Ghroznak said:Here is my opinion though:
Play what YOU want to play, make friends, join a guild, create a network of people you know. That way you will always be able to get into a group or join the action somewhere. Heck, sometimes in Everquest we'd bring a rogue into the group even if we really needed a CC. Why? Because the rogue was a nice person and always helped others anytime they asked (plus rogues did a crapton of damage). So it's not always about the best class or min-maxing. Sometimes it's just about friendship and playing together. Plus it's the "out of the box" experiences that often becomes the most memorable one.
I'll this reply with a small story which reflects the previous sentence. I was playing my level 65 Enchanter in Everquest and were trying to get a group formed in a level 60-70 dungeon. This was in the off hours and I managed to first get a healer (as I always went for tanks and healers first). Then I had one rogue, then another, then a 3rd join us. But we just couldn't find a tank at all. Then a 4th rogue logged on and I figured... you know what? Damn it all.
I invited the 4th rogue.
So we had a group of me (enchanter), a cleric and 4 rogues. They were all super skeptical. But I had good experience with pulling mobs as my bard, and using enchanter was even easier (calm spells). Wait here I said... and ran off to pull mobs. I dragged 3 back on first pull, placed a Rune (damage absorbtion) on myself, mezzed the 2 adds and let the first one hammer on me. Since it was hitting the rune the absorbed damage counted as healing, so it kept aggro on me while the 4 rogues absolutely shredded it. Then on the 2nd, then on the 3rd. All 3 mobs down like butter under a glowing hot sword. We kept that group for hours and didn't die a single time. One of the most efficient groups I've been in. Mobs died incredibly fast and between my CC and the cleric buffering any damage on me when rune dropped we never needed a tank :)
So is the holy trinity of tank+healer+CC an absolute must? It completely depends on what spells they give us in the game and how creative (and daring) we as the players choose to be.
First of all, thank you for your excellent post. I didn't quote the whole thing since it is pretty long. However, I wanted to address two things.
1) Several people on this thread have said to "play what you love." I'm not sure how to answer that. Certainly, the enchanter was my favorite class of the ones I played in EQ. I'm cool under pressure, so having to keep track of all the mezzes and a charmed pet was both exciting and engaging. But she could be too much for me on days that I wasn't feeling I was on my "A game." I also enjoyed playing a wizard (sometimes I was in the mood to just nuke things!) and mage.
I've never played a tank or healer class, so I don't know if I would like either of those. I'm leaning towards at least trying the cleric. Looks challenging. However, the jokes in the streams about everything being the cleric's fault give me pause. I came late to EQ, and it was a brutal learning curve. I will also probably check out the enchanter and summoner.
2) I am totally with you about the fun and challenge of a non-traditional grouping. I can remember chain-casting runes to keep myself or the tank alive. However, I am under the impression that non-traditional groupings may be far more difficult to pull off in Pantheon. Perhaps that is not a bad thing, though. People are often happiest when they have to get creative.
First thing they need to do before showing any ratios is get a third option available for the Control role so it's at least on par with the other roles. That third option should be the Necromancer. Don't make it DPS, make it control, the lore behind the class easily lends itself to that, and it would be a nice contrast to the EQ1 Necro which was not a group friendly class.
philo said: There will be many options for CC. Thinking its just enchanter and bard is misinformed. With a good puller CC isn't needed anyway. I'm sure you've seen the stream where the rogue is doing CC instead of damage? I think Pantheon may surprise you with some of the roles different classes can play.
You're mis-understanding my point. The "Control" role and playstyle currently has only two potential options (Enchanter and Bard). Every other role has at least three class options. The people that plan on playing a control style class that don't want to play an Enchanter or a Bard need a third option to round out the choices. Seems like the Necromancer would fill that niche easily and give a somewhat "evil" option for those seeking to play a primary control role.
Also, Control does not refer solely to Crowd Control. Control refers to controlling the pace and dynamics of the encounter. CC is part of that equation, but so are buffs, debuffs, slows, fears, stuns, charms, and many other potential options as a primary play style.
Hauskat said:Given the game's emphasis on grouping, I think it could be useful to have information at login on the current quaternary class ratios on the servers. Even logged into a particular server, it would be nice to be able to type a command that gave you that information at any given point in time. My reasoning is that it could affect which server I choose to log into, which of my alts I play at a given time, or even which classes I choose to create.
For example, if 8:4:2:1 reflects the dps:crowd control:tank:healer distribution on my guild's preferred server during my usual play times, I am more likely to create a cleric than a wizard as my main. I realize that this gets tricky with the hybrid classes. I guess each class could be associated with a primary role among the quarternary roles, but maybe there is a more sophisticated way of doing it that considers percentages of roles that hybrids play.
Well there's the old /who all command who all wizard, warrior etc. Wouldn't that be a bit complicated trying to determine if there were enough people playing all the required quaternity classes? Perhaps I am a bit confused about this?
Mathir said:philo said: There will be many options for CC. Thinking its just enchanter and bard is misinformed. With a good puller CC isn't needed anyway. I'm sure you've seen the stream where the rogue is doing CC instead of damage? I think Pantheon may surprise you with some of the roles different classes can play.You're mis-understanding my point. The "Control" role and playstyle currently has only two potential options (Enchanter and Bard). Every other role has at least three class options.
Was I? I think you misunderstood that there will be more options in the control role than you seem to think. Sure chanter and bard are the 2 standards we have seen in the past. I'm saying some classes may surprise you.
Mathir said:The people that plan on playing a control style class that don't want to play an Enchanter or a Bard need a third option to round out the choices. Seems like the Necromancer would fill that niche easily and give a somewhat "evil" option for those seeking to play a primary control role.
Why is it that you assume the "standard role" for all of the given classes except you offer a solution of a atypical role for a necro? Of course it is standard to have some undead forms of control and your basic fear and fd but ? I guess I'm not understanding why that is your solution opposed to other classes?...again, like mentioned, we have seen a rogue play the control role.
Mathir said:Also, Control does not refer solely to Crowd Control. Control refers to controlling the pace and dynamics of the encounter. CC is part of that equation, but so are buffs, debuffs, slows, fears, stuns, charms, and many other potential options as a primary play style.
I think in order to have a discussion you need to reassess how you are evaluating a control role. Most people wouldn't consider most buffs/debuffs or slow (which is a debuff) to be part of a control line. Stuns/mezzes/charms/lulls/sleep/root etc. Anything that can temporarily stop a mob from attacking you is generally what most would consider CC. If you can't agree to the definition of the term CC you can't have a valid discussion about it.
CanadinaXegony said:Well there's the old /who all command who all wizard, warrior etc. Wouldn't that be a bit complicated trying to determine if there were enough people playing all the required quaternity classes? Perhaps I am a bit confused about this?
I'm trying to remember, was /who all a server-wide command and /who a zone command? Did the server-wide command truly list all if there were a great many? If there were a lot of people, I certainly would not want to compute the ratio myself by hand.
I have no idea how difficult it would be for a game programmer to add a /command to compute and display the ratio based on who was logged into the server at the time. I program math computations often in my line of work, which is very different and has software suitable for the job.