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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.
Comments
So if there are options to be viable, not necessarily top, at other jobs by swapping up your secondary, that will make me happy. If there isn't, then I'll have to make a decision on what role I prefer to play, and then base my social network around that role. If I go cleric and I want to do pve content, I will need tank friends. If I chose tank, the reverse. I would just feel bad not being able to do something because we didn't have the right toons available, even though we have the players.
This is the biggest reason for why I think /tank should grant people the ability to do most PvE tanking. I want people to be able to make up for the fact that they don't have a main tank AS A TEAM. Let people have the tools to have their teams unique style and approach depending on what everyone likes to play.
This doesn't mean you need to lessen tank in any way shape or form. If anything this means you should make main tank even more robust than is currently available. But similarly, the augment system should let a person who thinks about their build very carefully to pick complimentary main archtypes (cleric, summoner, rogue(evasion build only), fighter) and be able to work something out if their team mates are similarly aware and build in ways that can make up a little bit of the gap left by the person not playing tank but still looking to fulfill the role.
Any system that lacks the ability to have a team style like this is in my opinion tends to lead to cookie cutter meta builds and generally leads to unavoidable toxicity (as opposed to avoidable toxicity which is more likely if people are pushed less to have the absolute precise optimal build throughout an entire group.) The human tendency for 'forcing optimization' onto others is already high enough as is, it doesn't need assistance from uninspired game design.
Yeah. Encounter design could seriously use some improvements in MMOs.
Personally I would love to see that any role could be replaced or compensated by the party adjusting.
Since we won't be using dungeon finders, shouldn't be an issue in that regard.
I am hoping for this as well. The need for off-tanks comes down to encounter design and dungeon/ area layouts. Since there will be 8 players per party instead of the normal 4 or 5, I imagine content can be designed to be a bit more difficult, where multiple tanks would be needed, but a primary Tank must be there to absorb the damage of bosses because they have the best damage absorption.
I haven't heard it discussed for some time but I do remember Stephen saying that each class (sorry, "archetype", meh) will have a unique ability that it will bring to a party. I think I recall a video showing a cleric using an ability to cleanse poison gas out of a cave. So if nothing else, there will be that system which could potentially make any role important.
Personally, my expectation is that there will be certain content, like dungeons, where having a certain archetype-specific ability will either make it a lot easier, or provide bonus content (maybe both). For example, if you need a Rogue to bypass traps to take a side corridor, then that lets you skip a really tedious slog through the main corridor filled with swarms of annoying mobs. Or a Bard's lore ability lets you read a magic tome that reveals a treasure that gives bonus materials to the party. (Those abilities and scenarios are total hypotheticals; I have no idea what they will actually do. That stuff hasn't been in Alpha.)
Ashes 101 has a pretty good compilation of what little we know about archetypes, and based on some of the comments in this thread I think a number of you will be disappointed.
https://www.ashes101.com/classes
Here's a breakdown for you...
You need Tank as your primary archetype to be a full-blown main tank. Sorry, no Summoner/Tank taking on the role. As stated by @Dygz multiple times, only the Tank archetype gives you the actual tanking abilities needed to succeed in that role.
Some classes will be able to off-tank, and I imagine that Summoner is one of them. I'd expect that Summoner/Tank will be the best equipped to be an off-tank (just my guess here) because Summoner is the "jack of all trades" archetype which can somewhat fill in to any role. But nobody but an actual Tank will function as a main tank.
For healing, Cleric is like the Tank in that it is the only archetype capable of being a primary healer. The Bard can function as an off-healer (and it also has a toolbox of other support abilities so I'm sure parties will appreciate having them) but they're not going to be keeping a party alive on their own. Since Summoner is again "jack of all trades" they will probably be able to do some healing as well. No other archetype will be able to do it though. Picking Cleric as your secondary class and getting Cleric augments will provide you self-heals but not give you the ability to heal other people if your archetype doesn't already do that.
So that covers half of the archetypes (Tank, Cleric, Summoner, Bard). The other 4 archetypes are primary damage dealers. Fighter and Rogue are physical melee DPS roles. Rogue of course has stealth and (I am guessing) mobility, while Fighter (again, a guess) will have more damage mitigation and might be able to off-tank somewhat. (Again, I am guessing on that.) Ranger is the ranged physical damage specialist. Mage will be the specialist in magical damage.
I don't know what the difference between physical damage and magical damage will be. I'm assuming it will matter. In Alpha it didn't seem to; a sword and a spell both did the same damage. You might cut someone to bleed as a DoT, or set them on fire as a DoT. The difference seemed cosmetic. I'm sure at release it will matter. My guess is that physical damage and magical damage resistances will vary from enemy to enemy. Maybe a stone golem shrugs off magic damage but can be worn down with physical attacks, while physical attacks mostly pass through a ghost who is vulnerable to magic. If that's the case then augments will matter all that much more. That Fighter whose sword can crackle with lightning thanks to a Mage augment will have a totally different experience than the Fighter who is healing himself with Cleric augments.
All that is to say that it looks like Intrepid wants there to be value with each archetype. I don't anticipate a situation where a Fighter will be turned down because the group already has a Ranger; I am sure the Fighter will have something to provide that the Ranger doesn't, and will be wanted. I do think there's a chance that a group with a Fighter won't want another one due to redundancy. Augments may make a difference though. We'll have to see.
But I stated not necessarily every class should be able to tank in the question.
Just to play devils advocate.
I could see a mage or a cleric having summoner capabilities for sure, maybe even a ranger with an animal companion. But a rogue. or a fighter, or a bard could be more easily argued to not have viability as a summoner.
In parallel with that you would not have ALL classes be able to tank, it could be just ones that generally make sense. A tank is able to tank, maybe a Fighter/tank allows for a more mobile Tank that has kiting potential. A summoner tank simply has minions that can do the tanking for them(an assumption seeing as nobody knows what this class has in its arsenal yet).
Is role overlap so wrong? If it is should there really be 9 classes or even variants at all? If its so bad to have a role covered by more than one class, then shouldn't there be just 4 classes? Healer(support), Physical DPS, Magical DPS, and Tank?
Theres another round of opinions I would like to hear! Get at it!
Each archetype will also get a couple special abilities as Atama said:
Older videos showing the base design and intent. The tanks wall skill for example will only be a tank ability. It will allow them to control the battle field better. We haven't seen the other archetype abilities yet and I think in one of the live stream/interviews with Steven around this time he hinted at a couple but gave no solid answer as they weren't sure what they were going to do.
That wasnt assuming new abilities my friend. A Fighter is very mobile, so tank augments I would assume mean enhancements of the tanky sort to a fighters already mobile abilities. Same goes with whatever summoners are given. Tank augments would likely just mean more survivability enhancements through already existing primary class abilities more than likely? I would say that is a good guess.
As it should be and how I ended up playing healer. Going away from this leads to GW2 everyone is everything and nothing all at the same time. That is the opposite of the stated design right from the very start.
Let's hope that they appear someday to help revitalize the industry, and that this doesn't all end in negativity causing Ashes to falter and make people even less likely to go for it.
I'm sure every classes will be built up to have something the devs think will be useful and fun. I'm just not so sure the players will care about these useful tools. Who's the say people, although acknowledging that a bard would make things easier for that section of the dungeon, won't prefer having 2 wizards because they kill things so much faster this way than they ever would if they had a bard instead of the second wiz? Or for this boss it's "better" to have 3 rangers. Fighters and rogues just make things more difficult against it. If you think the meta will be to have a group with one of each 8 main archetypes, I'm afraid it won't be that rosy balance.
Aaannd you've mostly proven my point. Bases are covered, who cares about the exact 4-5 dps classes to fill that role.
I, too, hope every classes are wanted, but I've played too many MMOs over the years. There are always classes that are under-appreciated. Considered weak, no matter if it's the case or not. Or simply unpopular and most people don't want to bother to adapt to incorporate them into their "work flow".
Every party will need a tank and cleric and then however many else of whatever the eff else because it doesn't matter.
Yes...thats what I said... in other words a fighter with potential to tank.
So in order from most to least tanky:
Tank/Tank -> Tank/Fighter -> Fighter/Tank
Pretty much yea, lmao
There are skill trees for passive, active, and weapon skills, and then there are augments (which also require skill points to apply per the wiki)
I have a tank/mage, who has all tank abilities and mage augments. Instead of sinking all of my skill points into my passive skills for health and hp regen I put all of my points into DMG and CDR. Instead of putting skill points into my tank activated abilities I used all those points for unlocking, applying, or upgrading (whatever it will be called) every augment that a mage has to offer me.
I have just created a class that will play similarly to what people will expect a spellsword to play like a 'melee magic damage class'. BUT because my primary was tank and i have the tank abilities I will be more durable than a fighter/mage AT THE EXPENSE of dealing as much damage as the fighter/mage would. If i did a fighter/mage and made all the same skill point choices, i would be less durable but more mobile (probably more dps?) character now with the fighters set of activatable abilities instead of the tanks. When i say glass cannon, i mean a character that goes all in on every point going towards dealing damage, and not a single point goes to defense. This is not exclusive to a mage I could apply this to anything. I can take this upgrade approach to a orc fighter and it would be tanky'er than if i did it with a elf wizard. Anyone could do this with any class... not that i suggest this build for anyone or anything, its just a mentality all the DMG no defense. thats what i would hope and was trying to say. a player who wants a more durable version of this character could trade his mobility and dmg of fighter/mage for the tanky'ness of tank/mage.
This is what I was trying to explain above. a tank/rogue will still have all the tank activated abilities and skill set, he wont have what rogues can do. he wont have (all hypothetical here) smokebombs to disorient, or shadowdance to increase his dodge. he will still have charge and shieldbash and with the rogue aguments mabye he could add poison effects, or combo chains, or shadow damage.... but this wont make him a dodge tank.
a rogue /tank could be made into a dodge tank though. have your skill points lean heavily into the acrobatic abilities of the rogue but use the tank augments for threat generation that you have speculated exist. that combination would be more of a dodge tank than tank/rogue would be. I know you dont understand, thats why we keep circling back to this debate. what i have been trying to get at is, as you keep pointing out all tank/X will have tank abilities and unless augments can do some crazy shit to change up these tank abilities then all tanks(party role) will feel the same to the group. people will quickly find what tank/x is most efficient and only want those because they are the easiest or most tanky... probably a tank/tank or a tank/cleric if i had to guess.
where as if players were able to build certain X/tank combos into efficient tanks as well there would be larger variations in play style for group play therefore even harder to build a defined meta
yes, 4 schools of augments... but this does NOT mean 4 distinct playstyles. we have already established that the 4 are fire, frost, electric, and teleportation. the only application of these that we have seen is either change the charge to a teleport or add fire damage to your strike. we copy this out to the other 2 schools and that just means add ice damage or add shock damage... those two dont sound anything like distinct playstyles.
let me quote this again for you you. have. no. clue.
you are merely taking a stab at, you're guessing, you're just making it up and saying it sounds right, this is your opinion, there are no facts here, there are no sources of reference to this.
none of this has been revealed to us players yet, so guessing is all we can do.
I understand the design plenty (of what has been revealed so far) what we dont know is the scale of a lot of things yet, so we dont know how it will all work out in the end. I dont know, and unless you recently got hired by intrepid, you dont KNOW either.
so as i said, I feel like having more player control in character creation and options for builds and playstyles would be better for the game.
Well why shouldn't they both fill the need for a tank? Tank/tank can be the meta, but fighter/tank could work fine in the absence of the tank/tank class. To be honest I can see people running many group compositions to get around that very thing since finding dedicated tanks in many MMO's seems to be difficult as a majority of players play dps classes. Maybe Tank/Tank should be the MOST viable at tanking, but that doesn't mean it should be the ONLY viable tanking class.
Mate if a tank/x can do what tank/tank does, without fear of failure, why would anyone choose a tank/tank when a tank/healer or a tank/bard or a tank/mage can offer more?
The meta was there. For pve and for pvp.
Anyway. When I was playing a dual wield warrior on tera online I loved being able to off-tank. It was satisfying gameplay. But I never demanded to tank the activities. It wasnt possible.
In eso I was tanking with dual wield and gear choices all the 4man stuff. In a raid setting? Without a shield? No. It didnt work.
When we get to test the 8x8 we will have more to say. Till then there are two types of people here.
Wishful thinking and past examining.
Maybe. if they build their characters that way. If the fighter/tank builds full tank skills,stats,gear he could be tanky'er than the tank/fighter that built to be a DPS.
I mean, if a cleric (life and death schools) could build to be a DPS instead of a healer, a tank (archetype) should be able to play as just a DPS instead of a tank(role)... Just double down on the bleed effects or CC instead of mitigation and threat generation.
I see this as a skill threshold and skill ceiling range at this point. In other games like LoL you have characters like echo or ezerel that players can pull of sick plays with because those champions have a really high skill cap. And then there are players that just play DR Mundo and refuse to die and just pummel something to death...
The tank/tank is the DR Mundo. Just there to be a rock.
The summoner/tank is the echo player with a higher skill cap that can do crazy shit IF he is good with his class.
The tank/bard or mage may be able to offer more than the tank/tank... But it's not going to be as face roll
You see this with other MMOs too in wow a demon Hunter takes zero skill to play. Where as the skill cap for playing a brewmaster requires more effort.
Risk v reward.
Just remember that it goes against the stated intentions of the game designers for it to work that way. They don't intend for anyone but an actual Tank to serve in the primary tanking role. It's early so they might change their mind, or maybe players might figure out some way to make a non-Tank work better than the developers intended, so I won't say that there is absolutely no chance of that working. But while it's fun to speculate about how things might work, we've already been told that they won't work that way.
Main healers will be Clerics. Main tanks will be Tanks. The best anyone else will do is to be a support role. That's what we've been told is how it is intended to work.
But I guess it's fair to talk about whether or not it should be the only viable tanking class, keeping in mind that we've been told it will be the only viable tanking class.
I'd like it if a non-Tank can serve as a tank in some content, if not all. Maybe teamed up with a Bard and a Rogue, the Fighter/Tank can serve just fine as they run around doing quests. The Bard has enough healing to keep the downtime low, and the Fighter can keep enough of the enemies off the others to get through content faster than they would solo. They're not pulling off dungeons or anything but they can have their own version of the "holy trinity". I think that might not be too much to hope for.
I never said they would offer more? I said they would just still be viable tanks in the absence of the best tank archetype, that goes for other classes with tank secondary's possibly as well
Fighter/Tank is primarily a Fighter - so while a Fighter/Tank can off-tank quite well. Fighter/Tank will not replace the need for a Primary Archetype Tank in an encounter designed for an 8-person group.
Tank/Tank is not the only viable main tank class. Any Tank/x is viable as main tank.
I get it. I choose tank because I want to tank. No need to say "choose something else if you want to do something else". My point is, what a waste of time developing 64 classes if we all fall into 1 of 3 choices anyway. No missed opportunities.
"They have the time. They have the funds. They have the creative design and talent. Let's see some shit that blows our fuckin minds." - Khronus 2021
So why take a fighter/tank at all?
There's a whole bunch of ways to add more diversity to your Tank abilities.
Tank/Rogue or Tank/Bard should add a lot of variety - plus, again, all the Racial, Social Org, Religious and Node augments.