It says direlords are tank/utility.
I'm not sure what utility is suppose to mean, im guessing its like support maybe as a offtank?
I just want to be a direlord dps, do you think that will be viable and do you think i will constantly be bothered by other players asking me why im not tanking?
Since DPS is not listed then I'd assume they probably won't do too hot at it. But hey, theorycrafting is a fun thing, maybe you can find a way around it? I'm always fascinated with building characters in unintuitive ways to make them do things they weren't designed to.
That said, I definitely think people will bother you for it. In every online game I've played, not following the meta is generally frowned upon. Unoftunate imo.
Utility isn't offtanking, that's under the umbrella of tanking. Utility is the various ancillary buffs/abilities that can aid the group's efficiency. This mostly centers around your anti-magic abilities to protect the group and your silence ability. I'm sure there are more that aren't listed on the class page. Regardless, while a Direlord will probably be the best DPS of the tanks, it's doubtful it will do enough damage to be considered a legitimate DPS option. However, as an offtank, you'll mostly be doing DPS and picking up the occassional overpull. Keep in mind as well, some of your damage abilities, like the transfer of DoTs and stuff require the mob to be attacking you.
I don't think you should count on it, and probably would be quite sad to be underperforming and beeing unconsidered be others because you picked a role you don't want to assume.
Withouth specializations, all your toolkit will be balanced around dealing less damage than dps counterparts for the same quality of gear, and while you will of course beat undergeared or underplaying dps classes, at equal gear and play level you shouldn't stand a chance.
Either way, you really shouldn't pick a tank not to tank because it will bring you much disregard and a bad reputation, while you can simply form groups around you beeing offtanking occasional adds or recovering from the main tank's death wile playing agressively.
A direlord remain a tank and has the tools to do so. Any bonus damage is just a bonus.
Edit : unless you are in love with the direlord concept and willing to accept tanking as your role, I would suggest you the monk as a DPS with the ability to sustain a few bruises.
Grimseethe said: It's abit odd that there are no plate wearing melee dps. Only rogues and rangers and rangers and mainly ranged. I hope they consider making warriors and direlords a dps spec in the future.
You didn't list monks as melee dps but...I find it odd that you think a character should have the best defensive armor (plate) and also be able to be one of the top dps. Those 2 things don't really work together as far as a well balanced class.
By the way, direlords can't wear plate.
It is quite basic to class design that you should not have any class significantly better than other classes that perform the same role. If a heavy armour class takes less damage but also does equal or more damage why would anyone want to play the medium or light armour classes?
Turning to direlords - I think you can expect major problems finding groups if you take a class that hopefully will do lower damage than any of the damage classes and trying to be a damage dealer. Using classes in ways that aren't intended and that make your character significantly weaker can be fun - many of us do that from time to time - but it goes far better in solo content where you aren't dragging a group down and maybe causing wipes and death penalties.
I hope that there will be enough solo content to let you do that (yes this is a group-focused game but there will also be solo content and raids) but trying to force a low-DPS class into groups as a damage dealer may not end well for you.
dorotea said:It is quite basic to class design that you should not have any class significantly better than other classes that perform the same role. If a heavy armour class takes less damage but also does equal or more damage why would anyone want to play the medium or light armour classes?
Turning to direlords - I think you can expect major problems finding groups if you take a class that hopefully will do lower damage than any of the damage classes and trying to be a damage dealer. Using classes in ways that aren't intended and that make your character significantly weaker can be fun - many of us do that from time to time - but it goes far better in solo content where you aren't dragging a group down and maybe causing wipes and death penalties.
I hope that there will be enough solo content to let you do that (yes this is a group-focused game but there will also be solo content and raids) but trying to force a low-DPS class into groups as a damage dealer may not end well for you.
Grimseethe said:It says direlords are tank/utility.
I'm not sure what utility is suppose to mean, im guessing its like support maybe as a offtank?
I just want to be a direlord dps, do you think that will be viable and do you think i will constantly be bothered by other players asking me why im not tanking?
This is one of the reasons I was disappointed with them adding DPS to the trinity. I think it will be a huge problem. Every class does damage, but now they have to actually balance between the classes to make sure that the DPS role is not overtaken by a non-DPS focused class. This is inserting Class vs Class balancing right out of the gate. It also removes the emergent gameplay factor of classes designing themselves to specific approaches outside of the normally accepted use.
Early EQ descriptions (original release manual) of classes were generic. They referred to a given class in concepts of abilites, not regulation of balanced roles (ie as AD&D originally did). Roles are what the communities later pigeon holed classes into as they sought role organization and catagorization/level of ablity. This lead to people only wanting a specific group makeup to do a dungeon, dismissing certain classes as inferior or unable to handle a given role within a group. That is not to say that certain classes did not have ideal abilities for specific tasks that served a role, but in many cases, those roles were not set in stone or even considered ideal for every situation.
Personally, I think directly assigning classes to "roles" is a mistake. In EQ, many class abilities overlapped. Healing, CC, tanking, etc... are tasks, not roles and many classes under varying circumstances can attend to this, providing they have some tools in the right situations. In my opinion, this approach avoids the problem of specifying certainity to roles which then aids the conflict between classes as it concerns who is supposed to do what as well as how the community treats players who do not fall within those proclaimed roles.
Fact is, you did not have to have the community accepted group makeup in early EQ. In fact, much of the enjoyment was coming up with different approaches based on the classes and their abiltiies in order to succeed. This is what led to emegent game play as innovation does not occur when you are provided a template to which everyone claims is what you are supposed to be.
So as I said, by claiming direct roles and attaching classes specifically to a role, players are limited in choice and focused to an expected narrow play style. That means, in your case, even if you were able to figure out a way to make your Direlord DPS competive with a DPS class, by the prescribed structure of the game, it would have to be corrected as you can't have a "tank" role class out performing a "DPS" class or you defeat the purpose of the "DPS" class.
My 2 cents.
dorotea said:It is quite basic to class design that you should not have any class significantly better than other classes that perform the same role. If a heavy armour class takes less damage but also does equal or more damage why would anyone want to play the medium or light armour classes?
Class balance is not specific to Class design. In fact, D&D class design gave no major consideration to balance between the classes, rather the focus was based on lore, fantasy history, and other aspects. Class balance is a concept that I think became more prevalent in Multiplayer PvP and MMOs as balance between the classes was needed to achieve an even playing field.
In PvE, balance between is really irrelevant in my opinion, as the class having meaningful purpose balanced to the content is far more important. Honestly, I think class balance really is more of a class envy issue, where people want to be special and so there is constant demands that others not be able to do what they can do. This is one issue where the community can have devastating effects on a games design if the developers cater to it. WoW is a perfect example where class envy drove balance and ruined the game.
Not a particularly big fan of class choice pigeonholing you into one specific role with little flexibility, but it does seem to be a thing for Pantheon because they mention group roles and class fantasy in the same breath when they advocate for stronger class identity.
There might be more to it than that though. It's definitely possible that in certain situations, classes may be able to step outside the boundaries of their designated role because they have an ability that elevates their performance in a different role given the right circumstances or enemy types. A good example of this is the description of the Lightful Avenger passive for the paladin class:
Lightful Avenger
Passive Ability. In combat against an Undead enemy, your attacks will do additional Divine damage and have a higher chance to critically hit, your Wrath gains from abilities will be increased by X%, your Wrath gains from damage inflicted by Undead will be increased by X%, Undead who strike you in combat will take Divine damage and your critical melee strikes will generate Reckoning Points.
In addition, while in the Lightful Avenger state, all damage you receive from Undead enemies will be reduced by X% before your normal mitigation is counted. The amount of damage reduced by Lightful Avenger will be converted to health and spread evenly through the group as healing. This effect cannot occur more than once per second.
In case of the Dire Lord, Dark Revenge might come into play for fights with lots of area based attacks that can crit, or where lots of weaker enemies swarm your entire group. Because you're going to be able to sustain your own health pool whereas, say, a rogue or ranger would require lots of healing. In those situations it may be preferable to have a Dire Lord in a damage dealing role even though their actual damage output might not be as high as that of a DPS focused class.
However, you'll probably never be able to build your character to adopt a completely different role as efficiently as a character whose class has that role as its primary focus.
Tanix - I am inclined to agree with most of what you say but the fact is that Pantheon is emphasizing roles, and in that context they clearly will not want one class designated for a particular role to be superior in both offense *and* defense to another class designated for the same role.
It is also clear that they do not want a class designated for one role to be able to handle another role effectively. One role per character has been something they have emphasized. Thus it seems unlikely to me that we can push a direlord's damage dealing up to equal to a rogue or ranger or monk. Certainly it is a worthy goal to push it as high as possible without sacrificing the ability to tank.
My own melee dps class is likely to be a monk I am *so* bad at playing positional classes as rogues tend to be. I say this not knowing how important positional attacks will be for the monk. But I might well pick a direlord as my tank and if I do I too will look to build the dps as high as possible. I just won't expect any groups that are doing challenging content to want me *as* their dps member.
Hey Grim, Whilst you're in a group with a better tank than you, you will be pretty much be playing a dps role, however as mentioned not as well as the other DPS. But you will be likely stepping in to off tank and tank magic users (if direlord is as we assume) and that will be a viable role for you to play. But if a group of 5 is shouting for heavy dps because that is what they are lacking, you will most likely not get the call up to join.
dorotea said:Tanix - I am inclined to agree with most of what you say but the fact is that Pantheon is emphasizing roles, and in that context they clearly will not want one class designated for a particular role to be superior in both offense *and* defense to another class designated for the same role.
It is also clear that they do not want a class designated for one role to be able to handle another role effectively. One role per character has been something they have emphasized. Thus it seems unlikely to me that we can push a direlord's damage dealing up to equal to a rogue or ranger or monk. Certainly it is a worthy goal to push it as high as possible without sacrificing the ability to tank.
My own melee dps class is likely to be a monk I am *so* bad at playing positional classes as rogues tend to be. I say this not knowing how important positional attacks will be for the monk. But I might well pick a direlord as my tank and if I do I too will look to build the dps as high as possible. I just won't expect any groups that are doing challenging content to want me *as* their dps member.
Yeah, that is why I am not looking forward to where this will end up. Even with release EQ's descriptions being more about a classes capabilties and not a "role" designation, players still ended up socially pushing what each classes role was (I remember seeing posts where people would start telling classes what they could and could not do) and this naturally created problems with group min/maxing driving who was allowed to do what, creating havoc on group forming and the like (ie... "he can't tank, he is a monk" or... "Druids can't main heal!") in basic dungeon groups.
So when VR started with "roles" as a template to the classes, it concerned me as now everyone is going to expect their class to be the pinnacle of that role, to which all other classes not "designated" as such will have to steer clear. Players wil "quote" the game manuals and say "you are this... you must be this, you can not be anything else!" and so will begin another process of complaints, class arguments on infringment of roles, or nerfing and buffing classes to compensate, etc...
I can already see some of those arguments in these forums and the game isn't even out of alpha. It is something I am not looking forward to as I dealt with this to the extreme in EQ with the Monk.
Ehhh give it a try when you get access to the game?Understand that part of the class role is tanking so be sure to have appropriate gear for that, but when given a chance try a more dps spec.
I mean you never know what may happen, look at the ffxi community, they turned warrior into a dps when it was originally a tank, ninja turned into a tank somehow when it was originally a dps, and I believe samurai was intended to be a tank but become dps. And depending on gear, multiple other jobs could function out of their intended use. You might have to work harder, having appropriate gear and skill, but it may be worth it.
I think you'll be okay as long as you're open to off-tanking. Groups probably won't need to fit a strict composition in terms of roles. While you won't have as much DPS as a rogue or ranger, you'll also provide value in being able to pick up an add or taunt off the MT if he's low and use your self-healing capability so that the healer can bring the MT's health back up. But if you're saying that you ONLY want to dps, and you don't want to be bothered to pick up adds or taunt off the tank when the situation calls for it, then you might want to pick a pure DPS class.
Grimseethe said:It says direlords are tank/utility.
I'm not sure what utility is suppose to mean, im guessing its like support maybe as a offtank?
I just want to be a direlord dps, do you think that will be viable and do you think i will constantly be bothered by other players asking me why im not tanking?
Screw the haters, I'll be a Dire Lord too but there'll always be room for you in my group. One thing that is a guarantee to happen (at least from my EQ days) is when farming a new/unfamiliar location is that mistakes happen. There'll will be messy pulls, and having a DPS that can secondary tank is always welcome.
SoWplz said: At the start of EQ the " hybrid " classes were looked down on. Not enough damage, not enough tank. But now a days I think hybrid classes are better. I have always put that SK type into that class. Yes when a group is looking for a DPS they will go for monk,rogue, or ranger. But nothing wrong with that in my opinion. But most of the best duos or groups are made up of mixed hybrid type classes. A warrior and cleric can kill stuff, a SK and shaman can kill it better! Paladin and ranger made good couple. The point of these games is to find where you fit in, I dont think you should be able to do everything as well as another class.
While there were problems with some implementations of the hybrids in EQ, the problem as I saw it was more of the players who did not understand what a hybrid class was.
I often heard the arguments that a certain class was not a good tank, not a good healer, not a good buffer, etc... while at the same time admitting that they could still do them, just not as well as those who were designed with stronger means to do it.
I think they missed the point of what a hybrid is. When there was need of healing, while limited a hybrid healer could provide and..., theyn could also provide buffs, and they could also provide some tanking abliity, or other means.
Honestly, while "some" complaints about "specific" aspects were legitimate, a lot of it was merely "I want to be the best at... well... everything".
Fides said:Grimseethe said:It says direlords are tank/utility.
I'm not sure what utility is suppose to mean, im guessing its like support maybe as a offtank?
I just want to be a direlord dps, do you think that will be viable and do you think i will constantly be bothered by other players asking me why im not tanking?
Screw the haters, I'll be a Dire Lord too but there'll always be room for you in my group. One thing that is a guarantee to happen (at least from my EQ days) is when farming a new/unfamiliar location is that mistakes happen. There'll will be messy pulls, and having a DPS that can secondary tank is always welcome.
Agreed, but the point is that if the "design" says he is a tank and should not DPS, if by some means through clever emergent game play he becomes an excellent DPS that challenges other classes in that specific area, he will be nerfed most likely as he would be outside of his designated role and infringing on those who were sold on the belief "they" would be the DPS class in the group.
SoWplz said: I dont expect to see some magic secret that one player has over another. In the classes you will be limited by what weapons you are allowed and what skills. No matter what you do, you will not have the rogues backstab, or the monks triple hit, or the ranger only bow that damage is higher then the delay. I can see where 1 DL can weave his skills maybe a bit better then the next, or more stats put into strength, but I doubt there will be a big enough difference to really stand out.
Well, don't forget that people will be parsing this game even if there are no DPS meters due to the fact that the logs will be present.
So, someone is going to parse between classes and if an individual Direlord starts outperforming even the mediocre DPS players, the perveribal "crap" will hit the fan with numerous lamenting over the horror of it all, etc..
It happend in EQ even before active DPS meters were present (there used to be extensive log parses on everything from mitigation, damge and healing, you can look up the whole monk mitigation fiasco on Monklybusiness.com back in the SoL days of EQ). Point is, once people see an individual is doing such, they will cookie cutter their style (as is common with todays gamers), and then it will spread to where it becomes a common reality (more so these days with social media being centralized and more readily availble).
This is a different age of gaming and gamer. What took months and years to evolve in early MMOs, will take days, maybe weeks. I bet there will be a person at max level in Pantheon within the first week. Fact is, we can not simply leave this occurence up to whim, if you can think it and it is advantageous for someone to do it, it will likely happen fast and often.
Dire Lords are a "DPS" tank. Since they do not have much in terms of mitigation (being the only tank class uanble to wear plate armor), they will do more damage to kill mobs faster, keep aggro and leech life. I imagine they would do "respectable" DPS but still less than that of a TRUE dps class like a rogue or wizard. Similar to a monk calss who will be mostly DPS but can do some offtanking as needed but not a full blown tank. I would pick up a Dire Lord for a DPS slot or flex spot in a group if I already had a main DPS class but definately would not pick them up if I had no true DPS class, unless I had no tank. So, I think they will have some flexibility but I doubt their DPS will be extremely high - at least not until later expansions when there are alternate forms of progression to mix in.
Tanix said:
While there were problems with some implementations of the hybrids in EQ, the problem as I saw it was more of the players who did not understand what a hybrid class was.
I often heard the arguments that a certain class was not a good tank, not a good healer, not a good buffer, etc... while at the same time admitting that they could still do them, just not as well as those who were designed with stronger means to do it.
I think they missed the point of what a hybrid is. When there was need of healing, while limited a hybrid healer could provide and..., theyn could also provide buffs, and they could also provide some tanking abliity, or other means.
Honestly, while "some" complaints about "specific" aspects were legitimate, a lot of it was merely "I want to be the best at... well... everything".
To me, the dire lord looks like it's designed more for cc, debuffing and damage mitigation than damage dealing. The class has abilities that transfer a portion of damage from an ally to himself along with some self-heals. It's a utility class and I hope it stays that way. I don't want to see all classes be able to fill all roles. I want people to want classes for what they bring to the group. A cleric in plate should not be able to tank, self-heal and do enough dps to solo. No class should. That's what has watered down and ruined lots of games.