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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.
Comments
Having healing spells be easily interrupted.
And/or balanced with long cast times. Allowing more time to interrupt.
Having potent healing spells be a channeling spell, rooting the caster, making it a target.
Just a few ideas.
Some ideas to make actual tanks more attractive than tank clerics.
Have mobs who deal with hp tanks in a way that the medigation from the actual tank class would out perform them.
Have tanks have a surplus of CC's so they can perform their role of "protection" in pvp situations.
And how to give classes CC's without over crowding the meta with CC locks/ helpless players.
I really think every class needs a certain amount of clensing. If every class has 3 or 4 CCs, and every class has 4 to 6 partial clensing skills. Then your fights can go more...
I rooted the ranger, the ranger activated wild step to cleanse root, and get a movement speed buff. Making the root i landed, not wasted... i did "trip" up the ranger for a moment, he did have to use another skill using some mana, and we do now know rooting that ranger isnt always going to end with him rooted. And if all the classes have a bit of this, feel them out first approach to combat, perhaps we could have a good amount of cc available, and enough counter play to have interesting and deep combat
Tab target is far superior for healing and it feels great.
Maybe what you're hoping is that Cleric/Cleric will not be able to out tank a Tank/Tank??
Im more concerned with: dps classes will not have the utility to provide support and healing. While the healing class cleric has a dps tree. I suport the segregation of roles, and dont feel the cleric should be able to do everything.
But its more just a worry caused by how the classes seem uncertain, with them both trying to segregate roles, and saying the cleric has a dps tree, so really we just have to see how the classes really play out.
The Cleric archetype in other MMO's and in D&D always has a bit of damage. That's part of the design but it's never been a problem. They won't be enough to be a dps class and dps will all have other tools and utilities in their kit beyond just pure damage as well. Besides we can only spec into so many abilities in this game and I suspect if you are a main healer, you won't have enough points for both. So I imagine if you want to spec into having powerful heals your damaging abilities won't be powerful and vice versa. Or as we've seen, a lot of the damaging abilities they've shown so far double as other utility - HP/MP regen, debuffs, buffs, etc.
This is part of my concern. The cleric having skills that double as dps and utility, while the other classes do not. Again its not a major concern until we see the classes and their limitations. But seeing cleric be the best tank class in the alpha 1, and have ways to dps while getting mana back is a leading point of my concern. We'll see.
Those things are just numbers balancing. Don't let an early alpha worry you. That's the entire point of testing.
Yeah, I think my point was balancing and developing healer toolset to enable them to still play as healers and not strictly tanks (League v. WoW for examples.)
I like the idea of tanks being able to tank significant threats and push them off as well. That sounds like giving them a more consistent and needed role. Good suggestion!
Good question. I feel like I want all of them to be viable and the decision to be meaningful in context of pvp. Taking Steven's philosophy in as well of risk v reward the riskiest proposition would be to do cleric/cleric but if they aren't designed in a way to engage in pvp it just becomes not viable.
Also, there's a subtext of general action camera design usually leans toward non-engaging decision making process via aoe toolkit and you're constantly tanking (not healing which is why people select a healer.)
True, depending on how harsh the average exp/gear durability death penalty is Healer will be a class for those with a strong heart and those who crave adrenaline peaks.
Lineage 2 exp death penalty was very harsh, having a healer with high level Resurrection skill that would recover a large amount of the exp lost was amazing.
Aren't we all sinners?
Now that is a really interesting idea to add some utility and QoL to our kit/the game outside pvp. Great suggestion!
You should not be expecting a Cleric to out DPS a Rogue...even when the Cleric does no healing at all.
They just don't do as much burst damage as a Rogue.
I loved the versatility and diversity of classes in rift. At the time I played it really felt like you could make any build work.
It's not a good design though.
There are two paths. Tell me which sounds better to you.
1. Tank and Healer/Support together are about equal to one strong DPS class but only get half the exp if they manage the kills, slow and steady.
2. Tank and Healers/Supports are even together just 20-30% of a single strong DPS, if that.
In case #1, more people are incentivized to play Tank and Healer and become friends with a bond, and work on optimizing their skills in all areas, DPS, Healing, Mitigation. Then, a good DPS can join them, and everything flows relatively smoothly, expanding their group. Add more DPS and soon you have good reason to seek out stronger enemies.
In case #2, in order to be efficient one must make a larger group, seek DPS first, or 'reach the point where the Tank is not dead weight compared to just throwing more healing Mana at a strong DPS' (healbot). The relationships still form, but the core aspects of it aren't as cohesive and if the game's design is good, you still can't necessarily just 'add more DPS and go up the ladder' of enemy difficulty because the Healing Mana consumption rises too fast.
Healers and supports need to be capable of decent DPS, and it is safe to design them that way. Does anyone ever really think "Man let's get a party of just healers together since we do decent DPS we don't need any of those hard-hitters"?
There's 'social incentives' but you have to be careful about which ones you trigger. Making everything a situation where Tanks or Healers 'have to rely on DPS' or vice versa leads to situations a lot more like GroupFinder outcomes. It wasn't that way years ago, but it becomes that way quickly now, and the two social incentives are somewhat opposed.
You don't want people to 'have to form a pickup group at near max size to be functional', because it forces impatient people to group with easygoing people and can cause internal friction types that lead to declines in sociability for both types.
And as I said, I realize that this shit doesn't fly because literally all other games are too "just make a group with randoms"-based. I was just throwing my 2 cents on the "healers gotta be able to do dmg too" discussion.
Ok, I don't personally agree with that being a 'design goal' either, but that's really not what this topic is about, so it's best for it to head off.
I will only add that I believe 'coming across someone of similar tendencies in game' is better than 'joining a Guild in order to form a party', both from the 'organic' side and the 'avoiding the types of behaviours that come with GroupFinder' side.
When your 'common interest' is 'leveling up'/'clearing content', rather than 'hanging out in a place you already wanted to be', I feel there's been a loss. Do you think that it might be the weaker PvE that causes you to have this feeling? If you don't have an 'area that you find interesting/specific mobs you enjoy the experience of fighting for what they are', it might be less likely to view the 'Grouping' experience as part of the 'out-in-world' gameplay?
(even if you answer this, I'm unlikely to engage further due to the core of the thread)
This is where I’d hope a blend like Tank/Fighter would have augments to overall damage output, yet is still capable of being MT.
I personally liked that, because as an introvert it pushed me to learn how to converse with people and build relationships quickly. And L2's requirement to have a full group of both dps and supports meant that every person was valuable, which made it easier to build the relationship (because you had to, if you wanted to progress).
To me, if any class can be semi-self-sustaining, it just means that interpersonal dependence is lower and you can disregard people easier. Maybe I'm wrong in that assumption because I haven't played a game where most classes are self-sustaining, but I'm pretty sure Ashes will be that game for me so I'll see whether I'm wrong or not.
It is important to remember that giving support classes about as equal damage as DPS classes diminishes the DPS classes value the same way DPS classes Self Healing and Off-tanking diminishes Healers and Tankers value.
I believe giving players customization resources and potential to make their classes do other things better outside their trinity aspect boundary is amazing, but for a class in the trinity to step into another branch of the trinity's territory they must have drawbacks that reduces their potential in their original trinity aspect.
Like a DPS class sacrificing part of their damage for some self healing or some defenses and a Healer sacrificing part of his healing power to ger more damage or defenses or a Tank sacrificing part of his defenses for more damage or self-healing.
Aren't we all sinners?
Lets get rdy for some hate
Support skills should not be more difficult than it needs to be, then there is a inconsistency with balancing pve. Action based healing is fine, and so is tab for this kind of thing no one is going to argue that. There are plenty of other ways to add action abilities and forms of utility that can be fun to play for them besides being a healing bot.
Why do you do this?
We had a lot of good discussion on page 1 of this thread on various ways to do action combat healing and how it's been done well or poorly in other games. Re-read that page and let us know your thoughts.
I will say, though it can't be too difficult. Healing needs to be reliable for a lot of reasons so while skill should be a factor, aiming skill can't be too hard.
I would like to see healer's skill expression be in resource management and choice in spell list to the best result. Like to me that is how healers are different to dps in terms of engagement of the player.
They can create skills that create incentives beyond aiming. Think like interaction between your skills having different results (a certain heal causes a hot to tick for all value at once, another can refresh the hot, and another could have the output boosted - just examples of how to make healing more interesting in decision making rather than accuracy and AOEs.)