Meaningful Subclassing

Ryder45790 · December 15

Hello Everyone,

I hope the title caught your attention, I am going to go over an idea of mine to change subclassing to absorb back into class purity and class power. My goal of this post is to pitch a viable idea and maybe ease the tension building on the developers from the recent feedback they received. I brought the idea up with a small guild of mine and the feedback I got was very positive so I am hoping to have good feedback/discussion on the topic.. Here goes..

So currently subclassing acts more like skill line substitution rather then morphing the original class into something new. My idea is this, each class has unique subclass skills designed to keep class purity and allow for build versatility while remaining lore friendly. However, I do not mean rebuilding subclassing from the ground up, what I mean is use existing skill lines code from other classes but modify the skill line to match the class it is being applied to.
A simple example I came up with starts with the Dragonknight (DK) class, for this example we are going to switch out Draconic Power for the popular Sorcerer skill line Storm Calling. When Storm Calling is applied to a DK it becomes Flame Calling and the entire line is modified both active/passive abilities become beneficial to DK. Now a skill example, let's use another popular Sorcerer ability Lightning Form, when applied to a DK it becomes Fire Form still granting Major Resolve but the shock damage is changed to flame damage cost/duration remain unchanged for simplicity's sake.
As for the morphs

1)Boundless Storm becomes Flame Torrent, Major Expedition is changed to Major Heroism, Major Resolve/duration/cost remains the same as the original Boundless Storm Morph. Cast sound can be changed to the flame sound heard when casting DK ability Inferno.

2)Hurricane becomes Corona, Minor Expedition is changed to Minor Breach, radius no longer grows but is locked to 8meters, damage now execute scales instead of building 120% Corona would deal up to 120% to low health targets, duration and cost remain the same as the original morph Hurricane. Cast sound can be changed to Noxious Breath and recurring sound be from Poison Arrow.
The idea behind the changes would keep skill lines in check with class purity, DK is not a high speed class, DK is meant to deal harsh damage of time and heavy melee range damage. Also to note the changes I recommended in this example would be helpful in any game mode PvE or PvP or Solo play.

Now stay with me as I would like to give one more example to think about, as for this example we are going to switch out the Sorcerer (Sorc) skill line Dark Magic for the DK skill line Draconic Power, when applied to a Sorc it becomes Daedric Power and similar to above active/passive abilities are changed to be meaningful to the Sorc class.
For this example I would like to go over passive ability changes

1)Burning Heart becomes Dark Heart and the passive changes to while Daedric Power ability is active movement speed is increased by 5%.

2)Scaled Armor becomes Daedric Weaponry increases your weapon/spell damage by 5%
The passives modified to align with Sorc purity, as a Sorc is known being very mobile with hard hitting ranged spells that scale better with high weapon/spell damage.
Similar to the first example these changes are helpful in any game mode.

Let's wrap this up, so to summarize my idea for subclassing is each skill line from each class will be distinct to the class it is applied to with meaningful changes to keep classes pure/lore friendly/versatile without a big "nerf" to subclassing as a whole but a reasonable modification to align with player feedback. I personally don't want subclassing in the game if it is going to remain the same as it is currently, but I also would not want to see the entire system scrapped either! One more elephant in the room to discuss, I know many will disagree however I am a fan of keeping the 2 skill point cost for subclass skills and I would also recommend resetting all subclassing with the new system to be re leveled(its all about the grind) plus not sure if it would be even possible to transfer current subclassing experience gained to the modified subclassing I pitched here sooo..yeah..

Thank you for reading

Lord_Hev · December 15

I think your idea comes from a good place, but I can already see it falling into the homogenization trap again. As seductive as major heroism is on DK... that should come naturally from the current DK baselines. The main selling point for this idea, zos can just do ability dyes(they already are with the new frosty critical charge and etc) but I realize this wasn't the intention behind the idea. I merely reiterate that the concept falls neatly in-line with Zos' hybridization/spreadsheet/homogenizing trajectory. Class identity is much more than just themes and visual ques/buffs/debuffs.

I personally would still outright refuse to use this system, but I at least appreciate that your proposals would mitigate some of the eyesore visuals I have to endure when I see templar and DKs in PvP streaking around in lightning form.

Wereswan · December 15

Off the top of my head:

1) People who wanted to subclass for certain themes (ie. everyone who wanted to make an elementalist by mixing and matching skill lines) are going to hate it.

2) You're talking about adding a bunch of new skill effects when they're in the middle of reworking animations to reduce their footprint. Every skill line would now need six new themes to blend with the other classes.

3) You propose modifying skill line passives depending on which class takes the skill line in question. This would be helpful for balance purposes, but for that reason the people playing cookie-cutter meta builds will hate it.

4) Dunno anyone in this game who wants more grind.

The_Isatope8 · December 15

I think this idea is interesting, but would take an insane amount of work to implement, having to remake each and every class skill line to fit with the themes and aesthetic of every class.

I also had an idea when it comes to subclassing, but it interacts with the scribing system now that its a base game feature. The idea is that the 3 class skill lines stay the same, but the subclass (skill line) you choose for your character essentially provides unique signature and affix scripts based on the skills from that skill line that can then be scribed onto your class skills by replacing or adding these scripts to them.

I think that such a system could open up more interesting ways to build a character and would allow characters to retain their core class fantasy, but adding new and fun ways to play around with a characters skills.

For example: If you were playing a Templar and chose the 'Assassination' skill line as your subclass, you would receive a script that would apply Minor Vulnerability to enemies hit, similar to the 'Teleport Strike' skill. Templar's 'Biting Jabs' has an increased chance to apply the Sundered status effect with each strike, but if the aforementioned script were scribed onto Biting Jabs, then it would apply Minor Vulnerability to enemies hit instead of having the increased Sundered status effect chance with each strike.

For an additional Example: If you were playing a Necromancer and chose the 'Storm Calling' skill line as your subclass, you would receive a script that allows you to heal when dealing critical damage, similar to the '[url='']Surge[/url]' skill. Necromancer's 'Spirit Guardian' skill transfers 10% of the damage you take to itself while active, but if the aforementioned script were scribed onto Spirit Guardian, then you would heal yourself when dealing critical damage instead of getting damage reduction via the skill.

The nice thing about this system is that you could choose to subclass into your own class as well. A dragonknight could use effects from their Ardent Flame skill line on skills from Earthen Heart, for example.

This system would obviously require some tweaking to get it to work, but I think that it would blend nicely with scribing and allow players much to get a much more engaging experience out of subclassing.

frogthroat · December 15

Great idea. Probably difficult and very complex to implement, but would be a cool idea to keep class identity even with subclassing. Wouldn't mind if my Templar could use Solar Storm (Hurricane from Storm Calling) and Blast of Light (Blastbones from Grave Lord) or conversely, my Necro could use Necrotic Oppression (Radiant Oppression from Dawn's Wrath).

Just switch the status effects to reflect the base class and use different colours for the effects. Sounds simple enough, but probably would require a lot of balancing.