(MMO role related. Delete if too far off topic, but I feel it has solid relevancy to WoW)

This is something I've been brooding over for quite some time...though I'd post it up here and get some input on it!

I'm curious if any games(and what classes in them) really got the debuffer role just right. I'm very frustrated with many of the supposed "debuff" classes in many games. All I've played just can't seem to get it right. They always give you a healer/pet/dps class, with a side of debuffs, rather than truly basing a class around the concept of a debuffer.

--WoW's Warlock: Debuffs are rather limited in favor of (IMO) excessive DPS. A great foundation exists, but they gave us too much pewpew. Take away the Destruction tree and split Affliction into 2 new trees. Affliction(DoTs/Drains) and Debilitation(Debuffs, Curses, etc) and it might could work.

--Guild Wars Necro/Mesmer: This combo was actually pretty close to what I'm looking for, too bad Guild Wars is a horrible game.

--Vanguard's Blood Mage/Psionicist/Necromancer: They all have interesting aspects, but still, there lacks a single focused class.

So I ask you, have any games really gotten the debuffer role down pat? I'm looking for a class that is extremely reactive and adaptive, requiring a lot of skill to play. Even looking at games I haven't played it's like MMO developers just can't seem to escape the classic Necromancer archetype (pet + dps + a few debuffs) as their "debuffer".

If one really doesn't exist, do you feel that a pure debuffer class simply wouldn't work? Would it not be balance-able between PvE and PvP? Would most players find it too boring? What challenges would face the class and how would you construct it?

Yeah. I suppose that's a major challenge is making it so choice plays a larger factor, and making it so you aren't on a raid to press 1 button to put a curse up(which would be quite boring, it would need to be much more involved than that...something like a combo point system, etc.)

Well, I honestly always felt that CoH got the debuff role down pretty well, though it didn't really have much of an actual endgame or raiding or the like. Be it ever so simple, the concepts with (don't yell at me, I haven't played the game in well over 2 years) Kinetics and Dark Force as a primary classes were pretty interesting. Debuffs to damage, speed, ect, and while both could be considered 'healer' type classes they generally did it in very odd/different ways.

Of course, it ran smack dab into the issue of giving players so much stackable power that the debuffs were fairly devistating, which would make seirous raiding/endgame a major pain.

I played Knight Online (a small asian MMO) for the better part of 6 months, and I think the debuffing in that game was excellant, especially when it came to PvP, although it was rather simplistic. Basically you had "talents" that you could spec into, and one of the choices as a priest was something called "holy spirit" more commonly referred to as curse. (The translations obviously weren't very good).

In any case hp buffs in that game came in 2 flavors at the top level when I played, 1500 or 60%. So if you had sub 2500 hp, you took 1500, otherwise 60%. Basically a priest specced as such could knock their hp buff, +20% off of their life. Which then had to be cleansed and rebuffed. You could also knock off 20% AC in an AoE, and a single target -20% dmg debuff.

In any PvP group you lived and died off your debuffer, and how well they could do their job. These characters were basically geared in warrior gear to survive the assist on them. At the same time they were the only spec with a high rank res, and they had either weaker heals or buffs.

(PvE was basically non-existant though, boss encounters were over in a short period of time and depended mostly on percentage drains and kiting)

The PoP-era debuffing in EQ was really pretty well implemented. Of course content was balanced around the slow and this caused huge long-term issues but there were actually a variety of debuffs available and a tight resistance system in place for leveraging the desired ones into place. I mean, it wasn't really a high art or anything but the debuffs were strong juju and you damn well noticed when you had the optimal.

Hmm, what others? Well, the Hivekeeper from AC2 was probably the best debuffing/CCing class I've seen on single targets before they (very deservedly) got nerfed to hell and back. That short time was probably the most surreal I've seen in a game that went live. Old school necros with blender pets couldn't even compare. DAoC had some decent ones as well but again they trended towards the mez/stun 'debuffing' rather than the curse/cripple/slow type.

It definitely seems like every post-EQ game had two things on a whiteboard somewhere. #1 was NO COMPLETE HEAL! and #2 was NO DEBUFFS THAT ARE TOO POWERFUL!

I always have liked the idea of a full support class. There was a great class in this old Warcraft 3 custom map whom had no offensive abilities, but instead buffed and restored mana to your friendly heroes (Enfo's hero defense I think it was), and was always my favorite hero to play.

I know in wow I don't feel there is enough depth to really accomplish a full time debuffer, and if the class existed it would be hard to balance without feeling required.

Warriors have some of the best debuffs these days, just not being used enough.

Demo shout is 10-15% less damage taken, imp Demo gets that closer to 15-20%.
Imp thunderclap is 20% slow.

Sunder armor is obv.

Yeah, this was a great way of doing things but also the stacking problems make it completely unviable in a raiding game. In CoH debuffs and buffs were powerful enough to displace healing entirely; you could have your Empath actually healing, or your Force Field guy putting shields up to reduce incoming damage, or your Radiation guy would reduce the strength of enemies, and all would achieve approximately the same survivability.

The problem was, if you combined the three you're now completely invulnerable. It's not possible to balance endgame encounters around this kind of scaling ability; either every powerset (sub-class in CoH) becomes required, or bosses are completely trivial if you stack groups.

CoH did a lot of neat things because they had the freedom to operate with only small-group balance as their real concern. Controllers are another amazing class (CC/debuffers, capable of mass mezzes/knockbacks/mindcontrols but very little actual damage)

I have a huge soft spot for EQ2 because they used primary debuffer as a way to make melee dps viable. Brigands are something that every raid wants, because they buff the raid's overall damage so amazingly while doing respectable damage themselves.

Hrmmm well off the top of my head certainly think mesmers and necros from guild wars would top notch debuffers.

From shadowbane I enjoyed furies(although much like WoW warlocks were somewhat offensive oriented in their debuffing) as well as my very much loved unarmed rogue assassion.

I personally love support/debuffer classes(no surprise I'm on a paladin eh?) as most people never really grasp what you just did to them and it leaves them with a complete shock and awe feeling followed quickly by "WTF HAX, I LAGGED! NERF THAT GUY!"

Agreed

Since WoW has been my first MMORPG, I can't really relate to most of the games mentioned here. However, I did always wonder what exactly the role of the Warlock is in WoW. Obviously their role in practise is to do DPS, but in theory their debuff abilities should play a much bigger role, as mentioned. So, now that we've had a dozen posts about how other games handled it, what can we say about what Blizzard ought to do if they want to make debuffing play a more important role in the game?

I don't think Blizzard will be able to ever transform one of the current classes into a a true debuff/buff class. Warlocks, for example, have gotten used to their solid damage output and their survivability in solo PvE and PvP. Even if their presence in a raid remains important, but for a different reason (Debuff vs. DPS), I don't think many of the players would accept this. Not to mention that the encounter design needs to be properly tuned, because if they mess that up, warlock's debuffs would be underpowered and the class would be replaced with classes that deal better DPS. (And to be honest, I do not have *that* much faith in Blizzard's encounter design, to be able to ensure any Debuff class would be a valuable asset to any raiding group).

Overall, I don't think WoW will ever face a true Debuff class and eventually you might look at a game where all classes can do solid DPS depending on talent spec and that the only differences lie in "secondary" abilities, like strong CC, useful debuffs or their damage school.