So, many of us gamers know what the "Holy Trinity" is of MMORPGs.
A group consisting of 3 roles, Tank (Damage Absorb) Healer (Damage mitigation) and DPS (Damage dealer).
In Pantheon, we understand that this not going to be the "Normal" group make-up. We're going to have a Quadrinity.
A group of 4 roles, Tank (Damage Absorb) Healer (Damage mitigation) DPS (Damage dealer) and CC (Crowd Control).
This game is supposed to be very reminiscent of older games with the older style of MMORPG. Back in the day few classes had their own mana regain abilities that would work in battle, you would need to either have everyone stock up on Mana Potions, a LOT of water and drink them in combat gaining a little mana at a time or you would have a class that specifically could cast spells or abilities to provide mana to other players.
Bards had a mana regain ability, enchanters, necromancers. In FFXI and many other old games, it was the same way. While a battery wasn't a requirement it was VERY helpful, almost to the point that it was a necessity if you had particular DPS in your group. If I went with a cleric, 2 wizards a mage and a tank that is a very heavy mana group, I would likely want to drop a wizard and get an enchanter for the CC and the mana regain. Wizards had a small mana regain but the cool-down and the amount restored was more of an emergency than a long-term solution.
My question is, should we expect batteries in Pantheon? If so, do you think they will be almost a requirement for groups to function at 110% efficiency and the least downtime and better ability usage?
With a group size of six, it may not be that wild of an idea to put into the game. You could have 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 1 Crowd Control/Mid-DPS, 1 Battery/Low-DPS and 2 DPS.
This would have a total of 5 "needed" classes, causing it to be a Quintinity.
Tank, healer, crowd control, battery and damage dealers.
Well as near as I can tell this doesnt appear to be VRs intent. As an old FFXI vet I would definitely support the concept though. Only instead of Battery I would call them Support. That way its basically the same definitions for all class roles you listed above and Support classes would specialize in 2 or more of the following types of things: buffs, debuffs, resource replinishment, pulling, out of combat utility, ports, minor dps. They could have support based iconic abilities like a cooldown reset for party members or temporary super buffs. So far though it does seem like support functionality is spread through all classes to some degree or another. And to a more limited degree CC as well. (Needs more Bard lol)
Another thing they might be thinking is the more roles required the harder it will be to build a party?
The devs really want to make it so there are all sorts of different group comps that are viable for all types of situations, and requiring 5 out of 6 classes would hinder that a bit. Instead of running the 4 mains and grabbing 2 others to fit your needs, you'd be down to only grabbing 1 other class.
I'm hoping that some support classes, like Bard, will be backup batteries. I think it should be a welcome addition to a party, but not necessarily a requirement.
I do think it's a really cool idea, though. It'd be fun to have the ability to spec as a battery for raids where more people are needed and comps are even more customizable. It'd be like playing a mana healer, which would be awesome.
Well thats essentially how it worked in XI.
If EQ was Tank Healer CC (and dps) with Support spread around.
FFXI was Tank Healer Support (and DPS) with CC spread around.
So when building a 6 man party in FFXI your ideal party set up was 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 Support and 2 dps. Certain situations could make an even leaner meaner party set up with 1 tank, 2 Support, and 3 DPS. with the support subjobing healing abilities. But the reason why it worked was because as near as I can tell CC was less important (but not un-needed) in XI but Buffing, debuffing was way more important in XI than in EQ. Thats not to say EQ didnt need buffing and debuffing. Its just the amount of extreme emphasis in XI. To such a degree that having 2 suport classes and 2 dps could out perform 4 dps by a fairly large margin. Not just in terms of more uptime (less medding), but also in terms of DPS potential. Same goes for even 3 DPS and 1 Support, swapping out for 1 more support and 1 less dps was still better (except certain special conditions).
Perhaps make classes choose a different play style depending on class combination..let's see we don't have an enchanter but we have this other class that does this other thing really well, perhaps I'll memorize this spell instead to give us a little added CC . Of course it wouldn't be as powerful as having an enchanter in your group but it allows players to think strategically about the things they're doing.
Amsai said:Well thats essentially how it worked in XI.
If EQ was Tank Healer CC (and dps) with Support spread around.
FFXI was Tank Healer Support (and DPS) with CC spread around.
So when building a 6 man party in FFXI your ideal party set up was 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 Support and 2 dps. Certain situations could make an even leaner meaner party set up with 1 tank, 2 Support, and 3 DPS. with the support subjobing healing abilities. But the reason why it worked was because as near as I can tell CC was less important (but not un-needed) in XI but Buffing, debuffing was way more important in XI than in EQ. Thats not to say EQ didnt need buffing and debuffing. Its just the amount of extreme emphasis in XI. To such a degree that having 2 suport classes and 2 dps could out perform 4 dps by a fairly large margin. Not just in terms of more uptime (less medding), but also in terms of DPS potential. Same goes for even 3 DPS and 1 Support, swapping out for 1 more support and 1 less dps was still better (except certain special conditions).
pathetic. true 11 vets know the most optimal setup was blm blm blm blm rdm brd!
I always felt like a god when I had a bard and a corsair in my party, but I'd say standard was tank, healer, supp, and ddx3, because a lot of the time your healer was a red mage with all those sexy debuffs AND refresh already -_-
LOL yes and the perfect Alliance was a Palladin, Redmage, and 16 Blackmages.
But as for that last set up, I always felt RDM was too OP and were kinda cheating. You cant really count them as healing when they could basically do everything lol. It wasnt til endgame where they got more defined and shaped into back up healer, support and utitlity roles because of those sexy buffs and debuffs. That being said while I agree with that set up working well. If you had a good Ninja, Redmage, Bard, Cor (that really new what they were doing), and 2 badass DPS. You couldnt go wrong.
But this is a good segue into whats going on with Shaman. I think certain support functions shouldnt be available to healer classes such as a Refresh. Shaman is begining to look like Pantheon's Redmage. A little bit too Jack of all could lead to balance issues at to class favoritism. As you can get away with not needing some classes and just stack on dps. So you get a badass set up with 1 good tank, shaman, enchanter and 3 dps. Currently this sounds pretty badass and makes it seem like it would greatly outperform 1 tank, Cleric, Enchanter, 3 dps due to the overall greater utility, support, and up time. I could be wrong, but its definitely something that I look forward to in testing. Right now some CC/Support seems sort of forced due to lack of classes that specialize in them. I feel some of this is because of a certain percepton of how the current classes should be. Making me wish we had dedicated sets of 3 tanks, 3 healers, 3 dps, and 3 CC/support.
Redmage: melee, nuker, healer, buffer, debuffer, resource regeneration, utility, CC.
Shaman: healer, buffer, debuffer, resource regeneration, and the benefits of DoTs and a Pet, utility.
Testing will be very important!
The amount of utility shaman seems to be getting may be an issue, but we haven't seen any other classes yet. We know for a fact that cleric is a better healer than shaman, so when it comes down to it, clerics will be necessary. Also, we know druids are going to be playing some sort of healer roll and they will be able to cast spells that deal with the environmental effects, hopefully making them necessary, too.
The problem will be if the shaman heals well enough to make clerics obsolete and buffs/debuffs enough to make other classes unnecessary, and if druids aren't rounded enough or needed to pass environmental obstacles often enough to make their classe worthwhile.
I'd be really sad to see a red mage class in this game that is too good at everything, and on the other side of the spectrum, a druid equivalent class from EQ1 that doesn't really bring anything good to the table comparatively.
Thankfully we have a dev team that is more than qualified to address this, and alpha and beta testers who are already invested to begin with so they'll be more likely tontake the testing phase seriously.
As of now it seems that the Cleric, Shaman and Druid will be the 3 healing options. They can be classified with these triats, as I have observed from the streams of gameplay.
Clerics : 1st in Heals, 3rd in Damage, 3rd in debuffs, 2nd mana effeciency, 1st in ressurection, 2nd in buffs, possible stuns, possible combat rez
Druids: 2nd in heals, 1st in Damage, 2nd in debuffs, 3rd mana effeciency, 2nd in ressurection, 3rd in buffs, possible environment manipulation, possible ports
Shaman: 3rd in heals, 2nd in Damage, 1st in debuffs, 1st in mana effeciency, 3rd in ressurection, 1st in buffs
Pretty good job in balancing the healers out so far, but this is complete specualtion at this point.
Putting all three healers in a large group like a raid, would automatically propel Clerics to the top in healing which would cement thier position in the group. Shamans would be a neccisity due to thier debuffs and druids due to thier manipulation of the environment.
Burnsmh said:So, many of us gamers know what the "Holy Trinity" is of MMORPGs.
A group consisting of 3 roles, Tank (Damage Absorb) Healer (Damage mitigation) and DPS (Damage dealer).
In Pantheon, we understand that this not going to be the "Normal" group make-up. We're going to have a Quadrinity.
A group of 4 roles, Tank (Damage Absorb) Healer (Damage mitigation) DPS (Damage dealer) and CC (Crowd Control).
This game is supposed to be very reminiscent of older games with the older style of MMORPG. Back in the day few classes had their own mana regain abilities that would work in battle, you would need to either have everyone stock up on Mana Potions, a LOT of water and drink them in combat gaining a little mana at a time or you would have a class that specifically could cast spells or abilities to provide mana to other players.
Bards had a mana regain ability, enchanters, necromancers. In FFXI and many other old games, it was the same way. While a battery wasn't a requirement it was VERY helpful, almost to the point that it was a necessity if you had particular DPS in your group. If I went with a cleric, 2 wizards a mage and a tank that is a very heavy mana group, I would likely want to drop a wizard and get an enchanter for the CC and the mana regain. Wizards had a small mana regain but the cool-down and the amount restored was more of an emergency than a long-term solution.
My question is, should we expect batteries in Pantheon? If so, do you think they will be almost a requirement for groups to function at 110% efficiency and the least downtime and better ability usage?
With a group size of six, it may not be that wild of an idea to put into the game. You could have 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 1 Crowd Control/Mid-DPS, 1 Battery/Low-DPS and 2 DPS.
This would have a total of 5 "needed" classes, causing it to be a Quintinity.
Tank, healer, crowd control, battery and damage dealers.
Just for clarification, it is Quaternity: noun, plural quaternities. 1. a group or set of four.
Tank, Healer, DPS, CC/Debuff
All DPS, whether burst, sustained, mid/low or other is considered under the DPS category as one and therefore is a group of four. Our game will be balanced around this but any combination that works for groups will suffice, some maybe more challenging than others but you will still be able to do most content with skilled groups that are comprised of at least 3three or the four archetypes.