Curse

Mosgerion · Nov 19, 2005, 05:15 AM // 05:15

From what the polls say, we need an engineer. But, we can’t have a stereotypical engineer, right? I’ve just thought up an idea that, hopefully, will add some variety to gameplay.

Engineer
Spell Gears – Gears that effect spells
Attack Gears – Adrenal Gears that increase attack power
Block Gears – Gears that hinder enemy plans
Heal Gears – Gears that help allies
Mechanics Aptitude (Primary) – Increases overall duration of Gears

Okay, basically, this is how the Engineer would play. As you may have noticed, a majority of the attributes are gears. That’s because that’ll be what the game play focuses around. Think of gears as interlocking parts of a mechanism. Well, in this case, they’ll be inter-locking parts of a skill.

Each Gear will have an effect, and a Gear effect. Gear effects only apply when you Synthesize current Gears, while the effect applies to the next X spells you cast, where X is determined by points you have in Mechanic’s Aptitude.

Right now, hypothetically, you have a Spell Gear specialist with a few points in Mechanic’s Aptitude. Let’s assume he casts Frozen Gear.

Frozen Gear : Spell Gear
Gear: Target is slowed for 3...15 seconds by 66%
The next 3 spells you cast on a foe will also slow the foe by 50% for 3...5 seconds.

Great. Now he casts Ice Gear

Ice Gear : Spell Gear
Gear: Target is dealt 20...34 cold damage
The next 3 spells you cast on a foe will also deal an additional 10...23 ice damage.

The secondary effect of Frozen Gear has been set off, so he has slowed a target (called target/closest target if you didn’t target a enemy) by 50% for, say, 5 seconds. And, to top it all off, he uses Dispersion Gear

Dispersion Gear : Spell Gear
Gear: This skill hits 1...3 foes adjacent to the target
The next 2 spells you cast hit one foe adjacent to the target

Frozen Gear and Ice Gear has been set off by Dispersion Gear, and so another target has been dealt cold damage and slowed. Okay. Our Spell Gear specialist now wants to Synthesize these skills to make another skill. However, he has a bunch of Synthesis skills to chose from. This time, he thinks he’ll take energy management over speed, and uses Conservation Synthesis

Conservation Synthesis
The last 3 Gears you cast are Synthesized.
Casting time of your new skill is Spell Gears x 1
Energy cost of your new skill is Spell Gears x 2
The Recharge time of your new skill is Spell Gears x 4
Conservation Synthesis replaced by the new skill for 10...25 seconds.
Your Synthesized skill cannot be affected by Gears.

So, after using Conservation Synthesis, our Spell Gear specialist would trigger Frozen Gear, Ice Gear, and Dispersion Gear, and also have a new skill in his/her skill bar labeled

Synthesized Skill
3sec | 6e | 12sec
Target and 1...3 foes adjacent to the target are slowed for 3...15 seconds by 66% and is dealt 20...34 cold damage

Also, since there are different Gears, it’s possible to Synthesize Warrior skills, with Adrenal Gears, as opposed to Spell Gears, or Enchantment Gears, or, well, whatever. There can even be Spell Gears that are allowed to link into Attack Gears, such as ones that add elemental damage.

However, these skills, as you’ve probably noticed, should be kept fairly weak, to emphasize stacking skills to Synthesize instead of using them themselves. An Engineer should be a jack-of-all-trades, and not be able to dominate Elementalist in terms of damage dealing, and so on. In this case, however, you could augment spells the Elementalist have (Like Glyphs), by casting spells to take advantage of the Gear effects, though without Mechanic's Aptitude, you won't get too much milage out of them.

The figures are rough, and I'm guessing each Spell Gear should have cast times of between 1/2-1 second, energy costs of no more than 8, and recharge times of around 5, considering seperately they're pretty weak.

Also, the Gears you've casted float in the Enchantment area, and stay until you've cast more than 5 Gears. Even if they don't effect your spells anymore, you should still be able to Synthesize them.

Personally, I think it’d be a really neat idea, though I’m not sure whether the 8 skill skill-bar will hinder the effect. What are your opinions on it?

Shimus DarkRaven · Nov 19, 2005, 05:27 AM // 05:27

Sorta sounds like a class someone already mentioned, I'll try to find the link..

But yeah, cool idea, but elaborate more on how he'd be use to be a support/soloer, etc. Can he solo if needed? With those gears, can suchandsuch happen? Balance it out as well, and maybe I'll /sign this.

--The Shim

NatalieD · Nov 19, 2005, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Hm... at the risk of sounding too blunt, it seems like an overly complex gimmick that wouldn't really add anything new in terms of overall strategy. That is, while playing this class would be different from playing another, it doesn't seem like other players on the field would notice much difference between, say, an elementalist, and an engineer using elemental gears.

Also, the only thing engineer-like about it is that you called the skills "gears", and since they don't actually behave in any remotely gear-like way, that's a bit hollow.

jesh · Nov 19, 2005, 08:23 AM // 08:23

That's because you must not know what teamwork is.

I agree though, this actually sounds more like an enchanter or something, maybe a different name is in order? I like the idea though, a nice take on a support character.

NatalieD · Nov 19, 2005, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesh

That's because you must not know what teamwork is.

Was this addressed to me? If so, could you maybe explain what you're getting at?

jesh · Nov 19, 2005, 08:45 AM // 08:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by NatalieD

Hm... at the risk of sounding too blunt, it seems like an overly complex gimmick that wouldn't really add anything new in terms of overall strategy.

These are your words. If you can't see the kind of role that his concept would play, then my guess is you've soloed your entire gw career or something. An engineer like he's lined out would make huge difference in any team.

NatalieD · Nov 19, 2005, 08:51 AM // 08:51

So, maybe instead of just insulting me, you could help me see the error of my ways by describing that huge difference?

jesh · Nov 19, 2005, 07:20 PM // 19:20

Ice Gear : Spell Gear
Gear: Target is dealt 20...34 cold damage
The next 3 spells you cast on a foe will also deal an additional 10...23 ice damage.

This is like a good version of soul barbs.

Dispersion Gear : Spell Gear
Gear: This skill hits 1...3 foes adjacent to the target
The next 2 spells you cast hit one foe adjacent to the target

This is just a good spell that I haven't seen in the game. The engineer would simply be buffing the attacks of the elementalist, and by a lot. As he said, there are other type of gears as well, besides spell gears. Add in the ability to synthesize them together, and the class would be quite a powerful addition, though misnamed if you ask me.

actionjack · Nov 19, 2005, 07:36 PM // 19:36

As much as I love the orginality and the freshness of idea... Engineer just don't seem fitting. As Said above, name them Enchanter or something.
Would like to see more work from you, and get your self a Avatar

lyra_song · Nov 19, 2005, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Engineer doesnt fit...thats why theres ascalon engineers and stone summit engineer
/sarcasm.

^^;;

Ive suggested combat engineer as well, but your skill sets arent very "engineer" like.

d4nowar · Nov 19, 2005, 10:39 PM // 22:39

I really like the idea of stacking. But what would happen if someone spent the first 20 seconds of a match stacking up a ton of skills and then just dominating a team with one gigantic skill. And then what would happen if there were say... 5 of them and 3 monks? Or why even need monk? They will healing gears too you said.

I really like the super stacking idea, its something relatively new to the game, but I think it would be abused way too much.

Mosgerion · Nov 20, 2005, 12:13 AM // 00:13

Addressed to D4nowar,
Well, you wouldn't be able to super-stack, since Gears only last for X amount of spells.

I agree, in hindsight it doens't really seem like a Engineer type class, does it? Also, I guess the support class idea is a really nice idea, but as of now it doesn't really allow for much 'support'. Maybe if they increased the Gears to affect allied people too...Hmm...

Oh, and no one has complained about it, but I'm thinking that if you Synthesized Gears then the casting cost/recharge/etc would be exponential for more effects, or something. It's one of those things that have to be play-tested.