Pushing the limits of a class trinity
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 12th 2007 at 12:09PM
Relmstein is at it again, this time with a look at class trinity in MMORPGs. This is old, old RPG strategy stuff-- basically almost every RPG out there is based around three different class roles: that of tank, DPS or healing. Tanks (like Warriors and Fighters) take damage, DPS classes (like Mage and Rogue) dish the damage out, and healing classes (obviously) keep the party alive long enough to win the battle. For a while now, game developers have tried to vary up this class trinity, so that you don't just have the same options in every game. In WoW, hybrid classes like Paladin and Shaman can play more than one role, and classes like Hunters and Warlocks have extra abilities (crowd control and buffing/debuffing) that help them be something more than what the class trinity lays out for them. Or there are classes like Druids, who can play all three roles at various times.But the problem here is that while there are some extra abilities floating around, there aren't any new class types to speak of. The reason for this in WoW is because the developers want to give every class the option to go all the way to 70 solo, which means classes that could be total crowd control classes, like Hunters, are forced back into one of the class trinity roles (in this case, DPS). So far, we haven't seen a really pure crowd control class-- at least not like we've seen pure tanking, pure healing, or pure DPS classes.
So let's put our minds to it. What kinds of classes could we make that would do something fundamentally different from tanking, healing, or damage?
Relmstein comes up with the great idea of a "Threatmaster" class-- kind of a whole class that revolves around the Hunter's Misdirection ability. That person could direct aggro from monsters whereever they wanted it to go-- if the healer pulled aggro, you'd have the Threatmaster just point it back at the tank, or if there was no tank, the Threatmaster could push it around to different players, and bounce the mob between them. To carry Relmstein's great idea to the solo game, a Threatmaster class could even turn mobs against each other-- he could use their abilities and damage to supplement his own.
For my own idea, I'd suggest a time-based class. All of the classes now revolve around controlling something that affects every player in the game-- life, mana, or the ability to take either away. But there's something else that affects all players, and that's time. Blizzard has already played around a little bit with this in Outland-- Haste and Slow abilities are making a more solid appearance. But a "Timebender" could be a class that could control time flow-- not just speed players up or slow mobs down, but record a certain reading on a players' health, and then restore that reading at a later time, or reverse a spell and send it back at the mob that casted it.
In truth, we're messing with the primary rules of roleplaying games here-- the reason almost every game has a Fighter, a Caster, and a Healer class is because those roles work so well together. But originality is always welcome, especially in the world of gaming. Is the class trinity holy, or is there room for more roles in roleplaying?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Classes, Buffs
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Heymish Mar 12th 2007 12:24PM
I think a Bard class could be a threatmaster. Various songs encite threat to other classes. Maybe buff DoT's to cast on warriors. For soloing, a confusion song to turn mobs against each other. Really, all Blizz has to do is look no further than the Final Fantasy series, or any paper and pen game for new class ideas. They could also give the Bards an item lore ability that could unlock dormant abilities in some rare, epic, and Legendary items. Oh and we need a necromancer as well. Soloing with 5 skeletons and corpse explosion sounds fun to me.
Skibba Mar 12th 2007 12:33PM
In everquest I played an Enchanter, which was a class rather than a profession.
It was a full blown crowd/mob control class with spells like Mesmorize, which was a sap/sheep type thing, and different AoE stun spells which could be chain cast to a certain extent.
Enchanters also had a bit of the 'Timebender' class which you mention. They cast haste spells on group members, and slow spells on different mobs, and had a group spell which increased mana regeneration.
It was a really fun class to play in small groups, and was still fun on raids, but on bosses you tended to be a buff-bot and cast a few direct damage spells, but left most of that to the wizards and mage's.
Afrigginhobbit Mar 12th 2007 12:31PM
@1
Well, our Warlock is basically our necormancer, with it having all the shadow abilities and such. Although i cant complain about a D2-esque necro class, i really hate seeing that game getting stirred into WoW.
Clem Mar 12th 2007 12:51PM
How about breaking this down a little more: players either heal or damage (or do both). Rogues and Druids can sneak around, but there’s very little use for other than getting somewhere to attack. Are there any roles or classes that do something besides Damage and/or Heal?
Real time strategy games give us the scout unit. The scout moves fast, and unveils the map and enemy positions. The scout usually has little or no attack. Would a scout class work in WOW? Probably not. No one would want to play it.
Turn based strategy games give us flying, tanking, and ranged damage units. Just variations of DPS units.
In the Heroes of Might and Magic turn based game, the Knight hero gave interesting bonuses to his units. The Knight was inspirational, a leader that could get greater efforts from his units. These ‘greater efforts’ were implemented in extra attacks, bonus damage to attacks, spell resistance, and greater movement. Could this work as a WOW class?
How about a class that steals attributes from players and mobs and gives it to himself (temporarily). So the player gets stronger, the mob gets weaker, and then they enter into battle. At higher levels, the stat-stealer could take the strength (or whichever attribute) from a willing player and give it to another player. Imagine being able to create a super tank by taking strength and stamina from several players in a raid (all the clothies) and giving it to the tank.
There could be a Merchant class. The Merchant’s main job would be to make money. It probably wouldn’t be much fun to play a class that doesn’t engage in combat.
Loremaster is a possibility, a class that knows the weaknesses of mobs, has the map revealed, knows where stuff is. That could be boring to play, but nice to have one in a party.
A Builder class could create golems for battle, walls for protection, towers for defensive damage. That would probably be fun to play. But this class does pretty much come back to the damage role.
In Diablo the necro was a blast to play. Raising skeletons to battle to you was a unique feeling of power. In Might and Magic 6, the necromancer could raise all dead enemies to his service. You could wipe out an entire town, then raise all the dead as friendlies. This wouldn’t work in a multiplayer world, but imagine killing everything in Crossroads, then raising them all to be alliance friendly. Still, this is just another manifestation of doing damage.
Zuuler Mar 12th 2007 12:51PM
Maybe blizzard could incorporate this idea into the hero class idea (that way everyone would shut up about hero classes even though bliz has stated they have all but killed that idea).
Perhaps each talent tree for each class has a high lvl talent that requires every talent point to be spent in that tree to obtain that talent. That talent would then make them something different, giving them access to abilities no other class, or other talent tree of that class, would have access to.
Someone mentioned a necromancer, and someone else mentioned that warlocks are already the necromancer type class in WoW. Well, locks still can't rez a skeleton to fight for them. Lets say there is a talent in the Demonology tree, that once obtained gives a demonology specced warlock the ability to rez skeletons and corpse explosion and whatever else you would expect a necromancer to have.
Maybe holy specced priests can gain the abilitiy to self rez and rez others in combat, or a group rez.
I am sure given enough imagination that some OP abilitiy can be thought up for every talent tree for every class. They could use this to move beyond the "trinity", allowing mages to become CC masters or hunters to become threatmasters or whatever other classes someone can think of.
Sporkle Mar 12th 2007 12:52PM
Some faction-unique classes would be nice.
Oh, wait.
Todd Mar 12th 2007 12:56PM
There aren't many options for a Mage other than DPS, which fits into this Trinity strategy, yet the developers are determined to force classes out of this "basic" role.
The Warrior class is given some leeway in that they can either be DPS or protection spec'ed, but their role is still pretty defined. Priests are now given much more freedom to be either total healers or DPS. However, Mages are still locked in place as straight DPS and as a result the developers, in their infinite wisdom to try and change this obvious role, keep on nerfing.
Hopefully with the new patch Druids will once again find some utility as tanks.
If the developers keep on meddling and bluring the lines, eventually everyone will be pretty much the same and all the originality and uniquness will be gone.
Shawn Mar 12th 2007 12:57PM
City of Heroes has the Mastermind which controls an a small gang of pets. I guess this is sort of DPS, crowd control and threat management altogether.
They also have Controllers and Dominators which are about crowd control with abilities that control mobs or turn them against one another.
Toolio Mar 12th 2007 12:57PM
I truly believe that Blizz has achieved such balance w/ the system that introducing a new class would alter the game play mechs... and not in a good way. How ezmode would it be to have a purely CC class in a PVE/raid environment? And with that being the case, would other utility classes (hunters and mages) be obsolete?
You see how much of a ripple they make when a slight nerf/buff takes place... Imagine what a new class would do!
Zuuler Mar 12th 2007 12:59PM
@5
The whole greater effort thing is kind of like the paladin's aruas that are already in the game.
Stealing abilities is already in the game in some form. Mages have spell steal, in which they can steal a beneficial magical effect from an enemy and use it as their own. Locks have a somewhat similar ability with their felhunter, to steal a beneficial magical effect from an enemy (or a negative effect from a friend) and turn it into health.
A builder class seems a lot like a buffed engineer profession. Maybe bliz could implement this to make engineering more attractive.
And a loremaster? With the number of guides and online maps out there, who needs ezmode (except maybe alliance).
And who would want to do that to Crossroads? Half the population of XR at any given time is undead anyway, what would be the point making the undead into, well, undead? It would be more fun to do it in Khaz Modan, could you imagine undead midgets and dwarves? Now that would be funny.
Chris Sutherby Mar 12th 2007 1:14PM
I think the real key for many MMOs down the line won't be innovation of new roles, rather innovation of the current existing roles.
Even support classes aren't really innovative. Crowd control has existed for quite a while, time magics, buffs, debuffs etc.
Really... what can you besides take damage, deal damage, and recover from it? You could make the enemy recover damage... but that's usually counter intuitive. You can make yourself or others be able to do more damage, but then you havent' really done anything, you just allow someone else to do their role better.
This is where the innovation starts to come into play. How do we make a new tank? I would love to see a "martyr" sort of tank, a tank who gets stronger the more damage they soak up. How do we make a new DPS class. Something like a crit master could be cool (although it is almost infringing on rogues), someone who can control their critical attacks, maybe through using various sequencings that tear the mob apart. A new healer? What about a class that works on resurectting members stronger. Like after you die, they rez you into a state that temporarily enhances you like crazy. They could also have moves that actually DPS you, just so they could raise you back in a stronger state.
Sure, some of those ideas aren't great, and might even be extremely hard to implement, or just a developer's nightmare in general, but they're starts, and I think it's new ideas on existing classes that will really thrive down the line.
Friggas Ring Mar 12th 2007 1:27PM
Not that I want to see WoW turn into EQ, I think the bard and the enchanter would be great classes for the game. Honestly, before I played WoW, these things I read make me think they already were in the game. I thought the Mage's arcane tree would be like the enchanter class: increase mana and health regen, stun, charm, haste slow and that sort of thing leaving the fire tree to do most of the DPS and frost to handle mitigating the damage.
Shaman, being the jack-of-all-trades in WoW, would be great bards: while they have many mana-inefficient spells, they could also have a way to channel a spirit to produce some sort of cheap (mana-wise) effect. Invoking and channel the ancestors to speed up the party's attacks or that sort of thing. Maybe even something similar to the Geomancers of Final Fantasy where different areas of the game have different effects. A shaman, for instance, could travel to Winterspring and use an ability to invoke the spirit of the land, defeat him in combat and, until the shaman attempted ot invoke a different spirit, could summon the spirit of Winterspring for some icy effect.
Clem Mar 12th 2007 1:22PM
Zuuler:
>>The whole greater effort thing is kind of like the paladin's aruas that are already in the game.
True enough. Take it over the top for a new class. How about an All-Rezz spell that restores everyone in a five-man to live (big ol’ cooldown, of course). Or everyone’s crit’s do more damage, or the crits pop more often. This may sound OP in a raid or group, but imagine giving up a dps slot for this character.
>>Stealing abilities is already in the game in some form. Mages have spell steal, in which they can steal a beneficial magical effect from an enemy and use it as their own. Locks have a somewhat similar ability with their felhunter, to steal a beneficial magical effect from an enemy (or a negative effect from a friend) and turn it into health.
Again, true. But I was talking about attributes. Call this class the Slavemaster. His victim mobs follow him around, on passive. They are batteries for strength, spirit, or whatever. Mobs or players could kill the batteries to take down the Slavemaster’s abilities. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a mob of passive Murlocks following you around as you suck away their strength and spirit?
>>A builder class seems a lot like a buffed engineer profession. Maybe bliz could implement this to make engineering more attractive.
Maybe the long-rumored Hero classes could include a builder. The builder can erect offensive and defensive structures and mobs.
>>And a loremaster? With the number of guides and online maps out there, who needs ezmode (except maybe alliance).
Yep. It’s hard to imagine what the Loremaster could contribute. Maybe a spell that displays all mobs on the party’s mini-map (like the Druid spell).
>>And who would want to do that to Crossroads? Half the population of XR at any given time is undead anyway, what would be the point making the undead into, well, undead? It would be more fun to do it in Khaz Modan, could you imagine undead midgets and dwarves? Now that would be funny.
It would be the coolest Ogrimaar raid ever; turning the entire city alliance friendly. Imagine the noobs coming in and getting ganked by their own guards.
Gridneo Mar 12th 2007 1:29PM
I've thought long and hard about the class situation, and I don't see a lot you could do that wouldn't take away from some form of current class... Hero elements or specializations within the class are interesting... I come from EQ(2), DD, etc world and the stuff that I kinda miss are the Monks, Necros, Bards... I just don't see much of a role for a pure CC class in WoW.
Take specialization: Hunters could take on a Beast Master role (more than one Beast, lose ranged attacks), or Warlocks a Necromancer roll (Summon dead, bone wall/traps, etc), Rogues could take on a Monk roll(Limited to Cloth and Fist type weapons, but have super dodge, evade)... A system like that would kill Blizzard on itemization and would PO a bunch of people that like their classes the way they are.
I actually like the Timebender idea... Storing/Releasing points in time/space for a character to restore Rage, Energy, Mana, and Health would definately have a place. How about the ability to change a certain characters attack style? Like a Frost specc'd Mage could be specifically buffed/warped to do Fire damage at the same level for a period of time or something? Mike, I like it, and think you could be on to something... Let's get more people on the bandwagon.
All in all, Blizz is different in the fact that they made every class able to solo to 70... That doesn't leave much room for pure CC classes, but definately paves the way for a new Support/Enhancement class (or two)...
Demiakumu Mar 12th 2007 1:36PM
Best crowd control class I've ever played was the bearucrat from Anarchy Online, a pet user of sorts you had both a summoned pet and you could MC any mob in the game to use for a short amount of time what made this unique was the fact that while you MC'd the mob you could still move around and function fully, the crat had mezzes, stuns snares and root (AoE too of those) also the crat had the best buff in any game i've seen, xp buffs 8,12,75% add'l xp would make a great 4th class. :) something similar at least.
Gridneo Mar 12th 2007 1:33PM
D'oh... Forgot about some robot control action... I've always loved Pet Control classes... Getting robots to do things for you would be interesting... Make it require Engineering too...
Braz Mar 12th 2007 1:39PM
Some new types classes would be interesting, but I doubt that we will ever see a lot of innovation on this front.
Giving more tools (like enhanced crowd control) to players would greatly unbalance the raid game, probably making it too easy; after all, God forbid that casual players get a chance to enjoy all of the content.
A merchant class is a unique idea; however, I think we all know how that would work. Every player would make a merchant alt for farming, and thereby screw up the economy. Why play the AH or level tradeskills when you can play a class designed to make gold? Either the merchants would have to be hopelessly gimped, or they would be too powerful. Kind of like warriors.
I would love to play a necro, but once again, we run into balance issues. In the Diablo 2 spirit, I would like to see a return of the Barbarian/Berserker type character. They could either be a more dps-oriented evolution of the warrior talent tree (along the same lines as the idea of making the necro skills part of the Warlock Demonology tree), or a separate class. I know that I want to whirlwind while dual-wielding two-handed weapons. How about you?
Chad Mar 12th 2007 1:39PM
I would love to see a new class, but fitting something into the current game dynamic would be tremendously difficult. I think that Blizz would need to add new/expanded fighting mechanics. Seeing haste and slow showing up along with crit resistance are good signs.
New classes will probably have to take advantage of new game mechanics because the classes we already have are considerably balanced across the current gameplay.
What may be a better direction to approach the new classes question is what gameplay mechanics could Blizz implement that would allow a new class to take advantage of?
Flit Mar 12th 2007 1:39PM
What about a Mana/rage/energy generation class, which helps increase the dps of all groups
Like a Musician/Bard that when they play their song, it increases everyone's respective pool. We have Priests for HP, what about MP?
Separate songs for helping the tank increase aggro, mana regen, etc... so a buff class in one respect, but also with a Mana regen spell.
Add some CC perhaps?
What about a "reset" button that can be used every hour, that resets all mobs attacking the party? That would be a super nice class to have on runs, for that accidental run too close to a mob.
Solo leveling such a character would suck balls, they would need a talent tree for self buffs, and one for group buffs.
clutch Mar 12th 2007 1:46PM
Well it is Blizzard's goal to come out with an expansion every year, so maybe we'll something like this soon.
But every game is unique. If you want Blizzard to implement things from other games, it probably won't happen. You'll need to go play that specific game.
Blizzard doesn't make games purely on design, other factors play into the creation as well... including marketing and making money.