Let's talk about this wave of class balancing...

I've heard a lot of different opinions about what the belief is of the powerhouse classes and who need some love so I want to provide some insight as to what this wave of class balance/updates is gearing towards... and also what the short-term focus is going to be.

Assassins: This might shock some people, but I actually like where Assassins are. They're a fun class and I want all other classes to be as fun to play as they are. I don't intend on changing much about them beyond the bug fix involving Crippling Poison. Instead, the other classes are going to be reviewed. Some adjustments will be large and some will be small... simply because I don't want to rock the boat too much.

Barbarians: In my opinion, this class is very strong... even more-so than Assassins. They are what they are meant to be. Insane damage at short-range with little other things of note.

Rangers: Right now, the class is caught up in development hell due to the needed bug fixes with Pets. They were going to get a pet right away, but if /henry was any indication... we've got some work to do. There were also some engine issues with early Ranger abilities that we had to table/revert. The bomb changes today hopefully give them a little better 'utility' as the bomb is much more difficult to avoid and more frequent. Rangers will have their moment as we get further along with Pets.

Paladins: Overall they are in a fairly good spot. They need more damage and maybe a unique offensive ability... but of the other classes they have survivability as a definite in both PVP and PVE.

Clerics: We've been debating for a while what the right route to take Clerics... I've been leaning towards a setup where instead of click healing they instead become healers via DPS and may click to toggle on & off who on the screen gets the healing from the damage. Example: If I had Consty, Colgate, Monsta & myself toggled on to receive healing and I do damage resulting in 2000 healing then it would heal each for 500 (2000 / 4 people). The healing amount would be reflected by damage * some kind of MP variable, which would allow me to let them use projectile weapons after reworking their overall stats. This also helps make the Cleric gameplay experience a little more like the other classes, but still a main healing class.

Mages: Mages also fell into the same issue as Rangers. Around the removal of auto-hits with their range attack, we were going to give Mages access to a pet to give them the option of turning into a Necromancer type build; however, Pets need more work. I think they need more fun... and Mages are fun when they get to make a lot of effects. I'm leaning towards reducing the Mage AOE cooldown and reduce the damage it does and potentially giving it a 1 tile knockback effect on players. Need to give it more thought. Eventually, we'll introduce the Mage pet thing again... but that will need some development time.

Class Customizations: This is the last thing I'm trying to develop behind the scenes, but due to schedule and trying to hit some deadline we just didn't get to it. The goal is to allow for players to switch between key aspects of their class that doesn't change them completely at their base level, but does make them function slightly on different ways. Examples would be the Cleric toggle on for single or multi-target healing; Paladins removing their should and instead having some other type of offensive ability; Mages losing some MP or AOE, but gaining a Pet; Assassins losing a Stun, but gaining a bigger heal; Rangers getting 2 pets or a stronger pet instead of Bombs; Barbarians losing the AOE, but getting a higher Enrange time. This kind of stuff is coming.... we just need some time.