Overall Design Choices

The classes in this game all follow some overarching design choices which are described here.

Roles

Player characters can fulfill one of four roles:

• Tank
• Heal
• Melee DPS
• Ranged DPS

Hybrid classes, or uniform, all-encompassing character build paths that forego this categorization definitely have merit. However, the categorization into specific roles aids in balancing, and creating distinct playstyles within each role. Further, this approach rewards players for knowledge of the intricacies of different classes, and therefore the choice of classes to use, in harder content. The rigid categorization also avoids the pitfall of more flexible systems to converge to uniform builds, or a soft categorization into the above roles.

 

Sub-specializations

The motivation for sub-specializations is that this allows for an overarching class identity that can be played in different roles. The overarching class identity is used as a basis for a playstyle that differs from other classes that fulfill the same role, i.e. the same role can be played in a variety of ways, based on which class is used. This allows players to pick a playstyle that they like for a specific role. Due to the differences in how each class is played, optimizing class choice for specific roles is still incentivized for harder content.

Every class splits into two sub-specializations. These can fulfill similar roles, such as melee and range dps, or completely different roles, such as dps and heal, or dps and tank.  The two sub-specializations of one class never fulfill the same role.

 

Flat dps increase cds are boring

interaction of spells

RNG