Old “New” Professions Part One – The Champion

We'll start with the Champion because that's the one I was least interested in working up in detail. Factions had the Assassin and Prophesy had the Warrior – I figured that yet another melee avenue was probably not going to be the best idea (Dervishers, you say? Huh.). But, at the time I was thinking of these things the game was dominated by Warriors. There are, as they say, two basic ways of dealing damage – spike and pressure. And if you wanted to deal pressure Warriors were the go-to class. And they had a pretty decent spike, too. So, my idea was to create a melee class that would be extremely anti-Warrior. A profession that, as a whole, gives any melee combatant as much of a headache as a Whirling Defense Trapper buffed up with Healing Hands. Assassins really shouldn't be winning duels against Warriors – they can if they employ good hit and run tactics – but against an equal opponent the Warrior should have too much defense and resiliency to go down quickly enough for that to work well. Assassins, then, are more for caster hunting. And this profession would be for Warrior hunting.

What I wanted, then, was a profession that would work well as a tank. And would be extremely good in a one on one duel. Which, you know, I pretty much wrote off as a concern for a long time. Then, when I came back to the game I noticed that in high level play there were a lot of times where players would find themselves in a 1v1 or 2v1 situation. And the skills that were really good back in the days of the test (Where the Arena, due to the size and lack of overall interest in PvP, was limited to two players on each side. And most everyone who wanted to PvP had a Warrior of some sort. So it generally turned into a battle of who could outduel whom. Horribly degenerate as the game was still a long way from being done but a lot of fun.) were actually seeing play in high level competition. That got me thinking that designing someone to thrive in such situations wouldn't be a bad idea. And such a profession also wouldn't be out of place in PvE because tanking's pretty important there, too. And while PvE isn't my primary concern it's a big part of the game and I didn't want to make professions that would be gimped because they would only shine in PvP. So, this profession was going to play to a Warrior's tanking side the way Assassin's had slid to their offensive side – getting nastier at the cost of being more vulnerable. The Champion would be better defended at the cost of being not quite as lethal as a top-flight Warrior build.

Since I figured tanking wouldn't be all that useful in most PvP, I figured that as long as Champions were going to be shutting down opposing Warrior's they'd also be able to boost the abilities of their own. This gave them a support element as they'd be buffing and even defending their teammates – I was building a weird sort of Paladin. Which, given how Guild Wars's professions are similar to the classic archetypes yet, in many ways, different that didn't bother me so much.

The other thing I wanted to do was get really nasty with conditions. They're nasty already but, at the time, anyway, you wouldn't see teams concentrating on overloading opponents with conditions the way they would with hexes. And, to me, the reason was that there weren't all that many of them. So, I wanted to add more conditions into the game and I figured that would be a good way for Champions to counter Warriors – through laying on a lot of cheap conditions that they'd have trouble with. In a bit I'm going to detail some skills – as examples - but not all the conditions I dreamed up will be included. So, here they are:

• Fatigue: You lose 1 energy regeneration.
• Weariness: You have a 25% chance to miss with attacks.
• Tar: If you stop moving your movement is slowed by 33% for 3 seconds.
• Deaf: You cannot be affected by shouts.
• Calm: You cannot gain adrenaline.
• Placid: You cannot use adrenal skills or otherwise lose adrenaline.
• Corrosion: Your armor is lowered by 24AL. (I can't quite remember the armor equation but I believe that makes you take 150% damage which is what I'm going for here.)

You'll notice they overlap the existing conditions a lot. And that's intentional. I wanted weaker versions of pre-existing conditions or other ways of doing what they were already doing so that they could be stacked and combined. Look at the way Poison, Bleeding, and Burning relate if you want an illustration. But less effective versions of existing conditions could be used with cheaper skills or be priced lower – the way it's a lot easier to make someone Bleed for a long time than it is to keep them Burning. That way there'd be a lot of conditions to use as covers. And for each new condition there's a new thing to add to any skill and the possibility of some narrow counter like Extinguish.

Throw in my idea for a new type of weapon – the spear – and I figured I had enough. Spears in game I'd have called something like javelins but what I'm talking about here is big, long pikes. Maybe not nine or twelve feet long but something that needs two hands to hold and has a lot of reach. That was my mad idea here, spears would have a longer range than the pre-existing melee weapons. At least double. That way Champion's could train along with Warriors and not get in their way. They'd also be a lot harder to kite from – which was good because I figured another way of limiting a Warrior's effectiveness was to keep them snared and immobile so Champions were going to have a focus on movement.

Okay, now on to the real nitty gritty and a listing of the profession's stats as well as some example skills for their attribute lines. These skills, I'll note, are horribly imbalanced. And they're included not as serious suggestions for actual skills but as a guide to what kind of skills these characters would be using. They're conceptual, in other words, rather than concrete. As someone who's been in the test and watched skills develop, I know that the end results rarely look the same as they do in the initial implementation. Especially for the good skills, names, damages, variables, costs, mechanics, and more can fluctuate wildly. What doesn't, though, is the design space for that skill. What the developers want it to be doing in the game (Now, what the players actually do with it is another story.) is the core of the skill and it's changed and altered to make it fit that role and to make that role fit into the larger game system. If it's too powerful it needs to be toned down. If it's not powerful enough it needs to be brought up to par with everything else.

Champion

Armor: 70+10 physical

Energy: 25/+3

Attributes: Discipline {P}, Formation, Shield Mastery, Spearmanship

So, these guys have Ranger armor and Ranger regeneration – or one energy recovered every second - but aren't as overall as well armored as Rangers – they'd exist somewhere between a Ranger and caster's level of protection. They'd be best against Warriors, naturally, but not amazingly so. They'd have to rely on their skills to survive in a heads-up fight against a decent Warrior. As for looks, they'd be heavily modeled on Greco-Roman themes. I'm thinking of Phallanxes and full-face helmets with crests and plumes.

Skill lines:

Discipline: Primary only. Reduces the duration of hexes and conditions by 4% per rank. (This would basically duplicate what a lot of bosses in the game do. They have something hidden where hexes and conditions and most harmful things only last half as long – and that's what I'm going for here. So, basically, with high enough levels Champions get a built-in Denravi helm. That throws a lot of things out of whack, of course, but since they're supposed to be extremely hardy and survivable I'm okay with things sliding off their backs, so to speak.)

(As for skills, Discipline would be where I'd stick a lot of the Warrior hate. Especially with regards to adrenaline. Here, Champions would be able to play with and deny adrenal gains which would put a crimp in most Warriors.)

• Internal Conflict!: Shout. Target foe loses one strike of adrenaline and takes 10..22 damage for each remaining strike of adrenaline. 5en, 20recharge.
• Slumbering Stance: Stance. For 10 seconds whenever you are struck in melee your attacker becomes Placid (Cannot activate adrenal skills or lose adrenaline) for 10...34 seconds. 10en, 45recharge.
• Warrior of Nod: Stance. For 2...10 seconds whenever you strike an opponent in combat they suffer from Calm (Cannot gain adrenaline) for 5...17 seconds. 5en, 10recharge.
• Peace Out!: {E} Shout. Target loses all adrenaline. 5en, 5recharge. (In my notes I call this “Warrior Sodomy”. It's not that bad but the idea being that even a IASed out sword/axe Warrior wouldn't be able to get off more than a 5 strike adrenal skill. It's costly as it sucks up a whole 3 pips of regen and it ties you to screwing over one character over and over again instead and it doesn't totally shut someone down so it might be a weak elite. But shouts are instant cast, too, so you can be doing something else at the same time. Combined with some other skills it could get pretty nasty.)

Formation (This skill line would feature mostly party wide buffs. It would be the line where a Champion would be buffing their teammate's offense and making them more lethal. It also uses a lot of shouts which is something of a theme for the Champion. Especially shouts that are used offensively because they take the place of spells and hexes. I guess I saw things like “Coward!” and got intrigued by the possibilities. What I've tried to do is stay away from adrenal based skills because that's really a Warrior thing. But there are a few because they deal so much with manipulating it.)

• Furious Anger!: Shout. For 5 seconds nearby allies deal 1...13 more damage when they strike in melee. 4 adrenaline. (I gather in Nightfall they've got whole new ranges dealing with shouts but here, I was stuck using the old ones.)
• Sympathetic Rage!: Hex Shout. For 10...34 seconds target gains half adrenaline. When target gains adrenaline you gain an equal amount. 5En, 30recharge.
• You Shall Know My Vengeance!: Shout. For the next 5 seconds, the next time target ally uses an attack skill this shout ends and they will deal extra damage equal to the damage they've taken since this skill was applied. 10en, 20recharge. (This one is a little complicated and I never really got the mechanics right but the idea would be that it would be absorbing damage for the targeted ally and then unleash that damage right back in their opponent's face.)
• Stay on Target!: {E} Shout. Affects all nearby allies. For 15 seconds, as long as you're nearby an ally you gain double adrenaline. 5en, 15recharge. (From my notes: “This costs a mere pip. This is insane.”)
  

Shield Mastery: Shield requirements. (The idea behind the Champion was to build their skill lines more like the Ranger than like the Warrior. So, just like Rangers get two attributes with passive benefits, so do Champions. Their chosen weapon, the spear is two handed so getting access to a shield is somewhat counter-productive. But, I wouldn't want every Champion to be walking around with a spear just the same way not all Ranges use bows. And the draw here even for a spear using Champion is that this line features a lot of powerful defensive and self-healing measures. It's the Champion's defensively centered line that relates a lot to Tactics.)

• Cover!: Shout. For 2...10 seconds nearby party members have a 25% chance to evade enemy attacks. 5en, 10 recharge.
• None Shall Pass: Stance. For 20 seconds as long as you remain motionless nearby foes have their movement rates reduced by 66%. 10en, 30recharge. (The idea here would be for tanking as well as movement control. But, in Guild Wars there aren't the usual methods of controlling aggro – taunts, basically – that tanks rely on. This skill would be a way of keeping enemies off of the squishies while still allowing them to control their own actions. And, with a spear increasing their melee range, a Champion would still be able to attack even though they weren't moving.)
• Wanning Hope!: Shout. For 5...17 seconds, target ally has a 75% chance to block enemy attacks. This chance is lessened by 5% for each attack successfully blocked. (So, this skill starts out great but fades over time.)
• Ole!: {E} Skill. Target touched foe is knocked back 10 feet behind you. 8 adrenaline. (Knockback is one of those things that really betrays my tabletop roots, I think, but the idea of being able to affect the positioning of other characters just seems cool to me. Since the Champion has greater melee range it means you could push someone away and get in a free hit while they try and run back to you – or push them away and get a headstart on kiting. Or you could do things like push them into a pit of lava or some other environmental hazard. It's potentially very useful. This, for example, would take care of anyone trying to body block – at the cost of sending them deeper into your own lines, perhaps. But potentially very dangerous so, like knockdown, it'd have to be extremely difficult to chain together.)
  

Spearmanship: Increases critical hit rate with spears, spear requirements. (The thing here is that although this is going to be your standard weapon line replete with your standard Power Attack knock-off and all, it's not going to be really about causing massive damage. It's going to be about Cripples, knockdowns, and movement control. It's not going to be a particularly deadly line so it'll lack, say, a Deep Wound so a Champion can't spike as hard as possible. And it also won't include any sort of disruption like Distracting Blow or Disrupting Lunge because those hurt spellcasters much more than melee. The idea here is for lower powered attacks that pile on conditions.)

• Wearying Strike: Spear Attack. If this attack hits you deal +5...17 more damage. If target foe is attacking they suffer from Fatigue (Lose 1 energy regeneration.) for 10...34 seconds. 5En, 10recharge. (One thing I learned from the Taipei championships was that energy denial hurts Warriors badly. A well-built Warrior will be stressing both their adrenal and energy pools just as much as any other character – they just have less. So, draining either pool hurts their overall efficiency and reduces their overall threat level. True story: I was PuGing it up in the arena. Just waiting for some guildies to get on so I was working on networking with people, trying to find some decent people to play with or recruit. The Arena's not as serious a competition so I use it to test out various builds and techniques. At the time I was refining a hyper adrenal build because, you know, I'm sick, and like to play around with the skills other people think aren't any good. Anyhow, it wasn't anything to special. Sword-based so it was the usual Sever+Gash+Final chain with Hundred Blades and Take Off All Zig as an adrenal engine. Pop the shout, hit someone with HB, that charges Sever, then Gash, then the next hit's good for Final, wash, rinse, repeat with maybe one spacer. Makes for a nice four hit spike with a Deep Wound. Throw in the normal Warrior requirements and it's a decent “pure” build. Rezsig, Frenzy, and Rush for the cancel/speed – I'm one of those crazy nuts who'll run around without an on-demand toggle but Rush charges so fast here it doesn't matter and I was burning through a lot of energy (In random I'd probably have swapped out Frenzy for Healsig and/or Endure Pain). Now, for whatever reason – probably just for shits and giggles – I'd morphed into an all adrenal version. Probably Galrath Slash and another undervalued elite like Battle Rage or something. So, anyways, we're tearing things up and I'm living off of pure adrenaline. Then we loaded into a match with a NecroMes. Which, let me just say, I hate on general principle. The inverse makes a lot more sense, to me, because this was Arena – exactly how many deaths are you expecting, anyway, that's going to make Soul Reaping worth it? Not enough, if you ask me. And I'd much rather have whatever points were thrown at that put into something that makes me more of an actual threat – Fast Casting. Even three or four ranks means the difference between sucking interrupt and getting off that crucial debuff. If you can't figure out a way to make the energy work then it's time to get out of the kiddy pool and pick another prof. And, I know, primary Necros get Necro runes which can make the attributes work better. But, well, for the most part the breakpoints on Necro and Mesmer stuff are pretty forgiving and you don't need to break 12, so you can figure out another way of getting the points. The only real line you need to spec a lot in is for Blood spike. And that's not what this guy was doing. Backed up by a decent Monk who actually knew how to use removal, I zeroed in on the NecroMes to charge on. And he hit me with Malaise. I practically died laughing because, I mean, I had two energy skills on my bar and he was trying to drain me? And he kept the thing on me the whole match. However, as the battle wore on I noticed that I was having real energy problems. Using just For Great Justice and Frenzy on the one pip was too much (I believe I got hit with some other drains like Ether Feast, too). I wasn't completely out of the match, but I was severely hampered. With no IAS my adrenal gain was lowered and that sunk my DPS and even my energy pool because that meant my zealous weapon wasn't working at peak efficiency. And all it took was that Malaise to tip me over into irrelevance (Hex heavy team, our removal was overstressed or it would have been removed but compared to things like Spiteful or Backfire it didn't rate.))
• Sharp Poke: Spear Attack. If this attack hits you deal only 1...13 damage. Target foe is knocked back 5 feet. 5En, 1/4cast, 15recharge. (This would push them to the start of spear range, basically. )
• Leg Sweep: Spear Attack. All nearby foes are Crippled for 10...22 seconds. 5En, 30 recharge.
• Enduring Thrust: {E} Spear Attack. If this attack hits you deal +10...22 more damage. If target foe is suffering from a condition they take double damage and the duration of all their conditions is renewed. 5En, 10recharge. (Potentially very nasty, especially combined with something like Fragility.)

And there you have it. Mostly, I just imagine people will be running around going, "I'm a Champion!" and singing Queen anthems. But I think it's a profession with some interesting quirks that would slot into the game in a lot of ways. Unfortunately, most of what it does is seemingly being done by the Paragon. The only big conceptual difference is that I went with melee while the Paragon went with range. If I was doing this nowadays, I'd probably focus more on using a Champion to control adrenaline and using them as an offensive force-multiplier. Rather than what I have here where they're tanks with some interesting melee hate utility and movement control to replace aggro control.

Next time I'll go into more detail on the Ascetic - the pressure caster.