New Class: Shaman

[Kainzo]

@Balance Team
Here's what I have drawn out - I haven't had time to read any other of the posts on a strict deadline for the camping trip


Shaman (axe) Archetype - Healer
The class is suppose to be semi-hybrid, representing Primal abilities in destruction, majoring in totem (physical blocks that pulse and can be broken), minoring in healing and melee. Ther user can ONLY have out one "effective" totem at a time, unless its a decoy totem, in which case, you may have 1 decoy and 1 actual totem. The effective range of the totems will vary based on a few things. Totems will be placable within 15-20 blocks of the player at line of sight. Totems will have an AE / effect range of 5-15.

Skill Lineup (rough)

Totems:

• Totem Recall
• Shock Totem
• Primal Totem
• Healing Totem
• Force Totem
• Engulfing totem
• Firestrike Totem

Melee:

• Shocking Strike: Deals extra physical damage based on your INT and interrupts warm-ups/silences
• Maim->Chilling Strike: Deals extra physical damage based on your INT and slows the target

Heals:

• Cleanse Spirit/Exorcise: Heals and removes all debuffs from your target
• Primal Surge/Natures Fury/etc: HOT, mana regen, and stamina regen.

Spells:

• LightingSpark: Direct damage (until we can get a proper chain lightning working)
• Wind Gale: Low damage, wide projectile (Like DragonBreath) that knocks back targets.

 

[malikdanab]

I like the concept (may actually go a "healer" class for once ).

I know it's a rough line up, but is it's entire skillset going to rely on totems? One problem I see with Decoy totem is since there is only one "active" totem at a time, noticing which is the decoy would be very easy.

 

[leftovers5]

What blocks represent totems? Can they be broken? How quickly can they be broken? Will they have "health"?

It seems like Shaman won't be a very "active" skill based class unless the totems can be destroyed fairly quickly because you're more in less locked in to one when you place a specific one down.

I LOVE this class as a concept though. Good work.

 

[malikdanab]

I'm expecting totems to be very powerful since:
-they are stationary
-you can only have one at a time.

 

[Egorh]

I don't really know how I feel about the Force Totem. Disciple had a decent rework to remove the fall damage skills because of how broken using fall damage really is.

 

[Eldrylars]

These will work in regions right?

 

[look_out]

Chain Lighting :X

Make sure you test this skill very thoroughly... we don't want another geomancer incident... ( for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about. Chain lighting when it was on geomancer on Dragongarde, One shot people and some times multiple people.)

 

[malikdanab]

Chain Lighting :X

Make sure you test this skill very thoroughly... we don't want another geomancer incident... ( for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about. Chain lighting when it was on geomancer on Dragongarde, One shot people and some times multiple people.)

Our job is to test this Dragongarde didn't have nearly as large of a testing base as we do now.

 

[look_out]

Im just saying... Chainlighting has been tried before and failed. I just want it to work properly.


The level 60 skill seems a little weak to me. It sounds like the old ironfist. I feel switching force with vine totem will be better or with the shock totem.

 

[malikdanab]

Im just saying... Chainlighting has been tried before and failed. I just want it to work properly.


The level 60 skill seems a little weak to me. It sounds like the old ironfist. I feel switching force with vine totem will be better or with the shock totem.

We didn't have Delf in Dragongarde

I'm not too keen on force totem either. Though I'd like to see the actual skill before I make my final judgement.

 

[Delfofthebla]

Force Totem can easily be replaced with something like a "tremor" totem, that sends pulses of force equivalent to the old TornadoKick, or something close to it.

I already know how ChainLightning would be handled. There is similar logic in BoneSpear to prevent the same targets being hit multiple times.


I wonder if it's really a good idea to put kick on Shaman. That will easily put it on the "caster killer" route, and would likely lead them to the same path as old Disciple or old Pyromancer. (Casters stood almost no chance at all against a skilled player using these classes).

 

[Delfofthebla]

Also, most classes these days have about 1 ability every 5 levels, with 1-2 being available from level 1. There is still room for adding more to the initial concept that Kainzo has laid out.

I like the chain-heal idea sir had in the other thread, and while I -like- the idea of water walking, I do not know of a method to make it work at this time.

Still room for a bit more additions, and of course, tweaks galore.

While I know this is a "balance" thread that Kainzo has already laid out the groundwork for, I recommend everyone bring up any issues that you see, be they relevant to balance, or relevant to the "design" of the class. If it doesn't sound fun or interesting, explain why, and possibly how to fix it.

 

[Sirdemonic3]

i say no to kick, and i think the decoy totem should always turn into the healing one since thats the one that people wanna take out, simmilar to fauxbomb

 

[Egorh]

An idea for a lvl 65 skill that would work fairly well would be a skill that increases the effectiveness of totems (could be range for some, duration for others, potency, etc). This skill would have a long CD and would need to be used wisely

 

[victim130]

@Balance Team
Here's what I have drawn out - I haven't had time to read any other of the posts on a strict deadline for the camping trip


Shaman (axe) Archetype - Healer
The class is suppose to be semi-hybrid, representing Primal abilities in destruction, majoring in totem (physical blocks that pulse and can be broken), minoring in healing and melee. Ther user can ONLY have out one "effective" totem at a time, unless its a decoy totem, in which case, you may have 1 decoy and 1 actual totem. The effective range of the totems will vary based on a few things. Totems will be placable within 15-20 blocks of the player at line of sight. Totems will have an AE / effect range of 5-15.

Skill Lineup (rough)
-Kick (5) - basic disarm for casters/healers
-Firestrike Totem (10) - A Turret of sorts that shoots out lesser fireballs at enemies (non grp'd members) in range
-Restorative Totem (20) - Totem that slow heals over time anyone within range
-Decoy Totem (30) - A skill that can mimic any totem and can be laid down, the Decoy Totem is created to throw off the enemies and make them attack the wrong totem.
-Chloroblast (35) - A small healing skill to aid to the "Healer" path
-Shock Totem (40) - Strikes lightning down to anyone within range - low to med damage
-Vine/Choke Totem (50) - Slows movement speed of any enemy near the totem.
-ChainLightning (55) - damage that effects the target and jumps to enemies close by.
-Force Totem (60) - flings all enemies into the air, dealing minor damage and disorienting them.

Only real problem I have is the lack of heals vs Damaging skills. Though I think we've hit a pretty big wall on what we can do in terms of unique healing. Why not hand them a defensive cooldown to help them in close combat? Maybe even an AoE defensive?

Just a quick thought for example: Spirit Realm: Send you and your party within X blocks half way into the spirit realm. While you are there you take less damage and have increased healing. This effect lasts Y seconds or until the shaman dies.

That may be a bit too strong, but I really think we need to play a bit more on the field of "Support" if we claim Shaman to be a healer. This would also add a healing buff while not directly giving the shaman another heal to manage.

I'm a bit on the fence about Kick, but most classes have some form of silence or interrupt now, do its not a huge deal to test it out. I do feel like Firestrike and Shock totems sorta meet the same outcome. Since only one can be placed at a time, unless they both do the exact same thing (Same range, resource cost and damage) one will always be picked over the other. If we scraped Kick, how would everyone feel about a very brief silence upon being hit by the shock totem? Or maybe a .5 second stun? Then we bump down their basic heal to level 1. Just some thoughts, tbh, no matter what we post up, it will all need to be tested. On that note, we will need to plop down a few skills in between the totems, I feel like the limit on one totem at a time really limits the amount of skills they have in theory. Once that totem is down, they really only can Kick or Chain lightning.

Just my opinions can't wait to test this class out haha

 

[malikdanab]

Dislike Neutral Like
Damage Skills:
-Firestrike Totem: I like how it is
-Shock Totem: I like how it is
-Force Totem: If it's like how Delf said it would be I'd think I will like it
-Chain Lightning: Interesting spell (will probably be my favorite )
-Kick: Like others, I don't think kick isn't the best skill for the class (It isn't the skill per say I juts feel it doesn't fit the class) Maybe make it into a "Silence totem" but bump it to a higher level (Don't need a pvp skill so early)

Support Skills:
-Restorative Totem: Good as it is
-Decoy Totem: I like the concept of the totem, but do to the one totem restriction I'd think it would be easy to figure out which one is the decoy. I propose it's turned into a "Trap Totem" The totem will be displayed as a random toem each time, but when destroyed explodes dealing magic/ or healing allies in a radius. If it was made a lvl one skill I could see it also having a "taunt" functioin so you could lvl with it
-Vine/Choke Totem: Good as it is
-Chloroblast: I like the idea. Possibly rename it and maybe make it also heal your totems? (Will totems have health?)


I'm still iffy about having only 1 totem, but I'd like to see the class in action first. It still needs more skills to fill out it's set, but I like this start.

 

[Delfofthebla]

Honestly, I don't see a proper way of handling "hp" on totems other than it being block based destruction. IE: You take an axe to the wood and chop it down.

It's possible that it could take much longer to chop down than normal, or possibly force you to "break" it multiple times before it actually breaks, but other than that, I see no way of giving it a form of "hp". There is no way to let you use a skill on the totem. I miiiight be able to work in a left click spam system, but I'm not sure that's the way to go either. It's something worth discussing though I think.

 

[malikdanab]

The problems I see with physically breaking the blocks of a totem is that"
-miners would be OP against shamans
-Efficiency 4 tools would be Op against shamans (If not required to fight one)

If it's not possible to give totem "HP" then it makes "Decoy Totem" not very useful. So, should totems be time based?

 

[look_out]

WIth breaking the block. The shamans party could just stack around the block and remove any access long enough to break the block. Simply by body blocking.

 

[malikdanab]

WIth breaking the block. The shamans party could just stack around the block and remove any access long enough to break the block. Simply by body blocking.

That is a definite problem. If you where pvping someone in a town it would be impossible to kill a totem. I think the totems having a set duration is the best option.