Castwell said:
Already been done, which is why wizards were off kiting and AE grouping. As soon as you penalize a class like that no one wants them for their group because what you want is dps, so you go with the rouge or monk or whatever is the best dps available. If you parsed a fight about the time I quit here's what you had - Rouges at 1.5 - 2 times our dps Monks at 1.5 + Magicians & Necro = to or more Druids & Rangers in a Close race with us Most of those bring more to fight than just dps, all we could bring is dps. (And don't say ports, you had potions for that). I'm not really complaing, just pointing out that as themasters of arcane damage, there sure alot a classes ahead of us.
This is an important point. If classes are being created to work in groups, it will be important to give them all enough damage, healing or other utility to make them worthwhile additions. While I don't believe in trying to balance classes, you still definitely need each one to have a relative worth in general.
The good thing about Pantheon is that all classes are said to have some sort of mana/energy, so if that translates to dps, then melee dps will no longer have that advantage over casters. That whole melee > mana issue was what made casters, especially wizards less beneficial in groups.
Dullahan said:Castwell said:
Already been done, which is why wizards were off kiting and AE grouping. As soon as you penalize a class like that no one wants them for their group because what you want is dps, so you go with the rouge or monk or whatever is the best dps available. If you parsed a fight about the time I quit here's what you had - Rouges at 1.5 - 2 times our dps Monks at 1.5 + Magicians & Necro = to or more Druids & Rangers in a Close race with us Most of those bring more to fight than just dps, all we could bring is dps. (And don't say ports, you had potions for that). I'm not really complaing, just pointing out that as themasters of arcane damage, there sure alot a classes ahead of us.
This is an important point. If classes are being created to work in groups, it will be important to give them all enough damage, healing or other utility to make them worthwhile additions. While I don't believe in trying to balance classes, you still definitely need each one to have a relative worth in general.
The good thing about Pantheon is that all classes are said to have some sort of mana/energy, so if that translates to dps, then melee dps will no longer have that advantage over casters. That whole melee > mana issue was what made casters, especially wizards less beneficial in groups.
Castwell said:
Dullahan said:
Castwell said:
Already been done, which is why wizards were off kiting and AE grouping. As soon as you penalize a class like that no one wants them for their group because what you want is dps, so you go with the rouge or monk or whatever is the best dps available. If you parsed a fight about the time I quit here's what you had - Rouges at 1.5 - 2 times our dps Monks at 1.5 + Magicians & Necro = to or more Druids & Rangers in a Close race with us Most of those bring more to fight than just dps, all we could bring is dps. (And don't say ports, you had potions for that). I'm not really complaing, just pointing out that as themasters of arcane damage, there sure alot a classes ahead of us.
This is an important point. If classes are being created to work in groups, it will be important to give them all enough damage, healing or other utility to make them worthwhile additions. While I don't believe in trying to balance classes, you still definitely need each one to have a relative worth in general.
The good thing about Pantheon is that all classes are said to have some sort of mana/energy, so if that translates to dps, then melee dps will no longer have that advantage over casters. That whole melee > mana issue was what made casters, especially wizards less beneficial in groups.
That's absolutely true! The reality was, that while downtime was a part of the game, melee's downtime would have been hit points but healers ment that their only real downtime was the healer being low on mana and that was easyto get around.
Don't forget endurance is the equivalent to mana for a melee class.
The team will still have to balance across archetypes and make classes worthwhile but as someone who plays a Rogue main but also tanks, heals and CCs, I can tell you endurance downtime is just as bad as mana downtime, it's not fun but it's part of the gameplay and it is an important dynamic to allow other group/raid members step up in your place and it promotes teamwork.
Don't think melee has it easy though!
"Don't forget endurance is the equivalent to mana for a melee class."
90% of my gaming experience comes from EQ and like most while my main was a wizard, I also played other classes. Warior, Rogue, Cleric, and Ranger and some point experimented with every class in the game and any comments I make are generally based off that. I"m not 100% sure which game you were indicating, but I really haven't seen that concept work.
In EQ, Endurance was supposed to be the melee equivalent to mana, except that the regen on it was much faster and you had spells like Extinguish Fatigue that could restore endurance instantly.
So, while the premise was that it would be what kept melee and casters on a more equal level, in everyday game play it just never (IMO) had that effect.
I'm really hoping we see something along that line in Pantheon, but I'm not real optimistic because, well, Brad has always kinda had a bias toward melee, but also because in the higher end game dynamics doing that would create some problems. I mean, what would a raid encounter in have looked like if we had needed to change MTs everytime one ran out of endurance?
Btw, I wasn't trying to say melee wasn't without it's challenges or that they had it easy. The suggestion was made that maybe, if say, wizards can solo that they get some sort of dps penalty in groups and I was just trying to point out that in the reality of everyday grouping game play, casters were heavily handicapped VS melee. Some more than others, but to a degree all caster classes lived it and I don't know that there is an effective way to correct that without upsetting another part of the game in an adverse way.
Castwell said:
"Don't forget endurance is the equivalent to mana for a melee class."
90% of my gaming experience comes from EQ and like most while my main was a wizard, I also played other classes. Warior, Rogue, Cleric, and Ranger and some point experimented with every class in the game and any comments I make are generally based off that. I"m not 100% sure which game you were indicating, but I really haven't seen that concept work.
In EQ, Endurance was supposed to be the melee equivalent to mana, except that the regen on it was much faster and you had spells like Extinguish Fatigue that could restore endurance instantly.
So, while the premise was that it would be what kept melee and casters on a more equal level, in everyday game play it just never (IMO) had that effect.
I'm really hoping we see something along that line in Pantheon, but I'm not real optimistic because, well, Brad has always kinda had a bias toward melee, but also because in the higher end game dynamics doing that would create some problems. I mean, what would a raid encounter in have looked like if we had needed to change MTs everytime one ran out of endurance?
Btw, I wasn't trying to say melee wasn't without it's challenges or that they had it easy. The suggestion was made that maybe, if say, wizards can solo that they get some sort of dps penalty in groups and I was just trying to point out that in the reality of everyday grouping game play, casters were heavily handicapped VS melee. Some more than others, but to a degree all caster classes lived it and I don't know that there is an effective way to correct that without upsetting another part of the game in an adverse way.
Thanks for the info Castwell, I did not have much experience with EQ endurance, I played an Enchanter in EQ on and off for almost a year and a few low-level alts, my experience was based on other games, mainly VG . I wasn't aware that the endurance was so bad in EQ.
I guess what I was trying to say is that we learn from those past mistakes and are very careful not to implement similar issues without finding a way to mitigate them or fixing them fully first.
Chris Perkins our Creative Director has some great idea's to get around this, so keep an eye out for more information on it in the near future!
Oh don't get me wrong. With addition of AAs, the Clarity line of spells and Flowing Thought the playing field got fairly level, but that came at expense of downtime.
When you look at the class definition for Wizards in EQ, Not being able to keep up over the long term, in group, is reasonable and as long as you can still bring value to the group. Which there was point in the game where we just didn't, but I'm ok with that.
Where I think things went wrong is that in the shorter raid type encounter, where we should have shined, we were an "also ran" in DPS and you saw Druids healing at neat Cleric levels while at the same time giving wizards a close race in DPS.
In the end, this whole thread boils down to same argument that has gone for 15+ years. Class A can do something I can't, They're over powered and my class is useless. Which, if you looked at their claim, was usually invalid. Monks got screwed for years because they could feign death, Rangers because of Archery and so on. People always want to complain about what they can't do compared to another class without considering the benefit of what they Can do compared to that class.
Kilsin said:
Thanks for the info Castwell, I did not have much experience with EQ endurance, I played an Enchanter in EQ on and off for almost a year and a few low-level alts, my experience was based on other games, mainly VG . I wasn't aware that the endurance was so bad in EQ.
When EQ "Endurance" mattered, it wasn't considered endurance yet in EQ classic - it was still called stamina bar. But, it still didn't create a huge difference. Here's a few things that I remember about EQ stamina.
1. While swimming, you lost stamina, and sunk like a rock if you were out and you drowned.
2. You lost stamina when you swung your weapons based off their weight. Higher the weight faster the stamina loss (Kunark had heavy weapons). There actually were discussion if some heavy weapons were worth using (like Wurmslayer)
3. Spells like Invigor mattered to restore the stamina
4. Having 100+ stamina was important as it negated a minor attack speed reduction when your stamina was out
5. Jumping consumed like 10% of your stamina bar each jump.
6. Running out of stamina in certain situations was bad - you walked slower, couldn't swim or jump. You had to sit down and wait to regain stamina.
7. If you were out of food/drink your stamina/health/mana didn't regen.
It wasn't till later expansions that EQ stamina was turned to Endurance. Basically with the addition of skills/discs for warriors etc., the endurance bar turned into a mana bar.
Raidan said:
Kilsin said:
Thanks for the info Castwell, I did not have much experience with EQ endurance, I played an Enchanter in EQ on and off for almost a year and a few low-level alts, my experience was based on other games, mainly VG . I wasn't aware that the endurance was so bad in EQ.
When EQ "Endurance" mattered, it wasn't considered endurance yet in EQ classic - it was still called stamina bar. But, it still didn't create a huge difference. Here's a few things that I remember about EQ stamina.
1. While swimming, you lost stamina, and sunk like a rock if you were out and you drowned.
2. You lost stamina when you swung your weapons based off their weight. Higher the weight faster the stamina loss (Kunark had heavy weapons). There actually were discussion if some heavy weapons were worth using (like Wurmslayer)
3. Spells like Invigor mattered to restore the stamina
4. Having 100+ stamina was important as it negated a minor attack speed reduction when your stamina was out
5. Jumping consumed like 10% of your stamina bar each jump.
6. Running out of stamina in certain situations was bad - you walked slower, couldn't swim or jump. You had to sit down and wait to regain stamina.
7. If you were out of food/drink your stamina/health/mana didn't regen.
It wasn't till later expansions that EQ stamina was turned to Endurance. Basically with the addition of skills/discs for warriors etc., the endurance bar turned into a mana bar.
That is some good info to Raidan, thanks mate :)
That sounds like it was a pretty cool feature, I know the team has played a ton of EQ and VG (plus many other games) between us to know what worked and what didn't, so just like you guys we will be wanting to avoid things that caused issues between class balance etc.
Was there a reason for the changing the stamina system that you know of?
If I recall right, it was kind of a coding thing. The way stamina was written wouldn't let them apply it to skills in the way they wanted it work.
Before the change melee disciplines were just on a timer and they wanted to add a "cost" factor in terms of stamina. Don't quote me on that, it was along time ago and I'm a wizard...
Kilsin said:
Was there a reason for the changing the stamina system that you know of?
I'm unsure why they didn't just keep the "stamina" system and add Stamina draining abilities, but like Castwell said, I'm sure it was easier to just replace the system than try to patch in some new ideas into poor coding. And, if I remember correctly, endurance was introduced around 2004ish which would have coincided with the release of WoW and endurance using melee abilities - maybe trying to keep up with the Joneses? But, more than likely, I remember it being marketed as a melee enhancement and prior to the introduction of combat abilities/disciplines, a warrior may literally have only just have clicked A (my hotkey for autoattack), and 1, 2, 3 - Taunt / Bash / Disarm (which was worthless), so the endurance system was added to give a little spice for melees.
Other gameplay reasons though are similar to what you guys are wanting to do in Pantheon - it was a melee's form of mana and to give a little more strategy to combat. /disciplines were available prior to endurance being introduced - they were in the game as early as Kunark but there was no endurance stat or melee mana at that time, it was just a cooldown timer on the ability. Endurance was introduced with the addition of combat abilities with melees that took endurance. Old Disciplines were updated to take endurance and new disciplines took endurance after the change.
Some examples of the combat abilities (usually lasted like 15-30 secs?) were increased resistances, improved taunting, improved defense, etc.
But, in reality, the system was poor and rarely did endurance ever play a factor like Castwell said. The majority of old EQclassic skills like Taunt, Kick, Bash, feign death, etc. didn't take any endurance and they were just on a cooldown timer, and once combat skills outside of EQclassic were introduced much later in EQ (like EQlive today), you have so much endurance or the out of combat endurance regen that the negligible amount that combat skills do take don't even matter. There was a small window of time, maybe a year or two that melees complained of running out of endurance, but it didn't directly affect their class or grouping ability, just min/maxing due to not all skills being endurance reliant.
However, if you tried to balance melee combat and require all skills to take endurance, and make melees consistently go OOE - it could raise issues. The counterargument that I've seen is as follows: it is ok if a caster is completely incapacitated during battle from being OOM as they can stand outside the fray and meditate etc., but if a melee is OOE and couldn't taunt, etc. mid combat due to a lack of endurance, you may cause some huge issues in group dynamics. Further, and probably the point I agree with the most is you have the adverse side effect of making melee classes even more gear dependent (that is assuming gear gives +Endurance), and the gaps between better equipped players are even greater. Basically, itemizing players and decreasing the gap that skill can make up for a well-equipped player.
Anyway... hadn't planned on writing that long of a response, but I'll be looking forward to see how endurance plays out in Pantheon's Alpha/Beta!
Raidan said:
Kilsin said:
Was there a reason for the changing the stamina system that you know of?
I'm unsure why they didn't just keep the "stamina" system and add Stamina draining abilities, but like Castwell said, I'm sure it was easier to just replace the system than try to patch in some new ideas into poor coding. And, if I remember correctly, endurance was introduced around 2004ish which would have coincided with the release of WoW and endurance using melee abilities - maybe trying to keep up with the Joneses? But, more than likely, I remember it being marketed as a melee enhancement and prior to the introduction of combat abilities/disciplines, a warrior may literally have only just have clicked A (my hotkey for autoattack), and 1, 2, 3 - Taunt / Bash / Disarm (which was worthless), so the endurance system was added to give a little spice for melees.
Other gameplay reasons though are similar to what you guys are wanting to do in Pantheon - it was a melee's form of mana and to give a little more strategy to combat. /disciplines were available prior to endurance being introduced - they were in the game as early as Kunark but there was no endurance stat or melee mana at that time, it was just a cooldown timer on the ability. Endurance was introduced with the addition of combat abilities with melees that took endurance. Old Disciplines were updated to take endurance and new disciplines took endurance after the change.
Some examples of the combat abilities (usually lasted like 15-30 secs?) were increased resistances, improved taunting, improved defense, etc.
But, in reality, the system was poor and rarely did endurance ever play a factor like Castwell said. The majority of old EQclassic skills like Taunt, Kick, Bash, feign death, etc. didn't take any endurance and they were just on a cooldown timer, and once combat skills outside of EQclassic were introduced much later in EQ (like EQlive today), you have so much endurance or the out of combat endurance regen that the negligible amount that combat skills do take don't even matter. There was a small window of time, maybe a year or two that melees complained of running out of endurance, but it didn't directly affect their class or grouping ability, just min/maxing due to not all skills being endurance reliant.
However, if you tried to balance melee combat and require all skills to take endurance, and make melees consistently go OOE - it could raise issues. The counterargument that I've seen is as follows: it is ok if a caster is completely incapacitated during battle from being OOM as they can stand outside the fray and meditate etc., but if a melee is OOE and couldn't taunt, etc. mid combat due to a lack of endurance, you may cause some huge issues in group dynamics. Further, and probably the point I agree with the most is you have the adverse side effect of making melee classes even more gear dependent (that is assuming gear gives +Endurance), and the gaps between better equipped players are even greater. Basically, itemizing players and decreasing the gap that skill can make up for a well-equipped player.
Anyway... hadn't planned on writing that long of a response, but I'll be looking forward to see how endurance plays out in Pantheon's Alpha/Beta!
Yeah, I have heard the same argument for End vs Mana and I can see where they come from, having put a lot of time into both sides personally, it does make sense. Thanks for the detailed reply mate, it is good to get a better understanding of how it worked and why it changed. :)
Raidan said:
However, if you tried to balance melee combat and require all skills to take endurance, and make melees consistently go OOE - it could raise issues. The counterargument that I've seen is as follows: it is ok if a caster is completely incapacitated during battle from being OOM as they can stand outside the fray and meditate etc., but if a melee is OOE and couldn't taunt, etc. mid combat due to a lack of endurance, you may cause some huge issues in group dynamics. Further, and probably the point I agree with the most is you have the adverse side effect of making melee classes even more gear dependent (that is assuming gear gives +Endurance), and the gaps between better equipped players are even greater. Basically, itemizing players and decreasing the gap that skill can make up for a well-equipped player.
Anyway... hadn't planned on writing that long of a response, but I'll be looking forward to see how endurance plays out in Pantheon's Alpha/Beta!
I don't really see any problem with melees running out of stamina, as long as encounters are created bearing in mind those limitations. I mostly only see a downside to having some classes run out of resources, and others not. That basically gimps those classes out of the gate, just like it did in early EQ. Beyond that, its just more challenging if every class has to ration their resources. The alternative is button mashing, which has never been fun.
To me, having everyone be more conscious about which abilities they use and how often will only make for a combat system that promotes skillful play. If a tank runs out of endurance during an encounter, either they need to be more careful to conserve it, other classes need to invigorate them, or maybe their equipment isn't on par with the environment. Those are the kinds of risk factors that must exist if combat is going to feel rewarding. I want to see scenarios that test both my skill and my gear; and when they're founding wanting, I should die.
Dullahan said:
Raidan said:
However, if you tried to balance melee combat and require all skills to take endurance, and make melees consistently go OOE - it could raise issues.
I don't really see any problem with melees running out of stamina, as long as encounters are created bearing in mind those limitations. I mostly only see a downside to having some classes run out of resources, and others not. That basically gimps those classes out of the gate, just like it did in early EQ. Beyond that, its just more challenging if every class has to ration their resources. The alternative is button mashing, which has never been fun.
To me, having everyone be more conscious about which abilities they use and how often will only make for a combat system that promotes skillful play. If a tank runs out of endurance during an encounter, either they need to be more careful to conserve it, other classes need to invigorate them, or maybe their equipment isn't on par with the environment. Those are the kinds of risk factors that must exist if combat is going to feel rewarding. I want to see scenarios that test both my skill and my gear; and when their founding wanting, I should die.
Well, it's pretty obvious I played a melee at this point I think :). But, melees were pretty much gimped out of the gate in EQ without having 2-3 spammable abilities on a timer. I have no issue with the OOE argument (was just pointing out that argument exists) if implemented and tested appropriately.
I am in agreement that I'm for design ideas that add strategy to combat and that skill should be tested. I also would want to try to make classes as fair/balanced as possible for groups, but I think there's a fine line - much like this topic in that not all classes should be able to solo, I don't think there ever will be a way to create classes that are equally desired for groups as long as there are specific classes designed for tanking/healing/CC'ing. A DPS class will always be on the outside unless Pantheon developers blur the lines and offer them one of the main "survival" group needs or some other form of non-gimmicky group interdependence need. That's a whole different topic though... back on track below
You stated that a player should learn to manage resources - I agree with that, but it's not that simple. Take a tank for example.... It is not only the tank who may be wasting resources by bashing/kicking, etc. There would be wizard's overcasting and drawing agro consistently, enchanters mes that breaks, clerics drawing agro from heals which cause the tank to have to taunt more often. If say 10-20 taunts depleted your endurance, I would have had many encounters that would have equaled death - not due to my skill or lack of managing resources, but due to a gameplay mechanic (or a poor group, but that's not always the case). A wizard could burn through mana, a rogue use Burst DPS etc., but that does not adversely effect the group other than potentially lowering the DPS for the next encounter. I do realize that a mechanic like this could potentially raise the skill levels of all by having them properly manage resources every fight, which is a good thing. As long as the endurance system is tested thoroughly, and group interdependence is created by having abilities like invigorate that recover it - I have no issues with testing it and see how it plays out.
And, I'd share a similar fear to Castwell's last post (discussing raids and taunting). If there's enough endurance regen available through spells/gear etc., then perhaps it wouldn't be an issue. We'll see though, I'm all for implementing new features that add to the combat strategy and potentially could even have player skill be more evident.
Castwell said:
Just for the record.... Taunt was always a shitty way for tanks to try and build agro. Later on in EQ you had weapons, augments with a Hate factor. IMO that worked much better and wasnt / wouldnt need be something that used endurance.
That is my thought process on stamina for tanks. There should be few, if any, force taunts. In EQ, taunt was really only good if you could maintain threat after you use it, or if other top aggro characters backed off.
I'd hope that tank abilities would be a spread of pure dmg, to mix dmg/threat, to pure threat mechanics, with a few having added effects like stun (kick/bash/slam). The actual aggro itself being similar to EQ where everything contributed to threat, but low damage abilities generated the most. Then its up to the tank to decide how he wants to play it. Sure he could go damage heavy and keep aggro that way, but it wouldn't be smart unless it was a burn fight scenario that was too dangerous to prolong. For a longer fight the tank would have to pace himself, using stamina sparingly, and relying on other players to do the damage. That sort of dynamic would provide endless scenarios for the tank to learn and adjust to.
Raidan said:
Well, it's pretty obvious I played a melee at this point I think :). But, melees were pretty much gimped out of the gate in EQ without having 2-3 spammable abilities on a timer. I have no issue with the OOE argument (was just pointing out that argument exists) if implemented and tested appropriately.
I am in agreement that I'm for design ideas that add strategy to combat and that skill should be tested. I also would want to try to make classes as fair/balanced as possible for groups, but I think there's a fine line - much like this topic in that not all classes should be able to solo, I don't think there ever will be a way to create classes that are equally desired for groups as long as there are specific classes designed for tanking/healing/CC'ing. A DPS class will always be on the outside unless Pantheon developers blur the lines and offer them one of the main "survival" group needs or some other form of non-gimmicky group interdependence need. That's a whole different topic though... back on track below
You stated that a player should learn to manage resources - I agree with that, but it's not that simple. Take a tank for example.... It is not only the tank who may be wasting resources by bashing/kicking, etc. There would be wizard's overcasting and drawing agro consistently, enchanters mes that breaks, clerics drawing agro from heals which cause the tank to have to taunt more often. If say 10-20 taunts depleted your endurance, I would have had many encounters that would have equaled death - not due to my skill or lack of managing resources, but due to a gameplay mechanic (or a poor group, but that's not always the case). A wizard could burn through mana, a rogue use Burst DPS etc., but that does not adversely effect the group other than potentially lowering the DPS for the next encounter. I do realize that a mechanic like this could potentially raise the skill levels of all by having them properly manage resources every fight, which is a good thing. As long as the endurance system is tested thoroughly, and group interdependence is created by having abilities like invigorate that recover it - I have no issues with testing it and see how it plays out.
And, I'd share a similar fear to Castwell's last post (discussing raids and taunting). If there's enough endurance regen available through spells/gear etc., then perhaps it wouldn't be an issue. We'll see though, I'm all for implementing new features that add to the combat strategy and potentially could even have player skill be more evident.
I agree with most everything you say Raidan, however the yellow part above I think could be a problem that was caused by there being so many DPS classes in relation to the amount of tank/healer classes. For DPS in EQ you had ranger/rogue/warrior/monk/wizard/magician/necromancer/enchanter, for tank you had warrior/paladin/shadowknight, for healer you had cleric and in a lesser sense because of complete healing druid and shaman.
The tanks and healers would have been perfectly balanced if druids and shamans mitigated damage at somewhat of a similar rate as clerics. But the DPS far outnumbered the other classes, that's also been the case with most MMO's that have come down the pipe since EQ. I think to solve the issue of always having more of a need for tanks and healers in a trinity-based game, you should attempt to keep the amount of dps/healers/tanks in somewhat of a balance. One could say that since a group only needed 1 tank and 1 healer that the 4 dps that filled that group made it so you needed more of those classes to choose from, and that's partly why I think the group size needs to be smaller, or groups need to require multiple tanks and healers to be efficient.
Rallyd said:
For DPS in EQ you had ranger/rogue/warrior/monk/wizard/magician/necromancer/enchanter, for tank you had warrior/paladin/shadowknight, for healer you had cleric and in a lesser sense because of complete healing druid and shaman.
I don't think that's accurate because: (this applies mostly to the early game. later into it, things balanced out quite a it)
1. In the group setting, Wiz, Mage, Enc and Nec weren't very good DPS due to the amount of down time they had.
2. Although technically in healer class, Druids had damage shields, damage snares, a the ability to cast decent damage spells, while they weren't much use as healer till much later into EQ.
Shaman - were mostly just a buff class, again their ability to heal was very week till much later. On the other side, they had some of the most powerful DoTs in the game, often rivaling or exceeding what the Nec class had. Add in Haste, Slows and Canabilize and their ability to do/affect group DPS was huge.
3. Casters:
Enchanters had a few DD spells, nut their value was in haste (Not as good as shammy haste, but haste) and mez. Clarity after it was added. Oh, an a pet, if want to what they got a pet.....
Magicians had a decent pet so they could contribute some DPS while they meditated, their DD/AoE spell were not very efficient and did the kind of damage the Wiz class could.
Necros - A well played necro could do some DPS. Stack DoTs, Put pet on mob Feign Death. Minimum down time, probably the best caster DPS class.
Wizards - The pure DPS class. we could do 2 things cast the biggest DD spells of all and Teleport. To be effective(?) meant casting spells 4 to 8 levels below where you were in order to minimize downtime and that came at the expense of DPS output. So while we could be included in DPS classes, we weren't on the same level with Rogues, Monks, Rangers and tanks classes.
So, if you were looking to put together a group, ALL classes are available for you choose from, Here's basically how you would have chosen:
Warrior - Ogre if possible, MT
Monk - Puller
Cleric - Healer, buffs
Shaman - Buffs, slows, DoTs
2 other Melee for DPS
Minimum downtime, Maximum XP
Hmm. guess the Quote thingy dont like Firefox