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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.
Subclasses "Design and Skill Ideas"
Anzoul
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Hello, Citizen of Verra
I was thinking about all the Classes and how interesting and relevant they really can be. My fear is that we will have the double base classes and a bunch of fluff classes that only get picked up if some mod is op. My guess is making all the different Subclasses in some way interesting but still keeping them balanced is one of the biggest challenges. So even without all the information about the base class Skills, we could start pitching some ideas about how we would love classes to be without going crazy.
So to give an example...I'm most likely going to play a Necromancer, but without more Information regarding the Summoner Skills, I can’t say much about the Necromancer modifications. Alternatively, I was thinking about the Blade Caller, let's imagine the Fighter Class having a Damage Buff in his arsenal. For the Blade Caller, I would love to see a mod. to change this to a Damage over Time Aura skill, with swords attacking enemies in Range.
It's pretty easy to imagine this being something that makes the class rly stylish and makes the change feel relevant to pick up the class.
If you have a strong opinion about classes and things you would love them to represent or do just let us know.. and maybe with more information about the Base Classes, we can give even more specific ideas later.
Thx and I'm looking forward to your Ideas and View of classes
Anzoul Citizen of Verra
I was thinking about all the Classes and how interesting and relevant they really can be. My fear is that we will have the double base classes and a bunch of fluff classes that only get picked up if some mod is op. My guess is making all the different Subclasses in some way interesting but still keeping them balanced is one of the biggest challenges. So even without all the information about the base class Skills, we could start pitching some ideas about how we would love classes to be without going crazy.
So to give an example...I'm most likely going to play a Necromancer, but without more Information regarding the Summoner Skills, I can’t say much about the Necromancer modifications. Alternatively, I was thinking about the Blade Caller, let's imagine the Fighter Class having a Damage Buff in his arsenal. For the Blade Caller, I would love to see a mod. to change this to a Damage over Time Aura skill, with swords attacking enemies in Range.
It's pretty easy to imagine this being something that makes the class rly stylish and makes the change feel relevant to pick up the class.
If you have a strong opinion about classes and things you would love them to represent or do just let us know.. and maybe with more information about the Base Classes, we can give even more specific ideas later.
Thx and I'm looking forward to your Ideas and View of classes
Anzoul Citizen of Verra
1
Comments
The design behind augments is to not just change the flavor so that it reflects the secondary archetype, but it also fundamentally changes the core components of a skill.[18] – Steven Sharif
In theory the augments shouldn't be too overwhelming for meta builds but create lots of situational metas, conforming to play styles to give a wide variaty of competative choices. But how they will avoid the meta of being same class combos has me beat.
I'm even more confused by some of the two class names like Falconer or Keeper. It has been stated that the summon augment to non summoner primary class will just summon weapons so...
From what we know, it sounds like a pretty boring system. Adding fire damage to an ability or whatever, super lame. I hope the augments really change up the flavour of gameplay from one subclass to another. I hope they are putting they're greatest game design minds behind this, because the augmentation system will make or break this game imo.
edit: there are many systems that will "make or break" this game, but augmentation is up there.
In your OP, you said you are excited about the Necromancer. What kind of spells would you like the Summoner to have, and how do you see them being augmented by the Cleric to have the necromancer feel?
I am looking forward to playing the fighter/ tank (dreadnought). Im hoping to have a lot of weapon based attacks, maybe a whirlwind type attack, with a charge type ability, and using weapon procs to boost my damage. Hopefully with the tank secondary i can add a lot of threat generation to my abilities so that I can offtank in dungeons, or maybe damage mitigation augments so that i can survive longer in PvP encounters as well.
Certainly it is in danger of being lame, but interacting systems can be vastly more interesting than base powers.
Reading Steven's various quotes on the class and augment pages, and what I recall from live streams, the augments appear to be very tailored to skills. So some augments can only be applied to some skills specifically, and may require higher skill point valued skills. The other mentions imply to me that we are only going to see two (so far) augments per class. ie for cleric life and death, for mage teleport and elemental power (which then has fire, cold, and lightning depending on the applied skill).
These are never mentioned as having extra damage (generally the crudist but most effective meta), but adding additional effects, ie cold augment giving attack cold type damage and possibly slowing targets.
So I would extrapolate that a Dreadnaught might have a Threat generating augment and a damage mitigating augment. Possibly if a threat generating augment is applied to a higher skill point wirlwind attack that has a duration, it also radiates a taunt that draws enemies into it. Applying the damage mitigating augment to a charge skill then gives a dmg reduction buff for the period after the charge.
Both of these examples would change the very playing nature of the skills from a base fighter.
Though this theorycrafting falls apart as how would summon augments on ranger arrow attacks not be extra damage...
This is a pretty annoying problem because having pop-off builds doesn't work in PvP, especially if you're aiming for ttk of 30 seconds, but without them the augments are kindof underwhelming.
I do hope the augment system becomes bigger than they envisioned, but I intend to play regardless.
I also wonder if it might be a better idea for them to "awaken" a set of augments every few updates instead of trying to design them all at once. Not sure if this was already promised in the kickstarter though.
To be honest I haven't played a necromancer in my 30 years of playing mmorpg's so I'm more excited about the idea and having acquired the appropriate buildings for my freehold
But I hope the necromancer ends up as what you want @Anzoul
In what ive heard of how the augment systems work, and how the summoner is kind of in its own catagory for how augments woud effect the summons, my thoughts on how it would come together is. Your applied augment is going to determin the "species" of your summon, and those "species" will have stats befiting them. So the augments the beast master has access to should make beast like summons with stats befitting them, while the necromancer has undead "species" with stats befitting them. For the summoned pet specifically. How their other abilities differ i dont have speculation.
I don't think the Beastmaster schools will just be a reskin of the Necromancer schools.
But... we need more info.