Forums » Pantheon Classes

The trinity, damage classes, and other ramblings

    • 130 posts
    February 5, 2016 3:06 PM PST

    Vandraad said:

    Vade said:

    I was confused by the original post regarding the holy trinity.  In my world, it's Tank Cleric & Enchanter.  That's the way it is in EverQuest.  You get your base setup and start inviting DPS afterward.  Then I began reading the thread and fortunately I'm not alone.

    I suspect Pantheon, proposed not to be a soft cuddly fuzzy game, will firmly plant Enchanters back into that equation (shows how much I get out, I didn't know it changed) otherwise the game will be on the easy side.  It's precisely why Enchanters are part of the original holy trinity, meant as a frying pan strapped across your buttocks.

    Still, all classes should be viable to some degree.  But you aren't going to get around not being able to have a formal tank unless it's a pet group and a means to heal and deal with adds.

    I think people should start to think beyond some Holy Trinity group.  Look at the emergent gamplay in EQ1 that manifested due to creative application by the playerbase of class skills and abilities.  Depending upon the situation, there were any number of viable group compositions.  Some group compositions were vastly superior to the typical Holy Trinity based group, able to gain XP at high rates in locations average groups wouldn't dare visit. Why should we not then expect the same from Pantheon? 

    The holy trinity comes down to basic fundamentals.

    An example:  

    1) You need a character to absorb mob DPS.  Okay, get a tank.
    2) You need a character to heal the character absorbing mob DPS.  Okay, get a healer.
    3) You need a character to control the mobs, in some aspect anyway.  Okay, get an Enchanter, Bard, Monk, Shadow Knight, etc.

    Based on what you're saying you definitely can go to a zone where adds are low with a tank and healer and 4 rogues and insta-kill everything if you want -- but odds are spawns will be lower than in a compacted dungeon and you're sitting around with a thumb up your butt waiting on repops.  You can also take a group of wizards, or just about any class, and kill mobs individually before one warrior of 6 dies that's holding aggro.

    But these oddball group configurations don't invalidate that in general there's a fundamental game mechanic in place that if addressed makes your life easy and the EXP and loot flows.

    I've been there in less than ideal groups countless times and the holy trinity almost always wins unless say you take 3 Enchanters through Plane of Tactics charm killing everything in sight and you're waiting on the zone to repop essentially.  Done that before.  It was groovy.  ;)

    Sure.  You should be able to assemble just about any odd-ball group and as long as you have a full group you should be able to do something.  I've been in just about every imaginable combination possible.  Having 1, a solid tank, 2 a healer, 3 crowd control and you can tackle anything.  You flip that coin and it will land on tails, or heads, whichever you call, 9 out of 10 times.

    Mind you, I'm talking about current content experience groups, not last expansion's content where a misfit group is a lot more viable.

    As long as the dungeon crawl exists the holy trinity will endure.

    • 578 posts
    February 24, 2016 11:30 PM PST

    The reason why it is called the 'holy trinity' is because it is in reference to what you need in a group to be successful. You need someone to shield/absorb the incoming damage (the tank), you need someone to heal the incoming damage (the healer), and you need someone to kill/damage the source of incoming damage (the dps). That is and always has been the holy trinity. CC is not neccessary to be successful for all groups but tank, healer, and dps is. I don't even know why this is being discussed, that's what the holy trinity always has and always will be. But I agree, and am glad for this 'holy quadternity' or whatever it is being called. It is 2016 and combat needs to be more in depth and complex and a lot of MMOs have shunned crowd control and have thrown it out entirely in some games. I'd even like a holy pentaternity be utilized where support/utility classes exist separate from CC classes. Then the roles could be tank, healer, dps, CC, and support/utility.

    Even though EQ and VG utilized CC to a large degree, I'd love to see Pantheon utilize it even more to the point where EQ and VG would actually be considered to utilize the holy trinity system (even though they have CC classes) and Pantheon uses the holy quadternity system. I'd love to see pulling become more in depth with more tools to pull with and more complex pulls to split etc etc. I'd love to see mezzing and rooting and charming on a whole new level.

    I've always loved Brad's games and their classes. VG had some of the best classes in any MMO for me and I had the most fun playing that game and I want and hope for Pantheon to not only take classes to the next level but just take classes to a place MMOs haven't taken them in a long while.

    • 11 posts
    March 28, 2016 5:16 PM PDT

    Here is an example of how I envision the strength of different basic abilities for each of the current classes listed.  Each ability is covered by several classes, but each class has a clear master of one ability.


    This post was edited by Ixxa at March 28, 2016 5:22 PM PDT
    • 769 posts
    March 29, 2016 12:52 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

     

     

    I am not going to get into another debate over it though, I spent many years of my VG life speaking up for the Rogue class and I and my fellow Rogues knew better than anyone what our class was capable of and limited by, you can check the old VG forums which are still online, to read through all of the changes and nerf plus broken abilities we had to deal with over the years.

     

    Great thread. Planning to put in my own nonsense eventually, but ..Kilsin, are the VG forums really still around to read? Where?

    -Tralyan

    • Moderator
    • 9115 posts
    March 29, 2016 5:07 PM PDT

    Tralyan said:

    Kilsin said:

     

     

    I am not going to get into another debate over it though, I spent many years of my VG life speaking up for the Rogue class and I and my fellow Rogues knew better than anyone what our class was capable of and limited by, you can check the old VG forums which are still online, to read through all of the changes and nerf plus broken abilities we had to deal with over the years.

     

    Great thread. Planning to put in my own nonsense eventually, but ..Kilsin, are the VG forums really still around to read? Where?

    -Tralyan

    At the time of my post they were but sadly they are no longer around, DayBreak Games closed them a while ago now.

    • 220 posts
    March 29, 2016 7:09 PM PDT

    Gurt said:

    Crusaders – The holy knight. The crusader is a tank that augments his survivability with holy favor. Because a crusader would likely combine the buffing and healing of a cleric with the defenses of the warrior the crusader, much like the dread lord, should have lower damage and/or tanking than a similarly geared warrior.

     

    I know that buffing and healing are amazing skills a tank can bring to a group, But to decrease their tanking ability in order to bring the iconic class defining abilities to the class would give a disservice to all the tanks.  All heavies should be equally capable of tanking any endgame dungeon.  Warriors should have more HP/crit immunity to give them a huge edge in raid tanking, but please do not suggest heavies should be unequal at tanking. 

     

    I do however agree that warriors should be the tops in melee damage simply because they have few other methods of building and holding aggro.  But the paladin classes historically has been handicapped as far as melee DPS goes to an extreme.  I understand how OP healing is in an MMO, and that this is a tough balance, but in VG, for instance, you had to have perfect timing and the stars had to align just right in order to be second best DPS heavy.  You had the ability to Spike damage, but it took the perfect storm for your abilities to align to perform any significant DPS, and only worked during short fights.  Im not asking for even second best DPS tank, Im asking for a closer third place DPS heavy. Maybe around enchanter level DPS. IS that asking too much? lol     

    • 31 posts
    March 29, 2016 8:50 PM PDT

    Gurt said:

     

    Before we can get to what I really want to focus on we need to discuss what has become known as the holy trinity of MMOs. For those of you who are unaware, this is the Tank – Damage – Healer group structure. The tank takes the damage, providing the durability that a group needs to be successful while the healer(s) provide combat healing and regeneration, further ensuring that the tank stays alive through the fight. If either of these two roles are removed from a group then the group will either be unable to complete content or will be so inefficient at completing content that it would most likely be quicker to find others to play with. The third role is a bit different from the other two roles – damage. The damage classes provide additional damage to the group, so that content can be cleared more efficiently. This is fundamentally different from what tanks and healers provide to their groups because without a tank or a healer the group grinds to a halt, but with out any damage classes content is simply slower. It is my belief that this is a problem that has existed in MMORPS since the system was created.

     

    It is important to understand that every class adds damage to the group, and as such I believe that in Pantheon more focus should be put on what tanks and healers don't bring to the group: utility. To this end I would use damage to make up the difference in how classes balance out in Tanking vs. Healing vs. Utility. This would have the consequence of giving us a new trinity: Tanking – Healing – Utility.

    .

     

    ok I'm tired and didn't read the full post but if memory serves there are DPS classes in all the games I have played (skyforge has no healers) and there are many different dps classes and ALL of them offered a type of utility either in crowd control or buffing or de buffing some have healing abilities (paladin off tank class). There are even areas the made some classes more valuable to others for there utility to the group so the trinity is still the same. 

    • Moderator
    • 9115 posts
    March 29, 2016 9:55 PM PDT

    FYI as some people have the trinity confused.

    The Holy Trinity was always Tank, Healer, CC in that order. It evolved over the years into Tank, Healer, Dps for whatever reason. We are bringing the original back while including all four, we call it the "Quaternity" system and it includes Tank, Healer, CC and Dps.

    http://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/#q10

    • 89 posts
    April 14, 2016 4:07 PM PDT

    Larr said:

    But to decrease their tanking ability in order to bring the iconic class defining abilities to the class would give a disservice to all the tanks...Warriors should have more HP/crit immunity to give them a huge edge in raid tanking, but please do not suggest heavies should be unequal at tanking. 

    One class being better at a role than another is the definition of unequal.  You suggest that warriors should be better tanks and then in the same sentance ask to make all tanks equal.

    • 106 posts
    April 16, 2016 9:54 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    FYI as some people have the trinity confused.

    The Holy Trinity was always Tank, Healer, CC in that order. It evolved over the years into Tank, Healer, Dps for whatever reason. We are bringing the original back while including all four, we call it the "Quaternity" system and it includes Tank, Healer, CC and Dps.

    http://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/#q10

     

    I always remember the trinity being tank, heals, slower.  I remember just as many successful groups using a shaman as a chanter.

    • 8 posts
    May 3, 2016 9:45 AM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    FYI as some people have the trinity confused.

    The Holy Trinity was always Tank, Healer, CC in that order. It evolved over the years into Tank, Healer, Dps for whatever reason. We are bringing the original back while including all four, we call it the "Quaternity" system and it includes Tank, Healer, CC and Dps.

    http://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/#q10

    This I agree with wholeheartedly.  If all the classes fall into those 4 basic archetypes (tank, healer, dps, CC/utility) and each class is as adept as any other in its archetype; then any group with at least one of each of the 4, should be able to perform at least as well as any other combination of classes from each of the 4 archetypes.  Players 5 and 6 in the group simply add additional effectiveness.

     

    For this to be the case the Cleric, Druid and Shaman must all heal equally well, that being their primary role, even if they have different mechanics, and they should each bring a different utility to the group as their secondary role.  Similarly the Crusader, Dire Lord and Warrior should all be equal as tanks, but bring different secondary roles, (healing, DPS, aggro management) which they can excel at, but only while not tanking; so, for example, the DireLord is good dps, but cannot be quite as effective as a pure dps class, and not while also tanking.

     

    Not sure how to sort out the other classes, wihtout leaving the enchanter as the only CC and thus virtually required for every group.

    • 9 posts
    May 7, 2016 2:43 PM PDT

    Can't say that I played VG or EQ much due to coming to the MMORPG world later and being pulled into different games. I did play D&D extensively when I was younger though, So I can empathize with what people say when speaking of the traditional sneaky/utility class.

    Most MMO's nowadays relegate rogue to a DPS class (often single target and/or positional) due to limitations with mechanics more then actual lore based themology. Most MMO's also include PvP, and often balance classes based on generic thresholds. add to this the simplification of rewards and dumbing down of environment in most themepark MMO's and the result is that utility takes a backseat to the base trinity functions. Thus a full fledged utility rogue would not serve much in a group where the trinity (tank/heal/DPS) is prioritized. so they became a top DPS role, often with prescribed limitations to emphasise their differences from the other DPS style classes.

    Utility needs to be on par as far as mechanics go in order for a class to balance well when they are mostly a utility class. examples would be traps and locks that only a thief could do (or do well/easily). downside with this design is it forces molds into group makeups...some classes become necessary, whilst others become disposable. If only a thief can disarm said trap for the dungeon crawl to continue, then a thief becomes necessary, where other classes are cast aside for the sake of simplicity and/or speed. Many see this as bad design.

    this can be overcome with allowing flexibility via other classes. examples would be (Perhaps...no flame plz :D I'm not familiar with the VG or EQ classes) a ranger who could have a lower chance, but still do it. On the flip side, this still would push people into marginalizing other classes. why bring a ranger who has X chance of failure, when a rogue would simply succeed? 

    It takes careful balancing of environment and objects and such in the game to really play well to classes that are mostly utility. This is why many mainstream MMO's choose the easy route, and simply make them top tier DPS. I'm not saying that this is the answer, but it's far simpler to do that then try to tailor environments to make every utility class wanted, yet not always needed.

    Oh, and OP, I would add one caveat to your post. DPS aren't the "addition" to a group in many MMO's, they are just as critical as the tank and healer...IF an encounter is tuned well, then damage thresholds are part of this balancing act. Any group with only tanks and healers in it should not be able to meet that threshold IMO. Otherwise DPS classes indeed do become superflous and uneeded.

    Of course...if the whole idea is to go away from the DPS mold that most MMO's have pigeonholed themselves into, then I could see utility being the actual third hinge instead of DPS for the Trinity. So it would really be TANK - HEALS - UTILITY, with DPS as a center affect for all classes, with the degree of DPS relative to their effectiveness in their other role/roles. An example could be the Rogue, who would be solely Utility, and thus could have a higher margin of DPS. same with a warroir, as an example, who would only serve as a tank. But a Monk perhaps (again, not familiar with the classes, so only using arbitrary names for the example) who could tank or provide utility, would do a lower tier of DPS then the Warrior or Rogue, since they can fill two primary roles rather then just one.

    This to me seems to be the most logical and balanced approach to the trinity, GIVEN that the mechanics and environment are balance well enough to take into account a utility class. otherwise you simply have a lame category, and two necessary ones.

    And I apologize if I misused class concepts in my examples. They were only examples to prove my point, so please see them as such :D .

     

    Personally, what I would love to see from a Rogue would be a utility class that could help control the battlezone to the point that their function is almost more related to a tank/controller role. examples: a Rogue could drop a smokescreen to blind a group, or perhaps lay out a small field of tar that pulled aggro and slowed or even stopped the mobs dead in their tracks. Poison applications could stun for a brief time (but allow the Rogue to continue attacking) or put the mob to sleep (longer control time, but damage wakes them up). a small jar of bees in the right position can distract a group of mobs and make them forget about the thief (threat drop). this kind of back and forth control of the mobs could easily make a Rogue an effective off-tank. Reminds me of early LotRO when the Hunter could almost do a similar process. I would often do this on my hunter there, pull a few mobs so the tanks could manage the rest, trap them, control them, and when the tank was ready, drop threat and back off. It was a fun versatile concept, and fits the role of utility very well IMO.

     

    EDIT: it seems as if the "trinity" was establish as far as pantheon goes already in the thread, being a box rather then a triangle. I don't think I'm against having CC as a 4th Hinge...but really I feel that DPS (or I think many people lump CC into utility...I know I do) Should really be a balancing act with the other three functioning as primary roles. Whilst a class could live without 2 of the 3 primary roles, every class needs to be able to do damage to survive and progress. even if it is low.

    example: a warrior type class could be a mitigation tank, and not have any form of CC (utility) or healing, but still on their own do moderate DPS. Whereas a paladin style class who has Tanking and Healing (hybrid, 2 primary roles), would need lower DPS to compensate. a Wizard type class who can control opponents (Utility via CC), would have competitive DPS with the single role classes. a Healer who has no CC or mitigation options would also provide moderate DPS to the party. a Healer who could control mobs (summoner or shaman or something along those lines) would much like the paladin be lower in effective DPS then the others.

    In this kind of scheme, there would not necessarily be any class that is solely DPS. This would prevent the danger of a class becoming outdated or unecessary, and it would guarantee that all classes can provide more then one function in a group setting. However, I will re-state that it's more the environment that they are placed in then the classes themselves that determine the effectiveness of a utility class. the challenges we face need to emphasize a larger spread of class types, and encourage more then tanks and/or healers. if DPS is indeed going to be one of the primary roles, then the environment needs to make those classes just as viable as the others through mechanics such as DPS thresholds, or enrage mechanics, etc.

                                                                                                              


    This post was edited by temjiu at May 7, 2016 3:07 PM PDT
    • 79 posts
    May 7, 2016 3:08 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    FYI as some people have the trinity confused.

    The Holy Trinity was always Tank, Healer, CC in that order. It evolved over the years into Tank, Healer, Dps for whatever reason. We are bringing the original back while including all four, we call it the "Quaternity" system and it includes Tank, Healer, CC and Dps.

    http://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/#q10

     

    I believe it changed over to DPS when they started to minimize crowd control's effectiveness (made encounters too trivial according to them) and moved more towards the goal being to kill as fast as possible. If it's dead it can't dps.

    • 52 posts
    May 15, 2016 2:55 PM PDT

    Something I read in the OP that bothers me is the idea that Knights should be subpar tanks compared to warriors.  This can NOT happen again. 

     

    When a group or raid says they need a tank then all of tank classes need to be able to tank the content equally.  A warrior might bring more damage, group buffs, or some other mechanic to a group, but it can not bring better tanking.  Every class should have a primary role and be able to perform that primary role.  Off tank, utility, or pulling is not a primary role but instead is a secondary option which provides a beneift in addition to ability to tank.

    • 2419 posts
    May 18, 2016 1:14 PM PDT

    Ruar said:

    Something I read in the OP that bothers me is the idea that Knights should be subpar tanks compared to warriors.  This can NOT happen again. 

     

    When a group or raid says they need a tank then all of tank classes need to be able to tank the content equally.  A warrior might bring more damage, group buffs, or some other mechanic to a group, but it can not bring better tanking.  Every class should have a primary role and be able to perform that primary role.  Off tank, utility, or pulling is not a primary role but instead is a secondary option which provides a beneift in addition to ability to tank.

    At a group level, all the tanks did do the job equally (talking EQ1/EQ2 here).  Warrior, Paladin, ShadowKnight..all of them, in my quite extensive experience, had no problems handling all the group content the game could throw at us. Then, depending upon your group composition and the type of content you are facing, any one of them could be far superior than the others.

    But I hear you thinking "what about raids, raids always needed warriors".  True, a raid needed warriors, but it also still needed the Paladins and Shadowknights because, again, depending upon how you approached the content you needed far more PAL/SK than you needed Warriors.  Oh sure, you could have used all warriors, but the point is the PAL/SKs did it just as well, which is the core of your concern. 

    So looking at the big picture, the ONE place you needed a warrior was on a raid boss mob.  Most, if not all, of the content up to that boss could be handled by PAL/SK.  Any and all group level content could be handled by all three classes as well. 

    As you say "Offtank isn't a role".  Well, depending upon your approach to content, the offtank is more critical to the success of the raid than the warrior tanking the boss.  Hell, the healers are more critical than the warrior tanking the boss.

    • 595 posts
    May 18, 2016 4:41 PM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    Ruar said:

    Something I read in the OP that bothers me is the idea that Knights should be subpar tanks compared to warriors.  This can NOT happen again. 

     

    When a group or raid says they need a tank then all of tank classes need to be able to tank the content equally.  A warrior might bring more damage, group buffs, or some other mechanic to a group, but it can not bring better tanking.  Every class should have a primary role and be able to perform that primary role.  Off tank, utility, or pulling is not a primary role but instead is a secondary option which provides a beneift in addition to ability to tank.

    At a group level, all the tanks did do the job equally (talking EQ1/EQ2 here).  Warrior, Paladin, ShadowKnight..all of them, in my quite extensive experience, had no problems handling all the group content the game could throw at us. Then, depending upon your group composition and the type of content you are facing, any one of them could be far superior than the others.

    But I hear you thinking "what about raids, raids always needed warriors".  True, a raid needed warriors, but it also still needed the Paladins and Shadowknights because, again, depending upon how you approached the content you needed far more PAL/SK than you needed Warriors.  Oh sure, you could have used all warriors, but the point is the PAL/SKs did it just as well, which is the core of your concern. 

    So looking at the big picture, the ONE place you needed a warrior was on a raid boss mob.  Most, if not all, of the content up to that boss could be handled by PAL/SK.  Any and all group level content could be handled by all three classes as well. 

    As you say "Offtank isn't a role".  Well, depending upon your approach to content, the offtank is more critical to the success of the raid than the warrior tanking the boss.  Hell, the healers are more critical than the warrior tanking the boss.

    To me it boils down to the intention of the devs and whether or not they’re designing classes and content with the intention of pigeon holing certain classes into these predefined meta roles.  I really don't like the idea of the Warrior being the definitive raid tank just like I don't like the Cleric being the definitive healer or any other unquestioned "best of".  And what I mean by this is that any other choice for these roles are second rate.  

    With that said, I have absolutely no issue with the different classes within a given archetype excelling at different content, fights, mob types, etc. when compared with its peers.  I also have no issue with the meta evolving in a way that propels a certain class within a given archetype to be the premier option for a particular fight.  But I really hate the idea of classes being designed as the premier option for an entire subset of content (ie raids, dungeons, pve, pvp, etc).  I firmly believe that if you give the classes the tools to complete a role (however different from the others within same archetype) skill and creativity should be the deciding factor on what class is used to tackle content.

     I think many of us in the community are split on this topic and it’s far from cut and dry on either side of the debate.  Having loved both EQ and VG (and still playing P99) I lean a little bit toward the VG philosophy in this regard.  But we will see as things get closer to alpha and we get some more class info.

    • 52 posts
    May 18, 2016 5:00 PM PDT

    Nikademis said:

    Vandraad said:

    Ruar said:

    Something I read in the OP that bothers me is the idea that Knights should be subpar tanks compared to warriors.  This can NOT happen again. 

     

    When a group or raid says they need a tank then all of tank classes need to be able to tank the content equally.  A warrior might bring more damage, group buffs, or some other mechanic to a group, but it can not bring better tanking.  Every class should have a primary role and be able to perform that primary role.  Off tank, utility, or pulling is not a primary role but instead is a secondary option which provides a beneift in addition to ability to tank.

    At a group level, all the tanks did do the job equally (talking EQ1/EQ2 here).  Warrior, Paladin, ShadowKnight..all of them, in my quite extensive experience, had no problems handling all the group content the game could throw at us. Then, depending upon your group composition and the type of content you are facing, any one of them could be far superior than the others.

    But I hear you thinking "what about raids, raids always needed warriors".  True, a raid needed warriors, but it also still needed the Paladins and Shadowknights because, again, depending upon how you approached the content you needed far more PAL/SK than you needed Warriors.  Oh sure, you could have used all warriors, but the point is the PAL/SKs did it just as well, which is the core of your concern. 

    So looking at the big picture, the ONE place you needed a warrior was on a raid boss mob.  Most, if not all, of the content up to that boss could be handled by PAL/SK.  Any and all group level content could be handled by all three classes as well. 

    As you say "Offtank isn't a role".  Well, depending upon your approach to content, the offtank is more critical to the success of the raid than the warrior tanking the boss.  Hell, the healers are more critical than the warrior tanking the boss.

    To me it boils down to the intention of the devs and whether or not they’re designing classes and content with the intention of pigeon holing certain classes into these predefined meta roles.  I really don't like the idea of the Warrior being the definitive raid tank just like I don't like the Cleric being the definitive healer or any other unquestioned "best of".  And what I mean by this is that any other choice for these roles are second rate.  

    With that said, I have absolutely no issue with the different classes within a given archetype excelling at different content, fights, mob types, etc. when compared with its peers.  I also have no issue with the meta evolving in a way that propels a certain class within a given archetype to be the premier option for a particular fight.  But I really hate the idea of classes being designed as the premier option for an entire subset of content (ie raids, dungeons, pve, pvp, etc).  I firmly believe that if you give the classes the tools to complete a role (however different from the others within same archetype) skill and creativity should be the deciding factor on what class is used to tackle content.

     I think many of us in the community are split on this topic and it’s far from cut and dry on either side of the debate.  Having loved both EQ and VG (and still playing P99) I lean a little bit toward the VG philosophy in this regard.  But we will see as things get closer to alpha and we get some more class info.

    I disagree with your assessment that all tanks could serve equally in a group.  Knights ended up only being sufficient tanks when they were overgeard compared to the content.  New, cutting edge content required a warrior to tank initially in almost every expansion. 

    As far as the idea of an offtank.... you do realize any main tank can fill the role of both primary or offtank.  Forcing some classes to only be offtanks and second class tanks is providing no primary role.  I've seen raids called off because the main tanks (warriors) were all offline for some reason or another and knights just couldn't hold up.  That's in a group where several of us knights had 1k or higher AC than our warriors, we still couldn't main tank raid bosses most of the time.

    Now, you also talk about specific fights having a unique class take the forefront and I'm fine with that concept.  I'm not really sure how that would work specifically since the tanks would need to have very similiar mitigation, avoidance and agro in order to be equally desired, but in some cases I can see where innate magic or maybe disease resistance would matter more.  They just have to be careful because usually when one tank is better at something it ends up being min/maxed and the other tanks are left out until new content is released.

    I like the idea of skill and creativity needs to be something that helps define whether a player is wanted, but that means the basic roles and mechanics have to be competitive.  Giving warriors an innate 10% mitigation boost, 30% defensive boost, and additional skills which only increase the gap between other tanks means the player doesn't need skill or creatiivity.  The player just has to pick the correct class to be the best with minimum effort. 

    Similiar to how knights had a lock on agro for years forcing warriors to be extremely skillful to control agro while knights just needed to click a few spells.  That was just as imbalanced as having warriors be the best tanks for mitigation.

    Which is why I said that primary roles need to be equally balanced with the secondary roles and mechanics the things that add flare to a class.  There should never be a class that is considered the main tank while the other tanks are only good for off tanking.  Let the players decide if they want to be main tanks or off tanks, don't force the decision on them through imbalanced roles.

    • 595 posts
    May 18, 2016 5:49 PM PDT

    Ruar said:

    There should never be a class that is considered the main tank while the other tanks are only good for off tanking.  Let the players decide if they want to be main tanks or off tanks, don't force the decision on them through imbalanced roles.

    This is more or less where I land on the subject.  From what I've read most EQ Warrior mains disagree, and that's ok.  I think a lot of that comes from the idea that they won't have a home if they can't be THE raid tank and I can understand that (I don't think that will be the case but can sympathize).  But I do think we can achieve class uniqueness within an archetype without a paradigm that puts a single class as the only choice for massive swaths of content. 

    • 2419 posts
    May 18, 2016 7:34 PM PDT

    Ruar said:

    I disagree with your assessment that all tanks could serve equally in a group.  Knights ended up only being sufficient tanks when they were overgeard compared to the content.  New, cutting edge content required a warrior to tank initially in almost every expansion. 

    Were the PAL/SK's you grouped with outfitted with raid level gear from the previous expansion?  Did your SK/PAL friends have the best Veliuos gear before they started going into Luclin or were they still in mostly Kunark stuff and decided to leapfrog into Luclin for grouping?  When the people I'd group with went to Velious we had all that Kunark had to offer in terms of gear.  When Luclin arrived we were all in Velious raid gear.  Are you suggesting that by merely having been outfitted in this way they were overgeared for the next expansion?

    Ruar said:

    As far as the idea of an offtank.... you do realize any main tank can fill the role of both primary or offtank.  Forcing some classes to only be offtanks and second class tanks is providing no primary role.  I've seen raids called off because the main tanks (warriors) were all offline for some reason or another and knights just couldn't hold up.  That's in a group where several of us knights had 1k or higher AC than our warriors, we still couldn't main tank raid bosses most of the time.

    Well, you say that but looking back at my experience having SK/PAL offtanks instead of WAR actually made the entire raid easier.  They were clearly better at the job than warriors.  But I'll still agree that not having a warrior to tank the end boss usually meant crossing that target off the list for the day.  Then again, I made sure we had enough people so that 1 missing warrior wouldn't stall the entire raid.  If you ran into that situation you should have had a bigger guild.  :)

    Ruar said:

    I like the idea of skill and creativity needs to be something that helps define whether a player is wanted, but that means the basic roles and mechanics have to be competitive.  Giving warriors an innate 10% mitigation boost, 30% defensive boost, and additional skills which only increase the gap between other tanks means the player doesn't need skill or creatiivity.  The player just has to pick the correct class to be the best with minimum effort. 

    Similiar to how knights had a lock on agro for years forcing warriors to be extremely skillful to control agro while knights just needed to click a few spells.  That was just as imbalanced as having warriors be the best tanks for mitigation.

    Which is why I said that primary roles need to be equally balanced with the secondary roles and mechanics the things that add flare to a class.  There should never be a class that is considered the main tank while the other tanks are only good for off tanking.  Let the players decide if they want to be main tanks or off tanks, don't force the decision on them through imbalanced roles.

    Again...except for the singular case of tanking a raid boss (which is far and away the smallest percentage of content in a game), WAR/PAL/SK could all handle the remainder of the content just fine. Warriors were easier to play, yes, as it had the simplest approach, the least choices to make when it came do doing its job. It took a truly skilled player to play a PAL/SK well, not because of their ability to tank was less, but because they had more choices to make in their gameplay.

    • 595 posts
    May 18, 2016 7:59 PM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    Again...except for the singular case of tanking a raid boss (which is far and away the smallest percentage of content in a game), WAR/PAL/SK could all handle the remainder of the content just fine. 

    This may be true but for many raiding is the ultimate goal.  Though the leveling experience may be worthwhile to them, end game is truly what they play for.  I've seen players in EQ expecting to tank raids delete their SK or Pally to roll up a Warrior, not because they decided they liked Warrior or the playstyle better but simply that the meta dictated they do so.  I just don't want to see that kind of thing happen.  But as I've said before, it's pretty early considering we don't have any info on any of the tanks.  I'll wait to weigh in heavily on this until we hear where the devs land on the topic.

    • 52 posts
    May 18, 2016 8:22 PM PDT

    Vandraad,

    Going to reply here to avoid a big quote box.

    If you had top Kunark gear going into Velious then yes, you were overgeared for the group content at the start of Velious.  As you moved deeper into the expansion you got gear upgrades which kept you ahead of the content curve.  The only way to "skip" ahead in expansions was to use a warrior as tank while the knights had to stay in the lower difficulty content areas until their gear caught up. 

    You made a great statement when you said "It took a truly skilled player to play a PAL/SK well, not because of their ability to tank was less, but because they had more choices to make in their gameplay" except your assumption is wrong in why they had to be more skilled.  A knight had less ability to tank so they had to become more skillful in order to convince a group to take them, find a role for raiding, and generally be useful.  I could get groups in Sol B because I pulled, CC'ed and could tank as long as their was a strong cleric in the group.  I never got in groups with druid healers because they couldn't keep me up but they could keep up a warrior.  In ToV I was group healer and almost never tanked.  The fact knights had less tanking FORCED them to use their other skills to be a useful contributor while warriors had a significant role handed to them on a platter.

    The only reason knight offtankign was easy was because of the snap agro ability which was reworked later on so all tanks had reliable agro.  At that point guess who made the better offtanks?  Yep, warriors.  And please note I'm specifically against knights having better agro than warriors.  All tanks should have equal mitigation, avoidance and agro in order to have a primary role.

    Finally, you brush off raid content like it's no big deal when we all know it's pretty much the driving force behind these types of games.  Group content is like spring practice while raids are the actual game days.  You admit that warriors had a lock on being main tank and then tell me the answer is to recruit more warriors instead of making sure knights have a primary role.  That's incredibly selfish.  Which isn't all that surprising because I watched for years as warriors maintained a stranglehold on tanking in EQ through the cry of "we have no utility though".  Something that can easily be avoided by having utility in all the tank classes allowing for secondary roles which provide flavor and uniqueness to a class.

    A great example is how several games over the past few years have given warriors auras/battle cries/abilities which enhance the groups performance.  There can also be some CC techniques added in to add some more utility.  Warriors can be so much more interesting than best tank, lots of weapons, and mediocre damage.  They should have just as much utility as knights in EQ but do it without using spells. 

    • 595 posts
    May 18, 2016 8:46 PM PDT

    Ruar said:

    A great example is how several games over the past few years have given warriors auras/battle cries/abilities which enhance the groups performance.  There can also be some CC techniques added in to add some more utility.  Warriors can be so much more interesting than best tank, lots of weapons, and mediocre damage.  They should have just as much utility as knights in EQ but do it without using spells. 

    Well said.  Though most of us are here because we love the principles laid by EQ, the paradigm that says “Warriors have no utility therefore we have to make them the only viable end game option” assuages nothing for me.  It makes much more sense to give Warriors some fun and useful utility to benefit a group or raid than to handicap the other tanks in the end game.  IMHO, Vanguard handled this better.

    • 1860 posts
    May 30, 2016 4:30 PM PDT

    Rogues were wonderfully versatile in DDO.  Taking a little bit of that could only add to the class and the game.


    This post was edited by philo at May 31, 2016 7:46 AM PDT
    • 47 posts
    July 6, 2016 7:08 AM PDT

    As a long time Rogue across many MMO's, imho we should be the number one substained dps class bar none.

    The majority of our dmg comes from directional attacks, meaning if we are trying to solo something 90% of the time we are serverly hampered on the damage output. Now a lot of "new" school rogues think of WoW and stun locking and what not, i can assure you that is not how a early days EQ rogue played.

    Being a rogue meant you were 100% reliant on a group, and the fact that you had meaningless utility outside of picklocking a few doors in the world there was always a better replacement for you.

    On the caster side a Wizard can at least kite something around while using there big nukes, such is not the case for Rogues. While Wizards should always have the highest burst damage, rogues should always be the highest substained dmg in a group setting.

    • 156 posts
    July 6, 2016 7:29 AM PDT

    Ashenor said:

    As a long time Rogue across many MMO's, imho we should be the number one substained dps class bar none.


    Agreed. A semi-squishy class that has to be in melee, has to be in the correct position and has to have allies to get in that position, needs to have top DPS. The only caveat I would add is that it should be top single mob DPS. Finger wiggling, dress wearing, spell slingers should be top multi-mob DPS.