New Class Idea - Elementalist

Yes its the time you have all been waiting for...PC to put forth his very own new class idea. WTF you are saying, this mofo been here since late 2000 and is just now getting around to this? Yeah I'm lazy get over it. Alrighty now onto the nity grity.

The proposed name of the class is Elementalist, though perhaps Conjurer could work as well. No it is not a spin off of the Invoker. Whilst I do like me some voken action, this class has little in common with them. The main idea was to create a single pet focused class. PC, you say, we already have rangers and necros filling in the pet niche, and if you want a single pet we have DK's. Well to answer that DK's are not a true pet class. Necros are a multi pet/mal class that is evil only. My proposal is for all alignments. Rangers are still there, but unfortunatly pets have taken a back seat to archery, and they are still a melee focused class, my proposal is a magic focused class.

So why not make this the neutral qclass that everyone wants? Well I'm not such a huge fan of qclass/races thats why. I like to roll things out of the box. And again, this is for all aligns, that means goodies too. Yes I know noone likes them, however that doesn't mean they shouldn't get any new toys to play with.

So on to the details...

Aligns: All

Ethos: I'm leaning toward all...though only allowing Lawful and Neutral would make sense as well. If I get around to putting the backstory in this post it will be more clear why.

Races: All. Yes you read that right. Yes its a caster class. Yes if you want to make a stone giant caster based class I have no problem with that. I know some people will have an issue with this, thats nice. I don't care. Stone giant rangers can cast control weather and call lightning just fine. Fire giant shamans have no problem maling the hell out of people. Storm giant healers never had a problem bringing people back from the dead. This also includes squids. Give them a second class ffs. And werebeasts. Why limit them so. Haters.

Skills and Spells (The skills might look a little wierd, please read the spells list as well BEFORE commenting.)

Skills:

1: Hand to Hand Kick

1. Haggle

2. First Parry (Yes you read that right.)

3. Meditate

4. Second Kick

5. Lore

6. Balance (Again yes you read that right.)

7. Fast Healing

8. Trance

9. Acupuncture

10. Analyze

11. Second Parry (No thats not a typo.)

12. Sense Motion

13. Haymaker (Bear with me here people, I know what I'm doing)

14. Master Controler (See Appendex 1)

15. One with the World (See Appendex 1)

Spells:

1. Comprehend Languages

2. Detect Invis

3. Mass Invis

4. Create Food

5. Create Spring

6. Smoke Mephit (See Appendix 2)

7. Earthquake

8. Transmute (See Appendix 2)

9. Disjunction (See Appendix 2)

10. Summon Elemental (See Appendix 2)

11. Banish (See Appendix 2)

12. Fireball

13. Iceball

14. Hurricane

15. Warp (See Appendix 2)

16. Empower Elemental (See Appendix 2)

17. Elemental Fury (See Appendix 2)

18. Hellball (See Appendix 2)

Okay by now you are either shaking your head going WTF is this crack head smoking or screaming OP OP OP OP OP OP! Or both. Well let me make my Appendixs first then I will explain a bit of my reasoning. Read the Appendixs so you know what the skills/spells do, then read a bit of my reasoning, then we can yell at each other, k?

Appendix 1

Master Controller: This skill enables the summoned elemental to jump in front of his master to protect him from enemy threats. This will work like the mammoth for rangers, occasionly blocking melee hits, and will also occasionaly jump in front of single target spells. (Note this would have to be carefully tuned on frequency occur often enough to be useful, but not often enough that that it becomes overpowered. Obviously the rate for spells and melee attacks would have to be different.)

One with the World: This skill enables the Elementalist to merge with his summoned elemental for a short time, gaining benefits derived from the elemental he has summoned. While merged he cannot cast his own spells, but gains access to unique abilities of the elemental. Lasts short duration with cool down.

Appendix 2

Smoke Mephit: The elementalist summons a small smoke elemental under his control. This is a permanant pet that lasts until it is killed. However it cannot be controled at the same time as a full elemental. The mephit can cast burning hands and faerie fire at the same profeciency as the elementalist has in smoke mephit. (This is meant to be a holdover/leveling aid till the elementalist can summon a full elemental, and is also a quick replacement should his elemental get killed and he is unable to replace it at that time)

Transmute: This is really four spells in one. When the elementalist casts this spell, he choses one of four partial transmutes, air, fire, water, earth. These are all offense transmutes that initate combat, and cause minor/moderate damage.

Air Transmute: Minor Damage/Instant - One of the foes arms turns into thin air, forcing them to drop whatever is held in that hand.

Earth Transmute: Moderate Damage/Duration - One of the foes legs turns into clay, causing them to spend more movement points.

Fire Transmute: Moderate Damage/Instant - Sears the eyes, one hour blind.

Water Transmute: Minor Damage/Duration - Turns the foes head into water, disorienting them similar to thunderclap.

Disjunction: Self only spell, attempts to dispel all spells, both beneficial and detrimental. (I'm not sure on this one, I'm wondering if it might be too good, but it might not be. Perhaps give it slightly longer lag time to cast than normal.)

Summon Elemental: The bread and butter and jam and peanut butter and toast and english muffins and fruit and eggs and ham of the Elementalist class. Yes and the OJ as well. No not the milk. The milk went bad last week. This spell allows the elementalist to summon an elemental of the chosen type; Earth, Fire, Water, or Air. Each elemental has slightly different stats and different abilities and does different damage. All of them are giant sized, bash/bodyslam, and do significant melee damage (as this is the primary source of the elementalist's damage).

Earth: Stoneskin, Throws boulders (autothrow on opponent fleeing), does bludgening damage.

Air: Air Shield, dirt kicks, does slashing damage.

Fire: Fire shield, flame arrow, does fire damage.

Water: Ice shield, chill touch, does drowning damage.

Summoning an elemental is a lengthy process that takes about 50% of the casters health, mana, and drains the caster for 6 hours afterward. And incurs a bit of lag. Loosing your elemental is BAD. And swapping to a different elemental is not something you do on a whim.

Banish: Think of it as a single target turn undead for outer planar creatures. Works on demons, avatars, elementals, angels, things like that.

Warp: This is the only OS*** spell that they get. Works like the old 1.0 psi spell that I forget the name of. To use it you first go to some point in the world and mark it as your warp point. Then later, you can cast warp to warp to that point. Can only be cast out of combat. (Now as for balancing...should it take your elemental with you? Perhaps only if he is in the same room as you? I'm not sure on this one.)

Empower Elemental: Casting this empowers your elemental. Dur. Think of it like haste + berserk + warcry for your elemental. Sweet eh? But wait! You cant cast while its active! And! Theres more. It drains your mana the whole time its active! Don't worry, you can cancel it at will.

Elemental Fury: Casting this works like Empower Elemental + Enlarge + RAGE for your elemental. Why wouldn't you use this all the time right? Well, like Empower Elemental you can't cast while its active. And it drains your mana even faster than Empower elemental. But wait! Theres more! More you say? How much more can this spell take out of you?!?!?! Well, I have to balance this somehow right? So you loose 2cd parry and balance while this is active as well. So sure, you can cancel it at will...if you arn't getting lagpwned. Further balanceing of this skill as testing shows neccessary.

Hellball: Ahh now what could this lovely little spell be you are wondering? What the HELL could possible top Elemental Fury? Well I named it Hellball for a reason. This spell sacrifices your lovely little elemental for a powerful round of earthquake, fireball, iceball, followed by a hurricane for everyone in the room. Aggro from this does NOT go to the caster. Hows that for a finisher?

Comments: Well there you have it, feel free to tear it apart as you see fit. Yes at first blush it may seem over powered, but there are alot of things that do bring it back down. For one, it has nothing in the way of buffs. No armor, no shield, no prot shield... Nothing. It has to rely on consumables for everything except detect invis. Hence why I gave it balance. This is why I think disjunction is fairly balanced, because its costing you consumables every time you use it, not just a bit of mana to put those spells back up. Also, balance is alot harder to train than simply mastering prot shield. Yes, they do get two defenses, however they also get very little in the way of direct damage.

They do have a few AoE spells yes, but that can be easily avoided by a smart opponent. In combat they will be using their transmutes and trying to manuver thier opponent into a position where they can use thier AoEs. They have haymaker...but not dispel magic. Haymaker is harder to train, is a two round lag, and will be less effective for the majority of the races chosen as a spell casting race. They have sense motion, but no faerie fire/fog unless they have thier mephit out, which means no elemental which means at higher lvls they are screwed anyway. While they do have First and Second parry, which means they never need to worry about being disarmed, getting a nodisarm weapon at lvl 30+ is not that hard. And not having proficency in any other weapons means thier parrying will never be that great.

Okay I think thats all the predefense I need to do, go ahead guys and gals, rip into it.

Reserved...

RE: Hellball Balancing: It does sacrifice your Elemental to cast it, and cannot be cast if you do not have an elemental to sacrifice. Since the class revolves around their pet I figured this would be a kinda last ditch attack to try to finish off a foe, or a final rebutive strike against one who has chased you down to your warp point (if indeed you can warp your elemental to your warp point). Or if you are close to finishing someone off and someone else comes along and starts in on you, toss this one out to finish off your current foe, then warp off and come back later for the new opponent. Just my thoughts on it. If it does need more balancing we can add some serious lag to it, or perhaps have it affect the caster as well. Make it a real last ditch spell.

Edit 2: Yes Hurricane before Earthquake during Hellball makes much more sense. ^^ Was just putting them in the order that they class received the spells not really thinking about it on that one. Good catch Valek.

Wow, rarely do I like class submissions, but this seems to have some merit. A melee defensive caster with duration skills, pets, pet augments. The parts that sound overpowered, have balanceing factors, maybe not hellball but meh. And I think it would be a nice twist to see this type of class in the works.

Kudos

someone else needs to comment on this you ninnies.

so hell ball casts all those spells at once?

I like this class.

well thought out. If this were my child I would want to add staves or scrolls to adjust for the lack of detect magic. But honestly, nice work.

Yes Hellball casts all 4 spells. Perhaps in addition to sacrificing your elemental it should deal 25% to 50% damage to the caster for balance purposes...Hurms...

Ooo...Staves or scrolls would be a good idea actually... knew I was forgetting something. Drew this up at work mostly. ^^

I would probably give them scrolls at least... Not sure about staves/wands... possibly give them staves, I can't think of a good reason not too at the moment with disjunction working the way I have it working. I'd hold of on wands at first at least. They could be added later if it was determined to be necessary. Don't want to give them any more offensive power than they already have at the start.

after thought; the elemental is "giant sized", since you intend to tone down the frequency that it (steps in front of the caster/intercepts target spells). And did not give them a protective shield . I would take advantage of the over-all size of the thing and allow it to inevitably be in the way of charge attacks. Perhaps a different effect depending on the elemental. Can not charge effectively against hundred mile an hour winds (sends charger past elementalist into the adjacent room), Smoke fills your eyes as you charge through the wall of flames (flame breath on charger), You slam against the wall of stone (self inflicted bash on charger), The rushing waters sweep you from your feet (trips charger).

the casting all 4 with hellblast would lead me to think that saccing the ele might not be such a bad cost. could be very wrong, but i'd think that those 4 combined would make saccing the ele a common occurance, rather than a last-ditch

I would think to discourage the use of hellball, except as a last resort, a long tick timer could be added to the summon spell.

Say, something similar to voodoo doll? I think that combined with the effects already mentioned in the idea might help prevent abuse (although you do have to remember that if hellball doesn't screw your opponent as much as you wanted, you are now without your primary source of damage so you would need to run somewhere safe for at least 6 hours to get a new one, thus negating all that damage hellball did).

but i'd think that those 4 combined would make saccing the ele a common occurance' date=' rather than a last-ditch[/quote']

I actually agree with this... it'd make the timing on when to use hellball incredibly important, and while it'd be something worthy of common use for the kill it's also something costly enough that you have to use it at the right time to make it worthwhile (keep in mind that saccing the elemental kills all the melee output of this class, which is its primary source of damage). If it fails to finish the target it screws the elementalist a great deal for any continued fighting, at the very most giving him one or two chances to attack with transmutae before being forced to flee and prep a new elemental.

So far, I like the concepts behind this class a lot.

Hellball: Ahh now what could this lovely little spell be you are wondering? What the HELL could possible top Elemental Fury? Well I named it Hellball for a reason. This spell sacrifices your lovely little elemental for a powerful round of earthquake, fireball, iceball, followed by a hurricane for everyone in the room. Aggro from this does NOT go to the caster. Hows that for a finisher?

There's a problem with with your hellball. It should hurricane first, so at least earthquake is useful if someone is flying.

Weird. Not sure what to think of it. I WANT to like it...(love the smoke mephit)....but it's such an odd jumble.

Monks require defensive empowerment to use their balance. Balance at 100% is kick@$$. Let's replace it with Sands of Time.

Sands of Time: The Elementalist explodes into sand and reforms after the trip/bash/bodyslam. But have it be about 65% as effective as Balance, with the added affect of the lag lock miss.

Not sure about giving them a weaker form of balance, though I'm fine with the flavor change. Yes balance would make them difficult to lag, but no harder than a healer/cleric/battlemage. ponders Perhaps go with something like your sands of time idea, but maybe start with the slider closer to 80-85% effectiveness of balance, to be adjusted as needed.

I honestly really like this class, the only really overpowering thing I see is that hellball. Ir ealize it is a last ditch big red button, but someone at big and nasty? You are basically guaranteed to hit that spell and win.

Please, work on this more!

I am with Emp on this one. I'm quite conservative when it comes to new classes, but this one looks to have a lot of potential in it.

So far the biggest concerns seem to be concerning Hellball, even with the saccing of the elemental and the self damage...

I'll do some brainstorming and see if there is a different way I can work this spell or perhaps come up with a replacement spell.

What I find most powerful about that spell is the "Aggro from this does NOT go to the caster" part.

So you basicly lose your elemental to gain a strong finisher spell and a shopkeeper (just for an example) on your side.

[edit] On a side note, I see second parry and no dual wield? Or is the guy supposed to fight with his hands?

Seeing that they learn no weapons, nor 2nd, 3rd etc. attacks, I'd venture to guess so.

While they do have First and Second parry, which means they never need to worry about being disarmed, getting a nodisarm weapon at lvl 30+ is not that hard. And not having proficency in any other weapons means thier parrying will never be that great.

RE: F0xx

Second parry is monk hand to hand. Dual parry is weapons

Maybe give them a bit of melee potential as well. Perhaps something as simple as empowering themselves defensively to get balance, and offensively to get elemental fist damage types. Like adding in flame fist, ice fist, shocking fist, etc etc.