Benthic Whispers - Vanados

Background

Her parents had suffered three stillbirths and wished for nothing more than a healthy child. As her mother got pregnant with Agatha, she went to a fortune teller, who told her that she would only ever have one healthy child. All others shall belong to death. As Agatha was born, she did not breathe and her heart did not beat. Desperate, her father appealed to the heavens and all the hells to finally give them the child they had hoped for for so long - after a  while, a calm voice responded. "I shall grant your wish and let your daughter breathe. But know this, if she breathes, she will be as much my child as she is yours, and the doors that I open can never be closed. Do you accept this?". In despair, both parents agreed and not a second later their daughter was screaming, her heart beating and her pale skin turned rose. Soon afterwards, to the surprise of both parents, her mother gave birth to a second daughter, alive and breathing as well - alas, they had two healthy daughters! As they knew that the gods would not grant them this joy for long, they decided to let go of the cursed child and they left Agatha in the woods, where she would surely die, fulfilling the fortune told and granting them to have at least one child. But Agatha did not die.

Cheeky plot twist: Agatha is the healthy child, the other one got yoinked into the void at some point. Now the voices in Agatha's head are (mostly) her sibling trying to escape the void.

Background for different specs

Different roles make the character susceptible to different aspects of the void, which the character needs to resist.

Tank: Veiled in isolating darkness, lured by voices from another world.

Healer: Haunted by a bright future that will never come to pass, and the dashed hopes that accompany it.

Melee: Susceptible to the aspect of overwhelming force.

Ranged: Weighed down by the souls of the drowned.

Class Philosophy

The theme of this class is nautical/abyssal insanity.The class consists of a vessel (the visible character model), and the whispers in its head. The intent is that the whispers escaped the horrors of some other dimension, and attached to the vessel. Beings from that other dimension are attempting to follow, and to drag the vessel into their own dimension, so the whispers and the vessel need to cooperate to remain sufficiently sane to prevent this from happening.

The central class cooldown ability allows the whispers to take full control as an emergency measure to anchor the vessel in our dimension. This empowers the spells of the class. Some abilities affect the remaining cooldown of this major ability, or trigger it for a limited duration.

Use pressure as primary resource. Some spells build pressure, other reduce it. Some abilities are changed based on the current resource value. Healer uses pressure as inverse mana, in that the bar fills up with spell use, and gradually depletes over time.

Basic Spells

Fingers of Frost - Damage spell, instant for tank and melee roles, primarily used as a filler spell.

Mending Waters - Healing spell. Costs insanity to cast. Instant for Tank and DPS roles, slow cast for Heal role.

Deep Current - movement spell, increases movement speed for a set amount of time.

Succumb - Main cooldown spell, empowers spells and interacts with insanity.

Abyssal Shell - Damage absorption shield, used as a personal defensive cooldown.

Role Spells

Tank - Shifty Boi idk Nimble, avoids damage, shifting tether to reality, attacking generates insanity, healing spends insanity, predictive mitigation (RP: voices foresee damage and shield accordingly)

Fingers of Frost has melee range, generates insanity

Succumb causes rapid insanity generation while active, making it defensively potent

Shift - Damage taken is reduced, but damage dealt is also reduced. Lasts for a set amount time.

Heal - ????

Melee DPS - Slappi Boi Water, cold, frost, slappy tentacle boi, execute damage, single target focus

Execute damage in the form of overwhelming force, which builds up over time => increased effectiveness as target hp decreases

Abyssotrauma

Ranged DPS - Baromancer Pressure, drowning, mid cooldown burst

Fingers of Frost is ranged and has a cast time. Used as a builder for resource

Barotrauma mid cooldown, opens a burst window, the trauma is inflicted on the player, which triggers a strong connection to other dimension, which in turn empowers spells. Core idea is to line up the strongest spells for the 9 second burst window. Talents should change spell usage during Barotrauma by having additional effects. For example, fingers of frost might spread a DoT while Barotrauma is active, and this DoT might snapshot during Barotrauma, allowing for strong mid cd burst AoE. CD builder spell might increase the damage of direct damage spenders, or all spenders, or spenders might increase the damage of fingers of frost or the cd builder

Other barotrauma idea: have effect depend on resource available when used.