Class that links people together

Dhaenon · July 2018

Hey all, what other games (tabletop/single player/mmo) have a class concept like the Linker from Tree of Savior? Basically, you can connect your teammates to buff them or connect your enemies to damage them.

It reminded me of the Ritualist from GW1.

Sephiroso · July 2018

Pretty much nothing comes to mind. The approach most games use is simply area of effect instead of relying on some linking capacity to link damage like that. I mean...there's a couple abilities that's similar but nowhere near as expansive as the Linker's toolkit was.

Like, in WoW a couple of the tank classes have an ability that they link with another player and take damage for them instead. But that's 1 other player and not a whole group. I wanna say FFXIV has a similar tank ability, maybe the paladin has it.

I can't really think of any other examples though since games typically just go the route of "aoe damage" or "splash damage" or aoe buffs/debuffs instead of relying on linking to achieve the same thing. Probably because linking in itself is rather hard to pull off and doesn't really do it any better than simply aoe w/e does.

Dhaenon · July 2018

Any idea where it is potentially closely subverted? Much like your ideas of AOE damage and AOE buffs?

Sephiroso · July 2018

Dhaenon said:

Any idea where it is potentially closely subverted? Much like your ideas of AOE damage and AOE buffs?

If i'm understanding your question correctly. One example would be rogues in WoW. They have an ability called Blade Flurry that deals a percentage of the damage that they deal to their current target to all targets within a certain radius around themselves. Or an ele shaman's chain lightning that you cast on 1 target and it literally chains to multiple targets within range until it can no longer bounce anymore(think it's something like max of 6 targets)

There's buttloads of examples of this in GW2 as well where a warrior puts down banners buffing nearby players with Might(a damage buff) or they'll use a shout that buffs and puts a regenerative healing effect on nearby players. A similar but more extreme example in WoW is Herosim/Lust, essentially a raid wide attack/cast speed buff.

Dhaenon · July 2018

You got me thinking, WoW Shaman is a good example, they have the chain lightning and then totem that spirit links everyone and they can AOE heal. Like that.

Sephiroso · July 2018

Ahh yea, i did forget about their spirit link totem, you're right. Too many skills/spells in that game to remember them all lol

Dhaenon · July 2018

I suppose it is hard to nail down this concept because of the lack of buffer/debuffers in modern mmo's.

Lokero · July 2018

Everquest 2 had quite a lot of that, iirc. Specifically, I remember the shaman type classes having a rather useful buff system based on "concentration" or whatever they called it.

In other words, the buffs would last on your targets for as long as you wanted, but you had a concentration limit to how many you could use.

I don't remember if there was anything that would link you to enemies or not though.

I'm not familiar with the classes you mentioned though, so I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "linking" or if that fits the bill to which you are referring.

Sephiroso · July 2018

Lokero said:

Everquest 2 had quite a lot of that, iirc. Specifically, I remember the shaman type classes having a rather useful buff system based on "concentration" or whatever they called it.

In other words, the buffs would last on your targets for as long as you wanted, but you had a concentration limit to how many you could use.

I don't remember if there was anything that would link you to enemies or not though.

I'm not familiar with the classes you mentioned though, so I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "linking" or if that fits the bill to which you are referring.

Basically the way the linker toolkit worked in tree of savior is. You could literally link things together. So if you were fighting 3 monsters. You had a link to link them together(shown by a line linking them. Any damage you do to one is shared by all 3.

You could do the same with players with a different link. You could link party members and any damage done to one was shared by all. I believe this had the effect of sharing buffs/debuffs as well(not all but most). Just checked, this was also its separate own link, to share buffs.

There was also another skill that gathered all the linked enemies in front of you.

Dhaenon · July 2018

Similar class ideas are like WoW restoration shaman and GW1 ritualist.

Xiaoki · July 2018

In Rift when the Defiler soul for the Cleric class was first released it was a healer. You placed buffs on your teammates that would transfer a portion of the damage they took to you BUT any time you cast a heal you would place an absorption shield on yourself.

I really liked it and it was an interesting and new concept but while it was good for 5 man dungeons they couldnt get it right for raids so Trion took out the unique linking heal gameplay and turned it into an damage dealer soul.

Albatroes · July 2018

Xiaoki said:

In Rift when the Defiler soul for the Cleric class was first released it was a healer. You placed buffs on your teammates that would transfer a portion of the damage they took to you BUT any time you cast a heal you would place an absorption shield on yourself.

I really liked it and it was an interesting and new concept but while it was good for 5 man dungeons they couldnt get it right for raids so Trion took out the unique linking heal gameplay and turned it into an damage dealer soul.

I was thinking that too, can combine it with cabalist soul too which does a huge amount of aoe damage the more mobs are around.

sunandshadow · July 2018

this sounds like a bard or other support/cc class to me?

Loke666 · July 2018

The Dirge in EQ2 had a little of the same idea but it certainly didn't get far enough. It is not a bad idea to add a class really building on this but since most MMOs basically are sologames today I fear it is too late.

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