Artisan Classes as another avenue for augments/special abilities.

Sathrago

As a lover of fishing and being known as the "fisherman" in many games i have played I really think Ashes has an oppurtunity to bring a new exciting twist to the MMO scene that i've only witnessed in korean Manhuas about Vrmmos and such. What I propose is by no means an easy thing to pull off and I understand the complications it brings to class balance but I believe the creators of Ashes of Creation have the promise to tackle this task. However, I do believe they are accepting of players that will play more of the games different types of content in the pursuit of making the best character they can. Be it for competitive reasons or otherwise, I believe you should be rewarded for taking the extra steps to explore the games content and have it be meaningful.

Alright now for details. What I would like to suggest is that artisan classes work similarly to the mentioned bounty hunter and religion progression trees that grant special augments/abilities that can be applied to your adventure class to further customize your character in an impactful way that effects both pve and pvp.

I will now do an example for each type of artisan class (Gathering/Processing/Crafting).
Fishing-
A fisher throws a net out into an area, rooting all targets for a few seconds. This could be changed to make it target a single character and pull them toward the fisher. You could also have this be augmented so that it will fish up a shore node instantly.
Another special tool that could be made by fishers is the Chum bucket. When used it splashes out in a cone in front of the fisher, slowing targets, increases threat generation, and increases the chance of catching rare fish (this part is up to debate). Basically it has a pvx function and also a function for the actual gathering process. This rather than an ability would be a special item crafted using fish (and perhaps material from other artisan trees... perhaps the bucket?) as ingredients.

Smelting-
A smelter has gained a slight affinity with the elemental magic of fire through their many days toiling at the forge, using this ability causes the next attack to apply fire damage to enemies hit (can only be applied once per enemy) and for the next 10 seconds increase the caster's smelting speed. (don't know enough mechanics on this so ill just guess that it takes some time to craft items.)
Smelter's could also have an ability to apply a debuff to metal creatures or attackable objects, increasing damage taken for a while. "Oh you are going to the ancient metal golem pit fighting ring? Bring a smelter they can help out!"


Scribes-
Word magic has always been an interesting magic that has many possibilities so to be honest this one can do many things without some limitations. So lets keep it simple for now.
Seal of Protection: You quickly scribble down a magical seal that wards you from danger, reducing the range at which hostile creatures will be provoked while reducing your movement speed by 20%. (cannot be used while mounted) Im not sure if it would be good or not to have this affect more than yourself but hey it could be a neat ability for dungeon crawling.

Ink burst: It sounds cooler than it is, you just pull out a bottle of ink and splash it in the enemies face, blinding them temporarily so you can run away. This would probably have npcs wander around while a player would have ink on their screen.

Alright thats a ton of text to go through and I thank anyone that spent the time to go through it all. So here we are at the end, please if you have any comments, suggestions, or critiques post them below. If i see any abilities that look cool for the above artisans or any i have yet to mention i will update the post and add them up there!

daveywavey

It'd certainly add an extra incentive to level your crafting. Presumably you'd be able to do something like Rallying a nearby Bear to fight with you for 30s if you were into Animal Husbandry, etc.