Curse

holababe · Jan 31, 2007, 03:41 AM // 03:41

Class:

Flagellant/Penitent
Max Energy - 25, with 2 pips of regen

Description:

The Flagellant looks like a mixture of a monk/necromancer. He has the weak, battered appearance of the necromancer, due to
repeated beatings. He has an overall build, similar to that of a monk.

He wields his flail to scourge himself and in doing so calls on the power of the gods to harm his opponents.

Weapon:

Flail. The flail ranges from knotted ropes with braided metal, to powerful links of chain. Due to the length of the weapon
it has a 5% chance to strike an enemy twice. The second strike deals basic damage only.

Armor:

The Flagellant/Penitent has very light armor. It consists of cloth with plenty of bare skin and little in the way of
embroidery or fanciness. In technical terms, this is an AL of 60.

Head - Circlet to one of the Gods
Torso - Light tunic, no sleeves
Arms - Gloves, made from tough leather so he can handle his/her flail
Legs - Pants, 3/4 length
Feet - Closed sandals

Attributes:

**Flagellation** - For every rank of Flagellation you take 2% less damage from self-inflicted damage.

Devotion - No inherent effect. Raises damage of Devotion skills etc.

Flail Mastery - Improves basic Flail damage as well as damage dealt by related skills.

Religion - No inherent effect. Raises damage of Religion skills etc.

Sample Skills:

**Flagellation Skills**

Penance [ELITE]
10 Energy, 1/2 cast, 15 second recharge

You take 15 damage and begin Bleeding. Target opponent takes 15 damage, begins Bleeding and suffers from a Deep Wound.

Scourge Thyself
2 Adrenaline, 1/2 cast

You take 15...5 damage. You lose a condition.

Devotion Skills

The End Will Come [ELITE]
10 Energy, 1/2 cast, 10 second recharge

When target enemy takes fatal damage, all enemies nearby take 30...60% of the damage dealt.

Fanatical Belief
5 Energy, Stance

For the next 5...15 seconds you cannot be knocked down and you gain 1 pip of Energy and Health regeneration

Flail Mastery Skills

Flail of Fire [ELITE]
6 Adrenaline, 1/2 cast, Enchantment

For the next 10...30 seconds your attacks deal an extra 15 fire damage and have a 5% chance to set the target on fire for
2 seconds. When Flail of Fire ends you are set on fire for 5 seconds.

Hamstrung!
5 Energy, 1/2 cast

Target enemy takes 10...40 damage.

Religion

Embrace of Grenth [ELITE]
15 Energy, 1 cast, 30 second recharge

For the next 20...40 seconds target enemy takes an additional 9...14 damage when struck for physical damage.

Faith Over Proof!
4 Adrenaline, 3/4 cast

You 'evade' the next attack and 60...100% of the damage is dealt back to your attacker.

Notes

Background Information

Flagellant means:
1. A person who is whipped or whips himself for sexual gratification
2. A person who whips himself as a religious penance

Since Guild Wars is rated [TEEN] there isn't much chance of the first one. But the second one is quite interesting,
especially after Nightfall. Not only was there the Dervish (religious profession), but there were also some upheavals in the
Realms of the Gods.

Abaddon attempted to free himself from his prison in the Realm of Torment and the backlash was felt throughout Elona, Cantha
and Tyria. Presumably people would have thought that the end was nigh, the world would end etc. For this aspect of the
Flagellant, I looked up the Black Death. When the plague swept across Europe there was an immediate rise in religious
offerings and in the demand for protective 'amulets'. When it became clear that there was no protection some people became
convinced that God was punishing them and they began to scourge themselves. So, I transposed this into a Guild Wars setting
and did my best to make it fit.

Misc. Info

- Flagellants usually used whips, rather than chains, but it's hardly realistic to expect a whip to penetrate Platemail.
- Since this class revolves around dealing yourself damage in order to hurt your opponent, it was rather hard to find a
balance. I think I found it but I may not have.
- Throughout the description I used 'he' rather than 'he/she' or 'it'. I'm not sexist, just lazy.

System_Crush · Jan 31, 2007, 10:12 AM // 10:12

Asside from the name the class is kinda cool, the self castading(not sure how it should be spelled) is original and gives them this minor insanety flavoring that I really like in RP.

Though, could you elaborate a little more on their function?
The description does not sound like 'just another melee class' however it doesn't really elaborate on what it is instead.

Just on a side note:
Perhaps you overly pre-nerfed the class.

The End Will Come
is a hex/sabotage shout(samething exept can't be removed, which I think should not be the case)
Therefor it needs a duration, just like 1 or 2 more that you didn't put a duration on.
Being a elite you could easely get away with it affecting all adjascent foes as well.

Flail of Fire is too dervish'ish make it set you on fire everytime you deal damage to yourself, that way it matches the class more.

nebojats · Jan 31, 2007, 08:10 PM // 20:10

I really like the idea of someone who self-flagellates (you've inspired me to repost my month-and-a-half old concept character at http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...6#post2500326). It's a unique concept that is missing from Guild Wars. It's a nice chance to get away from the barbie-and-ken-look of basically every gw character. However, I don't think the role you give the Flagellant is very novel;

Flagellation is like Blood Magic in that you sacrifice health to heal or do extra damage.

Flail Mastery is nice but nearly every offensive class has weapon abilities that deal extra damage and several are far more powerful than Flail Mastery.

Devotion and Religion seem potentially cool. For example, Fanatical Belief is good self-heal and a nice energy regen. I don't really understand what defines Devotion skills though. If one skill under that attribute can heal and regen energy, and another skill is a powerful hex that affects several opponents, I don't get a contiguous feeling from Devotion overall.

A similar response to Religion. Faith Over Proof is cool because as far as i can tell, evasions don't play a large enough role in gw. Embrace of Grenth, on the other hand, seems to be a powerful hex that is technically original (maybe, i don't know curses too well), but whose effects don't really vary significantly from Necromancer curses. What defines Religion skills?

I've been purusing these forums for quite a while now (although recently I took a hiaitus due to school and work), and if I've learned anything, it's this: a cool identity doesn't cut it. New professions instead need to present a significantly different role than previous ones offered, or else nothing new is added to the game. Instead, we end up with classes that could essentially be made by combining pre-existing professions. Just my two cents. If I were you, I'd focus on boosting the originality of the Flagellant and moving away from skills inspired by other classes.

BahamutKaiser · Jan 31, 2007, 09:07 PM // 21:07

I think Sacrifices are self inflicted damage, and there are plenty of skills which deal damage or support effects with this premiss. Also skills like Caugerty Signet which remove a teams conditions and set yourself on fire one second for each one.

I don't see any unique features, so I have to say it's a bad class idea, if it had something useful I would just say I don't like it, but nothing new and nothing interesting (to me) means nothing to offer.

About the only original feature drawn here is self inflicted damage in amount instead of percentage, but that is a minor improvision without any unique abilities attatched to it.

holababe · Feb 01, 2007, 06:19 AM // 06:19

Great feedback, thanks!

I was a little over-nerfing when i thought out the skills because I didn't want people saying 'Wooo, overpowered, n00b'.

@System_Crush

Their purpose is semi melee, semi casting and support. When I thought out the class I imagined a flagellant attacking his enemies and then inspiring others by making an example of himself, of enemies etc.

@nebojats

Yeah, I agree with you about Religion and Devotion. I'll think out some more description or in-detail stuff.

System_Crush · Feb 01, 2007, 12:19 PM // 12:19

Sadly sacrefice is not self inflicted damage it is independent lost heath.
Self inflicted damage is affected by armor, effect that trigger when you take damage and damage reduction.(it should not be an attack so evading is not trigered)

Sacreficing is like health degen for a single second, it does not trigger any effects.
That makes sacreficing make dangerous than dealing damage to yourself, alowing this class for some heavyer self damaging skills that will still damge you even if you have heeling seed, mark of protection or shielding hands on you.

I think this class should actually have spell similar to shielding hands, reduce damage on target ally by 5...19(26) and you suffer 3...1(1) health degen maybe.
To protect it from itself while it does heavy self damaging skills that have big effects on foes/allys.

A sort of multy function class is ok, we sort of have mesmers and ritualists that try the same, 1 has hexes that do a uncountable diferent things while the other has spirits and weapon spells to do many many diferent things. Do note that they have atributes specifecly for eacht function, restoration for healing, chanelling for casting damage, illusing magic for non caster pesturing, domination for caster pesturing, communing for summoning/protecting/area controll or whatever is the flavor of the hour for calling it.
Pick a route to achieve the goal of melee casting and support, then define te atributes as such so that they achieve the goal, so that a goal is not spread out across multiple atributes.
Spreading works too, but you need a main focus such as a warrior or ragner that ahve melee and ranged damage dealing as their main focus and a few other things(healing,shouts,traps,spirits,stances(not pets they are a aditional weapon atributes as they are a (bad) way of ranged damage dealing)) spread out over other atributes.

BahamutKaiser · Feb 01, 2007, 03:13 PM // 15:13

...... It is self inflicted damage, if you wanted to get technical, it can also count as a "decrease" in health.

What a pathetic attempt to disagree. Degeneration is over time, like a condition, see Barbed Signet for Degeneration sacrifice examples. Sacrifice spells deal a set amount of damage to yourself based on health and outside of the protection of most but not all health safeguards, and so would self inflicted damage in an amount.

Allot of talk about giving it even more repeat skills and nonsense, and none recognizing the blazing flaw, which is a lack of original featurs and unique battle role. Just about every class has a few shared effects and common skills, that is not the basis of the class, it must have some if not several totaly unique effects to the battlefield or it doesn't change combat a lick, thus doesn't amount to anything.

This is one of those class ideas that signifies the end of adding new classes, if they ever need to resort to this.

System_Crush · Feb 01, 2007, 08:32 PM // 20:32

Was I disagreing?

I was Ilustrating a diference between self inflicted damage and sacreficed health.
I play necro for a large amount of the time, and sacreficing health is not handeled by the damage taken function.
Yes you lose a amount of health dependent on max(or current) you lose the health it is not a amount of damage dealth to you losing the health.
You can have a million skills on you that heal you when you are hit they will not activate when you sacrefice health.

There by you lose heath and no amount of damage is dealth to you when you sacrefice health, this is similar to heath degen for which each pip loses you 2 heath per second.
Dealing damage to yourself should be diferent, as it will activate all the skills with on damage effects and be affected by armor and damge reduction skills.

While I *kuch* agree *kuch* with you on that the self flangeling is in its essence and feeling not much diferent from sacreficng health, by implementation and use it will be diferent.

Drawing energy from your own life force and soul to empower your spells can not be the same as hitting yourself with a weapon as proof of the faith that a sertain diëthy will aid you.

[mimic=BahamutKaiser]
I do not blame you for not knowing that each ingame action requires a trigger to run the asociated code.
I blame you from seeïng 2 numbers on your screen that resemble the numbers shown when you take damage and being ignorant enough to call it the samething simply becouse it looks like something else.
Any one who has sacreficed heath a few times in the game will know that the factors that affect damge and heath sacreficed are diferent, the effects on heath sacreficed are much much simpler for a start and the diference should therefor be simple to see.
As any highschool(or your contry's equivalent) should teach you even though a product of diferent factors may have the same value it is not the same product:
A+A=B
A*A+C=D NOT B
no matter if B and D look alike.

(in order to mimic correctly I have to add a lot of useless but TRUE blabber)
Back to the triggers, as you did not know what they where I guess I should inform you, a trigger is a event inside a program that activates one or more actions for the program and is itself initated by action.
A illustration with ingame events, necro uses order of pain the activate skill trigger is run and it has been informed of that the effects of Spitefull Spirit and Vigorous Spirit are on the player when these skill wher used on him.
This triggers the effects of both skills which inturn activaete the damage taken and gothealth events carrying the required values
the player is now casting his spell, this triggers the deductenergy event, it takes 10 energy as there is no effect on the necro that responds to energy lost and trigers no other events.
The player completes casting the spell, this triggers the effect of order of pain, which inturn triggers the sacrifice health and affected by enchantment event.
the sacrefice health even has been informed that the effect of scourge sacrefice is on the necro, and doubles the value it carried (17*2=34) it then triggers the lostheath event carrieng the value: the number of 34% of the necro's max heath, the losthealth event reduced health it does nothing else.
The necro is then hit by a foe, this triggers the onattacked event, which triggers the damge calculationevent, and as there are no effects on the player that have a trigger for onattacked nothing else.
The damage calcualtion works completely diferent from the lostheath event as it first checks for effects that affect damage, there is a shielding hands on the necro giving -12 to the damage, als there is conjure flame on the attacker for +20 fire damage, the checkarmor event is called and carries the value for fire damage this returns 60 as the necro has no fire AL bonus(if I remeber correctly it is -1 damge for each 10 AL) so this is -6 damage.
this is added -12+-6+20=+2 and the damageroll event of the weapon of the attacker is called carrying the value +2.
The weapon is a 4-7 noobish fire sword it rolls a 4 and the method returns the value 6.
takedamage is called carrying the values fire and 6 the nerco's heath is lowered by 6, -6 is shown as a floating number on the screen and the effect of Mark of Rodgort is called calling the givecondition event carrying the values burn and 2.
Burn causes 7 heath degen the having of degen and regen adds the necro to the timertick event the timer tick event calls the losthealth event carrying the value 14(7*2)
the losthealth event reduces thenecro's heath by 14 and does nothing else.
(note: this is a simplefied example, the actual event names will be diferent at Anet and there will be many more event involved, for instance GW calcualtes wether arm leg chest feet or head armor was hit, my example does not for that you need a at least 2 eventsmore, this not is not part of the mimic as he does not add such disclaimers to his examplairy statments)

Now incase that went over your head, a necro cast a spell that sacreficed heath and was hit and took damage from burning. This showing that the way sacrefice health and heath degen is handelend is likely similar as wel as that damage form attack is very diferent.

Now if you are still able to claim you can fit all actions that make the red bar go down into a singe line of code, you should go to Bill Gates(yes I know he's not the microsoft boss no more, who cares) sell the method to him and get enough money too live 2 lifetimes without working.
[/mimic]

It actually is nice to talk *ssholic like that sometimes (Cue themesong) is that why you do it so much?
(disclaimer: song contains swearwords, I do not claim to own any of the rights to this song, so can not save it to your computer it is simply a hotlink to this site http://www.matthewdillon.com/funnies/COMEDY%20MP3'S/ I did not place the song on the internet; so sue them, not me, if you have a problem with it being on it, it is a great song though, if I missed a forum rule about disalowing this particular type of hot linking then plz delete the post)
Looking back at it I feel I should have been meaner, but I do not know how to explain a sacrefice > damage > degen event quë while being mean...