New Archetype Ideas

With Going Rogue coming out, I've developed some of my own ideas for "roguish" archetypes:

TERMINATOR
Symbol: head-on view of a blast, gold background
Sound Effect: boom
Hit Points: Medium
Damage: High
Primary: Ranged
Secondary: Defense
Special Ability: Bloody, Bold and Resolute – the Terminator deals more damage the more injured it is (what Blaster Defiance used to be)

PUPPETMASTER
Symbol: three spirals arranged in triangle, dark blue background
Sound Effect: Spooky, dissonant music
Hit Points: Low
Damage: Medium
Primary: Summon
Secondary: Control
Special Ability: Sleeper Agent – long-cooldown power can turn one unnamed enemy minion, lieutenant, or boss into an additional henchman; always works on minions, chance of failure against lieutenants and bosses

BENEFACTOR
Symbol: open hand, light grey background
Sound Effect: droning voices
Hit Points: Medium
Damage: Medium
Primary: Support (since nobody seems to get this, this refers to the low-end control powers and melee attacks that make up Blaster secondary sets)
Secondary: Buff
Special Ability: Karma – when the Benefactor targets an ally with a buff, the Benefactor gains that buff as well (but buffing multiple allies with the same power does not stack, except in the case of healing)

VANGUARD
Symbol: banner, red background
Sound Effect: horns
Hit Points: High
Damage: High
Primary: Melee
Secondary: Buff
Special Ability: Bravado – the Vanguard's attacks have a chance to cause a heal self effect; if above 85% hit points, the Vanguard will receive a temporary cumulative resistance buff instead.

TRICKSTER
Symbol: chaos star, purple background
Sound Effect: insane laughter
Hit Points: Low
Damage: High
Primary: Control
Secondary: Wild Card (a little bit of everything, including shapechanging)
Special Ability: Chaos – the Trickster's attacks inflict one of any number of random secondary effects on targets, in addition to the attack's normal effects

What do you think? Any ideas of your own?

First off, you might want to ask that this be moved to the Suggestions and Ideas forum, where threads like this should go.

Now, onto the ATs themselves:

Terminator: Can you say Tank-Mage? High damage, ranged attacks, backed up by Defenses? This won't happen, unless the defenses are so weak as to be laughable.

Puppetmaster: Allowing you to have mastermind pets, in addition to being able to totally locking down the enemy spawns? Again, I feel like that is too overpowered unless you take huge chunks out of either the pets or the controls. I'm also not sure how much the game can allow you to control enemies.

Benefactor: The Devs have been trying to get away from characters that lack the ability to solo at all. The Benefactor would be that. Great on a team (though I'm not sure what kind of powersets you're looking at for the "Support" side), but pretty much useless solo.

Vanguard: The only real problem I see with this one is with the Inherent ability, but that can always be tweaked.

Edit->

Trickster: I just don't know how this would work in-game. First off, you'll need to define what a "Wild Card" secondary is. After that, I'm not sure how much the game can apply random effects from the same power. Though I guess that it could work similar to the Tarot card power. I just don't know how easy that kind of thing is to code into attacks and controls.

I think the Terminator could work if you made the damage medium instead of high and tweek the defenses to blaster level (which are only slightly below Stalkers/Scrappers/Brute which all share the same level of defense). With how many of the defensive secondaries work better at close range (WP, Inv, Shields, DA) or whose capabilities are cut without nearby foes (FA, EA, IA) the defense sets may either need to be changed in a similar fashion to Stalkers or their primary advantage of range is practically moot.

Puppetmaster is a possibility. Aett, you say locking down entire spawns would overpower the AT but I ask you: How would this AT be able to do that? Without domination or overpower, you're looking at controls that probably have a relatively short effect (probably same base duration as dominator) but without the ability to back-up their henchmen with buffs/debuffs/heals. It's easy to keep yourself standing as a dom with domination but it's not so easy keeping a group of 4+ henchmen and yourself standing with just controls.

Benefactor looks useless. You put its damage at medium but it doesn't have damage?

Vanguard looks interesting. Not sure about the inherent...could work and aid in survival. How about rather than a persistent resistance buff with attacks, you get a persistence mag of mez protection to keep yourself in the fight?

Trickster. Huh? What's a Wild Card set do?

Support/Support will by all signs never happen. Every archetype made has differing powersets, not two of the same, and the devs have said they want every archetype to be able to solo. Since they do not balance by pools/vet rewards, support/support would only have brawl/inherent temp power to deal damage on its own. Again, not happening unless the devs do a complete change in direction.

Old-school Defiance was a terrible inherent ability and it would be even more worthless on a character with an armor powerset.

This may be a silly question - but from what I have seen there aren't any new ATs for GoRo, so I hope you aren't expecting to see any, are you?

As for these ideas, I think Aett has summed it up pretty well.

I'm a little surprised none of you recognized "Support" as the Blaster's secondary powers - Devices (which would be tweaked) and the "Manipulation" sets: lesser control powers combined with strong melee attacks. I always thought they would be very interesting as primary attacks. It would play like a Controller who traded high-end control for direct fighting power. I admit, I remain uncommitted to the "Karma" ability - I did think of giving it a special ability that increased damage instead.

Concerning copyright problems: Arnold Schwarzenegger's character isn't the only thing out there called a Terminator - nobody stopped Games Workshop or New World Computing, for example, from featuring things called Terminators. The "Trickster" has been a central archetype of world mythology since the dawn of time - that word's as public domain as they come. Claiming ownership of that would be even stupider than George Lucas claiming he owns the word "Blaster."

As for the Terminator: Given that lots of enemies do vicious damage at range (Nemesis, Longbow, and the Redcaps come to mind), I don't see how it's that overpowered. I'm thinking their damage is like Corrupters: the damage values are ostensibly the same as Defenders, yet their damage is rated as "High", and the only reason for that I can think of is Scourge. At the same time, I was comparing it to the Brute, who with both Hit Points and Damage rated as "High", seemed overpowered compared to the Tanker. I'd make Terminator Defense powers the same values as Brutes, Stalkers, and Scrappers. Also note their Medium Hit Points - I think they'd just be differently-abled Brutes. Maybe they'd be a little overpowered at the lowest of levels when you're fighting Skulls and Hellions, but that advantage would melt away quickly. Besides, how can you say no to a steely-eyed gunslinger with Dual Pistols and Willpower?

It sounds like you've done a good job debating and justifying the Puppetmaster.

Regarding the Vanguard and Bravado: First of all, I was thinking of making the effect about as likely as a Scrapper's Critical Strike. Also, my original idea was to accelerate its regeneration and recovery as it took damage - I went with the chance to heal because I thought it was more in keeping with the concept, and wanted it to be completely different from a Scrapper with Regeneration.

Trickster: Sorry I didn't explain "Wild Card" - I thought it would be more self-evident. Wild Card powersets would mean a little bit of everything - ranged, melee, buff, defense, summon, various ways to cause chaos, and in particular, shapeshifting (like Kheldians). They would get a lot of their "High" damage ratings from these alternate forms.

And yes, I'm perfectly aware these ideas won't make it into Going Rogue. No time like the present to bring them up though, right?

Terminator would be overpowered.

Benefactor would be helpless.

I have no major problem other than possible mechanics issues with the others.

I don't know if we can guarantee Terminator would be overpowered. How bout if it had a backpack with four arms sticking out of it?

My apologies "Far_Realm", I did not read your second post thoroughly.

I'd like to add that perhaps you think I oppose your idea, and this is not the case.
I am on your side and truely hope that the Developers review all our AT ideas and find something that is workable.

What I attempted to do was tell you which ideas I liked and which ones didnt seem as attractive (for a variety of reasons).

You dont have to agree with me, but once again, I am on your side.

This is what I believe (accept it or not) that the developers listen to us and I would wager we may see new ATs in the future, as they have the opportunity and desire from us to create them.

But...

I also believe they will not undertake such a large endeavor and create an AT that is very similar to what is already available in the game. This is why I think certain powerset combinations are more likely than others. For example; why create something that is more-or-less like a Dominator with the primary and secondaries reversed, when they can pair up sets that currently dont exist in the game (like my favorite reccommendation of Melee+Buff/Debuff)

Peace to you