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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Leveling for tanks and healers
ArchivedUser
Guest
One thing that has always been difficult in mmorpgs is leveling as a healer or as a tank. Because of their low damage output. I don't really now of a solution for this but I think as a community we could think of one. Also finding groups to level with is easy for some people but for others is hard. After all, a lot of us have trouble asking others for help even in games. So maybe implement a system that allows to group up with parties to level up or think of a way to solve the low damage output of tanks and healers. Making their damage higher might not be the best solution because that's the role of dps characters after all. Also we need to find a way to make the tank and healer classes more popular because in most of the games an extremely small amount of people plays them.
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Yours truely,
SgtFire
Yeah, sometimes the old ways are the best ways. When playing Everquest (the first one) finding a group often resorted to two things. The regional chat of people looking to add something to a group, or the process of having a button setup for looking to make a group to camp something.
Those worked wonders and when you sat in place and chatted with people while waiting for respawns it forged bonds. Many of the people I met while working from levels 15 to 35 were the same ones I was doing raids with when we hit the level cap. Other times you'd get requests from those people to go to far off places because they trusted your capabilities.
It's a better system than randomly shoving people together where you have a me against them attitude at times.
Join a discord server with like-minded people. Talk to people with in-game chat mechanisms. Make friends on forums (like this one). Or (and this one's the real shocker) ... join a guild. You can even start one of your own to facilitate exactly what you want.
As for the speed of levelling a tank or healer ... try the suggestions above. Make a friend and level together. Or use a different build (each class has 8 sub-classes which can be changed when you decide you want to be a pure healer). In games where healers and tanks were more difficult to level, the payoff was well worth it, anyway, and that's really all that's needed.
I'm sure that all classes will have some sort of dps ability to help them level, additionaly if healers could gain exp from healing and tanks from soaking up dmg then again powerleveling would be too easy for them.
Another huge influence is how much a tank will stand out from other classes.. do we get more health? Do we have the same health but mitigate more? Are we able to self heal?
If damage is to high then they become a power House in pvp. If damage is to low it doesn't matter that they survived for 6 minutes in that fight against *random unnamed mob* if it comes down to the last few seconds needing a critical hit to win.
I will inevitably end up being a tank just like I do in every other MMO so fingers crossed either we end up impossible to kill and can't kill anything.. or a fair middle ground is found.
Instant grouping and teleporting to whatever you grouped for.
For that, it's true, they won't implement something like that, but!!
Steven expressed that there will be an interface to ease your way into >>finding<< people who want to do the same thing. You will still have to write them interact with them, but it is still a group finding tool.
To the topic itself, if you look at the skills they published you will find that they have a lot of healing while damaging the enemy effects. In the end it will be a balancing thing but I woould say they are keeping it in mind so you have a lot more options than in most other mmos as healers for example.
Some builds will let you heal / tank better, while other will allow you to do more dps, better handle the leveling and solo play.
What I am mostly concerned about is that not too much DPS is available to tanks and healers WHILE in the same time keeping their heal / tank ability high.
But I guess that is what balancing is here for.
For example (rough simplified numbers and explanation):
DPS gets XP based on damage done. They solo a mob with 100 HP, they get 100 XP. They do 50 damage to that mob in a group, they get 50 XP for the kill. Being in a group means they kill 4x faster than solo, so they end up getting XP 2x faster overall.
Tanks get XP based on damage taken. They solo a mob that dealt 100 damage to them, they get 100 XP. In a group, the mob dies more quickly so they only take 50 damage and gain 50 XP. The group kills 4x faster, so they gain XP 2x faster overall.
Healers get XP based on the amount they healed. They solo a mob that required them to heal themselves for 100 HP, they get 100 XP. In a group they may heal the tank for 50 HP, and get 50 XP after the kill. Group kills faster, so they accumulate XP faster.
In the end all that matters is XP per unit of time, not XP per mob.
Exactly that is what we are here to do, test and provide feedback so a good balance can be found between damage and tanking, as well as healing and damage. No easy task.
While every game you would solo just takes a millennium because there’s always damage abilities and the healer can mostly combine out healing and doing small amounts of damage over a long period of time.
The tank shouldn’t only be just “soaking” damage
anyways. There’s lots of mechanics and spells I’m sure they’ll implement to make playing them fun and still do some sorts of damage whether it’s passive reflecting damage, shield bashing, whatever.
Experience share should literally work the same as it does in Guild Wars II because they literally have the best experience share system of any in any MMO.
You engage in an activity, if all you do is hit a mob once or heal a player engaged in an event, you’re part of the event because you’re not in combat.
If you assist another player fighting anything in the wild, you automatically get 100% experience from the creature, and their own loot.
Guild wars areas people are literally swarming together regardless of whe they’re in a group or not because of the systems in place, incentive and the constant events going on.
And then you would have insane amount of tanks and healers, and you go ahead and try form parties like that later in endgame.
Need I even remind you that once you reach the level cap. Throughout that specific level cap, a tank and a healer both have a much easier life in regards to group content. Based on that alone, it balances out well enough.
A final point to note is, if things are indeed slow for a tank and for a healer, and a DPS would have downtime after a handful of mobs in a row. You are much more naturally inclined to cooperate with someone. And I simply cannot stress how important that last point is for an MMO. Going through adversity and hardships together is a most excellent way to make friendships.
DD, Tank, CC or healer matters not. All have to expend energy to achieve an objective. And normally those who waste it end up dead. Those who use a lot of it and dont die will probably be the last ones standing who worked the hardest.
Its a damn site more useful than how much damage you do at least.