I like this idea, but I'm not a fan of being in melee with no defenses - mez protection, specifically. So what I'd suggest is instead of the assault sets as the primary, make a new set (Not sure what they'd call it) that has some melee attacks and some defensive powers. Both less effective than that of scrappers, say half the defensive numbers scrappers get and only slightly more than tanker melee damage base.
At the same time give them low buff/debuff numbers as well, even less than what masterminds get. Now, you'd think that'd make them underpowered, a jack of all trades archetype that's not very good at anything. But this is where the inherent comes in. Again I'm not sure what they'd call it, but have it grant scaling buffs based on team composition similar to how the kheldian inherents work. For every melee AT on the team they'd get a small power boost effect, improving their buffs, debuffs and heals. While for every non-melee AT on the team they'd gain a boost to their defensive powers. Keeping them seperate would be a coding nightmare, I know, but I think it'd be worth it.
At the same time, to keep them being too underpowered when soloing or on small teams, have the inherent give the equivalent of three teammates worth of each buff while solo. This would drop off as the size of the team increases at the same rate that the damage buff defenders get from vigilance does - 2/3 buff with one teammate, 1/3 buff with two teammates, no buff with 3+ teammates. But of course with teammates they'd be getting the per teammate buffs to make up for it. Which is a lot of buffs to juggle, I know. Hence making the base numbers so small.
The general idea is on a team of all non-melee ATs they'd be strong in melee, while on a team of all melee they'd be good support. I think it'd be a cool concept, but I can see it being a nightmare to develop and a bigger nightmare to balance. 
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Nonsense, that is what teammates are for! There are lots of powers that can make you forget about mez. You can also fix that problem with destiny clairon. |
Originally Posted by Rebel_Scum
I like this idea, but I'm not a fan of being in melee with no defenses - mez protection, specifically. So what I'd suggest is instead of the assault sets as the primary, make a new set (Not sure what they'd call it) that has some melee attacks and some defensive powers. Both less effective than that of scrappers, say half the defensive numbers scrappers get and only slightly more than tanker melee damage base.
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My fire/fire/fire blaster lives in melee. On a bad team I have to hold back and stick with ranged stuff. On teams with some good buffers, (FF, cold and sonic) OMG! I can just blast away in melee range with all my goodies and do lots of damage. Amazing how much damage Blazing Aura, Hot feet, Burn, Rain of Fire, fire ball, Fire Sword Circle and Combustion do.
I like the idea of a melee/buff type character.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
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Why not just keep it simple and make the AT inherently strong as your base mark + 2 or so scaled buffs rather than giving the AT a solo buff and a separate team buff?
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Originally Posted by Rebel_Scum
At the same time give them low buff/debuff numbers as well, even less than what masterminds get. Now, you'd think that'd make them underpowered, a jack of all trades archetype that's not very good at anything. But this is where the inherent comes in. Again I'm not sure what they'd call it, but have it grant scaling buffs based on team composition similar to how the kheldian inherents work. For every melee AT on the team they'd get a small power boost effect, improving their buffs, debuffs and heals. While for every non-melee AT on the team they'd gain a boost to their defensive powers. Keeping them seperate would be a coding nightmare, I know, but I think it'd be worth it.
At the same time, to keep them being too underpowered when soloing or on small teams, have the inherent give the equivalent of three teammates worth of each buff while solo. This would drop off as the size of the team increases at the same rate that the damage buff defenders get from vigilance does - 2/3 buff with one teammate, 1/3 buff with two teammates, no buff with 3+ teammates. But of course with teammates they'd be getting the per teammate buffs to make up for it. Which is a lot of buffs to juggle, I know. Hence making the base numbers so small. |
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A fire blaster also isn't toggle dependant, like numerous support sets are, and have pseudo-mez protection built into their lower tier attacks.|
Originally Posted by newchemicals
Nonsense, that is what teammates are for! There are lots of powers that can make you forget about mez. You can also fix that problem with destiny clairon.
My fire/fire/fire blaster lives in melee. On a bad team I have to hold back and stick with ranged stuff. On teams with some good buffers, (FF, cold and sonic) OMG! I can just blast away in melee range with all my goodies and do lots of damage. Amazing how much damage Blazing Aura, Hot feet, Burn, Rain of Fire, fire ball, Fire Sword Circle and Combustion do. I like the idea of a melee/buff type character. |
To solve the mez bit I'd suggest having mag4 Hold/Sleep/Disorient protection built into the Inherent, in a similar vein as the SoA passives provide just enough protection so that you're not being constantly detoggled, but not enough for it to help against high end mobs, or larger spawns of mezzing minions (which you should probably be facing with a team anyhow).
Also, defender level damage is way too low if they've only got Corruptor level support. Think about it, WHY would you play this instead of just playing a Corruptor? They have the same buffs/debuffs, but worse damage. The marginal resistance/defense of the inherent just wouldn't be enough of an incentive, particularly with IOs, where just about everyone has the capability of hitting the defense Softcap already.
If they're to remain limited to Corruptor/Controller level support, and not have the safety of staying at range like either of those ATs can, then I'd suggest damage closer to that of Dominators (0.95Ranged, 1.05Melee IIRC).
If you were to increase their support (say to a 0.9modifier, Controllers/Corruptors are 0.75) then their damage could remain lower, but it'd still need to be higher than defender damage mods, say 0.75ranged and 0.85melee.
I'd also suggest the secondary be a full on Melee set, not an Assault set. My reason being twofold, 1) I don't think Assault sets are really different enough from standard ranged sets for the AT to be distinct from Defenders/Corruptors, and 2) There are more options for Melee sets, where there's a fairly limited number of Assault sets available. You could replace the Taunt power in the melee sets with the thematically appropriate Armor toggle (Dark Embrace for Dark Melee, Temporary Invulnerability for Super Strength, Frozen Armor for Ice Melee, etc.).
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I'm not much for the numbers part but anything that is melee with the buff sets would make me jump for joy hehe.
I love the time manipulation set so much but I am having the worst time picking a blast set I enjoy cause I actully dont enjoy any of them that much. I like to be in melee but conceptwise the blast sets that have "meleeish" moves just dont mix with what Id like.
I love all the dom assault powers so I figured it'd have a primary similar to them. Oh how fun this class would be, I can have my melee up front heavy hits and support everyone too. I hope one day we get a AT with this stuff in mind.
I'd rather not see another pure Melee AT - there are already too many of them. I'd rather see something like Assault but with a higher emphasis on Melee attacks than Ranged, some light Control instead of some PBAoE and a damage toggle aura instead of a debuff aura. Removing the PBAoEs would be for balance issues so you can't run in, Fulcrum Shift and then kill everything in one hit.
So instead of it being like:
Ice Bolt
Ice Sword
Ice Sword Circle
Ice Blast
Power Boost
Frost Breath
Chilling Embrace
Ice Slash
Bitter Ice Blast
It would be like:
Frozen Fists
Ice Blast
Ice Patch
Ice Sword
Build Up
Frost Breath
Icicles
Bitter Freeze Ray
Greater Ice Sword
Firstly, for ranged ATs you have Defender, Corruptor and Blaster. Controllers could ba categorized as a ranged AT considering their primary means of attack is going to be at range. And if Blasters can be considered ranged with their secondary usually having a few means of close combat, I don't see why Doms can't be considered ranged with just some melee amended to their ranged primary.
So that's Def, Corr, Blast, Cont, and Dom (5) and they all have different flavors to their set combo to make them very different.
Now for melee? Tanker, Stalker, Brute and Scrap (4) and they all have melee and armor as their primary and secondary. Their tactics may be different but their make-up is the same.
All in all, it's arguable if there are "too many melee ATs".
As for your rendition of assault sets...eh, then they cease being assault sets when you change powers and concept direction.
Personally, I'd rather the AT have straight up melee sets as their means of attack with maybe Taunt being removed for something appropriate for the AT. The buff/debuff secondary would be what is changed, swapping out some team utility for personal utility. So rather than cutting the AT at the kneecaps by AT mods, the AT would automatically have limited team support because they simply would lack certain powers. The AT wouldn't be able to outbuff Defender FF not because of AT mods but because it wouldn't have Dispersion Bubble or what have you. Instead, it might get a personal version with weaker defense but better mez protection (for themselves).
Just dreaming of what would be my fav AT. I'd call it the..
Phanlanxer: The phanlanxer is a close-range support specialist. This Archetype is effective with single target close ranged attacks(Not as good as a scrapper or stalker)
Phanlaxers also have the ability to strengthen their teammate's abilities (buffing) and weakening foes (debuffing). Their buffing and weakening powers are on par with a controller/corrupter.
Their inherit power could be called Alley Focus or something cool which gives them a 8% defense/resistance bonus when fighting close by to other teammates(based on each teammate close to them for a total of 8%). Solo this bonus is 1%.
Hit Points: Low (but slightly more then a defender/cor)
Damage: Low (On par with a defenders numbers)
Primary Power Category - Assault
Secondary Power Category - Buff
It's main powers are mostly the dominators assult secondary and the buffs are defender/cor/controller sets. It could have a select few from scrapper set but the numbers would have to be lowered a lot.
Its just a defender with melee powers really lol. I can dream!