Sub Amps: off-hand Operator weapons to modify or replace Void Blast.

[Cobalt313]

I had posted this in another thread about a melee Amp scaffold, but felt the idea was thorough enough to warrant its own thread.

In short, Sub-Amps would be a new sort of off-hand Amp that affects or replaces your Operator's "E" ability; like your starting "Mote" one keeps your normal Void Blast but reduces or eliminates the energy cost (possibly in exchange for a cooldown) and then other parts let you replace the E with other melee or melee-equivalent abilities

I could see these sub-Amps being either purchased wholesale or having a two-part crafting system of Lens, Frame, and Capacitor:

Lens changes the primary effect of your E, for example:

-Void Blast: Self-explanatory, same base Operator pseudo-melee ability as before but with reduced base cost, and can be further augmented by your choice of Frame or Capacitor.

-Void Blade: offers a quick and spammable melee combo that can stagger-lock foes for less energy cost per strike, but at reduced damage, range, and area-of-effect compared to Void Blast

-Void Drill/Void Hand: wreathes your arm in burning Void energy and thrusts it forward to deal constant contact damage to enemies it touches as long as the button is held and energy is available, further trading range and area effect for pure damage vs Void Blast. May alternatively let you "grab" a single enemy to deal constant damage to while their ragdoll gets dragged around by your movement until you release E or run out of energy- basically lets you grapple and fry a single foe at the cost of doing anything else besides move while you're holding them

-Void Pulse: Releases a radial shockwave centered on your Operator that staggers or knocks down enemies in its area, at the cost of reduced damage and "fire rate" and possibly increased energy cost.

-Void Wave: Fires a slow-moving horizontal slash of Void energy akin to those launched by Excalibur's Exalted blade. Travels forward a short distance and damages enemies in its path before dissipating; offers increased range and damage compared to Void Blast but has higher energy cost and reduced "fire rate", as well as limited to no CC potential.

-Void Shield: Hold to put up a forward-facing shield that blocks(or reflects?) projectiles. Melee strikes break the shield and briefly stagger the Operator but will stun/knock down the attacker and possibly blind other nearby enemies in a cone in front of them. Useful for defense, but purely reactive compared to the other Sub-Amp options.

Frame affects stat trade-offs such as increasing damage at the cost of speed or energy efficiency, increasing speed at the cost of damage or range, increasing energy efficiency at the cost of damage or speed, etc.

Capacitor determines what the energy cost for your Sub Amp attacks are drawn from:

-Operator Energy: same as standard Void Blast, draws from the same energy pool used for Void Walk and Void Dash.

-Amp Energy: Self-explanatory, draws energy from your Amp energy meter instead of your Operator energy meter, allowing you to use your Void Walk and Void Dash more freely in exchange for binding both your primary and "melee" Amps to the same energy pool

-Internal Battery: Sub-Amp use draws from neither Operator Energy nor Amp Energy, instead imposing an increased cooldown between uses scaling with the Lens's base energy cost. Combo-friendly Lenses such as Void Blade start their cooldown timer at the end of a combo (either completed or interrupted) and held/sustained Lenses instead impose an upper limit to how long the ability can be held before the ability is interrupted and the cooldown begins. May alternatively simply give its Sub-Amp its own hidden pool of energy that is much smaller than either the Operator or Amp energy meters, which refills quickly when not in use but disables the Sub-Amp when emptied until it refills completely.

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So that's the long and short of it. Might be some time before something like this would be useful, say if Operator gets some buffs in the future (whenever Duviri Paradox comes out, maybe?) or perhaps if the Sub-Amp offers another Magus Arcane slot or two that can be used for survivability buffs, but still, something to consider. Any thoughts? Suggestions?

[BahamutKaiser]

Could be cool.

[Joezone619]

i'd like to see operator melee do something with void blast +1 like

[BahamutKaiser]

Maybe they can do acrobatic void blast combos? 

[Cobalt313]

1 hour ago, BahamutKaiser said:

Maybe they can do acrobatic void blast combos? 

That's kinda what I meant Void Blade to be, 

[BahamutKaiser]

The only problem with void amps is that each focus school has a unique void blast effect, few of which are designed around damage. Each alternative has to accommodate the features already in the game. 

[Cobalt313]

13 hours ago, BahamutKaiser said:

The only problem with void amps is that each focus school has a unique void blast effect, few of which are designed around damage. Each alternative has to accommodate the features already in the game. 

So far most of them seem to just add on-hit effects except Madurai which would basically add the chargeable "Heavy Attack" and Guardian Shell which kinda actively replaces the Blast with the held shield, which might present some real problems for this idea.

[BahamutKaiser]

That's like, 40%...

Point being, something else might be better. There are a few alternatives though. Reload isn't used by operators, so void blast could be moved to reload key and melee could be something else, or just put the new action on reload. Also, Operators don't use much in the way of abilities, maybe using magic swords isn't the brightest idea for the astral teens, maybe some customizable ability choices. 

Operators don't use switch weapon either, there's probably a hand full of keys that don't apply to them.