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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Thinking all healing will be AoE based on one class’s playstyle is shortsighted at best. Obviously there will be single target abilities, likely aura-based, damage-dealt-based, and negation-based healing styles as well.
DPS should be taking non-ignorable damage regardless of group skill, otherwise there’s no need for a dedicated healer since a DPS with a buff rotation and one burst heal would suffice. Basically the difference between needing a Cleric and a Bard vs a Bard and a DPS class lies in how much ambient damage is present in a raid. A healer doesn’t negate the impact AoE damage, the damage demands a true healer be present.
The way you’ve framed healing is as a dps with buffs and a guaranteed burst heal, which is a flawed way to approach healing as a role. As a heal style sure, but that style shouldn’t be the perma-pick for every raid. Some should demand damage negation, others wide reaching AoE healing, others HoTs, maybe the starter raids push for just pockethealing the tank but that should be a minority of raids as it is very shallow experience.
Thinking all healing will be AoE based on one class’s playstyle is shortsighted at best. [/quote]
Oh, I agree, but it's all we have to go on right now.
I don't expect any class to have much resembling the ability list that is currently public by the time the game goes live, but those lists do give us a good idea of the intention for those classes.
The current cleric spell list has one spot heal and 5 abilities that function as AoE heals.
Again, this won't be how the game launches, but also again, this gives us an idea of what the developers are thinking.
The amount of damage a DPS needs to take in order for it to not be negligible when healers have this many AoE heals available to them is almost as much damage as the tank would take.
There absolutely should be AoE heals, as I said in my previous reply to you, but what we know of so far is FAR too heavy on AoE heals. You and I have had enough conversations on these forums for you to know that when I am talking about class design or raid design, I am talking from the perspective of EQ2.
In EQ2, there are 3 classes of healer, each with 2 subclasses.
Those three subclasses each have a specialty heal, with Clerics (Templars and Inquisitors) having a reactive heal that functions as a buff you cast on a target, and if that target takes damage, the buff will heal them a given amount automatically. Then there are Shamans (Defiler and Mystic) that have wards (functioning essentially as a second HP pool above the targets regular HP). The last healer type is the Druid (Fury and Warden) that have HoT's.
Each of the above class has one single target heal of their specialty variety, two single target regular heals, one AoE heal of their specialty variety and one regular AoE heal (and some healers also have situational heals, but they are unimportant here).
With exactly two AoE heals, this means that healers need to know wtf they are doing. If an AoE hits the group/raid and their AoE heals are down, there is a damn good chance the group/raid will wipe.
If that same healer has access to 5 AoE heals, there is never any concern.
I assume you can see where I am coming from, and why I consider this a red flag at present.
Main tank healing (pockethealing to people that haven't played a game where a good main tank healer is the difference between world firsts and guilds breaking up) should be the most rewarding healing position in the raid.
A main tank healer in a good game should do more than just healing the main tank. There should be other things that need to be taken care of (cures, short duration buffs etc) that others are unable to take care of.
If anyone in the raid can cast cures and/or short duration buffs on anyone else in the raid, then that absolutely will make roles in raids like main tank healer far less interesting - which as I said is an issue to take up with the people that made the combat system. Ideally, things like that should need to be cast from within the group the target is in, not just from within the raid.
For healers that are not main tank healers, your primary duty should be assisting the main tank healers when (and ONLY when) there is a content based requirement to do so, next is keeping those assigned to you alive, and if neither of those need your immediate attention (which is honestly more than half the time in most raids) you should be doing everything you can to contribute what you can to the raid.
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If Ashes goes live with healers able to have 5+ AoE heals, and all heals/cures/buffs working equally on anyone in the raid, I can see raids of 40 taking 4 healers.
I don't want that, and I assume you don't either.
You will be able to adjust the amount of tabtargetting and action combat up to a 75-25 adjustment either way.
And if the hybrid combat totally falls through, then we will get tab targetting.
If hybrid combat falls through, a lot of the audience is going with it unfortunately. There’s not much way to exercise skill when everything is auto-aim, you just get zergs and bigger numbers wins
Probably not.
Some, for sure. But not a lot.
It's really easy to look at the niche you are a part of as being bigger than it is - and people wanting an action combat based persistent open world MMO are very much a niche.
Most people want a good game with enjoyable combat. If that is action - cool. If that is tab - cool. If that is both - cool.
If the game does move to tab only (which is unlikely), most players will only care about whetherthe game is good or not.
When everything is auto aim, the focus shifts to other things (a factor of tab target games you refuse to recognize). If there is enough variety among the different classes as to what that variety consists of (skill selection, rhythmic timing, positioning, mobility, even set rotation if a player wishes), then most players are not going to be concerned if aiming is not among the list of things they can build their class around.
Because that is all it is - one thing among many that a developer could build a class around.
@Caeryl
sidetracking a little bit here but I've personally never been a fan of "pocket healing" in raids, and I'm glad that that particular stigma has more-or-less disappeared from modern raiding. When I'm raiding I prefer to be part of a healing team responsible for the entire raid rather than having dedicated "tank healers" and "raid healers".
You touch on an issue that many mmorpgs face, which is giving healers something to do when the raid isn't taking noticeable damage. Vanilla WoW suffered from this problem a lot, where in raids healers would spend a large amount of time just auto-attacking with their wands because there was nothing to be healed. They couldn't even do a proper dps rotation in between healing because of mana restraints.
So, what do you do to keep healers engaged throughout the fight? There are a few options. The first is to increase the incoming raid damage so that the healers are forced to heal all the time. The problem with this is that most healing classes aren't designed to spam heals for 10 minutes straight without going oom, and if you allowed them to do that there wouldn't be a point in having mana in the first place.
The second option would be to allow players to dps in between bursts of healing. Modern WoW and FFXIV do this and in fact in the case of WoW mythic raids, the required damage output is so high that healers have to dps the boss as much as they can in order to win before the boss enrages and kills everyone.
The third option is to put in utility mechanics that healers must do in between bursts of healing, such as CC'ing adds or supplying buffs/debuffs.
The point is though that you can't expect healers to be spamming healing spells throughout an entire raid encounter, so you need to give them other stuff to do when they aren't healing.
The problems you describe are present in every Vertical Progression system. I've only seen it countered in Horizontal Progression systems. I mean I go along with Vertical Progression until I can no longer stomach it.
I've reviewed older footage of the Cleric in action and I find the footage lackluster. Its not due to gear but the animations and results themselves. The problem we have got is that it is old footage and I can't be sure of how much things have changed in Ashes of Creation. We haven't got Clerics in the BR until Castle Sieges and once Castle Sieges hit it will be easier to assess the Cleric (At least the High Priest ((Cleric/Cleric))).
There are differences between the classes in the old footage for Ashes of Creation but the ranges are really minimal and everyone seems to stack up on top of each other. I can't be certain if this is due to the classes or the people playing the classes. This will always be an issue when the skills for a heal are glyphs on the floor. There are also differences between Action Combat and Tab Combat due to the Hybrid system.
Because we are told what to test, when to test and how to test it isn't easy to test what we need to test or want to test.
In terms of the skills for Cleric on paper, they are good skills on paper. In terms of the weapon choice and the usage of the weapon (Staff) it is clumsy and ill-effective. Focus is gained by use of the staff though.
The issues I have can be mitigated by the fact that it is old footage. I mean I can't delve deep into class mechanics until I can play the classes.
In terms of actual healing the Cleric does have powerful healing/damage combinations yet we do not see targeted heals, just AoE heals. In Ashes of Creation I believe we can choose our own weapons so the Staff may not be such a limiting factor. Yet the combat (which MMOs are ridden with) appears to be either too fluid and light (BR) or too clumsy and all over the place (Old MMO footage).
In the old footage it is around 5 verses 5 i believe. I also believe the problems I can see and describe here will be magnified when even more players go against each other (Such as sieges). We've already lost levitation for the Mage due to overpowered mechanics. I imagine Cleric may also lose abilities or be modified in the same vein when more feedback is gleaned from tests.
I've resisted the urge to review the combat for years because of the fact everything changes across development. I'm not sure at what point we can say that we have a problem but it will most likely be in Alpha 1, Alpha 2, Beta 1 and Beta 2. I do hope for changes before main release.
The fact the staff is a melee weapon in Ashes of creation means the healer will always be in the thick of it with a staff. The fact the healer is stacked next to the tank means everyone else stacks closer behind. I wouldn't have designed the functions in this way, but I'm not the designer, I'm a tester/gamer. I'm hoping that because there are 16 variations of Healer in Ashes of Creation that each will play different. It should mean that the lackluster combat will disappear due to the variety of healers but I can't guarantee it.
There have been some stunning Heal/Damage classes like the Blood-Mage from Vanguard, or the Bear Shaman from Age of Conan, or Celestial from DCUO. None of those Healers used glyphs on the floor. Glyphs on the floor really do cause this chaotic combat. It looks and acts like playschool classes compared to the older polished classes but Cleric isn't polished yet.
It certainly looks ridiculous with everyone running all over the place to avoid AoEs (A natural disposition), yet because of the style of AoE (Heal and Damage combined) most people don't even sit and wait for heals. The whole thing looks like a charade and plays out like a clumsy, messy, clusterf*ck (Again in older footage/2017 footage). Divine Form then 'saves' everyone and kills the enemies and its like a get out of jail free card. It seems difficult to merge the standard skills with the ultimate skills and the results didn't inspire. Everything is subject to change though.
Edit: From my perspective it feels like each class was designed and built in isolation. While this might be true in other games it is more noticeable in Ashes of Creation old footage. There are also distinct differences between PvP and PvE functions, AoE glyphs are useful in PvE but not good for PvP. Ashes of Creation is PvX though so perhaps it has been designed for one role to fit them all. Like the ring of doom.
Exactly. Pockethealing has always been lackluster and boring to put it lightly. I’ve only come as close to “pocket healing” in a vet trial with main focus on keeping our tank’s topped off and resources filled, but I was still buffing the group, holding the main boss’s aggro to avoid ramping splash damage popping the group, and debuffing spawned adds.
Healing can be so dynamic and rewarding (feels nice to get those “great healing” messages), but reducing it to “just heal tank and buff group” is so...pathetic. Put in some damage, make players feel a hit, and for the love of god don’t make every mechanic a oneshot, that’s how a healer feels extra useless.
Mana well: Gain X mana per pulse. X must be either percentage based or based on weapon damage.(Rank One) Bonus health per pulse. (Rank Two) Allies in the well get a physical and magical defensive buff.(Rank Three).
Its these moves specifically ^
I'd change Stolen Blessing from a Glyph to an Orb which floats around the Cleric (Or something Cleric related as Mage gets an Orb).
I'd change Mana Well into a simple AoE Buff without the glyph. Again particle effects rather than a totem.
Effectively turning the Cleric into the source of power rather than placing the sources of power away from the cleric.
These are the only adjustments I'd make on paper. The rest of Cleric is good on paper. Cleric is the base and the merged classes will add Augments.
I'd also increase the impact of the Staff move and add a charge to a higher rank. For a game with death penalties they seem to limit the ability for a Cleric to survive unless ultimates are used but building up enough focus with a melee staff against Ranged people with no charge will be more than a pain. By impact I mean the feedback from staff strikes, not damage increases. At least on paper. In terms of PvE the Totems/glyphs are better but in PvP no glyphs are better when the Healer is melee. It's a weird skew because its a melee class with ranged abilities...I've taken into account BR combat, old MMO footage and Ashes of Creation. Not another MMO. Though soon we'll have Castle Sieges and all may well be well.
In the same way any DPS would be expected to use any buff or debuff they have at their disposal, any healer should be doing the same. If the game allows for a healer on a raid to not do that, then that game is, as stated, at fault.
While there are sometimes issues with debuff stacking, this shouldn't be an issue with buffs. Games that allow all buffs to be cast from any member in a raid to any other member of a raid do rob the game of some of this and so are once again at fault
To compound this, you also get games like WoW where the interaction between players on raids is at an all time low in terms of MMORPG's. When the interaction you have between others in your raid (in terms of combat mechanics) is already low, and then the game allows for players outside of the main tanks group to buff the main tank, then those healers left responsible for healing the main tank have an incredibly boring job.
But once again, this is an issue with the game design, rather than the class design. This wouldn't change at all if the game were action over tab target - in order to change it needs the will of the developers.
With raids of 40 players, it is almost inconceivable that there won't be at least one (likely two or three) healers that are not primarily responsible for keeping the tank alive. The question isn't really whether this should be a thing, the question should be as to what else these healers are able/have to do.
If the game restricts some heals/buffs to group only (as opposed to raid only), and if the same debuff but with a different augment stack with each other, then those healers should still have plenty that they need to do to fully assist the raid - even if they are main tank healers.
On top of that, if the most effective AoE heals were made to be group only again rather than full AoE or raid wide, this would mean that those healers (whether one, two or three of them) are responsible for all 8 players in that group within the raid.
If the game were designed along those lines, raids would then be taking either 7 or 8 healers along.
If the raid is perfect and no one dies your point about buffs would apply. Yet when people die and cant be ressed then the whole raid will die if buffs and heals cant pass beyond group level.
WoW is a bad example for everything except on how to get people hooked.
7 or 8 healers is overkill when all will use Cleric as the base...we've gone from people claiming healers aren't required to you stating 7 or 8 healers should be required.
In truth we cant even construct a raid group because we have no raids for Ashes of Creation yet. The bigger concern is the Cleric base not how many times a Cleric base should be used for an imaginary raid...
In a 40-man raid you need at least 5 dedicated healers, and if I understand the proposed class system correctly, those 5 healers will all need to be Primary Clerics. I doubt we'll need to assign specific players as "tank healers" or "main tank" and "off tank" unless Intrepid go completely old-school. The notion of a "main tank" and an "off tank" don't really apply in modern raiding due to the number of fights that contain tank-swapping mechanics in them.
In terms of the healing skills being tab-target or action, "Righteous Blessing", "Life Bolt", "Endow Life" and the staff combo are down as being tab-targeted according to the wiki.
I have preferred raid constructions where groups can be changed on the fly. Especially if group-locked for skills. I don't particularly want group-locks but changing groups on the fly would be a boon. I've done a lot of raids in my time but it's more accurate to call me a PvP Healer. In truth I'm flitting between Cleric and Mage. The Mage videos stir my soul but i do prefer healing to dps. The Cleric on paper is a mess because of the Hybrid system. I don't know which style I will end up using. If the active combat is like the BR combat I'll skip it. If the tab system is like the old footage, I'd skip it. Neither have given me a good feeling overall at present. Though it is because the active combat was classless except for weapons.
Until I can test classes and skills for myself there will be a detachment but it is a natural detachment because everything is subject to change. I see no reason to get hyped and i feel no reason to be disappointed either.
Either way, the following points hold true.
Just because there is a class based on buffs, that does not mean they have a monopoly on them. This doesn't hold true for anything at all in an MMO.
Non-DPS classes have damaging abilities, non-tanking classes have survivability buffs, non-healing classes sometimes even have heals.
Further, there is absolutely no way at all that the list of spells we have is final, and so there is no reason to think that the cleric won't end up getting another buff or two. If the buffs are short duration buffs that need to be recast every 30 - 45 seconds, that in itself adds a different dimension to the class (especially if the content is designed around giving healers a small window between when these buffs need to be applied and when a large spike in damage is dealt to the tank and/or group/raid). Sounds to me like it is bad design to have an off tank, as off tanking is boring, not main tanking. A game that doesn't allow for some amount of in combat ressing is shit. Other than the getting people hooked, I agree.
It was a good example of that back when it had 13 million subscribers, but since it has been consistently loosing active players for over a decade now, I don't think that statement can hold much weight right now. 7 or 8 seems about right to me. Add 2 or 3 players that have tank as their primary class, and then take along 5 of each of the other primary classes.
Seems like a balanced raid to me. We can't, for sure.
However, those of us with 15+ years of PvE raid experience can make some valid observations.
With 8 classes and 40 raid spots, it is valid to make an assumption at this early stage of 5 of each class per raid.
However, if healer abilities work at 100% effectiveness across the whole raid, it is an equally valid assumption to assume that a raid could drop 1 of these healers with little to no negative impact.
On the other hand, if you assume that healer abilities (ie, heals) only work within your group, and that a main tank is a thing, it is easy to come to the conclusion that every group would need a healer, and the group with the main tank would want 3 (as these are the only healers able to heal the bulk of the damage). You could then consider adding a second tank to your raid which may warrant a second healer in that group as well, bringing the total of healers you would then have up to either 7 or 8.
I mean, you're right in saying that we don't know what we will want to take with us on a raid, but with a little experience it absolutely is possible to know what effect small changes to mechanics will have on how many of a key role like healers a raid will want in order to be optimal.
If you can't see that, I suggest getting more PvE raid experience.
The fix these games opted for was to add more encounters where more tanks are needed, rather than making it so all encounters only need one (or two) tanks - which to me would have been the optimal solution.
My hope is that Ashes avoids this situation all together by making the simple and early decision to not put content in the game (in terms of raids) that requires more than 2 tanks.
Edit; or by changing their stance on swapping out builds, allowing players to do so in order to respec for specific encounters - even if that means putting a widget (in the general computing sense) in specific locations to facilitate this.
A major reason why you cant throw all skills onto the cleric is because active skills wont match wow with all its hot bar slots. It is easy to bog down a class with pointless additions. The Cleric base is fine as is for the aims of the game.
The fact remains that the Cleric is a Healer. Not a Heal Bot, not a buff bot and certainly not a healer with one attack move. I dislike the fact that on most threads I have to mollycoddle WoW players. If you love WoW so much just dont leave WoW.
Er.... I'd just like to point out that neither myself nor @noaani play WoW currently, so I'm not really sure where you are getting that from. Regardless, the Cleric base we have right now is fine for alpha testing, but if it stays like that in live release it will become very boring very quickly. Just reading over the abilities as we know them, the Cleric gameplay basically comes down to spam your staff combo and/or "life bolt" as much as you can, then use "Righteous Blessing" for single target heals and "Lifeline" or "Stolen Blessing" (if you spec into it) for aoe heals. Aside from that you have 2 emergency cooldowns in "Divine Form" and "Life's Balance" and that's it.
So, to sum it up you have:
1 single target heal
1-2 aoe heals (depending on spec)
1 single target dps skill
1-2 aoe dps skills (depending on spec)
2 emergency cooldowns
That is about as bare-bones as it gets, which again is fine for this stage in development but nowhere near what I'd expect from a base kit at launch. 2 of the most important aspects (to me) of any class kit are synergy and choice and right now the Cleric base has neither. The only synergy in the kit is having to use your staff combo to build up focus to use "Divine Form". As for choice there really isn't much decision-making to be had.
Finally, you say that if we find the Cleric boring then we shouldn't play it, but if the Cleric is the only class that can fill a healing role and we want to heal then we have no choice in the matter.
I can appreciate you don't play WoW, it was just a rant about other conversations. The issues will be around how long you have to play as a pure Cleric because we don't yet know at what stage we can add augments.
Overall Steven said there will be more skills available than the hot bar can hold. Then on top of that the Augments will change game play so considerably that it is probably pointless with us debating the base because the base won't be used in Raids most likely.
There are lists of the class merges and the names of the classes. I just haven't used them to avoid confusion. I mean I have my own gripes about the Cleric but as I've stated before once we can test classes we will all find our own play style. I only defend against WoW players because we've had enough WoW clones. I don't want to play another WoW clone.
I can appreciate when you are in a group together you want to be able to buff each other and heal each other but because of the way the classes will be structured I don't think it is viable to force the base (Cleric) to do both a bard function and a healer function. I mean I can come across quite blunt which I apologize for. It should become clearer when you can play Alphas and Betas, even in the Sieges it will become clearer.
I myself have limited knowledge on Augments and there it is limited for a reason. I mean i can get dragged deep into a hype and then games don't live up to my expectations. While I do love Ashes of Creation I want to be amazed by the end product and kind of resist going in with too much knowledge.
I don't tend to use WoW as examples for raids because of the fact its so disconnected with everyone having access to all kinds of abilities. I've played more MMOs where classes are much more focused and better off for it. This is why I defend the Cleric in its current form but would change the application of the Totems but again the Totems may change with the Augments. Ashes of Creation is quite complex and so is the MMO Genre. It's difficult not to go into thousand word essays. I don't mean to be rude. I have played WoW too. I've played 23 MMOs and Ashes of Creation will be my 24th.
Here is the current class list (Everything is subject to change)
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/class-list
Like draining some hp from the damages deal by the group or some others abilities to suck life out of enemy to redistribute it to the teammates.
Just a idea ...
The "deal damage to the enemy to heal allies" idea is pretty normal, the discipline priest in wow is based on thaz concept.
I agree that it's barebones but you lack experience with the kit to even know what works. You see words like damage and heal but have no clue how much they do as well as cooldowns. There is also casting animations that need to be factored in
First thing worth mentioning is, most skills had a decent cooldown, over 10 seconds, so you needed to combo skills to burst down targets and for the cleric, save your team mates. It wasn't really possible to effectively secure kills if you just spammed skills when they were off cooldown. In addition to the long cooldowns, some skills were harder to land so comboing them with cc skills was almost necessary. Not only did you want to combo your own abilities but comboing with a team mate to secure a kill was very helpful.
Divine form was usually something you wanted to use in a combo either to help heal people up or burst someone down.
A common and easy to pull off combo was obviously the chain heal into lifebolt. Not a crazy combo but still i'd still consider one.
Back in pax, one of the best heal and damage abilities was the stationary aoe Stolen blessing. Kind of like a very high damage consecrate that also healed. It melted people if memory serves. It was hard to use because it's easy to move out of but with the abilities added in alpha0, i see some potential combo potential. Both proximinty chain and soul paralysis could be used to combo with Stolen blessing to lock people in it and deal a lot of damage. The slow from lifebolt might also be helpful in setting up this combo.
Focus is used by other abilities besides your ult. While not require as much focus as your ult, life bolt also required some focus to use so there is some choices to be made there.
On the defensive side, you obviously have the balance life into chain heal combo that you would want to do to try to save someone being bursted.
Some of these aren't crazy but there is more here besides staff into divine form.
Without quoting who you are talking to, it is really hard to find your posts to reply to - you should consider using that function.
I hate WoW.
I played it for less than 10 minutes in 2004 after having spent about 20 hours over 2 weeks total playing EQ2, and in that 10 minutes I was able to determine that it was a sub-par game.
I have a brother that is in a raiding guild in WoW, and every so often while I am visiting him and his family (probably about once a month or so), I get dragged in to a raid.
Even without knowing the class, and without knowing the content, I am able to perform as expected at near the top end in that game (I believe his guild is the second on the server for the most part), because there is so little to it.
If Ashes is as simple a game as that, even with the money I have so far put in to it, I don't expect that I will play more than 10 minutes.
I have, however, spent 10 years raiding at the top end in EQ2.
EQ2 is a game with two bard classes that are focused on buffing other classes and debuffing enemies. However, in that game, every single class has at least one other buff that they can cast, and at least one debuff that they can cast, as well as several self-only buffs that they can cast on themselves.
When I talk about classes other than bards having buffs, it is because - unlike you - I know what I am talking about.
I don't want another WoW clone either. And if that is truly what you want out of Ashes, maybe you should consider paying close attention to the two longest running AAA MMO's on the market - which happen to be EQ and EQ2.
Fortunately for you and I, a good portion of the Ashes team have worked on EQ2 in the past (last I looked, none claimed to have worked on WoW, though if I were an MMO developer, I'd not claim that either).
Just so you know, the ideas I have bought forward that you have rubbished have all been from EQ2. When you say I am getting cleric and bard mixed up, I am talking a game with two clerics and two bards, and taking ideas solely from ONE of those two clerics. So not only do those suggestions work just fine for a cleric in a game with a bard, they work just fine in a game with TWO clerics and TWO bards.
As I said in an above post, you should probably get some more experience in MMO's in general before arguing in the manner that you are, as it is clear your MMO experience is somewhat limited. You may claim to have played 23 MMO's but that doesn't mean you understand any one of them.
The fact that you could take anything I have said in this thread and equate it to anything in WoW is in itself proof positive that you don't know much about MMO's.
We know that the current plan is to allow for secondary classes to selected at level 30, so it won't be any longer than that until you can augment your abilities.
However, it would be the utmost in bad game design to take the first 2 weeks of a players experience in to account when designing a class if it is done at the expense of the rest of their time in the game
Class design starts by designing the finished product, and then working out a logical manner in which to build to that so that the player has everything they need to get by at any given level, and then slowly builds their tool kit in a manner that allows them to learn their class.
No offence mate but I've been around mmorpgs long enough to get a solid grasp of how a class functions just from reading the skills list. Yes, damage/healing numbers and cooldowns do make a difference, but I can still get the general gist of what they are going for with the Cleric in terms of overall gameplay. There is nothing groundbreaking or even different to most other mmorpg healer classes.
When I talk about combos and synergy in combat I mean things like activating a particular skill has an effect on the next skill. Let's say for example that casting life bolt would cause your next healing spell to hit an additional person. That is synergy, because it affects your gameplay in a meaningful way. It also provides you with choice because you get to choose which healing spell gets empowered based on the situation.
No offense taken brah but I think your definition of a combo is skewed by what you have seen in other MMOs. Just because x ability doesn't say it buffs y ability doesn't mean their isn't an advantage to using them together in a combo.
How is dropping Stolen blessing and holding them in it with Soul paralysis not a combo? There is an advantage to using these together as stolen blessing does a lot of damage and soul paralysis makes it so they can't get out of it.
I dont think that we should take Everquest 2 as the end all be all of mmorpg gaming, there is a reason why it has a current population of 174.000 players with a daily playerbase of 1.650...
It would also be too early to say what each class will be able to do and what not. A cleric also does not have to possess the ability mass buff. It is good that there is a clear disconnect between class roles, wow homogenized its classes so much, that all ranged classes are basically the same etc.
A bard will buff and a cleric will heal. We dont know if Intrepid will implement class specific buffs (which i would like, because that would also support their ideology to make a multi class group). It would be nice, if a cleric could give a basic health regen buff, or a rogue could give a short duration aggro range reduction buff.
A challenging class design is something with many ups and downs. It can engage people with its comllexity, but it will also disharten or daunt new players. To be honest, i had to read up on all the everquest 2 things in earlier comments i made about it, because i wanted to be as accurate as possible... and the eq2 class design is really cool, but also pretty confusing (even for someone who breathed mmorpg skills, descriptions, builds, gameplay and strategies for the last 9 years daily)...
Intrepid will have to find a middle ground, but if push comes to shove, then they will most likely choose the simplified gameplay variant with late game intricacies. It is totally okay to start off easy in the early levels and increase the difficulty of spell combinations and such gameplay choices with the rising levels. I already made my peace, that the "real" class gameplay will start with lvl 30 in ashes, because i know that the augments and class combinations will decide my later playstile.
Thing is, when you look at all the games that have come and gone in the 16 years EQ2 has been live, and when you look at all the controversy the game itself has generated, you have to assume that the fact that it is still going and still getting new content faster than WoW means the game MUST be getting something right, and there is nothing wrong with taking what that game does right and trying to implement it in other games.
EQ2 has some fantastic individual class design, but does also suffer from same *sameness* between a small number of classes.
EQ2 has the most in combat interaction between players of any MMO I've seen or heard of, and this goes a long way to making any and all classes far more interesting than they would otherwise be.
EQ2 has the most interesting raid content I have seen (though I have only really raided in 4 MMO's, so can't say anything more than it is the most interesting I have seen).
As far as I am concerned, the above three things are what EQ2 does better than any other game on the market. It doesn't do anything else particularly well though.
As I said above, I see nothing wrong with taking the core of the aspects of things EQ2 does better than other games and trying to make use of them - just as I see nothing wrong with taking the core of Archeages naval combat, commerce or farming systems and making use of them. Not the whole system mind you - just the core aspects that make it work better than other versions.
In terms of the complexity of EQ2's classes, the game does a fairly good job of easing players in to their class. There is a learning curve when you start grouping, but you can't have both a complex system and an easy system - not in terms of class builds in an MMO at least.
Soul Paralysis + Stolen Blessing is definitely a combo, but I'm more concerned with the healing aspects of the healer class.
Modern Super Mario games are fantastic at doing this. For people new to the series you can complete the game just fine with the basic jumps and attacks. But those more skilled are able to incorporate more advanced movements to complete the levels faster, as well as find hidden secrets or shortcuts along the way.