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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
Unless the design setup has changed drastically in the past 8 months, it's still going to be the CC class. It was listed as being among its core competencies.
@Dolyem
I would disagree with this. Passing over the obvious of having an ability for tanks to take damage for others or to have a linked buddy, there are several options for Tanks in PVP. Being tankier allows them to operate in a bruiser role for prolonged PVP engagements. We've seen metas shift toward more health and bruiser builds in similar MMOs to survive burst DPS power creep. Defensive support bubbles and some minor projectile reflect barriers, aren't out of the question either. However solid CC, stuns, roots, dazes, etc should be left to a separate spec.
Giving Tanks more CC serves to hinder their primary role and eliminate another.
I think having a color-coded overshadowing of your HP bar to let enemies know essentially hey, this person is being protected showing as a bubble essentially for that player and suddenly your DPS is going to do less than normal or be drastically reduced until you kill the Tank. There needs to be a reason that in PVP players would focus on the Tank. If there is not then that is a failure of the Devs to provide meaningful buffs to their core kit for the purposes of PVP or when abilities target players. If the Tank is operating as a control wizard in PVP when this game launches I will be baffled ngl lol.
100% agree, the game need a CC role with opportunity to a offensive controller or defensive/suppport (Without it the game can find itself on a lack of gameplay variety even with all customable options) https://pwi.fandom.com/wiki/Duskblade_Skill_List classic example of a offensive controller
The problem is it eliminates the dedicated roles of defensive and offensive support and combines them into one role that doesn't perform either to the same heights as they would otherwise. Having a dedicated Tank defensive support and a Controller offensive support is 100% more effective in PVP than having a "Tank" that half-asses both roles instead of whole-assing one role. Make sense?
Ideas for Tanks in PVP are to provide buffs while near the tank to increase mitigations, reflect bubbles, teammate protection links so you absorb damage for teammates while increasing their mitigations, physical knockbacks, in Gw2 there is a boon called Aegis that blocks the next incoming attack for nearby allies, Tanks could block incoming attacks for allies within a certain radius, you can even introduce taunts into PVP where the Tank is then highlighted for the enemy player and their DPS is drastically reduced toward any other target. There are other more class-centric and thematic options than gutting the core of another role and calling it a "Tank."
I dont know if they will or not, but they should since Tanks get shafted when it comes to quality PvP content. I am not even a tank player but I hear it all of the time that the tank players only use in PvP is the objective player that gets carried by the team while they carry a flag or something. CC is the perfect asset for tanks as it allows them to help in PvP fights without having to deal damage.
Fighters are more along the lines of bruisers. There is no indicator that tanks are damage pumpers. Bruisers are high damage melee with survivability.
@Dolyem
Being a bunker for an objective game mode is a game-winning strategy that is invaluable to any team comp. I don't understand how that is a negative. Staying alive and holding an objective is an underrated game-winning strategy that most players are too impatient to pull off successfully.
That said, it makes less sense to have the Tank be lesser by giving it more hard CC skills instead of more ally protection skills.
@Dolyem
Nor should tanks be damage pumpers. That is more of a glass cannon ideal IMO. Bruisers are more survivable and deal damage by outlasting the opponent, not by burst.
winning a game with strategy is all fine and good. But the primary complaint as far as I can tell is that it isnt fun to play in PvP. Sure you can win by sitting and bunkering, but its not necessarily good gameplay. Some people may very well enjoying it, but more often than not I have almost always seen tank players switch to dps builds if possible for PvP instead due to tank being boring.
No skin off of my teeth either way, I play rogue
Bruisers from my experience tend to be wrecking balls. Mid survivability, high damage, but low mobility.
Rofl of course rogue haha.
I'm used to bunkers in Eso and Gw2 where it is absolutely a role people play and it takes 3+ people to kill one guy at times, but this is also because they can heal themselves.
Our definitions are def different then.
If the tank is all survivability and no damage, bruiser is in the middle, and glass cannon is the opposite.
I would say its a bit more complex than that, but I see my description of bruiser being in the middle as well. The low mobility balances it out.
As of this second Mage and Tank can spec into CC as they wish.
You can read their skills on the wiki.
-Sol
I can't really speak too much of early WoW, all I have is second hand information.
That said, tanks in WoW did have more of what would be considered CC than tanks in games prior to that. Prior to WoW, the only real CC a tank had was in relation to positioning, they didn't have any real abilities to stop a mob from attacking or from aggro'ing. That was exclusively the domain of CC classes (the ability to just make an aggro mob not aggro for a short duration is an often overlooked CC).
The kind of CC tanks had were things like preventing a mob they are in melee combat with from facing any direction other than directly towards the tank. While it is technically CC, it is more just a tool that tanks had to assist them in tanking, it wasn't really about "battlefield control" as Steven seems to think tanks are/were.
Battlefield control was specifically the role of enchanters and other classes like them - classes L2 simply didn't have anything comparible to.
Most games post WoW split the CC up around many different classes. There was often the same over all amount of CC, but classes would get one or two. What this meant is that people just kind of ignored them - there are very few occasions where one single CC ability makes any difference, and communicating CC plans with others is not something that can really happen - if CC is what you are doing, you simply don't have the time to communicate.
That is why a single CC class is so good. You take the CC from all the other classes, hand it to one player, and they just deal with it. If they have 10 - 12 pure CC abilities that they can just throw out as needed, then the tank can assume that player has full battlefield control, and thus the tank can focus on tanking, rather than trying to control.
Adding a few minor CC effects to existing abilities, or having a few abilities that have a CC effect as a secondary component really isn't making for a CC build.
A proper full CC build would run with at least 10 full CC abilities. These are abilities that have a CC effect and nothing else. They would also have perhaps 5 or 6 abilities that have a CC effect and deal a small amount of damage as well.
This is not something that is even close to possible with the class builds we know of so far. The best we can do with what we know is a DPS or tank build with a small amount of CC on the side - which is not a CC build.
For large scale pvp I would agree. For smaller scale, I am almost positive the Trickster will have the most cc followed by the Spellsword.
Reminder: They talked in the bard showcase how they have different CC categories that will (after so many uses on a target) give the target an immunity buff to that cc type.
I think hard CC will probably be the jobs of mages, summoners, and rangers with their sleeps, roots/fears, and traps. I've played plenty of games where there was no class specifically designed around pure CC so I'm honestly not quite sure the need for it considering it is spread out among most DPS classes.
A serious group would have a tank marking which target to focus, which target comes second, and which should be CCd BEFORE the fight starts to avoid breaking any breakable CC like sleep. I think we will see a lot more of this type of gameplay once alpha 2 comes out.
I do hope they tone down the CC on all the other classes.
Are there any hints as to the direction with Summoner beyond that it's a jack of all trades?