Thank you for your contributions regarding Glamdring, DieWalküre, you phrased it quite a bit better than me, while you also related Lightning Sword to previous versions of Edain Mod's Gandalf.
It is great to hear you have worked on the proposal yourself as well. Having someone on the inside help you with the technical aspect is certainly necessary to keep focus in terms of game design.
First, let us get into the technical side of this. Units/Heroes need to have a either a standard stance swap, or a unique stance swap (similar to what Thranduil, Helegwen, Denethor and Malbeth have). If they don't, this will cause certain bugs. So, you can't outright replace Gandalf's stance swap with an ability focused on Narya. So unless one of Gandalf's other abilities are replace, something that I can pretty much guarantee won't ever happen, Gandalf will not have an active or passive ability involving Narya.
I understand now, this is some very interesting knowledge to use in future concept creations
I wonder then, though, how Sauron´s stance system was created, with the swapping of abilities as well.
Also I hope this knowledge contributes to DieWalküre's proposal of Galadriel's stance system.
So, DieWalküre and I worked with what we had and came up with stance swap that will involve Narya. The name suggested by DieWalküre is Repatriation of Narya to Gandalf.
To keep The Ring of Fire more of an amplifier rather then it having a direct of physically effect, it will affect Gandalf in a more passive way.
On "Aggressive Stance" , the Ring of Fire will be focused more on amplifying Gandalf in an offensive manor, increasing his spell damage by 25%, but halving the frequency of Gandalf activating his Bubble Shield (or outright not allowing it to activate, which ever works better).
On "Defensive Stance", the Ring of Fire will be focused more on amplifying Gandalf in a defensive manor, doubling the frequency of Gandalf activating his Bubble Shield, but reducing his spell damage by 25%. "Battle Stance" will remain unchanged.
Of course, the numbers can be tweaked to whatever is the most balanced for Gandalf.
Well, I had a very similar idea in mind at the beginning of this topic. One that I couldn´t get my head around. For this reason I shared the other idea first, not entirely aware of technical issues surrounding such an implementation.
I was thinking to add the increase/reduction of cooldown for abilities to exactly shown how Gandalf channels Narya´s power to other aspects of magic that are not his abilities, which deal direct damage, but rather hidden abilities like the Bubble Shield to be activated more often in the defensive stance, and a sort of resistance leadership in aggressive stance. It became too complicated at some point however, so I thought of a different way of implementing the abilities (see my previous concept).
I have to say that your joint effort covers a good deal of Narya's use in Gandalf's magic while remaining strongly connected to the stance system. Yet, what I find lacking is the supportive aspect of Gandalf´s personality or, arguably, of the Ring of Fire´s powers. I believe that the bold phrases in the following quote should be deepened out more:
"Take this ring, Master… for your labours will be heavy; but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill. But as for me, my heart is with the Sea, and I will dwell by the grey shores until the last ship sails. I will await you."
― Círdan, Appendix B
Taken from TolkienGateway.net
Here it is explicitly mentioned by none other than Tolkien himself that Gandalf should be a character that carries hope, messages, and news to the Free People of Middle Earth. An aspect that I mentioned before is essential to Gandalf's character and which did not go unnoticed by Peter Jackson's and Sir Ian McKellen's portrayal of the wise Grey Wizard.
Therefore, I sought in my earlier concept a way of including this supportive role. Perhaps it wasn't clear in expressing my aim to scale the ability thus because it would have been too strong at low levels with a passive and active function.
Could you think of a way to include a leadership to the stance system (or to Gandalf as a whole), in technical terms?