Now that all of the classes have been released, is there a good breakdown of their primary/secondary/etc roles/capabilities? For example, for a while, I thought that with 12 classes, there would be three each of Tank, Healer, Damage, and Control, with each one having a secondary in one of the other areas. So for example, a Warrior would be primary tank with secondary damage, a Paladin primary tank with secondary healing, and a Dire Lord being primary tank with secondary control. In this way, each class would be unique even with what they can bring to a group, and the secondaries could manage to make up for missing roles. For instance, if you had 2 tanks, 2 dps, and 2 control in the party, but three of those members were secondary healing, then it would cover for the deficit and allow at least simplier content to be tackled.
However, then I see a lot of talk about how there's only one Control class, which seems pretty odd considering there are a dozen launch classes (which...seems like a decent spread). The gears in my brain are grinding trying to figure out how that all is working. But looking at the abilities of the different classes, it's also not entirely clear to me what all they can or cannot do. And I'm kind of wondering about some things that appear to be "missed opportunities" that may actually not be in the actual game. (For example, Summoners can conjur weapons/armor for their pets, but not for party members? Or ladders but not bridges?)
Part of this is a hope that I have that MAY be misplaced:
I believe part of the charm and wonder of old MMORPGs was how variable they were. Classes were not cookie cutter where everyone's playing the same character. No one knows all the "stat priorities" (and not even every gear slot will they have gear with bonus stats on them). There are no mathed out "optimal rotations". Instead, it's the mystery. Classes having out of combat skills like a Ranger setting up a campfire or a Bard playing music to restore party energy while someone cooks steaks from the monsters they've been killing.
I think part of this comes from unusual parties being possible. 4 Control and 2 Tanks should be able to farm things (I mean...that's a LOT of Control there!) 6 Healers should be able to make a farming group (anyone ever read "8-Bit Theater"?) But this only works if the classes are not super hamstrung and pigeonholled into very narrow roles.
This isn't to say they shouldn't have niches, but niches should be a bonus, not a requirement. Dire Lord is maybe better at fighting magic/casters than Warrior is, but that shouldn't make the Warrior useless. And hey, maybe they have a Monk to off-tank or a Cleric to off-tank to help out.
Anyway, all that said, is there a breakdown anywhere? It would also serve to point out the "holes" in the system needing filling out.
Warrior: tank/??
Paladin: tank/heals(?)
Dire Lord: tank/??
Cleric: healer/off-tank(?)
Shaman: healer/contro(?)
Druid: healer/damage(?)
Ranger: damage(ranged physical)/off-healer(?) [weaker Druid spells]
Rogue: damage(melee physical)/control(?)
Monk: damage(melee physical)/off-tank
Wizzard: damage(magic ranged)/??
Summoner: damage(magic ranged+pet)/??
Enchanter: control/??
Bard: control/?? (melee or ranged physical damage? off-heals?)
Anyway, just wondering if anyone else had any idea/input, since I'm kind of foggy on this one. Thanks!
I don't expect it to be as cut and dry as that.
CC does come in many forms. I'm sure many classes will have various forms of root/snare/stun/sap/lull etc. FD can be used as a means of CC.
One of the few exceptions to the "standard" EQ type of class roles that we have been shown in a stream was when they showed off a rogues ability to CC (largely at the expense of dps). A rogue was much more capable at CC than I expected them to be.
Renathras said:Now that all of the classes have been released, is there a good breakdown of their primary/secondary/etc roles/capabilities? For example, for a while, I thought that with 12 classes, there would be three each of Tank, Healer, Damage, and Control, with each one having a secondary in one of the other areas. So for example, a Warrior would be primary tank with secondary damage, a Paladin primary tank with secondary healing, and a Dire Lord being primary tank with secondary control. In this way, each class would be unique even with what they can bring to a group, and the secondaries could manage to make up for missing roles. For instance, if you had 2 tanks, 2 dps, and 2 control in the party, but three of those members were secondary healing, then it would cover for the deficit and allow at least simplier content to be tackled.
However, then I see a lot of talk about how there's only one Control class, which seems pretty odd considering there are a dozen launch classes (which...seems like a decent spread). The gears in my brain are grinding trying to figure out how that all is working. But looking at the abilities of the different classes, it's also not entirely clear to me what all they can or cannot do. And I'm kind of wondering about some things that appear to be "missed opportunities" that may actually not be in the actual game. (For example, Summoners can conjur weapons/armor for their pets, but not for party members? Or ladders but not bridges?)
Part of this is a hope that I have that MAY be misplaced:
I believe part of the charm and wonder of old MMORPGs was how variable they were. Classes were not cookie cutter where everyone's playing the same character. No one knows all the "stat priorities" (and not even every gear slot will they have gear with bonus stats on them). There are no mathed out "optimal rotations". Instead, it's the mystery. Classes having out of combat skills like a Ranger setting up a campfire or a Bard playing music to restore party energy while someone cooks steaks from the monsters they've been killing.
I think part of this comes from unusual parties being possible. 4 Control and 2 Tanks should be able to farm things (I mean...that's a LOT of Control there!) 6 Healers should be able to make a farming group (anyone ever read "8-Bit Theater"?) But this only works if the classes are not super hamstrung and pigeonholled into very narrow roles.
This isn't to say they shouldn't have niches, but niches should be a bonus, not a requirement. Dire Lord is maybe better at fighting magic/casters than Warrior is, but that shouldn't make the Warrior useless. And hey, maybe they have a Monk to off-tank or a Cleric to off-tank to help out.
Anyway, all that said, is there a breakdown anywhere? It would also serve to point out the "holes" in the system needing filling out.
Warrior: tank/??
Paladin: tank/heals(?)
Dire Lord: tank/??
Cleric: healer/off-tank(?)
Shaman: healer/contro(?)
Druid: healer/damage(?)
Ranger: damage(ranged physical)/off-healer(?) [weaker Druid spells]
Rogue: damage(melee physical)/control(?)
Monk: damage(melee physical)/off-tank
Wizzard: damage(magic ranged)/??
Summoner: damage(magic ranged+pet)/??
Enchanter: control/??
Bard: control/?? (melee or ranged physical damage? off-heals?)
Anyway, just wondering if anyone else had any idea/input, since I'm kind of foggy on this one. Thanks!
Let's not forget the coming of the Necromancer.
In the creation of a party, all must take into consideration not just the classes of the party members but, how each of them see their role (class) being played. Perhaps the Paladin will see themselves as the righteous force to be reckoned with and needs to be the focus of the party and the main tank supported by the others of the group, and of course some tanks (taking from past experience) will not accept certain off-heals classes as the groups main healer. We have all seen this situation before. From the looks of the damage the creatures of these lands can bring upon a party, most of the healers usually need to focus on healing, not tanking. Of course all of these things will vary with each and every group. The enchanter, pure control for the party can also bring mana regeneration from damage spells cast during combat, from what we've seen from the videos from within the game, mana regeneration will be a top priority for all caster classes. as with everything this response is only my opinion and we know how those are. I cannot see there being just one solid cookie cutter for each class and expecting each of those cutouts to perform exactly the same. But with 6 members per party there will be some interesting possibilities for groups.
This has been discussed to some degree already, for example here: http://pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9411/class-roles
No class should be able to handle two different roles, although classes often will be able to help on a secondary role (thus a paladin should not be able to be the main healer for a group but it certainly might be able to toss in some heals).
But equally no class should be forced into a cookie-cutter mold with no room for one player to focus on one thing it can do while another player focuses on a different thing. Ideally (and I know some disagree) there will be a means to customize classes so that one paladin will be better at offense and one will be better at defense. But even if not any class should accomodate somewhat different playstyles. Thus one paladin may go looking for undead to kill and emphasize any abilities the class may have offensively against the ...livingly challenged .... where another may simply see the class as a tank.
dorotea said:Ideally (and I know some disagree) there will be a means to customize classes so that one paladin will be better at offense and one will be better at defense.
I firmly believe - if VR handles it correctly - that this is where the limited action set will shine. Which abilities you choose to place on your limited action bar will define your playstyle, and if balanced properly, there will be multiple viable loadouts for any given class.
Expecting a lot of it to be siimilar to EQ and Vangaurd. Classes so far seem to be similar in name to Eq. Abilities are differant (looking forward to that.) The class premise is similar to Eq including the Crowd control being limited to one class. Makes that class very valuable. Bard in EQ had some croud control might here too. Limiting what each class can do forces people to be more social which is what this game is about.... No grouping u dont get too far. If you want a little better feel for what might be coming try classic eq or P99.
Beefcake said: If you look at each class page, the roles are listed: Cleric - Healer, Support, Utility Dire Lord - Tank, Utility Druid- Healer, Support, Utility Enchanted- Crowd Control, Utility Monk - Melee DPS, Off-Tanking, Utility Paladin - Tank, Utility Ranger - Melee and Ranged DPS, Utility Rogue -DPS, Utility Shaman - Healer, Support, Utility Summoner - Magical DPS, Utility Warrior - Tank, Utility Wizard - Magical DPS, Utility Of course, listing them all as utility seems pointless. It also begs the question, what is the difference between support and utility?
Why can it not be that there are these classes. Choose which ones you want to have in your party.
Tank, healer, Crowd Control/Mana Regen, Damge, Damage, Damage
If we continue to make each class share the abilities of other classes, then why would we need the others. Each class needs to be there own animal. If a class cannot stand on it's own merits, why have it.
Ravenwind says: Limiting what each class can do forces people to be more social which is what this game is about....
Beefcake said: If you look at each class page, the roles are listed: Cleric - Healer, Support, Utility Dire Lord - Tank, Utility Druid- Healer, Support, Utility Enchanted- Crowd Control, Utility Monk - Melee DPS, Off-Tanking, Utility Paladin - Tank, Utility Ranger - Melee and Ranged DPS, Utility Rogue -DPS, Utility Shaman - Healer, Support, Utility Summoner - Magical DPS, Utility Warrior - Tank, Utility Wizard - Magical DPS, Utility Of course, listing them all as utility seems pointless. It also begs the question, what is the difference between support and utility?
It only seems pointless to list them all as utility if you are attempting to differentiate between them rather than define them. If you saw a row of knives at a store and they were all advertised as "100% steel", then you could make a list of them all and ask the same question. The answer is that it's useful to both define what it is and make it sound appealing. If the Dire Lord were just listed as a Tank, then people would get the wrong impression that all it is capable of doing is tanking. I felt compelled to reply to your statement because I thought it was very interesting that in the context of a list that the term utility seems like fluff, but in the context of the class pages the term utility seemed like a useful explanation of the class.
I do also wonder what the difference between support and utility is, or if it's actually a distinct difference. If I had to wager a guess, it would be that support indicates that you are affecting your allies in a positive manner, while utility indicates that you are affecting your enemies in a negative manner.
Ainadak said:I do also wonder what the difference between support and utility is, or if it's actually a distinct difference. If I had to wager a guess, it would be that support indicates that you are affecting your allies in a positive manner, while utility indicates that you are affecting your enemies in a negative manner.
I would say that you are most likely correct in this assumption.
Vandraad said:Ainadak said:I do also wonder what the difference between support and utility is, or if it's actually a distinct difference. If I had to wager a guess, it would be that support indicates that you are affecting your allies in a positive manner, while utility indicates that you are affecting your enemies in a negative manner.
I would say that you are most likely correct in this assumption.
From what we've seen, I'm not really sure it's the case, as the paladin is stated as utlity while having few debuffs.
Maybe I'm wrong but support seems like "Increasing groupmate's efficiency", maybe simply refering to long duration buffs, while utility would be more parcimonial in the sense of cooldowns, situational buffs or debuffs, instead of beeing permanent. A stun, a control, a group temporary group protection or a short duration buff for everyone could be that utility.
That's really not founded on anything that the few we could see or read.
For me, when choosing a caster role, it will come down to: What is the class with the highest number of instant cast spells, due to the interrupting-losing-mana nature of Pantheon casting.
And root will not be used as CC, because if it doesn't have a chance to break randomly(for no reason), it allows every class with root to trivially solo anything rootable/non-summoning in the game, provided they have enough X-Y space to move far enough away that they can recast root before the creature reaches them again, after they nuke it.. Root. Move. Nuke. Root.. Repeat. It seems unlikely the veteran developers of Pantheon would repeat the same mistakes of the past in such an egregious fashion.
Which is why it was changed in EQ1 and summons were added to many mobs.
Same goes for snare, but obviously you need more working space. On the other hand, given we're going to be allowed to 2 box, a lot of this is going to be moot when you can have a Monk + Healer and fight single pulls, all day long.
I know what you're going for, Renathrus, but there's so much imbalance in the classes so far, until the overpowered abilities and mistakes of EQ's past are rectified, the path forward to victory is very clear.
Also, regarding Rogues ability to CC, that was nerfed extremely hard in the past year since it was initially shown, now, from the most recent videos, it's a gimmick, not a role or sub-role. What I mean by that is, the current time-to-kill design goal appears to be something like 45 seconds to 1 minute for a normal fighter mob. When a Rogue can mez something for a max of 12 seconds, and never again for over 1 minute.. well, you see the issue. :)
But things like scaling CC immunity on enemies or transient effect immunities in general haven't even been discussed, nor has a global cooldown, individual cooldown, recast timers, casting speed modifiers, all those things will, if they exist in Pantheon, have such a massive impact, it will change everything.
All those core design decisions will, when finally revealed, wipe the slate clean again for choices and role effectiveness.
vjek said:Also, regarding Rogues ability to CC, that was nerfed extremely hard in the past year since it was initially shown, now, from the most recent videos, it's a gimmick, not a role or sub-role. What I mean by that is, the current time-to-kill design goal appears to be something like 45 seconds to 1 minute for a normal fighter mob. When a Rogue can mez something for a max of 12 seconds, and never again for over 1 minute.. well, you see the issue. :)
But things like scaling CC immunity on enemies or transient effect immunities in general haven't even been discussed, nor has a global cooldown, individual cooldown, recast timers, casting speed modifiers, all those things will, if they exist in Pantheon, have such a massive impact, it will change everything.
Can you link to info where rogue CC has been down graded from what was shown?
No one expects them to be as good as an enchanter or bard at CC but, based on what has been shown, I expected them to be better than your standard root/snare. Comparing CC duratioins from a low lvl stream to kill time in the higher lvl streams we have been seeing more recently doesn't seem like a good comparison.
Not to mention we haven't seen any streams, other than that one, where the rogue has not focused on the dps role in order to CC.
Did I miss recent rogue info? I don't follow rogue info to closely so that is very possible.
I'll look for it, but it won't be today. It's pretty easy to see in any video where they scroll over the cast/recast & effect times, for anyone playing a rogue. It went from 60s or more down to 12s for duration. And it didn't matter the level range. In fact, i think originally the version shown was with level 10 characters, then the higher level one had the lower effect & longer recast. The endurance consumption also increased, although that's kind of pointless given how fast it regenerates, but initially it was such that a Rogue could mez two, and keep them mez'd, if they did nothing else, based on what was shown in the videos.
That would obvioulsy require a recast being shorter than the duration, but that was adjusted so the duration was far, far, FAR shorter than the recast, meaning the current design goal is: gimmick. And two at once? That is out the window for sure.
I totally get that they don't want role dilution, and a well played rogue having the potential to outperform a poorly played enchanter will simply not do with this dev team. Which again, fine by me, I will continue to avoid ever playing a Rogue again. :) And what I mean by that is, the initial direction for the class, and the initial cast/recast/duration on Smoke & Mirrors actually had me considering even the remote possibility I would be suckered into playing a Rogue again by Brad. Nope. Never again.
You don't have to dig it up. It sounds like you have been paying a lot closer attention to rogue abilities/refresh timers than I have.
I did think, when I saw it the first time that, if a rogue could act as makeshift CC in a group without a CC class then, they shouldn't be max melee dps like I expect them to be. Sounds like they nipped that in the bud early. It was probably imbalanced.
I'm like you though. I prefer a DnD type rogue. Sneak based, trap based, support role instead of max dps.
Ainadak said:I do also wonder what the difference between support and utility is, or if it's actually a distinct difference. If I had to wager a guess, it would be that support indicates that you are affecting your allies in a positive manner, while utility indicates that you are affecting your enemies in a negative manner.
I believe support covers buffs in general (perhaps just longer term/sustained buffs), where as utility covers other stuff like: Battering Ram, Vinewoven Bridge, Light of Murik, Feign Death, Teleports, Illusions, Ferret Scout, Vale Hawks, Walk the Ages, etc.
If you haven't already, I highly suggest you watch the interview I did with Chris Perkins to kick off the class reveals that serves as a good overview of the roles and playstyles of all the classes:
Ravenwind said:If you want a little better feel for what might be coming try classic eq or P99.
Renathras said:Ravenwind said:If you want a little better feel for what might be coming try classic eq or P99.
I've heard people talk about this, but found little exact information on it.
Well P99 it is an emulated server so it has nothing to do with you having or not having original disks and codes . As for information it is also easy - just visit https://www.project1999.com/ ; . Everything is explained there and it doesn't take much time to be set . P99 gives an excellent feel for what original EQ was but it is intentionally limited to Velious era .
Beefcake said:
If you look at each class page, the roles are listed:
Cleric - Healer, Support, Utility
Dire Lord - Tank, Utility
Druid- Healer, Support, Utility
Enchanted- Crowd Control, Utility
Monk - Melee DPS, Off-Tanking, Utility
Paladin - Tank, Utility
Ranger - Melee and Ranged DPS, Utility
Rogue -DPS, Utility
Shaman - Healer, Support, Utility
Summoner - Magical DPS, Utility
Warrior - Tank, Utility
Wizard - Magical DPS, Utility
Of course, listing them all as utility seems pointless. It also begs the question, what is the difference between support and utility?
I would guess that Support = long duration buffs that can benefit everyone (i.e. not just mana regen) and Utility will = combat oriented buffs/debuffs/stuns/FD/temp CC etc.
To add a response to the OP and kind of disagree with some other posts - Some classes will absolutely have multiple roles even though their primary role says one thing or another. A perfect example of this would be the Enchanter being primary role of CC; once the Enchanter gets a permanent charm they will likely bring the pain with DPS. Its probably a safe assumption that the Bard will be CC/Utility as well and be able to pump out some decent DPS at end game; maybe not as much as say a Rogue or Wizard, but likely as much as Necro, Ranger or Warrior (especially if they get Charm).
It is important that classes will be able to use their "utility" to fill in gaps in the party or otherwise have a LFG system that allows people to select people based on their roles outside of spamming in chat or using a 3rd party program (like Discord). I'm affraid that without either of those two this game wont last past a year due to its reliability on 3rd party applications to successfully "communicate" with the "community". (Its highly likely that chat channels will be full of spam and people will just turn them off or ignore them... it isn't 1999 any more where only 4% the world's population had internet).
Beefcake said: what is the difference between support and utility?
I thought the difference between support and utility was that support is more buffs and such like that, while utility was out of combat type of stuff, like teleports, shrinks, vinewoven bridge, the rogues rope, and stuff catered to that.
Watemper said:Beefcake said: what is the difference between support and utility?
I thought the difference between support and utility was that support is more buffs and such like that, while utility was out of combat type of stuff, like teleports, shrinks, vinewoven bridge, the rogues rope, and stuff catered to that.
It does seem the most logical breakdown here, including way over mine. However, I think it's a bit confusing because every class has the utility tag over it, which basically make it a default role.
I get the idea but in the same way, shouldn't every class be labeled as "Combat class" as they will all participate in battle ? Every class can deal damage so...
Well you get the point I'm making, it does seem more a "basic role every class has" and thus, not worth mensionning.