[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