Wildstar Class Summary (Nov 2008)

Context

Tim Cain found a PowerPoint presentation on old laptop backups (from an HP TC 1100 tablet PC) that he created around November 13, 2008. He had been given 90 days as the new Design Director at Carbine Studios to completely redesign all classes for the game, working with an almost entirely new design team. The game was still codenamed Sanctuary at this point — three years before Cain left and six years before WildStar shipped.

Class Design Goals

Cain's design goals for the class system were:

• All combat roles represented — DPS, ranged, tank, crowd control, healing, etc.
• Magic/Tech blend — Every class archetype had to sit somewhere between magic and technology (inspired by his work on Arcanum)
• Lore-connected abilities — Class powers had to be tied to the game's setting and story; system mechanics had to support the world-building
• PVE/PVP parity — Abilities had to work identically in PvE and PvP. If you wouldn't want a mechanic in PvP, don't put it in PvE either
• Solo-viable classes — Every class had to be able to play the game solo
• No mandatory classes for raids — Raids should never require a specific class to be present. Cain was reacting to MMOs where missing one healing class meant you couldn't raid at all
• PvP-first balancing — Balance classes against each other in PvP first, then balance against world mobs
• Iconic visual identity — Each class had to be visually distinctive enough that you could immediately identify them
• Pervading darkness — All class designs should carry a "Doom and Gloom" vibe

Shared Class Features

Every class shared these baseline features:

• Automatic melee attack — Once started, it triggers whenever an enemy is in melee range
• Automatic ranged attack (encouraged, not required) — A basic ranged attack that doesn't consume resources
• Self-healing ("Recover") — Every class could heal itself, enabling solo play and reducing raid dependency on healers
• Two disjoint talent trees plus a hybrid third — Talent progression was always structured this way
• Level-based ability progression — Some abilities scaled with level, others unlocked at specific levels

The Nine Classes

Warrior

• Roles: Tank, melee DPS
• Visual: Full battle armor, two-handed weapons
• Weapons: Two-handed melee weapon + two-handed gun (for ranged attack)
• Resource: Adrenaline — builds over combat, spent on special attacks
• Tagline: "If there's one class that can brutally beat down an enemy into submission, this is it."

Sorcerer

• Roles: Ranged DPS
• Visual: Always surrounded by particle effects, glyphs, sigils, glowing bits
• Armor: Arcane armor
• Weapons: Two-handed staff (unique to this class), with socketed runes as a resource mechanic
• Tagline: "If there's one class that can harness pure magical energy to destroy their enemies, this is it."

Medic

• Roles: Healer, buffer/debuffer
• Visual: Power gloves — all abilities emanate from oversized glowing gloves
• Armor: Reflex armor
• Weapons: Gloves (no held weapon)
• Resource: Energy — starts full, returns slowly in combat, regenerates quickly out of combat. Could pull energy from enemies
• Tagline: "If there's one class that can bolster their friends while simultaneously weakening their enemies, this is it."

Spellslinger

• Roles: Melee and ranged DPS, some stealth
• Visual: Dual-wielding guns
• Armor: Reflex armor
• Weapons: Two pistols + a sword for melee
• Resource: Ammo — had to be reloaded periodically, with reload speed depending on the gun
• Special: Created glyphs on the ground that buffed allies or rooted enemies within the radius
• Origin: The concept came from the lead concept artist (Cory)
• Tagline: "If there's one class that can change the tide of battle in an instant, this is it."

Engineer

• Roles: Tank, healer, pet DPS
• Visual: Building and maintaining robots/bots
• Armor: Battle armor (like Warrior)
• Weapons: Two-handed gun + two-handed wrench
• Resource: Build Bots — had to construct and maintain bots that performed different combat roles (damage, healing, buffing)
• Tagline: "If there's one class that can handle multiple foes by dealing damage to some, distracting others, and just plain taking damage, this is it."

Charmer

• Roles: Tank, healer, pet DPS (melee and ranged) — a true jack-of-all-trades
• Visual: Animal companions
• Armor: Arcane armor
• Weapons: One-handed crook
• Resource: Animals — had to manage animal companions gathered from the world
• Tagline: "If there's one class that can perform as an entire group all by itself, this is it."
• Note: Designed as the ultimate solo class — could tank, heal, and DPS through pets

Dark Weaver

• Roles: Melee and ranged DPS, pet DPS
• Visual: Surrounded by dark particle effects, distinctly darker than the Sorcerer
• Armor: Focal armor (glowing bits that showed charge level)
• Weapons: Scythe
• Resource: Mana — returned quickly out of combat, slow in combat. Could pull mana from enemies or use potions
• Tagline: "If there's one class that can fight fire with fire in a war against Shadow, this is it."

Stalker

• Roles: Melee DPS, tank, stealth
• Visual: Covered in tattoos, glowing eyes
• Armor: Reflex armor (partial — showing exposed skin on arms/legs for visual distinction)
• Weapons: Fist weapons (brass knuckles, knife blades)
• Resource: Wounds — damage creates wounds on enemies that deal direct damage and later convert to DOTs (bleeding)
• Special: "Dark Gift" and "Rift Walking" — moving through shadows, creating pockets of darkness, slipping through walls
• Tagline: "If there's one class that could hold its own against multiple enemies even at range with nothing but his fists, this is it."
• Note: The wound mechanic reappeared in Pillars of Eternity

Esper

• Roles: Crowd control, healing, buffing, debuffing
• Visual: Glowing nimbus around their head
• Armor: Focal armor
• Weapons: One-handed energy sword (glowing blade)
• Resource: Focus Energy — grew over time while staying on the same target, enabling increasingly powerful abilities
• Special abilities:
  • Phantom damage — a rare damage type that was hard to defend against
  • Phobias — made enemies afraid to attack the Esper or their allies
  • Predictions — conditional buffs/debuffs ("do X in Y seconds and we all get buffed" / "use this ability and you get debuffed")
• Tagline: "If there's one class that can sow confusion in the ranks of enemies, this is it."
• Note: Cain says the Esper should feel familiar to anyone who played the Cipher in Pillars of Eternity

Coming Soon (at the time)

Cain's presentation concluded with planned next steps:

• Highly detailed class designs up to level 20
• Full talent tree designs
• Detailed PvP system design
• Trade skills and crafting system design

Design Philosophy Observations

Cain's approach to design documents is notable: he always led with goals before solutions. This let teams have two separate discussions — "are these the right goals?" and "do these designs meet the goals?" — rather than arguing about implementation details without agreed-upon objectives.

His "PvP-first" balancing philosophy and insistence on class self-sufficiency were direct reactions to frustrations with existing MMOs where specific classes were mandatory for group content. The self-healing mechanic for all classes was a deliberate structural decision to prevent any single class from becoming a bottleneck.

Several of Cain's original nine classes survived in recognizable form to WildStar's 2014 launch (Warrior, Medic, Spellslinger, Engineer, Stalker, Esper), while others like the Charmer and Dark Weaver were cut or merged. The video invites viewers to compare the 2008 designs with what actually shipped.