Fantasy New Class league!

This post was actually something I wrote ages ago (April 2009 to be exact) on my ‘non-dwarf’ kin: Heroes of Eriador’s forum (Eldar-EU), and to be honest it was great fun to do. At the time I wrote it the we had a discussion about if there was room for more classes, and generally we decided it would be either hybrid, or some serious lore stretching as most the bases had been covered. However for fun, I came up with a class of my own, and it gave me a great appreciation for game devs job challenges.

Wednesday last week I was cleaning my desk at work and I found a piece of paper with some notes I had made about it (yes sad I know! :D) And I thought it might be fun to go back over it and edit it and refine a little for a blog post. I was logged on to do a little more editing on Saturday night this weekend and Imagine my surprise when I saw this post on CSTM. I thought it was pie in the sky, but sounds like they still haven’t written off potential new classes. I think I generally a lot of people are right in saying that they should stick to refining and developing the classes with have… but then again I have serious altoholism.. so one more can’t hurt surely!

So here is the edited post for the Ranger class:

I had an idea for a ‘Ranger’ class for men and elves only. It was a DPS/Buff hybrid, to reflect  a Dundain ranger, Galadhrim border guards and Ithilien Rangers from the books. Sort of a stealthy skilled hunter/champion/capt/burg rather than just a high dps. I felt hunters don’t actually cut the mustard as a ‘ranger’ class ala Aragorn or Faramir, as rangers are inspiring heroes who are stalwart and encourage each other, from a game point fo view the idea of these ass ‘buffs’ and minor heals works well.

Basic skill they would use Bow, 2 handed swords, dual wield with swords, axes and knives only. A ‘ranger’ bar like fervour or focus, and ideally even combining a few of the skills in a “warden” style gambit or combination attack, which would provide a 10 second window to execute a special attack/buff. They should also have Basic trap skills, fire oil use, and maybe some limited ports. They would wear medium armour, but traited down a particular path (probably dps/buffing path) I envisage being able to trait heavy armour (maybe a legendary trait) at the loss of some stealth/trapping skills etc. So here are some ideas for attacks

Melee

• Strike: damage (adds +1 ranger point)
• Strike: damage + evade buff (adds +1 ranger point)
• Last Defence: When the ranger is below 50% health this large melee attack will crit high and when it does crit will heal the ranger (cost 4 ranger points)
• Sweeping Strike: AOE 3 targets: stuns 3 targs for 3- 6 seconds + 10% ‘knockdown’ chance for FS on one targ (randomly chosen) (cost -3 ranger points)
• Sweeping Strike :AOE 3 targs + minor bleed (adds 1 ranger point)
• Inspiring Charge: shout and melee attack increases wound/dis/acid etc resistances of FS for xx seconds
• Dismaying strike: Target loses xx health restoring you xx health (cost -2 ranger points)

Ranged

• Basic Shot: dmg (+1 ranger point)
• Basic Shot: dmg +parry buff (+1 rangers point)
• Poisoned Arrow: dmg + 10% incoming damage on target for 10 seconds, 1 min CD (cost -2/3 ranger points)
• Distracting Shot: dmg and target abandons its current target (cost -3/4 ranger points)
• Inspired Shot: (close range throwing axe/guard/champs bow distance) dmg and returns power over time, can be traited to FS power over time.
• Pinned- dmg and single target root for 30 seconds, 30 sec CD

Orders/Shouts

• Voice in the trees: a Fear, target flees for 20 sec
• Stand true: heal- small/med, 30 second CD
• B/P/E buff: for self or FS member, (cost -3/4 ranger points)
• Manipulating Voice: Your target disappears from mobs sight for 10 seconds (cost -5 ranger points)
• Stand men of the west: +2 hope + icmr and icpr buff (possibly legendary? 10 min CD, 2 minute duration)
• Hands of a healer: Removes 1 disease (30 second CD)
• Fear no evil: Removes 1 fear effect and adds a fear buff which removes the next fear effect applied to the target (45 second CD)
• Enduring resilience: high ICPR buff for 20 seconds, 5 min CD
• Tale of Gil-Galad: -10% attack speed + 10% damage
• Lay of Luthien:  -20% incoming damage all sources
• Stealth ability (2 min CD)
• Bow shot (from stealth only): Paralysing fear (20 second stun- chance for FS manoeuvre 20%)

So less pure ranged damage and more ranged buffs/debuffs. It could be developed into a dps trait line, a healing/buffing trait line, and a CC/FS move trait line. Plenty flaky in places,but I had fun then and it was fun re-writing it.

Another class I would love to see is something lore appropriate added to allow dwarf and hobbits a little more CC/Buffs, ala the captain/LM, but it would be tricky to work out, I have always dreamed of a dwarf captain, but then again unlike men an elves, dwarves don’t need inspiring, they just put their heads down and shoulder the burden. So what would your class be? Have a go, its great fun and also gives you an appreciation for the developers challenges!

Burglar Quicklot Organisations done

Finally finished my page on Burglar quickslot organisations which you can find here.  I have some more Burglar articles on playstyle to start or in the works, though they may take a little more time. This is the last of my 3 classes I play at cap so there will be a little break in these legacy/quickslot articles for the time being, as I’d really rather wait until I have a character at 60-65 until I write more. I have a Guardian and Hunter in the early 50’s, though the next will likely be my rune-keeper who is currently racing through the 50’s as a healing RK, along with Emmas Champ, and I’m having a blast with. In the mean time I am finishing some more Kin history posts and the above mentioned burglar playstyle articles, so thanks for checking the site out, please feel free to leave a comment or drop us an email.

Adam

Burglar articles are coming, honest!

I have finally finished my article on the burglar legacies, and what I use, and am cracking on with the quicklot layout article (though my set up is currently far from ideal, which isn’t helping). I have also been trying to write a burglar set up article, so I apoligise how long it is taking, but things have been hectic and its taken me a while to get back to these, but they are now on their way again!

New Servers Names

For those of you who haven’t get yourselves over to the Codemasters forums and vote for our new server names beign created with the F2P updates in Autumn.

The names on offer are:

• Celduin
• Limlight
• Maethor
• Anduin
• Elfstone
• Gwaihir
• Sindar
• Entwash
• Rhimdath
• Withywindle

My vote went for Anduin, but some great choices there, really impressed with the Codies choices!

Ganin and Az in Angmar

Firstly I should say we have both been on holiday and very busy so little or no lotro time, but that all over we have got back round to some lotro. We both dinged 50 tonight on Emmas Dwarf Champion Ganin, and My DWarf Runekeeper Azaghar, both stalwarts of the Khazad Guard. Our chosen area of choice was Angmar, completing the the Volume 1, Epic book 7 and 8, and a few rounds of quests at Gath Forthnir in Angmar. Angmar isn’t the most popular place amognst many players, but I like it. It really feels like are taking the fight to the enemy, which is exactly what a pair of tough dwarves like Ganin and Azaghar should be doing, not larking about in sunnier climes. We have one or two quests to tie off there, and a little more rep to gain to get kindred and perhaps a nice horse each, then we shall probably follow the epic book on, or take ourselves off to Forochel one of my other favourite zones. The hope is we can have fun and level these two guys up enough to be able to go exploring in Enedwaith when it comes out.

I am absolutely loving healing on my RK, and now Emma has controlled burn and Raging blades (sching sching) she is beggining to embrace the carnage gameplay style of a champ. At first I think she was a little unsure of it as having played a tank she was used to being enduring, but slow killing, whereas her champ is much more akin to the RK glass cannon philosophy, grab all the agro, stun them, then nuke down asap. However, now we have reached 50, we have found our stride in our new duo classes. We are finding that with some carefull stance switching and carefull attunement flipping we are able to carry off some quite interesting challenges playing  small and full fellowship quests. We have kitted ourselves out in some beryl shard gear and are looking forward to honing our skills somemore, and adventuring in other regions!

Are Elves Rude… This one is

Not much to add to this one, sometime I chat to NPC’s, and if its late at night I guess a little hysteria might occasionally kick in! It made me chuckle anyway!

More news on Enedwaith

So we had another intersting article from Massively, along with some screen shots of the new Region. All in all its sounds pretty interesting and I’m really looking forward to getting in there and giving it a try. The Instance interface sounds interesting. I have mixed thoughts about breaking the Instances down into wings and letting people jump into them from anywhere in the world. To some extent breaking the instances up, and the insta-port feature feels like its catering for the new influx of WOW-esque players with ADHA who want to run fast everywhere, and everthing to be quicker, and simpler, and destroys the narrative of these instances. On top of this the Lore side of me thinks assembling your party together, for example in Evendim and fighting your way into Annuminas and clearing the zones is part of the experience of the game. However, the tired parent with very limited game time these days, and who has already seen a lot of this goes AWESOME!!! This is no deal breaker for me, and it is nigh on impposible to gets groups for some on these instances, so maybe this new port-to feature will mean people can join groups and carry on questing up until they are all good to go, then just all port in. I suspect I’ll use this feaure quite a lot in the time to come!

Oh, and new factions horse and cosmetics….. sold!