Lodrig wrote: » Azherae wrote: » I ask because it's harder to 'discuss' Cleric class fantasy, for me, without reference to some of these (or FFXI stuff, which is much harder to give a good reference for). I just completed a first rough outline for each Cleric derived class (by figuring out High Priest specifically, the doubledown classes are always the hardest) and how it would be unique, summed up in one line each they would be. Cleric/Bard Scryer - efficient HoT group healer, light buffing Cleric/Cleric High Priest - Debuff removal champ Cleric/Fighter Templar - Radiant melee damage dealer Cleric/Mage Oracle - Alternate effect of heals on foes for stuns and damage Cleric/Ranger Protector - reactive rescue single target burst healer Cleric/Rogue Shadow Disiple - Enemy debuffing and 'retribution' effects Cleric/Summoner Shaman - Area control healing zone healer Cleric/Tank Apostle - self heal meat piñata Do thouse sound like a good general outline? Are they logically consistent as a fusion of the two archetypes? What healer types am I missing that should be included?
Azherae wrote: » I ask because it's harder to 'discuss' Cleric class fantasy, for me, without reference to some of these (or FFXI stuff, which is much harder to give a good reference for).
Azherae wrote: » Lodrig wrote: » Azherae wrote: » I ask because it's harder to 'discuss' Cleric class fantasy, for me, without reference to some of these (or FFXI stuff, which is much harder to give a good reference for). I just completed a first rough outline for each Cleric derived class (by figuring out High Priest specifically, the doubledown classes are always the hardest) and how it would be unique, summed up in one line each they would be. Cleric/Bard Scryer - efficient HoT group healer, light buffing Cleric/Cleric High Priest - Debuff removal champ Cleric/Fighter Templar - Radiant melee damage dealer Cleric/Mage Oracle - Alternate effect of heals on foes for stuns and damage Cleric/Ranger Protector - reactive rescue single target burst healer Cleric/Rogue Shadow Disiple - Enemy debuffing and 'retribution' effects Cleric/Summoner Shaman - Area control healing zone healer Cleric/Tank Apostle - self heal meat piñata Do thouse sound like a good general outline? Are they logically consistent as a fusion of the two archetypes? What healer types am I missing that should be included? The obvious problem with any game that gives a player choice in abilities, is that they must also offer a reason to not try to take everything other than 'you just can't', in my opinion. And Ashes doesn't use an 'either-or' style of balance. tl;dr now I'm the one who thinks that these rough outlines aren't compelling enough. Not because these types of healers shouldn't/won't exist, but because 'Augments enhancing them' wouldn't be 'enough' to push them into distinction (because Augments don't cost skill points anymore). I think if we view it from the perspective of 'if you realize you've built this type of Cleric, choose this secondary archetype/these Racial or Social Augments', is good, but I would hesitate to connect it to 'class fantasy' within the way Ashes builds it (bear in mind that I still don't care about class fantasy or the names Intrepid gives to anything). The reason I brought the TL information is exactly the same. I know which augments (Skill Specializations) to take because I know which type of healer I am (it's based on gear and Passive skills too, which are not discussed in the video linked). (also wow I feel like this post is a mess)
Lodrig wrote: » Bard/Tank - Sirens are able to produce such aluring performances that enemies at short range are compelled to follow the Siren in a trance state for a limited distance. So long as the tranced arn't attacked they will stop attacking and can be lead away. In this way they controls and nulifies enemy aggression while providing a way to pull apart enemy groups.
iccer wrote: » I find it fun to theorycraft these things, so here's my example: Cleric / Bard - depending on which augment school they pick, they could focus on more AoE heals, party/raid buffs, or debuffs to enemies. Cleric / Cleric - generally enhancing any playstyle they go for, depending on the school they pick. They could focus on more HoTs, more powerful single target heals, or debuff removal, etc. Cleric / Fighter - melee healer, using shorter range attacks, rather than long range spells, being right in your face, in the middle of the fight, healing allies around them, more of a point blank AoE healer if you will. Cleric / Mage - depending on the school, they could either enhance allies attacks with certain elements, generally offer utility like barrier, blink, decrease cast time, etc. Cleric / Ranger - I honestly find it hard to come up with something here. Maybe setting up some heal traps, where allies get healed when they step over them. Something with "Hunts". Maybe imbue allies attacks, so any attacks heal them. Cleric / Rogue - I imagine this as a stealth / combat ress guy. Maybe also visuals change for a more darker theme, rather than holy. In general focus more around shadows. Cleric / Summoner - Summon holy spirits that heal allies, maybe even totems?? In general, depending on the school, you could either be focusing on holy stuff, with spirits, or dark/death magic, maybe some health sacrifice to heal allies, while using lifesteal to keep yourself up. Cleric / Tank - more survivability, more defenses, barriers. This is also your frontline healer, but one that can take a punch or two. Those survivability tools are mostly limited to themselves, although they should have some enhanced barrier they can apply to allies as well.
Lodrig wrote: » iccer wrote: » I find it fun to theorycraft these things, so here's my example: Cleric / Bard - depending on which augment school they pick, they could focus on more AoE heals, party/raid buffs, or debuffs to enemies. Cleric / Cleric - generally enhancing any playstyle they go for, depending on the school they pick. They could focus on more HoTs, more powerful single target heals, or debuff removal, etc. Cleric / Fighter - melee healer, using shorter range attacks, rather than long range spells, being right in your face, in the middle of the fight, healing allies around them, more of a point blank AoE healer if you will. Cleric / Mage - depending on the school, they could either enhance allies attacks with certain elements, generally offer utility like barrier, blink, decrease cast time, etc. Cleric / Ranger - I honestly find it hard to come up with something here. Maybe setting up some heal traps, where allies get healed when they step over them. Something with "Hunts". Maybe imbue allies attacks, so any attacks heal them. Cleric / Rogue - I imagine this as a stealth / combat ress guy. Maybe also visuals change for a more darker theme, rather than holy. In general focus more around shadows. Cleric / Summoner - Summon holy spirits that heal allies, maybe even totems?? In general, depending on the school, you could either be focusing on holy stuff, with spirits, or dark/death magic, maybe some health sacrifice to heal allies, while using lifesteal to keep yourself up. Cleric / Tank - more survivability, more defenses, barriers. This is also your frontline healer, but one that can take a punch or two. Those survivability tools are mostly limited to themselves, although they should have some enhanced barrier they can apply to allies as well. Quite a lot of overlap with my own thoughts so I'll focus on where I see differences and oportunities I missed. Note that I am assuming the dropping of '4 augment' options because I do not belive it is remotely possible to create 32 meaningful variations no matter how hard one tries, I'm aiming for a singular playstyle concept though this may consist of a kit with more then one capability in it. Cleric/Bard and Cleric/Fighter look like a match with my thoughts with the exception of a debuffing option on Cleric/Bard. I wound't say that they should lack debuffs but that seems unlikely to be any more heavily emphasized then it is with the Bard and most of it's debuffs are more soft mezmerize, sleeps etc. Cleric/Cleric generally lacks focus, the curse of the doubledown class. I focused on debuff removal more because it was the only thing left after thinking about all other varients and it felt like a thematic fit for something called a 'High Priest'. I admit to being influenced by Aqua from Konosuba. The Cleric/Mage as a buffer of allies with elements seems a bit of a stretch to me. Mages do not currently have a lot of buffing play (though their is a good argument that they should) so this feels inconsistent with the secondary archetype. Also barrier is a Tank feature. The Cast time improvements sound promissing though but not sure if that should be for themselves or a buff. Cleric/Ranger a 'Heal trap' is an interesting idea, I presume it's functionally like thouse Diablo heal globs you can walk over. Throwing these down would allow your party members to kind of manage their own healing by moving and the Cleric can essentially 'bank' some healing before it's actually needed. Not sure if Ranger is the ideal place to put it. My own thoughts were initially Ana from overwatch 'heal sniping' and that evolved to just a classic single target rapid healer who can do the 'rescue' heal job. Cleric/Rogue I had genuinely not considered the possibility of 'sneaking' healing, it seems limited to me because unless your in full stealth the whole time what's the benift? Your not jumping out from stealth and downing an enemy in a burst of damage and then escaping. A healer needs to stay with their team. This is why I leaned towards debuffing as a broad concept over focusing on rogue like stealth mechanics. Admittedly Rogue is not primarily a debuffer but they do often have poison and DoT's so it's not completly incongrous. Cleric/Summoner I had not considered mobile healing entities, having singled in on totemic systems because of the name Shaman, but this might be a valid option with a Shaman healing system, call them 'ancestral spirits' or something. Cleric/Tank I kinda wanted to make sure this did not stray too close to Paladin aka Tank/Cleric. So I denied it any damage mitigation which a Paladin would have a lot of and set up the 'tank with health regen' concept.
iccer wrote: » That's why I can't actually wait to see some examples or some more information, because I'm going to go crazy with theorycrafting multiple classes/specs, because I can base it off of something, rather than nothing, like I'm doing now.
nanfoodle wrote: » Lodrig wrote: » Bard/Tank - Sirens are able to produce such aluring performances that enemies at short range are compelled to follow the Siren in a trance state for a limited distance. So long as the tranced arn't attacked they will stop attacking and can be lead away. In this way they controls and nulifies enemy aggression while providing a way to pull apart enemy groups. I think the arguments will play one part of that. The Bards damage shield, also skill that do things like adding a HP container incress etc. Augmented with Tank could shorten the cast time on these skills. Make them add 10% more buffing. Couple this with Weapons and armour types. Could make a Bard that players in the thick of the frount line. Buffing to help mitigate damage of that frount line. Helping push that front line forward towards victory. I say this because it was mentioned that the A2 players are really enjoying how weapons and armor types have added allot of depth to their classes and changing their play style. We are only starting to scratch the surface of what makes a class.
nanfoodle wrote: » My dream build. My wife loves playing a mage and setting the world on fire. I like to find ways to complement her play style. To tank for her or doing more damage or just keeping her alive. Ashes makes me able to do all these things in my favorite class, the Bard. My hopes are this: will post my second build I want later. First, Bard/Bard. For grouping and raiding. Backline Brad focused or lowering cast time, mana regen, CC package roots, snares and sleeps to keep forces off the casters. Also boosting the Bards run buffs to also help with mobility. This Bard would take a hit in not healing healing would take a slight hit, trading sme of the HP regen to add a split on that song 1/2 to healing and 1/2 for mana regen that stacks with the mana regen song. I would build this with light armour for the augments for speed. And a ranged wand, book for keeping up with DPE that the Casters and Rangers all at max distance that I am supporting.
George_Black wrote: » I am a pretty vanilla guy in gaming. Give me human for a race, with medieval looks, even though I am not from northern europe. And give me a class with melee abilities, with animations that look good on twin swords, 2handed or sword shield. I want from my class to be able to make a character that shines on the field of battle, mostly on small scale and duels, using a mastery of swords, and the tools to respond to the majority of enemy types, so that I can achieve victory. I dont care for magic, I dont care for ranged attacks.
Lodrig wrote: » nanfoodle wrote: » Lodrig wrote: » Bard/Tank - Sirens are able to produce such aluring performances that enemies at short range are compelled to follow the Siren in a trance state for a limited distance. So long as the tranced arn't attacked they will stop attacking and can be lead away. In this way they controls and nulifies enemy aggression while providing a way to pull apart enemy groups. I think the arguments will play one part of that. The Bards damage shield, also skill that do things like adding a HP container incress etc. Augmented with Tank could shorten the cast time on these skills. Make them add 10% more buffing. Couple this with Weapons and armour types. Could make a Bard that players in the thick of the frount line. Buffing to help mitigate damage of that frount line. Helping push that front line forward towards victory. I say this because it was mentioned that the A2 players are really enjoying how weapons and armor types have added allot of depth to their classes and changing their play style. We are only starting to scratch the surface of what makes a class. Given that armore/weapon flexibility is universal, and should stay that way for all classes. I don't generally feel the need to address it in a class fantasy unless their is a specific interaction. For example Paladins getting a bonus to shield blocking as a class feature. I want to keep even thouse to a minimum so as not to create a defacto 'mandatory' equipment pattern, in the case of Paladins their shielding is so Iconic that it's ok, the same way Rangers kinda are mandated to use bows. With regard to the Bard/Tank I wanted to focus on the concept of a 'Mezmerizer Tank', aka one which achives the goal of Tanking by stopping attacks from being made rather then taking the attacks. Such a class COULD be built with heavier armor but they dont need to be. nanfoodle wrote: » My dream build. My wife loves playing a mage and setting the world on fire. I like to find ways to complement her play style. To tank for her or doing more damage or just keeping her alive. Ashes makes me able to do all these things in my favorite class, the Bard. My hopes are this: will post my second build I want later. First, Bard/Bard. For grouping and raiding. Backline Brad focused or lowering cast time, mana regen, CC package roots, snares and sleeps to keep forces off the casters. Also boosting the Bards run buffs to also help with mobility. This Bard would take a hit in not healing healing would take a slight hit, trading sme of the HP regen to add a split on that song 1/2 to healing and 1/2 for mana regen that stacks with the mana regen song. I would build this with light armour for the augments for speed. And a ranged wand, book for keeping up with DPE that the Casters and Rangers all at max distance that I am supporting. I like the idea of Bard/Bard being able to reduce friendly skill cooldowns, it is a universally useful benifit and the kind of thing that can make a doubledown class feel unique from the base archetype, a 'capstone' kind of ability which don'st just feel like being a few levels higher. Another thing, remember how everyone kept saying that playing 2 melodies at a time ok but 3 would be REALLY cool. I guarantee you that's gonna be an augment and Bard/Bard is the logical class to get it. So you can probably run movement speed, healing and mana regen all at the same time.
nanfoodle wrote: » If your talking Mez tanking, what will that do to diminishing returns? You can't mez a target a 3rd time with the same skill. Also Steven has mentioned locking people down for a long time is not fun game play. What's your thoughts?
Chaliux wrote: » George_Black wrote: » I am a pretty vanilla guy in gaming. Give me human for a race, with medieval looks, even though I am not from northern europe. And give me a class with melee abilities, with animations that look good on twin swords, 2handed or sword shield. I want from my class to be able to make a character that shines on the field of battle, mostly on small scale and duels, using a mastery of swords, and the tools to respond to the majority of enemy types, so that I can achieve victory. I dont care for magic, I dont care for ranged attacks. Same here. Thinking about Weapon Master or Highsword at the moment, if its meaningful with twohanded weapon, mainly sword, but I guess so. Paladin or Knight, so main class Tank, perhaps is an alternative option, but DPS wise I expect that Fighter is (should be) ahead. That‘s why Highsword currently is raising my attention, hoping to get a Fighter with some little self heal abilities or some that heal others around / surrounding during melee combat. We will see. He will look like my avatar than, roleplay wise ;-) But I’m also waiting for rogue gameplay later on, as Warrior/Fighter and Rogue/Assassin always were my favorite classes in all MMOs I‘ve played.
Lodrig wrote: » Other examples Mage/Fighter - Battle Mages specialize in touch delivered magical attacks and short range fan blast effects. Combined with the robustness to survive in the front lines of battle the Battle Mage is excellent at confronting clustered frontline combatants who typically lack good elemental resistance. Rogue/Cleric - Cultists focus on long casting time high impact dark rituals cast while in stealth. Their rituals can empower themselves and allies with short lived temporary Health and lifesteal abilities to unleash in deadly surprise attacks if they can complete their castings before being detected. Summoner/Mage - Spellmancers summon elemental themed minions which deal elemental damage and can use their minions as the location for creating AoE spell effects by dispelling the minion in a burst of magical energy. Minions felled in battle by the enemy likewise burst making them all effectivly walking magical bombs thrown at the enemy ranks. What similar class fantasies can other folks imagine?
Lodrig wrote: » I agree the primary archetype is dominant and determines ones role. But the question is how narrowly do we define role. For example is the role of a Mage to be a long distance burst attacker, or to be a magic damage attacker, or to be a long range magic damage attacker, or to be a long ranged AoE magical damage attacker. I choose to interpret a secondary archetype as being able to change one major element of the formla at a time. If every element had to be present at all times then no meaningful variation can exist. Still some parts are sacrosanct, for a Mage its magic. For a fighter its 'hit it with my sword'.
