Three (4) new classes

I realise this wasn't the intention of the new skills suggestion thread, but that thread got me thinking, and me thinking is a dangerous thing. I propose (should the Developers ever feel up to adding three whole new classes) a new class for each race. I've designed these classes to both bring a little more balance to the races, and to add to a percieved theme behind each race.

Human: Mage Knight/Battle Mage
This is more a knight than a mage, but really a fusion between the two. The idea is a tank-type character that uses elemental magic to augment his abilities. The class's skills would primarily focus on magical melee attacks that combine the physical attack power of the weapon (physical damage) with an elemental augmentation. Think a flame slash type skill. There would be one for each element, with possible AoE developments later on (still physical and one element). The class would also get a few cleric-type spells (self-buffs and maybe a self-heal/regen spell/skill). The idea is to combine the arcane nature of the wizard with the melee nature of the blademaster, while also adding what I percieve to be a much missed tank-build for the humans. The special abilities would most/all cost MP, and the attack ones would be designed more to allow a Mage Knight to be effective solo and keep aggro than to make it competative in damage with the blademasters.

Winged Elves: Striker/Assassin/Ninja
The idea here is also something of a tanker class for the elves, but this time the primary focus of the class will be a combination of melee-induced status effects and an insanely high evasion. I'm thinking the starting skill would be one that increases the striker's evasion by X% for Y seconds/minutes (would last a while), with both X and Y increasing with increasing levels. The second skill would improve their attack speed similarly (not damage, just speed, maybe accuracy). The third would be a melee attack that has a % chance to induce stun for a few seconds (intended to last a noticable period of time for combat) as well as doing normal damage. That would progess to more skills that slow, poison, reduce defense, etc., all melee. The class could possibly even get an invisibility spell/skill and a sneak-attack skill. The idea here is to add a melee class that could tank for the other two, while still focusing on the speed/agility theme.

Untamed: Shapeshifter/Beastmaster
The Untamed get a bit more severe of a makeover, as I feel they're a bit half-worked as it is. A number of good ideas went into them, but they all got a little mushed together. My basic premise is to split the Venomancer class into two classes. The Venomancer, as it is, isn't really competative on it's own, only being brought to the front thanks to the pets, and the pets can completely unbalance the class (phoenix). Also, it seems like every Venomancer past level 17 has a Magmite, with maybe something else to tank mage-type mobs, and maybe an airborn pet here and there. That's about 3-5 monsters being used for probably at least 80% of venomancers. To fix this, I propose to take all that were-fox brance out, and probably even the battle pets (don't worry, we'll be putting something else in their place), and make them a class of their own. This class would primarily have 2-3 skill trees. One would be entirely dedicated to the pets. Heal Pet, Revive Pet, and Tame would become part of a skill tree that then added various pet buffs, maybe even the ability to summon multiple pets at once. All would be usable in any form. The next tree would be the Monster Mimicry tree, a mostly passive tree that centers around the first skill, an active one, that lets the Shapeshifter change form into that of a pet, taking on some of the abilities (flight for flying pets, and monster skills) and appearance. The passive skills would then allow the shapeshifter to add a percentage of the various stats of the creature (HP, Ph. Def., etc.), with the percentage increasing with the level of the skill (one skill for each stat). Alternatively, the Monster Mimicry skill could do all of that at once (minus the monster skills), with later skills giving the shapeshifter access to individual monster skills whether the mimiced pet has them or not. Or something like that, there are about a dozen ways to work that. The third tree (which may be meshed into the second if this is too much for one class) would explore the existing fox/tiger form skill trees (meshed together, as this would probably be a cross-gender class). The idea here is to give the pet tamer/beast master archetype a class of it's own.

Untamed: Venomancer v.2
Since we've taken out half the venomancer's skills (and possibly it's pets), it only makes sense to add something back in. It also makes sense that this new class should more fit it's name. Venomancer (for us english speakers at least, don't know what the Japanese title means) means a magician of venom, a student of venom magic. That is woefully absent from the current venomancer's repertoire. I'm thinking a skill tree of magic spells that starts with a ranged poison ability (wood damage), progesses to slow&damage, stun&damage, and maybe even a status effect on the target that inflicts damage every time it does damage (thinking pain-inducing venoms here, where any act deals crippling damage). All in all, this tree would be less focused on doing damage than the existing skill tree, and more focused on status effects. There may even be an AoE spell that causes vines to grow out of the ground and stop all opponents within range (hold them in place, but not stun them), dealing some damage over time.

Additionally, if the Veno's and Barb's morph abilities are excised from those classes, the Barbarians need some abilities to make up for their loss. I'm sure something appropriately barbaric can be come up with.

Anyway, this is something I thought would significantly improve the variability of PWI and smooth some things out.