Here’s an Idea You Will All Hate

One of the big attractions to this game is that idea that you can build your own Super Hero (or villain). When I first started playing few months ago that was the big kick for me, designing the costume, picking the name and carefully selecting the power / weapon combo. The problem is that I soon discovered that it didn't quite work that way. Some power sets are better suited to certain weapons, some power sets are look on as more favorable to a role, in other words you have to make a lot of trade offs between the characters you might design if you didn't have to conform to roles and one you might otherwise put together.

I mean why is fire and ice a tank? Why couldn't sorcery be a controller?

I love the idea that you can put together your costume irrespective of the armor you purchase to create your custom look. Why can’t you do that with weapons and powers?

My idea would be that there would you can spec out two of any role each role would have three trees 3 tank, 3 DPS and so on. For instance tanks could pick a Defense tree, a self-heal tree or a balanced tree. Similar trees could be set up for other roles. Pick the one you like best.

On the weapons side there would be three trees range, melee and balanced. After that the look and feel of each power would be cosmetic. You could mix and match from all available animations (with some parameters … Range would have range animations, melee would have melee). This way you could be literally be whatever you wanted to be without any compromise.

I realize this might be easier said than done, but at the end of the day one DPS power is pretty much like the other, you get a 35% 45% 60% for a short period of time and an animation that goes with it.
While it would upset the current play styles it would make balancing the various roles easier for the developers and no one would ever have to play a powerset they didn't like because it got nerfed. You could also have an Ice controller or healer, or a sorcery tank and a fire healer.

My humble $0.02 cents

My friend, you have cajones. Other people have preached something similar (myself included) and have been screamed at. Brace yourself.....the forum trolls are coming.

I like it, but it will never be. Would require a complete revamp of the game.

Yeah i know but WoW eventually moved to something like this over time i mean the classes are still there but some have a tank, DPS and healer, others have two flavors of healer and a DPS. I just think it sucks that if I want to be a tank I'm sort of cornered into a narrow set of choices when at the end of the day it's just an equation that decides what damage I give or take.

I started reading and when i got to the second sentence/paragraph I was like "your asking why the sky is blue just stop" Then i kept reading and i was just like omg i want an electric tank or a ice healer

Hey now, you leave my Sorcery alone! *snarls* I like being a Healer damnit (plus the wee heart icon is the cuteness)!!!

Other than that, I have always thought the same thing as well. Why can't I have some of the abilities you find in the other powers? I AM a Sorceress after all!

I'm not so sure about that, the "powers" are just a math equations, most of the DPS powers that are nothing more then a % damage buff. every single power set have identical "powers", the only difference in the animation. Other MMOs have made much more drastic changes to their class trees form a programming standpoint.

Yeah why can't you conjure up a shield or a cage to pout someone in

When it comes down to it, you could imagine any powerset doing any role, honestly. I wasn't saying it can't be done, only that it would take a lot of work (more than you appreciate, I think).

Yes yes, I shall throw rocks at your face to heal you!

The problem is that it will screw with the RPS system.

LOL! What's that saying? "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Sounds like Earth to me!

Electricity makes more sense as a troll. The p o t symbol is a lightning bolt for goodness' sake. If I had an ice healer, I'd encase and pull deathwish dpses away from the boss then heal the crap out of them.

This would be pretty cool.

Meh. Screw the RPS. The "P" stands for Pokemon/Pets now anyway.

While I agree with Remander that the change would not be trivial, it really would not change the RPS dynamic because the calculations behind the power would really not change. To the computer a 35% buff is a 35% buff whether or not it's a flash of fire, a blast of cold , or a glowing aura. A 2 Sec. stun, same thing if it's deliver with a spring loaded boxing glove or a green light boxing gloves. I noticed this while looking at the current powers. From a statistical standpoint most of what we call "powers" are identical from a calculation stand point. Each tree would be consistent and balanced (as much as you could get for such a thing) and what people choose for animations woulod be much different then styles for armor and weapons. A tank would still be a tank and DPS would still be DPS.

what would change is the a new tyranny of clipping. Everyone would figure out what animations clip with what powers the best and the elite players would homogenize base on that, unless there was a global cool down that equaled to the longest animation in the game.

Earth healer, a nice rejuvenating (and exfoliating) mud mask

Hahahah mud baths all around. We can kill the boss after our spa treatment.

Variety is the spice of life...?

I can heelz you with fire? I guess it would be just as believable as "tanking" with fire.

Heal with Gadgets!? Healing beams and nanites? Possible.

I agree anything is possible if you use enough imagination.

I like this idea, but it would require rebuilding the entire game from the ground up.

It wouldn't change the behind the scenes mechanics, true, but when I pvp I look for fire/ice/earth animations then attack that dude. I don't want to race in and sudenly find out he is a earth troller. It ties in with why we can't change the colours of our powers, they are an indicator of who you should be fighting.