New Take on the "Travel" AT Concept

Those of you with fairly long memories might remember the last time I tried to suggest a Travel power master AT with paired powersets. Unfortunately while the concept was nice the implementation was impossible or, at the very least, infeasible without a major system revamp.

I'd like to take another crack at it, and hope this time it's better recieved. To that end I'll be "reserving" the next four posts to better break down the proposed ATs.

-Rachel-

The Flier Archetype.

Primary: Melee/Control
Secondary: Defense and Travel

HP: As Stalker/Blaster
Damage Modifier: As Stalker
Defense Modifiers: As Scrapper/Stalker/Brute

Lacking Long-Ranged attacks, the Flying character tends to close into melee quickly and utilize their ability to displace air through wing or native ability to control the movements of their foes, controlling the fight to their liking. Should it turn against them they often rise up above and out of reach of foes.

Primary Powerset: Flight Mastery (It should be noted that "Wind" powers should cause players with wing costume parts to flap their wings rapidly as part of the attack animation)

Tier 1: Air Superiority; A quick double handed axe-handle strike which can drop flying targets out of the air or knock standing opponents to the ground. (reduce KD chance to 70%) Moderate Smashing Damage, Recharge Fast

Tier 2: Uppercut; A slightly more damaging attack, you utilize your innate ability of flight to add force to your strike. (40% chance for KD) Moderate Smashing Damage, Recharge Fast

Tier 3: Buffet; With a sharp motion you displace the air directly in front of you , temporarily disorienting a target for a short while, may also sleep targets near to the initial target Minor Smashing Damage Recharge: Slow

Tier 4: Power Build Up. As the epic power of the same name, greatly increase your damage, buffs, and controls for the duration Long Recharge

Tier 5: Wind Burst; You create a powerful gust of wind downward, pushing yourself up (animation only) and pushing your enemies out and down PBAoE Moderate Smashing damage Moderate Recharge, 50% chance of KD

Tier 6: Dustcloud; Using your mastery over flight you quickly buffet the ground with blasts of air to kick up dust and lightweight objects, tossing them up in the air to pelt your foes with. PBAoE toggle creates a melee-range ToHit debuff and Minor Lethal Damage.

Tier 7: Smashing Blow; You rise up on the winds just a few feet, then stop flying and instead violently push yourself toward the ground and your target dealing a great deal of damage. Chance to Disorient, High Smashing Damage, Recharge Moderate

Tier 8: Windzone; You create an aura of driving winds around yourself which can knock down enemies that get too close. Toggle Melee Ranged KD Aura, 15% chance per target per tick, Recharge Slow

Tier 9: Tornado; You manipulate your ability to displace air to create a column of wind. This pet power functions as Waterspout, rather than the "Tornado" power of Storm Summoning. Damage: Minor, Recharge: Very Long

Secondary Powerset: Air Mastery

Tier 1: Flight; This power functions as the pool power of the same name and grants a 3.75% defense (all) bonus (.35 end/sec)

Tier 2: Gusting Aura; You create a wind-lashed zone around yourself which turns away most missile attacks with ease (Defense Toggle for AoE and Ranged Vectors, functions as Battle Agility from Shield Defense)

Tier 3: Twisting Currents: Your control over gusting winds allows you to turn away weapons which might otherwise cause grievous bodily harm, reducing their effectiveness. (Damage Resistance Toggle for Smashing and Lethal damage)

Tier 4: Barrel Roll; You perform a short-ranged fast-activating teleport effect by utilizing a burst of speed to get into position. Targets immediately near your destination may become disoriented by your sudden change of position (Targeted teleport with 10 foot radius AoE 15% chance of mag 2 stun)

Tier 5: Climate Shift; You've gained such mastery over the wind that you can now put out flames or thaw freezing attacks. (Auto-power, Damage resistance to Fire and Cold, mag 3 immob protection)

Tier 6: Unbridled Zephyr; With constant control over yourself and the winds supporting you, you've learned to avoid effects which would hinder your movement (Mez protection Toggle, no confuse or Fear protection, also grants slow protection)

Tier 7: Shifting Tempest: With swirling winds about you, even the strongest punch might be turned aside. Auto-power Smashing/Lethal damage resistance increase.

Tier 8: Lift Ally; Using your own innate powers you grant an ally the short lived ability to fly (30 second ally buff Fast recharge)

Tier 9: Whirlwind; You draw great power from within yourself to create a powerful wind-wall which temporarily protects you to an amazing extent, but when it fails you find yourself powerfully drained (Click Self +Defense (all) 18% +Damage Resistance Smashing Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative energy 30%, Recharge +50% Recovery +30% for 120 seconds, after 120 seconds -50% endurance, -300% recovery for 10 seconds, and -5 magnitude fly for 20 seconds)

-Rachel-

The Leaper Archetype.

Primary: Melee/Control
Secondary: Defense/Travel

HP: As Stalker
Damage Modifier: As Stalker
Defensive Modifier: As Brute/Scrapper/Stalker

Also lacking Long Ranged attacks the Leaper relies on point blank area of effect controls as well as melee attacks to handle his foes.

Primary Powerset: Leaping Mastery

Tier 1: Drop-Kick; You leap toward your target and slam both feat into their chest, not only is this very painful but it has a good chance of knocking your foe to the ground. Moderate Smashing Damage, Recharge Fast, 70% chance to KD opponent

Tier 2: Flip Kick; Performing a backwards flip, you crack your foe right in the jaw, sending them skyward while you regain your feet. Moderate Smashing Damage, Recharge Moderate, 70% chance of a mag 4 knock up

Tier 3: Ground Crack; You slam your foot down with amazing force, cracking the pavement below your target's feet, rendering him unable to get his footing for a short while. Minor Lethal damage over time Immob, target is trapped by shattered and sharp stones similar to caltrops

Tier 4: Foot Stomp; As the Super Strength power of the same name. Moderate Smashing Damage, Recharge Moderate

Tier 5: Power Build Up: As the epic power of the same name, greatly increase your damage, buffs, and controls for the duration Long Recharge

Tier 6: Bound; You perform a short leap and slam both feet into the ground at full-force, cracking the flooring and throwing your foes to the ground. Short ranged Teleport with an AoE KD and immobilize, Minor Smashing damage Recharge Slow

Tier 7: Big Air; You leap directly up into the air and come down with massive force, slamming into a target hard enough to damage him and several other enemies nearby. High Smashing Damage Cone (10 foot long, 30 degree angle) Mag 3 KB Animation similar to the Ninja Leap costume change Emote with the character bouncing off the target's chest on the fall using the last part of the "Eagle's Claw" animation Recharge Slow

Tier 8: Stalagmites; As the power of the same name, smaller Aoe (10-15 foot radius) Recharge Long

Tier 9: Punt; With a quick kick you launch your target quite a distance and inflict some severe damage. Superior Smashing Damage, Recharge Very Slow


Secondary Powerset: Bouncing

Tier 1: Superjump; As the pool power of the same name, but grants a 3.75% defense (all) bonus and costs less (.35 end/sec)

Tier 2: Dodge; You've learned to jump over some incoming attacks and duck under others, whichever it takes you know to get out of the way! Defense Toggle as Battle Agility, applies to Melee and Ranged, not AoE)

Tier 3: Roll With It; By relaxing at just the right moment you've learned to let your body bend and roll with the punches, granting yourself smashing and lethal resistance. (Smashing Lethal resistance Toggle)

Tier 4: Hop; If you give up your high leaping ability you find you can make shorter jumps and defend yourself better. (Jumping ability as Combat jumping, Immobilization Protection, 10% Smashing/Lethal defense, cannot be toggled with Superjump)

Tier 5: Skip; You've found that by making quick, short, random leaps you can dodge a lot of effects that would otherwise hinder your mobility. (Mez Protection against all but Confuse and Fear, grants slow protection)

Tier 6: Candlestick Jump; Like the fabled character, you've learned that fire is the devil's only friend and leap past it at every opportunity. (Automatic Fire/Cold Defense increase)

Tier 7: Hurdle; As the pool power of the same name, plus a 10% smashing/Lethal damage resistance component

Tier 8; Vault; You leap into the air for a few moments and come down once things have calmed a bit (PBAoE Placate)

Tier 9; Flipping; With a dramatic flair and a few acrobatic maneuvers you can manage to outsmart most foes for a short time. However you can only fool anyone so long. (Click power on a Very Long recharge, Self +Defense (All) 30%, +Recharge 30% +Recovery 30% for 60 seconds, after 60 seconds grants an -50% defense debuff on self for 10 seconds. Cannot be affected by recharge rate enhancements, recharges in 6 minutes)

-Rachel-

The Speedster AT

Primary: Melee/Ranged
Secondary: Defense/Control/Travel

HP: As Stalker
Damage Modifier: As Stalker
Defensive Modifier: As Brute/Scrapper/Stalker

With Great Speed comes inherent awesomeness. Lacking protection against KB effects and with less in the way of defenses, the Speedster focuses in on Damaging effects and controls to hamper and take out his foes.

Primary Powerset: Speed Melee (It should be noted that all references to gender or motion blur actually refer to an animation trail similar to Dual Pistol's power effects, but without the character leading the blur, just making a running motion toward and back within their own bounding box.)

Tier 1: Quick Strike; You dash toward your target at super-speed and punch them across the face, however all anyone sees is a blur and an after image. Ranged attack Moderate Smashing damage, minor chance to disorient, recharge Fast

Tier 2: Flurry; As the pool power of the same name, however the "Flying Fists" animation is anchored on the front of the target and the player rooting and animation time of the power is reduced.

Tier 3: Vapor Trails; With lightning speed and a quick hand you lash out at several opponents at once. Targeted AoE Moderate Smashing Damage, small chance to disorient, recharge slow. Animation is a super-fast Gender-blur rushing to the primary target and back followed by a "Motion blur" punch hitting each target.

Tier 4: Burst of Action; You lash out at all nearby targets in a sudden blinding burst of speed. PBAoE Moderate Smashing, moderate recharge, animation of character spinning quickly and "Motion Blur" fists hitting all affected targets.

Tier 5: Power Build Up; As the Epic Pool power of the same name. Recharge Long

Tier 6: Whirlwind; As the Pool power of the same name, however it becomes a Repel effect costing .5 end per target repelled

Tier 7: Quicken; Automatic Recharge Rate increase on all powers of 30%

Tier 8: Draining Punch: Your mastery of your own speed extends outward in a sharp and powerful melee attack, on impact you considerably drain your foe's ability to react. Superior Damage Smashing attack with a fairly huge -SPD debuff on the target, Slow recharge

Tier 9: Motion Blur: For a short time you become the very embodiment of speed, dashing around the battlefield and striking with all the force of your incredible movement capabilities. Grants a 30 second self buff which applies a short Fire DoT to all of your attacks equal to 15% of the damage of the attack, also grants an additional 30% recharge rate increase.

Secondary Powerset: Superspeed

Tier 1: Superspeed; As the pool power of the same name, but with a 3.75% defense (all) buff and a greatly reduced endurance cost (.35 end/sec)

Tier 2: Zip; You've mastered the art of getting out of the way of melee attacks by sidestepping, ducking, or simply phasing them through you molecules. (Self Melee Defense Buff As Focused Fighting)

Tier 3: Dash; You quickly zip along in a short burst of speed, stunning opponents whom you pass over, under, around, or through. (Short Ranged Teleport with an AoE Disorient on landing)

Tier 4: Dart; You sometimes find yourself staring at bullets as they hover in mid-air, slowly inching toward you... (Self Ranged Defense buff, as Focused Senses)

Tier 5: Can't Catch Me: You've learned to run right past attempts to trap you, it's incredibly easy. (Mez Protection Toggle, protects against Immobilizes and Holds, severely reduces the duration of sleeps and stuns, renders Slow effects almost useless)

Tier 6: Dive for Cover; Whether it's an explosion or a flailing limp you know when distance is the only protection. (Toggle AoE Defense as Dodge)

Tier 7: Spinning Sands; A quick sprint into the midst of your enemies renders them temporarily helpless as they choke on your dust, literally. (AoE Foe Hold, Animation of Motion Blur running in a tight circle around the affected area, long recharge)

Tier 8: Phasing; You've got such amazing control over your speed that you can vibrate faster than most creatures can conceive. (Toggle with Timer, 30 second Phase Shift +500% run speed, Only Affecting Self)

Tier 9: Siphon Speed; With all the energy you can muster you draw strength from a targeted group of foes, reducing their movement ant attack speed to a crawl, in exchange you grant your nearby allies with a large speed increase (Targeted AoE Foe -SPD -Recharge Ally +Recharge. power grants a specific amount of recharge per enemy affected)

-Rachel-

The Teleporter AT

Primary: Ranged/Ranged Control
Secondary: Support/Travel/Control

HP: As Stalker
Damage Modifier: As Stalker
Defensive Modifier: As Brute/Scrapper/Stalker

While the Speedster, Flier, and Leaper all have fairly linear abilities, the teleporter is capable of astounding feats by circumventing the very nature of space itself.

Primary Powerset: Teleportation Mastery

Tier 1: Portal Punch; You create a short lived dimension-bending portal, reach through it, and strike a single target. Minor Smashing Damage, Recharge Very fast, Chance to Disorient

Tier 2: Scramble; You reach out with your teleportation powers and teleport a target away and back to a location, but in that brief moment you cause him to lose all sense of direction and reality: Single Target Minor Damage and Disorient, Recharge Fast

Tier 3: Teleport Foe; You pull a target through reality, roughly depositing him where you wish. Moderate Smashing Damage, Moderate Recharge, Foe teleport, locational targeting within 80 feet

Tier 4: Flurry of Blows; You teleport yourself into the midst of your foes for a moment, slamming them with sharp blows, then return to your original location. Targeted AoE Moderate smashing damage over time, Slow recharge (Animation of teleportation graphic covering player's avatar, motion-blur fists and feet strike targets in the AoE for a short duration DoT)

Tier 5: Power Build Up: As the power of the same name

Tier 6: Warp; By bending space around a single foe you force him to strike his allies (Single Target Confuse effect, graphic of "Energy Aura" surrounding him) Long recharge

Tier 7: Wormhole; As the Controller Power of the same name, but with a faster cast time and instant application of the Stun and Teleport effects. Recharge Very Long

Tier 8: Terminal Velocity; You teleport the target into a looping reality of falling, on return to our own reality he crashes to the ground with amazing force, potentially damaging and stunning nearby enemies. Single Target High Damage attack with an AoE Moderate Damage and Stun, original target takes both hits. Recharge Very Long.

Tier 9: Dimensional Shift; You push your targets through a gateway into several alternate realities in the space of a moment, when they return they'll be gravely injured and probably stunned by all they've seen. This power will leave you weakened, however. As Wormhole from the same powerset with a 25% chance of moderate damage of each "Exotic" type, rolled individually for each target, targets are also subject to a Mag 3 stunn with a 20% chance of an additional mag 2. After use the Teleporter is drained of all endurance and unable to recover endurance for 20 seconds.

Secondary Set: Dimensional Control

Tier 1: Teleport; As the pool power of the same name, but faster animating and grants the user a 15 second long 5% defense (all) buff, greatly lowered Endurance cost (.5)

Tier 2: Recall Ally; As the pool power of the same name, but faster animating and uninterruptible. Fast Recharge

Tier 3: Warp Field; By creating tiny portals in reality around a target you can protect them from some incoming attacks (Ally +Def Ranged, Fast Recharge)

Tier 4: Teleporting Field; This power creates an area of effect based on a specific point tat randomly targets nearby enemies and teleports them short distances. (Ground target pet power teleports all enemies in it's vicinity (40 foot range PBAoE) to the center of the field every 2 seconds, has a lower than normal accuracy, Long Recharge)

Tier 5: Remove; You push enemies who are too close for your liking through reality. (As Wormhole, but point Blank Area of Effect teleport to ground target location within 80 feet, fast animation)

Tier 6: Team Teleport; As the power of the same name, faster animation, lower cost (1 end per target)

Tier 7: Dimensional Ward; You create small wormholes and portals around your target, protecting them from imminent danger (Ally +Exotic Damage Resistance except Psionic)

Tier 8: Portal Protection; You shift one of your allies slightly in this dimension, instantly breaking them from any control effects that might be on them and protecting them from further control for some time (As Clear mind)

Tier 9: Assemble the Team; You teleport all your allies to you, and in doing so brant them a short lived bonus to all of their effects (Teleports the entire team to yourself and creates a "Vengeance" effect on all allies within 20 feet 3 seconds later)


-Rachel-

So that "pet project" thread got you going too?

I've been writing up my own ideas on paper for making travel-based defence secondaries for Stalkers, Brutes and Scrappers. I'd love to see something along these lines in game.

I have very little to say other than I like these ideas!

And I think the Teleport set is pretty good. It feels more controller-y - and with teleportation that's not a bad thing.

First off, I think you're spreading things a bit thin by making two powersets for each travel type, and making each one a separate archetype.

My own designs, which im still writing up, was to make each travel type a defensive set for melee-ers, because of the wider range of concepts that that invites. Teleporter with sword, leadping martial artist, leaping Dark melee demon, flying guy who fights at close range with fire, etc. What you've laid out here is more like 4 epic archetypes.

Anyway, I'll write up what I've got in my own thread, and we cna compare notes on that then. Having a look at the teleporter. My first thoughts..

I like the primary on the whole. The idea of opening up space holes as a weapon is kind of cool, dropping enemies into the ground, disorientating them etc. Tier 6 Warp is a genius idea. Reminds me of the JLA taking down Terminus in JLA/Avengers using a Green Lantern created U-pipe to get him to blast himself in the face.

But, I feel that in practice the set might be too gimmicky. Its hard to visually describe something like Terminal Velocity or your Tier 9 Dimension Shift in a way thats going to be watchable again and again, and not get bogged down in animation times.
How would Scramble look? Just a Teleport flash around the target and they're stunned?

Terminal Velocity would required flash and vanish on the target, followed by appearance of something like those travel tubes in the Shadow Shard or a mid-air hole that then rag-dolls them into the ground from above. You could fit all this into a couple of seconds I guess.

You've got a good basis for an offensive primary there.


For a Defensive secondary, I'd ditch the idea of trying to make a support set from the concept of teleportation and make it more of a personal protection and misdirection set.

I'm in love with the idea of a click teleport power that provides +Def, you've got that there.
Bamf around to confuse the enemy and stay one step ahead. I also think that confuse could play a large part in this idea, as enemies shoot each other trying to hit you, thats a very Nightcrawler thing to happen. Maybe a low probability Confuse aura, kind of like World of Confusion but with much larger radius.
You would be using confuse in two quite different ways here (Warp and these ones)...

I've got a similar idea for Team Teleport to yours, also with a +Def to allies and a minor confuse PBAoE at the point of impact as the enemy try to react to your sudden presence in their midst.

Remove could be very interesting as a toggle. I guess it could work like Repulsion Field but applies a flash and brief period of invisibility to the targets. That would look pretty cool, but I'm not too sure how popular Repulsion Field is. (I like it)

I want that teleport set! Combat teleporting is something I've wanted for so long. What I'm wondering is how these would be introduced?

Awesome idea and would totally work as well with the premise of a Praetorian EAT, I'd love for em to do something like this. The one Im most fond of is definately the teleport set (possibly because I love Nightcrawler), but they are all quite nicely balanced all in all

I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Jumper... but it's the first thing that came to my mind when you mentioned travel archetype.

Love it or hate it, the actual fight scenes in that movie were pretty marvelous to me and that's what I would think when you say a teleportation set.

Other than that, no specific comments come to mind.

Super speed doesn't make sense as a melee set. Why would someone with super speed stand in the thick of it where they could get punched when they could be far away doing hit & run tactics? It'd make much more sense as a Blast set for Defenders, Blasters, and Corruptors.

The beauty of superspeed (in the absence of any other powers) is that you have to keep moving - into melee to hit the target and then out again to avoid the retaliation.

Currently the best way to get this vibe is to play a Kinetics Defender with the Sands of Mu power. From level 6 onwards you get unsupressed speed in combat from Siphon Speed and can run rings round the opposition as they switch between ranged and melee AI. Kite past them and deliver the multiple superfast blows from what appears to be 20 feet away. I had a blast doing this on my speedster.

The sad thing is that Kinetics other powers encourage you to stand still and fight toe-to-toe - Transfusion, Transference and Fulcrum Shift are all enemy based.


From my experience with Kinetics, I reckon CoH can support a melee speedster where you do actually move around the battlefield, rather than a series of ranged attacks where "you" zip in and out (really a power effect afterimage) without your character (or their camera) moving. That wouldn't feel as fast.

Personally I only see a need to two more tiers. Map Travel & Zone Travel. But I have no objections to more options!

Absolutely LOVE the teleportation AT.
Kinda reminds me of Kurt Wagner.
Oh, if only we could change the teleport animation to a puff of smoke and have the word BAMF appear in big comical letters where our character was.

This is my attempt at altering the Teleportation Primary and Secondary. Altered portions are in Bold after each power:

I must have missed this thread before, but I love the concept!

Terminal Velocity sounds like such a sweet power.