Class priorities, talents, and role design

Class development is presented as moving beyond damage dealers toward a fuller role lineup, with particular emphasis on making tanks and healers engaging to play. The design direction also rejects rigid specialization locks in favor of a broader talent-based build system.

Class production priorities

At the time of the discussion, previously shown playable classes are described as damage-focused classes. Current development priority is said to be shifting toward healers and tanks, because these roles are needed for the PvE direction the game is currently emphasizing.

The assassin is mentioned as a lower-priority class for the moment because it would add another damage dealer rather than filling a missing role. Necromancer is described as easier to approach once the underlying minion system is complete.

Healer design philosophy

Healing is intended to be more active than repeatedly casting a single restoration spell until party frames are full. The stated goal is for healers to remain engaged in combat through both support and offensive contribution.

This does not mean healers are expected to match dedicated damage dealers, but they are not meant to feel passive or irrelevant outside of raw healing throughput. The design direction favors role engagement over narrow one-button maintenance gameplay.

Specializations and hybrid builds

Scars of Honor is described as moving away from fixed sub-specializations such as separate frost, fire, or arcane tracks in the traditional class-spec sense. Instead, classes are planned to use a large talent tree with multiple thematic lines.

Players are intended to be free to invest heavily in one line or mix across several lines to create hybrid builds. The design goal is to avoid excluding players from the rest of a class kit simply because they selected one specialization path.

Talent inspiration and action-bar scope

The talent system is said to draw inspiration from games outside the MMORPG genre as well as from MMORPGs. The discussion presents this as part of a broader philosophy of borrowing useful ideas wherever they fit.

For active abilities, the preferred scale is described as substantially more than a very small bar but less than an overloaded interface. Around 20 meaningful actions is presented as an approximate target, with the caveat that abilities should be distinct rather than redundant variations of the same spell.

Leveling as class experience

Leveling is not intended to function merely as a gate before the "real game" begins. The stated design goal is for the leveling journey itself to be fun, challenging, and engaging. If reaching maximum level is the only point where the game becomes enjoyable, that is treated as a design failure.

This philosophy ties class progression to the broader moment-to-moment experience rather than reserving build expression only for endgame.

Source

• Recording: Wallpapers !giveaway - Talking all things SoH - Playing PoE2
• YouTube: Watch on YouTube
• Published: Sunday, July 13, 2025 at 8:59 PM UTC