Which of your specs almost made it in the game?

ErikPeter

D3 keeps pumping out characters. I know many people are regulars in this forum and have proposed many ideas. I saw that Ronin-san's Iceman has a purple power that generates blue. So my question today is, which of your speculative builds/powers were close to something that was later released? Which in-game powers do you secretly (or not so secretly) feel in some way responsible for?

I haven't really gotten too close with anything. My Ant-Man had a Green power that was a bit like Squirrel Girl's green. Also Luke Cage's Jab, Jab, Cross works a lot like my Clobber for Thing.

Clobber (7 red)
Thing clobbers the enemy team for 1973 damage. Costs 1 less for each time you use Clobber during a turn

The D3 version works better for the A.I. though, since the AI never activates the same power twice on a turn.

Mawtful

My very first character spec was a rework of Moonstone. I changed her black from stealing a countdown to stealing special tiles. The demiurge version is a straight-forward steal but limited to 3, my version was more complex but could steal all special tiles (at max rank). IIRC, it gave the opposing team AP but I changed her Photon Blast to have a "mana burn" effect that dealt more damage based on the total AP of the enemy rather than based on number of red tiles on the board.

Edit: Found it! Here's the full power set, since I changed all three of her abilities. Also including my "design doc" preamble (as you might be able to guess, this was from a long, long time ago, when OBW was arguably the best character in the game).

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This idea originally came from a "nerf OBW" thread that had turned into a "provide options other than OBW" thread. That is to say, the issue isn't that OBW is necessarily more powerful than other characters, it's that she's often the only option for a number of different roles (AP Theft, Healing, CD Control). Someone had suggested that a buff to Moonstone could be an interesting way to balance OBW - that a counter pick would be enough to temper the "danger level" that OBW presents.

I liked that concept, and poor Moonstone needs a bit of work on all of her abilities. So I got to work on dreaming up a redesign for a Tanky Support Moonstone. There are some inherent problems with creating a character simply to counter another, including the fact that nothing would stop people simply running both on the same team. The best way I can think to protect against this is to change Moonstone's strong values from Purple > Red > Black to Purple > Black > Red. This means that at equal level, Moonstone will take Black over OBW, no matter what order they lineup, and they will share strength on Purple. This will diminish the effectiveness of Espionage.

When considering how to redesign her abilities, I wanted to make sure I came up with concepts that both mirrored and countered OBW. So, once again, those core support abilities of OBW are AP Theft, Healing and CD Control, and Moonstone needed to come across as a "Tanky Support" type. I decided that Moonstone would not support her allies, but instead she would debuff her opponents. I only know about Moonstone from the small bit of information on her Roster Profile, but this feel like it was in line with her character.

Gravity Warp (Active, 6 AP)
Moonstone opens up a Gravity Warp, which deals extra damage to opponents when it collapses.

Rank 1: Convert a random basic colour tile into a warp tile. When the tile is matched, it destroys all surrounding tiles for additional damage. Tiles destroyed in this way do not generate AP.
Rank 2: Increase AP cost by 1. Placement is no longer random, select Warp tile locations.
Rank 3: Increase AP cost by 1. Create an additional Warp tile.
Rank 4: Increase AP cost by 1. Warp tiles are now linked. When one collapses, all other warps collapse.
Rank 5: Increase AP cost by 1. Create an additional Warp tile.

This was a lot of fun to design.
The original Gravity Warp probably needed the most work. The first thing to note about this ability is it no longer deals damage itself. This is intentional to emphasize Moonestone's role as a support character. Instead, this ability can be used to complement the damage dealt by any of the characters in your team - like a kind of Epsionage where everybody gets the benefit.
Although this is a dreaded increasing cost ability, I felt that was a necessary concession to make, particularly for the higher ranks. If nothing else, at Rank 3 it will cost 8 AP, which is the cost of the current Gravity Warp, and provide much better utility. It still conveinently comes in 1 AP cheaper than OBW's Purple when both at Rank 5.
I've tried just about every possible combination for ordering which ranks the additional effects are added, and I feel that this is the best way in which good arguments can be made for each of rank 3, 4, or 5 (diverse character builds are great).


Control Shift (Active, 6 AP)
A master of manipulation, Moonstone takes what she wants.

Rank 1: Take control of one target enemy strike or protect tile.
Rank 2: Can also target attack and countdown tiles. As an additional cost, adds 2 Black AP to opponent.
Rank 3: Take control of two target tiles. Also adds 2 Purple AP to opponent.
Rank 4: Take control of all enemy special tiles. Also adds 2 Red AP to opponent.
Rank 5: Stuns the opponent for 2 turns. Adds 3 AP of each color to opponents pool.

Moonstone is described as a master manipulator, and I don't think the original Control Shift ability really showcased that at all; it's both expensive and conditional.

My take on Control Shift has a lot going on. I think it's arguable that my version doesn't represent a "master" manipulator either, since Moonstone ends ups giving AP to her opponent, but it ends up synergising well with Photon Blast below.
The outright stealing of special tiles is inspired by Loki's "Trickery" (which I would actually also rework, but that's another story). Since Moonstone doesn't generate any support tiles on her own, she takes what she wants from other people.
Secondly, I kept the stun, but moved it to Rank 5 since it's now more like the icing on the cake, rather than the point of the skill. It's 6 AP for a 2-turn stun, which is pretty good. You also get any and all of your opponent's special tiles, but you do end up giving away a lot of AP.


Photon Blast (Active, 14 AP)
Mana burn edition.

Rank 1: Deals X damage. Photon Blast burns 2 Red AP of the opponent. For each AP destroyed in this way, deal an additional Y damage.
Rank 2: Photon Blast also burns 2 Black and Purple AP.
Rank 3: For each AP pool of the opponent greater than 5, return 1 Red AP.
Rank 4: Photon Blast burns 2 of each color.
Rank 5: For each AP pool of the opponent greater than 2, return 1 Red AP.

Photon Blast now serves as a counter point to AP Theft and synergises well with Control Shift - you can see now why Moonstone would want to flood her opponents' AP pools. This also helps to deter the likelihood of people teaming Moonstone and OBW frequently (stealing AP will reduce the effectiveness of Photon Blast, and PB will reduce the effectiveness of Aggressive Recon).

Photon Blast should still be a high-mid strength, single target attack. The bonus damage from the AP burn doesn't need to be a huge amount, but it should represent enough of a threat.
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Oh boy. Powers that get more expensive as you level them up? Highly convoluted mechanics on Photon Blast? Ok, I think I need to redesign my redesign.

ronin_san

I've been spot on a couple times.

I called "Contract Kill" in like February or March of this year for Bullseye.

I called Iceman's cover art and nearly hit his first two abilities.

I called Dive Bomb, but suggested it for Rogue vs them naming it for FalCap.


I kind of feel like they need to catch up to My,Malcrof's, and Your (Erikpeter) spec'd characters. We've hit some awesome ideas.

I'm particularly proud of my Sabertooth and Rogue.

GundamY

I named my spec! Captain Falcon's yellow ability "Wings of Liberty", but that's about it