Personally I am very interested to hear what your ideas are. Please share.
I wasn't gonna say but then I thought about it and it's not like any of my other long idea posts have ever gone anywhere before, so it's not like it will matter. Plus I got myself thinking about it and was bored so here we go.
WARNING: NONE OF THE FOLLOWING WILL EVER BE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED BY ANYONE, EITHER IN FULL OR IN PART. DO NOT BOTHER COMMENTING ON ANY OF IT.
I posted almost all of these ideas before like a year ago, so most of it will be a rehash. Not that anyone remembers the previous ideas. This isn't a very complete or detailed sketch either because who cares.
Reforms:
*NPC Riposte - currently using faster weapons and especially dual wielding them puts a tank at a disadvantage by causing them to take more frequent ripostes from their targets and thus more damage to themselves. This should be adjusted either for frequency or hit damage with fancy maths. Would not apply to Enrage for obvious reasons.
*Taunt - taunt is currently kind of dumb, mostly because level caps make it do nothing on raid mobs, presumably because the effect (set aggro with target to highest aggro + 1, if successful) would be too powerful for swooping up lost aggro or something. I would propose changing the effect: increase aggro with the target by (1..(top_aggro - your_aggro))*taunt_skill/200, which is to say, a random number between 1 and the difference between the highest aggro and your current aggro, adjusted by your taunt skill (1:1 at 200 skill, bonus beyond that for Warriors and taunt skill mods), no level cap and no failure chance. This will make the button always worth pressing if you're trying to pick up aggro, without either the frustration of failures or excessive reliability. Would also increase skillup rate at lower levels since the effect would kind of suck with really low skill.
Iffy reforms:
*Aggro amounts - currently the amount of aggro you get when causing
x amount of damage or
y amount of healing are pretty mysterious. Changing it to 1 aggro per one point of damage, pre-crit and before aggression modifiers from items and buffs and AAs etc would be nice, for a start, to make it easier to compare pure aggro spells like from SK terrors to everything else. But since this would impact all classes it would probably be too big to do.
Dropped reforms:
*Shield Block - I wanted to make shields primarily add pure mitigation instead of block chance to at least somewhat address the fact that shield block chance keeps going up linearly and at a rate much higher than mitigation from AC, making the difference between Warriors and Knights uneven as tier increases, not to mention the problem of trying to equate avoidance with mitigation in the first place. But no one liked that idea last time so wouldn't bother.
Knights - general concepts:
*In what would probably be the most objectionable part of all this, I would remove most on-demand lifetap/self-healing ability from the knights while they are wearing shields. If any of the tanks are in maximum tanking defensiveness mode, they'll be dependent on heals from others as Warriors are, is the general idea. However, both knights will have some self-healing ability when using 2-handers to allow them to solo to some extent and give them a little more flexibility in exp groups. If they need more mitigation to make this workable that's fine.
*Many spells and spell lines would be weapon-specific, that is to say, you'd have one set of combat spells to choose from in sword+shield tanking mode and another set to choose from when in 2h mode. The idea here is to give knights more choices on the one hand, and to allow us to give them more interesting abilities when they are not tanking bleeding edge content on the other. Both knights will basically have a second role they are able to play in a group or raid when using 2h weapons instead of sword+shield.
*Styles would go away in and the endurance bar would be used for different systems which will be described below.
*Stuff like buffs and rezzes and FD won't be dropped.
PALADIN
Endurance system: Courage
The Paladin endurance bar system is mostly passive. When their endurance bar is over 50%, the Paladin gains a bonus to their aggro, damage, and healing/death defying effects (see below), up to 10%(?) when their bar is at 100%. The bar naturally though slowly increases when at less than 100%; the rate is doubled when holding aggro on something, though still slow. When an ally dies, however, the bar takes a hit; the % lost will likely be lower when in a raid of 18 than when only in a group of 6. The bar can be increased more quickly by successfully defending/saving allies. Furthermore, at level 65 Paladins will have access to one endurance-using ability:
*Miracle - increases the amount that each member of your group can fall below 0 HP before dying to 25% of their max HP for the next 6 seconds. Cost: 100%.
1H + Shield: Defender Tank
When in tanking mode, a Paladin is will have solid single-target aggro and moderate AE aggro, and will have spell lines devoted to protecting allies from damage.
Spell lines:
*Brand of Flame/Light - primary aggro spells, with moderate fire/magic damage and some pure hate. Melee range, low cost and reuse, replaces blind.
*Stuns/Spell interrupts - no reason to get rid of these. Stun durations may be increased if the Paladin does not have aggro with the target when it lands.
*Defend - diverts a percentage of incoming damage from target ally to yourself for a time, provided you stay close to them. Does not take a buff slot, requires a shield.
*Savior - very fast heals that are contingent on (and proportionate to) the target having low HP. If the target has over 50% HP when it hits, it does nothing. If they have e.g. 45%, it will heal for a tiny amount. If they have e.g. 5%, it will heal for a significant amount. If the Paladin casts one of these spells while targeting something hostile, the spell will automatically target the member of their group/raid(?) with the lowest HP % at the moment it begins casting. Cannot self-target.
*Raise Shield - increases the Paladin's defense for a short time by increasing damage reduction by either a flat amount or a percent, whichever is less of the incoming target's damage. Does not take a buff slot.
2H: Undead slayer/Passive healing
When using a 2H weapon, there will be two main things Paladins can do: explode undeads, and contribute small but consistent healing (replacing group HoT kinda? but more so) while dealing moderate damage.
Anti-undead:
*Big nuke - does a lot of damage to undead stuffs, melee range and requires a 2h weapon.
*PBAE nuke - more anti-undead AEs through the levels rather than just at the top.
*generalized anti-undead debuff maybe? - kinda like the undead slow+snare things necros get, but with stuff like AC and resist debuff and maybe reverse DS.
Passive healy stuff:
When the Paladin is using a 2H weapon, they will be able to designate an ally to receive a portion of overhealing they cause themselves (via self-heal proc or some of the following spells).
*stuff kinda like Zealot's Strike - melee range magic nukes that do a small/moderate heal on the target of the target.
*stuff kinda like Archon's Hammer - melee range magic nukes that do a small group heal. Not too much reuse.
*nukes - straight damaging melee-range nukes that do more damage than the above or the 1h aggro nukes, but still not a huge amount.
*maybe a personal healing DS type debuff thingy? - tiny heal to you whenever you hit the target in melee.
General spell lines:
*Prayer - fairly quick-casting spells that increase how far the target ally can fall below 0 HP before dying for 3 seconds. The amounts will be increased by healing focus and AAs. If the Paladin casts one of these spells while targeting something hostile, the spell will automatically target the member of their group/raid(?) with the lowest HP % at the moment it begins casting.
*Magic/Fire nukes - simple long range lowish damage nukes for tagging and damage. Maybe throw an AC debuff on there or something.
*Proc buffs - effects are tripled when using a 2H weapon:
- self-heal proc
- spell interrupting magic nuke proc
- undead-only unresistable lifetap proc, basically the above two rolled into one
SHADOW KNIGHT
Endurance system: Sacrifice
When a Shadow Knight takes damage, their endurance bar is filled proportionate to the % of HP they lost. When they cast certain spells, primarily damaging ones and especially 2H-only ones, a portion of the bar will be spent to empower the spell, primarily in the form of increasing its damage. The amount of the increase will depend on how full the bar was when the spell finished casting. In other words, the harder the Shadow Knight is getting beaten down, the more powerful some of their spells will be. Furthermore, there will be a line of spells to allow the Shadow Knight to give up some of their HP in order to fill the bar themselves, and HP so sacrificed will be more efficient at filling the bar then taking straight damage, but this will be mostly supplemental and will not make up for taking a good, consistent beating in melee. The bar decays out of combat.
1H + Shield: Mostly Boring Tank
When in tanking mode an SK will have very good single target aggro but no particular AE aggro, and they'll have better spell damage than paladins but limited ability to make use of their Sacrifice resource for offensive purposes.
Spell lines:
*Wicked Blade - magic/disease damage and pure hate, mostly analogous to the paladin 1h damage+aggro things. However, it also receives a minor boost to damage from Sacrifice. Melee range.
*Sacrificial Rune - self-only rune that has a significant contribution from Sacrifice. Will not take a buff slot. Short reuse.
2H: Medium DPS/Burst Nuker Tank
When using a 2H weapon, SKs get access to lots of direct damaging spells with large potential boosts from Sacrifice. When they are not tanking this will allow them to do respectable DPS, though still rather less than a real DPS class. If they choose to tank with a 2H, especially against difficult, highly damaging enemies, however, they will really shine. In the most extreme situations, where healers are barely able to keep the SK up and their Sacrifice resource is constantly being topped off, they should be able to put out near wizard-like burst damage. Whether it is worth giving up the defense of wearing a Shield in return for a lot of damage will, of course, be up to the Shadow Knight.
Spell lines:
*Blade of Darkness - spammable disease/poison nukes with high damage contributions from Sacrifice. Melee range.
*Blade of Sacrifice - part of the Sacrifice line, this deals damage while simultaneously Sacrificing some of your HP.
*Blade of Revenge - very fast casting nuke that deals more damage when your HP % is low, with a contribution from Sacrifice on top. Some reuse time.
*Sacrifical Lifetap - does a lifetap that is highly dependent on your Sacrifice pool for its damage.
General spell lines:
*Creeping Dread - simple small damage splurt DoTs that also have a splurting pure hate effect. 30s reuse to prevent it from being spammed on everything. Replaces Terrors mostly. No contribution from Sacrifice.
*Sacrifice - spells that allow you to sacrifice a small portion of your HP to fill your bar, for when you are taking low damage or when you are not tanking at all.
*Reverse DS - no reason to get rid of those I guess.
*Sacrificial DoT - a DoT that gets the majority of its damage from your Sacrifice pool; damage will be maximized if your bar is full on every tick. The only Sacrifice-using line that can be used whether using 1h+shield or 2h.
*Procs buffs:
- Lifetap proc; half damage/healing of Paladin procs. Triple effectiveness when using a 2H.
- Sacrifice proc; sacrifices a very small portion of your HP (1%?) and fills your bar more efficiently than even cast Sacrifice spells. Tripled efficiency when using a 2H.
WARNING: NONE OF THE ABOVE WILL EVER BE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED BY ANYONE, EITHER IN FULL OR IN PART. DO NOT BOTHER COMMENTING ON ANY OF IT.
