Fanmade:Arcane Warrior
The Arcane Warrior is a highly magic augmented warrior that could focus equally on melee or missiles. His main skills are enchantments on his weapons and armor that add elemental or other magical properties.
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The Arcane Warrior is not an official class: It's a fan class. Author(s) of the article are:
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Background
| Diablo III Class [e] | |
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Arcane Warrior
 Fan-made Class | |
| Role: | Melee/Ranged/Caster hybrid |
| Primary Attributes: | Strength Dexterity Willpower Mana |
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Skills and Traits | |
| Origin: | Sanctuary |
| Affiliation: | None known |
| Friends: | None Known |
| Foes: | None Known |
Upon the destruction of the Worldstone 20 years ago, a Vizjerei elder concluded that the mortal powers of Order had failed. Secretly, he went to the Viz-Jaq'taar Assassins to share his concerns and make a proposal. Even though the Prime Evils were defeated, mortal powers and agents were still not powerful enough to save the Worldstone. He feared that following it's destruction, things would get worse and proposed that the Assassin's lack of magic was weakness, that the time would soon come to fight fire with fire. He suggested that they should begin to incorporate magic to counter the coming flood. He was rejected outright by most of the clan, and nearly slain on principle, but one Assassin elder had reached a similar conclusion, but didn't know how to act upon it. With this opportunity, he stole away with the Vizjerei elder and a few of the younger clan members, to work on combining their knowledge and powers to create a new breed of mage-knight. Once the Viz-Jaq'taar realized what had transpired, they decreed death for all violators, but the group dissappeared and no one had heard from them to this day. All knowledge of what had transpired was hidden.
They spent years hidden away from the world in the northern reaches near the ruined Mt. Arreat. They honed their skills, focusing less on subversion and more on direct confrontation. From the Assassin's understanding of the mind and martial combat and the Vizjerei elder's understanding of the Elemental magics, a marriage was made into magically enhanced warriors. This combination of studies gave special insights into the nature of the world and gave these new warriors the power to tap into the very elemental threads that are woven into our world and weave them into their own bodies and equipment. They also gained some insight into exploring the Ether. They spent a great deal of time developing methods of countering and diffusing hostile magicks and it's practitioners, as per Assassin tradition, up close and at range. They also knew, however, that the demonic hordes need not rely on magic to reek their destruction, so great emphasis was also placed on raw combat power and fortitude.
With the coming of the falling star, they knew that their time had arrived. They re-emerged into the world to discover what foul forces were involved. While two of the apprentices were away doing reconnaissance, their base of operations was utterly destroyed. Most were killed, the rest were missing. The elders were not among the remains, nor were there any clues as to the perpetrators. Had the Assassins finally caught up to them? Was it the mustering forces of evil? The two apprentices had no answers, but were determined to fulfill their duties. They ventured into the world on their own to discover what evil schemes plotted against Sanctuary and to put it to an end... or die trying...
Character Design
The Arcane Warrior is a highly magic augmented warrior that could focus equally on melee or missiles. Her main skills are enchantments on her weapons and armor that add elemental or other magical properties, possibly even castable on allies. In D2 terms, it'd be something of a cross between a Paladin, Amazon, and Assassin.
Attributes and Skills
Enchantment skills are cast by the character and last for a certain duration. Different enchantments can be in effect at the same time (stacked), but can have only 1 Weapon and 1 Armor Enchantment per Tree active at a time.
Arcane Warrior Skills
The Arcane Warrior skills are arranged into to three distinctive skill tree categories:
- Steel & Fire
- Pax Arcanna
- Terra Firma
All three trees have a combination of active and passive skills. Active skills are used in combat, while the passive skills boost or change the behaviour of the active skills.
Steel & Fire Skills
This tree focuses on speed and raw destructive output. Uses Fire and Lightning. "A good defense is a good offense."
Tier I:
- Burn: Enchants Weapon. Adds fire damage to attacks and increases accuracy.
- Jolt: Enchants weapon. Adds electrical damage to attacks and increases attack speed.
- Flame Armor: Enchant Armor. Deal fire damage to any melee attackers.
- Lightning Spirit: Increase attack speed and accuracy. Passive.
- Lunge: Melee. Attack and move forward in a short burst, knocking foes back a ways and following. Sort of a short burst Charge, but foe must be in melee range. Useful to break out when surrounded.
Tier II:
- Twitch: Missile. Essentially a Missile based Zeal.
- Flame Spray: Enchants Weapon. Melee, causes a spherical firewall centered on target. Missiles cause a trail of fire to form under arrows path.
- Lightning Rod: Enchants Weapon. When enemy is struck, a lightning bolt goes from character to target. Can trigger multiple bolts from one attack. More useful for multiple missiles against clustered enemies.
- Conflageration: Enchant Armor. Causes the ground around the character to burst into fire.
Tier III:
- Sweep: Melee. Spins once in a circle, striking any surrounding enemies within range.
- Burst: Enchants weapon. On attack, explosive fire is dealt to nearby units (ala D2 Fireball or Explosive Arrows).
- Chain Static: Enchants Weapon. Causes electrical damage to target that jumps to any units next to them, etc, etc, rippling through tightly packed enemies.
- Thunderclap: Enchant Armor. When an enemy attacks, has a chance of triggering a shockwave that knocks all foes back within a small radius, plus dealing damage.
- Flame Sabres: Spell. Creates floating swords made of fire that seek targets and deal fire damage. Can be attacked and destroyed.
Tier IV:
- Flame Nova: Enchants Weapon. Triggers a fire based nova from target. Increasing rank increases size of effect.
- Ricochet: Missile. When a target is struck, the arrow jumps to the nearest target. Everytime a target is struck, the arrow keeps retargetting up to a skill based maximum or until it misses one.
- Channeling the Flame: Increases Fire and Lightning damage. Passive.
- Fire Elemental: Transforms into a Fire Elemental, dealing extra fire and increasing Fire and Lightning damage. Also, absorbs fire damage.
Pax Arcanna Skills
This tree focuses on penetrating and neutralizing hostile magics and magicians. Uses skills that interfere with magic, and uses teleportation offensively and defensively. "What good is magic if you're unable to use it?"
Tier I:
- Silence: Enchants weapon. Has a chance to silence target.
- Resist Affliction: Decreases the chance that negative condition magics can affect character, like chill, slow, silence, etc. and also decreases the duration of such effects if they get through. Passive.
- Displace: Melee. On striking, teleport to another random position next to target.
- Magic Arrow: Missile. Fires a created arrow that causes increased, pure Arcane damage.
- Interference: Enchants weapon to inflict a condition that causes target's casting rate to greatly decrease.
Tier II:
- Veil of Silence: Enchants armor so that when attacked, fires a silence bolt at attacker.
- Arcane Defenses: Passive. Increases resistance to arcane magics.
- Dispel: Spell. Sends out a shockwave that will dispel any negative magic effects on friendly units.
- Blood Price: Enchant Weapon. Adds mana damage and inflicts a condition on target that causes any abilities that drain Mana to drain an equal amount of Health as well.
- Skip: Enchant Armor. When attacked, has a chance of teleporting to a random location within range. Could be annoying to some players, but to those who thrive on chaos, welcome home!
Tier III:
- Absorb Magic: Enchants armor. Has a chance of absorbing spells cast at character, eliminating damage and restoring however much mana that skill cost.
- Short Circuit: Spell. Cast on a single target. Caster and target lose all mana. (may not be very relevant, because they may not keep track of enemy mana. PvP uses would be neat-o.)
- Summon: Spell. When cast on a target, causes them to be teleported right next to caster. Doesn't work on bosses or other characters.
- Enhanced Channeling: Passive. Increases the duration of all enchantments.
Tier IV:
- Shift Stirke: Melee. Quickly teleport next to an enemy, attack, then zips back to his original location. If hit, he's stuck where he's at.
- Tiamat: Enchants weapon. Adds elemental damage of fire, cold and lightning. Melee and missile. Enhanced by Burn, Jolt, and Frostbite.
- Reflect: Enchants armor to have a chance of reflecting magics cast at character.
- Disruption: Spell. Sends out a shockwave that destroys any spells or missiles within the given radius.
Terra Firma Skills
This tree focuses more on defense and fortitude. Attacks are based on strength more than speed. Uses Stone/Earth and Cold. "The mountain need not fear the storm." (Note: Earth elemental skills are only called that for conceptual reasons and cause physical damage, not an "earth elemental" damage type. That is, unless Blizzard adds that.)
Tier I:
- Frostbite: Enchants Weapon. Adds cold damage to attacks and chills targets.
- Immovability: Passive. Decreases the chance that any effect can cause the character to move against his will, ie. knockback effects.
- Rockform: Enchants Armor. Increases Defense and Damage Reduction.
- Ice Shield: Spell. Creates a literal shield made of solid ice. If a shield is being used, it enhances it defenses and blocking. Without a shield, it floats near caster and confers double the blocking bonus that Ice Shield adds to a shield and can be used with 2-handed weapons.
Tier II:
- Inertia: Passive. Causes attacks to physically pack more force. Increases physical damage.
- Ethereal Anchor: Missile. A successful attack can anchor the foe in place, unable to move, but can still attack. Doesn't work on bosses or other players.
- Cold Aura: Enchants Armor. Chills enemies within a given radius. No Damage.
- Stone Guardian: Spell. Creates a floating fist of stone that randomly attacks nearby foes. Certain runes may add Knockback.
Tier III:
- Torque: Melee and missile. Slower attack, but does much more damage. If missile, it travels faster (if engine supports that).
- Attunement: Passive. Increases resistance to fire/ice/lightning.
- Icicle: Enchants Weapon. Causes a giant Icicle to fall on target, causing splash damage to nearby foes.
- Stalagmite: Spell. Summons a spike of solid rock from the earth at the desired location. Any enemies nearby take physical damage and pillar remains as an obstacle until destroyed or duration expires.
- Jagged Shards: Enchants Armor. Causes sharp rock protrusions to spring from armor, causing physical damage on melee attackers. Against missile attacks, has a chance of shattering the missile, causing no damage. Against attackers that have weapon Durability (ie. PvP), has an equal chance of reducing Durability of attackers melee weapon by one.
Tier IV:
- Anvil: Melee. Crushing attack with cooldown time that does highly increased damage to target and nearby targets.
- Ice Prison: Spell. Like Bone Prison, but made of ice.
- Quenching the Flame: Passive. Increases Cold and Earth(or physical) damages.
- Earth Elemental: Transforms into Stone. Makes Earth and Ice skills do more damage, adds defense. Also, adds resistances to cold and lightning.
Development
The Arcane Warrior was first posted 9 June 2009 [1] by Technomancer on the Diii.net forums. It was re-posted as a wiki article by Holyknight3000 and Leord on 10 June 2009.
Technomancer Notes
Perhaps combining the Enchantments into one tree and add a new 3rd tree maybe? This class would satisfy a lot different "archetypes" in one. Another Melee class, a Missile class, a worthy Pally replacement, and open to any form of backstory.
This is something I've wanted to see since before I even heard D3 was in development. It's actually a re-adaption of a class I'd come up with for my own turn-based game that'll probably never get done, and that was a re-adaption of an AD&D 2nd Ed. class I came up with about 8 years ago.
I figure a 5th class would be some kind of War Priest/Inquisitor/Exorcist (I mean, hey, SOMEONE has to cast Holy Bolt, right? ), or another physical character that's really out of the box, Rogue/Assassin style. It'd be a good fit for those last 2 skills.
Arcane Warrior Concept by Boqu