I24: Switch Boxing or Kick with Tough

I like the idea mentioned earlier of adding synergy to tough/weave from taking boxing or kick. Another way that could work would be to have tough and weave buff the melee attacks. For example, you take boxing to start, then when you take tough it adds a buff to boxing that adds some s/l resist when the hit lands, and then when you take weave it also adds a melee def buff to boxing. I don't know about the numbers needed to make it useful but not OP, but it would be a good way to make boxing/kick into good powers to use even if they don't compare in damage to your primary/secondary attacks.

Fighting is supposed to make you better at fighting, right? So, what if Boxing and Kick also gave procs to all your (maybe only melee) attacks? Either a bit of extra smashing damage or a chance for stun/knockdown? So, if you weren't going to use the attacks directly, you still get better at fighting generally.

I'd still prefer granting Kick and Boxing from a single pick and putting a new power in slot 2. If we're going with the eggs metaphor, the add-on solution here seems like, "Well, we didn't actually manage to crack the egg (since Tough still requires a Boxing or Kick, which are still generally nonuseful to already-offensive characters), but as a consolation prize, here's extra eggs for everyone!"

Consolation prizes are for failure. That it happens to be a pretty good consolation prize still doesn't quell my aesthetic unrest.

But whatever the case, let's talk about Tempered Hot Mess for a bit, since something like it is the crux of either approach.

*puts on grumpy old-man face*

First version:

• Auto power : Fine. I don't like it but the other options (Combat Jumping 2, Practiced Brawler 0.5) are worse.
• Mez resistance : 50% across the board seems high. Or more specifically, out of line with other pool powers. It's not that it's going to trivialize Ghost Widow fights or anything, but existing pool powers mostly grant between 40-60% to one or two types of mez. Also, we're getting quite a bit more fullspectrum mez resist with the IO change, so actually, it might kind of start trivializing the Ghost Widow fight.
  
  Imma say 20%. I like 20%. It's a pleasing fraction. 18.66% is also on the table. The first person to say that you can get 20% with an Enhancement, trivializing this power, gets slapped with a Steadfast Protection right across the Combat Jumping.
• DDR. I don't have a problem with 15% so much but I do have a suggestion. Why not make this power Defense slottable, and do 10% base DDR, half unenhanceable? People love LotG mules. Or Karma mules. Or Kismet. Or Shield Wall.
  
  Man, Defense sets sure do crossbreed donkeys and horses.
• Click-to-break. Meh. SR's already getting mez resistance out of this. Neat but unnecessary. Edit : Also, it would kind of full-Xzibit the set. "Hey guys, we heard you liked powers, so we put powers in your powers..."
• Enhanceable run speed. Not needed now, it takes Def. Good try on the Blessing of the Zephyr mule, though. Still like the idea. I'll suggest instead kicking 20% runspeed resistance into the general mez protection. There aren't enough of those.

The pool is called Fighting not Defending. Having the ability to avoid taking Boxing and Kick would be dumb simply to satisfy a min/maxer desire to make it easier to construct a godlike character.

As I noted on another thread, I'd like to see gating almost entirely removed from pool sets.

One power in each set can be selected as the "top" power, and the prerequisite would be that you must take at least one other power in the set in order to obtain this top power.

With new pools coming out, and being restricted to having only so many powers, and only so many pools open, I'd like to have more opportunity to pick one power from here and one from there.

For instance, I'd like to be able to get Whirlwind without first being forced to take Superspeed. If I want the AoE fear power from Presence pool, I'd like to not be forced into taking a taunt, but be able to take the single target fear instead. With the Teleport pool, I'd like the freedom to take Group TP from the start, or to take, say, Recall and the Zone TP, and then maybe take Flight as my travel power.

With so many temp powers and incarnate powers and so on in the game, and IO set bonuses providing def and now res, why not just drop the restrictions a bit, and only protect the top power for each pool?

As far as the Fighting pool goes, I'd be inclined to make Weave the top power, and I'd make the rest open to select without prerequisite.

That way, if you want actual fighting from the pool, you'd probably start with Cross Cut. And if you were looking to pad your defenses, you'd take Tough, then Weave.

Some people would actually take just the Fighting powers, though I imagine it would be few. But at least if it was in your concept to do this, you wouldn't have to raid other pools to pick up better fighting powers (like Air Sup, Jump Kick, and Flurry). You could stick with just the Fighting pool and pick up 3 presumably synergized melee attacks.

I have a sonic def that I always envisioned as being trained as an agent in basic combat in addition to having scientific sonic augmentation. If the melee powers from Fighting are going to be strenthened, then would like to take them, without taking Tough, and I might even leave Weave on the table.

Heck, if they relaxed the restrictions like that, I might even take Phase Shift on a toon for the first time, and try to see if it has any usefulness at all.

I do have one or two ghostly toons where it would make thematic sense if it was more easily obtained.

The pools were meant to supplement and never be better than any primary or secondary powers.

[rant]

My problem is rearranging the set just so min/maxers can get a defense slot mule for another luck of the gambler set with no prereqs.

These are the same folk who successfully beat the devs about the head and shoulders until they gave everyone the Fitness pool because it wasn't fair that they had to make tough choices when choosing their powers while leveling up. The same group that's still whining about making Hasten an intrinsic now that they got the devs to cave on Stamina.

Not every AT gets defense, actually most don't, live with it. Those ATs are trading defense for offense. You shouldn't get both because that makes the game too damn easy. It's not suppose to be easy. Want easy, go install DOOM II and play in god mode. Go to a Field Analyst and turn down the difficulty so your character feels more awesome in battles.

Bumrushing every mob is the equivilent to random button mashing in a console fighting game. You aren't suppose to beat the game that way.

If you don't want to think while playing, go throw birds at pigs, that's a pretty mindless timekiller.
[/rant]