Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
I just imagine you hiding in a bush and jumping out with robes and a mace lmao
Who's to say I haven't turned in my robes for a leather codpiece and chain shirt
Very few people play the two roles in general - the archaic decision to disallow them from having dps specs would be insanely detrimental to most players in the healer/tank roles and also to the wider playerbase as a whole, due to the increased quit rate / decreased pick rate of those two classes.
Almost nobody advocates for being able to do two things at once to a full degree in the same spec, but you should absolutely have specifically full blown dps specs that replace basically all of your healing/tank abilities.
Hybrid specs should also be a thing, but they're a bit harder to tune and definitely shouldn't be full throttle in either direction - however, hybrids in and of themselves are incredibly insufficient (they're a fun niche option), you need an option for actual full on sacrifice of healing/tanking for actual dps. It's just too important in regards to maintaining a population of players willing to invest thousands of hours into a class.
(It's also important for theme based reasons, it's unreasonable and uncreative to think that there's no significant truly offensive branch to things like holy and shadow/unholy/ect magic.).
Ashes definitely isn't as strict about class identity as some people have believed, and it doesn't shy away from some fairly meaningful healing being available. It's all about synergy and relationships between players, but that also means we'll probably find a way to solo on anything.
It might be 'boring' for some to solo on Cleric or Bard in the way that would be most successful, but 'heavy hitting spellbook kiting' for the 'Arcane' classes seems like it isn't likely to be unviable, at this point, especially since Cleric CC is among the better control type.
Maybe if mobs also get the CC diminishing return bonus it might be rough, but with the projected short TTK for mobs in solo, there's no way this is still a 'concern', to me.
Sometimes you want to be a shadow priest
In later lvl it will be hard for cleric to farm while auto attacks and the 2 spell you have will be not enough to kill a monster in AOC. I saw mages, archers to use 8 spells to kill a mob at 10 lvl?
For pvp, I do not believe the place of cleric will be to do dps and kill enemies. The role is to keep alive your team. That is the real role of every healer in traditional mmorpg.
I played healer in every mmorg because all did dps and someone need to fill that role but also because I like it. But in general dps have more fun in mmos. Pvp satisfaction and pve as well if you have supports behind you. Still healer have fun and cleric seems very decent in all aspects but you need to have a real group to enjoy the class at 100%
dps classes are boring except for dagger/rogues
when my party couldn't log in cuz of the connection issues, I solo aoe farmed with my cleric. i destroyed those mobs (higher level than me at first). i got a couple more levels and I can easily aoe anywhere between 5-10 mobs in under a minute. yes mages kill faster but I have infinite health and infinite mana, I just need a better melee weapon, maybe something with bleed. i have 0 downtime, other classes have to sit down after a few pulls. can also beat anyone in 1v1, even a higher level since I can survive their combo with that one skill 9defying something, forgot the name
the only downside is I have to play piano on my keyboard basically (which is fun for me, more fun than being a dps and just doing 12345), and if I make a mistake, I die. its easier not to die in a party (and faster exp too if you go to the super secret exp places). i was getting a level in under 2 hours after level 10, which seems decent, considering 7-8 and 9-10 was about 2 hours each for me in a party, and about the same soloing on Thursday during the spot test.)
Don’t forget that there are no double classes in the game yet, most likely subclasses such as rogue, mage, fighter will give the cleric options for dealing damage, not as strong as those of the DD class, but still, in a combination with good survivability, I think it will be quite strong look like in pvp. And classes like cleric-cleric or cleric-bard, I think, should still be aimed at maximum benefit for the group. Why, in a game with 64 classes, take a full healer, give him an additional healer profession and complain that you don’t do damage? )
Because that's what you want to do in group content and play with friends, but sometimes you want to log in and play when they can't...
that depends on the game. in solo mmorpg dps classes can solo better than support classes, for sure. but in group oriented games you can often see supports soloing better than dps, since the dps will need buffs or gear. hell, you can even see supports power leveling the dps in some cases xD
of course, a dps with buffs/gear will do better than the solo support
Grouping should be encouraged, but should not prevent you from having fun when solo, even if you should not be able to clear group content alone. There is plenty of space for MMO aspects in crafting, trade, node systems and actual group content.
It's a tricky thing to balance, but make the game too group focused when it comes to basic stuff like character levelling and it will become really vulnerable to player population fluctuations. Make it too solo focused and you end up with a solo game pretending to be a MMO.
I would go further and say that Intrepid should ensure that all archetypes should support ability to spec your class differently to provide multitude of playstyles per class. No class should be one dimensional.
The last thing I would like to see is being unable to spec a tank, dps, healing or support class away from their core role. If you want to be a more damage oriented tank, or more tanky fighter, or a melee duellist style bard, 2 handed hammer wielding melee cleric able to put out respectable damage, then the game should ALLOW for that depth of class customisation, as long as you have to sacrifice one aspect of your class to flesh out other.
Blown past falling sands…