As we've reported, Game Designer Brian Urbanek has been busy discussing various power sets in Champions Online. Well, the power news keeps coming as Urbanek outlines the Martial Arts power sets on the official Web site. Unarmed is a "taking set in disguise" and Single Blade is designed to eliminate single targets. Dual Blade is meant to kill henchmen and focuses on critical hits, and Claw is a hybrid set. You can read the full article after the jump.

The Champions Online Daily News blog is also continuing its coverage on powers in the second part of an interview with Urbanek. He talks about balance and roles, saying "Our system layout is set up to encourage players to build up multiple specialties within their full tool set." You can create multiple builds and switch between them. For example, everyone can have the healing power or the defending power in their builds, so they can switch between thanking, DPSing and so on. But roles are unlocked through achievement; for example, you'll gain access to specialized healing roles the more you heal.

In addition, the blog announced that the size of the power tray has doubled from seven to 14 following feedback from beta. "Players do still have three different 'roles,' which allow them to swap in a new tray of 14 powers. Meaning players could have 42 powers on-hand at any given time."

On Tuesday, we discussed the “Energy” power sets: Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Force. Today, we’re going to move to the other end of the spectrum and discuss the close-combat power sets. Martial Arts covers four different power sets: Claws, Single Blade, Dual Blade, and Unarmed. Here’s the in-depth look at these sets.

The Martial Arts power sets were all conceived and designed at the same time. They are intentionally mirrors of each other in their basic forms: one light attack, one medium attack, one auxiliary attack, two heavy attacks, and auxiliary abilities. Each power, however, was explicitly designed to have a different purpose.

Unarmed is actually a tanking set in disguise. It is built to be a multi-mob tank. There are a number of area of effect abilities, as well as a number that cause players to gain energy as they dodge.

Single Blade was designed as the single-target elimination set. It’s built for causing maximum possible damage against a single target. Dual Blade is the henchman-killing set. It is very focused on scoring critical hits. The more critical hits scored, the harder and faster the Dual Blades go. Claws is something of a hybrid set. It is similar to both Single Blade and Dual Blade in that it’s better than Dual Blade versus bosses, and better than Single Blade versus mobs. It’s also the one that has the most stuff in it (as of right now, anyway).

There’s also a misunderstanding about the Martial Arts power sets. There're a lot of powers in Martial Arts like Shuriken Throw that appear only in one power set, but they’re meant to work in all sets. We had an internal debate over whether we wanted to replicate these powers in all sets, or keep them as they are. So, these sets each have a different base set of powers, but at the same time there are a number of powers which could be used in any of the four sets.

How we balance close combat and ranged fighting in PvP is a common question. We’ve come up with a unique system to deal with the advantage that ranged players might have over those players who need close distances to deal damage. Melee powers can be activated at range, and the target then becomes “marked”. This “mark” then stores up energy within it, so that when you close in to melee range and strike a hit, you suddenly gain a huge burst of energy which you’ve built up over time. You still have to close in, but once you do, you gain all the energy you would have gotten had you been using ranged powers the entire time.

Thanks again to Brian “Balseraph” Urbanek for taking time to sit down and talk with us about powers. Next week, we’ll continue our coverage of powers with details on “power replacers” and the Mystic power sets. Have a great weekend!