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New Archetype + Powers: The Cosmic Avenger
magpieuk2014
Posts: 1,268 Arc User
As the Devs are happily churning out new Archetypes and powers, I thought I'd have a go and coming up with a suggestion or two. Thought processes are as follows:
1) There is a lot of Crushing and Slashing in CO. Probably too much for a classical superhero game. One of the reasons for this is that the power sets - and especially the passives - tend to force characters down the multiple powers/single damage type/single role route; very much a powerset for a member of, say, the X Men. However many of the most popular and best superheroes have a real melange of powers. The game doesn't really support this too well - while there are certain passives which give synergies across non-physical damage types (like Night Warrior) there isn't so much choice as there is for physical damage. It can also be difficult to combine some types of Magical powers with this passive, due to the higher energy cost of these powers. So I've come up with a proposal for a Passive which tidies this up without interfering with other existing powers....
2) I'd like a Green Lantern-style archetype; a Cosmic Lawmaker character that combines limited DPS with the ability to lock down their targets, using powers from across the sets to give a mystic/technical hybrid.
3) I think some of these new powers have the possibility to be useful in making a wider variety of Freeform builds, particularly allowing the use of Magical/Sorcery powers without AoPM. I also think some of the animations would be great fun. Anyway...
The Cosmic Avenger
Theme: Cosmic Lawgiver, Matter Manipulator
STATS: INT/REC/END
Level 1 – Kinetic Darts
Level 1 – Spectral Blows (New Power)
Ranged Single Target Damage – Maintain
Deals Energy Damage per pulse to a single target at a range of up to 100 ft
Damage decreases the further away the target is
Advantages
Grabbing Hands – Full maintain pulls target to you
Shadowboxer – changes power from Range to Melee Damage
Animation - ghostly punches manifesting from nowhere, think "One Hundred Hands"
Level 6 – TK Burst
TP – Mystic Flight
Level 8 – Passive - Cosmic Form (New Power)
Increases All Non-Physical Damage by 30-50% and all physical damage by 15-25% (based on rank)
You gain 15% resistance to all Damage and an additional 5% resistance to non-physical Damage per rank.
Your Energy Recovery is increased by 30-50% (based on rank)
Level 11 – TK Eruption
Level 14 – Concentration
Level 17 – Spectral Bonds (New Power) or Binding of Aratron
Spectral Bonds – Must be fully charged. Similar to Grasping Shadows, affects up to 5 targets. Targets are Paralyzed for 12 seconds, and are debuffed, reducing their Damage Resistance by 10% for 30 seconds.
Level 21 – Energy Barrier (new power) or Energy Shield
Energy Barrier creates a 120 degree arc Energy object in front of you which cannot be passed through. Barrier is a destructible object with around 3000 HP (at level 40, similar scaling to Field Surge), item persists for up to 30 seconds or until destroyed. 1 minute 30 recharge time.
Level 25 – Neuroelectric Pulse
(If a pure Energy Builder is better there then Cosmic Power - which would work like Supernatural Power, giving a boost of Energy each time an attack reduced the Energy Pool to below 15%, would apply.
Level 30 – Ego Surge
Level 35 – TK Lance or Spectral Smash (New Power)
Spectral Smash – Ranged Haymaker / Rocket Punch hybrid, single target charged attack with knockback, damages decreases depending on distance from target
Animation: giant ghostly fist, growing in size the more the power is charged, until released
TP – Teleport
Level 40 – Planar Fracture or Psychic Vortex
1) There is a lot of Crushing and Slashing in CO. Probably too much for a classical superhero game. One of the reasons for this is that the power sets - and especially the passives - tend to force characters down the multiple powers/single damage type/single role route; very much a powerset for a member of, say, the X Men. However many of the most popular and best superheroes have a real melange of powers. The game doesn't really support this too well - while there are certain passives which give synergies across non-physical damage types (like Night Warrior) there isn't so much choice as there is for physical damage. It can also be difficult to combine some types of Magical powers with this passive, due to the higher energy cost of these powers. So I've come up with a proposal for a Passive which tidies this up without interfering with other existing powers....
2) I'd like a Green Lantern-style archetype; a Cosmic Lawmaker character that combines limited DPS with the ability to lock down their targets, using powers from across the sets to give a mystic/technical hybrid.
3) I think some of these new powers have the possibility to be useful in making a wider variety of Freeform builds, particularly allowing the use of Magical/Sorcery powers without AoPM. I also think some of the animations would be great fun. Anyway...
The Cosmic Avenger
Theme: Cosmic Lawgiver, Matter Manipulator
STATS: INT/REC/END
Level 1 – Kinetic Darts
Level 1 – Spectral Blows (New Power)
Ranged Single Target Damage – Maintain
Deals Energy Damage per pulse to a single target at a range of up to 100 ft
Damage decreases the further away the target is
Advantages
Grabbing Hands – Full maintain pulls target to you
Shadowboxer – changes power from Range to Melee Damage
Animation - ghostly punches manifesting from nowhere, think "One Hundred Hands"
Level 6 – TK Burst
TP – Mystic Flight
Level 8 – Passive - Cosmic Form (New Power)
Increases All Non-Physical Damage by 30-50% and all physical damage by 15-25% (based on rank)
You gain 15% resistance to all Damage and an additional 5% resistance to non-physical Damage per rank.
Your Energy Recovery is increased by 30-50% (based on rank)
Level 11 – TK Eruption
Level 14 – Concentration
Level 17 – Spectral Bonds (New Power) or Binding of Aratron
Spectral Bonds – Must be fully charged. Similar to Grasping Shadows, affects up to 5 targets. Targets are Paralyzed for 12 seconds, and are debuffed, reducing their Damage Resistance by 10% for 30 seconds.
Level 21 – Energy Barrier (new power) or Energy Shield
Energy Barrier creates a 120 degree arc Energy object in front of you which cannot be passed through. Barrier is a destructible object with around 3000 HP (at level 40, similar scaling to Field Surge), item persists for up to 30 seconds or until destroyed. 1 minute 30 recharge time.
Level 25 – Neuroelectric Pulse
(If a pure Energy Builder is better there then Cosmic Power - which would work like Supernatural Power, giving a boost of Energy each time an attack reduced the Energy Pool to below 15%, would apply.
Level 30 – Ego Surge
Level 35 – TK Lance or Spectral Smash (New Power)
Spectral Smash – Ranged Haymaker / Rocket Punch hybrid, single target charged attack with knockback, damages decreases depending on distance from target
Animation: giant ghostly fist, growing in size the more the power is charged, until released
TP – Teleport
Level 40 – Planar Fracture or Psychic Vortex
0
Comments
Power comments
-Isn't Neuroelectric Pulse a GCR unlock? Don't think that'll ever end up in an AT.
-Travel Powers aren't picked for ATs
-I don't think Energy Barrier will work. Against targeted attacks, enemies will just move around it. Against PBAoEs, they don't tend to respect line of sight, certainly not that carefully. About the only thing this might work against is an immobile enemy like Bleak Harbinger, and then it's exploiting the immobility of the enemy. And i don't think the game can handle creating impassable objects in arbitrary places - while a regular object would just let AoEs pass through.
Rather than creating an object (which creates all sorts of problems in CO anyway - see Cybermind's firewalls), why not make it a bubble that applies to the front arcs only. We know CO has a concept of 'behind', because there's a spec in the brawler tree that makes use of that distinction. And that would probably make it easier to implement, because bubbles are something we already know works.
I thought it was Onslaught but if it's GCR then yes, I agree! The thing about Neuroelectric Pulse is that it's an attack that builds energy, in place of a passive Energy unlock. The initial concept had a Binding of Aratron/Life Drain type power choice at 25, where you could pick whether you wanted an energy builder or self-heal; might still be valid. I'd rather not have another passive energy unlock; setting something which then returned energy as part of the attack sounds preferable.
-I don't think Energy Barrier will work. Against targeted attacks, enemies will just move around it.
That's fair enough - it's meant to be a route disruptor/temporary cover rather than a total block (unless you deploy it across a small opening!). The ice power set does have the ability to create objects - Ice Barrier, for example - although they don't necessarily function as shields in the way that an Energy Barrier would. An Invisible Woman style Dome Shield is a useful power option - there's already a device in game which does this - although I think that might be a little too useful unless it was made a Maintain power.
Personally I'd quite like an AT to have theme-specific travel powers, although you are right they're not chosen. I'd hope they'd use the next AT release as an opportunity to bring back/unlock some of those legacy TPs... I'd play the new toon if they unlocked something as a result.
And ice barrier doesn't block line of sight for powers or stop AoE attacks from going through it. It's the unpassable part that i think isn't doable. (You'll note in Cybermind that the wall you can't go through is *behind* and separate from the objects you're supposed to destroy, and that's in a pre-set position, while you want it to be creatable anywhere a character can stand). Edit: stand was a poor word - stand, fly, swim, whatever.
As for creating objects? Yeah, that can be annoying, so I'll say no to that power.
The choice at 17 is between hold/debuff and hold/self-heal (Binding of Aratron has an advantage which gives a limited self-heal). At 21 - the Energy Barrier - I'd go with however the game can make it work. The concept is Energy contructs, so six immobile pets, perhaps, which could be used to soak up LoS and AoE attacks?
I'm also interested in opinions (if anyone has any) on whether the Passive would be a viable option to make some of the fringe builds (Telekinesis, Laser Sword) work and also to make a true Sorceror build possible (various attacks from all manner of groups, not reliant on AoPM)...
Now, as for the second point... I must admit, I've never been much of a Green Lantern fan. Not because I don't like him or his stories (or them and their stories?) but because I just never really did. I just don't know a whole lot about Green Lantern, or his powers. All I know is that he has some sort of energy-projection powers that manifest as various objects/shapes. From what I understand, however, these projected objects manifest as physical entities. For instance, I recall Green Lantern making a "bubble" surround himself to protect him from an attack. I also recall him creating some sort of sphere, and catapulting it into an enemy.
Because of the physical nature of these attacks, they would most like be classified as "Force" powers. Which is a powerset we have. Granted, there could be another facet of the Lanterns' powers I'm not understanding, but I always felt that a Green Lantern-inspired toon would draw mostly from the Force powerset.
The reason there aren't more mystical powers being added to the game is because the superhero genre doesn't really have a huge amount of purely mystical characters; and when they do, these mystics are usually either extremely powerful and can do almost anything, or relatively underpowered and only able to affect specific things at specific times.
Take, for instance, Doctor Strange. Doctor Strange is the Master of the Mystic Arts, and is arguably one of the most powerful mystics in the Marvel Universe. That being said, aside from the magical bolts he fires from his hands, what does Strange really do during a fight? There really isn't much inherently offensive about Doctor Strange, aside from his magical bolts. Sure, he can dispel magical/demonic foes, and he can teleport his allies around, but sorcery itself doesn't really translate well to a combat-oriented game.
Which brings us to CO. Like most other MMOs, Champions gameplay is focused around fighting baddies. We punch 'em, we shoot 'em, we shoot eldritch blasts at 'em. But when it comes to new powers, some are easier than others. We could come up with a new kind of punch (hit 'em in the kidneys!), or a new way to shoot (more shotgun powers? please?), but what about new magical attacks? In short, there is a damn near UNLIMITED number of ways to get new sorcery powers, but many of them would either be totally OP, totally worthless, or outside of game limitations. I'd love for new sorcery powers, but it's just really difficult to do.
That being said, I did rather like your idea for the Energy Barrier power. If it were a kind of block, however, then I could totally see the 1min 30sec cooldown to be problematic. And if it's meant to be an Active Defense, then we basically already have that power in the form of Ice Barrier. I would think it'd be cool to have a block that can be broken through, but has a substantial resistance increase. Say, a shield that lasts through 10,000 damage and can be attacked directly, and while it's up the blocker is protected for, say, 600% damage. However, when the shield is broken, it incurs a cooldown of say 10-20 seconds, or something like that.
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