I’ve been working on a melee class, trying to find something that would allow for melee viability in every type of fight and I think I have something workable here. There are very clear pve and pvp talents available, and some overlap with creative talent tree ideas. I’d be happy to hear suggestions from anyone who endeavors to read through the wall of text below. I give you all, the Shadow class.
Shadow
Weapon: Double Daggers + 3 throwing knives
Armor: Leather
Playstyle: Throw a knife at an enemy to launch your Shadow Clone to that location, an ethereal form of the enemy will appear in front of your player so you can attack freely at range. Enemies that have targeted you for aggro will target the Shadow Clone instead, killing it with a few hits and putting it on cooldown for 8 seconds. Throwing follow up knives will deal a large amount of damage and reset your shadow’s duration. Shadow Clone will automatically be placed behind a target when it appears. Switch between true melee and ranged melee depending on the fight and positioning requirements.
Passives:
Stealth - Remaining out of combat for 3 seconds will give your character lesser stealth toward npc’s, letting you walk through them without being attacked.
Ambush - If you break stealth by attacking an enemy, you will guarantee a crit.
Combo Strikes - Each time you swing your daggers one after the other you add combo points to your enemy that can be expended by special abilities. (Maximum 6 combo points) There is a limit to how quickly you can generate combo points.
Shadow Blade - You hold only one dagger and can effectively use it that way, activating combo strikes by swinging in alternating arcs, but if you grab your dagger with your other hand, you will pull a shadow version out of the weapon to dual wield. Pushing the grip button again will cause you to drop the shadow dagger, giving you access to other skills such as smoke bomb and throwing knives.
Skills:
Shadow Clone: Throw one of your three daggers at an enemy to make a shadow version of your player appear behind the enemy. An ethereal version of the enemy will appear in front of your real character to be attacked as normal at range. The Shadow Clone only lasts 15 seconds and will stay attached to the enemy keeping the ethereal form in range for the duration. Throwing another knife at the enemy will reset the duration of the shadow clone and relocate it to the back side of the enemy again. The shadow clone can be targeted by single target attacks. If the shadow clone is destroyed, you will incur an 8 second cooldown before you can reapply shadow clone to any target. During this time your throwing knives will be unavailable.
Backstab - Bring both daggers down in an overhead swing against an enemy to deal a large amount of damage, scaling based on how much health the enemy has lost( lower hp means more bonus damage ). This attack will deal a critical strike if you are behind the target. Cooldown 4 seconds. Backstab will interrupt enemies.
Eviscerate - hold both triggers and swing both weapons at an enemy in a horizontal arc to use all of your combo points to deal heavy damage to the enemy. Damage scales up based on combo points on the target.
Arterial blow - Hold the trigger on one of your daggers and perform two horizontal strikes in either direction to consume combo points and add a bleed over time effect to the enemy. Refreshing the bleed will not stack the damage, and instead overwrites any current Arterial blow bleed effect on the target.
Smoke bomb - Throw a smoke bomb on the floor to lower your aggro against any current enemies and instantly activate lesser stealth, taking you out of combat with non boss enemies.
Special Ability: Leeching blades - For the duration of your super you will gain a damage boost and every combo point consuming skill will heal you for the damage dealt.
Talents:
Tier 1:
Poison daggers - all attacks apply a poison damage over time effect to the enemy, stacking up to three times, refreshing the effect removes the lowest duration poison and applies a fresh poison stack. Enemies are slowed based on how many stacks they currently have on them.
Serrated blades - breaking stealth with an attack from behind will add a damage over time effect to your target which can be refreshed by using Arterial Blow. When applying Serrated Blades from stealth your target will be stunned. Refreshing the duration does not stun the target again.
Tier 2:
True Stealth - Activate true stealth by throwing a smoke bomb on the floor, giving you complete invisibility for up to 15 seconds or until you enter combat. 30 second cooldown. Breaks combat with enemies. This skill retains the ability to reduce your aggro.
Poison bomb - Your Smoke Bomb now becomes a poison bomb which will put a wide pool of AOE on the floor which deals damage over time to anyone inside the pool. This will remove the effect of smoke bomb taking you out of combat, but will retain the reduced aggro effect.
Tier 3:
True Assassin - Killing an enemy will instantly put you into true stealth for 15 seconds and resets the cooldown of backstab. If you are still in combat after killing the enemy, you will instead just reset the cooldown of backstab.
Garrote - Your Eviscerate will reset the duration of Arterial blow, extending the same DOT based on how many combo points were used in the original Arterial Blow. Resetting the cooldown of Arterial Blow in this way also resets the duration of Serrated blades in the same way using Arterial Blow would have.
Tier 4:
Shadow Step - Pull the trigger on either hand while not holding a weapon to teleport to where your Shadow Clone stands and have it switch places with you, standing idle. Repeat this within the shadow clone’s duration to switch back to your previous location, causing the Shadow Clone to go back into combat and your ethereal target to reappear. Cooldown 30 seconds after the Shadow Clone fades or after your second teleport.
Adrenaline rush - pull the trigger on either hand while not holding a weapon to activate adrenaline rush. This will allow you to move at normal speed even in combat for a 10 second duration. Cooldown 30 seconds.
Tier 5:
One More Time - Activate this skill by pulling your main hand trigger and holding your dagger out to the sides. This will reset all of your cooldowns including your talent cooldowns aside from One More Time. 1 minute cooldown.
Combo Breaker - Activate this skill by pulling your main hand trigger and holding your dagger out to the sides. The blades will glow and for the next 10 seconds your eviscerate and arterial blow will not consume combo points and instead they will have a 1 second cooldown, allowing you to repeat the attack as many times during the duration as possible.