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How will we make the game great for our tanks, healers and supports?

MarzzoMarzzo Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Can we help ourselfs out and make these roles great so enough people will play them?
As usual in most MMO:s, we will have an abundance of damage dealing players. And as usual, there will be less healers, supports and even less tanks. The reasons for this are many, ranging from how impactful the playerbase perceives these roles to be, to how fun they are to play. It is in everyones best intrest that we have a sufficient amount of tanks, healers and supports, but also, that they are having fun!

In this post, I would like to hear from our dedicated community what you think would make tanks, healers and supports feel rewarding, fun to play and impactful in the game. I will also share my view on how to make these 3 roles good.

Tank, 8 combinations, all the same?
For tanking, it's all about what role they will play in encounters. Will they be a stereotypical "bullet sponge" simply keeping aggro and staying alive, or will they have more to do than this?

In my opinion, limiting the tank role to holding aggro, switching aggro between the other tank and using defensives when you take big damage is pathetic. Give the tank more to do in an encounter. Both in PvP and pve.

Tanks are protectors. They should have to throw themselves at granedes to save people. They should have to deflect powerful abilities. Their gameplay should be high intensity, blocking, dodging and parrying blows at a fast pace stops tanks from falling asleep. The more a tank can do, the more a good tank will stand out. The more a good tank can stand out, the more motivated people will be to play as and improve as tank.

Also, try to make the different tank classes stand out from each other. Make them strong at different things. One could be great at healing himself, another at dealing damage, one could offer high utility, while another could make simply be a massive wall. Make them have unique playstyles that stand out.

Healer, whack-a-mole simulation?
In World of Warcraft, the 6 healing choices are divided like this:

Holy Priest: Well Rounded healer. Not the best in anything. Not the worst.
Discipline Priest: Specializes in AOE burst healing and damage reducing barriers. Deals damage to heal
Holy Paladin: Specializes in large and quick single target heals and single target immunities. Deals damage to boost healing.
Restoration Druid: Specializes in healing over time heals. Has a flexible toolkit with situational abilities.
Restoration Shaman: Specializes in aoe healing in a specific zone. Has a very large toolkit with many utilities.
Mistweaver monk: can either specialize in massive single target healing, or massive AOE healing. Has insane mobility.

This is a great thing to learn from. AoC healing specs need to be unique and offer a variety of number output/utility. I want healers to be unique enough that we are never in a situation in world of warcraft, where you sometimes stack healers instead of using different ones. For this to work, all the healing specs in AoC should offer something vital to the group.

Supports, a walking aura?
In most MMO:s, there is always a class or few classes that bring that massive raid wide buff that is irreplaceble in a raid. For example heroism in world of warcraft that gives the whole raid 45% more power. This is what the bard, and only the bard should have. Based on many polls and data from other games with support specs, this will be the least played class.

To make the bard actually have a large enough playerbase, the most important thing is gameplay. We need to make them fun and engaging. You as the bard need to feel the differece you make. We dont want a passive aura bot. The bard should have to dance around dealing damage, boosting peoples damage, boosting healing, increasing movement speed, sabotaging the enemy. They should be fast paced and impactful.

We want something that makes every single DPS, Healer and tank say "damn, this bard is so damn useful" or "We definatly need a bard for our party".

What do you think?
How will we make the game great for our tanks, healers and supports?
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Comments

  • VhaeyneVhaeyne Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I me experience with the holy trinity and role balance.

    Both roles are both harder and more impactful than DPS.
    Healing and tanking does not mean you just grab hate or click health bars.
    It means on top of grabbing hate and clicking health bars you are also a DPS.
    Support is case by case per game, but could just be seen as DPS with a extra upkeep to worry about.

    The point is that in all high end content you must be doing everything as hard as possible. Nothing is easy for anyone, including DPS. If you look at any MMORPG and none of what I have said is true. Then the game is just too easy. Most bosses should enrage if tanks and healers are not putting out as much DPS as a above average player should be capable of doing.

    I am not worried about tank and healer. Support however, I think they do have to put some thought into what sort of buffs support will bring and how impactful they are. I think they should be able to find that balance no problem with tweaks over time. Bard and Dancer are the two lowest parsing jobs, but they add enough group DPS to make having one or the other meta in a party comp. I have no doubt Ashes will have its support classes be valuable in most group compositions.

    Many players do prefer to heal or tank and will not tough DPS because it is too easy and not enough responsibility. Yes it is true that a subset of the player base will avoid tanking and healing, but I think it is more out of the fear of dealing with the added responsibilities that comes with tanking and healing and less about how it is "Easier".

    The only real way I see to make tanks and healers more abundant than the average MMO would be to make the roles easier. Which in my opinion would make the whole game easier, and the game would suffer for it.

    This is all just my take though.
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  • Summoner was made to offset this disparity so that you can have fun while being a healer. They have said that when summoner is with another archetype it fully does the job of the secondary archetype. Which will probably make it fun as hell to play.

    So if you want to be a healer but don't like straight healers in other games. Then Summoner is probably better for you. They can Tank and support too.

    I'm fine with supports mostly being walking auras because that is just a secondary thing about the class. It's never a main focus of those classes. Like in everquest people did have bards buff them then boot them for efficiency, but you could use bards in that game to pull for you as they were the best pullers in the game.

    I imagine that in this game supports are probably going to be able to do damage not that far off from dps. DPS will probably still do more and probably with better abilities, but bards in this game are already said to not be useless like they often are in other games. Supports will probably be more important in this game than in any other MMO because of one of their goals being to make every class useful in a party.

    Hell if bards were in WoW they'd probably be the most broken thing in the game considering how op paladins were in vanilla for pve.

    Keep in mind how important your secondary archetype is going to be. You are going to be able to augment every single one of your abilities. That is going to change the game up a lot.
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  • SaeduSaedu Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I think the solution is to reduce the barrier for a DPS to learn to be a tank or a healer. Don't dumb it down of course. Making a tank rotation as complex as a DPS rotation however doesn't help the problem. Tanks already have a lot of non-DPS factors they need to be worried about (threat, mob positioning, etc).

    People don't shy away from tanking/healing because its "boring rotation". There is plenty to do. They shy away from it because of the accountability that comes with it. DPS can all mess up a little bit and usually its fine. When a tank or healer messes up, its usually more noticeable. Tanks also often have added pressure for setting the pace of pulls and what gets pulled. This is leadership, and most people don't want to be leaders. Healer's have added pressure of not only needing to do their role right, but often having to clean up the mistakes of others, and then getting blamed for the wipe.

    I think the solution here is to find quality of life features that encourage DPS to try being a tank/healer. If you want more people diving into tanking, you can't make it an all-or-nothing... Nobody wants to spend 50 hours to learn they hate tanking and have to start all over. There should be multiple classes that can tank and the style needs to be different from class to class (it would be awesome if almost every */tank spec was a 100% viable tank). Then I think you need to add the ability to swap your secondary (outside of combat, but no other restrictions).

    I'm the type of player who likes to tank and heal. Sometimes I'll DPS too. I don't want to be only a tank, or only a healer. Hands down the BEST innovation WoW has done is their changes over time to the talent/spec system.

    1) In Vanilla WoW hybrid specs could exist, but they were always sub-par to specs that focused purely on a single role. Switching talents was how you changed the "spec" of your class and it had costs that went up over time so you were semi-locked in.
    2) Later on they moved from talent points to where you select one of three specs. Each spec focused on a single role. This fixed the issue of balance between a hybrid class vs a pure single role class. (A hybrid could not be a good healer and a good DPS at the same time. It selected the spec and then it could be competitive).
    3) the "dual-spec" idea came out and while classes had 3 specs to use, they could freely swap (out of combat) between two of them. HUGE INNOVATION!!!
    4) The limitation on two was removed and a class could freely swap (out of combat) between all specs.

    Sure, some people will have nostalgia over the old talent point system, but its nowhere near as good as the current spec swapping system. I probably wouldn't have gotten into healing without the ability to swap specs (who wants to be a full time healer? That's almost as boring as being a full time DPS).

    This didn't 100% fix the issue, there are still more DPS than heals and more heals than tanks, but I think this has helped the issue. If anything, it dramatically reduces the risk of someone who decides to try out tanking/healing because they still have DPS to fall back to. It brings great quality of life to the tank/healer cause they can go DPS when their friend of the same role wants to play with them, or when they are out soloing, or when they can't make every raid night so they are the backup tank, etc.... so many reasons this system is 100% better than single role restricted class systems.
  • zammwichzammwich Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    I think one of the biggest deterrents is the tendency for all the failures of the group to fall on the shoulders of the tank/healers. Makes it intimidating to break through as a healer/tank.
  • YuyukoyayYuyukoyay Member
    edited April 2021
    I mean this game is going to kinda solve a lot of your problems anyway though. With augments it will completely change how archetypes play across all of their abilities. So you can be tanks who heal the whole party or be a healer who does a decent amount of damage.

    The meta will be limited because of augments. You can't really have a meta when there are 64 classes and most of them are useful.

    Like it wouldn't be a stretch to expect some of the party members to take some of the heat off of the tank or healers. This game isn't using the holy trinity the same way WoW is either. It's using the extended holy trinity which includes classes dedicated to buffing and classes outside of the binary. Thus why the party size is 8.
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  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Yuyukoyay wrote: »
    They have said that when summoner is with another archetype it fully does the job of the secondary archetype.
    Where did they say this?

    Last I heard (2018) they said the summoner can plug in gaps your group may have, but they never said anything about doing that job fully.

    It's a class that can tank in a pinch, or can heal in a pinch. Thing with that is that with no fast travel, most groups aren't going to leave town without a dedicated tank and healer. This would be great if the summoner could fill in as needed on the fly, but since we can only respec in town, it means summoners are most likely going to be used as DPS 95% of the time.

    It's a situation where the idea is good (summoners being a jack of all trades), but the game just isn't going to give the class the opportunities needed to make being that jack of all trades viable.
  • You might actually want to watch the Developer Talks on Youtube. At this point I'm not going to educate you because you are just so far behind the available information out there I don't know where to start. I would link the playlist but that is usually not allowed on these kinds of forums.

    Go on youtube and type in ashes of creation. It will probably show an option for a channel of the same name. Watch all of the ones that are like an hour or longer.

    Summoners are not jacks of all trades really. That would imply they are hybrid classes in some way which isn't true. You will have to spec them to do what you want them to do. They will be the only class able to do any role in the game.
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  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Yuyukoyay wrote: »
    You might actually want to watch the Developer Talks on Youtube.
    As I said, the last I heard, which was from 2018.

    I *specifically* started the above post with the date the information I am working off of so that if there is newer info, it can be corrected.

    If you have more recent information, link it for us all.
  • SaeduSaedu Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited April 2021
    According to the wiki Steven said this in a July 2020 live stream: "The design behind augments is to not just change the flavor so that it reflects the secondary archetype, but it also fundamentally changes the core components of a skill."

    However the example shared is a fighters rush ability being changed to a teleport. Sure that's a change in the spell, but its still a mechanism that the melee DPS needs to get to the target. I'm not sure of anything that says augments would go far enough to change a DPS based archtype into a viable tank or healer.

    I sure hope that is the case though. Sounds like it might only be the case for the summoner though? (being a viable tank for a group as a pet is going to be messy when it comes to boss positioning...)
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Saedu wrote: »
    According to the wiki Steven said this in a July 2020 live stream: "The design behind augments is to not just change the flavor so that it reflects the secondary archetype, but it also fundamentally changes the core components of a skill."

    However the example shared is a fighters rush ability being changed to a teleport. Sure that's a change in the spell, but its still a mechanism that the melee DPS needs to get to the target. I'm not sure of anything that says augments would go far enough to change a DPS based archtype into a viable tank or healer.

    I sure hope that is the case though. Sounds like it might only be the case for the summoner though? (being a viable tank for a group as a pet is going to be messy when it comes to boss positioning...)

    Yeah, the summoner is most likely going to be the class that changes the most based on secondary class choice.

    It just isn't going to be as viable in those roles as a class dedicated to that role - or at least that is what I am asserting based on the info I am aware of, butanyone with newer info is welcome to share, obviously.
  • SaeduSaedu Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    and if it isn't as viable, why bother playing it? That's the problem with the jack of all, master of none approach.

    If a summoner can spec to fulfil the tank role, let the summoner be just as competitive as a tank/*, but also make that summoner's DPS/heals while speced that way similar to the tanks DPS/heals.

    And let a tank/DPS class with the right augments do competitive DPS. Doesn't need to be top DPS, but good enough that she could get into groups.
  • VhaeyneVhaeyne Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Noaani wrote: »
    [
    Yeah, the summoner is most likely going to be the class that changes the most based on secondary class choice.

    It just isn't going to be as viable in those roles as a class dedicated to that role - or at least that is what I am asserting based on the info I am aware of, butanyone with newer info is welcome to share, obviously.

    I have to agree with this speculation. I would also extended it to bard, seeing as "Support" is not a true part of the holy trinity as I know it.

    I am not saying that summoner or bard will be bad. I am saying that as hybrids we can expect a lot of flexibility when building these characters, and potentially a lot of utility, but not the Personal DPS or Healing output of pure classes. That is also not to say that hybrids can't amplify the potential of pure roles. Which is also what I am expecting.

    Personally I am considering "Soulbow" and "Bowsinger" as classes I will defiantly try. I don't think I will ever try "Falconer" because I hate pets in MMOs.
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  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Saedu wrote: »
    and if it isn't as viable, why bother playing it? That's the problem with the jack of all, master of none approach.
    Some people enjoy playing the jack of all trades.

    The thing is, the reverse of your statement is also true, if Summoner is as viable as tanks at tanking, as viable as healers at healing and as viable as DPS at DPS'ing, why bother playing those other classes?

    The game needs to allow players the ability to swap specs while out in the world. There need to be limitations to it, but it is the only way to make a jack of all trades viable as an actual jack of all trades.

    That would then allow a summoner in a group to respec mid dungeon to fill in for the tank or the healer if they need to run off to do something, but where they are running a DPS spec otherwise.

    This would make summoners extremely valuable group members - but is reliant on being able to respec out in the world.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited April 2021
    Vhaeyne wrote: »
    I have to agree with this speculation. I would also extended it to bard, seeing as "Support" is not a true part of the holy trinity as I know it.
    The way I see bards is that they will make everyone better at what they do.

    My assumption on this is that a bard will make everyone about 20% better at the thing they do. This means tanks will mitigate damage and hold mob attention 20% better, healers will heal 20% better, and DPS will deal damage 20% better.

    This means the group as a whole will move through content faster with a bard than they would if that spot was instead filled with a 6th DPS, or a second healer or tank. Though if for some reason you are running group content with two tanks and two healers, you would be better off with a 4th DPS than with a bard.

    There will be content where a specific tank and healer are unable to be successful with 6 DPS in the group with them, but swapping one DPS out for a bard would see them successful.

    This fits in with the small amount of information we have on bards in Ashes, which can basically be summed up as
    Bards are intended to amplify a party or raid's ability to perform within their own class. That amplification isn't just intended for DPS, but also for support, for healing, for taking damage, for movement
    This also fits in fairly well with the role bards played in EQ and EQ2, though the way Ashes looks to be going about having them fulfil the role looks to be different - and better.

    The rest of what you say, in regards to summoners, I totally agree.

  • SaeduSaedu Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Noaani wrote: »
    Saedu wrote: »
    and if it isn't as viable, why bother playing it? That's the problem with the jack of all, master of none approach.
    Some people enjoy playing the jack of all trades.

    The thing is, the reverse of your statement is also true, if Summoner is as viable as tanks at tanking, as viable as healers at healing and as viable as DPS at DPS'ing, why bother playing those other classes?

    Two things:
    1) Class playstyles. You're playing based on the flow of your class and how it works. There are lots of different ways to tank, heal, and DPS so the class you play becomes first about the feel of the abilities, then second about the 2 - 4 roles it can cover (lets consider support to be a viable role as well and you probably want one of those in the group).
    2) The tank/healer archtypes could also have viable DPS specs
    Noaani wrote: »
    The game needs to allow players the ability to swap specs while out in the world. There need to be limitations to it, but it is the only way to make a jack of all trades viable as an actual jack of all trades.

    That would then allow a summoner in a group to respec mid dungeon to fill in for the tank or the healer if they need to run off to do something, but where they are running a DPS spec otherwise.

    This would make summoners extremely valuable group members - but is reliant on being able to respec out in the world.

    I agree on the need to swap specs. I think the only limitation needs to be that you are not currently in combat. The summoner would still only be valuable here if their DPS role is still good. If they are sub-par DPS, when the group is forming they will probably take the risk that the tank/healer won't leave and get the higher performing DPS instead.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited April 2021
    Saedu wrote: »
    The tank/healer archtypes could also have viable DPS specs
    This is not WoW.

    If you roll a tank, you are a tank. If you roll a cleric, you are a healer.

  • SaeduSaedu Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    or, if out of combat is not enough, but a 10-15 min CD on it to avoid any gimmics with changing your setup between pulls?

    You could also have it so you save a "profile" which is all of your skills/augments to a "role", then be able to swap between ~6-8 profiles while out of combat (3-4 roles x pvp vs pve builds).

    Those players who choose to not play multiple roles just get more options on on the different builds for the single role they use that they can swap between while out adventuring.

    It will be interesting to see how weapon skills factor into this. e.g. if a class equips a shield, how much of an impact will it have on their ability to tank? What happens if a tank/* equips a 2-h sword?
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited April 2021
    Saedu wrote: »
    I agree on the need to swap specs. I think the only limitation needs to be that you are not currently in combat. The summoner would still only be valuable here if their DPS role is still good. If they are sub-par DPS, when the group is forming they will probably take the risk that the tank/healer won't leave and get the higher performing DPS instead.

    Pure statistics comes in to play here.

    If a summoner does 10% less DPS than a pure DPS character, that means the group is likely to be 2% behind on total DPS if they take a summoner over another DPS.

    If a player were to assume that a tank or healer will have to leave the group one time out of every 50 play sessions, even if only for a few minutes, then it is faster over all to take the summoner than it is to not take the summoner.

    That assumption - about a tank or a healer needing to step away one time or more out of 50 play sessions - is one that I personally would make. As such, I have absolutely no issue with lowering my groups DPS by 2% in order to take along that backup. I'd actually still be happy with it if summoners did 80% of a DPS classes DPS, meaning the group would be 4% behind.

    Obviously though, this is a hypothetical based on a game system that doesn't exist.
  • SaeduSaedu Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Noaani wrote: »
    Saedu wrote: »
    The tank/healer archtypes could also have viable DPS specs
    This is not WoW.

    Sorry, I don't consider this a valid argument... of course it isn't WoW. I don't see nodes in WoW... But both games have Orcs/Dwarfs/Elves

    This is supposed to be the best MMO ever!!! (I'm not being sarcastic, this is my hope). As such, I expect it will take the best things that work well from other MMOs + come up with some of its own stuff.

    You might personally dislike WoW, but you can't argue that every element of the game is bad. There are so many elements in each MMO that you cannot look at two different MMOs and say there is nothing the same between them.

    I think it is helpful for us as potential players to share what we see working well in other MMOs and discuss the pros/cons of them and if they could/should potentially fit in AoC.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Saedu wrote: »
    As such, I expect it will take the best things that work well from other MMOs + come up with some of its own stuff.
    The develoeprs for WoW want players to be able to change their role.

    The developers for Ashes don't want players to be able to change their role. Once you pick tank as your primary archetype, you are a tank. You can't just select mage as your secondary archetype and be DPS, because you are still a tank.

    The developers of Ashes want that first decision you make - your primary archetype - to actually matter. In a game where you can just respect what ever class you are to be a tank, or to be DPS, or to be a healer, that choice doesn't matter at all - as you can still be what ever role you want to be.

    That is why I said that Ashes is not WoW. It isn't about me not liking WoW (I clearly don't), it is about the notion of class choice mattering being drastically different between the two games.
  • VhaeyneVhaeyne Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited April 2021
    Noaani wrote: »
    My assumption on this is that a bard will make everyone about 20% better at the thing they do. This means tanks will mitigate damage and hold mob attention 20% better, healers will heal 20% better, and DPS will deal damage 20% better.

    Agreeing with the idea that bards will make the party better in many ways. 20% seems a bit extreme to me.

    If a standard party is 8 players, and we assuming that bard buffs mostly only extend to the local party and not the whole raid(to promote having more than one bard per raid). Averaging total party DPS across 8 players means that each player is dealing 12.5% of the DPS. If the parties total DPS is then amplified by 20% that to me is like adding nearly 2 additional players worth of DPS for the price of one slot. One slot that probably has a ton of other utility too. I think it is more likely that bards will add one extra slot worth of average DPS. Which would be the 12.5%.

    This would mean ability's would read like:
    "While maintained this song adds 1.56% DPS to all damage ability's used by party members."
    vs
    "While maintained this song adds 2.5% DPS to all damage ability's used by party members."

    I can say I would always have a space in my party for which ever buff is closer to reality. So long as bards personal DPS is not so low that just taking another DPS would be better. I would assume at most a good bard should do like what 5-10% less than a pure DPS. Which would mean a bard with no songs would make the groups DPS what? 98.75%ish that of a normal group. Then the song would still add close to a whole other party member.

    I just got carried away with bard napkin math.

    Edit:
    Running the numbers again, I can see how 1.5 to 2.5% is a bit low. It could theoretically just make up for the DPS loss from bards output being lower. 1.5 to 2.5% would just make the bard as good as having another DPS(assuming bard is 20% weaker than a normal DPS). 12.5%ish is the number where it becomes like a 9 person party. 20% is still too much.
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  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited April 2021
    Vhaeyne wrote: »
    Averaging total party DPS across 8 players means that each player is dealing 12.5% of the DPS.
    My assumption is that tanks and healers won't contribute nearly as much DPS to a group as DPS characters will, nor will bards, directly.

    As such, a group with a bard is likely to have 5 dedicated DPS characters, which is why I am assuming roughly 20%.

  • VhaeyneVhaeyne Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Noaani wrote: »
    Vhaeyne wrote: »
    Averaging total party DPS across 8 players means that each player is dealing 12.5% of the DPS.
    My assumption is that tanks and healers won't contribute nearly as much DPS to a group as DPS characters will, nor will bards, directly.

    As such, a group with a bard is likely to have 5 dedicated DPS characters, which is why I am assuming roughly 20%.

    That I just averaged the total group DPS to keep it simple. Still Anyone who is thinking support is going to be bad is insane.
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    If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
  • I think that responsibility is a large factor for the barrier of entry to tank/healing.

    With the party size at 8, I’m hoping that this allows people the needed soft entry by allowing the group to bring an off tank and/or off healer just by changing the secondary class.

    This is my crazy thought but I like Lucio from Overwatch to be a very interesting base for the bard archetype.
    A constant and changeable aura that you can amplify using a skill
    Large proximity based shield that decays
    AC knockback abilities
  • JaymaJayma Member
    Saedu wrote: »
    Sure, some people will have nostalgia over the old talent point system, but its nowhere near as good as the current spec swapping system. I probably wouldn't have gotten into healing without the ability to swap specs (who wants to be a full time healer? That's almost as boring as being a full time DPS).
    Honestly i totally hate current state of wow classes/spec, even if it's a bit better for some classes for SL, Legion extension make gameplay really bland.
    I still largely prefer vanilla/BC/WOLTK spec tree, because it's really a specialization(you upgrade your tank/dps/heal capacity toward something without losing the ability to use your classes toolkit), not a sub-classes than can do anything else than the role which were officially given.

    I love to go dps or tank with just changing my gear, i love to see some feral druid changing role at each raid fight in classic. Of course they can't compete against a pure dps classes on this point. But they had flexibilty to a raid which is by itself super usefull. I love hybrid classes.

    And when referring to wow, please add which wow you talking about, wow change a lot on classes/spec design during the 15 years.

    I stop the wow part.

    For me a tank should should be a tank, and a healer a healer don't try too much to add too much dps part to it. Its only appeal for dps person who don't want to wait for a group, not the support person who actually love healing, or love tanking as is. Make rooms for offtanks, offheals, buffers, debuffers, controllers it can be used to make more variety on encounters.

    Don't make non-healing classes too much self-suficient on healing, it's really hurt healers job in a whole.

  • Wandering MistWandering Mist Moderator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited April 2021
    How do you make the game great for all roles?

    (In my opinion) By making each role have its own unique playstyle. In a lot of modern mmorpgs, Tank and Support characters play exactly the same as a DPS. A Tank is just a DPS that gets hit at the same time. A Support is just a DPS that passively applies buffs at the same time.

    A lot of this comes down to limitations and choices. I talked about this in my Cleric skills review video but if you allow a character to buff/heal/debuff AND dps with the same button press, you remove choice from the player. The player now doesn't need to decide whether to heal or dps in a given moment because they can do both at once. On the other hand, if you split up the healing and dps skills and make it so that you can't do both at the same time, now the player has to decide "should I dps now and risk a teammate dying?" or "should I dps now to make the mob die faster?"

    These are the types of choices that make gameplay interesting to me. The same applies to buffing and debuffing. The Bard in FFXIV has buffs baked into the DPS abilities, meaning you just do a normal dps rotation and the buffs are passively applied. There is no choice there, just the same rotation every single time. If I wanted that kind of gameplay I would just play a DPS class. Again, if you split the Support skills from the DPS skills you give the player a choice on what they do.

    And with buffs and debuffs you can make the choices go even further. Instead of having a buff that affects everyone around you, have it only affect 1 or 2 players. Now not only do you have to choose when to use those buffs but WHO to use the buffs on. The original GuildWars did this really well, with buffs that were very strong but only affected 1 person at a time.

    If you are going to do aoe buffs then put a much higher cost onto them. In Divinity Original Sin 2 most aoe buffs cost source points to cast, and you can only have 3 source points at a time. This means you can usually only use 1-3 source abilities (like the aoe buffs) in a fight.
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  • ValentineValentine Member, Pioneer, Kickstarter
    For healers:

    Combo heals so you can team up with other healers to cast a powerful battle rez or group health.

    Active mitigation so I can shield you instead of waiting for a health bar to drop.

    Healing classes that use unorthodox themes like using necromantic magic to protect someone with blood shields or bones taken from enemies.

    Having different things that need to be healing and certain classes be better at one or the other like healing a persons soul or spirit instead of their body because the boss is a spiritual enemy or something.

    Having us be able to soft-tank/dps, like use a bubble of light, vines or something when attacked and be able to drain life from ppl.

    Let us heal a dryad or living bridge in dungeons to access a hidden area.
  • SaeduSaedu Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    @Jayma, feral druid wasn't even viable n high end raiding until BC came out (it became my main then and I played it as such till MoP). Feral became viable in BC because it could be just as tanky as the other tanks (you still needed dwarf priests for some bosses for the fear ward). Feral DPS wasn't ever super strong, but it wasn't bottom of the pack either. So I this case you had a single spec that could do two roles competitively. It was a bit OP. Better game balance can be done with more defined specs that you swap between.

    I get that some people like and some dislike the current talent system in WoW. I'd argue that you could have talent trees or talent rows in the model of swappable specs. Blizzard just decided to go with the talent row approach. Personally I don't think it would matter too much either way as they have pros/cons.
  • Not a fan of the trinity, at least as hard set distinctive roles. In my mind, an over-specialized one trick pony should be more often than not a liability rather than a essential asset. For most content, the group composition shouldn't require to have one or two specific classes/archetypes to function and six accessory dps of unimportant variety. Raids, world bosses, and some dungeon bosses aside, most encounters should be possible with any group composition as long as the group adjust its strategies, which isn't an easy thing to do I guess. Do people want to think how to work with what they have or do they prefer to depend on the availability of a specific role and walk the beaten path? Probably the crux of the issue.

    I hope there are many options for tanks and healers, not only tanks and clerics characters. I hope that picking them as a subclass will be enough to fill in part that role. If not, we're doomed to depend of the people playing them.

    I wish classes were all dps with a different flavour: some having a more defensive aspect, some more support skills, others with healing either for themselves or others, but all having the primary function of doing damage.
    Be bold. Be brave. Roll a Tulnar !
  • JaymaJayma Member
    edited April 2021
    Saedu wrote: »
    @Jayma, feral druid wasn't even viable n high end raiding until BC came out (it became my main then and I played it as such till MoP).
    I will say that to my bear feral druid in Naxx. Yes it' s not THE main tank, but one of main tanks of the guild, and yes sometime when his tanking is not needed he heal or dps. Not viable is strong term :)
    The only not viable raid tank that become viable during BC is Palatank (yes again not prefered maintank, but a flavor of tank you can want on some encounters).

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