Alternate Advancement Ideas

[Jooma]

We won't see this for a while (if at all) but it's threads like these where great unique ideas can be concieved.

For those that have never played EverQuest, Alternate Advancements were a way for a class to uniquely add and upgrade abilities by allocating your own chosen amount of experience gained from your "exp bar" to your "AA bar".

IE: you could choose to have 30% of your exp to go towards leveling and 70% towards building up Alternate Advancement points. Points are then spent on things like Unique class abilities or general things like increased run speed.

I haven't read a 100% confirmation of this to be included but I did read that the developers want to do this for the first expansion or something.


So have fun, be creative, be unique and post your ideas for cool new abilities or upgrades!



Chaotic Bond: The Dread Knight uses fear to cripple the will of his foe and entwines their life forces into one as he claims his new servant.

- Charm target creature
- Charmed creature shares your health pool, should either you or your pet die the other shares the same fate.
- Creature must be feared to become charmed, Must be behind the target.
- If the Charm is broken or pet is released the creature reclaims the same health pool it had before the spell was cast.

[Niteflyx]

Feign Death, Summon Corpse =p

[TeamSKKeris]

Kiss of Death (Slay Upgrade)
Upon killing blow to the mob 20% x level of DC damage done is absorbed by the Dread Knight as a heal.

Agony (Harrow Upgrade)
Deals 50% x level of DC weapon damage, and returns that amount of health and energy.

Shadow Bonding
Group buff that gives 1% x level of DC avoidance and 20 x level of DC spiritual + cold resist.

Group Symbol
Symbol the Dread Knight currently is using is given to the group. Only one per person. AKA if two dreads are in the group and one gives DS first then one gives Stun group would have DS and not stun.

Dire Countenance
Increase all DC % calculations by 0.5% per level of DC.

Excruciation
Uses the fear of the Dread Knight to draw out the life of a target. For every point of damage done by the DK this ability returns 20% x level of DC hp for 15 seconds. Lowers DC to 0. Recast 30 minutes.

ADDITIONS:

Zweihänder Guard
With this ability the dread knight becomes a master of the two-handed weapon style. He is able to block with his weapon as good as any shield. He gains the bonus of 25 AC x level of DC + 15% block on level when using a two-handed weapon.

Master of Darkness
Dread Knight gains the ability to perform attacks, etc while under Shadowy Veil. This gives him an extra +0.5% avoidance per level of DC.

Fearful Reactions
The dread knight has become an adept at battling mobs under duress. This provides an extra 1% x level of DC accuracy bonus to the DK.

Child of Shadows
Gives the DK a new form that gives:
+2% avoidance x level of DC
+1% haste x level of DC
+1 endurance regen x level of DC
+10% x level of DC damage on all taps

[Jooma]

Nights Embrace - Passive Abilty - During the hours of the night the Dread Knight recieves 10% increase in both melee attack speed and movement speed.


Symbol of Crippling - 15% Chance that an enemy will be slowed by 5% * DC for 10 seconds.


Shadow Cleave - While active your attacks do 10% Splash Damage to all other targets in front of you for 10m. Costs = 10 energy/sec.

Night Terror - Multiple instances of the Dread Knight appear from the shadows to attack your foes. Dread Knight instances each do 5 attacks before returning to their realms.

[Niteflyx]

I like the ideas incorporating DC. My faves so far are the increase modifiers by .5% for every DC level (so mitigation on AOD at DC5 would be 17.5% mitigation) Right?\

And the 2hand tanking ability was cool

[Xaices]

Keep them comming. I will point Avair this direction. Jooma is right mroe abilities will eventualy make it into game name it what you will AA, MCA, RA, but as the game progresses so will the arsenal of abilities for the classes.

[Hyatt]

How about a Dopplewalk type skill, an upgrade from Shadowy Veil.

Dopplewalk:

Leaves an illusion of yourself behind as you enter Invisibility.

Level 1: Deals 25% damage, takes 300% damage. Lasts 10 seconds.
Level 2: Deals 50% damage, takes 200% damage. Lasts 20 seconds.
Level 3: Deals 75% damage, takes 150% damage. Lasts 30 seconds.
Level 4: Deals 100% damage, takes 100% damage. Lasts 40 seconds.


Or an upgrade from Slay or WoD:

Reaper's Scythe (Ranged)

Brings a target to full realization of its own mortality, dealing damage based on how much life the target is missing. Stuns for 3 seconds. 10 min recast.

Level 1 - .4 damage per life missing.
Level 2 - .6 damage per life missing.
Level 3 - .9 damage per life missing.
Level 4 - 1.1 damage per life missing.

Obviously OP in PvE, so scale it differently per dot level of mob.


How about Orb effects like symbols, only 1 activatable at a time, with a required energy cost to maintain. Make it a lot more than Symbols though. So they could only be used for say 30-40 seconds before completely draining your energy bar.

Lifesteal 10/20/30/40% of damage per hit.
Feedback: combust 2/4/6% Energy per hit dealing equal damage in HP to target.
Corruption: Decrease target armor by 0.5/1/1.5% per hit
Maim: Slows target movement speed by 2/4% per hit and attack/cast haste by 0.5/1% per hit.


Going on from Jooma's ideas about night. How about some abilities which have an additional effect at night:

Dark Ward: Also adds evasion at night.
Abyssal Chains: Added DoT component.
Tortue: Weakens opponent's attack power per tick.
DC: Disperses a % of incoming damage in an AoE around you. % increase with DC level.
SoD: Heals everyone in your group for half the amount you are healed.
Devour Strength: Steals all attributes.

And an ability to make it night instantly for a duration with a long recast. Like Nightstalker.

Rip-offs from DotA but I think they could work.

[Jooma]

heh I was gonna say you must have got all that from Dota.

Dota is an excellent place to find starting point ideas on class skills. I've never played a game with so many deverse characters that maintains that much balance.

[Jooma]

Energy Leak - Darkness shrouds your target causing their spells to cost 2% additional energy cost per level of Dreadful Countenance.

Symbol of Despersion - Whenever you are hit with an offensive spell there is an 8% chance that you will reflect the damage divided equally among all surrounding enemies within 10m in front of you.

Vexxing Haste - Passive - Landing a critical blow when using the Vexxting Strike ability increases your attack speed by 2% per level of Dreadful Countenance for 10 seconds.

[velzevul]

the problem with all these abilities is they will introduce more code complexities into our class's code. while they are all totally great ideas, I feel we need to get DC fixed and AoD fixed, before we can move forward with trying to push Sigil for adding new abilities.

Plus, DRK is the most versatile tank anyways right now, maybe not the best at any specifics, but most versatile for sure, adding more abilities that expand class's horizons... how do you propose it balances out with Paladin or warrior?