Vampire Character Class

Perfect second-expansion follow-up to the slow "tank" Crusader. :P

We now have 2 STR, 2 DEX, and 2 INT classes. Vampire class's mainstat is VIT. Primary resource is blood, which is massively gained on kill (new, compared to on hit vs over time). High-spender spells require a sacrificial % of life as well.

Actives:
-
Bat Form

>For 20 seconds, you take the form of a bat. Gain +25% movement speed. 45 second recharge.

Runes:

- ~ now lasts 60 seconds.
- Increase the movement speed bonus by +10%.
- While flying, you siphon life from those around you.
- You no longer draw the attention of enemies.
- Your next attack deals +900% damage.

Necromancy

>Raise a skeleton from the dead to fight for you. You may have up to 6 skeletons summoned at any time. 18 second recharge.

Runes:

- Create a tombstone that spawns a skeleton after 4 seconds. Remove the recharge on ~.
- You may have up to 10 skeletons summoned at a time.
- Your skeletons shoot their enemies with bows that gain 2600% of your DEX as damage.
- Summon skeleton mages that gain 2600% of your INT as damage
- Your skeletons enter a frenzy, increasing their attack speed by 15% and their damage by 2600% of your STR.
- Your skeletons gain 20% of your VIT and share 25% of your damage.

Passives:
-
- Health globes also restore your primary
- Bats flock to your side.
- Your skeletons gain 25% of your Life Per Second.
- Slain enemies have a 10% chance to rise from the dead as Skeletons.


Aaand, of course, the super-secret Trang-ouls set out there with set bonuses

(2) You gain +600 VIT.

(5) Necromancy gains the effect of all runes.

(6) [Look like this](http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb240/callador85/MicarmyrLCS.jpg)

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^Sorry, ^I ^should ^sleep.

[Mechanic] Suggested D3 Affix Changes

Missile dampening should be changed to

1. Slow the elite's projectiles too (by a larger amount than current), and have them continuously damage you while you are in contact with them, and
2. Only allow monsters to be hit once by your dampened missiles (so they aren't continuously hit by your dampened missiles).

Wormhole : This affix is basically a weak version of the vortex affix. It could apply a short damage taken debuff on the player, or perhaps allow the monsters to get teleported by it as well, resulting in them having increased damage for a short while.

I like the idea of switching it up with mutual teleportation, but buffs/debuffs don't really go with the theme. Perhaps instead an elite with Wormhole could spawn wormholes that you pop in and out of (as in, if you come into contact with one, you are teleported to another random one; could make a combination with poison / molten / etc pretty dangerous), or if you want to get players to think twice about engaging elites, let Wormhole elites teleport themselves (and their entire mob) and the player(s) somewhere else randomly in the area. You might find yourself in the middle of another pack of monsters if you didn't clear the area before engaging.

My feedback for current affixes:

• Avenger : Should increase size, damage, and health by 2-3x its current rate. I want Avenger to be able to turn any elite into a capable mini-boss if you're not purposefully playing the affix and bringing them all to low health before killing any. Bonus points if a fully-grown Avenger gains an extra ability.
• Poison Enchanted : It's basically playing Bomberman. They should increase the distance between the poison lines though, as currently there's barely enough space to stand between them and most of the time it's not worth it to try and micro between them. If they increased the lines, slowed the spread slightly, and upped the damage, it'd be a formidable affix that would be dodgable but ferocious.

Some other affixes I think might be fun:

• Shadow : In a similar vein to shielding and reflect damage, the elite becomes immune to damage for a short amount of time. However, during this time you are not able to see the elite (and do not know where it moves to), and the elite becomes visible again whenever it next attacks you. For extra fun, dim the lights whenever you're fighting an elite that goes missing. You don't know where they are (though maybe you could still damage them -- and un-invisible them? -- with AoE or shift-attacks) ...until they're right behind you.
• Resistant : Bringing back elemental resistances has been a big debate since D3 launched, and I'm on the side saying it shouldn't come back. However, some dynamic resistance might be cool if, for example, a monster takes enough damage of a particular element they start becoming resistant to that element. Then, as they start taking damage from another element, they lose their resistance to the first element in favor of a new resistance to the second. Encourages build variety in solo play (but in a diminishing returns way that allows people to still kill elites if they just want to facetank / bring 1 element) and teamwork in team play if you throw down some blizzards to reduce the elite's resistance to your witch doctor's pro poison.

[Mechanic] Fishing

In most RPGs, there comes a point where you are grinding for levels. The drill looks like

1. Go grind some monsters for gold/exp
2. Return to inn to heal
3. Repeat

People continue doing it because they see a tangible increase in their power (as they level up) and an increase in numbers as they watch gold/exp go up.

Instead of the inn, you could introduce a minigame or mechanic (depending on how much you want to flesh it out) for fishing. Require characters to have bought some fishing rod (which could increase in quality the more you spend on it, providing improvement there) as well as bait (which could have variations in effects, such as what you can catch with each bait, how strongly it attaches fish that bite onto it, how quickly it attracts fish, etc).

Instead of the inn, give the players a lake or somewhere to fish. Let them either buy berries while they are in town (stocking up), or find them while they are out (as drops from monsters, or in bushes, or in trees, etc). Those berries, or whatever other bait you use, can directly translate into fish (when you fish), and the player's skill in fishing determines whether they get a small fish (that heals a little), a big fish (that heals a lot), a blue fish (that heals mana), etc. Of course, you can also stumble across treasure chests underground you can hook with sturdy bait/rods, and monsters that you can hook as well.

On the story side, this mechanic could sustain a party if they are away from town for a long time, such as if they are on an adventure (passing lakes with different kinds of fish), or in an open world (trying to stay close to water so they can continuously fish food), or stranded on an island, etc. It also lets players stock up what equates to potions for use in battles, too. 

If you flesh out the skill a lot, you could gain experience as you catch fish, that enables you to use different bait, different rods, catch different things, avoid monsters, be more efficient in your fishing, etc.

[Item] Affix: Vulnerability

Vulnerability increases damage taken by 1%, can stack up to 20 times, and each stack lasts 30 seconds.

Could even introduce a few extra affixes in addition to the (current) first one below:

x% chance to inflict Vulnerability

Vulnerability lasts x% longer on targets you hit

Or if elites get a vulnerability affix as well, throw an affix on some torso armor,

You are immune to Vulnerability

Or throw in some punishing legendary weapon with the special affix,

Vulnerability stacks no longer have a stack limit

or

Vulnerability stacks no longer expire

or

Each stack of Vulnerability increases damage taken by an additional 3%

or something.

[Battle] Leoric, The Mad King

The Mad King 

Boss: Leoric 

Scenario: Leoric Countryard could look really awesome with a dark filter, as well as Leoric Manor. 

Yes, Leoric as Skeleton appeared at Tristam Cathedral. But having his manor as an abandoned and enchanted place, local folks would probably feel fear about what lie into it. So, great reason to create an epic combat here.

I think there are enough bosses here to create memories that are fun for every kind of playstyle. Lots of people have been requesting some kind of rift/area with laughably high monster density, and what better place to do it in than with Leoric's endless undead army?

Like my suggestion with Diablo/Tristram (another comment), I think this battle should also be timed, but not with a hard cap. Just like there, where the time is limited to how long you can survive in a completely burning environment by the end, this battle could be "timed" in the sense of Leoric continuously raising more and more of the dead until you are literally drowned in them.

Start the battle out dark, in the Leoric Courtyard, as you suggested. Have monster density be almost nonexistant (this is a memory of course, and people likely stayed away from the Manor). Maybe throw in some merchant NPCs (that could sell some new dyes or something only available in this/other memories) out on the road with caravans.

When you reach the Manor and step inside, have the Skeleton King appear out of nowhere with his dash-hit thing and strike you, knocking you back 4-5x the normal knockback rate into the courtyard. Immediately, the king summons some skeletons and either walks towards you to fight or stays where he is to start summoning a continuous stream of skeletons (that starts out slow, but only increases over time).

As you run back towards Leoric, you see a few skellies headed your way, which you smash one or two on your way. Their bones fall to the ground, but do not disappear.

You reach Leoric, who is in the middle of a long casting animation that, if successful, raises one of those skeleton-summoning pillars from the campaign (right before his boss battle). Striking him interrupts the pillar from being created, but if it is created it shows up on your map and starts spawning skeletons outward from where it is unless you go destroy it.

Now you have a choice: continue to pummel Leoric as he switches off between battling you, summoning skeletons himself, or trying to summon pillars. You need to strategically dodge his attacks, because they still have 2-3x knockback, and you might not get back to him in time to interrupt him summoning more skeletons/pillars.

As you fight, you might also notice the bones on the ground moving. Eventually, they reorganize themselves and the skeleton you killed previously comes back to life, meaning the longer the battle takes the more and more skeletons you will be against, no matter what.

Basically, I'm describing this battle as a dream for anyone who loves pulling huge mobs and AoE-melting them all, but even then they need to pile on enough single-target damage to drop Leoric before the mob sizes get out of control.

Of course, the Countryard remains dark throughout the battle and is completely open, so there is plenty of room to kite and run around, but you can't always see whether there are skeletons in your path with the darkness.

In terms of replayability, I think one of the biggest proponents (past just being _fun_) is to provide some kind of score that people can try and beat their best of. In addition to being a breeding ground (literally) for massacre bonuses, you could also award score by how many skeletons you killed, how many pillars you stopped, how many hits you dodged, how long you lasted (if you die), or any other metric.

[Battle] Diablo, The Dark Wanderer

The Dark Wanderer 

Boss: Diablo 

Senario: Old Tristam 

Diablo himself walked through the roads of Tristam by his own feet. Despite of he was in a human form, the demonic chaos he unleashed fed the nightmares of both children and old men. It would be awesome fighting Diablo in this scenario (and even better if adding some fire to the town).

Adding fire to the town is a great idea, but it shouldn't be done at first. We should be thrown into Old Tristram as the battle starts, and maybe get a glance of Griswold, Cain, Pipin, etc. For bonus points, throw in a couple of civilians from the houses.

Now, as you start to fight Diablo, he of course has fire attacks. _Make the buildings in the environment destructible_. Watch civilians run for their lives as Diablo lays waste to their city, eventually bringing it to the burned-out environment we see in D3.

The burning buildings should of course deal damage to you, and the fire should spread naturally outward, engulfing other pieces of the environment (bushes, grass, etc) until the map eventually fills up with flame. In terms of the looks of the environment, it'd also be pretty cool if the world started out super dark (as you suggested), but the flames provided more vision as they spread, slowly revealing the fact that the city is being destroyed.

Making this a timed battle gives it some sense of urgency for the player to destroy Diablo before he completely destroys Tristram. If time runs out and you are completely engulfed in flames, you at least get to see the sight of Diablo (who is immune to his own fire) walking around a burning city as you fall to your death and are thrown out of the memory.

You could even provide some tactical strategy to the battle if you gave some kind of extra bonus to the player for each civilian that reached safety. You'd run around and be able to direct Diablo's attacks to lay waste to a smaller portion of the city first (since it's directed at you), and by playing it close with the flames you are limiting where he shoots additional flames, meaning less of the city burns up as fast and more civilians get away. Strategy means replayability, as people continue to play the battle over and over again to best their score (not to mention score more rewards).

[Battle] The Butcher, The Flesh Ripper

The Flesh Ripper 

Boss: The Butcher 

Scenario: Tristram Cathedral with a dark filter looks really nice, and creating a closed arena with this appearance would be perfect. As well, adding some crippled corpses and blood would create a better feel of what the Butcher was.

Speaking of things looking really nice, the Butcher's memory would be a really good place to channel a lot of Diablo 1, with a hellish, closed area that you are trapped in filled with torture devices (complete with bodies, as per D1) and piles of corpses. The player finds themselves in a large room full of these contraptions, with another room in the center of this one, with one door leading in. Along the outer walls are some cell doors, some open and some closed, that are open to the environment through body-blocking bars but still enable you to shoot out of them.

When the player opens the door, we get the nostalgic "FRESH MEAT" battlecry and the butcher slashes the player, dealing a constant 20% of their life or so (just enough to scare them) and they are knocked back with a streak of blood tracing their trail, and they get a Bleeding debuff.

>Bleeding. While bleeding, you lose 1% of your life over every 15 seconds. Stacks up to 10 times.

(numbers to be adjusted for taste)

Each time the butcher attacks you, you have a chance to be afflicted by another stack of Bleeding (and visually lose a lot of blood to the ground, in addition to a small, constant stream that scales up with each stack you get). Basically you're painting the battleground with blood that represents where you have been, where you have been hit, and can _see_ the environment change. Of course, have the contraptions be destructible as well, and have the corpses fling more blood (because we _loved_ blood in D1, right?) when they are "destroyed", too.

However, to even out the playing field when it comes to Bleeding between ranged (who can just keep kiting and hitting) and melee (who are constantly in attack range), the Butcher has an attack animation similar to the slow-attacking-but-hard-hitting guys in Act 4, which provides melee characters the chance to kite/dodge attacks as well.

Right now I've described this memory primarily to appeal to nostalgic D1 players (fighting their Butcher on the D3 engine, basically), but I don't think that's quite enough for proper replayability, per se. It need some more interesting mechanics, but I don't know what they would be.

If the blood on the ground could _do_ something, that'd be pretty cool, but I don't think it makes sense for your blood to deal damage to you. Maybe over time concentrated pools of blood disappear and become health globes, or something?

For deliciousness sake as well, the Butcher should have a very small pick-up radius, but also be able to pick up your health globes (especially if they are created from your blood) to be healed from drinking blood. Perhaps the blood-health-globes should heal you less (because they aren't standard health globes), but you still want to make sure you get them before the butcher gets them.

Eventually the butcher dies, and you are treated to look at a room caked in blood for a moment before returning from the memory to the real world and are scored on how much blood you lost.