Maybe I’m just misunderstanding the news about the new ranking system, but it seems as if IMC is defining “endgame” classes as being rank 8 and above. So therefore for people who are doppel C3 or fencer C3 or any other rank 6 class. We don’t have another circle to expand into so either we are forced to pick up another class at rank 9 and above or we are just gimped because we already maxed our endgame class at rank 8. Any thoughts or more explanation as to why this would be an incorrect way of thinking? I enjoy playing fencer. 
My first char is a Falc3,
before the news i thought to go Mergen as rank 9 but now i may change into a new class that has a better synergy since i can’t go Mergen3
New classes are like hidden classes: 1 circle only, therefore they may be really good or not.
You are a Fencer3, so maybe Matador new class will make Fencer shine again, who knows?
It will have have Master rank to pick for lower classes so they will be fine.
Nope, every new class will be Rank 8 that will max with 2 cicles.
Example: Wizard can have Sage, Enchanter or Shadowmancer at Rank 8, and can go cicle 2 at 9.
I don’t even understand why people think Character Rank 9 is going to be the last Rank as the picture in the news says : Rank 8, 9, 10, 11…
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They wrote
"To the current Rank 7 and 8 classes, of course, we’ll be adding Circles 3 and 2 respectively"
I’m lost now 
Yeah like I said, the Rank 8 class will have 2 cicles, but every class that will be released in the future will be Rank 8 with the max of 2 cicles.
We probably go to 10 or 11 in the future but we will have to choose rank 8 or lower classes. Not really a problem because they will increase the number of rank 8 classes.
OK, that’s fine.
I read current R8 class and i made a distinction between present R8 class and future R8 class. Thanks
While Rank 6 Classes like Doppelsoeldner or Fencer might be strong, there are a lot of Classes that are pretty weak, e.g. Oracle, Kabbalist,Alchemist and so on.
So what IMC did is to break the circle of Classes getting stronger with each Rank, resulting in the endless race after better damage&support since new Classes at new Ranks always have to be stronger than the previous Ranks. This makes actually advancing through several Circles (and thus Ranks) of a Class less punishing and allows for more build diversity because the capabilities of all new Classes will stay on the same level.
This is also good news to the players who were getting ticked off by the high attribute prices that already ticked in at over 120 millions silver for Rank 8 skills, since this amount will stay the maximum for every new Class and their skills.
Are you sure about that? Not that I care that much, but the current Rank 8 Classes still need their 3rd Circles or otherwise they’ll lose a lot of DPS potential (especially Taoist) and skill potential (Inquisitor would most likely have to scrap some cool torture-based skills ).
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To simply put it:
R7 Classes will have 3 Circles at R9.
R8 Classes will have 2 Circles at R9.
The NEW Classes that are going to be added are going to be R8, so they’ll come with 2 Circles when we get the update already, that means that at R8 for example instead of just having Inquisitor and Taoist as R8 options you’re also going to have Zealot as an option too, so R8 is getting wider in the variety of classes.
Also every single class they’ll introduce later on will also be R8 so it’s just getting a wider variety of options instead of longer ones (aka new classes that can be picked at R9, R10… etc).
This is done in order to make all new classes and current R8 classes equal in power while still being able to progress further down the line.
As for R6 classes they max out at R8, that means that at R9 you can freely take any of the new R8 classes and current ones as a rank for that one, of course you won’t be able to fully pick it since it’s going to come with 2 Circles so you will only be able to pick 1 Circle of the said class.
Of course once we get to R10, the R8 classes will all get their C3 option, thus finally completing all classes ingame and any new class that comes with the R10 will come with the 3 Circles already, this is actually better because we get full classes from the go instead of waiting for various updates to finally get them fully.
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Actually when you put that way I might be wrong. The post about the classes don’t say much about rank 10 or more.
Thanks again for the clarification. I misunderstood too the part where all Rank 8 are supposed to come in 2 circles, as i said in the post above.
Glad it’s clear in my mind now
Yeah, my point is R6 classes max out at R8, so you can’t remain a fencer…you have to pick another class. Farewell fencer…
Maybe they could make all previous classes max out at R7 so R8 is free for all the R8 classes we’ll get in the future, but for now we can only wait.
You can stick with Fencer for now, it won’t be the end of the world, first we’ve to see what R9 Circles are going to look like to decide 
It is not clearly said R9 is the last Character Rank, we don’t actually know it.
Here’s a simpler (hopefully) way to put it:
Character Rank is the number of ranks your character can level up to in the future. We don’t know up to how much but considering the Base Level is rumored to exceed 600+, then we might have more than 11 Character Ranks. Right now IMC has only confirmed that Character Rank will be increased to 9 to accommodate 2nd circles for the current rank 8 classes, and 3rd circles for rank 7 classes.
Class Rank on the other hand represents the classes available at each rank which will be capped at rank 8. For example, rank 1 for Archer has Ranger and QS. To quote the dev blog:
any new classes will be considered as Rank 8 classes in order to provide numerous character progression paths
all classes in Class Rank 8 (both current and future) will provide equal combat abilities (attack skill factors) and will be hierarchically equivalent to one another
This means that any new classes they’ll be adding in the future will automatically go into the rank 8 group, and all classes in that group will be made equal with one another in terms of importance in an endgame/cap build.
For lower-rank classes, which skill factors remain relatively low, we have plans to introduce a Master Circle (name undecided) which will expand their combat power and abilities to a level similar to those of higher-rank classes.
By the time Character Rank 9 is implemented, it’s possible that the available advancement options would be as follows:
- All circle1 low rank classes except ones you already have in your build
- The next advancement circles of classes you have in your build except circle3s
- Master Circles of any circle3 classes you already have in your build
- Circle3 of your rank 7 circle1 class pick if applicable (e.g. Kabal3)
- Circle2 of your rank 8 circle1 class pick if applicable (e.g. Inqui2)
- Circle1 of all other rank 8 classes (e.g. Taoist)
There are things I’m not sure about though:
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Will R8 classes really be capped at 2nd circle only?
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Can we pick more than one kind of rank 8 class after Character Rank 8? Say I picked Inquisitor C1 at Character Rank 8, but when Character Rank 9 came, a new rank 8 class was added which seems to have synergy with Inquisitor C1, perhaps a different playstyle from simply going Inquisitor C2. Then we reached Character Rank 11 where I now have 2 circle2 rank 8 classes (Inqui2 and NewClass2) - will this be possible, or will it be impending powercreep? To make it crazier for those who like rainbow builds, would it be possible to have 4 different rank 8 classes by Character Rank 11?
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Can we have more than one Master Circle in a build for lower rank classes? Like if #1 question is true, then I can just go Cleric Master Circle at R10 then Paladin Master Circle at R11 for example after taking Inquisitor2 for R8 and R9?
I hope they’d also introduce dual/multiple attributes that offer different effects (e.g. one is offensive, the other defensive, 3rd once is a balance of both, etc.) on a skill, and where turning one attribute on would turn off the others. This would allow a more dynamic, less predictable, and adaptive gameplay especially in PVP. It might cure the issue of “oh I know how this is going to end, we might as well give up.”
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Just cal “Rank 9” as “Character Rank 9” and you will be fine. And don’t call Pyromancer as a Rank 2 class anymore, but call is as a grade 2 class.
And remember that the classes will be now graded from 1 to 8, and all new classes will always receive the maximum grade from now on.
So, when you see “Hey, R9 classes are here”, that measn that you have to reach your Character Rank level to 9, to reach all the new classes (that are graded as level 8 classes), including the new circles of each class that we already have.
So, if a cleric reach the personal Character Rank 9, it will have access to these new classes to select, and all the previous one (as it actually does):
3rd Circle of Plague Doctor (a grade 7 class and if you already have 2nd circle)
3rd Circle of Kabbalist (a grade 7 class and if you already have 2nd circle)
2nd Circle of Inquisitor (a grade 8 class and if you already have the 1st circle)
2nd Circle of Taoist (a grade 8 class and if you already have the 1st circle)
1st Circle of Zealot (a grade 8 class)
Asking to myself the same things. We need to know so we can plan builds in a long-term view and stop with seasonal meta and rank reset…
R8 classes will not be capped at 2 circles.
And then they show on this image “Character rank 8 9 10 11…”. What they’re showing here is that before, for rank 1-7, it was a straight branching path, with each new branches introducing new classes.
→ Rank 2-A → Rank 3-A → Rank 4-A [...] → Rank 7-A
Rank 1
→ Rank 2-B → Rank 3-B → Rank 4-B [...] → Rank 7-B
And that’s as far as the branching system will go. After R7, you’ll have ALL the classes available at R8 (although they’ll introduce them one by one).
What they meant with
concerns the next update. That the next update concerning R9 will still exist. That we will indeed have a rank 9, it’s just that R9 will not unlock any new classes. The classes that will be added will be added as R8, but you can pick Inquisitor at R8 and then Zealot at R9 for example, or Inquisitor 2 at R9, or Zealot at R8 then Zealot C2 at R9 once it’s released (added to make it even clearer).
When R10 will be released, they will release the 3rd circles.
The issue is that they made a general announcement about the new system and an announcement about the next update, so it’s confusing.
Just to complete your statement, at release we’ll also be able to get Zealot C2 and later on we should be able to pick Zealot 1 and ‘New Class Coming Soon 2045’ 1
.
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According to the following post on inven. Looking to explain the new horizontal development to users that may be confused about it (like me)
These are example builds that should be possible on that update.
As any post user-made either here or Inven, i will still recommend not take it as last word but still consider this explanation.