Class Concept- The Acolyte

At the moment, the ten guild wars classes enclose ten distinct playing styles and fill just about any role possible in a group. It can be very difficult to come up with a new class, or more importantly, playing style. There were two things that I wanted to do with a class. First of all, I wanted a fist-fighter. Come on, you know you do. Second of all, I wanted a dual-wielder which, unlike daggers, requires the use of two seperate weapons. After forming these ideas, I wanted a spiritual character who could both pummel his enemies down and provide beneficial effects to the team. What I came up with was the Acolyte.

The Acolyte is a 70 armor fighter hybrid (Don't press the back button!!) who "meditates" before battle and equips two seperate fist-attachments, one in each hand. These weapons have a max damage range of 8-16 and a speed of 2.66 seconds. However, your attacks strike back to back, meaning you hit with the left, then 1.33 seconds the the right, and another 1.33 seconds later the left.

Meditations are self-only buffs which have a somewhat long duration and cannot be removed, but they have long casting times (5 seconds). They are meant to be cast before a fight and provide you with a powerful bonus.

Incantations are another unique ability of the Acolyte. These are quick casted spells which give a unique effect to your next attack skill. These effects, unlike meditations, help your entire group. Finding the right combination of meditation and incantations is one of the key elements of the class.

Armor-70 Energy-30 Regen-4

Attributes:

Blessed Combat (Primary)- For every two points in this attribute, you gain 1 health after every melee attack.

Hand-to-Hand Combat- Increases performance with hand-to-hand weaponry. Many skills, especially those related to fighting with hand-to-hand weapons, are improved with points in this attribute.

Faith- No inherent effect. Many skills, especially those related to assisting party members and self survival, are improved by this attribute.

Zeal- No inherent effect. Many skills, especially those related to improving your offensive performance as well as that of your allies, are improved by this attribute.

Sample Skills:

Blessed Combat

Righteous Blows
cost-5 cast-5 rc-20
Meditation. For x seconds, your melee attacks generate an additional y health.

Energizing Blows (elite)
cost-15 cast-5 rc-45
Meditation. For x seconds, your melee attacks generate 1 energy.

Generous Prayer
cost-15 cast-1/4 rc-25
Incantation. You gain no effect from Blessed Combat. For x seconds, all nearby party members recieve the effects of your primary attribute.

Hand-To-Hand Combat

Sudden Jab
cost-5 cast-1/2 rc-15
Hand Attack. If this attack hits, your opponents action is interrupted, and your next attack has a x% chance to miss.

Titan Fist (elite)
cost-10 rc-12
Hand attack. If this attack hits, you strike for +x damage, and your target is knocked down.

Prepared Punch
cost-5 rc-15
Hand attack. This attack misses, and your next attack strikes for +x damage and causes weakness.

Faith

Divine Resilience
cost-10 cast-5 rc-30
Meditation. For x seconds, your melee attacks have a y% chance to remove one condition.

Warding Faith
cost-25 cast-1/4 rc-30
Incantation. All of your party members take -x damage from all sources for y seconds.

Mass Renewal (elite)
cost-15 cast-1/4 rc-15
Incantation. All of your party members are healed for x and lose one condition.

Zeal

Saint's Vigor
cost-5 cast-5 rc-20
Meditation. For x seconds, you have +y health and +1 health regen.

Zealous Aggression (elite)
cost-10 cast-1/4 rc-45
Incantation. For x seconds, all party members in the area deal +y damage in melee.

White Fire
cost-25 cast-5 rc-60
Meditation. For x seconds, your attacks have a 20% chance to set the enemy on fire for y seconds. During the duration of the burning, you have +7 health regen.



Please let me know what you think and how it can be improved!

To comment... (and I didn't hit the Back button...)

Not bad, and can see you have a well understanding of how class and concept class work. Fist fighter is popular, so I would love to see one too.

The fist attack I think could be faster (I want to see string of number popping up too) , but again, skill like Illusionary Weapons, really put a damp on possiblity of a fast attacker.

Meditation is good.
The incarnation seem too much like another paragon/warrior shouts.

The skill seem fine, but a bit lackluster. (with end effect much like many of the existing skills)

Some thing to thinking about when concepting new class is how it might be combin with each of the different exisiting classes, what new function it could server, and what new playing style and experience it could offer to the player.

Not the best fist-type of class I seen (and there were many), but a good start.