Should Players Be Able To Choose A Subclass?

I was thinking about my Mage and how I'd like to be able to find weapons to edit my build, but I feel a better way to do that (instead of adding individual items that are leveled) would be to add sub classes. Let's say there were subclasses for the Warrior known as the Paladin and the Barbarian. A player would be able to switch to a subclass at a certain level by doing a quest, but that quest would only be unlocked if a player had leveled a Warrior to level x(80?) already. When doing the quest the player would have to decide between two things (like in the quest UnderIce where you choose between giving Gernald or the fish people the fish) at some point during the quest that would determine their new subclass. Their subclass could slightly edit their base stats (or a penalty/bonus to certain stats) and would edit a skill. For example, the Paladin subclass (higher base defense/innate hp regen? and a lower base damage) could edit the Bash skill (change the name to smite), changing all the damage to elemental and with the addition of bonus elemental damage and a higher mana cost. Pros to this change: more damage, elemental dmg means bonus against certain mobs Cons: Higher cost, and the spells 100% elemental damage means it can be almost ineffective against some mobs.
For the Barbarian subclass with a higher base damage and lower base defense, they could receive an edit to the WarCry spell. Pros: Damage bonus is greater, initial radius attack centered on player affecting nearby mobs Cons: The Barbarian now takes more damage and nearby enemies will attack them instead of other players (and those mobs have a damage bonus)

I thought this was a cool idea that I'd love to see implemented. It'd provide more variety and replay ability for the players while also making more money for Wynncraft because of the new subclasses would take more save slots, forcing players to buy slots if they wanted to keep old characters and play with other subclasses

 

Woah woah woah steady on there!

 

I'm just saying it'd be the direct result of players having more save files to play with. After a while players would fill up their slots because of their interest in playing with subclasses and if they wanted to play with different subclasses (8 if we assume there are 2/class) they would either have to replace a save file or buy a rank (because players start with 6 save files right?) to keep their old files.

 

I don’t really understand why people say there’s not enough class customizability, there’s an entire classbuilding system in wynncraft, you can build almost any playstyle you want. Like melee? Use ETF. Want to spam spells forever? Use TWA or WFA. Want to be super glassy but deal insane damage? Use ETW. Tank build that can still do good damage, TFA. There’s so many options for building a class, there are 5 classes, and there are 10 ele tris (more if you count duoelemental, monoelemental, quad, rainbow, and the “sub-sub” archtypes like etf tierstack vs hm). That gives us 50 ways you can customize your character, you aren’t really locked into a specific archtype because everything is viable to an extent. All the options are there, it’s just people don’t want to really be invested into them.

 

You can already chose a subclass. You can choose to be a thunder spell warrior or fire melee or air spellsteal or whatever you want. There's literally hundreds of different builds within a few dozen or so different styles. That's a lot better than just "more defense and hpr" or "more damage". You already get to decide those things, along with a ton of other things, based on how you play the game, not just because the devs offer a choice. That's way better in my opinion (I'm half against the base defenses to begin with honestly). You wanna be tanky? Use statue and guardian and none shall slay thee. Wanna do tons of damage at the cost of being squishy? Use the chaos-woven greaves and cata and shred anything that dares move in your presence. There's even a necklace that aggros mobs on you if you want that.

 

Yeah, agree with @Melkor here. Builds kinda fill this gap, and major IDs fill it even more.



However, I'm not against the idea. Nice suggestion.

 

Maybe I need to get further into the game. My highest level character is a level 74 Mage, so I haven't been through all of the game yet and even though I'm trying for defense and Int. I'm still very squishy.
The main reason I like the idea of subclasses is the slight variation of how skills can work. It allows for that last personal touch on your character so now both the stats and skills are tuned the way you like it. You are able to skew which direction you want the class to go just a bit more than you could before (It's why I included the "Yes but other things should be prioritized" option. While this could be viewed as an interesting idea, it isn't necessary).

 

This is a lot more personal, trust me. Def/Int is one of my favorite things to work with, especially EWF and TWF, but yeah, you'll probably stay squishy for quite a while, especially as mage.

 

Changing minor things like elements or numbers wouldn't really separate the subclasses much. As others have said there's already a bunch of playstyles via items but I do agree that the classes themselves don't offer customization and I think alternate abilities or passives that you could choose as you level up could be cool. Yeah major IDs already do this but I'd much rather things like Hawkeye's passive or Warrior scream be potential upgrades in an upgrade tree of sorts. Maybe once you reach the higher levels, after the skills have been upgraded you can choose a subclass branch and you can customize the utility of your kit.

 

This is exactly the type of thing I was thinking about. Some games have a tree for slight customization of skills, some have subclasses to do that for the player. I like the idea of a tree for Wynncraft, though that might add too much customization, making it harder to balance different parts of the game.
Part of it for me is the personal part of it though. With a subclass I'd feel less like a high level Mage, but someone who has finished their basic training and is ready to master a new art of magic. I like adding the little bit of roleplay to the character and making more of a person out of my blocky avatar, rather then controlling a blocky avatar that just murders things (although I do appreciate how Wynncraft makes fun of that a little bit. They make sure to take note of the fact that your character is a stupid/murderous merc. with quests like Cluck Cluck and a few others... Couldn't even figure out how to calm a chicken down).