From a design prospective which class should have the highest damage? Is the goal to have them all do the same amount of damage on sustain and burn? What will be the balance between mana users and non mana users?
In my mind you have to balance each class around their utility and damage but each class has a fair amount of utility so far so does this mean all classes should do the same damage? I do recall Joppa saying a monk and rogue should do the same damage on a burn but how will that compare to the other classes?
My opinion
Sustained
Rogue
Summoner
Wizard
Ranger
Monk
Direlord
Warrior
Paladin
Enchanter
Shaman
Druid
Cleric
Burn
Wizard
Rogue
Summoner
Monk/Ranger
Direlord
Warrior
Paladin
Enchanter
Shaman
Druid
Cleric
This is such a tough question to answer and even think about. I do not believe all DPS classes should do the same DPS. It totally depends on what else the class is offering to the group other than DPS. Is the class good at something else that helps the group? Does the class help your group have less down time? Does the class help you escape a possibly deadly situation? Does the class give your group access to something special? All of this should be considered in my opinion...along with many other factors.
With that said, I'll still offer my opinion of the order I'd expect :)
My opinion
Rogue
Wizard
Summoner
Monk
Ranger
Direlord
Enchanter
Warrior
Paladin
Druid
Shaman
Cleric
Another eidt - I'd also like to add that this order of damage would be my opinion if all players were playing their class "perfectly." In the actual game though I would expect, for example, a ranger that plays his class very well, to out damage a monk who does not play his class very well.
Nephretiti: when I have played enchanters in previous games, I have loved their amazing ability to control the flow of battle (tasty melee haste, awesome mana regen, and of course mob control). I would never ask someone to "shut up and be buff bots", but may I ask:
What group benefit would you wish to give up to be the best DPS? Or are you just seeking best melee buffs, best caster buffs, best crowd control as well as high DPS? No single class is supposed to have it all.
Well, except bards...but they are balanced by not existing ;)
So, you're all saying that Enchanters should just shut up and be buff bots? Guess it's a solo world for me after all.
I'd want an enchanter in my group any day! Part of the point I was trying to make is that DPS is not the be all end all. There is WAY more to this game than dps.
I think it breaks down into a few categories. You will have your role types, single target, and AoE. With only DPS as the main factor (and not using resources on anything else), this is how I see it:
DPS classes:
Single Target - 1 Rogue/Monk 2 Ranger/Wizard/Summoner (player skill as the differentiator) - I put the ranged behind the melee because it generally is easier and safer to play a ranged class, thus pure melee should have a slight edge.
AoE - 1 Wizard 2 Summoner 3 Ranger 4 Rogue/Monk
Tank Classes:
Single Target - 1 Dire Lord (or Paladin if Undead) 2 Warrior/Paladin (Depends on if using 1hd+Shield or DW/2HD)
AoE - 1 Paladin 2 Dire Lord 3 Warrior
General Burn (quick):
1 Wizard 2 Monk/Rogue 3 Summoner 4 Ranger 5 Dire Lord
IMO, what should matter more is damage type versus enemy type. Certain classes should excel at and be able to specialize in a range of damage types.
Then, each race, class, and type of enemy should resist and be susceptible to particular damage types.
Finally, classes working together should always be able to do more damage than alone, by placing and exploiting group-exclusive status effects.
Some random examples:
Damage types could be..
Melee: piercing, slashing, crushing
Magic: heat, cold, electrical, poison, disease, divine
Status Effects could be..
Bleeding, Blind, Dazed, Disarmed, Distracted, Fear, Hemmorrhage, Interrupted, Magic Stripped, Mezmerized, Poisoned, Prone, Stunned
Then you just get to mix and match.
A treant, for example, would resist crushing and cold, be susceptible to slashing and heat. Might be immune to bleeding and disease. If Healers could blind it, then group members; tanks could trip it to make it prone, rogues could hobble or hamstring it to make it prone, and rangers could pounce to make it prone. Once prone, all hits are critical and the target is granted tuned immunity to being prone again.
A giant snake would resist slashing and heat and be susceptible to piercing and cold. Might be immune to prone and poison. Yet, Rogue Slice, Ranger Animal Claw and Monk TIger Slash could apply the Bleeding status effect. Could be expanded to hemmorhage by any magic or non magic group-member slashing attack, which could then be exploited by fire (burning blood), ice (frozen blood), slow, snare, etc.
Consumables and status effect exploitation can amplify, re-apply, reset-timers on primary/secondary status effects, and voila. An engaging combat system. The value players offer is knowing what damage types creature types are resistant to and susceptible to, how various roles/classes work with synergy, and then having the skill to apply that knowledge to effectively reduce TTK. And that's setting aside all the potential buffs and consumables that other group members can apply to the group or individuals to modify their damage types, or personal environments.
Celandor said:In classic EQ it was usually the charmed enchanter pet that hit the top of our DPS parses.
True, but somewhere (on the forums? In a Dev discussion? Sorry, I need to dig it up) this has been discussed as unlikely to happen in Pantheon. Charmed mobs would certainly add to enchanter DPS, but will not be on par with the monsters they were in EQ.
The last time they talked about it, the minimum power of enchanter pets in Pantheon was going to start at 50%, possibly going as high as 90% of uncharmed mob power, iirc.
They will be, by design, one of if not the top DPS, again, just like EQ1 with Dire Charm. Heck, they HAVE Dire Charm as their ability. The exact ability.
Dire Charm alone, with a 50%-uncharmed-mob-power hasted pet would likely exceed the damage, health, and overall power of any other class, alone.
Just consider, a group of 6 Dire Charm enchanters? That's as good as 9 players, minimum, potentially up to 10 or 11 players worth of damage or power, and that's likely conservative.
Thanks Vjek, I hadn't heard the 50% minimum (or up to 90%). That seems crazy good to me, time to stop playing the shawm and learn to enchant!
I haven't been following the enchanter forum:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10338/current-state-of-charm
I will stop adding bad info, my apologies.
That will depend on how stable the charm is and how the charm pet is maintained.
I can see them doing up to 90 % if there unable to do anything but maintain the pet.
There's been no indication there would be negative consequences to Dire Charm. Once it's Dire Charmed, it is yours until you zone or it dies. Just like EQ1.
Now, certainly, there could be negative consequences, but up to this point, in the past 6 years, they've never mentioned it.
If you want to see really powerful (and objectively imbalanced?) check out the Enchanter design goals from the original kickstarter:
"
Role: Utility
Style: Master of crowd control. Proficient at buffing, stunning, mesmerizing and charming the enemy to do their bidding.
Specializations:
Beguiler: Assists the group through stuns and mesmerizing multiple enemies. Maintain and use mesmerized enemies to power your magical strengths.
Phantasmist: Control groups of charmed enemies. Manipulate their behavior and force them to adhere your commands like a general commanding his army.
...
As a Phantasmist, the Enchanter is capable of charming multiple enemies at once, thus creating a small group to follow them. With this small army under their control, they may command them to do as they please. Whether it is to defend a rally point or attack the enemy, the charmed ones will do so without hesitation. The Enchanter may choose what to do with each charmed pet. They can split them apart to perform multiple acts or focus them on a single one. The power of the charmed pets is derived from the first one that is charmed. Thus, the more charmed, the less powerful each one is.
"
Evidently, someone at Visionary Realms REALLY liked/likes the role of the Enchanter. But can you imagine trying to balance an enchanter with a "small army" under their control, with players who don't have that ability? I don't think it's possible, mathematically or logically. Our guild fully intends to run a group of 6 Enchanters with Dire Charm, given our experiences with EQ1. It seems utter folly to "leave money on the table" by not taking advantage of such an overpowered class.
The great part is (due to yet another knife-edge design mistake) that in order to attempt to balance the OP nature of Enchanters? The worst the paying customers would end up with would be a vastly superior version of the Summoner, with haste, mana regen, mez, and more. Unless of course they remove Dire Charm entirely, but that would completely change the role of the class, so it seems extremely unlikely.
Kumu said:Nephretiti: when I have played enchanters in previous games, I have loved their amazing ability to control the flow of battle (tasty melee haste, awesome mana regen, and of course mob control). I would never ask someone to "shut up and be buff bots", but may I ask:
What group benefit would you wish to give up to be the best DPS? Or are you just seeking best melee buffs, best caster buffs, best crowd control as well as high DPS? No single class is supposed to have it all.
Well, except bards...but they are balanced but not existing ;)
Oh, I never asked to be the best DPS - I just want to be able to survive and be able to do so in a timely fashion. It is true that in EQ I solo'd things that never should have been soloable - but the cost was in time. Fights for Enchanters could take 20 minutes. While with other classes it would take 3 or 4. Over the long run, an Enchanters efforts were pretty much equaled out with everyone elses. But lately here I keep seeing these anti-enchanter posts. "Charmed mobs are too powerful, nerf them". Enchanters have the best buffs, nerf them. Enchanters dont need DPS at all - make them sit in the corner and med just like the healers. You wanna know what category Enchanters led the world in? Deaths. We died more than anyone. This resulted in skewed XP gains and other things that do not get reported. In the past, I HAVE indeed been told to sit down and be a buff bot. I am getting the feel that folks are jelly about Enchanter skill-sets and that they are hinting that we need to be penalized for being so awesome. In EQ - we were. We had horrible XP level requirements. Rogues were practically given levels. We had the hardest Epic weapon quest. I have had rogue's give their epic to my pet because it was so easy to get another. In EQ2 damage output was mostly measured through the archtypes - Mage, Scout, Tank, Healer - in that order. Mages had the most DPS, sustained and burn - and their drawback was the fact that they could becoime a smear in a flash. Scout were next. Their DPS was not as good as Mages. But they had a different model to follow: Poisons for one. The use of a really good poison could almost level the plpaying field with almost any mage. In the mage archtype Wizzies had trhe best single target DPS. Warlocks had the best AOE DPS. Summoners had a lock on sustainable DPS due to their pets. It was the Enchanter classes (Illy, and Coercer) that lagged a bit behind in DPS for the Mage. In fact, they were penalized so much that rogues/rangers could out-DPS them quite easily despite what the Devs claimed. Rogues/rangers had great DPS to start, but they also had poisons and almost always had Enchanter type buffs to boost their DPS even more. There was an inherit problem with this design though. In EQ enchanters did indeed control the battlefield with crowd control (CC). But in EQ2 we did not. It wasn't because we didn't have the tool set, we did. We could easily perform just like we did in EQ. But the players themselves determined that mezzing was useless. Rarely did anyone use CC at all. Tanks simply agrod everything, healers kept everyone alive, scouts and mages burned - and enchanters became buff bots yet again. I usually tired of this type of play pretty easily. I went out and solo'd the way an enchanter could: through Control. Stun a mob - DPS the heck out of it as fast as you can - then mezz. Then repeat. A good Illy could kill almost any-non-raid mob using this method. The problem was the lack of DPS. It could take a long while to kill something due to pitiful amounts of DPS. But still, there was little chance you would ever get hit. But then again, when you DID get hit - it was easy to become lethal. Yeah - we could solo mobs that noone else could - but it took a long time and we died alot. Fortune Favors the Bold. In the early days the leader boards in EQ2 showed two things about me: I was one of the richest characters on AB. I was also the leader in deaths. And THAT is our drawback. We die - alot. So why should we also be penalized with low DPS? The game isn't out yet and all the posts lately seem to be about keeping the Enchanter down. Why don't we get at LEAST into Beta before we start declaring the Enchnater as too OP?
It sounds to me like it is just a play style issue. If all those other classes are doing more dps because of YOU, then you might as well consider it your dps. Sure, in the logs it shows up as theirs, but if their DPS is higher because of you then who really should get the credit?
Like I said before, the game isn't about DPS and stupid DPS meters...I wish DPS meters didn't even exist, it really ruins how people think of grouping.
I'm surprised to see so many arguing to put rogues at or near the top DPS spot, especially for both burst and sustained damage. Speaking as someone who mained a rogue in EQ1 for a long time I completely disagree. Rogues should have high burst capability (not the highest) but middle-of-the-pack sustained damage. Consider that they typically fight with daggers, not swords or clubs or any weapon with a high damage-per-attack rating. The rogue's high damage comes from calculated, skillful use of their dagger and striking in the correct location. In full-on melee that's a very difficult thing to pull off but when attacking from stealth on an unsuspecting target it could be fatal in one blow.
DPS needs to be balanced around a few factors:
Any melee class that wears plate should not do as much damage as one that wears chain, even less than for leather. Any class that fights from range and has abilities to maintain that distance even with aggro should not top the charts in DPS. A ranged class that lacks those abilities should top the DPS charts and if both a leather wearing class and a cloth wearing class meet that description then the clothie should way out-DPS the leather wearer due to their lack of survivability. And a class with healing ability, particularly insta-heals and HoTs, should do the least damage.
Most MMORPGs get this wrong. The balance between classes always ends up favoring melee over casters and often rangers top the list for no justifiable reason. The net result is a world populated mostly with warriors in plate dual-wielding swords in a DPS configuration and these are the players topping the charts. Everyone else only plays the other classes due to preferred playstyle despite their inefficiency.
What makes the most sense to me (just my opinion) is the following ordering:
Burst
Sustained
I don't play wizards but strongly feel they should always be at the top of the DPS chart. They have zero survivability and rarely if ever any defensive capabilities. Despite attacking from range they often cannot solo at all and a single miscalculation or badly timed crit can draw aggro and leave them bleeding on the floor for the rest of the fight.
The leather-wearing melee classes should always do good damage but the ranger, given their ability to DPS from a distance, should do less due to their increased survivability.
The other non-healer casters will do most of their fighting with pets. This ability to fight from a distance plus their other survivability spells should reduce their DPS compared to those listed above them.
Next are the tanks who should do very little damage but be able to take a massive beating. The direlord's self-restoration abilities offset the additional armor of the warrior and the paladin's full-on heals in addition to their plate armor mean they can do even less DPS.
Lastly the healers, listed primarily in order of their armor class.
Obviously different skill levels among players and other circumstances will shift the lists. I'd love to see a deeper implementation of damage type versus target type, e.g. slashing doesn't work all that well against plate armor but crushing does, and throwing a fireball at an efreeti isn't likely to hurt it much but a water or ice spell should get a bonus. This would shift the charts even more, situationally.
Balance is never easy to achieve but I really hope VR manages to take everything into consideration and come up with something that isn't ridiculous like some games have done *cough*WoW*cough*.
dps
cc
tank
healer
if one built a character to be dps, it should ideally be equal overall. delivery of damage can vary: compounding(ramp up damage), sustained(consistent throughout) or burst(spike damage). these can be offset with mobility, range and resource management.
cc should be better at dps than a tank while providing utility with a sprinkle of threat management.
tanks tank damage and manage threat with sprinkle cc and damage.
As someone who doesn't normally play melee classes I think I can comment on them with less bias.
. I think we have seen the ranger get screwed on dps time and time again in games. While the rogue often ends up doing more dmg than I feel they should. It's the EQ copy cat factor.
I feel rogues should lean more towards d&d style. Stealth rogue/jack of all trades/trap monkey etc. Backstab should be a high dmg ability but the way some games have it tuned is OP.
If I was balancing things I think it's time for the ranger to get some dps love. They have been the butt of jokes for to long.
Well, I'm just going to say it would be pretty boring if Pantheon classes behaved *exactly* like EQ classes such that we can rank them for DPS at this stage.
All we can say is that if the *roles* are going to work then, yes, DPS classes should have the best DPS. The more utility and flexibility individual DPS classes have, the less raw DPS.
And probably tanks should have decent DPS as part of holding aggro (just taunt is very boring).
No reason CC shouldn't have ok DPS if/when they aren't using mana to CC.
And, sure, you kinda expect healers to have low DPS, relatively, else they would be too powerful overall, though even that could change. Why shouldn't healers do good DPS if they aren't needing to heal much?
Ultimately, your utility, flexibility and damage should be something dictated by resource pools, situational factors and skill, so there's no reason to keep classes working just like "the old days".
Having said that, there's nothing wrong with having fun theory-crafting.
philo said:As someone who doesn't normally play melee classes I think I can comment on them with less bias.
. I think we have seen the ranger get screwed on dps time and time again in games. While the rogue often ends up doing more dmg than I feel they should. It's the EQ copy cat factor.
I feel rogues should lean more towards d&d style. Stealth rogue/jack of all trades/trap monkey etc. Backstab should be a high dmg ability but the way some games have it tuned is OP.
If I was balancing things I think it's time for the ranger to get some dps love. They have been the butt of jokes for to long.
Agreed yeah. I would love to see classes being familiar, but the tropes getting switched up.