User talk:Lojiin/Shaman

Ideas
Hey, sorry I didn't comment here sooner. I have been thinking a lot about the idea though. As for what you've got down so far, lots of good ideas. I think the most important and difficult thing to work out is the attributes. I really like Chanting and Herbalism, those are perfect. Naturalism is also good as a concept, but I'm not sure if that name is ideal, expecially if you look up the actual meaning of it. Supernaturalism might be better, but I'm not sure if thats good either. Ideally I want something that means "the power to manipulate nature" but haven't come up with anything good. Its really tricky to come up with good names for the attributes. I'm not crazy about talon mastery, as I pictured this purely as a caster class. I like the idea of totems as focus items though, thats perfect. GW doesn't have any classes that use both melee weapons and focus items so I think we have to choose one or the other, and a shaman would be better as a caster. I think one attribute should be Transformation, and this attribute would have skills that allow the shaman to take on the abilities of other creatures, and possibly have some type of Form skills. So, pending a better name for the "control of nature" atribute, that would give us all 4 attributes. We would just have to decide which would be the primary, and what specific affect that primary would have. I'm going to think some more on this and see if I can think of an interesting mechanic for the primary ability. Let me know what you think of my suggestions. -- BrianG 11:36, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * One minor problem with this idea is that it seems like it would ideally fit into the next chapter, but they have probably already decided on what the classes will be for chapter 4. Should be interesting to see what they do. If they don't do something like this maybe we can suggest it for a future chapter. -- BrianG 11:38, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * A couple more quick thoughts. To be realistic I think Herbalism should mainly be touch-range only skills, since you would have to apply the herb or give the potion to another person.  The skills would mostly be used on yourself or other backline casters.  Herbalism should include things like condition removal, energy boosting (think Blood Ritual), and self-healing or touch healing others.  Maybe some kind of evasion ability would fall here as well.  Chanting on the other hand should be used mainly for energy management (chanting helps you focus your power), and boosting the power of your other skills.  It maybe could include supportive team chants like the paragon, but I'm not sure.  Since energy management skills almost always fall under the primary attribute (except for Mesmer Inspiration I think), Chanting might make a good primary attribute. -- BrianG 11:56, 12 February 2007 (CST)
 * Hmm, where to begin. Some good ideas...  Talon weapons..yeah, I wasn't overly thrilled with that one, though it sort of did fit.  Sort of.  Replacing that with Transformation...the only thing about having transformation as an attribute is that it would imply alot of form skills.  Which isn't bad per se, what else could we put in along that line?  If, and I suppose that's a big if, the form skills are all elite.  I can see using some non-elite forms.  The difference between say a man-ish sized panther or something being elite vs a wolf non-elite or something.  Just the difference in power behind the skill.  Of course you could only be in one form at a time but would you think there should be a required "cool down" between forms?  What about, changing topics here, under the herbalism line.  Agreed on the mostly touch skills.  The one exception, or class of exceptions I guess, would be stuff like, preparation style buffs.  Actually, I don't know that I'd count it as an exception.  Thinking like, the ability to prep fighters for battle with a skill that reduces poison duration or bleeding duration.  Set duration of effect.  Though that could still be touch range it could be done prior to battle so the shaman didn't have to be in melee range getting pounded on.  I don't know about supportive style chants.  Self-buffs and focus stuff yeah, but I don't see, off the top of my head alot of partywide stuff.  Have to think about that one some more.  Nature magic.  Yeah, I like that.  But err, I don't seem to have it in this comment block so...continuing below.
 * Yeah you are probably right about the supportive chants, I wasn't crazy about that either. A shaman does in a sense provide spiritual leadership, but the paragon has already covered this so it could probably be skipped and the chants would be mostly self focused.  I like the idea of preparation potions, even better than reducing duration, how about immunity to certain conditions?  Might be cool.  The downside of touch range and a reasonable duration would make sure it was balanced. As for Transformation, I think it makes a good attribute but I'm not sure how the skills should work.  I was thinking it didn't neccessarily have to be a form, but you could have skills like "Strength of the Bear", which would be an Endure Pain-like effect.  It could either be a non-elite form, or some other new type of buff (kind of like weapon spells, like an enchant but not strippable).  There could be similar ones for increased movement speed, evasion, maybe even an eyesight one that would temporarily increase spellcasting range.  Not sure the exact mechanics on how these should work such as cooldown time etc.  Any ideas? -- BrianG 10:11, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Nature Magic
Hmmm, they have "Earth Magic", "Death Magic", etc, why not just keep it simple and use "Nature Magic" to refer to the power to manipulate nature. I'm imagining being able to control vines and entangle someone, for example. -- BrianG 09:46, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * hmm, so as mentioned above, liking the idea. One thing I had to chuckle about, entangle automatically made me think of the druid skill of the same name from warcraft 3.  I can imagine the abuse that would get.  Movement debuff though (vs. the hold in position from wc3) with maybe the application of poison.  Other things along that line..maybe weather magic type spells?  Ice storm, or driving sleet to blind?  What about the ability to summon animals to attack foes?  Akin to pets I guess but not tamed/controlled.  Preferably with an increased animal level beyond the default 5.  Hmm, Thinking of more but currently thinking of food more.  Will think on this more, lets keep it going :D.  Oh, one other thing, yeah, as far as ch 4 goes doubtful but depending, like if they did Ch4 as like a Shangri-La type Himalayan setting, ch 5 could work this in as, say, an Aztec type situation.  Lojiin 22:06, 13 February 2007 (CST)
 * Yes! Keeper of the Grove was one of my favorite heroes in WC3!  Me and Misanthropist played quite a lot of that game.  Entangling vines should definitely be a movement debuff, poison is a cool idea too.  Maybe there could be a few different "vine" spells?  Entangling vines, poison vines, barbed vines, etc, kind of like a targeted trap!  Either entangle should slow them and the rest would do something else, or maybe they could all have a slow effect plus one other effect like poison?  And Entangle could trip them (knockdown)?  I definitely think some weather magic spells would be good too, as long as they didn't overlap too much with elementalist stuff (maybe thunder instead of lightning, a fog that reduces visibility might be cool, etc).  I'm not sure about the animals though, it might make the mechanics too complicated.  Maybe there is a way for certain spells to temporarily conjure a spirit animal that would attack, but it wouldn't actually have its own health bar, it would just be an animation (think Deathly Swarm, but maybe something faster and more direct).  Not sure on this but there should definitely be some kind of animal or spirit animal attack of some sort. -- BrianG 10:23, 14 February 2007 (CST)
 * What about something that would impede movement but that could be targetted and attacked. Like creating a plant barrier of given width.  You can block charging opponents but it only lasts a short amount of time.  Your opponents can either A) go around, B) target it and attack it to end it sooner, or C) get stuck.  Another idea that came to mind, along the lines of your suggestion of immunity to conditions.  A herbalism skill that rendered the target ally immune to poison or disease.  Or perhaps, just negated the effects so that if the preperation (for lack of a better term atm) wore off before the poison did, you'd start to feel the effects.  Eyes of the Falcon maybe?  Increased line of sight.  That might be abuseable though if you can cast from outside aggro range behind a barrier.  Perhaps.  Not sure about that right off hand.  But the immunity to conditions idea is a good one I think :).  Alot of this stuff could have some cool effects to go with it.  Like the fog you mentioned, could actually be conjured as an effect that limits visibility.  Kind of like walking in a cloud.  You can see...but only so far.  A great hinderance to ranged attackers but less effective versus melee.  On an unrelated note, I've added subsections for potential skills on the page, feel free to add any ideas you've got.  :) Lojiin 12:28, 20 February 2007 (CST)