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.

/signed
I WANT. and with your idea, would this include assault sets or no? i wouldnt think it would just wondering.

An easy fix to the BU problem is the the primary sets get BU while the secondary sets get Power boost instead, of course energy manip would get a new power(preferably whirling hands to have SOME Aoe)

But yeah... i want this. It would definetly be a fun AT. The inherent Could be a scaling mez protection and maybe some other goody, like scaling damage and resist?

It wouldn't need any new epic pools either, because the blaster pools would fit it just fine, of course rework numbers to fit the AT's modifiers but thats all.

This would have to wait until after I21 though, they already have enough to do right now, but one this i wanna say:
i would roll a dark/MM of this AT... and would LOVE it

/signed, for the sole fact that I love the idea of there being a pure tactical AT

Sooooo who wants to PM a dev about this? xD

I was thought Melee/Manipulation would be easier and more appropriate. Spines/Fire, Claws/Elec, War Mace/Devices, Super Strength/Ice, etc. You could start by just ignoring the overlaps, do not include the Melee sets that have a matching Manipulation (EM, ELM, Fire, Ice, and soon Dark), but possibly eventually rework things so that you could include them.

I suspect that very few players would be interested in a manip-manip archtype.

Under the previous business model I'd say you would have no chance of ever getting such an archtype made.

As of CoH: Freedom... well... the chances are significantly better. Depending on the work-load required to "make" a Manip / Manip AT it could be profitable under the new Paragon Store system.

Let's call it a "premium" archetype and sell it for... say... $5.

CoH has what... 60k~70k subscribers.

Okay, let's say 5% of a 60k population bought the AT ~ 3,000.

At $5 that would be $15,000 back to NCSoft / Paragon Studios.

Now, would I personally play one?

No. I would not.

Honestly if the developers were to approach such a concept, I'd rather see something in the lines of the Villain Epic Archtypes.

1-24: Manip / Manip

24: Career Split

• Manip + Shields / Control
• Manip + Shields / Assault

oh hey i found this thread again

Like whats been said before, the devs have been doing some new things lately so this could be a possibi;ity. Would we see it in the near future? no. It'd have to wait until after all of the incarnates are here and theyve released "the coming storm". If this is set up as a premium AT, I'm sure a lot of people would buy it JUST to see what it would be like.

When I first read about Dominators using Control/Assault, I was hoping that the controls would be similar to the Controller controls, but changed into a smaller PBAoE format (like Ice Patch vs Ice Slick). I was actually quite bummed to see that it was just a straight port. That being the case, if I were to do the split:

Manip/Manip
Manip/Control
Manip/Assault

The Control powers would focus on small PBAoE controls and some ranged single target controls, and I would probably inner-mix a utility power or two (perhaps a debuff here or there). As these would be a smaller PBAoE, they would not affect as many enemies and would recharge faster. I would probably keep any shield powers for the APP/EPPs. Due to certain powers being duplicated between sets, certain secondaries would be unavailable depending on your primary choice (eg: no Energy Manip/Energy Assault).

You could maybe add in a Manip/Debuff, but I'd rather see a Melee/Debuff combination get created someday.

I for one would have no interest in playing Manip/manip. That said, if it's something they could add relatively easily to the Paragon store and earn a bit of cash off, go for it.

What I'd really like to see is Melee/Support (or Support/Melee). I'd drop a bit of cash to play Dark Melee/Time Manipulation.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

1: Get Fiery Assault/Icy Assault Character
2: Have option to have fire swords/attacks from one hand, ice swords/attacks from the other.
3: Summon Fire Sword and Ice Sword.
4: Run into crowd.
5: ???
6: Profit.

I would like to bring this idea back to attention because of my new desire for a dark assault/mental manip toon.

Please.

NO necroing lol!

I think the post by je_saist was excellent.

Hm...I might roll a manip/manip...

Earlier i said blaster epics would work fine for this AT.... I take that back.

I think that the troller/dom epics would work better for this AT, as they give Direct self protection as opposed to more mitigation, something this AT would already have plenty of.