ClawsandEffect

It's not just the ranged attack aspect of it. Several melee sets have ranged attacks in them.

I think it has to do more with the fact that you're throwing the same object that is attached to your character.

They had to do Shield Charge the way they did because of animation and character model limitations. I can imagine it would be a nightmare to try and make an attack where you throw part of your character model, especially since that part is directly connected to your defense toggles.

Most people forget that they modified every animation in every powerset usable with shields to account for the shield's presence. It actually creates an entirely different combat stance. Energy Punch with a shield is NOT the same animation as Energy Punch without it. It is similar, but it brings up an entirely different file directory. It's the same reason using a heal, or a Fighting Pool power causes redraw. Because those powers are not part of that combat stance.

Throwing your shield would effectively cause you to bounce between two different combat stances within the same powerset, which I don't think they can do.

Honestly?

Mine wouldn't look that different. Maybe add a PvP 3% defense IO to get me back to softcap, and I'd look into a couple purples here and there to help with end recovery. I'd probably be able to take down a pylon (haven't done it yet, mostly due to bad luck and the RNG hating me, I know the character is capable of it though). AVs would be a little easier with the extra recovery. So far I've hit a wall with Siege and Nightstar (50% lethal resistance hurts a build with recharge as low as mine)

If I had unlimited influence I'd be more likely to spend it on characters that need purples (my regens for example) or other assorted sillyness. I'm pretty happy with my BS/DA overall.

Heh, I guess we DO think a lot alike when it comes to slotting powers......I never did get around to actually opening the build

Captain America rarely throws his shield. Usually only when he needs to drops someone NOW, and they are out of reach. He prefers to have his shield on him when people are shooting at him....because he isn't bulletproof.

He does hit people with it quite frequently though. I mean, it's attached to his arm, why not smack 'em with it?

You should be fine on Infinity. It's one of the top 5 servers population-wise.

What you're seeing is the result of the game being mostly instances rather than open zone hunting. There could be hundreds of people playing, but if they are all on mission maps you won't see them.

It's a bit of a shock to people coming over from open zone games. But look on the bright side: You won't have to compete with 30 other people to get the Rat Pelt you need to get out of the tutorial

Eh, it's all good.

Besides, it says something about how common this type of thread is that you didn't realize it was from 6 months ago.

Where did I EVER say "Blaster offense with Tanker defense"?

The only time I even mentioned that combination was when I was pointing out that that isn't what a tank-mage actually is.

I never mentioned any numbers on anything. I mentioned Fire Blast, but I said nothing about damage values. I mentioned Invulnerability, didn't say for what AT.

I was talking about the sets themselves, I never even brought up what modifier they would or wouldn't have.

Okay, say we give it defender damage numbers. Because everyone knows that defenders can't do damage. (We'll just ignore the ones that soloed GMs, they were clearly cheating because defenders can't do damage, right?)

And let's see....stalker numbers for defense, they're kinda squishy, right?

And here we'll just ignore the fact that stalker, scrapper, and brute defense base values are identical.

Seriously, go look, every single set that they all share has the exact same base values. Tanks get better numbers because it's their primary. I was actually assuming scrapper/stalker/brute numbers on the defenses, because they have it as a secondary, just like this mythical AT would. I can just HEAR the screaming if this AT was released with those sets having lower base values.

They can't lower resistance caps either, not if they want to keep it balanced. All but 3 ATs have the same resist cap: 75%. Only Tanks, Brutes, and Kheldians have higher caps (Tank/Brute = 90%, Kheld = 85%) If you drop it any further than 75% the tier 9s of resist sets become useless, since they wouldn't be doing much of anything at all. Imagine an Unstoppable that got you to the godly level of 65% S/L resistance, when you had 50% to begin with.

So how do you balance ranged AT damage sets with melee AT defense sets? The devs picked the absolute easiest way to balance it, by not allowing them to be combined.

There's another fact you're overlooking.

In CoH Beta you were allowed to take any power you wanted to, and everyone ended up making ranged/defense characters. So, they came up with the AT system to stop people from playing overpowered characters and nothing BUT overpowered characters. I wasn't there myself, but I did some reading up on it. Overpowered characters, and completely gimped characters on the other end of the spectrum, were the reason the AT system exists now.

Concept is all well and good, I'm all for a good concept.

The problem I have with it is the line I keep hearing: "But they do it in comic books, why can't I do it here?"

Because this isn't a comic book. Comic books don't need to be balanced. Video games do. Especially ones played by many people at once, because someone will find a way to game the system in their favor.

Jack Emmert, the guy who originally came up with the AT system, left several years ago.
He said a lot of things were never going to happen that we have since seen happen. But no ranged/defense AT, at least not like people keep asking for.

If he was the one preventing a ranged/defense AT from happening, the current devs have had over 3 years to change their stance on it, and they haven't, which leads me to believe that the current devs have their own reasons to not give it to us. What those reasons are, I can't say. I may or may not have hit on some of them, and I hardly expect them to tell me if I did.

So, you can keep asking for a ranged/defense AT all you want, and if you get it, everyone here has the right to say "I told you so".

I'm not going to hold my breath.

Quick question for you:

What is the tradeoff for the ridiculous survivability of Granite Armor?

I'll even answer that question, the tradeoff is your movement is extremely hindered and your powers recharge slower.

A character in Granite Armor who has ranged attacks is not losing much for that survivability. Who cares if you can't catch that guy if you can hit him from where you are standing? Congratulations, you just nullified the thing that Granite trades for it's almost overpowered survival ability.

My point here is that the defense sets being suggested are balanced for melee characters.

All the sets that include damage auras, damage boost auras, defense boost auras, regen boost auras, stun and fear auras are designed to spend most or all of their time in melee.

We can agree that an Invulnerability character of ANY AT has more survivability when surrounded by enemies, right? The same is true of Willpower and Dark Armor.

If those sets are at their best when there are a lot of targets in melee range.....why do you want to give them to an AT who would function best at range?

An Invuln character can hit the softcap fairly easily when surrounded by enemies, so it would be in your best interest to keep yourself surrounded as often as possible. If you're constantly surrounded by enemies.....why do you need ranged attacks again?

Sure, some of the sets would transition well, like SR and Regen. But those two would probably be overpowered if given to a ranged AT.

You can ALREADY softcap a blaster to ranged attacks....imagine that same ability paired with Regen. Not only do you get a better end recovery power than Stamina at level 4, you get 2 healing powers and an insane regen boost. You get mez protection to deal with the 1 or 2 mezzes that will get past your defense. You get the ability to be pretty much invincible for 15 seconds at a time. Tell me, how would a ranged character that has all that EVER be in any danger of dying at all? If you hoverblasted you would be nearly unkillable with 45% ranged defense. The only thing that would stand a chance of killing you would be something that could one shot you, or several things getting very lucky simultaneously.

And that's not even taking PvP into account. Regen is pretty much the scrapper and stalker secondary of choice in PvP, and that's on ATs with very little ranged ability. Imagine a Fire Blast/Regeneration character, best of both worlds, nearly unkillable with one of the most damaging ranged sets in the game. No, that wouldn't be broken at all.

Why do I bring up PvP? Because it's part of the game, like it or not. You can't look at an AT possibility without looking at the ENTIRE game. So far, everyone who has brought up the ranged/defense AT idea has completely ignored how overpowered something like this would be in PvP. I can guarantee the devs will NOT overlook it.

Has it occurred to anyone that VEATS are balanced precisely BECAUSE they are so limited?

In 6 years of the game's existence, the only ranged/defense AT in existence is extremely limited in both power choice and concept. In 6 years of a game who's developers have displayed more willingness to take their players suggestions than any other MMO, we have exactly ONE AT that can do what you're asking, and you don't have a whole lot of choice as to how you do it.

I can't help but think there's a valid reason for that. Tabula Rasa did pretty much everything the players asked them to do. Let's log on there and see how that worked out for them. Oh, wait......guess we can't do that, huh?

Just because YOU don't see a reason not to do something doesn't mean that reason does not exist. Especially if it's a reason not to do something you want done, of course you're going to be blind to that.

Well, on the .410/.45 thing. Neither of the two powers that would use a .410 are even utilizing the gas system that would be in place, they are both single shots. Possibly a manual feed rather than using the magazine.

And on the .45 side of it, I never said the .45 had to be a .45 ACP round. If you can design an assault rifle that will chamber both .410 and .45, then designing a new variety of .45 shell for it shouldn't be much of a stretch.

I was just saying that it is theoretically possible to create an assault rifle capable of firing both rounds. It will likely never actually exist, because there isn't really any reason to make one. There is precedent for guns that will fire both, but no assault rifle currently exists that I'm aware of.

Besides....it's not like improbable weaponry never shows up in video games or anything

My explanation as to why my assault rifle can fire standard bullets and shotgun shells is as follows: .45 caliber rounds and .410 shotgun shells are close enough to the same diameter that it is possible to chamber a gun to fire both (This is fact, there are guns that really exist chambered to fire both). And the size of the rounds most assault rifles fire isn't too far off a .410 shell, so I could see a clip made to fit either as well.

Burst: Short burst of .45 caliber rounds.
Slug: .410 shotgun slug
Buckshot: .410 buckshot
Sniper Rifle: Really well aimed single shot of .45 caliber.
Full Auto: Long burst of .45 caliber rounds

Grenades can be fired from an under-barrel mounted grenade launcher, and I suppose you could say the LRM is just a small rocket fired from the same mount. Beanbags can ALSO be fired from something like that. Explains Sleep Grenade as well.

The only things in the set the Military Assault Rifle model can't conceivably do in real life are Flamethrower and Ignite.

So....7 out of 9 powers explained in one gun model that actually exists in real life, and 2/3rds of Munitions Mastery (of the powers that use a gun)

Realism isn't that difficult with that set.

Well, in the case of Full Auto, think about it. It's the only one of the mini-nukes that is actually realistic in the way it works. Go out sometime with a fully automatic assault rifle and unload an entire clip....I bet you'll be standing in one spot for at least 5 seconds doing so.

Rain of Arrows? Not so much. I have yet to see an archer that can fire 80 arrows at once.

Hail of Bullets? Actually, I have to admit this one is kinda realistic too, especially with the reported accuracy problems. Spin around like a damn fool firing a couple pistols and see how accurate YOU are The defense makes sense too, if someone is doing that you're going to be more worried about getting the hell out of the way than you are about shooting back.

The point of an Assault Rifle in the real world isn't to hit a single target, that's what sniper rifles are for. An assault rifle is intended to send a whole lot of bullets in someone's general direction at once. Accuracy by volume as it were, you shoot enough bullets at something you're bound to hit it sooner or later.

Then I just won't use it. That simple.

Losing a 2 BILLION influence IO is not something I would be willing to risk in order to do this. Like I said, to someone who has 30 billion sitting in the market, losing that IO would be inconvenient. To me, and others like me, that IO is completely irreplaceable. You're making a suggestion in order to have it make an impact on farmers....and it really wouldn't, because they have the money already to just buy a new one of whatever they lost. Negligible impact on them, devastating impact on a casual player who isn't loaded.

What your suggestion DOES do is make it not worth the risk for people who can't afford to replace what they could potentially lose.

Basically, what you're saying is only the obscenely rich would have any use for it at all, because they are the only ones who can afford to lose ridiculously expensive IOs.

In essence, a way for farmers and marketeers to unslot their characters, and no one else.

THAT is why I'm against the risk of losing it, because it is not the same amount of risk for everyone.

Note the recommended secondary: Ninjitsu

Ninjitsu is a positional defense based set (like SR and Shield), that has a heal as part of the set (no need to take Aid Self).

If you get a Ninjitsu stalker to the softcap they can be just as hard to kill as an SR scrapper. They DO have lower HP, but there is an uninterruptible heal as part of the set, so if something smacks you, you can hit a heal before it gets lucky and smacks you again.

On top of that, Ninjitsu is a very loose build, 4 out of the 9 powers are skippable. Caltrops, Smoke Flash, Blinding Powder, and the Elude clone (I can never remember that power's name) can all be skipped without gimping the build.

Stalkers also have a better chance to land criticals than scrappers do, and get bonuses to that chance on teams. (I'm still kind of annoyed by that, but oh well) And, as you already know, they can force a critical by attacking while hidden.