The June Newsletter is hot off the press and the tanks are here in force! Which one is your favourite of the three? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
Twitter Poll: https://twitter.com/PantheonMMO/status/1007215340332306433
it's great to see that the paladin has finaly come into play. EQ paladin was to weak a class. once he used his heal he was just another so-so melee character. I am glad to see VR has made the paly a class to be needed and desired to play. That said my alt has always been the warrior. I was waiting to see the writeup on Direlord and it has finaly come. so I am now torn between the warrior and the paladin.
So in answer to the question who is my favorite my vote is for the Paladin.
I rarely play tank any more. With voice chat ubiquitous, a tank with bad hearing is a recipe for a wipe.
Since I *really* like classes that have healing abilities even if they cannot be more than an off-healer I would easily pick the paladin. The first character I got to level cap in any MMO was a paladin in DAOC.
Plus, and this isn't trivial, whenever someone yells out "holy s..." as a paladin I can step forward and deliver - all I need is a good meal first.
I have never played tanks as main - support and CC motivate me much more .
But I love Paladins . When they are Dwarves it is even much better and I generally had a Paladin alt when there was one available in the game .
Pantheon might be my first game where I could main a Dwarf Paladin because the description shows that he is not only a tank but also a holy man able to significantly help his companions . Will see how it plays during testing and decide later . Sofar hesitating .
I really don't know and I didn't expect to say that.
I'm not big on 'evil' but the Dire Lord sounds so gritty and naughty!
Paladin can usually be too goody-goody, but it sounds tougher and more exciting here.
Warrior I usually find too limited - just a one-dimensional tank, but this Warrior sounds like a tactician and leader. Loving it.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to get every class to a good level before I settle on a main the way Joppa and associated are going!
My instinct is Paladin, but I'm going to wait and see how the three classes work in the context of actual gameplay.
One thing I enjoy more than the class itself, is picking the class least played. Looks like Paladin is the frontrunner for a lot of folks right now, but who knows? Maybe in practice, the Paladin will fall flat and people will instead flock to the DL, or the Warrior.
First character will be a rogue, to explore dungeons and to wait and watch. Once the tanks have filled their niche, then I'll choose.
Easily warrior
This makes me worry me a little.
In most MMOs I've played the Shadow Knight/Dread Knight/Death Knight was always the first alt I made after leveling a shaman. But I'm now least exited about Dire Lord among the tanks.
A lot of this reveal was very positive.
They've managed to make the identieties of the tanks very distinct.
The warrior group buffs and special mitigation abilities.
The DLs self heals plus regen, debuffs, anti magic abilities and shielding of others.
Paladins with damage immunities, stuns and a significant amount of CC from forcing things friendly to summoning mirror images.
These tanks will play very differently.
Nice also that the problems EQ had with strong CC being too scarce will not be as significant in Pantheon. It seems a bit odd putting CC on the tank though as those two roles are usually already quite intense. It really makes me want to play Paladin so that I can be the OP CC tank, but it might be hard to balance.
What has me a little worried is how these separate tanking roles will fit into encounter design.
It seems to me as if the Dire Lords self heals could be immensely useful in a small group where not all roles are filled.
Paladins CC abilities would obviously be extra useful where there are a large amount of mobs that are neither so strong that they need to be single pullled not so weak that they should be AEd and can be advantageously occupied by a glorified self.
Warriors bonuses to armour and extra layer of mitigation seems to be geared to the toughest mobs and this has a risk in encounter design.
In a standard tank and spank gear check encounter players are prone to optimizing and with these abilities for tanks I see the risk of a tank group where DLs and pallies play second fiddle to warriors as it was with defensive stance in early EQ.
Warriors have their innate AC bonus and the resilience which seem more reliable than the DLs anti magic stuff or the pallys temporary imunities for standard tanking a big bad hard hitter. I can kind of see a tank group in raids that just has two warriors who can lock shields, a pally to boost their AC and one or two DLs to share the damage they take and the rest healers.
In EQ pallies and DKs were basically just add kiters so being a support buffer to the real tank might be a step up but I hope there will be encounters with adds or special abilities which lets all tank classes shine.
In Vanguard the mechanic of stunning the tank or clearing aggro to force tank switches was common. I wonder how that will interact with Miraculous Shimmer.
I've been planning a Dire Lord Dark Myr since hearing about the class and race. So, yeah. Female Dark Myr Dire Lord, two-handed sword, running into battle with a piercing battle cry. I'll miss my plate mail (sexy, sexy plate mail) but a mix of chain and leather can be just as eye-catching and more dexterous.