X-post: Revamp suggestion for Plo Koon
Originally posted as a comment in general discussion. I thought this suggestion deserved a post of its own in the appropriate forum. My apologies if x-posting is against the forum guidelines.
Plo Koon revamped
Plo Koon was a stern and philosophical Kel Dor Jedi master, utterly dedicated, serious, and with a deep compassion for his friends and students. He was the one who first discovered and brought Ahsoka Tano into the Jedi order. Of all Jedi, he seems to me to be the closest to embody many of the so-called classic samurai traits - as they are popularized today.
Plo Koon was a veteran of many conflicts. He carried himself with dignity and never showed hesitation. He actively adopted a black and white mindset in the face of danger, but was far too deeply immersed in the Jedi teachings to succumb to the lure of the Dark Side.
As a lightsaber duelist, Plo Koon was a lethal and relentless combatant, unphased by pain and wounds. His great physical strength made him naturally adept at form V, Shien, an aggressive style focusing on countering and overwhelming the opponent. Even with a broken arm, he could stand up one on one against Asajj Ventress. Darth Maul considered him one of the biggest threats in the Jedi order.
Plo Koon was one of very few Jedi who possessed the ability to use a less potent Light Side variant of Force Lightning. He called it Electric Judgment, and its use was frowned upon by the Jedi.
Plo Koon - new abilities
Jedi tank who punishes overly aggressive enemies and protects allies from harm.
Basic attack
Punishing blow - deals physical damage. This attack cannot be avoided or countered. For every ally killed by the target enemy, Plo Koon's damage against that enemy increases by 100%.
Special ability
Electric Judgment - Deals damage to all opponents. For every buff the opponents have, there's a (%) chance that it is removed. If an opponent has no buffs, there's a (%) chance to apply offense down for X turns.
Special Ability 2
Form V - Deal physical damage to one opponent and lock their abilities for (x) turns. If the opponent's physical damage power is higher than Plo Koon's own, Plo Koon also deals (%) of that difference in extra damage, and gains Retaliation for (x) turns.
Unique ability
Veteran's resolve - When any team member falls below 50% HP, Plo Koon grants them Defense up and they gain (%) turn meter. Any time an ally is killed, Plo Koon Exposes the killer for (x) turns and immediately gains (%) turn meter.
I've attempted to keep all of Plo Koon's old skills (except for the leadership skill) but revamped them to suit his lore. Plo Koon is now an offensive Jedi tank with limited initial attack power but high potential threat level, forcing enemies to disable him first, or risk powering him up to deal very powerful blows to the most important enemy damage dealers later in battle.
Electric Judgment is now a combination of old Plo's basic attack and old Force Judgment. Form V would help make Plo Koon more useful right from the start of a battle, whereas Electric Judgment might be better to save for any buffs the opponent may gain, and Plo's basic attack only really becomes damaging once the battle has gone on for some time. Form V can be used straight off the bat, but stays true to the concept of the character, that he becomes stronger against heavy attackers, and focuses on dominating them in combat. Retaliation fits perfectly with Form V and also makes it a little more costly for enemy teams to take out Plo Koon early.
This is really just an attempt to fan the flames of discussion a little, with a few ideas. Would be great to see what kits others could come up with, that would fit the lore and also give this beloved character a well deserved and unique spot in the Jedi teams.
Plo Koon revamped
Plo Koon was a stern and philosophical Kel Dor Jedi master, utterly dedicated, serious, and with a deep compassion for his friends and students. He was the one who first discovered and brought Ahsoka Tano into the Jedi order. Of all Jedi, he seems to me to be the closest to embody many of the so-called classic samurai traits - as they are popularized today.
Plo Koon was a veteran of many conflicts. He carried himself with dignity and never showed hesitation. He actively adopted a black and white mindset in the face of danger, but was far too deeply immersed in the Jedi teachings to succumb to the lure of the Dark Side.
As a lightsaber duelist, Plo Koon was a lethal and relentless combatant, unphased by pain and wounds. His great physical strength made him naturally adept at form V, Shien, an aggressive style focusing on countering and overwhelming the opponent. Even with a broken arm, he could stand up one on one against Asajj Ventress. Darth Maul considered him one of the biggest threats in the Jedi order.
Plo Koon was one of very few Jedi who possessed the ability to use a less potent Light Side variant of Force Lightning. He called it Electric Judgment, and its use was frowned upon by the Jedi.
Plo Koon - new abilities
Jedi tank who punishes overly aggressive enemies and protects allies from harm.
Basic attack
Punishing blow - deals physical damage. This attack cannot be avoided or countered. For every ally killed by the target enemy, Plo Koon's damage against that enemy increases by 100%.
Special ability
Electric Judgment - Deals damage to all opponents. For every buff the opponents have, there's a (%) chance that it is removed. If an opponent has no buffs, there's a (%) chance to apply offense down for X turns.
Special Ability 2
Form V - Deal physical damage to one opponent and lock their abilities for (x) turns. If the opponent's physical damage power is higher than Plo Koon's own, Plo Koon also deals (%) of that difference in extra damage, and gains Retaliation for (x) turns.
Unique ability
Veteran's resolve - When any team member falls below 50% HP, Plo Koon grants them Defense up and they gain (%) turn meter. Any time an ally is killed, Plo Koon Exposes the killer for (x) turns and immediately gains (%) turn meter.
I've attempted to keep all of Plo Koon's old skills (except for the leadership skill) but revamped them to suit his lore. Plo Koon is now an offensive Jedi tank with limited initial attack power but high potential threat level, forcing enemies to disable him first, or risk powering him up to deal very powerful blows to the most important enemy damage dealers later in battle.
Electric Judgment is now a combination of old Plo's basic attack and old Force Judgment. Form V would help make Plo Koon more useful right from the start of a battle, whereas Electric Judgment might be better to save for any buffs the opponent may gain, and Plo's basic attack only really becomes damaging once the battle has gone on for some time. Form V can be used straight off the bat, but stays true to the concept of the character, that he becomes stronger against heavy attackers, and focuses on dominating them in combat. Retaliation fits perfectly with Form V and also makes it a little more costly for enemy teams to take out Plo Koon early.
This is really just an attempt to fan the flames of discussion a little, with a few ideas. Would be great to see what kits others could come up with, that would fit the lore and also give this beloved character a well deserved and unique spot in the Jedi teams.
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Replies
The idea I'm going for is a character that, like Anakin, increases threat levels considerably if you don't deal with him early. I would place Plo exactly in the middle of the damage spectrum, making his regular attack very meh in the beginning of the battle, and also lackluster when attacking any support toons that don't kill - for instance healers or tanks.
Even when powered up, he wouldn't reach one-shot levels of damage, but still be very dangerous at about 6K per hit. Good vs glass jaws like Rey, but would take a few swings to put down Savage. Plo also has rather low crit rate and average to low speed. But I'm not a game designer, so I can hardly claim that I can make perfectly accurate assessments of the impact on game balance. I'm just passionate about the lore and the characters.
What I'm trying to render is the raw power of a relentless Djem So user, paired with the deep compassion for others that motivated Plo. Also, the Jedi teams need a tank. But taunting tanks are simply boring. It's much more interesting to design a tank that forces the opponent to make tough strategic decisions.
So I have to rely on you for SW lore. I assume you've done that well. I like your ideas generally, so I'll just comment on game-balance and game-mechanics considerations.
There's nothing wrong with this as an end-point. However It would be best if this started at somewhere between +25% and +50% and was able to be raised by ability mats to 100% later.
This is probably fine. But I'd prefer not to apply Offense Down. I also don't prefer the dispel. It's not that I don't like it, I just think buff immunity is a more rare power.
you also state:
But you have no counter-attack negative-status effect in here anywhere.
I propose a new Negative-status. For most positive status effects, there's a corresponding negative-status effect. instead of Offense Down (which doesn't fit what you've described, he doesn't make opponents weaker, he counters and overwhelms them), apply a negative status that is the opposite of retribution.
So long as the character with that status doesn't attack, no problem. However, any victim of a damaging attack by the character with this negative status has a +20% to +65% chance (depending on how many ability mats you've spent) to counter-attack. This would be utterly unfair to apply as an AoE, so I would strip the Offense Down out of Electric Judgement.
Think about the decisions a character playing a toon with this negative status would have to make: the character would want to use dispels and heals, avoid damaging the opposing squad members, and for sure would never want to use an AoE attack. In this way, Plo Koon tuns opponents' strength against them, making them passive and less of a threat. It fits the character you've described perfectly.
Moveover, what would you fear if you had this negative status and fired off an AoE damage effect: you'd fear being overwhelmed by counter-attacks. Bingo: character personality translated into
Also, not many characters apply buff immunity. You certainly don't have to agree, but I'd be more interested in seeing a Plo Koon that applies buff immunity than one that dispels existing buffs.
Again, since it would be unfair to apply this negative status in an AoE attack, my proposal is that Electric Judgement inflicts buff immunity, but does nothing else besides buff immunity and damage.
Okay, now I've explained by idea for a negative status effect that increases the chance of being counter-attacked. The % increase can even be adjusted upwards by ability mats. Although most status effects don't have different power depending on who caused the status effect, DoT definitely does, so there's precedent for using one status effect that comes in multiple strength levels.
So let's rewrite Form V:
Note that I stripped out the Retribution power. While I've stripped out Offense Down from Electric Judgement partly on the justification of including a more theme-appropriate buff here in "Form V," I also considered the overall kit just a bit overpowered. So, yes, I'm stripping out both the Offense Down and the Retribution.
Plo will still get his counterattacks, but he'll only do it when someone hit with form V attacks him. In one-on-one, the effect is the same, but whenever Plo still has allies alive, it will be the allies that counter-attack for themselves, made possible by Plo's unbalancing attacks.
Again, he's much more likely to use Form V against attack-focused characters, but this "counters" the strengths of Plo's opponents not by saying "you can't use your powers" (as with your "ability block" version) but instead by saying, "Go ahead and use your offensive powers: it won't help you. You'll regret it."
Key to this is remembering ability block will prevent healing. I don't think Plo would want to prevent an opponent from backing off from the attack, even if the opponent was using that time to heal. I think Plo would want to encourage folks to take more healing actions and fewer aggressive actions.
However, if you ability block, when your turn comes up you have to make a basic attack. You can't pass on your turn. You must attack. As you've described him, Plo isn't a jedi who would want to force the enemy to attack. By inflicting the "Unbalanced Attacker" negative status, the enemy is free to dispel, buff, heal - all sorts of things. Even sneaky attacks like grenades get by without a counter-attack. But take the offensive against Plo, and you get overwhelmed with counter-attacks. You take more damage than you inflict. You might even kill an opponent, but then woe betide you.
That's a much more interesting skill set than counter-attack + ability block.
Any time an ally is killed, Plo already gets bonus damage on his basic attack. Since the skill set is already somewhat overpowered, get rid of Expose completely. Your basic attack already does something too similar to this to get the added benefit of expose.
I don't know what Plo's powers are like right now, but I'm going to re-write Veteran's resolve rather than ditching it entirely, even if the character does have some good powers already.
Try this for a unique ability:
The chance to gain turn meter, btw, would be something like 20%-50% in the beginning and rise with ability mats. It should rise rapidly if it starts as low as 20% (maybe even ending at 100% in that case) or it could start as high as 50%, but go up slowly or not go up at all, and the Unique Ability would be upgraded primarily in other ways. (The defense up lasts an extra turn, you get to grant defense up to a maximum of two people instead of one, etc.)
The duration of Defense Up can be extended to a max of 3 turns using ability mats. The chance to gain turn meter comes BEFORE the ally dies. We already have an effect when an ally dies. Plo doesn't WANT the allies to die. Also, the ***player*** doesn't want toons to die. So giving Plo a power that no player would want to use is a recipe for frustration. Giving the player two powers that no player would want to use is a tad ridiculous.
So when an ally's health goes into the red, Plo leaps in to try to prevent the death of that character...not by healing, but by ending the threat.
That seems much more consistent with what you've said about Plo's character than giving multiple abilities that only act on death and only one that acts on a threat to an ally's life.
Now the counter-attack power doesn't protect Plo, it protects allies. The Defense Up protects allies. The Turn Meter Gain protects allies. When all of that fails and an ally actually dies, then you have a damage boost to your basic attack.
This is a 3-to-1 ratio of protection vs. retribution after death.
Previously you had a 2-to-1 ration of retribution after death vs. protection.
I thought that sent the wrong message for a Jedi character. Like I said, I don't really know Plo Koon, but I know a little about Jedi, and having too many incentives to have a character die to give your Jedi a power-up seemed just wrong. It seemed far more Sith-like than Jedi-like.
It's still got the bit about hitting harder when an ally dies, but you can even characterize that as hitting harder when things are most desperate. This avoids framing it as "revenge" - a very anti-Jedi way of thinking.
The best part of the skill set as proposed by you/modified by me is that (unintentionally) the more allies are threatened, the more Plo threatens the opponent. That makes Plo very deadly against opponents with AoE attacks - imagine an opponent who knocks out 2 or 3 allies with a single AoE damage effect!
The game has never really had a good counter to AoE attacks. But "Unbalanced Attacker" as a negative status, combined with this basic attack AND combined with a chance to jump the turn-meter-queue with each wave of AoE damage makes Plo Koon just a great Jedi to have around when AoE attacks are being spammed.
And while you never want to leave the glass canon around, there are Sith like Darth Maul and Savage Opress that have mountains of health and good but not canon-level attacks who would be perfect victims for Form V.
We have protect by heal.
We have protect by taunt.
Pro could be the first ever protect-by-attack character that makes a player afraid to use their abilities rather than simply crossing an ability off the option list (like healing immunity, buff immunity, and ability block all do).
This adds the possibility of interesting new strategies, in fact, it demands at the very least new thinking about how you'll play in-game. The character operates differently from other characters and so you would need time to think not only about how to use the Plo toon that you have among your unlocked characters (if you have one, which I don't), but how to counter the Plo toon being thrown against you.
This is what good game design should do, convert the feel of the character into stats. You've given us a feel for the character above.
I've tried to create a character that would protect in ways that the Sith would find contemptuous (like healing the injured), but in ways that Darth Maul would find threatening and overwhelming, as the the character said.
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As a side note, you inspired me to come up with the idea of the "Unbalanced Attacker" negative status. But now that I've done that, I think that would actually be a much better mechanic for Ahsoka Tano than the current method of losing speed and health when hit with a critical. She is a risky attacker, right?
She risks herself to save others, right?
Why not have her basic attack get a wider damage range (like the stormtroopers) but with slightly improved damage (or, maybe, if she's considered a "fast" character in the new update, just not given the drop in damage fast characters are supposed to be getting)? BUT THEN give a +5% to the target's chance to counter-attack against her? And then her big healing spin-move? That would still do massive damage and give an AoE party-heal, BUT it would give a +15% to attack her, and a +30% if the target she's hitting is a Scoundrel (She's honorable: the dirty tricks of the scoundrels take her by surprise, but she expects them from Sith, so it's only Scoundrels that get the bonus).
It's not the same as Talia, who sacrifices health to heal others, but it's not the same as it is currently either. She's said to be a "risky attacker", but her attacks aren't risky at all! Her attacks are perfectly safe. It's the attacks of others that risk taking away her speed, etc. A major chance of counter-attack when trying to heal the party with her attack+AoE-heal would force the player to consider whether she wanted to attack the big enemy threat in order to heal the party or whether she'd rather attack someone like Barriss. A player would actually need to think about whether or not to heal the party at all, if Ahsoka was already down hit points.
And none of this would be as predictable as with Talia. It truly would make Ahsoka into a "risky attacker".
Translate the feel of the character into mechanics that make the player feel what the character would. That's the job of good game design.
With Ahsoka currently, you sit around and have the same fear of taking a crit and losing health/speed no matter what you do. The AI is going to attack you if the AI wants to attack you. You can't control it.
But with a bonus to opponents' counter-attack, you have to choose whether you hit the biggest threat to your team or the smallest threat to your toon, since other characters won't be counter-attacked when they smack Sidius (or insert your example here) around. Your attacks have risk.
You can tall me all day that Ahsoka is a risky attacker, but if there is no in-game risk to attacking, I'll never play Ahsoka differently than I play other characters that aren't "risky attackers". That whole "risky attacker" description will be meaningless and irrelevant (as it is now) unless it is somehow translated to mechanics that provide some risk when actually attacking.
Im so sad that plo is so useless. Being that he is such a powerful jedi (and one of my personal favorites) not to mention the fact that he is frustratingly difficult to farm (took me almost 2 months to *4 him). I wish i could see him be more viable to use.
Guild: -FTB- Reign Of Fate
Ok so I had an idea for plo koon that I thought would give him a good balance for both a Jedi and clone team.
Firstly this is based in the assumption that defence up is actually going to do something in the future - I.e reduce damage taken by something like 25 - 40%
So give him a heavy dose of HP - like 20k
Speed I would leave as is
Passive ability - when an allied player goes below 50% health plo will automatically taunt and add defence up on himself for one turn
Basic attack removes buffs - damage about same as a basic mace windu (when there are no buffs to it and no expose boost)
Secondary attack changed so has an offence down and like a 15% stun chance (multiple stuns chance of 10%)
3rd ability - add defence up to himself for 2 turns, + add health gain (like 6% of their max health per turn) to allies for one turn + the current turn meter boost for clones
Leader - critical hit chance reduction
my thinking is that this would make slower units more viable when paired with plo, and also the fact that it would actually make plo play like a tank
multiple stun chance,
buff removal chance,
Offence down,
defence up and
turn meter manipulation for clones
the idea is that Jedi teams need a tank that actually has a taunt so can protect them.
The other idea I put forward for mace windu in a thread for changing him;
you could put in instead of that taunt is an 60-70% chance to counter if another member of your team is attacked (maybe with a damage dealt mirroring of the original opposition attack)
For Plo Koon, I'm thinking something more grim would suit him better. Plo was wise and compassionate, but he wasn't gentle and he didn't always choose the least violent path. He believed in choices and consequences, and that's what I'm trying to make shine through in my suggestion.
With that said, I think you have many nice suggestions there and in either case I really hope that developers will at least take something of this all into consideration and review Plo Koon for a future update.
If I'm honest the really defensive Jedi tank should be general Obi wan - as he was the epitome of a perfect defence but I am not holding out much hope for that anytime soon
As described, this seems appropriate for Plo Koon, but I could also see it implemented for, say, Savage Opress or Asajj Ventress or Mace Windu or any other attacker that's supposed to have pretty brutal strength. It just makes the most sense to me with Plo Koon because of the combination of brutal strength+attack focussed+concern for protecting allies. Usually the attackers aren't described as protectors, but where an attacker *is* concerned about the welfare of allies, "unbalanced attacker" would be a good way to represent that.
+1
I like the idea of a revamp and I like the proposed ideas! I really like the no counter/evade since he was a beast duelist but agree with starting at a lower bonus attack percent and making its way up.
Based on what you said about this, I think it would be a good idea to have a taunt and retribution, kind of like the gamorrean guard now, but slightly different. You said he dealt with heavy attackers a lot, so what if it's a new buff? Power Retribution or something like that. Something like when an ally is below 50% health he taunts for a turn and gains retribution against attackers with over x power, since he did so much countering with Form V. That way he taunts the glass cannons or big hitters.
Also I think he should have some type of ability with clones, not just synergy. He spent a ton of time with the Wolfpack clones. Maybe on veterans resolves clone allies also gain offense up and double turn meter or something like that. Or even gain a counter. Idk, but some type of buff for clones also.
That's somethings to just throw out there, but I really like the ops initial post.