Class Idea: Contraptionist

Here's an idea for a class I had. (I have another one in the works, look for it in an upcoming thread.)

(Edit: By the way, I found it very hard to read the first time through with all of my own comments. I've put the side notes in italics. There's ALOT of them.)

Basically, GW seems to be lacking a character who's primary duty is buffing other characters. (Monk and Necro both do it to an extent. There's quite a few Monk enchantments, and I'm a big fan of Order of the Vampire. But the primary focuses of those classes is elsewhere.)

Conceptually I came up with "Contraptionist" as a sort of inventor and tinkerer- he comes up with gizmos mostly on the fly (they are a combination of a technological shell and magical energy.) He then uses these himself, or gives them to his companions. Because of the principles of contraptionism (and the contrainsts of gameplay), he is able to create these devices quickly and at range. (Or maybe he had them all along, and just has a brief activation routine.)

The class would work with very little modification as a Dwarven "Master Engineer" class. More modification could make it a more typical spellcaster.

The intended strengths of the Contraptionist are:
*Strong use of enchantments on other party members. Reasonable use of enchantments on self.
*Skills that manipulate one's own enchantments (from both the character's professions.)
*Ability to manipulate allies energy.

The intended weaknesses of the Contraptionist are:
*Little or no hexes.
*Few ways to do extra damage (Contraptionist attack spells will be present, but of generally low power level.)
*No healing of others (much defense, but healing others is not the domain of this class.)

I picture the Contraptionist having medium armor (but I would settle for light), and using staves/wands with an appearance similar to wrenchs and other tools

Most of the Contraptionist's skills are Gizmos. "Gizmo" is a new skill keyword that operates similarly like "Spell"- inherently it does nothing, but certain skills might trigger off of it.
Thus, the Contraptionist has many Enchantment Gizmos (as opposed to Enchantment Spells) Most of their non-enchantments would probably be Spells, but there's no reason Gizmos would have to be Enchantments. I also imagine other classes would get a Gizmo skill or two.

The Contraptionist has 4 ability scores (I had a 5th, but forgot what it was. Must not have been important.)

Primary: Stability
For each point in Stability, any effect that would remove one of your enchantments (not an enchantment on you- an enchantment cast by you) has a n% chance to fail.

(It's difficult to decide on a number for n- I'm guess ing 5-7. One doesn't want this to be too low, because otherwise the ability doesn't mean much, but if it's too high, enchantment removal will never work, which isn't the intent. Contraptionist Enchantments are supposed to be difficult to get rid of. A different function for the failure chance, like 20% + 3x skill (for example) might work better, especially at low levels. This is something where I'd definetly want to know what people think a reasonable level is.)

Principles of Energy
(Skills that deal with Energy, obviously, but also movement and forces.)

Principles of Power
(Skills that deal with brute force combat buffs.)

Principles of Utility
(The subtle stuff.)


Sample Skills:
(I'm putting them up as fairly barebones frameworks, not full skill writeups. Unless I really want a full skill writeup to show what I'm going for. In general, consider the number ranges provided very poor suggestions for actual game balance: I'm just trying to show ways the idea could be set up. Also I apologize if any of these are names of existing skills- it wouldn't suprise me.)

No Attribute:

Transference
(Cost 5, Cast 1)
Spell. Choose one of your Enchantments. That enchantment is now affecting your selected ally instead, with the same duration.
(This might be tricky to implement, but I really like the idea, and the potential for combos with other classes. I picture this being an iconic Contraptionist skill.)

Stability:

Recharge
(Cost 10, Cast 1.5)
Spell. One of your Enchantments within range that was removed within the last 2-7 seconds reactivates with the same remaining duration it had when removed.
(This one can't be targeted.)

Restart (Elite)
(Cost 20, Cast 2)
Spell. All of your Enchantments within range that were removed during the last 1-5 seconds reactivate with the same remaining durations they had when removed.

Principles of Energy:

Daedalus Boots
Enchantment Gizmo. For the duration of Daedalus Boots, target ally gains +25% movement and does not trigger traps or suffer conditions from terrain. When Daedalus Boots ends, that ally is knocked down.
(And might float above the ground, as a visual effect.)

Energy Filter
(Cost ?, Maintained -1)
Enchantment Gizmo. While you maintain Energy Filter, target ally gains energy regeneration 1-2.
(Not sure how to balance to make it skill level dependent, but not make it so multiple Contraptionists can cast it on each other and have absurd ammounts of energy.)

Energize
(Cost 10, Cast 2, long recharge)
Spell. Target ally gains 5-10 energy.

Kinetic Blast
Attack Spell. Target foe takes damage.
(Essentially this would be similar to Flare- cheap, fast, a basic attack. It should do less damage, though.)

Principles of Power:

Bulwark Reinforcement
Enchantment Gizmo. Target ally cannot be knocked down.

Clockwork Defense
Enchantment Gizmo: Target ally's armor is increased by +X.

Cutting Edge Upgrade
Enchantment Gizmo. Target ally does +X damage with weapon attacks. This Enchantment ends if they change their weapon.
(or it could be just swords, or the like. "Cutting Edge" was used in the sense of 'new and improved.')

Power Source
Spell. Target ally gains X strokes of adrenaline.

Principles of Utility:

Changeup (Elite)
Spell. Changeup is replaced on your skillbar with any nonelite skill you know.
(This is 'permanent'. Once you get to a town, you can switch it back, of course. I imagine it would also have a fairly long cast time: 2-3)

Crystaline Focal Goggles
Enchantment Gizmo. Target ally cannot be blinded, and attacks are (X%) more likely to hit.
(Or maybe even 'that allies attacks cannot be dodged or evaded?')

First Aid Kit
Gizmo: Heals self for X ammount.



----

Other things I would add:

More Enchantment Gizmos! And things that effect them.
Skills that recharge allies skills. (Such as one that recharges all Signets, or recharges a random skill by a certain ammount.)

Whew! What do people think?

Stability is too high at 5%, maybe 2%-4% instead, as 10 points in it would give you 20%-40% instead of the insane 50%

Like the idea indeed. It would give monks a break too. Add new strategies. Your build may need some nerfing, but its good. It would also give mesmers another target <----- Kidding of course.

What is the point of Changeup? It's elite, so I can't bring any other elite with me, and then I cast it and all it does is permanantely replace itself, which I could have done before I even left town.

The idea is that sometimes you don't know in advance what skills you're going to want to bring with you. Changeup can give you very limited flexibility.

For PvE, this is mostly useful if you're exploring a new area, or if you're with a PuG and suddenly realize that nobody can do anything about Condition X.

For PvP, this would be mostly useful for getting a counter to a build on the fly (albiet with a long casting time to prevent abusability.)

Of course, this won't always be useful.

Thanks to everyone who's reading the thread and/or providing feedback!

With concern to Stability, I think it needs to be a sufficiently high number (more than 50%) to do any good. Anyone who's willing to spam enchantment removal can still break through (provided that % doesn't get too absurd)- it's just harder because a Contraptionist's enchantments are much more robust.

I find it frustrating playing an enchantment using build in the Northern Shiverpeaks... both Stone Summit Sages and Stone Summit Howlers are everywhere.

i don't like the change up, i do like the idea though.

Make some gizmos recharge spells faster, or cast them faster, make them cost less.

Great class, just needs some tuning, i hope a-net is reading this <wink> <wink>.

I love the idea but I have one question: where did you come up with the name daedalius boots for a skill that makes you run fast? Great idea though, I'm very enthusiatic about any new classes, and yours is very well though out.

I was thinking about versatility when I saw Changeup, I like it. Also, perhaps instead of having enchantments that drain energy, have a visual cue, such as pieces of metal, that show how many enchantments you can maintain. Instead of draining energy, maybe have a limit of three Gizmo enchantments, since it does not always make sense for machinations to use the creator's power...

EDIT: Daedalus was the greatest artificer, in Greek mythology. He created the maze that housed the Minotaur which Theseus killed. He also crafted flying boots for Icarus, who attempted to fly to the sun until they melted.

Conceptually the Daedalus Boots make you fly above the ground (presumably faster than you could walk), which is why you're immune to getting diseased from swamps and the like. And why you fall down when the Gizmo wears out.

(I considered putting a line in there about Earth magic... but it seems like there's already enough going on with that skill.)

No I mean the name, why do u name it daedalus boots?

Daedalus is a character from Greek mythology. It would be like naming a necromancer spell "Grip of Hades."

And yes, I know that Guild Wars has it's own mythology.

I know who he is but hes irrelevant to speed or immunity to whatever for that matter.

Was it just kind of arbitrary?

I think Flame did a good enough job of explaining why the name is relevant. I suppose it's arbitrary- but no more than any other skill name.

If you still honestly don't know why I picked that name, I don't know what else to tell you.

I know all about daedalus. One edit for flame: he crafted wings for Icarus (Maybe you were thinking of Hermes flying boots?) anyway if you don't understand what I was saying, Willow, ill just stay at the assumption it was arbitrary. Anyway, I like the idea with energy filter but I see one problem with it being +2: you get 2 or more contraptionists who use it on each other for free enegry. If its +1 it doesnt really seem worth it unless you implimented Flame's idea of the metal to represent how many enchantments u can hold. If you did +1 and used that it would be a great skill.

Interesting. Reminds me of Final Fantasy.

I personally think changeup is an awesome skill.

I'm thinking about how well it would combo with the mesmer mantras or certain ranger spirits that are really useful in certain situations. It'd definatley be the elite I'd take.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not really paying much attention. 67% of everything I say is random anyway (All statistics are made up on the spot, 40% of all people know that.)

Very interesting character idea for a character. Maybe add some skills such as create a mini-catapult that shoots for 10-25 seconds and does X amoutn of damage, or how about minne laying gizmos? Just throwing some idea out there ( i see this character looking like a dwarf ) Last thing, with the crystaline focal goggles, maybe amke it so that you have immunity to blind and +X% chance to land critical hits.