Kheldian Power Parallels and Notes

I don't really have any rational explanation for why I've decided to go through all the Kheldian powers and poke through City of Data to try and determine their origin and parallel. Though it's mostly been to satisfy my own curiosity, as well as to potentially locate possible bugs or imbalances that might have occurred somewhere along the way with a power getting patched in that powerset, but not in the Kheldian equivalent.

I've not looked at these in game, only on City of Data. There might be animation parallels that I've missed. But for the most part I'm going to be looking at the numbers and babbling on about comparisons and inconsistencies in relation to other, similarly themed sets.

Peacebringers
For the most part Peacebringers have acquired their powers from Energy Blast, Radiation Blast, Energy Melee, Regeneration, a handful of Power Pools, and a few odd outliers. Luminous Blast is for the most part a Defender/Blaster ranged set that's been allowed to grow a bit too big for its britches in comparison to other blast sets. As a result it has a variety of blasts at various damage scales, whereas most Blast sets only have a handful.

Luminous Blast
As mentioned, Luminous Blast is a blast set for the most part. Its powers are essentially copies of Radiation and Energy blast, with a few additional powers put in. Luminous Blast is more similar to Radiation than it is to Energy, as all of its attack powers deliver a -DEF effect, while only a handful sport the knocking ability.

Level 1
Gleaming Bolt = Neutrino Bolt
Glinting Eye = X-Ray Beam
Essentially straight ports for the most part with the damage and recharge.

Level 2
Gleaming Blast = Power Blast
Not quite a straight port, as the Smashing/Energy mix has been converted into straight up Energy damage. It keeps the KB potential of Power Blast, but oddly, perhaps due to the damage type conversion and addition of -DEF, does so at a reduced rate. 10% as opposed to Power Blast's 30. It might be something worth looking in to.

Level 6
Bright Nova
-Bolt = Neutrino Bolt
-Blast = Power Blast
-Scatter = Energy Torrent
-Detonation = Explosive Blast
Bright Nova caused me a little bit of trouble when I was poking around City of Data looking for power parallels. It took me a good ten minutes to notice that all its power had an additional range of 20 feet tacked on to the original.

All of the Nova powers have a parallel elsewhere in the Luminous Blast set. They have essentially the same name, with the exception that they have Bright Nova as the start of the name, and of course the animations are for the squiddie model. So essentially the same comments made on their individual entries are going to be the same as they are here. :P

Radiant Strike = (???)
Radiant Strike is the deranged mutant lovechild of Air Superiority and War Mace's Clobber conceived in Energy Melee's living room. It has identical damage/endurance/recharge/knockback magnitude to Clobber, but with the knock up replaced with knockback and the chance for it reduced to 60% from 75%. That might be due to it gaining the trademark -Def of the Peacebringer, as well as a -Fly component. Unlike its two purely Smashing parents, it's split between Smashing and Energy damage.

Though I recall that War Mace got a makeover awhile back, so having the parallels between this and Jawbreaker might be coincidental.

Level 8
Proton Scatter = Energy Torrent

Well, not quite. It has the same everything as Energy Torrent, except the fact that it's missing its knockback entirely. Like the other power taken from Energy Blast thus far, it’s entirely Energy damage. I'm not saying that we should send out a searching party for Proton Scatter (and its twin Bright Nova Scatter), but it seems a bit odd to have Energy Torrent in everything but KB. KB seems to be applied rather haphazardly with Peacebringer powers. Proton Scatter has it missing, Luminous Blast has it greatly reduced, but Luminous Detonation went and kept it around and changed it all to Energy damage to boot.

Level 12
Build Up = Build Up
Plain ol' melee set Build Up. Nothing to write home about.

Luminous Detonation = Explosive Blast
Essentially identical to Energy Blast's Explosive blast, with the exception of all the damage made into Energy, rather than a smashing/lethal mix, and the Peacebringer -DEF debuff. As I mentioned, ports from Energy Blast seem to retain their KB with some inconsistency. This one keeps it, Proton Scatter loses it, Gleaming Blast has it cut by 2/3rds.

Level 18
Incandescent Strike = Total Focus
Radiant Strike's bigger brother. Though this time Energy Melee kept it in house. What we have here is essentially Total Focus, Energy Melee's big, bad Tier 9 power available in the late teens. Just about everything is Total Focus, though for some reason the damage here is weighted more towards Smashing than Total Focus. City of Data says TF deals 1 Smashing and 2.56 Energy, while IS here deals 1.56 Smashing and 2 Energy. A bit odd considering the focus of this set being on Energy. IS also replaces TF's Stun with a suite of effects: -Fly, -DEF, Knockdown, and a Hold. I suppose that might be why things are shifted to have more damage in the more resisted type.

Pulsar = Thunder Clap
This is Thunder Clap, except made worse. For some reason it has a 20 foot radius instead of 25 feet, and costs half again as much (it costs 15.6, rather than 10.4), and it's animation time is longer.

Level 26
Glowing Touch = Heal Other
Essentially identical save for what City of Data reports as its range: 30 feet as opposed to 80 for EVERY other Ally heal in the game with the exception of Aid Other (which is 25). Just looking at the numbers that seems like a bit of an oddity, considering all the Heal Other clones (O2 Boost, Soothe, Cauterize) are all at 80 feet. Yes, Peacebringers at not t3h h34lz0r, but it seems silly to limit it to that distance.

Solar Flare = Foot Stomp
Have you no shame, Peacebringers? First you go and steal Energy Melee's Tier 9 attack, and now here you are robbing Super Strength of its crown jewel as well. For shame. Then again Solar Flare isn't QUITE Foot Stomp. After all, it has the -Def, after all, and a rather hefty amount of Knockback, whereas Footstomp just did knockdown. Maybe this power sucked the KB out of Gleaming Blast and Proton Scatter, like some sort of Knockback vampire. In the dead of night Solar Flare rises from its coffin in search of poorly built Forcefielders on which to feed...

Level 32
Photon Seekers = Seeker Drones
Well, except that they're on steroids. The Photon Seekers deal a HECK of a lot more damage. And there are three of them instead of 2. Makes sense that they'd deal much more damage, as this is a damage focused set.

Also I've been informed that Photon Seekers pre-date Seeker Drones. So apparently Seeker Drones are Photon Seekers exposed to Kryptonite.

Dawn Strike = Nova
Essentially identical, except for the -DEF, the total conversion over to Energy Damage, and the fact that it's -1 magnitude of Recovery, rather than Nova's -10. That might be a decimal shift. If it is, please don't lynch me, Kheldian players. Or lay eggs in my ears. Or my esophagus. Or whatever it is you do.

Luminous Aura
Seeing as the Aura powers aren't particularly quantifiable in comparison to attacks I'm putting them into groups, rather than sorting them by level. With clones of Conserve Power and Power Surge, as well as three shield toggles and an autopower, it seems that Luminous Aura is proto-Electric Armor (which used to have Conserve Power, remember) with the heal-based bits of Regeneration thrown in.

Damage Resistance
Incandescence = ???
Incandescence is essentially the worst of all the defensive set autopowers. The closest one is Stone Skin from Stone Armor (and its clone Energy Aura's Dampening Field), but that's against the two most common damage types. The two next worst, Resist Physical Damage from Invuln, and Temperature Protection from Fiery Aura give a debuff resistance type in addition to the two kind of damage they protect against. Shields' True Grit protects against 5 damage types, and gives an HP boost (though it comes later), Willpower's High Pain Tolerance is also an HP boost and protects against EVERYTHING. Electric Armor's in half of it's Mez protection. All three of the Arachnos Soldier Armor autopowers include some sort of Mez protection as well, and two of the three can be taken in concert for ever more protection.

So yeah, every single defensive set with Resistance and part of its primary protection takes this power into an alley and robs it of its lunch money every day. All the other powers are better, and all but one provide something other than bare bones +Res, and the one that does grants a far more useful and common DR type.

Shining Shield
Thermal Shield
Quantum Shield

Ick. These are ick. Serious, these are really ick. Kheldians have their shields spread out like Stone Armor, but with more suck. Good thing there are so many primary powers to take. :P

Dark Melee has three +Res toggles and it's a Res based set. Dark Embrace protects against 4 types, Murky Cloud protects against 4 types and Endurance/Recovery drain, and Obsidian Shield has a huge amount of Psi res, plus Mez protection.

Electric Armor has three +Res toggles, is a Res based set, and also has a +Res autopower that doesn't suck. Charged Armor protects against 3 types to a high degree (20% more than most sets get), Conductive Shield protects against 3 to a high degree and 1 to a low degree (Negative Energy it's 'weakness'), and Static Shield is half of its Mez resistance plus a high degree of Psi protection. Ground also gives a small amount of resistance to two energy types, and couples with Static Shield to provide almost perfect Mez resistance.

Fire is probably the closest to what Kheldians have, since they lose out on a great deal of Mez protection, have their second shield delayed until level 16, and are reliant on their heal. Fire Shield provides resistance against 3 types of damage, and has one type of Mez protection. Plasma Shield also has 3, with Fire overlapping and provides more Mex protection. Temperature Protection is widely regarded as the worst autopower due to Fire damage being capped or nearly so with good slotting in the two shields, and Cold damage being almost never seen. Even then, the autopower has Slow/-Rech resistance, due to it being very reliant upon its heal.

Yes, Khelds get Dwarf Form and all its quasi-tankness. But you lose out on Damage a bit with Dwarf Form, plus you lose the vast majority of your powers. None of the other AT's in the game have to give up their powers for survivability. The ranged+armor dreaded Tankmage thing is also not a problem, considering the VEAT's get Mez protection and don't have to spend 3 powers on getting their defenses up to snuff. Nor do they detoggle when they activate their mez protection. Nor do they

Light Form = Unstoppable
Essentially a straight over port with some flashy effects added. Electric Armor's Power Surge is also almost identical to this, but it has a Hold, and of course different flashy effects. There is mez protection here, but it comes coupled with both an absolutely massive Recharge time, as well as a pretty big crash at the end.

Heals
Essence Boost = Dull Pain
Reform Essence = Reconstruction
Restore Essence = Revive

Essentially port-overs from Regeneration, with the Toxic resistance moved to the Dull Pain clone, rather than the Reconstruction clone.

Dwarf Form
White Dwarf
-Strike = ???
-Smite = Barrage
-Flare = ???
-Sublimation = Reconstruction
-Step = Teleport Self
-Antagonize = Provoke

Strike doesn't have an energy set parallel. It seems to be a Charged Brawl/Shadow Punch level Energy Melee attack with the -DEF added and the Knockback picked up somewhere along the way.

Smite is a beefed up Barrage with -Fly, -DEF, and Knockback added in.

Flare is a bit of an oddity; it has Foot Stomp's range and KB effect, but Clobber/Spine Burst's Recharge and Endurance Cost. Not sure what the formulas say, but the damage here might need to be higher.

In general it seems a bit odd that while Nova form has its four attack powers in perfect parallel with existing PB attacks, none of the three damaging powers White Dwarf gets have a direct parallel with the two melee attacks in the Luminous Blast set, though they do have similarities.

Leftovers
Group Energy Flight = Group Flight
Conserve Energy = Conserve Power
Quantum Flight = Phase Shift + Flight

Not much to say here, except that Conserve Energy is using the Endurance cost that Conserve Power has in the Energy Aura set, rather than the Ancillary Power Pool.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Warshades
Warshades are a bit more over the map regarding the origins of their powers. Most seem based off of Ice Blast, Dark Melee, and Dark Armor powers, in effect, but there are also a few with parallels to Energy Blast, and more than a few Controller-ish powers in there, as well as stuff from power pools. The typical Warshade effect is a movement and recharge slow, thus making Ice the primary base like Peacebringers are based off of Radiation.

Umbral Blast

Level 1
Shadow Bolt = ???
Shadow Bolt doesn't have a direct Ice parallel, as Ice Blast begins with a 4 second recharge power, rather than a
1.5 second recharge, as most sets do. Scratch that, every blast set except Radiation.

Ebon Eye = Ice Bolt
It's essentially Ice Bolt in effect, with the damage made into Negative Energy. Oddly it is listed as having 1.1 Accuracy for some reason, rather than 1.0, like most blasts have.

Level 2
Gravemetric Snare = Chilblain
The blaster version of Chilblain, which has everything essentially worse than the controller version. And on top of that? GS gets its -Fly and -KB properties hacked off. Boo. Hiss.

Level 6
Dark Nova
-Bolt = ???
-Blast = Ice Bolt
-Emanation = Energy Torrent
-Detonation = Explosive Blast
Essentially a direct duplicate of Bright Nova, with everything changed to Negative damage and having the usual Warshade Slow/-Rech effects. There are a few oddities here. For example while Peacebringer's Blast is a copy of their Level 2 blast power, Dark Nova Blast is Shadow Blast's effect, but with Ebon Eye's numbers. It keeps the numbers even between the two Novas, but seems a bit strange in regards to power order.

Second is that the 10% Knockback in Gleaming Blast, Bright Nova Blast, Shadow Blast, and Dark Nova Blast seems... awkward. Looking over the blast sets, the lowest KB chance I found was 20%. I did a lap of Steel Canyon with my level 42 Warshade to test something, and DN Blast actually had its knockback go off all of once. I don't really see the purpose of having such a tiny chance for KB in a power.

Emanation is a bit interesting in that the in-game text for it states that it has Knockback, but the test description says nothing about knockback, and the power itself lacks a Knockback effect. I think it might've gotten copy/pasted over from Energy Torrent, and never removed, even though the power obviously does not knockback. As I mentioned, I tested the power to see if it was KB capable by flying a lap around Steel Canyon and smacking everything with it. No KB. So there's a bit of a text error there.

Shadow Blast = Ice Blast or Energy Blast
It's either Ice Blast with a sickly version of Energy Blast's KB, or a sickly KB-ing Energy Blast with Ice's effect added on.

Level 8
Starless Step = Teleport Foe
Exact duplicate of TP Foe, but with prettier graphics.

Level 12
Sunless Mire = Soul Drain
It's a perfect copy of Soul Drain with one exception: the radius is 15 feet, rather than 10.

Dark Detonation = Explosive Blast
EB converted to Negative damage with Ice's effect.

Level 18
Gravity Well = Midnight Grasp
Look to Midnight Grasp, then back to me, now Midnight Grasp, than to me. Sadly Midnight Grasp isn't me. Look into my hand where I have Midnight Grasp's immobilize. The Immobilize is now a hold.

The damage has been cranked up to match Total Focus/Incandescent Strike, and the Warshade Slow/-Rech effect has been added. Of course the endurance and recharge have been raised to match the new damage scale.

I'm on a horse.

Essence Drain = Siphon Life
While Gravity Well was taken from Dark Melee and improved, Essence Drain appears to be where all the extra awesome was sucked from. I think this stems from a buff to Siphon Life that didn't get carried over, as it deals .96 less damage, recharges 5 seconds slower, and costs half again as much endurance. Sad face. Yes. I said sad face rather than make a frowny.

Level 26
Gravitic Emanation = Power Push
It appears to be based off of Power Push and made into a controller's AoE mez along the lines of Mass Hypnosis or Spore Burst.

Unchain Essence = ???
Explode corpses, a hit at parties! There's not really anything resembling this power that I could find anywhere. From the recharge and endurance, it seems to be something like a high tier Controller AoE mez with a mess of damage added in. The recharge and endurance are identical to Mass Confusion. And once more we run into that so low as to be useless 10% KB chance.

Level 32
Dark Extraction = Controller Pet
Well, in concept. In action Dark Extraction comes out ahead of most controller pets, since you don't resummon these. You just rip a new one from your foes tasty delicious corpse. So with good recharge there can be three of these guys fluttering around you, flinging around a trio of powers and joining me in muttering about 10% knockback chances.

They use powers labeled Shadow Bolt, Shadow Blast, and Gravitic Emanation. Shadow Bolt and Blast are the powers of the same name from the normal Blast set.

Howeverm, the Fluffy version of Gravitic Emanation is the nearly identical Nova Emanation power, save that it animates in 1 second, rather that the 1.5 Nova animation. It is not the power in Umbral Blast by the same name, however.

Quasar = Blackstar
Quasar is to Blackstar what Dawn Strike is to Nova. Blackstar's -ToHit is replaced with the Warshade's standard Slow/-Rech.

Umbral Aura
Whereas Luminous Aura takes its powers from Electric Armor and Regeneration, its dark counterpart lifts its armor-y powers from Dark Armor.

Damage Resistance
Absorption
Gravity Shield
Penumbral Shield
Twilight Shield

Essentially the same thing as the corresponding Peacebringer shields and autopower. You can scroll up to see my thoughts on them.

Dark Armor Ports
Shadow Cloak = Cloak of Darkness
Essentially the same power.

Stygian Circle = Dark Regeneration + Dark Consumption
The soul sucking powers from Dark Melee and Dark Armor combined into one. The damage has been removed, and the amount that each aspect recovers is toned down somewhat. Recovers 20% less endurance per target than Dark Consumption, and only 66% as much healing from a minion, but the heals scale with the rank of the defeated corpse(s) you take power from. The recharge is also much better, clocking in at 30 seconds. Likely because unlike the two base powers, this is powered off of dead, rather than living, enemies.

Stygian Return = Soul Transfer
Pretty much the same thing, except that Stygian Return lacks a Stun component.

Dwarf Form
Black Dwarf
-Strike = Shadow Punch
-Smite = Smite/Barrage
-Drain = Siphon Life
-Mire = Soul Drain
-Step = Teleport Self
-Antagonize = Provoke

The first two and last two powers are essentially the same thing as their White Dwarf counterparts, except with Negative damage and the Warshade's slow/-rech effect.

BD Drain is another Siphon Life clone that once more escaped the Buff Bat, and thus might need to have a look taken at it.

BD Mire is a rather interesting power, as like the other Mire, it's a bigger Soul Drain clone. But it recharges every 20 seconds, rather than every 120 seconds, making it serve not only as a damage booster, but also as a very effective AoE attack.

All the Rest
Orbiting Death = Hot Feet
While one might think that due to this being an Armor-type set this would go along the lines of your typical tanker damage/taunt aura, it's actually from a Controller set. It has a vastly increased radius compared to typical damage auras, and thus a higher Endurance cost. It also, thankfully, lacks the Taunt component as well. So in effect it's essentially a Negative damage version of Hot Feet.

Nebulous Form = Phase Shift + Inertial Reduction
It's Phase Shift combined with a half-strength, Self-only version of Kinetics' Inertial Reduction

Inky Aspect = Oppressive Gloom
The power is identical, though due to Kheld's damage modifiers they take a goodly bit more damage than Tankers and Brutes, but they don't have the HP to back it up.

Eclipse = ???
The closest similarity I can find is Ice Armor's Energy Absorption, which has a similar effect, though its defense based and also an Endurance restorer. Eclipse also has a similarity to Power Sink, as it drains foe's Endurance and lowers their Recovery. So in short, I don't really have a clue what this is based off of. But it is awesome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Incandescence -

What you overlook in calling this "the worst" is that as a Kheldian, you are *guaranteed* to be facing quite a bit of Energy/Negative Energy damage in the form of Nictus and Voids. It also fits thematically (y'know, epic AT, tied to a story) as these are... energy beings. It makes sense for them to have inborn energy resistance.

Yes, you're guaranteed to face a lot of smashing/lethal, but again - tied to their lore.

See my Guides and Tutorials

As I said, I was looking at it from a purely numerical perspective. It'd actually slipped my mind while writing that that Khelds, by their mere presence in a party, will tack on Nictus/Voids/Novas/Dwarves into the party spawns.

While that does make it a little better, it's still a forced power that has not a whole lot of benefit in comparison with the other +Res autopowers. As I mentioned, Stone Skin and Resist Physical Damage have lower percentages, but towards a far more commonplace damage type, and RPD has a debuff resistance.

Looking at Luminous Aura in the terms of Defensive powersets, Incandescence is pretty wretched. Every other armor set (With the exception of Regeneration's Fast Healing) has Smashing/Lethal Resistance (Or Melee defense) as the one thing that everybody with that powerset absolutely has to take.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

That the kheldian powers are overwhelmingly reskinned versions of powers from other sets has never been a secret. However I've never seen anyone actually compose a systematic list of them so this has the potential to be a very interesting thread, one perhaps to which we can all contribute. Von Krieger, you may have the makings of an interesting guide when you're done.

I think this will help people new to Khelds gain an understanding of what a Peacebringer can do out of the box. They may appear less scary with these parallels clearly defined here.

I do have to nit-pick one tiny thing, though. Antagonize = Provoke not Taunt.

Considering Taunt is more well-known, it's not a huge thing.

Great write-up.

Oh right, it's not auto-hit, it has to check for accuracy doesn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Thanks! I made notes ofr those up top.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

I added my analysis and parallels for Warshades to the second post of the thread. As before, corrections are welcome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

It may be worth mentioning that any AT who has Soul Drain has to wait until level 28 or later to actually get it, while Warshades have access to it at level 12.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Von Krieger Level 32 Dark Extraction = Controller Pet Well, in concept. In action Dark Extraction comes out ahead of most controller pets, since you don't resummon these. You just rip a new one from your foes tasty delicious corpse. So with good recharge there can be three of these guys fluttering around you, flinging around Gravemetric Snare, Shadow Bolt, and Shadow Blast and joining me in muttering about 10% knockback chances. Quasar = Blackstar Exactly like Blaster like Dawn Strike is to Nova. Has the ToHit replaced with Slow/-Rech.

The fluffies don't fling Gravemetric Snare. They appear to have two versions of the first three Dark Nova powers: two single target blasts and the damage cone.

For Quasar, I believe you meant to say "Has the -def replaced."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Von Krieger So in short, I don't really have a clue what [Eclipse] is based off of. But it is awesome.

I agree. Eclipse is a truly unique power and is obscenely awesome.

re: Inky Aspect

See my Guides and Tutorials

As I said, this is a purely numerical analsys, as I'm no expert on Kheldian play. Warshades take a bit more damage per tick than Tankers from the power. Defenders, who get the power in Epic pools, have comparitive HP to the Warshade (at least from what the CoH wiki tells me), and due to their damage modifiers take 1/3 less damage in comparison.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Don't think of that 10% KB chance "so low as to be useless" as "just high enough to be annoying" which is why I never never use Shadow Blast to finish off a perfectly positioned foe whom I intend to explode in a second. :P