Manip/Manip AT?

So, what would everyone think about a Manip/Manip AT?

To me, this is something I’ve wanted to play for quite some time. It would be a very high risk AT, would require some good strategy, and would reward the player with high damage and challenging game play.

Obvious Concerns:
1. Same power set for both Primary and Secondary
2. Lack of Mitigation
3. Lack of Mez Protection
4. High/Low Performance

1. Having both primary and secondary power sets the same is something that is, currently, not in the game. This could be fixed by making an all melee primary with an all non-armor mitigation secondary but, to me, this wouldn’t work out as well. The Manipulation sets are already a mish-mash of melee, self buffs and various forms of mitigation. Each set has its own theme which is what would make combining two of these sets an interesting pairing. Of course, there are little tweaks that would need to be looked at, like Boost Range and two Build Ups (see below).

2. While it is true that this would be a melee set without any armor toggles, the mitigation is found throughout the sets as secondary effects, as well as minor control. Ice has slows and ice patch, energy has knockback, mental has –recharge, elec has sleep, dark will have –to hit, devices has its various tools and nearly all of them have an immobilize. Would these be enough to keep the character alive? I think so. Ignoring mezes for the time being, this combination could solo well and would be a great powerhouse on a team.

3. I will agree that mezes would completely destroy this type of pairing of powers. However, instead of just giving them a mez protection toggle, I would try and get a little more creative. I would do two things to resolve this issue. The first would be to give the archetype an inherent resistance to all mezes. Since mezes scale from the low level Clockwork Sleep to the ‘go make a sandwich’ Malta stun grenades, I think a scaling resistance (based on level) would be best. I would also set their offensive toggles to suppress, rather than toggle off, when mezed.

Step two would be to swap out one of the two Build Ups with a new power. This power would grant them 1000% mez resistance for a short duration, perhaps 20 seconds. During this time each mez that affects the character would grant a stackable increase in damage. This power would have a 90-120 second recharge making it more situational and something to keep for the more mez-heavy groups. If this is not possible, due to how the system does or does not work, then I would make it a 20 second 50% Build Up with the added mez resistance.

4. High and low performance issues. This is, oddly, where I am torn. If played poorly, this type of archetype would have very low performance, and would have more issues than an eBay bought Blaster in the Storm Palace. If played properly, this would be a very powerful combination, and with proper IOs could be considered OP.

I’m sure there are some other issues that I may not be seeing, but I think something like this would be extremely fun to play. With I21 supposedly allowing any new character to choose from any archetype means that this doesn’t need to be tied to either side (ie: you don’t need an opposite AT to counter it in the ‘# of ATs per side’ balance).

The plus side to this concept is that there is very little art/fx/animation changes that would need to be done, and Blasters would most likely see more Manip sets down the pipe as they would become available to more than one AT.

Comments? Concerns? Love it? Hate it?

Your first concern is not an issue. Choosing something as your primary could just lock it out as a choice for your secondary, the way Dual Blades, Katana, and Claws lock out Shield Defense. As for two instances of Build Up, the easy way to fix that is to just take it out of the "secondary" versions of the sets and replace it with something else.