The Lyrist

I was thinking about a class that uses music as it's weapon hence I thought of the lyrist....while in the bathroom.

Lyrist:
Uses musical instruments as it's weapon. Casts spells that buffer allies, heal themselves lightly, inflict damage, and demoralize opponents with songs.

Starting Energy: 30
Starting Health: 100
Starter Armor: +10

Starter Weapon:
Flute: (two handed) 3-5 damage, +5 energy.

Max Weapons:
Golden Flute: (two handed) 9-26 damage, +25 energy.
Golden Ocarina: (two handed) 13-35 damage, +20 energy.
Golden Violin: (two handed) 10-29 damage, +23 energy.

Attributes:

Songs of Life: involves ressurection, and buffering of party members and the lyrist.
Songs of Darkness: attributed to spells that harm enemies and cause degenerative effects on damage and armor.
Songs of Sorrow: involves spells that damages large numbers of opponents and summoning totems that aid allies.
Tuning: (primary attribute) songs in this attribute increase the effectiveness of your other spells. Also, for every two ranks in this attribute, you deal +2 damage with your instrumental weapon.

Skills:

Songs of Life-

song of ressurection 15 energy 5 cast 14 recharge
the nearest ally is ressurected with 10% of his energy and 40....100% of his health.

song of regeneration 5 energy 1 cast 6 recharge
all allies within earshot gain a +1...3 health regeneration for 5...20 seconds.

Song of health 5 energy 2 cast 8 recharge
heal yourself for 10...30 health for each Song in effect.

Songs of Darkness-

song of hatred 10 energy 2 cast 6 recharge
target nearby enemy suffers from a -1...3 health degeneration for 5...10 seconds.

song of binding 5 energy 1 cast 10 recharge
target enemy loses 1...8 health per seconds while this song is in effect. Target enemy cannot move or attack for 5...10 seconds.

choir of illusions 10 energy 4 cast 5 recharge
(hex) for 30 seconds, target is hexed with choir of illusions and move 33% slower. After this hex ends, target loses 10...30 health for each failed attack.

Clang of the Symbols 5 energy 1 cast 10 recharge
(hex) for 40 seconds, target is hexed with Clang of the Symbols and loses 20...90 armor.

Songs of Sorrow-

High Pitch Scream 5 energy 1 cast 13 recharge
all enemies within earshot are knocked down and blinded for 2...3 seconds.

Note of Pain 10 energy 2 cast 1 recharge
all enemies nearbye suffer -1...2 health degeneration for 10 seconds then take 10...20 damage.

Note of Agony 15 energy 4 cast 2 recharge
all enemies take 10...50 damage.


tell me what you think

A Shouting Class? Seems very Paragon Like to me. In fact, skills such as Song of Restoration and Song of Power, are owned by Paragons.

Now A musical class would be somewhat intresting, though if the class would be a supporter/attacking class I would not recommend their 'Max' Weapons dealing so much damage. A warrior's weapons deal nowhere near that much damage. (Sword Max: 15-22, Hammer Max: 19-35, Axe Max: 6-28)

But if you did keep them at that much damage then they would have to attack about 4 times slower than a Hammer would. Also it seems that this class is overpowered greatly in skills; For each song seems to have some kind of negative effect to the enemy plus an ending effect which damages the foe when the songs end. In order for something like this to pull through I would only use about 2 or 3 of those types of songs.

In other class related news, your attributes seem to consist of a mix of Monk, Mesmer, Paragon, Elementalist, and even Ritualist. I'd suggest tons of tweaking on this class and perhaps just sticking to one or two types of things that their songs do, not a mix of everything.

That's all the Commenting I'll do for now, I'm sorry to say that I do not favor this class at the moment, but with work I may change my tone.

~Innoccence

it's not really meant to be a supporter class, those are just some things I added in to give it more of a twist. The paragon is the most pathetic class because most of the skills tend to rely on someone in the near vicinity being there to save you from being hacked up. This class is supposed to be music based, not shouting based. None of the spells count as a shout or chant because they're all either sung or played on the instrument. They all count as enchantments, hexes, spells, or (if the gw team cooperates and makes it a new type of effect) Songs. That's why this class has such an alluring tinge to it

oh god someone kill the bard

this class idea...ugh...your primary is just...ugh.

im gonna stay far far away now...

I like the name... Lyrist... its catchy.

I like the idea of offensive shouts, nice class, but i would think it might be alot like paragon (As mentioned before)

Still, Great idea, and innovative

idea is good, but the actual design of the profession here is poorly done and too powerful.

If your musical talent is so bad that it deals this much damage, how do you survive yourself singing in that bathroom?
Though its obvious that, even if it does not kill you, it does affect your ability to think clearly, this class defiantly needed more thought before posting.

I'd actually like to see someone else come up with something that utilizes the same thing and do it too much better then I did, I'm already gonna edit the power down a notch anyway.

I have a Virtuoso/Bard CC around.... that also use instruments (along with few other things). You can find it in the sticky list.

There were also a few Bard CC by others too....

if at lvl12 u r ressed with 100% health then what happens after level 12?

I know! A glitch and u get D/C.

Clang of Symbols: for 40 seconds loses 20-90 Armor?!?! slightly overpowered methinks....

i would hate the idea of this, i dunno why, to me it seems just so "cheesy"

ok that's only two people who actually dislike the idea and also, the entire skill setting system is actually based on a 1 to 18 skill support. And the guild wars script has a portion of it to stop a rez from causing more then 100% health regain. Also, about the bard thing. Bards are actually a bit different from this class. And how do I know all this info? unlike System Crush I did my research.

seems kinda wierd that he can play loud enough to cause physical harm to someone, and if it is somehow a magically altered instrument wouldn't the allies hear it and take damage too? How does he target a single person with sound?

I know perhaps it is magically amplified, but it would seem to make more sense if the actual music was like chanting a spell to cast something instead of the soundwaves killing people :/

Also, to differentiate this from something like a paragon with shouts maybe a song should not be instant, because that would correlate with a single note or chord as opposed to an entire song. Maybe the spells could be 'channelled' so the virtuoso or whatever he is cannot attack or cast other spells while playing a 'song', but the song stays in effect for as long as he chants it until he is interrupted or the inbuilt time runs out. This means you could make the songs powerful, as you have, but there is a drawback to using them. Also they could not be removed as a hex or enchantment, but you have to stop him channelling the song to stop its effects, this makes it more original than basically a paragon with hexes and a 40dmg weapon.

Also, ocarinas and flutes seem quite similar. On this subject, how does he do a cymbal clash when he has a flute?

To solve this maybe there should be gategories of instruments - woodwind, string, percussion - and each class can have different instrument graphics but with the same damage and using the same mastery. For example for string instrument mastery you would have harps, violins, etc. percussion has cymbals and drums. So on....

Also, when using a song maybe its effects could change with the instrument... If he plays a song of resurrection, for example, it would not sound the same with a violin compared to a drum, so maybe with the violin it is cast faster, but with a drum it gives more health than usual?

These are just some ideas to make the profession more original and more balanced.

IF we get a musical weapon(big if, though with Anet you never know)

I imagine it would be AoE, like dervish attacks but in the area range or perhaps earshot. And sort of continuous damage, but not degen as you need it to stack.

I'd jumble 1-6 damage with a reswing of 1 second, so that it would deal damge each second.
Each pip of heath degen deals 2 damage per second, so this would be like 0.5-3 pips on all foes in the area of effect, not that effective but the amount of foes affected is much more than any other weapon, using 3-4 people with these you would hit 10 degen on the entire enemy team, its pretty powerfull.

Because it is that powerfull it should have a backstroke(figuratively speaking ofcource) like when using it you suffer 2 energy degen, you need this energy to protect yourself and your allies form the effects of your Hym.
[EDIT]
The energy degen would only be while you are playing(attacking), not all the time like an energy draining weapon upgrade, also this has the function to balance those out because you hit more people you get mroe energy each attack and on top of that you attack faster too! people would gladly sacrefice one pip of energy or health I'd say making those upgrades much more used than they are now.
[/EDIT]

The way they work is not sonic damge! Suposedly fey-creatures, spirits, ghosts, specters and other invisible mumbo jumbo seem to like music(Not al music of cource but sertain antient hyms passed down trough many many gerations of preformers, and suposeldy not meant to be used for war or anything other that selfdefence) and by playing you can get them to do stuf, such at harrass everyone in an area for smaller amounts fo shadow, holy or chaos damage.

Lol have any of you ever EVER been to a band hall and heard a person do a solo piece? This girl played the flute so loud that the teachers on the other side of the campus heard it. And she was still playing GOOD!!!!!

Actually the scottish national guard now HAS to wear earplugs, as they tested it and their bagpipes make more noise than a jet taking off, so I see what you are getting at.

But still, even though sound might desimate your eardrums, perhaps cause minor bleeding as a result, I've never heard of killing someone with sound.
As that is what damage is; not pain, but sustained injuries.

Well technically sound waves above 160 decibels cause permanent partial deafness. At 320 decibels sound cause permanent blindness and deafness because of damae to the optical cords. At 420 decibels Sound can cause the brain to shut down by disrupting the arteries and the lymph nodes causing a stop of fluids to the organs and brain. Yea you can kill someone with sound. And even then, the lyrist is supposed to have a magical influence. Like being able to layer the notes and rythms with spells to heal, harm, or ressurect, so it's more of a slightly magical class wtih spells that are based on music.

I made straight A's in science in case this doesn't hint it out.

and there is a skill idea...

Hey a concept class is supposed to be the CONCEPT of the new class. I only listed a few sample spells. I doubt there are many forums where you really get into the details of a new proffession.

And then there is the mythical "Brown Note". Now that would be an interesting spell...

The Brown Note{E} 15e 4s cast time 30s recharge
For 8...15...18 seconds all foes in Earshot beome constipated, immobilizing them and causing them to make ridiculously funny faces

I wonder what OP was smoking O_o.....

A Lyrist? Or, did you mean Lyricist?

So, a Bard, Harper, Troubadour or Minstrel type profession, eh?

In DAoC, Minstrel's were a cool class to play, using sound as their main skills.

I could see running ballads or tunes for party/ally benefits. Also, sonic type attacks and using Harps, Lyres or other musical instruments as weapons, etc.

A good effort to keep the profession's skills distinct from the Paragon's would be necessary.

Yes but that is in a specifically designed concert hall with awesome acoustics and amplification qualities. It's a whole different story when it is outside wher obstacles may block it or reflect it, ambience takes the edge off it, and the person has to focus on being attacked also. I know, I play drums and in the room with me it gets so loud my ears ring after it, but a few rooms away and it is heavily muffled, and that is a fully fledged drumkit covering all ranged of the sound spectrum from cymbal clash to bass drum pound.

If we are talking about a harp or flute outside in the open or with a couple trees/shrubs around and no acoustics and just a single person, it is obviously not going to cause adequate damage. I know I'd rather have a flute ferociously played in my face than a sword upside my head.

Anyway I think someone could redo something like this and balance it a bit more and take into account the critisism, there are enough ideas posted here already.

Our band hall was a cheap imitation of one of those O.o

all it had were a bunch of sound dampeners to try and make it so you couldn't hear the music outside the hall, teachers heard it 400-600 feet away!!!!!!!!! And these sound dampeners actually work!!!!!

wat if u added a skill to it

BROWN NOTE: all ofes move 50% slower for 3-13 seconds. after brown note ends they are knocked down

Somehow I get the feeling that this is so much more pathetic then the druid class, please check out my newest proffession idea that I got help from about ten different people on. The Manabow maybe that one'll be better.