Time Control

OK so Ill be surprised if this is original but Ive searched and searched and cannot find it anywhere, so if it has been been posted and shot down before do tell and we can shoot this down as well quicly, anyway I have been thinking about a "Time Control" set for Trollers/Doms and I think Ive come if with something a least decent. Obviously feedback is simply a necessity and and a lot of it will need the mind of an expert gamer who has a good idea on balancing and what a good set needs to be viable and so here is what Ive thought of:

You posses control over time itself! You are able to slow or freeze your enemies in time as well as distort it for a variety of effects.

Slow – Potent slow effect, minor energy/negative dmg.
You slow time around a single enemy dramatically reducing their movement and recharge rates, the temporal energies surrounding them are dangerous and will slowly deal energy damage.

Stop – Hold, moderate dmg
You freeze time around an enemy, while frozen the enemy is completely helpless and are harmed by large amounts of temporal energy.

Mass Slow – AoE snare, minor dmg
You slow time in a large area, dramatically reducing the movement and recharge rates of those caught in it.

Distort Age – Single Target Major dmg debuff
Your power over time allows you to temporally age an enemy greatly weakening them, aside from a slightly reduced movement rate the victim is fully capable of movement and using their abilities though the ageing will leave them incredible weakened and they will unlikely to pose any threat.

Time Window – AoE Fear and dmg
You can open a “window” in time, all enemies close to the window will be caught in awe, amazement, confusion or terror as they witness everything that has been and will be and the complexity of time itself. Also all enemies close to the window, even those who could resist looking into will be harmed by the huge temporal energies flooding out of the window.

Mass Stop - AoE Hold, dmg
You freeze time in a large area leaving all enemies caught within helpless and taking damage from the temporal energies.

Mass Distort Age – AoE, major dmg debuff
You can distort the age of all those in a large area.

Haste – Basically kinetics buff (This one I think needs the most thought I think)
You can speed up time for you and your allies slightly increasing, movement, recharge and regeneration rates.

Time Ally – Pet summon, would have a degree of randomness
You pluck a fellow hero/villain from time to come and aid you, the ally and its powers can vary.

Others possibilities: Erase – Single target small chance for “instant death” (AV, Heroes etc. are obviously immune) You attempt to erase a single target from existence, there is only small chance this will succeed due to the complexities of such an act.
Time Travel – Single target or AoE intangible affect, basically Dimension Shift. You throw a enemy/enemies through time causing them to become intangible for the duration of the trip.

Cool idea. Doesn't sound that difficult either, but we may need a good Secondary to complement it.

Time Ally Should randomly give you one of the following...

-Guy in Futuristic Armor with Pulse Rifle
-Broadsword/Shield Knight in Shining Armor
-Caveman with Bone Mace
-Cowboy with two revolvers
-Morlock (fights with claws)

Sounds like the set would be hurting for damage for Controllers, only getting containment from the ST hold and the AoE hold (which would be on a long timer).

I've always loved the idea of a time control set. I would only make two changes.

If this happens, I will have to reroll my defender as a troller/heroic dom. Probably the later, for the possibility of jigowatts.

If Dark Mirror does allow that, then Summon Self would be the coolest power ever.

Summon Self cold have a very small chance to use another Summon Self, causing a Dr.Aeon effect.

Interesting concept, and seems well thought out, but there is always a fatal flaw: the Devs. From my take on the Devs' paradigm on CoH Design for darn near everything; it needs to look good and accurate (minus glitches that may occur, of course) or it isnt even gonna get out of the gate.

The problem with this set comes down to how it will be perceived vice what it will do. Most of the basic descriptions are already available for the most part with powers in game already, and particularly in Kinetics as the OP alluded to in Power: Haste. In addition, Distort Age and Mass Distort Age will only show a status effect and no 'real' aging of the NPC or PC (in PvP situations); so IMO the Devs would probably not be enamored of these two. Good powers, but no real zip or pizzazz to make them a focus.

But if I wanted to add my own 2 Inf to this; I would describe Time Window as a Summon similar to (nay, exactly like) Spectral Terror from Illusion Control. Actually, other than the names this set looks like a mishmash of three sets already: Kinetics, Illusion, and Ice for the most part with maybe a smidge of Dark thrown in. Not that this is a bad thing, but I dont know that it is really possible to have a Time Control Set in the game as it sits with its present engine. At least, as I mentioned at the beginning, as far as it being presentable in a manner acceptable by the Devs.

For an example of how exacting the Devs tend to be about these things remember: Energy Blast was originally Water Blast, but they didnt like how it looked.

I feel like this set could use some sort of "Rewind" power but I can't for the life of me figure out how one would work.

what about for a "Rewind" power, it's AoE and reverses all dmage dealt to allies in the last five seconds. very long recharge, used for when the planet teeters on the brink of destruction, your teammates are down, and you suddenly reverse time 5 seconds to save the world.

or, to make it simpler and lacking in the possibility of a mass rez, just make it an AoE heal that sends out a rippling light distortion that causes some kind of blurring around thoe affected

Damage could indeed be a problem for this set and I have three possible solutions 1. Slightly increase the damage of all the powers to balance it out 2. Make the controls generally a bit better than other sets at the cost of doing little damage or 3. Simply swap one of the powers such as Mass Slow for a damage dealing like this:
Temporal Bomb - Targeted AoE dmg and possible minor slow effect
You create a ball of temporal energy and throw at an enemy where it will then explode and slightly slow all enemies caught in the blast.

A "Rewind" style power/s is not a bad idea and could simply remove any damage taken and debuffs received in the past X seconds, it could probably work as either a target or AoE and it could have the drawback of also removing any buffs or if you had been healed then health gained. This could also make the set a bit more "unique" the lack of which is apparently a problem. I also do not think it would be that difficult to make it so the Distort Age powers temporally change the face of a target to that of one of the old ones, obviously it wouldn't change if they wear wearing a mask or helmet.

Ninus, I agree with your point that the set does have indeed have similar powers from other sets, but you said yourself that they came from about four different sets and personally I think that when you "mishmash" that many different things together it is no longer a mishmash but something quite new, surely the play style of this set would be different to other control sets taking into account the ideas I have posted are just a rough layout of the sort of powers I think should go in and are totally up for change, lastly it would be the only control set to deal energy damage or if people think it fits more then negative.

/signed, kicka** idea.

This one doesn't feel like a Controller set, though. It feels more like a mish-mash of a control and support set. I'd say it either needs more control and less debuff to make it a true control set, or more debuff and less control and we can punt it off to Defenders.

I have a bit of a problem with "aging" powers, as well, because they assume the passage of time would inherently hurt all things, and hurt them equally. Even ignoring the "I am eternal!" argument, certain characters could easily benefit from ageing. Ageing Fiusionette by, say, 20 years would actually be a GOOD thing. And again, we get into the concept of what "greatly" stands for. Ageing a person 50 years can turn a teenager into a somewhat elderly man who may yet still have the bulk of his power, as Jim "Thunderbolt" Bartlet well shows us, and aging a middle-aged man could put him over 100 and probably kill him. On the flip side, ageing something like Boulder really shouldn't produce any effects at all. It's a pile of rocks. What's gonna' age on it?

And ageing zombies would be just hilarious

I don't really like a summon self mechanic, simply because summoning yourself really isn't cool enough in this context. Besides, as the Magic Man shows us, it's also a bad idea. I much prefer a random entity pulled from the time-stream to assist you. It'd have a certain degree of randomness which would be really cool. As someone mentioned - maybe a cowboy, maybe a future soldier, maybe a dinosaur, maybe a knight, and maybe some kind of god. It has a lot of possibilities in the same way Propel does, and I like that.

Quote:

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.

What about a Time Control defensive set...for Scrappers and Stalkers.

Basically a set that relies on slows...maybe add some defense as well.

Something like a slow aura...slow click powers...


Just came to me...doesn't seem too bad...will have to flesh it out obviously...but what are your thoughts?



Edit: The more I think about it, the more I think it would be too OP'd for teaming.

I would not say it feels much like a defender set really, if your referring to the ageing debuff. Personally I think that the CoH definition of "control" is not just restricting an enemies movement but more making them less of a threat so you or your team can focus your attacks on less opponents. Because of this I would still count a power that weakens an opponents damage output so it is no longer a threat as a control, sure they can run around you and throw as many attacks as they want, but if they've been weakened so much said attacks simply have no impact then that is just as good as them being held isn't it? If the debuff also reduced there defence and resistance etc. then yes it would be more defender like, but it only reduces the damage they dish out, whether that be through reduces in accuracy, recharge rate etc.

I do however agree on the point that many enemies would simply be immune to ageing affects, though I don't think that a Time Controller would always distort a target's age by a set amount, if they only like twenty then I think he would have the mind to simply age them a bit more.

Also I should empathize that I know that the power line up isn't perfect, so if you do feel like it has to much buff/debuff or whatever then please do try and suggest other powers that could be swapped in.

Well if this is indeed what a control set is, one that must focus on hold, sleep, stun, immobilize, disorient and slow I don't really see how Illusion is really counted as one but anyway in that case I (or anyone else who think they are capable) need to think of something that can replace either Distort Age, Mass Distort Age or Haste since I think that one or two of them is all right.

As mentioned in a previous post why not swap one of them with something like this:
Temporal Bomb - Targeted AoE Moderate-High Dmg and a powerful slow/hold affect? This will help with the potentially low damage of the set as well as add another control.

I have a character this set would be perfect for, so very much /signed. I do have to agree though that as it is it's a bit light on control and heavy on debuffs. Maybe make the two aging powers do a sleep for the single target and a stun for the aoe, with the damage debuff as a more minor secondary effect. Then make haste an aoe buff with either a lower effect or a higher recharge than equivalent buff set powers.

I still disagree that Distort Age can not be counted as a control. The purpose of a control is to reduce the damage a mob can do to players, normally this works by stopping them attacking at all but not always as shown with Illusion which does this by redirecting attacks away from players, Ice-based power sets are also regarded as having control primarily because they reduce the number of attacks an enemy can make, thus reducing the damage it can do.

In essence all Imob, Hold, Sleep, Disorient, Fear etc. do is reduce the damage an enemey can do, they just have different ways of going about it. Distort Age is simply a very direct way of reducing a enemies damage, not by making them unable to attack or be distracted but by reducing the effectiveness of their attacks to the point where they are not much of a threat, I must also stress that Distort Age does NOT reduce an enemies resistance or defence, it does not make them any easier to kill. If it did then yes I would count it as a support power.

Moving on, I also don't quite agree that Time Window is that much like Spectral Terror. Spectral Terror is a pet that has a single target fear and a PBAoE fear, Time Window is just a AoE Fear but I think it would be fine to change it from a fear to say a disorient maybe?

Power suggestion for this set
Time Warp
Targeted AoE
50% chance for Intangible (To remove many foes from combat while not eliminating so many as to make you sit around and wait for them to come back)
Animation: Jump to the left, take a step to the right, with your hands on your hips bring your knees in tight, pelvic thrust