Shape Changing - Melee attack set

Alex Mercer, Carnage, The T-1000. With enough pre-cursers, I think it's time we had a Shape Changing power set (Or my-arm-will-now-be-a-THIS-weapon set), especially with the Symbiotic Armour set coming some time in the future. The most used weapons I've seen are a Sword/Blade and a Mace/Bludgeon, I'm sure a Claw can fit in here too somewhere.

How would it work?

Much like the toggles of Dual Pistols and Staff Fighting, this set's Build Up would be replaced by a 'Change Weapon' power. With the main gimmick being the ability to shape change to different weapons for different situations, it makes the most sense.

The toggles would activate a constant over-body effect, working much like Spines do, which can then be customised via power customisation rather than weapon customisation. Taking cue from the above, there can be an Organic Biomass, a Metallic Liquid and let's add a Ghostly/Forcefield Shell to keep some transparency for those who want to keep seeing all of their costumes.

Upon activating a toggle, your applicable attacks would change in effect/animation. Sword working with consistant DPS, Mass/Bludgeon as burst damage and AoE. I don't think a Claw can work as an alternate mechanic, so one or two attacks could have you use the other hand as a quick shapeshift - swipe - shapeshift. When no toggles are in effect, all attacks would default to a combination of Street Justice and Super Strength animations.

What else could this be used for?

With the tech in place to change attacks depending on toggles, this could open up the possibility of power armour (I toggle on a shoulder-mounted minigun, now when I use my attacks it fires a short burst for additional lethal DoT, but it's a heavy endurance drain), a magic set based on spell preparations (I have prepared myself, I'm currently blessed by the spirits of Fire, Ice, Earth, Air and Metal and my powers are immense, if only the endurance drain didn't leave me exhausted after a few attacks) or perhaps even an epic AT based on the Banished Pantheon, toggle between the powers of Death, Sorrow, Pain and Desire.

The set can be used for a myriad of different enemies, from oil spills who have gained sentience (Coralax event/new zone?) or even the rise of the Blood of the Black Stream. Updates to the Vahzilok (Shifting flesh for new weapons), Minions of Igneous (It's just rock and debris), Malta (New nanite technology comes new weapons to fight with), Hydra (Glorp), Crey (Making use of forcefield models for new energy weapons). I could go on.

What powers would a Beet suggest?
No Toggle/Blade/Bludgeon

Quick Attack/Slash/Bash
No Toggle: A copy of Street Justice's Initial Strike
Blade: A numerical copy of Broadsword's Slash
Bludgeon: A numerical copy of Warmace's Bash
4 second recharge

Controlled Punch/Hack/Pulverize
No Toggle: A copy of Super Strength's Punch
Blade: A numerical copy of Broadsword's Hack
Bludgeon: A numerical copy of Warmace's Pulverize
8 second recharge

Powerful Hit/Slice/Jawbreaker
No Toggle: A copy of Super Strength's Haymaker
Blade: A numerical copy of Broadsword's Slice
Bludgeon: A numerical copy of Warmace's Jawbreaker
10 second recharge

Change Weapon
Unlocks the Blade and Bludgeon toggles, causes a 3 second rooting animation on activation as you 'grow' the weapon. No endurance cost

Backhand/Riposte/Slam
No Toggle: Just the backhand portion of Street Justice's Spinning Strike. Melee cone moderate smashing damage
Blade: You feign stab your target and gain 45% Melee/Lethal defense, the attack adds a 3 second delayed spike of high lethal damage for after the defense has worn out
Bludgeon: You and slam the ground infront of your with your weapon, moderate smashing damage cone with a high chance for knockdown, moderate chance to stun.
12 second recharge

Confront

Dual Assault/Maim/Anvil
No Toggle: You punch your target then slash with a sudden claw-like hand. Minor smashing then moderate lethal damage, chance for knockdown
Blade: You spin on the spot with the blade and a temporary clawed hand, moderate lethal damage PBAoE with minor lethal DoT, chance for knockdown
Bludgeon: You jump into the air and slam the ground with your weapon, setting up enemies for you to spin and strike with a clawed hand. PBAoE knockdown then moderate lethal DoT
20 second recharge

Trip/Grind/Break Armour
No Toggle: You kick at the feet of your enemy for minor smashing damage, this has a high chance to knockdown
Blade: You turn and slice up at your target, knocking them in the air and dealing high lethal damage, applies -defense
Bludgeon: You strike a single target with such force they are knocked down and winded, this also sends out a shockwave to other nearby enemies. Targetted AoE enemy high smashing damage and knockdown, AoE minor smashing damage and chance to stun - Works like Thunder Strike
16 second recharge

Uppercut/Fiendish Assault/Launch
No Toggle: You throw an uppercut at your target for high smashing damage, high chance to knockup, moderate chance to stun
Blade: You unleash a One Thousand Cuts style flurry of Blade and Claw strikes in a small cone in front of you. Extreme lethal DoT to your target, moderate lethal DoT to surrounding enemies, small chance to fear
Bludgeon: With a great hit, you send enemies infront of you flying straight up. Superior smashing damage cone, knock up, moderate chance for low magnitude stun
14 second recharge

Disclaimer: Any numbers in the above are based on existing powers, everything is open for balance, I have no real head for what may or may not be balanced but I know what I'd like and this is one.

Thank you for reading and leave any and all feedback you have.

I agree that I'd like to see a set like this, but I'm concerned about the mechanic you're employing here. It's true that the game now has a way to essentially swap one power with a completely different power based solely on some kind of character effect (that's what both Titan Weapons and Stalkers use), so it's going to work. My question is about how you envision customizing this. If you've noticed when working on customization for these powers, they only really let you customize one of the power's "versions," whatever is the default, with the other versions simply inheriting the options. You never even get to see the other versions, and may often not even know they exist.

Other than that, I like the idea, but here's my question for you - why not go whole hog on this and make this a complete transformation? Have a character who transforms into a wolf, a lion or a bear, for damage, middle ground or tank modes? Or have one swap between several different robots, Transformers style? Or mutate between several different monsters like the T-Virus mutants tend to? This is a route I've wanted to go down for quite some time, myself, because shape shifters are just that damn cool

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

As long as it´s not only wolfs/tigers/lions/etc. I´m all in for this.

also on an almost unrelated note, new forms for Kheldians would be nice

@Redcap

I agree that the tech side needs more work if you want to see this. What we do see evidence of, like in SoA's and anyone who takes patron mace mastery, is that we can have multiple weapons on a character that are drawn.

If we can have the toggles change the attributes of the attacks, can these new attacks call up a different weapon?

Having the toggle activation 'put away' any weapons would clear the old one from your hand, and the 'draw animation' for each weapon would simply be the weapon coming forward from the forearm. Then under power customization you would pick your material like liquid metal, sand, fields, etc. All the powers would 'inheret' the power customization choice, but call up different weapons that appear to slide up forward and out of the metal goop or sand or whatever.

Okay here's how I see it working tech wise:

Each toggle swaps out the attacks to pre-determined powers, like the Hidden status does to Assassin's Strike, or Momentum to Titan Weapons (As already stated)

The toggle would add an extra physical effect/model, like Stone Armour, to the player character (The weapons) which is customisable in the Power Customisation screen. While a toggle is active, you gain the physical weapon model on your character (big enough to cover most costume pieces) and the attacks are simply the animations (Model movements) and effects (Noises, motion blur etc), NOT creating the weapon.

This would mean you would have the 'weapon' out at all times, so long as the toggle is active. Unfortunately no walking with a giant bad@#& mutated arm, but I think this would be the easiest route with existing tech.

As for a full body morph, they're different in a Dual Pistols vs Assault Rifle kinda way. I would only be happy with such a set (or epic AT?) should the morphs be fully customizable, piece by piece.

This is not what I expected when I saw the name, but I am in full support of this set.

I think that this is more likely to be an AT than a power set

I like it

This a power set I've wanted for a while, and sounds like a great compliment to the upcoming Bio Armor, but I imagine you need to simplify it quite a bit.

Rather than having different shapes/attacks based on the "Swap Ammo" type power, limit it to simple secondary effects, otherwise the animation work needed on an already art intensive set would render it unlikely to ever be possible.

-Dermal Denticles: Adds a Lethal DoT bleeding after effect to all attacks.
-Leech: -End debuff to enemies, chance for minor heal to self.
-Petrification: Adds a Disorient component to attacks.

Then you have the attacks form the various iconic shapes.
T1 and T2 attacks are standard "block" and "giant fist" shapes. Then you have the blade and claw shapes for AoE attacks, etc. Maybe have a ranged attack where you send a tendril through the ground and up at your target from beneath, etc.

Then with power customization you can select the texture/material to make the shape shifting mass look like rock/sand/lava (Sandman or Clayface), biological (like Prototype or Carnage), metal/chrome (T-1000 or Warblade) or even semi-transparent and color tintable energy constructs (like Bunker or a Green Lantern).


A set like this is quite do-able. Stone Fist from Stone Melee is proof of that. You just need to build on that.





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I think this could work if used like Warshade/Peacebringer shapeshifting.

Blade Form

Hammer Form

Claw Form

stuff like that