The Vagabond

The Vagabond is a Heavy Armor Class. They strife through the lands as they like. They stay not longer anywhere, than needed and work oftenly as Mercenaries for others.Vagabonds are dark themed Soldiers and basically the complete opposite of a Guardian and feell like being kind of the mixture between Warrior and Thief, that Anet kind of tried hard to make with the Revenant. Vagabonds come together with the two Elite Specializations Renegade and Bellicist for the start.

Vagabonds will start with the useable Weapons: Daggers, Swords, Axes, Maces, Greatsword, Hammer, Shield, Warhorn, Torch, Pistol and RifleRenegade will add Shortbow to the list.Bellicist will add Staff to the list

Gameplay Mechanic: Emotion Gauge

The Gameplay Mechanic that the Vagabond uses and which will be shared between its Elite Specializations is called *Emotion Gauge where based on your Emotions will happen different effects and your Character will play differently. Based on the Specialization the Emotion Gauge will include also other Emotions.The Basic Emotion Gauge looks like this:

Emotion 1 --> Emotion 2 --> Emotion 3 >> Emotion 4So for example in regard of Wrath:

Agggressiveness > Annoyance > Anger > Wrath

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plutchik-wheel.svgThere are 8 types of Emotions, which have an increasing level factor each. The Core Class starts with 4 Base Emotions, each Elite Spec allows it the player to exchange one of the Base Emotions out for their own Specialization Emotion, that can then affect the gameplay of your Character in combat differently than before.So stronger the Level Factor of one of your Emotions rises in combat, so stronger become the Effects that are attached to that specific Emotion.The 4 Base Emotions are:

Ecstasy, Grief, Rage (rename it here to Wrath to not confuse with Warrior's Berserker's Rage Gameplay) and TerrorRenegade covers LoathingBellicist covers VigilanceUpcoming E-Specs, the Outlaw (Focus) would cover Amazement and the Vagrant (Longbow) would cover lastly Admiration

Emotions build up as you fight . Each Emotion Type builds up differently.Wrath: When you take Damage, or deal Damage.Vigilance: When you deal Critical Hits or cause ConditionsGrief: While others in your near take Damage or your Skills reloadedEcstasy: Whenever you dodge roll, or block attacks/ perform CounterattacksLoathing: While you move around periodicallyAmazement: Whenever you receive Boons.Terror: Whenever you receive Conditions, or when you use a Skill that is not a Weapon Skill.Admiration: Whenever you receive Heals of any sort/ lose Conditions or quickly while you are not moving.

The Emotion Gauges can be switched like Attunements with F1 to F4, but unlike Attunements, they don't change the Weapon Skills itself, just only Side Effects of the Weapon Skills, like the Damage, like Conditions, like their Ranges and so on.. in that way kind of functions each Emotion like kind of a direct active Trait in itself, that changes the Effects of your Weapon Skills, what can also kind of synergize with the Traits you use together with your chosen active Emotion, to boost this Effect up with the help of your Emotion Levels in Combat.

Traitlines

These Traitlines would the Vagabond have:

• Independence (Affects Efficiency of Emotion Gauge, Presences, Avatars, and Condi Removal
• Aggressiveness (Affects Damage Dealing, Stances, Signets and Self Defense
• Optimism (Affects Healing Efficiency, Shouts, Evasion and Counterattacks
• Submission (Affects Conditions, Crowd Control, Boon Corruption and Emotion Suppressions
• Remorse (Affects Recharge Times, Mobility, Boon Sharing and Boon Efficiency

-- Renegade specializes and focuses on damage dealing, Stances and Crowd Control with the help of Legions that follow you now-- Bellicist specializes and focuses on Shouts, Boon Sharing with the help of new Banners and specialized Presences, so is more focused on Group Support-- Outlaws specializes on Boon Corruption, Conditions, Signets (Glyphs) and Evasion, is more the rogue knight route so to say with focus on mobility-- Vagrants specialize on Emotions and their Supressions, Boon & Healing Efficiency and Self Defense with the help of their Physicals, thus are more focused on Tanking/Damage Mitigation

Skill Types:

The Vagabond uses the following Skill Types as Healing, Utility & Elite Skills:

• Signets
• Stances
• Shouts
• Presence
• Avatars

Renegades add to this Legions (Minions)Bellicists add to this BannersOutlaws add to this GlyphsVagrants add to this Physicals

What are Avatars & Presences?

A Presence is a Vagabond unique Skill Type. Presences are practically Auras, but in this case they actually work like real Auras should and not what Eles call Auras.A presences is basically a small AoE field Effect, that is attached to your character and follows your Character to wheever you go, functionizing like a moving Combo Field for others to finish in your presence.. That way can you affect with yor own Positioning alot the outcome of battles and provide this way actively proactive group support, if other allies react skillfully on your positioning.Avatars are a Vagabond unique skill type, which makes usage of the Emotion Gauge, making it possible to use these powerful Skills once your Emotion Gauge reaches its highest level to transform yourself temporarely into a demonic form of your Emotions that you unleash. There are 6 Skills for these, so you can transform yourself into 1 out of 6 possible emotional demon avatars with the healign Skill one being the only exception to use whenever you want, where the Emotion Level just decides over the Efficiency of the Healing Effect. The other 5 provide meanwhile passive effects, before you use the Skills, similar like Signets, where the activation Effect is the Transformation.These 6 Demons are Asmodeus (Elite), Astaroth (Healing), Amdusias, Amon, Agares and lastly Alloces (Utilities), as you can see they all have in common, that they begin with A :D and are very well known demons (a cookie for the person who gets the reference first ^^)Using an Avatar exchanges for the moment your Weapon Skillls out to the specific Demon Skills into whom you transformed. Transforming will reset your Emotion Gauge to 0

What is Emotion Suppression?

The Emotion Gauge is not working like Adrenaline, where the Gauge is only rising and a fire and forget mechanic, once you've reached its maximum.Your Emotions become lower over time also, if you don't do something to keep them on high level. Using Skills/Traits which can suppress your Emotions affect this and stop temporarely, that your Emotion Gauge decreases over time , making them very useful once you have reached the maximum level of your Emotion to prolong the time it stays at that level, even if you currently do nothign to keep your Emotions high up, because they simply happens right now nithign, that would possitively affect your Emotion Gauge to stay up.With Emotion Suppression you simply prevent, that you lose too soon your build up Emotion Gauge Level for a while, so that the Level of your MEotion won't fall below the Level, where you used the Emotion Suppression. If you used a Skill with ES Effect for example at Level 3 of 4 from the Aggressivity Emotion (Anger), then for the time that the ES is active, won't fall your Emotion Level under staying in Anger, even if you receive in that time no damage or deal no damage, making it useful to use them short before the end of a fight, before you rush to the next one quickly, so that you begin the next battle already with a partwise build up Emotion eventually, if the time to your next combat doesn't take too long.Some Emotion Types will profit alot from that, while others not as much. Making usage of ES is key for the Types, which will profit alot from it to improve your efficiency with thembetween battles.

Thats so far only a basic idea I had of mine with the goal to redesign basically the Revenant, make out of it somethign without these unfitting racial based legendary stances which make it completely impossible that the class can use racial skills and make the E-Specs in retgard of renegade right now way too miuch based towards specific races, that it doesn#t feel at all right to play these specs with any other Race, that isn ot a Charr ... the whole class as it is right now completely feels out of touch with the whole rest of the game with its current design, it needs to become more equalized to the other Class Designs which work all the same, allow the usage of racial skilsl and which aren't at all anyhow affected by the choice of race you play in regard of lore.Haven't made up yet my concept up so far to write down any skill ,or trait proposals, cause I just wanted to make surte first, that the basic gameplay concept feels right to replace this legendary stance nonsense, while having to be also unique enough, that it doesn't feel too similar as of what the other classes brign to the game already and I think I've hit the nail with an Emotion based mechanic pretty well, because none of the other classes has anything so far to do with Emotions.. basicalyl the only thing that comes kind of close is only the Berserker with its Rage System, but it is also only limited to this one emotion and doesn't build up its gameplay to all the other ones as well and uses Rages also differentl,y than what I plan here to use Emotions for in a more trait like behavior, instead of just a fire and forget gameplay style like the Berserkers Rage Mechanic works...

Before I make myself the effort to come up with the rest of concept, I'd like to hear first some opinions of others here, if they like the concept basically so far at all, if they find it better than the current Rev gameplay, or not. So in regard of this specificly - Emotions vs. Legendary Stances - what do you find better?Would need in your opinion a Revenant Redesign absolutely to keep the Stance Gameplayor would you be as happy as me, when the redesign would exchange this stuff out?And if yes, why? Do you just agree with me that the Stances are too limiting, or eventually do you have your own reasons on that why you'd be happy when the Stances get replaced with something else??