I'm sure this community has seen many of these posts from others like myself who are relatively new to the game. A brief history on myself. For 6 years I played EQ on a PVP server as a caster class. I briefly played L2 open beta, before WoW came out. After seeing the major disparities between Melee's/Hybrids vs. Casters as item after item was introduced in Everquest I decided for my next game I would play a melee class. As such, I rolled a Tank class with the intention of being a MT build for raid encounters. I played WoW for about a year and a half in one of the top guilds in the game.
Recent disinterest in the game [namely due to a horrid PvP system (or lack thereof)] led me here. This is where my questions begin:
My 1st interest is in discovering the dynamics of the game and how they affect the various class choices. The past few games I have played have focused on an end game goal of almost pure raiding. The way to progress was to raid bosses. I was curious if L2 sticks to that vein, as I have yet to see any of that occur. Do characters create builds for raiding? Do Raid bosses have guaranteed drops or is it simply an increased chance of a drop? Are they vastly superior to playermade/bought items?
Secondly, PvP/Sieges seem to be something that this game focuses on (from what I've read). I'm assuming PvP'ing factors in quite a bit to end game activities. If so, I would assume quick/high damage chars excel in PvP. From my research, these seem to be the Dagger/Archer classes and nukers. Do sieges/end game PvP need class balance or do clans stock up on the powerful PvP classes? How do Melee's/Hybrids match up overall?
Finally, I'm curious how subclasses affect both PvE and PvP. Do they make the original class choices moot? Or are they only there to add a little variation to a character?
I appreciate the time and patience of anyone who read this and chooses to answer.
PvP is what the endgame is about, although sieging can provide some nice diversity, at the dawn of C5 there hasn't moved a castle(s) on Sieghardt to someone new in quite some time.
Raiding gives you an extra chance of having a valuable drop and chance of getting big xp at high lvl, although most of the game is about smaller grinding groups. A Raid build is probably what you mean with a PvE-build, or were you talking about groups and specific classes to include?
But required if you want to become a noblesse and participate in the hero competition and maybe become a hero. But that won't be relevant for a long time.
But required if you want to become a noblesse and participate in the hero competition and maybe become a hero. But that won't be relevant for a long time.
Indeed, the small fraction who actually became noblesse or even hero shouldn't matter for him in a long time...hence why I said it's variety adding.
Yes, in PvE build I was referring to a raid build. I was unclear on how much emphasis raids were to the player population as a whole and what the rewards from completing raid bosses. The fan sites I've run into don't particularly elaborate on PvP and Raiding at the end game level aside from mentioning that they exist
I'm fairly meticulous in creating the character that I plan on playing for a while, thus the questions. I created a character on Erica and have run into very limited communication between the player population in game. (Unless its running into 20 PC5xx's running around leaving mass amounts of adena around or undressed dwarfs attacking guards) Which is what brought me to these boards. I've had a fairly general build, and was reaching the 1st class change quest, and have had difficulties in deciding what I should be focusing on in regards to an end goal. I've read countless after countless about choosing "what's right for you and what you enjoy", which is hard to tell when your not sure what that enjoyment will be based on in 50 levels.
Perhaps this is all moot and all classes shine in certain facets of the game, I just wanted to narrow down what most people did once they capped on their levels.
Buffers = Mostly stands in the back, but can go melee, adds buffs for everyone
Healers = Keeps everyone alive, and gives high rez %
Tanks = They take the hits, and they make sure the mobs stay on them
DamageDealers (DD's) = They just try to put out as much damage as possible, although the way they do it can be very different ranging from nukers to archers to dual sword wielding.
Summoners = A mage who uses summons to get the job done
My advice would be to start some different chars and get them up, see if you like them, explore their weaknesses and strenghts and such...no real need to get passed lvl 15 it should give you an idea of what we are talking about.
Try to kite with a bow, crit with a dagger, swing with a sword or blunt, try light-robe-heavy armour, those kinds of things.
Why not be honest to this guy. Its all about the PVP. I don´t necessarily like that but thats what it´s all about. Sure, the ones that can not be named do take down raidbosses for a living and there are occasional Sieges that are fun but if you ask 75+ characters they are focusing on PVP and ganking. Unfortunatly, the strengths of different classes is not constant, since NCSOFT have a tendency to introduce new skills without proper testing, hence all the nerf threads.
Im a hybrid mage tank myself and it´s okey, right now im waiting for a new root skill, took me 5 chronicles of waiting for a role i PVP and im still not sure if it will give me a place in the PVP parties.
OP has done good research, archers and nuker excell in PVP due to high dmg output. Thats the way to go if you want to enjoy the end game content today, but remember there are no guarantees that this will hold true when you reach 75+
i should prolly add unlike other games you can go 0-78 without doing a single raid
in fact you can go 0-78 without doing a single quest as well
you would prolly want to do job change at lvls 20 and 40 or you'd be hella gimp and you would prolly want to do sub class quest at 75 (includes raid bosses) and third class at 76
but apart from that lineage is all about grinding and pvping
You want to enjoy the endgame, make sure you have a good DD on hand.
Last chronicles, the nastiest class was the Necromancers but they get nerfed in C5. I understand that dagger-users get a comeback. Archers are still dangerous but in the end it is the nukers who rule the battlefield.
Don't go melee (except maybe dagger). Sure they doing well in PvE, but in PvP they are cannonfodder, nothing more.
the raid system, item system, and pvp system in this game is far different from WoWs
Raids: In WoW all bosses were guaranteed to drop 2-4 epics, these items were bind on pickup and as such provided upgrades to ONE person ever, being lost if the person quit
In L2 the bosses drops just normal items that you can get anywhere else, some bosses dont even drop complete items but drops key mats (keymats are specific pieces used to craft 1 particular item)
WoW was very static towards its stereotypical raid roles, the warriors (tank) always had aggro, the healers did almost nothing but healing, the dps did the best dps but had the lowest survivability
In L2 theres not much being tanked, heck not a single class in the game can survive a direct melee attack from the end bosses at all, so the raids are mostly a zerg fest. Some tactics are required, but its not remotely close to the complexity of certain WoW encounters
Also, buffs is the alpha and omega in L2, a players dmg output can be up to TEN times as much fullbuffed as unbuffed.
TEN TIMES MORE DAMAGE, just due to buffs and the way some of them work (like how 1 critical hit can do ten times as much damage as a regular hit as oposed to 2 times if unbuffed)
No items in l2 are "bind on pickup" or similar, everything is tradeable (barring quest items)
The pvp is pretty fun, potions doesnt cost an arm and a leg, and its not instanced so you can have huge (laggy :)) battles with 1k people at once
Also, your enemies loose xp when you kill them so pvp actually has a point when it comes to server politics etc, instead of pvp being nothing more than an item grind to get to "rank 14" so you can get some crappy items and then quit pvp
Theres no item rewards from L2 pvp (well heroes, 32 pr server 1 of each class, gets some special but not super stellar items)
if you like raids, its something you can definately do. raid bosses start at about level 20, if you like to play a tank and have a healer friend and some archer/dagger/nuker friends, raid will go quickly. talkto any "adventure guild member" to find out what levels bosses are and where they are. note that bosses that have minions are a lot easier than bosses by themselves (jsut make sure to take out the minions as they spawn) and some high level bosses have normal aggro mobs in the same area as them (i think this changes in C5). unfortunately, you will notice "the problem" rather quickly.
Also, it's NO instances in Lineage, but i heard there are lots in WoW. So when in Lineage you whant to rade you need to get people together (8-30 for regular bosses and up to 200 for epic bosses) and get to the boss first when it spawns, fight of anyone else who also whants the boss and if you are a bit too late then you will need to wait few hours or even few days to get another shot of that raid boss.
I've played WoW, EQ2 and had maxx characters in both games.
L2 is nothing like WoW or EQ2.
L2 is a pvp game with sieging endgame.
WoW and Eq2 are PVE games with some pvp thrown in to "look like they have pvp."
Do not make a character in L2 with pve in mind.
DO NOT.
The majority of raid bosses in L2 consist of mobs that you can literally stand beside and they will not agro on to you - they sit and wait for you to kill them.
Raiding consists of mages (lots of em) a tank and a healer.
The past few games I have played have focused on an end game goal of almost pure raiding. The way to progress was to raid bosses. I was curious if L2 sticks to that vein, as I have yet to see any of that occur.
Finally, I'm curious how subclasses affect both PvE and PvP. Do they make the original class choices moot? Or are they only there to add a little variation to a character?
I put these to questions together since they pretty much go together. There really is no end game in L2 when you get to the top in lvl's you subclass. You have to quest and raid in order to subclass. Once you get your subclass to lvl 75 or higher you can go for hero. You get bored with that subclass you make another it can be endless. End game is more polotics and pvp than game designed content.
Do characters create builds for raiding?
The quick answer is NO. 95% of the players build thier mains for pvp. Alot of people have alts for raiding built a little different, A build for pvp is sufficient for raiding/grinding but a build for raiding/grinding is not good for pvp in most cases.
Do Raid bosses have guaranteed drops or is it simply an increased chance of a drop? Are they vastly superior to playermade/bought items?
This all depends on the lvl of raid bosses. The higher lvl the raid boss the higher the chance of dropping full items. The raid boss drops are changing in C5 so we will all have to figure this out. All weps and armor wether crafted or dropped from mobs or bosses are the same. The difference in weapons is SA (specail abilities) added to the wep and over enchanting. Plenty of threads in here that discuss those differences. The only special weapons in this game are hero weapons. Which can only be optained once you become hero and can only be used while you are a hero. Hero status is 1 month long and you have to keep competing and win in order to keep it.
Secondly, PvP/Sieges seem to be something that this game focuses on (from what I've read). I'm assuming PvP'ing factors in quite a bit to end game activities. If so, I would assume quick/high damage chars excel in PvP. From my research, these seem to be the Dagger/Archer classes and nukers. Do sieges/end game PvP need class balance or do clans stock up on the powerful PvP classes? How do Melee's/Hybrids match up overall?
Most people dont really get into pvp until mid 50's and higher. There is definatley a balance issue with classes when it comes to pvp. In C5 they have made several changes to classes trying to balance pvp. From what I saw on PTS there are alot of good changes but the classes you listed are still dominant in pvp. Will be a while on live server before we can really tell if other changes will be effective. Sieges are definatley a part of the game, and yes most of the time sieges are dominted by the powerfull pvp classes. But stratigy still plays a big part of sieges.
I personally think the changes in pvp they made in C5 will change the way people aproach pvp.