Shadowdancer ideas.

[solar]

"(Though from what I understand, Icesus is going to get a thieve's guild as soon as Vampires become a playable race.)

From what I've heard, Vampires will never, ever, be a playable 'race'. Guild perhaps, but never a race. This is to clarify this thing out for those who can't read between the lines, so don't expect thieves (that can steal player eq) to be implemented either

[belannaer]

Don't expect something to happen or not to happen as long as I and Zaltaiz are coding the mud

[felgand]

I don't think that devotion itself should give a more powerful poison. I rather see a shadowdancer need to research the poisons anew each time they reincarnate into the guild, though perhaps higher devotion will help to improve the speed at which a better recipe is discovered somewhat. Poisons should not cause more damage than what they cause now...as poison damage intrinsically makes smaller mobs even easier to kill for a shadowdancer than they are now and that would be unnecessary. However, if poisons caused effects other than damage (so a shadowdancer would have to choose between extra damage or an extra effect), I think it would be useful. Poison types should really be made under a separate post, so I'll defer explaining them fully until then.

[artic]

Could it be made so that an assasin could use a guild command to specify his/her target. The target can be ether a player or NPC, but for the command to work the command must be issued inside the same room with the target. once the target has been specified the assasin could than use shadow sense at the target to spy on it from a distance. Thsi would allow fow shadow sense to be used on NPC's. Once target is killed, by the assasin or by other means, target is set back to NULL.

[zaec]

new shadowdancer spells qould be nice too.
maybe soething not powerful at all, but something bonus.
a guided-aim kind of spell that could be cast only to the dancer
somekind of a shadow guide to make you score hits more easier or something like that.

and maybe an offensive shadow barrier that does not give protection, but instead it makes cold damage to the one who hits you and fades away like the normal barrier. only one of these could be used at a time of course. nether barrier or something like that

all spells that give some little effectivity in that way and what can be casted only to the dancer itself could be very welcome i think.

[artic]

This is not a skill idea, but...

...it would be nice if shadowdancer would have a trophy hall. A big room in the guild, where the are decorated with markings from the best kills. Like everyone in the guild gould place their trophyes there with little cmment signs below and the leader could manage them, having the power to remove them and edit the notes.

It don't give no power-ups for the dancers just a little fun...

[yoz]

I came up for this idea for adding something neato for shadowdancers.


Crossbows and assassins:

I thought of an idea of backstabbing with an crossbow. Maybe add in another subguild that could be taken with all the other levels, 5 levels or so.

This guild would add in few new skills.

Sniping instead of backstabbing this would be used for the huge starter damage or to cripple/wound the monster

Accuracy would help in hitting the monster in the critical parts, and would help a bit in stunning/cripling etc.

Vital points would help in the damage departion of sniping, and would seriously increase the critical chance of sniping.

Quick draw would give a chance to be able to quickly load your crossbow again and shoot another shot. Would allso assist in reloading the crossbow quicker.

+ add in some random archery skills

The idea would be about an sniping assassination. Instead of backstabbing the assassin could snipe the monster causing huge damage to the aimed area, crippling it for some duration of time.
This skill however only could be used with crossbow as there is the real possibility to load the bow and move after if thought in realistic view. Why couldnt assassins be proficient archers, but only with crossbows.

Maybe few guided aim-like spells and such could improve them just a bit.


~poz

[syder]

Generally idea of a shadowdancer having a crippling strike / shot with ie. xbow would be quite an impact. Imo dancers should be more than able to disable at least humanoid opponents, again higher masteries you can disable even other types of monsters.

Now to dancer combat itself it should be like flowing river full of choices using the opponents mistakes and momentum in gaining the advantage over them. Yet i've some day played a little dancer. I can tell that it's far from finished guild, lacking of spells is the first example of this. Shadowdancers are generally quite ritualistic and dependant on shadow magic.

[drakken]

4.) Critical backstabs! Make them RARE!

5.) New critical for shadow strike. Would enable the shadow of the assassin to fight in the battle, would leave after the combat was over.(opponents are dead or the player flees from the room)

These are two really great ideas, especially the shadow of the assassin.
The backstab crit could be based on one of your masteries and have a chance after you've reached a certain percentage in the mastery.

I know the wizards work extremely hard on so many different things, and we greatly appreciate all the work and new features that have made the mud a fantastic game.

[pjastor]

I have been a dancer for ages and know quite a lot of things in dancers. After a dancer reaches 200m totals and tries to challenge a player from any other melee guild he gets beaten up. The dancer's killing with rate ends right after moving to monsters bigger than 25k.

The idea of this ac reduction sounds quite good to me. I also came up with this idea of spell that cast on an enemy to make it's battle harder. Somekind of binding shadow maybe. Or the opposite; make the dancer a better fighter for a while.

These skills/spells could only be acquired after a certain amount of devotion, maybe like 300k or even more for the extremely high dev players

And for those who are complaining that these ideas are uptunes... well dancers really need uptuning!

Tumi has fixed few things now but caused almost as much other things not to work. Hopefully he will keep up "clearing" things.

[dunn]

Well, shadowdancers are a guild with a unique style, I think they should be fixed first before milita, for the benefit of the game.

I've played them, yes they need an uptune and perhaps an entire guild make-over, like the old epriests in this case for being too weak. They are a solo guild but can't really solo that well.

Perhaps making them dodge better or buffing up that shadow barrier spell. Maybe even beefing up backstab. *goes to hide*

Melee sucks for a dancer bigtime. If you fail your backstab you've got a nice regen coming whether you need it or not, or have to move on to a different mob, preferably ones that don't move, so you jump out of the shadows and oops, your target is gone. Try again.

The current Icesus combat style doesn't allow them to dodge and be a melee fury, however pathetic the melee is. They also tank about as well as a monk, in a best case scenario, (which is not very good), and don't do nearly 1/4 the damage.

I think the guild help should be revised too. Doesn't give you too much information on the most important stuff and a guild wizard is not really around to ask.

And I liked the dark glow eyes thing, I don't know why someone calling it not cool would make it removed. Made looking at people less mundane than it already is. Maybe bring it back with some benefits..

I particularly hate the graemor free pk zone, it doesn't make for a player arena it's just a hassle for players trying to level at their guild. And guild spirit for dancers? You can't even try to finish your reinc without an annoying dancer trying to kill you inside the guild. Not that the melee has a chance, anyway.

I think the GUILD itself should be a (pk)safe-zone for dancers.. Meaning you're not allowed to pk other dancers in it. Heh, guild benefits? Once you leave the mansion, you're on your own.

I would just love getting killed at 10 levels and trying to think of what to train/reading the skill helps because you weren't paying attention and some inconsiderate fellow-dancer stops by..

[tumi]

Tumi has fixed few things now but caused almost as much other things not to work. Hopefully he will keep up "clearing" things. :wink:

Can't fix if anyone doesn't tell. I've fixed everything I've broken while rewriting the guild mortals have told. There are plenty of broken things by Treax, thats another story. Tell me whats wrong and I'll fix it damnit (even I'm low on time).

[kraven]

i was thinking that in storyline it would be "cool" if dancers would have meeted some lone,great wandering infecti madman who would have teached them the infecti "displacement" spell and for that the infecti could get immunity from dancers as returning the favor

that displacement works by sometimes ignoreing incoming hits cos opponent thinks that u are here instead of there and that illusion would be very suitable for dancers..the spell could be conversed to some shadow displacement or such.it would prob not make dancers over to powerful but it would help them solo a bit better cos it works only here and then in combat ..

just my idea to dancers...


ps: there seems to be lots of cooperation with coven,conclave and earth priest so its time to make dancers cooperate with someone

[artic]

Heres a couple of pees for you:
* Shadowdancer vs Shadowdancer - Its ok to kill a player inside the guild, but its not ok to kill a NCP. If a shadowdancer kills a NPC shadowdancer in guild, they get banned. If the kill 10 player, 10 times over. no-one cares.
* Swirling barrier of darkness - If im covered in darkness howcome you hit directly on the nose?! Darkness swirls around me, should it be a bit harder to see me, a bit harder to hit me? How about barrier also giving a slightly higher miss chance for the attacker? The higher % of the barrier is in tackt the harder it is to hit me.
* Dark glowing eye - Why they got removed anyway?!!
* Mastery of poisons - Assasins favourite, the 'best' poison- with medium skills and mastery, it is still weaker than 0% mixing Instant deadly.

[solar]

a) Give shadowdancers access to 'slashing weapons'.

b) make backstab deal less damage if performed with a slashing weapon.

( c) restrict the guild from large races to prevent backstabbing with barrimundo blades and mithril 2-handers.)

d) make it possible to pay 'protection fee' to the guild that marks the p(l)ayer as unstabbable during that one boot. The mark could wear off if the p(l)ayer attacks a shadowdancer (but not wear off if the combat wasn't started by him).