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Combat System Improvements, PVP Wise By Main Mage
Draxido
Member
in general: make sure that every class have this
- Enough Crowd Control, obviously tank classes should be the king in crowd control but make sure that every other class has enough crowd control,
- At least 1 defensive skill, something that makes you invulnerable, assassins can have something like dismiss like being visible and being able to move but cant attack or recieve damage, mages ice block, tanks stone skin, archers, evade all incoming damage for a certain duration, bards/healers something like a dismiss but invisible to reposition in an orb form that only the caster is able to see, etc, a defensive/invulnerability skill something to use to reduce damage when they are not able to dodge,
- A Global Cleanse skill with decent cooldown (personal opinion " anything higher than 1 minute might aswell just dont add anything, but 35-45 secs its enough) also make it so you have like a 3 seconds immunity against cc skills, cause an example of a bad implementation of this skill its new archeage, its god damm awfull never works and you just get insta cc again,
since all classes has crowd control, you are gonna be able to hit sick combos, so you got to watch out in pvp fights to not burn your cleanse skill too early or play more safe if you do since you can get into a cc chain and get killed because of a sick combo or recieve a lot of unecessary damage, something like what aion does, in pvp everyone tries to burn their opponents cleanse skill so they can hit their big damages,
- Add IFrames, have a low cooldown skill to dodge and be invulnerable while the animation is going something that can be use as movements skill aswell so people have to decide if shorten their distance from targets or save it to dodge incoming damage, or get away from a though position, something like what tera does,
- If possible make skills to make sense with the crowd control ones so all of these make sense pvp wise,
- Example all classes should have poke skills, which are weaker and strong abilities that need to meet some kind of condition,
-For mages: move away from hard cast spells, or anything that holds you in place while casting, its an archaic mechanic and you want the combat to be as fluent as possible trust me, anything that hard lock you into place while casting should be like an ultimate AOE skill which does a lot of damage, there is no need to hard cast locking into place with weaker spells runescape style,
-Healing Classes should have like an anti cc skill to break people from cc or grants immunity for certain people
Hard Cast, Locking into place just leads to clunky feel, de-sync problems when your target moves farther than the skill range, sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt, trust me its just better if you are able to chase someone as you cast AS I SAID as long as its not an ultimate aoe skill if i would get to choose id rather Channeling, over Hard Cast, something that you channel and it starts doing damage in AOE and if you channel for a certain ammount of time, or long enough it does a different effect and does way more damage, think about it like a blizzard skill that you channel, and if you channel it for idk 5 seconds straight locked into place a big glacier comes down from the skies or something like that, Blizzard Spell In Kurtzpell its a great Representation, of what i mean,
with all these features added to combat you can't really go wrong
it adds combat so much more depth than just be sitting in a spot casting spells to each other runescape style,
also for mages get rid of the lightning spell that it bounce in between targets, add better lightning skills like a 3 charges skill that calls a lightning in a certain area and stuns players in the area, something like gods whip in archeage, but with kurtzpel animation would be sick,
i also have an idea for an spell for mages but for that i need to explained it graphically if enough people is interested i could
- Enough Crowd Control, obviously tank classes should be the king in crowd control but make sure that every other class has enough crowd control,
- At least 1 defensive skill, something that makes you invulnerable, assassins can have something like dismiss like being visible and being able to move but cant attack or recieve damage, mages ice block, tanks stone skin, archers, evade all incoming damage for a certain duration, bards/healers something like a dismiss but invisible to reposition in an orb form that only the caster is able to see, etc, a defensive/invulnerability skill something to use to reduce damage when they are not able to dodge,
- A Global Cleanse skill with decent cooldown (personal opinion " anything higher than 1 minute might aswell just dont add anything, but 35-45 secs its enough) also make it so you have like a 3 seconds immunity against cc skills, cause an example of a bad implementation of this skill its new archeage, its god damm awfull never works and you just get insta cc again,
since all classes has crowd control, you are gonna be able to hit sick combos, so you got to watch out in pvp fights to not burn your cleanse skill too early or play more safe if you do since you can get into a cc chain and get killed because of a sick combo or recieve a lot of unecessary damage, something like what aion does, in pvp everyone tries to burn their opponents cleanse skill so they can hit their big damages,
- Add IFrames, have a low cooldown skill to dodge and be invulnerable while the animation is going something that can be use as movements skill aswell so people have to decide if shorten their distance from targets or save it to dodge incoming damage, or get away from a though position, something like what tera does,
- If possible make skills to make sense with the crowd control ones so all of these make sense pvp wise,
- Example all classes should have poke skills, which are weaker and strong abilities that need to meet some kind of condition,
-For mages: move away from hard cast spells, or anything that holds you in place while casting, its an archaic mechanic and you want the combat to be as fluent as possible trust me, anything that hard lock you into place while casting should be like an ultimate AOE skill which does a lot of damage, there is no need to hard cast locking into place with weaker spells runescape style,
-Healing Classes should have like an anti cc skill to break people from cc or grants immunity for certain people
Hard Cast, Locking into place just leads to clunky feel, de-sync problems when your target moves farther than the skill range, sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt, trust me its just better if you are able to chase someone as you cast AS I SAID as long as its not an ultimate aoe skill if i would get to choose id rather Channeling, over Hard Cast, something that you channel and it starts doing damage in AOE and if you channel for a certain ammount of time, or long enough it does a different effect and does way more damage, think about it like a blizzard skill that you channel, and if you channel it for idk 5 seconds straight locked into place a big glacier comes down from the skies or something like that, Blizzard Spell In Kurtzpell its a great Representation, of what i mean,
with all these features added to combat you can't really go wrong
it adds combat so much more depth than just be sitting in a spot casting spells to each other runescape style,
also for mages get rid of the lightning spell that it bounce in between targets, add better lightning skills like a 3 charges skill that calls a lightning in a certain area and stuns players in the area, something like gods whip in archeage, but with kurtzpel animation would be sick,
i also have an idea for an spell for mages but for that i need to explained it graphically if enough people is interested i could
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Comments
I hope you find some success with discussion of your feedback, so I'll give my opinions, since this isn't the thread where I compile things mostly neutrally and I can just be direct.
Crowd Control on all classes - No, this is terrible in a game with huge group PvP even after you add diminishing returns, it's chaos and pain for all involved and tactics devolve super fast.
1 Invulnerable Defensive skill each - Lack of variety here makes this homogenous, I can't say I'd like it, I'd probably go so far as to complain about it, even as a Cleric who doesn't care much.
Global Cleanse Skill on all characters - Just make this an item that can be used while CCed for some reason. Better for the economy, less annoying.
iFrames - Have you played BDO? How much iFrames are we talking about? 20 seconds of chaining them to be untouchable? Or Monster Hunter where you get a small gap to perfectly dodge someone's attack in a server authenticated PvP instance with 40 other people?
Mage suggestions - Already in line with Dev plans and all the feedback I've seen in the last month except like ... two people.
"you really can't go wrong" - Oh you so can...
Combat is not currently even slightly about 'sitting around casting spells at each other'
There are currently two or three other Action Combat and similar discussion threads within the first two pages, not saying you need to join those, but you can check them out to see what sort of thing people are about to come into this thread to tell you.
Other posters, I'll gather anything you say here into Combat Discussion thread or Compilation if you want me to, so please have at it.
-Crowd Control on all classes - No, this is terrible in a game with huge group PvP even after you add diminishing returns, it's chaos and pain for all involved and tactics devolve super fast.
i didnt say it has to be a crowd control fiesta, it just need to have enough so 1 v 1 are also meaningfull,
you just add diminishing returns done right and thats it there are ways to make it work, a lot of games make it worked in the past
-1 Invulnerable Defensive skill each - Lack of variety here makes this homogenous, I can't say I'd like it, I'd probably go so far as to complain about it, even as a Cleric who doesn't care much.
it just make sense to being able to have a second chance if you position yourself badly in a fight or 20 people is focusing you cause you are a good player, sometimes big raids would just mark an specific player so people just focuses you, this is a great way to get around that, so you are able to cait while your team or other classes with less mobility catches up or help you
-Global Cleanse Skill on all characters - Just make this an item that can be used while CCed for some reason. Better for the economy, less annoying.
hell no you cant really stop RMT this leads to pay to win this also makes so wealthy people has more chances in pvp which goes against aoc objective to make the game skill based
-iFrames - Have you played BDO? How much iFrames are we talking about? 20 seconds of chaining them to be untouchable? Or Monster Hunter where you get a small gap to perfectly dodge someone's attack in a server authenticated PvP instance with 40 other people?
same answer as the crowd control thing, iframes done right could add up a lot to the games skill ceiling BDO is a good example of iframes done terribly wrong, tera is a way better example of iframes done right,
" Combat is not currently even slightly about 'sitting around casting spells at each other' "
idk man mages kind of have more hard cast skills than i would like, or stock in animation skills
as for the " almost everything you have suggested is against most of the current discussion in the forums "
i dont really care this is my opinion from a pvp player, we all have the same goal of seeing the game succed and different ideas should work out for the devs to do the best they can for the community and combat is probably the most important feature of an mmo, so far im not pleased with the combat system, and mechanically is not solid i know is not the final product im just throwing things to consider, i do know that there is gonna be people which disagree just bring solid arguments next time,
Waiting for the combat revamp. Note that the game isn't apparently being balanced around 1v1 though.
Mages in particular may never quite match your wish, for a bunch of reasons I won't get into, as I am currently unable to make a solid argument about it without an essay.
Your requests don't have specifics, at the moment. They're mostly 'it can be done right' and 'I don't like how it is now' (except the Global Cleanse). Which is fine. They plan to revamp combat soon and you can take a pass at it then. I believe we can expect some implementation of your concepts in the upcoming changes.
Enjoy.
at the same time i am aware about this
" Mages in particular may never quite match your wish, for a bunch of reasons I won't get into "
ive being playing mmos for 20 years plus and i main mage a there are certain type of mages that i like and certain type of mages that i dont, thats another reason why i give feedback about things i would like to see
Thanks for the data. Succ Witch preference tells me a massive amount and will make it easier to keep you updated whenever we test the Combat Revamp.
NO weaving
NO animation canceling
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
The above was said in response to the idea of making a global cleanse a crafted item. This is a good idea.
Will it give people that have more in game coin an advantage? yes.
Should people with more in game coin have an advantage in an MMO? Yes.
This is the point of a persistent world with an economic focus. If there is no advantage to be gained by having coin, why should the game have an economy?
but yeah, to re-iterate what Azherae said, Ashes is aiming for scissors-paper-rock when it comes to 1v1 - your class will have a hard counter. Initial idea was to balance around 8v8.
So the 'tank' is by far best at tanking, though a small number of other classes might do a somewhat decent job at it.
So the 'healer' is by far the best at healing, though a small number of other classes might be able to heal a bit.
....and so on. Each class should have some minor abilities that no other class can do, like Rogues climbing walls, Rangers having a long range archer skill and Summoners having undead creatures at their command.
I think that this type of setup would make class choice both important and significantly more fun.
yes they should have an advantage but in large scale type of things like having the resources to move certain things politically, when it comes to small scale pvp money shouldn't be a factor in my opinion for this to work the game has to be supplies base like tibia, and as i said that leads to pay to win something that wants to be avoided by the company.
@maouw " Ashes is aiming for scissors-paper-rock when it comes to 1v1 - your class will have a hard counter. Initial idea was to balance around 8v8. "
balance between classes are incredibly hard to achieve as we have seen earlier in past games this normally leads to meta builds where a few conbinations are used and the rest are pretty much useless, now if im proven wrong and the aoc team manage to bring well balanced classes ofc is an amazing and admirable achievement and it is very much welcome,
i dont like the idea of classes having a hard counter tho, they said there is gonna be 60+ combinations so people can play the way they like and be relevant, if the idea is to have hard counters it would be easier to just go with the old system of having few classes, tank, healer, melee dps, and ranged dps. the less classes you have the easier it is to balance.
@tautau " Each class should have some minor abilities that no other class can do, like Rogues climbing walls, Rangers having a long range archer skill and Summoners having undead creatures at their command "
i like this this is what should differentiate classes like exploration or support kinda of skills like the ability to see secret passages, or the ability to use some kind of telekinesis skill to move objects, or maybe there could be like a negative effect in the deepest levels of the open world dungeons where you recieve more damage, or a bleeding or poison effect that only a certain healer class magic barrier can protect you from, stuff like that
When it comes to small scale PvP, everything you have ever done in game should be a factor - the is the entire poin t of persistent world MMO's - it is what separates them from BR's, MOBA's and most FPS games. To take things like the games economy out of the equation is basically to change the genre of the game.
Further, since literally all gear in Ashes can be bought and sold with gold, the notion that there shouldn't be consumables that are useful because RMT kind of falls flat.
Intrepid don't want the game to be pay to win - but they do want the game to have a good economy. You seem to be getting these two things confused - assuming that an economy automatically means RMT.
I dont share the opinion that his suggestions are contrary to Intrepid´s vision and here is why:
Firstly Steven shared his generall vision for ashes combat and compared it to other games.One of the comparisons he made was arche age "similar skill synergy and pace of combat of ArcheAge".
I for myself interpret this as a similar character kit set up and arche age was known for high player agency when it comes down to the broadness of utility of the class kits, similar to how @Draxido described it.
Secondly it seems like ashes is of those games where you can build your character ability kit from a plethora of choices. Let´s assume that the player get´s the choice to from a pool of 30 abilities to chose 10 , since we both know the skill bar will be limited and we have plenty of sources to get our abilities from.
Under this assumption i think it would be highly unlikely that that you dont have a decent selection of utility abilities (maybe 5 out of 30), such as cleanse, mobility and crowd controll. Now does that mean everyone will go for this kind of broad selection of utility ? I dont think so. Ashes will need to make non utility specs excell at other areas like increased damage output with abilities that have incremental scaling synergies with other abilities.
Thirdly one of the aspects that is supposed to define ashes combat is a long time to kill.
I´ll use arche age again for this as an analogy, where time to kill was about around 15 seconds and in Ashes its supposed to be around 30 seconds.
The reason why fights in this game were relatively long (in even matched fights) was not only because the generall damage output was low.
It was also due to the fact that most class kits had "answers" to circumstances your opponent put you into. The defining point in most fights was either how good you utilized your answers (like dashing away from an enemy charge) or how good you time managed those answers in order to not run out of them.
If you would not have this kind of class kit setup fights just devolve into 30 seconds slugfests that are mostly determined beforehand by which classes clash each other, without the option to escape, stall and so on.
Every fight is just plain 30 seconds of exchanging spells( Hyperbole alert)
Before i get flamed that class x just bursts class z in arche age... yes i know there is a lot of disparity.
I just try to conveig the point, that if classes have broader utility to a certain extent fights can be more engaging and drawn out.
I think that is a fairly poor take away from what Steven said.
When he said specifically that he wants Ashes to have the combat pace and skill synergy of Archeage, I didn't take it to mean Ashes would have the same general class kit setup, but rather, I took it to mean that Steven wants Ashes to have the same combat pace and skill synergy of Archeage.
If Steven wanted to have a similar class kit setup to Archeage, as well as a similar pace and skill synergy, I would have thought he would have said that he wants Ashes to have a similar pace of combat, skill synergy and class kit to Archeage.
However, since there was no mention of class kit setup, I think it is a very poor take to assume that he means anything at all about class kits.
To further why I think this is a poor take on that comment, Archeage is well known for being a game where any player can be any build, any role.
When you have a game where every character can be every thing, it isn't a problem to give every player the ability to have every ability - because literally every player can take literally any ability that the game has to offer.
That is not Stevens intent for Ashes. He wants characters to have fairly well defined roles. This is in direct contrast to the way Archeage sets up it's class kits - so again, that is a bad take.
But both sides have at least two CC abilities each, with separate Global Cooldowns since they are different characters.
The more CC available across classes, the more you have to twist your balance to prevent the rapid defeat of any single character because there is more CC on one side than there are responses on the other.
Adding 'more situations to put the opponent into' to all classes in a GvG game forces you to add more 'answers' to those situations to individual characters.
The point is that Intrepid has indicated that if they have to choose between balancing for GvG and 1v1 they will probably do the thing that is better in GvG.
Whether any specific philosophy said by you or OP is actually against GvG balance, I won't argue on.
If the general idea of a skill (ex: invulnerability) holds true for every class and just the flavor text is different, it's basically the same skill. I'd much rather see class uniqueness. It's always a bummer when class identities start to bleed into one another for fear of not making them perfectly balanced.
As for hard casting I didn't play mage, but I liked the development they had in place for cleric skills as well. While certain skills might have made you stand in place as you leveled them you could then cast them while running and choose different positions for those skills. I think hard casting would be fine as the default setting for some skills with the ability to choose to spec into being able to cast it while moving or whatever (like the mage has grown to understand their spells and magic better so they can cast a certain spell differently)
I'm also not opposed to Intrepid including their own unique skills. Not everything needs to stun-lock a person to death. That doesn't make for fun combat either.
And that is 8 Primary Archetypes for an 8-person group, rather than balancing the Primary Archetypes for 1v1 combat.
Also, keep in mind that the focus of Ashes PvP combat, by design, is objective-based PvP combat; not merely direct group v group.
I have high doubts it will be like that. If balancing was simple then yeah, they would just have to balance the archetypes, but it's classes that are the main source of abilities not just the archetypes.
Primary Archetypes provide abilities - that is what is being balanced.
Secondary Archetypes provide 4 Schools of augments; not abilities.
Even though augments do radically change the way your active skills provide you abilities, there's still a primary focus on the base archetype itself and not the 64 whole classes.
--- Steven
We're not really talking about 64 true classes, we're talking about eight classes with 64 variants... There isn't as much variance between the 64 classes as you might expect. It's not like there are you know 64 different versions of... radically different classes.
--- Jeffrey
The build that has EVERY TOOL AVAILABLE?
i didnt say every class has to have the same toolkit, i clearly said " Enough " which means some sort same toolkit than other classes, this doesnt mean a dps has the CC power of a tank, thats not how it works, it means have decent cc as an example, cause games like Archeage, you cant really have this options either you are a glass cannon or a cc god, so its good to being able to escape every once in a while instead of getting into a fight get your head rolled in the keyboard do as much damage as you can and die that is not funny either, combat has to have some kind of depth if this mmo is aiming to be the savior of the genre
@Noaani " When it comes to small scale PvP, everything you have ever done in game should be a factor "
no combat should be skill based, ofc having better wealth than other players and equipment should help a bit, but money shouldnt be everything in an mmo specially in combat, the potion implementation is a really bad idea how are you supposed to beat someone with unlimited cc breaks, thats just a god awful idea,
" If this is the case, that means the economy is pointless for 95% of the playerbase. "
i didn't say this either, economy should play an important roll, but not in every single aspect of the game, as far as i know crafters and merchants are gonna be super important to the game in order to get better gear, and goods such as building different types of stuff such as teleports that allow fast travel, potions, buff foods, military bases, depending on how the major of the city wants to distribute those resources, and economy will play a huge roll in sieges specially, large scale and small scale there is gonna be food, potions, scrolls, buffs, gear, and more supplies in general + games not finish yet there is a lot of stuff that they can still add or keep adding after launch in, so it does has its roll i just think that the cc break potion is a bad idea, nobody said economy should be irrelevant, if that is somehow the way you perceived what i said
i forgot to mention that the invulnerability skill MUST have a really long cooldown tho, all i want is fights to be meaningfull specially considering that there is not gonna be fast travel in the game so TTK has to be high so fights last longer and is not like " Archeage " as an example where fights last a couple seconds,
balancing the overall combat experience by applying whatever works in my post, plus balancing damage where you actually need skill to 1 shot or potentially take 75% of someones health by yourself if you use your skills the right way, its the way to go he can steal get heal or try to hit their skills way better than you just did to comeback for such mistake of not using his class the right way the first time ofc im referring to 1v1, here but 1v1's are important even in gvg content maybe you get to fight their best dps on the far from the battle and you know you got to hold him somehow or you are gonna wipe, has to be situational ofc cause there is other factors like maybe he is better geared than you are or he has a healer with him, but you should still have a chance hopefully you get my point in a pvp POV
You started off your objection to a consumable that breaks CC (which I would say is 90% going to be in the game) with a claim about RMT, and then followed that up by saying it goes against the skill based ideal of Ashes.
I mean, this in itself kind of says you think using a class ability uses a different amount of "skill" to using a potion - but since both of them require the same thought process and button press, this is obviously nonsense. There is no less skill involved in effectively using a CC break potion than there is in using a CC break class ability - they are functionally identical while in combat.
You even agree that economy should play a part in combat effectiveness - though not as much as skill should. This would suggest that if you thought about it critically, a CC break potion fits in perfectly with this - it is still keeping the skill based aspect of a CC break in tact, but it is adding to the games economy.
Further this statement tells me you have literally never played an MMO with consumables that are actually useful.
If you had have played such a game, you would be aware that they are literally always added in to the game with a cooldown timer - just like a CC break would have if it were a class ability.
Honestly, you are arguing from a point of ignorance right now.
there is already an economy architecture plan for the game, cc break potions are a bad idea cause the idea of someone running out of something so important mid fight and the fact that there is people that will never run out of it in a skill base combat doesn't make sense, its really not that hard to understand for anyone with an iq above 90 i dont really know where you are getting lost,
there is other things that they can add into the game economywise just not this. its the only thing that i disagree with you
" tells me you have literally never played an MMO with consumables that are actually useful. "
i dont really have to but just for the sake of answering i played Tibia back in 2002 its one of the oldest mmo's out there that still in the market with a healthy player base, and its a HEAVILY consumable/supplies game, not only that but is a game that i keep comming back every once in a while since nothing has ever gimme the experience that tibia did just for nostalgia, and if you do some research about how things work in that game because it is mainly CONSUMABLE/SUPPLIES base game you'll find out what i mean with RMT problems and the problems with someone that has way more money in the game that he should, ofc pvp system is different in tibia where servers are heavily controlled by 1 guild, and its basically impossible to fight back cause at the end of the day its just a matter of who can spend more money and have unlimited resources,
from now on im just gonna stop replying to you since in my eyes you are the one who doesnt have an idea about MMO's you are welcome to keep sharing your thoughts is not like there is anything i can do about it
but you seem a really closed minded person and the share of thoughts wont go anywhere anyways
and if your next reply is gonna be about " you are the closed minded one cause you want something to be the way you want "
no, i've been playing mmos for the past 20 years and i really want to see the genre take a different path since its been stuck in the same place for 20 years+ im just sharing what i see works the most, with arguments on why it works best, im not demanding to be like that im just asking to be open minded and take into consideration,
in the other hand you are demanging to be like that cause " economy has to be relevant ", and i already told you i agree economy should be relevant, i just think the cc break potion its not a good idea again i already explain this in previous post's i dont really get where you are getting lost, + as i said earlier there is already an economy architecture plan
keep in mind there is no gonna be fast travel in the game, and fights needs to be meaningful and last long enough, combat is by far the most important aspect of an mmorpg EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN ECONOMY, in a world where you fight monsters and other players to achieve things combat is the most important aspect, for me it seems that you are the kind of players that focus highly into economy and be a crafter or a merchant and still wants a chance to beat other players cause they are restricted by a paywall/doesnt have the same resources than a wealthy person, see how bad this sounds if i put it this way ?
people will always find a way to break, use, exploit, the system to their advantage and making it so every aspect of the game is economy base opens up way more ways to do this
In 1997, there were no systems built in to games to detect or combat RMT. These days, there are very sophisticated systems to do this.
In 1997, developers for online games were essentially guessing at how mechanics would work and how players would interact with them. These days, developers have decades of data to inform them.
If you are basing your opinion of what the result from something would be on a game from 1997, I am honestly not sure what to tell you. Not much from back then is applicable to a new MMO. Not much from back then was still applicable when EQ released - as even that game (released in 1999) had the benefit of data from UO and Tibia - which themselves had the benefit of data from Meridian59. You kind of didn't.
The closest thing you said was that it would be a bad idea to have someone with unlimited CC breaks after also talking about the RMT aspect and making the claim that it would diminish skill in combat. Each of these three points has been shown to be false, which just illustrates the fact that you are not in this discussion from any logical perspective. You have decided you don't like the idea of a consumable CC break, and are scrambling to find justification for that when asked, and refusing to further discuss the matter when that justification you scrambled for is proven to be baseless.
CC - Too much CC is a dangerous thing, you should really have classes that specialize in my opinion. certain archetypes of Rogue, Mage, Tank, and summoner should probably have a healthy amount of CC but should a Scryer really have that much CC? I think not. I personally wouldn't even recommend 1 hard cc per archetype as I think the game is a lot more interesting when some of these things are restricted a bit. You should want to have a tank with you to lock someone down rather than you being able to do it and dps.
Defensive - YES! | invulnerability? NO!!!!! - One of the worst things I think you can do is give everyone a different flavor of ice block. Class identity and uniqueness should be an emphasis since that is the primary complaint of most MMOs right now. Invulnerability is one of the most frustrating mechanics to encounter in an MMO but it can make that class really unique. When it becomes another tool for every archetype then every battle will be waiting for those things to be used and it just feels more gamey than interactive in my opinion. I have no issue with like a long cooldown "oh crap!" skill like a sorceror getting a super long range teleport backwards that can only be used once every 30 minutes or something. I just don't want a ranger effectively getting an iceblock. In line with the CC comments I made, too much is a bad thing.
Global cleanse - This is pretty difficult to implement and in line with my other comments probably slow the combat down more than necessary. When everyone has it all the time then the game just starts revolving around that one thing rather than something more interesting. What if a tank can living bomb for damage equivalent to their missing health rather than get a global cleanse or an iceblock? I think that creates a lot more interesting gameplay opportunities than effectively another tool that makes the game heavily geared toward arena combat. Also as an aside, 1 minute for something like a global cleanse in an MMO is far too short. I thought 30 minute cooldowns were insane in WoW when I first started but it is actually really smart. It should be an emergency spell not a combat optimization spell.
iFrames - far too difficult to implement into an MMO. I don't think this would feel good for anyone especially if you roll and just happen to dodge someone's main flavor skill like a pyroblast or whatever. While it does increase the skillcap I think it isn't feasible for this kind of game and it makes you feel like crap when someone effectively lucks out.
Poke skills - This should be what makes rangers and mages feel more unique compared to a paladin or a bard. I feel like you're kindof asking for every class to basically function the same way but with a different coat of paint. If everyone can poke then you lose a lot of the PvP dynamic trying to position and make your way into the fight.
Hard casting/channeling - I disagree personally, while it is annoying to be in a fight and strapped to the ground while channeling a spell, there should be a trade off for more bursty skills and part of that is being stuck in place. I'd love to see a particular archetype that has almost exclusively long channels but they all do something spectacular and another more mobile archetype that does far less damage/cc. I also think it adds a lot of flavor to visually see casting happening rather than just kinda lobbing off spells as you strafe. This is more of a preference but I think it takes some flavor away from the game.
Healing classes granting cc break/immunity - I like this idea and I imagine it is in the works. It is usually pretty standard for a cleric or bard to break a curse, dispell, etc.
Not trying to be harsh, just giving my thoughts but I feel the things you requested will make all the classes kinda feel the same. My favorite thing in MMO combat is when X class shows up and does their thing. Even if I hate it, I enjoy the fear of seeing that particular class and if they all had cc for example then I definitely lose some of that feeling.