Useless support classes

[Hung]

There is discussion in the neighbour topic on how to keep newbies in the game. And I think that one of the main sloth problems there is unintuitive class order system. It doesnt work as a newbie may expect. I.e. if I was a newbie, my first character would be probably wa/cl. As paladin is pretty balanced class in most RPGs. Unfortunately not in sloth. Where wa/cl is poor choice. While unintuitive wa/dr is much better choice. That brings the topic I would like to discuss. About the fact that some support classes are very useful(such as mentioned druid). And some are completely useless.

I am gonna list support classes that I consider useless and propose some ways to fix that:

• Thief. Probably number in "useless support classes" rating. Experienced players prefer to put it to the 6+ position in the class order. Maybe it would be good idea to introduce stab damage bonus depending on the thief position. Same way as there is damage reduction bonus for monk.
• Warrior. The hp bonus of that support class doesnt worth spending precious class position. So experienced players prefer to put the warrior class as far as possible. While many newbie monks choose mo/wa. And they often regret later in the game. As it is painful to live without mana and manaregen. I propose to introduce innate ac bonus depending on the warrior class position. Or maybe weapon damage bonus. Or maybe both (ac and weapon dam bonuses). It'll definitely ease pain of warriors second (that also applies to ba/wa which is also popular newbie choice).
• Cleric. Frankly it's not that useless. However benefits of that choice end after gaining eudaemon. So experienced players prefer to put it 4th or even 5th. One of the ways to fix it would be to add some heal bonus depending on the cleric position. Another original solution would be add bonus melee damage against undead and demons. Finally supplications after eudaemon could be reviewed and made more useful. Making choosing 2nd cleric class sensible will make the game easier for newbies.
• Bard. Having bard at 3rd+ position makes sense. Because bard adds both hp & mana. However some newbies put it second and lose mana regen bonus they could get from caster. We have several wa/ba who have tons of mana they'll never be able to regen. Therefore I think it would be cool to give secondary bards some manaregen.

Thank you for reading so messy post.

[Teron]

I'd hardly call thieves a support class. It's a damage dealer class.
However, when group needs it, thieves can heal or blast disints - that's their support part.

Also, only one thief stabs in a group, but all thieves circle. So circle would be also useful.

I'm not going to debate whether to add bonuses people already have higher caps for.

Thief position in classo isn't related to stab dam at all, it's related to its prime skills. Either you can apply poison and circle, or you can not. If you can't, you use other classes to deal damage in groups.

What would prioritize thief is a non-prime melee attack, but I don't think it'll compare with strike or broadside/maxed flail, so nothing will change for thieves.

[*juggleblood*]

Thief - shadowwalk, urban stealth, search, backstab
Warrior - highest innate hitroll in game, contributes to stab/grip success, critical hit, entrench, double attack, AC equipment restrictions, etc... Warrior is good every which way around. To me the biggest tragedy is that second wind is prime restricted....so unfair...
Cleric - seriously? cleric as a useless support class? bah.
Bard - yeah, this is a crap support class. Non prime bards don't have the charisma to make the important skills work and gods of war is nerfed so that it's useless for grip/stab.

My thoughts are, I would un-nerf gods of war, let the full damage bonus for gods feed into stab and grip, to make it a valid play style. Currently people put bard into their classo not knowing that singing and stabbing/gripping is a shit combination.

And for cleric, I would have the battle supplicants auto-assist, (same for necropets). And or reduce the insane order lag.

[Teron]

It seems that if charisma did more than help at rarely used songs, and people cared about charisma cap like they care about spell bonus/-saves caps, they'd put bard earlier in their classo.

And yeah, make gods work on stab.

[Hung]

Sorry for unclear formulations.
I was talking only about choosing a class order for an individual character(not about different roles in group, etc) and only about non-prime choices(that is what I called support classes).
My two points were:
1. Sloth class order system isn't newbie friendly. As many popular newbie choices(i.e. wa/cl, mo/wa, wa/ba, ba/wa) aren't really good. And when they become experienced players they might regret their choices. I dont think it is right.

2. There's no real difference in the class order position for many support classes(ones that I listed in the original post) and therefore experienced players tend to put thief, bard and warrior to the end. Of course, skills of those classes are useful. However, is there a single reason to make, say, thief 2nd?

[*juggleblood*]

I'm skeptical of your logic. I don't know if "Is there a single reason to put thief 2nd?" is a useful question or not. The question implies a lot and I'm not sure I concur with any of the implications.

Cl/Th...why not? Mo/Th....sure Wa/Th....ok

There is no reason why these classo's can't work. I'm not a big fan of the logic that druid should be 2nd to all caster class for mana regen either. It's a miserable 5 mana while standing, outdoors only. Yawn! The reason to take druid 2nd is to have access to the higher forms. And the reason to take thief 2nd would be because you want to stab things or because you really like shadowwalk.

I'm not against ideas to improve the classes. I just don't buy into your assertions that so many classos are complete bunk. And as to this issue of people regretting their classos, it's really not as big a deal as you think. Eventually every player starts to feel pretty damn powerful (even Sochi). I do get many requests to delevel people, so they can reorder which is no problem. They don't really care about the lost xp, cuz at some point they end up in a big group and get a huge chunk of xp and they're happy. If this were really such a problem we would see people quitting over it or complaining more. You are a unique case because you are an experienced player who likes making all these different unique mid-level alts, which is cool, but I don't see a widespread problem here.

@Taron This bard does care very much about bonus charisma, because luck gods and cry of the avatar. And charisma does matter for reign of confusion and reprieve, the 2 most important bard skills. So please stop saying it doesn't. And it's really fine that charisma doesn't matter for some group bonus skills like valor and gods. It could be argued that luck gods is the most powerful skill in the game and it doesn't work so good without bonus charisma.

[Teron]

@JB, if you looked at older statistics http://www.slothmud.org/wp/live-info/song-statistics, you'd have seen that what you think is important and what people use are quite different.

Here's a glimpse of what it was, because stats have been reset:

This brings us to songs that should be also affected by charisma:
- gods of war, 3d most used song (tho if we sum up gods and lions, they come up first)
- song of the mist (added: since it's a prime song, can scratch it off the list)
- knight's blessing/prayer (added: since it's a prime song, can scratch it off the list)

- brothers in arms/valor, the 2nd most used song
- lion chorus - 4th most popular
- dreams of the castle
- rina cruinne
- march of the heroes, the most used song ever
- fare thee well, #5th most popular

Cry is the 6th most popular song.

It's very odd to see someone in 15 charisma providing a lesser gods bonus, than a bard in his regen gear. I can see how a naked and low level bard can know better songs, but how can his songs be more powerful?

While luck gods was the primary reason for making a bard, it isn't used as often as I'd like for several reasons:
- it's troublesome to get a bard out for every repop
- the bard needs 25 charisma for a good chance of success, so he needs 5x40
- luck gods don't work in "won't repop with people" areas.

I bet you can count times you used it per week on one hand. Compare it to march or valor.

[Gorka]

Hung, where are you going with this?

My favourite part is the part that lists cleric as a useless support class.

My second favourite part is where other people responded to the allegations seriously.

[Hung]

Again, I just didnt express my thoughts clearly. I didnt mean that there are useless support classes, but that there are support classes which positions in the class order doesnt really matter. Probably I need to rename the topic.
I.e. in case of cleric you can put it even 5th and still get the eudaemon eventually (and there are no really useful abilities afterwards).
So, there are support classes where the position matters: druid, necro, monk, mage.
And where it doesnt really matter: thief, warrior, bard, cleric.

I think that is wrong, because, first of all, newbies often choose wrong class orders(wa/cl, mo/wa, ba/wa, wa/ba). And if they made an error in second class it is unlikely they'll ask an imm to delevel it. As understanding of that error comes much later in the game(i.e. after making 4x40).

Second, I think the game will become much more fun, if all classes will offer relatively equal pros and cons in favor of choosing it as support high in the class order.

Sorry for the misleading initial post again.

[Teron]

I do agree that new players make shoddy classo decisions, mostly on their past experience on other games.

What would help is:
- brief class info and how it fits in the class order, when players pick a class
- ability to "help class" during prime class selection
- a pointer towards "help classo" and "help classes", etc when your "isnewbie" flag is turned on and you try to level the 1st level in a secondary class.

Also, warrior does play a big role in the first 4 classes, as does monk. Afterwards, their place in classo doesn't matter that much.

[Hung]

I think that the warrior plays role only if it has been chosen as prime class. No point of taking it from 2nd to 4th. What for? For hp bonus? Well, there is common consent that mana/manaregen is better choice, so a caster class is preferred.
And in rare cases when you really want some more hps, you'd better go with monk. As it'll give you hp bonus(slightly smaller then warrior though) and innate damage reduction. That's why ne/dr/mo is popular choice among experienced players.
While all non-prime warrior skills and abilities will be gained eventually independently of it's position in the class order.
Sorry, but I can't name any good class order that has warrior from 2nd to 4th position.

[*juggleblood*]

"will be gained eventually"

The order you get skills in does matter. Waiting to 8x40 for massive crit would suck. You reason as if players start at 9x40 instead of level 1.

[Hung]

Massive crit hit is prime skill as far as I remember.
Ordinary crit hit is level 25 which isn't very far away even if warrior is 8th.
There are two other warrior useful high-level skills: entrench and 3x attack.
However entrench isn't vital, it's used quite rate. Also it is only level 28th. So it could be gained in a few months.
And 3x attack is just a small power-up, though it looks cool. But it doesnt really change things, even if you wave dark mace.

[Teron]

wa tert is a good addition of hps, x3 attack and ac to any caster class.

[40m 40d 40w 40o 40c 38b 21n 19t 20a] Mage - Obsidian dragon crest clasp broken?

[Hung]

Everyone playing will gain 3x attack and ac one day or other.
If one really wants to get it faster, he'd better put warrior 5th. It's not really long time to wait.
But I dont think there's a reason to spend on it precious spot from 2 to 4.
Yes, it gives hp boost. But caster in that position gives like 100 mana(don't remember the exact amount). Which is about 1.5 restores ~ 300 hps. And 300 hps is far more than any warrior hp addition. And it could be even more with healing attunement and avatar heal bonus/eq.

And Mage is exception. Most of experienced players avoid to put warrior from 2 to 4. And even if they did, in most case it happened in the old days when they werent such experienced.