TRANSCRIPT: Twitter Dev Chat August 21, 2013 - Class Changes

[andracy]

So my opinion means less than yours because I haven't ran an instance with you? Fun fact: you're not the only group that has ever run T2C Saruman.

offtopic, this is not i said and you know that. That started because you said that "and I doubt you frequently use all the skills you say you need.". Frequently or not, you do use lot of skills but the cooldown is also an factor, so if you press once Call of Greatness in an fight because the skill have 4 min, and you use 100 times the major ballad, that will make CoG an lousy skills because his frecvency was 1%? Each skill have an purpose and the fact that you are using once per day does not make him less important. You will use him exactly in the moment you will need him, no less, no more.
So no, your opinion and my opinion are the same as long as we are both enjoying this wonderful game and from our money we try to make the producers to make an better product. But if i prefere to squeeze every single drop from my minstrel, why not to be possible? And my friend, i am really using most of those skills hehe.

and secondly

Yes, they all have a designated role, but you can't use all of them in every fight. Pick the ones you'll be using.

on theory that work ok, right? You think what instance you will do and trait acordingly. Oh really, how so? Let think, when we will do one instance for first time what shall i pick? Let say i dont pick anthem of war. An dps toon DC in the middle of the fight. I will try to compensate his loss with anthem of war ... erm, i cannot use it since i am not traited. Oh boy the cappy suck tonight, i want more heals ... erm, i did not sloted third age. You just cannot say that you will know for sure what to pick at the start of the fight and you will need to compensate after one wipe but that will not make me happy. What do you think about this? We just cannot start an battle with 100% to use ONLY the skills you choosed. Why not having all of them and pick them acordingly?

[WhimsicalPacifist]

It's already been stated by the devs that we will need to be out of combat to change spec. Which is good, because the approach you've described here would be terrible. Ultimately I think it's a good thing that people are being forced to make some difficult choices about character builds. I think the current system of having our cake and eat it too is boring and homogeneous.

Battle For Erebor- I currently tank the first guy to go down and switch all my gear to my glass cannon spec on my warden. Same with Tower of Orthanc and anything else that has multiple bosses that require multiple initial tanks. In the new Helms Deep trait scheme my warden may be locked out of the gambits I need to DPS on the second phase of fights, in that case why not bring a champion instead that could have greater DPS overall?

[Batf1nk]

You already will be able to. You can switch builds freely so long as you are not in combat. Spec up at least two builds (with more available if you really need them) and you are good to go, even if that LM does leave. Again, we will all have to wait and see just what skills we have are going to be gated in the tree system and which skills we can keep for free. Until then, we should all try to keep optimistically calm.

The "as long as you are not in combat" is key. If a tank dies in the current system, a cappy or champ takes over for a few seconds until the tank gets back up, is rebuffed, etc. In the new system what happens? Oh sorry, the captain and champ lost their threat abilities because they're gated behind the tanking line, so good bye healer.

Now lets look to see what happens if a healer dies. If there's a dps rk in the group, they start healing instead of dpsing until the healer gets up. While the dps rk isn't traited for heals, it's still better than a wipe. But in the new system? Oh, sorry, you put all your points into the dps tree, so you get to heal the group with prelude to hope!

And I don't agree with your argument to just wait and see what skills will be gated. If we put our concerns out there now, Turbine is more likely to listen. Still not likely, but more likely than not saying anything. Also, I still want to know if you'll be able to inspect people's skill trees.

[andracy]

The "as long as you are not in combat" is key. If a tank dies in the current system, a cappy or champ takes over for a few seconds until the tank gets back up, is rebuffed, etc. In the new system what happens? Oh sorry, the captain and champ lost their threat abilities because they're gated behind the tanking line, so good bye healer.

Now lets look to see what happens if a healer dies. If there's a dps rk in the group, they start healing instead of dpsing until the healer gets up. While the dps rk isn't traited for heals, it's still better than a wipe. But in the new system? Oh, sorry, you put all your points into the dps tree, so you get to heal the group with prelude to hope!

And I don't agree with your argument to just wait and see what skills will be gated. If we put our concerns out there now, Turbine is more likely to listen. Still not likely, but more likely than not saying anything. Also, I still want to know if you'll be able to inspect people's skill trees.

exactly, you will be gated all the time acording how you traited and you will not be able to compensate on the way, like the horse with eyes covered -> they know only ahead. Same we will be, if me as healer i sense that i need more: mittigation, armour, healing, dps, less aggro, how the helll should i would know BEFORE the battle? I will adjust my tactics on the way but how if i will only pick one anthem from 6 for example?

[Mar-Evayave]

The "as long as you are not in combat" is key. If a tank dies in the current system, a cappy or champ takes over for a few seconds until the tank gets back up, is rebuffed, etc. In the new system what happens? Oh sorry, the captain and champ lost their threat abilities because they're gated behind the tanking line, so good bye healer.

Now lets look to see what happens if a healer dies. If there's a dps rk in the group, they start healing instead of dpsing until the healer gets up. While the dps rk isn't traited for heals, it's still better than a wipe. But in the new system? Oh, sorry, you put all your points into the dps tree, so you get to heal the group with prelude to hope!

And I don't agree with your argument to just wait and see what skills will be gated. If we put our concerns out there now, Turbine is more likely to listen. Still not likely, but more likely than not saying anything. Also, I still want to know if you'll be able to inspect people's skill trees.

Once again, STANCES determine whether a lot of skills increase threat or decrease threat, even for guardians. If your guard dies, just change stances. You can't change existing traits anyway without a trip back to the bard. Even if you are designed for DPS, in a bad situation you aren't totally screwed. You do the best you can in the few seconds it takes to get that guard back up.

With healers, even an RK, you assume that Prelude to Hope is your only skill. RK's have an attunement panel for a reason, and what's more, they have a skill that they can trait up that is devoted for the sole purpose of going from one extremity to the other within seconds. That would become a useless trait if RKs then have virtually no skills to use at the other extremity.

What I'm saying is that lots of people are panicking, which is causing arguments, when it could all be for naught. Express concern, by all means. But please, keep it restricted to concern, instead of getting angry at other posters. There have already been several hate posts in this thread because people are counting their chicks before they are hatched, and responding very impulsively. Express concerns but getting angry serves no purpose. That would be "guilty until proven innocent", which is neither fair to Turbine, nor rational on its own.

[andracy]

With healers, even an RK, you assume that Prelude to Hope is your only skill. RK's have an attunement panel for a reason, and what's more, they have a skill that they can trait up that is devoted for the sole purpose of going from one extremity to the other within seconds. That would become a useless trait if RKs then have virtually no skills to use at the other extremity.

Allow me to add something please. Is not really like that. An experienced RK can drop his attunement from full dps to neutral, put an writ and an prelude + one scroll who will raise the attunement with 3 and he will back to bussines. I can do that in 6 - 7 sec. Also. An true RK will swap his LI's from dps to healing and the gap will be greatly improved. Indeed, no healing traits will still severily affect his performance, but the way he will lower attunement will be possible but in the curent system, he will not have any skills available to use. So which is better? To be able to maintain the team for an short time? Or wipe from start? THat will make the raids in 2 possible ways: doing the pull from first try or wipe. No other way, no recovery. ANd i am not glad with that.

[Batf1nk]

Once again, STANCES determine whether a lot of skills increase threat or decrease threat, even for guardians. If your guard dies, just change stances. You can't change existing traits anyway without a trip back to the bard. Even if you are designed for DPS, in a bad situation you aren't totally screwed. You do the best you can in the few seconds it takes to get that guard back up.

With healers, even an RK, you assume that Prelude to Hope is your only skill. RK's have an attunement panel for a reason, and what's more, they have a skill that they can trait up that is devoted for the sole purpose of going from one extremity to the other within seconds. That would become a useless trait if RKs then have virtually no skills to use at the other extremity.

What I'm saying is that lots of people are panicking, which is causing arguments, when it could all be for naught. Express concern, by all means. But please, keep it restricted to concern, instead of getting angry at other posters. There have already been several hate posts in this thread because people are counting their chicks before they are hatched, and responding very impulsively. Express concerns but getting angry serves no purpose. That would be "guilty until proven innocent", which is neither fair to Turbine, nor rational on its own.

Lol where does it appear I'm getting angry? I'm expressing my concerns, just like you said. And yes, a champ will be able to switch stances, but his force taunt skill will most likely be gated behind the blue tree. So once he switches stances, he doesn't have a taunt ability to ensure he'll get aggro. Captains don't have stances, but they will have the same problem as the champ. The skills to get threat will most likely be gated behind the tanking tree. Same with the RK and switching for heals to dps. They might get mending verse too, but that ignores the rest of their healing skills they need to be effective.

And we have reason to be skeptical/worried about the trait changes. Look at how long it took them to fix the warden class, and they still "fix" them every update.

[spongedarksquarepants]

any idea when the trait tree will be put into game?

[Hatter_of_Bree]

any idea when the trait tree will be put into game?

Autumn. Its supposedly goes with Helm's Deep expansion. Hopefully we will see and test in on Bullroarer earlier.

[Mar-Evayave]

Allow me to add something please. Is not really like that. An experienced RK can drop his attunement from full dps to neutral, put an writ and an prelude + one scroll who will raise the attunement with 3 and he will back to bussines. I can do that in 6 - 7 sec. Also. An true RK will swap his LI's from dps to healing and the gap will be greatly improved. Indeed, no healing traits will still severily affect his performance, but the way he will lower attunement will be possible but in the curent system, he will not have any skills available to use. So which is better? To be able to maintain the team for an short time? Or wipe from start? THat will make the raids in 2 possible ways: doing the pull from first try or wipe. No other way, no recovery. ANd i am not glad with that.

Quite true that there are a lot of insta-skills that help get from one end to the other. I've used those myself on a regular basis. Sometimes it's a sheer matter of whether I want to survive or not. But until we know whether these skills are effected or not, there isn't really much more I can say, other than the fact that we will be getting new skills with HD, and I imagine they will probably count towards the 20ish that come from the skill trees.

Lol where does it appear I'm getting angry? I'm expressing my concerns, just like you said. And yes, a champ will be able to switch stances, but his force taunt skill will most likely be gated behind the blue tree. So once he switches stances, he doesn't have a taunt ability to ensure he'll get aggro. Captains don't have stances, but they will have the same problem as the champ. The skills to get threat will most likely be gated behind the tanking tree. Same with the RK and switching for heals to dps. They might get mending verse too, but that ignores the rest of their healing skills they need to be effective.

And we have reason to be skeptical/worried about the trait changes. Look at how long it took them to fix the warden class, and they still "fix" them every update.

I was not speaking specifically to you. My first paragraphs were directly in reference to you. My last one was towards everyone in general, as I specifically mention seeing hate posts earlier in this thread coming from other players.

As for champ skills, I know of one skill off the top of my head that changes based on stance. Ebbing Ire becomes Rising Ire in the Glory stance. This is one skill that changes based on stance. Skills like that are either going to become skills you get regardless of stance (since they change to suit the stance you use) or they will be split into two separate skills. If we keep the Ire skill separate of the skill trees, they we don't need to worry about it. This is MUCH like Mounted Combat. We have a set of core skills we get even if we don't use any of our MC trait points. These skills often change depending on whether we go red, yellow or blue in stances. We get them no matter what, and what they do changes to suit our needs. Only a few skills require points to be spent into them.

Additionally, for the RK, the very definition of the RK, made by Turbine themselves is this:

"Give Yourself a Choice
Rune-keeepers Do!

*Choose to focus on damaging or healing skills in battle"

Another version of that splash screen says:

"The Rune-keeper
Summon Raging Fire & Frost
[...]
Change your role in battle - deal damage or heal"

These are things Turbine themselves DESIGNED RKs to be able to do. That's what makes the RK the RK. I honestly cannot see Turbine changing this.

[TinDragon]

And yes, a champ will be able to switch stances, but his force taunt skill will most likely be gated behind the blue tree. So once he switches stances, he doesn't have a taunt ability to ensure he'll get aggro.

I'd imagine Rising Ire would get the threat pretty well, considering champs are usually at the top of the aggro table anyway. Any champ that doesn't go into battle with Ebbing Ire is either doing it wrong or has low DPS. Ebbing Ire becomes Rising Ire in Glory. Problem solved.

Captains don't have stances, but they will have the same problem as the champ. The skills to get threat will most likely be gated behind the tanking tree.

Potentially an issue, but chances are good the marks will be on the list of skills the captain has no matter what they trait, and Noble Mark is the best way to raise aggro single-target. (Effective multi-target aggro gain needs yellow traits as it is.)

Same with the RK and switching for heals to dps. They might get mending verse too, but that ignores the rest of their healing skills they need to be effective.

Unless they choose to roll with more healing traits.

[Lohi]

Don't forget that there will be multiple trait trees, and some skills will be specific to particular trees chosen. So there is plenty of room for skills to be spread across multiple trees.

Except that most lore masters use more than just the skills related to one role at a time. They may do high damage while traited red, but simultaneously to be considered a good lore master you will need to apply damage, stun immunity, debuffs, wound removal, crowd control, and maybe off heals if things are going badly. This is both while soloing and in groups. Consider Roots of Fangorn when you're using all those capabilities as a lore master in one single fight.

[TinDragon]

Except that most lore masters use more than just the skills related to one role at a time. They may do high damage while traited red, but simultaneously to be considered a good lore master you will need to apply damage, stun immunity, debuffs, wound removal, crowd control, and maybe off heals if things are going badly. This is both while soloing and in groups. Consider Roots of Fangorn when you're using all those capabilities as a lore master in one single fight.

It's all in the balance. If you need to do all of those things at once, you give up a bit of your specialization, in this case, your DPS. If you don't need to do all of those other things, you can afford to take more DPS skills and traits.

[Batf1nk]

As for champ skills, I know of one skill off the top of my head that changes based on stance. Ebbing Ire becomes Rising Ire in the Glory stance. This is one skill that changes based on stance. Skills like that are either going to become skills you get regardless of stance (since they change to suit the stance you use) or they will be split into two separate skills. If we keep the Ire skill separate of the skill trees, they we don't need to worry about it. This is MUCH like Mounted Combat. We have a set of core skills we get even if we don't use any of our MC trait points. These skills often change depending on whether we go red, yellow or blue in stances. We get them no matter what, and what they do changes to suit our needs. Only a few skills require points to be spent into them.

True, good call on the Ire skills (been a while since I played my champ unfortunately). If they don't split it up, you're right about champs being able to use rising ire once they switch to glory. My point about the taunt for champ and cappy remain, in addition to IHW/LS for cappy.

These are things Turbine themselves DESIGNED RKs to be able to do. That's what makes the RK the RK. I honestly cannot see Turbine changing this.

Yeah I know you'll probably be able to use steady hands to switch to heals or that you'll be able to heal once you use it. I'm worried about the number of healing skills you'll be able to use once attuned. I can only think of 3 that will probably be able to be used with the current "around 20" skill cap. Those skills are writ of health, mending verse, and prelude to hope. I just hope that Turbine rethinks the "around 20" skills for classes that use a variety of skills in big fights, or at least try to provide examples of how you might need to use skills without traiting down that tree. Because once it's on BR for public testing, things are much less likely to change.

[Sthrax]

I'd imagine Rising Ire would get the threat pretty well, considering champs are usually at the top of the aggro table anyway. Any champ that doesn't go into battle with Ebbing Ire is either doing it wrong or has low DPS. Ebbing Ire becomes Rising Ire in Glory. Problem solved.

Rising Ire is not a force taunt. It is a terrible emergency skill. Challenge is the force taunt (and thus very good emergency skill), and the skill the other poster is justifiably concerned about.

[TinDragon]

Rising Ire is not a force taunt. It is a terrible emergency skill. Challenge is the force taunt (and thus very good emergency skill), and the skill the other poster is justifiably concerned about.

If you're already the highest on the aggro table, and you take 15% of the aggro from the second highest person on the aggro table, then you're right, it's not a force taunt. It's better.
If the champ doesn't already have good aggro, the actual force taunt isn't gonna save the group for long anyway, since it doesn't generate any aggro on its own.

[Mar-Evayave]

True, good call on the Ire skills (been a while since I played my champ unfortunately). If they don't split it up, you're right about champs being able to use rising ire once they switch to glory. My point about the taunt for champ and cappy remain, in addition to IHW/LS for cappy.

Yeah I know you'll probably be able to use steady hands to switch to heals or that you'll be able to heal once you use it. I'm worried about the number of healing skills you'll be able to use once attuned. I can only think of 3 that will probably be able to be used with the current "around 20" skill cap. Those skills are writ of health, mending verse, and prelude to hope. I just hope that Turbine rethinks the "around 20" skills for classes that use a variety of skills in big fights, or at least try to provide examples of how you might need to use skills without traiting down that tree. Because once it's on BR for public testing, things are much less likely to change.

lol Honestly, I almost didn't make that call. My champ just hit lvl 42 earlier today, which is the level that the skill is given to champs. xD I didn't even notice at first that it changed when in Glory stance.

With Guardians, they have so many skills I won't bother trying to mention them all, but I do know that those skills also change the same as Ire. Threat-gain in the tanking stance(s), while threat-loss with OP. Can't say anything about cappies since mine is only lvl 31 and I haven't played her in months.

As for worrying about RKs... you and me both. xD As it is, Steady Hands has a lengthy CD. The whole thing with changing stances in the middle of battle only helps if we have enough skills all around (neutral, battle-attuned, and heal-attuned) to get us to our destination in a timely fashion, and even then be able to DO something once there. I have worries for all the classes I am familiar with. But the very fact that RKs are SUPPOSED to be able to swap in the heat of battle makes me very concerned, since we are not going to be allowed to change our builds when in combat...

I am currently envious of the burglars out there. Mine is only lvl 27ish and I haven't played him in months. So far those burglars are the only ones who've been thrown a bone (earlier in this thread). Now to get a few more bones out of the devs... ^_^

[spelunker]

Regarding specialization 'nerfing' us so that instances don't have to get harder, to continue being a challenge: I just don't see it playing out that way. We've been told that specialization will make us better at the thing we trait for, at the expense of what we are not traiting for. I see this as tanks being tankier, at the loss of damage (or something else) healers being better healers, at the loss of buffs, or dps, or w/e, DPS classes will be better at dps, at the expense of survivability, or utility. Etc. etc.

In grouping where people are only filling 1 or 2 roles max, this is just going to make groups more powerful, since people are going to be better at what they're primary goal is. Is a raid leader going to lament that the guardian is doing 25% less dps in HD than RoR if their threat output has been buffed up and the hunter can likewise do 25% more damage than before? not at all.

Increased effectiveness in a specialization trumps utility in group content, thats why you bring a group where every role is covered by someone. The only place this increased specialization would be a negative is in 3-man style instances where extremely non-traditional group make-ups could get things done in non-traditional ways (i'm thinking stuff like a captain and 2 dps minstrels running a 3-man, here).

[Sthrax]

If you're already the highest on the aggro table, and you take 15% of the aggro from the second highest person on the aggro table, then you're right, it's not a force taunt. It's better.
If the champ doesn't already have good aggro, the actual force taunt isn't gonna save the group for long anyway, since it doesn't generate any aggro on its own.

It can be good, but you need fervour to use it, and to target the highest aggro fellowship member for it to work. So when your tank bites it, you've got to switch stances, target the healer or other dps to get a big jump in aggro. That all is fine- once you grab the attention of mob. Which is why you need the Challenge skill to force the now free mob to attack you and not the healer. Once he's on you, Rising Ire is great. Without the Challenge skill, Rising won't save a healer or squishy DPS in an emergency.

[Lohi]

2. Three roles per class.

That's already very limiting. Before Moria introduced trait sets, set bonuses, and legendary capstones, we had MORE viable builds than just three in each class. Remember the BPE minstrel? Now we have one preferred build, one soloing build, and one build that everyone laughs at. When trait sets were added, not one of my clases with 5 traits ended up as 5/2 or 4/3. Remember the confusion and grumbling from lore masters when trait sets were added because there didn't seem to be any consistent theme to the trait placement.

Not every class has had three roles so far.

The different builds were not always different roles but different ways of accomplishing the same role. A tank definitely wants a MIX of durability and threat generation. But these seem to be divided into different trait sets currently so mixing them together means you have to miss out on the capstone or set bonuses. It turns out that the "best" set (ie, the ones that gets you invited to groups) depends upon the types of instances there are (are they DPS races, hordes of adds, one giant boss, etc) as well as what other players are doing (I swapped from durability build to threat build once I could no longer out threat hunters, and I was noticeably squishier).

[TinDragon]

It can be good, but you need fervour to use it, and to target the highest aggro fellowship member for it to work. So when your tank bites it, you've got to switch stances, target the healer or other dps to get a big jump in aggro. That all is fine- once you grab the attention of mob. Which is why you need the Challenge skill to force the now free mob to attack you and not the healer. Once he's on you, Rising Ire is great. Without the Challenge skill, Rising won't save a healer or squishy DPS in an emergency.

If your healer is generating more aggro than the champ and it's more than 15 seconds into the fight, one of those two is doing their job wrong.

[spelunker]

If your healer is generating more aggro than the champ and it's more than 15 seconds into the fight, one of those two is doing their job wrong.

And this is an oversimplification to fit your opinion. There are numerous examples of why a champ would have no aggro on a mob and if the tank went down, the healer would be the far and away aggro leader over the rest of the fellow/raid.

Champ challenge is a great example of a utility skill that is seldom used, not remotely related to a champs primary function, is relatively weak in power, but can be an absolute life-saver for groups in the right scenario. Its also a great example of a likely skill to be put on the chopping block, or gated behind traiting into the tanking line. This is exactly the kind of thing that concerns me with these changes and skill reductions. Some classes are too good at too many things all at once. I get that, by all means reduce the potency of things that we don't trait for, but don't axe our ability to do them entirely by removing or gating significant amounts of skills.

[Lohi]

I was once told by another player that a LM is the most optional class in grouping.

ALL classes are optional! Remember, we have 9 classes but only 6 slots for a fellowship (or 3 slots for small fellowships). You just need to be flexible in who you take.

The people who say stuff like this are common, they've very common in other games for sure. They're totally hung up on the old school style of tank/heal/dps triad, and for some reason seem unable to learn how to go beyond that. Support classes are awesome, and very fun to play since you're always on your toes. If you have a group that has wiped a few times, bringing in a lore master, captain, or burglar to take over for someone who quit in disgust will very often cause that group to succeed. If your group is meat and potatoes and salad, then your support classes are the spices and sauces.

One drawback though is that Turbine keeps trying to create cases where you're back to somewhat boring game play; crowd control doesn't work, the fight is a DPS race, and so on. Some of this comes from players too who think it's better to do more damage than to take less damage.

I can tell you that when I play my minstrel as a healer or am a tank with my guardian, I love having a lore master or captain along.

[Lohi]

(which is a good thing, because a captain should not be able to heal as well in red line as it currently can, considering HoH barely puts out more heals and that's the healing line).

Technically, it's not called the healing line. It's just a label that some people applied to it. However it does a lot more healing than without those traits; maybe you're not seeing it because captains are spamming rallying cry now (they really did reduce the cooldown from gear sets too much, I never saw the need to get it shorter than the traited version). Consider lore masters where the blue line is NOT healing it's about having better pets (and the healing comes from improving ability to heal pets).

It's also a good thing they can heal in red traits. Why would you not want this? Do you not like captains and insist that only properly traited ones should be allowed to join the groups, you want to go back to the bad old days where you were always required to waste money to retrait and have the proper gear before getting an invite? I can tell you for sure that a red traited captain is a very good addition to a group even if no healing is done but so many groups flat out refuse to consider that option.

[Olessan]

I was a little concerned about the revamp, but to be completely honest, these changes sound amazing!