character class roles with the new rules
- Thread starter James Trotta
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Baron
A 4-column, 5 prof, polearm wielding (to swing 10), Earth templar with 3 Alchemy is 283 build minimum under the new rules. That is without formal or any supplemental fighter skills (Parry, Shatter, etc.), but with R/W, FA, HA, HL, and Polearm. I don't really see that as a problem, personally, because at high enough level there are many options for different ways of playing and a jack-of-all-trades should be viable given enough build. Getting up there will be challenging, but that is what makes the payoff at the end acceptable in my opinion.
First, please find a more neutral way to say, "you're harping" because I am insulted.
Second, I don't understand the argument that alchemy is fine because it's not free:
I don't see money being an issue for high level players on the east coast. The only limit to how much alchemy we throw is how many orange packets we have. Lots of players have hundreds of alchemy tags in their pouch.
I think only Inaryn brought up the build cost. I can't keep track of who's arguing with who and about what. I remember saying that earth templars with alchemy can fill lots of combat roles. As far as I know, everyone agreed.
Then people claimed that every class could fill every combat role. That I will argue with. Not every class can be a blaster and a melee warrior and a healer. Earth templars can do all three of those things well.
No I think Jim's point is that is it still creating a gap between high level and low level instead of lessening the gap. I don't think it's too cheap at all
Yes, I think blast gas increases the gap between the haves and have-nots. The problem with alchemy has nothing to do with build costs. The problem is the way it scales. Alchemy isn't that useful for a level 3 player. But for a level 30 player, alchemy is very powerful.
Also, blast gas expands the role alchemists play in combat. With the current rules, alchemists can't hurt lots of stuff, which means more need for teamwork. New alchemy can hurt just about anything. The only things an alchemist might lack would be healing and melee combat, which earth templars have.
I would do it with crit attacks instead of profs. That will save you a lot of build. But I am thinking about characters in the 30-40 range.
I bring up earth templar alchemists playing every role because I think one of the stated goals for the new rules was to create a need for all the different classes to work together. If one build can do any role, then that may be an unexpected side effect of the new rules.
If other classes can pull off as many combat roles as earth templars, please post the builds either here or in Matt's thread for character builds.
Hey Dave! If you read the last sentence I posted I did specify it was unlikely. I also never mentioned anything about infinite build. Unsure where you got that from.
As for it being valid to the discussion, I merely responded to James examples that he brought up himself and pointed out it is possible per the rules. Now, I wouldn't say it'd be a great idea to spend so much build for said classes on certain skills, but that's a different topic.
Ry
Inaryn
Knight
One build can already do it all. I know. I do. I run a mid 30's JoA earth templar. I'm still *highly* dependent on working *in a group* regardless of what role I'm filling. The new rules don't really change that. In fact, they make it more imperative that a the JoA has a solid group backing them.
What they do change is that everyone is going to be even more reliant on production. Coin is going to move more, more crafters will be needed, and more of it is going to go toward beating up the bad guys.
If players want to buy fights, that's their money to burn.
Them's the breaks.
What they do change is that everyone is going to be even more reliant on production. Coin is going to move more, more crafters will be needed, and more of it is going to go toward beating up the bad guys.
If players want to buy fights, that's their money to burn.
Them's the breaks.
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The only reference to gap closing that was provided in the playtest packet was regarding the constant and limitless sources of damage generated specifically by Weapon Proficiencies and Backstabs. This statement can be found in section 5.3 of the playtest document. As far as I am aware, and I would appreciate it if you could please post a link if you have found otherwise, there are no other statements regarding gap reduction.
In the "Questions on Intent" thread, the ARC has stated that:
"More than anything, though, we want to make sure that teams are rewarded for including a variety of characters."
Please note that they did not say "necessary", they said "rewarded". Their intention, specifically to questions asked regarding the removal of Expanded Enchantment, was that items not make classes worthless. While Alchemy is particularly versatile, it unfortunately does not offer sufficient utility so as to make any classes worthless. The point of hybrid classes, such as Templars, is to have access to a more diverse pool of resources than their pure-classed counterparts. Combining the inherent flexibility of the class, along with the support of Alchemy, does indeed allow them to assist in tackling a great many obstacles. Unfortunately this wider range of capability prevents them from being able to do any one of the many things that in their arsenal quite as well as a class that is dedicated to that particular skill. So while they may be able to demonstrate a competitive performance in a similar role for a time, they cannot necessarily do so for the same duration or to the same degree as the focused character. Hence, the other class is not rendered worthless, and retains the title of superior performance in its chosen field.
A pure classed Fighter with Alchemy can deal more weapon damage than and throw the same gasses as any build equivalent Templar. A pure classed Earth Scholar with Alchemy has more spells than and can throw the same gasses as any build equivalent Templar. The concerns regarding flexibility you raise seem to be more regarding a perceived skillset superiority particular to Earth Templars than an issue with Alchemy, or more specifically in your reference the newly added Blast Globes. In particular to the Blast Globes, the ARC had these comments, found in 6.1 in the playtest document. Please note the bold and underlined text.
"Cause <X> Damage has been removed, replaced with Blast Globes giving Alchemists some (very limited) utility against non-Poisonable targets."
Daedric
Newbie
Yeah. I think that some people just take for granted that there will always be an abundance of gas globes to toss.
As a player who's never really spent much build on production skills, I can't honestly say that I can relate with the poor guy who has to actually make all of his own gasses. I only ever used what I found as treasure.
In general...if I had to hurl all of my own hard-earned coin during every battle in order to compensate for my character's weaknesses in other areas, I might rethink my place in said battles.
But in chapters where there's a lot of wealthy high level PCs who have huge stockpiles of alchemy, it's a different story.
As a player who's never really spent much build on production skills, I can't honestly say that I can relate with the poor guy who has to actually make all of his own gasses. I only ever used what I found as treasure.
In general...if I had to hurl all of my own hard-earned coin during every battle in order to compensate for my character's weaknesses in other areas, I might rethink my place in said battles.
But in chapters where there's a lot of wealthy high level PCs who have huge stockpiles of alchemy, it's a different story.
The currently proposed new production items do not yet exist. If approved, they will have to be made from scratch or found as loot. If they are appealing to general use, then they will be utilized in combat when generated, and will not make it to a stockpile. If they are stockpiled, then they are not coming in to influence the game until such a scenario demands it. If the financial production cost and the deferred utilization of the Alchemy are worth it to win the chosen encounter, then that's great, and the players should be rewarded for planning, preparation and sacrifice.
Right so they make profs and backstabs more expensive: "This helps close some of the gap between high-level players and low-level players...." Then they increase the gap in other ways. I don't get it.
I'm glad you posted that thing that ARC wants more than anything - to reward teams for including a variety of characters. I'm not sure that the addition of blast globes rewards teams for including a variety of characters. I see how teams are rewarded for bringing alchemists.
Fighters and scholars also benefit from alchemy. Of course. Every character with money benefits from alchemy. With blast globes a fighter could be a melee tank who can throw elemental damage as if he was a celestial scholar with 450 build worth of wand damage.
And putting something in bold doesn't actually limit the number of blast globes that people can buy, craft, or goblin stamp. In addition, if players can turn in their alchemy tags that are going away for the new alchemical goodies, the game might be flooded with blast globes pretty quickly.
Now none of this is to argue that we shouldn't have blast globes. I think blast globes (and earth templars who can do it all) are fine. I think it's fine if there is a big gap between low level players and high level players.
I just don't see any logic with making profs more expensive to reduce the gap while introducing meditate and blast gas to increase the gap. So let's not turn this into an argument about blast gas. When people say it's cool if high level players want to throw money to win a combat encounter, sure, cool.
I'd rather focus on how the new rule system seems to be a solution in search of a problem. What performance problems do we want the new system to solve? Because nerfing high level prof damage while increasing high level spell and alchemy damage doesn't make sense to me.
Just thinking out loud: I think it would be fun to play a MWE with 300 craftsmen skills, a few fighter skills, and alchemy.
Also, it occurs to me that we've derailed this thread. I'm not sure how we managed to disagree for so long when we all agree that earth templars (with alchemy) can fill most any combat role.
Without a doubt. To be fair, though, it barely even touched the stated topic to begin with (which is a shame because I think it's a really interesting subject). If a mod could remove or split out the off topic meanderings that would be cool, but it probably wouldn't leave more than a few posts.
Anyhow, discussion and such would probably be more focused and productive with narrower topics that are directly relevant to playtesting. Questions about X skill, how build Y might look in the new system, and such. Big threads on game design philosophy are interesting, and it's certainly fun to talk shop, but they're also not likely to produce anything meaningful in context.
The gap being referred to in the playtest document is specifically the gap in passive damage output between high level players who have purchased extensive numbers of Weapon Proficiencies and Backstabs, and those who have not. No other "gap" has been stated or defined by ARC. No other "gap" has been mentioned, referenced, acknowledged or disavowed. As such, it only stands to note that you must be speaking of a "gap" that you, yourself, perceive. To better assist others in understanding your viewpoint, would you kindly detail exactly what you perceive that "gap" to be, and what factors you feel contribute to its existence and why? As a separate item, purchasing the Alchemy skill can be done at relatively low levels. The tags required to utilize it can be acquired through loot, without the need for build expenditure. As a result, the ability to use Alchemy is by no means a high level versus low level issue that results through build expenditure or comparative level.
Alchemy changes are simply one of many. A team that brings an Alchemist is rewarded for bringing them along in the versatility they offer against susceptible targets with their globes. A team that brings along a crossbow Fighter is rewarded for bring them along in the massive individual 300+ damage slays they can produce. Any variety of characters they bring contributes in their own way. Alchemists and non Alchemists.
Or that same Fighter can take one Celestial spell in their build and strap a ridiculous number of 5th level Evocation Bolts to the back of their shield and do the exact same thing, for the same production point cost, but get two and a half times better damage out of it.
The only item that was put in bold was the one stating that the ARC regarded the addition of Blast Globes as "very limited utility". It served to highlight that from a designer standpoint, not even the ARC considered Blast Globes to be a significant addition to the Alchemist's Arsenal. I am unsure how you misread this and arrived at that somehow being an indicator of quantity, as opposed to quality.
Earlier you had referred to Earth Templars with Alchemy (particularly Blast Globes) as "a problem". Now you are saying that both things are fine. For the sake of those reviewing these discussions, would you please be so kind as to clarify your stance? It feels like there are a lot of broad assumptions being made, and the relevant data to support them appears to be lacking.
As mentioned earlier, the only "gap" described by ARC is the numeric gap in passive damage that results from heavy levels of build investment in Weapon Proficiencies and Backstabs. Any other "gaps" being discussed at this point are ones you alone have referred to, but have not yet defined or clarified. For the sake of those reading these discussions, it would be appreciated if you could do so at this time. Further, you are attempting to compare changes to a martial ability, a scholarly skill to regain lost spells, and a production skill as though they were all somehow relatable and equally weighted. Additionally, your sample scholar in the character builder thread only had a single purchase of Meditate, however you were commenting on how that ability would make you "the DPS champ" because you could throw your Dragon's Breaths more freely. Unfortunately, a single purchase of Meditate only recovers 1st through 3rd level spells. This was also discussed with you elsewhere earlier. It may be prudent at this point to go back and thoroughly review the playtest packet a number of times, before inadvertently providing further incorrect information to those readers who may not have yet had the opportunity to read the packet themselves.
High level spell damage has not changed. A 9th level Evocation spell deals 45 damage in both 1.3 and in the playtest. Meditate does not provide additional maximum damage potential, it simply recovers missed spells. Alchemy damage has not changed, as Blast Globes deal the same damage as Cause Serious Damage Globes, which also happened to ignore armor.
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Muir
Fighter
No I think Jim's point is that is it still creating a gap between high level and low level instead of lessening the gap. I don't think it's too cheap at all
So long as we don't have a hard level cap, that gap is always going to exist because you can theoretically build a character of any arbitrary size.
I feel you are misrepresenting my ideas in a few places and I'm not sure what your goal is in this conversation. I am trying to understand how the new rules will impact the game. What are you trying to do?
I don't know where this stuff about comparing skills and equal weight comes from. What I'm saying is that in the rules system, there are several things that contribute to a character's combat prowess. There are several things that make level 30 and 40 characters way nastier in combat level 1 and level 10 players. If we want to even the playing field a bit, then why would we look at only profs and backstabs? Meditate should help a 12 block caster do more during combat (yes they will want to purchase meditate 3 times). But the 15 build player won't see much help from mediate.
Why would we talk about damage potential instead of damage done? Meditate (yes three purchases) allows me to chain cast faster because I don't care if I miss. Since I sometimes do miss, my actual damage dealt will increase when I get the spells back and hit my target the next time. Big help for high level casters, no help for 15 build players.
It seems misleading to say that alchemy damage has not changed. I bet an alchemist facing off against some undead will feel a difference. But I don't even know why you mention this stuff about alchemy damage.
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I think it all comes back to what the new rules are supposed to help us do. If the whole point of the new rules is to reduce prof and backstab damage then mission accomplished. But that seems like a silly mission to me. If the new rules are supposed to help new players feel more important on the battlefield, then I think we should do more.
The rules I read had this: "This helps close some of the gap between high-level players and low-level players..." This was in the section on profs, but I didn't see anything about the only gap ARC cares about being the gap between people who have lots of profs / backstabs and people who have only a few. Maybe ARC only cares about profs and backstabs. If so, I would like to know why. Are 15 build scholars having a blast in combat with their 7 spells while 15 build fighters cry and never return to the game?
I'm not sure I misread anything. Just because someone wrote down very limited, doesn't actually make it very limited. 10 damage doesn't seem insignificant to me, especially if I have 50 orange packets on me.
You might want to quote this one in context. I said, "If the new rules are supposed to make having a bunch of different character classes necessary, than the earth templar with alchemy is a problem, partly because of the blast gas addition." Notice that this is a conditional statement. If we want one build to handle every combat role, then there's no problem. I don't know what people want from the rules, but a few people have said that making each class necessary was not one of the goals. That's fine with me.
Where did ARC describe any gap? I thought they meant that low level players had different combat power than high level players. I don't see why only profs and backstabs would contribute to the different capabilities of low and high level players to get stuff done in combat.
Yes, I made an error with mediate in the character build thread. I admitted the error in the other thread. Is reading the rules packet "a number of times" my punishment for the error? I got wand damage wrong too. Do you want to punish me for that as well?
I don't know where this stuff about comparing skills and equal weight comes from. What I'm saying is that in the rules system, there are several things that contribute to a character's combat prowess. There are several things that make level 30 and 40 characters way nastier in combat level 1 and level 10 players. If we want to even the playing field a bit, then why would we look at only profs and backstabs? Meditate should help a 12 block caster do more during combat (yes they will want to purchase meditate 3 times). But the 15 build player won't see much help from mediate.
Why would we talk about damage potential instead of damage done? Meditate (yes three purchases) allows me to chain cast faster because I don't care if I miss. Since I sometimes do miss, my actual damage dealt will increase when I get the spells back and hit my target the next time. Big help for high level casters, no help for 15 build players.
It seems misleading to say that alchemy damage has not changed. I bet an alchemist facing off against some undead will feel a difference. But I don't even know why you mention this stuff about alchemy damage.
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I think it all comes back to what the new rules are supposed to help us do. If the whole point of the new rules is to reduce prof and backstab damage then mission accomplished. But that seems like a silly mission to me. If the new rules are supposed to help new players feel more important on the battlefield, then I think we should do more.
James,
What I am trying to do is keep things on track. I am trying to ask questions when things are unclear or going astray, such as when you created a thread to talk about character class roles, but only populated it initially with statements on Celestial Scholars being "the DPS champs". I asked a number of times if you wouldn't mind defining the roles you were referring to in a thread called "character class roles with the new rules", but nothing was provided. Unfortunately other individuals had to answer this question. Additionally, when certain speculations are stated as fact, I am asking questions regarding how someone arrived at that conclusion, and what evidence (in particular looking for experiences actually playtesting the rules) they had available to support it. This led to a long attempt at a discussion on what you meant by "DPS", which consisted mainly of drastic direction changes when it appeared that evidence was unavailable to support the questioned statements. This was also made all the less productive when you contributed generalized statements about "gaps" that you altered from their original intention, and then built arguments on something that was never established as a measurement by the ARC. None of these items, unfortunately, are conductive to successful conversations that take meaningful steps towards mutually beneficial outcomes.
So, in essence, what I am doing is trying to keep things above board. I am doing this because they are not above board, as a number of posts have unfortunately misrepresented content, concepts and design goals of the playtest packet. I have tried to identify these deviations and provide an avenue to right the course, thus far to no avail. It is my hope that things can ultimately be redirected so as to share accurate information, identify curious speculation as exactly that, and encourage positive theorycraft through structured and reliable processes to help better develop the v2 product.
To very quickly address the quotes you have selected:
- The ARC only brought up a gap regarding passive damage from Weapon Proficiencies and Backstabs. Any other gap you reference is one of your own devices, and not one that they have openly recognized. Does that mean that it has no opportunity to exist? No. But please do not state it as though they are designing rules based on it, as they have not made mention of it.
- You are free to throw those 10 damage packets all day if you like. While you do so, the caster or archer next to you will be throwing bigger packets, at the same rate, for cheaper or for free.
- As so far as it has been presented, to the best of my knowledge and packet review, there has been no statement regarding the v2 design philosophy revolving around "making each class necessary". As a result, I am unsure where this idea came from, as you brought it up a couple of times in discussion. If you could identify its source, that would certainly be appreciated.
- To answer your question, ARC described the alleged "gap" as existing particularly with regards to Weapon Proficiencies and Backstabs. They are not the only contributor to differences in capabilities between lower and higher level players, but they are the contributor that ARC chose to identify and address in this fashion due to its direct impact on other aspects of the game, specifically monster statting.
- The suggestion to re-read the playtest packet came specifically from a need to ensure that correct information was being communicated to the general player base. Any ideas of punishment are solely of your own creation. The comparing skills and equal weight comes from your post saying: "I just don't see any logic with making profs more expensive to reduce the gap while introducing meditate and blast gas to increase the gap.", which once again refers to an out of context "gap" that you had somehow derived from the section on passive damage reductions. As so far as your next question on abilities goes, again, there is no published ARC stated intention of "evening the playing field" for anything aside from constant sources of passive damage. The design behind the change, as stated by ARC in the "Clarifications of Intent" thread, regarded monster body points as a contributing factor, and wished to change the nature of combat away from a "grind the monster down" model by reducing both monster body points as well as these sources of passive damage.
- We talk about maximum purchased numeric damage because anything outside of that operates off of a fictional hit percentage that varies from individual to individual and situation to situation with extensive variables and as such cannot be regarded as reliable data. If you wanted to say, "Meditate should allow casters to throw with more confidence because they have the ability to regain missed spells, which might amount to more spells landing over the course of an event", then that would be a perfectly reasonable statement. Unfortunately, however, you said "...while increasing high level spell and alchemy damage...", which is untrue, because high level spell damage did not actually change. And why do I mention Alchemy damage changes? Because you specifically said that high level Alchemy damage had increased, so I was addressing it. Taking the opportunity to review your previous posts prior to continuing the thread may help eliminate fragmented issues like this, and maintain a higher level of discussion coherency for the outside reader.
What I am trying to do is keep things on track. I am trying to ask questions when things are unclear or going astray, such as when you created a thread to talk about character class roles, but only populated it initially with statements on Celestial Scholars being "the DPS champs". I asked a number of times if you wouldn't mind defining the roles you were referring to in a thread called "character class roles with the new rules", but nothing was provided. Unfortunately other individuals had to answer this question. Additionally, when certain speculations are stated as fact, I am asking questions regarding how someone arrived at that conclusion, and what evidence (in particular looking for experiences actually playtesting the rules) they had available to support it. This led to a long attempt at a discussion on what you meant by "DPS", which consisted mainly of drastic direction changes when it appeared that evidence was unavailable to support the questioned statements. This was also made all the less productive when you contributed generalized statements about "gaps" that you altered from their original intention, and then built arguments on something that was never established as a measurement by the ARC. None of these items, unfortunately, are conductive to successful conversations that take meaningful steps towards mutually beneficial outcomes.
So, in essence, what I am doing is trying to keep things above board. I am doing this because they are not above board, as a number of posts have unfortunately misrepresented content, concepts and design goals of the playtest packet. I have tried to identify these deviations and provide an avenue to right the course, thus far to no avail. It is my hope that things can ultimately be redirected so as to share accurate information, identify curious speculation as exactly that, and encourage positive theorycraft through structured and reliable processes to help better develop the v2 product.
To very quickly address the quotes you have selected:
- The ARC only brought up a gap regarding passive damage from Weapon Proficiencies and Backstabs. Any other gap you reference is one of your own devices, and not one that they have openly recognized. Does that mean that it has no opportunity to exist? No. But please do not state it as though they are designing rules based on it, as they have not made mention of it.
- You are free to throw those 10 damage packets all day if you like. While you do so, the caster or archer next to you will be throwing bigger packets, at the same rate, for cheaper or for free.
- As so far as it has been presented, to the best of my knowledge and packet review, there has been no statement regarding the v2 design philosophy revolving around "making each class necessary". As a result, I am unsure where this idea came from, as you brought it up a couple of times in discussion. If you could identify its source, that would certainly be appreciated.
- To answer your question, ARC described the alleged "gap" as existing particularly with regards to Weapon Proficiencies and Backstabs. They are not the only contributor to differences in capabilities between lower and higher level players, but they are the contributor that ARC chose to identify and address in this fashion due to its direct impact on other aspects of the game, specifically monster statting.
- The suggestion to re-read the playtest packet came specifically from a need to ensure that correct information was being communicated to the general player base. Any ideas of punishment are solely of your own creation. The comparing skills and equal weight comes from your post saying: "I just don't see any logic with making profs more expensive to reduce the gap while introducing meditate and blast gas to increase the gap.", which once again refers to an out of context "gap" that you had somehow derived from the section on passive damage reductions. As so far as your next question on abilities goes, again, there is no published ARC stated intention of "evening the playing field" for anything aside from constant sources of passive damage. The design behind the change, as stated by ARC in the "Clarifications of Intent" thread, regarded monster body points as a contributing factor, and wished to change the nature of combat away from a "grind the monster down" model by reducing both monster body points as well as these sources of passive damage.
- We talk about maximum purchased numeric damage because anything outside of that operates off of a fictional hit percentage that varies from individual to individual and situation to situation with extensive variables and as such cannot be regarded as reliable data. If you wanted to say, "Meditate should allow casters to throw with more confidence because they have the ability to regain missed spells, which might amount to more spells landing over the course of an event", then that would be a perfectly reasonable statement. Unfortunately, however, you said "...while increasing high level spell and alchemy damage...", which is untrue, because high level spell damage did not actually change. And why do I mention Alchemy damage changes? Because you specifically said that high level Alchemy damage had increased, so I was addressing it. Taking the opportunity to review your previous posts prior to continuing the thread may help eliminate fragmented issues like this, and maintain a higher level of discussion coherency for the outside reader.
I appreciate trying to keep things on track. We can certainly do a better job of that. To that end I replied to everything else you said in another thread.
Yes, I think celestial scholars will own the high consistent damage role. ASFDan said that "Celestial scholars are going to be the kings of burst damage." I'm not sure about that. Fighter slays may be burstier. I see wand damage and spells becoming the best ways to consistently deal damage over the course of a fight while being less bursty than fighters with big slay damage.
I think I also mentioned that fighters are being pushed into tankier roles. I may be wrong about that. Somewhere in one of these threads someone posted that a fighter with a bunch of slays and a crossbow would be throwing 300+ damage packets and you can't tank while using a crossbow. I wonder how successful a melee tank build will be with limited defense against lots of packet attacks.
I think the death spell eater will make a comeback - this will be the job of the rogue or the earth templar with magic items allowing them to trade out their own death spells to negate the incoming effect.
I think earth templars with alchemy will fill most combat roles.
Rogues we haven't talked about much, but I think they will get less use from activating a stack of back attacks than fighters and templars will get from activating crits. Based on the build thread, people think they will have more dodges and terminates than before. Seems like rogues may become inconsistent damage dealers but become better at single target elimination? Will the new evade help or hurt rogue survivability and how will that impact their role in combat. Will rogues have an easier or harder time surviving missions behind enemy lines?
Not much has been said of adepts or celestial templars. Maybe because they are the least popular classes?
Hi everyone,
Just popping in to remind everyone to play nice. Some of the language here is getting heated and we'd rather not shut down the discussion. Please stay on topic and please be kind to one another.
-Flame
Just popping in to remind everyone to play nice. Some of the language here is getting heated and we'd rather not shut down the discussion. Please stay on topic and please be kind to one another.
-Flame