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.

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.

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.

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).

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. ;) )

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)

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.

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

i think that underwater city thing was a myth