DiabloFans

Oh wow, I wish I had seen this before the character skills contest--this does look sweet. Just like Guilty Gears is such a great fighting game for incorporating completely character-unique gameplay mechanics, so too could be Diablo 3. Fury orbs, any or other specifically character limited systems, definitely help in both balance and freshness of gameplay between different characters/classes.

Here goes...

Blade Dancer
The blade dancer fights with 1 or 2 swords and a hyper kinetic fighting style based on close range mobility and dodging. Blade dancers do not wear bulky armor, and certainly cannot be considered a ‘tank’ like the barbarian. A still blade dancer is a dead blade dancer, sharp reflexes and clever positioning are absolutely vital to their survival. The blade dancer’s skills sometimes change depending on whether he has one or two swords equipped as will be noted.

---Flourish Skill Tree---
Flourishes are the basic lifeline of a blade dancer, the skills inside often have invulnerability frames included to allow for the class’ trademark evasive fighting style. Many flourishes also change the physical position of the blade dancer, since they are so frail—they must use positioning to always have a way out or a method of dodging. Many flourishes would be defensive in nature and would not cost mana, but would instead have a cooldown time of around 3 seconds, sometimes leveling a flourish could reduce this cooldown. Most importantly, all flourishes can be activated at any time—allowing blade dancers to effectively cancel the ending animations of many skills. Equipping two swords at once makes these movements more effortful, increasing the cooldown time and shortening the invulnerability frames of some of these skills.

Slide
The basic flourish, all blade dancers will probably learn. The blade dancer slides on his knees (think Elvis) to the location of the mouse click (assuming there is a continuous stretch of ground). Leveling up this skill decreases the rate the blade dancer decelerates as they slide, and adds a small number of invulnerability frames to the front end of the slide. A blade dancer cannot slide through a non-flying enemy, so becoming surrounded is always a dangerous situation. Skill points in slide are a prerequisite to Slide Attack, which causes the blade dancer to extend a sword on either side, damaging all foes the slide passes—if only a single sword is equipped the slide attack is a single thrust forward in the direction of the slide (the impact of an enemy will still stop the slide).

Counter
This flourish makes the blade dancer invulnerable for a short amount of time during the start of animation, any attack during this period will be dodged and retaliated against with a thrust. The invulnerability of this skill ceases as soon as the first attack is intercepted, making it dangerous to use in the presence of multiple foes. With two swords, the BD thrusts both swords in and pulls them out in opposite directions, slicing 180 degrees centered on the enemy that triggered the counter. The two-handed version does far less damage, but has stun damage attached. Leveling up this skill not only increases damage, but makes the timing more lenient. This skill does cost mana but does not have the 2-3 second cooldown that most other flourishes have. If the counter is mis-timed, then the BD is vulnerable and unable to move for a very brief period of time (which can still be canceled by another flourish)

Rending Flight
The blade dancer does a handspring off of the enemies body (shoulders for humanoids) stabbing them in the process. This skill changes the position of the blade dancer and the enemy targeted, providing one of the only ways out of being surrounded. This skill also stuns the enemy it was used on allowing the blade dancer to create distance or continue the assault with a backstab (see the deception tree).

Pirouette
A quick spin on the toes, during which the BD is invincible, lasting about 1 second. The Pirouette is performed in the direction of the mouse cursor click, but only moves the BD a few feet so it's not a move that can be used to cover ground (the BD runs faster), but rather is used as a dodge. Pirouette may be targeted to an enemy rather than a direction, in which case the enemy will be stabbed at the end of the spin and the skill will cost mana. If two swords are equipped during the attack version of the skill, they are flailed out upon the end of the spin, hitting all enemies surrounding the BD when the movement is completed.

---Ambidexterity Skill Tree---
This tree focuses on the usage of two swords at once. Obviously, the skills (except blade finesse) within can only be activated with two swords equipped

Blade Finesse
This is a passive skill to reduce certain penalties that come with equipping two weapons. It increases the accuracy of the off-hand and reduces (and eventually eliminates) the penalties of cooldown time and invulnerability frames in the flourish tree gained by equipping two swords. When only one sword is equipped, blade finesse creates a critical strike chance that increases with skill points. Without this passive skill, blade dancers with two swords equipped could experience flourish cooldown times of up to 6 seconds.

Sword Throw
The blade dancer hurls his off-hand blade into a selected enemy. The sword will remain stuck inside the enemy until the blade dancer passes by the enemy and automatically rips it out. The sword is reclaimed no matter what the blade dancer did to close the distance (IE slide past or slide-attack into!). The sword causes constant damage to the enemy it is thrown into and prevents regeneration, if the enemy dies the sword will remain in the corpse. The blade dancer will cause additional damage upon removing the sword if the enemy happens to still be alive, even if the enemy itself was the one that closed the distance to the blade dancer (foolish soul). There is a time limit as to how long the BD has to pull the sword out which increases upon leveling the skill, if the time is exceeded or too much distance is created between the BD and his sword, the sword will magically fly back to the BD at the cost of some mana and no additional damage will be applied to any living enemy--as would have been had the BD claimed his sword by closing distance. Using the Sword Throw skill a second time while the sword is still rooted in the enemy is another way to trigger this magical sword return.

Spin
The BD spins 1080 degrees in place with both arms extended damaging all surrounding enemies. Magic waves are emitted that slightly increase the range of this motion (but not much). This cannot be activated with a single sword. Leveling this skill increases damage and radius of effect.

Blade over Blade
A highly damaging combo to a single target, the BD leaps forward into a lateral spin (parallel to the ground) with both arms extended. This attack strikes three times (one spin) and pushes the enemy back upon the third hit. This move has no cooldown time and can be repeated on the same enemy by just holding the mouse click down, unleashing a fluid flurry of blades that pushes both the enemy and the BD in the direction of the attack. Leveling this skill increases the speed of rotation as well as damage, eventually resulting in multiple spins per activation, increasing the number of hits (like a single target zeal).

---Deception Skill Tree---
This skill tree is composed of various tricks, magic, and devices that add flair and unpredictability to the BDs attacks.

Burning Blade
Blade Dancers possessing this skill have coated their sword(s) in a flammable gel similar to napalm. Using this skill ignites the swords for a period of time, causing the BD to add fire damage to every attack. Each hit with this skill active also has a chance to ignite an enemy dealing damage over time.

Bomb Drop
The BD drops a timed explosive straight down that will detonate in 3 seconds or upon an enemy touching it. Adding skill points increases the blast radius as well as damage.

Backstab
A huge passive bonus to any damage dealt to an enemy not directly facing the BD. Despite the name, this bonus is applied to pretty much any enemy not currently ‘locked’ onto the blade dancer, making the blade dancer more effective even when playing with another melee warrior such as the barbarian. For example, a quick slide attack past enemies currently engaged with the barbarian would cause massive damage, since the blows would almost all land on their backs or sides. This skill is great for quickly picking off enemies focused on other players.

Sleight of Body
This BD skill magically creates a decoy copy of the blade dancer as he simultaneously darts forwards a maximum of 2-3 yards wrapped in shade magic so as to be invisible. Enemies will continue advancing towards the lingering decoy which will perform three pirouettes then vanish and the BD will become visible again. If the decoy is destroyed by enemies, the BD becomes visible again. Invisibility ends upon any attack or skill activation (even if the decoy is still alive), though any attack from invisibility will trigger the backstab passive skill bonus. This is yet another character movement based skill, and can actually be used in place of a flourish as a dodging maneuver, though it has a much more taxing mana cost. Leveling this skill would increase the HP of the decoy and its duration allowing it to actually take hits (level 1 would die instantly). Since movement from this skill is magic based, it is effectively a teleport--allowing travel across gaps and through enemies.

General Notes
I designed this class because I love action games just about as much as I love Diablo, and wondered how I could make a Diablo character play like he was in Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden. The BD is not a character that can be played passively, as his HP pool would be the lowest of any ‘frontline’ Diablo character to date. The ability to slide and cancel out of animations was certainly inspired by Dante’s Trickster class in Devil May Cry 3&4. The sword throw is something I’m especially proud of, because many of the BD skills will be more crowd control oriented with two swords and more damage focused with one, this skill is an intuitive way to give two-bladed BDs a way to change ‘stance’ freely (you could even sword throw your blade onto the ground to access this). Many of the BDs skills like Burning Blade, and sword throw will also do damage over time by causing bleeding or burning statuses—this plays very well into the BD’s evasive fighting style. And though I emphasize the coolness of being able to switch between two swords and one, BD's that choose to skip the ambidexterity skill tree would still be extremely potent. They would play more like boss killers, with extremely powerful single target attacks and the option to put points into blade finesse to even grant a high critical chance. While it seems like this class could be overpowered by having so many moves with an invulnerability period, it would require careful management and alternation of the flourishes in order to deal with the 3 second cooldown time of the dodge maneuvers. If all the flourishes are spent and recharging, and the BD finds himself near enemies he can only counter or he is very vulnerable and prone to death (think Dante Must Die mode type damage, 3-4 hits and you're dead). I don't think any melee character would have ever controlled with such fluidity and grace in Diablo history, creating a truly unique 'rogue' class experience. The real key is to think how cool a melee fighter could be if he concentrated on being mobile instead of taking hits like a tank. Overall I think this class would fit in extremely well with D3’s design philosophy of proactive player controlled damage reduction (as opposed to potion chugging) and it certainly plays differently than any class before it (which is actually the single most important aspect about it!). Hope you guys like it, it was really fun thinking about my own personal class

For PVP a team mode is definitely needed, party on party action! For these events you could have special PVP Arena game types that allow a higher number of players to join (maybe 10 or 12) so they can team up and compete. A variety of game types should be able to be initiated by talking with NPC's such as a direct team vs. team deathmatch, or a time attack boss rush (for Slayers, Champions, and the like only). The winning team could be rewarded with a very nice loot drop.

If going the route of being able to host different game types (such as the aforementioned PVP arena maps) perhaps you could also allow hosting of 'Market Maps', also with a higher max player count (this time up to 20), and it only contains space with stalls where players can go set up their own shops and go afk. This would also help keep gold as something useful, since market transactions would all be in gold, and the easiest way to sell your unwanted stuff. Players could have a message board inside their shop screen so they could list specific items or trades they were looking for as well, allowing other players to leave their player name and a brief message so the shop owner can contact them later.

Of course this could all work very well into the new Battle.net, you could have three different tabs where games are filtered into Questing, PvP, and Market types. Then whether the player wants to progress, compete, or look for an item, they can just click the tab and be shown only games pertinent to what they want to do. The different tabs could be linked to different chat rooms as well. Keep up the good work, I'm sure Diablo 3 will be awesome!

(but seriously, team pvp MUST happen!)