1) Verant guy walks into room and says "Hey, I got an idea to make a jack-of-all-trades class and I want to name it Ranger.
2) Everyone nods their head and one says, "Those're in D&D. It fits."
3) Verant guy says, "But there's a problem. We all know that jack-of-all-trades are great by themselves or with a few people and can keep busy that way. But if you put them in a larger group, they do not have high enough specialization to be useful. For example, when a group looks for dps, they point at rogues or monks. When they look for tanks, they point at warriors. When they look for healers, they point at clerics. When they look for CC, they point at enchanters. Rangers sacrificed a lot to be ok in a lot of things. What do you think?
4) Guy with calculator says, "I saw this conversation coming."
5) One guy says, "It seems like a necromancer to me. It's a solo-class too and isn't great at specialization in groups. I don't see the problem."
6) Verant guy says, "We can't have too many solo-classes. Brad won't change his mind either. So we can't just make this another flavor of necromancer. It has to have sufficient grouping capacity."
7) Guy says, "Can't they be good at both soloing and grouping?"
8) Another guy nods his head.
9) Verant guy says, "Breaks the balance sheet. It's overpowering. They can't be jack-of-all-trades and at the same time replace an expert. You all know that. They can offer utility, but they'll never compare to a class that devotes itself to one or two things."
10) Guy says, "Which area would they be experts in if it didn't break the balance?"
11) Verant guy says, "Rangers are often axe wielders, hunters, bowman, trackers, wilderness sentries, even wielders of magic. Probably an offensive or sneaky class type."
12) Guy says, "Increase their offensives so they're more desired in groups and subtract some experience from their kills to compensate and meet your balance sheet."
13) Verant guy says, "It would be expensive. As they're right now, their offensives are several levels behind expert classes."
14) Guy says, "Boost it so it's not quite at the same level but still competitive and inconspicuous."
15) Verant guy says, "Alright, we'll try that. But I think there'll be a lot of groans. I think we'll eventually have to confront this problem again in the future."
16) Guy says, "One step at a time."
17) Math guy whispers to his buddy, "2x != x. This is all a bad idea. Either they need to allow for solo-classes with inferior specialization or they should just throw all this out and make rangers offensive-based."
18) His buddy says, "Won't experience penalties compensate for them breaking the bank?"
19) Math guy whispers, "Too many people here don't understand 2x != x, so no."
The math guy ended up being right. Rangers became offensive-based. We went from rooting/snaring/kiting/tanking/ccing/dpsing to dpsing (mostly) creatures that summon almost exclusively. Things hit harder and harder until finally tanking became a distant memory (except for raiders). Summoning almost completely destroyed rooting/snaring/ccing, alongside stagnation of our abilities and the flattening of abilities across the classes.
Some good things came of it though. More solo-capability for everyone. Which is something I think should have always been the case. But I think too many people are distracted by the superficial things and overlook that giving a class super high strength and super high hp does not make that class fun to play. Jack-of-all-trades are fun because of their larger tool box, not because they hit hard or have lots of hitpoints or can track.
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