Ideas for Samurai

[Marxam]

I envision samurai to be similar to monk in that it would have stances or in this case the five stance in Kendo:

Chūdan-no-kamae
Gedan-no-kamae
Hassō-no-kamae
Jōdan-no-kamae
Waki-gamae

The progression is pretty much the same as you move through the stances with moves being only available in their respective stances, however unlike Monk you can start at any stance and progress through normally.

You will also build stacks and they build up similar to how wrath works for warriors and not like monk where only the coeurl form give you a stack. These stacks go up to 10 and are use for "Skillbreaks".

Skillbreaks is on a 30 sec cd and acts similar to using Inner Beast where you use up a certain amount of stacks (depending on which action you use) to gain an additional effect for the next action used. For example if you use Skillbreak then perform a skill under the stance "Jōdan-no-kamae" then it will gain double potency. There are five Skillbreak actions (one for each stance) ranging from more damage, adding a bleed dot, and even a bind.

Samurai can also perform a move (420 sec cd and only at full hp) called Seppuku where you inflict damage on yourself leaving you at 1 hp, bound and pacified for 5 seconds but deal the remaining damage to a boss. For example;

you have 9999/9999 hp > use Seppuku > 1/9999 hp > enemy takes 9998 damage.

It would be a mix of the monk and ninja where you gain stacks and then use them on skills off gcd to increase your dps. I would make Samurai more like the Dragoon where it offers not much raid utility but more like monk where if you stay in the fight longer you can be top dps and I imagine it would be top dps. This is countered by the fact that it lack any real party utility other than being a power house. I'd like it to be similar to the wandering Samurai lore in feudal Japan were you have these insanely strong swordsmen who can fend for themselves but often come to gripes when confronted in a party situation. Think Auron from FFX

[Kenji_Shiratsuki]

-snip-

I love this idea. Obviously the devs would have to run it through testing and streamlining, but it could even be mixed with the skillchains idea. Could even have the high TP cost abilities and low combo abilities idea worked in from an above poster. Honestly, I think SAM could work great as a non-positional melee DPS, like dragoon is. Only like...2 moves maybe are better from one position than another. SAM could have deep complexity to make up for having absolutely no positional moves. I'd like another class where I really have to THINK as a DPS and build up to my burst damage with well-planned combos.