The Dancing Dervish - An Insight into the Design Process

Why instead of trying to create new awkward mechanics you don't try to fix what is broken while still creating something new, for example making certain weak underdeveloped skills actually fun and useful? You said you wanted a single powerful minion instead of an army of little minions, why not build around animate guardian which is exactly that? A single powerful minion, and also a skill that definitely needs more developing. Right now the only thing you can do with that skill is a somewhat tanky sponge with a couple auras, and no DPS (won't even start talking about the serious flaws it has - no way to check equipped items for example). Seems perfect for this. Lets brainstorm some ideas real quick:

You wield this sword, and you want this sword to "come to life" at specific times - the "On Rampage" idea is not bad, but this way you will create another skill set-up that is useless against the hardest and most interesting enemies - bosses (also what about party play?). You also suggested the sword to actually be unequipped from your hands - this will somewhat almost force users to use this in combination with unarmed builds to be efficient, like you said, and honestly unarmed builds while kind of "niche" are already pretty darn powerful and don't really need more love for now, especially at the expenses of some much more unlucky skills.

I'm not sure about a "rampage" alternative using what already is in the game - you could think about creating a new but simple to implement mechanic in this aspect, maybe something like charges, but of a new unique type so as not to interfere with other builds - quick example: gain a special charge on Hit, use skill while at max special charges, may be simple enough to not require specific passive investment while still being interesting, and requires to be kept active. You like the idea of coupling this with cyclone? Me too. Maybe make charges expire really fast requiring constant generation, or make the charge cap higher, thus requiring a burst of attacks to summon the guardian.

As for the meat of the new design itself, we can think of the guardian as the manifestation of this "Dancing Dervish": cast Animate Guardian when previously mentioned specific requirements are met, Guardian uses a copy of the Dancing Dervish, but at its full, true power - x% more damage and speed, for example, or to reiterate on the Cyclone synergy, make the guardian use Cyclone instead of the default attack - cool! When the requirements are not met anymore, un-summon the guardian. This way you have a guardian that actually does DPS, still requires user interaction (no afk botting while guardian kills everything), has drawbacks (being temporary and "triggered" you can't give him armour, he will do DPS but he will not tank for you anymore), and most of all - looks damn cool and is fun!

It may also open up interesting interactions if you go this way - the guardian's DPS may scale on your DPS, thus being viable for melee builds; it may also benefit from minion nodes, thus being viable for summoners too; and truly shine with hybrid melee/summoner builds - seems way better than forcing the player to go unarmed and use the same old (and SO boring) facebreaker build.

There is much to be said obviously - this was just a very quick and dirty brainstorm, it may seem bad, but still my intention was for it to serve as an inspiration for creating something new, unique, fun - and at the same time fixing broken skills without going overboard and forcing new and possibly even more broken/clunky to implement/use mechanics.

Gladly hope you will read this and anyways thank you for giving the community posts like this - I really really enjoyed very much reading it, despite the different opinions we may have about the game.

it looks fun the artwork is neat an blade itself isnt that bad as ppl are saying but the rampage sh't just ruin it too bad another vendor unique

The very first comment says everything there is to say about this announcement:

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DieAbolicaL wrote:

very nice

edit: tldr lol

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Sexcalibure wrote:

Curious to see how this weapon will, if it works, on animated guardian

I tried equipping an Animated Guardian with a pair of Flesh and Spirit gloves way back when they got transfered to standard. Didn't do anything, so I doubt this'll work..

Was a long time ago though, things might've changed by now so I'll definitely try it out when I get my hands on one of these swords.

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Rhys wrote:

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Rhys wrote:

Will it be affected by character size modifiers while out of character's hands?

No.

Boooooooooo

So....basically...if i make a unarmed melee character utilizing facebreakers gloves with perma rampage: now i can have a minion? Lol good thing i took all those minion passives....for my melee physical char.... **facepalm**...

What about Dominating Blow , you just rekt it and let it stay dead . Talk about this design decision.

I love it... I just wished there was a better/more efficient option than Cyclone for unarmed builds...

Using Cyclone as my main skill makes my sanity drain 400% faster...

Thanks for the insight, it was an enjoyable read.

If it only activates on rampage, how well can it do boss fights? Won't you just do no damage if you want facebreakers to activate for your main damage? Or am i missing something.