My first CC: The Fencer

I decided to try my hand at CC creation, and hope you enjoy my few (albeit ingenious) ideas. Without further ado, I present BossTweed’s ‘Fencer’ class.

The Fencer (F)

Skill Color
Black with White detail

Boss Color
Black Aura

Health and Energy
Averaging 500 health
Maximum Energy 30 with 3 pips
Armor: 75
Helmet: Eye-wear (monocle, eyepatch, glasses, etc)

Description
The Fencer is a melee range class that utilizes a rapier and extreme finesse to damage and debuff foes. The class has unique left and right-handed combos, along with some melee range debuff skills that make the targeted foe easier to kill for the entire party. They have a unique condition that can help any party quickly dispatch of foes one by one.

Weapon
Rapier
Damage: 18-22
Attack speed: Rapiers swing once every 1.15 seconds, making them the fastest melee weapon in game. This is a trade-off for a lack of natural critical hits.

Off-Hand
Not Applicable

Attributes
Rapier Mastery: Rapier Mastery increases the damage you do with rapiers. Many skills, especially Rapier attack skills, become more effective with higher Rapier Mastery.

Precision: Precision increased the effectiveness of skills that ‘debuff’ your foe, often making them easier to kill.

Duel Mastery: Duel Mastery increase the effectiveness of skills that increase the defense and survivability against foes going toe-to-toe with the Fencer.

Finesse: PRIMARY ATTRIBUTE For each point in Finesse, the Fencer gains an extra 2.5% chance to inflict ‘Open Defenses’ with each attack, as well as increasing the effectiveness of energy management and movement skills.

Left and Right Handed Combos
Yes, the rapier is a one-handed weapon. But, as mentioned earlier, there is no Fencer off hand item. This is because of unique ‘left hand-right hand’ possession skills. The Fencer starts off with the weapon in its right hand. Certain skills can only be preformed whilst holding the rapier in the right hand. Some of these skills will keep the rapier in the right hand, where as some, upon completion, pass the weapon to left hand. This can create situational combos that can adapt to certain foes.
EXAMPLES

Right Jab: Strike target foe for +X..X damage. If target is under a condition, he begins bleeding for X seconds. R/R (this skills requires Right hand possession and keeps the rapier in the Right hand. 10 Energy, 7 Recharge

Left parry: Block the next attack against you for 4 seconds. Attacking foe is struck for X…X damage. L/R (this skills switches from left to right hand) 10 Energy, 10 Recharge

Signet of change: Switch hand for Rapier. Casting time: .75 seconds. This could be a staple on many Fencer bars.

The current hand can be displayed by an L or R in the upper right Effects bar, or by looking at the character model.

Open Defenses
The primary attribute Finesse increases the chance to Open Defenses on target foe. This condition, unique to Fencers, decreases armor by 10 (no minimum) and has an effect on some skills. The fencer is noted when target foe is under the effects of Open Defenses by the application of the downward condition arrow and an audio effect. Some very powerful fencing techniques require an opening such as this. Additionally, when a Fencer attacks a foe under Open Defenses, the Fencer gains 1 energy.

Debuffs
Another part of being a Fencer is debuffing foes, giving some synergy with nearby allies and teammates. These debuffs are touch range Hexes that increase the effectiveness of certain skills against target foe. Some, for example, decrease armor to fire, or create a weakness to poison or bleeding. They often have very fast cast times and some require a hit by the rapier.

Defense
The line of Duel Mastery is composed of skills that require fast fingers to be effective. They are similar to Riposte and Auspicious Parry, as they last short amounts of time, but can completely negate some damage.
EXAMPLES

Taunting Block: For 3 seconds, the next attack is negated, and attacking foe is Dazed for 7-11 seconds.

Crippling Escape: For 4 seconds, the next 3 attacks against you are blocked, but you and blocked foe are crippled for 4 seconds. (This could be too useful for caster classes and could need some reworking.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is as far as I have gotten. I am aiming at a type of situational Melee Mesmer class, and I would appreciate any criticism (constructive, plzzz) and suggestions.

Honestly, I don't really like the name, so any suggestions for that would be greatly appreciated.

*claps hands and cheers* nice job man i think that would be an excellent idea. i do hope they make another campaign in gw with a lot ofthese great CCs being thought of

well done!

for a bit a constructive critism i suggest that this build can use skil chains like sins. for example u wouldnt need to change hands for different skills howevr still not use an off hand (fencers in real life dont use shield etc) and wat u would do is start of with a single strike then a dual strike and finish with a fancy french word that has to do with victory or finish or sumthing like that. if u wanna get relly fency (hehe pun intended) u could use the same skill chain system as a sin and incoporate both hands. for exaple: 1. right twirl, 2. left riposte, 3. finishing jab(right or left depending on wat the description is)

again, well done and IMO id stick with fencer, i assume u got the idea from wen creating a new char and saw the mesmer holding a sword,. ive always thought about that too

personally i like the idea. However, the fastest weapon doing slightly more than average damage than the slower, "heavier" weapons doesn't seem particularly balanced. I think I'd run it in about the same range (4 damage separation) but a little lower say 14-18 or 14-19 I think you'd also need to put a minimum armor limit on the "open defenses" if it is going to be applied at better than a 25% chance (i can imagine a warrior secondary running say 1000 blades, or cyclone axe, or triple chop and you'd be out A LOT of armor really quick.) You might make the armor min 60, but add "target foe cannot block your next attack" or something like that. I like the idea of handed combos, although it would be kinda cool to see them be able to "dual wield" rapiers at decreased effectiveness rather than switching hands (although that opens a whole different can of worms), but your idea has merit. you also run into the problem of a shield if you're using one. That's all I can think of right now. and i'm sure others will find fault with what i sad to, so take it for what it is worth.

call it duellist


like the idea, however my cynicality tells me it will never be implemented in GW or GW2

Charming... however:
- the style of a fencer is pretty much absorbed by the mesmer
- It defies basic common sense that a lightweight fencer could hold his own against a heavy plated warrior, and unlike the dervish he doesn't get away with it.
- Any way you work it out, it comes down to a sin war hybrid, that being two classes that are alrdy related.
- different moves just for switching hands don't make much sense, I'd suggest a similar system involving stances instead of hands.

I say pump it up with some interesting ideas and distance yourself from the worldly fencer, that would also help a lot with your name
samples: shredder, windblade, Jinx, or something that takes more than 5 seconds to invent.

Crap, I was going to post a Fencer CC... >_>
It was going to focus on stances, using them to parry enemy attacks.

Thanks for the comments! I appreciate the ideas for improvement, and yeah, after I posted, I realized that Open Defenses would be overpowered with no minimum. Also, I want to create more examples of Debuffs and attack skills, so any advice on that would be nice.

I still need to get the correct numbers for the damage in the skills too.

Great minds think alike, eh?

because you came up with the same name for 2 completely different things does not make you alike, and it makes you great even less

just though i'd clear that up

Well, that was a dick thing to say.

Do NOT call it a duelist. That name has been used too many freakin times!!!!!

I would love one, I wish this won't go to GW.
It's Kinda Useless, Cause we already have the Sin and War.
No Offense, BTW.
But to those fans of a Fencer, like meh^^.
I wish Anet would deliver the ability for Players to choose the Body Build of their Char.
I would love a War with a Fancy Armor, Yet body as a Sin.
With a Rapier Skin Sword, with a Cool Focus Item at the Side, Glad Def and Riposte is enough.

I wanna Combo my Sword Attacks, With the Riposte skills and Glad Def.
And Shouts of a Paragon.

That would be sweet! I wanna make a 250 pound mesmer

it would be so awesome to be able to change ur size, also it would be nice if swords didnt look so much bigger on other primarys than warrior. i have a ranger/warrior that is basically like that, magna carta, light fighters r awesome.

hhaahaha atleast some people still have some life in them,right? cough pheonix tears cough cough. oh gosh sorry i think i have a cold. cough

The lightweight rapier class might be able to hold off against other pysicle damage dealers but one hit of Stoning would just smash through their little sword and crush their skull against a wall right behind them. GREAT IDEA!

/notsigned We already have too many lightweight classes! And the idea of a one on one duelist actualy being 'one on one' is just stupid!

if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything bohya

also i see how it says "critism okay" but it also says constructive.
if it is not as lightweight how can it be a fencer. they be too much like warrior. fencers are small and scrawny...

Well limit the Body, Like Sins can go from Slim or Thin(Anorexic, like Current Necros).
While Monks can go Fat, Muscular or Slim.
To keep the reality.

I would love a Fat Buddhist Monk, you know^^.
But avoid the Sumo Ninja XD.

Call it a Swordmaster. FFS.

Great idea =D

I love light fighting classes...I've always liked the rapier fighting style...But warriors just don't have the kind of finesse <=(
They're more 'I'mma cut you so bad' than 'I'mma slightly cut you in an important place and laugh as you bleed to death, while I dodge your attacks'

I would also like to suggest a 'Feint' skill...
5 Energy, 1/2s Activation, 10s Recharge
"Skill. Your next attack is unblockable"

o.o;

I doubt ANet would put this class in there, but hey, who knows?

Hun?
1)Why didn't I notice this one before?
2)Why is e4y1 b*tching about the name? Fencer is better than swordmaster and just as good as duelist.

Also the idea of switching right and left hand is fine, but a rapier isn't a very comfortable switching weapon, one of them Arabic swords with the long hilts would be much better for switching.

Then again, you could just hand them rapiers with hilts like those swords, switching a rapier is slow because of the hand guard, during a dual that time will definitely leave your defense open.
If they can switch quickly they could base it off of certain stances that actually do something useful besides take up room in the skill bar.

To enrich the style how about allowing them to use skills with their free hand to:
left
Trow smokebombs, poison darts and stuff.
Right
Catch arrows, grab onto running foes and other things.

Because as assassins show, permanent 75% block chance is not complete safety; so some non hex debuffs to keep them safe from casters would be a pretty good idea;(I'll kill any1 suggesting another class that has 100% miss 100% spell failure as a defensive skill)
We still need a mass-skill-activation-speed-reducer because UBT is the most epic protection skill ever.

I like the idea.

I think you should have the option of an offhand weapon so you can have a block/strike combo skill; you block/deflect an incoming sword/axe/hammer with your primary weapon and automatically strike with your off-hand, not costing an attack.