by Joppa
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen has always been built around a few core pillars: strong class identity and meaningful player interdependence. These pillars have guided nearly every major system decision we’ve made, including the upcoming Mastery system, through which we’re taking a critical step forward in how players can express their class. This step has raised questions, sparked debate, and prompted requests for clarity around why we’re taking this direction.
This blog is about that “why.”
The Question We’re Hearing
A version of this question has come up consistently since the recent Reddit AMA:
“Will classes be hard-locked into one role, or will players be able to spec into different roles if they want?”
A common example is the Warrior. Warriors are tanks, and that isn’t changing. But what if a player resonates with the weapon-master aspect of the Warrior class. What if the Warrior power fantasy for that player is a Warrior leaning fully into offense? Should that be possible? And if it is, does it undermine class identity?
These are fair concerns. But these are the exact questions that led us to rethink what Mastery should be.
Class Identity First
From the very beginning, Pantheon’s class design has taken more inspiration from EverQuest than from modern, talent-driven MMOs.
One of the things EverQuest did exceptionally well was make class roles matter and class flavor distinct. Crowd control classes were often essential. Support roles made a huge difference in the outcomes of combat, and certain classes/combinations of classes could make some crazy things possible. But additionally, utility wasn’t spread thinly across everyone’s toolkit. Groups were built around interdependence, needing particular classes for particular things that those classes could more uniquely provide.
When Pantheon’s class designs were first taking shape, that philosophy was front and center. The goal wasn’t to create classes that could do everything by themselves, or cover every need with the right spec. The goal was to create classes that could do specific things well, classes that felt distinct with unique value to a group.
Because of that, early on there was no concept of Mastery, Alternate Advancement, or talents. There were just classes.
The Original Idea: Flexing, Not Spec’ing
As some of the class designs evolved, we began to introduce the notion of “flexing.” This is the idea that a class could temporarily lean into a secondary role by sacrificing effectiveness in their primary role.
A Rogue might give up damage to provide reliable crowd control.
A Monk might off-tank in a pinch.
A Paladin might contribute limited healing at the cost of better mitigation.
Originally, flexing was not meant to replace primary roles. In fact, we had to design extremely carefully to make sure that, for example, a Rogue wouldn’t shift fully into a CC role. As we wrestled with this balance, it typically led to nerfing these flex roles more and more heavily, reducing the viability of flexing to the point where we had begun to question if it was worth it.
As we revisited Mastery over the last year while preparing to finalize our class kits in the spring, we started to consider:
If some classes already support a secondary role through flexing, and we’re constantly fighting to keep them from flexing too far or too long, what happens if we let a player fully commit to that flex role?
The reality is that our classes naturally contain multiple, authentic expressions within their fantasy:
- Warriors are shield-bearing bastions, but they’re also weapon masters.
- Summoners have powerful damage-dealing potential through their Fury and Zephyr pets, but they have an entire Tank-expression available through the mighty Titan.
- Rogues aren’t just damage-dealers, they also have a deep arsenal related to poisons, tricks, traps and stealth-play.
What clicked and became very exciting for us is this: Mastery allows us to take roles that already exist implicitly and let players fully embrace them.
So, what is this actually going to look like? Does this mean we’re going to see Warrior tanks that can also do DPS on par with a Ranger, Wizard, Monk, etc.?
A Concrete Example
First, we need to note here that we have decided to reduce the number of Mastery branches for all classes from 3 down to 2. We made this decision to make it easier to present meaningful choices within each branch and to avoid splitting the class arsenals up too aggressively, leading to dilution.
Now, let’s imagine a Warrior’s Mastery array as a radial, with two dominant sides:
- Left Side, Bastion: defensive, shield-focused, heavy plate, mitigation, banners, control.
- Right Side, Warlord: offensive, weapon-driven, cleaves, ruptures, shouts, aggressive pressure.
As you invest deeper into Warlord:
- You lose access to Shield Block and Shield Wall, which are only available deep into the Bastion side.
- Heavy Plate Armor becomes unavailable, as it is also only available deep into the Bastion side.
- Core abilities transform or are replaced (e.g. Slam functions different for Warlord Warriors, whereas Slam becomes Shield Slam for Bastion Warriors.)
- Certain unlocks become mutually exclusive with Bastion nodes.
- New abilities unlock for Warlord Warriors that are unavailable to Bastion Warriors (e.g. Rupture).
In other words, the further you lean into the Warlord side of Mastery, the more you will become a full-fledged DPS class, no longer capable of tanking effectively.
With this approach, Mastery will now be a legitimate vehicle of choice, allowing players to more fully explore what their class is capable of, instead of a static system of incremental power only. It allows players to shape how their class plays in a meaningful, visible way without forcing us to baseline characters artificially low just to make progression feel impactful.
And it’s very important to re-iterate: we’re not layering unrelated roles onto classes. We’re deepening and expanding the intrinsic roles that already exist.
A CC-focused Rogue is still a fully Lore-compliant Rogue, just one that is more interested in the Tricks of the Trade instead of Daggers.
A DPS-focused Warrior is still a fully Lore-compliant Warrior, embracing their offensive mastery of weapons over shield-play.
Core Audience, Core Convictions
Our goal is for Pantheon to a be deep and fun experience for the many different playstyles represented by our core audience.
Some players care deeply about endgame optimization and raid metas. Others want to explore the world solo or with a small group. Some want to specialize narrowly while others want flexibility. Mastery will allow these different player types to coexist.
A main group/raid tank can push Bastion as far as possible. A solo Warrior might build a balanced hybrid between Bastion and Warlord. A DPS-focused Warrior can go all-in to Warlord and accept the loss of effective tanking.
This is what class expression means to us. Not homogenization or dilution. Strong class identity, strong interdependence, and an incredibly fun exploration of class expression.
We’ll be diving into the specific Mastery potential for each class soon, so stay tuned for that!
Until then, onward and upward everyone. We’ll see you in Terminus!