The Shaper

Basically it's a spell caster so he'd have 60 armor like the others. The closest thing to what he can do are the ranger spirits or those nasty side effects you get in the torment, but the effect spreads everywhere in the instanced area instead of a big range like the spirits. The effect works for both friendlies and foes as well.

So what kind of skills would you be looking at?

Dimension Shaping
Well the primary attribute would be the most important. It adds a new skill type called dimensions. They can't be removed unless the shaper is killed.
Each attribute point in dimension crafting also gives you 1 extra max energy, an extra 16 in total.

One A couple of dimensions could be:

Dimension of Metallurgy
All Fire damage is changed to Slashing damage, all Ice and Air damage is changed to Piercing damage and all Earth damage is changed to Blunt damage.

Dimension of the Vampire
Every player has 1 health degen but any melee or projectile hit becomes vampiric.
(swords, axes, daggers, wands and staffs gain 3 hp, Hammers, Scythes and Bows gain 3)

Dimension of Variation
All skills have a 30% to activate 50% faster. If the skill isn't activated faster, it has a 50% chance to activate 25% slower.
(this skill must have a completely crazy cast time like 60 seconds because you have to give a fair chance to spikers to counter this)

Dimension of Trust
Players receive -1 health degen for every party member out of radar range.

Dimension of Genders (not sure about this one, people could get upset, but it's still funny)
Players receive +1 health regen for every party member of the opposite gender in radar range and -1 health regen for every party member of the same gender in radar range.

Dimension of Insanity
All skills in the skillbar are scrambled to a different position. (so for example if you'd have 'sever, gash, res sig' on your bar if could be switched to 'gash, sever, res sig'.

Dimension of (something bullet-time or the matrix related)
All projectiles move 20% slower.
(this would cause more misses and dodges)

Magnetic Dimension
All ranges (nearby, adjacent, shout range, aggro range, etc apart from radar range, wards, aoe spells, wells) are decreased by 20% and all players move 5% slower.

Obviously these dimensions would have a HUGE casting time seeing as how most of these dimensions can completely change the metagame on their own. Also many of these require you to think out of the box to make a team. The downsides are that it applies to everyone, that you can't move while casting, obviously. All other skills are disabled while casting except for the multitasking skills.

Multitasking.
This attribute line consists mostly of skills that are useless (they would appear like uncharged adrenaline skills) unless you're shaping (or casting) a dimension. Obviously while shaping a dimension all other skills don't work.

For example:

Untouchable Aura 5 energy 1 cast time recharge of 120 seconds
While shaping a dimension, you have a 1%...10% chance to evade attacks.
(shaping dimensions can take very long, like a minute so the recharge has to be huge as well)

Share in the Creation 10 energy 5 cast time 5 recharge
Resurrect target ally with 30...60% health and 10..30% energy while shaping a dimension. If the dimension dissapears, the ally dies along with it.
(only happens if the Shaper that created the dimension dies)

Well of Mending 15 energy, 2 cast time, 20 recharge
Create a Well of Mending while shaping a dimension. All allies and foes standing in the Well of Mending receive 2...4 health regen.

Evil Creation 15 energy, 3/4 cast time 60 recharge
While shaping a dimension, Evil Creation hits foes for 15..75 chaos damage the first time they enter your range.

The general idea is that these skills are a little bit weaker than the specialised counterparts in other professions, but strong enough to be worth using and not make this profession comepletely boring because of the long casting times.

The third attribute line is for party-wide enchants. Ritualists and Paragons already are a sort of alternative for monk protting or at least can support, but not so much a support for the healing. You could think of this attribute line as a sort of alternative heal support. We could call it ..

Positive Shaping

Dimension healing 10 energy 2 cast 4 recharge
Heal the entire party for 10...40 points. For each existing dimension Dimension Healing heals for an additional 5 points (maximum 6 dimension, 30 extra)

Dwayna's Shaper 15 energy 2 cast 45 seconds
For 20 seconds party is enchanted with Dwayna's Shaper. When you are hit, you and the party are healed for 2..8 points.

Shaper's effort 10 energy 3/4 cast time 1 recharge
All party members lose 10...8% health. Target other ally is healed for 100..115% of the total health lost by Shaper's effort.

Basically these are all variations of monk skills to work for the whole party, but tuned down a bit because monks should be the most powerfull healers by a small margin just as warriors should have more pressure by a slight margin over other warrior alternatives.

Because we have positve shaping we also need negative shaping.

Negative Shaping

This attribute line is not so much offensive but more disruptive. Most of these require dimensions to be up, but not necessarily.

Temporary Relief 10 energy 3 cast time 30 recharge
For 1...10 seconds the effects of the oldest 3 dimension are nullified. Adds a second for every extra dimension on the battlefield.

Light of the Golden planet 25 energy 5 cast time 60 recharge
Hex spell, for 10 seconds all male foes (that would be in radar range) receive 1 energy degen.

Light of the Red planet 25 energy 5 cast time 60 recharge
Hex spell, for 10 seconds all female foes receive 1 energy degen.

(In pve these skills would work on randomly 1 out of 2 foes, unless they are recognisable, like human enemies, maybe as a tolkienesque joke, 1 out of 4 dwarves would also be affected by the light of the red planet)

Reality Check 5 energy 1 cast time 10 recharge
Interrupt target foe. If target foe is succesfully interrupted, Reality Check adds 1..3 damage for each dimension on the battlefield.



So there you have it, the Shaper. Obviously this needs some tweaking for balancing issues, but the potential to change the game is huge. In some cases you might even get hide-and seek in gvg's to find the shaper before he casts too many dimensions I'd think that black and white, or greyish looking skills would fit this well.

So what would it look like? Mostly shapers look like your typical wizards, long robes with a wand or staff, off-hand items could be tomes and books of some sorts, long hair. The headgear would be a sort of light coming out of their eyes, just to make it look cool.

Too much reading huh :s

I don't know...

Not that this isn't a really cool idea, because I like the concept, but I don't see it fitting well into the existing GW mold of classes. What this seems like is more of a super-ritualist, with bigger casting times and more widespread effects. Maybe my image is different than what you intended to express. Try organizing your thoughts a bit better when you next update, for clarity's sake.

Especially since skills have quite a huge range (as you've described them), it would be quite easy to stand far off in the background and let your teammates do all the fighting while you build complex spells that completely break the game in their favor. If the range of your effects are wide enough, as ritualists have proven many times, interrupts and even a weakness in melee are not too problematic, since people will overlook you and go for the monk.

Additionally, some of the skills, like Dimension of Genders, probably should be excluded. These are fine for funny events and things, like the festivals, but as far as serious gameplay goes, they have no place, and people won't take your class seriously when they read it.

it seems like an ok idea, but a little overpowered for some reason, i cant put my finger on it....

First of all, this is very similar to ritualist spawning and ranger spirits.

Second of all, you have an attribute (Multitasking) that's completely based upon casting dimensions. I do not think that is a good idea.

It is probabaly overpowered in PvE, unless both sides gains the effect. But once again, it's just like adding an environmental effect. On the whole map, and not just the radar range. Obviously it'd be pretty stupid to have the Shaper in battle, so he might as well as just stay in the back and casting needed dimensions, which will in turn make him a pretty useless character, because he never comes onto the battlefield. That's what I don't like about it.

I like it.. won;t say its all great, but a good start.

The idea of Dimensions seem like a good one (atleast in my mind... I am visualling it where create a half-sphere of zone, that turn all in side to be of funky color.. with lots other cool visusal effects) However, would need more number to really say how balance it would be. And the mechanics would be more unique from the wards or spirit is possible (a spreading zone that was suggested would help add something more to it)

I don't like the skills in positve and neagative shaping attribute too much...

I think it need some additional role or skills, beside the one that is just dealing with Dimmensions. Maybe some type of Dimmensional gates or summoning?

I made a big post but then gwguru was down Good thing I could go back in the browser and copy it.

Well first of all, thanks you guys for taking the time to read it I'll do some further explaining on the functionality to clear some things up.

The effects apply to both parties obviously. The different thing of this profession compared to ritualists is that the dimensions add effects that are not just straightforward pure damage or healing or even hexes but more about dealing with tactics in pvp and mostly gvg. Most of the dimensions have something to do with either spiking, splitting, flagrunning, heavy melee etc. You don't necessarily need a skill to split a team, run a flag spread out or stay close together, so I thought it could be a good idea to incorporate those elements in a profession. Every profession has their speciality, like monks have to keep the team alive somehow and assassins have to sneak and gank, so the shaper's role would be to do map control.

I agree though that it won't work if people will just stay in base and cast their dimensions, but then again the others are with 1 less guy to help them out, and if they have a team of 8 with a shaper that also has multitasking skills, they would have the upper hand.
Most of these effects are relatively weak compared to ranger spirits and ritualist spirits, I mean it's just not worth it to have 1 less team member just so everyone gets 2 degen after 2 minutes. You can have all the map control in the world but you will still lose if it's 7/8 vs 8/8. (or 3/4 or 5/6).

Like I explained the multitasking attribute line is there simply because otherwise this is too mind-numbing to play. Besides, using a shaper with multitasking will still make him a usefull character as opposed to having a shaper that is out of commission for a full minute because he's casting.
Remember you can't move while casting a dimension so the multitasking skills have a very 'king of the hill' feeling to them, trying to not be pushed out of where you're casting.

On positive shaping, we really need a good monk alternative, it doesn't make sense that we have 10 different professions but almost any team needs 2 monks to be successfull. That is just a huge unbalance in the professions and frankly it's what the ritualist should have been, something to make monks less of an obvious choice. I mean if you setup any team now of course you will need stuff like blood support, aegis/hp etc but it always comes down to putting 2 generic monks in there for good measure and nobody stops to think that it's weird that this 1 profession out of the 10 is always used in any pvp or pve team.

Negative shaping is mostly there to counter the effects of dimensions, I agree it's the weakest attribute line for this proffession as far as imagination goes, but it is needed nonetheless.

Like you guys suggested, making the dimensions ranged somehow would make it a more involved party-member, and it probably would be better. But then how to show the range of the dimensions.. On the one hand having to guess where it is like with spirits, that just sucks, and having a clearly outlines edge where people can stay in our out easily like with wards and wells, that also kinda sucks.
Maybe a sort of light glow on the radar would be a nice alternative.

That's actually really cool, you could setup like 2 teleport gates to move around quickly and make some amazing escapes I like the teleporting idea, creating holes in dimensions would add perfectly to negative shaping.

Summoning is sweet as well but more deserving of their own profession in my opinion.

This seems like an inherent flaw in the class that is covered up by the ability to cast "while shaping". Instead of creating a 2 minute spell that causes a 5 minute effect, why not a 5 second spell that causes a smaller 30 second effect.

However, when you do that, then the question of not just being another ritualist comes into play. Perhaps you should look into ritualists a bit more before you pass them off. They actually have alot more than just damage dealing and healing, including some especially well-made tactical spells, spirits, and items. Giving the ritualist a few more of these tactical spirits would remove the need for this class altogether.

I'm not saying that your idea is bad, but I don't think it really fills a realistic role in the game.