Another voice joins the chorus

[Alemu]

Hello, people! Hope you’re all having a good day.
Thank you for taking a moment to check this thread - I do appreciate it.

I have watched a few videos and reviews about Embers Adrift, and, despite still having a lot of questions, decided to try this game out. Before jumping in, however, I still have a few questions about the game’s mechanics, the game’s future and so on.

Firstly, in case if it matters, let’s start with introductions - I have been playing MMOs since the age of 14. My first MMO was Lineage 2, but then WoW came out around two years later, and I’ve been playing mostly it, sometimes hopping to ESO, GW2, SWTOR, Warhammer Online and so on.
There’s one golden rule to follow - I only ever play tanks. There’s something about the character and the role of a tank in a party that I can relate to, so I enjoy the process a lot.

That being said, there are still a few questions about tanking in this game:

1) Let’s say, I play a Knight, how’s the aggro generation / defense going? Is it easy to maintain aggro in this game and do you struggle with survival (aka, have to rotate cooldowns) while tanking?

2) In my experience, no matter the game, at the end of the day, the tank that deals the most damage happens to be the best one, due to the fact that if the target’s dead, it deals 0 damage. Is this the situation here, or are mobs spongy and bursty enough to warrant a full-out tank to handle them?

3) One of the latest (and most terrible, imo) trends I have noticed recently in mmos is that everyone should dps. You got tanks who swap into more dps gear / stats, you got healers who mostly deal damage (or heal only through damage dealing) and so on. Are healers and tanks expected to deal a lot damage in this game?

4) How’s the group setup? Is it mandatory to have 2 tanks in each dungeon group or will one suffice?

5) Multitanking. From what I’ve seen, people mostly resort to very small, almost single pulls, and CC the others. Can one do AOE tanking, or multiple targets tanking? If so, how taxing is it in terms of aggro-management and survival for a tank class?

Now, just a few questions about game future:

1) A bunch of friends of mine are reluctant to try the game out, due to its low fantasy setting. Personally, I like it, but I still have to ask - will there be any full magic users classes (not alchemy profession-based)?.

2) How’s the gear progression going to be, horizontal or vertical? Is there going to be an end goal to achieve or will there be an endless gear treadmill?

I think that these are about all the questions I had to ask. I apologize for any typos, as I was writing this post from my phone (man, do my fingers feel tired now…)

Once again, thank you for reading this topic!
Have a good day, everyone!

 

[Elloa]

Heya and welcome! Let me answer your questions, though i'm not specialised in tank, personaly. I do have one, but it is not my main character.

1. You will have to fight for your aggro, as expected. Not only you will be responsible to use your aggro generating abilities, and on the correct targets, but your team mate will need to pay attention to their aggro aswell. Healing aggro is big. Your team will have to coordinate and play smart for the encounters to be smooth.

2. Each of our three tanks are good for different things. Knight is solo oriented have great aggro against single target, and lots of protection. Marshal has CCs and can help to control the fight. And Juggernaut are bursty barbarian type of tank, with AOE tanking abilities, but a little less protections.

3. In Embers Adrift, the combat are not really working like modern type of MMORPG. It is much more strategic. You need to plan. Just DPSing is not enough. How to pull. How to CC. Everyone will participate to DPSing including tanks and healers, but it is not a rush

4. Group composition is flexible. It is best to have atleast 1 tank and 1 healer, but it is also possible to be succesful without those roles in your party if played strategically.

5. Juggernaut are the AOE tanks. The Knight will have to rotate their abilities onto multiple target, but will struggle to keep aggro on more than 3 targets, especially if the rest of the group is not disciplinated. That being said it is usually not a great idea too many targets in a pull.


The future of the game.

1. We are not planning to add wizards, necromancers and druids in the game. If you want to use "magic" you need to earn it and learn it, and every classe, every players can access to it.
We do plan to introduce another step into the learning of Alchemy with stronger Alchemical effect.
So it is not so much that magic doesn't exist in our game. But you can't start with it. you need to explore the world, level up, progress and earn it.

2. Gear progression is diagonal I would say. You need to think up, but as you level up more slowly, it make sense for you to farm a great piece of equipment at lvl 10. You will keep it for a while. Some of the early piece of equipment will be used at high level by meta gamers.


We do have a SUMMER EVENT this weekend and the game have a free trial. It would be the best weekend to insist and bring your friends try the game for free with you for a little while. In the worst case scenario they dislike the game but shared a great moment with you?

 

[Alemu]

Heya and welcome! Let me answer your questions, though i'm not specialised in tank, personaly. I do have one, but it is not my main character.

1. You will have to fight for your aggro, as expected. Not only you will be responsible to use your aggro generating abilities, and on the correct targets, but your team mate will need to pay attention to their aggro aswell. Healing aggro is big. Your team will have to coordinate and play smart for the encounters to be smooth.

2. Each of our three tanks are good for different things. Knight is solo oriented have great aggro against single target, and lots of protection. Marshal has CCs and can help to control the fight. And Juggernaut are bursty barbarian type of tank, with AOE tanking abilities, but a little less protections.

3. In Embers Adrift, the combat are not really working like modern type of MMORPG. It is much more strategic. You need to plan. Just DPSing is not enough. How to pull. How to CC. Everyone will participate to DPSing including tanks and healers, but it is not a rush

4. Group composition is flexible. It is best to have atleast 1 tank and 1 healer, but it is also possible to be succesful without those roles in your party if played strategically.

5. Juggernaut are the AOE tanks. The Knight will have to rotate their abilities onto multiple target, but will struggle to keep aggro on more than 3 targets, especially if the rest of the group is not disciplinated. That being said it is usually not a great idea too many targets in a pull.


The future of the game.

1. We are not planning to add wizards, necromancers and druids in the game. If you want to use "magic" you need to earn it and learn it, and every classe, every players can access to it.
We do plan to introduce another step into the learning of Alchemy with stronger Alchemical effect.
So it is not so much that magic doesn't exist in our game. But you can't start with it. you need to explore the world, level up, progress and earn it.

2. Gear progression is diagonal I would say. You need to think up, but as you level up more slowly, it make sense for you to farm a great piece of equipment at lvl 10. You will keep it for a while. Some of the early piece of equipment will be used at high level by meta gamers.


We do have a SUMMER EVENT this weekend and the game have a free trial. It would be the best weekend to insist and bring your friends try the game for free with you for a little while. In the worst case scenario they dislike the game but shared a great moment with you?

Thanks for the answer!

Damn… now I wonder which tank to play. I guess the most sure and classic way to go about it, is to be a Knight. After all, other classes deal more damage and probably got nice CC, too. At the end of the day, a tank is here to get aggro and be tough. Sounds like a Knight to me.

 

[nikgervae]

Thanks for the answer!

Damn… now I wonder which tank to play. I guess the most sure and classic way to go about it, is to be a Knight. After all, other classes deal more damage and probably got nice CC, too. At the end of the day, a tank is here to get aggro and be tough. Sounds like a Knight to me.

You can consider the other roles in your choice, depending on if you are coming in with friends to play, too. Even if not, you can consider who you will be teaming up with. For example, Wardens are good at pulling selectively, as they can sedate nearby targets so they don't come when the first target does. Brigands, on the other hand, can stun an add to keep it quiet after it comes, which is very powerful—but other party members must not break the stun. Berserkers I don't know about.

As a Defender you probably don't need to worry about your Supporter specializations as much, but they too have crowd control abilities, such as the Warlord's fear.

 

[MarcusFromOz]

As an old Lineage 2 Paladin myself I think you will find many similarities between Lineage 2 parties and Embers Adrift ones.

My main Tank is a Knight and while I sometimes wish for AoE taunts I still enjoy the class as is.
It works well as both a 6 man group tank and a solo/duo character.
The self heals make it very paladin like as you progress.

 

[Alemu]

Thanks for the answers! I guess I was looking for something akin to a warrior class from WoW vanilla / tbc. Like, to have a wide array of tools to enforce my rule upon the battlefield, while remaining the toughest tank in the game. Also, do defenders have gap closers?

 

[MarcusFromOz]

Thanks for the answers! I guess I was looking for something akin to a warrior class from WoW vanilla / tbc. Like, to have a wide array of tools to enforce my rule upon the battlefield, while remaining the toughest tank in the game. Also, do defenders have gap closers?

Off the top of my head no, but it's never been a pain point.

 

[nikgervae]

Thanks for the answers! I guess I was looking for something akin to a warrior class from WoW vanilla / tbc. Like, to have a wide array of tools to enforce my rule upon the battlefield, while remaining the toughest tank in the game. Also, do defenders have gap closers?

My Marshal has something called Pursuit, which slows the target down and increases my speed. It's nothing like the fast rush of a WoW warrior, but it has its uses! I have not played Knight or Juggernaut so I cannot speak about those specializations.