A whole new class

[Arionthe]

A Premium, purchasable class, $2-$5. To justify the price, this class comes with a living item that's class specific (off hand item).

Class Premise: A Chinese themed mythical warrior specializing in straight sword. (Samurai, Ninja, Monks are too overdone in RPG universe)
Class Name: SoulCalibur
Play styles: Three play styles identified by the chosen off hand living item. Boss Killer (Single target damage), Mob Killer (Multi Target nuking), and Arionthe Special (something wierd)
Normal Attacks:
1) Tai-Chi Sword: Defensive normal attack where incoming ranged attacks are parried and reflected back to the attacker. Melee attacks are misdirected to nearby foes. In actual game mechanic terms, % of ranged attacks are reflected back to the attacker, % of melee attacks are redirected to other melee targets. Higher skill level = higher % reflected attacks. Attacks per second limits the number of attacks redirected in this fashion per second.
2) Bagua Sword: Offensive normal attack. Melee range attack where each attack increases the attack power of next attack by 20% upto 8 times at max skill level.
3) Aura Blade: range normal attack where small air vortexes form from the end of the sword and explode forward towards foes. Slows foes and also make them more prone to damage (dmg received debuff stackable for 5 secs, think amplified damage hex)

Common Utilities:
1) Stalking Dragon Dance: works like Devastate, multiple hits against one or more foes doing massive damage.
2) Mountain Sword: Huge Sword appears and strikes a single enemy. (sorta like the dancing scimitar spell, but just one massive hit)
3) Rain of Swords: Spirit swords rain down from the sky, striking an area of your choosing. Think Blizzard
4) Blood Sacrifice: Trade some Hp for a temporary boost in attacking power
5) something we can think of in the future

Subclass Ultimate (Utility skill that defines the playstyle and enhanced by the offhand living item):
Boss Killer: The ultimate aim of this subclass is to devote everything to the sword, your body and soul. The perfect expression of this objective is merging oneself into the blade and form that perfect unity.
Skill Name: One with the sword.
Skill Description: Player disappears and merges into the sword. The blade pulsates with power and pierces the very fabric of reality itself as it turns everything asunder.
Skill Mechanic: Works like snipe, player transforms into a sword, dashes to the destination, damaging everything in its path (very narrow line). While transformed, player is immune to control and takes only 10% damage.
Living Item: Scared Scabbard: The sheath that empowers the blade
Living Item Special: Every 5 secs, a significant damage buff is granted to the sword, lasting between 1-2 seconds. Buffs can be 500% damage (Yellow Aura), 3X LOH (Red Aura) etc
Boss Killer Set:
Bonus 2: When triggering One with the sword, transformed sword will return to its original position, damaging everything in its path one more time.
Bonus 4: One with the sword will have a slightly wider damage path (2-3x wider, hitting more mobs in its path)
Bonus 6: When triggering One with the sword, transformed sword will double back and hit the path for a 3rd time. (Think Blanka or M Bison)

Mob Killer: The ultimate aim of this subclass is to be the absolute master of the sword.
Skill Name: Spirit Sword Storm
Skill Description: Multiple sword spirits/shards appear and blasts forward in a fan shape, think teeth/multishot in D2.
Skill Mechanic: Works like multishot for BH. The force of the blast is so strong that a force field also forms around the player, granting it some protection (like shield bubble)
Living Item: Sacred Gourd
Living Item Special: When SSS is cast, a SSS mirror wave is also cast
Mob Killer Set:
bonus 2: When SSS is cast, 33% chance one more SSS is cast (which can also trigger the living item special)
bonus 4: SSS shards also pierce 100%
bonus 6: Bonus 2 % chance is now 100%

Arionthe Special: This can be fun
Skill Name: God Killer Sword Formation
Skill Description: Hundreds of swords fly out of player's body forming intricate patterns.
Skill Mechanic: a damage field around the player, think Armageddon in D2, or enlarged version of WW. Mobs caught in the field are disoriented and confused, -50% attack speed, a vortex effect also pulls the mobs into the damage field. Longer they stay in the damage field, greater damage is done. 20% more damage than each previous second. Max level duration 4 sec.
Living Item: Scared Sword Scroll
Living Item Special: Power of the scroll sustains the formation for longer than possible. Duration +2 sec
Set Bonuses:
Set 2: Radius is increased by 50%
Set 4: Duration + 2 sec
Set 6: Focused Fury: Fewer the target caught within the AoE, greater the concentrated power felt by your foe. When mob # > 4, normal damage, mob # 4 = each taking 125% damage, mob #3 = each taking 167% damage, mob # 2 = each taking 250% damage, mob # =1 each taking 500% damage

Passives:
Common ones plus a few specials
If combined with the elemental crafting idea I proposed earlier, here are some interesting possibilities:
Elemental overload: Add 50% to your strongest element when calculating elemental overload
Holy Beads: Add 100% to the Holy element when calculating elemental overload
Negative, fire, ice, earth etc

That's the basic framework. I for one would love to play a class like this.

[RiseOfAbyss]

lel

[Melchiah]

No.

Better idea: Winged Summoner Half-Demon.

That controls bats.

And is a billionaire.

So really, just make Batman a Class.

[Primus]

Thank you bro,after reading only the first line itself:-

A Premium, purchasable class, $2-$5. To justify the price, this class comes with a living item that's class specific (off hand item).

I didn't have to read that huge wall of text.....................................

#paytoplaysucks

[Humus]

A Batman class would be cool but think about the fees they'd need to pay DC comics Melchiah

[GrauGeist]

Isn't this mostly a reskinned Warrior? Why can't we reskin the gear? People pay good money for skins!

[Arionthe]

Primus don't judge a book by the cover.
GrauGeist no need to be reductive, offer some actual input. Everything is a derivative of everything else.

Let me take another stab at this. Ppl seemed to have missed some of the pts I have tried to make.

I designed this class to express my views on how a class should be constructed. You may disagree with my views, and I welcome a debate on that.

1) Make normal attacks fill distinct and different roles.
I proposed 3 normal attacks. Each fulfills a specific role. Defensive, Offensive, Range/and Debuff. This is by design so that the choice of which normal attack to deploy isn't just a question of what does most damage. This creates options and stops the endless balance/buff/nerf process surrounding those normal attacks because people all want to use the best and complain that their "favorite" attack is 1% less DPS than the other one.

2) Make each class/playstyle have their own signature skill (the ultimate class skill). This makes them standout. Have a theme and design around that theme. Doesn't matter what you call it, there is really just two big subgroups. Single target and multi target. The signature skill should accentuate the class theme and make them truly the best at that particular role. Balance isn't about making everyone equally efficient at every task. Disadvantages and advantages are what make classes complimentary. This is with an eye for the future co-op.

3) Make common utilities lesser versions of the signature skill so that every playstyle can still function in any situation. This means the mob killer can still do adequate single target damage and vice versa. But mob killer should never be able to match the boss killer in the scenario that the boss killer is designed for.
Let me make it even more clear by listing the below two pairs:
Signature Skill ---> Common Utility
One with the sword Mountain Sword
SSS Rain of Swords

4) Further enhance signature skills with class sets and class specific items. Skill specialization is one thing. Since there is no trade off required in terms of skill point investments (everyone can get max level of every skill in this game), you need to create specialization through item specialization. Set bonuses should be impactful but narrowly focused. Jack of all trade kind of set bonuses are really for generalists. Generalists should suck. Who gets paid more in the real world? Primary care doctor or the specialists? Greater investment in time and effort should yield greater reward. This also has the advantage of further distance the power of the signature skills from the common skills.

So there you have it, my views on class construction. At the core is the signature skill. Enhance that skill to make it leaps and bounds above common skills through proper item specialization (sets and uniques). Have a collection of common skills to fill out any holes for solo play experience. Finally have auto attacks (normal attacks) that are more than just damage calculations.

[GrauGeist]

Sure, but why does this need to be a new class - that's what my question really asks. Warrior needs tweaking, so why not fold some of these under Warrior? You'd just have 2 Warriors.

If this were the Chinese-themed 4th Warrior set, then that could solve much of the Warrior problem.

[Arionthe]

This isn't just some warrior class re-skin. It is possible to incorporate a good chunk of the ideas into the existing warrior class with sets and uniques, but you are missing the signature moves of the class. Then you are missing the prime reason for the new class in the first place. Perhaps this class can be thought of as the prestige class for warrior. After you achieve CL 1500, you can sacrifice a hero and have him/her reborn as a new prestige class char. Let me mull this over a bit.

[GrauGeist]

If this is strictly better than the Warrior, why does Warrior need to exist at all? Everybody who can, would simply play this instead.

If this requires CL1500, why does this need to exist at all? Hardly anybody is CL1500!

I say, make this the 4th Warrior set, with a new weapon and new off-hand item, and attach your key signature moves as Set / Item Bonuses. You have 5 specials that you can add (3 Set, 2 items), with a 6th available from a matched Weapon & Off-Hand Set.

[Arionthe]

New Concept: Prestige Class

After player achieve CL1500, they have the option to rebirth one of their character into that character's prestige class. For Warrior, the new class will be Sword Savant (see above).

You will LOSE xp from your account equivalent to CL1500 as the price for accessing this new class. This means your CP will drop to whatever it will be.

You can go one of two ways about this. If Devs dont want to invest that much effort for an entirely new class. Perhaps all Prestige class will be is access to three new Prestige skills. (signature skills from above) in addition to all the warrior skills.

Basically you are spending massive amount of xp to buy signature skills.

Of course design the necessary new prestige sets to further enhance the signature skills so they stand out as described above.

I still strongly suggest to rework the normal attacks in the veins of what I described before. Offensive, defensive and utility/range.

There, that will be a motivating factor to keep grinding some more.

I especially like the one with the sword move. That just conceptually kicks ass.

[Purple Potato]

You will LOSE xp from your account equivalent to CL1500 as the price for accessing this new class. This means your CP will drop to whatever it will be.

I don't want to lose 1 CL! It's so much work just for 1!

[GrauGeist]

New Concept: Prestige Class

After player achieve CL1500, they have the option to rebirth one of their character into that character's prestige class. For Warrior, the new class will be Sword Savant (see above).

You will LOSE xp from your account equivalent to CL1500

Yeah, that's not happening. I only have 900 CL to work with, and CL over 1000 is a huge grind. Paying XP for this class is a terrible Idea.

I bet a CL1500 Warrior >>> CL0 Prestige Class for many, many months.

[Arionthe]

I don't want to lose 1 CL! It's so much work just for 1!

Actually cl1500 xp isn't that much. let's say you are cl2000 right now. I'm guessing that will drop you to cl1600 or something like that maybe even cl1700. As xp curve gets exponential after 1600. Think about all the ppl that grinded to cl1500-2k in 1 week during the event. That's all you are paying. 1-2 weeks worth of heavy cl grinding.

During this last event, I was cl1180ish. That was only good for 15 cl in my main account to 2023 from 2008. Literally cl1500 might see people like Primus drop 3-5 cls in all.

[Arionthe]

Yeah, that's not happening. I only have 900 CL to work with, and CL over 1000 is a huge grind. Paying XP for this class is a terrible Idea.

I bet a CL1500 Warrior >>> CL0 Prestige Class for many, many months.

This is the prestige class. Meant for the heavy grinders. A carrot for those ppl that are now aimless and without direction at the moment since there is literally nothing to do outside of waiting for patch and next event. You can stay comfortable in your base class etc, just have fun with your game.