Shinobi Class

If you're going to come up with a class idea, make it more innovative and fit into the fantasy setting. You cant just whimsically ask for ninjas and expect a beam of light to hit you and a voice booms "SO IT SHALL BE". Wonhappen. Seriously, think the class through completely, think up new things for it, think up something that sets it apart from other ideas. I've seen a few well thought out class concepts, including my own. Which includes something that fits slightly the whole 'ninja/thief/rogue/assassin/iwantdualwield' ideology. I'd rather see some intuitive ideas! Stuff we don't expect to see. That's the good stuff.

One note: BahamutKaiser, I don't agree with your assertion that a thief class shouldn't happen because it's evil and would require a different storyline.

Think about it this way: What's more repellent? Stealing a bit of gold from someone, or raising their corpse to do your bidding?

And yet, we have necromancers. See?



Edit: Jericho.. here's me nodding my head. GW needs ninjas not in the least.

Female monk attirement doesn't look anything like what ancient westerners wore. Especially with the most covering outfit, she pretty much looks like a ninja XD.

No...we have sexy necromancers and edgy necromancers. I think of them sort of more like angsty teenagers than servants of evil.

I don't want to see thieves because they're derivative. At least the game designers went out of their way to try to avoid the "mage/cleric/warrior/thief" setup. I don't want to see backstab, I don't want to see camouflage, I don't want to see pickpocketing, I don't want to see pickable locks for their own sake, I don't want to see traps (that of course are nothing like ranger traps!).

Everyone pretty much wants to wield two weapons, and that's it. Super. Go play Diablo II for a few minutes, realize it's not that defining in a gameplay experience, and get over it.

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I think they physically modelled monks after taoist/buddhist/shinto monks to sidestep having to deal with various church-like religious entities. Not that I'm, you know...reading into it or anything.

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they just need to have a class that uses daggers
DAGGER IS A MUST HAVE WEAPON IN RPGs, fastest attacking and can deliver fatal attacks, must have daggers

Because it's logical to see a guy with two knives fatally wound a hydra or jade armor.

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thats exactly what i meant by fatal attack.. which is what most of the games with daggers have. striking a fatal point with a dagger.

Lol, "most of the games." Ever been in a knifefight? You don't go for vital points; you get in a hit whenever and as often as you can without hurting yourself in the process. Plus, why strike a fatal point with a dagger when you can strike any point with a heavy sledge?

So this class would be useless against golems, the undead, jades, anything without a pulse, and anything bigger than a breadbox? I guess I can't see a little knife piercing the hide of a three-headed meteor-barking lizard. Unless they have some sort of insta-kill rectal ginsu attack, which is of course the most balanced solution.

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Well, the way I see it, they're going to have to come up with wildly different ideas for classes, since you want to avoid overlap (hence why the 6 that are available now are so different in playstyle). If you really want such a character style, I'd worry less about melee combat effects (leave that to Warrior) and more about debuffs (and possibly defense (evade/block) buffs. Condition effects, hexes, etc. Perhaps some DD capabilities (shadow damage, of course). Class should be more energy dependant than the Warrior, maybe on par with Ranger. As for attributes, I'm really hesitant to introduce any sort of invisibility/stealth (I knew people would ask for it :| ). If it MUST be necessary, then it should be a VERY short time frame (3-6 seconds) with a high energy cost, 60s recast minimum, maybe even a casting time (2 or 3s) to prevent it's use in combat (easily interrupted maybe). And even then, I'm not sure I'd want that sort of thing in. Also, I don't think I like the idea behind an unarmed attack, unless it is represented by a skill with a flat damage amount/effect. Still, I don't see enough skills to differentiate this type of class from the Warrior or Mesmer. And I don't want to see 'pet classes' (as in, some sort of combo that someone wants in a single class). You want certain abilities? Take that combo and deal.

As to whoever brought up the Thief idea. No. Way too much like a Warrior, and Spying is practically Mesmer Inspiration copied over. I suppose that one will probably say "but it has less AL, so it's not a Meat Shield!" to which I will respond that anyone who fights in melee, using a weapon, with skills that enhance weapon-based damage, is fighting like a Warrior. As I said earlier, there's got to be a radically different idea for the line of skills available for there to be a new class. And Dual Wielding should not be in, for various reasons (balance for one). The way they have the game is, if one character can use it, any character can. However, the Fast Attack attribute is something I would not have an issue with, as long as the max is say, 10 or 15%. (anything higher and it would be pretty sick)

(btw, I do play a L60 Rogue on WoW, so I know where I'm coming from when talking about Rogue-styled play, and I also play a Warrior here)

I said the monk might look a bit eastern. What's your point? Gender picking? Please :P

So emotes and their character models determine their culture? The hell? Read the history, the culture, and anything about guild wars. The monk side has nothing about eastern stuff. The character model and emote was purely to address those who wanted some kung-fu crap in the game probably. Name one skill that resembles Taoist/Buddhist/Shinto/Shao-lin or anything eastern? I don't see any. Everything from the dialogue from monks to the lore sections indicate it is medieval fantasy.

Yeah, he's pretty much right. The art direction in a lot of the game likes to blend traditional Medieval fantasy with occasional Oriental flourishes (particularly evident in places like the Hall of Heroes, or the Warrior's Island guild hall) and I think this is a product of that as well, but besides aesthetics there are no relations.

Who said necromancers are evil?

Huh? Who?

I mean they use dark magic, but does that make them evil? Do thery steal babies, and feed them to their minions? They work with the dead, and have alot of drain life/curses. Sure what they do isnt holy, but its not inherently evil, just like how the charr can heal, as can other enemies which are "evil" I mean the white mantle can heal(i think at least, been awhile since i fought them) does that mean the white mantle are good?

A thief though, ya... that is evil because what does a thief do? thats right steal, thats all a thief is. Not some dagger using crazy ass melee mofo. And shinobi... one again thats illogical, everyone is so caught up in other games shinobi/ninja that it is just unreasonable.

Ninjas are not fighters, they dont fight, and they dont do great damage. Ninjas are men trained for stealth and assasination, i know the assasination spec sounds like itd be killer but its not. Ninjas carried around a shoddy ass sword made out of cheap/left over metal, sharpened enough to stab a target. They snuck around and waited, and then they killed their target. they usually stabbed him with the sword, left it there, and got a new sword cheaply made.

Thats it, ninjas never fought, they never attacked more then once, if their first attack failed they either were captured and killed, or they fled. And any class depending on 1 hit kills would be unbalanced for gw

Kenjutsu wasn't the code of samurais... It was Bushido.

Sinobi/Assasin class doesnt really have a new way of dealing damage or a new resource to use or a new range to operate at. If you look at all the classes they are all charecterised by the way in which they deal damage and the way they power that. For example the necromancer deals damage at range, using spells primarily powered by life whereas the elementalist deals damage at range, using spells primarily powered by energy.

The class I want to see is a Chronomancer type class. Wht this profession would focus on was using time to damage the enemy and help friends. For example they could have a skill that would make them pass through time 20% slower (slower health recovery, slower mana recovery slower movement) and in exchange target eneamy takes damage. Or for example they could have skill that means taget ally experiences time 50% faster im exchange for the chronomancer experiencing time slower and so forth.

Abilities could be

Temporal Tuning (Primary Only) - Allows increase in maximum time difference (normally say 30 is the max)

Temporal focus - Increase the effect of spells that injure the enemy

Example - Slow Lungs - The chronomancer slows the rate at which the eneamy can breathe while leaving his body moving at the same rate. This does 30+ damage to them and time-slows the Chronomancer by 10%

Entropy Enhancement - Increase the effect of spells causing a status effect in the enemy

Example - Statis Lockdown - The chronomancer slows the passage of time on all eneamies within range of a target. These eneamies become time-slowed by 30+%. This skill may be maintained indefinately however it will be broken should the chronomancer move or use another skill. For each second it is maintained the chronomancer will suffer an additional time-slow of 4%

Fast Mind - Increases the effect of spells that aid the thinking and recovery of the casters and his allies.

Example - Immediate Time - Target ally experiences 5+ seconds of time immediately. This will have the same effect as would standing still outside of combat for 5+ seconds including the effect of any positive or negative status effects. The Chronomancer will in turn be paused (experience no time, cannot be harmed) for 8 seconds.

As you can see my idea for this charecter is not so much the direct damage he can do but in his efficiency at preventing others from dealing damage and in amplifying the effects of the abilities of others. Immediate time for example is not much good by itself, but combined with healing prayers from a monk it becomes a powerful ability. He would of course have a few high energy cost acceleration skills to boost him up a bit in smaller fights.

Example - Speed of Thought (Fast mind) -The chronomancer experiences a time boost of 30+%. Energy cost 15.

My idea for regenerating time is that everyone would fall back towards normal time at a rate of 2% a second.

Clearly it would need balancing, but I think it is at least different from the other classes.

That class wouldn't fit in the story at all.

But the expansion packs (which is where we will get new classes) will have a new PvE story. I mean Shapeshifters and Druids wouldnt fit in the current story and I bet we pick up one of those. In terms of the game world as a whole I think an order of monks who worship time wouldnt be so out of place. Why on earth would they have intervened in the current story? They could just be up in the mountains monking it up.

Shinobi is a out place class just the same as Jedi would be. You would have to defintely expand the story somewhere else. The talks of a class such as "Rogue" is simpler and easily placeable within the curent story.

But my point is we wont get any new professions until we get the expansions, since they would need tonnes of new graphics resources and dozens of new quests. So they dont need to fit the current story, only the game world in total.

Anyway we dont need a rogue profession. A Rogue is just a warrior/ranger who uses flurry a lot. We dont need a rogue just like we dont need a paladin (W/Mo) or an Arcane Archer (R/El) or a Jedi (W/El).

By the way, maybe you didnt see my first post, I think shinobi is out of place and un-needed too. I thoughtyou were talking about my chronomancer idea