Concept Class - The Patronus (was the Cerberaus)

"Smart and agile. The guardian of the battlefield. They consign wards of protection or spells of suffering. Mystical and lethal and always in the middle of things..."

Patronus Told

The Patronus is always in the middle of the battlefield. They are either back with the casters or up with the melees or sometimes in the middle. The use a magical sorce of magic that comes from prayer. As they pray to Dwayna, in return she gives blessings, know as wards. Wards are spells that target nearby allies and are set up in a certain area. The Patronus, also known to serve Grenth, uses hexes and spells that target foes that target adjetant foes. With the combined prayers of both gods of darkness and light, finds a realm of enlightment not know to any other class. This enlightment can only be controlled by standing still and meditating. Your enlightment level raises with every 3 seconds you stand still. Many skills need enlightment to be powered or the godly power will be imbalanced and cannot be used.

Details

Armor: 60
Weapon of Choice: Wand or Staff
Energy: 25
Energy Pips: 3
Attributes

Excellence- For every 2 points into this attribute you gain 1 health for each person in a ward when it is created. Many skills related to making wards more effective become more effective with more skill points into this attribute.

Sheltering Blessings - This attribute has no inherit affect. Many skills relating to protecting your allies become more affective with more points into this attribute.

Succor Blessings - This attribute has no inherit affect. Many skills relating to making your allies stronger and weakening foes become more affective with more points into this attribute.

Scarred Blessings - This attribute has no inherit affect. Many skills relating to damaging your foe later in time become more affective with more points into this attribute.

Skills

Excellence: (Note: all skills in this attribute are elites)

Dwayna's Fervor {E} - Enchantment Spell;For 5-25 seconds you have a 50% chance to block attacks while in a ward.

10 3 60

Grenth's Gusto {E} - Enchantment Spell;For 5-25 seconds your wards last 25% longer

15 2 60

Signet of Symmetry {E} - Signet;You gain 5-30 energy if you are in a ward.

1 15

Harmonizing Chance {E} - Enchantment Spell;If the next attack on you is fatal you gain 1-5 health each second for 5-12 seconds.

5 30

Sheltering Blessings:

Signet of Sympathy {E} - Signet;Target ally gains 5-35 health for each condition on them. (Max: 120)

1 30

Ether Potential - Enchantment Spell;You gain 1-7 energy for each ward you enter or leave in the next 20-120 seconds. You do not gain energy if there is an enchanted ally adjetant to you.

3 enlight.

Cloak of Courage - Ward;For 8-18 seconds nearby allies gain +35 armor if under 75% health.

3 enlight. 2 cast speed

Bulwark of the Brute - Ward;For 8-18 seconds nearby allies have a 50% chance to block incoming projectiles.

2 enlight. 2 cas.sp.

Rally of Enlightment - Ward; For 8-18 seconds nearby allies gain 50-150% maximum health when enchanted

4 enlight. 2 cas. sp.

Succor Blessings:

Grip of Strength - Ward;For 8-18 seconds nearby allies attack for 2-14+ damage

1 enlight. 2 cas. sp.

Quickening Devotion - Ward;For 8-18 seconds nearby allies attack 33% quicker

2 enlight. 2 cas. sp.

Earth Distortion {E} - Ward;8-18 seconds nearby foes are knocked down when successfully hitten by a projectile

4 enlight. 2 cast.

Crimson Might - Enchantment Spell; Target ally creates either bleeding, deep wound, or crippling for 2-17 seconds when melee attacking.

5 1 30

Scarred Blessings:

Array of Tombs - Hex; target foe and all nearby foes to them take 20-120 damage when target foe suffers poison or disease next.

10 2 30

Scattered Growths {E} - Hex; target for suffers 2-7 damage every second for 10 seconds and suffers disease for 5-12 seconds if knocked down in that time period

1 enlight. 1 cas. sp.

Fusion of Vertigo - Ward; for 8-18 seconds all nearby foes are dazed

4 enlight. 3 cas. sp.

Searing Headache - Hex; target foe becomes blinded for 3-12 seconds when knocked down next.

2 enlight. 1/4 cas. sp.

Sounds like a ritualist and a paragon but ward-a-fied. Crossovers are gonna happen though with 10 profs running about.

Sounds good. "Ether potential" seems abit overpowered

Changed "Ether Potential" so now you have to do a little moving your self and your allies. Makes it a little more strategic. Also with the Paragon and Rit thing. I can see where you are coming from. But the ward make it so you gain that boost only in a an area. Also, you cannot gain that bonus if you move out of that area. Also with the Rit. It is sort of implementing the Ele's Wards, but you cannot say "Wards were an Ele thing," because there were only 4 ward skills!!! It might buff, but it is not exactly like the paragon's buff where like "In the next 10 seconds each allies melee attacks cause crippling" the Patronus are more cause and affect. (Ex. If in a ward when a foe is hit by a projectile they are knocked down.) They are different. The Patronus is more limited to their space because I doubt they can stay near the casters and the melees so it takes a bit of strategy. They may be more limited but are also more rewarding and that's what this class is about. Cause and effect and strategy.

I like that you have nerfed down Excellence but I still think "ward strafing" will be a huge problem...is there any idea on how to overcome this without nerfing the skill anymore?

and "ward strafing" is?

ward strafing= to move in and out of a ward to boost the health and energy recieved by the Patronus class.

Ex of problem: I would go in and out of wards you throw out so you will have more energy as a "Pa/E" hence giving you enough energy to rain hell of fire onto the battlefield

i think this problem would show up in alliance battles mostly or GvG.

i could change the primary but...i dont know what i should do to help

but i like your primary so unless you can come up with something that grants the same benifits without overpowering the character i'd say keep it. Perhaps an Incrimental set up that is very very limited would work...like max of 5 energy and 10 health or something however that would be say 300 health and 150 energy in 1 minute if a person is "ok" at ward strafing.

Proposal:

Excellence- For every 2 points into Excellence, you gain 1 health and for every 4 points you gain 1 energy whenever an ally steps into and stays in a ward someone in your party created for (20..5) seconds. Many skills related to making wards more effective become more effective with more skill points into this attribute.

jsut an idea though

there you go? is it good? better? eh?

its better lol...now all this class has to do is find a good MM and have all those undead allys going through the wards. Jk you're class is looking good! I'd play it

i think ANET should have a class contest or at least when someone sends a draft of a class in (te he that rhymes sort of) if its good consider it.

Anyway, now I think the primary is weak? Thoughts?

Lower the cast and regen times for each ward so you can ward spam say 4 "okay" wards and slam the hell out of the baddies with another classes skills like Ele's fireball or something

yea but then the protection is imbalanced. it would be unstoppable.

Is it realistic for something like that to be programmed into the game? I'd imagine that it would be a nightmare to, and suggest chucking the concept entirely.

then scrape the "In party" and just make it "your character"...why would that be so hard to do...just wondering?

I'm not a programmer, so I'm basing the assumption on just a fear. It just seems really wierd how they would go about programming it in. How would you go about writing the programming to activate upon those conditions? At the least it just seems...overly complex. With monks, your healing spells heal more. With mesmers, your casting speed increases. With necroes, you gain x energy when a foe in your sphere of influence dies. It's just straightfoward number-crunching for every class.

I see your point. BRANDON!!!!!!!!! IT'S A GOOD IDEA BUT IT'S POSSIBLY IMPRACTICAL!...pity to because i liked it. so is there a way to work something out like that for this class?

i got it...look at the attribute again, better?

This is a creative idea but it kinda sounds like an Elementalist/Necromancer.

With no corpses needed for wards they need to be less powerfull inorder to keep them balanced.

Several of your wards have similar effects that Paragon shouts/chants do.

The only real suggestion that I can make to give this some potential would be to change the wards so there differnt from ele wards and cant overlap. ie. you cant cast a ward if your in a ward. Also you never mentioned if enlightenment was lost if you move, could you build it up then run and cast wards?

Hmm, that does look better. Something you're unclear about is the people that this attribute is affected by. Would it simply be everything that is inside the ward, or only the things affected by the ward. Something like Earth Distortion (mega overpowered, by the way) wouldn't make sense if Excellence was exclusive to allies.

any suggestions?

hmm.. well thought out, but /notsigned. BTW, did you get Patronus from Harry Potter? If so... ????

...no, i googled Protector in Latin =)

Time as a resource, hmm. It's an interesting notion. Definitely a better than when I tried to turn it into a weapon.

Since most wards last up to a max of ~21 seconds, and Enlightenment is accrued at 1 every 3 seconds, you gain 7 Enlightenment in that time period if standing still the entire time.
So, people will probably manage around 1-3 wards, 1-2 on average. Not unreasonable.


The offensive wards are a nice twist, though I don't think they've really been explored because of how little they'll help melee professions, while how greatly they'll aid ranged ones.
If you're not careful, you'll end up empowering Ranger Spike a wee bit much.


I like the notion, but it really hinges on how you manage non-ward skills that interact with wards.

they would have to put in anti-ward stuff otherwise this is insanely overpowered.

its not insanley, its like chants but more limited to space.

talking about non ward skills: anyone have some input on Scarred Blessings?

Location based effects are already provided by Elementist and Ritualist. Besides being a very well developed field with Ritualist, I don't recognize anything new from this class. Sure, some of the skills offer different, better support, that doesn't make it new, it mostly just makes it broken. Ritualist spends a great deal of energy to erect binding rituals, and those are immobile and easy to destroy. As if Paragon isn't vastly more effective, Ritualist cannot abide such competition, in the realm of location based buffing, Ritualist is already in steeped competition, and likely to lose opportunity in most situations.

Ironicly, I made something deafly simular to this with the focus on defending against elemental damage, as much elemental damage is done on groups, and a class which had an attribute which focused on reducing elemental damage received by allies over a large area is a significant need which hasn't been fulfilled. Even so, the idea of a class which uses immobility and "ward" based skills to support allies is only 1 function different than Ritualist, instead of summoning an immobile spirit, you instead are immobile, Defense over a location, spells which encure additional effects if you are near your spirits, such of this nature is already in the game, by altering it to be a character sustained ward, you indirectly force it to be far weaker, because it is far more difficult to down a player who can be healed and maintained, than a lvl 10-14 spirit which cannot be healed or maintained by most means. Even in my Barrier ideas, the only defensive boosts were toward elemental damage and spells, the lack of variety and lack of parrallels were all that made it reasonable, I ask you, how is this?