Biospark

Hello Folks,

In the wake of Another Game like City of Heroes hitting the scene,
I began to think of how proliferation is moving CoH/CoV in the direction of more options
for power combinations and had an idea I thought I would share.
I apologize if this has already been presented by someone, and of course, I also
realize how large of an undertaking it would be for Coding (possibly).

Anyway, what if instead of proliferation, all powersets were opened up, but with
some built in rules. Each character would pick a primary and a secondary powerset,
just as we do now, but depending on what primary you choose, certain choices are
then removed from the list of secondaries. The strength of your powers would be
based on whether its a primary or a secondary set, and Inherents could be triggered
off the primary, but modified to be more generic.

For Example

Primary Choices (Hero-side) would be Self-Defense(Inv,Regen,SR etc...),
Blast Sets, Melee Sets, Control Sets, Team-Defense(Defender primaries).

These same choices would all be available as secondaries depending on what primary you chose.

Primary Choice ------> Available Secondary

Self-Defense ----> Melee Sets, Control, Ranged Sets
Melee Sets ------> Self-Defense, Control, Team Defense
Ranged Sets -----> Self-Defense, Control, Team-Defense
Control Sets ------> Team-Defense, Melee Sets, Ranged Sets
Team-Defense -----> Melee Sets, Control, Ranged Sets

You will notice that every primary choice is missing 1 combination.
This allows a pool of choices still for Epic powersets.
For example: Team-Defense for Self-Defense Primary (Tankers)
Melee for Ranged and vice versa, Self-Defense for Control and Team-Defenders.

Another thing that would happen with your primary choice would be an adjustment
to your hit points. This would mainly effect Tankers (Self_defense Primaries),
but each choice could get a small tweak for game balance.

Finally, the Inherents.

Self_defenders and Team Defenders would each get a seperate Inherent (Gauntlet and Vigilance)
but perhaps with some improvement over current implementation so that there is a solo benefit.

Melee, Ranged and Control primary would get Critical Hits (Chance for x2 Damage, not guaranteed for control primary)
Perhaps the Damage of control powers would need a tweak to bring them in line with
damage dealing powersets like melee or ranged

Primaries would operate at 100% effectiveness, Secondaries would be at 75% effectiveness AND damage.


I welcome any input, especially regarding the allowed combinations.
Also remember, I am thinking about how other games coming into the market will impact the popularity and
population of CoH/CoV.

Just a quick progress update for anyone that may be interested

Level 32, 9 Deaths, 60 Hours played (does not include time spent at Wentworths or The IO crafting table. Just active missions plus travel to and from contacts)

Deaths were surprisingly low after Tesla Cage, Hmmmm.....

Level 1-6 ----> No Deaths
Level 7-12 ----> 2 Deaths (Lost Rector, CoT Ruin Mage)
Level 13-18 ----> 1 Death (Vahzlok Abomination pack)

Level 19-24 ----> 4 Deaths (Tsoo Tag-team of Sorcerer+Ink man Mezzer, Elite Bosses (x2), Warrior (Hewer))

Level 25-30 ----> 2 Deaths (Warriors AGAIN! Dang they hit hard, stun, KB, Ouch!)
Level 31-32 ----> 0 Deaths


Additionally the last two deaths occured prior to level 27, so no deaths in the last 5 levels.

I set Biospark up with an initial allowance of 7million Inf, and he has not needed anything else.
Thru budgeting and selling, I have almost a dozen set bonuses already and have 20million in my pocket.
I know its not much, but considering his largest sales were in the 1-2million range, I feel pretty lucky.

Ok the first thing I would say is that there are some inaccuracies in your post.
I am sure it is an accident, but you mentioned that you played Fire/Dark Controll on the Villain side. Controllers are only Hero-side, and last I checked Dark Miasma has not been proliferated. If it ever does, I will be rolling an Illusion/Dark controller faster than you can say "Cheese"

As far as finding the right defender for you, I can offer you a couple things to think about.

Radiation, Dark, Empathy and Kinetics can all "self-heal"
Kinetics and Dark both require a "to-hit" check on a villain and Kinetics requires you to be pretty much in melee range to benefit from the heal personally.

So, from the stand point of solo-ability and healing, I would steer you towards Radiation to get an idea of what a Defender is all about.

On the blast side, its really a matter of personal choice. For me there are Blast sets I just "Love" because of the Graphics, like Energy and Electric and others that really bother me for some reason or another, like Sonic, Psychic and Radiation blast.
So, what I am trying to say is I cannot tell you which set will appeal to YOU, and all of them are serviceable with a Healing primary.

The best recommendation I can offer is try a few combinations, take your heal at level 1 and the required blast, then take the second blast at level 2, see what looks like fun and read up on the powers. Oh and read the guides here on the forums, they are very well written and can give you more insight to each combination.

P.S. If all that you are trying to do is to get from 1-50 as fast as possible, and are less interested in actually playing a particular AT, then I think a Scrapper would get you to 50 faster than a Defender. If your looking for the FoTM power-build, I am afraid that I cannot help you there either, since all my characters are hatched with concepts in mind and choose powersets that match the concept (as much as that is possible)

What you describe Ultimo is a good starting point for how a game would be built.
I bet Cryptic did almost exactly something like this when they started out, but diverged far more than that from the center.
As Rigel_Kent suggested, this has a benefit of creating more diverse characters and teams.

As far as "team-dependant", he never suggested that as a balance factor, It was just me extrapolating what would happen if they boosted our primary abilities significantly.
I would be afraid that any upward adjustment in buffs would come hand-in-hand with greater "team-dependance" (which I Definitely do not want), and, like you said, push Defenders even further away from "solo-parity" than they are now.

Yep, StratoNexus, I was not confused by your original post.

Perhaps Sorcerer thought you were detracting from the other thread you referenced.
Oh Well, the important thing is that he seems to agree with you.

Hello Inferno,

I am currently playing an Empathy Defender as well, and I noticed a couple of things about your proposed build.
Also, I have to ask if you are already down the road with this character and looking for a respec build, or are you just starting out?

Thunderstrike in your single target attacks is awesome, I love that set, but you should consider getting all 6 slots in them.
The 6th piece will give you more Ranged defense.
My Blaster (Energy/Dev) has this set in all three ST attacks and has 37.5% ranged defense (combined with other IOs and powers).

For Weave, I am a big fan of Red Fortune. Its cheap and gives you some nice bonuses, but once again I would go for all 6 pieces.

Being empathy and a defender, I think getting as much +recharge as possible will help you solo. It certainly will not hurt in teams either. So something to consider.
Sadly, the majority of +recharge bonuses are at the 5-piece set bonus, so this can limit how many you can socket.

Finally, I noticed you are planning on running CJ+Stealth+Tough+Weave+Maneuvers.
Perhaps you are not going to run them all at once, but if you did that would kill your endurance (when RA is down), so you may want to consider fewer toggles, or adding more Endurance reduction in them.

My Empathy/Elec Defender is level 31 at the moment and I run only CJ+Tough+Weave and will be adding only 1 more toggle (Epic Shield). This setup lets me run without RA in any mission without seriously draining my blue bar. Tough and Weave have only 1 End reducer in them.

Hehe, Maybe he didnt even read the whole post.

As far as Theme is concerned AR will be the most synergistic, and I would expect that alot of people will try that combination. One thing to think about though is this; fewer blasters stay with AR/Dev than other combinations (from my experience), so people trying AR with defender level dmg may be even quicker at dropping it.

I dont expect alot of people to stick with AR all the way to 50, so you should not discount it purely by how many start one.

Thanks Perwira,

I figured it was additive, but wouldnt that have been nice to have Blaster level base damage by adding +35% dmg through IOs.
As it is, the extra damage would still be good.

Expedient Reinforcement looks like an awesome set.
I had not looked at Pet IO sets, since I generally avoid pet-using characters, but it has def, regen, dmg and recharge.
These are all great bonuses for me.

Thanks Laughing Man

I appreciate the build advice.

Seems I am on the right track for IOs, cause every single set you named, I have looked at, and considered seriously. You are right about the recharge, I am expecting that I will be 70% global (at best) when I hit 50. The last 20% will be difficult AND expensive.

I am almost 28 right now, so will be picking up Tesla Cage (YaY!) and already have a random drop from Basilisk's gaze set to throw into it (triple, iirc).

Thanks Guys,

Great feedback.
I overlooked the DoT nature of Short Circuit/Ball Lightning in regards to Mass Hypnosis.
That means I will seriously have to consider Power or Electric mastery now.