Holoparasite Brainstorming Round 2

[Smokincheez]

Holoparasites are expensive and have huge potential for unique combat and utility abilities, but unfortunately for them with how combat focused the playerbase is, most types have fallen into meta hell. Most people never consider playing half of the types, understandably, because as soon as you're a known user, you will be killed on sight, meaning you must rely on your expensive ally to be able to keep you alive when being chased by several security officers.

Anyways, the goal of this post is to get ideas from people, so that hopefully someone will put the work in and make all holoparasite types worth their 12TC.

(I will point out that I'd also like all holopara types to have unique sprites, as well as allowing them to pick their color and name. I think would be an excellent way of adding more personality to them. Things like this are also welcome in this thread, though it is not the focus.)

One thing I'd like to suggest is giving more holopara types an ability they can use while not summoned, like Explosive's bomb trap. These abilities offer much more utility. Here's one example that I came up with:

Standard Holoparasite Ability: Counter Stance

• Toggled by the holoparasite while not summoned
• If the user is attacked by melee with Counter Stance toggled, the hit will be deflected with no damage to the user, the holoparasite will be immediately summoned, and then the holoparasite will instantly and automatically counterattack the attacker (stamina damage, knockdown, and/or brute damage, should be better than a normal attack)
• If the user is hit with a projectile with Counter Stance toggled, it will be deflected in a random direction, and the holoparasite will be summoned
• Counter Stance has a cooldown of (idk, 10 seconds?) between uses
• A simple sprite or animation, as well as a blocking/reflecting sound effect will occur when Counter Stance is activated

This should give an idea of what I'm thinking holoparasites need, and I ask for everyone's sake that everyone else formats their ideas in an organized fashion like you'd see on a wiki. I'll make separate posts replying to this one about the other ideas I have, I just wanted to have an example in the main post.

Anyways, please post any ideas regarding holopara strengths, weaknesses, and new things you may have in mind. Ideally I'd like for us to come up with enough things so that these ideas could possibly be used in the future.

(Keep in mind that the ideas you post may be used in future PR's, and I also ask anyone who does take inspiration from here for their PR to credit the user who came up with it.)

[TheBadPerson]

My issue is this; the holopara can only protect its host by killing or maiming attackers. It can’t teleport or speed up its host, and only the guardian can give a shield which really doesn’t solve the problem. 
 

This makes the ranged holo the clear cut best choice. It has the best DPS, and since it’s ranged it has the easiest opportunity to apply that DPS. It is also exposed to less damage as well. 
 

As a result, I think you only have two options to buff other holos. They either need to do a lot more damage to compensate the risk of melee(this still may not make them more viable), or they need more utility options like those you provided to make them more attractive choices. 
 

That said, one issue I see with a “counter stance” is that it’s not enough to be on par with the sheer killing power or a ranged holopara. A counter is nice, but it doesn’t solve the problem of sec bearing down on you, and it doesn’t make you escape. Your less powerful holopara will still have to contend with the countered sec off, most likely multiple. 
 

In my opinion the ranged holopara is one of the few traitor items in the game that can realistically wipe an unprepared sec team in a mass brawl(I’ve seen it happen). That power is hard to match with current other options. I have beaten charger holos in melee with one other officer before. 
 

Other holo options need to bring some serious utility options to the table in order to justify taking them over the raw killing power of the ranged variant. One idea could be letting the host share an ability similar to the nature of their holo.
 

For example, if you take an assassin holo you as the host also receive a stealth ability and maybe move faster in darkness similar to an umbrae. Or if you take a charger, you as the host also receive a charging knockdown ability or maybe a short speed boost. These are the types of utilities that I think would start to justify different holos based on your objectives. 
 

Bottom line is if you don’t choose a ranged holo, you need to be compensated with good utility options to make it make sense. 

[Hrulj]

The types are too similar a bit with what they need to achieve. 
 

Ranged is fine as is. 
merge melee into direct combat and stealth.
 

Warrior and assassin basically.

 

Warrior gets shields or deflection akin to Karp fu, ability to charge at someone and deals a lot of direct damage. Can also break down walls. 

Assassin can move trough walls and objects, is basically invisible, can attack from stealth/needs to be hit to be visible or maybe something else that uncovers it. Can also emag doors. Alternatively make it have greater autonomous range before it’s snapped back and unable to attack. 
 

Mind control holopara would be a fun addition. It can possess a character for a short time, say a minute, and the process is similar to mindswap by changeling where the char spazzes on the floor for a bit. It would allow you to move a target to a more secluded area, have them pull attack a colleague or just let you into a department. Can happen either with memory loss or without it depends on how they wanna balance it. 
 

Guardian/Healer that focuses on buffing and healing the user rather than straight up combat. Can grant it’s user an en energy shield mode, deflection from kinetics mode. Increased speed, meth effect, and maybe the wizards little magic wall that lasts a shorter time and doesn’t let the user pass trough it. Maybe also can absorb damage for user - all damage taken goes to holopara until it is dead and only then damages the user. 

[sirius]

On 4/8/2023 at 7:04 PM, Hrulj said:

The types are too similar a bit with what they need to achieve. 
 

Ranged is fine as is. 
merge melee into direct combat and stealth.
 

Warrior and assassin basically.

 

Warrior gets shields or deflection akin to Karp fu, ability to charge at someone and deals a lot of direct damage. Can also break down walls. 

Assassin can move trough walls and objects, is basically invisible, can attack from stealth/needs to be hit to be visible or maybe something else that uncovers it. Can also emag doors. Alternatively make it have greater autonomous range before it’s snapped back and unable to attack. 
 

Mind control holopara would be a fun addition. It can possess a character for a short time, say a minute, and the process is similar to mindswap by changeling where the char spazzes on the floor for a bit. It would allow you to move a target to a more secluded area, have them pull attack a colleague or just let you into a department. Can happen either with memory loss or without it depends on how they wanna balance it. 
 

Guardian/Healer that focuses on buffing and healing the user rather than straight up combat. Can grant it’s user an en energy shield mode, deflection from kinetics mode. Increased speed, meth effect, and maybe the wizards little magic wall that lasts a shorter time and doesn’t let the user pass trough it. Maybe also can absorb damage for user - all damage taken goes to holopara until it is dead and only then damages the user. 

so basically the healer holo but actually with a decent heal and some abilites that is useful so it isnt basically a mixed mender like it is now

[Hrulj]

21 hours ago, sirius said:

so basically the healer holo but actually with a decent heal and some abilites that is useful so it isnt basically a mixed mender like it is now

Pretty much. There's far too little heals currently from healer. Their attacks are weak, they are melee, and they offer no other utilities.

The melee holoparas don't move fast enough or do enough damage to be viable, and they have to stand and fight which makes it impossible to run with your owner away and if you dont run you get snapped back to the owner. Ranged holopara can just keep spraying shards at any pursuers while running away and pulling the owner while doing so, the shards do massive damage. The scout ability gives them decent utility etc etc. 

For 12 TC that dissapear when you're downed or killed once you don't get enough utility out of holoparas.