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Class Combinations and Races

I know this has already come up, probably several times but without a decent search feature I couldn't find the topic I was looking for so here goes..

Has anyone thought of what Class Combinations and Races they'll give a try? Being a big Guild Wars 1 player back it its day I love the idea of being able to combine classes. It gives the ability to really experiment with classes and make all sorts of weird and wonderful creations (I guess we're yet to see how many skills a class will get though).

Personally I've always been a Mage, I love magic in games like this, I love the fantasy, the visual effects, I love having a great deal of diversity and being able to dish out tons of damage. So my main is almost certainly going to be a Mage + Summoner. Being able to summon as a way to produce even more damage and have minions to draw the damage could well make them a serious force to be reckoned with!

I like rangers and stealthy classes too so I like the Idea of a Ranger / Rogue class. Also I love healing and It looks as though Clerics will be our healers. Maybe combined with a Bard (that seems to pretty much be a buff class?) that could be a cool, fun combination. And then maybe a fairly standard Fighter / Tank too.

I like to mix the Races up too but I guess we'll see when they come out what kind of stats they'll have. I do like the idea of certain races having different stats. For example in most lore, stories, games etc Elves tend to be great Archers. So giving them a stat boost for that would be cool. The downside of that is that if you want to make a Ranger you'd almost be daft to pick anything other than an Elf. Which leaves people playing the same class/race match ups .. But I guess we'll see how they handle it.

Anyone else given this much though? Would be interesting to hear what other people want to play as.
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Comments

  • I'd like to try rogue/mage combo. Its kinda hard to say because we only have some vague info regarding class overviews but the class system is probably the biggest system I'm watching atm. I look forward to seeing what they reveal to us down the line. I am looking forward to learning how exactly races and religions can effect classes or if we will see some sort of moral alignment system stem from this. The augmentations seem like a huge part to this game.
  • Yeah I'm really excited to learn more about classes and races too!
    I hope that they don't go down a similar route to Elder Scrolls Online in terms of Race stats though. Builds in ESO are generally either Magicka based or Stamina based. Originally races with high Magicka stats made the best Sorcerers, for example, so all Sorcerers were Elves. But then later down the line they nerfed the hell out of Magicka builds and the new meta became Stamina .. which meant your perfect spec Elf Sorc was now the underdog and a race with Stamina stats became the new best.

    So basically .. I hope they don't have so much of an effect that everyone basically has to pick the same race to make the most out of a class and then I hope they don't nerf it later down the line making it a waste.

    Be cool to see how much diversity classes get with skills too. Is there going to be lots of choice with skills in different classes or is it basically just going to be a fairly set skill bar?
  • We dont have enough information about the system so its really hard to say how it will all play out

    That being said, i personally love using a bow so i'm probably going to run some variation of the ranger. Leading back to your comment about summon as a mage I would doubt that would be possible, again still not enough information. The reason why i say this is because balancing that many class combinations would be an absolute nightmare as far as damage goes. I would assume that the system would not increase the damage of the ability but change the utility.

    I personally would like to think that a ranger/mage would be an interesting combination. I too, like you, enjoy the magic aspect of games which is why i think changing the ranger's damage from physical to magical and maybe getting unlimited arrows as an augment would be interesting. I am honestly hoping they go for a limited arrow design like early WoW but with augments give the ranger the ability to have unlimited.

    I also am very curious about all of the bard combinations. Jokingly speaking i would like to see a ranger shoot arrows from a cello that changes aoe dmg to aoe heals. A rogue/bard would also be quit interesting, Would the rogue be able to play a song of stealth allowing all party members within a certain distance become stealthed? Would the music that he is play be able to be heard from stealth, creating a horror movie type build up until the surprise attack?

    I think the ideas people have about what a class might be would greatly influence what a class will become, at least if the design team reads the forums which i assume they do. I am honestly just excited to see how the game develops from these early stages to a hopeful masterpiece.
  • I'm thinking human fighter/mage combination. I hope a human starting race will have balance States so I can easily raise str/int. Also I think PvP with a spell sword would be epic *__*

    And for my secondary classes would be a elf archer/mage. This one I'm really looking forward to, just thinking about the skill combinations gets me excited and imagine how the skills will look
  • Yeah I know what you're saying SamDubYah. We don't really know at this stage how the classes will merge but I like to theorise and see what people people think.

    Will we get access to both entire skill sets or will the secondary class just include a few select or even more tailored skills based on the primary class? Will a Ranger/Mage for example have access to the entire Mage arsenal or just a few protective spells for example? When I think about combining classes I tend to think of Guild Wars 1 where each class literally had hundreds of possible skills and when you combine two classes you had access to every available skill for both classes. You were (almost) no different being a Monk/Ranger as a Ranger/Monk for example (except for a stat or two).

    That being said I love the idea of being able to summon my minions whilst dishing out damage as a mage. That would be perfect for me, I've yet to find a game where I've reaaly enjoyed playing a mage. But I guess we'll just have to see. You're right, balancing that would be difficult. But would they stop people using that combination then? Thus limiting our ability to customise classes how we want?

    I don't think you can go wrong adding Mage to anything WolfwingX haha :D Gotta love a mage
  • I'd like to see them offer up a GW2 style Ranger in this game with a pet companion and you can hunt down and tame multiple pets as well a synergy for class combo's such as Ranger/Wizard where you could have elemental imbued arrows using Fire,Ice,Lighting, ect

    I spent years playing Guild Wars 1 & 2 and loved those games and what they offered. lately i've gotten into Black Desert Online and enjoying my wizard and i have elemental summons but i find some things lacking with mages in MMO games in general like they could've taken a page out of Neverwinter single player games by giving you a choice of familiar pets as companions or some form of elemental summons. (sorry if topic is a bit off track)
  • I personally want to try out Summoner/Mage or Summoner/Summoner! I have a real deep and disturbing love for pet classes in MMOs! I was aiming for elves as the race but due to the lack of info out for all the things and what how they will affect the game play, still kinda leaves me up in the air about a lot of decisions....regardless of what I play, my outfits and summons outfits will be drop dead gorgeous! lmao :P
  • mentioned this before somewhere, I'm going to go Rogue/Summoner if it works similar to how I'm thinking. Augmenting knifethrowing abilities to summon spectral daggers that go flying at people, summoning darkness that surrounds you and helps you sneak in dark places, things like that. The rogue also seems really interesting out of combat too, the utility of searching for treasure or potentially sneaking into a caravan and stealing goods sounds really cool. They mentioned that theiving isn't something they want but I believe that they were talking about stealing straight out of a player's inventory so holding onto the hope that you could loot guarded caravans and similar things.
    As for race, probably either human or elf, probably something else if they release other races down the line.
  • If you look at the art located around the website you can see a few different kinds of races, so far all ive seen are dwarves, humans, and what looks like a red skinned orc.
  • Like everyone is saying, we don't really have enough information on how the system works. All we know is that the secondary class' abilities, will act as augments for your primary class skills. You don't neccessarily get the skills of the secondary class, as they've said they act as augments. For example, a Fighter's charge, with a mage's blink/teleport skill will instead immediately teleport the fighter to the target dealing the damage/effect.

    Rogue/Mage
    Rogue/Cleric
    Rogue/Ranger are my picks I'm going to try out first.
  • I like the way you pose summoning, so with your way would a fighter/summoner be able to create magical swords or copies of himself, or a ranger/summoner creating a storm of arrows, or a tank/summoner creating a large shield protecting anyone within or behind it?
  • I've spent loads of time in GW1 & 2 and black desert online. I do like the idea of rangers having pets. And I agree I've always round mage classes lacking in MMOs, they're my favourite kind of class by far and If found lots of MMOs with good ideas but I've yet to find a perfect one.

    I like the idea of classes having unique abilities too. Like in WoW, for example, mages have the power to teleport their group to different cities which can be a cool service mages can offer to their group. Doesn't make much sense if they plan to include fast travel though.

    Ohhh I see! I've been looking at secondary classes wrong then haha. So they're going to tailor unique abilities for every single class combination? Wow that's quite a mammoth task! So what you're saying is that, unlike in guild wars 1, a Ranger/Mage would be totally different to a Mage/Ranger?

    If that's the case then I guess it depends a lot more on what skills the secondary classes bring. I'd just be looking for whatever makes my Mage even more Magey xD
  • I am looking forward to hearing more about how his "dual" class is going to work.
    As i understand it, you don't get new abilities but can add a flavor ability to the ability's you already have.
    The devs mentioned the fighters charge, and by taking mage as a secondary class you could add a teleport to the charge.
    A tank-cleric would be a paladin. I wonder what a cleric-tank would be like.
  • depending on how the skills work I'm thinking about trying a mage-cleric. Glass canon with a little bit of healing to help offset my squishyness
  • [quote quote=15945]I like the way you pose summoning, so with your way would a fighter/summoner be able to create magical swords or copies of himself, or a ranger/summoner creating a storm of arrows, or a tank/summoner creating a large shield protecting anyone within or behind it?[/quote]
    A fighter/summoner should not be able to summon magical swords or copies of herself.
    A summoner/fighter might be able to summon bladed weapons. If the summoner can summon copies of herself, those copies might then be armed with martial weapons.

    If a fighter had a knife throwing ability, fighter/summoner should be able to multiply the number of knives thrown.
    The secondary skill has to modify/augment an already existing primary ability.

    I suppose it's not impossible that the mechanic could allow a fighter/summoner to summon a sword and dual-wield. But that seems unlikely. If so...
    Dervish = Fighter/Summoner?
  • I really can't wait to see how they're going to make this work. It seems like a huge task!? There really will end up being tons of unique class combinations to play. It's put my head in a bit of a spin anyway .. What am I going to give my mage as a secondary now?! xD

    A Tank/healer could be a good combo .. but then I do like my healer classes so I'd rather make that primary. Maybe a Cleric/Tank would just give you a little more self protection?
  • We also don't know what benefits we have from choosing lets say pure tank-tank. Assuming we have this skillpoint system where you have for example 25 skillpoints you might lose important Max lvl skills that are at the end of the skill tree If you choose to pick some other class along with tank. Or you might not be able to max your skills If you choose another path. If that is the case I'm going to be pure tank.
  • That's true.. I didn't think about being able to be a pure class.. Again I'm thinking about guild wars 1 where you have to pick two different classes .. I don't think you can continue without doing so. Anyway if you don't you're just disadvantaging yourself because you only get half a skill set. I guess if doubling up and going Mage/Mage gives you access to more mage skills then I guess that would be the best option if u wanted a straight up mage :P
  • If you look at any Dev blogs or articles they say tha a tank/cleric creates a paladin. But maybe a cleric/tank would offer more protections to allies. I enjoy the idea of being able to combine to fit your very own playstyle. Also s7ewie what about a mage/tank or mage/cleric. Maybe being able to summon walla to protec you allies from range.
  • Tank/Summoner is something I'm going to give a spin if only to see what sort of shenanigans I can pull off with it. I've always enjoyed tanking in MMOs but I find 'passive' tanking to be boring, so the more outrageous the mechanics involved, the happier I tend to be.

    Race-wise, as has been stated, a bit too early to say. Still hoping they'll add a few more with stretch goals!
  • Probably gonna go Bard/Cleric, but doesnt hurt to give Bard/Rogue a try. Maybe has area shroud or something interesting. I look forward to trying a few combinations like that.
  • I'm so excited for this system that I my brain starts to explode with ideas when I start to think about it and I can't really decide.

    I love mages and, man, I hope summoner is awesome. A combo of those could be good, but which one to primary...

    Bards are cool too! It sounds like a support class based on the description. Hmm summoner/bard? That sounds interesting.

    A stabby rogue maybe... Wait... Tank/Rogue... Agility based tank?

    Then there are rangers... Ranger/Summoner get bear pet?...

    Anyone know how many character slots there will be? :D
  • From what I've heard about how classes will work, from podcasts with the dev team at Intrepid, you will get full progression from your primary class, whether you choose to double down, or choose a differing class as your secondary.

    They stated that, as of now, secondary classes will not add abilities to your primary class. It will just augment/change the primary abilities, depending on the class combination.

    A good example was made of the tank class. If you double down in tank, your tanking skills will just get even tankier in flavor, and you'll be a master of damage mitigation. Whereas a tank that takes rogue as a secondary will still be an effective tank, but the tanks skills will be flavored with more evasive type tanking.

    A fighter who takes mage as a secondary will not become ranged, and shoot fireballs. He may have a sword attack, enhanced with magic, or something, but he'll still be a melee character. And, vice versa, for ranged, taking a melee secondary. Mages won't become sword fighters, or the like.

    All early development, so things can change, but that's the intent, so far.
  • @freespiryt Yeah you're right, sorry I was a bit behind on the videos :P It seems that secondary classes wont add any extra skills but they'll augment ones you already have :) That's a mamouth task doing that for 64 different combinations! :O

    @KingInWinter I think with mage I'd still wanna go full DPS. I love healers so I'd definitely be making a healer primary too. I do like the sound of Cleric/Tank .. that could work? Healing with a bit more self protection maybe? But then would Cleric/Cleric make you a more powerful healer? In which case Cleric/Tank is kinda just beginner mode? We don't know. I like to get the full potential out of a class, I don't particularly care about being "squishy" I'm used to dealing with that :)

    I like the sound of Bard too, sounds like a support/buff class.

    I like the idea of Ranger/Rogue .. so a ranger with stealth moves maybe? I don't know.

    I want to learn more about the summoner. It does sounds exciting. But what exactly will they be able to summon and do they have other ways of attacking or is it only through their minions?
  • I am very curious to see how the non-obvious combinations work out. It is pretty easy to conceptualize how a fighter benefits from a mage secondary, but what about things like mage/rogue? Bard/ranger? Cleric/ranger?

    I am sure we can speculate on those combinations all day, but what they actually will do is harder to nail down.

    For the record, I am likely going Empyrean Mage/Rogue and try to get a shadow caster feel going, but who knows how it will work out!
  • I'm going to play whatever counters rogue. #metagame
  • What i have been missing in a mmo is an adventure class, what class would give the most adventurer / dungeon delver /explorer feel? I was thing rogue with mage as a second?
    I will properly end up as a grumpy dwarf tank with a clerical secondary :)
  • This system has me extremely excited! I hope they can pull it off because the amount of viable build diversity could be astounding if it's done properly.
  • [quote quote=16917]<a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/users/freespiryt/" rel="nofollow">@freespiryt</a> Yeah you’re right, sorry I was a bit behind on the videos <img alt="????" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.2.1/svg/1f61b.svg" /> It seems that secondary classes wont add any extra skills but they’ll augment ones you already have <img alt="????" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.2.1/svg/1f642.svg" /> That’s a mamouth task doing that for 64 different combinations! :O

    <a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/users/kinginwinter/" rel="nofollow">@kinginwinter</a> I think with mage I’d still wanna go full DPS. I love healers so I’d definitely be making a healer primary too. I do like the sound of Cleric/Tank .. that could work? Healing with a bit more self protection maybe? But then would Cleric/Cleric make you a more powerful healer? In which case Cleric/Tank is kinda just beginner mode? We don’t know. I like to get the full potential out of a class, I don’t particularly care about being “squishy” I’m used to dealing with that <img alt="????" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.2.1/svg/1f642.svg" />

    I like the sound of Bard too, sounds like a support/buff class.

    I like the idea of Ranger/Rogue .. so a ranger with stealth moves maybe? I don’t know.

    I want to learn more about the summoner. It does sounds exciting. But what exactly will they be able to summon and do they have other ways of attacking or is it only through their minions?

    [/quote]

    [quote quote=17127]This system has me extremely excited! I hope they can pull it off because the amount of viable build diversity could be astounding if it’s done properly.

    [/quote]

    Yeah, the amount of possibilities behind the the 64 class combination system, induces excitement, and leaves a lot to the imagination. Even more so, because the devs themselves are still working out how it will all work, together.

    Just my own bit of theory-crafting here, but I would imagine combinations working out a bit like this......

    Tank + Tank = Bulwark: Immovable defender
    + Cleric= Paladin: Staunch defender, with limited self healing ability

    Cleric + Tank = War Priest: Prayers lend heals, as well as defensive/offensive buffs
    + Cleric= Hierophant: Now able to heal multiple players, at once

    Just to name a few. Just my thoughts, based on early information.
  • The class i have been missing in a lot of MMO's is something like the engineer class (few MMO have them). i think it would be cool to have one in AOC, but who knows maybe they will create something in the future!

    Especially with the class combination system in AOC, this could make for some awesome classes:)
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