class idea

[Radon26]

we have some warriors and a rogue who use magic, but we do not have a mage that would use a weapon. (Reaver doesn't count)


in my attempts to create a mage, which is rather dependant on his/her equipment, I created this
class idea V3

i also had chance to play a bit of the new Warden, and have to say that he also covers a lot... but that's temporal! and i don't like temporal...

current talent trees
class
-Arcane tactics v2 (keeps arcane mark, rest reworked)
-Dancing blades v2 (i still want to get rid of impale somehow)
-Mystical archery
-Staff alternative
-Empowerment ()
-(some crazy stuff)


generic
-new meta (reworked)
-alternative aegis (still no new name)
-(force from arcanum pack would certainly fit)

[0player]

Pal, it's been a day, and forums are slow. The drama crown is not yours for the taking!

I like the idea, though the aesthetic reminds me of Mesmer somewhat. I left comments all over your document.

As for the signature move... well, I was really quite disappointed to learn that arcane disruption doesn't actually provide you with any benefits. It's not like wizard hats of slime are that good on their own that I'd want to put up with slightly less annoying disruption... which is essentially confusion still. If you want to do this sort of "balancing on the edge" guy, give 'em the edge to balance on!

[Radon26]

well thx for the input, and i am glad that you liked at least one of the talents.
and, you did not even call staff alternative op.

and, any suggestions as for the enhanced sword play?
its not a 2h, so i cant give it 2h assault like talents, and he is not intended for a dual or shield.
he needs something of his own.

actually, i see no really good reason why he shouldn't be able to wield 2h... but ... i would rather have something else.
i mean, if you chose the staff path, he will be unable to use 2handers... or he will jjust get the tallents, put a normall staff in his main hand and that's just wrong!

[Radon26]

I changed some ideas a bit.
"free hand" does not exist any more. (rip enchanted fabric D*:)
added a few random ideas at the bottom.
the "enhanced sword play" got a new talent. (empowered cleave)
after image is a passive now. was too powerful for a standalone. and has less hp
syphon psi renamed to mental drain.
hidden resources doesn't break.

no words on staff alternative or gem slinger, so its either so good it doesn't need changes or so bad it should just disappear.

edit
a day and 50 views later, still no one is responding... but no! "you have to wait"! forums are slow and stuff...

[Radon26]

some may take 3 days of silence as a sign that something is wrong... But hey! have to stay positive right?!
After all, if 0player says something, it must be true! he is a good person, he would not lie or anything like that.
the 100 people that didn't say a thing probably just had no time to replay, because what is 3 days.
so i wrote a different idea, for a mage that has some actual sword talents, and instead of gm slinger i went with arrows. but no bow.
also, the mana vortex seemed weird, so i sliced it in 2 and modified. that change also allowed to attach ground "enchanted fabric". and that also solve my, "how the hell do i attach a shield to this guy", and "is there something else that i can do instead of aegis"?

[elboyo]

To be completely honest, nothing in this class really jumps out at me as something that I would like to play.

I don't have a very good sense of what you were looking to create with this class. I would love to see a melee class built around a staff (my last mindslayer used 2 staves and a dagger), but I'm just not feeling the current talent trees that you have up.

[Radon26]

there are fighters that use magic, but not many mages that use weapons (reaver does not count). Also, every class in the game, has either fixed 2 damage types (with a tiny bit of a 3rd), or have to chose 1 or 2, to make it effective (archmages, and wyrmics).
Alchemist is as close as it gets to flexible damage, since all he need to do, is change infusion and command the staff, to do the most effective damage. But even then, his infusions are limited, and he only has 3 spells that are affected by it.

the first idea was
-unstable magic
-weapon based magic
so, i made a few weapon based trees. like "enchanced sword play" if you prefer melee, and gem slinger if you prefer ranged.
also, staff based tree, to just make everything more powerful, or free hand, if you want to do something else.
but that makes you do 2 choices, and as you said doesn't really stand out.

so I changed the idea a bit.
-mele weapons in main hand, staves in offhand, arrows in ammo slot.
-spell that works like armor and shield.

as for impale spell, it was part of the original idea for the tree, but with arrows also having the pining talent, it will be replaced as soon as there is a talent to take its place.

but with no suggestions as to what else i could put in, and the fact that there are a loads of mods who also do bits of it, i mostly given up.

[elboyo]

Just file it away in your mind until inspiration strikes you again.

It might be a hard sell in the immediate because of the rework on the temporal warden which I see it coming into competition with stylistically.

The best takeaway from this class, in my opinion, is having a staff combat talent tree. As it stands, there are only two talents that make use of the staff and they are boring. Having a tree that allows you to channel the element that your staff is attuned to and create flavorful/useful effects would be a really great addition to the game generally.

I can help try and flesh out a tree like that this weekend when I have some extra free time if you are still looking to plug away at it. I really enjoy designing mechanics (although I am useless at the programming part).

[Radon26]

i would love to hear your ideas on the topic. if its going somewhere.

while arcane is the default damage type of the class, i want the stave talent to be able to completely convert all arcane damage to its type. I would also like to add another category containing: nature, physical, arcane, and possibly mind.

also, i think it could be nice to have a spell with a component, like alchemical gems or arrows. however gem slinger seemed a bit off and forced.

I want this class to be flexible with damage end effects, but not necessarily mobile.

[anonymous000]

I am interested in your idea. The dancing blades talent reminds me of my old discussions about how to rework the mindslayers. Combined with Parcae2's idea what I had in mind back then was a extremely versatile short ranged summoner that can shift between being a short ranged summoner or a short ranged archer, with some mage-like talents for support. Seems it is in-line with your class design, that is to make them capable of everything but not overly strong in one aspect. More importantly it is an interesting core mechanics left unexplored.

Here is the discussion thread, hopefully you will find some ideas there useful
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 4&start=15

[Radon26]

so first idea was a self learner who picks up a sword, some magic tricks, and instability.
second idea was to put both "sword" and "mage" in the sword mage. the dancing swords category seemed like a good idea at a moment, but i don't feel satisfied with the way it is now.
I am considering making another change, and making him the master of grandstanding.

while i want to keep the idea of using a weapon, having damage flexibility, and some of the trees to carry on, i am thinking about a class with a bit more control talents, and manipulating the battleground.

the confirmed talents will be
- alternative aegis (pls someone give me a name)
- alternative staff mastery
- mystical archery

also, a category that i am considering to put in there for "control" but doesn't seem to fit with the overall design.

stone barier t1
active | range: [1, 2, 4, 5, 7] | mana cost 30 | cooldown 10
creates a stone pull a solid block of stone right out of the ground.
pushes back all enemies out of the way and places stone wall in the selected are.
enemies that cannot be moved will be petrified.
at talent lvl1 you can only create a barier in a cone of a radius one.
more points in this talent will give you bigger wall that can be placed further away.
from talent lvl 3 you can select a specific creature (including self) to surround it in the barier.

jump t2
active | mna cot: 20| cooldown 5| range [3, 3, 4, 4, 5]
use earth to launch a character in the chosen direction in a distance of up to x.

earth shock t3
active | mana cost 50 | range [4, 5, 7, 8, 10] | cooldown: 30
release a powerful force below the surface, breaking the ground around and putting everyone in radius [4, 5, 7, 8, 10] offbalance.
(This talent will also cause x rad 1 bursts of xxx arcane damage?)

rubble shield t4
active | mana cost: 20 | cooldown: 10 | range: melee/personal
pull x panels out of the ground creating 'all' wards.
every projectile targetting you has xx% cahnce to be intercepted by the rubble, removing the piece.
while intercepted projectiles wont do any "on hit" damage, they will not lose any explosive power if had any.


also, some cone knock back would be nice

[elboyo]

After putting a bit of thought into it, I had a couple of ideas that might help you think of something for your mage+sword idea, especially since you seem so keen on adding some sort of magic-based archery to it.

I was thinking of three combat trees that breakdown like this:

1) Dancing Blade

This tree would involve skills where the activation involved disarming yourself to create a copy of your weapon to create various effects. These effects would all need to have slow/medium projectile speeds for this flavor to work.

For example:
Talent 1 - Throw your sword out in a line, piercing and damaging everything in its path dealing X% weapon damage and disarming yourself until your weapon returns.

Talent 2 - Send your blade to strike down an opponent, dealing X% weapon damage each turn for Y turns. If the target dies, the weapon immediately returns to your hand, ending the disarmed effect. I was thinking that this projectile could be a bit faster and work like the new Temporal Bolt in terms of the tracking mechanic.

Talent 3 - Chaining projectile (if this is even possible) that jumps X times dealing Y% weapon damage that cannot strike the same target twice.

Talent 4 - Call all of your blades back to you instantaneously dealing X% weapon damage to any targets they pass through and gain a magical buff for Y turns that adds an additional weapon hit for each returned blade to your next melee attack. Buff dispels on a successful hit.

I am thinking that the total number of points invested in the tree would determine the maximum number (maybe 3) of blades that you could have out at once before disarming yourself so that the capstone ability could produce well-planned and effective combos.

2) Infusions

This tree is more concerned with buffing your weapon attacks with various elemental effects. I won't map out specifics here since those would depend very strongly on the multi-hitting nature of skills. My general thoughts here were to create sustain effects which allow you to select the element or the added element damage of your attacks in a similar way to what alchemists have for bombs and to create an instantaneous use ability that causes your attacks for the round to deal X damage in an AoE around your weapon targets based on whichever sustain you have running. Just like the alchemist sustains, it would be a good idea for these added elements to include their appropriate status ailment chances.

Also, having some ability in here that could gain mana on weapon hits may also be good if our mana costs on this character run high.

3) Mystical Archery

Because I really enjoy the flavor of the Dream Hammer talent tree, I was thinking that this would be a good opportunity to have an archer that has no bow. Whether you want to think of it like a Soul Bow from D&D, a Quincy for Bleach fans, or whatever else you may have seen this fighter type in, the idea is for him to use magic to fire his ammunition rather than a physical bow. I would still like to determine base damage off of the quiver slot because I like swapping quivers to make use of special effects when I play, but the template still works even if you want to remove ammo from the equation.

Talent 1 - passive that determines Range and any number of other effects like bonus damages APR and the like. The most important thing here is that this talent tree is unaffected by the disarm status effect (since you aren't using a weapon) so that we can combo nicely with our dancing blades while they're out cutting things up. Gives a modified version of the "Shoot" talent to use.

Talent 2 - Mark a target for X turns with a magic arrow dealing weapon damage +Y arcane damage. Using any Mystical Archery talent (including the modified Shoot) fires an additional shot for Z% weapon damage to the marked target.

Talent 3 - honestly, not sure about this slot. Either a strong multi-hitting attack or a medium-damage disabling effect of some sort for this spot.

Talent 4 - Fire a super charged arrow, hitting all enemies in a line for X% weapon damage. If this attack hits your Marked target [talent 2] it deals additional arcane damage in an AoE centered on the marked target based on your current mana (scaling Y% to Z%).



In terms of play style, I can clearly envision single-tree styles and mixed-tree styles for these abilities. What do you think about them? Do they capture any of the flavor that you were looking for while brainstorming?

[Radon26]

as for dancing blades, i don't really like that you send the real thing, but i really don't have a solid idea so it is a possibility.
t1, that's sort of how impale was supposed to work, except using the phantoms created by the dancing blades
t2 who let the dogs out? i have sentries in t4 right now. i think that's similar enough, and i made it spawn multiple copies
t3 uhm... i prefer my current t3, which is a razor storm. but if i decide to use the real thing instead i will reconsider.
t4 wait, at what point did you jump into multiple?

as for infusion, i already said that i want my damage type to be determined by staff in the offhand. Although there can be additional damage.

as for archery, where did you get the idea that i don't want quivers? the gem slinger had replaced shots with gems, but that was still a physical thing.
have you read manga called "the gamer"? imagine real arrows inside of those, and that's more less what i was thinking for this category, which currently looks like this:
Mystical archery 10+C [locked] [and hidden until you get the shot talent]
magic arrows t1
active/passive, mana cost: 5 range: [5-9]
-require: shot talent
increase PP when using arrows by xx damage dealt by yy%. (like any other weapon mastery)
shot arrows using your mana, instead of a bow.
snipe t2
active, mana cost: 30, cooldown 10
charge your arrow with a great power and shot down the enemy.
on hit, causes… some strong effect, and a lot of damage. also allows you to cast arcane mark. (the same arcane mark as in the v1)
still going to cost mana, but wont take time.
shredder t3
active, mana cost, 50
fire up to [5, 7, 9, 11, 13] arrows in a cone. each arrow will do xx% weapon damage as a beam.
pin down t4
active, mana cost: 30 cooldown 10
send 5 arrows to the sky, and then thrust them down pinning down a specific target.
each arrow will deal xx% weapon damage. The first arrow that hits will pin the target for 3 turns. each next arrow will extend the pin duration by 1.

i had 2 ideas for this class, and for 3rd i wanted to merge the 2 concepts a bit with another twist.
-instability is back
-fatigue will affect more talents
-staff alternative is not going anywhere
-augmented blades replaced with empowerment

Empowerment 0+C
<arcane might t1>
passive
does something basic
also increase your str by [2, 4, 6, 8, 10](+SP%x2) for the purpose of equipping swords and maybe armour.
<arcane constitution t2>
passive
uses mana to pay for 50% of the stamina costs.
increase your hp by TL per magic.
additionally, when either your health or mana is full, add its regeneration rate the other.
<arcane reflexes t3> (originally was supposed to be for crits, need new name. is fortitude a good word here?)
sustain | sustain mana cost: 10 | cooldown: 0
increase your spell damage by [10-50+SP%x2]%. This talent is very straining and adds [10-50]% fatigue which cannot be removed by any means. It will also drain 2 mana every turn while active.
<arcane t4> (what do i put there...)

the first talent of dancing blades, can now can trigger one of few spells, which include arcane mark.
"marked" enemies, will now return some mana when they die. (and possibly souls too? but unsure how to spend the,)

[elboyo]

as for dancing blades, i don't really like that you send the real thing, but i really don't have a solid idea so it is a possibility.
t1, that's sort of how impale was supposed to work, except using the phantoms created by the dancing blades
t2 who let the dogs out? i have sentries in t4 right now. i think that's similar enough, and i made it spawn multiple copies
t3 uhm... i prefer my current t3, which is a razor storm. but if i decide to use the real thing instead i will reconsider.
t4 wait, at what point did you jump into multiple?

Talent 2 - I was thinking more of a slow-moving projectile that was drawn towards your target in the same fashion that the new (1.3) Temporal Bolt tracks and follows the caster. I thought that would fit your idea of a fighter rather than turning the character into a half-summoner.

Talent 4 - I wrote below the talents that it would be a good idea to increase the maximum times your weapon can be thrown before becoming disarmed as a factor of the total number of points invested in the Dancing Blade tree. So maybe 1/2 additional with 6/13 points, making the cap of 3 weapons out.

This tree would also require a different kind of Disarm effect that couldn't be dispelled.

as for infusion, i already said that i want my damage type to be determined by staff in the offhand. Although there can be additional damage.

In that case, have your staff element determine the damage type of the effects and make this tree have passives/buffs which give something additional to this damage. Maybe add an AoE burst with an activate-able or give the ability to cause elemental-affiliated status effects.

as for archery, where did you get the idea that i don't want quivers? the gem slinger had replaced shots with gems, but that was still a physical thing ...

You've got to read more carefully. I wrote, "I would still like to determine base damage off of the quiver slot because I like swapping quivers to make use of special effects when I play." If you would prefer the quiver slot be loaded with gems rather than a quiver of arrows or a sack of shot, there is no reason that it cannot be designed to do any of those.




As it stands, most of your archery talents don't feel like they incorporate the magical theme of your class.

T1 - It seems a waste to give your passive such a generic physical power/damage increase when you could be having it deal a set base damage (based on talent level) that was determined by your offhand staff element or the gem used in your quiver.

T2 - Without a clear idea of what the "strong effect" is, I cannot provide feedback except that having a strong single-target at this tier is a good idea.

T3 - Firing a whole bunch of arrows in a cone-shaped array of beams is a nice idea and it fits well with the idea of a supernatural sort of archer. What happens for this skill at point-blank range though? Will it multi-hit adjacent targets?
If it can hit a single-target more than once, this skill will only really be used for destroying targets in melee rather than as a strong AoE skill. If you are looking to give him a strong AoE, I suggest that you considered a higher damage hit with an additional effect like flat damage or a status ailment and just make it into a normal cone.

T4 - This needs replacing. It doesn't feel like a capstone for mystical archery. A single-target that hits 5 times is generally a pretty nice thing, but what does this ability have to do with magic?


You have also put some serious effort into looking at resource management, from the looks of it. I would really suggest getting the attacks and special abilities hammered out first so you have a clear idea of how you want the class to play and how you intend to kill/control your enemies. Right now, I really feel like you keep putting the cart before the horse.

I wouldn't try to sell you the idea of the Skirmisher class by telling you all about his many methods of replenishing stamina, I would tell about his called shots, his mobility, and his defensive skills.

[Radon26]

I tried to create something, and then learned it already exist. (new warden and enchanter from arcanum pack)
so, keeping the base idea, while making sure it is different.

as for the blades, so you ARE creating copies after all, but if so, how does that disarm you? if the real thing is still in its place...

yes i read that part, which made me think you want to persuade me into keeping it, which imply i was thinking of taking it off.

as for arrows, the t3 talents was actually supposed to work sort of like that, but now that i think about it, getting 13 his for more than 100% and and possible procs... earns the name.
how about it being in t4, with 5 shots, and put the t4 into t3, with many shots and make it a random hit AoE ball?

as for resource management.
well, with rather expansive talents, and the idea that fatigue makes him somewhat stronger, and a talent that increase fatigue greatly... then add expansive procks, i felt like there should be some return.
the dampener was just part of the staff tree that i don't want to change, and its mana gain, is about enough to cover the mana loss from the sheath of force. (also, 2 damage reductions stacked on top of each other... may have to reconsider)

i assume you did click the new link to the V3 right?