ArenaNet:Guild Wars 2 suggestions/Pirate

''Whatever their name, may it be Buccaneer, Corsair, Swashbuckler or Pirate, this is the page. ''

= Swashbuckler =

Introduction

 * The Swashbuckler is a jovial swordmaster who raises party morale with unyielding confidence and overwhelms enemies with quick jabs of a sword. The Swashbuckler travels light to allow him greater maneuverability, parrying attacks with the edge of his blade alone.


 * The idea behind the Swashbuckler is that he wholeheartedly believes he is superior to his enemies and performs far better testing his mettle in the front line. The profession's disorganized skill types and dual effects, lacking in synergy, encourages creative, multi-professional builds and skilled play. Their primary attribute allows them to gain adrenaline faster in melee but their powerful party support abilities mean they must keep ally locations within range, resulting in tactical targetting and enemies drawing agro so as to exploit their adrenal restrictions. They are a balanced mix of many professions, creating far more options with the novelty of playing as a badass pirate.


 * The fashion of the Swashbuckler is an open pallette. They are meant to use their weapon as their primary defense so their armour can be more like an outfit. The starting male Swashbuckler wears baggy leather and cloth armour in the true spirit of the high seas. They are meant to look muscular and confident but less than combat ready. The females start off wearing a corset blouse, high boots and a long, split skirt with a huge belt. They're meant to look badass and hot! I want another outfit with some 3/4 shorts and a chunky vest like Zell Dincht from Final Fantasy 8 and some hot pants number for the girls. I'm thinking there may be an elite mask and strappy, single colour leather armour designed on modern day fencer uniforms. The Swashbuckler has very few artictic restrictions.

Fencing Arts

 * Every 2 points raises attack speed by 3% and armor by 1.5 and makes skills relating to fencing more powerful if wielding a sword but not an offhand.

Note:
 * Sword Attacks are disabled if not wielding a sword
 * Fencing Arts skills are disabled if wielding a focus, shield or two-handed weapon.
 * Raising Fencing Arts with an axe equipped does not raise attack speed or defense but still allows you to use certain touch and attack skills in the Fencing Arts line.

Conviction

 * Raises the effectiveness of skills that affect the morale of party members and overcoming adversity.

Acrobatics

 * Raises the effectiveness of skills that relate to physical prowess.

Trickery

 * Raises the effectiveness of skills that confuse the enemy.

Overview

 * Swordsmanship swords are required for fencing arts skills but are naturally far less powerful without the obvious choice of a warrior secondary and swordsmanship points. Fencing Arts skills will not be +x but rather just x damage and more powerful than other melee skills, factoring in the natural damage. This nerfs the double sword attribute buff without discouraging the use of swordsmanship (Swordsmanship affecting natural damage and criticals alone.) There is an intended downside to this. A Swashbuckler/None does about 2 natural damage a hit and has 0% chance of critical. Using the sword should not be seen as the Swashbuckler's purpose. This profession employs adrenaline based shouts, stances, hexes, enchantments, skills, chants and attacks. They are combined to create a multitude of new and wonderful tactics, encouraging skilled play and creation and thorough testing of builds. Much as Soul Reaping is the Necromancer's energy management, Fencing Arts is the much needed charge for the Swashbuckler's battery.


 * 16 Fencing Arts will raise natural attack speed by 24% and his armor from 60 to 72. Combined with other attack speed enhancers the attack speed may have to be capped at +50%. This would be enough to stop many experienced players from buying a Superior Fencing Arts rune and nerf it as the obvious choice. Fencing Arts lacks inherent damage, so some skills are spammable and designed for that purpose alone. The more complex attacks are much more expensive so the swashbuckler will have to work just as hard as a warrior to achieve the adrenaline requirement. This attribute also offers limited defensive skills and touch or attack skills that don't require a sword to use. Some examples:


 * Lunge - Spammable damage.
 * Hollowing Flurry and Lightning Drive - an example of a damage spam/condition skill limited by its requirement.
 * Parry - Spammable defense.


 * Conviction converts adrenaline into strength, virtual health (like Life Sheath only adrenaline based and much less powerful) and, most effectively, energy. This means, his greater natural attack speed allows him to gain adrenaline faster and regularly convert it into energy, supporting the means for a spell casting secondary in the absence of a focus. The niche community, wishing to use meleecasters, would be inclined to use skills from this line. It offers a lot of protection, limitted anti hex skills and energy management, but hardly any damage or healing. Some examples:


 * "The Power of Heart!" - Adrenaline to energy converter.
 * "I'm Bringing Sexy Back!" - adrenaline based hex removal.
 * Pompous Motivation - Virtual Health generator.


 * The virtual health mechanic is far more balanced than the added armour skills and paragon gimmicks that plagued the game not so long ago. It ends much quicker on the enemies that you want dead. Too many duplicates of this in a party would be redundant and make it harder to identify which party members are under pressure. Not to mention, take 2-3 skill slots and a lot of points in an attribute without healing or damage, to make the tactic viable. They also have an adrenaline requirement, which can be shut down by many, single skills, irremovable by this profession.


 * Acrobatics uses a combination of adrenaline and energy skills designed to dodge attacks in a more manual way than a ranger might. It allows the Swashbuckler to move faster, block, and instantly move to nearby locations (like shadow stepping with a different animation and smaller range.) This attribute features a lot of stances designed to bring a bit of skilled play back into the game. The increased movement speed stances, thus far, aren't designed as a means of kiting and the blocking skills are capped at a 50% chance (no shield, see?). Unlike those of other professions, the Swashbuckler skill range actually makes it viable to bring 2-4 of these stances along. They are quite diverse in effect, encouraging the technique of stance cancelling in order to gain the benefits of situational activation. Some examples:


 * Hasty Retrieval - for use against kiters.
 * Athlete's Precision - for use against blockers.
 * Wild Evasion - For melee defence against those with 'wild' skills.


 * Trickery can be described as an adrenaline based necromancer or mesmer attribute. It provides most of the only viable Swashbuckler 'heals.' These are in the form of drain skills. There are a few skills with dual effects that lack synergy and a couple others that have seemingly invisible effects. They are designed to confuse and lure the enemy into doing something they'll regret. Skills from this line are intended to either encourage creativity in building synergy or merely be entertaining. Some examples:


 * Fool's Stance - May be used with Sucker Punch for highly skilled shutdown.
 * Feign Injury - Lures enemies into targetting you and giving you a health boost.
 * Smuggle Life - The enchantment couterpart of Life Siphon. Tricky much?
 * I'm proud of this skill line. I'll restrain myself from adding more if you check out the skill page.


 * Being an acrobat, the Swashbuckler should have a lot of natural energy. Say, the same energy template as a dervish. This is to further reduce the impact of no focus or shield allowing the profession to have less armor but greater energy capabilities than a warrior. Many energy skills used by the Swashbuckler cost more to balance this issue further.


 * Most swashbuckler skills are underpowered but fast to play and quick to recharge. Most skills are stances, shouts or just instantly activated to prevent him from standing still too long, supporting his speedy play style. There are to be very few devastating attacks but rather an emphasis on team survival and 'speed means power,' with a combination of party support, a diverse range of stances, quick spammable attacks, and slowing, preventing or discouraging the enemy's skill use.

Skills
List of Skills - Maybe more to come.

Builds
Suggested Builds - I'll find them a new home when I make skill icons. Feel free to discuss and add your own. Maybe more to come.

Why this is a good idea

 * A fast paced, more challenging fighting style that can adapt to either casting spells, protecting the party, interrupting or causing great melee damage - encourages creativity.
 * This profession reduces redundancy, applying pre-existing game mechanics and items and using them in a creative and original way - Swords are more diverse than any other weapon yet they're linked to fewer skills. Its a damn shame!
 * Encourages skilled, situational play and build design.
 * Diversification of adrenaline skills and use encourages the use of the space bar.
 * The synergy between energy and adrenaline will finally spawn a generation of meleecasters worth using.
 * Doesn't have to be a pirate - but everyone loves pirates.
 * Players may opt to use adrenaline shut down skills more.

Why it may not work out

 * Makes the already overused Spiteful Spirit and similar spells more powerful
 * SOLUTION: anti hex skills.


 * Restricting Fencing Arts to those using a sword but not an offhand is possible but creates otherwise unnecessary programming.
 * The use of existing game mechanics makes the Swashbuckler largely redundant, with a lot of its duties being performed by other professions ie monk for protection, necromancer for drain, paragon for motivation, mesmer for illusion, warrior for sword use and adrenaline... On the other hand, mixing aspects into one creates far more options and creative fun.
 * Pirates are already heavily overused in video games, MMO and otherwise.
 * May create undue balance issues with the inherent, irremovable IAS.
 * Sword spiker builds may not be balanced with Warrior's using Strength.
 * Fencing Arts, the primary attribute, only works with swords, a warrior weapon, constraining secondary profession choices.

''I don't believe the prior two. Without a buff, regular attacks deal 2 damage and the inherent IAS is not as much as the maintainable Soldier's Fury. An increase in sword damage is also a sharp decrease in survivability. Even if certain sword spike builds were overpowered, imminent death would be enough to stem its use. ''

FootNote
This idea is as complex as it is because it has been entered into the Create a Profession Competition on Community Portal.

Pirate
Pirates are saber wielding evil warriors. They have light armor and can be whacked down much easier than a warrior. Pirates weild a single saber which allows them to perform both melee and different types of range attacks, or wield dual sabers, which increases attack speed, but makes them have to get close to an enemy to attack like an Assassin or a Warrior would. A Pirate could possibly have shadow step skills to accomodate a pirate's single saber. That way, a pirate could quickly switch from ranged attacking to melee


 * Why this is a good idea
 * Exciting addition to Guild Wars. (Everyone likes pirates! =))
 * Can combine melee attacks with ranged attacks if the player chooses to use a single blade.
 * Allowing dual wielding of one handed weapons gives players much more choice and few balance issues because it obviously has its own drawbacks. Axe + Sword = decapitatingly good fun.
 * call it corsairs and i am all for it XD
 * do i sense a hook as a weapon? hells yeah :D


 * Why it may not work out
 * A pirate would have to be able to wield one saber on the weapon slot and one saber on the shield or secondary weapon slot to dual wield. There may be programming issues.
 * May require a redesign or addition to new and current weapons.
 * Pirates are already heavily overused in video games, MMO and otherwise.
 * POTCO....POTCO....POTCO....PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN IS WHERE U WANT PIRATES!!!!!!!!
 * Anything out of an Artix game is retarded, stupid fanservice.