五行剑仙 Sword Immortal (new class)

[Arionthe]

Can't figure out how to type chinese, had to copy paste some where.. anyway New class suggestion. A shout out to the dominating Far East playerbase.

[Arionthe]

This post will simply layout the basics of the class, explain some of the mythical background to some of the skills. Subsequent posts will give detailed info on class skills broken up by sections. Normal Attacks, Utility Skills, Passives, and finally Finishing Moves. Followed by suggested Sets.

BACKGROUND:
You are a stranger in a strange land. One minute, you were in the fight of your life against a thousand year old zombie king, next minute you are here, in a world you no longer recognize. With only your flying sword by your side and years of training from the guild that you might never be able to return to. Your destiny is now unwritten, who will you be...

Guild Knowledge:
From the jade tablets that have passed down through the guild for millions of years, secrets to the world are revealed. Five basic elements make up everything in your old reality. Mastery over these FIVE will grant power beyond comprehension. But this reality is different. Old skills have ceased to function, you will need to relearn and remaster.

The FIVE

Wood: Symbolized by the Emerald Dragon of the East. This element has domain over life, refresh and the spring. It is said Wood leads to...

Fire: Symbolized by the Flaming Fowl of the South. It has domain over fire, rebirth and the summer. It is said Fire leads to...

Earth: Symbolized by the Yellow Chimera of the Center. It has domain over earth, fortune and knowledge. It is said Earth leads to...

Metal: Symbolized by the White Tiger of the West. It has domain over air, combat and the fall. It is said Metal leads to...

Water: Symbolized by the Ethereal Terrapin of the North. It has domain over water, disease and the winter. It is said Water leads to Wood thus completing the Cycle of Creation.

By reversing the sequence, one gets the Cycle of Destruction, a forbidden art and lost in the eons.

Complete mastery over one element allows one to call upon the power of the respective mythical manifestations. Only the most dedicated can achieve such a feat.

In gameplay terms, Wood: AR, Fire: Critical Damage, Earth: Armor/Damage Reduction, Metal: Critical Chance, Water: Poison/bleed (DoT)

[Arionthe]

Normal Attacks:
There are 5 basic attacks for this class. One for each element.

Each attack actually functions very similarly. When an attack is used, the respective buff counter ticks up with each critical hit, granting the player progressively higher bonuses for a period of time(15secs refreshes with a new critical tick). The max size of the buff stack is 5 for level 10 normal attack. Since there are two normal attack slots, one can have two different buffs up and running (player choice).

Wood:

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
+5% Dmg	+5% AR	+5% Dmg	+5% AR	+5% Dmg
Level 6	Level 7	Level 8	Level 9	Level 10
+5% AR	+5% Dmg	+5% AR	+5% Dmg	+5% AR
Level 11	Level 12	Level 13	Level 14	Level 15
+5% Dmg	+5% AR	+5% Dmg	+5% AR	+5% Dmg
Level 16	Level 17	Level 18	Level 19	Level 20
+5% AR	+5% Dmg	+5% AR	+5% Dmg	+5% AR

Level 20+ increase 1% chance to summon the Emerald Dragon of the East per level. This chance is applied to all skills that uses Wood normal attack or skills that can summon the Emerald Dragon.
Final bonus: 50% Dmg and 50% AR

Fire:
Similar bonus chart except it's 5% Dmg then +15% CD for a final bonus of 50% Dmg and 150% CD. Level 20+ also increases 1% chance to summon the Flaming Fowl as above.

Earth:
5% Dmg and then 5% DR for a final bonus of 50% dmg and 50% DR. Level 20+ increases summon chance for the Yellow Chimera.

Metal:
Final bonus: 50% Dmg and 50% CR, Level 20+ increases summon chance for the White Tiger.

Water:
5% dmg and then 2.5% critical damage as poison/bleed DoT over 6 secs (Grievous wounds mechanics). Final bonus: 50% dmg and 25% critical damage as bleed over 6 secs. Level 20+ increases summon chance for the Ethereal Terrapin.

Mythical Manifestation:

Azure Dragon: 青龙 When it is summoned, it flies to the targeted enemy and hits for 10000% weapon damage and always crits. Special: all skill CDs are finished instantly. This can not happen more often than once per 30 secs.

Flaming Fowl: 朱雀 it flies to the targeted enemy and hits for 10000% weapon damage and always crits. Special: The Fowl grants the player fire immunity for 10 secs and burns all enemies around the target for 5000% weapon damage over 10 secs. Can't happen more than once per 15secs.

Yellow Chimera: 麒麟 It rushes to the targeted enemy and hits for 10000% weapon damage and always crits. Special: Yellow Chimera shares its good fortune with the player, granting total damage immunity for 3 secs. Cant happen more than once per 10 secs.

White Tiger: 白虎 It pounces the targeted enemy for 10000% weapon damage and always crits. Special: White Tiger's sharp claws weakens the target's armor as if they are made of paper, target receives 50% more damage for the next 6 secs. Cant happen more than once per 15secs.

Ethereal Terrapin: 玄武 It strikes the target with its snake head tail (google it) for 10000% weapon damage and always crits. Special: Any DoT on the player is removed while the target's DoT over next second gets amplified by 20 times (shockwave DoT finisher mechanic). Can't happen more than once per 10 secs (this caps the effectiveness of this special as it's not possible to chain together multiple summons.

[Arionthe]

Utility Skills:

Divine Sword Storm: 剑雨 Launches hundreds of spirit swords at a target location (think blizzard) hitting everywhere in sight for 4 secs. It randomly chooses primary and secondary attack at player attack speed for summon and buff stack/refresh purposes. It's a ranged AOE attack that can trigger normal attack specials/summons and buff stacking. CD: 1min

Elemental Sword Dance: 五行剑舞 Player goes into a swordplay dance trance, pulling and moving enemies into an orbit of destruction (think ww). It randomly chooses primary/secondary attack at player's attack speed for summon and buff stack/refresh purposes. It's a moving AOE attack with 4 sec animation duration during which alacrity and summons are proc at player's attack speed. (surely ww alacrity issue will be resolved by then) CD: 45sec

Elemental Sword Armor: 五行剑衣 Increases player Armor by 50% for 5 secs. Any attack received has a 20% chance to trigger a retaliatory strike. The retaliatory strike is randomly chosen between primary and secondary attacks. Retaliatory strike has normal summon, buff stack/refresh chances. (think shield block) CD: 1min 3 charges like shield block

[Arionthe]

Finishing Moves:

Four Constellation Sword Stratagem: 四象剑阵 Large square shaped AOE centered at the target location. Rotating attack at player attack speed starting from east -> south -> west -> north. Base damage 1000%. Each attack has base 10% chance to summon the respective mythical manifestation. Consumed buff stack increases the respective summon chances. For example a player with level 15 tiger buff, the west/tiger attack will have base 10% chance + 7.5 (level / 2 buff chance) = 17.5% chance at summon. A level 25 buff stack will have base 10% chance + 5% (lvl20+ increases summon chance) + 7.5(level /2 buff chance) = 22.5% chance at summon. CD: 1min 30 secs

Implosion: 五行崩塌 By reversing the cycle of creation, one gets the cycle of destruction. Going against rules of the nature has its consequences, this forbidden art literally tears a hole in the fabric of reality. Single Target, mini blackhole collapsing (graphics wise). 50000% base damage, consumed stack increases that base damage by 10% for each level. Always crit. The implosion repeats itself for each buff stack a player has. So 3 stacks will trigger implosion 3 times. There is no summon chances with this skill (that is the consequence). CD: 1min 30 secs

[Arionthe]

Passives:

Refraction: Normal attack does 25% splash damage to the immediate area around the target (turning single target normal attack into a small AOE)

Eight Extraordinary Meridians: 5% AS increase per buff level, max stack 10: 50% AS. This buff stack is not an elemental buff stack thus doesn't affect finishing moves.

Bouncing Sword: 25% chance to jump to next target (turning single target into a chain lightning like jump attack)

Elemental Focus: Max Elemental Stack increases by 2

Elemental Devotion: Max Elemental Stack size increases by 5 for the stack associated with primary attack

Celerity, Power Infusion, Endurance, TaN, FF make up the rest.

5 Normal attacks, 3 Utilities, 2 Finishing moves, plus 10 passives (5 unique, 5 common) that should be enough skills for the 180 synergy.

[Arionthe]

Uniques:

Peace Tree Branch: 玉虚桃木剑 It looks like a branch from a dying peace tree, probably struck by lightning. However this sword enables the lucky wielder to channel the power of the Azure Dragon more easily. Special: Max Wood buff stack size +5

Flaming Tail Feather: 南明离火剑 Yes, it's really a feather. But it comes from the mythical creature known as the Flaming Fowl of the South. With it surely you can claim kinship with the legendary bird. Special: Max Fire buff stack size +5

Fossilized Tail? of a Tiger: 太乙金光剑 eh what more is there to say... it's a stiff tail or something long and cylindrical. Yet the fur? on the it creates an eerie sound when held against the wind. There is something magical about it. Special: Max Metal buff stack size +5

Supple Snake sword: 玄水蛇头剑 This sword literally bends to a light touch. The sword tip is actually fashioned from a snake head. Wait a sec this is just a snake corpse with the tail cutoff! What the heck I have been had! Oh wait, why does the snake mouth keep opening and closing on its own... Maybe it isn't ordinary after all. Special: Max Water buff stack size +5

Earthen Spine: 破山断岳剑 This is heavy just looking at it. It has no edge, more of a massive club than a sword. Holding it somehow makes you feel safe, like inside a mother's embrace. *cough* Did I say that out loud? Special: Max Earth buff stack size +5

[Arionthe]

Sets:

Total Devotion Chasuble: 太一道服 For those that focuses all of their being at mastering a single element.
Set 2 Bonus: Primary attack buff max stack size + 5
Set 4 Bonus: Primary attack buff max stack size + 5
Set 6 bonus: Primary attack buff max stack size + 10

Four Constellation Dalmatic: 四象道衣 For those that worship the Four Constellations and their manifestations
Set 2 Bonus: Wood and Metal buff max size + 5
Set 4 Bonus: Fire and Water buff max size +5
Set 6 Bonus: When using Four Constellation Stratagem skill, a failed summon roll gets rolled again.

Five Element Surplices: 五行道衣 For those that seek balance in all things or those that wants to pervert it all
Set 2 Bonus: Normal attack will also trigger an elemental buff from the next element on the Cycle of Creation (for example Wood attack will also grant Fire buff)
Set 4 Bonus: Normal attack will also trigger an elemental buff from the next element on the Cycle of Destruction (for example Wood attack will also grant Water buff)
Set 6 Bonus: All Elemental Buff max stack size +5

[Arionthe]

Class Features and other thoughts

I like diversity in all things. This class is designed with that firmly in mind. The way I thought about it is this: normal attacks stack buff, have skills that build on the buff thus a single skill can look and feel very differently when paired with different buff stacks. Finally have spectacular finishing skills that consumes buffs; thus, restarting the buff, use buff cycle anew. Note one can build just with normal attacks and skills that don't use up buffs. It is all about player choices. Swapping different normal attacks dramatically affect the look and feel of other skills is a wonderful feature that unfortunately Eternium hasn't capitalized on as much as it could have. The original inspiration comes from the skill RF.

All five uniques are swords (weapons) with very basic special: increase respective elemental buff stack size. So choosing to use a particular normal attack is further enhanced by using the corresponding unique sword. The buff stack increase affects many elements in the class. It's this cascading effect chain that I'm going after. Same goes for the set armors. One for the specialists. Going all out for the maximum effect from a single element. This is interesting in that I forsee this being very mobile friendly. Having a high buff stack makes the normal attack and divine sword storm ability very powerful. It's a simple gameplay of blast blast blast. One set for those that wants to specialize in the finishing move Four Constellation Sword Stratagem. That set6 bonus is sneakily powerful, giving one two chances to summon at each attack. This whole class is about summoning those mythical manifestations. Or one can ignore the summoning entirely by going for balance with the 3rd set. The potential choices are almost infinite. A single normal attack swap can change the everything in a build. That's build diversity... that's a class I would play and replay for eternium..

[ShotDead]

I haven't found anyone as enthusiastic about this game as Arionthe :salute:

[CraggHack]

I haven't found anyone as enthusiastic about this game as Arionthe :salute:

Interesting ideas as allways. Besides that "Azure Dragon" and "Implosion" exist in the world where Craghack comes from so..would like to see it some day in the eternium future

[FQVBSina]

I am more amazed that the translations are pretty good. Normally, the English translation of Chinese names are all very weird

[Arionthe]

To steer back to the main topic, I think a class design that is focused on making normal attacks the key build selector has potential. One trade off I made was to make all 5 normal attacks function very similarly. So that one isn't compelled to take one over the other for game meta reasons. I'm specifically talking about AS. Attacks like AL and Frenzy are almost a must due to the high AS buff they provide. AS is central to so many elements in the game meta. Having a normal attack attached to AS buff is akin to removing choices from the player (Yes, technically one can severely gimp oneself by going against the cookie cutter, but it's no fun to do so). Hence I made AS buff an universal passive (too bad that basically eliminates a passive slot).

Thinking at the class holistically, I feel the utility spells (non finishing moves) should probably provide some max stack size buff as well. So normal attacks determine what buff stacks you get. Utilities can further up the stack size in addition to unique weapon and armor set. Something like +2-4 to max buff size to active buffs for 10 secs seem like a good feature. The finishing moves should hit hard and gives oomph, otherwise ppl will just ride with the buffs. This is where PC advantage in precise control comes into play.

I think there should be one more utility. Something like charge but doing far more damage. The way I imagine it is a dashing attack move going through everything to a target location one selects. However depending on how many stacks one has, the move doubles back and hit everything 2,3 or even 4 times. On odd numbers, player ends up where they click/drew the skill. On even numbers, they come back to the original starting point. This gives the non finishing move players another heavy damage utility that can be boss friendly.

So Utilities have:
Range AOE (blizzard), Retaliatory Buff (like shield block), Moving AOE (ww), and finally Multi hit boss move.

So one can build a competitive build without using the finishing move at all (thus being mobile friendly).

The variety in the build comes from the buff stack one wants to utilize. In fact the builds can get more exciting by tinkering with the buff stack table. I purposely made the table rather simple as the buff stacks up level by level. However there is far more interesting possibilities here.

Take Flaming Fowl buff for example.

Since this is the fire element, it is logical to expect someone who is a master at this element to suffer less from fire damage. So starting from level 15, every level thereafter, the player gains 2% fire absorption.

For someone who is wholly devoted to the mastery of this element:
Normal attack Fire +5 buff level
Two unique fire swords + 10 buff level
Total Devotion set +20 buff level
Elemental Passives +7 buff level
Utility temporary buffs: (let's say +2 for each utility) +6 potential buff level
=48 Buff level!
48-15 +1 = 34 * 2 = 68% fire absorption! This means at full stack, a fire player is totally immune to fire damage and in fact gets healed by it. See how those fire liches will like that haha. Or Margoth fire meteors.

Similar additional benefits/features can be added to the buff table, further adding depth and flavor to the class without designing more skills and whatnot.

This class suggestion is also about having a conversation on what is a good class design that's expandable and flexible.

[Arionthe]

Since normal attacks and the buff tables are the focal point of this class. I'm going to expand on them here.

Sword Immortal is NOT a melee class
Although there is sword in the name, but in reality they are more wands or orbs that help channel the class abilities. A quick look at the weapon uniques should make that perfectly clear: peach tree branch for example. Hence the normal attacks should be a mid range attack. Perhaps like the old scattershot range, close but still at a distance. Graphics wise each normal attack should correspond to a different colored shard flying towards the target at high speed.

Since the class is all about the buffs from different elements, the buff table takes on central importance. The buffs themselves should also be progressive enough to encourage specialization. Taking cue from the old DnD stuff, here is a reworked buff table.

Btw all normal attacks comes with a base 1% chance to summon manifestations regardless of buff level. That way even a newbie can get lucky and see something extraordinary.

Fire:
Starting from 0:
+2.5%dmg per level
Starting from 5: all the above plus
+10% CD per level
Starting from 10: all the above plus
+5% weapon damage as burn per sec for 6 secs per level
Starting from 15: all the above plus
+2% fire absorb per level
Starting from 20: all the above plus
+1% chance to summon Flaming Fowl Manifestation
Starting from 30: all the above plus
+3% chance to summon empowered Flaming Fowl Manifestation (basically 3x as powerful as normal) If the attack rolls a summon, it rolls again to check if it will summon empowered version instead
Starting from 40: all the above plus
+5% chance to summon Maximized Flaming Fowl Manifestation (basically 3x as powerful as empowered) if the attack rolls an empowered summon, see above, it rolls again to check for maximized summon.

Fire is an offensive element, thus the benefits tend to tilt towards damage. A typical endgame buff level of 48 (with single element focus) will yield 120% dmg, 430%CD, 190% WD as burn, 68% fire absorb, +29% summon chance, 54% chance for empowered summon, 40% chance for maximized summon. Calculated together, a normal attack has 30% chance for a summon, 16.2% chance that summon is empowered or better, 6.5% chance that summon is the best version: maximized.

Flaming Fowl summon: hits for 10000% WD.
Empowered Flaming Fowl summon: hits for 20000% WD, always crit, Special: Ignition, target suffers burning damage equal the crit chance of the attack (like snipe bleed) over 6 secs
Maximized Flaming Fowl summon: hits for 50000% WD, always crit, Special: Ignition plus Fire shield around player absorb 50% damage and reflect back as fire damage using player power coefficient for 5 secs.

Ignition can stack up to 3 times on a target while fire shield special has an ICD of 10 secs. Meaning the player can have fire shield up at most 50% of the time no matter how often maximized summons have been triggered.

I dropped the old fire immunity benefit since at high buff levels, you can healed by fire with the fire absorption buff.

One can similarly make changes to the buff table for other elements. There the imagination can run wild.

[Arionthe]

Wood:
Starting from 0:
+2.5%dmg per level
Starting from 5:
+2.5%HP Recovery per level
Starting from 10:
+2.5% AR per level
Starting from 15:
+2.5% HP per level
Starting from 20:
+1 chance to summon Azure Dragon
Starting from 30:
+3% chance to summon empowered Azure Dragon
Starting from 40:
+5% chance to summon maximized Azure Dragon

The characteristics of wood/bamboo/grass/vegetation are one of regrowth. Think how tough it is to get rid of the weeds in the yard. Life finds a way as they say. Azure Dragon is the symbol of that. So the wood buff table should tilt towards recovery (hp and skill) and raw hp.

Azure Dragon summon: hits for 10000% WD basic summon like all basic elemental manifestations, it's a big hammer. Why get all fancy when a big hammering hit will do. Now if the big hit doesn't solve the issue (higher TL mobs will laugh at the puny hammer), that's when the empowered and maximized versions come into play.
Empowered Azure Dragon summon: hits for 20000% WD, always crit, Special: No Heal for You and More Heal for Me: target can not be healed for 15 secs while player's life regen is doubled for next 5 secs (stackable twice).
Maximized Azure Dragon summon: hits for 50000% WD, always crit, Special No Heal for You and More Heal for Me plus Here I Go Again: one active CD is instantly finished. Here I Go Again has an ICD of 10secs.