Hypothetical new class.

[guineapig]

Let’s imagine classic Everquest circa November 2000.
Kunark is out and Velious is already completed and ready to be released.

You are a designer working on the next expansion. You have been tasked with creating a new class to add to the game. (Beastlords and Berserkers have not been invented or even mentioned) What is you idea for the 15th class?

Things to include:

What races can choose said class?
What deities can this class worship?
Is this class forced to follow a deity?
What armor can this class wear? (cloth, leather, chain, plate)
What weapons can this class wield? (1hb, 1hs, pierce, 2hb, 2hs, 2 handed pierce, shields)
Does this class use mana or stamina in order to use its abilities?
What are the staple abilities of this class?

Ideally you would try to balance the existing class structures.
In other words you don’t want too many classes using the same type of armor, or having the same abilities. (In this scenario chain and leather are the most underrepresented.)

(Feel free to include any beastlord and/or berserker ideas in your class build)

Bonus points if you include a currently non-playable race that is somehow represented in the original trilogy!!!

GO!

[rioisk]

I really liked the concept of the beastlord although the playable race should have been kerra.

[guineapig]

I really liked the concept of the beastlord although the playable race should have been kerra.

Things I enjoyed about the Beastlord:

leather armor (to share with druids and monks)

Weapon choices that closely match monk: This was actually good for monks because it meant more of these types of weapons would be added to the game and made them a little less exclusive.

A source of group mana regen at higher levels.
As an enchanter I thought it was a good way to mix things up. You no longer needed a bard or enchanter for mana regen but using a beastlord instead meant that you were loosing the ability to mez. However if you had both in your group the mana regen became insane!

It was a good mix of shaman and monk. Were they OP? Hell yes. But the concept was interesting.

I think the Vah Shir were pretty silly as far as playable races go.
Guktans made way more sense when it came to EQ lore.

[Shaun421]

I always wondered why there was no wizard/warrior hybrid.

I mean, you have a cleric/warrior (paladin), a necro/warrior (shadow knight), and a druid/warrior (ranger).

In old school DnD you could somewhat argue that a bard would be a wizard/warrior hybrid as it could use a variaty of weapons, wear armor, and cast mage spells. But the bards here are pretty unique in the sense that all of their spells are songs.

So I guess my idea would be some sort of arcane caster/melee class hybrid to balance the hybrids between 2 tanks and 2 dps (if you could call ranger dps). Call it Battle Mage or some such. Essentially it would be a ranger with bootleg wizard spells.

Discuss the details amoungst youselves, but I think that would be a really fun class to play.

[azeth]

Class: Martyr
Races: Human, Half Elf, Iksar, Erudite
Deities: All
Armor: Leather/Chain (ranger type gear)
Weapons: 2hb, Piercing, 1hb
Mana or Stamina: Both
Stat Focus: Int and Sta
Staple Abilities:
- Feign Death (spell)
- Dual Wield
- Double Attack
- Skull Crack line (costs mana) – Frontal “flying kick” type ability, meaning immense damage useable a few times during a fight.
() Uses mana to infuse weapon with: Hardening (physical damage) or Power (direct magic damage check), doing damage (of course factoring mob stat checks) comparable to similarly leveled Monk's flying kick.
- Short duration group buffs, similar to bard songs (uses Stamina)
() Speed
() Ac
() Resists
- Direct mana/health replenishment ability (uses Pilgrim’s Health). Martyr will drain 99% of their health and automatically Feign Death (losing all agro) and infuses the Martyr with a Divine Aura type spell. Other group members are responsible for healing the Martyr.
() +health to all group members (direct numbers, possibly a split % of the Martyrs total health multipled by X to make it a viable #)
() +mana to all group members (direct numbers, possibly a split % of the Martyrs total health multipled by X to make it a viable #)
- Cover(uses Mana). The Martyr has the ability to split (to all group members) damage inflicted on the MOB's Target without any agro change incrementally draining the Martyr's mana per every second Cover lasts.
- Martyrdom Short range unresistable AE stun procs when the Martyr dies.
- Righteousness Identical to Warrior's Berserker Frenzy however begins when the Martyr reaches 50% health.

[Lucrio40]

Swordmaster
Similar in idea to what Fury Warriors from WoW are like, but since this is November 2000 no one knows what a fury warrior is.

Races: Any warrior race except gnome and halfling.
Deities: Race specific or Veeshan. No forced diety.
Armor: Up to chain. I figure its important for any melee class to wear at least chain unless they have massive avoidance or other bonuses like monks.
Weapons: 1hand swords only. Restrictions added similar to druids only being able to use scimitars in 1hand slashing.
Resource pool: Stamina
Class Staples: Dual Wield at level 1, Flurry at level 10, Can strike critical blows like a warrior but no crippling. I forget when rogues got duelist and such, but if it was Luclin (i.e. the expansion this is for) then add normal melee disciplines (fearless, resistance, ect.) and level 60 discipline Blood Frenzy, reduce the cooldown of flurry to 2 seconds for however long duelist last.

[guineapig]

I always wondered why there was no wizard/warrior hybrid.


This idea has come up a lot in my conversations with people in the past as well.

It definitely makes sense but it's also a difficult one to nail down and get right.

The thing about rangers is that while they were supposed to be a druid/warrior hybrid, unlike palies and sks they didn't get to wear plate and were terrible at tanking post classic. So you kind of have to use the term "warrior hybrid" loosely.

Armor is a good place to start:

warrior plate + cleric plate = paladin plate
warrior plate + necro cloth = shadow knight plate
warrior plate + druid leather = ranger chain

It's a little messed up... Should a battle mage be able to wear leather or chain? Or should it be something crazy like cloth but extremely high dodge abilities (sort of like a monk)?

Nukes are obvious but what else should they be able to do? Root? Snare? Stun? AoE?

I'm sure others have considered this class and I know they exist in other games. Please share!

[lechrac1]

I like the idea of a wiz/war hybrid. Call it the bladedancer or something.

Uses 1 handed weapons, light armor(chain at max) and no shield. Can use caster offhands. INT and STR are primary stats.

Mixes melee with spell casting. Something along the lines of adding effects to the weapon (outside normal procs). Quick cast spells so you can use them in combat directed towards either straight up damage or some kind of evasion (IE, a fireball or something and a dodge increase for soloing). Short range teleports like shadowstep but controllable.

Make their overall sustained dps slightly lower than a rogue with a perma back to stab or a wiz with full mana but more group utility (group based evasion, proc buffs, spell or v3 haste, or some kind of mana regen maybe?).

[guineapig]

Class: Pilgrim
...


Personally, I would change the name to martyr (yeah maybe too obvious) but I really like some of those ability ideas!

[guineapig]

Swordmaster
Similar in idea to what Fury Warriors from WoW are like, but since this is November 2000 no one knows what a fury warrior is.


I'm guessing this is like a straight up DPS warrior build with low tanking ability?

[Shaun421]

Well like I mentioned, it would essentially be a ranger as far as armor and weapon selection, and it would essentially fill the same role. Paladins are plate wearing tanks that heal. Shadow Knights are plate wearing tanks that un-heal. Rangers are chain wearing dps that have naturey spells, so the Battle Mage would be chain wearing dps that have arcane spells.

I would imagine it would have a direct damage line of spells from the wizard class, just a couple few spell levels behind. It would have a fire damage shield to match the rangers thorny shield. Have the shield line of spells that an arcane caster gets to balance the skin line of spells that rangers get. Maybe instead of having the utility buffs that a ranger borrows from the druid, it could have something that is unique to wizards, like maybe self gates or something.

[guineapig]

The more i think about it, the more difficult it is for me to come up with a melee class that doesn't either fill the role of DPS or tanking. When it comes to straight DPS you already have the utility range covered with rogues and monks being the lowest utility to rangers being the highest utility (not including bards in the DPS category).

The tough part comes with how much utility do you give to a melee DPS class? The more you give them the more DPS you have to take away.

Then you have tanks. The better they can tank, the less abilities they can have.

Hmm, all of a sudden I'm thinking of the Final Fantasy Tactics series for idea. That series had some interesting class setups. Wondering what would translate well to EQ without already being covered.

[frefaln]

Are we truly just brainstorming/thinking out loud or do I have to list something that would appear in one of the D & D Monster Manuals? :)

If the former, I think it would've been cool to have a playable race (and accompanying class) that was purely aquatic. Think of a race that naturally breathes underwater with no assistance, starts in an underwater zone (or at the very least, Veksar), moves at the same speed underwater as other races do on land, and can survive on land for prolonged periods but must re-submerge periodically to replenish stamina, mana, or whatever.

As for the class aspects I haven't really thought it through. The obvious perk would be an awful lot of water-manipulation powers.

The downside to this is that it'd likely be a 1:1 class-race combination.

[guineapig]

Well like I mentioned, it would essentially be a ranger as far as armor and weapon selection, and it would essentially fill the same role. Paladins are plate wearing tanks that heal. Shadow Knights are plate wearing tanks that un-heal. Rangers are chain wearing dps that have naturey spells, so the Battle Mage would be chain wearing dps that have arcane spells.

I would imagine it would have a direct damage line of spells from the wizard class, just a couple few spell levels behind. It would have a fire damage shield to match the rangers thorny shield. Have the shield line of spells that an arcane caster gets to balance the skin line of spells that rangers get. Maybe instead of having the utility buffs that a ranger borrows from the druid, it could have something that is unique to wizards, like maybe self gates or something.

Now I feel ya. That would be interesting to have a melee class with some form of fast travel, even if it's only self ports. Actually, I really like that idea... It's quite balanced. Also it doesn't over represent ports in the game.

Also, there currently is no melee class in the game with decent nukes (unless you include high level pally nukes versus undead).

[guineapig]

Are we truly just brainstorming/thinking out loud or do I have to list something that would appear in one of the D & D Monster Manuals? :)


It's all just for fun man! :)

Sounds like you are describing the long lost race of the Kedge.

It's a cool idea except that there are so many zones that have no water at all. It would be hellish in Classic - Velious zones for such a race and limiting a class to the zones of a new expansion would be extremely unbalanced. I don't think that idea would see the light of day in an EQ universe. (Not that I don't like it as a fantasy realm idea in general. ;) )

[azeth]

Class: Pilgrim
Races: Human, Half Elf, Halfling, Gnome
Deities: All non evil
Armor: Leather/Chain (ranger type gear)
Weapons: 2h piercing, 2hb, Piercing, 1hb
Mana or Stamina: Both
Stat Focus: Int and Sta
Staple Abilities:
- Feign Death (spell)
- Dual Wield
- Double Attack
- Skull Crack line (costs mana) – Frontal “backstab” type ability, meaning immense damage useable a few times during a fight.
() Uses mana to infuse weapon with: Hardening (physical damage) or Power (direct magic damage check), doing damage (of course factoring mob stat checks) comparable to similarly leveled Rogue’s backstab.
- Short duration group buffs, similar to bard songs/yaulp (uses Stamina)
() Speed
() Ac
() Resists
- Direct mana/health replenishment ability (uses Pilgrim’s Health). Pilgrim will drain 99% of their health and automatically Feign Death (losing all agro) and infuses the Pilgrim with a Divine Aura type spell. Other group members are responsible for healing the Pilgrim.
() +health to all group members (direct numbers, possibly a split % of the pilgrims total health multipled by X to make it a viable #)
() +mana to all group members (direct numbers, possibly a split % of the pilgrims total health multipled by X to make it a viable #)
- Cover line (uses Mana). The Pilgrim has the ability to split (to all group members) damage inflicted on the MOB's Target without any agro change.

not to steal the Swordmaster's thunder, but I completely forgot I had brainstormed the Pilgrim would have Self Ports (herego the name Pilgrim) and also extremely fast run speed buffs (self only)

[frefaln]

It's all just for fun man! :)

Sounds like you are describing the long lost race of the Kedge.

It's a cool idea except that there are so many zones that have no water at all. It would be hellish in Classic - Velious zones for such a race and limiting a class to the zones of a new expansion would be extremely unbalanced. I don't think that idea would see the light of day in an EQ universe. (Not that I don't like it as a fantasy realm idea in general. ;) )

Nah, like I said the race would be fine for prolonged periods on land. But there'd need to be some kind of incentive to re-submerge to replenish... something. I dunno, maybe I didn't flesh it out enough.

[guineapig]

Nah, like I said the race would be fine for prolonged periods on land. But there'd need to be some kind of incentive to re-submerge to replenish... something. I dunno, maybe I didn't flesh it out enough.

That's cool. Tell us more!
Come up with some water spell abilities!
Healing and cures come to mind. I can also envision some form of snare. A suffocation type dot maybe with a melee debuf?

Hmm, sounds like I'm coming up with a cleric/enchanter hybrid.

[azeth]

Why wasn't there some badass underwater city, seriously. As in a normal Freeport type town, not a dungeon.

[jyaku]

i think that underwater city thing was a myth

[maya]

i always wanted a suicide bomber class. someone who aggroed the whole zone, got a million mobs and exploded in a ball of ae glory and when they died to loose exp, hopefully the number of mobs was such that they gained more than lost. would be horrible in actual implementation, but is hilarious and fun in my fantasy.

[Ethanblack]

Class: Zealot
Races: Human, Erudite, High-Elf, Half Elf, Iksar, Barbarian, Dark Elf
Deities: All, No Agnostic
Armor: Cloth
Weapons: 2HP, 2HS, 2HB
Mana or Stamina: Both
Stat Focus: WIS and STR
Details:

The zealot would be a fast-moving, heavy hitting damage dealer, who's skills are designed to invoke godly power into prowering their weapon swings.

The zealot would mostly be focused around procedural effects and spells that boost the attack rate and add various other interesting abilities.

Their defenses are rather weak (Very low AC) though they gain Dodge and parry, and their spells allow them access to a line of costly but powerful and fast-casting ward spells, to absorb damage.

They also feature the kick ability, 'Empowered Strike' which does weapon base damage with a guaranteed chance of the weapon firing any procs associated with it, and a non-mana related snare ability.

Other spells they have include lifetap-like divine healing abilities (though weaker than that of a necromancer), Divine caster themed DoT effects, and melee related self buffs.

The Zealot would be the final word in Glass-Cannon Melee Hybrids.

[Hasbinbad]

This was my first idea when thinking through the OP, and I've always wished they made this class:

Class: Sorcerer
Races: Human, Erudite, High Elf, Dark Elf, Gnome
Armor: Cloth chest only, some plate pieces for other-than-chest slots like SSB, etc, no suits like FS, but rather individual pieces (no chain or leather). Planes cloth suit, with high int stats relative to other classes, as a tradeoff for not using the plate armors available to them.
Weapons: 1hs
Mana or Stamina: Both
Stat Focus: Int and Sta
Staple Abilities:
Wizard Spell Lines - less powerful variations of many popular wizard spells. Roots, dd nukes, AE nukes, teleport self (not group teleports), MAYBE an evac (chance to fail) at level 49, invis.

Mage Spell Lines - less powerful variations of many popular mage spells. Pets (not elementals, more like summoned creatures, no wielding, but at higher levels powerful natural attacks), summoned utility items, self/pet-DS.

Enchanter Spell Lines - less powerful variations of many popular enchanter spells. Self-augmentation, AE mes (but not single target), AE stun, self-crack at 49. No illusions!

Dual Wield, Double Attack, Riposte, Dodge, Parry.

The Sorcerer is limited to using a small selection of 1hs weapons, all of which are "long swords" as opposed to axe or scimitar type 1hs weapons. Short Sword of the Ykesha for instance, would not be available to the Sorcerer.

This class gives up a hybrid special ability (track, lay on hands, harm touch) in order to be more useful as a melee class while having a wide variety of spells at it's disposal. That being said, the Sorcerer's mana pool is extremely limited, and this class is far from an effective buffing class.

This class can be thought of as a medium/high melee/pet DPS class with the ability to back out of combat to nuke when the hps run low. The Sorcerer has moderate ability to solo by carefully using a variety of spells, it's pet, and the judicious use of melee combat.

While never able to truly tank, pet-tank, or nuke with the big boys, this jack of many trades can certainly produce results in a raid situation by using many of his or her abilities in a consistent manner. The Sorcerer in high int-gear is able to out-dps paladins, sk's, and rangers, but unable to tank like sk's and paladins, even in partial plate armor. That being said, solo, a Sorcerer in partial plate armor may in fact be tough enough to partially tank a mob or two when his pet gets low on life and he is out of mana.. ..likewise in a group situation with the proper buffs, a Sorcerer may indeed prove a viable tank, with the ability to keep aggro fairly well with low-mana high aggro spells like ae stun, but would not be able to concurrently produce the DPS available to the high int Sorcerer with more mana to cast more nukes.

Also, the Sorcerer dual-wields swords with a robe on. So fuck you.

[Hasbinbad]

Class: Trickster
Races: Human, Gnome, Dark Elf
Armor: Cloth, Leather
Weapons: Piercing, 1hs, 1hb
Mana or Stamina: Both
Stat Focus: Str, Int, Sta
Staple Abilities:
Enchanter Spell Lines - less powerful variations of many popular enchanter spells, with a few notable exceptions (i.e., the Trickster is not able to cast clarity or any of the non-melee stat-buff enchanter spells [brilliance, insight, adorning grace]). The trickster focuses on mes, haste, stuns, faction spells, illusions, and mem-blurs.

Dual-wield, double attack, riposte, parry, dodge.

Sneak is often used in conjunction with invisibility with the trickster, who is unable to hide like a rogue. This mimics the hide/sneak ability of the rogue, but has the annoying side effect of breaking at random times, making the combination far more useful than invisibility alone (sneaking behind see-invis mobs), but not as useful as hide/sneak. However, due to the Trickster's ability to stun, mes, and memblur, if careful, he is often able to compensate for the tendancy of invis to break.

Kick - as per warriors, this skill has proven invaluable to the Trickster who likes to stay alive when battling casters.

Pick Locks is another skill from the Trickster's rogue heritage which he puts to good use.

From studying the rogue's mastery with piercing weapons, Tricksters have learned that Critical Strikes with piercing weapons, while behind a mob, help compensate for their lack of a backstab skill. This would not equal the damage output of the rogue by any means, but does add a bit of melee viability to this hybrid class.

Basically a rogue/enchanter hybrid, this class is a medium melee dps class (ranger deeps + crits every once in a while), that can use a myriad of mostly evasive enchanter spells to help himself and his party stay alive and do more damage. Unable to utilize chain or the rogue evade ability, the Trickster MUST rely on these spells in order to evade damage more often, as the critical hits do tend to build up quite a bit of aggro (although not as much as backstabbing).

Also, Tricksters may often be found dual-wielding with a robe on. So fuck you.

[guineapig]

Oh that's some good stuff right there.

I was toying around with a class idea where the player can do certain special abilities based on detrimental effects cast on it.

Example:

Player is poisoned: Player can now lob some sort of poison spell back at the mob.
Player gets hit with a fire dot: Player can now throw fireballs.
Player is diseased: Player can now use a disease debuff.
And something similar for ice and magic based stuff.

It's an incomplete thought and I'm not even sure what I would call it. But it would be a completely unique ability never seen before that wouldn't require any special mechanics to be added.

The server would simply check how many counters of poison, disease, etc the character has and base the ability he can use on that.

Of course you would have to create an exploit check (ie: purposefully getting high level spells cast on you in a duel), but whatever.

[guineapig]

This was my first idea when thinking through the OP, and I've always wished they made this class:

Class: Sorcerer
etc...

The main thing I would change would be the name Sorcerer.
When I think of Sorcerer I don't think of a dual-wielding long swords.

Sorcerer = big staff with glowy thing on it.

I love the concept, would thing of a different name. (just my opinion)

----------------------------------------------------------------

Class: Trickster
stuff....

I like this one quite a bit.
Since I have to nitpick about something I would say this. I would not be caught dead wearing a robe if I had access to leather. Is that TMI? :p

[Hasbinbad]

Don't hate; appreciate.

[olderj]

Oh that's some good stuff right there.

I was toying around with a class idea where the player can do certain special abilities based on detrimental effects cast on it.

Example:

Player is poisoned: Player can now lob some sort of poison spell back at the mob.
Player gets hit with a fire dot: Player can now throw fireballs.
Player is diseased: Player can now use a disease debuff.
And something similar for ice and magic based stuff.

It's an incomplete thought and I'm not even sure what I would call it. But it would be a completely unique ability never seen before that wouldn't require any special mechanics to be added.

The server would simply check how many counters of poison, disease, etc the character has and base the ability he can use on that.

Of course you would have to create an exploit check (ie: purposefully getting high level spells cast on you in a duel), but whatever.

This is awesome. Sounds a bit like the Spellthief from 3.5 DnD.

~Huffle

[guineapig]

Don't hate; appreciate.

Not hating at all.

I tried my best to pick apart your ideas and all I could come up with was I don't think tricksters shouldn't wear robes and the other one shouldn't be called sorcerer... And those are both purely my opinions...

I would say that's pretty appreciative. ;)

------------------------------------------------

This is awesome. Sounds a bit like the Spellthief from 3.5 DnD.

~Huffle

I knew something like this had to exist in some form somewhere. I'll have to look up info on that class.

[Lancelot]

I dunno ... tad bit narrow to only think about classes.

How about class specializations. From what I've read it would make some of these classes unnecessary.

For example:
War at level 60 could choose to level into 2 handed weapons, dual ect ect....with each gaining a title, additional skill points into melee skill,.

...just a thought, lots of other mmorpgs have done the same.

Fact is....Velious, what then?

[Reiker]

Most of these suggestions are kinda bad like that one class that was exactly the same as a rogue only you replaced Backstab with Flurry. That's why the berserker was such a superfluous class, it's exactly the same as a rogue. If they did less DPS berserkers would be pissed, if they did more then rogues would be pissed. EQ didn't need any more DPS classes. The beastlord made a little more sense, since they basically threw together all the "underplayed roles" into one class (healing, debuffs, buffs, melee dps, pet). The problem is they did all these things really poorly and to this day are the weakest class in the game. I agree completely that they needed another monk hybrid type class. Leather was the most underused armor type in the game, and the world was becoming flooded with monk style weapons that only one class could use, making monk gear the absolute cheapest in a price vs. performance ratio. So instead of giving our monk hybrid absolutely everything under the sun, let's focus on just one extra role. The one type of class that the game was severely missing around this point was healers. "Back in the day" the world was flooded with tanks, melee dps, and casters, and wasn't nearly as saturated with priests as P99 is. So we end up with a monk/cleric hybrid, which is great since people who hate the idea of sit/stand/heal/sit/repeat will be attracted to the melee aspect of the class. Of course, this concept becomes strikingly similar to a class from a certain EQ successor, hmm...

Disciple

Races: Human, Iksar
Deities: Quellious, Cazic Thule
Armor: Leather
Weapons: Monk weapons (1hb/h2h)
No mana, DPS inbetween a Ranger and a Monk
Abilities: The disciple would gain abilities much like the monk. I'm not going to go through the effort of naming and describing each individual one since there's no point. But say they start with Kick, and then "Lotus Punch" instead of Round Kick which would be a small self-heal and cleanse. Each new ability would have different effects such as a strong group cleanse, group heal, hot, defensive/offensive buffs, etc. They'd have no access to "emergency" heals but adding one to your group would give you both additional dps and some passive healing.

[Estolcles]

I just always wanted the ability to take a Dark Elf, and have them "See the light" (pardon the inferred race pun). Have them be able to join Good religions, and have Inky Pallies.

NOt every Inky had to be evil, y'know? Same with Ogres and Trolls. Too many people RPing "Good" Inkies, Trolls, and Ogres were SOL, which was sad.

Not to mention: Innorruk would probably cower in fear of an Ogre with Soulfire. >;)

[Sarkhan]

I really like the idea of a warrior-wizard hybrid, but I was thinking along a different path. I'd take the class toward a monk-wizard hybrid.

The class (I haven't thought a name yet) would be limited to wearing cloth/leather armor and using H2H weapons. Their melee skills would be less than that of a monk so that their melee dmg would be lower than monks and they would have to rely on their magic-based skills to compensate. By lowering their dual-wield and double attack skills as well as putting a lower cap on kicks they could be handicapped on melee.

Having lower melee though would not mean their DPS is missing but more like they would have to use their skills to make up for it. They would procure their dps through the use of spell-like skills that eat up their endurance, or hell, even give them mana since classic didn't really use stamina as "endurance"... Their skills would eat up mana which means they would be inbetween monks/wizards... they couldn't match the DPS of a monk longterm and couldn't match the dps of a wizard short-term but kind of landed in between.

They would have skills that would give them self-procs which could vary from damage procs to jolt-type to slow procs. Then they would also have skills like thunder-strike that is kind of like a flying kick but would be magic-based and would use up mana. These skills could all vary and would be mostly self only proc-buffs to DD on mobs. Skills would be instant cast of course but still had reuse timers. Skills would be learned(costing money) from guildmasters instead of spell vendors and some skills could drop from monsters. That is very similar to spells and some would say why not use spells instead, but i like the idea of using skills and only having a skill window. They would also have infused throwing daggers with abilities similar to that of berserkers in the utilities aspect like dd and stuns.

They would not have the Feign Death skill that monks/necros/SKs share but instead using Evac spells to still be able to "save the day" kind of thing. The class would receive a skill that self evacs and at higher levels perhaps group evac.

The class would be an excellent group member, but not really a great soloer. They wouldn't be "needed" for any group, but still useful to have. Having their dps coming from skills means the player would actually have to pay attention or their dps would suffer greatly. I imagine this class as a tattooed monk fighting with magic coming out of his fists and when in danger quickly able to evac to safety (if reuse timer on skill is up).

Races would be Humans of course and more wizardly races like Erudites, High Elves and DEs... Iksars wouldn't work well because of their lore/history so I leave them out of it.

[whitebandit]

play vanguard.

[azeth]

Class: Pilgrim
Races: Human, Half Elf, Halfling, Gnome
Deities: All non evil
Armor: Leather/Chain (ranger type gear)
Weapons: 2h piercing, 2hb, Piercing, 1hb
Mana or Stamina: Both
Stat Focus: Int and Sta
Staple Abilities:
- Feign Death (spell)
- Dual Wield
- Double Attack
- Skull Crack line (costs mana) – Frontal “backstab” type ability, meaning immense damage useable a few times during a fight.
() Uses mana to infuse weapon with: Hardening (physical damage) or Power (direct magic damage check), doing damage (of course factoring mob stat checks) comparable to similarly leveled Rogue’s backstab.
- Short duration group buffs, similar to bard songs/yaulp (uses Stamina)
() Speed
() Ac
() Resists
- Direct mana/health replenishment ability (uses Pilgrim’s Health). Pilgrim will drain 99% of their health and automatically Feign Death (losing all agro) and infuses the Pilgrim with a Divine Aura type spell. Other group members are responsible for healing the Pilgrim.
() +health to all group members (direct numbers, possibly a split % of the pilgrims total health multipled by X to make it a viable #)
() +mana to all group members (direct numbers, possibly a split % of the pilgrims total health multipled by X to make it a viable #)
- Cover line (uses Mana). The Pilgrim has the ability to split (to all group members) damage inflicted on the MOB's Target without any agro change.

[Reiker]

I really like the idea of a warrior-wizard hybrid, but I was thinking along a different path. I'd take the class toward a monk-wizard hybrid.
The problem with that though is that the monk/wizard hybrid has to either be less or more dps than a traditional dps. DPS is higher? Why play a monk (or more accurately, ranger/rogue)? DPS is lower? Why play the monk/wizard hybrid? They'd probably have some additional utility, but its not like 80% of all the classes in the game have extensive utility abilities.

Pure DPS classes really have no place post-vanilla. There's too many as is which is why rangers have a hard time finding their place in the world. Any additional classes pretty much require healing and/or utility. And even that's not good enough, the beastlord wasn't a very great class. You can't just follow the hybrid "a little of this a little of that" style, the class needs unique mechanics. Either triggering abilities through different means so that the playstyle is completely different but the mechanic is the same (like the healer/monk I suggested) or completely new mechanics that don't exist already in EQ.

A lot of MMOs have realized this and is why you see things such as classes having unique "power bars" (WoW), passive targeting (Vanguard), etc.

It takes a lot more than just tossing around whatever you think would sound cool. I like tanks, how about a new tank! The Guardian! Okay, but how will you make it stand out from warrior/paladin/sk? Good question... what about a tank that excels at killing mages. Their physical mitigation is a bit worse than paladin/shadow knight, but they receive a bunch of unique spells. Example: An instant (or nearly instant) buff against one of the resist types... if a mob is casting a fire spell, the Guardian may react and put up a +200 FR buff, and then switch if the mob casts an ice spell, etc.

I pretty much was bullshitting that as I wrote it, but the Guardian could be very viable in EQ, a game that's already extremely tank heavy. Encounters would most likely be required to make them truly viable. So we add in some dungeons and raid bosses who primarily do damage through magic, and now the Guardian is needed to tank here. It works a lot better than "another dps class that does dps in a very slightly different way than the other 30 dps classes."

[Qaedain]

I always wished the charm mechanic had been carved out of the Enchanter's toolset into its own class.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

Well, with classes like Warrior / Rogue still functionally autoattack + 1 (sometimes 2!) buttons, new classes would seem a bit unfair to them~ LDON class revamps (and the endurance resource for abilities and disciplines) -greatly- helped increase class variety and utility.

Vanguard bloodmage (damage to healing) would've been a good start, but I think they would've done that with necro if they wanted a character that powerful o_O (I mean, shit, they didn't even realistically let druids heal til like DODH, Tunare's renewal was like 3000 for 600? Fucking -awful- ~_~)

[Drasis]

Off the top of my head:

Technomancer - Gnome/Dwarf/Human/Dark Elf/ Half Elf/ Erudite
uses traps, bombs, guns (summoned or tinkered), can MC mech creatures, summons pets at higher lvls.
Wears cloth with some specialized shoulder pieces and goggles. Predisposed to tinkering.
Hybrid crowd control and dps uses.



Djinn - Gnome/Troll

Perma-levitates and has a SoW line of spells. Has a LoH type cooldown that transforms into a mega tank/dps "Efreeti". Can group transport to nearest zone line. Has blow back DD spells. "Cyclone" line will dmg target and send it into the air for a period of time, or at a slow fall (various uses based on the terrain). Also has a clicky shadowstep on a short cooldown. Other spells mostly DD and elemental based.

Wears cloth. Uses scimitars and wands. Same religions as shamans?

[Vanech]

Flagellant

Type: Pure Melee
Races: DE, Troll, Iksar
Deities: CT, Inno, Bert
Armor: Leather
Weapons: 1HS / 1HB
Base Abilities:

Feign Death (10)
Dodge (16)
Block (16)
Dual Wield(16)
Mend (20)
Parry(24)
Double Attack(24)


New Abilities:

Flay(8)

When Flay is activated the Flagellant deals all of its combat damage to itself.
The damage incurred is divided amongst their group as a healing affect.
During this time period the Flagellant is immune to healing from outside sources,
including regeneration effects from spells (although innate regeneration is not calculated.)

Sacrifice(32)

Resurrect another player with x percentage of their exp returned, where x equals the flagellants skill level.
(i.e. a flagellant with a skill of 43 in sacrifice would return 43% of the slain persons exp.) Sacrifice would also spawn the targeted player (upon resurrection) with 100% hp & mana.

The downside of this ability is that it kills the Flagellant, without the possibility of exp return upon resurrection (similar to the necromancer spell of the same name) The Sacrifice skill would have a max exp return of 75%

This skill would have a four hour respawn timer that keeps through death - plus a level range of +5-5 to the players level (since the possibly of abuse is extremely high)

The Flagellant would not gain damage bonuses based upon level, and the majority of the 1hs weapons that would be available to it would be whips...

[fugazi]

Totem-Warrior

A mix of a warrior and shaman with bard-like properties, this class offers the player overwhelming offensive abilities turning you into an Austrian death-machine. The Totem-Warrior focuses on dual-wielding fast 1h weapons, using fast cast buffs that only last for a short amount of time and using warcries that buff the group in the way bard songs do. Players can customize their Totem-Warrior by choosing a totem-animal and mixing up their tribal warpaint. A follower of the horse might get a run speed increase warcry, a lion one an attack boosting warcry.

Races: Ogre, Troll, Barbarian, Wood-Elf, Badgermen.
Stats: Strength and wisdom.
Deities: Deities of War and Nature, plus a new deity - The Beast Hold. The Beast Hold is the face of all animals, of fury and of the hunt.
Abilities: No mana is used, instead abilities are split into two groups - those that can be twisted as bardsongs, and those with a long cooldown that are longer lasting buffs. The Totem-Warrior also gets abilities such as maul, RIP AND TEAR and others that are only usable with certain weapon combinations such as sharp/sharp, blunt/blunt and so on.
Armor: The Totem-Warrior is limited to leather and chain only.

New race!

http://www.coolinfo.com/gameinfo/previews/kunark/images/kunark-1a.jpg

These savage creatures paint themselves with the blood of their chosen totem animal and unleash devastation upon their foes. Awakened and guided by The Beast Hold, these are one of the first animal races to challenge civilization and hold it accountable for the destruction it has unleashed upon nature and the wildlife.


.. later in Velious you can obviously also play walrusmen and ottermen :D

http://almarsguides.com/Almar%27s%20Stuff/EQ/Farming/Othmirs.jpg

Hm, good sauce. Name of the class could also be changed into Totemic Warrior, Savage or Austrian Death Machine.

[Lill-Leif]

I want to play a walrus on the moon.

[Cogwell]

I thought it would have been interesting to have some sort of Shape shifter or animagus class.

The functionality is there - imagine the Shaman bearform AA but expanded. At base, they would be monklike - hand to hand, some sort of standard extra attack like Kick, with decent melee skills (DW, DA, Dodge, Block), and leather armor. Then there would be a few animal forms to which they could transform.

Bear - very much like the shaman AA, but also gives mitigation and tanking ability. Something like +X HP, +Y heavy AC, +Z% Defense, and grants a proc just like the shaman one (disease dot or whatever, something with good aggro).

Wolf/Cat - +X ATK, +Y% DA, DW, H2H. A more damage oriented proc - again some sort of DoT without the aggro component.

Then some utility forms, that might grant some sort of stealth or speed or water breathing, such as an bird, fish, etc, that don't grant any sort of melee bonuses.

The idea would be similar to WoW Feral druids, but vasty simplified, so that there would be some class with a more hybrid Tank/DPS form.

[guineapig]

Totem-Warrior


.. later in Velious you can obviously also play walrusmen and ottermen :D

http://almarsguides.com/Almar%27s%20Stuff/EQ/Farming/Othmirs.jpg

Hm, good sauce. Name of the class could also be changed into Totemic Warrior, Savage or Austrian Death Machine.

This was an interesting idea to read through but the pics ate the bottom put it over the top! I want to see otter people wearing warpaint and kicking things! They should have a tail whip move instead actually :D

[Snigel]

Ranger
-spells
-chain
-endless quiv
+bow autoattack
+better arrows (at a high cost ofc)
+possibility to recover arrows from the mob using some skill that can fail if you suck so that it doesnt drain your wallet completely


i.e. /attack, /afk glass canon

[Hasbinbad]

bump 4 nubs

[Akim]

New class; democrat/republican (same thing really)
Cons; everything
Pros; ...

[Messianic]

Ranger
-spells
-chain
-endless quiv
+bow autoattack
+better arrows (at a high cost ofc)
+possibility to recover arrows from the mob using some skill that can fail if you suck so that it doesnt drain your wallet completely


i.e. /attack, /afk glass canon

We could also give them pets and call them Hunters.

New class; democrat/republican (same thing really)
Cons; everything
Pros; ...

...Dumb

[Knuckle]

New class, halfling monk.Recieves +70% bonus to kick attacks. -25% damage to melee attacks.

[Excision Rottun]

Othmir Bard FTW.

[guineapig]

New class, halfling monk.Recieves +70% bonus to kick attacks. -25% damage to melee attacks.

Would be hilarious. Range might be an issue though. :p

[Myrkskog]

Class: Harvester
Races: Human, Erudite, Dark Elf
Armor: Cloth/Leather
Weapons: Dagger, Can equip things like cones and energy shields(like cryosilk webshield) in offhand.
Stat Focus: Int and Dex
Deities: Bertoxxulous, Cazic-Thule
Abilities: Dodge, Double attack, Harvest

Description Harvesters will be a fire and forget pet caster with minor melee abilities focused on debuffing.

The flagship ability of the class(harvest) begins a 5 second window in which the harvester uses his dagger to "bleed" an enemy to capture the essence of rage and fear during their victims last breathing seconds. If the victim dies in this 5 second window the Harvester receives an essence token.

Harvesters require a class specific container in their inventory which have unique properties that allow them to hold essences. Essences can not be held in regular bags/boxes because they do not have the magical properties required to quell the rage of the contained essences and the essences would drive the carrier to [/scary voice] madness.

A small quest from the guild trainer would give the Harvester their first Essence Box(2 slot) and a series of quests as they level up will give them better boxes with more slots. In addition, later essence boxes will have properties such as +10% pet abilities and such. The best of the boxes will obviously drop off raid mobs.

Pet mechanics:

Tokens(and mana) are traded for fire and forget pets. There will be a variety of different pet styles available to the Harvester which they can deploy depending on what the situation calls for. Here are some brief thoughts about the possible pet lines:

Hero Line: These were the ancient warriors of battles who sacrificed themselves to save their comrades. They will be a high HP AE taunting pet which can serve to buy the group time to mez/evac/run.

Warden line: These were the priests of ancient times. During their duration they will cure slows/dots and do some healing for group members under 50% life.

Fury line: This will be the straight up damage dealer pet, nothing special, just teh deeps

Diviner line: These will be a moderate damage caster pet with a focus on interrupting mob casting.

These pets come in the form of ancient restless souls which still haunt the battlefields of Norrath. The model of the pet will be based on battles from the gamelore. For example, in Befallen you'd summon the old elves, in guk you would summon a troll or froglock to reflect on their ancient battle for the city. The models would be cosmetic only, but I think it adds some spice to the class.

Melee

The melee of the Harvester will not be meant to do much damage in itself, but to proc debuffs on mobs(trying to use dex). The harvester will have the choice to cast a variety of short duration self only buffs(instant cast that takes mana). While this buff is on, the Harvester has a chance to proc things like -hit chance, -resists, or whatever depending on which buff they cast. The procs stack on the mob, so the more dex you have the greater the chance the mob will become more and more debuffed.

[guineapig]

This sounds like a pretty interesting class. If you were to place it in the EQ universe what other classes would borrow spells from?

My guess would be some necro utilty spells and mage pet buff spells but I'm curious as to what dirrection you would go in. Although I guess in theory they could be a spellless class.