The way classes are designed to fall off every 3 circles

[isaacvithurston]

In interviews the developers basically said they made skills mostly non-scaling so that when you get newer classes unlocked you won’t have to deal with having too many hotkeys.

In other words the classes are designed for planned obsolescence. To me this means 3 things.

1. Alot of your favorite circles will become useless come Circles 7-10.
2. Everyone will be picking the same few circles 1-6 that have the best utility and scaling buffs/skills
3. Anyone who makes the mistake of picking early circles for how cool/interesting they are will either be gimped or reroll

It also kind of kills my motivation for playing at the moment since I played to test classes and find which ones I enjoy. In the end it doesn’t really matter which ones I liked when they won’t be practical in the end. For example I like Cryo3 but it has very little utility compared to Wizard3 and so come circles 7-10 I (and probably everyone) will be doing Wizard3 to start since a flat 50% scaling buff and double cast speed is better utility than others can offer.

[agnaldo_junior01]

The best way to fix this is to add more Cicles rather than 3, I guess… with scaling abilities so you can stick to your favorite class once you reach it. Since upper Rank classes will have less cicles, they will be matched well with the previous Rank classes.

[Kruwz]

i understand nothing can u be moar clear ? Its useless to be class 3 but all gonna go class 3 wizzard ?

WTF ?

[isaacvithurston]

English is a prerequisite to understanding =/

[jenn_barrios]

Well I’d anyway not choose the early classes because of their dmg skills but rather for their buffs/attributes/effects.

Like squire buff food, weapon maintenance, etc
Priest Res., Cleric protect zone, Peltasta Swash Buckling, …
Not necessarily but I wouldn’t call them “useless”.

Some classes make attributes available which allow the use of certain weapons, etc
Stuff like this.

I don’t think, the early classes are supposed to be mained in end game, rather as a basis for the classes which come in the end.

On the other side there are also skills which scale well, like cleric’s heal (scales with INT) - rather as a heal spell tho than atk.

[Dastev]

‘Cryo 3 has little utility’, WHUH.
Buddy, um. No offense, but have you lost your mind!

Cryo 3 is awesome. Our spells’ cooldowns are pretty short-ish compared to other classes’, and the sheer amount of CC you bring in to the table is amazing on its own.

The damage itself is pretty awesome too. Sure we don’t spit out gigantic damage like pyromancers, but the solemn fact we can freeze so many enemies is already amazing on its own. Just wait until pvp comes and you’ll see!

I do, however, believe that all skills need proper scaling.
For me the epitome of bad skill design is Lethargy. Why the hell would you ever want to put points in a spell that makes an enemy lose 8ish attack damage when most enemies deal hundreds later in the game? It’s just bad planning all over it.

Skills need proper scaling both to stay relevant throughout the game and make every decision feel meaningful and impactful. If I sudenly decide to Pick Wizard 2 at rank 4, that is because I should expect those 5 extra levels in earthquake will give me a devastating attack that will make me feel as strong as someone that picked Elementalist.

[Rhagius]

you missed the point of the topic completely, though you are right in that the cc will remain strong as cryo. the damage on the other hand will be insignificant by design, the skills are supposed to not scale well

[Dastev]

As I said in the last 2 paragraphs of my reply, I did agree with the fact that scaling on lower rank skills would be very much welcome.

Disregarding my fanboy talk of Cryomancers, was it that I said really that off topic, sir?

[Rhagius]

it sounded like you were advocating better scaling without realizing that it was intentionally designed like this,
wording it as an agreement changes the tone and meaning. please disregard my comment

[Einbroch]

I don’t think you should souly count on damage of skills though. Alot of skills are there for utility also. Like my 3rd rank highlander has a skill that reduces your defence to 0 for 10 seconds. Will the damage of that skill not be nearly as good as a circle 10? Definitly not, but you can bet I’ll still be using it for that zero defence debuff.

[lans1234567890]

Well beta is for testing bugs.you can see what classes you like or not.we dont have all classes yet so all you say is poinles.if you didnt get it from the start then its sad.
Building in this game works in one way only.
You lokk at what class you will pick last.you see if its dps,suport/healer,tank.then you look at its skills and see what it needs and what classes on the way eill give you what you need.dont do it like this and you will have skill you just dont use.i have this problem on my barbarian ,thrust is a skill that i dont need now.

[Satoru]

Alot of your favorite circles will become useless come Circles 7-10.

No, they won’t. And the right word is Rank. Circle is only used to describe how deep you are within a single class.

[quote=“isaacvithurston, post:1, topic:104437”]
Everyone will be picking the same few circles 1-6 that have the best utility and scaling buffs/skills
[/quote]Each class offers different playstyles and synergies with other classes, we will see a lot of variety.

[quote=“isaacvithurston, post:1, topic:104437”]
Anyone who makes the mistake of picking early circles for how cool/interesting they are will either be gimped or reroll
[/quote]Not really. If you are taking extra Circles of a class aiming higher buff/debuff duration, extra hits on skills, unlocking skills that will have good synergy with a higher Rank class you plan to get… all those are worth.

[quote=“isaacvithurston, post:1, topic:104437”]
I (and probably everyone) will be doing Wizard3
[/quote]Wiz C3 will probably be the most underplayed class of Wizard tree, idk where you got that from. I personally think it is good and has its niche, but most people don’t.

[Yukinari]

I think op talking about damage aspect here. As i notice for wizard tree many ppl choose pyro/linker (c1,2) just for easier to play at early stage. I bet they will get outdamage and rarely touch those skills again once they get access to much stronger skills at higher ranks. But for utility skills like Quick cast/sure spell of Wiz3 they’ll be forever useful no matter which class you choose later.

[Satoru]

Quick and Sure will be good, but Pyro has a lot of multi-hit skills that will be great just with your base and weapon matk + enhance attribute regardless. Cryo has a lot of CC and combo with other classes (ie. + lightning damage on frozen targets). Linker is Linker, when would he be bad??

The only things I can see becoming obsolete are flat buffs like Steady Aim, or some bad designed/polished skills like Reflect Shield (really bad at higher levels, even with SPR scaling, because Wiz has no real benefit to build a lot of SPR, blocks too few attacks, “charges” are consumed upon evasion/block…).

[Yukinari]

i mean its fine if they go straight to C3 of those classes (any skills are strong at maxed anyway, even energy bolt). But do you really use your lv5-10 dps skills of those low ranks when you have much stronger and maxed skills of higher classes ?. For linker is it really worth going half assed C1 on it while there are C3 linkers or other dedicated supporter in your team ?.
CC skills are fine but i still can’t see the useful of early dps skills in late game. Same with half assed support skills while you are a dps

[Satoru]

Few Wizard classes have low CD skills, so even if your older skills don’t have a combo or something appealing (even tho most have), you will still use them as fillers.

Other characters have low CD skills on higher ranks duo change of gameplay (mounted classes, weapon requirements, physical/magical paths…).

I don’t like Linker C3. I would rather have a party member with C2 at most and another class mixed in instead. :x

Imo, this game doesn’t work that well for pure tank, pure support and pure DPS. You can focus one path, but having a little of each would be better. But that’s just me. :>

[robkyuur]

Lv15 Reflect Shield will block over 10000 points of damage over a full party with high SPR. Hardly useless!

[isaacvithurston]

It’s not really about a single class but in general. The way damage is going in later classes you can basically see your Cryo skills hitting for practically 1 damage later. Now when will I take Cryo just for freezing when I can take wizard and get +50% damage that works on every future skill, no canceling my spells and a 9 hit shield.

[isaacvithurston]

Alright so what exactly will I use from Pyro3 for example when all those skills hit for 1 damage later and the entire class has practically 0 utility. In that case im missing a 50% dmg buff from wizard for absolutely nothing. I guess there’s still fire property on your attack incase you get the right mob type to kill =/

I also highly doubt im going to use those skills as cd filler when they start doing the same damage than my auto attack lol

[victor_sant]

This is one of the things that most make me disapointed with this game. They sell all this “80 classes” but in the end most of them are just stepstones for the endgame ones. This is very frustating, specially when the endgame ones aren’t my cup of tea.

[quote=“isaacvithurston, post:1, topic:104437”]
It also kind of kills my motivation for playing at the moment since I played to test classes and find which ones I enjoy. In the end it doesn’t really matter which ones I liked when they won’t be practical in the end.
[/quote]I share this same feeling. This and some another design decisions regarding the game balance are almost sealing my decision to no play this game when it goes OBT.