I do like the RTS comparison, but it’s fairly limited in CoX. It relies on the ability of multiple ranged attackers to get multiple alpha-strikes, and that just doesn’t happen with the speed and maneuvrability available to players in this game, and the hitpoints of the ‘grunts’. Actually….. Hmmmm. I think perhaps the best way of fixing PvP would be to suppress lvl 14 and 20 travel powers in the PvP zones. Ranged can still get in position with hover (at sprint&swift running speed if slotted, which ain’t bad), combat jumping and hurdle, swift and sprint help one get around, and teleport foe/friend would still be in there. This leaves the kinetics buffs, but they’re short-term and originate from a squishy, so there’s incentive for a primary target. It’ll keep people mostly on the ground, and stop the grasshopper effect that has everyone hopping back and forth out of an intersection, occasionally killing an opponent when there happens to be five of you and just the one of them in there. So you’d get some enhanced movement, but without the all-breaking death of any strategy beyond everyone running from what kills them in the rock-paper-scissors circle.

(obligatory required mmorpg post)

Support classes cannot compete effectively in so far as they do not pocess the high end damage and heals of specialized classes. Debuffing and buffing does not work in most PvP environments as effectively as in PvE for the simple reason the encounters are over in a matter of seconds, not minutes. And if the other side also has the said abilities, or the ability to dispell. Support classes tend to negate each other out of the equation all together leaving specialized classes to duke it out.

PvP must stop being looked at in terms of 1v1, rock v sissor v paper, or even as groups fitting together like a puzzle to combine skills. Granted the latter can work wonders if designed from the ground up to work that way (Guild Wars).

What I’d like to see is PvP based on RTS numbers. Take two classes, grunts and archers.

One grunt will decimate an archer 1v1. One grunt will also be able to solo two, maybe 3, but 1 grunt vs 5-6 archers and the grunt dies. Keep upping the number of archers, and eventually the archers all firing in unison will decimate the grunt in a single hit.

So, where a single grunt could kill maybe 5 archers, that does not mean 2 could kill 10 and 3 could kill 15. As archers concentrate fire, the 15 will be able to dispatch all 3 grunts possibly without taking a single hit.

A larger numbers, the archers have the advantage, with 20+ archers decimating 20+ grunts

So then everyone should just roll archers? Well no, that’s when the support classes come in and make the difference.

Erm, and that made absolutely no sense and was way off topic, I need more coffee.