DPS Class Discussion - hard time finding the fun

Community
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#1

I’m having a hard time finding a class I enjoy. I tend to play DPS roles in MMO’s and of the 4 DPS classes, none are feeling very good. Here’s my break down on what I’m struggling with on each class. I’m hoping for some constructive feedback that might help and/or answers to a few questions that this raises.

Ranger (level 21):
This is the class I enjoyed the most. Shooting the bow feels really solid and works well.
The downside for me is mostly that precision timer and the unreasonably low dps output.
The precision timer is easy to match but when things heat up and I want to push more numbers, I can’t. And the damage is so low that having a cool head and sticking to the timer feels like I’m just waiting to die. I can’t turn the heat up, mechanics don’t allow it. And don’t get me started on rapidity which I found to be even worse.
Soloing is pretty lame on the ranger and I find myself solo pretty often. I can plunk a target at max range but even so, mobs get to melee range quickly and then my dps is even worse than normal.
For all the physical effort of the class, why is it the worst dps output?

Shaman (level 17):
Buggy totems. This is a serious annoyance and seems to be getting worse for me.
The class feels so slow. Having to drop totems and wait for an orb to appear just doesn’t feel fun. I’d rather the totems just spawned their orbs on my belt and were simply available. Reduce their dmg if necessary.
Movement in dungeons is a huge pain in the butt.
PVP is basically a joke because of the slow speed of getting into combat.

Mage (level 17):
The only thing negative about this class is that I don’t enjoy spell casting because it’s too finicky. The rest of my complaints on this class are just about personal preferences - I’d rather do something more physical. This class is so much stronger than my other classes it’s absurd. Despite not enjoying spell casting, this is the only class I can even choose if I want to be competitive. Especially in pvp.

Scoundrel (Level 9)
My complaints on this class are personal preference - I’d rather be doing something a bit more physical. I could have leveled this guy into the teens too but figured why bother when the mage is twice the class. If Scoundrel did more than half the mage’s dps I probably would have.

(I know there are other classes for tanking and healing. I’ve played those too but they’d never be a main as I’m not really interested in tanking/healing long term.)

My questions are pretty straight forward:

  1. Should I just step away and wait for another class and hope it’s not clunky (shaman), not competitive (ranger), not seditary (mage/scoundrel), and not frustrating to play(mage again)?

  2. Do the devs know how bad the dps disparity is? (The only dev comments I could find is Riley from a year ago saying everything is fine the way it is now)

#2

  1. I wouldn’t suggest it

  2. Yes there is another forum post about this (just look it’s pretty recent)
    They know about it and will be working in it

#3

I wouldn’t wait for another class to come along, as there are no publicly known plans to release one. However, the disparity has been known for a while, and recently was cemented with data (Data for Rebalancing DPS). I also discussed a potential way to close the gap between DPS classes, but that’s just me as a player throwing something and hoping it sticks.

The devs are aware of it and have said that they plan on balancing numbers in Q4 of this year. I’m hoping that with the data provided it helps bring things in line. I will say, though, that Ranger and Shaman are a bit different at level 30. You’ll notice a huge spike in damage, especially as a Ranger. I’ve seen individual hits for over 400k. Leveling and keeping gear appropriate to your level is the hard part. Once you hit level 30 and start getting end-game gear, you’ll be able to handle things as a DPS easier. Getting tilesets and a solid rotation will also aid in killing things quickly. Except for the Wastelands top level mobs, I find as a Ranger I can kill most things before they get to melee range with me. You’ll get there too, it’ll just take a bit more time.

A quick note, you’ll be pulling easily more than half of Mage DPS with any of the other three classes 90% of the time. Very few mages are pulling extremely high numbers. Unless you’re dealing with the top players in the game, your level 30 Ranger will be just as competitive in most content.

Best I can say is try and max out the class you enjoy. Everything is viable at end game right now, even if it’s not balanced properly. I know it’s frustrating that the numbers gap is the way it is, and it may feel like you’re not getting the most out of the game because of it. However, I’ve played every DPS class in Shard 15s and Hard Mode Raids with great success. It can be done, and even if you’re not the top DPS as far as numbers goes, Ranger does bring great spike damage and a great armor debuff to enemies. Enjoy what you can, and know that good things are coming soon.

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#4

I know this won’t be the case, and the rebalancing is supposed to be numbers. But I would literally uproot every class but runemage and change their fundamentals. Maybe just one at a time, maybe at a slow pace. I just don’t like them very much because I find them very boring.

Personally I have loved runemaging even when I was new & bad. I barely left town at all before I could cast frost 2, ice lance, and frost 3(took me a couple of weeks for consistency). In my case, my appreciation for the class only went up as I continued getting better. Runemage is a very rewarding class & you continue to learn and improve even with hundreds/thousands of hours played.

In their current state, ranger is probably the only other class I feel I could enjoy. It’s simplistic, but in a way that atleast makes sense with freedom of movement and other basic immersive features. I would give it a little razzle-dazzle personally but its tolerable in it’s current form.

To a new player especially a new VR user, all of the classes can look appealing. For a short amount of time. My first class technically was Musketeer but I quickly tossed it aside because of the slow, low damage pew pews. I’ve always said “give musketeers a pistol DPS option” but they released an entirely separate class that created new flaws rather than improving the musketeer. \done lol this topic is always frustrating. I still think they should scrap scoundrel, merge with musketeer, and put all those levels into their over-levels. Same for Shaman/Pally merge and so-on. I don’t understand why they don’t at least consider & pose such ideas to the community. Combat is fundamental to Orbus. Class combat should be enjoyable - at the very least, and beyond that challenging/rewarding. Part of that is enemy combat mechanics too though… takes at least 2 to tango.

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#5

Thanks so much for the thoughtful response. I did see the post you made on DPS which was depressingly eye-opening. I saw a dev post saying “thanks” but that was about it. Hopefully they take your real numbers from actual players into account. I know Riley said they balanced around maximum dps potential but that can’t be the case as your testing proved.

It’s really really good to know that ranger picks up some steam and by 30 won’t struggle as much. That’s honestly enough to keep me going on the class as I do find their game-play to be the only one that’s engaging and rewarding. It took a long time to be able to hit targets at a good distance, I’d love for that skill to not go to waste.

I appreciate the encouragement.

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#6

I think you and I are on the same page here. The classes I didn’t touch on (bard & paladin mostly) don’t feel fun to play at all. Their core mechanics are just boring. Raise my hand once every two seconds and then waggle my arm? That doesn’t feel like an epic paladin laying waste - instead it just feels like they made it for lazy players.

I can’t imagine they’ll go back now and update these core elements but if they want the game to pickup more players they’ll probably need to do something. As it stands right now, both myself and my MMO friend can’t seem to really get into any class because the classes are simple, in a dull way.

Combat in VR can be so much more rewarding than anything outside of VR. I would LOVE to see Orbus capitalize on what makes VR so special.

#7

We are, and I said the exact same thing in beta about Pally. You have to wait for charges too via CD or getting smacked, no damage in between. Nothing to do but stand there. You also find out that its better to not even swing, but to just drop your hammer on them as it quickly dumps all the charges & provides mini stuns. So it’s a class that waits and drops a hammer, sometimes raising their arm. If you are tanking, sometimes you will tap the floor gently to AoE. Of course you grip your books sometimes too, don’t forget that riveting core mechanic. CD isn’t even shared so you don’t have to pick, just grab them at your own convenience.

For a melee class it is extremely anti-climatic. The hammer feels like paper, not even a paperweight.

This is unfortunate as I really wanted to like the pally, but can’t. I often go for mages or hybrid-melee(dps caster or healer casters) in RPGs.

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#8

His testing does not prove max potential is not balanced, it proves how good the community is in their respective class with that class caused by how fun the class is for the current endgame players, and how easy it is to master for them. This is mostly shown in the difference between the scoundrels (and shamans a bit)

It is not balanced btw. Even though Mishka does not prove it with that testing. Idk where that Riley comment came from but it is not balanced for max potential for sure.

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#9

I also love DPS classes. I usually play dual wielding melee DPS in other MMORPG. I started out with a warrior, thinking that okay I don’t have 2 swords, but maybe for soloing at lower level I would be okay. I was so wrong. Warrior is NOT made for soloing (even just to do missions). It is so slow to kill things.

So I switched to ranger. Thinking that VR with a bow class should be really fun. It is and it is also very hard. There is a learning curve and definitely much easier to solo than a warrior. Then I tried a Paladin. He is pretty much an unkillable in soloing if you are careful. However, it is sooooo slow again.

Then I tried a scoundrel. OP’s complaint about the class is 100% correct. You don’t pull a bow. You don’t swing a sword. The hardest part is to curve the bullet. But you don’t really have to for missions. Just hold trigger to charge, throw a card up (doesn’t really which card for mission), shoot, hold the trigger to charge, throw a card up, shoot… pretty much everything die in like 4 to 8 seconds.

And then I discovered DPS musketeer for soloing. Arm the turret with healing, empower it with poison. Pull with weakness orb, circle thru blue, green, red orbs. Use regen orb if needed… but usually the turret heals are enough. Then just pull the entire area to you. Shoot at the ground and everything get damaged. You can safely kill 4 to 5 things faster than other DPS classes because you kill them in group. Musketeer is also fun to play “around” other people. You could just randomly help them out with your regen orb. And your turret is always healing them. You leech like 5 to 8 xp on their kills LOL.

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#10

Its not finicky :hugs:

#11

Well, okay, finicky is the wrong word. Particular is the right word. It’s too particular.

I get it. We’re drawing (mostly) 2D spells in a 3D space so it’s hard to tell. However,the tiniest of variations mess it up - but only sometimes. Basically you can make tiny variations in a way it likes and in ways it doesn’t like.

However, after 20 hours of playing runemage I still cannot consistently fast cast a spell despite feeling like I’m drawing it the same way. If I examine the drawing in all dimensions I can’t visibly tell what it doesn’t like about it. Sometimes it likes it, sometimes it doesn’t but on my end - I can’t tell any difference. So I take that as finicky. But in reality it’s just more particular than my eyes can determine.

Maybe after 40 hours it makes sense. But in the current state of the game I don’t think I can justify that much time. =/

#12

it may be the exact same looking as well, but your head orientation could be different and since the system uses your head orientation to determine the orientation of the spell that can make a massive difference.
also it’s gonna take a lot more than 20 hours to consistently fast cast spells

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#13

It’s going to take you way more than just 20 hours to speed cast anything. If you just keep practicing it then you will eventually develop muscle memory for getting the spell to work and you won’t have any problems with it anymore. If it weren’t particular like it is now then you would get spells that are different than what you were trying to draw (while it is possible now it is not common), and the particularity makes up most of the difficulty of the class, so without that it would be less fun for many (and not what the devs intended).

#14

After enough runemaging you will know that the casting system is anything but particular, with a large variety of options to cast spells. You can get away with some really janky looking spells. I would post some examples but they are NSFW. The monuments also don’t always do justice to the spells but some of them like fireball1&2&3/frost2/pushback/most of the others are fairly accurate representations.

Spellcasting becomes very reliable with practice. If anything, the feedback system (or lack of) needs to be improved on to help starting mages, and some pillars can be considered for updating like Affliction 2 or Frost 1. However it’s been a topic of discussion a few times.

#15

Zen and I really enjoy finding strange ways to cast things. I can consistently get Fire 1 from Polymorph, and sometimes Polymorph from Frost 1. It really is fascinating what you can get away with lol

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#16

I’m glad to see people are enjoying the runemage. I’m certainly not unwilling to put more time into and try to find the fun you all seem to be having. I’m sure there is a great feeling of satisfaction in being able to obliterate a target within seconds like no other class can.

But, to avoid going too far down just that one rabbit hole - I’d like to reiterate that what prompted this post was that after trying every class I still haven’t really found one that is enjoyable to play. This has been the case for myself and my friend who recently joined me.

The bigger issue here is that, as a new player, if it takes “way more” than 20 hours for the only competitive class to become fun then this game is in trouble. Please note, I REALLY want to love this game. I want it to be my new main MMO that I sink 20+ hours into a week. But for that to be a reality for myself and others, there will really need to be more than 1 competitive class and the other classes will really need to be more fun and engaging. The diminishing number of end-game raid guilds is the first red flag.

Now, that’s all very negative sounding but I mean this post to be constructive. In that regard, here are changes I’d make to increase the fun:

Ranger: Make DPS competitive. Make the trap snare mobs when the root breaks.
Shaman: Give them mobility (generator totems are always on, on your belt).
Scoundrel: Make DPS competitive.(My time on them is too limited to comment further)
Mage: No changes here. It’s an advanced class, might as well be frustratingly difficult for beginners.
General: Change in-combat movement. The abrupt movement change when you enter combat feels terrible. There has to be a more realistic and fun way to prevent training past mobs or getting out of combat too easily.

#17

In PvE, every class is viable at every level. There are still Rangers, Scoundrels, and Shamans running level 15 Shards and Hard Mode Raids, and more than pulling their weight. Shaman especially can hit high numbers with minimal effort. Very few mages are hitting those ridiculous numbers, and those are the ones who put in an obscene amount of time and practice. There is an imbalance, yes, and I’m one of the ones actively pushing for change (see link to the DPS Data thread above), but I want to reiterate as much as I can that there’s no reason you can’t play any class at any time.

#18

He’s not saying classes aren’t viable. He’s saying they aren’t fun & need mechanic improvements as well as damage increases (& doing good damage via good mechanics is rewarding / fun tbh).

I think this is a very sensible thread imo, but alas I have been vocal about mechanic updates for 2 years lol.

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#19

Exactly. I get that there’s a DPS imbalance but only at the highest level of game play. My issue is mostly that the game play isn’t very fun or engaging. I mean, have you even tried playing bard? It was my most beloved class in EQ. Here it’s literally just a boring mini-game.

It feels like a lot more effort could have went into classes. I guess that’s why less than 1% of players on Steam have level 30 achievements. Heck, leveling a mage to 20 is only 1.1% of players. (yes I know it wasn’t always on Steam).

Why are the mobs names so unpronounceable?
How many mobs need to start with Star?
Why does level scaling have to make me feel like I’ve never increased in power?
Why can I hit level cap without ever leaving the starter zone?
Why am I basically rooted in combat?
Why aren’t the classes engaging?

/sigh. Sorry. I don’t mean this to devolve into a rant about all the issues. I could get past most of them, even though they all seem like huge issues that could be addressed if the devs actually played the game.

I’ll just stop for now and circle back around in a year - assuming some other VR MMO hasn’t come along and captured me.

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#20

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