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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.
Race & Class
worddog
Member
If races have direct power associated with them, won't every class have an objectively correct race?
If one race has the best stats for tanks, won't every tank be that race?
If one race has the best stats for healing, won't every cleric be that race?
Are we going to see every archetype basically be the same race?
If one race has the best stats for tanks, won't every tank be that race?
If one race has the best stats for healing, won't every cleric be that race?
Are we going to see every archetype basically be the same race?
2
Comments
However, there are so many permutations I don’t think we’re going to see a homogeneous race/class population. I think there’s a large enough population that just wants to play the combo they want to play.
…but we’ll see.
I'm mainly just concerned with how specific the race benefits will be. Like if a race is just straight up better with heavy armor than any other race.
Same. I’m hoping we’ll get a sense of these augments before A2.
That's one of the things I've been curious to see how it pans out. If something like the Ren'Kai just always have a bigger health pool, they will be a common choice for most tank characters.
But they have said multiple times that they want there to be many options, choices, paths to success, whatever... so they are trying to prevent any kind of meta from dominating. So maybe we might see the Py'rai have a natural dodge chance, Dunir get armor bonuses, Tulnar have higher Regen rates. Something to keep multiple races competitive.
I'm assuming they mean that depending on your class combo anything could be relevant. But I'm 99% sure that Pure Cleric and Pure Tank will always dominate PvE, so their races will probably be optimized.
Simple. Candid. And still talks to the thread title.
The dwarf tavern is where the clerics get down.
I’d still like to see an agnostic augment.
I think religion has upsides and downsides so going faithless would be viable, but not very interesting.
Vek's can preform a special "killing blow" animation when they kill a target in melee. They pull out a dagger, slash the target's chest, reach in, and tear out a still beating heart.
That's a pretty big assumption.
A tank/cleric might be better with built in self heals
Or a cleric/bard might have heals with buff or more AOE heal effects that are better for large group content.
We won't really know until we get to play with them.
I see no issues here
1. Higher physical armor
2. Higher spell resistance (or you can even split this up for each spell type)
3. Longer CC
4. reduced CC timer on the player
5. More mobile
6. More damage (if the game has timers on bosses or they "rage" and wipe the group)
7. Better buffs
8. Better debuffs
These are just the top of my head. Each are good for different fight types
Maybe, just maybe, you are betting in extremes here. There will be 64 archetypes, 8 tank base archetypes, and many "back up" archetypes that can cover this role.
If you think like that, that's no purpose for the existence of races in MMOs.
Let me pull a little imagination here, with some of the thoughts our friend insomnia put on the table:
1. If you want to play tank and pick the dwarf race, maybe your bonus will be longer CCs so that you could benefit more from picking a tank or a fighter as your secondary class.
2. If you want to play tank and pick the elf race, maybe your racial bonus will be higher spell resistance, which will turn you unstoppable vs magical archetypes or bosses if you pick the mage as your second class, but not too efficient in controlling the battlefield in a certain way, like the dwarf one.
3. Or you can just want to be a little more flexible, and pick the dwarf race and choose the mage as your secondary class, making your spell resistance grow higher than normal tanks but lower than the elvish spellshields and still maintain that longer CC duration (which will be lower than a guardian, for example, but you will be more functional against magic spells).
Taking away the race augments will put on the corner the diversity purposed by Steven when he announced that will be 64 archetypes that will feel different.
Besides that, as well said, there will be more just than race augments, so, I imagine that two elven tanks can feel different depending on the different choices of weapon, religion and class augments they made.
I would even say if every tank/x and every x/tank could potentially tank that's 15 combinations.
So yeah I'm not sure there will be a meta race for each possible combo.
Steven said no subclass would be able to replace a cleric as a healer. I assume a Pure Tank + Pure Cleric will massivly outperform a TankCleric + Cleric/whatever
Not exactly
He said you would not be able to completely erase the need for a cleric, but that could be for utility effects the cleric has, not necessarily as a healer. A bard/healer built to be a healer can fill the role of healer, but you can still need a cleric in the group for other functions. But this is kind of just theory crafting for now...
I'm pretty sure they have said they will actively avoid any combination (tank/tank included) "massively out performing" any other. He has said all combinations should be competitive.
From what I saw, any archetype that uses cleric as their secondary class will get a lot of self healing, but very little ways to heal other players. So Bard/Cleric would actually be more of a self sustaining support rather than buff+heals.
I see where you're coming from, but there are also multiple quotes about role flexibility. I don't know how that works exist if a cleric/x is the only archetype that can be a healer. Even the most recent AMA had a line that supports that.
So we won't really KNOW until we get to play with it.
Yeah everything on the forums currently is just speculation to keep our minds satiated while we wait for more news/alpha 2 release lol. I'm mostly trying to get people talking and thinking about as many parts of Ashes as I can to keep the ideas flowing.
This would mitigate some of the elitism expected from hardcore guilds, that would steer class optimization towards a certain race (see WoW Classic and Dwarf Priests).
If this makes the difference between having more impactful racial augments and non-impactful ones then I support it. Over all I expect racial augments to be mostly utility effects in Artisan proffessions, some flavorful combat effects etc.
I heard Rumors about a secret Class/Archetype named the " Throw me!! "-Warrior.
Allegedly Dunir Dwarves will have the best Stats for this Class. Especially when being thrown by Human Allies during a Castle Siege.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
What do you mean by "raid" like raid group formation for content? There are no typical raids. Perhaps a few not like WOW or FFXIV though
I am an overthinker and litterely could not get past ESO's character customisation because of racial bonuses.
It seemed that you could actually fail at the character customisation screen,
Guild, nodes, religion and every meta augment you can change later. I don't think you can change race. Keep race to be a roleplay option not a meta option.