Broadsword for defenders?

I was recently catching a cat nap, and I dreamt I was resuming play on a character I'd created in CoH ... joining an iTrial, in fact ... and I was admiring the purple costume with red cloak that I'd created ... and only upon awakening did I realize that my dream toon was a dark miasma / broadsword defender.

Now I know these don't exist, and I know many players might automatically reject a melee defender, but the concept engages me. I'm sure this has been recommended before on the forums - because nothing is new - but I could not find any previous mention.

So, just to give a rough sketch, what about Broadsword for Defenders? Broadsword is melee, but it comes with defense debuff already built in, knockup and knockback for mitigation, plus a defensive power (Parry), and while it is aimed at single target damage, there are small cones and a pbaoe.

I won't try to completely define this set, but the set probably could and should take some tweaking to adapt it to use by a defender.

First, it might be wise to change the typed lethal / smashing defense granted by Parry to a positional melee defense.

Next, there probably isn't much point to increasing the defense debuff aspect according to defender scales, as if you take that and then apply -def enhancements, you shred an opponent's defense probably too quickly and easily. Maybe it would be better to keep the modest defense debuff values but add -res as well.

Along similar lines, there's no point to increasing the knockback aspect of the powers in the transition to defenders, as enhanced knockup for scrapper pretty much already sends foes to the moon.

Last, I'd move the Whirling Sword attack to tier 9, and give it the Hail of Bullets treatment: a brief defense buff to self, and knockdown on affected foes.

Obviously, to maintain parity, the Build Up power would likely be replaced with an Aim type power; call it Focus. But I'm not sure what to do with Taunt.

One possibility for replacing Taunt is to take another page from Dual Pistols and make an adaptation of Swap Ammo.

If you were to call this melee weapon set "Power Sword," you could use a Power Swap power to change the secondary characteristics of the blade, probably in many cases to something complementary to the toon's primary power set.

Suggestions for Power Swap would be: vibration (-res, the default setting), dark (-to hit), electrical (+dmg on self, with chance of sleep on target), and poison (-dmg to target, plus minor toxic DoT). Thematically, I think this would work for science / tech toons, as well as magic / mutation toons.

I could see a variety of defenders using this set, including dark miasma, thermal radiation, kinetics, time manipulation, cold domination, storm summoning, traps ...

Primaries that have some melee defense already built-in include dark miasma (Shadow Fall), storm (Steamy Mist), and cold (Arctic Fog). Other sets have different forms of melee mitigation, such as Time's Juncture (time) and Choking Cloud (radiation), while kinetics can use Transfusion, Transference, and Fulcrum Shift to advantage while in melee.

Anyway, this is just a thought ... based on a dream ... so take it as you wish.

In the long run, it's best to keep sets the same between ATs as much as possible. That way, balance changes can be made to just one set rather than many different versions of the same set. Specifically, it helps prevent instances of poor performing powers getting buffed only for one AT, and all other ATs being left behind (hello dominator sniper blasts).

Exception: The taunt power in melee sets sometimes gets switched out to serve different ATs' needs. Maybe a defender broadsword set would have a heavy range+defense debuff instead of Confront.

Also, speaking as a part-time blaster, I can assure you that when the devs alter sets heavily during proliferation, the results can be utterly worthless.

By the way, Parry grants melee positional and lethal typed defense. It really is as good as people say.

Defender mods would take a lot of damage out of the powers, but the defense debuff would be boosted from -7.5% to a nicely stackable -12.5% on every hit (other than Parry). This may seem overpowered, but remember, you're a defender, debuffs are your specialty. Parry, by the way, would see its defense buff go from +15% to +20%. Potentially a fair tradeoff for the loss of damage. I wonder how a Kin/BS defender would do, compared to, say, a BS/* brute.

As much as I like the idea of giving my defenders swords, I can't really see it being in the spirit of the AT.

The whole point of Defenders is not to dive into the center of a fight (except where needed to heal/buff an ally) but to hang back a bit and do their thing while being able to lay down some cover fire for the rest of the team. The ranged powersets thay have now fit nicely into that role.

Giving a defender a broadsword (or any other dedicated melee set, even a modified one) would just result in a lot of dead Defenders. I know from experience that Defenders are not the strongest when it comes to personal defense. Yes, they have some great tricks, but nothing that really would lend itself to the kind of 'stand and fight' that a melee set needs.

Sorry, as appealing as it sounds, I cannot support this idea.

When in a team with lots of debuffs but no crowd control, I prefer melee, even if I'm on a ranged AT.* Better to blap and keep enemies in a group hug with me inside the debuff soup, than try to keep my distance, fail because there's no crowd control, and have enemies run out of the soup and into my face at full strength.

(*By extension, when playing as a debuffer in a PUG, I usually melee. Because there's definitely debuffs on the team, and usually poor crowd control.)

P.S. Kinetics says hi.

I would play a buff/melee AT in a heartbeat. Storm/BS. Imagine lightning bolts spitting out of your sword. Full of Win!

Yeah, Kin/Kat has been called for for a long time. I'd like storm/mace myself

Someone probably knows the answer to this: are the weapons riggings the same between Broadsword, Ax, and Bane Mace? I thought I'd read that before.

If so, I see no reason why these other weapon types could not be available.

Also, while some players would never play a defender in melee, it is still fairly common to see. If you have kinetics and you want to benefit from your own heals, or if you have dark miasma and you want to share your twilight grasp healing with the tank, or if you are leaning heavily on your time manip debuff pbaoe ... then you are probably already in melee range.

And if you are soloing, unless you have some sort of means of prevention foes will run right up to you and melee. So either you hit them with your sword when they get there, or you hit them with your ranged attack (arrow, dark blast, whatever) when they are standing next to you ... not a huge difference.

Also, the primary set can be selected with some sort of synergy in mind, combining distance powers from the primary with the melee attack of the secondary ... like laying down Tar Pit and then drawing foes into range with Darkest Night. Or using Fearsome Stare, and then pounding on the foes one by one while they tremble. Or using Howling Twilight to stun a large group, then jumping in and laying them down with Whirling Sword.

Buff/Melee is something that I and many other people would love to play.

I think that a Buff/melee-range-attack (weapon or otherwise) would be fine. We already have such things on redside. I call them Night Widows and Bane Spiders. The attacks aren't as deadly as stalkers and the buffs aren't as complete as regular defenders, but the model exists!

How about a Buff/Debuff primary with the Dominator Assault secondary? The Dominator Assault has a nice mix of range and melee attacks.

You are so silly. Defenders can't even lift a sword, much less use one. Throwing/Stabbing Daggers might be a workable compromise.

I'd play a (de)buff/melee toon. I'd also like to see dominators with melee weapon options. I doubt there's a new "AT" coming anytime soon, but this sounds like a pretty good next option.

Okay, I guess I should wait and see how dark doms play out before I totally write off dark blasters.

Extreme case scenario, both new dark sets for doms are zeroes, meaning a dark blaster would be a better option, if your dark ranged DPS concept demands melee and a ST hold at the cost of a corruptor's fast recharging Night Fall and buffs/debuffs.

For the record, I didn't pair my dark/ blaster with /dark... One of dark blast's main advantages for me is how easy it makes to keep baddies at range (and debuffed and on their backsides and held and healing me... ), while /dark seems to require a lot of blapping. Mostly I've seen dark blast used in ranged-only (or primarily ranged) builds paired with /energy, /cold or /mental and that's how I play mine (the cold version, though all three of the above look so tempting it was hard to pick one).

Also, IMHO, Dark Control and Dark Assault are looking pretty good.

P.S.: Sorry for the brief threadjack.

Was just cruising the boards and this thread was on the top of the defender list as most recent so had to pop by.

I'd *love* some melee defenders...it's one reason I always advocate it as a new AT. But in the past, I've suggested just porting sets over to defender to just make the combo available.

In that light, I'd probably port over assault sets to corruptors as another facet of those ATs (and no one has an assault set as a primary and some people love those assault sets!).

For the defender, you'd have to make changes to the set for it to work properly with the AT. First of all, I think Defender melee dmg mod is pretty low...it'd have to be the same, if not a tad higher, than the ranged dmg mod...Well, not actually changing their AT mods, but adjusting the base numbers of the attacks so it will do that much dmg.

Secondly, I'd probably take 2 powers from those melee sets and add new ones, alter 1 power to give the same 'feel' to the AT progression and then add to 1 or 2 powers to help the AT out. And that's for each set. The 2 powers that would be removed would be the +dmg power (in this case, BU) and Taunt, replaced with a ranged attack (not long range) and a utility. The 1 to be altered, I'd say a kind of melee 'nuke' for feel's sake.

How I'd do it:

1. Hack
2. Slash
3. Parry (altered to add moderate non-stacking resistance to smash/lethal)
4. Possess Sword (click buff with a one-oft effect. using this+ a -def power adds -res to the effect, using this + parry adds more resistance for a longer duration, using this + Soul Sword adds + mez resist and +mez protection buff to self, using this with Visceral Slash adds mez resists/protection to self and debuffs foe resistance)
5. Soul Sword (40ft ranged sword stab from the ground that lowers foe mez resists...something like this
6. Slice
7. Disembowel
8. Headsplitter
9. Visceral Slash (15ft PBAoE that takes some of your endurance and crashes your recovery, lowers foe mez resists and defense)

All in all, Stalker would get better ST DPS, Scrappers more ST and AoE DPS while the Defender would get at least somewhat more dmg than standard ranged attacks but only meeting corruptor ranged dmg + scourge but in melee range.

...lol well it was fun to think about. I'd love to play a 'Holy Knight' like in that old FFT game, as an Empathy/BS defender, or 'Dark Knight' as a DM/BS defender. If it were to happen, they probably would try to keep the sets close to identical as possible but most sets just wouldn't work well in melee (Force Field or Storm) and some melee sets would be quite underpowered if just straight ported (Dark Melee would be quite weak as it's more a DPS set that needs burst...and you'd have to replace Soul Drain with something)...

I didn't mention this before, but another thing that could be done for a "Power Sword" set, to differentiate it from all the other conventional weapon sets, is you could take the Swap Ammo idea and have it change not just a minor effect, but it could also change a portion of the damage type.

So instead of counting the blade as pure lethal / smashing, you could have the L/S as half the damage, plus the other half being energy, negative energy, fire, or cold, depending on the power type selected. Maybe have the default be fire/-res (since fire swords are so common, and it also fits with the game concept of Reactive Interface), and the others could be neg. energy with -to hit, energy with +dam and +chance for sleep, and cold with -dam and minor toxic DoT. (Or whatever.)

While I'm sure many different things could be done with weapon sets for various ATs (dom, blaster, corr), I was just thinking of something that would be relatively easy to set up, a low-hanging fruit, that would use existing animations, code, and concepts, yet create something novel.

Applying the code and concepts from Dual Pistols to a melee weapons set for Defenders seems awfully interesting to me, and it actually provides for a true magical weapon (or science weapon) ... which is a feature we really don't have in the game yet. Yes, we have 3 fire sword and 3 ice sword attacks, but Defenders don't get them, those aren't even full weapon sets, and they're very dedicated concepts (fire or ice), whereas this would allow players a greater degree of customization.

It would also avoid one of the more awkward aspects of Dual Pistols, which is slotting enhancements for the special ammo (like slow IOs for cryo ammo, where the slow effect only occurs if cryo ammo is selected). That wouldn't be a feature / problem here, as the various attacks would allow for def debuff and/or knockback, and that wouldn't change according to your selection on "Power Swap." So you can slot for the powers [edit: attacks] regardless of which "Power" you choose to channel through your blade at play time.

Hey, just saw this thread title scrolling past the AT forums. Empathy/Broadsword? BRB, deleting my eight year old main...