Why has no one commented this? I had to go make an account just now, it's that awesome.
While there would be some difficulties, I would love to see this happen. I think players would like it too, if it worked out OK -- all I could picture while reading were the characters you mentioned in the beginning. 
Because the day before, this was posted.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=229407&
-Rachel-
Thanks, Pretender.
Yeah, It was the second travel power post in that week, but quite a different take from your archetypes idea, Rachel.
I think there isn't really a lot to comment on in my post other than like/dislike.
My post is long and plain, and deliberately free of novel/discussion-worthy powers in order to keep it concept neutral. There's pretty much one new mechanic in there - the charge power, and thats fairly straightforwards.
Beyond that its pretty much four flavours of "You move around quick and in doing so are hard to hit" spelled out in detail.
You start with a good concept. A good super game embraces movement rather than trying to supress it.
However, your implementation is not flexible or especially unique, working only with melees, requiring sets, and even being archetype specific.
You could accomplish the same things by adding lunges to the 4 travel pools, which is something I definitely support.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
Superhero combat is often depicted as fast and mobile, yet within games it often devolves to two characters stading toe to toe engaged in a hit point race to see who falls first. Its also common within superhero fiction to have characters whose primary abilities are movement related. Superman is a superstrong invulnerable guy who also happens to fly, (as a pool power in CoX terms), but for the Hawkman, flight is his main power, his defining attribute. Similarly, Nightcrawler teleports, the Toad leaps and the Flash runs very fast.
Unsuppressed movement could definitely be problematic in PVP.
I'll outline a group of powersets designed to bring these concepts, and fast kinetic combat, to CoX. And also let these characters do their thing from level one, instead of having to mope about Kings Row complaining about broken wings and mental blocks against using their superspeed.
I've designed these as secondaries for Brutes, Stalkers and Scrappers (possibly extensible to Tankers). The reason for this is to enable the player to mix many other powersets with their movement abilities. If you want a flying angel who fights with a flaming sword (Fiery Melee/Combat Flight), or a hero who clubs people with his Anti-Gravity Rod (War Mace/Combat Flight) you can do so. The melee classes also cover basic abilities anyone with flight could use - pick up a weapon or learn a bit of self defence, and so suit these characters who's defining feature is their movement power.
The three archetypes also provide extra flexibity. A big tough steam-train speedster who uses inertia is a Brute, a stealthy blue-furred teleporter is a Stalker, and so on.
TECH REQUIREMENTS - CHARGE ATTACKS
These sets are mostly designed to use the existing game mechanics available in new ways. They also require a new piece of tech, of charge attacks.
Current powers that move the player (Teleport, Shield Charge) use the targetting reticle to let the player find a suitable position where they can appear. The reticle will red out and refuse to work if placed in the wrong spot. This works well, but its clumsy to use, as you can test by trying to teleport a Scrapper around accurately in combat.
Charge attacks would be click powers without a reticle, and move you to a new spot in front of your target, ie draw a line from them to you, and then step back 7 feet or so (typical melee range). If that spot is occupied (ie a targetting reticle would red out there) the attack remains queued up, as if the target is out of range or blocked. The player can thus move around to find a good approach angle before charging, or switch targets. This should be possible, since by moving the player would be moving a virtual targetting reticle for their new position, just in a different way.
Each set is based around a charge attack that gives you an important bonus, encouraging you to move around the battlefield as you fight.
COMBAT TELEPORTATION
The Combat Teleportation set is designed to emulate a fighter who ports around the battlefield unprdictably. As long as they keep moving, they are hard to hit, and can even cause enemies to hit each other in the confusion.
This is primarily positional defence that gives around 32% Defence to all three positions once slotted, with moderate DDR of around 60% or so. It layers this basic defence with some control via confuse effects. APower pools and Ios would allow the player to soft-cap fairly easily, but the defence is always situational due to Combat Hop.
Tier 1: Teleport. As per the pool power, you use the targetting reticle to move long distances. I'd modify it so that the immobilise and hover at the exit point breaks if you move. (I'd extend this to normal pool Teleport too...)
Tier 2: Combat Hop. This uses the charge attack mechanism to place you in front of an enemy. If the teleport succeeds, and moves you more than 7 feet or so, it also grants a Defence bonus of +10% vs Melee, Ranged and AoE for 10 seconds. This bonus does not
stack. Could also provide a small +To Hit bonus, around 5%. The defence bonus does not stack, so that the value for normal builds can be decent without overpowering high end Recharge builds. Intended to be used with a primary attack queued up staright after.
Recharge: 2 seconds
Tier 3: Teleport Foe.
Tier 4: Evasion. A Standard toggle providing +10% Defence to Melee and Ranged attacks, with some DDR.
Tier 5: Strange Metabolism. Mez protection toggle. Provides 5% Energy and Negative Resistance, and 40% End Drain resistance.
Tier 6: Awareness. Battlefield awareness of where not to land, providing +10% Defence to AoE attacks, with some DDR.
Tier 7: Misdirection. A Confuse toggle with a wide radius (20 feet, and a small chance (20% per 2 seconds, Mag 3) of inflicting a 2 second confuse on the target. This is only active while the Defence bonus from Combat Jump is active. As you port about, enemies sometimes shoot each other through the spot youve just vacated.
Tier 8: Team Teleport. Reticle activated. Adds a +5% Def to all and +5% To Hit buff to every member within 10 feet of you, and takes them with you to the reticle position. Also casts a PBAoE minor confuse on arrival (40% chance of Mag 3 2 second confuse)
Recharge, 60 seconds, ie once per spawn opener once slotted.
Tier 9: Multi-port: You teleport across a group of enemies quickly, surprise attacking each one in turn before returning to your start point. You get a big +50% Melee and +Range Def bonus for 4 seconds (or less), turn invisible for 4 seconds, and activate a Chain Induction like effect on your targets, visualised by your fist appearing out of nowhere hitting them. (like the Sands of Mu effects, use a standard fist). You "rematerialise" ie lose the Def bonus and invisibility when the chain induction finishes.
Recharge, 60 seconds, High damage.
Stalkers: Add Hide at Tier 1, bump everything up and no Multi-port.
COMBAT LEAPING
Combat Leaping is a more layered approach, just to mix things up, with some overall Fitness style bonuses to suit the athletic nature of the set. Some Positional def, some regen and resistance, and some offensive bonuses. During combat, the slotted powerset
gives 24% Defence, backed up by some resiatnce and regeneration bonus, like Willpower lite.
This set would allow you to skip Fitness and a Travel Power, although Combat Jumping, Hurdle and even Jump Kick may still be attractive choices.
Tier 1: Superleap, as per the travel power. It suppresses, but to a lesser extent than normal, say to Ninja Run levels.
Tier 2: Combat Leaping, as per the pool power, but offering +5% Defence to all
Tier 3: Combat Lunge, a charge attack to the target, provides +10% Defence to all positions, and +20% Damage buff for the next 10 seconds. Recharge 8 seconds base, medium damage. The defence buff does not stack, but the damage buff does. I'm envisioning a handspring followed by a solid kick on landing, this would be a great candidate for alternate animations. Since the charge attack mechanism may be more of a teleport than a continuous move, this could be jump up very high and fast, teleport, descend very fast.
Tier 4: Peak Fitness. A passive giving +50% regen and +30% Recovery, both enhanceable.
Tier 5: Enhanced Metabolism: Mez protection (maybe not to immobilise, since Combat Leaping covers that) with a Regen bonus, similar to Integration.
Tier 6: Enhanced Resilience: Smashing/Lethal Resistance toggle, 15% (enhancebale to 24% or 42% with enhanced Tough added in)
Tier 7: Dazzling Speed: AoE taunt aura with a confuse %age, as you draw fire by covering the battlefield erratically.
Tier 8: Heavy Landing: An AoE charge attack using a reticle, basically like Shield Charge but less damage. Knockdown, scalar 1.0 damage. Recharge 60 seconds base
Tier 9: Avoidance: An Elude-lite modern god-mode. 300 second unenhanceable recharge, provides 90 seconds of +RunSpeed and +7.5% Defence to all positions followed by a 50% end crash. Slotted, this, Combat Leaping and Combat Lunge provide 36% defence to all,
so the softcap is quite close.
Stalkers: No Dazzling Speed, Hide at Tier 1 and move everything up.
COMBAT FLIGHT
Combat Flight is for characters who rely on swift erratic flight patterns to avoid the hits. Hawkman, Angel, Northstar and Aurora fit this mould. It's another positional defence based set. I though about making it reistance based just to change things, thinking of Cannonball, but stuck to defence. This powerset is for vanilla fliers who do little else, not invulnerable supers who can also fly. This is mainly defence, with a bit of DDR, and some small resistance thrown in. When all working correctly, this gives 32% Defence to all positions. DDR should amount to about 60% slotted at level 50.
Combat Flight doesn't rely on a charge attck to protect you and keep you moving, rather forces you to move via the Tier 3 and 6 toggles that rewards you for keeping your distance from attackers. It makes sense that fliers woudn't like confined spaces.
Tier 1: Flight. Like the pool power, but suppresses to sprint speed rtaher than unslotted hover.
Tier 2: Combat Flight. Like the pool power but faster, uses the flight animation instead of the hover pose, and adds 5% defence
to all.
Tier 3: Manoueverability. You are hard to pin down and target.
This works like Invincibility in reverse. 15% Defence vs Melee and Ranged, -3% per enemy nearby to a maximum of five. The buff lasts for ten seconds, ticks every 2 and does not stack with itself, but the highest value of the last few ticks still applies.
Your primary forces you into melee range, this power makes sure you periodically leave it. Provides some DDR too.
Tier 4: Charge attack that knocks the target down and does medium damage.
Tier 5: Sky Commander: Standard anti-Mez toggle, with some DDR.
Tier 6: Awareness: Like Manouverability for AoE defence, with some DDR.
Tier 7: Group Fly: Without the accuracy penalty. You can carry non-flying members of your team. Doesn't work on allies running Rooted or Granite Armor.
Tier 8: Seasoned Flier: Passive +HP and +7.5% Resistance, like True Grit.
Tier 9: Dive Bomb. A Shield Charge like attack on a longer timer, similar to what Shield charge will be post-adjustment.
Stalkers: No Dive Bomb, move everything up one Tier.
COMBAT SPEED
Combat Speed is the defence of the classic speedster, moving too fast for the eye to follow and dodging or outrunning bullets with ease. I've given this set the hole of lower melee defence, to keep the player kiting mobs and forcing them to use ranged attacks. It's based heavily on my experiences with Kinetics characters in low levels, where Siphon Speed provided some great mitigation.
Melee Defence will be 16% slotted, other positions run at 28%. Extra defence is gained from unsupressed movement speed and Whirlwind, and the set carries good offensive bonuses from Quickess and Inertia.
Tier 1: Superspeed. Like the pool power, but doesn't suppress.
Tier 2: Quickness. A toggle that provides +20% Recharge and +Run Speed like Sprint.
Tier 3: Drive by punch. A Charge attack that does medium damage, chance of stun, and provides +10% Defence to all positions for 10 seconds. Recharge 4 seconds. Defence does not stack, but mutliple stacks count with Inertia.
Tier 4: Bullet Racer. +7.5% Defence vs Ranged attacks, passive
Tier 5: Enhanced Reflexes. Mez toggle. Provides +10% to Hit and 7.5% resistance to S/L/F/C/E/N.
Tier 6: Inertia. A toggle that provides a stackable +25% damage per Drive By Punch due to the momentum you accumulate.
Tier 7: Bomb Dodger. +7.5% Defence vs AoE passive.
Tier 8: Whirlwind. A click PBAoE doing scalar 1.0 damage and knockup, 40% chance of Stun. Recharge 30 seconds. Maybe add Taunt to this?
Tier 9: Burst of Speed, a modern god-mode. Provides +200% regen, +100% Recovery and +10% Defence to Melee, 5% to Ranged and AoE for 90 seconds. 300 second unenhanceable recharge. Puts you at 32% vs Melee, 36% vs Ranged and AoE when slotted.
Crash causes loss of 50% Endurance.
Stalkers: Combine Bullet Racer and Bomb Dodger as Tier 6, move everything before that up one tier.
COMPARISONS WITH EXISTING SETS
Super Reflexes takes 7 powers to give you mez protection and 32% Defence to all positions. It does give superior DDR to any of these sets though, and the defence bonuses for SR do not rely on you moving.
Shield Defence is the other obvious comparison, with similar defence values and a charge attack, with a few extra bonuses thrown like True Grit and AAO. These sets attempt to balance roughly with Shield Defence (minus the overpowered Shield Charge) in numbers.
All sets have been given at least one place to slot the Steadfast Unique IO, out of fairness.
WHY NOT TANKERS?
The classic tanker role doesn't fit with darting around very well. To tank you need some other powers, like invulnerability or toughness, at which point you should take another secondary and the pool powers. These powers sets are for characters who only
fly or move fast one way or another. Plus, the other three melee archetypes use the same numbers, making it easier to balance.
WHAT ABOUT PVP?
I have no idea