Arcane Swordsman

I saw a thread about a knight using elemental crap but thought it went in a different direction to the idea I was having.

This is more of a Warrior that doesn't use its own physical weapon or shield, but instead uses skills to create them at a whim.

They have 2 items for left and right hands and can switch between them. the only 2 items they would have are "left hand magic" and "right hand magic". If thy are wielding ANY other item in either hand (a shield or offhand for example) you will not be able to use skills relating to that hand (just like you can't use sword attacks without a sword).

While magic is in effect on their hands, they cannot change weapons, shields, offhands etc. until the magic wears off, or is removed. (to prevent shield + magic shield stacking)

Right hand = Offensive skill usage item.
Left hand = Defensive skill usage item.

For example: Right hand skill

Frozen Edge (10e \ 1 cast \ 30 recharge) - for 10...60sec you wield a Frozen Blade in your right hand dealing 5...45 cold damage and slows struck foes for 1 second.

Thunderous Blade (10e \ 1 cast \ 30 recharge) - for 10...60 seconds you wield a Blade of Electricity in your right hand dealing 5...45 lightning damage and blinds struck foes for 1 second.

Left hand skill:

Shield of Stone ( 15e \ 2 cast \ 10 recharge) - for 5-20 second your left-hand item becomes a shield of stone, providing 1...15al and and extra 1...10al vs. Earth damage.

Distorting Aura - ( 10e \ 1 cast \ 10 recharge) for 3...10 seconds your left-hand item grants you a 75% chance to block incoming attacks.

Another thing that could be don, is to not limit which hand can use the spells. For example, if they were not limited to only the left or right hands, then the player could use a shield or weapon spell in both hands, providing to either beef defense through shielding and completely sacrifice damage, or wielding 2 weapons and sacrificing any defense not including base armor.

The class would be the energy equivalent almost to the warrior, using energy to make shields and use weapons instead of adrenaline. They would not be able to use shield or weapon magic unless they have the left/right-hand items equipped, and like-wise would not be able to use the magic if they had other classes, weapons/shields/offhands equipped.

It is just a rough, idea, and probably alot of holes to try and deal with, but its a concept.

I like the Idea but it doesn't sound like GW^_^.

W/E anyone ....

however, somethign liek this would be more the symbiosis id love to see about gw's 2 class system.

/notsigned, just because all of these example skills could be simple new Elementalist Spells, giving Elementalists also elemental Weapon Spells, while those of the Ritualist will be spiritual Weapon Spells, would be just a tweaking about the Weapon Spells Skill Type.

and about the defensive Skills. we have Weapon Spells, then the game should have also Shield Spells and Armor Spells for Eles/Rits.

Found it personally ever dumb, that Eles never got skills, with that they can also suport their party through buffing and their enchants are all only for personal buffs

That is because Elementalists use magic to control the elements, whereas this would be using weapons to control the elements. Ele = caster, Arc sword = melee

What weapons would be used? I understand that you would "summon" weapons, but there still needs to be a default weapon that can be dropped by monsters or purchased from a crafter.

Well I agree it's a lot better than the knight.

However having a shape shifting weapon; no, 2 shape shifting weapons and not making full use of them is quite the missed opportunity.

First have offhands be able to become weapons as well, doing so should reduce your attack speed by 50%(max attack speed reduction) because 2 weapons are not only more complicated to wield but also heavier; as well as rendering you unable to wield a defensive offhand, so I recon that balances the extra attack.
As the offhand shape shifting weapon is an offhand so only be able to have offhand upgrades it would still prevent you from using 2 furious/barbed/dazing weapon upgrades.

You could even have something to change the weapons in a 2 handed ranged weapon, making this a really versatile class.
That versetilety is lost here: Because its basically a warrior with a conjure X cast on it and [[Weapon of Warding] going for the same function as a warrior is probably a bad idea.

A good new class should have impact(thats just what I call it).
When the class is added to the game it changes the way everyone plays the game.
Sins introduced ganking, ritualists introduced spirit fortresses, weather for the good or the worse they changed the game making them classes that justify their own existence.
I won't get into the discussion of what the impact of paragons and dervishes is(other than that PvE skills are not part of impact, its more like PvE skills have their own impact)

A class that could change the way they attack on a whim is built to be versatile, from there I can see 2 options:

1. Jack of all Trades, Master of None
   The ability to tank, protect, restore, damage and interrupt all in 1 class, though those are not the main function.
   The main function of a jack is to enhance the ability to do each of those,
   both on themselves and on allies, so that by expending skill slots for buffs the jack can become a master, for a while.
   (as well as make sure sub par build henchies pull their weight by buffing them...)
   All of the good jack of all trades profession's I've played could buff allies, but could not push them beyond their limit(making them imbalanced) so most skills might contain "this skill cannot raise the target's ... above X".
2. Tricksters
   Tricksters function is to make fights unpredictable for their foes, most of the GW crowd seems to agree that randomizing is bad.
   So instead of random: 'surprise' big effects would be a good say to do it. (think of [[Shrinking Armor] but as a weapon spell that applies the condition to all foes hit with the weapon after the weapon spell ends)
   While doing that, they'd be able to switch between dual wielding, offhands and a ranged weapon, just to be unpredictable.
3. Probably another option or 2, that I can't think of.

Now on the skills:
Pretty much an ok skill, though it could use a trick to make it more interesting and appealing by increasing the slow when you hit a already frozen target.
But what does it slow? movement speed, attack speed, recharge speed, casting speed, skill activation speed; if it's more than 1 of those then its either going to be a really small amount or it will be an elite skill(B.T.W I think GW needs more skill activation reducers)

This should be shining blade or flashing blade, lightning causes armor piercing, the flash causes the blinding effect.
Cool skill otherwise, I like blinding things.

Thats a lot of energy casting time and a skill slot just to create a shield with an additional effect that isn't that desirable, now if it where slashing damage it could have been usefull but there aren't that many things that deal earth damage.
As it is a shield of stone, how about making act liek a stone being hit by the attacks? The skil creates a big stone towershield that acts kind of like [skill=text]Divine Sheath[/skill] except it slows your movement speed by 33% because it's heavy, as the amount of damage left to absorb decreases weight also decreases and the speed debuff is reduced.

Its a bit too obvious you took this off [[Distortion] its a slightly longer and less energy intensive version of it.
I'd make it an actual aura, that actually distorts enemy attacks:
Foes near you will have 5...20(25)% chance to miss with melee attacks and have 10...34(42)% chance that projectiles from their spells and ranged attacks will stray.

Its an ok start, but it needs fleshing out, especially in cutting out a niche for it's self.

[EDIT]
I made a post longer than the OP again, didn't I?
I really gotta stop doing that, it makes me look like I'm uselessly ranting, or something...

hmm, very interesting. I like the idea but it just seems too much like a Welle (my new word) to me :P

But seriously it sounds like W/E.