Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
@McShave
Because Cleric aren't the only class with heals.
I just wanted to say that when I read your posts I hear a calm and reasonable voice. An arm chair, crackling fire, goblet of mulled wine.
Thought I would pipe up with that.
Of course, Bards can also use magic and we have Mage as a primary Archetype.
Rogues can also fight and we have Fighter as a Primary Archetype.
Mages also fight from range, but we have Ranger as a Primary Archetype.
Clerics can summon whips, hammers and spears, but we have Summoner as a Primary Archetype.
I really hope X/Tank can be viable tank too depending of the build and gameplay chosen by the player. Like i enjoy tanking from time to time in games when i dont feel like healing. But I really dont like the classic warrior style tank that they offer.
I'd like another main archetype buy with a tank build
i agree with this statement, a summoner should be the only well rounded class, being able to summon a familiar that compensates for the lack of verity, but not strong enough to replace that variable entirely.
to the question at hand if the tank specs tank for the archetype then they should be a brick wall that can pull/maintain aggro fairly well. but if say you chose tank/summoner it should allow you to apply a bind to an ally that buffs defense and replenishes their health by sacrificing your own, or as a tank/bard the more aggro you acquire or successful blocks you do, you boost your teammates offensive capabilities. tank/rouge can, in a sense, blink between the aggroed player and the monster and intercept any damage.
but admittedly i didnt play alpha and im not familiar enough with the abilities and how drastic their changes will be when the archetype is applied to their existing skills.
So smart combinations should be able to primary tank. I wouldn't know what to expect if you picked mage/tank or bard/tank really. However those are probably never going to be able to primary tank because they are not smart decisions when it comes to tanking. They may still be good classes for other reasons.
If they use smart reasoning then I don't really mind a few of the tank secondaries to primary tank. Just not all of them. Since some of them don't make any sense when it comes to tanking.
U.S. East
If they want to (the real IF associated with all this) you could easily make a mage/tank.
Read through this whole thread, there are lots of examples and possible variations... I liked the thoughts that every archtype with the proper gear and selection of augments should be able to do more than 1 role in the trinity.
I'm not saying that every combination of x/tank should tank, but it would be cool to have options.
It would also be cool to not make every combination of tank/x be a tank, like as I said earlier a tank/bard to be closer to a support role akin to a battlefield commander.
While this has been true in most games, this is in part because of the group size of most games.
Look at WoW. A group there would consist of 1 tank, 1 healer and three DPS. This is fairly standard among MMO's, with some going up to 6 person groups, but the bulk sitting at 5.
Ashes will have 8 person groups, meaning that one tank and healer can take along 6 other players on group content.
This means that in WoW, if you have 300 DPS wanting groups, you need 100 tanks and 100 healers. Where as in Ashes, that 300 DPS only need 50 tanks and healers to all get taken along on groups.
If Ashes has the same mix of tanks, healers and DPS as other MMO's have, groups are going to have trouble finding DPS, not finding tanks or healers.
While I agree with your math in concept. You need to look at the distribution for LFR in wow, that's 2 tanks for a group of 25... Tanks are still the hardest slot to fill most of the time. People generally just want to play the DPS type classes because they're cooler and or don't want the pressure of tank or heal.
I have no doubts that your observations are true. None at all.
All I can say is that the pool of players that group is not the same as the pool of players that raid.
That same math (or the general idea of it) holds true for raiding in Ashes as well.
And yet many still ask for the tanking role to be exclusive to the tank/x classes. Making the rarest played role the linchpin of every grouping scenarios is a recipe for frustration, and no, it does not make more people start playing that role. In my personal case, it made me stop looking for groups and group content to solo almost all the time.
If the game has some (or many) group encounters in which tanking is not as essential, where a second rate tank is enough to do the job, then x/tanks with appropriate gear could be a viable option. They wouldn't steal the show for dungeon boss or raids, but they would provide the necessary, even if imperfect, role to get people into groups.