Leveling/PvP ideas for Tanks and Healers

We know that people will be able to choose their secondary class at lvl 30, but we dont really know when the lowest level for skill augments would be.

Let me tell you one thing:
It is soooo easy to find another player to quest and level with as a healer or tank.

What we saw from the healer skill set, would show that they have a good amount of spells to hurt their enemies, especially if we include weaponskills. Dont forget that every class will be able to use every weapon ;D

I firmly believe that the primary class should give a good set of abilities, without making other classes useless.
A fighter for example should not be able to heal on his own, but gain that through his secondary class cleric as some kind of second wind effect.

They always said that they want people to play in groups after all.

Play in groups? Sure. Forced to group because you're not given the tools to self-sustain? Please no. I generally enjoy solo grinding and questing by myself. I shouldn't be forced to group because of the primary class I choose. Waiting for my secondary class augments to kick in is also a problem if sustain will be in those and not my primary because then that leads to build pigeonholes.

DPS classes are a little different because they play to kill fast to reduce the damage they take. There is that give and take there. Tanks don't kill fast. We just take longer to die. Imagine doing so little damage, with little to no sustain, and you get to watch your character die to a thousand cuts.

Sarevok wrote: »

I think it is important that the primary class has these sustain and damage abilities instead of relying on the secondary class to provide them because then you'll pigeonhole players into certain Tank/X or Cleric/X combination.

What are your ideas?

My thoughts here are; if there is a solo player that wants to level a tank or healer, what is the harm in them having an easier time of it if they pick a DPS class as a secondary?

This would be really bad game design if there wasn't a way for these players to then respect to the specific class they want - but since we know this will be possible, I fail to see where the issue is.

I mean, every class SHOULD be different. We will all complain if they are not.

One of the differences between various classes is in how well they can solo content. So if a player is going to solo, they should be playing a class that solos well and blame no one but themselves if they opt to not do that.

I mean, the other option is we could just make it so all classes can do everything. If this happened, they could probably drop the 64 classes down to 12, and maybe rename Verra to Azeroth while we're at it.

Hartwell

As long as there is plenty of content that is undesirable to solo, such as that players can die to 2 mobs if they don't isolate 1 mob at a time, I think that the position of tanks and healers would be in a fair place in PvE.

For PvP, I do think that tanks should get the most denial abilities. Redirecting damage, pulling enemies to them, snares, knockdowns. They should be something that ranged classes and support desire to have around them to assist them with kiting and peeling.

Ravudha

I think tanks and healers levelling slower than DPS is perfectly fine.

I'm sure every class can level solo, so using a secondary class to speed that up is really about your priority. It's not pigeon-holing when it's about priority rather than necessity.

Classes can't have it all, and that's absolutely the way it should be in (MMO)RPGs.

Ishka

From my experience, looking back at when I started Aion in 1.9 the time it took me to level up my templar was insane in solo, for many reasons, lack of game knowledge, class mastery, my brain unable to take two minutes to think of ways to optimize my dps.
But with years going on, I just mastered my class and learnt the game properly. Yeah the tank classes have less damage than others, but it was fair since what the class excells is not dps, but tanking. It is normal to take more time, possibly you will get behind if you're racing with damage focused class.

1 year ago, a Aion P.serv opened to the same 1.9 patch, and I decided to give a try. With exactly the same conditions, it took me half the time to level up I needed back then. We just need to make a proper use of the class potential.
If we are in a group for sure it will be easier. My point is while you do less dps, the tank has other tools that it's better than others. I think that with that in mind we do just as well as those dps class. It is just that we need to do things differently and make full use of the tank classes strong points.
For example you can take on stronger monster since you tank a lot more, even if it's longer to kill, the reward will be up to the time spent.

In the case of AOC, I think IS will give us tools that would easily compensate for the potential lack of damages with augment, 2nd class etc...
In the end, I think that a tank can still do a decent amount of damage, it's just a matter of build.

Ishka wrote: »

From my experience, looking back at when I started Aion in 1.9 the time it took me to level up my templar was insane in solo, for many reasons, lack of game knowledge, class mastery, my brain unable to take two minutes to think of ways to optimize my dps.
But with years going on, I just mastered my class and learnt the game properly. Yeah the tank classes have less damage than others, but it was fair since what the class excells is not dps, but tanking. It is normal to take more time, possibly you will get behind if you're racing with damage focused class.

I leveled two classes in AION back in the day, a chanter and a gladiator...
Gladiator was a pain, while chanter was a breeze. Gladiators did have the damage, but zero survivability, while the chanter could just overpower 4 mobs at the same time, while healing. (Lets also not forget, that Aion was a major grind after reaching lvl 24 back in the day)

Sometimes, its a class design problem and sometimes not

Ishka

I get your point, it's true that some classes, if we take Aion for exemple are a lot easier to play than others, for many reasons. The heal is strong in PvE, but if we forget some classes being stronger & easier to play. The class being a tool, after mastering it, it's not that much of a bother. If we look at how efficient the classes are in vanilla Aion. Aion PvE is easy with sustainability, which is a strength that gladiator and templar have, but it's very limited compared to chanter & cleric. But their survivability comes from other aspects of their classes, gladiator can easily CC monsters, if you know how & where, you can easily access decent gears for your level progression. Doing crits grants a chance to stumble your target and you can lifesteal from your targets. The gladiator in these early levels are all about skill rotation with a proper use of weaving to optimize your dps and having access to proper gears.
Templar is similar in aspect, but still a bit different.

In your context, I guess it was the very start of the game, so it's obvious you don't have the necessary knowledge to have a smooth leveling, looking back at mine I bet I struggled as much as you on your glad' xD

Going back to the thread's subject, my vision is that more than being hard for the Tank at least, the other classes are easier to play in PvE (just looking at the potential dps they have).
A simple exemple : if we could measure the ease at which you can level between 0/10, 0 being insane difficulty and 10 easy asf.
Tank should be at 5 or 6 and 8 or 9 for Ranger. Tank is not hard, we just need other things in mind when we play it to compensate for the "lack of dps". Maybe they'll add a bonus damages on monsters to balance classes a bit. There is a lot of ways to compensate if the class gets behind.
But in the end, I need to wait until I see how the Tank will be played to think about proper solution, if there is a problem of course xD

mcstackerson

For starters, classes have class trees with a variety of abilities and you are able to choose what abilities you want. This should mean you can go focus on abilities that are better for leveling if necessary.

Their Clerics are pretty easy as we know and have seen them do damage. They are supposed to be the masters of life and death, so if a cleric wants more damage for leveling, they can spec more into death.

We haven't seen a lot but I'd imagine a similar situation for a tank, they pick more offense focused abilities and should be able to level up at a decent rate.

You are also not locked into any gear or weapons, so at least tanks might be able to use a decent two-hander for leveling.

Last I heard, we can change our secondaries so that is also an option for both. There might be some secondaries that are better for leveling than others. I don't really like this but it's an option we most likely will have.

mcstackerson wrote: »

Last I heard, we can change our secondaries so that is also an option for both. There might be some secondaries that are better for leveling than others. I don't really like this but it's an option we most likely will have.

Yep, as far as any of us know, you can respec your secondary class reasonably easy (maybe not so easy you want to do it every week, but easy enough to do it after leveling a character).

I don't personally see anything wrong with this approach, but I am one of those people that looks at the class system in Ashes as being one of 8 classes each with 8 distinct trees - rather than as being as system with 64 classes.

To me, a tank is a tank, whether their secondary is tank or fighter. This is because if as long as things stay the way they are, that tank has access to having both tank and fighter secondary class, and so is both if need be.

Edit; there is also the possibility that non secondary class augments to abilities may assist slower soloing classes in their endeavors. It may well be that the best thing to do to level up a tank or healer faster could be in the religion you chose to go with, or in the options your guild has chosen, or maybe social organizations could help out a lot too.

So everyone is expecting their secondary class augments to fix the soloing weaknesses they may have. Doesn't that suck for the tank or healer? Making them wait till level 30 to finally get the chance to effectively solo? Cap is 50 iirc.

I have had to ask friends or guildies in previous games as a tank or healer for help leveling because the grind was just too slow. Having a partner or groups do AoE grinding sessions is good but what about when you just want to go out there, gather and solo grind for money? What about questing or other forms of progression you might have/want to do alone? Mostly everyone here says, "wait for your secondary class skill augments." To me that doesn't sound like a good solution. Sure, dps will kill and grind faster than a tank or healer but I hope it's not at this crazy higher rate. I shouldn't have to rely on others to help me progress. It's not like I'll get to continuously dungeon grind to level. I really do hope they will look at leveling speeds for all classes and make them as fair as possible. I don't expect tanks and healers being on par with dps but not that far behind either.

Sarevok wrote: »

So everyone is expecting their secondary class augments to fix the soloing weaknesses they may have. Doesn't that suck for the tank or healer? Making them wait till level 30 to finally get the chance to effectively solo? Cap is 50 iirc.

I have had to ask friends or guildies in previous games as a tank or healer for help leveling because the grind was just too slow. Having a partner or groups do AoE grinding sessions is good but what about when you just want to go out there, gather and solo grind for money? What about questing or other forms of progression you might have/want to do alone? Mostly everyone here says, "wait for your secondary class skill augments." To me that doesn't sound like a good solution. Sure, dps will kill and grind faster than a tank or healer but I hope it's not at this crazy higher rate. I shouldn't have to rely on others to help me progress. It's not like I'll get to continuously dungeon grind to level. I really do hope they will look at leveling speeds for all classes and make them as fair as possible. I don't expect tanks and healers being on par with dps but not that far behind either.

I dont think that tanks or healers will ever have problems with solo leveling, and all the times where others and myself wrote about the secondary classes helping in that regard was about another aspect of leveling.

Tanks and healers will of course be able to solo, but they will be slower at killing things then other classes (which would be busted, if they were JUST as fast as a dps). Secondary dps classes will just decrease the time needed to kill adds.
I can imagine, that a tank will be able to pull a pack of mobs and grind them down slowly, while dps classes pull single mobs and steamroll them.

I mean... wouldnt it be unfair if tanks/healers could tank/heal AND DO AS MUCH DMG AS OTHER CLASSES?
I mean... rogues dont demand to be able to tank more then one enemy. Ragers dont demand to be able to heal others... all 4 directions have their own roll: tanks/fighters are most likely kinda tanky (in different ways), rogues/rangers are physical damage dealers, mages/summoners are magical dps, and clerics/bards are supporters.

I think it will be enough if a tank will be able to grind down mobs at slower speeds then the other classes, in the exchange that he wont have to worry too much about aggroing too many mobs.

Are the tank skills going to require a SnB setup to use or do we know if the skills will be more flexible and react differently if we're using dual wield, 2h or even magical means? I would love to see a magic based tank. It's been a while since I've seen one of those.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtG9mB2bREI&feature=youtu.be&t=32m59s

Sarevok wrote: »

Are the tank skills going to require a SnB setup to use or do we know if the skills will be more flexible and react differently if we're using dual wield, 2h or even magical means? I would love to see a magic based tank. It's been a while since I've seen one of those.

Every class can choose any weapon. Every weapontype has its own weaponskills. I would thinkcthat a tank could use a shield in its off hand, but you can also equip spears one handed now too.
If you want to go a tanky mage or a magy tank the go these class combos:
Tank/Mage - Spellshield (sounds very much like a magic tank)
Mage/Tank - Spellstone (sounds very tanky)

Ravudha

Sarevok wrote: »

Are the tank skills going to require a SnB setup to use or do we know if the skills will be more flexible and react differently if we're using dual wield, 2h or even magical means?

They plan to have multiple viable tank builds so SnB is not a must -

Sarevok wrote: »

So everyone is expecting their secondary class augments to fix the soloing weaknesses they may have. Doesn't that suck for the tank or healer? Making them wait till level 30 to finally get the chance to effectively solo? Cap is 50 iirc.

We know secondary class choice is currently slated for level 30, but we don't currently know if that is the first access we have to augments.

There may well be some given to us earlier than that, as we know there will be multiple means other than secondary class to acquire them. If so, there is no reason to assume there won't be solo focused augments.

I mean, we may not get them before level 30, we just don't know either way at this stage.

ataulfos

i think there are to many ways to solve this soloing problem but tbh ashes of creation have his own identity that i expect to be diferent from other games so in personal terms i would like to see hard pve so ppl actualy have to rely on heach other to survive or pve, we would see strong solo classes that those should be the identity of heach solo player tho, dont expect they solve the problem but ur own build and decisions and the long learning from mistakes make u a better player for the style of game u want i think that we have to learn to discover the game by itself same as ur own identity as player and anyways there will be so many ways to lvl up, not only pve i belive

Virtek

There's a lot of talk about a "soloing problem" with tanks and healers. I don't see a problem.

With my main character class always being tank and my most used alts being tanks or healers, I assure you that I never feel there is a problem with leveling. Ever. In any game.
When I play dps classes, I can blast through single mobs like butter. If a second one joins the battle, risk of death increases. If I accidentally pull a third, ouch. I'm already running away if a fourth is pulled.
When playing tank or healer, I kill each one slower but there is about a 0.02% chance I'm going to die. Barely any risk of losing experience and time because I die and have to run back to where I was. In Ashes, there's also less risk of dropping resources. Win win win, right?

If you can kill 5-7 enemies in a minute, how much experience do you lose if you die and then take 3, 4, 5, or even 6+ minutes to run back to your death location? How many times can you die while leveling as a dps versus a tank or healer? Tank and healer classes are a buffer against that, providing a much smoother path in the leveling process.

Besides all that, there is a balance to consider.
Tanks and healers that are good at their job are priceless in groups at any and all levels (once you hit a point where taking and healing actually matter... Usually about lvl 10-20 or so). Dps are a dime a dozen, no matter how good they are.
You may take longer getting to the highest level, but you're going to have very little issues finding a group while you level and zero issues ever finding a group at max level.

If you're in it for the "quick level time" game: play a dps, hit Max level, rejoice, and then craft/gather/socialize your life away while you wait to find invites to do group content.
If you're in it for the long game: play a tank or healer, level slower, then have your choice of whatever you want to do, knowing that a group will always pick you up as soon as you say you want to do group content.
If you're in it just to have fun doing anything and everything with friends and meet new friends along the way: there's still not a problem because you can have fun playing any class and any role while running with friends all around the world.

I really don't see a problem anywhere. I see choices.
No matter the leveling speed, I will be a tank. I will have a healer. I will then play a bit with dps.

Choices matter. They should be weighted as such.

It's not that there is a problem but that it is much slower than being a dps class. For players looking to maximize their time leveling that may not wish to find a group, soloing as a tank in all MMOs that I have played had been noticeably much slower than DPS classes. I think WoW made tank lives better after WotLK when AoEs became the normal. Pre-WotLK was rough. Long down time, slow kill speeds and dual spec wasn't available. Leveling a tank in DAoC was rough as well. I was Albion and leveling a paladin or armsman sucked if you were using slash/blunt and shield. Rift was better since you could level three trees at once and pick up some decent offensive abilities but still slower then pure dps. The problem isn't the difficulty but the speed a tank or healer class levels (without help) compared to DPS classes.

If the leveling speed was from 1 - being slow AF and 5 - being Fast; I would like to see tanks and healers at a 3.5, DPS/Tank hybrids at a 4 and pure glass cannon melee or spell DPS at a 5.