Shinobi (New Class)

[Shade Glow]

Shinobi

Melee main hand (Katana) / ranged offhand (Thrown weapon such as shuriken)

Consumables
The Shinobi class could have a new type of consumable which it depends on in order to use powerful ranged offhand attacks. These consumables would be obtainable as drops from enemies and purchasable from the consumable shop. Some would be rare and deal very high damage, but may only be used once or twice per trial or story level. Very rare thrown weapon consumables might be as expensive as 1,000,000 gold and deal up to 25% of a high level trial bosses health (useful when pushing). This would be limited to 1 use per trial run. More common thrown weapon consumables would deal much lower damage, but may be used multiple times per trial or story level.

I propose offering 4 tiers of thrown weapon consumables, those being common (99-500 per stack), rare (10-30 per stack), epic (2-5 per stack), and legendary (does not stack). One stack of each may be used per trial or story level. This class could have 4 separate inventory slots which are designated for these consumables. This would help enforce these limits.

The Equipped Offhand Weapon
The actual weapon you equip in your offhand would not be consumed when you activate your thrown weapon. Instead, it would be a bracer which allows you to throw the consumable weapons.

Activating the Thrown Weapon
There could be multiple ways to activate the thrown weapon. Perhaps you would have a number of abilities that throw the weapon when activated, each providing a different property to your character, the enemies, or the weapon. These properties could include slowing the movement speed and attack speed of enemies, stealing health from enemies, increasing your damage output, increasing your defense or dodge rate, or causing the thrown weapon to split into multiple projectiles.

In addition to activated abilities, there could be an auto attack which swings the melee weapon 20 times, and then uses a common thrown weapon consumable which would be replaced by a palm strike with the offhand if there are no common consumables available. Alternatively, this could be a weapon set bonus. This would allow it to be used in conjunction with different auto attacks.

Abilities that Affect Consumables
Perhaps the Shinobi would have access to an ability which consumes health in exchange for a number of common thrown weapon consumables, as well as an ability which reduces your maximum health by a percentage in exchange for a more powerful thrown weapon consumable. The reduced health effect would wear off after a period of time, but could stack up several times depending on the cooldown of the ability. Each of these abilities would have different applications. One might be more useful while farming or running lower level trials, and the other might be more useful while running higher level trials or for killing a dungeon boss without having to spend more valuable consumables.

Thrown weapon consumables generated with abilities would not be bound by the stack limits delineated in the Consumables section above.

Passive abilities could allow the thrown weapon to bounce between or pierce enemies.

Required UI
With a UI update, there could be a small grid that has 3 or 4 boxes in it. The available thrown weapon consumables you have in your inventory would show up here. To ready (switch to) any particular type of thrown weapon consumable, simply tap it’s icon in the grid. When a stack is consumed, common consumables are automatically readied. When consumables are generated with abilities, they will be represented by a red icon which replaces their respective counterpart in the UI grid until depleted. After that, the icon will revert to its original appearance.

Edit: I changed the name to avoid confusion. Terranisaur pointed out that the name Assassin is very reminiscent of the Bounty Hunter.

[MarkHark]

I see potential in this.

[Terranisaur]

My initial reaction was that we already have an assassin, the bounty Hunter. However, the melee / thrown combination would be new and cool and fit well into eternium. I feel like the game would be cooler with a new class, but I guess it would make the LBs and ANBs more spread out players wise. I think having a wide variety of thrown weapons with limited supply sounds strategic and cool! I'd play this class. Although I think a more typical jack of all trades ARPG class like druid or shaman might fit better as a next character , the mechanics sound great.

[Anjaeka]

I agree that this is a cool idea, especially with thrown weapons. However, you need to remember that many players, like me, are exclusively mobile users and adding these features to an already overcrowded UI would be very prohibitive to us. Trying to utilize those options on iPhone would be an absolute nightmare. PC gaming is a very different animal.

Another issue would be the cost of a single use weapon. 1 million gold may be a drop in the bucket for someone like yourself with more than a half billion gold in your inventory, but for the average player, that would just create a further divide between professional gamers and casual players. Trying to farm enough gold for what we have now is already a challenge. Now if we could purchase those consumables with DIAMONDS, it would be brilliant!

[Shade Glow]

I agree that this is a cool idea, especially with thrown weapons. However, you need to remember that many players, like me, are exclusively mobile users and adding these features to an already overcrowded UI would be very prohibitive to us. Trying to utilize those options on iPhone would be an absolute nightmare. PC gaming is a very different animal.

Another issue would be the cost of a single use weapon. 1 million gold may be a drop in the bucket for someone like yourself with more than a half billion gold in your inventory, but for the average player, that would just create a further divide between professional gamers and casual players. Trying to farm enough gold for what we have now is already a challenge. Now if we could purchase those consumables with DIAMONDS, it would be brilliant!

Great points! If the devs liked this idea and made the Shinobi class, I would expect them to throw out some of my suggestions in favor of proper balance and smooth game-play. I'm no expert in those areas.