Fallen (Guardian elite specialization)
Once a valiant protector of Tyria, the recent events have shaked the Guardian’s faith and resolve, and s/he is now on the verge of madness and corruption, constantly being torn between his oath and his inner madness.
Concept
A recurring theme of the holy warrior archetype is the light vs darkness duality. (Think about Star Wars, Final Fantasy IV, Warcraft 3, etc.) As the “paladin” archetype of Guild Wars 2, I would have an elite specialization have you play a guardian that is on the verge of turning evil.
The Fallen is themed around a character that has two personalities: his usual guardian personality which is all about honor and selflessness, and his dark, evil and twisted alter ego. In the game, it is like playing two characters rolled into one, each having 2 distinct weapon slots, stats, and utility skill slots. The player can enter dark form (aka: fall into madness) anytime, but switching back to light form has a long cooldown and/or require you to be out of combat. This is also to put emphasis on the fact that this is not a shroud-like ability; if you switch to your dark form, you must commit to it because there is no coming back for a while.
(I’m leaving the balance of such a character in the hands of people that know the balance of the game far better than I do. I’m interested in themes and concepts here.)
New Mechanic: Collapse (F4)
The guardian falls to madness, swapping the stats, equipped weapons and utilities with those assigned to the dark form. You can never block during madness and all healing is reduced, but you gain increased damage. This alters weapon skills into “dark” versions of themselves, and corrupts the guardian’s Virtues into Vices:
- Vice of Tyranny: Replaces Virtue of Justice. Very long cast time with an obvious tell. If the enemy has more HP than the Fallen, it takes some damage, nothing special. If it has less HP than the Fallen, Vice of Tyranny deals far more damage. In either case though, Vice of Tyranny cannot kill or down the foe, essentially leaving it at 1 HP if it would otherwise kill it.
- Vice of Corruption: Replaces Virtue of Resolve. Applies a short Corruption debuff to a foe. If that foe is defeated (not just downed) while the Corruption debuff is on, it will become a Corrupted Husk, serving as a mindless turret minion for the Fallen for a short period of time. The Corrupted Husk is killed easily, but it itself spreads Corruption, allowing for more Corrupted Husks to be spawned if not taken care of.
- Vice of Cowardice: Replaces Virtue of Courage. Unblockable PBAoE fear+torment. (Boring, but I have no idea.)
New weapon: None
Instead of a new weapon, all guardian weapon skills are altered into “dark” versions after entering Madness, giving them slightly different animations. Generally, dark weapon skills are like their usual version but tends to replace the boons with conditions, the healing with bleeds or more damage, the aegis with unblockable traits, and so on. The Fallen also gets access to 4 weapon slots (sort of… the usual 2 for the normal form and 2 additional ones for the dark form) so I think that a new weapon would be too much.
New utilities: Corruption. (Obviously.)
You can only equip those on the utility bar of the dark form. As for weapon, both forms have their utility skill slots.
New elite: Vengeful Duality
Deal damage based on much HP you had lost in your light form before entering dark form, and switch you back to your light form for a short duration.
(edited by Bearhugger.4326)