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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.
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Bard is also detailed quite clearly on their page as the support class via proximity based buffs, debuffs, damage, supportive healing, etc. https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Bard
The interview from a couple weeks ago on July 25th details both roles more clearly. He said Bards healing will be "much, much less" healing compared to a Cleric" and "will be proximity-based as opposed to direct target or otherwise." Then he says "The base archetype Cleric will be the predominant healing force class with some supplemental healing that would be more over time healing or proc-based healing based on the action of players that's assigned to the Bard role."
this ^
I wouldn't worry too much about an abundance of healers, there are a few polls on here regarding class choices and whilst Cleric often rates high. You also have to understand that this is only a small collection of data, if you blow other class choices up and numbers higher. The ratio will be relatively fair.
Your point is good in my opinion, and i think that this will cause a lot of problems. Expecially becouse with this class system, with the lacks of variety of builds and gameplay ... meaning you cannot play 2 or 3 different rule. It will cause a huge queue.
@bloodprophet
You are right ... do anybody knows why healers aren't played at all? Same for tanks .. for many reasons of bad design ...
one of them is the heavy responsability that weighs on his shoulders. In wow one of 5 people heals ... he is the only healer, if he do it wrong the team die easy. Same thing for the tank ... the dps? wtf who cares if a dps die or do low dps?
Tanks and healers are harder to play, becouse they need to do the job all by them self, they have to deal with a lot of mechanics ... without dying.
Mage pogchamp , 1 spell rotation... immagine the opposite, the team have only 1 dps that can use all the mechanics of all the dps combined, he needs to chose every time and if he dies the whole team die, becouse they don't have enough damage to kill the boss. Nobody will play dps for sure.
Another motivation to " why nobody play healers " is ... the dps have more funny mechanics but less. A dps need to move and interact with the enemy, the healer not, his design is boring.
The dps scale usually way better for farming and questing, healers sucks, tank a little bit too. Why? The game design is not balanced.
So as i shown to you that's why everybody goes dps, but ... what if the game design of AoC is different? What if the healer is actually fun to play? .... wait ... wait ... there will be 1 healer every 7 people ... oh god, that's bad. Poor healer ...
this means that the healer will be more difficult to play, less funny and more problematic. If the healer is shit the whole team dies xD what a fun mechanics.
Dude ... rly, am i the only guy who thought about this?
Most DPS(not all) are lazy. Killing stuff is faster as DPS sure but in a MMORPG like what they have promoted here grouping looks like the better way to go. I hope they follow through.
I haven't played the game so I can't say this with 100% certainty, but I think you are misrepresenting the classes. There really isn't 8 healing classes. There is just cleric and various amalgamations of cleric. We know you can't change your base class and that all clerics have the same spells. The only difference between two players is which spells they leveled up and how the subclass they chose manifest perks on top of those spells. This will lead to different playstyles and roles/subroles, but they aren't really 8 unique classes. Just focal difference in one class. The same way Witcher 3 handles character progression. All witchers are good at sword fighting, potion drinking, and spell casting. You're just deciding which area to focus on.
Even if you believe there are still 8 healing classes ... 8/64 = 1/8, so the representation is the same.
Cleric is a class with 8 optional sub trees
people are concerned there's only one archetype (out of eight) that's a viable healer and every mmorpg that utilizes the trinity have had massive shortages of players interested in healers (and tanks) out of the pool of players.
a simple workaround fix would be to allow for other classes to be able to perform these roles (bard, summoner, ..) and also have both cleric and tank be able to function as dps (when not healing/tanking) so they're not completely pigeonholed into those roles the entire time which would drive up interest.
the core issue is the trinity is busted and games need a more complex, varied, and logical group mechanics however that appears to not be a task anyone has been willing to take on yet.
I understand what your saying. But, number one rule for success KISS. Why muddy the waters, if you want to heal roll a Cleric, if you want to Tank roll a tank, If you want to DPS roll your favorite flavor. Now in future patches I would be all for adding other archtypes that specialize in healing and tanking as long as it is a unique way of healing or tanking, not just another Cleric or tank,
I could see a Bard/cleric have a buff for the group that would increase healing received. Or maybe even a massive ultimate group heal with a really long cd.
Many games tried this. Some are popular like GW2.
Everyone is dps. No class interdependency just a bunch of people running around throwing stuff at each other. I read they tried to fix it later and screwed it up worse then it was.
Not interested in Dumpster Fire 3.
Not saying that it will actually happen but that it would definitely increase selection for tanks or healers if 1 or 2 classes could cover it if they choose to change their class (aka second archetype). There is definitely going to be healer/tank deficiencies. Every game that relies on the holy trinity has this problem. So they can alleviate it by having more healer/tank options.
That said summoner will probably be the class that sucks in all the indecisive players. So it might be one of the most played classes and that might be enough to ensure that people can find tanks or healers a little easier. For a WoW analogy, Summoners will fill the role that Druids do in WoW. They can fill any role but this is going to be determined by their class.
I'd imagine every archetype will have their fans. Considering that Clerics don't have to be healers and the same will probably be true for Tanks. This might draw non healing specced Clerics to heal if they really need to.
U.S. East
that's quite a strawman considering at no point is anyone arguing for every class to function as dps in a group
this issue is there is always soft interest in providing tank or healing for the trinity and limiting one class per for those roles is only going to make matters far worse than what is already common in every other hard trinity game.
having things like a summoner able to tank through a summoned minion, bards able to heal via magical song*, or fun crazy ideas like a necromancer able to heal a group via life drains, pulling power from the nether realm, etc. would allow for a few different archetypes able to provide for those roles and thus a greater pool of players.
*)I like to think of the musical notes forming a shield during the fight against the Shadow King in the Marvel Legion FX TV series.
I don't see any problems there. I can tell you this. Many groups will run with 2 clerics for the obvious reasons.
Interesting ideas. Some I like.
Is all personal perception. I like when classes have a hard edge between them. Only time will tell how far the line get blurred between the classes and how much they can serve various roles.
Summoning a creature to act as a tank or vampiric healing sounds like a good idea long as it is a stop gap and not the main roll.