In my experience sometimes classes arent done too well and when it comes to difficult content certain classes are ignored in order to optimize a group for more difficult content. Often this happens with things like tanks but it is often anything. Is anyone afraid for a certain class not having a place in a group in the game?
My most feared class no one will want in a group is a summoner. Pets are often difficult to get right and cause a lot of headaches. They pull unwanted stuff due to pathing issues. They are hard to get out of high damage areas so they are often dead. If done like WoW they just arent cool classes because to avoid these issues the pets are essentially DoTs that never go away so they are less exciting. I also fear for Druid healers as often times this style of healing is not clutch enough. It's fun to play but often just not effective in an intense situation.
I think there will invariably be some classes that get preferred for groups. Whether any class has a really rough time remains to be seen.
A big part of whether a class works well in a group is also how well played they are. Some classes are more difficult to master and you tend to get a lot of mediocre to bad examples in pickup groups. If summoners don't have the tools to control their pets, that's one thing, but a far more likely scenario is that some folks just won't figure out the subtleties and will cart around problem pets with them from zone to zone.
I agree I'm a "bit" concerned about a lot of skills beeing only usefull for the pets in the summoner spell line, but let's be realistic, it's to fashion the Summoner's battle gameplay around pet skill usage.
However, I doubt the fury will fill it's role of "melee bruiser", or maybe will it be the pet of choice for soloing and not cutting all your damage while keeping a relative resistant pet ?
That really just comes down to numbers balancing and is literally impossible to predict. Balancing is a neverending process. Some classes will phase in and out to a degree. But just going off the class reveals we've seen on paper, it seems like there will always be at least some situations that any given class is useful. But which classes will be more universally useful than others will fluctuate leading to launch and far beyond. I don't see a need to worry about this right now. #TrustInPantheon :P
Well, from what they have been talking about...yea there will be preferred classes. Not in the way you are thinking though. In an undead area I would assume a paladin will be better than an SK and Warrior. In a nuetral area I would assume all 3 will be even. In a more physical dmg type of mob I would assume warrior will be the best at that. SK and Paladin might be better with casters more than Warriors. Same with certain areas pertaining to casters. Druid will be very good outdoors, increasing their dmg to hopefully being on par with some dps, while in other areas druid will not be optimal. Clerics could be better in undead areas, with having good heals and dps output, which will be more optimal than a druid and shaman. Shaman...I dunno the have slow they are already op.
Parascol said:Gosh I hope Paladin's don't suck as bad as they did in vanilla EQ.
"In my opinion" I think the paladin is going to be a very desired tank for PUG content when played well. It looks as though they will be able to provide group support in the form of heals, rez, and CC as well as being able to mitigate damage with plate armor/shields and have snap agro compared to the DL that has to rely on skills with CD that also use resource for mitigation and their aggro is essentially DoT based. The warrior will be a great choice for tank obviously. The DL will likely pair with groups comprised of weird makeups like 3 wizards, a CC and a healer so the wizards can unload after the DL has been building threat for 2 mins.
I'm expecting there to be some major overhauls in order to make all tank classes desireable for more content. (Obviously some classes will be MORE DESIRABLE IN SPECIFIC content, but no class should be UNDESIRABLE for their primary role EXCEPT FOR SPECIFIC content). If there are no changes, there will definitely be at least one class that becomes ostracized or excluded from fulfilling their PRIMARY role at end game.
To address the OP concerns, I don't see the summoner being much different than the Mage of EQ. They were a class that relied heavily upon their pet, and their pets were beastmode. Having the ability to summon special pets for Enchanters (which will certainly be a class played in abundance due to its high demand) will only make them more desirable to every group that will have an enchanter.