[Bard Knight]

Alright, so this is my first post ever on here but I'm going to try my best explaining this idea of mine.

So recently, a fellow by the name of Skullcat I believe recently designed a working sprite for horses in SL2, and it got me to thinking about an idea I had a long time ago.

Basically, this would (probably) be Soldier's fourth promo, focused on immense mobility and essentially being Soldier's answer to Bonder. Basically, the mount (in this case, a horse) would be treated as a companion that can be trained and leveled up just like a Youkai. In exchange, they don't actually move around on their own, instead they stick to the player like Engineer's platform does (at least from what I recall). The Rider class would, obviously, give the player extremely high basic move, turning an otherwise usually short range class into a quick gap closer.

However, while there would be some skills that run off the player attacking, others would take the mount into consideration for damage and attack effects. The Rider class could also have a pick of multiple different breeds of horse that each have advantages and disadvantages and interact with the relevant skills differently. One could have extremely high move and even focus on giving a minor glancing/evasion chance buff to the player, but imparts a defense/resistance debuff upon the player. One could be focused on being very good at outputting large amounts of damage and additional crit bonus, but moves less distance compared to the other breeds.

Some examples for what attacks could be like this...

Mule Kick - Target 1 enemy within one range, and command your mount to smash their hooves into whatever poor sod's on the receiving end. Knockbacks x amount of tiles, where x is Rank, and has a chance to inflict knockdown. 2-3 turn CD, scaling could be on the higher end (120-140%?), forces your character to face away from the target akin to Eclair Lacroix.

Impaling Charge - Spear Skill. Target 1 enemy within 6-7(?) range, lowering your spear/lance and charging right into the enemy. The player moves in a line towards the target, and any other enemies caught in the path will take slightly reduced (80-90%?) damage, while the target will take full damage. 1-2 turn CD, scaling could be like 110-120% SWA.

Horseman's Hunt - Axe/Sword Skill. Move in a straight line forward, range adjustable (5-6 tiles?). Swing your axe/sword from side to side, while your horse tramples anything caught in front of it. Enemies on either side of the line traveled with be struck with a basic attack, while enemies on the line will be struck by your mount. If using the Assault(WIP) breed, every enemy caught in the attack will suffer -X Rank crit evade.

Obviously there would be much more than just these three but I think this offers a quick and concise view into just a fraction of what the class would contain.

Anyhow, this is me tossing my idea out for all to see, criticize, discuss, etc. I would like to hear what the community thinks of the idea, what they would add or remove or change, that sort of thing.

Thanks for reading,
Bard Knight

[Autumn]

I think that a Rider style of play can be a really fun class concept to utilize, not going much into the specifics of it, I think that it should honestly be a promotion class for Soldier yes yes. It also is fitting to Sigrogana lore too (Wyvern Riders being based in Alstalsia) which is real nice. And lends into theming that a Rider might like with a mobility/tanky playstyle.

That said if there should be a emphasis on mobility, I'd like for it to be mostly delegated to gap closing attacks and long distance striding through the usage of bonuses like Charge, it could even play on this by having a passive that removes the movement penalties that Heavy Armor suffers.

Just spitballing anyway, +1 to the idea, as I think a Rider would be a pretty sick class addition to the game.

[lalchi]

While the idea is fun. I can see two problem at this.


1) This is a class which would need a horse. If a horse cosmetic is ever made, it would probably become a patrion/asago items. Which mean the class may be locked behind a paywall.

2) It's a horse class. A like any class, you can combine it with any other class. It will be really weird to suddenly see a horse do a cobra and winged serpent because why not.
One example from many.
Certain skill are just not thought to have any kind of monture with it. (Even if peddling wheel with a horse sounds hilarious.)

[InsainArcaneBirdbrain]

I think such an addition would be very complex to pull off due to both the logic of using certain skills on horseback, along with how you'd fit the beast in indoor locations. In an idea I threw out a long while ago when I came up with possible promo ideas for fun a while back was to make the riden creature a familiar/summon of sorts that could be recalled/dismissed at will.

The skill aspect could probably be worked around by preventing the use of all non-soldier/rider movement skills. As for how that weakness could be made up, perhaps titles like Fire Emblem could be used as inspiration with "Canto" movement after certain actions. A gap closing and semi hit-and-run base movement playstyle would be rather interesting to see imo.

[Sawrock]

if humans can do anime-ass stuff like throwing fireballs and taking a sword to the face I think our horses could be capable of doing jumping barrelrolls and kickflips