No class is explicitely meant as a solo class and a cleric is no excepction to this. From what we have seen so far, I'd say a Cleric soloing could just pick up a fat weapon, skill fully into damage, throw in some of their CC and tank the damage through sustain. Its probably similar for Tank classes and Bards.
If i am expected to solo farm and a class can't do it then i won't bother with it. Been there done this and no thanks. But support / heals being the butt of the joke is nothing new.
Clerics and Tanks should both have dps specs with their skill tree/augments/secondaries that basically completely remove their healing/tank status respectively, and turn them into dps.
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.).
Having seen the Bard showcase now, I think we can stop 'worrying' about this, in either direction, ya?
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.
To be clear, part of it is also having viable dps specific-specs for pvp. Basic attacks from a weapon in and of themselves do not produce a viable dps spec.
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