Sword Masters

Sounds exactly like a W/A or A/W......really half of those skills are almost identical to sin and warr skills.

BAH! Please, no more professions =[

This sounds like a glorified assassin to me.

I do like the idea of rapiers though (more so for GW2). I noticed they were used in some of the box art (on that female mesmer), but never showed up in the game O_o

Off topic: Anet should totally ad wands with rapier skins. Then mesmers might actually look cool.

Agreed.

12 Characters.

If you're saying that, then I think you're getting too caught up in the details. That's partly my fault, I shouldn't have loaded the original post with so many details. It was an open invitation for everyone to grab their microscopes and start scrutinizing the painting one brush stroke at a time instead of standing back and taking in the whole thing at once. The CC is not a Warrior, and it's also not a sin; nor is it a combination there of. To say that it's "exactly like a W/A or A/W" is as broken and flawed a statement as saything that Dervish is "eaxctly like W/Mo or Mo/W." It just isn't true. The CC is fundamentally different from both wars and sins, and a W/A or A/W isn't capable of achiving the effect I'm looking for. That fact is difficult to see, though, when you're sitting there comparing the suggestions for possible skills one at a time to skills that already exist. Please join me in putting the microscopes away and stepping back, so as to take in the whole picture at once.

It's about Theme, people. Themes are what define professions, not the individual skills and bits of equipment. Those are just means to achive an end (usually the death of your opponent). It's theme that determines what a class is like as a whole, and all (or at least most) of the skills and equipment used by the class is wieghted towards that theme. Any time someone posts a CC, you should be looking at it in terms of theme, not individual skills, etc... That said, what is the theme of a Warrior? of an Assassin? of my CC?

The core of the Warrior, its claim to fame as a profession, is its potent balance between heavy hitting offense and high inherent defense. They are the high endurance, masters of raw power. This is the theme of the Warrior. Very nearly all of the details (skills, armor/equipment, inherent effect of their primary attribute (which provides armor penetration to all skill attacks), etc...) are wieghted towards this theme.

The Assassin is a stealthy fighter. The crux of the profession is their ability to suddenly pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, and very quickly kill or incapacitate a single foe through the use of a highly structured combination attack that involves multiple skills being used back to back in a predefined sequence. Once this is complete, they 'vanish' (shadow step away). This is the theme of the Assassin. It is the core idea around which the class was built. Most of the details (skills, armor/equipment, inherent effect of their primary attribute (augmented critical hit rate), etc...) are wieghted towards this theme.

So what is the Theme of my CC then? I actually stated it in the original post, but the sentence did not have a very prominent position within the article, and as such, may have been missed.

The Sword Master as a CC specializes in generating miss percentages and defeating the miss and blocking percentages that his enemy generates. This is an area of expertise that niether the Warrior, nor the Assassin (or for that matter, any profession that currently exists) has laid claim to. The foundation of my CC is unique, and like any good CC, the details (again: skills, armor/equipment, inherent effect of their primary attribute, etc...) are wieghted towards this theme. Some stances focus on blocking, others focus on missing, others focus on making the enemy less likely to block. The inherent effect of the primary attribute is based on the increased accuracy idea. Even the ruins and insignias; everything relates back to the foundation, the theme, of the CC. This is how things should be.

Since the CC has a unique theme, it can never be truely replicated by combining any two already existing professions. Does a W/A or A/W have similarities to what I'm suggesting? Yes, it does. But are they the same thing? Not by a long shot. A Sword Master striding the battle field would be as different from A/W or W/A as a Dervish is from W/Mo or Mo/W.

Edit: Spelling, added poll so anyone who wants to can make their opinion known without posting.

hmm, seems to similar to an assassin imo.
precision strikes -> critical strikes
sword master -> dagger mastery
agility -> shadow arts
mystic strikes -> deadly arts
i couldn't have described a shattering assault sin better myself

im not gonna lie... its not an opinion. this is an assassin.

While reading the skills I couldent help but notice that they are way way overpowered here is a build I'm just throwing out there, lets say.. W/Sm

9 hammer, 12 agility, 9+1 (helm) strength,

Furious Hammer of Fortitude - Full Vitae/Vigor set

Skill set -- For Great Justice!, Enraging Charge, {E}Masters Charge, Kung Fu Strike, Crushing Blow, Keen Riposte, Disciplined Healing, Rez

Crap.. I just made an unstoppable warrior!! 19-35 damage every 0.875 seconds
no one can run from him, almost unlimited adrenaline take down casters in seconds wouldent do too bad against melee'rs either.. 640 base health.. 80 AR.. and there are many other ways you can combine it with rangers or paragons even

enough badgering point proven..

I actually kind of liked it. Plus you get thousands of bonus points for providing a well written, well organized, and well thought out idea. Most of the CCs here seem like they were written by mashing the authors face into the keyboard. So A+ for effort, organization, and bla bla bla. B for creativity? I don't know I'm done.

I agree. A well thought out and written suggestion is likely to get noticed.

I kind of liked it, but I doubt anyone's CCs actually get into the game

This is how you make a melee/caster hybrid class. wish Anet would ahve done something like this when they made the assassin

very nice CC, probably wouldn't be good as a additional class, but a good class idea in itself

I think it looks great, and that it WOULD be good as an additional class. Only criticism is that some of the skills are too ... good. Yeah, well done on this.

i would have preferred this to the assassin, however if they keep both classes this would be way OP on an assassin primary (even though you tried to make it not). also, final arcanum is basically an assassin in one skill. oh and attack skills have double the activation time it would normally take (1 sec -> 1/2 sec, 1/2 sec -> 1/4 sec). despite these varying problems, i really like the idea of 'elemental' attacks. it adds a bit of variety and some good damage against higher AL foes while still doing damage to caster classes.

also (personally) i think that anything with an inherent blocking ability in GW is a bad idea.

I like the idea of the class in general, but EVERYTHING needs to be scaled down.

Almost every skill you have there is more potent than other skills in CURRENT professions. Also, your elites are out-of-the-park awesome. Any time someone can get to 100% block with a single skill, that person wins at farming. Dwarven Stability plus the skill that allows you to block 100% of the time would completely destroy ALL melee mobs combined with other spells, like sliver armor. (Think about all the poor baby raptors!! )

This profession would be absurdly powerful in PvP against caster classes because of it's increased accuracy and ability to avoid blocks. Honestly, it would be even more overpowered than Way of the Assassain after the buff (before the nerf).

Stand back and take a look at some of those skills compared to the current professions' skills and see if you get what I mean.

Precision Strikes+insignias allow a -24% chance to miss or be blocked, so that alone would turn guardian into a usless spell to have on monk bars, because 25% block for 5 seconds is NOT worth 5 energy.

I like this. This is actually what I want the melee class for GW2 to be like, or something similar to it. But it is a bit overpowered, scale things down and it should be fine.

I like this idea a lot. So like have a light but faster and less damage version of a swordmaster. Then have a heavier armored "tank", slower but more damage version. Sounds good to me Some of the skills are a bit weird but easy to balance. Gj IMO!

I liked most of the stuff till I read some of the elites

Removes all Enchantments
Removes Stance
Deals 60 damage
Suffers Cracked Armor 12 sec
Suffers Deep Wound 12 sec
Cannot Be Blocked

What could you honestly do against someone with a skill like this. I understand the concept is to get past blocking and such but how on earth could you stop them then? :S Needs serious balancing.

+ [Dwarven Stability] = gogo UW solo smite farm.

Scaling down is easy enough to do. As a CC, it's qualitative stuff, not quantitative stuff, that matters. As long as the functionality is good, the numbers can easily be adjusted for balance.

That said though... yeah my elites. In GW as it is now, there are many elites that are almost never used because they're generally not useful. In fact a few of them flat out suck. I wanted to make every skill, and especially every elite, good enough to be considered. But I guess I went overboard, again, especially on the elites. In particular:

Interceptor Slashes could use a longer (maybe much longer) recharge to offset synergy with dwarven stability. Maybe a second negative side effect as well. Maybe no activating any skills at all instead of just no attacking.

Expherious did a good job of pointing out how overpowered Master's Charge would be on a hammer KD build with high adrenal gain. Something more tame might be a 33% increase in movement and attack speed, like most other IAS and IMS skills. It could also have a higher adrenal cost and/or shorter duration.

@ Chocobo1: Yes, Zantetsuken is a bit off the deep end. As you may be able to tell, I had Odin's attack from Final Fantasy on the brain when I wrote that one. As it stands it's a once every 30 seconds spike that also robs you of most support effects, leaves you more vulnerable to further attacks, and which you can do very little about. Blindness or [[clumsiness] could stop it, maybe a couple other Mesmer skills I'm forgetting, but little else. Perhaps a 60 second cool down instead of 30, and remove the shadow damage inflicted.

Master’s Charge – Adrenal: 6, Activation Time: 0, Skill Recharge: 0
Elite Stance. For the next 5… 17… 20 seconds, you move and attack 50% faster.

Rofl a free RaO on crack

I've updated the original post for better balance. Some of the stuff might still be over the top, but I trimmed back some of the worst stuff (Like Interceptor Slashes). Changes are recorded in italics beneath most of the things that recieved a change.