Lizard archer don’t require linker, but healer to deal with them though. There are still classes that can deal with 5 of them easily, except that they need heal now and then.
If the meaning of harder is higher damage, and not higher hp, it’s healer that’s being needed, not linker.
Harder content means tankier monsters, tankier monsters means damage buffs are more worthwhile.
Heck, Physical link might become required just because nobody can handle the kind of damage stuff is tossing around.
I don’t see any reason to act like linker is top DPS, as if it’s the only source of high DPS in game atm.
There are enough OP class combinations that when used properly are more useful than having a linker around.
Outside of an instance, in general lvling, a linker is not all that useful. In an instance, you are generally pulling smaller groups of mobs and killing them ( typically killing 5 quickly helps a lot, so linker is very good ). In general lvling, at higher lvl zones, you are pulling 20-30 mobs, and killing them. Killing 5 quickly doesn’t really gain you that much.
It’s hard to say. We have to see when it came out.
Still, it depends on how much faster linker + party can kill the 5 monsters compared to party member of other classes. Also, linker will only become more useful on some maps, not every map and not in field boss.
If a tanker can’t handle the high damage from the monsters, I doubt if the lower hp class can withstand those damage from physical link even if it’s 1/5 of the damage, because it’s easier to heal just one member with high hp than to heal many members.
Yeah, but if you have a good DPS AOE wizard in your party such as pyro 2/3 or ele 3 (which is a fairly common wiz build), it’s better to lure a bigger group than just a few monsters.
Another reason why a pure DPS wizard is going to be stronger than having a linker in your party 
A rogue at level 200 can hit for more than 100k damage on a single target.
A rogue with a linker nearby can deal more than 100k damage to 5-11 targets.
Who deals more damage, the Linker, or the Rogue?
At any rate, are you guarenteeing that all future content will be either single boss killing, or fighting many, many monsters?
If you are fighting between 2 and say, 10 very strong monsters that you can’t kill within a few skills, or which deal tons of damage, Linkers will be very useful in shutting them down at at least double speed.
How so? I wasn’t aware we even had a targeted heal, I thought we just had Heal, Mass Heal, Restoration, Aukuras, and potions. All of which are more effective at healing groups than single players.
No, I’m working off of what I’ve experienced, in the CBTs. Currently those are the two situations you optimize for. How can you have a discussion on nerfing linker if you’re not working with current valid information? What, because sometime in the future grinding might be balanced around fighting fewer monsters rather than mobbing up a large amount? That discussion can be had when that actually happens.
For a linker + rogue, that’s a nice damage combo. Killing 5 strong monsters instantly isn’t all that amazing, as most DPS classes + a linker can do that anyways. Killing 11 monsters is quite a bit nicer, but as I’ve said I believe that if you invest in going linker C3 that you should be that strong. Linker C2/C3 are not a problem.
So, how do dungeons scale? Would you say that attracting a group of 20 mobs is a usual thing if your group is the appropriate level for the instance?
Since we are talking about Linker C1 being OP just for a single rank, JP will only link 5 targets.
Linker C1 deal more damage if the monster has super high HP where the other classes couldn’t kill 5 of them in 15 seconds.
Since I can’t guarantee how strong the monsters are in the future, I couldn’t say the Linker C1 is OP or not by now. Linker C1 is definitely strong, to the point of OP, in a map where the monsters has extremely high hp, and has a low density, but the question is whether that map is relevant enough for players to stay for a long time.
In grinding area, unless the monster is so brokenly powerful that the DPS from no target limit AOE spell against 10-15 monsters couldn’t outdo the damage by rogue + linker, or when the tanker couldn’t tank more than 5 monsters, AOE DPS is preferred.
It’s hard to imagine the late game content isn’t more about boss hunting and PVP though, where linker C1 wouldn’t be very useful in both.
Because healing spell is based on percentage of Max HP. It’s easier to heal a single high HP character compared to healing every party members in red.
Yes, it is, at least that’s the case for my Wiz 3 Ele 3 (since rank 5). Clearly you haven’t been in a good party, or have a good AOE DPS if you don’t think it’s usual.
If we have a strong enough combo, yes.
A decent tank that knows how to pull to the right places, a decent AoE build class ( ranger, psychokino, elementalist, pyro, cryo, sapper, are classes I’ve played that would fit the bill ). For example, with my psychokino 2 I could mob almost any number of monsters, and then just psychic pressure stun them until they were dead (This doesn’t work as well if there’s a bunch of ranged mobs, however). That’s without even using the icewall + pp combo, which annihilates everything on screen. Ranger barrage with a proper build/gearset also destroys instance mobs as well. Nothing should be surviving through an entire Sapper broom trap. For a Cryo, between icewall shards, frost pillar, and snow rolling, you’ve got 3 skills that you can rotate to effectively take out most mobs on screen.
So, this video isn’t indicative of dungeon play?
There are a couple things I want to point out here:
Hmm I remember saying a couple of times that a linker is more suited to instance dungeons, where you typically kill things effectively in 5’s. Yes - it’s true, they are preferred for dungeon play, and strong in that role. If you have a proper setup/combo, you can pull far more though. Linkers do make it easier, without needing the ‘perfect’ party.
My comparisons were for open grinding, where you need to group up many much weaker monsters, since instance lvl monsters aren’t available in open world grinding. ( It’d be really cool if this changed, I’d like to see open world dungeons with monsters at the difficulty level of instance dungeons ).
I’m kinda confused though, you say they have little to no AoE, but I think that’s an Ele3 in the party, a wugushi with gu pot, and a necromancer, and one of them is pyro with flame ground… What is good AoE to you?
From that video you could see C1 linker don’t offer anything useful but JP on 5 monsters. It will be vulnerable if JP keep geting nerf again, even worse than C1 Wizard. Linker may seem flashy but it have it own downside and don’t offer much interesting rewards than Thaumaturge (double exp + drop) or Chronomancer (suppose to revive boss for extra loot.)…
Let me get this straight:
Every classes in ToS are suppose to be excellent at something, somewhere that no other class could be better.
If you have a good peltasta instead of linker, the mobs can be cleared much faster in that video.
Would you happen to have a video of that? I can’t say I’ve every had the pleasure of playing with a Pel.
I can’t really make one as the cbt is over. But as you can see, there are alot moment where they didn’t lure every mobs in the room, which you can with a peltasta.
That combined with flame ground or frost cloud is enough to finish off the group.
The execution is harder though, because you get members that lure the mob away once in a while. But team with good cooperation is fine.
Linker is an easy choice when your team don’t have good execution.
Edit: on a side note, a linker c1 usually mess up the execution because he used hangman knot and pulled 5 mobs away from the AOE spell.
Well, that isn’t a very good demonstration as there is no good AOE DPS in that party (rank 1 elementalist is not that good).
But yeah, it basically shows how do you work with Peltasta.
In that video you can see caltrops doing a good job due to the taunt but it’s kinda ruined because of centurion buffs. Also they are not shy running inside a horde of more than 5-6 which in those kind of situations when you are a linker makes you barely feel useful. From my experience it’s far better with a peltasta.
I also used caltrops that way as a sapper to solo 2-3 groups at the same time in the 90 dungeon by myself while my team and their linker were killing one.