Class Idea: Contraptionist

Here's an idea for a class I had. (I have another one in the works, look for it in an upcoming thread.)

(Edit: By the way, I found it very hard to read the first time through with all of my own comments. I've put the side notes in italics. There's ALOT of them.)

Basically, GW seems to be lacking a character who's primary duty is buffing other characters. (Monk and Necro both do it to an extent. There's quite a few Monk enchantments, and I'm a big fan of Order of the Vampire. But the primary focuses of those classes is elsewhere.)

Conceptually I came up with "Contraptionist" as a sort of inventor and tinkerer- he comes up with gizmos mostly on the fly (they are a combination of a technological shell and magical energy.) He then uses these himself, or gives them to his companions. Because of the principles of contraptionism (and the contrainsts of gameplay), he is able to create these devices quickly and at range. (Or maybe he had them all along, and just has a brief activation routine.)

The class would work with very little modification as a Dwarven "Master Engineer" class. More modification could make it a more typical spellcaster.

The intended strengths of the Contraptionist are:
*Strong use of enchantments on other party members. Reasonable use of enchantments on self.
*Skills that manipulate one's own enchantments (from both the character's professions.)
*Ability to manipulate allies energy.

The intended weaknesses of the Contraptionist are:
*Little or no hexes.
*Few ways to do extra damage (Contraptionist attack spells will be present, but of generally low power level.)
*No healing of others (much defense, but healing others is not the domain of this class.)

I picture the Contraptionist having medium armor (but I would settle for light), and using staves/wands with an appearance similar to wrenchs and other tools

Most of the Contraptionist's skills are Gizmos. "Gizmo" is a new skill keyword that operates similarly like "Spell"- inherently it does nothing, but certain skills might trigger off of it.
Thus, the Contraptionist has many Enchantment Gizmos (as opposed to Enchantment Spells) Most of their non-enchantments would probably be Spells, but there's no reason Gizmos would have to be Enchantments. I also imagine other classes would get a Gizmo skill or two.

The Contraptionist has 4 ability scores (I had a 5th, but forgot what it was. Must not have been important.)

Primary: Stability
For each point in Stability, any effect that would remove one of your enchantments (not an enchantment on you- an enchantment cast by you) has a n% chance to fail.

(It's difficult to decide on a number for n- I'm guess ing 5-7. One doesn't want this to be too low, because otherwise the ability doesn't mean much, but if it's too high, enchantment removal will never work, which isn't the intent. Contraptionist Enchantments are supposed to be difficult to get rid of. A different function for the failure chance, like 20% + 3x skill (for example) might work better, especially at low levels. This is something where I'd definetly want to know what people think a reasonable level is.)

Principles of Energy
(Skills that deal with Energy, obviously, but also movement and forces.)

Principles of Power
(Skills that deal with brute force combat buffs.)

Principles of Utility
(The subtle stuff.)


Sample Skills:
(I'm putting them up as fairly barebones frameworks, not full skill writeups. Unless I really want a full skill writeup to show what I'm going for. In general, consider the number ranges provided very poor suggestions for actual game balance: I'm just trying to show ways the idea could be set up. Also I apologize if any of these are names of existing skills- it wouldn't suprise me.)

No Attribute:

Transference
(Cost 5, Cast 1)
Spell. Choose one of your Enchantments. That enchantment is now affecting your selected ally instead, with the same duration.
(This might be tricky to implement, but I really like the idea, and the potential for combos with other classes. I picture this being an iconic Contraptionist skill.)

Stability:

Recharge
(Cost 10, Cast 1.5)
Spell. One of your Enchantments within range that was removed within the last 2-7 seconds reactivates with the same remaining duration it had when removed.
(This one can't be targeted.)

Restart (Elite)
(Cost 20, Cast 2)
Spell. All of your Enchantments within range that were removed during the last 1-5 seconds reactivate with the same remaining durations they had when removed.

Principles of Energy:

Daedalus Boots
Enchantment Gizmo. For the duration of Daedalus Boots, target ally gains +25% movement and does not trigger traps or suffer conditions from terrain. When Daedalus Boots ends, that ally is knocked down.
(And might float above the ground, as a visual effect.)

Energy Filter
(Cost ?, Maintained -1)
Enchantment Gizmo. While you maintain Energy Filter, target ally gains energy regeneration 1-2.
(Not sure how to balance to make it skill level dependent, but not make it so multiple Contraptionists can cast it on each other and have absurd ammounts of energy.)

Energize
(Cost 10, Cast 2, long recharge)
Spell. Target ally gains 5-10 energy.

Kinetic Blast
Attack Spell. Target foe takes damage.
(Essentially this would be similar to Flare- cheap, fast, a basic attack. It should do less damage, though.)

Principles of Power:

Bulwark Reinforcement
Enchantment Gizmo. Target ally cannot be knocked down.

Clockwork Defense
Enchantment Gizmo: Target ally's armor is increased by +X.

Cutting Edge Upgrade
Enchantment Gizmo. Target ally does +X damage with weapon attacks. This Enchantment ends if they change their weapon.
(or it could be just swords, or the like. "Cutting Edge" was used in the sense of 'new and improved.')

Power Source
Spell. Target ally gains X strokes of adrenaline.

Principles of Utility:

Changeup (Elite)
Spell. Changeup is replaced on your skillbar with any nonelite skill you know.
(This is 'permanent'. Once you get to a town, you can switch it back, of course. I imagine it would also have a fairly long cast time: 2-3)

Crystaline Focal Goggles
Enchantment Gizmo. Target ally cannot be blinded, and attacks are (X%) more likely to hit.
(Or maybe even 'that allies attacks cannot be dodged or evaded?')

First Aid Kit
Gizmo: Heals self for X ammount.



----

Other things I would add:

More Enchantment Gizmos! And things that effect them.
Skills that recharge allies skills. (Such as one that recharges all Signets, or recharges a random skill by a certain ammount.)

Whew! What do people think?

Stability is too high at 5%, maybe 2%-4% instead, as 10 points in it would give you 20%-40% instead of the insane 50%

Like the idea indeed. It would give monks a break too. Add new strategies. Your build may need some nerfing, but its good. It would also give mesmers another target <----- Kidding of course.

What is the point of Changeup? It's elite, so I can't bring any other elite with me, and then I cast it and all it does is permanantely replace itself, which I could have done before I even left town.

The idea is that sometimes you don't know in advance what skills you're going to want to bring with you. Changeup can give you very limited flexibility.

For PvE, this is mostly useful if you're exploring a new area, or if you're with a PuG and suddenly realize that nobody can do anything about Condition X.

For PvP, this would be mostly useful for getting a counter to a build on the fly (albiet with a long casting time to prevent abusability.)

Of course, this won't always be useful.

Thanks to everyone who's reading the thread and/or providing feedback!

With concern to Stability, I think it needs to be a sufficiently high number (more than 50%) to do any good. Anyone who's willing to spam enchantment removal can still break through (provided that % doesn't get too absurd)- it's just harder because a Contraptionist's enchantments are much more robust.

I find it frustrating playing an enchantment using build in the Northern Shiverpeaks... both Stone Summit Sages and Stone Summit Howlers are everywhere.

i don't like the change up, i do like the idea though.

Make some gizmos recharge spells faster, or cast them faster, make them cost less.

Great class, just needs some tuning, i hope a-net is reading this <wink> <wink>.

I love the idea but I have one question: where did you come up with the name daedalius boots for a skill that makes you run fast? Great idea though, I'm very enthusiatic about any new classes, and yours is very well though out.

I was thinking about versatility when I saw Changeup, I like it. Also, perhaps instead of having enchantments that drain energy, have a visual cue, such as pieces of metal, that show how many enchantments you can maintain. Instead of draining energy, maybe have a limit of three Gizmo enchantments, since it does not always make sense for machinations to use the creator's power...

EDIT: Daedalus was the greatest artificer, in Greek mythology. He created the maze that housed the Minotaur which Theseus killed. He also crafted flying boots for Icarus, who attempted to fly to the sun until they melted.

Conceptually the Daedalus Boots make you fly above the ground (presumably faster than you could walk), which is why you're immune to getting diseased from swamps and the like. And why you fall down when the Gizmo wears out.

(I considered putting a line in there about Earth magic... but it seems like there's already enough going on with that skill.)

No I mean the name, why do u name it daedalus boots?

Daedalus is a character from Greek mythology. It would be like naming a necromancer spell "Grip of Hades."

And yes, I know that Guild Wars has it's own mythology.

I know who he is but hes irrelevant to speed or immunity to whatever for that matter.

Was it just kind of arbitrary?

I think Flame did a good enough job of explaining why the name is relevant. I suppose it's arbitrary- but no more than any other skill name.

If you still honestly don't know why I picked that name, I don't know what else to tell you.

I know all about daedalus. One edit for flame: he crafted wings for Icarus (Maybe you were thinking of Hermes flying boots?) anyway if you don't understand what I was saying, Willow, ill just stay at the assumption it was arbitrary. Anyway, I like the idea with energy filter but I see one problem with it being +2: you get 2 or more contraptionists who use it on each other for free enegry. If its +1 it doesnt really seem worth it unless you implimented Flame's idea of the metal to represent how many enchantments u can hold. If you did +1 and used that it would be a great skill.

Interesting. Reminds me of Final Fantasy.

I personally think changeup is an awesome skill.

I'm thinking about how well it would combo with the mesmer mantras or certain ranger spirits that are really useful in certain situations. It'd definatley be the elite I'd take.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not really paying much attention. 67% of everything I say is random anyway (All statistics are made up on the spot, 40% of all people know that.)

Very interesting character idea for a character. Maybe add some skills such as create a mini-catapult that shoots for 10-25 seconds and does X amoutn of damage, or how about minne laying gizmos? Just throwing some idea out there ( i see this character looking like a dwarf ) Last thing, with the crystaline focal goggles, maybe amke it so that you have immunity to blind and +X% chance to land critical hits.

i love the idea and build, but i think it breaks away from the fantasy mold of the game a little bit. introducing crazy contraptions into a game of swords and magic would be a little out of place

Itd be pretty cool if he could make minions of some sort, like robotic things or whatever. They would probably take like 15 seocnds to cast or coutn as an enchantment while it was alive something like that. That would be pretty interesting with Flame's enchantment idea. you could have like 3 robotic minions or however many and just drop one if u want another enchantment.

Well, from hsi description, he had a technological shell ( such as an holllowed out eerrrrr ball for simplicities sake) that is infused with magic and then sent to the person needing the enchantment. The energy isnt anything high-tech, just good ol' fashioned magic.

I think Robotic minions is a bit too much tech...(maybe if they were Golems... but its getting more into Necro/Ranger territory, in any event.)

I've thought a bit about Energy Filter, and there's no way on earth it could be balanced giving out two energy. (Imagine the madness of having two (or more!) of these guys all maintaining Energy Filter on each other.) But giving a 1:1 transfer would be good enough for the situation it's designed for (i.e. you have a monk or other party member who's an energy hog.)

It could be possible to have Energize (the give energy skill) have a net gain in energy (as it's written up, the best one can do is 1:1, unless they have a 13+ stat), without being totally abusable, since you'd have to actually sit there and cast it. Looks like I got the balance on those two skills wrong with the first writeup.

I don't see any reason why this class would have to be Dwarf-only (but it wouldn't be too far if it was.) For those naysayers who think this is too high tech, I'm trying to stay close to what's already in the game (you'll notice I didn't add "Gunnery" or anything like that)- as the dwarves already have alot of pretty cool machines, and explosive powder. I don't think it's too far of a step to assume that there could be mages that have spells that influence simple technology.

Minions is just a term I chose to mean like something that does your bidding, golem type machine is what I had in mind.

This is exactly what I was saying, theres no way a 1:2 would be fair but a 1e arrow would be fair and a good spell especially if you didnt get a drain but could only hold a certain ammount of enchantments.

I like the idea, and perhaps their Facewear could consist of different types of Goggles/Glasses. :P

Also, perhaps some of the balancing could be found in requiring a "Tinker" to use up inventory items/craft items. If you require say, 1 iron ingot each time they cast a certain spell, etc., it would allow for a bit more from the spell, at a bit more from the player. I think it'd be really neat to utilize the inventory more.

While components seem like a cool idea (and they could be)- I don't think it would translate well to PvP. Which is a shame, since it might be fun to have an uberpowerful elite that needs Ectoplasm to power it.

Wheras I think that introducing an entirely new class might wreak havoc on game balance in many, many ways, this is a really fun suggestion.

Let me throw something else in here - Traditional spell components as such are unworkable due to use in PvP, but how about reusable components? I imagine they would work much as weapons do for physical damage dealers, but you have at max one of every sort equipped in your "utility belt", and they are all temporarily used in your creations.

This means that a basic spell might only use up the "prismatic energy converter", but a powerful spell might use up the "prismatic energy converter", the "lengthwise preconfibulator" and the "rotational phlogiston injector". While maintaining the more powerful spell, you would thus be unable to cast any other spell using those three components. This would provide an excellent way to limit spell use, and allow the Contraptionist to have low mana and low mana cost for realtively powerful spells.

How about a total of, say, seven different components, and each spell uses at least one of them. I see drops of componets with different effects on the spells cast with them...Oh, joy!

Also, this would explain all the "Enchanted Swords" and stuff like that ambulating around the countryside...

(This is not a well thought out suggestion, just some wild ideas thrown out drive-by-style )

I love this idea and hope GW makes this class cuz i think it would be funny to play with

Like the class. I think playing this class with an Elemtal would also be quite fun. Or mabey a mesmer. With the durability thing on hexes... Imagine the fun.

I think that a skill (maybe elite) thst increases the length that the next spell lasts by X% (like the durability thing except for spells) would be nice though. Just add a really long cooldown time. NO double length spellbreakers allowed repeatedly.

Maybe add in a failure chance depending on your rank in an attribute to make the class more balanced. Like at 12 in a attribute all linked skills have an 80% sucess rate and at 16 it would be 100% (5% increase per point added starting at 20% with 0 points in the attribute). Make there be a punishment for faliure though. Like lose X amount of health based on faliure chance. (As for why to add the faliure chance maybe you got faulty equipment and it blows up in your face)

Here's a few more quick skills:

Clockwork Defense Legion (Power)
Enchantment Gimzo. You have a 75% chance to block incoming attacks. (Duration based on skill.) If you suffer a critical hit, Clockwork Defense Legion Ends.
Coneceptually, a bunch of little clockwork flying bugs fly out and swarm around the caster, protecting him. Remember that you can use this on your allies with Transference!

Overclock (Energy)
Stance. You move 25% faster and attack 33% faster. (Duration based on skill.) When Overclock ends, you suffer from Burning.
Cheap skill, low cast time and recharge, but a bit of a cost at the end! Note that it's a stance, not a gizmo, so it can't be Transfered

Kinetic Onslaught (Elite) (Energy)
A more powerful attack spell. The kind of thing elementalists might equip if it weren't elite.


If other people have their own ideas for skills, feel free to go ahead and give them a writeup!

Spare Parts (Utility)
Spell: One of your enchantments gizmos ends prematurely. One of your gizmo skills is recharged for an ammount equal to the remaining duration on that enchantment (up to a max determined by Skill)

You know, if this class were to be implemented (and I am reading things right) then any spells that deal with enchantments would either destroy this class (desecrate enchantments) or make it really good (ether renewal).

The durability thing stops massive enchant ripping. As for really good this is supposed to be the true support class. You can never solo it but it can make an 8 person group that is built right and with complamentry skills 2-3 times as effective (This would be very rare though, I mean look at how many people don't know what calling targets is).

O I came up with a skill to stop some of the enchantment stripping problems.

Happyness (needs a better name)

Any enchantment that is stripped from the target of this skill is applied to the stripper with the remaining duration and all effects reversed.

Cost: 15 energy
Cast Time: 3 Seconds
Recharge: 30-45 seconds
Duration: Starts at 10 seconds +2 seconds per point in the linked attribute and 45 seconds with 16 in that attribute.

Example of effect: Player A has Proctective (Spelling?) Spirit on him. Player B casts Happyness on Player A. Player C casts strip enchantments (or the like) on player A. Protective spirit had 25 seconds left so for the next 25 seconds Player C takes a minimum of 10% of their health in damage for each attack. (To balance it maybe make it only be 10% extra damage)

Another example: Player A has Armor of Mist on them. Player B casts Happyness on Player A. Player C casts strip enchantments (or the like) on Player A. Player C is now slowed by 33% and takes -X armor (depends on caster level for armor of mist).

This skill might have to be elite to balance it but I think it has some very good uses. No stripping enchants and buffs indiscrimanetly any more.

Ikinsey was irritating me with his nit-picking on the daedalus boots thing, but then he mentioned minions and now I like him again. Constructs, yay! Make it so that casting the spell consumes a salvageable item on the ground instead of a corpse, and you get some sort of little metal or wood or stone or whatever (based on what item would have been salvaged, obviously not much steel in a longbow) magically animated construct to follow you around. I'd play it.

By the way, this class feels a lot like an Artificer from the Eberron D&D setting. By far my favorite class from the only pre-built setting that I really enjoy playing.

You're right- as intended, the Stability primary attribute is supposed to let the Contraptionist withstand enchantment removal. And there's the intentional combo potential with pro-enchantment skills from other classes.

with the +1 energy enchant thing, make it cost -1 energy to maintain, that way if a whole bunch of contraptionsits cast it on each other they would still end up with only +4 regen.

/bumped because its a good idea that got lost in a flury of bad ideas.

Hey, Ultimate, I had to revive this thread really quik so that you could see this great class idea