I24: Switch Boxing or Kick with Tough

Its MajorDecoy's fault. See this is what happens when you do not have a way to break Confuse.

Its intended to unlock at the same time as Boxing and Kick, whenever that happens.

Good idea. Although duration resistances are not as problematic when it comes to stacking either way. 90% resistance to sleep just cuts the duration about in half, its not like 90% damage resistance.


At the moment, Weave and Cross Punch both seem to require two Fighting picks to unlock. Just test it by going through the motions of a /respec and I did pick a bunch of powers to make sure I was well past level 20 during the respec process before taking any Fighting Pool powers to avoid level unlocking.

As someone who uses weapon sets a lot, I know. For me on most of my weapon set characters it would still be a waste of a power pick.

On some of the new power sets, like StJ, a waste.

But EM, SS, ELM, MA, DM...ect...ect These could be made into a not wasteful power.

I think some Doms could likely get use out of them as well.

Blasters, Corrs, Defenders I'm not sure about, I wouldnt think so on the Blasters, but I do think there's some MM's and Trollers who would find these powers worth using if they did good damage.

My MM didnt always stay at range (admittedly I was Dark Miasma).

Really, there is a good chance most would still skip using these abilities if they were put up to par of other melee attacks, but the option at least would be there to go "Hmmm...this is a really decent attack...and I could use it in place of X..." and then to help the devs with this "...and then fit in that power from the Sorcery Pool I was thinking of purchasing but didnt have room for all the powers..."

It stays an unslottable power for some, but a worthwhile pick for others. On my Blasters (which admittedly I don't play often), I might just make it a staple melee attack, and on my controllers it would allow for some concept options.

I love your concept arcanaville... I'd love it even more if kick went away and was replaced with your suggested power since I don't expect the devs to make the fighting pool the only one with 6 powers nor do I expect them to add a 6th to all the other pools. It took how long for them just to make a 5th?

I think this would just become the standard pick.

But it does make me think...

Boxing, Kick, and Cross Punch could all offer small passive bonuses when the power is selected.

Boxing: +Slow Resist
Kick: +DDR
Cross Punch: +50% Mez Resistance (to stack nicely with all those Mez Resist bonuses IO sets will be giving...this gives it a big jump).

The last may need to be moved up or down, no idea, but I'm thinking something really worth while here.

Synapse said the same thing: a sixth power would be problematic. On the other hand, I don't want to take either Boxing or Kick away from players who want those powers.

So I suggested he just make Tempered Focus automatically unlock for anyone who took Boxing *or* Kick.


There are no obstacles, only opportunities.

This just feels like trying to crack an egg with a time machine. It's a very cool idea,just seems like the primary "issue" here of people needing to take the offensive powers to take a defensive power would be best served by simply putting Tough as a tier one power. It(Tempered Readiness) could be worked in as an "alternate" fighting synch for the defensive powers(possibly adding something to rest and sprint much the same way Boxing,Kick,and Crosscut buff Brawl)I definitely agree that boxing and kick can't go,though.
I have so much to say in response to this but I need to wait a few hours

Now this is just straight out false.
And? One punch does not a fighter make. Brawl isn't really a "Fighting" power so much as a "This character has hands/a foot/the butt of their weapon" power. Further, Having Boxing+Brawl in and of itself means your character is capable of a one-two punch combo now. Instead of slapping up agaisnt an enemy with whatever limb is available, they are now... well... boxing. Boxing Poorly, most assuredly, but boxing nonetheless


They allow you to help others by delivering mostly invisible buffs that can be interpreted any sort of way. An ability a character may or may not have had before.

Fighting allows a character to engage in melee combat where they might not have before.

More accurately, they enable the concept of "having attacks and/or defenses that aren't your primary"
Again, Brawl is the "has hands" power not the "Is a skilled melee combatant" power you seem to think it is. Being able(if you so choose) to string together a melee attack chain elevates a character from "has hands" to "Is good at melee combat(to whatever degree)" because it then allows a character to engage in melee combat in a fashion similar to an actual melee focused character. Whether the numbers are, will be, or should be the same is irrelevant. The point is I can go into melee range and function versus going into melee range doing nothing, and then dying.

If a character is said to be skilled in melee combat, they should be able to engage in melee combat.If a character is said to be skilled at ranged combat, they should be able to engage in ranged combat. If they are said to have a bit of both, they should be able to do both equally and if they are said to do one okay and another one amazingly good, they should do one just okay and another amazingly good.

The same is true of all types of powers. Having one trick in something isn't "being good at the thing that trick represents" it's having one trick. Let's say we have a power that gives two ranged blast powers and some other tricks. Taking one of those range blast powers doesn't really make you "proficient" or even "kinda good" with, say, a shuriken. One power isn't skilled, two is closer, four is decent, and nine is expertise.

Fighting has two(soon to be three) distinct melee attack powers, not a full chain, but close enough that brawl or a travel-power attack can form a full chain and thus allow a character who lacks melee attacks to explore the "is capable in melee combat" concept.

This sort of thing isn't like saying your ice controller can create an ice swan. It's a thing that can be put to the test in-game. If you character concept dictates that they know karate, Shoot trick arrows, and use two pistols expertly, those are all things that your character should be able to display in some fashion.(So long as there are no balance issues)

This doesn't really negate having a more broadly applicable representation of the idea. What you're saying is "if you want to punch, just roll a scrapper/brute/tanker/stalker!"

But I don't think this mindset is conducive to creative freedom. By this logic, Ancillaries are inherently pointless.

"If you want an armor power, roll a melee class, if you want a blast power, roll a ranged character."
"and if I want to punch and kick on a ranged character?"
"tough luck"

The fact that the powers do not serve your needs specifically are not an inherent flaw in the powers themselves.

Ehhh, not really? There are quite a few weapons-based disciplines that start with and only teach the use of the weapon, I.E. They focus on fighting with the weapon and don't teach much about grappling or unarmed striking.You can have an expert swordsman who isn't all that great at hand-to-hand.

I don't think I've explored shield defense enough to really comment here but the same logic applies re: other ATs and character concepts using the powers to explore the concept

I swear to god I have such a headache right now.
Even if I give the idea that every single hero already has personal defenses and melee attacks any weight, the "slightly bigger" aspect would still be the most important thing here.

If you want to add the idea that your character either by choice or by chance, is above the standard in this area, taking away Fighting's ability to actually fight would eliminate this function
By you. A Controller without the fighting pool cannot accomplish even a smidgen of what a Martial arts or Street Justice character can. Do they need to be direct equals? Of course not, but if we're going to claim that all characters are inherently melee combatants, they should have the potential to engage in actual melee combat. Brawl, to me isn't "good at brawling" it's"can't do anything else, might as well flail wildly" it's even described as a last-ditch effort.
Not everyone is trying to be Goku. I very specifically want to be "moderately good" at a thing my archetype isn't supposed to do anyway while being amazing at something else. If I wanted to do the stupid "Kung-fu makes you a god" thing, I'd roll a Scrapper. If I want to be an Amazing archer who also isn't a glass-jawed limp-wristed pansy I'll put some punches, kicks, and defenses into his repertoire. It makes my character more versatile and powerful, conceptually, since now he is both amazingly talented with his bow and also not a guaranteed goner when you snap it in half and throw it in the lake.
I don't think they are more, anything, just different.

Okay let's explore the idea that "Punching and Kicking are basic attacks" nothing wrong with that. Except It's very likely that your character doesn't have these basic attacks. Ignoring Martial Arts and Street Justice for a second, An energy melee or dark melee character has no real means of regularly engaging in basic combat.

They can only string together super-powered attacks. Ranged Characters can't use "basic attacks" at all(barring the new Martial Combat and that doesn't help characters who still need a secondary that isn't MC for their concept)
I'll use my main.
Meet Volt Tiger:

He is a Magic Origin, Sonic Attack/Electric Manipulation Blaster.

He is a Tokusatsu (Mostly Kamen Rider but I took bits from lots of others)Inspired Blapper. Now, when I say "blapper" I'm sure you assume I use Boxing and Kick in his normal attack chain, and that is my point, but I don't, and it's not.

There's a whole "Pseudo Heisei"/Super-1 Thing going on between his Primary and Secondary.

His Story is Thus:
Tyson Law is a man with an angry spirit. For whatever reason he has always had a violent streak. A healthy upbringing and a good heart have guided him towards a heroic lifestyle, but He has a constant fear of what he could become. His brother's cool head,and his Heroic nature kept him in line and gave him hope.

Before, during, and after the Rikti war he operated as a street level urban vigilante in the mold of Casey Jones. Wearing a simple mask and calling himself Steel Tyger, he beat petty thugs senseless every day. Even after his brother's death at the hands of a mysterious plot-device illness, he carried on as a unsung hero of Galaxy City.........

During the Shivan Invasion, Tyson encountered an old man. While fighting together he revealed himself as the legendary hero Volt Tiger, and passed on his mystical Raiju Talisman before being destroyed in a final strike against the Shivans.

Now gifted with the ability to transform into the Volt Tiger and use the Thunderous Roar of a mighty and feral god-like beast, he grapples daily with both his own violent nature and the constant influence of the Raiju itself. In order to hold the beast at bay, lest it take control of him, or worse, escape into our world, he uses his power sparingly, not unleashing a thunderstorm on a simple bank robber. By continuing to go out as Steel Tyger when necessary, and fight as his normal self, he keeps his brother's memory alive and retains his focus.

And now for his concept and How his power relate:

As I said, Volt tiger is a Henshin Hero. Common aspects of these types of characters are that they are, if not completely powerless when untransformed, significantly weaker. The other is that they will often fight lower level minion type enemies untransformed until it is necessary to change to take on an escalated threat.

Tyson Law is a veteran hero and has melee combat capabilities, but he was never at the "Super Kung Fu" level of, say a Martial Arts Scrapper, it's why he was basically an unknown un-registered crazy person for so long.

By comparison, Volt Tiger has the destructive power of a Thunder Storm at his finger tips. He is a human explosion(or maybe a Kalishsplosion)

I can't really play this character with his Primary and Secondary while in his human form, otherwise what's the point of all the posing and catchphrases and random color-coded explosions and costumes and stock footage if he's exactly the same in both forms? It goes against his very concept. I could just not play the game and pretend he's busting purse snatchers while I'm logged out, I suppose. But pretending to pretend to be a superhero sounds slightly more ridiculous and sad than everything I've typed thus far.

Crafting within his overall build a "Sub build" made up of fighting pool powers allows me to operate in his "normal" form up until I see a boss or some such at which point he can transform and begin to fight in earnest.
Being able to fight "unpowered" with attacks that aren't his "super powers" communicates the "veteran street brawling vigilante" aspect of his background. This is even more true if I take care to direct him towards the sort of content that fits him in this state, crime.

It also plays on the "eternally tempted to destroy" thing. Both in the character's ear and in my own mind is the constant reminder, whenever the Kick, Boxing,Cross Punch,and Brawl+a few temp powers combo seems unfit to a task "Just click that macro and we can just blast our way through this" pops up. The experience brings me into the nature of the character in a way few things have. It's why he has become my main as of late.

1: That's your concept, not everyone else's
2: fighting and fitness is kind of a multifaceted thing, For example. Being able to run fast doesn't mean you can punch fast. And this is just within the realm of reality. This doesn't involve the specifics of someone's magic rocks or special super sci-fi weapons or what have you, which may be doing all the "heavy lifting" in certain areas whilst the character performs other things to compensate or perform.

The fact that the attack is underpowered isn't really a negative to it being an attack so much as it is a reason to buff it.

I think it needs to be tough or weave(considering a "Sixth power" is off the table) because otherwise we're eliminating a power that serves an important function for quite a few concepts to better serve the desires of other concepts when simply switching things around a bit balances things out between the "I only want the defenses" crowd, the "I want the melee attacks" crowd and the "I'm good with the set as a whole" crowd.
These are only "common" for a given interpretation of the idea, namely that every single character in the game is at the same peak of physical fitness, mental state, and skill level. Some people put certain weakness into their character concept. In fact the archetypes and power mechanics pretty much codify that, a Claws/Super reflexes Scrapper hits hard(scrapper damage), and is nimble(Defense) but can't take a hit well(the times Defense fails)
Before you start about base run speed being equal and whatnot, I can easily work a concept wherein a character is "cheating" to keep up but inherently is not as fast as others of the same archetype and powerset.

I think Super Speed and Teleportation can be made into a full melee combat set fairly easily, Super Leaping and Flight maybe not so much, unless we start interpreting things very loosely, I.e. Flight being part of a general "Wire-fu" set that includes gliding and such.

Physical Fitness
Kicking(and also punching!)
"Sorcery" as a concept could have easily have been pretty much any kind of set.
Anything can be made into a full set by the proper minds.

I don't mean to be an ***, but what you're asking for isn't really possible in this game even as you've described it, not unless you level-lock the character to 20, at most. Because once you reach level 50, there are no "street level thugs" any more. You're already fighting aliens with energy weapons, you're already surviving rockets to the face, you're already fighting psychics and monsters and giant robots, and that's the mere MINIONS. Any one of the Praetorian War Works, even the BCU minion, is around 10-foot-tall and armed with an energy cannon, a personal shield, a flamethrower and energy gauntlets. Every IDF soldier is clad in full body plate armour, every Seer wields intense psychic energy.

Super Sentai series rely on having basic goons for the unpowered heroes to fight, but City of Heroes doesn't have that towards the end game. I should have known right from the start that you were trying to go for the "unpowered pure natural human" concept right from the start, I just didn't expect you'd want it half-and-half. Yes, you can fake it, but even then you're having to overlook A LOT what the game throws at you. Take on a basic Malta mission with your unpowered character, for instance - take a single shot in the chest and you die. You don't need a boss for this - every errant minion is armed with an assault rifle, and they tend to come in whole squads at once.

What you're arguing here isn't the Fighting pool, it's the place of non-super heroes in the game, and that boat simply sailed a long, long time ago. These days if you want a Casey Jones level hero, you really can't go much father than 15 or 20 at most. That's when you're fighting goons mostly armed with clubs and hatches and occasionally a pistol, with actual super powers being restricted to just the bosses. But even past level 10, you start fighting Outcasts with a full range of elemental attacks, Column and Council soldiers with automatic weapons and explosives and super-strong invulnerable trolls. Casey Jones was awesome, I don't deny it. But he also always trailed the pack, with the actual super-powered martial arts turtles leading the way.

I get what you're trying to do, honestly. Even if I think you're having to bend a LOT of rules and pretend a LOT of things aren't what they are... Why are both Kick and Boxing so crucial to this? They're hardly the only pool powers that look like basic attacks. Air Superiority works just as well, Jump Kick isn't super and even Flurry can pass for just fast punching. If you REALLY want a "sup-build" made of non-super attacks, you have more than just those two.

And again - you're playing a "blapper," which doesn't make me assume you're using pool attacks so much as it makes me assume you're ignoring your primary. If you want both melee attacks AND electric powers, I'd suggest going for Electric Blast/Martial Combat when that comes out and picking Force Mastery for the Temp Invulnerability shield for which I believe you can turn off the graphics. But that would imply having to use your Electrical Blast powers to depict electricity and your Martial Combat attacks to depict your melee.

I can see what the system does for you, but you're really stretching it here. This strikes me as people making "petless" Thugs Masterminds back in the day because they couldn't have Dual Pistols otherwise, or people taking Dual Pistols Blasters and building them like Scrappers with set bonuses. IF you can bend the system and manage it, more power to you, but you're playing a severely unsupported character and you can't really use that to insist that the system should support this. And I mean that - you're trying to play two distinct characters within the same build, and the game was simply never designed to do this.

In fact, what you're trying to achieve is a variant of the "secret identity" system people have been suggesting on-and-off, topped with characters played against their AT and the "pure natural human" character that still exists in the high-level game. That's a lot of deviation to insist that it be accounted for, especially when you have better ways to depict them and when what you're asking for is probably another AT entirely from what you're actually using. Why does this even need to be a Blaster to begin with? For the "roar" being a sonic attack? There are so many other powers you can depict this with, not least of which being Lightning Rod. Hell, it was even suggested to me to use a Void Judgement recoloured to approximate a battle cry back in the day.

But at the end of the day, you're asking for the Bruce Banner/Incredible Hulk duality, which City of Heroes has simply never supported.

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.

The pool is called "speed." You make of it what you wish, that's why it has choices. Your first choice allows you to either attack faster, act faster or move faster. You're not locked into any of these. Same with leaping - you can either use leaping to attack, or you can use leaping to move. Not so with Fighting - your only option is to attack if you want to get into the pool, which isn't true for any other pool.

Yes, but having two nearly identical unpowered attacks IS reason enough to compress them into a better one and give a meaningful choice, instead.

You can say the same thing about any doubled-up attack. Allow people to take Air Superiority twice and you can make the same argument. Part of game design involves giving actual meaningful choices, and there is, as of right now, no real choice between Kick and Boxing. The minor secondary effect isn't enough.

But again, what I'm saying is it's not specifically Tough or Weave that makes me not like having to pick between Kick and Boxing, and I'd be happy with ANYTHING that's not an attack as an alternate choice. If it's Tough or Weave, that's just fine, too.

Which isn't actually what I'm saying. They are "common" because most anything we do in this game requires some degree of physical fitness (running for miles on end at the speed of an Olympic sprinter), physical toughness (taking hundreds of bullets in the span of a normal mission with no ill effect) and so on. Perhaps "common" isn't a very accurate term, but these are "mundane" and thus have no place in a game about superpowered beings.

To me, "Fitness" as a paid choice is no different from having to pick proficiency in the ability to tie your own shoes before you can use combat boots with shoelaces, or the ability to operate doors before you can open in-mission doors. Or putting points in the ability to walk upright without toppling over or tripping on your own feet. These are common, mundane character traits that don't contribute to the super hero game and shouldn't even come up, much less be build choices.

Simply put, "fitness" is irrelevant when you're a ghost, just to pull a random example out of a hat. Yes, you can go out of your way to fabricate an explanation how some ghosts that do ghostly things more often have higher levels of spectral energy, but you're essentially faking a solution to a problem that's fake to begin with. It's the same reason we don't have traditional gear - because not that many heroes use a +1 Sword of Slaying or a +10 Flack Jacket of Flackness. We shouldn't be applying basic human physiology to characters whose species is undefined by creation.

You can make powersets that have inherent speed and teleportation abilities, but unless you have a rough draft of nine powers, I can't really see making a full powerset that's JUST about Super Speed or Teleportation and not basically fighting while using these abilities. There's a reason "teleport punch" doesn't exist - because that's up to the player to decide what to attack with while teleporting, as based on his attack set.

This is not too dissimilar from "clones of myself" as a Mastermind Primary. Yes, the clones can be dopelgangers... But what powers would they use? Just sheer numbers and brawling? Weapons? Energy? Certain concepts imply a type of utility, but not much else, which is why it's best to keep the alone in their pools and let players combine them with existing powersets at their discression. To be honest, even the basic pool attacks kind of irk me, since if I have a sword AND the ability to attack really fast, I wouldn't punch. I'd slash really really fast because that has to be more damaging, right?

I guess I have a beef with pool attacks in general and their not meshing with set attacks, but at least most pools have the decency of allowing me to NOT take the attack if I don't want it. I've had pool attacks on a couple of characters - Zik had Air Superiority because with Stone Armour on, it still looked like he was using a version of Stone Fists or Seismic Smash with it. Xandra had Kick, just because Energy Melee involves only the hands and the pom-poms' "draw" is instant. But beyond that, pool attacks really never worked for me unless I had a "physical" attack set.

Epic attacks are significantly different, however, because they come in a wide variety of themes. You have energy attacks, elemental attacks, weapon attacks sometimes. It's much easier to pick an Epic with a theme that matches your attacks and use that, and again - you're not FORCED to have one.

It could have. It seems like their aim moving forward is to get away from basic concepts and include a series of more esoteric ideas pulled together by an unusual theme. I'm not a big fan of it, but at least that's not mundane.

Yes, but that set doesn't always make sense. Again, you can make a "Flash" set of really fast punches and kicks, but all you're doing is making fast brawling and missing the point of having super speed. You're also missing the opportunity to have really fast sword-swinging or really fast pistol-aiming.

Certain types of sets - say melee - are defined by power type, and neither speed nor teleportation are a power type. They're a delivery type, and you can use that delivery type to deliver a whole range of powers. IF Super Speed melee ever came to exist, I sincerely hope it weren't restricted to just punching and kicking very quickly.

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.

Doesn't that still make it a sixth power? Or is it OK because that's how Sorcery does it?

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.

Slightly unrelated, but I do like the idea of proliferation "passive" powers obtained from taking a given pool power, to all of the existing power pools. Sorcery works a bit like this with the flight/teleport combination. Supposedly it's also a paid set, so it might be a good idea to round out the existing sets with some additional mild utility, lest the whining encroaches.

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.

Alternatively what about expanding the synergy bonuses and giving Tough and Weave bonuses for each Fighting Attack that you have?

Since you're locked into getting either Boxing or Kick, I'd have to say the bonuses would have to be something relatively minor. Something small enough as to not be overpowered, but enough that you'd notice a difference (like the damage bonus to Sniper Rifle in Targeting Drone)

Its still only five actual power choices.

Right, I was thinking something similar to what Arcana was proposing. So maybe Tough gives a 30% mez resistance for each attack you have while Weave gives 10% DDR. Slightly weaker than the Arcana's proposal for people who just want tough and weave but with the option to stack it three times for people who want to use the attacks.

And the issue of players not wanting their characters to die is best served by making them immortal.

However, that's not the issue here. The issue here is:

1. Some people like and want to take Boxing
2. Some people like and want to take Kick
3. Some people do not need Boxing or Kick, but do want Tough and Weave
4. The people who do not need boxing or kick and take it as a prerequisite are often taking a power that offers no actual benefit or additional capability to the build, even if its a lesser capability.
5. The devs are unlikely to remove the prerequisite requirement for Tough and Weave

So I perceive two solutions that actually resolve all of those problems simultaneously and within the constraints of what the devs are likely to do:

1. Offer an alternate prerequisite that's more useful
2. Make Boxing and Kick more useful to people who do not need more melee attacks

The problem with option 1 is what I specified earlier: you have to be very careful to make an option that is attractive without making it so attractive you compel people to take the fighting pool. But it has to be attractive enough to not be a waste of the power slot. An additional problem is the devs don't want to set the precedent of making a power pool with six power choices, which then would compel them eventually to normalize all the others with six - just like adding a fifth to the travel pools compelled them to add a fifth to the others even though the fifth power in the travel pools was obviously done for reasons totally inapplicable to the other pools.

The problem with option 2 is you can't make a melee attack more attractive to people who don't need melee attacks unless you make them so good of a melee attack they start directly overshadowing primary and secondary attacks which is also something the devs do not want to do. The way to side-step that problem is to give the melee attacks benefits other than melee offense. And my option 1 solution becomes an option 2 solution by making the alternate prerequisite power something unlocked by the melee attacks.


If you have a less complex suggestion that satisfies these requirements:

1. Doesn't take Kick away from players
2. Doesn't take Boxing away from players
3. Maintains the prerequisite requirements for Tough and Weave (and Cross)
4. Doesn't make the Fighting pool overly compelling to players that were not already attracted to the pool
5. Provides a benefit generally attractive to a wide range of archetypes and powerset combinations

I would be happy to hear it. But "just let people take whatever they want and skip boxing and kick" doesn't.

My concern here is that we'd be taking bonuses intended to make boxing and kick less of an opportunity cost for people who don't need boxing and kick, and spreading them out between boxing and kick. That seems problematic to me because with just normal stacking it would be difficult to simultaneously make full triple stacking reasonable without making single stacking too weak (which is why I suggested unlocking the maximum benefit with either attack rather than splitting it up between the two).

And it would need something for SR that cannot benefit much from mez resistance (even against the couple it lacks protection to) and cannot make use of DDR buffs at all.

I didn't say that. I said if the pre req order was shifted only slightly, people who wanted tough would be able to take tough first, and people who wanted boxing could take it first. Kick would take Tough's previous spot, and Tough would take kick's current spot. If either party wanted to go further into the set, they'd have to take further powers.

1: I see this as a flaw in the game design, and newer content allows me to do it further, which is a very good thing
2: Ouroboros is a thing.
Yesss you should have known I was one of those EEEVIL people who wants somethign you don't want.

he's a blaster, this is already kind of true.

I'll be sure to tell most Golden Age heroes, Batman, Moon Knight and others that they don't belong in a super-hero game. Being a super hero isn't just about a childish power fantasy.
Edi: no, What I'm arguing for is conceptual flexibiity and the ability to add melee capabilities into a character who might not have them. please read the rest of my post before being.. well. Sam.
Because Fighting is one pool while you just told me to take three? doing this does not in any way horribly affect my build or effectiveness.

Actually the concept is "Thunder" which in the interest of being unique I've applied as both the Loud booming sound of Thunder(and the roaring of the beast mixed in) and the actual lightning. He's, mostly a blapper but I don't completely ignore the sonic attacks either. So unless they create a sonic blast Pool power, I'm out of luck.

Really I'm trying to play a mostly Melee Focused blaster with some extra attacks.

I'm not asking for anything, I've made it, it works, there's no real problem. Except your attitude.
Further, if they created a "Transforming" AT I probably wouldn't use it simply because I've never been Unsatisfied with my character' capabilities. What I have right now works just fine ofr my needs and what I'll have when i24 drops will be even better.

This goes back to my "one trick" argument. Having one sonic attack doesn't cover the idea. It might as well be a craftable temp power. Having my Current repertoire of Howl, Shockwave, Scream,Screech, Dreadful Wail, and Shout means my character doesn't have "That one Roar" but has "Thunder Roaring powers"

I like how I have to do all this pretending that ice is fire and what not but you can't pretend that my "natural" character can't fight Malta or similar characters. And that somehow this i a problem with me
Thank you for telling me what I want feel free to also tell me what I think.

Wouldn't making new ATs not be "breaking AT constraints" at all? Just adding new limitations. Any combination of primary and Secondary they can create would have it's own limitations and pools are a great way to supplement that.