Tank classes being removed disasterous for Black Orcs?

[Ikego]

When I saw that two tank classes we being removed, my heart sank immediately. I was glad that Black Orc wasn't one of them, but I never imagined for a moment that Mythic would remove this class. What I'm afraid of is how this will effect player-archetype balance.

When this game goes live and flood of people start buying this game off the shelves in its early stages, a certain percentage of them will want to play tank classes for no other reason than preference for the archetype. Now that there's only two of them per faction, that's going to mean a lot more Black Orcs and Chosen out there. This shouldn't effect our gameplay much though (early on), as the tank archetype will still have a relatively similar proportion of the player base as they would have with three tank classes.

However!, down the road when Black Guards are finally introduced, a lot of players will jump ship from their current classes just to play what's new (or were waiting for the Black Guard). Now all of the sudden the archtype balance shifts, and tanks become overpopulated. Not only could this happen, but we'll be one of the most popular tank classes in an already overpopulated archetype. This will make Black Orcs a dime a dozen, dimishing the worth of the class. It could become harder to find groups/guilds/etc which would seriously hurt our gameplay/fun.

This is my deepest fear for Black Orcs, and the removal of the tank classes makes me have to think about my class choice, again.

Edit: And here's an obvious and potent point I didn't even have intially. There's going to be a player base out there that just wants to play an Orc, period... now they have only 1 place to go to fullfill that desire: Black Orc. /sigh

[dumgar rotteef]

Feeling the same here :?

[Fontaine]

Remember that Black Guard/KotBS are not the only class that will be released late.

[Ladner]

Actually, the other classes may not be released at all. If I'm not mistaken they even mention that in the article.

It's unlikely, but then again, I figured the news of -4 capitals & classes was really unlikely too.

[Brad the terrible]

I kind of knew they were removing them, this close to launch and they hardly released anything on the KOTBS and the Black guard.

They did the same thing with the priest of set and the lich class in AOC.

[Amagoi]

Being 'dime a dozen' Ikego said is really my greatest fear in the game. Playing WoW, I noticed that Tanks weren't often played. So I chose to play tanks more because 1. I enjoy playing them, naturally. 2. I like to be useful. and 3. Less time spent looking for a group, thus more time getting good gear and having fun.

Still, with this recent news I think we really will be getting a whole lot of temporary Chosen and Black Orcs. I'm sure a lot of the new Black Orcs will just be Choppa players, so once the classes are released I'm sure our population will jump back down again.

[Astinos]

I kind of knew they were removing them, this close to launch and they hardly released anything on the KOTBS and the Black guard.

They did the same thing with the priest of set and the lich class in AOC.

Well in AOC they came right out and said that the classes were scrapped, not that they are being implemented post-release.

[Nobz]

I JUST WANT TO BE AN ORC, and a lot of people will probably follow me. Since there will be only one orc class at release there will be billions of em blorcs running around. I will probably be one of them.

[EndymionRising]

I'm not exactly sure what your concern is, that there will be too many tanks later on down the road? If and when Blackguards are ever released, probably the original people who were interested in the class will reroll, but I hardly think it will cause some catastrophic shift in numbers. If anything it will bolster low numbers of tanks on the destruction side. Because remember, not everyone who was going to be a BG at release will now roll a tank, many will go a different direction, meaning lower overall tank numbers at release than if they hadn't cut those classes.

Or are you saying that you think there will be too many Black Orcs? If the forums are any indicator, greenskins need the numbers.

[Dreadstorm]

What I'm worried about is with the loss of 2 tanks and 2 mdps that there will be a much larger % of ranged characters, and that RvR fights will be tougher on tanks as a result. Of course if the fighting gets skewed more towards ranged, then people will tend to reroll from what they see as a gimped melee class causing an even bigger gap.

Hopefully the numbers will still even out, and people will pick other melee classes.

[Ikego]

What I'm worried about is with the loss of 2 tanks and 2 mdps that there will be a much larger % of ranged characters, and that RvR fights will be tougher on tanks as a result. Of course if the fighting gets skewed more towards ranged, then people will tend to reroll from what they see as a gimped melee class causing an even bigger gap.

Hopefully the numbers will still even out, and people will pick other melee classes.

Before there were 14 melee classes and 10 ranged classes. Now there are 10 melee classes and 10 ranged classes.

[Dreadstorm]

I was just looking at it more from the point of it being one less enemy class that tanks had an even fight against, and one less that tanks had an advantage in. So it is a negative, but as you said there should still be a good spilt between number of melee and ranged combatants. Just that the fight favors the tank less now.

[DuckyPond]

Eh most of those people will go for a dps class, of those that roll a tanking class will go order, the few that go destruction will go with the chosen, and the fewer that go Blorc the masses will go for a two hander. So from my perspective, we'll see a few more Blorcs than anticipated, but other classes will see a much larger population influx.

[Ikego]

Eh most of those people will go for a dps class, of those that roll a tanking class will go order, the few that go destruction will go with the chosen, and the fewer that go Blorc the masses will go for a two hander. So from my perspective, we'll see a few more Blorcs than anticipated, but other classes will see a much larger population influx.

You're assuming wayyyyyyyyyy too much.

There's only 1 class in the entire game you can play as an Orc now, no other race in the game funnels it's player base into only 1 class. There's only 1 other tank class in the entire faction on top of that. The numbers of Black Orcs just went up BIGTIME, don't kid yourself.

[Grimgutz Doomthrasha]

It is true, people who want to be an Orc will be a BO, thats common sense.

But it wont be enough to warrant worry.
imho

[Dastion]

What I'm worried about is with the loss of 2 tanks and 2 mdps that there will be a much larger % of ranged characters, and that RvR fights will be tougher on tanks as a result. Of course if the fighting gets skewed more towards ranged, then people will tend to reroll from what they see as a gimped melee class causing an even bigger gap.

Hopefully the numbers will still even out, and people will pick other melee classes.

The numbers are actually still in favor of melee if you don't count healers, and dead even if you do.

Order Melee: Ironbreaker, Witch Hunter, Swordmaster, White Lion = 4 (5 with WP)
Order Ranged: Engineer, Bright Wizard, Shadow Warrior = 3 (5 with AM + RP)

Destruction Melee: Black Orc, Chosen, Marauder, Witch Elf = 4 (5 with DoK)
Order Ranged: Squig Hunter, Magus, Sorceress = 3 (5 with Zealot + Shaman)

Though, I agree that there SHOULD be more melee classes than ranged to help avoid stand off types situations in the open field.

[almightybum]

i think the orcs wont be affected the BO will annoy the dwafs range or melee we will have so meany BO that we will out tank them out tank them were ever they stand with all off the buffs and debuffs and stuns snares flying around from like 400 BO they wont stand a chance lol

[logicalmayhem]

the tanks should be the 1st 2 classes 2 be implemented IMO its the knight who is having issues and the BG is being held back becouse of it

[almightybum]

you cant blame them mind and when everyone is on the front line the classes which didnt make it to the relese date you wont notice anyway with it only being 1 battle front the dps role and tankin role will be played with the other tanks anyway so not a huge lose game play wise but ye some people will be angry but they will add them later anyway

[Ivanish]

I actually think that this thread is good in the way that some people, like me, that wanted to play a Choppa but decided to go for a Black Orc instead, might actually reconcider and try to be more useful to the Destruction realm.

We can't have tanks and ranged only, we need melee DPS too. But I'm not playing those silly Chaos mutants, so someone else will have to! :p

I did try out a Shaman and I liked it, but it looks like we'll have Black Orcs, Chosens and Shamans making up half of the Destruction realm, so I'll see what tickles my fancy. :rolleyes:

[almightybum]

even if it is the orcs will be the most played shamans ye you pritty much got it right and the funny thing is we will own the order side with our over populated classes to which is a bonus at least no1 will be able to touch our shammys our range dps and healers

[Malis]

there may be 100000000 Black Orcs, but im not worried.

Ill be one of the good ones.

[DuckyPond]

even if we see too many black orcs around in the beginning most people don't want the responsibility of tanking, at least that is my experience from other mmo's. But if we do have a lot of tanks running about then I'll get to try something new and shiny when the orc mdps class is put in.

(i think when they say they may not implement the classes they just took out, they mean they may not put these specific classes in because of their lore restrictions, BUT will eventually put some other class in.) < confirmed
Originally Posted by Mbj

5) As to the future of these careers, I would love to say that they will be put into the game at some point but I can't. We will continue to look at them and if we feel we can make them great, then we will put them into the game. If we can't, then we will put in other classes to take their place.Then I'll always have my Tanky class to fall back on if there is a huge population shift! It's not like I'm going to restrict myself from playing anything I want ... well except elves that is <shudder>. The amount of fun I have in a game is based only on how needed I feel. cuz i'm special too :(. And cheap fart jokes ...

can you order a cake?

I did crunch a few numbers <me so nerdy!> but this is very very VERY inaccurate and simply based on the posters on these forums and the interest they seem to express in certain careers.

My predicted WAR population Distribution
Order /// Destruction
Tanks 14.43% Tanks 24.20%
Melee dps 27.51% Melee dps 20.25%
Range dps 26.26% Range dps 31.07%
Healers 31.68% Healers 24.73%
it does however look very similar to other MMO populations (except healers, which may be due to the way healers are expected to work in this game).

So I'm saying we could do with a few more tanks on our side, as well as additional melee dps to deal with Order's excess in melee dps and the same for their range dps/ healer ration to our melee dps.
Might I add that these numbers are assuming the following
- the people who had their careers removed will spread evenly
- players do not change their mind upon playing

Just thought I'd share :rolleyes:

[Iwishiwasalizardman]

To be honest I looked upon the Black orc with a little interest befor, simpyl becuase it was a tank class. Now I will be one of those temporary black orcs as i hope and pray they come out wit hany kind of DE tank... then i would jump ship... the de are just that type of vicous i love and the Op has a point .... I love tanks ... so I will be here with the orcs .... lvling in de land .... and seiging the empire city ...... is it just me or did this game just get all kinds of messed up?


P.P i hope thye have like a helmet with pointy ears or something

[Nethunz]

I don't think this decision is disastrous at all. I think that if Mythic wants feels that they need to polish somethen then they should go for it by all means.

I don't know what to really expect at this point in time because I haven't played the game and I don't really know if the lack of melee DPS in our family tree will make us more open to attack from a distance or not. I hope to quiet us they'll make travel especially easy for elves to come to Our neck of the woods and us to theirs so that they don't feel impaired because they don't have a tank and same to us because we lack melee DPS.

[HoramJakChar]

I imagine with the loss of the Blackguard AND the Choppa, there might be a lot more Black orcs wielding just two-handers for the most part since it's the only orc you can play for now, period. I bet Mythic is wishing they allowed Shamans to be orcs after all.

[Ikego]

I imagine with the loss of the Blackguard AND the Choppa, there might be a lot more Black orcs wielding just two-handers for the most part since it's the only orc you can play for now, period. I bet Mythic is wishing they allowed Shamans to be orcs after all.

I'm honestly still in shock about these classes being dropped. BlackGuard was removed, yet it's mirrored counterpart the Ironbreaker remains (what?). And they were unable to make a melee dps with a simple concept (beserking) work, which is probably the easiest archtype is work with. I can't wait for the NDA to be lifted more than ever to hear the beta testers take on this.

[Kruggak]

There will be alot of people rolling a tank class now some DPS classes arnt in wanting to do mele DPS. The difference is they will try and squeeze DPS out of a class that cant do it in the numbers needed...

This is where us "true" tanks come in, we will play the class as it was intended and our worth will measure that. But i do agree on alot of points here

[Revan]

Imagine how many Chaos Chosen's there will be dude. It's ridiculous.

This is going to cause many class imbalances and the starting zones are going to be ---ed up!

It's just obvious, though.

[DuckyPond]

I'd expect a lot of people to get reroll ADD or something like that in the beginning. Especially when it comes to Tanking and Healing careers

[Ikego]

There will be alot of people rolling a tank class now some DPS classes arnt in wanting to do mele DPS. The difference is they will try and squeeze DPS out of a class that cant do it in the numbers needed...

This is where us "true" tanks come in, we will play the class as it was intended and our worth will measure that. But i do agree on alot of points here

This is the only thing that keeps me holding onto the Black Orc class. I was always planning on being a defensively specd BlOrc, and I hope that creates enough individuality for my character that I won't have trouble finding groups,guilds,etc.

[almightybum]

well they have taken out the dps so y dont they make the BO do damage instead they will prob have 3 paths we know 2 off m

defensive

offensive

3rd one could be called something like


great weapon mastery make up the dps loss of the choppa kind off tree with great weapons

[zicoV]

I JUST WANT TO BE AN ORC, and a lot of people will probably follow me. Since there will be only one orc class at release there will be billions of em blorcs running around. I will probably be one of them.


My biggest concern about the cuts. Before i had my mind on playing the Black orc but ive been reading alot of post like these and i dont really feel like playing the class that i was most excited about playing to begin with. Guess im gonna be trying out alot of classes during open beta.

Edit:

defensive

offensive

3rd one could be called something like

great weapon mastery make up the dps loss of the choppa kind off tree with great weapons

That might work :)

[Guzruk]

That would only work if that by going down that tree it restricted you from having the heaviest armor and highest health in the game. Making it so a Black Orc could take up the mdps spot of the Choppa could never work viably without turning the Black Orc into an MS warrior...

[Gharr]

For a while now, i've been thinking about making the choice: Black Orc vs. Choppa.
I knew: 1) I wanted to play an orc, 2) Meele class, as this has always been my fav.

Seeing how popular Black Orcs were as well as knowing i wanted a dps class and not a tanking class, my choice fell on the choppa. So i can not tell you how disapointed i was when i heard the bad news.

But me for one, will not make a Black Orc just to play orc and meele. I wanna "save" that experiece for when they add the missing classes. Cus that was the plan wasn't it? Or did i miss something? I might go Squig Herder or something similar. Even Marauder might do.

I feel like so many of you that many will go for Black Orcs at launch thus having them in too great numbers. This seemed like a possibility even before the sad news.

So lets cross our fingers and hope things will be balanced and that we wont have to wait long for ourmissing classes.

[DuckyPond]

I'd expect the potential population problem to fix itself ... the most popular archetype in any mmo I've seen is the ranged dps, 2nd is melee dps. Well now that some of the mdps were cut we'll see an increase in the tank department for whatever reasons stated above. However once people realize that most of the other side's population plays classes that are specifically those that are strongest against tanks, many will reroll and all will be well.

I for one am worried about our Witch Elf population from what I see on the forums here, it really doesn't seem as popular as it should be (which may just be an artifact of the type of people that post on these forums) and I am strongly considering switching, simply to wack a few casters, until balance has been achieved. :cool:

As it was said by Mythic, they don't want leveling to be a huge grind, so I'd expect most people to have multiple characters to use when they so please and or require, I absolutely will.

and no there is no evidence to suggest that any of this can be predicted.

[Deedee]

People may roll black orcs and then decide they dont wish to play them, or roll other classes then end up playing a black orc.

Its a shame these classes arent being realised immediately but if they done work then its better not to release a class that only works half the time or isnt fun to play. Everyone will moan and people will get pissed off and leave the game.

As a horde player of WOW on a server were ther are 3 times the amount of allance I learned a long time ago you can never have too many tanks. If the people playing black orcs do move there main caharctyers to blackguards or choppers or whatvere IF they get released then the Black orc tank will still exist as they wont be able to level up there chars immediately. I am sure people will be flexible with which char is needed at the time, if not thats teir problem and they wont get group invites etc.

I dont understand why people are getting so upset about classes that dont exist. It was in the planning stage but never officially announced as far as I know. There are still plenty of fun classes to play and IF they get released later on, then kits something to look forward too. If not then, well enjoy the characters you do have.

[HoramJakChar]

Regarding the population of Black Orcs when WAR is released, I think this bit of info means they're going to be highly popular:

"Ten Ton Hammer: With the removal of the tank classes and the melee dps classes, are there plans to specially "tweak" the other classes in that race to compensate for them?

Mark: Yes there is, that is the plan absolutely. We mentioned earlier about the Black Orc. If you follow the melee line, we hope that that replaces some if not all of the Choppa for now. "

Source: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/38289

This is bringing back bad flashbacks..

"LFG Warrior"
"Oh cool can you tank?"
"sorry dps"

[Urkdrengi]

This is bringing back bad flashbacks..

"LFG Warrior"
"Oh cool can you tank?"
"sorry dps"

Most of those flashbacks are from end-game PVE content I’ll wager. As one of those notorious arms warriors, I recall never being asked “if I could tank”. Not until called upon to tank for raids was there even a real need to respec. I was cautious with who I grouped with I’ll admit, and it certainly helped to have good healers alongside. I would ask them if I needed to respec, and was told it'd just slow us down. In PvP I was little more than a joke distraction. Hardly the sort of protector you’d want on the W.A.R battlefields eh?

[Eske Kjaer]

Just take deep slow breaths... no need to hyperventilate when the game hasn't even entered open beta yet.

[almightybum]

Regarding the population of Black Orcs when WAR is released, I think this bit of info means they're going to be highly popular:

"Ten Ton Hammer: With the removal of the tank classes and the melee dps classes, are there plans to specially "tweak" the other classes in that race to compensate for them?

Mark: Yes there is, that is the plan absolutely. We mentioned earlier about the Black Orc. If you follow the melee line, we hope that that replaces some if not all of the Choppa for now. "

Source: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/38289

This is bringing back bad flashbacks..

"LFG Warrior"
"Oh cool can you tank?"
"sorry dps"

this game isnt about pve it is about pvp the black orc will be our tanks and our damage you will prob need both in group get use to it intill they give us a dps class the black orc will be tanking and damage in what ever tree you spec and reamber there isnt any retarted end game instance that need 20 or more men the ones in war are only 6 man and give you pve gear anyway so no need to go there i recken dps BO will work

[almightybum]

Most of those flashbacks are from end-game PVE content I’ll wager. As one of those notorious arms warriors, I recall never being asked “if I could tank”. Not until called upon to tank for raids was there even a real need to respec. I was cautious with who I grouped with I’ll admit, and it certainly helped to have good healers alongside. I would ask them if I needed to respec, and was told it'd just slow us down. In PvP I was little more than a joke distraction. Hardly the sort of protector you’d want on the W.A.R battlefields eh?


off corse you dont but all black orcs will be differnt lets say you already got a tank and you will be getting a lot off tanks dps is what we will lack so dps bo will be what you will be looking for for doing the damage there mayb over 1000 BO on a server but not all are going to be offensive build you will still need the dps or else you will be tanking them till the cows come home

[HoramJakChar]

The point is, if Mythic ever decides to re-add the Choppa, what are they going to do about the Black Orc dps they bumped up in order to make up for the lack of a melee dps career? Why even play a melee dps when you have all the survivibility AND great dps of a Black orc? They should have left the class as it was.

[Chizakura]

I agree with HoramJakChar here. Nothing personal against the Black Orcs, but if the general assumption (though I think it a accurate one) is that all tanks are designed to be able to tank by the nature of their archetype and dps some, but not to the extent of pure dps classes, I don't see how it's going to be fair or balanced to just give Black Orcs (or, maybe, Iron Breakers, too) more dps just because two dps classes were removed.

In the grand scheme of things, each side lost a mdps. That's not going to skew rvr balance in favor of either one so why go through with this potential change? If all tanks can tank and serve their purpose, it seems to be unfair as well as balance skewing to give just 1 (or 2) of the tanks extra dps. Now those tanks will be able to tank and dps well while the other 3 (or 2) tanks will be able to take similar amounts of punishment, but not dps as well.

If you were in a group or in a fight, who would you take? All other things being equal, tank A that can just tank or tank B that can tank *and* be able to do better dps than tank A? I'm sure folks can see where I'm going with this. It creates an inherently unfair and unbalanced situation. Either buff all the tanks equally or let the original model stand and let the dps'ers dps. Because, after all, buffing tank dps is going to encroach on their territory as well and they're probably not going to appreciate that either (Why pick a dps class when you can tank and dps).


Edit: Oops, after all that, I forgot to add the bit where I agree with HoramJakChar. What happens when/if they wind up adding a dps class back in? Are you going to nerf Black Orcs? That'd only be fair, right? If you gave them extra dps b/c their side lost dps (even though each side lost dps so you didn't affect rvr balance), you'd have to take it away if that dps class comes back in some form, right? And you know that's not going to go over well with people.

All of this just seems like a bad idea. The premise for making the change is flawed and you have all these other issues to deal with if you do.

[Faezroth]

It would all have been much simpler if they hadn't bothered with high and dark elf classes, areas and cities at all from the start. We would have 4 complete cities and classes, and we would have no elves, everyone would be happy.

[Epiny]

I'm sure there will be a large number of Blorcs because we are the only Orc class. That being said DPS classes typically outnumber tank/healer classes.

[Sinnahis]

The point is, if Mythic ever decides to re-add the Choppa, what are they going to do about the Black Orc dps they bumped up in order to make up for the lack of a melee dps career? Why even play a melee dps when you have all the survivibility AND great dps of a Black orc? They should have left the class as it was.



Exactly. They thought they had wailing and gnashing of teeth before? pffft, just wait until they nerf a class after release. Not my main but I surely can't see this ending well for those players that it is. I really haven't disagreed with Mythic on much but letting one pet stay and the other not after the owners death and setting up Black Orcs to be an overpowered tank, a watered-down tank, or to get a hefty nerf down the line just can't be considered good.



LoL@ Faezroth

[HoramJakChar]

If you were in a group or in a fight, who would you take? All other things being equal, tank A that can just tank or tank B that can tank *and* be able to do better dps than tank A? I'm sure folks can see where I'm going with this. It creates an inherently unfair and unbalanced situation. Either buff all the tanks equally or let the original model stand and let the dps'ers dps. Because, after all, buffing tank dps is going to encroach on their territory as well and they're probably not going to appreciate that either (Why pick a dps class when you can tank and dps).

Right, I didn't even consider what impact this might make for those who want to play Chosen. Are they going to be shunned because, while they can tank, just don't have the sheer DPS that a Black Orc can put forth? Personally, I'm not a metagamer and won't be picky but I can't speak for a good majority of groups out there that have to have a "perfect" group makeup. I plan on playing a Black Orc but I don't want to see the Chosen class being left in the dust.