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Class Viability?
Toxia
Member UncommonPosts: 1,308
Getting into phase 3 in a couple weeks and have been pondering what my class of choice first should be. Usually in MMOs I like playing the DPS classes, but this time i want to change it up. After playing GW2 since launch, i want to be something more. A Tank or a Healer. I'm leaning on starting with Conjurer/White Mage, then going to Gladiator/Paladin and leveling up those two after my first class/jobs are leveled.
The question that keeps popping to mind is, how viable are the support classes going to be?
In 1.0, it was often suggested that beginning players should drop into other classes briefly to snag some of their utility skills, such as Pugilist for Second Wind( a heal), into Conjurer for some small heals/buffs, etc, to help them survive easier, or make up for some loss a particular class had(a marauder missing EVERY attack, so picks up a skill from Archer to increase hit rate briefly for example)
Is this a continuing theme for ARR 2.0? Will i be pretty unused in early game, until the first dungeon or otherwise?
If any of these thoughts sound about right, How soloable is the Conjurer? Will i be able to hold my own until such times as parties begin to need a full healer?
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
Comments
I don't think anyone can answer that due to the NDA.
Thankfully its beta and will have character wipes after - so you can test for yourself soon!
I'm aware i'll be finding out firsthand soon, but what else i got to do besides theorycraft.
/shrug
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
Consider that SE is historically awful at class balance, and that in 1.0 Conjurer had only two offensive damaging spells and one offensive buff. Not sure about Glad as I never leveled one, but if 1.0 Conjurer is any indication, I wouldn't count on being able to solo very well. I guess that pays off later when you'll be a highly sought after class for endgame.
Indeed, looking through some 1.0 wiki's show just two offensive skills for the Conjurer. Going off that, i'd have to drop into thaum for some offensive spells...not sure how effective those'd be, as Conj runs on MIND/PIE while thaum's stats are INT/MIND i think.
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
Without knowing much about how the classes work in this game, off the bat I'd have to say that this sounds pretty fair. If the class is supposed to be a healer, but *can* spec in some other spell lines for extra goodies, it only makes sense that they'd be less effective than someone focusing on that other spell line.
Just refreshing to see a game where class selection actually means something.
Some good responses here that I pretty much agree with. Square hasn't been the best at balancing in today's MMO community. Back in FFXI there weren't many min/maxers in terms of being picky with classes (in addition to having no tools to help with such). So as a result you usually had a diverse mix of classes out of the 20+ that were available by the time multiple expansions were released.
In 1.0 we ran into problems such as Warriors being the preferred tanks over paladins, simply because Warriors could also bring better single target damage (for a while) and especially AoE damage. If they were capable of surviving bosses regardless, then that just meant downing said bosses faster than a paladin that focused more on survivability as opposed to AoE damage and single target damage (though their Spirits Within was buffed towards the end).
The only time the Paladins really shined were with the Hard Mode of Neal Van Darnus and perhaps a primal or two, but as a whole they were left out of runs (and thus many could not gear up) for these reasons.
Conjurors/White mages will likely not have the above problem as people should likely need them in dungeons due to their focus on healing. Though I'd imagine they would have additional attacks this time around, in addition to being able to pick and choose abilities from other classes provided that they leveled them up also.
Honestly I don't think they've learned their lesson as they kept on saying "it was balanced" throughout 1.0 (though eventually caved and buffed paladins here and there), and a question answered about warriors at Nico Nico said that they (warriors) will be a tank that can do a lot of damage. They just don't have a lot of experience with balancing when it comes to the new age min/maxers that, as a community, will say something is not balanced even if ability wise/utility wise they're equal.