Yep I do understand that meta doesn’t mean DPS. I’ve been in so many games where the meta keep switching and switching. Try MTG where they ban some stuff every other year that cause the modern format to keep switching metas and tier decks. (RIP eggs, pod T_T)
Back to topic. I agree that for lots of classes, the direction and implementation aren’t up to what IMC planned, or rather envisioned them out to be. Likewise for most of the pro-reset players, I too have a number of characters which kind of got ‘nerf’ as patches roll. RIP my linker1>thau1>chrono3 AA wiz… my toy hammer… 
. Hunter c3 is another disappointment, so many buggy skills, lack of pet AI. Level 17 rush dog deal lesser damage than my cafri-sacrament auto. Don’t get me started on swordsmen, it is so clunky that I made a thread on it asking for awareness and buffs.
The recent gameplay videos of kToS R8 got me worried too, not about the classes but the power creep in which IMC puts in the game past 280. It just seems like pure support classes like FS clerics, FS wizards will have a really hard time just traversing through the content. 300k hp normal mob? That’s the hp of ET monsters and how many builds can actually do that?
This make me realise that the current iteration of the game has come to a point where both directions, ToS with reset or ToS without reset, is just going to be bad for the players.
Balancing is shiat now, and it is even worse in R8 patch.
Sure adding a reset is going to make traversing the new content easier and more bearable, where the most efficient meta classes can do the content while other non-meta, ‘gimmicky’ builds will take the back seat in the lodge. Full support builds can get parties to finish up quests, but will suffer greatly when they are farming materials in 300+ maps just to get their level 320/330? gear.
If the content can only be played by meta builds, who is going to respec to a non-meta to try?
This is a qn I would really want IMC to answer for R8 and beyond. If a reset does happen and everyone has to go meta just to complete it, no one will want to go non-meta anymore. This defeats the fundamental nature of the game, which is to diversify the classes and make every class viable.
Sad to say this is also what I forsee will happen when there is a reset. It is a bandaid which just delays the inevitable. On the contrary, having no reset in this unbalanced game makes it more and more unbearable, as players who aren’t in the ‘correct’ build can’t proceed even in the normal quest maps.
In the current iteration of iToS, support builds such as linkerchronos, are still able to solo some of the content, like gathering materials to make their grynas gear. The monsters are of 10-20k, although it takes some effort to kill it is still doable. Past 240 it becomes near impossible to solo quest or farm materials. It is considered as end game now, but when R8 hits the goal post will shift to 330.
IMC ought to sort this shiat out and balance the game. It will solve most of the problems that the players are facing if their builds are viable to do most of the content. Sure high end game content will need specific builds to do but all the classes should at least be able to navigate through 85% of the content with little to some effort. Once the classes are balanced, then players will be happy with their class choices and not think that they “waste their time” levelling some sort of lodge bench warmer.
This is solving the problem at the root, class resets is just relieving the symptoms for the time being only.
As for kabbalist C2, yeah it is kind of a disappointment. Oh well…
@jchang10931 Yeah it is possible to implement resets in the virtual game world. For ToS it is more a design choice to leave the reset out rather than the ability and competence of the developers. The Q&A reply is just a nice, roundabout way to say that.
