Musketeer class idea

[DarkStar]

So, the main reason I'm posting right now is just to let people know that I am still working on this idea. It's just that with the recent release of 2.1, I've been too busy enjoying the game to worry about my interpretation of a yet-to-be-released class. However, looking over Kitru's post, I can see that I did indeed mess a few things up. So, I'm going to touch on everything she had a criticism about, taking it from the top.

150 potency with an 80% weight without a CD is pretty powerful, even if it does diminish over time. Remember that you're talking about an rDPS here: the only movement impairing ability that BRD gets is Shadowbind, which break when the target attacks, for good reason. Without stringent limitations on movement impairing effects, classes with full mobility and ranged capability become kiting *gods*, so I would look into doing something to severely restrict the usability of this ability (if it's even kept around).

I was under the impression that both Stone and Blizzard inflicted Weight and had similar potencies. Unless the power of the effect is a lot less, in which case, I'd appreciate knowing what percentage they use so I can edit that in.

That's an insanely long CD on an AoE that is, honestly, really bad. Pretty much every other AoE in the entire game (barring status effect AoEs) hits harder than that and doesn't even have a CD. The only thing that even remotely justifies the CD is the trait you get at 36, so you're, effectively, providing an ability at level 6 that it's pointless until 36. If you want it to be a pseudo-clone of Flaming Arrow, just make it like that from the beginning and get rid of the trait. Also, because you're really just copying Flaming Arrow with some *very* minor tweaks, change it up a bit: instead of a ground patch, have it apply a DoT to all targets hit. It's effectively the same thing and actually makes it different.

This was actually a typo on my part. I had intended to cut the cooldown to 10 seconds. However, I suppose you're right. I'll be improving the base potency a bit, say to about 125 perhaps, and then changing the trait so it instead inflicts a physical damage DoT, and then changing the name of the trait to "Fragmentation Grenade" to reflect this.

Again, though, thanks for catching the problem with the cooldown.

You want to say "Cure potency varies with current attack power" since it's really just a weaker/lower CD Second Wind, though you *are* making it stronger than Second Wind, over time. PGL has a reason to have Second Wind, given that they're a melee job and are going to take more damage, so I'm not entirely sure I see a reason to give them a survivability CD like this (BRD has no native survivability CDs, which is probably appropriate given that they can just kite stuff indefinitely while still blowing it up).

I don't really see the point of changing the ability so much. It's not like giving a hardcast MND based heal to MSK would really give it all that much of an advantage and it would make conversion into CHE actually make a bit more sense since there isn't really any precedent for changing every single aspect of an ability when you job swap (Summon I/II/III don't change the range, cast time, or cost; just the "target").

Again, thanks for pointing out an issue with the description. I had forgotten that Monk's Second Wind read that it varies with Attack Power. And considering that Monk is my main class, I'm especially ashamed about that typo. ><

As for the rest of your comment, I'm not really that big on the idea of making Chemist reliant on a cross-class skill for a base-line heal. I suppose I could make it the new level 30 Chemist skill, but that'd mean the other skills that CHE is reliant on would have to get their functionality changed the moment you equip the soul crystal. That'd also mean a lot of other things would need to change, which I'll go into once we get to Chemist.

So, for the time being at least, Emergency Potion is here to stay. Next!

Same thing applies to this as Emergency Potion. There's not really a reason to *not* have a cast time other than you think that using an item should be instant. It can't be used out of combat so it's not like being instant provides any real benefit and the 30 sec CD actually makes it more annoying because you're having to wait 30 secs to pick up more than one person. Just give it the standard 8 second cast and explain it as the caster either searching for it or synthesizing it on the fly.

Okay, here at least I completely agree with you, and you're right about the lack of a cast time. As you say later on in your post, cast times on healing abilities are necessary for balance, so I guess I'll go with that.

A buff to Determination doesn't actually do all that much because Determination is worth something like 15-20% of the same number of points of main stat. The de/buffs that are labelled as "determination up/down" are actually increases or decreases to damage dealt and don't actually affect the determination stat. Just make it a damage and healing buff since that's what you're trying to do in the first place.

That was actually my original plan, but it seems that you're the only person who likes that idea. My initial beta-reader didn't like the idea because it was "Maim and Mend on a cooldown", and the only other person to comment on it was MartaDemireux, who thought a Determination buff would be more interesting than a direct buff to damage and healing.

Honestly, I'm just gonna go back to my old idea of it boosting damage if a Musketeer or Corsair or Healing if a Chemist, and if anyone else complains about that, I'm just going to ignore them.

The devs are getting rid of Invigorate on BRD for a reason. BRDs (and this class as well) are going to be able to keep up damage on an effectively constant basis thanks to range and mobility so providing them with additional resource gain (especially given that you're providing them with a 25% uptime resource gain that can and should be used on CD since it's an over time effect which makes it effectively impossible to waste since you can just keep shooting all the while).

I went with the 'over-time' effect because I didn't feel like stealing Lancer's Invigorate and giving it a new name. I originally built this in because I believed that a class that can keep attacking even while it's running to avoid AoEs would be quickly starved of TP, but since apparently this was never a problem for Archer/Bard, I guess it likely wouldn't be a problem for Musketeer either. Plus, since Chemist has Restorative Draught (which I'll comment on when we get to it), this isn't really necessary anymore I guess. Maybe I'll see about replacing it with an enmity shedding skill...

That doesn't really work. The only ability that's off-GCD that can be chain cast has a 2.5 sec CD to prevent it from being automatically chaincast, not to mention that you still can't use abilities while another is animating (some of which last a full 2 seconds) so you're not really providing a consistent benefit. It would make more sense to just have it increase attack speed (not skill speed) by an extreme amount (50%, 75% with talent) for a short duration (~7.5 seconds).

Hmm...I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about, but I can still see that as-written this ability isn't quite as useful as I thought it'd be. As such, I think I'll go with your suggestion anyway.

Not entirely sure I see the logic in having a single target attack as the tier 2 combo of an AoE.

This was a typo. Scatterburst is also supposed to be a conical AoE. Thank you for catching this.

Really not sure I see the point of this given that you've got Split Shot, which, with the trait, makes it deal effectively the same damage. You should either give this a secondary effect so that you're not effectively duplicating Split Shot or replace it with something else entirely (and make Detonator combo off of Split Shot).

Not sure what I see you mean about Split Shot doing the same damage as Blast Shot with the trait, but whatever. I'll think on this some more. Maybe give it a debuff that lowers the enemy's resistance to whatever damage type Pistols would use.

Why not just make it a stance that consumes MP while it's active instead of making it a CD? It's *enchanted* ammo, so it makes sense and allows the MSK to actually get some use out of its MP. The trait could either increase damage, decrease cost, or provide some kind of proc benefit, like a 5% chance to reduce the target's resistance by 10% for 10 seconds with every hit.

Pugilist/Monk doesn't get any native use of its MP. Lancer/Dragoon doesn't get any native use of its MP. Marauder/Warrior doesn't get any native use of its MP. The only Disciple of War classes that get any native use out of their MP are Gladiator/Paladin through Flash, and Archer/Bard through its songs. And in the case of the songs, the MP drain acts more like a 'soft duration/cooldown' near as I can tell. So, as such, until you can provide a better reasoning for why I should change this, I'm keeping it as-is.

Also, yes, it's enchanted ammo. That doesn't mean the Musketeer was the one doing the enchanting. This is fantasy. It's entirely possible your invisible ammo pouch could hold pre-enchanted ammo, just like how your Archer/Bard's invisible quiver could have arrows enchanted with wind magic, AKA, Wind Bite.

It's the big damage attack *and* it's a self-buff. Not entirely sure I think it makes all that much sense, especially given that there's not really all that much complexity to the rotation. As written, the rotation is just going to be

The rotation is just going to be...?

But regardless, I'll think on what Detonator could do, but honestly, I still like the idea of it giving a boost to crit rate, particularly since it's the level 50 ability.

Not *entirely* sure why you made it reduce enmity generated, given that an enmity reduction ability should probably be part of the MSK's wheelbox and could just as easily be used by Chemist without giving them a global enmity reduction (keep in mind, SCH has to use its pet and shields to achieve lower enmity while WHM has to use Shroud; BRD has Quelling Shots as a native ability so it might be appropriate to give it to MSK as well).

There isn't really precedent for changing an ability's name upon class change so I'm not entirely sure that it should be done.

I made it reduce enmity because, outside of its main heal, all of Chemist's healing skills include HoTs, which a WHM friend of mine says generate HUGE amounts of hate. Thus, a global enmity reduction would be necessary to keep Chemist a viable healer. The only alternative would be to change how HoTs generate hate, but I was under the impression that these class ideas were being made under the impression that features such as base enmity generation would remain basically the same throughout the entire lifespan of the game.

Besides, it's not like this gives the Chemist free reign to do craptons of damage without generating any hate whatsoever, considering they swap DEX and MND when in their 'healing stance', if that's what you were worried about.

As for changing an ability's name, I don't see why it SHOULDN'T be done. Also, you did it yourself with your Thief into Ninja idea. NEXT!

As written, this is in direct conflict with the Grenade trait you provided. If you really wanted to make it not just a powered up ranged clone of Medica II (Medica II is 200 potency with 100 potency for 15 seconds), change it up a bit. Have the HoT effect become a healing puddle. You could remove the CD and just have it be so that only a single patch can be out at a single time, which allows the CHE to spam AoE heal a bit at reduced efficiency while still being able to use it "efficiently", similar to how WHM can use follow up a Medica II cast with some Medica spam if they really need to throw down the AoE healing.

Refer to what I said earlier about Grenade. As for it being a "Powered Up ranged clone of Medica II", I actually had never even looked at Medica II while I was making it. I was more looking at Cure III. However, that "Healing Puddle" idea is an interesting suggestion, and I might go with that instead. I'll need to think about it more later.

That's a *lot* of stuff that can regularly provide global bonuses. The procs that WHM gets are all specific to certain abilities, not global, (that's increasing efficiency of all of your heals by 46.7%) and have *much* lower proc chances (25% proc chance means that you could expect to maintain a near 100% uptime just by spamming Potion). You need to reduce the number of abilities that can proc it and reduce the proc chances themselves.

I also don't really see how the name "Medic's Aim" makes all that much sense, given that you're *already* guaranteed to hit people with your heals. You don't even really need to name it in the first place, given that you could just include those benefits as additional effects applied to the abilities upon job changing, which also allows you to specific the procs (i.e. Potion has a 25% chance to reduce TP cost of your next heal by 50%) and change up the effects so that they're not nearly as borked as written.

I'll think on this.

That's a potency 1800 heal (600 + 4 ticks of 300). Given that you're trying to make this the "Cure II" of the class, you really need to fix it. Since it's your big heal, it needs to be frontloaded but you obviously want this to fulfill a similar role as Regen. One thing you could do is have it be a small amount of instant healing (200 potency) with a HoT effect (75 potency for 18 seconds) and, when you heal a target already affected by this ability (i.e. receiving the HoT), the initial heal is increased by 450 to 650 (6 x 75) but the HoT effect isn't applied. This turns it into both a maintenance heal like Regen *and* a burst heal like Cure II.

Funny how I completely missed the overall potency. Anyway, I think I'll use your suggestion, since that is kind what I was trying to go for. Turn it into a maintenance heal that also turns Potion into a burst heal when used on the same target.

You didn't list a CD, but I'm going to assume that you meant it to be something like 5 minutes. Even if it were something even higher like the 7 min that Hallowed Ground has, *that's borked as hell*. 50% of max hp *and* fully restoring *all* of their TP and MP is *insanely* strong. That's stronger than the tier 2 Healer LB. The WHM uber-heal, Benediction, has a 5 min CD and fully heals a *single* target without affecting their resources at all.

This needs to be powered down *a crapton*.

Yes, I did in fact intend it to have a 5 minute cooldown. Once more, thank you for catching that typo. I'm thinking I'm going to reduce the resource regeneration to 3% per 3 seconds for 15 seconds, perhaps?

It is vital for healing abilities to have cast times. Without them, you get into the same situation that BRD has when weighed against the other DPS classes, because you'd be giving CHE full mobility to go along with their full healing capability.

I was not aware of this. I'll look into giving the healing abilities appropriate cast times.

These aren't balanced at all. First off, they have no uptime limitation so they can be kept up *at all time*. Since it's only coming at the cost of 15% of their own DPS, they'd just keep them up all the time because the benefits, especially when they're applied to more than one target, are *monumentally* more valuable than a slight reduction in damage. On top of this, since the benefits are determined upon use, you could just stand around for a little while, casting and recasting the dice you want until you get the dice roll that you want and then keep it up at all times.

You need to find a way to force limited uptime upon the abilities, and, if you *really* want to have the random aspect of it (once again, I don't really agree with this), have the randomness occur continually rather than just at the point of activation (i.e. the roll is made every 6 seconds and the buff size changes accordingly). As to the buff types themselves, I'm strangely ambivalent. Attack speed increase works for only buffing DoW classes, but the other buffs are kind of funky. Healers benefit from 2 of the dice types (Marauder's with increased PIE) and Arcanist's (increased Healing potency). Casters only really benefit from Arcanist's, given that BLM and SMN are both designed to have effectively unlimited resource pools (Aetherflow for SMN and Umbral Ice for BLM), and, even then, only SMN is going to get an appreciable benefit since the only periodic damage that BLM has is Thunder and Thunder's DoT is pretty mediocre (Thunder's real value is in Thundercloud, which gives you a free, instant-ast Thunder III with fully frontloaded damage along with the existing DoT; the DoT is just there to activate the proc). Marauder's has *really* questionable for a number of reasons. Increasing hp without healing a commensurate amount simply leaves you at current hp and the ability to be healed up to a higher value so everyone would have to be healed in order to actually get any value of it; tanks are all about predictability so the random value of it wouldn't really do what it should; the fact that it's a raidwide increase to eHP means that the only times it would be useful would be for burst AoE damage scenarios, like the primal signature attacks, which are already relatively easy to survive unless your healers are oblivious or you're woefully undergeared.

Assuming you fix the general issues concerning the dice, you should probably reevaluate the benefits. As it stands, DoW classes get way more than anyone else thanks to Musketeer's Dice, which needs to be fixed either by making Musketeer's Dice provide a benefit in line with the benefits that the other roles/classes get. If you wanted to buff the other Dice, a more useful benefit for Marauder's dice would be to have it be something like a raidwide Bloodbath, so that everyone heals for 5-15% of their damage dealt, which is a useful benefit for everyone but especially beneficial for tanks/healers (tanks because they're self healing and healers because it's, for all intents and purposes, an AoE heal which decreases their load). As for Arcanist's, you could have it be a spell speed clone of Musketeer's; considering Army's Paeon and Mage's Ballad, it's not like you can't just mirror them.

I'm going to leave Musketeer's Dice mainly as-is. The attack speed bonus is lesser than what Monk gets through Greased Lightning, which honestly was what I was going with. However, I do like your suggestions for Marauder's and Arcanist's dice, and I'll use those ideas for them. Also, I think I'll go with your suggestion to make it continually re-roll over the duration, so that Loaded Dice, once again, has a reason for existence.

Speaking of which, the fact that you're not saying anything about it tells me that you approve of that ability. Hooray!

A 5 min AoE nuke is kind of out of place. The long-CD AoE nuke niche is kind of fulfilled by the caster limit break, and this really muscles in on that. It also doesn't really jive with COR's whole "support" role. Death From Above, the AoE that BRD's get, is a 10% damage debuff, so it's both an attack and a support mechanism (and, because BRD honestly has better AoE damage abilities, it's more of a support ability than a damage ability). I would reduce the CD and effect to something less absurd while finding some way for it to provide a level of support, possibly acting like an AoE that drops a patch with a Virus-like effect (i.e reduce INT/MIN/STR/DEX by 15%).

Hmm, I think I'll go with that idea of yours. Call the debuff while they're standing in the patch "Lead Dust" or something, I guess. Give it a 2-3 minute cooldown and, obviously, drop the damage potency way down. Maybe 200 potency?


Anyway, thanks for your feedback and catching all those typos. I'll be working on this idea some more, and when I feel it's ready to get torn apart again, I'll post the latest revision.