Professions

These two new professions can only be started in the Shadowlands.

Keeper

The Keeper is the "righteous" fighter, and will be focused primarily on combat and helping team mates. They are a melee class specialising in two-handed edged weapons, and will fall just above the adventurer in terms of damage output.

The Keeper is seen as more of the old-style knight, in the Templar mould. In shining armour, he uses his massive sword to smite evil (or good). He burns with the zealous fervour of knowing that it is in his right to combat enemies.

Nano-wise, the Keeper will have a number of different lines, most of which will be auras. There will be few direct-cast nanos, and none that are cast in battle. Lines of nanos will be anti-snare, anti-root (reducing the duration of such nanos), damage increasing auras, ams/dms buffing auras, and attack absorbing auras. The Keeper only has beneficial auras, no debuff auras.

Additionally, the Keeper will have a special attack called ‘Righteous Fury’ for clan and ‘Unhallowed Fury’ for Omni-Tek. This will be enabled via a self-only buff. This attack is much like a fast attack (one of the special attacks in Anarchy Online), but it will inflict additional damage against enemies in the Shadowlands. The power of the attack will increase with the level of the Keeper. If Keepers become neutral, they lose the ability to use Righteous/Unhallowed Fury. Unhallowed Fury is weaker than Righteous Fury, but acts as a life tap for the Omni-Tek Keeper.

Story-wise, they are seen as the front-line fighters that have been directly recruited by the Redeemed and Unredeemed to fight in the Shadowlands. The Keeper has a high affinity with the Shadowlands and the primary groups there. Thus, the Keeper cannot start as a Neutral character, but must begin as either an Omni-Tek or clan character.

Shade

The Shade is the opposite of everything that is light and good, and it's obvious he belongs to the "dark side", even though the character will not be evil per se. The Shade will be a tough character to solo due to his limited hit points.

The Shade is really a melee class but will have a high focus on "procs" (a proc is a nano that is some times run on the fighting target during combat). Being expert in hand to hand fighting, the primary weapons will be of the piercing kind.

It's worth mentioning that he will not be able to use implants. In their place, you'll find trapped Spirits, which will give various benefits. Since it's an innate ability, the character won't need a surgery clinic to trap or release Spirits. His armour will often come in the form of "magical" tattoos, enabling truly unique profession abilities.

Nano-wise, the Shade will get mostly self-beneficial buffs. He will be able to buff himself to be able to do more powerful procs. His repertoire will consist of direct damage on target, stuns, initiative debuffs, and hit-point/nano-point DoTs, run speed debuffs, short duration fears, evade debuffs and trader-like leeching. Through perk-enabled special abilities, he will be able to drain attack rating, defence rating and health from the enemy. The longer a fight lasts, the more power he drains.

Story-wise, the Shade is seen as a very selfish character you should never fully trust. He will literally backstab you at first opportunity if it's to his gain. The Shade comes from the lowest pits in the Shadowlands, where they were constructed by the first explorers so they could specialize in getting around in the darker, deadlier places of the realm.

The profession is limited to the owners of Shadowlands, and to play the Shade you must start out inside Shadowlands. With the Shade, you begin your life as a neutral. Which side you ultimately wind up supporting depends on the actions you take!