Concept class: the Quezitlan

We all know that the characters that come from expansion packs are based around the continents they are from, and that each continent respresents a different culture; Elona was inspired by African history, Cantha by Chinese. With this in mind, I've created a concept class which would work with a continent inspired by a different culture; the now-extinct culture of central Mexico, the Aztecs.

Concept Class: the Quezitlan.
Base Armor: 70
(Armor will be designed like animal skins, such as Jaguar armor with the helmet being a Jaguar head. It would be awesome to see something like Charr armor for this class =o )
Base Energy: 25, with +4 regeneration (+5 energy from a full armor set)
Base Health: 500
Newly Introduced Weaponry: the Macua.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Macahuitl.png
Base damage: 16-26 Blunt or slashing (depends on the weapon itself, the design is unusual), with an attack speed of 1.5 per second
(This weapon is one-handed. Quezitlan's can wield a shield as well, with requirements being in either Sacrificial Blessing or Warmongering.)

Attributes:
(For the record, skill examples presuppose that you can only go up to a max of 12 ranks in the skill)

Sacrificial Blessing
The Aztecs were an extremely religious culture, therefore it would make sense for the Quezitlan-specific attribute to be Spiritual Mastery. Sacrifice was also one of the practices (and probably most well known aspects) of Aztecs. This attribute would function like Soul Reaping, except instead of gaining 1 energy for every rank, you gain 8 health for a maximum of 128 health gained when a foe dies (This number may seem high, but hey, gaining 16 energy from soul reaping is a high number too, and the average energy of a necro is well over 1/8 of average health). "The Gods are pleased by your offerings, and in return they grant you strength." Many of the skills in this attribute will require no energy and give you or allies energy (signets come to mind), but in return they will require health sacrifice.

Skill Examples:
Infuse Spirit
Spell/5 energy/1/2 second cast time/7 second recharge
Sacrifice 5% maximum health. Target other ally gains 1...6 energy.

Aura of the Celestial (elite)
Stance/10 energy/60 second recharge
Sacrifice 10% maximum health. For 45 seconds, your maximum energy increases by +3....+10 and you gain +1 energy regeneration.
(While in this stance, you will also become translucent and glow with light)

Mark of the Heretic
Hex spell/5 energy/30 second recharge
Sacrifice 8% maximum health. For 10 seconds, target foe is hexed with Mark of the Heretic. If that foe dies, you gain 5...13 energy and this spell recharges.

Spiritual Syphon
Spell/5 energy/1 second cast time/15 second recharge
Sacrifice 10% maximum health. You steal 1...6 energy from target foe. If you have less energy than that foe, you gain an additional 1...6 energy.

My Body is a Temple
Stance/15 energy/20 second recharge
For 10 seconds, you have -8...-5 health regeneration, but you gain 1...4 energy whenever you activate a skill.

Macua Mastery
All of these skills will require energy. It functions like Dagger Mastery, except instead of increasing the chance to double strike, it increases the chance to gain 1 energy on a hit. Like an inherent Zealous modifier.

Skill Examples:

Weakening Strike
Attack skill/5 energy/10 second recharge
If this attack hits, target foe suffers from weakness for 3...15 seconds.

Knockout Strike (elite)
Attack skill/5 energy/20 second recharge.
If this attack hits, you deal an additional 10...22 damage. If this attack hits a foe suffering from weakness, that foe is dazed for 1...8 seconds.

Divine Bash
Attack skill/5 energy/5 second recharge
If you are currently in a stance, you deal an additional 5...18 damage and gain 1...6 energy. Otherwise, you miss and are blinded for 5 seconds.

Vengeful Blow
Attack skill/5 energy/12 second recharge
If this attack hits, you deal +1...+10 damage. If you are suffering from a hex, you deal +5...+14 additional damage. If you are suffering from a condition, you deal +5...+14 additional damage.

Martyr's Vengeance
Attack skill/5 energy/ No recharge
Sacrifice 8% maximum health. You deal +12...+35 damage.

Blunt-sided Bash
Attack skill/10 energy/10 second recharge
If this attack hits, you deal +5...+14 additional damage and target foe is knocked down. You must wield a bludgeoning Macua to activate this skill.

Surgical Sever
Attack skill/10 energy/10 second recharge
If this attack hits, you deal +5...+14 additional damage and target foe suffers from a deep wound. You must wield a slashing Macua to activate this skill.

Sun Sorcery
No inherent effect. The most core god of ancient aztec beliefs was Huitzilopochtli, god of War and the Sun (I would suggest that this god be replaced by Grenth in the guild wars mythology. His domains sync up most appropriately with the concept of this class, IMO). It translates to "Hummingbird of the South". This type of magic would be based mostly on dealing Fire and Holy damage.

Skill Examples:

Burning hands
Touch Skill/5 energy/3/4 second cast time/10 second recharge
Sacrifice 5% maximum health. Target touched foe takes 25...55 fire damage and is set on fire for 1...3 seconds.

Merciless Condemnation
Spell/10 energy/2 second cast time/8 second recharge
Target Foe and all adjacent foes are struck for 33...66 fire damage. Foes suffering from a condition take an additional 15...35 holy damage.

A Firey Ending (elite)
Hex spell/15 energy/2 second cast time/5 second recharge
Sacrifice 10% maximum health. Target Foe is hexed with A Firey Ending for 15 seconds. If that foe dies, all adjacent foes take 25...90 fire damage and are set on fire for 5 seconds.

"My faith is strong!"
Shout/10 energy/1 second cast time/20 second recharge
Sacrfice 20% maximum health. All adjacent foes are struck for 40...100 fire damage and are set on fire for 1...3 seconds. If you are not in a stance, you are knocked down for 3 seconds.

"Your faith is weak!" [Elite]
Shout/10 energy/1 second cast time/20 second recharge
Sacrifice 20% maximum health. All adjacent foes are knocked down for 1...2 seconds (raises to 3 at 14) and take 40...100 holy damage. If you are not in a stance, you sacrifice an additional 30% health.

"Convert or Die!"
Shout/10 energy/1 second cast time/5 second recharge
Sacrifice 5% maximum health. All foes suffering from weakness withing earshot take 15...40 holy damage.

Primeval Howl
Shout/15 energy/3 second cast time/15 second recharge
Sacrifice 5% maximum health. All foes within earshot are set on fire for 1...3 seconds.

Piercing Gaze
Spell/5 energy/1/4 second cast time/2 second recharge
Sacrifice 8% maximum health. Target foe take 15...40 fire damage. If that foe is suffering from weakness, you do not sacrifice health.

Warmongering
This skill will have no inherent effect. Many of the skills (but not all) will help focus on staying alive, helping especially with offsetting health sacrifice, but kept in concept of the character.

Skill Examples:
Grenth's Protection (Elite)
Stance/5 Energy/60 second Recharge
For 8...18 seconds, you gain +40 armor. This stance is renewed whenever a nearby foe dies.

"I will break you!"
Shout/4 adrenaline
The next of your attacks which successfully hits a foe steals 10...30 health as well.

Foes for the Slaughter
Spell/5 energy/1 second cast time/10 second recharge
You gain 30...65 health. For every foe in the area (maximum 6), you gain an additional 12...24 health.

Signet of Regenerating Spirit
Signet/20 second recharge
For 20 seconds, you gain +1...6 health Regeneration while you are attacking.

Blind Faith
Stance/5 energy/20 second recharge
For 5...13, your attacks ignore the effects of blind and hexes which cause you to miss. Whenever your attacks hit in this way, you lose 40...20 health.

"I'm not finished with you!"
Shout/5 energy/10 second recharge
If target foe is knocked down, you gain 20...100 health. If target foe is suffering from a deep wound, you gain 20...100 health.

"Prepare for war!" [Elite]
Shout/10 energy/60 second recharge
This shout lasts for 30 seconds. This shout ends when you enter a stance, and that stance lasts 15%...83% longer.

Ear-splitting Howl
Shout/15 energy/2 second cast time/15 second recharge
Sacrifice 5% maximum health. All foes within earshot suffer from weakness for 3...8 seconds.

Reckless Fright (Elite)
Hex/15 energy/2 second cast time/20 second recharge
Target foe is hexed with Reckless Fright for 5...10 seconds. While affected by this hex, all physical damage done to the target is converted to Chaos damage.

I've been working on this for a reeeally long time now, but now I'm updating it whenever inspiration hits. I'd absolutely love any advice for or critiques on this concept Class!

I really like professions that require a balancing act.
From what I've read is it possible that the Quezitlan will have to balance their health to function as a group healer or energy battery, as they appear to sacrifice health for a lot of what they give to others.
It would be neat if they gained health through melee attacks and sacrificed health for a large number of their spells.
I did something for EQ2 for fun while I was sick and will post it in hopes that it doesn't go to waste and can maybe inspire how the Quezitlan profession will develop.
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/e...y.id=0 #M9910

Even the mask I pictured would be neat on Quezitlans!

Hmm...that's a good idea. I was trying to think of a way to balance out the health sacrifice with this class, and that might be a good one. Instead of gaining energy, Macua mastery could recover health instead per hit...

One thing I'm trying to watch out for is, indeed, balance. Although I want to give them the ability to stay alive through their health sacrifices, I DON'T want to give them ability to translate health gain to a different class in such a way that would totally break the game.

And damn, that mask is awesome, it could be perfect xD

It look and feel ... okie...

Its nicely put, and well detailed.

But its function feel a bit lackluster as a support or offense (sepcially compare to some better CC out there). The overall feel of this class is that if feel like you are trying to Mod various existing classes into one with new theme. Personally I hope CC would step out more, and be more unique.

Keep on thinking and creating. The theme has potential.

I was hoping to create something completely unique with this. Guess I didn't capture the feel enough *shrugs*

What I'm aiming for is a class with mainly health sacrificing skills, which has to find a balance between activating skills and staying alive. I'm not sure if I should have this character at 70 or 80 base armor. An 80 base armor character with 4 energy regen could be overpowered if someone choses to completely ignore their primary class. Or it could be very strategic.

I also thought it would be extremely original since it would sync up well with Dark Aura, the necromancer death enchantment, if used correctly, or with the life stealing spells from blood magic. Sort of like how a Paragon Warrior syncs up so nicely.

Could you sacrafice a party member instead of health for some elite skills? Like something big requres a NPC sacrafice untill next town or outpost....dunno if that would work but it would be new and fit CC?

oh.. I didn't notice the base armor... yeah, for a caster like class, 80 is way too high. Not really much need for that.

I do like the sacrifice skills (and did use that befoe on my other CC), and the primary is clever, useful, and well done. But beside the, the rest feel much like Necro + Warrior + Assassin. You could almost give those skils to those respective classes, and combin it into this.

one idea maybe to play around with is adding a cost much like Exhaust, but on HP (where it will like self-apply deepwound). Exploiting other's HP for your own use would be another to work with.

Well, of couse I also have alot of personal bias when it come to CC... so take it in ways you like.

sacrificing your allies' health would be used as a griefing weapon.

"you noob, stop that!"
/casts sacrifice other spell
"omg, why did you kill me?"
"stfu noob"

we would never see the end of it. It would be a wonderful idea, but too many people would take advantage of it.

I agree with that one. A-net hasn't made a skill that puts a nagative effect on an ally yet (I hope it stays that way)

And also some of your sun sorcery skills seem too similar to fire ele skills (Burning hands is just like Immolate just with a little health sacrifice)

But overall, i love it.

If you noticed, the Qusztlie (or however u spell it) uses a melee weapon, so he's really close to the combat and thus causes him too take quite a bit of damage, thus ending that statement right there.

You can't have both and take away none. Compare the Armor and energy accross all proffs, and you can easily see that 80AL with 4 energy regen and 25 (excluding any runes or insig) is a bit high.

Also it is a common image that a Aztect priest with animal skill would not be too heavily armor. Either reduce the energy and make it more like melee (but risk being too close to Warrior or Paragon), or reduce the AL.

Should AL be lower, one can always depend on the healing/defensive spells for such need.

And yeah.. no in-vountary ally sacrifice skills....

Makes sense. Lowered armor to 70, same as the dervish.

sriusly
It's a touch skill.
You might as well say that channeling looks too similar to air ele skills. They're different because they're conditional, but burning hands is different because it requires health sacrifice.

I'm also planning on brainstorming up some different skills, so don't despair.

Added more skills to the class. I had a spark of inspiration and decided to make the class more stance-heavy. Good turn or bad turn? Are the skills good or bad?

Haven't really thought about the mechanics, but something struck me with the concept...

Mixing fire and Grenth doesn't really mix with GW theology - fire is more of a Balthazar thing, while Grenth's domain is the opposite*. Added to all the references to war, it sounds like Balthazar is at least as good as a patron for the profession.

Ergo, it might be good for the profession to follow Balthazar and Grenth rather than Grenth alone. In the background, there may be a combined priesthood that worships both, or perhaps in the native land of the profession, Balthazar and Grenth are seen as two sides of the same god.

*It is worth noting that the Ritualist does also break the elemental domains - by using lightning (normally Dwayna's thing) while mostly being followers of Grenth. However, in this case I think of chanelling as being more energy chanelled from the underworld that has electricity-like harmful effects than being true lightning. With the right flavour, you may be able to pull off the same, but it's probably easier to just incorporate Balthazar as well as Grenth.

I know, I've been weighing the options back and forth in my mind. My logic was that, even though balthazar's domains are fire and war, Grenth also made sense in regards to health sacrifice. I thought about having them subscribe to two domains, but that wouldn't work well with the aztec idea that one god is central.

The two sides of the same deity idea is interesting though...that could be the way to go.

Heh, Unyielding Aura can be a spell that in a friendly environment can give a lot of laughs.
Shouts don't have cast times btw.
Very nice, probably took you a lot of time to make. Considering ANet's balancing, the nerf stick would slap some of these skills a lot, and some others would be improved.

When a foe dies Paragons? Probably, I tried to balance it as well as my limited knowledge could though.

I would laugh when a foe dies...just saying
and yea i have no clue how that would work in a friendly environment

I think that the now proverbial nerf stick would be kinder than anticipated on the current skills though. Its very well done

Another well thought out and detailed class, but /notsigned. I don't think I've singed for a concept class yet. They just dont seem right..

Hurray for being vague.

I have to say, I really like the concept of focusing on using your health as a resource, though I'm also wary about it; Heals tend to be extremely efficient due to their reactionary nature. If the sacrifices are too small, they won't be a drawback at all; If they're too large, people may shy away from them.


Non-elite energy management, barring the new buffed Glyph of Lesser Energy, typically centers around 1 pip of energy regeneration equivalent, give or take a half pip. Inspiration took a hit, but I'd imagine the target's still around there. The health sacrifice on this is token at best, and the energy gain ends up averaging out to 2.33 pips at 16 attribute, and 2 pips at 12.
I don't normally point out skill numbers, as I'm aware they're only tentative, this is just a bit too excessive though.

If you made it a spell, you could reduce the 'self e-management' effectiveness (without neutering it) while powering it up as an 'ally e-management, with some minor number adjustments.

This one suffers from the reverse problem. Peace and Harmony is despised by many, and I don't think people would respond to this much more favourably.

Dervish recycled Earth and Cold damage-themed skills, and Ritualist did Lightning. Fire would complete the cycle nicely, while holy could distinguish it nicely from Fire Magic.

Not really enough skills to go off of, but it's definitely got potential, and while I'm not a huge fan of the sacrificial skills that are in it currently, I do like that you're making use of them here.

The biggest perk to this concept, in my opinion, is that I think, in the end, it'd play somewhat uniquely, despite not really exploring any new territory.
The biggest disappointment to me is probably that the re-exploration of old territory, life sacrifice, didn't do anything new or interesting yet. It also lacks a 'hook' or 'catch' that is meant to draw in a player's attention.