Weapon and Class Combinations

@Shal

Light melee do not have a wield preference restriction. All of them dual wield. Monks can use 2h as well and Rangers can use bows. Now within dual wielding the classes are slightly restricted by slashing vs. piercing vs. blunt vs. h2h, but that is not what we see with tanks.

@Amnath

If we had a class called tank then I would agree with you, but we do not This is precisely my point, the tank archetype wield restrictions push it more towards a single class with a few flavors than a grouping of similar classes. Your examples of the cleric and shaman are perfect illustrations of what is missing from the tank classes: variety. Each tank class is too restrictive and should offer players more options in advancement.



Class skills/abilities differentiate one from another. I do not think anyone here would disagree that a dual-wielding warrior, dk and pally would each play very different from one another, just as a sword and board version of each would. If someone thinks they would play the same, please speak up.

As the old expression goes, "Jack of all trades, skilled at none.". Would you prefer take your taxes to be done by taxation expert or your auto mechanic?
The existing classes have weapon specialization for their profession and are rewarded by using those specializations (special attacks, triggering combat buffs, etc.). For example, in the real world, there are reasons why the front line riot police are trained for crowd control and equipped clubs and shields. That being said, savvy players will take advantage of opportunities presented to them. For example, a sword and board pally could switch to a 2H to maximize the damage of a finishing ability.

Personally, I'd like to see bards get some abilities similar to the monk's drunken fighting style.

Well, would a change in this be much of anything besides cosmetic? True, some other classes have sub-classes with noticeable differences, but once choosing a kind, it still mostly just works one way. By contrast, a druid...has the option to equip melee weapons, but with no real melee attacks, it's kind of pointless...however at the touch of a button they become a pretty good healer. Just the other day for the Cragwind PotA page, after wiping a few times, the whole thing went through easily just by keeping the druid in healer stance. That's a viable, in-a-pinch difference maker. I guess you could also macro a paladin to do a big finisher with a 2h weapon. Pretty sure that by equipping a cleric with armor less than plate could yield higher spell stats. Currently your choice on a dk is more or less how strong your spells are versus physical abilities, and whereas I like to blast a bunch of spell crits, someone else might like to dodge and evade everything. Exact same abilities but different results in combat depending on how you set it.

Bards receiving a drunken fighting style is markedly different from removing wield preference limitations for tanks because as I have already said: skills/abilities are what define a class. Now giving bards the ability to wield hand to hand weapons or throw shuriken? Sure, I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't see anything wrong with any class using any type of item (not necessarily any item, because some may be specially blessed, or imbued or something), but I am not advocating it. I am advocating some versatility for the tank classes.

I like Amnath's illustration of choices on a DK. Situationally, one approach may prove more effective than another. That is what I would like to see with wield preferences. Currently, for a dk, sword/shield will always be substandard. For a warrior both sword/shield and 2h fighting are substandard compared to dual wielding. Paladin seems most balanced with their epic. I'd like to see sword/shield be made situationally beneficial for dk, along with 2hs and sword/shield situationally viable for a war and 2hs situationally viable for a paladin.

You try to make it sound so simple: "Just let everyone use everything!"

But what you are really asking for, to make all three classes viable with all three wield types, would take ripping all three tanks apart, adding many, many more skills, and rebalancing the whole mess again.

No thanks. I like my class just fine the way it is. If you are so dissatisfied with your class, reroll.

Pretty sure the basic design is that paladin had low damage, high survivability; warriors high damage less survivability; dread knight in between. A paladin being able to macro in a better weapon for a finisher is already a lot more feasible than having a warrior swap in a shield, since you don't usually get a three second warning that you're about to be hit extra hard. Wield restrictions are the closest way to keep the class designs separated, otherwise warriors would need heals to compare to a high damaging paladin and "tank" would be pretty much one class if it was all the same. To go back and find a snazzy shield + 1h weapon, then be able to generate the same hate from half the damage, is not something I'd be motivated towards. A situation of needing some of the resistance gear might be ok once in a while.

I'm all for this and not only in the prot fighter category.

Why couldn't a disciple use a Greatsword? A monk dual Hammers? Ranger with a spear and a bow?

It's important to understand that our characters are not defined by what weapons they use or what Armour they wear(tho I don't think that Armour types should be freeform). Hell, they are not even defined by their abilities. But by one thing that is lacking from both the singleplayers and MMOs today: our/their choices. The choice of I'll use dual Axes/a Greataxe says something about the character. As does the choice to wield Sword and Shield. It shows how the characters think(spear users want to be safe in the melee, while the Axe users prefer efficiency even in spite of lowered defenses). The choice to go and Save a town from the Orks(but forsake the time with his family) or stay with his family(but basically sac the town). That's what the RP is all about.

And allowing greater weapon diversity would be a beggining step upon this road. The absolutely worst scenario would WAR's: to have weapons that are class based. With race bound I could live, but class??? What exactly is stopping a Knight from shooting a match/flint lock? And yes we are talking about Knights Panther, Blazing Sun etc, not the Brettonians...

Well those are my thoughts.

Im not for the redesigning of tanks look how many years it took to get them balanced and working on a level playing field. what needs to happen is specialization amplification. paladins should have never gotten a 2 handed epic. ( biased dev) I like weilding my 2 hander. I like duel wielding on my warrior.

i dont want to go back through and try to re-itemize weapons for some special cirumstance. we do that on belzane. If he comes immune to slashing and it begins to heal him i switch to a 2 handed blunt. Plus there is the formless weapon that can become practically anytype of weapon,