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multiclass concern
z80paranoia
Member Posts: 410
in Rift
I have a concern about the choice to multiclass. It may not be much of a choice if putting all of your points into a single class results in a significantly more powerful character. The only way I could see multiclassing being viable is if multiclassed skills had the potential to synergize in ways that had the potential to make up for the power gap. But I don't know if that will be the case.
edit:
Based on the replies, and from playing with the character builder, my conclusion is that hybrid builds (as far as point spending goes) are pointless. Chest thumping ftw!
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
Comments
Well, each soul gives you some "free" abilities right off the bat without the need to invest any points into it. For example, looking at the "nightblade" soul here http://telarapedia.com/wiki/Nightblade_abilities you can see in the "root advancement" section that you don't need to invest any points to get 3 of the nightblade abilities, and "conceal" only requires 4 points, leaving plenty of points to spend in other trees if that's all you're really interested in.
That means that even someone who intends to specialise in just one soul (pure tank, pure heal etc) can still benefit from their choice of 2nd and 3rd soul even if they don't put any points into it.
Obviously, this isn't official yet and this information I think has been put together from watching the videos and playing the alpha at PAX so it may be inaccurate or changed at a later date.
It's interesting that you chose to use the word I highlighted as Scott Hartsman has been interviewed several times using the word synergy with respect to Soul (class) combinations within Callings (archtypes).
So yes, the opportunity to find those synergies will be there. No, not every single combination will have them but from the way Scott describes it there will be more than a few especially when you factor in th "Y factor" of situations. A Soul Combination may have a certain Synergy when Soloing that may not be so great when grouping or PvPing. I'm fairly sure they are aiming not to have a combo that fits all situations which is why they have the feature in to let you save 4 Builds that you can switch between on the fly (and while not in combat).
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Now my only concern is OMG WHY ONLY 4?!?!? I WANT 10 COMBONATIONS SAVED!!!!
Because in addition to the ways you explained the benefits of having optimal builds in pve situations, I was thinking along the lines of pvp situations.
Maybe one build is good for running a DAOC style free roaming group, or maybe one style is good for close quarter fights with more aoe, or maybe Im a rogue and I get to an area where it would favor range so I get into a archer spec.
So yes, the opportunity to find those synergies will be there. No, not every single combination will have them but from the way Scott describes it there will be more than a few especially when you factor in th "Y factor" of situations. A Soul Combination may have a certain Synergy when Soloing that may not be so great when grouping or PvPing. I'm fairly sure they are aiming not to have a combo that fits all situations which is why they have the feature in to let you save 4 Builds that you can switch between on the fly (and while not in combat).
I've read the interviews and watched the videos. That doesn't necessarily mean synergized multiclass skill combos will have the potential to be as powerful as the maxed out "pure" class build skills.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
And it also doesnt mean that synergized classes WONT be as strong as a pure class.
I know that sounds ridiculous at first glance. But consider the two environments that one would be in, in RIFT.
First PvP. I am using WoW as an example because I currently play a WoW rogue. In short I can lock down extremely high dps Warrior pure classes and kill them before they can use there arsenal of UBER POWERFUL abilities to kill me. (this isnt a rogues are OP thread, dont go there)
My point? Lets copy and paste that pure class into the RIFT dynamic. That warrior would stand a better chance had he dropped some damage talents and got a few talents that helped him survive. He grabbed some utility talents.
Is he as "ZOMG POWERFUL" without the last few points in his main tree? No.
Will he have the ability to actually USE that power in a fight, yes.
2nd most common scenario PVE.
Lets say you do a pure build, and you have 4 abilities that you use to DPS with. I go a hybrid build because in the dungeon were going to Crowd Control is important so I took some utility spells. So while your frozen or dead, I am still doing dps, or maybe I saved the healer..because thats a common problem with that particular dungeon.
Lets make it even simpler. Again you have 4 dps abilities in your pure build and I have 6 in my hybrid. 2 of your abilities are on a short cooldown and 2 of my 6 are on a cooldown. I can weave my rotation in a way that does more DPS than yours does. Or maybe on long fights you run out of mana yet I can keep going.
There are an unending amount of situations that I could present and I havent even mentioned group synergy.
RIFT isnt a Carnival show "Step right up and show us your SINGLE most powerful ability and whoever hits the hardest wins" kind of game.
It's interesting that you chose to use the word I highlighted as Scott Hartsman has been interviewed several times using the word synergy with respect to Soul (class) combinations within Callings (archtypes).
So yes, the opportunity to find those synergies will be there. No, not every single combination will have them but from the way Scott describes it there will be more than a few especially when you factor in th "Y factor" of situations. A Soul Combination may have a certain Synergy when Soloing that may not be so great when grouping or PvPing. I'm fairly sure they are aiming not to have a combo that fits all situations which is why they have the feature in to let you save 4 Builds that you can switch between on the fly (and while not in combat).
I've read the interviews and watched the videos. That doesn't necessarily mean synergized multiclass skill combos will have the potential to be as powerful as the maxed out "pure" class build skills.
And it also doesnt mean that synergized classes WONT be as strong as a pure class.
I know that sounds ridiculous at first glance. But consider the two environments that one would be in, in RIFT.
First PvP. I am using WoW as an example because I currently play a WoW rogue. In short I can lock down extremely high dps Warrior pure classes and kill them before they can use there arsenal of UBER POWERFUL abilities to kill me. (this isnt a rogues are OP thread, dont go there)
My point? Lets copy and paste that pure class into the RIFT dynamic. That warrior would stand a better chance had he dropped some damage talents and got a few talents that helped him survive. He grabbed some utility talents.
Is he as "ZOMG POWERFUL" without the last few points in his main tree? No.
Will he have the ability to actually USE that power in a fight, yes.
2nd most common scenario PVE.
Lets say you do a pure build, and you have 4 abilities that you use to DPS with. I go a hybrid build because in the dungeon were going to Crowd Control is important so I took some utility spells. So while your frozen or dead, I am still doing dps, or maybe I saved the healer..because thats a common problem with that particular dungeon.
Lets make it even simpler. Again you have 4 dps abilities in your pure build and I have 6 in my hybrid. 2 of your abilities are on a short cooldown and 2 of my 6 are on a cooldown. I can weave my rotation in a way that does more DPS than yours does. Or maybe on long fights you run out of mana yet I can keep going.
There are an unending amount of situations that I could present and I havent even mentioned group synergy.
RIFT isnt a Carnival show "Step right up and show us your SINGLE most powerful ability and whoever hits the hardest wins" kind of game.
Your response sounds good, in theory, using WoW. I just hope they don't make the last few skills of the classes uber enough to make pure builds the only smart choice. Your answer is good only with the assumption that the last few skills are not OMFG POWERFUL MUST..HAVE..IT...or faillllll.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
Ender pointed out some good ideas. You can also check out a temporary site made by one of my guild mates to play around with and take a look at some of the skills. None of the upper level skills/abilities look like uber one hit wonders to me.
http://www.riftrolebuilder.com/
Again, Trion has said they are allowing for viable multi-souls if we want to play them. Whether you believe them or not is up to you. As for me and many others who follow the game closely we haven't really seen much that goes against what they have told us they plan to do. Granted, the proof will be when beta starts as to how well they hit their goal. The great thing is there will be time to adjust and tweak it if need be before launch.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I--wanted--to--post--something---but--my--space--bar--broke--I--swear
EDIT-Sorry for the previous post. Got a new keyboard
Well, ultimately noone is stopping you from going pure up one Soul if looking over your shoulder at "the Jones" is your thing. Trion has said time and again that there will be some mixes that are viable for different gameplay and there will be mixes that aren't. Either way if you can get through the content, who cares?
Course, like I said, if you're looking over on your neighbors returned test to see what they made and compare it to what you made, well, if you're that type of person then you probably will go 1 Soul.
The whole idea behind the 3 Souls system was to offer more choice and variety for gameplay. It wasn't a match numbers versus numbers and make them equal excercise. It's more for those people who don't care if they are doing 5 less DPS than a Pure build just as long as they can complete the raid and do it their own fun way.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
You can look at your own character sheet to see how puny hybrids are. No neighbors required. One good thing I can say about this system is at least you can change classes without changing characters if they are within the same calling. This makes it so I only need to ever make 4 (or 8?) characters on any given server to get all of the classes. For those who enjoy delicious weaksauce, they have the option to hybrid as they see fit.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
After playing with the calculator, I dont think there are enough talent points to make competitive hybrids. I will try to make this short because I have the RL longwinded calling as a base ability
To feel like a rogue and having the abilities I am used to having, I have to super focus in one tree and then dump into a second tree. And in the end I am given the illusion of choosing an assasin hybrid , but in reality I am playing the assassin class with ONE vertical set of talent points with no real choices.
The third tree doesnt do shit for me because I already have abilities that use Energy and Combo points that hit harder. So the argument of, even if you dont put points into a third tree, you still get abilities----yes you do. Whether you use them, is another discussion entirely.
If there were base abilities in the calling that is one thing, but there are not and could not be. By base abilities I mean the abilities that are generally inherent to the class. In WoW all rogues get the same stuns no matter the spec.
You cant do that in this game because with only 4 callings, you cant give every rogue calling all the base abilities of a hunter (pet, snareshot etc) and all the stuns of an assassin. It would not make sense.
I am not complaining about there system but in my opinion at this stage, I contend that 51 points is not enough to make a competitive hybrid.
"DEVILS ADVOCATE" I could say that other callings work better synergistically and that more than 51 points in the other callings would be definitely overpowered. I could also say that when more souls become available, the synergy will be more evident.
I also wonder to what extent gear will play a role. Will I be able to ignore the +dmg talents and +crit talents and pick up gear with stats that will augment my lack of + to crit/dmg?
Conclusion -I am still interested in the game but this is one thing I will have to wait and see about.
Khala, I love your posts and you are always very reasonable and this post is no different but I am not talking about a min maxer kind of thing.
I feel like...they are handing us choices, and saying "Hey look, you can do whatever you want to do! We have given you choices!"
But its much less hybrid than what I was expecting when the word CHOICES is emphasized so much. The choice is, you can be an assassin if you want to be but you better put THIS many points in or the only choice your making is whether to be gimp or to be competitive.
Hey look at me, I chose the gimp spec, because I was given choices! I am doing whatever I want to!
I dont want JUST choices and to be a hybrid in name only, I want them to be competitive.
I agree completely. Freedom of choice is pointless if there is only one realistic way to be effective in your chosen role. At the moment however it's impossible to say for sure whether your concerns are well founded or not given that at this stage nobody outside the dev team can do any extensive testing yet, and being an alpha it's likely the souls and abilities will be tweaked and revamped for balance between now and release.
One positive thing to take note however is that Trion have so far demonstrated a decent enough understanding of what players want from the game. The chances are that if hybrid builds are rendered obsolete in any aspect, they would be keen to address that. After all, this whole mix and matching soul system is a major part of what makes Rift different, to ignore it would be suicide.
/shrug
If no-one ever goes hybrid then you would have a point. But I strongly believe that some will go single tree and some will do hybrid. A good design is one where people argue endlessly on forums about which is better.
If the trees were balanced in a way to make competitive hybrids....you would have a point. Right now, from what I see, they dont look competitive.
I am absolutely for RIFTs success and I sincerely hope that when its released, it is balanced that well.
The one thing that someone said that gave me the most hope of that happening, is the attitude of the devs and their willingness to actually listen to the player base.
I certainly see what you are saying Ender. I agree that some folks (and I'm not talking about specific people just people in general) see the word "choice" and think that anything they pick or come up with will perform at the same stats as every other choice.
I've always looked at it that it is obvious some things will give way to higher numbers than others. Some to the point to where they are not really effective. For me, however, there is a line to where if the build is fun and I'm able to complete all the content that I want to engage in, who cares that Bobby down the street is doing 5 more DPS than me? I certainly don't.
And that's what I get from Trion as to what they are going for. There will be those builds as will as the "gimp" builds. The cool thing about it though is if you find yourself in a "gimp" build, visit a trainer and change it. No harm no foul.
The thing I don't want to see (again, not pointing at you as you have proven to me to be a reasonal person) is some folks on this site taking this and going chicken little with it. Yes, there is the possibility that you can make a weak character. Trion has acknowledged this. That said, with a little thought put forward you can still make your own "flavor" character and play the game in a satisfying manner.
Oh, and as an aside I was playing around with the Reaver Soul and with 31 Points I was able to get to the very top of the upper branches. So it is possible to get to the top of a tree (with 26 points minimum) I believe to get some of those higher tier skills. You just have to pick and choose and not max everything out. You won't be able to get all of the abilities in the root section but hey, the theory is that putting those points in a complimentary Soul in the #2 Soul slot will make up enough such that you can do the game's content in a way you choose with the flair you want.
And for those forum warriors who like to brag about being the most "efficient", well, they can play the vanilla 1 Soul route and thump their chests, lol!
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Agree Khal, as usual lol..chicken little, I know right
OMG THIS GAMEZ GONNA BE THE SXORZ CUZ OMG (insert reason)
Playing Devils advocate to myself again.... looking purely at the Rogue-> Assassin trees, I dont know what all those abilities do or how they chain. So it is tough for me to visualize what I will need Talent point wise and what is essentially unneeded.
As an example some dmg talents on my WoWrogue are unneeded because I rarely use the ability because it doesnt chain well, or has a positional requirement or doesnt hit my nemesis class hard enough etc etc etc.
Those types of things are VERY important to know when making a build, and obviously I am and will be in the dark until I can play the game.
In other words, I'm saying maybe your right and there will be a lot of uneeded fluff on the way to the top of talent trees and what does that mean? =MORE POINTS to go somewhere else ofcourse !! More utility!!
I was playing on the rolebuilder yesterday. Theres few choices available so far for warrior/rogue and mage, so consequently I found for those callings there was only a few class combo's that showed great synergy. The mage tree's synergized quite well.
It seemed that for the rogue callings if you want good stealth you need a fair few points in assassin. Still some neat hybrid choices available there.
Then I got to the cleric section, wow with the 7 callings so far available I made some awesome builds, some serious melee ability here, with options to increase armour by up to 30%, some nice healing, one build I made had 2 in- combat rezzes and 1 out of combat rez. Also using the shaman soul as the main path, I built a character with solid dps, some off-tanking ability (maybe) and a super buffer with potential to back-up heal if necessary.
I cant wait for info on the other callings to come (even the alpha data is tantalising).
I also tried some single role builds using just one talent tree, you still get a powerful character, albeit with reduced utility. It is here where the multi-role function will work wonders. With four different builds to choose from, at end game you can tinker to your hearts content. So, you can have your solo build, your pvp build, your max dps/healing/tanking-pve build and a specialist build for certain encounters.
The point is diversity, it's not all about the most potent construct, more about different ways of cracking different nuts!
Edit: The +30% armour increase was made on assumption that the +15% from two souls actually stack (this may not be the case either now or at launch).
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
Do you know what synergy means? By definition it will be stronger. Think of it as 2+2=5. It's a degenerate state in a game.
the working together of two things (muscles or drugs for example) to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects
So everyone knows, I put it out there.
To clarify I was speaking of the synergy of the Talent Trees. Those were my two things.
But I understand how someone could get confused as to my use of the word and choose to nit pick my post like a troll trying to cause a rise. Obviously I dont think that was your intent but things could be misunderstood.
I also understand that confusion because talent trees in themselves are composed of multiple 'Things'.
As an example, a mage could choose to go either full fire or full ice, but by going half and half he ended up achieving synergy whether that be shown in PvE as DPS or PvP as utility.
I would hate for any misunderstanding, are we clear?
I agree it just seems like the 51 isnt enough. I think 61 would be better to create a hybrid with 41/20 31/20/10 etc would give more synergy. Also the Hybrid 51-5-5 might give us a little more variety. What I assume though is that we will play, learn the game, level up, learn the skills, and after 18months or so the level cap will in all likelyhood jump to 60 and we will have more points to put into further specialization.
I was able to build a pretty cool Warlock with pets that I liked I believe it was 21-ele, 40 lock
I disagree, 51 points is enough to give some semblance of balance. Basically, one needs to have a clear picture of exactly what role each particular build is intended for and pick and choose relevant talents.
Just from experimenting with a few soul builds it's easy to see that more conscious thought is required than a typical world of warcraft build. Each soul so far has a few talents that are almost "must have's". These "must have's", however seem to be fairly low in each tree. i.e the armour bonus increases or increased crit or damage or weapon damage bonuses. Going to the top of a tree does seem to be aimed at pure roles.
it will be no concern at all , its not that different from wow's talent system and you only have 51 points to put into your build.
take example a warrior from wow , 3 "souls" to choose from:
Arms
Fury
Protection
in rift you have :
Beastmaster
Champion
Paladin [G]
Paragon
Reaver [D]
Riftblade
Void Knight
Warlord
Alias Warin