Maybe. I tried 3 builds.
A Monk/Mesmer -- Which I quickly found that being a good monk was in high demand. The NPC monk is far more reactive and less distracted by gameplay, however she always hangs back with the pokiest people in the team, while most of the healing needs are at the tip of the spear. I never figured out Mesmer too much, but seeing how deadly some of the Mesmer monsters were, I would imagine one could make a viable Mesmer.
A Warrior/Elementalist -- Lots of attack power and the better the weapon the better the warrior. I was doing about 30 dmg average per hit, with special attacks doubling that about every 30 seconds. But with good human backup it was easy, although I felt at times like the meat shield waiting for the magic to do the big damage (meteor). The Elementalist seems very powerful, but it does take some time to get the spells fired off.
A Necro/Ranger -- For this character I ended up focusing on Necro much more than any Ranger skills. I was finding much more powerful smiting rods than bows, so it ended up that even the standard attack with the smiting rod was better than anything I could do with any bow I found. The real power was in summoning undead horrors, and maintaining a troop of 6-8 of them and targeting them properly on the Team's target. I ended last night with a group of 6 humans and we waltzed thru the Fen and Aurora missions in less than 45 minutes each. It was my first time, but some of the others in the group said it was never so easy. One thing I noticed was that the horrors would engage all the enemy so that the enemy would not engage the stand off players.
I had more trouble playing solo (w/henchmen) because the henchmen get themselves into trouble to easily. Many times I ended up aborting the mission, because I was the lone survivor of the group. So I think the tendency will be for people to desire human company rather than NPC's.
So anyway, having seen any number of viable builds so far, I disagree with the cookie cutter charge this early. But it is true that some skills are less than balanced at this point. For instance, Ranger familiars. The beasts are suicidal, and if killed give the Ranger a -15% penalty. They never get very powerful, and there are any number of Ranger skills associated with the familiar. I think the death penalty is too high, and the power of the familiar is too low. A ranger would never want to take a familiar into PvP.
They fixed alot of things I despised about multiplayer Diablo II (granted eventually Blizzard fixed some of this). Gold is shared and item drops are predesignated to an individual. The skills system is still in development and there is very little balancing at this point. I hope they work on that before the initial release in February, because nothing PO's people more than having THE skills they have centered a character around totally nerfed. PvP is a focus of the game, but it is done in an arena or guild setting and is not disruptive to the PvE players.
I think I will preorder this game and play it quite a bit come February.
A Monk/Mesmer -- Which I quickly found that being a good monk was in high demand. The NPC monk is far more reactive and less distracted by gameplay, however she always hangs back with the pokiest people in the team, while most of the healing needs are at the tip of the spear. I never figured out Mesmer too much, but seeing how deadly some of the Mesmer monsters were, I would imagine one could make a viable Mesmer.
A Warrior/Elementalist -- Lots of attack power and the better the weapon the better the warrior. I was doing about 30 dmg average per hit, with special attacks doubling that about every 30 seconds. But with good human backup it was easy, although I felt at times like the meat shield waiting for the magic to do the big damage (meteor). The Elementalist seems very powerful, but it does take some time to get the spells fired off.
A Necro/Ranger -- For this character I ended up focusing on Necro much more than any Ranger skills. I was finding much more powerful smiting rods than bows, so it ended up that even the standard attack with the smiting rod was better than anything I could do with any bow I found. The real power was in summoning undead horrors, and maintaining a troop of 6-8 of them and targeting them properly on the Team's target. I ended last night with a group of 6 humans and we waltzed thru the Fen and Aurora missions in less than 45 minutes each. It was my first time, but some of the others in the group said it was never so easy. One thing I noticed was that the horrors would engage all the enemy so that the enemy would not engage the stand off players.
I had more trouble playing solo (w/henchmen) because the henchmen get themselves into trouble to easily. Many times I ended up aborting the mission, because I was the lone survivor of the group. So I think the tendency will be for people to desire human company rather than NPC's.
So anyway, having seen any number of viable builds so far, I disagree with the cookie cutter charge this early. But it is true that some skills are less than balanced at this point. For instance, Ranger familiars. The beasts are suicidal, and if killed give the Ranger a -15% penalty. They never get very powerful, and there are any number of Ranger skills associated with the familiar. I think the death penalty is too high, and the power of the familiar is too low. A ranger would never want to take a familiar into PvP.
They fixed alot of things I despised about multiplayer Diablo II (granted eventually Blizzard fixed some of this). Gold is shared and item drops are predesignated to an individual. The skills system is still in development and there is very little balancing at this point. I hope they work on that before the initial release in February, because nothing PO's people more than having THE skills they have centered a character around totally nerfed. PvP is a focus of the game, but it is done in an arena or guild setting and is not disruptive to the PvE players.
I think I will preorder this game and play it quite a bit come February.
”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.
![[Image: yVR5oE.png]](http://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/329/yVR5oE.png)
![[Image: VKQ0KLG.png]](http://i.imgur.com/VKQ0KLG.png)