SirPaco

Gimp classes are not so gimped, people judge to fast or just plain wrong.

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Ok, so this one wil be an ongoing process. I will edit it in time but the objective is to show people why the "gimp" classes are not gimped.

There is a mis conception in AoC by most players that such and such a class sucks, and 78.827263646 % (roughly) of the time it is completly wrong. So I here I will talk of my personal experience with gimp classes which are usually the ones I prefer to play, or at least try out.

All of this is in PvP as I don't give a rat's ass about PvE :XD



1. Guardian

Guardian has for a long time been considered by many people to be a gimp class. I was told this is probably because everyone builds "bloody vengeance" and so depend heaviliy on stacks of vengeance to be able to do anything.

People say DT and Conq tank better and so are much better for flag carrying (a), guardians suck in duels (b), and are do no DPS at all (c)

(a) A good flag carrier is in no way exclusively a character that tanks best. The reason for this is because there are many other skills which can be very usefull to flag carrying and to the team in general. I will save this discussion for another post about group balance in minigames but for now, let me simply use the DPS example :

On my guardian, I was given (by a very friendly guild member) some protection rings. I experiemented a lot with using them or the pvp ones and came to the conclusion very fast that although these rings were very usefull to help with tanking, I lost much too much DPS when I was wearing them.

And the reason I speak of this is because even when I carry flag with guardian, I contribute in killing enemy team actively and often get kills even in def stance with flag all game.... When I do not participate so actively in offense, the team often struggles to wipe enemy group.

Well if I have less protection but more dps, we wipe enemy more than enemy wipes us, and if enemy wipes us, I die, even with much more protection. See?

It's a question of balance, and balance is NEVER simply max dps, or max tanking, or max anything, balance is shared and evolutive.

(b) I have not a very good experience with the guard in duels, but that is probably because I am not a dueller and pretty much suck in duels hehe. However one very very important thing is that a guardian is very good when "vengeance" buff is maxed (10 stacks increase speed, stamina regeneration, dps). This buff is dependent on someone in group being hit by melee, so obviously, in duels, you hardly ever get it (there is a feat that allows you to get some but it doesn't seem to work properly).

(c) Guardian has crazy DPS in certain situations. In 2 step combo (storm strike) + reckoning (when buffed) I can pretty much 2 shot any mage or healer and almost 1 shot assassin if I hit right and crit. Normal (buffed) takes at least 50% away.

That is very big burst DPS and it's exactly what is needed in pvp. When I don't have the flag, I am in paradise because I run around and rape everything :XD

Conclusion, no, Guardian is not gimped, it is a very fun class to play, very usefull and can combine tanking and high DPS.

2. POM

POM forums are FULL of QQ whine and more QQ about what a gimp class this is. Almost anyone you talk to will tell you it is one of the, if not the worst class in AoC.

wrong .....

(a) heals

I have never been so well healed as when Nephele (or Herzog, but that is rare :p) is in group, and ya, we know they imba, but it's also because POM heals very good. Although many people on forums (including pro POMs) will disagree, I got a pretty strong feeling that POM heals much better than BS or TOS.

(b) dps and CC

People are always whining about the POM CC and how it is useless.

First of all, Repulse (the big yellow thing that KB everyone except plate (unless feated)) is fucking nice skill. Everyone sees it when you start using it, so you can use it and cancel it and use it again, it makes enemy very unsure about what to do. And if they ignore it, then continue use it and boom kb...

NO it is not instant, but it's fun, and no it is not impossible to use it. Traditional POMs used a combo from divinity where they would AOE stun first, then AOE KB with repulse. Now, they can't do that anymore, that's why they QQ.

It is especially good in sieges because most people can't see you using it (no particles hehe).

Second, I can't remember name, but POM got one of the most imba snares in the game --> very large AOE slow that lasts for ever. This really helps in group pvp.

Third, since last patch, yes it's true CCs range was shortened. So this simply means a change in focus and playstyle, howevever, when heal botting for imba demos who get a million kills and enemy guard comes in to AOE fear everyone, you can stun instantly! Instant stun is imba.

The single target fear does take a long time to load, even when feated to shorten time, but still, it simply means that these CCs are defensive now.

About the DPS, first of all it's (I think) the only class where you can attack an enemy and he can not tell where the attack is coming from. This is best sniper of game, if you hide in bush, or in corner somewhere, you can nuke someone for 2 minutes, he won't be able to tell where you are.
After this, I can only speak for Vengeance because I never ever even bothered to try Divinity (because I was happy with Vengeance style), POM can do insane burst DPS when you don't expect it. There are 2 debuffs you can use that stack, then there are your own buffs which considerably increase your DPS, but then there is one skill that makes you shoot like a fucking machine gun, and when you combine all those 3 things, you can take down enemy very very fast.

And that's the point, the most important type of DPS in PvP is burst, not sustained, and Vengeance POM can give this when needed. However, it is single target DPS.

(c) tanking

Last point I want to make about POM is that it does not die easy, most of the time, BS is harder to kill, but a team who focuses a POM will get raped before the POM dies in most cases.

Conclusion, no POM is not gimped, it is very fun class that can combine high burst (single target) DPS (I speak of my POM, there are other builds that have more AOE DPS), good survivability, and probably the best heals in the game.

3. Assassin

I played assassin to pvp 5 before the 1.06 patch and after the 1.05 one (when it was gimped) and no, it was not gimped....

I actually had a 60 corruption assass which I decided to delete and start all over.

I played a lot on White Sands not because I was lazy and wanted an easy way to get PvP XP (you should know if you know me that I am not a slacker hehe) but because PvP on white sands was so much fun at the time. There were no zergs (at the time, hardly any groups even), there were many many people (4 or 5 instances running almost all day), no guards, but especially, the class balance was different (demos and necros were not OP) and the combos were all short (1 maybe 2 steps).

This meant that the action was fast, intensive, and absolutely thrilling and I had a great time, so I stayed there until I was PvP 4, then decided it was time to level

Anyway, I had no problem leveling, but most of my time was spent in minigames when level 80. Always, or almost always solo, and this is what I have to say about this "gimp" class.

Minigames at the time were full, and I mean really full of casters. It was not rare to see a team of 3 demos 1 TOS and 2 NF Necros. For me, this was paradise.

I ran the flag because no one cared about the flag and someone had to do it, but I discovered that assassin was a very good flag runner. First of all, he is very fast (can almost sprint from rez pad to flag room with the flag on back). Second of all, like all rogues, he has anti CC. Third, he does have very good CC (AOE CHARM), but most importantly, in game dominated by casters, and being full lotus specced (in both trees) I could tank necros and demos better than a Conq or Guardian.

This of course, did not prevent me from dishing out some bad DPS either.

Now the reason many sins were QQing about it being a gimped class IMO is because of melee, if you were specced lotus (like 76.4832736% of the assassins), fighting melee was hard.

Today, sins run in and rush DPS, try CC lock, and don't move out until the target is dead. When I played, fighting melee required a bit more brains than just run in and dps like crazy, you had to avoid the CC through movement, not ability, you had to avoid enemy combos by jumping out of the way.

This was fun, and I really loved it like this.

Anyway I wanted to say that the assassin during patch 1.05 was surely nerfed compared to 1.04 and surely not as OP as 1.06 but surely not gimped like everyone thinks, especially in Age of Harry Potter which it was at the time.

Updated 23.02.2010 at 15:11 by SirPaco (update)

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Comments

  1. Sunset_Superman's Avatar
    i'd say that all this classes gimped or imba in this or in other situations... so all depends where and how.
  2. Heb-Sed's Avatar
    HoX is gimp! ;D
  3. Rognarius's Avatar
    HoX is easy to play but hard to master. Very small room for mistakes.
  4. SirPaco's Avatar
    Hox is not gimped omfg :XD
  5. Rognarius's Avatar
    HoX is best melee for mass PVP.
  6. SirPaco's Avatar
    btw, after ranger, I will level hox or conq, not decided yet
  7. SirPaco's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sunset_Superman
    i'd say that all this classes gimped or imba in this or in other situations... so all depends where and how.
    please explain