The Praetorian Kheldian Archetypes

Though the OP reasoning with Khelds was wrong, the concept is sound.

But I don't like the idea of a recycled EAT, instead it should be it's own entity.

Emperor Cole developed the ultimate super to combat other supers. This being would be humanoid with the power to copy openents they fight to be able to beat them.

Concept: the EAT would have a few abilities specific to his nature. On top of this he has the ability to tap into an enemy to mimic their AT style. You would NOT get powers specific to that enemy copied. You would instead open up the EATs own version of the scrapper, controller, tank etc. You would get only a few (4 or 5). The versatility of the mimic would be offset by only a few inherent powers. Lcling up you would pick an AT mimic as a power slot, with different lvl restrictions (at mimics maybe not locked into a lvl, but picking one will make it so you can't pick your next till the req lvl a new power would normally unlock). You would only have access to travel powers. APPs will be inherent to what you are mimicking at the time. The mimic itself comes with a number of slots to slot special IOs specifically made to flesh out your AT style (the slots are free) then you spend slots on specific powers to flesh them out. A mimic who mimics a scrapper a lot would have more slots in those powers and obviously would be lacking in another at mimic. Mimics would get a acc buff so as not to need to waste slots on low slotted abilities. This would be just enough to hit same lvl mobs consistently.

Obviously a lit of work, power tweaking, and slot tweaking would need to go into this. Especially determining mimic length time and recharge, if any.

And another thing. AT mimics would obviously be combined.

Scrapper and Stalker
Controller and Dominator
Blaster and Corrupter
Tanker and Brute.
Defender and Master Mind
Khelds and SoA

Because they are developed to be assassins of the supers the mimics you can have extra tricks the mimiced AT doesn't. One of the mimic inherent slots would choose a special IO to determine which AT it leans to more and it's powers while mimics slighty favors that. IE choosing scrapper leaning for scrap - stalker mimic.

"A helicopter can hover and move sideways in the air, I don't see why you can't do that with a turboprop airplane, I mean, they're both aircraft so they should be able to do it!"

And you miss the point. The Helicoptor is *designed* to be able to hover. The turboprop is not *designed* to be able to hover.

It just doesnt work dude. I can follow the kheld lore just fine even back thousands of years.

I feel like there have been lots of cool super heroes all throughout comic history with shape shifting abilities... Kheldians are our shape shifting AT, and if I knew nothing about this game my FIRST assumption would be that the shapeshifters could absorb forms. I'm not a game designer so I don't know how exactly it would work mechanically though I have posted some suggestions... I know the argument has been "Kheldians don't work that way" but the cool thing about proposing new ideas to a fantasy world is that logic doesn't need to be taken so strictly. Perhaps, like I already stated, these Kheldians are more advanced and have evolved to a point where they can bond *part* of their energy with A.) A willing host (team mate, the PB version) or B.) An enemy (The Warshade version) thus absorbing those forms. It would only be part of their energy, so they would only be able to retain the form for X amount of time. The reason they have this new ability is because *insert lore mumbo jumbo here.*

Your idea is so so. The problem is that you fundamentally do not understand how programs are developed, nor how a development company must allocate resources.
It is possible, certainly, to create code to allow something like this. However, to retrofit this idea into City of Heroes would require months of coding effort by multiple programmers, followed by months of Q&A testing. It would completely lock up development of the game for the time coding would take.
Code changes would have to be made to *fundamental working code*. They would have to rewrite enhancement slotting, rewrite how powers are gained and lost, both of which have the potential to screw up *every other character* in the game.

THAT is why we're telling you it's a bad idea. It would monopolize programming time to the point that fixes won't get made and new content won't make it in, for six months or more, and the changes needed to support dynamic power allocation on the fly have the potential to screw over everyone.

Besides, This is not Mortal Combat. We're playing City of Heroes. This game does not work like that game. It's a completely different type of thing.

And if you think it's so easy, then go do it yourself.

Be Well!
Fireheart

I'm not saying "hey Devs! Do this now!" or even, next month or next year. Heck, I don't expect it to happen at all... It was just a hypothetical idea I had that I thought was kind of cool.

I haven't read the entire thread yet (halfway through page 2) but I can sort of see a way that this would work.

Assuming Cole has made a supersoldier that mimics the abilities of its enemies (so let's forget the Kheldian controversy) we could have an AT with a primary and secondary set that is qutie a mish-mash of powers and abilties. Ranged attacks, melee attacks, controls, buffs, debuffs, resist, and defense all sprinkled liberally through the primary/secondary powersets. Obviously not a lot of concentration on any one thing (there's just not enough space!) but a little bit of everything.

Then, depending on what you're toggled to "mimic" modifiers are applied to all your powers.

If you mimic a controller, your damage modifier and shield levels drop, but your holds go up a mag or two and your buffs/debuffs increase in value. Mimic a dominator and your holds go up a mag and your damage levels go up, but your shields lose much of their effectiveness.

Mimic a scrapper/stalker and your holds are mag 1, but you get a 1.3x modifier on your shields and a significant melee damage bonus. Tank/brute gives you a bigger shield bonus (1.5?) but smaller damage bonus. Team related buffs drop to 50% value or so.

Blaster mimic gives you an increased damage modifier overall. And so on and so forth.

Not sure what would happen if you try to mimic a mastermind. Not enough room in there to add a pet set.

Hmm, perhaps something like the Widow power tree selection. You can pick and choose from an expanded tree of available powers (including a pet set) and if you want to concentrate on one thing and always stay in the same mimic-mode you can do so, but then you may as well just be playing that AT, as you're missing out on all the versatility.

The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to like this idea, but I imagine it would be a nightmare to code.

This issue has been resolved already. War Mace/Energy Aura Scrappers are the PEAT.

I dont think this idea for a PEAT even needs to have anything to do with khelds, and it really doesnt. I also, like someone posted earlier, think a PEAT would be some kinda Devouring Earth deal. This sounds cool but waay outside the limits of the game or what the devs can/will do.