character class roles with the new rules

[Tevas]

Thanks! And also, I appreciate you defining the role of a Tank. The main purpose of my question was to explore the ideas of alternative Tanking styles, such as using spells or abilities to reduce or prevent damage, instead of simply having the body and armor points to soak it all directly. While they may not necessarily be the most resource efficient manner of dealing with incoming damage, they are still capable of, for at least a time, satisfying the Tanking criteria.

And then, this can also change with items, wherein Back Attacks can be used to reduce up to 30 points of spell or elemental damage per source for up to 10 minutes.

 

[Muir]

I am not big on damage reduction in a LARP setting simply because it's more math that has to be done on the fly and in a way that is not always transparent to both sides of the encounter.

 

[James Trotta]

I guess my next questions would be, what do you consider the list of available roles in Alliance to be, and how would you define each? What criteria needs to be met for each role to qualify a character as successfully fulfilling it?

I am still curious as to what roles you feel there are within Alliance, and what the criteria is to successfully fulfill such roles. At the moment, it primarily feels like your intended topic is a focus on the damage output potential of certain classes, particularly Celestial Scholars, and not necessarily a discussion on class roles per se.

If that is the direction you are interested in taking it, there's nothing wrong with that. It simply doesn't align with the intention of the thread you stated earlier or the thread's title, hence the confusion on intent.

I'm happy to talk about roles besides DPS. However, it is with DPS that I feel we'll see the biggest changes. I guess healers will still be healers. Thinking out loud, with the current rules a rogue or a fighter or a celestial scholar could be great DPS. With the new rules I'm not sure if rogues and fighters (at levels 30+ is how I usually think) can be great DPS.

I used to play a sword and board rogue. I was swinging 30s from behind with 7 dodges and some terminates and evades. I haven't bothered to figure out what that character would do with the new rules but I would be happy for someone else to contribute ideas about rogues and their role in combat with the new rules.

Will blast globes lead to one person armies? Can an earth templars (with alchemy) now do it all? I know people say there's a cost, but I don't know how limiting that cost will be. I have hundreds of gas tags and I've seen people with way more than me.

I've already mentioned the "tank" role. That could be fighters and weapon damage but you always needed someone to eat up death spells (not to mention oblits and other nastiness) until cloak and bane items became the norm (and fewer NPCs throw oblits now from what I've seen). I guess that death spell soaker role will come back. It used to be a rogue's job, with life spells being plan B. But now an earth scholar could take those death effects if they gave up life spells to do it. Spell parry is a lot more common than it used to be but not all death effects will come from spells.

 

[Tevas]

I'm happy to talk about roles besides DPS. However, it is with DPS that I feel we'll see the biggest changes. I guess healers will still be healers.

So, under the currently proposed v2 rules, the role of a Healer and the player's ability to fulfill it will no longer be quite the same due to a number of changes. A few of the major issues impacting them have been outlined below. This list is by no means fully inclusive, and there are plenty of other factors that can change that role's playstyle as well.

• The removal of "Prepare to Die" calls significantly hampers a Healer's (or buffer / support role) ability to proactively prevent strategically selected instances of martial damage. Utilizing a 2nd level spell slot to nullify an incoming instance of damage (Slay / Eviscerate) sufficient enough so as to reduce a character beyond 0 body is a far more efficient use of spell slots than the number required to potentially restore that fallen character to their previous body point total. Removing the potential for proactive martial burst damage prevention from this role results in an increase in necessary healing output or the expenditure of more finite defensive resources on the recipient's part. This begins to transition the playability of the role away from an active participant in the combat process to more simply a "responder" who patches people up after they have received damage.
• The removal of the Expanded Enchantment ritual noticeably limits the availability of healing and Life access, placing additional burden on existing Healers to compensate for the loss of these items. The addition of the Corrupt effect also introduces another tool to the plot team's portfolio that requires the use of a now more scarce Life spell to successfully counteract.
• Storm spells change the healing landscape by providing more mathematically efficient healing options at the expense of execution time. For example, utilizing a 5th level slot with a Lesser Earth Storm can net you a total of 40 points of healing (or 80 with Potency), as opposed to the Signature Spell's 25 at that level. The tradeoff is that a healing call must be made 8 times for this higher healing value. At 9th level that increases to 75 (or 150 with Potency) Storm healing over the 45 Signature healing, with 15 calls. This is not necessarily an improvement or a downgrade, it simply changes the dynamics of healing in combat, requiring adjustments in timing, positioning and safeguarding the caster.
• The removal of Cloak and Bane items may result in more harmful effects landing on players, requiring Healers (or buffer / support role) to prepare numerous status removal spells over other potential utility options such as crowd control.

Thinking out loud, with the current rules a rogue or a fighter or a celestial scholar could be great DPS. With the new rules I'm not sure if rogues and fighters (at levels 30+ is how I usually think) can be great DPS.

When it comes to dealing damage, what are your concerns regarding the viability of classes other than Celestial Scholars being able to deliver a noteworthy damage output? What hurdles do you see them facing that Celestial Scholars do not? Why are Rogues and Fighters in particular incapable of being "great" damage dealers in v2? Level 30+ Rogues specifically are capable of dealing in excess of 50 damage per swing for 10 minutes at a time, or longer depending upon the build. What aspects of their class' kit do not lend to them dealing competitive amounts of damage?

I used to play a sword and board rogue. I was swinging 30s from behind with 7 dodges and some terminates and evades. I haven't bothered to figure out what that character would do with the new rules but I would be happy for someone else to contribute ideas about rogues and their role in combat with the new rules.

Rogues, like all other classes, can be played a variety of different ways in v2. They can provide a substantial impact to combat encounters through raw damage, alchemy crowd control utility, trap versatility and other build designs. As it seems you have played a Rogue for what would appear to be some time, I would suspect that your ideas on their playstyle and role potential in v2 would be useful, and I would look forward to you contributing them.

Will blast globes lead to one person armies? Can an earth templars (with alchemy) now do it all? I know people say there's a cost, but I don't know how limiting that cost will be. I have hundreds of gas tags and I've seen people with way more than me.

Will Blast Globes turn players into one-person armies? In all likelihood, probably not. The ability is essentially the equivalent of a 2nd level spell. Earth Templars with Alchemy are quite effective in v2. During one of our playtests in particular, we had an Earth Templar with some Celestial magic for scrolls as well as alchemy and trap globes. This player did not necessarily break encounters, however they always found a tool in their arsenal that could directly contribute to the successful completion of the modules they were on. If healing was needed, a hole in the line needed to be plugged, or an enemy needed to be crowd controlled in some manner, they were capable of making that happen.

I've already mentioned the "tank" role. That could be fighters and weapon damage but you always needed someone to eat up death spells (not to mention oblits and other nastiness) until cloak and bane items became the norm (and fewer NPCs throw oblits now from what I've seen). I guess that death spell soaker role will come back. It used to be a rogue's job, with life spells being plan B. But now an earth scholar could take those death effects if they gave up life spells to do it. Spell parry is a lot more common than it used to be but not all death effects will come from spells.

I am unsure where you are intending to go with the last section there, it sort of heads in a number of different directions with Death spell soaking and references to items that are being removed, and some that are not. Are you saying that the role of a Tank is to suffer Death and Obliterate effects so that others don't have to? Or is it to deal weapon damage, as stated earlier in that line? Muir's definition of a Tank was appealing and quite thorough, and I feel addresses the majority of criteria that most people associate with the role. How do you view that definition of a Tank versus your own personal perspective?

 

[Muir]

I am unsure where you are intending to go with the last section there, it sort of heads in a number of different directions with Death spell soaking and references to items that are being removed, and some that are not. Are you saying that the role of a Tank is to suffer Death and Obliterate effects so that others don't have to? Or is it to deal weapon damage, as stated earlier in that line? Muir's definition of a Tank was appealing and quite thorough, and I feel addresses the majority of criteria that most people associate with the role. How do you view that definition of a Tank versus your own personal perspective?

I think he's more pointing out that Deaths and Obliterates are fairly traditional BBG responses to not wanting to fight a player with combat skills, because Fighters notionally don't have any baked-in response to them. Rogues can dodge, casters can spell shield, fighters either suck it up, have a good backpack caster, or (more often in the current rules) acquire a pocket full of counters.

 

[James Trotta]

When it comes to dealing damage, what are your concerns regarding the viability of classes other than Celestial Scholars being able to deliver a noteworthy damage output? What hurdles do you see them facing that Celestial Scholars do not? Why are Rogues and Fighters in particular incapable of being "great" damage dealers in v2? Level 30+ Rogues specifically are capable of dealing in excess of 50 damage per swing for 10 minutes at a time, or longer depending upon the build. What aspects of their class' kit do not lend to them dealing competitive amounts of damage?

Right now, fighters, rogues, and celestial scholars can spend all their build on combat skills. Level 25, level 50, level 75 makes no difference - you can keep buying skills to increase your damage. With the new rules, fighters and rogues will eventually find it difficult to continue building a DPS focus character (profs and backstabs get expensive). Meanwhile, celestial casters can keep increasing their damage output forever. Spells never get more expensive. Meditate scales well at higher levels. I don't know how much extra damage you can do with meditate over a logistics period, but I know a level 60 scholar will get a lot more out of that 4 build then a level 30 scholar.

This is all theory. I could be wrong about how this works in practice. I would like to see your 50+ damage for 10 minutes rogue build. I'd like someone to playtest it for a day. I'll add that the rogue probably won't be doing 50 damage per swing for 10 minutes because rogues, even the best ones, can only get in so much back time. What will the rogue's damage be like over an entire logistics period?

I am unsure where you are intending to go with the last section there, it sort of heads in a number of different directions with Death spell soaking and references to items that are being removed, and some that are not. Are you saying that the role of a Tank is to suffer Death and Obliterate effects so that others don't have to? Or is it to deal weapon damage, as stated earlier in that line? Muir's definition of a Tank was appealing and quite thorough, and I feel addresses the majority of criteria that most people associate with the role. How do you view that definition of a Tank versus your own personal perspective?

You had asked if I liked Muir's definition of tank. You also asked a few times for me to suggest some possible roles. I want to point out that damage isn't the only thing bad guys serve to our heroes on any given weekend. It used to be somebody's job to absorb all the really bad stuff at higher levels. My first weekend event, 1996 I think, may be a good example. The big bad guy and the most powerful adventurers in Ashbury square off. The big bad guy throws ritual magic packet attacks. The rogue stands in the front and blocks the packets with his shield while calling dodge. The team gets to close the distance and make it a melee fight. I would call that some sort of tank-related thing.

Now the dragon mage may not be an every-weekend thing, but death spells might be. I wonder if some teams will have a dedicated death spell soaker role. And I wonder if it will be someone with life spells or someone with dodges (or both but adepts are such rare creatures).

 

[Thorgrim]

Just wanted to chime in here. While it wasn't explicitly stated, it seems clear that the intent of the new rules is to prioritize burst damage rather than sustained high damage calls. ARC, the 0wners, or both have decided that at higher levels fighter and rogue sustained damage output is too high, which is forcing them to stat NPCs higher and higher to account for these sustained high damage calls. They also reduced damage to wands we can assume because they felt that wand damage at higher levels provided scholars with too much sustained damage output and de-emphasized the use of spells. Why throw ice bolts when your wand charges are doing 15+ per hit? Why buy slays when your normal swings do 30?

Unlike fighters, celestial scholars are always going to be limited by a number of spells. Yes in theory a level 50 scholar can have a whole lot of damage spells. Each column has 225 total damage potential if you memorize all damage spells and land every single spell, so a celestial caster with 18 columns would have 4050 total damage potential per spell reset.

Now lets compare that to a fighter in the new system. 18 columns cost 450 build . So lets give our fighter that much to work with in fighter abilities. They spend 54 build to get up to 3 profs and a base damage of 5. They purchase 100 crit attacks. This would allow them to swing 15's for a total of 100 minutes. They also purchase 7 eviscerates (lets say for the sake of argument these do 200 dmg against big bads) and 14 slay/improved slay (150 damage each) So that fighter per reset can do 1400 dmg from eviscerates and 2100 damage from slays. Lets also say our fighter is able to land 5 hits per minute in a normal combat (an extremely low estimate for a good fighter, but with the new flurry rule we will lowball it for the sake of argument). This means for the 100 minutes he can swing 15's he has a damage potential of 7500 from crit attacks. That's 11000 potential damage from fighter abilities alone and doesn't even account for the fact that the fighter can swing for 5's indefinitely.

A fighter solely focused on damage can completely outclass a celestial scholar solely focused on damage even at high build totals in the new system.

 

[James Trotta]

Just wanted to chime in here. While it wasn't explicitly stated, it seems clear that the intent of the new rules is to prioritize burst damage rather than sustained high damage calls. ARC, the 0wners, or both have decided that at higher levels fighter and rogue sustained damage output is too high, which is forcing them to stat NPCs higher and higher to account for these sustained high damage calls. They also reduced damage to wands we can assume because they felt that wand damage at higher levels provided scholars with too much sustained damage output and de-emphasized the use of spells. Why throw ice bolts when your wand charges are doing 15+ per hit? Why buy slays when your normal swings do 30?

Unlike fighters, celestial scholars are always going to be limited by a number of spells. Yes in theory a level 50 scholar can have a whole lot of damage spells. Each column has 225 total damage potential if you memorize all damage spells and land every single spell, so a celestial caster with 18 columns would have 4050 total damage potential per spell reset.

Now lets compare that to a fighter in the new system. 18 columns cost 450 build . So lets give our fighter that much to work with in fighter abilities. They spend 54 build to get up to 3 profs and a base damage of 5. They purchase 100 crit attacks. This would allow them to swing 15's for a total of 100 minutes. They also purchase 7 eviscerates (lets say for the sake of argument these do 200 dmg against big bads) and 14 slay/improved slay (150 damage each) So that fighter per reset can do 1400 dmg from eviscerates and 2100 damage from slays. Lets also say our fighter is able to land 5 hits per minute in a normal combat (an extremely low estimate for a good fighter, but with the new flurry rule we will lowball it for the sake of argument). This means for the 100 minutes he can swing 15's he has a damage potential of 7500 from crit attacks. That's 11000 potential damage from fighter abilities alone and doesn't even account for the fact that the fighter can swing for 5's indefinitely.

A fighter solely focused on damage can completely outclass a celestial scholar solely focused on damage even at high build totals in the new system.

I never thought of buying 100 crit attacks and 3 profs. I think it's a build worth playtesting and I wonder how much damage that fighter can dish out. Would they use some crit attacks to power items? Would they land 500 normal hits during their 100 minutes of power? When I think of a normal module, I think of several combat encounters spread over 20-30 minutes. When I think of a wave battle, I'm thinking 30 minutes+ with a lot of downtime. Some downtime cones when there are no bad guys to fight for the moment. Some comes when the fighter takes a disarm, sleep, bind, death, etc.

I wonder if this fighter would only be "good" for one mod and one wave battle per logistics? Or by combining base 15s with slays during base 5 damage, the fighter could be good for a bunch of encounters? But I do see how fighters might be DPS builds by focusing on crit attacks and slay / eviscerate.

Regarding the fighter - scholar comparison, I would add in wand damage. But not too many people will memorize all damage when you've got prisons and disarms. Also, how important is it that the scholar doesn't have to worry about wasting 10 minutes of effectiveness?

I also wonder if the new system punishes roleplayers. If fighter A swings foam for 10 minutes while fighter B starts to fight but then tries to talk to the big bad to learn something about the plot, then the rules seem to encourage the stick jock.

 

[Thorgrim]

I never thought of buying 100 crit attacks and 3 profs. I think it's a build worth playtesting and I wonder how much damage that fighter can dish out. Would they use some crit attacks to power items? Would they land 500 normal hits during their 100 minutes of power? When I think of a normal module, I think of several combat encounters spread over 20-30 minutes. When I think of a wave battle, I'm thinking 30 minutes+ with a lot of downtime. Some downtime cones when there are no bad guys to fight for the moment. Some comes when the fighter takes a disarm, sleep, bind, death, etc.

I wonder if this fighter would only be "good" for one mod and one wave battle per logistics? Or by combining base 15s with slays during base 5 damage, the fighter could be good for a bunch of encounters? But I do see how fighters might be DPS builds by focusing on crit attacks and slay / eviscerate.

Regarding the fighter - scholar comparison, I would add in wand damage. But not too many people will memorize all damage when you've got prisons and disarms. Also, how important is it that the scholar doesn't have to worry about wasting 10 minutes of effectiveness?

I also wonder if the new system punishes roleplayers. If fighter A swings foam for 10 minutes while fighter B starts to fight but then tries to talk to the big bad to learn something about the plot, then the rules seem to encourage the stick jock.

Due to the varied nature of encounters it would be very unlikely that a fighter would be able to land 500 hits in 100 minutes, but we are dealing with theoretical maximums. It's just as unlikely that a scholar would land all 162 of their damage spells. The long and the short of it is that regardless of class, the new rules emphasize high burst damage, rather than unlimited amounts of high sustainable damage. Based on our play testing, all classes (except for earth unless you're going necro) are capable of very high amounts of burst damage, at the expense of later effectiveness, and resource management becomes just as important if not more important to fighters and rogues as it is for scholars.

Also you have to consider that with the new rules, classes are supposedly designed as counters to one another in a paper rock scissors fashion. Fighters are supposed to be able to take out rogues, rogues are supposed to be able to take out scholars, and scholars are supposed to take out fighters. Whether or not the new rules have been effective at this is debatable, and something that should be included in feedback, but it is important to consider when looking at classes and their role within a group. Most of the class balance seems to have been geared toward this rock paper scissors functionality and how they perform when grouped together rather than comparing damage output between one individual class and another.

 

[Tevas]

James,

I notice a number of references to "DPS" throughout your theorycrafting. While damage per second is predominantly an MMO measurement, it can be quite misleading when evaluating performance of damage dealers. It can be even further misleading in an attempted translation to a LARP environment. What are the metrics you are using to assess the damage that classes can deal? Are these measurements conducted in a laboratory environment that provides for a 0% miss and 0% defense rate? Are you measuring total available damage output through purchased skills? It is critical when assessing measures of performance to ensure identical control conditions in all cases, particularly if you wish to compare their results against others. What are the parameters you are working with when determining your outcomes?

 

[Gilwing]

Just wanted to chime in here. While it wasn't explicitly stated, it seems clear that the intent of the new rules is to prioritize burst damage rather than sustained high damage calls. ARC, the 0wners, or both have decided that at higher levels fighter and rogue sustained damage output is too high, which is forcing them to stat NPCs higher and higher to account for these sustained high damage calls. They also reduced damage to wands we can assume because they felt that wand damage at higher levels provided scholars with too much sustained damage output and de-emphasized the use of spells. Why throw ice bolts when your wand charges are doing 15+ per hit? Why buy slays when your normal swings do 30?

Unlike fighters, celestial scholars are always going to be limited by a number of spells. Yes in theory a level 50 scholar can have a whole lot of damage spells. Each column has 225 total damage potential if you memorize all damage spells and land every single spell, so a celestial caster with 18 columns would have 4050 total damage potential per spell reset.

Now lets compare that to a fighter in the new system. 18 columns cost 450 build . So lets give our fighter that much to work with in fighter abilities. They spend 54 build to get up to 3 profs and a base damage of 5. They purchase 100 crit attacks. This would allow them to swing 15's for a total of 100 minutes. They also purchase 7 eviscerates (lets say for the sake of argument these do 200 dmg against big bads) and 14 slay/improved slay (150 damage each) So that fighter per reset can do 1400 dmg from eviscerates and 2100 damage from slays. Lets also say our fighter is able to land 5 hits per minute in a normal combat (an extremely low estimate for a good fighter, but with the new flurry rule we will lowball it for the sake of argument). This means for the 100 minutes he can swing 15's he has a damage potential of 7500 from crit attacks. That's 11000 potential damage from fighter abilities alone and doesn't even account for the fact that the fighter can swing for 5's indefinitely.

A fighter solely focused on damage can completely outclass a celestial scholar solely focused on damage even at high build totals in the new system.

I think you missing a key point in that the caster has a huge advantage of 1) taking out that fighter with 1 spell, ok 2 because every one, no matter what some how still has their Spell Shield up and 2)is ranged attack, which is a ginormous plus in this game. The caster can hit the targets (or at least attack them) before the fighter can get to them.

 

[Tevas]

I think you missing a key point in that the caster has a huge advantage of 1) taking out that fighter with 1 spell, ok 2 because every one, no matter what some how still has their Spell Shield up and 2)is ranged attack, which is a ginormous plus in this game. The caster can hit the targets (or at least attack them) before the fighter can get to them.

1) This sounds like it is becoming a PvP discussion as the primary source of class balancing in a predominantly PvE game? If so, we might want to explore the idea of moving that discussion to another thread, as it doesn't necessarily align with the intention of discussing classes' role access in v2.

2) Fighters have access to influence combat at range through the purchase of the Archery skill. Given the way Weapon Proficiencies and Improved Slays functions, bows and crossbows are considerable sources of damage. In one of Thorgrim's earlier comparative posts, the fighter with 14 Improved Slays would be dropping 320 point crossbow shots with their Slays (40 base + (14 IS x 20 crossbow increment)). Purchasing only 4 Weapon Proficiencies provides for 10 point crossbow bolts, or 20 point bolts if Critical Attacks are activated.

 

[Muir]

Don't forget as much as doubling those 10's if you're willing to be coin-fed and spring for Vorpal 10's.

 

[Tevas]

I was trying to avoid the incorporation of production or magic items, but yes, you are absolutely correct! Technically a fully kitted crossbow archer with 8 proficiencies is shooting 16 base, 31 with Empowered Warrior and full Critical Attacks, and 41 with +10 Vorpal bolts. Throw in a Healing Strike against undead, and that's 82 damage a pop.

 

[Muir]

Yep. I use vorpal coatings extensively on my rogue when I can afford to keep them in stock.

 

[James Trotta]

James,

I notice a number of references to "DPS" throughout your theorycrafting. While damage per second is predominantly an MMO measurement, it can be quite misleading when evaluating performance of damage dealers. It can be even further misleading in an attempted translation to a LARP environment. What are the metrics you are using to assess the damage that classes can deal? Are these measurements conducted in a laboratory environment that provides for a 0% miss and 0% defense rate? Are you measuring total available damage output through purchased skills? It is critical when assessing measures of performance to ensure identical control conditions in all cases, particularly if you wish to compare their results against others. What are the parameters you are working with when determining your outcomes?

DPS is just a lazy abbreviation of damage dealer. On paper it appeared to me that celestial scholars would get more glory in Alliance combat encounters than fighters or rogues. I could just say more efficient killers to account for prisons and sleeps. I think I've said a few times what I feel is worth playtesting so I'm not sure where your laboratory question comes from. I disagree completely about the need for controlling all variables (if that's what you meant by identical control conditions). That's more for experimental studies (e.g. determining cause and effect). What we really need for evaluating the new rule system are some measurable objectives. But we don't even know why profs are changing, so how can we guess if the change is likely to be successful?

Due to the varied nature of encounters it would be very unlikely that a fighter would be able to land 500 hits in 100 minutes, but we are dealing with theoretical maximums. It's just as unlikely that a scholar would land all 162 of their damage spells. The long and the short of it is that regardless of class, the new rules emphasize high burst damage, rather than unlimited amounts of high sustainable damage. Based on our play testing, all classes (except for earth unless you're going necro) are capable of very high amounts of burst damage, at the expense of later effectiveness, and resource management becomes just as important if not more important to fighters and rogues as it is for scholars.

Also you have to consider that with the new rules, classes are supposedly designed as counters to one another in a paper rock scissors fashion. Fighters are supposed to be able to take out rogues, rogues are supposed to be able to take out scholars, and scholars are supposed to take out fighters. Whether or not the new rules have been effective at this is debatable, and something that should be included in feedback, but it is important to consider when looking at classes and their role within a group. Most of the class balance seems to have been geared toward this rock paper scissors functionality and how they perform when grouped together rather than comparing damage output between one individual class and another.

I did not know that classes were supposed to counter each other in the new rule system. I don't see how that's going to work especially the fighter taking out rogues (who should have some gas globes and dodges).

How the classes perform when grouped together seems more important than classes countering each other. If one class is much better at taking out the big bad guy, people might get salty.

Is 500 hits in 100 minutes unlikely? In the original post it was said to be a very low estimate (5 hits per minute). I honestly don't know but it seems like we could playtest this. For example, I bet rogues have a much harder time getting value for their back attacks than fighters have getting value for the crit attacks. Is the 10 minute burst weapon damage system fun for all?

 

[ASFDan]

After reading through all this (and the parent thread) I'm still not clear on the question at hand. I see a lot of points I'd like to discuss, but I don't want to derail with irrelevant contributions. Can someone summarize the topic of the discussion?

 

[Tevas]

Dan,

I had asked for clarification earlier in the thread. Below was what was presented. From my understanding, this is to discuss the different roles that are available in Alliance v2, and how successfully various classes can fulfill them.

Good question - the second one, what playtesters think are the likely roles for each class.

Over the course of the discussion, as you have read, different roles have been addressed in passing, with primary focus to this point having been directed towards damage output. Mentions have also been made regarding healing and the definition of a tank. Please note that this by no means implies that those are the only three "roles" available in v2. I had asked earlier for folks to chime in about what roles they thought were available along with the criteria to fill them, and feel that this information would still be valuable to moving the conversation forward.

 

[ASFDan]

Oh, ok. I missed that, and it helps. Thinking on it.

 

[Tevas]

No problem! Looking forward to your input!