters would like this for any other primary it would look silly (I pull my bow out and KICK YOU IN THE FACE!!!!). There are basically three options for this. The ideal solution would be to use the power customization system to have two animation options for all of the kicks one which has the bow out and one that doesn't thereby allowing the player to chose. The second option would be to do the brute force approach used with brawl and have different animations played depending on the characters current combat stance although obviously this is a lot of work for the animation team (although on the up side from what I understand this would also allow you to kick while wielding an Assault Rifle). The final option is to leave the animations as is and lauch at the Archery blasters.