Got extremely excited for the news about the next expansion. But what I’ve always felt was missing about the awesome dual mastery/class system is THE reason you’d combine X and Y instead of Y and Z. Classes do get a cool name that also makes sense once you pick that 2nd mastery, but it’s still “just” those 2 masteries, and the resulting class doesn’t really offer anything other than a cool name. What I’m looking for is once (as an example) you combine Nightblade and Necromancer you get the Reaper class… I want that “Reaper” to have unique passives/actives/procs/ultimate ability? So it’s not just a Necromancer with access to the Nightblades’ dual wielding, but once each of the masteries hit 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 on both Necro and Nightblade it opens up specializations as the “Reaper”.
Maybe it’s too much depth and wishful thinking, but this has been my wet dream in an ARPG with a dual class system since Titan Quest.
What if i don’t want to max the mastery bar because i’m not getting any skill after a certain rank, but the rank 50 passive or whatever is too good to pass up? Seems more limiting than depth.
So you basically want to transform the dual-mastery system into a single class system, because people would choose their masteries based on the skills of the combined class.
I’m just looking for some sort of… Back to the title. Class Identity resulting in more choices for that “single class”. Weather you have a Saboteur with the current dual system… 99% of those builds are going to be the same min/max’d builds to deal with AoM on Ultimate and Gladiator Crucible which many of the current weaker combo’s are barely viable for, specially untwinked. So if you’re hung up on keeping a dual mastery system that still results in almost all builds being the same within that combo, or trying to give each class more options. As is it now I really do not see this as something that limits choices… If you’re a min/max’er those so called “choices” have already been made for you when you chose the 2 masteries.
It doesn’t even have to be tied to the mastery bar. It could be tied to your level, or unlocks from doing certain things, bosses/mini bosses/dungeons/challenges etc. Think in line with Ascendancies in Path of Exile (Sort of a bad example, but only one I can think of at 6.30 in the morning)
While I think it could work, the attitude from the dev’s is that they are not going to change the engine of the game, and that basically means this would never happen. Everything is designed around the class system they have in place. What you are asking for would require a rebuild of the whole base of the game.
The resulting class from the dual mastery system offers more than just a name. It offers the synergies between the skills presented in each as well as the ability to more well utilize specialized pieces of gear.
Apart from the massive amount of work that would require (we’re up to 28 combinations now, each of which would necessitate its own set of unique bonuses), I feel this would have the opposite effect of what you desire, by which I mean it would bottleneck each combination into a particular way to play, unless those class-combo bonuses were so minor that they aren’t really defining the combo in the first place.
If anything to increase class identity, it could be aesthetic. That’s less work, won’t endanger the core mechanics and balance, and can be taken quite far.
The illusionist is a good place to start such a thing. How about every time you reach level 100 with a class combination, the illusionist unlocks a transmog to solidify that class’s theme?
there are two problems with this, first I would have to spend money (in game) to look like everyone else with that combo, to me that is a non-starter. Second, the combination of two masteries does not have one theme, there are very different builds in that combination. You are much better off picking from the available illusions in order to represent your ‘theme’.
I think it’s an interesting idea with some drawbacks. It would be a cool idea for a mod (if I remotely had a clue about computers let alone make a mod)
You still get the choose the skills from both of masteries but you are awarded something special for combining… Now yours become a good idea. People still choose which skills they want.
