A while back, I took a shot suggesting a new class for the game and it sparked some good discussion, so I decided to take a crack at another suggestion. Introducing…The Ancient.
Background:
Back when Sanctuary was new, a group of the first Nephalem left their homes to wonder the Dry Steppes on a quest to learn all they could of the world. However, they soon found a haven on the east coast of the Steppes and settled. Isolated and long forgotten, these Nephalem were spared from Inarius’ effort to weaken the power of the Nephalem over time. Here they lived their lives while using their magic to hide themselves from the rest of the world.
The fallen star has caught the eye of Sanctuary’s many denizens, including those of the Ancients. Now, a lone warrior has left the safety of their capital to defend Sanctuary from its greatest threat yet.
Appearance:
The Ancient is a true hybrid angel and demon. The body and face are shrouded, like that of an angel, but features like demon wings/arms and glowing red eyes are present. Due to the small population, their features have persisted through the years.
Style:
This is a wide spectrum class that can be played as a melee, distance, or mid-range class. The Ancients are practitioners of Dualism, the balance of good and evil. Thus, they use the essence of good and evil as their fuel for their abilities. Good abilities tend to affect the nature/soul of their target while evil abilities are intended for inflicting physical harm.
Through dualism, the Ancient is always trying to balance their good and evil. Their neutral resource state is a 50/50 resource split. Their actions/abilities constantly affect that balance. For example, evil actions consume good essence and increase evil essence (and vice versa). If left alone over time, the Ancient will naturally rebalance themselves to their natural state.
There are no special weapons for the Ancient; however they harness the power of Aspects. Aspects come in good and evil types and can be used to anoint regular weapons to be used in harmony with the power of the Ancients.
Example of resource generators
Good
-Pardon: You strike your target with a blessing that deals X weapon damage as physical damage. You gain 5 good and lose 5 evil.
-Anoint: You bathe your target in holy water dealing X weapon damage as holy over X seconds. You gain 5 good and lose 5 evil.
Evil
-Torture: You strike the weak spot of your target to deal X weapon damage as physical damage. You lose 5 good and gain 5 evil.
-Soul Steal: Your weapon rips the flesh and evil from your target dealing X weapon damage and causing them to bleed for X weapon damage over X seconds as arcane damage. You lose 5 good and gain 5 evil.
Resource Spenders (a few examples)
Good
-Holy Shock: You channel your good essence into a powerful blast that hits your primary target for X weapon damage (holy) and confuses enemies within X yards for X seconds.
-Heavenly Shards: You release your good essence into fiery shards that fly out randomly dealing X weapon damage each.
-Summon Angel: You summon an angel from the High Heavens to fight by your side. Your angel strikes enemies for x weapon damage.
Evil
-Overload: You force your evil essence into your target, causing them to explode dealing X weapon damage to the target and X weapon damage to all enemies within X yards.
-Guillotine: You slash the neck of your target, dealing X weapon damage and causing them to bleed for X damage over X seconds.
-Hellmouth: You open a chasm of fiery anguish under your target, dealing X weapon damage over X seconds.
Passives (a few examples)
-No Pain, No Gain: Your evil essence generation is increased by 20%.
-Hell No: Your good essence generation is increased by 20%.
-Yin Yang: Your damage can be increased up to 20%. Perfect balance between good/evil = 20%, 100% good (or evil) = 0% bonus.
-Root of Evil: Your evil essence attacks have a X% chance to snare enemies for X seconds.
-God’s Speed: Your movement speed is increased by X% when at full good.
-Hand-y: You receive a bonus based upon the essences you use to anoint your weapons. 1 good/1 evil = increase resistances by X%, 2 good = increase life on hit and life regen per second by X%, 2 evil = increase crit chance and crit hit damage by X%.
Sorry to disappoint you, but the topic of an "angel/demon hybrid" has been discussed over and over - it just isn't going to happen.
Our hero is a Nephalem, something that by definition is a angel/demon hybrid. But a Nephalem doesn't draw on angelic or demonic powers, but on his own inner "nephalem-power" which is something completely different. The ways these powers manifest vary, but they are never demonic or angelic.
As for the skill set you presented - I feel negative towards it. There is no distinctive feature, nothing that would make the proposed class fit into a niche like the other classes do.
Hi Pietrak, thanks for the feedback and starting the discussion!
I think the distinction here is that this is an "unevolved" form of Nephalem that has powers closer to what were used by both angels and demons when the Nephalem was conceived. There could have been different "types" of nephalem that we don't know of (similar to how two siblings may not have the same eye color).
I do agree that I don't see a niche. These are all rough ideas for the sake of having a discussion, but what if the good powers were used as a support function (buffing followers/party members/pets) for a specific function and evil powers were used to inflict damage?
This class with some design tweaks can work. And even can be lore tied to next expansion. Reason: we get hinted next exp could be about Inarius and Lilith. So angel / deamon first generation nephalem could be new playable class. I LOVE that duality resources. I imagine that it regenerate 5 of both kinds every few seconds. So when you start using good generator you will run out of Evil and you cannot generate more Good. You need to use some of that Good resource. (You will not run out fast, but minute of just using +5 good/-5 bad you will be dry in bad and overflow with good.
And regarding appearance, Ancient can look like any other nephalem. Maybe even some ghostly figure like Orek or Alaric.
Regarding resources, you're right that you could end up without a balance of skills, but I think that a full set of skills and design effort could reduce this risk. It could be the skills that use good/evil energy are heavy spenders that do massive damage and have cooldowns, that force a player to balance their resources to maintain effectiveness.
It could also be that there are no real generators and that each ability grants the opposite resource when used this would be similar to the way I mentioned the generators would work, but it would work among all skills.
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A while back, I took a shot suggesting a new class for the game and it sparked some good discussion, so I decided to take a crack at another suggestion. Introducing…The Ancient.
Background:
Back when Sanctuary was new, a group of the first Nephalem left their homes to wonder the Dry Steppes on a quest to learn all they could of the world. However, they soon found a haven on the east coast of the Steppes and settled. Isolated and long forgotten, these Nephalem were spared from Inarius’ effort to weaken the power of the Nephalem over time. Here they lived their lives while using their magic to hide themselves from the rest of the world.
The fallen star has caught the eye of Sanctuary’s many denizens, including those of the Ancients. Now, a lone warrior has left the safety of their capital to defend Sanctuary from its greatest threat yet.
Appearance:
The Ancient is a true hybrid angel and demon. The body and face are shrouded, like that of an angel, but features like demon wings/arms and glowing red eyes are present. Due to the small population, their features have persisted through the years.
Style:
This is a wide spectrum class that can be played as a melee, distance, or mid-range class. The Ancients are practitioners of Dualism, the balance of good and evil. Thus, they use the essence of good and evil as their fuel for their abilities. Good abilities tend to affect the nature/soul of their target while evil abilities are intended for inflicting physical harm.
Through dualism, the Ancient is always trying to balance their good and evil. Their neutral resource state is a 50/50 resource split. Their actions/abilities constantly affect that balance. For example, evil actions consume good essence and increase evil essence (and vice versa). If left alone over time, the Ancient will naturally rebalance themselves to their natural state.
There are no special weapons for the Ancient; however they harness the power of Aspects. Aspects come in good and evil types and can be used to anoint regular weapons to be used in harmony with the power of the Ancients.
Example of resource generators
Good
-Pardon: You strike your target with a blessing that deals X weapon damage as physical damage. You gain 5 good and lose 5 evil.
-Anoint: You bathe your target in holy water dealing X weapon damage as holy over X seconds. You gain 5 good and lose 5 evil.
Evil
-Torture: You strike the weak spot of your target to deal X weapon damage as physical damage. You lose 5 good and gain 5 evil.
-Soul Steal: Your weapon rips the flesh and evil from your target dealing X weapon damage and causing them to bleed for X weapon damage over X seconds as arcane damage. You lose 5 good and gain 5 evil.
Resource Spenders (a few examples)
Good
-Holy Shock: You channel your good essence into a powerful blast that hits your primary target for X weapon damage (holy) and confuses enemies within X yards for X seconds.
-Heavenly Shards: You release your good essence into fiery shards that fly out randomly dealing X weapon damage each.
-Summon Angel: You summon an angel from the High Heavens to fight by your side. Your angel strikes enemies for x weapon damage.
Evil
-Overload: You force your evil essence into your target, causing them to explode dealing X weapon damage to the target and X weapon damage to all enemies within X yards.
-Guillotine: You slash the neck of your target, dealing X weapon damage and causing them to bleed for X damage over X seconds.
-Hellmouth: You open a chasm of fiery anguish under your target, dealing X weapon damage over X seconds.
Passives (a few examples)
-No Pain, No Gain: Your evil essence generation is increased by 20%.
-Hell No: Your good essence generation is increased by 20%.
-Yin Yang: Your damage can be increased up to 20%. Perfect balance between good/evil = 20%, 100% good (or evil) = 0% bonus.
-Root of Evil: Your evil essence attacks have a X% chance to snare enemies for X seconds.
-God’s Speed: Your movement speed is increased by X% when at full good.
-Hand-y: You receive a bonus based upon the essences you use to anoint your weapons. 1 good/1 evil = increase resistances by X%, 2 good = increase life on hit and life regen per second by X%, 2 evil = increase crit chance and crit hit damage by X%.
So…what do you all think?
I think the distinction here is that this is an "unevolved" form of Nephalem that has powers closer to what were used by both angels and demons when the Nephalem was conceived. There could have been different "types" of nephalem that we don't know of (similar to how two siblings may not have the same eye color).
I do agree that I don't see a niche. These are all rough ideas for the sake of having a discussion, but what if the good powers were used as a support function (buffing followers/party members/pets) for a specific function and evil powers were used to inflict damage?
It could also be that there are no real generators and that each ability grants the opposite resource when used this would be similar to the way I mentioned the generators would work, but it would work among all skills.