Forums » Pantheon Classes

How useful will support classes be?

    • 4 posts
    April 11, 2018 12:16 AM PDT

    Hello all,

    With the new Bazgrim video out, i am sure there is alot of new information to be talked about. It is great to hear the Devs talk about how they want to keep all classes viable in their field of expertise. I recently played a Paladin on an EQ progression server. I really felt left out in most raids because well... Warriors. Paladins were great group tanks, but i feel fell very short in the begining of EQ as a raid tank. Same way with Clerics running the show with being "THE" healer. Im excited to hear about how each healer will have a style they excel at as well as tanks being equally useful. This leads me to my big question. How useful will support be?

    As of right now, i am looking forward to playing an Enchanter. Being recently titled "The Master of CC", how useful will they be outside of doing that. Enchanters are the only class to fit into this roll besides the newly announced Bards. I understand i will never be able to match the damage of a wizard. One of the big sides to dealing damage as a chanter in EQ was charm. Now lets say Pantheon nails the charm mechanic and it isn't broken or hell, maybe it doesnt even make it into the game. Besides being a buff tower, how is enchanter going to feel in terms of combat use? What if i have a monk in my group that is AMAZING at single pulls? Am i going to be bored during combat or not needed in the group? Will a Chanter be able to hold its own in DPS to the point of being needed beyond just crowd control? Will our buffs be amazing to the point of just wanting a enchanter for them even if we cannot contribute? In a raid, will there be a use for having more than 1 or 2 Enchanters? Again i want to try and stay away from the idea of Charm. Charm to me seemed awesome but very broken at times. A charmed mob could out damage an entire group in some zones when buffed. For as OP as i would love myself to be, i would imagin there is going to be limitations on the spell if it even gets added to the game. 

     

    Thoughts??? 

    I am new to the forums as i recently just pledged. If this has been talked about already please point me toward the right post. 

    • 1479 posts
    April 11, 2018 1:48 AM PDT

    From what we know, the enchanter's nukes do restore some Mana to his groupmates, so even if he is on the shorter end of the DPS stick, his utility will bring less downtime to his team, even if composed of little to no mana dependant classes (Healers will allways depend of mana).

     

    While I thought myself "wait, the enchanter is the only controller outside of the bard ?", it's also good to remember there are only 3 tanks and 3 healers for the dedicated role. But I also keep in mind that the role will be hardly "mandatory" if the class representation is so small that you usually have to do withouth. A third control class would be a good idea I think, but maybe in the far far future.

    • 248 posts
    April 11, 2018 1:59 AM PDT

    So I never played an Enchanter and don't plan to in Pantheon, but the subforum for Enchanters is a good place to start looking for info.
    Also looking at the recent streams might be good. I seem to remember that the Enchanter would nuke and thereby give mana to the group. So during combat you would get to nuke and hand out candy (mana) xD

    As I said, don't know much about it but hope I have helped you in some small way :)


    -sorte.

    • 2752 posts
    April 11, 2018 11:10 AM PDT

    We also don't know exactly how Feign Death will work and it's entirely possible some mobs/dispositions might see through it. That aside I suspect bard/enchanter will be just as useful as they were in EQ, mediocre personal damage but support spells that make everyone else in the group boosted to an 11. 

    • 1992 posts
    May 25, 2018 1:51 PM PDT

    They make it clear that they intend to make the Control class just as fun, exciting and important as any of the other classes. When the game opens, we'll see how well they succeed. From the streams I've seen, the Enchanter seemed to be busier in encounters than the Wizard.

    From the FAQs "Controlling mobs and rendering them inactive to keep control of the numbers of hostile NPCs in a fight or preventing additional mobs from joining the fight will be a critical component of Pantheon’s combat mechanics."

     

    In one video, maybe Baz's interview with Joppa, I remember some discussion where he made it clear that they are well aware how easy it is to wind up with one class the 'best' at it's role, and they are focused on not letting that happen.

    So far, things are looking really promising.

    • 25 posts
    May 29, 2018 2:55 AM PDT

    Based on EQ1 and what little we have heard about the Pantheon Enchanter, I would say support is going to be pretty essential for an efficient hunt.  Aside from CC they will no doubt have various buffs such as haste, some debuffs like slow, attacks that give the group mana...and probably a buff to do likewise.  Without a support class a group would manage but less efficiently - a Shaman for example can likely do Slow/Haste, the Rogue and Ranger can likely deal with CC on an add or 2, a Monk or Rogue could split pull to limit the need for in combat CC.  So, not having a support but the right mix of classes won't prevent you from doing the content, but you will not be as efficient.

     

    THere will unfortuantely always be an issue with classes being superior or inferior to another, one can only hope devs can find a way to balance it better - I don't mean balance where everyone is the same, just that each class of a role can do their job, some situations/encounters may be best for one class and that is fine, but you don't want EQ or Vanilla WoW 'Warrior tanks raids, end of.'

    • 8 posts
    May 29, 2018 7:23 PM PDT

    The way it's looking, a group won't have any problem finding things for multiple CC roles. I imagine groups will be eager to include one assuming tank and healer is accounted for. 

    • 346 posts
    June 2, 2018 2:12 PM PDT

    Very useful. The paradigm in this type of game is Tank-Healer-CC/PerformanceBuff/PerformanceDebuff class. Once you have those three, the following three can be anything you want. Typically DPS fit these roles with one being a puller. A group can handle a dungeon fine and still dps with the first three pivotal classes, but it'll be much faster with the DPS in the subsequent spots.

    So yes, you can expect CC/buff-debuff class like the Enchanter to be extremely useful like one would expect. If not accounting for CC, their potency is still important and only grows depending on how many people are in the group. In EQ1 for instance, an Enchanter can provide more dps than any DPS classes through passive damage. However, that would be dependent on the group dynamic and how many are in the group. 


    This post was edited by Janus at June 2, 2018 2:13 PM PDT