I posted this on Steam and people freaked out on me, trying to fight me for having an idea for a playable character due to it being said there wouldn’t be any new ones. I figured it might be good to post it here now. Hopefully no one will get angry at it; I would really like to see at least one new character join the ranks, if only to keep player interest and encourage more replays.
My idea is a melee based ascended saurian as a playable character.
Yes, just like Maurice, but also like the Psycho , and maybe a bit of Brick tossed in for good measure. Let me explain.
This class would be called ‘The Ascended’. It would be a slightly larger, more muscled version of the dinos you see on Eden-6; imagine physically Brick crossed with Maurice. It’s role? Actual melee combat.
I’m not sure if anyone else here uses slides and stomp attacks when fighting, but I find them both kinda hard to use effectively. BL3 is all about guns and shooting; none of the classes seem to have skills that allow them to benefit from abandoning that to run up and slide kick of dive stomp enemies. In most cases that I’ve seen, running into a crowd of enemies is more likely to get you downed than score you any melee kills. Even Amara, who has perks that can increase her melee damage doesn’t really benefit from doing so unless she gets mobbed and doesn’t have time to reload; at least not as far as choosing to run in and punch people to kill them.
This class would be a strong, brutish one, designed to use it’s body to fight more than any gun. Slide would be replaced with a headbutting charge attack with increased range. Walking and running speed would be increased overall (ever try outrunning or even outdriving those big T-rex things? Fast, ain’t they?) Jumping height would also be increased, so the stomp move could be used without having to climb on anything; just leap on someone or stomp the ground when you want to (I recently discovered that normal adult skags at the beginning of the game have a standing stomp attack, so this seems more than plausible. They can just jump, do a sort of flip and stomp the ground.) Similar to how the Operative can substitute his grenades for his drone, the Ascended’s normal attack is a bite/claw attack that you can sub guns into if you want to.
This class would benefit from increased toughness, similar to that one shield that gives no actual shields, but increases damage resistance.
As for weapons, well, the Ascended would wear a kind of weapons harness on it’s back and sides. Equip a weapon, and it goes into a hardpoint on the harness. Equip grenades, and it activates a grenade launcher on the side. All weapons would go onto the harness; all the more to allow the character to keep fighting with melee attacks when they want to, and to encourage it as much as possible.
As for the skill trees, there would be a ‘Brutish Hunter’ tree that would provide even more enhancements to fighting unarmed and increasing toughness, speed and allow for multiple melee attacks; a ‘Balanced Assault’ tree that would allow for a decent balance between melee and using weapons and other tech, and a ‘Enlightened’ tree that would lean mostly towards enhancing the character’s use of technology over physical assault that would give some bonuses to using guns, but also involve traps and mobility so as to dodge attacks and reduce overall damage.
I think this character would also call for ‘Ascended Tech’. Weapons and armor and other such devices that would reflect what a huge sentient raptor beast would devise if it had the chance to. Traps to capture ‘prey’ enemies; body armor to increase damage resistance or mounted blades (helmet spikes, torso blades, tail blades) to increase melee damage; harness mounted boosters so they could keep up with the various vehicles in the game while still on foot, or to allow for increased, boost assisted pounce maneuvers. Things like that.
The idea came to me as I saw how many artifacts give bonuses to melee and stomp attacks and wondered who they had made all these things for, when I don’t think many people are likely to try building a melee setup for their character, and then though it would maybe be fun if someone took all these tools and lore they put in place and made something interesting from it all for people to use.
So what do people think? would you play a character like this, designed to run down enemies, pounce on them and chew them to death?