So are Controllers--butch PVP players whine like girls about cc.
And performing bards...gone the way of roleplay and the Dodo.
I have never seen a proper Ninja, which is in fact a fantasy character and not a real one, nor Indian based Devas and Asuras.
But man, we sure do see lots of badly-done ones. Along with pirates, monks....and Anti-Whatevers.
I like your list. Wonder how many players are willing to grasp an archetype they don't already know from Gygaxian traditions. Or how many devs are willing to do a little research.
Of course; some of them are going to be a little scary for the Legal team--political correctness and cultural sensitivity...
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
So are Controllers--butch PVP players whine like girls about cc.
And performing bards...gone the way of roleplay and the Dodo.
I have never seen a proper Ninja, which is in fact a fantasy character and not a real one, nor Indian based Devas and Asuras.
But man, we sure do see lots of badly-done ones. Along with pirates, monks....and Anti-Whatevers.
I like your list. Wonder how many players are willing to grasp a character they don't already know from Gygaxian traditions. Or how many devs are willing to do a little research.
Well, buffing debuffing and controlling are the key ellements of GW2 gameplay... Sure they are much shorter in duration as the slower games from years passed, but this is the essence of GW2 combat. Personally i think GW2 is the first game that actually pretty mucch balanced this for PvP vs PvE, essential in both.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Disciple from Vanguard, true CC classes, Monks, evil battlemages, armored mages and other non cloth mages. I prefer hybrid classes personally, but I wish to see an mmo that has hybrid jack of all trades classes WITH specialized classes too.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
The Illusion / Storm controller from City of Heroes was a blast.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
My opinion on the most interesting class types are a fighter focused around utilizing magic to augment/supplement ones own fighting skill. My best example of this would be the Valewalker from Hibernia in DAOC. It melded the reliance of self buffs to be a functionable melee fighter.
I really liked the concept of a caster that looks somewhat soft, but is hardened solely with his/her own magic. None of that heavy armor mage stuff. I'm thinking more like robes and a big scythe etc. How about shirtless, a pair of pants and a longsword with shield. Maybe a seemingly wimpy looking guy, no muscles that can instantly form large muscles when the need arises and can go toe to toe with an ogre etc. I feel like this avenue is rarely explored.
Mages (I really miss a great pet-based class that doesn't suck)
I miss those classes too.. along with the kiting classes as well.. BUT we'll never see them again in PvE because of PvP customers.. It would be too OP for chanters to charm other players for long terms, or having something like a bard or druid KITE another player all day long.. This is one huge problem I see in growth and availability.. EVERYTHING has to take PvP into consideration which means that PvE LOOSES..
PVE always loses. I played on the pvp servers since they launched on EQ1 and they were tons of fun. That was a PVE game that allowed for PVP and did SOME balancing. It worked great imo, but now you have all these dumbed down idiots from WoW and all these new age games that cry all day. Sad days
Offensive priests, like the non-tribal shamans used to be from Diku Muds. They were more like necromancers that could heal and buff and specialized in maledictions and debuffs but didn't have pets. In other words they are evil Clerics from D&D. I prefer that kind of evil dark shaman over the tribal shaman that is in most mmo's today. I'd say the Shadow Priest from WoW was the closest to this class in a modern mmo.
I like to see healing classes that do more than just heal. Other examples are the Bloodmage and Disciple from Vanguard.
I agree, I really enjoyed the Bloodmage in Vanguard.
Mine isn't so much an archetype as a specific combination of types of mechanics:
I haven't played since, so I don't know how things have changed, but late in WoW's WotLK expansion, restoration shamans were amazing healers and probably the most fun I've ever had on a healing class. I've tried since then to pick up healing in other games, and it's just not the same.
The "classic' healing style - or at least the style most mmos seem to convert to for their star healing classes, is one very similar to the WoW priest (which was itself based off older games, yadda yadda). They generally have a small single-target heal, a big single-target heal, a dispel, a HoT, and a long-cast group heal that hits everyone in a party or area.
What was amazing about the way resto shamans healed was that they didn't feel like they were so strictly bound to the game's targeting mechanics. Their 'chain heal' would require you to target a player, but it would not only heal that player but the 4 next most urgently in need of healing players in your party or raid (with a very large radius of consideration). They also had a strong Hot that did a great amount of instant, upfront healing, so it was good for saving someone on the brink, or refreshing on the tank, there was also synergy between these two spells...if you cast chain heal on the same target as the hot, it healed for more. Then you had a reactive shield spell you could put on the tank that would heal them every so often when they took damage (and the effect was immediate enough that it could save their life). You also had the bread and butter small and large heal, but it was usually more efficient to chain heal except during a period of heavy burst on the tank. All your spells left a light HoT on anything they touched, including chain heal. Finally, you had a totem you could put down that put up a constant weak HoT on everyone in the raid. With all of this combined, you never felt like you were struggling against the game's targeting system - like you had to strictly choose between healing one person and healing another with your limited GCDs.
It was fitting that when you cast heals as a resto shaman, it looked like you were manipulating water magic, because the experience of raid healing on one felt like you were controlling crashing waves of healing energy about your party. And you had control all right; never have I played a healer that could adjust their own throughput so finely - I always felt like I could adjust with the flow (pun intended) of the fight to put out exactly the appropriate amount of healing, and where it was most needed. True, a lot of it was 'smart' healing, handed by the game, but that didn't hinder my sense of control over my healing at all, it just made it more streamlined and fun.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that more than any other healer I've played, the shaman had utility and tools to control the fight. They had a ranged interrupt that was the shortest in the game, 6 seconds - I could interrupt anything a raid boss tried to cast (and it was off the GCD, so it did not hinder my healing! - the same is true of a spammable purge spell that removed 2 beneficial effects from the enemy target). I could absorb incoming spells with my totems, nullify adverse affects in an AoE (at one point the class even had a totem that would rapidly aoe dispell debuffs on your raid - though that was nerfed for obvious reasons), I could put out a totem for each elemental resistance my group might suffer - I could drop totems that would summon elementals that would then taunt nearby targets and keep them off me or my party members. Oh, and only shamans had 'Heroism', massive raid-wide temporary haste buff that was crucial to any raid bossfight.
I could go on and on fawning over the class. The point is that I've yet to see another healing class that reproduced the same feeling of flow, potency, not being strangled by party-member targeting constraints, and utility for every possible situation to control the fight and then some.
TLDR: Healing classes whose gameplay has a smooth flow to it while making you feel powerful, adaptable, and in control of the situation.
I love caster classes, but so tired/bored of a fire or ice mage. I would LOVE to see an earth, water (not ice!!) or wind mages!!
Would also be very neat to see an archer/mage where archer can use magical elements to alter his/her arrows, basically like the archers of the Diablo series but for MMO's.
Comments
Bards are sadly a dieing class
and i would love to see some necros more based on support, like vanguards bloodmage
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Oh, and I would miss Dread Knight, Blood Mage and Disciple from Vanguard.
Except, well, I am playing Vanguard.
Buff/Debuff is essentially gone from MMOs.
So are Controllers--butch PVP players whine like girls about cc.
And performing bards...gone the way of roleplay and the Dodo.
I have never seen a proper Ninja, which is in fact a fantasy character and not a real one, nor Indian based Devas and Asuras.
But man, we sure do see lots of badly-done ones. Along with pirates, monks....and Anti-Whatevers.
I like your list. Wonder how many players are willing to grasp an archetype they don't already know from Gygaxian traditions. Or how many devs are willing to do a little research.
Of course; some of them are going to be a little scary for the Legal team--political correctness and cultural sensitivity...
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Well, buffing debuffing and controlling are the key ellements of GW2 gameplay... Sure they are much shorter in duration as the slower games from years passed, but this is the essence of GW2 combat. Personally i think GW2 is the first game that actually pretty mucch balanced this for PvP vs PvE, essential in both.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Crowd Control please.
The Illusion / Storm controller from City of Heroes was a blast.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Why bother when there is a copy and paste option? *sarcasm*
My opinion on the most interesting class types are a fighter focused around utilizing magic to augment/supplement ones own fighting skill. My best example of this would be the Valewalker from Hibernia in DAOC. It melded the reliance of self buffs to be a functionable melee fighter.
I really liked the concept of a caster that looks somewhat soft, but is hardened solely with his/her own magic. None of that heavy armor mage stuff. I'm thinking more like robes and a big scythe etc. How about shirtless, a pair of pants and a longsword with shield. Maybe a seemingly wimpy looking guy, no muscles that can instantly form large muscles when the need arises and can go toe to toe with an ogre etc. I feel like this avenue is rarely explored.
PVE always loses. I played on the pvp servers since they launched on EQ1 and they were tons of fun. That was a PVE game that allowed for PVP and did SOME balancing. It worked great imo, but now you have all these dumbed down idiots from WoW and all these new age games that cry all day. Sad days
Tourist.
( it was always funny to go into a nethack dungeon armed with lots of gold, an expensive camera and a +0 Hawaiian shirt )
I agree, I really enjoyed the Bloodmage in Vanguard.
Mine isn't so much an archetype as a specific combination of types of mechanics:
I haven't played since, so I don't know how things have changed, but late in WoW's WotLK expansion, restoration shamans were amazing healers and probably the most fun I've ever had on a healing class. I've tried since then to pick up healing in other games, and it's just not the same.
The "classic' healing style - or at least the style most mmos seem to convert to for their star healing classes, is one very similar to the WoW priest (which was itself based off older games, yadda yadda). They generally have a small single-target heal, a big single-target heal, a dispel, a HoT, and a long-cast group heal that hits everyone in a party or area.
What was amazing about the way resto shamans healed was that they didn't feel like they were so strictly bound to the game's targeting mechanics. Their 'chain heal' would require you to target a player, but it would not only heal that player but the 4 next most urgently in need of healing players in your party or raid (with a very large radius of consideration). They also had a strong Hot that did a great amount of instant, upfront healing, so it was good for saving someone on the brink, or refreshing on the tank, there was also synergy between these two spells...if you cast chain heal on the same target as the hot, it healed for more. Then you had a reactive shield spell you could put on the tank that would heal them every so often when they took damage (and the effect was immediate enough that it could save their life). You also had the bread and butter small and large heal, but it was usually more efficient to chain heal except during a period of heavy burst on the tank. All your spells left a light HoT on anything they touched, including chain heal. Finally, you had a totem you could put down that put up a constant weak HoT on everyone in the raid. With all of this combined, you never felt like you were struggling against the game's targeting system - like you had to strictly choose between healing one person and healing another with your limited GCDs.
It was fitting that when you cast heals as a resto shaman, it looked like you were manipulating water magic, because the experience of raid healing on one felt like you were controlling crashing waves of healing energy about your party. And you had control all right; never have I played a healer that could adjust their own throughput so finely - I always felt like I could adjust with the flow (pun intended) of the fight to put out exactly the appropriate amount of healing, and where it was most needed. True, a lot of it was 'smart' healing, handed by the game, but that didn't hinder my sense of control over my healing at all, it just made it more streamlined and fun.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that more than any other healer I've played, the shaman had utility and tools to control the fight. They had a ranged interrupt that was the shortest in the game, 6 seconds - I could interrupt anything a raid boss tried to cast (and it was off the GCD, so it did not hinder my healing! - the same is true of a spammable purge spell that removed 2 beneficial effects from the enemy target). I could absorb incoming spells with my totems, nullify adverse affects in an AoE (at one point the class even had a totem that would rapidly aoe dispell debuffs on your raid - though that was nerfed for obvious reasons), I could put out a totem for each elemental resistance my group might suffer - I could drop totems that would summon elementals that would then taunt nearby targets and keep them off me or my party members. Oh, and only shamans had 'Heroism', massive raid-wide temporary haste buff that was crucial to any raid bossfight.
I could go on and on fawning over the class. The point is that I've yet to see another healing class that reproduced the same feeling of flow, potency, not being strangled by party-member targeting constraints, and utility for every possible situation to control the fight and then some.
TLDR: Healing classes whose gameplay has a smooth flow to it while making you feel powerful, adaptable, and in control of the situation.
I love caster classes, but so tired/bored of a fire or ice mage. I would LOVE to see an earth, water (not ice!!) or wind mages!!
Would also be very neat to see an archer/mage where archer can use magical elements to alter his/her arrows, basically like the archers of the Diablo series but for MMO's.