Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
The Problem with Fighter in Group Content
iznebula
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Some caveats before I go into my concerns. As of right now I think Fighter feels amazing to play even despite this and I have no problems with the kit as it is for the moment to moment gameplay loop except with cataclysm feeling way to rigid with it's long casting animation and maybe whirlwind cancelling when buffering it from another move if you press it too fast, but other than that I think the overall kit is just fun, specifically when playing solo.
This is where my problem lies. When you go into groups, you literally bring nothing to the table and the debuffs you provide other classes also can do as well. A lot of the buffs we apply are temporary. Why pick-up a fighter when you just have ranged dps like a ranger/mage, that do just as much if not more aoe/single target dps than Fighters, while also providing group wide utility.
Additionally our baseline abilities seem completely useless the higher lvl you get. Form of Ferocity which is 1.5% attack speed per 10 momentum and it caps out at 15% when you reach 100. IT sounds great until you realize that once you reach 100% you immediately deplete momentum so fast you barely see any use for this. The bleed you can apply sounds great when you think about it, but when your weapon auto attacks and other abilities also apply it and so do other classes, again useless once more.
In comes Overpower, our other baseline ability that gets completely overlooked the minute you get Brutal Cleave, which is a better version of Overpower that's also aoe at the cost of using slightly more mana (mana is not a huge problem later on with proper cooldown management) and it can also be used without a direct target unlike Overpower. At around lvl 5 you begin to access your later parts of the tree and your other Forms and Form of Ferocity is no longer used really.
I get it, it's an Alpha, some of these classes aren't fully fleshed out being only capped at lvl 25. However, we will probably be lvl 25 for quite some time since none of the phases show any mention of a lvl cap increase.
Here are my suggestions:
#1 Remove Overpower and make Brutal Cleave baseline.
#2 Make Form of Ferocity provide 1.5% critical chance per 10 Combat Momentum instead of 1.5% attack speed. This could potentially be too strong, but again this is not a passive you would share, it would only benefit the fighter.
#3 New Capstone Talent: Be Water - Become formless like water, gaining the bonuses of your inactive forms. Combat Momentum is not consumed while in this formless state. Lasts 15 seconds. 120 second Cooldown. (Would need to be tweaked with it's duration and cooldown)
#4 Make it so the existing passives for Form of Celerity and Form of Fluidity apply to your group members while in that form or while formless.
#5 New Baseline Passive - Heroic Presence - Allies within 10 meters have increased 5% increased penetration rating.
This is where my problem lies. When you go into groups, you literally bring nothing to the table and the debuffs you provide other classes also can do as well. A lot of the buffs we apply are temporary. Why pick-up a fighter when you just have ranged dps like a ranger/mage, that do just as much if not more aoe/single target dps than Fighters, while also providing group wide utility.
Additionally our baseline abilities seem completely useless the higher lvl you get. Form of Ferocity which is 1.5% attack speed per 10 momentum and it caps out at 15% when you reach 100. IT sounds great until you realize that once you reach 100% you immediately deplete momentum so fast you barely see any use for this. The bleed you can apply sounds great when you think about it, but when your weapon auto attacks and other abilities also apply it and so do other classes, again useless once more.
In comes Overpower, our other baseline ability that gets completely overlooked the minute you get Brutal Cleave, which is a better version of Overpower that's also aoe at the cost of using slightly more mana (mana is not a huge problem later on with proper cooldown management) and it can also be used without a direct target unlike Overpower. At around lvl 5 you begin to access your later parts of the tree and your other Forms and Form of Ferocity is no longer used really.
I get it, it's an Alpha, some of these classes aren't fully fleshed out being only capped at lvl 25. However, we will probably be lvl 25 for quite some time since none of the phases show any mention of a lvl cap increase.
Here are my suggestions:
#1 Remove Overpower and make Brutal Cleave baseline.
#2 Make Form of Ferocity provide 1.5% critical chance per 10 Combat Momentum instead of 1.5% attack speed. This could potentially be too strong, but again this is not a passive you would share, it would only benefit the fighter.
#3 New Capstone Talent: Be Water - Become formless like water, gaining the bonuses of your inactive forms. Combat Momentum is not consumed while in this formless state. Lasts 15 seconds. 120 second Cooldown. (Would need to be tweaked with it's duration and cooldown)
#4 Make it so the existing passives for Form of Celerity and Form of Fluidity apply to your group members while in that form or while formless.
#5 New Baseline Passive - Heroic Presence - Allies within 10 meters have increased 5% increased penetration rating.
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Comments
Sharing forms sounds cool too!