Benthic Whispers

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 won 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.

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

Abyssotrauma

Ranged DPS - Baromancer Pressure, smaller hits build up to large, 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. Add some effect of creatures from other dimension to spells, such as bonus damage, dot, debuff, etc. that changes spell priority. This changes up gameplay on a mid cooldown, and requires some preparatory work for the burst window.  Have fingers of frost baseline leaving a strong dot, making it good if used once, and spender spells being prioritized afterwards, requiring resource buildup for proper burst, and final fingers of frost spell to refresh dot at the end of window. Have talents affect changes to spells, such as fingers of frost dot being AoE, or applying a debuff.

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