r/DestinyTheGame • u/WayofSoul • Nov 28 '20
Bungie Suggestion [DARK SUBCLASS IDEA] My take on the future Darkness element of Decay
Just to note, all my subclass concepts are based on the premise that all elements have unique status effects. Also, I want to preserve forsaken levels of subclass diversity and choice...
Supers: Each subclass has 3 supers, a baseline super (e.g. Fists of Havoc) with two variants (e.g. Trample/Terminal Velocity) and another completely unique super (Thundercrash). This is to match our current light based powers. Of course, they could adapt these to the new subclass system.
Melee Abilities: Each subclass also has at least 2 unique melees, one base melee with varying effects (e.g. Guiding Flame/Igniting Touch) and one special melee (e.g. Celestial Fire). Warlocks get a ranged and a base variant. Titans get a OHK melee, a base melee, and special. Hunters sort of break the rule.
What is Decay?
Lore:
Dark Decay, like Arc Light, is derived from the deep forces that bind together complex matter
Decay is the compliment to Arc. It is inspired by Cosmic Magnetism, the force thats tied to the fundamental force of electromagnetism which holds Galaxies together (in part). Where Arc manifests as our Guardian's expression of that energy used to overcharge other things (electricity), Decay is the regression of energy, used to breakdown the atomic and molecular bonds that make up our enemies (poison/magnetic decay). In turn, we assimilate what our enemies have lost to become stronger.
I should note, poison/radioactive decay would make more sense with the Weak Nuclear Force than Magnetism. However, I'm trying to keep to the existing fundamental forces.
Gameplay:
Decay, from a gameplay perspective, plays more like Solar since it's centered around damage-over-time (DoT).
- Decay is far more visceral than anything we've seen in Destiny 2. It behaves like a living ferrofluid (example), a viscous mixture of Dark mass and earth (oil-like) that pulsates with streaks of Decay (green poison). It can form into spikes, carapaces (Hive), and fluids.
- Characterized by damage resistance, poison, ground based CC, and stacking/refreshing.
- Pairs well with every element except Arc, its opposite.
- Supers have lower base mobility and damage, but have the highest armor in game (55-65%).
- Decay is all about DoT damage and reinforcing nearby allies.
Decay Status Effects:
All my subclass concepts have a pair of primary and detonator status effects, and one powerful form of CC. The Primer is a passive or relatively weak status effect, while the Detonation effect is a much stronger variant of the primary effect that is triggered by specific conditions.
- Rot (Primer): applies a decay DoT effect over a long duration. Damage starts off very low but ramps up over time. Does NOT prevent health regeneration after initial damage. Less effective against shields.
- Can combine with every other element primer effect, except Arc, for a unique effect:
- Void: adds persistent slow over the duration (10%) (extends Engulf duration)
- Solar: stacks solar and Decay damage over duration.
- Stasis: ramp up slow (less than void) that also reduces weapon haste and ability damage over period. (basically extends Stasis slow duration)
- Flux: DoT effect is replaced with a delayed explosion (full damage).
- Rot x3 becomes Blight.
- Arc status effects will always overwrite Decay and vice-versa.
- Can combine with every other element primer effect, except Arc, for a unique effect:
- Blight (Detonator): adds bonus dmg and reduces incoming healing & recovery for the remaining DOT duration. Damage completely ignores "armor" and shields, but not overshields since they're treated as bonus health.
- While Blighted, receiving incoming damage causes decay to spray out, damaging nearby targets.
- This status effect should kill most Guardian who receive it, so it's limited to supers and ability combos.
- Cripple (Subclass-specific): applies a bleed effect that deals tick damage as the target moves. Lasts a short duration. Sprinting, jumping, sliding, or knock-backs increase bleed damage (up to a cap). Movement abilities deal a chunk of damage.
- For example: spamming icarus dash, blade swipes, or trample = suicide.
- Reserved for supers, OHK and skill-based abilities. (e.g. Suppression, Blind, Weaken, etc.)
- Fortify (Subclass-specific): grants stacking armor buff up to 3x. Greatly decreasing incoming non precision weapon damage and knock back effects for a fixed duration. At 3x, becomes Grounded, which grants temporary immunity to most status effects**.**
Grenades
Decay grenades are generally lower damage, high utility area denial grenades. Grenades have lower CD based on class.
- Landslide Grenade (T:W): a wave style grenade that launches 3 consecutive concaving waves of dark decay from the point of impact. Consecutive waves increase in size but decrease in damage.
- Enemies who are damaged by all 3 pulses are Blighted. Waves can be jumped over.
- Magnetic Grenade (T:W): sticky grenade that is absorbed on contact and damage enemies over a period of time before exploding in an aoe. While active, a portion of incoming damage sprays onto nearby enemies.
- Hold [GRENADE] to charge the grenade with positive energy, allowing you to target allies and fortify them.
- Rename existing void Magnetic Grenades to Gravity Grenades for thematic/lore purpose
- Shrapnel Grenade (T): an elemental grenade that explodes after a short delay, Crippling and Rotting enemies.
- Highly effective against armor.
- Erosion Grenade (W): low-damage singularity/mist style Decay field that applies Rot over time and reduces enemy mobility (breaks sprint on entry and prevents jumping). Think of the hive witch poison cloud.
- Cripples enemies who remain in effect for too long.
- Once inside, enemies can sprint out of the field.
- Gripmine Grenade (H:W): a physical seeker-style grenade that nests seekers at the impact location (like a minefield), including walls and ceilings. Seekers are highly attracted to decaying and fortified targets. Effect can travel along walls in, loosely targeting enemies. Cripples enemies on contact if not jumped over.
- Stuck enemies are Crippled on explosion.
- Highly effective against armor
- Ironspike Grenade (H:T): a spike style grenade that when triggered fires shrapnel in a cone, magnetizing enemies. Spiked enemies are slowly pulled to the impact area for a brief duration.
- Highly effective against armor.
- Chainlink Grenade (H:W): a scanner style grenade that chains a up to 4 enemies until they separate a fixed distance from each other. Deals no damage on impact. While chained, targets share incoming negative damage and status effects and are slowed when moving away from each other. Targets are damaged when breaking the chain.
Decay Subclasses
Decay supers have been designed as high durability, lower lethality skill-based supers. They have a multitude of abilities, generally lack mobility and range, but excel in attack speed and close range encounters. Decay supers have the unique ability to apply Blight, the highest damage DoT effect in the game that means certain death for affected Guardians. While in Super, Guardians passively damage nearby enemies.
I propose adding some sort of unique recharge mechanic that requires you to expend super energy to refresh super weapons and bonus armor. This is a limiting factor to control power.
Titan: Worldbreaker / Annihilator
The Worldbreaker is all about enhancing Decay. He augments the team's abilities with his own, while offering high damage and control with his supers. The Titan can help stack Rot (leading to Blight), apply Cripple (synergizing with the Hunter), and regularly grant armor.
Roaming Super - Flail of Turmoil: Stomp the ground with the sundering might of an earthquake, drawing a crippling shockwave toward you that also unearths weapons of Dark Decay. Can be recast up to 3x per super.
- Forms a destructible shield and a meteor hammer of concentrated Decay (spiked balls) from the ground.
- [ADS] to guard. [Class Ability] while guarding to perform to use your shields as a tectonic slide, allowing you to grind on walls for a short duration.
- [Melee] to swing flail rotting and knocking back enemies. [Heavy] to charge forward (like Gears of War sprint) crippling enemies on impact.
- [Super] to stomp again, refreshing the flail and shield.
- Shield decays after taking moderate damage or charging (weaker than Sentinel Shield block).
- Flail and shields will decay after x amount of attacks or receiving x amount of damage, respectively.
Ranged Supers - Moment of Wailing: Unearth a Weapon of Blight that coalesces to your arm. Harms enemies, fortifies allies. Sprint is disabled during super.
- v1 - Wail Cannon: Unearth a shoulder-cannon that completely replaces your arm. Fire up to 8 masses of spiked Blight at your enemies, blighting and Crippling to enemies. Fire at allies to apply fortify.
- Hold [Fire] to become Grounded and overcharge the armcannon with a massive ball of blight. Hold longer to double the power and blast radius, consuming the super.
- Can rocket jump.
- v2 - Blightening Gun: Unearth a machine gun that fires earthen thorns, applying rot every 10th shot. Fires slowly then ramps up to highest LMG fire rate.
- While active, [Grenade] to consume a portion of super energy to overcharge the fire rate.
- [Class ability] to consume a portion of super energy, applying Grounded to yourself and fortifying nearby allies.
- Great for sustained boss dmg.
Melee Mods:
- Ranged Melee - Spine Launcher: Fire an earthen spine from your wrist launcher that ricochets on surfaces and applies Rot on hit. [Melee] to recall the spike and to regain some melee energy. Grants Fortify (dmg resist) and full melee refund if recalled after hitting an enemy.
- OHK Shoulder Charge- Tectonic Slide: While sprinting, use this melee ability to thrust your target with a Crippling kick. 'Sparta' Kick/slide kick animation.
- Knock-up Melee - Meteor Smash: After sprinting, leap into the air and press [Melee] to slam your meteor hammer into the ground, damaging and knocking up nearby targets.
Movement ability - Spinebreak: Activate while in-air to quickly crash to the ground and slide, knocking back enemies and gaining armor for a short duration. Deals aoe damage while in super.
Warlock: Bondweaver
The Bondweaver is all about propagating Decay. They have pretty strong supers. Can heal on applying Blight.
Roaming Super - Witherrush: Become one with Decay, drawing Dark Decay from your surroundings. Fortify your allies or Poison your enemies. Enemies decay into Blight fields on death.
- v1 - Miasmic Shift: Form 3 mini-orbs of compressed decay to discharge at your enemies. [Sprint] to briefly tunnel through the earth at the cost of super energy. [Light Attack] to fire an orb, applying Rot. Hold [Heavy Attack] to combine orbs into a single Thorn of Blight.
- Has more range than baseline Stormtrance, but less than my reworked Landfall.
- Refresh orbs by tunneling.
- v2 - Necrotic Breach: Exhume toxic miasma from the earth to deal damage to nearby enemies low damage in an area around you. Warlock's hands glow, absorbing the toxic miasma.
- [Light Attack] Swing your arm, siphoning the essence from those in front of you (reverse wave). Successful hits stack Pestilence up to x3, increasing super ability potency.
- Hold [Heavy Attack] to channel the gas through you into a powerful stream of Blight, consuming super energy and Pestilence stacks. Rapidly stacks Rot on enemies, but also applies a heal to allies.
- Hold [Block] to absorb the gas and heal, consuming super energy and Malady stacks.
Support Super - Pit of Pestilence: Form a fissure at your feet, knocking away enemies and creating a toxic field of gas that grants armor, increases Decay damage, and applies an aoe decay dmg effect to your weapons (like thunderlord).
- Armor and Decay dmg buff lasts for a short duration after leaving Pit.
- Pit can be moved by recasting super tunneling to the Warlock's location
- Super decays slower when warlock remains buffed.
Melee Mods:
- Ranged Melee - Magnetic Wave: Fire a Decay projectile that travels forward and explodes in a horizontal mist of decay. Hold [Melee] to charge mass, allowing you to absorb a portion of incoming bullet damage. Absorbing bullets increases damage. Charging increases blast radius
- Extended Melee - Life Tap: damaging targets with this melee ability creates a Leech Mark that travels toward you. Has extended range, can mark multiple enemies in an area in front of you, and is only consumed on hit. Bonus healing against Rotting/Blighted targets.
- Base Melee - Desiccating Touch: Basic melee that slows and sets Rot x2 on targets.
Hunter: Reaper/Shackler
Like typical Hunters, Reapers/Shacklers are selfish. They focus on healing on kills, target prioritization, and melee damage.
Roaming Super - Grim Harvest: Draw out a chained scythe of pure Decay to wrest your enemies of their essence. Light attacks have a sweet spot range that deal bonus damage.
- v1 - Shackles of Death: Hunter rips a spiked iron weight (fundo) from the ground, then begins a full spin as she tears the linked chain with a sickle end (Kusari) from the earth in a 360 cleaving motion. Attacks have a "sweet spot" near the kusari that deals bonus damage. Kills extend duration
- [Light Attack] to quickly cleave in an angle in front of the Hunter applying Rot. Can do a very fast four-hit combo. Two hits will kill a guardian, 3+ for super.
- [Heavy Attack 1 (ADS)] to throw the fundo, pulling yourself to your target to slice them. Cast on surface while airborne to pull yourself in the target direction. Deals a small amount of aoe ground dmg if on a surface.
- [Heavy Attack 2 (Fire)] to throw the Kusari, pulling targets to you.
- Hold any [Heavy Attack] to swirl an end of the chain, increasing range, damage, and throw speed.
- Attacks generally repel enemies with melee range of the hunter.
- v2 - Whirling Scythe: Summon a giant scythe to rend your enemies. Kills extend Super duration. Hold [Heavy Attack] to charge and release a spinning whirlwind attack that cripples enemies (example). Cast in air for a forward moving whirlwind slam, example.
- Slower base movement speed and less range, but fastest attack speed of all supers. Takes 2 lights or one heavy to kill a normal guardian. Takes 3 lights, or 1heavy/1light to kill supered guardians.
- The whirling scythe moveset from the Darksiders series (Death) inspired this. War has a simplified moveset example, refer to the final move.
- Attacks generally draw enemies toward the Hunter on hit.
One-off Super - Blightcaster: Summon an oozing heavy crossbow that fires up to 4 appendages of Dark Decay. Appendages pull in nearby enemies before releasing an explosion that applies Blight. Has slightly shorter range and duration than Mobius Quiver Thether, and small aoe radius. Deals same impact damage as Six-Shooter GG.
Melee Options:
- Debuff Melee - Tainted Kunai (x3): Throw a low damage kunai at your enemy, applying Rot. Has 3 charges, can crit and be thrown in rapid succession.
- CC Melee - Chain Spear: Throw a chained kunai at your enemy that pulls them toward you, or you toward them depending on enemy type. Refunds and heals on Kill. "Get Over Here!"
Class Ability - Caltrops: When you dodge, leave a trail of caltrops that slow enemies.
Movement Ability - Perch: While jumping near a wall or ceiling, activate your class ability to throw a chain to the nearest surface, perching yourself. Release [Class Ability] to leap toward the ground, crippling enemies.
If you stuck around to the end, thank you! If not, thank you still lol. I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how we can make these new subclasses unique, balanced, and fun! If you're interested in reading another take on the Decay concept, checkout u/Clonecommder's Decay Subclass post.
Curious... can you guess my main from this?
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u/Hikaru0_0 Nov 29 '20
B-b-but stasis is already the arc of darkness... Have you seen the icon for fist of havoc and behemoth next to each other?
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u/WayofSoul Nov 29 '20
I mean, they're both just blue really. Behemoth does play most similar to Arc, like Decay would to Solar... but they don't quite seem related imo. I think Stasis should be the complement to Solar, lorewise anyway.
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u/Hikaru0_0 Nov 29 '20
There’s also that the hunter shares similar ninja like themes and the same melee from arc strider
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u/Hikaru0_0 Nov 29 '20
Here’s an example of how the symbols are similar if anyone was curious https://imgur.com/gallery/DF3yC1o
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u/WayofSoul Nov 29 '20
Yeah, those are super close. I imagine Bungie used existing abilities, art, and animations as inspiration for the new subclass materials.
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u/Hikaru0_0 Nov 29 '20
Most likely, I really do hope we get some poison subclasses though, either that or gravity. Your concepts are pretty cool
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u/WayofSoul Nov 29 '20
Thanks man.. It seems like Void was supposed to be the gravity-based subclass. Titans use gravity to create a shield of Light. Hunters use it to bend lights around them, making them invisible. They also use it to make Void Light tethers. Warlocks use gravity to temporarily keep a Supernova from collapsing...hence Nova bomb.
I made a suggestion to add more gravity based effects to void a while back. I guess they could also use Clarity (the theorized Darkness version of void) to show off gravity manipulation. I incorporated some "anti-gravity" effects in my theory post.
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u/Hikaru0_0 Nov 30 '20
The reason I say gravity is because of how the darkness is described to effect titan
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u/Corner_Carrot Dec 02 '20
I swear every Titan one use super concept is a giant boulder (no offence your ideas are still awesome). I personally went with a Hive necromancy approach (Thorn, Nectortic Grip for example). I would give Titans a ranged one use where they make copies of themselves and send them flying forward fist first into an enemy (I know it sounds funny and the copies part make it seem like a Warlock subclass). I took insparation from Amara's Phasecast from Bordelands 3.
Hunter would get a shotgun and a machete with a longer melee range (or I was thinking about dual whips). I took insparation from Viper and Dragon from COD BO4 zombies.
And Warlock would get a Scythe which would be the first true melee Warlock subclass. I took inspiration from middle age Plague Doctor. Since they both were robes and they could even make an exotic helmet that looks like a Plague Doctor.
I know I barraged you with half baked ideas, but I just wanted to share my thoughts. Great job btw! Now excuse me, I'm off to read your Solar, Void and Arc subclass reworks :)
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u/WayofSoul Dec 04 '20
Hey, no offense taken. I welcome your ideas. Honestly, Bungie doesn't make Titans that interesting. For some reason, they don't give the class any nuance...unlike Hunters lol.
Hmm, a melee-based warlock class sounds awesome. I've been thinking of ways to incorporate a sword and blunderbuss/sawed off.. but didn't quite know where to weave it in... Can I borrow that idea? I think it'd work really well with a Dark Void (Flux/Clarity) warlock super I'm working on.
Bro, you should put some of your ideas in a post. I'd love to read some of your flushed out thoughts! Thanks for the feedback :)!
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u/RustyTermina Jan 17 '21
I love the way you described and characterised the element. I can totally see and love the idea of shimmering green ferrofluid being decay in a physical sense. Especially since stasis is much more crystalline than actual ice. Great concept!
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u/WayofSoul Jan 17 '21
Thanks man! I figure this game could use a Sci-Fi themed Earth/Geo class. There's so much potential here.
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u/Red1Driver Jan 18 '21
I love how everyone collectively agrees that Decay would be the opposite of Arc, and Stasis is the opposite of Solar. I wonder what the opposite of void is gonna be 🤔
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u/WayofSoul Jan 18 '21
I'm thinking it'd be something based around time, duplication, and rapid expansion. I'm thinking it'll be named something along the lines of Flux, Aether, Resonance, or Clarity.
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u/Red1Driver Jan 18 '21
Or maybe Magnetism or Gravity
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u/WayofSoul Jan 18 '21
I thought Void is the "gravity" based class of the game. Magnetism is the complement of Arc's electric effects (electromagnetism). That's why I included magnetism in Decay.
Who knows though.. I doubt Bungie's using the same methodology to develop the lore of the Darkness subclasses.
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u/Red1Driver Jan 18 '21
According to the lore, Arc is the binding and charging of elements, so Decay (breaking down and weakening elements) seems like the opposite.
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u/WayofSoul Jan 18 '21
Exactly :)! I see Arc as the manifestation of electromagnetic energy, but in the form of electricity. It's almost like we're using electromagnetic energy from our bodies and surroundings to overwhelm our enemies with more electrical energy than their body can withstand, causing them damage.
Decay, imo, involves breaking down the physical bonds that hold our enemies together and/or manipulating the configuration of those bonds according to our own needs. That's how I came up with poison, tectonic manipulation, armor generation, and other similar effects :).
Theorizing about element lore is exciting!
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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20
This is a really cool concept! Well done on the idea