New Class Idea - Ritualist

#1

I have noticed there is not a Dagger/Cloth class and created an idea for one.

Ritualist
Damage dealer/Support

Weapon: Dagger
Ability: “Ritual Knife” (Working name)
Armor: Cloth
Ring: Any

Max potted stats::
Hp: ~770
Mp: ~260
Attack:~75
Defense:30
Speed:~60
Dexterity:~60
Vitality:~75
Wisdom:~75

This class should have a high base HP/Vit/Wis as the classes ability will consume a portion of the users own HP to cast!

I chose dagger as the primary weapon because of the blood ritual ascetic using a dagger to evoke blood magic. I also chose cloth as the primary armor for the mage aesthetic.

Class ability: Ritual Knife (Working name)

The Ritual knife is a range of items that have specific magical effects on the user to conjure bursts of magical power through blood magic.

T0 character starting item
On use: consume 10% of users Max HP
Damage 500 + extra damage based on wisdom (calculation TBD) within 4 tile radius from mouse pointer
On equip: +20 Hp
Mana Cost: 50

T1-T7 would be scaling damage and possible more Hp/Vit/Wis stats. I chose a low MP cost as the price of the HP cost will inhibit spamming on its own.

The class would play very similar to a wizard except the damage blast doesn’t burst out in shots. The advantage is that the overall damage is higher but confined to a blast instead of multiple bullets and the drawback is that as a dagger class in order to auto attack the user must get in close which will be challenging with cloth armor.

At this point the idea is that you can use the ability as many times as desired and can kill your character. This would bring a high level of skill to the class as the user would have to know where/when they can use the ability without dying. (If this is too much then like other items, it will become inactive if the casting condition is not met.ie lower than 10% of the casters max hp.

The real draw of this class will be in the UT/ST items that will give the class versatility.

UT ideas:( All working names and stat lines)

Blood Knife:
On use: consume 10% of users Max HP
Damage 900 + extra damage based on wisdom (calculation TBD) within 4 tile radius from mouse pointer
Causes enemy to bleed for 8 seconds
On equip: +40 Hp,+4 Vit

Sacrificial Knife
On use: consume 10% of users Max HP
Heal all allies within 2 tile radius from mouse pointer for amount of Hp consumed + extra healing based on vitality (calculation TBD).
On equip: +40 Hp, +4 Vit, +4 Wis

Unstable Knife
On use: consume 10% of users Max HP
Damage 1000 + extra damage based on wisdom (calculation TBD) within 4 tile radius from mouse pointer.
Randomly apply one of the following debuffs for 3 seconds: Weak, Slow, Paralyze, Stunned, Curse
On equip: +20 Hp, +2 Vit, +2 Wis

Demonic Ritual knife
On use: consume 20% of users Max HP
Transform into a Demon for 3 seconds with +50 Attack, +50 Dexterity. You can not recover HP while in Demon form.
Cooldown: 10 Sec
On equip: +50 Hp, +5 Defense

** Knife of Surging Power :**
On use: consume 25% of users Max HP
Damage 3000 within 2 tile radius from mouse pointer
On equip: +40 Hp,+6 Vit, +6 Wis

Ritualist Set "High Temple Ritualist"

Weapon:
Dagger of the High Priest, Damage 160-180, Range 5.6, XP 5%
2 bullets (Pattern TBD)
On equip +40 HP

Ability:
Deacon’s Knife:
On use: gain 30 defense for 5 seconds, while buff is active all damage received is “absorbed” (mechanic TBD) when buff fades damaging explosion over 9 tiles from body for Damaged absorbed x 10 + extra damage based on wisdom to enemies. (Calculation TBD.)
On equip: +40 Hp,+6 Vit, +6 Wis + 3 Def

Armor:
Cloth of the Reverend
On equip: +13 Defense, +40 Hp, +5 Vit
Ritualists consume 2% less Hp with each ability use.

Ring
Sigil of Prayers
On equip: +100 Hp, -5 Attack
On ability use: Immune to sick debuff for 5 sec. 15second cooldown.

2 Set Bonus: +5 Wis, +20 Hp
3 Set Bonus: +5 Wis, +5 Vit
4 Set Bonus: +5 Wis, +5 Vit, +60 Hp

The design behind this sets ascetic is a high priest/priestess turned corrupted with blood magic. It features High HP/Vit/Wis which plays to the classes strengths and adds some utility with the Body/Ring that will work outside of the set as a whole. The Robe is sturdy and I tried to make the dagger semi balanced. The ability is the real star of the show with the “bide” mechanic of storing up damage then unleashing it for a much higher return.

Disclaimer. This is a strongly though out idea but obviously I am not a balancing expert and I know without doubt numbers will have to be balanced out in some way. If this class is selected I would be happy and would love a shoutout but don’t need to be a part of any future development unless specifically asked.

I am not an artist so anyone is welcome to create art for this class.

IGN: OmegaW

Updates--------------------
Update 1:
Changed some max potted stats;
Hp: ~770 up from 750
Attack:~75 up from 70
Defense: 30 up from 25
Speed:~60 up from 55

** All Tiered Knives, Blood Knife, Unstable Knife, Knife of Surging Power:** Adding a bonus scaling damage based on wisdom (Calculation TBD)

Blood knife: Increase damage to 1000 from 800 and increase bleed duration to 8sec from 4sec.

Sacrificial knife: adding a bonus scaling heal based on vitality and changed on equip bonus to +40hp up from -40hp.

Unstable Knife: Increase damage to 1000 up from 600.

Demonic Ritual knife: increased defense to +5 from +3

Knife of Surging Power: Increase damage to 3000 from 2000 and changed on equip bonus to +40hp up from -80hp

Dagger of the High Priest: Increased damage to 160-180 up from 130-160 and added a second bullet (Pattern TBD)

Deacon’s Knife reworked ability to “On use: gain 30 defense for 5 seconds, while buff is active all damage received is “absorbed” (mechanic TBD) when buff fades damaging explosion over 9 tiles from body for Damaged absorbed x 10 + extra damage based on wisdom to enemies. (Calculation TBD.)” from “On use: consume 15% of users Max HP
Damage 1200 to enemies within 4 tile radius from mouse pointer
Grant Damaging to allies for 3 seconds with 4 tile radius from mouse pointer” Increased Vit and Wis bonus to +6 up from +3

Cloth of the Reverend: Increase Hp stat to +40Hp from +20Hp and Vit to +5 from +2. Also added ability “Ritualists consume 2% less Hp with each ability use.”

Sigil of Prayers: changed special ability to “On ability use: Immune to sick debuff for 5 sec. 15second cooldown.” from “While this is equip you consume 2% less Hp with any Ritual Knife”

Removed the attack reduction from all tiers of ST Bonus.

Overall: Added a purpose for wisdom with damage scaling, Increased damage over all abilities to keep up with late game damage. Removed negative Hp values on all items and replaced with positive ones to increase sturdiness of class as well as increase base defensive stats for the same reason. Removed attack reduction from ST bonus. Changed ST set special abilities to be more of a unique playstyle.

#2

image
Potential base sprite

#3

Sounds interesting!

#4

Ooh, I love the idea of a “transforming” ability, first off, even if the class doesn’t go anywhere! And I never like trying to balance out ideas unless there’s something obviously broken from a design standpoint, but again, neat idea with the sacrificial HP principle.

I know DECA representatives have stated that they intended to have assassin become their dagger powerhouse, but making a dagger class even squishier with a robe, then giving it a truly powerful ability at the sacrifice of your lifeblood sounds like a direction worth considering, programming restraints permitting.

I can tell that you put some thought into this. Nice work!

#5

Thank you so much for the kind words and encouragement! I will tweak and refine the idea further!

#6

A class that hurts itself? Interesting… or is it just bad? Let’s see.

This class has 750 HP and 75 VIT, which is 20 less HP than sword users, but ritualists have upper end VIT. I see no reason to raise this to 770, you’re obviously gonna be spamming your ability on this class, an extra 20 hp cannot hurt. I also see no reason to raise base DEF. In lategame, HP > DEF, but in early game, DEF trumps all. This class I feel like would have a very dificult time maxing, since it has to fight at dagger range with an ability that makes them take damage, wearing robes that have less DEF than leathers… although not by a huge margin. This class can either be really good, but I think you’re forgetting that most players in the game are poor and have skill issues, not everyone is a Lunatic Touhou dodger, nobody would play this class if it were squishy to the point of being laughable, plus also having an ability that takes 10% hp to use, that’s a no go. Consider the average skill level of the community.

Even if I factor in VIT healing and pets, this class just seems to be especially squishy, not to mention IC/OOC making any pet less effective. That on top of the 55 SPD, this class would definitely have a type of gameplay that punishes its user a lot. You say that this class would be a DPS class, but you also say that the user has to know when to use this ability. This is great, but also really shitty. You can’t be a true DPS if you can’t spam your ability all the time. On top of that, this class’s base DPS stats, well, you can just see for yourself.

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A wizard with ONLY a t14 staff doesn’t do as much damage as the ritualist… but the ritualist has both a tenne and a coro, both 1/4 items. Put on a para spell, a vesture, and a coro on the wizard, and BOOM, the ritualist’s DPS is just gone. As of now, even assassins would have better DPS than a ritualist. Assassins have MORE base DPS stats, AND they have access to Pogmur, an item that by itself, boosts party DPS by the millions. What does this class have that can offer that? Assassins also don’t have to worry about killing themselves either.

You say that T1-T7 has scaling, so why don’t you write down those equations so we can see what kind of scaling that they offer? It’s kind of hard to judge just based on a T0 ability. The Blood knife is bad, since bleeding is just a nerfed poisoned. Unstable knife is kind of like coin, it’s very inconsistent, and I’m sure that most people will rather just use an ability that inflicts a specific debuff, instead of one that has a chance to do a certain debuff. Sacrificial knife is just a necro skull but worse, and the knife of surging power is just 2 spacebars of a necrofish poison, except you kill 1/4 of yourself. I hope you realize that Necromancer UT skulls offer more HP bonuses than every single one of these UT ritual knives, and some of these knives straight up DECREASE HP. What is up with that?

The only saving grace I see is the Demonic Ritual Knife, but it’s massive DPS bonus comes with a demerit that can mean death. Youre basically voluntarily giving yourself a sicken counter! I really only see this being usable if you’re stupidly confident, if whatever youre shooting becomes staggered, or if you’re already sickened anyways. In most exaltation dungeons, shots are SPAMMED, like take MBC survival. There is NO way that you can dodge ALL the shots. Even in Nest, youre bound to get hit by the bombs that queen Bee throws out. Stray shots will always hit your character. Being sickened, and also, losing 20% of your HP, is very fucking dangerous. New players will never use this item because they will more than certainly die with it due to poor application, an inflated ego, and false bravado.

The ST looks really bad. The whole point of STs is to change the class’s playstyle, and it doesn’t really do anything special. The dagger is just a T10.5 dagger, with it’s dps linearly porportional to the T11 dagger. In colloquial terms, it does less damage on all DEF than a T11 dagger. This dagger isn’t anything special either, it’s literally just a tiered dagger with 5% XP bonus that gives 20 HP. Deacon’s Knife is just the same old boring do damage to enemies and yourself sort of thing. It has -20 HP which, again, why are you decreasing HP on a class that NEEDS it? It also has 2 lackluster WIS and VIT boosts… and gives damaging? Yeah, no. If you’re playing with a group, there is almost always a paladin to give damaging, for free, which also heals you faster and increases your HP for a little instead of give -20 HP on equip and -15% HP per use. If I were playing solo, I would literally just use battalion banner and a tiered knife instead. This ritual knife changes nothing about how the class is played. The armor is really shit. I see no reason to use this over Mad Robe, which gives 7 Vit instead of 2 Vit. I don’t think you understand how LITTLE 2 vit does, because if you did, you wouldn’t even have written that. The ring looks decent, but is the “2% less HP” multiplicative or additive? Also… really? 100 HP and -5 Attack? Look, I know that ST rings are bad, but this ring is literally a Radiant Heart that gives 10 less attack. Yeah, you heard me. TEN LESS ATTACK. ON A DAGGER CLASS! And Lets look at the set bonus! -9 MORE ATTACK! That’s -14 attack, on a dagger class, and you can’t even spam your ability that much, AND the ST set has a shit dagger. And we get 18 Wis, 15 Vit, and 90 HP… Yep, not worth it. Until you give us the Wismod equations, Wis is useless on this class since you can’t even spam the ability that much.

It seems as if you did not take many things into consideration when you made this class. I understand that this is a rough draft, but even if it was a rough draft, you have to give people a good first impression. You have to let people think that “ok, it’s bad right now, but there is potential”. When you make items, you have to understand how it interacts with different enemies, different classes, and whatever the fuck else. You literally made a downgraded Radiant Heart and a Walmart T11 dagger! Do more research on existing items! Use a DPS calculator! Most importantly, THINK of how this class will actually perform in the game. THINK of it’s uses in early, mid, and endgame. It is clear from your realmeye that you have not reached endgame, and that is fine, but it also seems as if you are unfamiliar with endgame content. 10% HP in ANY exaltation dungeon can be the difference between living, and dying. WHEN YOU ARE SICKENED and you stab yourself for more damage, that is not OK. WHEN YOU ARE A CLASS THAT KILLS ITSELF, MAKING ITEMS THAT DO -HP IS NOT OK.

In conclusion, this class is just all the worst parts of an assassin. Low DPS, bad survivability, dagger, etc.

Additional Questions:
When this class hurts itself, does it count as damage where it activates IC/OOC?
How does it interact with items with taking damage procs?

#7

Thank you so much for the in-depth critique! I will read this over thoroughly and make adjustments. To be honest this was just a idea I came up with on the fly and have not broke down each interaction it could have in game.

Your post is exactly what I was hoping for in terms of getting a pulse on it. I think my second draft will be much better.

Thank you!

#8

thank YOU for taking criticism well. Some people would just mald and cry about it. I hope your second draft goes well.

#9

This sounds like an amazing idea! Maybe you could scale the healing or damage with wisdom or attack similar to how the tome scales healing with wisdom for priest.

#10

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