Like the title says, I believe that the true potential of a character is the person playing it.
Now granted if you got an even split of cleric/sorc/wizard and 8 con then it really doesn’t matter who is playing it, it is destined to fail, lol. But that’s not what I’m talking about here; it’s mostly the whole clerics/FvS melees as well as rouges, monks and rouges being DPS or anything like that. I fully support going away from the cookie cutter builds and trying some different things out, as long as it works then all power to ya.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have a Dwarven Fighter Dual Kopesh kensia (Jayrixx) and no other toon I have comes close to the damage that he puts out, however you can’t have a whole party of those and succeed without support. On the other hand I do have a dual scimitar Favored Soul that does pretty decent DPS and can heal at the same time, and she is alot of fun to play.
Here is where we get to the play style and the experience of some of us founding geeks. I am a big supporter of have a big major DPS toon in the party weather a fighter or barbarian. Now to go along with that huge DPS center piece let’s say we got my Melee FvS and a Melee Bard (Falcion all the way baby). Now that’s a great party just with those 3. I don’t try and out DPS the barb (thou if he’s not well equipped it happens…sad but true) on my FvS, nor does the Bard, but the Bard will displace the Barbarian and the FvS is doing DPS the whole time when not throwing the heals. So let’s add 3 more melees…as long as they have some HP and with mass heals and displace on the guy holding most agro we have a whole party of 6 people beating on the mobs. I dont care who you are, no one does so much damage that a few extra people hitting mobs is useless. This is a Seager party now, hehe.
So what’s the big deal with having the FvS and Bard beating on some shavarath scum…nothing. The problem comes when the person playing the support toon doesn’t know when to back up and support, or doesn’t know how to use all the tools in his kit bag like displace, stoneskin, etc.
At the end of the day it all revolves around team work and completing the mission. If you have the ability to heal and aren’t healing others then you are not being a team player and you shouldn’t be in the party, honestly. **** I can heal on my ranger (hitting my cure serious about 110-150 and have a good mana pool) and I have stepped back and healed when the cleric went down or whatever. The reason I did this is not because I felt it was my job, it’s because if we fail I don’t get anything out of it.
Now I can agree with some healers in the since that people shouldn’t feel like you are supposed to be their personal heal-bot. No one likes to be under appreciated and bust a nut trying to keep a party alive and then get wrote off like it was their job. Even if it is their job, like Epic Dragon, throw those healers a thank you ever now and then, a few words can go along way….so can mana pots, hehe.
So that is my two cents on the subject. And in summary, if you play your toons with team work in mind you will be an asset to the party. If you play your toon only looking out for yourself…well get used to it because you are probably going to be spending most your time soloing.
This is my opinion and I am in no way am trying to tell people how to play the game, it just works for me.
The Seager has spoken.