Future Class/Job Idea (Reaper)

So following up from the Chocobo Breeder/Hunter idea I had last week, here's one for a battle class. I will note however that battle classes are harder to write detail for as they technically do less than a crafting class, so I apologise if some of my explaination for the idea seems a bit vague. Also please post any ideas or opinions on the class/job or parts of it's mechanics. :)

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Reaper

Reaper would be a sort of DD mellee class with a usefull support role in battles.
Their main weapon of choice would be two 'aetherial blades', or spectral swords if you like. Anyone who's played Soul Reaver will know what kind of weapon I'm talking about ;)
A secondary weapon of choice could be a two-handed aetherial sycthe with a slower attack speed but causes more damage. The two would be scaled out so that using either one would still result i nthe same amount of TP gain and damage overall, the choice of weapon would mostly serve a cosmetic purpose though some abilities and skills may only be usable whilst utilising a particular weapon.

The purpose of a Reaper in combat is to cause damage whilst also debuffing the opponent or buffing other players. Some attacks could have the ability to simply decrease the opponents attack, defence, magical defence or attack speed. Some other abilities would allow the player to cause a health draining/absorbing DoT on the enemy, increasing the Reapers survivability in combat.

Possible buffs could be to steal attack from the enemy and then give portions of the stolen attack to themselves or another player within range of them. The same would also be used for stealing defence, making a Reaper usefull near a tank as a Reaper could pass the enemies defence to the tank, making the tank and healers job a little easier.
Another possibility along with this would be the ability to leech MP from an enemy and pass it to a nearby player. Since spells such as Cure cost a lot of MP, so a Reaper would be especially beneficial for boss fights as they could help the healer keep their MP pool going.

Reapers could also possess a 'self-raise' ability. this however would not be usable every time you are defeated. In order to be able to use the self-raise ability a player would either:
1: Have to have a certain amount of TP in their TP gauge before they were defeated or,
2: Have chained a certain amount of enemy kills together in order to activate it.

The self-raise skill would also have a long cooldown on it so you couldn't keep using it to get back up whenever something knocks you down, it'd have something like a 1 hour cooldown or something like that. :p
I think the 1st idea for self-raise would be the most viable, and usefull during long boss fights, as the Reaper would be able to get back up and continue assisting the party in the fight without a healer having to to cast Raise on them, which could cause big problems. However even if the Reaper used self-raise, their equipment would still take the same durability damage as if they'd used return, as well as getting the death debuff that reduces their health and MP, making it dangerous to use but could at the same time help swing the battle in the parties favour with the buffs and debuffs the Reaper can cause.

The best clothing choices I think a Reaper would be fitting for would mostly be leather. They wouldn't be designed to tank so the additional defence from chainmail would unbalance them. At the same time cloth clothing would lack the defence a mellee class usually needs and at the moment there aren't many/any clothing that gives +str, +vit or +dex stats.

Additionally a Reaper would posses a sort of 'perma-buff' in the form of an aura. When your character switches to the Reaper class this aura automatically activates, altering the appearance of your character slightly, such as causing their eyes to glow, hair to move and ripple or even a glow that encompasses the entire character. This aura would affect the Reapers abilities and damage in combat.
when first entering combat the aura would do nothing, but as the battle progressed it would slowly develop in power, increasing the potency of the Reapers buffs and debuffs as well as allowing them to cause additional damage. E.G/ After 10 seconds of combat > Buffs/Debuffs/Attack Power increases by 5%, after 20 seconds increases by 10% and so on, up to a maximum of about 20%.

To go along with this, as the aura's buff increased in potency, the characters appearance could also scale with it, increasing their glow or making their weapons illuminate brighter, giving the player the sense that they are indeed becoming more powerfull.

When exiting combat the aura would slowly degrade back down to it's initial form, which would mean the Reaper would have to make the choice of either immediately leaping into combat again to keep the maximum damage on but risking dieing if their health is low, or wait for their health to regen but lose the extra damage. Being defeated then using self-raise would also cause the aura to reset to it's initial phase.

To balance this along with balancing the buffs, debuffs and health leeches the Reaper could utilise, they would be inherently weak to begin with, so at the start of combat their damage is quite low, but builds to the kind of damage similar to other classes as the fight goes on. The Reapers main role would mostly be as a support with DD secondary, so the amount of damage they do initially would not be as important as other DD's like Archers and Pugilists.

In terms of crafting, Reaper weaponry would be unusual in that it is created by Alchemists instead of Blacksmiths or Carpenters like other classes. Since their weaponry is aetherial based, it'd be quite hard to hit energy with a hammer ;)

The Reaper could also be unique to other classes in that it has to be unlocked before you can play as one. The idea I had for this is you're given a quest that eventually involves defeating a tough monster or boss. However the boss would not be defeatable on your own and would defeat you. When it defeats you though, instead of you having to use return to raise yourself, the Echo activates and sends your character back in time to just a few moments before you battle the monster, essentially causing two of your character to be present at the same time. You then fight alongside your past self and defeat the monster, altering your fate and unlocking the Reaper role.

Since it is a class though, many of it's abilities, such as the buffs and debuffs, would be usable when playing other classes. However the aura and self-raise as well as a few other possible skills would be specific to playing as a Reaper, so as not to break the armoury system as it is now by being able to add it to a class that would over-power. E.G/ Gladiator with self-raise = easy tank.
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Job details and additional thoughts to follow in the next few posts.

Also check out my idea for a future crafting class:
Chocobo Breeder Class/Job

Here would be the resultant job(s) that follow up on the Reaper:

Devilot/Aetherial Warrior/Spectral Knight

The reason I've given the job 3 seperate names is because of a clever idea. A player would have the option of which job they would want to take from the Reaper class, each one having to be unlocked with their relevant quest. Each one would play similar to the Reaper much like how jobs are (from what we've been told) going to be like with other classes (e.g/ gladiator > paladin), being able to utilise the skills of a Reaper along with aquiring job specific skills. However each one would work in a different kind of way and therefore possess seperate types of skills to go with their initial Reaper abilities.

Devilot
The Devilot would advance much stronger as a DD job. The aura buff would change from increases buff and debuff potency to purely increasing overall damage, possibly scaling up to 40% instead of the 20% a Reaper gets. Their buff and debuff skills will still be usable but will only have the base effect of a Reaper, and not benefit from an enhanced aura.

In regards to appearance, the aura of a Devilot would take on a much darker tone to signify that they are designed simply for destruction and damage (no good have shiny pink fluff coming off them when they're meant just to kill stuff :p). This could be something such as their eye-glow/body-glow taking a much more solid appearance with a dark red/purple hue, and their weapon sparking more and more as the aura increases.

Along with this the characters general appearance could change, possibly to include small bats wings on their head/back, and in the case of miqo'te, have their tail change into a more forked appearance much like a devil. This would give the class a much more unique appearance to it.

In terms of clothing and equipment, a Devilot would stick with the general leather gear, possibly even branching to a more stylised appearance of something a bit 'saucier' like Morrigan from Darkstalkers. Sure it screams 'sex appeal', but usually that's what entices a player to play them anyways :p As for weaponry, a Devilot would focus more on use of an aetherial scythe to increase it's general damage output.

Aetherial Warrior
The aetherial warrior would focus much more on their support role in combat. Their aura would increase the buff and debuff potency of Reaper abilities much more, and the job itself would gain even more buff and debuff skills such as more DoT's, some binding, blind, and interrupt abilities, stronger and more potent leech skills and more powerfull stat transferrals such as MP, attack and defence.

For appearance, the aetherial warriors aura would change to something with a more 'parasitic' appearance, maybe with aetherial arms or ripples reaching out from the glow to show the class is designed as a sort of 'leech', similar to something like this.

The clothing again would stay much the same as a Reaper, mostly focussing on leather equipment but possibly with a more torn or ripped appearance like this. As for weaponry, the Aetherial Warrior would focus more on the use of the two aetherial blades, however the blades appearance would change slightly to make them look less solid, perhaps moving or swaying like a parasites antennae.

Spectral Knight
The spectral Knight would be a much larger change from a Reaper, as it would be designed to be a tank. It's self-buffing abilities (such as leeching defence) would be enhanced more potently than what an Aetherial warrior could do, however it's debuffing abilities and MP and HP transfer abilities would lessen so as to not make the job better than an Aetherial Warrior when it came to support. The abilities this job would gain would be more focused around enmity gain and self-survival. Their damage output would stay pretty much the same as a Reapers, since a tank doesn't really require a great deal of damage, only to be able to hold and survive against an enemy.

For appearance the Spectral Knight's aura would be all-encompassing, causing the character to become mildly translucent with small ripples flowing from them. This would give them something of a ghostly appearance which would fit with their ability to mitigate and evade incoming damage.

The clothing would change from leather to chainmail and plate so as to allow them more defence and +vit stats. However seperate from a Gladiator or Paladin, a Spectral Knight's armour would look more broken or ancient, enhancing their 'ghostly apparition' theme, kind of like this. For weaponry they would wield a single aetherial blade, possibly with the choice of axes or maces also, but in their off-hand they would wield an aetherial shield to give them a better appearance as a tank job.

Clothing ideas

As stated in the above post, much of the clothing designs would be based around what job type you have, where as Reapers would mostly stick to the leather equipment already featured in the game along with any extras added in the future.

However to also expand on possible clothing, other materials could be used to create a devilot/aetherial warrior/spectral knights clothing.

At the moment the game contains Latex as a crafting item (yes, I said latex :p), but as many of you may know latex can also be used to create clothes such as like this. Usually we see these kinds of clothes on superheroes or... err... 'questionable' people (No offence meant to those who do wear it). As such some of the clothing for Devilots and Aetherial Warriors could be made from that material along with leather, giving them a more flashy and stylish appearance and making them more unique, though obviously they couldn't go too far with it, we're not going to be seeing S&M gear or Catwoman running around 'cos that'd just be silly :p

As for Spectral Knights, their equipment would be a combination of armoursmithing and alchemy, perhaps introducing a new crafting item such as 'ghost powder', made through alchemy, that could imbue chainmail or platemail with ghostly properties. This would fit with the jobs appearance and make their damage mitigation and evasion make a bit more sense.

*space reserved for additional thoughts/ideas*

bumped now that more information and detail has been included

with a name like reaper, I would think scythes would be a better weapon choice, just my opinion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vanguard319

with a name like reaper, I would think scythes would be a better weapon choice, just my opinion.

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Scythes are one of the two weapon choices. I was going to just go for aetherial blades but thought the same thing as you, can't be called reaper without a scythe, that's why the options in there.