Staple Conceptions: The Shapeshifter

Hey everyone. I'm posting to get help for both myself and the rest of the playerbase. In the superpower genre there are certain staple types of characters. These include things like the speedster, the cosmic and the topic of this post, the shapeshifter. Despite their consistent use in comics and films these types of characters don't always translate well to the world of video games.

The shapeshifter is a staple that's difficult to imitate largely due to the fact that they can be anyone and anything. So I'm here to get the players' opinions on which archetypes and powersets best represent the shapeshifter (Excluding Kheldians of course since they're locked to particular bits of canon).

You could just use Science booster pack to be able to change genders and size and have 5 completely different looks. Furthermore, you could also go and create tons of other looks and save so that you have a library of other skins.

Keep in mind- shapeshifting is a power, but it is not offensive in nature, so I wouldn't limit concepts by tying it in to any AT or powerset. While Mystique is a shapeshifter, the comic version of her would be akin to a Assault rifle or dual pistol blaster. Movie versions would be a Martial arts user with willpower or something.

One of my friends has a really cool werewolf as a sonic/traps corrupter. Has costume binds linked to a few key powers only uses sonic attacks in wolf form only uses traps in human. Roleplays it that he loses his brains in wolf form.

I also had a friend with a broadsword/sr scrapper that was a shapeshifter and had a complex bind set to cycle pseudo-randomly through his costumes everytime he used either buildup or whirling sword. this was before the costume change emotes. He doesn't play anymore unfortunately. It was pretty cool to run missions with him and strangers and see them react to the visuals.

I love the Werewolf idea

Adding wings for flight is an obvious one.

I've also considered making characters with different material skins, e.g. activating a costume change to steel or flesh when they trigger Temp Invulnerability. But, the practical upshot is that you spend the entire mission in steel form, and then revert to flesh afterwards.

You could switch to some of the giant glove options for Total Focus or a similar heavy hitter, but the 60 second costume change limit kind of puts a damper on that idea.

My non-Kheldian PeaceBringer ended up using his costume slots to store copies of my other characters from my SG, the idea being that he'd sometimes mimic his teammates.

I think the ultimate "freak-your-teammates-out" trick would be to somehow save their costume files and drop by the tailors between missions, though. Turning into a copy of a pick up group teammate would be pretty unexpected.

I had an AR/energy/fire blaster that would do this. A sweet old granny with the super soaker legacy rifle.

When she was defeated she would hit RotP and I had a costume bind with that would roll to the second costume slot which was a wolf. While in wolf form granny would blap with the secondary and leave the rifle put away.

When the spawn was defeated granny would pop back into human form with the comment, "whew, I can't remember what just happened there. My alzheimers must be getting bad."

Problem was that pre-science pack I couldn't change granny's height and the electronic void known as the delete button finally defeated her permanently.

Two things really stand out to me. The first is Kheldians since they literally have various forms to change into. The second is taking something with a lot of attacks and making a point of customising the powers so that a few powers match and a few others match so it is as if you are using different powers even if you don't make a costume change. This would be even better complimented by our access to dual builds.

Make macros that bind a costume change to a power - like power-up's and others. Some powers are anoying, like when someone figues out how to do it and spams footstomp and broadcasts "look at me look at me look at me, hey mom, lookylookylooky." If done correctly it can be really cool. I used to do it with Soul Drain.

Well speakin on "staples " i think that super speed should be more like a set than just a travel power some comic heroes only have super speed an no other powers so i think a secondary " speed " set would be great too. also teleportation, in the movies an comics this is a awsome power. here in CoX its just meh i would like to see mabey a placate effect on tp self.it serves no point to teleporting when every one knows where u are an already have you targeted