Is the idea of Blast/Armour ATs and the like silly?

Mostly mulled over while looking at GR and thinking about how well Dual Pistols would tie in with Super Reflexes.

I've always wondered wether a Blast/Armour AT would actually be Over-Powered or not, or any AT that doesnt have armours at present getting them.
I guess the case in point I looked at the most would be the VEATs and, sort of, HEATs.

Now yes they are 'Epic' archtypes. But they are also pretty much show examples of blasts/armour and control/armour, in the form of SoAs and Fortunata's.
Soldiers and Crab Spiders are effectively ranged attacks coupled with shields, mez protection and all. Banes are more similar to scrappers and stalkers, so I'll let them be for now, same as Widows. Fortunata's on the other hand add in a lot of mez attacks, coupled with the defences of a widow, again mez and all. Partly these both have team buffs as well, but even so, they are balanced.

The same goes for HEATs, perhaps even more so, as their shields are all internally focussed. The HEATs are also balanced more around their team based self-buff inherent and their shapeshifting. But there are also builds that rely solely on the Human forms.

So, obviously the numbers would need to be toned down for any potential blast/armour armour sets. After all, while a Crab Spider with the right slotting and a Dwarf form kheld can tank fairly well (Solo, mind.) they are still no comparison to melee armour sets, and pretty much rightly so.
Bearing all that in mind, would a Blast/Armour AT, or anything slightly 'out of the ordinary' be just a pipe dream or daft idea? Or might it be a possibility?

(Note no anticipation of it happening anytime soon, just thoughts and speculation.)

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

my gut reaction is pipe dream

One of ...things... I worry about is class separation, which is going to be a big deal in Going Rogue. One of the design points of CoH is that no class should play like any other class. If you play a Fire Aura Brute you should have a different play experience than a Fire Aura Scrapper, or a Fire Aura Tank. If you play a Dark Miasma Mastermind, your play experience should be different from that of a Corruptor or a Defender.

Since Going Rogue will allow players of the base Hero and Villain archtypes to start in Praetoria, then choose a side, I think it will be very important that players have different experiences for each archtype. Otherwise there will be a flood of players that choose one particular power-set combination, because it's clearly better than a similar combo on a different archtype. Why play an Elec Armor Brute when an Elec Armor tank or Scrapper has better survivability? With Going Rogue, just role a tank or scrapper in Praetoria, and choose villain side, and presto, you've got something that fills the aggro control or damage jobs of an Elec Armor brute, and you'll live longer in a fight.

IO's blur the line even more right now. Some of the common forum threads now concern softcapping various archtypes against positional defenses. There already are defenders, blasters, and corruptors achieving soft-capped positional ranged... so they can fire from ranged, and generally live from range with no real risk to themselves.

In that aspect, I think it's pretty fair to say that a Ranged attack Archtype with Scrapper / Brute / Tank level shields is going to be a tad bit... broken.

I rather suspect that future Archtypes won't be so much about blurring the lines of Archtypes that already exist by just combining two separate and distinct sets. I suspect that future development will be more about making sure each Archtype in the game now presents a different play experience, and that future Archtypes will follow the current Epic Archtype design of multiple sets with trade-offs in each set.

I'm not seeing how the EATs don't fit this description already. My SoA uses a hunstman build without any melee attacks. By the time she's done, she'll be 100% offensively ranged and sitting at the softcap to at least ranged with mez protection.

How is that not a blast/mitigation AT?

I think a blast primary (or assault, like the dominator secondary) with a shield secondary would be workable, although I think part of what makes the VEATs work so well is the team buffs that aren't so expensive or weak that they can't be used solo as well, so perhaps mixing that into the AT would be a good move. The VEATs seem largely balanced around their low HPs and their inherent (a largely ignorable regen and recovery bonus as opposed to something rather more defining like criticals or fury).

I certainly think the VEATs are among the best designed ATs in the game and having an AT that offers that kind of design with a little more variety in sets would be a great addition for both heroes and villains.

I would like to see an archetype like this as well but of course like you and the others said, the defensive values and damage values would need to be drastically changed.

I can only imagine how OPd a Granite Armor with Fire Blast or a more AoE oriented set would be!