New Support Set: Serums

Ok, so in one of the forums last week we were discussion proliferation, and what we'd like to see. While many of us are interested in "poisons" we recognize the problems with "defenders" having an almost entirely offensive debuffing set named "poisons" so we decided you could do what was done with empathy for villains, rename and tweak. We came up with SERUMS for defenders/controllers/corruptors. Here is the gist...


Serums

Using the latest in medical (and some still experimental) technology, you've created an assortment of serums to help heal and strengthen your allies. Some may even be used to weaken your foes.


Amino Shot: +Heal, +res toxic
You inject your ally with a small but powerful mixture of amino acids which immeditaly heal some of their wounds. The target is also left with some resistance to toxic damage for a short while. (17.6% heal, +15% RES Toxic)

Nanite injection: +Hp, +res Toxic
You spray your ally with a cluster of bio-organic nanites which cover his skin, increasing his ability to absorb damage. His maximum hit points are increased and he becomes highly resistance to toxic damage. (+ 44% HP, +20% RES Toxic)

Immunize: +resist Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Immob, Confuse, Fear, slow, Toxic.
You immunize an ally against several known afflictions, protecting them agianst status effects like disorients, holds, sleeps, immobilizes, confusion, fear, slows, and toxic damage. (Mag -10.35, +10% Res Toxic.)

Stimulant gas: +Recharge, +Recovery
You can release a small cloud of stimulating vapors. This cloud temporarily increases the recharge and recovery rates of your allies as their nervous system becomes more efficient. (PBAoE + 35% recharge, +35% recovery.)

Adrenal Shot: Ally Rez, special
You inject a powerful shot of enhanced adrenaline into a fallen Ally, shocking their heart back to life. They will revive with full hit points and endurance, increased regeneration and recovery, and be resistant to status effects for a brief while. Some allies may react oddly as the Adrenaline wears off, causing them to become violently ill for a brief moment. (Ally Rez, special (15% chance for 1 second hold after 90 seconds.)

Cellular reinforcement: +res, +dmg.
You emit a field of magnetic energy which reinforces the cellular walls within the bodies of you and nearby allies. This strengthening of tissues and skeleton temporarily increases a body's resistance to damage and also the amount of damage their attacks do. (+12% Res, +20% Dmg)

Nerve Gas: Foe -Dmg, -tohit, slow.
You fire a small dart at a foe which, when activated, releases a targetted cloud of nerve gas on your enemies. This gas will weaken your foes, overloading their nervous system, slowing their movement and attack rates. Any attacks the foes are able to execute will have a decreased chance tohit and will do less damage. (Targetted AoE, Foe -20% DMG, -10% Tohit, -50%spd, -50% recharge.)

Advanced Nanites: Targetted ally AoE, Foe -RES, -DEF, -Regen,
You surround a single ally in advanced bioorganic nanites. Unlike your other nanites, these small organisms are designed to attack any foes in melee range of their host, weakening theor resistance, defense, and regeneration. Due to their experimental nature, you only have a limited supply. The nanites have a weak structyre, only affecting a small area around their host, but they can be deadly to any enemies within their range. (Targetted Ally AoE, Foe -22.5% Res, -30% DEF, -20% Regen.

Oxygenation: +Damage, +Tohit, +regeneration, (special)
You inject an experimental liquid oxygen directly into the bloodstream of a single ally, drastically increasing an their cardiovascular efficiency. As a result, their damage, chance to hit, and regeneration rates are all greatly increased. When this power wears off, thier body will become tired, decreasing thier damage and recovery for a short time. (note, an ally must "accept" this power for it to affect them.) (+22.5% DMG, +18.8% Tohit, 50%Regen for 90 seconds, -20% DMG, -50% recovery for 20 seconds)


Totals:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ally with all / Foe with all
-----------------------------------------------------------

Dmg +42.5% (-20%) | -20%

Tohit +18.8% | -10%

Regen +50% | -20%

Recovery +35% (-50%) |

Heal +17.6% |

Recharge +35% | -50%

Speed | -50%

Resistance +12% | -22.5%
-Toxic Res: +45% |

Defense: | -30%

Status Res +10.35 |

+HP: +44% |




The animations would likely be your choice between a wrist mounted injection gun (similar to a Widow dart shooter) or a hand held injection gun (a dark shooter that looks somewhat like a small pistol) to keep the animations easy and also explain how you're "injecting" people from a distance.

We also discussed an Electric Domination support set (like Ice and Pain Domination) as well as a Matter Manipulation support set (controlling the density of others) which I'll be finishing up and posting soon.


Feedback desired!

This doesn't actually look like a bad set! Mechanically it's quite balanced already, It mostly needs tweaking in the numbers department.

- One concern I have is the 45% resist to toxic that can be given to allies without stacking. Unless I'm wrong, that's more than any other set's toxic resist. Toxic is a rare damage type, certainly, but that might be a balance issue since this set could put anyone at the resist cap with little effort.

- Amino Shot appears to be identical to Alkaloid. Alkaloid is, um, kind of weak. Not sure what could be done about that, but that jumped out at me.

- I would remove the -tohit from Nerve Gas, possibly move it to a different power. That covers a lot of bases for one power, the only comparable power that springs to mind is Seeker Drones from Traps.

- I'd actually UP the numbers on Oxygenation slightly, to make it more worthwhile for team members due to the debuff.

Oh, and it won't satisfy 100% of the people :-P Better watch out for that.

Yeah, Amino Acid was a clone of alkaloid, and I left it kind of weak because this set isn't focused on healing directly so much as buffing regeneration, later on. Im open to tweaking that though.

The 45% Toxic would only be if ALL of the buffs are applied to that single player at a given time (in this case, Amino Shot, nanite injection, and immunize. Nanite injection would have a long recharge similar to other +Hp powers, meaning that this wouldn't be permanent. Still totally open to fudging the numbers a bit.

Nerve Gas is actually similar in function to many other debuffing powers (Darkest Night (tier 3), Poison gas trap, seeker drones, lingering rad, Heat Exhaustion, and weaken) which all do 3+ debuffs, though I toyed with getting rid of the -spd completely anyway. You think the -tohit is a better option?

Funny what you mention about oxygenation since I originally had that and advanced nanites swapped, but thought oxygenation felt more like a "tier 9" level power, while the aura debuff fit more in line as a mid level power. Any idea what you would suggest to change for the numbers?

I suggested the -tohit because, to me, Nerve Gas looks similar to Neurotoxic breath and I assumed it was to be handled the same way - With the exception of Darkest Night (which is a toggle) and Weaken (which is single target), everything you mentioned is on a far longer recharge timer than the 30 seconds Neurotoxic Breath and this (I imagine) are on.

As for Oxygenation, I'm not enough of a numbers guy to be able to give a reliable answer there, sorry

That works. I was actually thinking it would be 60 seconds (30 second duration), similar to sleet or freezing rain (which it most closely resembles). The only problem I now see with that is that those are LARGE area of effect powers, and this is a targetted one, meaning this could miss and you'd be down for 60 seconds. I guess in function, it's more like Acid Arrow, and I can see getting rid of the -Tohit.

The updated description then would be:

Nerve Gas: Foe -Dmg, -recharge, slow.
You fire a small dart at a foe which, when activated, releases a targetted cloud of nerve gas on your enemies. This gas will weaken your foes, overloading their nervous system, slowing their movement and attack rates. Any attacks the foes are able to execute will also do less damage. (Targetted AoE, Foe -20% DMG, -50%spd, -50% recharge.)

Oxygenation should be amped up as well if it's the tier 9. How about this:

Oxygenation: +Damage, +Tohit, +regeneration, (special)
You inject an experimental liquid oxygen directly into the bloodstream, drastically increasing an ally's cardiovascular efficiency. As a result, their damage, chance to hit, regeneration, and recovery rates are all greatly increased. When this power wears off, thier body will become tired, decreasing thier damage and recovery for a short time. (note, an ally must "accept" this power for it to affect them.) (+50% DMG, +18.8% Tohit, 200%Regen, +200% recovery for 90 seconds, -20% DMG, -50% recovery for 15 seconds)


In essence, your tier 9 would allow you to make an ally incredibly damaging for 90 seconds (similar to painbringer or Noxious gas), but at the cost of a long recharge and a small "crash" for the recipient after 90 seconds. The crash would be hard enough to make you feel "weakened" while not completely taking you out of the fight. As such, it would require you to "accept" the power just like, say, a fortune or a ressurection.

This would be the updated version based on current feedback.

So, a couple nits to pick:

In your description of Immunization, you mention 'foe'. I know you ment ally, but there it is. Another thing, is that I think Status Resistance only reduces the duration of mezz effects, while Status Protection makes it harder for them to affect you.

Which got me to thinking: why not give Status Protection to allies, but also have a power that reduced Status Resistance in enemies? That's a rarely seen effect for players, and while it would not mezz anyone by itself, it would make any mezz effect last longer. It could be limited to a single target power, or spread over multiple powers as the set's secondary effect.

Overall though, i like the theme of the set. Not as much as some sets, but more than others.

Thanks Mr Right.

You're right about Ally/foe for immunization. Ill update that after I type this. Also, I like the idea of a power that would somehow increase the mez duration/ decrease mez resistance of enemies, but I'm not sure if it can currently exist in game mechanics. If it could, which power would you add it to? It's actually not a bad idea for a power, especially for controllers who took this as a secondary set. It would need to be fairly weak, though, to avoid becoming overpowering.

This is definitely a "niche" set, kinda like poisons, which is what it's meant to replace for Defenders/controllers/corruptors. That being said, a lot of people make more military style/natural characters, and for a defender that would fit right in. This could be a perfect set for someone making a military medic (AR/Serums or DP/Serums) or an electric/ or plant/ controller. It's also versatile enough (especially if given the choice between wrist mounted dart shooter and handheld) that it could fit almost any other superbeing concept as well.

Well, seeing that all but two powers affect allies, I would place the -mezz resistance in the two powers that can affect foes. So I would give the lion's share to Nerve Gas and give maybe 1/2 to 1/3 of the effectiveness to Advanced Nanites. This would let the majority of the effect be used solo, and bump it up some while teamed.

And I don't think it's a matter of if it can happen, but if they want us to be able to. I'm fairly certain the effect would just be the opposite of what giving someone Resistance to Status Effects would do. Of course, Standard Code Rant applies. But if it's possible it would be a great addition to the set.

Anyone know off hand if there's a way to rename this thread? I'd like to add (Poisons alternative) but can't seem to find out how.

You'd have to PM a Mod.

I like this. Would go well with mad scientist type characters.

Bonus: If you're an AR or DP defender/corruptor, you could fire the serum darts out of your weapon.

The only issue is how that would affect redraw. Would you have to "redraw" your gun when you fire an AR shot then fire off a Serums shot?