Curse

draxynnic · Feb 12, 2007, 11:01 AM // 11:01

Suggestions for better names would be welcome - I'm having trouble coming up with something that isn't culture-specific or simply named after the weapon or role.

Design Brief: This idea came about when I started thinking about how to make a profession to fulfill a similar role (tank that provides benefits to nearby allies) to the Armiger. In fact, the thoughts that led to this profession were almost posted in that thread, until I realised that what I was suggesting was essentially an entirely new concept.

Background: The Soldier style of fighting originated before the granting of magic by the Gods, when it was learned that a disciplined formation fighting together as a unit could defeat a larger number of less organised troops. With the introduction of magic - specifically, the mass damage spells of the Elementalist - such formations fell out of favour. However, some fighters maintain the skills developed for this kind of fighting, adapting the cooperative defense techniques of a fighting formation to act as bodyguards for valueble members of the skirmishing teams that became the standard after magic was incorporated into the arts of war.

Playstyle: The Soldier is aimed at essentially acting as the bodyguard(s) for the rest of the party. While the Soldier's armour is of a similar level to the Warrior, it is superior in defending the rest of the party in two ways:

First, the profession has a number of stances and skills which provide protection to nearby or adjacent allies hamper the movement of their enemies, and otherwise assist their allies in dealing damage. By employing a polearm, the Soldier is better able to position themselves to provide coverage over as many of their allies as possible while still being able to attack the enemy. Mostly, these skills do not require the Soldier to target the ally in question to function, merely to activate the skill while in proximity to the ally in question.

This requires the creation of a new range category: "within reach". For a character with a ranged weapon, this covers the adjacent area - for a character with a melee weapon, this covers the reach of the weapon (which will also typically be in the adjacent range, with the polearms being an obvious exception)

Second, a number of the Soldier's attack skills are most effective when the enemy is not attacking the Soldier. This presents the opposing side with a choice - they can continue to attack the Soldier's allies and accept the damage and disruption that the Soldier can cause when ignored in this manner, or they can attack the Soldier and accept that this means they are attacking the tougher armour of the Soldier as opposed to the relatively thin armour of the Soldier's allies.

Like the Warrior and the Paragon, the Soldier has some skills that require Energy and some that require Adrenaline.

Armour:While the Soldier wears armour of similar quality to that of the Warrior, it is worth noting that while the threat of physical damage is reduced (since they do not need to get quite as close to fight), the expectation that the Soldier will remain in close proximity to allies increases the threat of area-of-effect attacks, which are primarily elemental in origin. Hence, the Soldier's armour is composed of a mix of leather and padded cloth with plate or mail over vital areas - essentially forming a compromise between Warrior and Ranger armour. This grants a maximum base AL of 90 against both physical and elemental damage - stronger than the Warrior's armour against elemental damage, but weaker against physical. The Soldier's base armour does not provide any benefits to energy, energy regeneration, or health. (Think something reminiscent of a German landsknechte or Spanish conquistador.)

Weapon:The Soldier's weapons are a variety of polearms of various types, allowing the Soldier to attack nearby opponents as well as those adjacent. These polearms have a damage and rate of attack comparable to a scythe (9-41 every 1.75 seconds), but unlike scythes, a polearm cannot attack multiple targets. The base polearm type is a halberd-like weapon that deals slashing damage with an axe blade and has a hook on the back, but variations that cause bludgeoning or piercing damage (replacing the axe blade with a battlepick-like point or hammer head respectively) may be available.

(Note: An alternative weapon, possibly worth giving the Soldier a second weapon attribute, is a melee spear. However, I think halberd-style weapons give more options for attack skills (and prove more useful outside of formation fighting), so given a choice between one or the other I think the halberd-type polearm works better.)

Primary attribute: Toughness.
For each rank in Toughness, you have +1 armour level. Many skills, especially those related to surviving in battle, become more effective with higher Toughness.

The primary attribute effect allows the Soldier to achieve an AL similar to that achievable by a shield-equipped Warrior. In principle, this allows a base AL of 122 to be achievable with a Warrior or Paragon secondary, however, to be able to deal damage as well this would require points to be spent in two secondary attributes (Tactics, Motivation or Command for the shield, and Sword, Axe or Spear Mastery for the weapon).

Skills: (Note that the numbers, and even whether particular skills are energy or adrenal-based, are in most cases deliberately left out. These are presented to illustrate the playstyle I have in mind, not in order to discuss whether a given set of numbers on a given skill are balanced)

Discipline (0 activation time):
Skill. For the next X seconds, you are immune to the effects of hostile Shouts

First Aid:
Skill. Target ally touched is healed for X damage and loses the Bleeding condition

Quick March:
Stance. You move 25% faster for X seconds.

Attribute: Defensive Arts.
No inherent effect. Many skills, especially those related to defending your allies, become more effective with higher Defensive Arts.

Skills:

Interpose:
Skill. For X seconds, you receive half of the damage dealt to touched other ally. Interpose ends if you are no longer adjacent to the target.

Altruistic Parry (0 activation time):
Skill. For X seconds, the next attack skill used against an ally within reach is blocked. If the attack skill applies some effect when blocked, you suffer that effect instead.

Watchful Defense:
Stance. For X seconds, you move 33% slower and adjacent allies have a Y% chance to block incoming attacks

Attribute: Polearm Mastery.
Polearm Mastery increases the damage you do with polearms and your chance of inflicting a critical hit while using a polearm. Many skills, especially polearm attack skills, become more effective with higher Polearm Mastery.

Skills:

Surprise Sweep:
Attack Skill. If this attack hits, target is knocked down. Surprise Sweep has a 50% failure chance with Polearm Mastery 4 or less. This action is easily interrupted.

Can Opener:
Attack Skill. If this attack hits, you strike for +X damage. This polearm attack has 20% armour penetration.

Careful Sweep:
Attack Skill. If this attack hits, you strike for -X damage, and, if the target is attacking another ally, target is knocked down.

Ankle Sweep {E}:
Attack Skill. If this attack hits, you strike for -X damage and target is knocked down.

(Note: In general, I see the rest of the line as being a cross between Axe and Hammer Mastery, with many skills having similar downsides as Surprise Sweep and Careful Sweep)

Attribute: Battlefield Control.
No inherent effect. Many skills, especially skills that hinder your enemies' movement, become more effective with higher Battlefield Control.

Knockback:
Attack Skill. If this melee attack hits, you strike for +X damage and target is interrupted and knocked back 3 feet. This action is easily interrupted.

Harass:
Stance. For X seconds, you and enemies within reach move 33% slower.

Receive Charge:
Stance. For X seconds, you move 33% slower. If you hit an enemy that is moving faster than normal, you deal +Y damage and that enemy is Crippled for Z seconds.

Combining Professions: Obvious secondary professions include the Warrior and Paragon, either simply to enhance the Soldier's defensive techniques with shouts or to incorporate a shield for even higher armour. The Soldier could also combine well with Elementalist wards, Necromancer wells or Ritualist spirits in order to defend an area. Earth Prayers enchantments from the Dervish could be used to protect the Soldier or apply debilitating conditions to nearby foes (although note that the Soldier lacks skills that strip enchantments, requiring the use of Signet of Pious Light to trigger the secondary effect of enchantments such as Staggering Force), while a Monk secondary could serve in the traditional role of condition removal. Finally, the shadowstepping abilities of the Assassin could be employed to bypass the loss of mobility inherent in many Soldier stances by allowing the S/A to shadowstep to where they are needed.

Thoughts? Criticisms, queries, death threats?

nebojats · Feb 12, 2007, 08:39 PM // 20:39

I wasn't able to read everything. I like what I see, though. As an initial response, I'd say there are two things that stand out as being awesome: the ranged melee weapon and the attack skills which become more effective when not under attack.

Personally, I would devote one attribute to these "bodyguard" skills instead of spreading them throughout all four. Also, the way you describe these attack skills makes it seem like they should become less effective when you are attacked, not more effective when your allies are attacked. Something along the lines of:

Deal +X damage to target opponent. For each opponent attacking you, you deal Y less damage.

As for the two other attributes beyond Polearm Mastery and "Bodyguard" techniques, I'm not really sure. To me, the other three attributes you have listed are nice and all, but don't really stick out as being particularly cool and innovative. Perhaps a third attribute could be devoted to expanding knockbacks and similar maneuvers.

The name is a problem (isn't that always the hardest part?). Personally, I always use the backstory (rather than the role) to come up with the class title. I think you could add some flair to the identity. Doing that would open up a lot more options for the concept title. By the way, here's my favorite tool for coming up with cool words: thesaurus.com

I may respond more later when I get the chance to read it all. This class shows some real potential...

actionjack · Feb 12, 2007, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Thoughts:
Its not bad. I think an additional team-defensive tanker have some role in GW. But it need to be couple with something else. Also have a nice layout.

Criticisms:
It face being another Warrior/Paragon clone. Also it help take in hits (the body guard), and still not want to be hit (the pole-arm)?

Queries:
One of the major balance of a Warrior for their high AL is their lack of energy. For warrior, they have the adraline as the solution. How are you going to power your skill?

Suggestion:
While I want to suggest something, but I would just try to turn it into one of my old CC.... will force myself to say nothing on that....

Death Threats:
I CUT YOU! I CUT YOU GOOD! I CUT ALL YOUR FAMILY, AND WOFFY TOO!

draxynnic · Feb 13, 2007, 02:39 AM // 02:39

Nebojats: Don't worry, I tend to skim over long presentations too, and generally then go back and look over specifics as they come up

.

Going over the attributes:
I'm actually not looking for every single attribute to be innovative - I'm looking for an innovative playstyle for the class as a whole, but to give it a solid basis rather than having new stuff for everything - essentially, looking to achieve a certain purity of purpose like the Warrior and Assassin rather than have lots of different options like the Ranger or Necromancer. On the whole, my view of the three non-weapon attributes is this:

Toughness is essentially the equivalent of Strength (in fact, Strength was originally called Toughness in the alpha). On the whole, the purpose of this attribute is purely for the benefit of the Soldier. First Aid is one exception - that's primarily intended as a self-heal, but I thought it was also logical to be able to bandage your allies. However, I left that in Toughness because I wanted it to be a primary-only skill (other classes, on the whole, have their own self-heals). That's probably a good description of what Toughness is for - skills that apply purely to the Soldier (Discipline), and the bread-and-butter skills that most classes don't and that I'd prefer not to see people taking a Soldier secondary for (First Aid, primarily as a self-heal, and Quick March as a stance cancel and general move speed increase).

The difference between Defensive Arts and Battlefield Control is essentially that one directly defends your allies, while the other does it indirectly through kiting. DA provides hard benefits like armour bonuses and blocks for allies within the zone of control, and is probably more useful in PvE. Battlefield Control is what you use to provide a safe zone for allies to run past, knock your foes away from your allies, and so on. Essentially, what I'm aiming for is a similar distinction between Earth and Wind Prayers in the Dervish line - one works directly and is more effective in a stationary fight (of the kind normally seen in PvE), and the other influences position and mobility and, thus, is probably more useful in battles with more movement.

On the attack skills: There are two levels of requirements of the enemy's distraction. The first is the easily interrupted skills - however, these would likely only need one opponent attacking them to interrupt (since the polearm takes such a long time to swing). The second is the "attacking another ally" requirement - the assumption being (the Dervish being one notable exception) that the target is then not attacking the Soldier. Essentially, for opponents facing a Soldier, this presents two levels of disruption to the Soldier's offense: a spellcaster or two wanding between spells can probably knock out the "easily interrupted" skills, but unless everyone focuses on the Solder, the Soldier could still potentially pull out something like Careful Sweep to (to take one example) break an adrenaline spike. Your suggestion does have some merits, however.

Actionjack:
Criticisms: The risk of being too close to the Warrior and Paragon is a real one...

The niche I see it filling is that, while Warrior and Paragon shouts cover a wider area, they generally either have a relatively minor effect or provide a benefit only for short periods. The Soldier can provide better coverage, but only if the beneficiary stays near the Soldier. (Note, on the other hand, that the Soldier does not use Shouts.)

In taking and not taking hits: The ideal situation (if there aren't any AoE effects around, and the terrain suits it) for a Soldier is to be behind a line of Warriors (or other melee tanklike characters, such as Dervishes or P/Ws) with a line of touch-range Monks (or other close-range support spellcasters, such as warding Elementalists) behind them. The Warriors take the hits, the Soldiers are free to use their more complicated maneuvers, and both the Warriors and the spellcasters are under the Soldier's protective umbrella.

Outside this ideal situation, think of it this way: If the Soldier is taking hits instead of their charge, they're doing their job. If the enemy is ignoring the Soldier instead of the charge, the Soldier does have skills available that can deflect damage from the charge (Defensive Arts), give the charge a chance to get away (Battlefield Control), and/or simply take advantage of the fact that the enemy is distracted to use skills that will disrupt their attack or kill them outright (attack skills that require the enemy to be attacking a different target, not all of which (see Knockback) are in Polearm Mastery).

The intent of the polearm isn't for the Soldier to avoid hits by taking a standoff role (note that I haven't incorporated any direct penalty for fighting at the adjacent range). Instead, it provides a vehicle for increasing the 'zone-of-control' of the Soldier, and increases the chance that the Soldier can position themselves to gain maximum coverage over their allies and still be able to attack by not requiring the allies in question to be quite so close to the action to gain the benefit.

Queries: I did mention that the Soldier would use a mix of adrenaline and energy in a similar manner to the Warrior and Paragon. For instance, I would imagine that Can Opener and at least one, possibly all, of the Sweep skills would be adrenaline-based.

Suggestion: Which CC would this be? If it has a similar identity, I might have a squiz and see if I can guess what suggestions you're carefully avoiding to stave off that temptation ;-). I have no objection if the end result comes from multiple sources.

Death Threats: Oh no! Not Woffy!!!

BahamutKaiser · Feb 14, 2007, 04:15 AM // 04:15

There is alot of useful aspects to this class, but nearly no identity seperation. The use of a stance or skill to protect nearby allies is only a add away from being a new feature for Warrior to offer.

The simple alteration to make is offer mount riding into this and mark it as a Knight or Cavalry class in order to distinguish it. It isn't hard to accept another class with nearly equal, or simply equal defense as Warrior, honestly, all casters have the same base armor values, but it needs a significant originality feature to distinguish it since it is the only parrallel to a currently solatary role.

Beside that, a mounted rider is even more equiped to wear heavier armor and block, crush and barrier oncoming foes. Furthermore, if a warrior can fling a 100 lb sword in one hand, than such defensive class should be able to wield a polearm in one hand and a shield in the other, even if he actually uses both hands to wield the spear, wile the shield is simply attached to the left arm.

It really isn't enough to offer new mechanics to the game, I've said this many times in the past, and I will repeat it, identity is the only reason for new professions. Otherwise, they may as well elaborat on exsisting professions and offer them new abilities, they could very well offer Warrior area defense and a Spear, technically, they already do have some area defense with abilities like Watch Yourself and Shields Up, and Protectors Defense already does exactly what this class revolves around, even though it is grossly limited.

Beyond that, if your going to use a simular profession to Warrior who is going to be a foot unit, that the samurai idea I had would be much better, it offers significantly more original identity, original features beside these, and the defensive premise as a alternative feature.

draxynnic · Feb 14, 2007, 11:59 AM // 11:59

Protector's Defense is actually part of the inspiration. Unfortunately, PD is very limited in what it can do. Consider what happens if you realise the person hitting you is also using PD - all you need to do is step backwards and, unless the Warrior in question is alert, the PD is gone. And if the PD doesn't go away... you've successfully kited. Lose-lose for the Warrior. The Soldier's stances, while they slow the Soldier, don't immediately break as soon as they move.

In my mind, there is a subtle, but important, difference between the identity of the Warrior and the Soldier. The Warrior, in my mind, is essentially in the same position of the knight or the samurai or similar elite, noble combatants - they're the heroes that seek out monsters or battle for honour or glory. The Soldier is more a common footsoldier (okay, any that gets tied up in a PvE storyline of a future chapter is likely to be distinctly uncommon, but that's where they received their basic training from) - they're not so concerned with the glory as getting home alive and having a home to get to alive. It's the difference between the champions that single each other out for duels of honour before the actual battle begins, and the squad of pikemen (or halberdiers) desperately holding off a cavalry charge (or ravening monster) or standing guard over a force of musketeers (or Elementalists). They aren't the ones people speak of leading armies or fighting dragons, they're the ones that become heroes when a few hundred hold a pass against an army of thousands long enough for their homelands to gather an army.

On cavalry: I'd actually be quite surprised to see cavalry introduced as a class. I suspect it's much more likely that, in a similar manner to the wurms in the Desolation, that if playable cavalry is introduced it'll be in explorables or missions where the mounts are supplied for the area... regardless of class. Possibly with special mount-related skills available a la the Celestial skills.

BahamutKaiser · Feb 16, 2007, 01:01 AM // 01:01

They could offer mounts as an additional feature for general use, but it would serve as a much better class identity opportunity. As developed as this characters features are, you haven't given it any identity distinction to make it unique. You could very well call it Knight, and not matter that Warriors has armored called Knight, but it has to cover an original identity or it may as well be a few new skills in tactics.

And Protectors Defense is very viable for a ranged unit, the monk himself could use it as an alternative defensive feature for himself and other grouped units when facing enchantment pwnage.

Subtle skill redevelopement with a clone of Warrior isn't enough.