User:Shai Halud/Charr: The High Legions

These are my ideas on Charr race specialization for GW2. It’s all part of my larger plan for all five of the races really but you’ve probably already read the main article, and If you haven’t, you should.

This idea allows the Charr to progress along different tracks of development which offer them more and more powerful skills and buffs. It’s based off of the Wikipedia article The Ecology of the Charr as well as experiences from GW:EN.--Shai Halud 21:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I have just edited this article to make it compatible with Mounts as Companions. To see the original article, view history.--Shai Halud 17:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

System Basics
The Charr have a strict hierarchical society which revolves around each individual Charr’s allegiance to one of the four High Legions. Each of these legions specializes in a particular area, and, therefore, the Charr can offer special training in almost all the professions.

However, since they rejected the titans as false gods, the Charr have despised and reviled sorcerers and their ways making their race weak in all fields concerning magic. The Charr interest in magic is entirely geared towards warfare, so healing magic and ritualism are almost completely outside their concern.

This system allows your Character to earn rank among the legions of the Charr by completing special missions and using the skills of certain professions. This is a perversion of the current system of Charr allegiance formation, but it was necessary for the system to have any flexibility. As you gain rank among each of the legions, more skills and passives become available to your character for use. The power of your skills and passives would in this system be controlled be the Charr race-specific attribute: “Legion”. Legion rivalries as well as the sheer distaste the Charr have for magic are the main limiters here, as you will see.

The Legions
Depending on your profession and what you want to specialize in, you’re going to want to build up allegiance and rank with one of the four High Legions. This is because, as you gain rank, so are skills and passives made available to you. However, as you gain rank in any one legion, your rank in each of the other legions begins to fall slowly. Gaining rank in the Gold Legion, which is famous for its sorcerers, dramatically lowers your standing with all of the other legions. If you lose a rank then you lose all of the passives and skills that came with it. This makes it nearly impossible to gain standing in more than two legions and balances the system of specialization.

As gaining high ranks takes a particularly long amount of time, you will have difficulty in changing out your advantages, but the sheer strength of specialization that the Charr advantages afford as well as the availability of siege beasts (to be discussed later in this article) are designed to make up for that.

There would probably be either six or seven ranks and, while nearly all of them would come with a skill, not all of them would afford a passive.

1) Ash Legion – The article on “The Ecology of the Charr” describes Ash Legion as being “…known for its stalkers and assassins”. Those who gain rank among the Ash Legion will have access to the best movement advantages the Charr have to offer. They also have skills and passives affecting critical hit rate, ranged damage, range, as well as the speed of the entire party. They can also equip their weapons with special poisons and contagions only available to members of the Ash Legion.

2) Iron Legion – Wikipedia says of the Iron Legion that they “…are notable for their mechanical prowess, preferring to overwhelm their opponents in battle with Siege Towers or mighty Siege Devourers, as opposed to brute force…” Special buffs and skills empowering their siege beasts and weapons of war are available to this legion. They also have access to better weapons and armor upgrades as well as superior armor and offensive upgrades for their siege beasts. They have only enough offensive power to keep enemies away from their beasts, but this is still more than enough to claim victory with an armored siege devourer by your side.

3) Blood Legion – The Blood Legion is described as possessing “…the single best face-to-face warriors among Charr”. This legion is privy to the special martial arts of the Charr. Their passives dramatically increase their sheer offensive power and attack speed, leaving all thoughts of self-preservation behind in the dust. A true Blood Legionnaire has no need of a shield: his enemies are dead long before their first blow falls. Their skills are geared towards melee combat. These include weapons skills that utilize their claws in the absence of a weapon as well as well as kicking and biting attack combos. A Blood member.s body, naturally, is a weapon as deadly as any sword.

4) Flame or “Gold” Legion – “The Ecology of the Charr” says simply that the Flame Legion attacks “…best through magic.” We should all know from our encounters with the Charr, that even their monks prefer to have a wealth of offensive attacks. The Flame Legion is not what it once was. Much has been lost in the centuries since their fall from power. They are easily the weakest of the Charr Legions, but their most powerful techniques have survived their downfall. These strange and ancient magics afford all Charr sorcerers great magical power through special passives. Flame Legion’s skills offer Charr mages access to ancient black magics that can augment any of the magical professions. These legionaries also have access to a wealth of ancient and powerful focus items, exclusive to the Charr.

Beasts of the Siege
The rigidity of Charr society will greatly limit the flexibility of this system, making it difficult for players not to specialize in one particular area, leaving them open to attack from multiple directions. To compensate for this, I intend for siege beasts to be available to all members of the Charr race.

Charr, as you may have noticed in EotN, often enslave beasts of burden and use them to tote around their deadly war machines. The Iron Legion are the ones who mainly handle these, so, in order to acquire one, you must journey to the Iron Citadel in the ruins of Rin. There, you will have to prove yourself to the Iron Legion. You must complete a series of tasks for them before they will recognize you as worthy of taming a siege beast. Then, much like with the human cavalry, you will be able to choose from a series of taming missions. You will have to pay Iron Legion engineers to fit your beast with armor and weapons after you tame it, but even without these fittings, it can still be ridden and join you in battle. It simply won't be capable of siege mode until you have it fitted with weapons.

The really unique thing about siege beasts is that they can be customized. Every siege beast can be equipped with a variety of weapons which will allow it to specialize in short range or long range combat, and there are siege attacks for both long-range and melee combat. Of course, some animals are less customizable than others, and only those with full allegiance to the Iron Legion will have access to all of the possible upgrades.

I postulate four possible siege beasts below, but, as I am not sure exactly what the game devs hope to achieve by including siege towers in the game, I only speculate that this might be a form of siege beast and do not consider it, yet, to be in the same category as the others.

1) Siege Ettin – These are large humanoid monsters that the Charr have enslaved and equipped for use as siege beasts. They are armored and very useful in melee combat. While they are not completely immobile in siege mode, they do tend to move very slowly. In this mode, their normal fighting skills are useless, but they are now capable of using “giant’s stomp” which your party should find quite to their liking in a fierce fight. Alternatively, they may be able to throw explosive orbs over short distances you choose to equip them so. They are the most heavily armored of the bunch, but have the shortest range.

2) Siege Turtle – Honestly, I’m not sure this would be included, but a mid range support beast should definitely be considered. Still, if any Luxons managed to escape conquest in Cantha, I’m willing to bet they managed to bring with some turtle eggs with them, and if the Charr found out, they’d to everything they could to get a hold of some of them. These have less range than siege devourers and don’t do as much damage, but they have a faster rate of fire and a better defensive rating to suit. I have difficulty imagining them as melee combatants, but I suppose it could receive heavy armor upgrades.

3) Siege Devourer – These are almost definitely going to bet included somewhere in the next game. They have good attack, terrible defense, and one hell of a long range siege skill. Their rate of fire is slow, but the damage is extreme. Weaker enemy parties could be wiped out with just a single volley. However, if they were heavily armored enough and equipped with reinforced pincers, they could be devastating close range combatants.

4) Siege Dolyak - Dolyaks, like Siege Turtles could be equipped with cannons strapped to each side and offer mid-range support. They could also be fitted with armor and bladed horns for use in close-range combat. Another possibility is that they could toe a siege tower into battle, carrying several allies through dangerous fire zones.

5) Siege Towers – I’m willing to be that these are either pulled along by some beast or ride on top of one of them. They would be commanded by a single Charr and carry several combatants, protecting them from attack and allowing them to approach fortified positions safely. The Charr who brings one of these along is terribly handicapped by the amount of health and energy needed to maintain control over it.

Siege beasts also come with their own set of about four skills, one of which can only be used in “siege mode”. Their skill bar can also be customized with skills acquired from the Iron Legion. You will be required to have on your racial skill bar a shout for switching your siege beast in and out of siege mode, very much like you were required to have "charm animal" to have an animal companion in GW1. In siege mode, the beast is usually rendered incapable of movement. Its effective range in this mode would be displayed as a circle on your radar. It will normally attack your target, but you can command it to focus its fire on a specific location using a targeting reticule on your radar (see D-Pad Functions).

When riding a siege beast, Charr will either hang off its side or ride on its back. While hanging off the side, you may use grabs as humans do and use your melee weapon to attack nearby enemies. You will not be able to use a bow, staff, or musket in this mode, but single-handed ranged weapons can still be used as well as most skills. While riding on a beast's back, grabs cannot be used and neither can melee weapons, but all ranged weapons can be used from an animals back as well as all ranged skills. You may also use your mount's skill bar to attack, but shifting into siege mode is impossible while you are still riding.

Now, When you use a siege beast (you would probably equip them in town and when you exit the beast will be waiting for you) your energy and health will decrease by a certain amount depending on what beast you choose. Usually, the amount rather sizable, making them somewhat unattractive as warrior companions. Only the Iron Legion, which specializes in siege beasts, receives practically no handicap as part of it passives system. Also, using a siege beast to kill enemies and complete missions, earns you points with the Iron Legion, decreasing your points with the other legions. However, the occasional siege beast user need only complete a few special missions each month without his siege beast to maintain his rank with his primary legion.

Iron Legion also has several command skills which allow siege beasts to perform special attacks specific to what type of siege beast you have out.

Each character would likely only be allowed to own one siege beast at a time. It would be interesting if members of Iron Legion could capture other special beasts (maybe even a titan) for use in combat.

The 5/6 are maintained with the Four Legions and the augmentation of siege beasts. Ash Legion focuses on speed. Iron Legion harnesses the sheer offensive power of their siege beasts. Blood Legion’s advantages are the very definition of offensive power. The Flame Legion uses magic, but provides almost no specifically offensive benefits. Siege beasts are geared directly towards offensive power and are open to all Charr.

The whole rank system is very simmilar to the reputations from GW:EN, though I doubt it would earn you titles. It would also be interesting if you could tell a Charr's legion and rank by markings on his armor or body.