Voted something else, a Beastlord from EverQuest, combining a monk with a shamen has a pet as well. Wis and Dex would be the main stats, they could off tank, buff, debuff, and heal. Good at soloing yet supportive in a group.
Sorry, only read a few posts. Neverwinter is waiting.
I agree, we need something different. Not another healer, mage or fighter class.
I'm leaning very much toward the druid, but a monk might be cool as well. Except not, as someone posted, wielding scimitars. That's just silly. Monks should be either unarmed or dual wielding kamas. That's also a great way to split the paths. Thievery could be the skill, but in truth it's more of a religious class, and we already have 2 religious classes. So I chose to vote for druid, a nature class.
Druid should only have minor healing capabilities. The paths could be shape-shifter and summoner. Basic druid has some summon and shift powers whereas the paths will focus the druid.
Summoner: - Summons are the encounter powers with special powerful summons for dailies, at location or personal. (I'm wondering about aggro now.) - Weapon could be a staff with offensive and defensive capabilities. Left and right at-will.
Shifter: - The forms are the encounter powers with special powerful forms for dailies. - Weapon should be barehanded I think, as the shifter might be a wildling person. Maybe magical war-talons that have a link to certain forms, or the at-wills determine the specific properties of the talons. Maybe the at-wills will shift the hands into some sort of claws for as long as you hold the mouse button. But then what does the shifter wields in his primary weapon slot?
Tab and shift mechanic: We have 3 classes that do short slips, 2 classes that do speeding, 1 class that rolls, 1 that blocks, and 1 that does sanctuary. I'm not sure if players would want another slip mechanic. Maybe it should have some form of protection, explained below.
- Tab could be "Call of Peace". During combat the druid uses nature's wrathful energies to defeat enemies. In order to keep the balance, the druid gathers the peaceful energies to heal or revive from death. Can be used personally or on a single party member. - Shift could be "Nature's Bond". Some sort of protecting magic which will encompass the druid in magical vines, absorbing a % of damage and allowing the summoner to get out of harms way, and the shifter can benefit from it in close combat. Or "Stoneskin/Barkskin", same idea. It could be depleting like the block mechanic of the defender.
I voted druid in hopes of a shape-changer. The classic druid can heal, nuke, or melee by (spells, other spells, shapechange) and was a jack of all trades. Monk doesn't make sense to me, you have to "make up" nonsensical weapons and armor to fill the gear slots on a character that really doesn't need much more than an enchanted robe. But I am thinking classic D&D not the new stuff. Barbarian is just another gwf. Sorcerer is just another wiz/lock/etc. Bards can be really neat but having played a minstrel in LOTRO I am personally not keen on that path again. Sooo, yea, we can haz boomkin?
Actually, the DND.ADnD monks had the classic weapons of traditional martial arts, so the quarter staff, spear, short sword/scimitar, and daggers are a good pool of weapons for two handed fighting without being a GWF. As you mentioned, the others are refinements of what is already in game, but opens the question to adding a third path as I suggested as Path 1.
As recently pointed out, some of the companions in game have the attributes we have been talking about. So, are those NPC profiles expandable to enlarge to be the rounding out of the classic DND archetypes? Dev's?
I honestly don't get why people keep asking for druids/monks.
Druids are not a jack-of-all-trades class. Druids are versatile spellcasters. Think CW with healing/buffing spells, except they lack the refined nukes CWs have. If you give a Master of Flame Renegade CW (with the Abyss of Chaos feat) a healing at-will and a daily that allows them to "shapeshift" and soak damage (Paladin Heroism with a different animation), then remove all the powerful direct damage nukes like Disintegrate then that's basically a druid. Just change spell animations so that the elements/plants/"summoned creatures" are attacking enemy mobs instead of fire/cold nukes and DoT effects and you have a full class.
If you change Scoundrel TR weapons/standing and attack animations so that they look more austere and use fists/kicks/monk weapons to deal damage/disable their targets, and then changed TR power names into something like "Way of the Dragon Secret Trigram Palm Technique" or "Mind Blast" (if you're one of those "our monks are psions" types) then you'd get a monk.
The real irony though is that neither of these paths/playstyles are even very popular in-game.
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zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
If you give a Master of Flame Renegade CW (with the Abyss of Chaos feat) a healing at-will and a daily that allows them to "shapeshift" and soak damage (Paladin Heroism with a different animation), then remove all the powerful direct damage nukes like Disintegrate then that's basically a druid. Just change spell animations so that the elements/plants/"summoned creatures" are attacking enemy mobs instead of fire/cold nukes and DoT effects and you have a full class.
So, basically change the entire class is what you're saying. Just changes this, and this and this, oh and this too then make this look like this and this... lol
Seriously though, there's way more to those classes than what you're purveying.
I know that this thread is old and there is no evidence that the devs even looking at the thoughts that have been placed but after reading a few posts, newer ones since i was last in this thread, I wanted to add my thoughts.....
No evidence? Perhaps not directly but I can assure you, they are watching this thread. In any case, on the note of class, I present thee with words from our beloved Lead Designer, Thomas Foss ( aka @mimicking#6533 )
Thomas: No, it's uh... it's crazy. No, wait... this just in. I'm going to, somebody said something... somebody said something about Druids... who was it? Sorry, I'm new to this live stream thing. *scrolls through Twitch Chat* Uhh, I'm not... I already talked about Foundry! Rewind a little bit.. I talked about some Foundry. I'd like more but we can't right now. Maybe a Foundry Dragon would be cool. Getting any kind of assets in the Foundry would be cool. But I just don't have the time for it. Uhm... DRUIDS, YES! Somebody talked about druids. They, uh, believe, uh... I don't think they're going to happen any time soon. But I'll tell you around the Team, Druids and Monks have been the thing that everybody keeps like, "I want this," you know, "I want a Druid," "I want a Monk!"
Andy: Everyone's like, "Druids, druids, druids!"
Thomas: Yeah, Druids and Monks! I want one! I think I actually put one in Temple of the Spider, one of the contacts... YES!, one of the contacts that you talk to is a druid, he's the one that asks you to capture the warp spiders for him, yeah. I'm sorry, I've totally gone off track again.
Andy: *laughs* No, it's cool! It's cool!
And yet, nothing will happen until we got Mod 10B, then DC/GWF rebalancing, and many little-here-and-there stuffs. In two years more i think we will have a new class.
So, basically change the entire class is what you're saying. Just changes this, and this and this, oh and this too then make this look like this and this... lol
Seriously? Besides animation changes, you think just by adding a unique at-will/daily and then removing several powers you're basically changing an entire class? You can probably get similar results using just end-game items (eg Underdark rings) if you try hard enough. One of the many reasons why our current end-game is screwy. The point stands. It doesn't help that based on precedence animations/aesthetic is cheap (with respect to player interest in classes). Warlocks are a league above several other classes in terms of look/style and even back when warlocks were OP people still didn't find the playstyle as interesting. It always ended up competing with established classes, and the tragedy there is that the warlock is supposed to be a pretty unique class.
Seriously though, there's way more to those classes than what you're purveying.
Only in tabletop. Neverwinter, being an action game with heavy emphasis on combat, limits what you can do with these classes. The simple fact is that without all the interesting non-combat abilities a druid is just a wizard/cleric hybrid in combat. Unless they decide to do something completely novel like make the druid a defender class, then ultimately what you're getting is a controller/leader/striker combination of some sort. Given the sheer number of builds that already employ that kind of playstyle (anything from warlocks to Renegade CWs to Righteous DCs) there's only so many "new" ways the devs can pull that off.
The only way I can foresee classes like druids/monks even working is if the devs rework many of the currently established paragon paths/paragon feat paths, removing potential overlaps. "Rebalance" won't cut it - unless of course they go deeper and start changing core class powers. Very hit-or-miss. Otherwise, we're just looking at the next Scourge Warlocks.
Post edited by tyrtallow on
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I would like to change my vote to bard. If so many people are looking for a unique play-style in the new class, which doesn't overlap with other classes, a primarily buff/de-buff support class sounds like a good idea. We have a crowd control support in the control wizard, and lots of healing support spread out over other classes, but I don't think any class really focuses on buffing allies or de-buffing enemies. (Or at least to the extent that a bard would.)
I imagine that making the bard would also be a lot easier than other classes on this list. Most of the abilities would be spheres centered on the user or cones centered on the target. Visuals can be simple, like musical notes in the air, etc.
The biggest issue with bards is deciding what weapon to give them, other than their lute (because you know they won't put that much effort into it to give them more than one instrument option). Since the're mainly support, with all of their offensive spells being medium-long ranged, I suggest giving them a crossbow as a weapon. Or better yet, a crossbow attached to their lute!
Edit: I know that bards never used crossbows traditionally, but I always felt it was weird to give a support class like the bard a melee weapon as a primary weapon.
Because Punching things in the face is the most satisfying thing to do in MMOs.
Monks are awesome, when this class comes out, I'm going to change my main from Warlock to Monk permanently. I've been waiting for this class since I started playing
Right there is my vote for monk. Sure many other classes could be given H2H weapons or skills along with Bo Staff but nothing would feel quite as right as the monk. Im sure the animations alone will make it expensive but I want to iron palm Orcus in the face(or his ankle for that matter) along with roundhouse kicking a dragon.
Druid far and away for me, not even a competition. Soon as I saw there was a DnD MMO I was pumped then was devastated to find there was no druid class then became downright annoyed when I saw NPC druids. I am just not sure how it should lean. Probably make it similar to the SW and be able to either spec into DPS(pet heavy build or elemental heavy) or group support with strong crowd control(thinking entangle, traps, debuffing mists) and minor healing.
cool and all but i want to see a cw with better encounter powers.
A boss with several million health pool and the cw has encounters that do a few hundred points of damage....lol.......not funny since every other class does more damage or heals better but the big middle finger to a cw is reaching a boss fight and using a cw power only for the boss to respond with inmunne..........not good.
I don't know what you mean about the cw being weak it does less than the gwf but a lot more than the tr; i play on xbox however so maybe it's different but idk.
I agree bosses shouldn't be immune to control effects but that's how it usually is though. Even though the main point of the class should be control the only enemies you'd want to stun are always immune.
A lot of ideas here, but the two approaches that I mentioned seem the most economical to roll out in 90-180 days, with the next WotC content addition. A lot of the alternates, witch, sorcerer, barbarian, etc. seem better as third class paths. The ideas suggest still come across to me as tweaking the current classes.
I still see monk, druid, and bard as capable of being separate classes, but the differences in solo and teamed play pose some side thoughts. The monk and psionicist seem the more visually difficult. The bar and druid look moderately difficult on what would be their primary means of attack, stepping away from the NPC companions.
Bard and Druid both have assets in game already. Animations, powers, costumes, ect. Monk has none of that. I just don't see it as a potential next class.
What about an elemental race that you could choose the path of fire/earth/wind or air (could attribute each to tank/DPS/Control/buff) I kind of one race suits all?
This was the most intriguing addition D&D 4 brought to D&D. I don't like the name, to be honest, but the whole idea of having a martial character that is a natural leader of the party just is critical. It's very common in fantasy type stories that a fighter-type character is also the group leader - but the mechanics of D&D always encouraged your group leader to be an uncharismatic idiot. The Warlord alters this - you still have reasonable prowess with weapons, but you are also a genuine leader of the party.
The mechanics behind the D&D 4 leader are a mix of heals and buffs, and the "leadership" is often implicit - you basically grant incentives - if the party member hits target X, it recieves a buff or a heal, or a particular target is debuffed. You can't actually force someone to do anything, but you can give him good reasons to do so.
Otherwise, Monk and Barbarian would be my interests.
This was the most intriguing addition D&D 4 brought to D&D. I don't like the name, to be honest, but the whole idea of having a martial character that is a natural leader of the party just is critical. It's very common in fantasy type stories that a fighter-type character is also the group leader - but the mechanics of D&D always encouraged your group leader to be an uncharismatic idiot. The Warlord alters this - you still have reasonable prowess with weapons, but you are also a genuine leader of the party.
The mechanics behind the D&D 4 leader are a mix of heals and buffs, and the "leadership" is often implicit - you basically grant incentives - if the party member hits target X, it recieves a buff or a heal, or a particular target is debuffed. You can't actually force someone to do anything, but you can give him good reasons to do so.
Otherwise, Monk and Barbarian would be my interests.
I'll admit that Warlord sounds interesting mechanics-wise, but using the justification that we need a martial leader with charisma is meaningless when we have the paladin, who has charisma as a secondary. Unless you were saying that Warlord's charisma should be their primary? However, instead of another primarily damage dealing class with just a flavor secondary (in this case, buffing/de-buffing), I think we need a class that will be primarily about buffing/de-buffing. Bard would probably work best with this.
That said, I've never understood why charisma was the only "leader" stat. I would rather follow a timid person that knows what they're doing, than a charismatic person that doesn't.
As far as Monk is concerned, it could be an interesting class, but I think we already have enough primarily damage dealing classes. Same with Barbarian, except I'm not even sure how they would differentiate between the Barbarian and GWF, since the GWF already seems like a Barbarian with armor.
Hi I enjoy this game very much I am one that would like to see a (necromancer class). The summoning of the dead and it's elixirs master craftsman.i also haven't really ever seen a playable necromancer class besides the game Diablo. It would be awesome for a daily to summon a dead dragon or small group of dead people to fight for you. But for second choice I would go with druid specialy if it could morph into a dragon since this is DND lol.ty have good one everyone
Hi I enjoy this game very much I am one that would like to see a (necromancer class). The summoning of the dead and it's elixirs master craftsman.i also haven't really ever seen a playable necromancer class besides the game Diablo. It would be awesome for a daily to summon a dead dragon or small group of dead people to fight for you. But for second choice I would go with druid specialy if it could morph into a dragon since this is DND lol.ty have good one everyone
They would most likely never add a necromancer class, because in the game lore its a bad guy class. For many of the missions you fight against necromancers alongside people who's job is to thwart and kill necromancers. The game would be really confusing for anyone choosing that class. "I chose to play as a necromancer, but why am I fighting these other necromancers instead of allying with them? Why am I helping these Doomguide people when I'm pretty sure they want me dead? etc."
As far as druids and shape-shifting are concerned, you'd never be able to shape-shift into a dragon. They're just too big. At best, maybe they'll give the option to be a pseudodragon. Though the options are most likely going to be limited to things like wolves, bears, etc.
And I may be wrong, but I think D&D got it's name from the primary story settings usually being dungeons and having dragons as end-game bosses. Not being able to play as dragons.
The way I see it Cryptic has two options by this point.
First option, they could introduce the bard class and use it as a tie-in to fix the foundry, because bards are all about stories and the foundry badly needs something like its own repeatable campaign to make it relevant again. We already lost the Gateway, we cannot afford to lose the foundry. The combination of a bard class + foundry re-work would be an ideal foundation for an excellent mod.
Second option, they could introduce the druid class and use it as a launching pad for massive controller-role changes. For too long controllers have been synonymous with strikers in Neverwinter, and that has to change if Cryptic intends to introduce more diversity into the game otherwise we're just looking at wave upon wave of striker classes like the Scourge Warlock - no one really knows why they should play one, and the class had to go an identity crisis spanning several mods to finally be at a point where it stands out as something unique (the new Circle of Power and Dark Revelry are definitely making quite an impression).
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Two out of three platforms never had the foundry and will never get it. So, its a bit drastic to say that they game cant afford to lose it. When a large majority of the game is doing just fine without it.
So the bard idea is basically a complete non-starter.
As a PC MMO Neverwinter has two main draws - the combat system, and the foundry (customized quests). While the Xbox/PS versions are never going to have access to foundry quest-crafting tools, it's really not that big of a stretch for some aspects of the foundry to leak into the console versions via some kind of "foundry quests of the week" feature.
Anyway in case it escaped your attention, PC MMOs are held to a VERY different standard. Why do you think the PC version of Diablo 3 failed so utterly? Because it tried to be an MMO in a platform where it has to compete with "true" MMOs like WoW, Rift, TES online, etc. It had much more success as a console multiplayer game where standards are much lower. So unless your long term Neverwinter goals include porting your account into the PS/Xbox versions some time in the future (because sooner or later some PC MMO is going to come up with a better combat system - if you look at MMO statistics like how many new PC MMOs crop up every year, then it's just math) then you should not be so quick to brush aside one of things that makes Neverwinter unique as an MMO.
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To borrow the idea of someone else (either earlier in this thread or elsewhere, I'm not going to bother to check), I think it would do the game well to try to try to get as many of the rest of the spell schools as possible in-game.
Right now, we've got Evocation covered by Wizards and to a lesser extent, Warlocks.
To start off with the easy one: Bards get the Enchantment school. I think this is relatively self-explanatory. I also think giving them the illusion school would make sense as well.
Next, Druids should get the Transmutation (for turning into animals) and Conjuration (for summoning animals and/or natural forces) schools.
As mentioned a few posts above this one, I doubt necromancy can be implemented well, story-wise, and isn't likely to be playable.
I doubt that the divination school would be very useful for a game like Neverwinter where it's all about combat. (Unless someone knows something about this school that I don't.)
That leaves us with the Abjuration school. I think giving sorcerers this and (unfortunately) more Evocation would work well.
I'll admit, I never really played any of the magic classes in real D&D, so maybe my assessment of what classes should focus on what schools of magic is inaccurate. Fell free to poke holes.
Comments
If not due to D&D rules then a Bard.
I agree, we need something different. Not another healer, mage or fighter class.
I'm leaning very much toward the druid, but a monk might be cool as well. Except not, as someone posted, wielding scimitars. That's just silly. Monks should be either unarmed or dual wielding kamas. That's also a great way to split the paths. Thievery could be the skill, but in truth it's more of a religious class, and we already have 2 religious classes. So I chose to vote for druid, a nature class.
Druid should only have minor healing capabilities. The paths could be shape-shifter and summoner. Basic druid has some summon and shift powers whereas the paths will focus the druid.
Summoner:
- Summons are the encounter powers with special powerful summons for dailies, at location or personal. (I'm wondering about aggro now.)
- Weapon could be a staff with offensive and defensive capabilities. Left and right at-will.
Shifter:
- The forms are the encounter powers with special powerful forms for dailies.
- Weapon should be barehanded I think, as the shifter might be a wildling person. Maybe magical war-talons that have a link to certain forms, or the at-wills determine the specific properties of the talons. Maybe the at-wills will shift the hands into some sort of claws for as long as you hold the mouse button. But then what does the shifter wields in his primary weapon slot?
Tab and shift mechanic:
We have 3 classes that do short slips, 2 classes that do speeding, 1 class that rolls, 1 that blocks, and 1 that does sanctuary. I'm not sure if players would want another slip mechanic. Maybe it should have some form of protection, explained below.
- Tab could be "Call of Peace". During combat the druid uses nature's wrathful energies to defeat enemies. In order to keep the balance, the druid gathers the peaceful energies to heal or revive from death. Can be used personally or on a single party member.
- Shift could be "Nature's Bond". Some sort of protecting magic which will encompass the druid in magical vines, absorbing a % of damage and allowing the summoner to get out of harms way, and the shifter can benefit from it in close combat. Or "Stoneskin/Barkskin", same idea. It could be depleting like the block mechanic of the defender.
Druids are not a jack-of-all-trades class. Druids are versatile spellcasters. Think CW with healing/buffing spells, except they lack the refined nukes CWs have. If you give a Master of Flame Renegade CW (with the Abyss of Chaos feat) a healing at-will and a daily that allows them to "shapeshift" and soak damage (Paladin Heroism with a different animation), then remove all the powerful direct damage nukes like Disintegrate then that's basically a druid. Just change spell animations so that the elements/plants/"summoned creatures" are attacking enemy mobs instead of fire/cold nukes and DoT effects and you have a full class.
If you change Scoundrel TR weapons/standing and attack animations so that they look more austere and use fists/kicks/monk weapons to deal damage/disable their targets, and then changed TR power names into something like "Way of the Dragon Secret Trigram Palm Technique" or "Mind Blast" (if you're one of those "our monks are psions" types) then you'd get a monk.
The real irony though is that neither of these paths/playstyles are even very popular in-game.
Seriously though, there's way more to those classes than what you're purveying.
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The point stands.
It doesn't help that based on precedence animations/aesthetic is cheap (with respect to player interest in classes). Warlocks are a league above several other classes in terms of look/style and even back when warlocks were OP people still didn't find the playstyle as interesting. It always ended up competing with established classes, and the tragedy there is that the warlock is supposed to be a pretty unique class. Only in tabletop. Neverwinter, being an action game with heavy emphasis on combat, limits what you can do with these classes. The simple fact is that without all the interesting non-combat abilities a druid is just a wizard/cleric hybrid in combat. Unless they decide to do something completely novel like make the druid a defender class, then ultimately what you're getting is a controller/leader/striker combination of some sort. Given the sheer number of builds that already employ that kind of playstyle (anything from warlocks to Renegade CWs to Righteous DCs) there's only so many "new" ways the devs can pull that off.
The only way I can foresee classes like druids/monks even working is if the devs rework many of the currently established paragon paths/paragon feat paths, removing potential overlaps. "Rebalance" won't cut it - unless of course they go deeper and start changing core class powers. Very hit-or-miss.
Otherwise, we're just looking at the next Scourge Warlocks.
I imagine that making the bard would also be a lot easier than other classes on this list. Most of the abilities would be spheres centered on the user or cones centered on the target. Visuals can be simple, like musical notes in the air, etc.
The biggest issue with bards is deciding what weapon to give them, other than their lute (because you know they won't put that much effort into it to give them more than one instrument option). Since the're mainly support, with all of their offensive spells being medium-long ranged, I suggest giving them a crossbow as a weapon. Or better yet, a crossbow attached to their lute!
Edit: I know that bards never used crossbows traditionally, but I always felt it was weird to give a support class like the bard a melee weapon as a primary weapon.
Right there is my vote for monk. Sure many other classes could be given H2H weapons or skills along with Bo Staff but nothing would feel quite as right as the monk. Im sure the animations alone will make it expensive but I want to iron palm Orcus in the face(or his ankle for that matter) along with roundhouse kicking a dragon.
First, voted for monk, I love monk classes.
Second, we don't need a sorcerer, fix the friggen SW the RIGHT way.
Third, if there were to be more options, Shaman or Necromancer all the way.
I am just not sure how it should lean. Probably make it similar to the SW and be able to either spec into DPS(pet heavy build or elemental heavy) or group support with strong crowd control(thinking entangle, traps, debuffing mists) and minor healing.
Bard would be my second choice, followed by monk.
I agree bosses shouldn't be immune to control effects but that's how it usually is though.
Even though the main point of the class should be control the only enemies you'd want to stun are always immune.
If witch would have been on there, it would have been awesome.
Just need classes for dedicated buffing/debuffing
I still see monk, druid, and bard as capable of being separate classes, but the differences in solo and teamed play pose some side thoughts. The monk and psionicist seem the more visually difficult. The bar and druid look moderately difficult on what would be their primary means of attack, stepping away from the NPC companions.
Warlord
This was the most intriguing addition D&D 4 brought to D&D. I don't like the name, to be honest, but the whole idea of having a martial character that is a natural leader of the party just is critical. It's very common in fantasy type stories that a fighter-type character is also the group leader - but the mechanics of D&D always encouraged your group leader to be an uncharismatic idiot. The Warlord alters this - you still have reasonable prowess with weapons, but you are also a genuine leader of the party.
The mechanics behind the D&D 4 leader are a mix of heals and buffs, and the "leadership" is often implicit - you basically grant incentives - if the party member hits target X, it recieves a buff or a heal, or a particular target is debuffed. You can't actually force someone to do anything, but you can give him good reasons to do so.
Otherwise, Monk and Barbarian would be my interests.
That said, I've never understood why charisma was the only "leader" stat. I would rather follow a timid person that knows what they're doing, than a charismatic person that doesn't.
As far as Monk is concerned, it could be an interesting class, but I think we already have enough primarily damage dealing classes. Same with Barbarian, except I'm not even sure how they would differentiate between the Barbarian and GWF, since the GWF already seems like a Barbarian with armor.
As far as druids and shape-shifting are concerned, you'd never be able to shape-shift into a dragon. They're just too big. At best, maybe they'll give the option to be a pseudodragon. Though the options are most likely going to be limited to things like wolves, bears, etc.
And I may be wrong, but I think D&D got it's name from the primary story settings usually being dungeons and having dragons as end-game bosses. Not being able to play as dragons.
First option, they could introduce the bard class and use it as a tie-in to fix the foundry, because bards are all about stories and the foundry badly needs something like its own repeatable campaign to make it relevant again. We already lost the Gateway, we cannot afford to lose the foundry. The combination of a bard class + foundry re-work would be an ideal foundation for an excellent mod.
Second option, they could introduce the druid class and use it as a launching pad for massive controller-role changes. For too long controllers have been synonymous with strikers in Neverwinter, and that has to change if Cryptic intends to introduce more diversity into the game otherwise we're just looking at wave upon wave of striker classes like the Scourge Warlock - no one really knows why they should play one, and the class had to go an identity crisis spanning several mods to finally be at a point where it stands out as something unique (the new Circle of Power and Dark Revelry are definitely making quite an impression).
So the bard idea is basically a complete non-starter.
Anyway in case it escaped your attention, PC MMOs are held to a VERY different standard. Why do you think the PC version of Diablo 3 failed so utterly? Because it tried to be an MMO in a platform where it has to compete with "true" MMOs like WoW, Rift, TES online, etc. It had much more success as a console multiplayer game where standards are much lower.
So unless your long term Neverwinter goals include porting your account into the PS/Xbox versions some time in the future (because sooner or later some PC MMO is going to come up with a better combat system - if you look at MMO statistics like how many new PC MMOs crop up every year, then it's just math) then you should not be so quick to brush aside one of things that makes Neverwinter unique as an MMO.
Right now, we've got Evocation covered by Wizards and to a lesser extent, Warlocks.
To start off with the easy one: Bards get the Enchantment school. I think this is relatively self-explanatory. I also think giving them the illusion school would make sense as well.
Next, Druids should get the Transmutation (for turning into animals) and Conjuration (for summoning animals and/or natural forces) schools.
As mentioned a few posts above this one, I doubt necromancy can be implemented well, story-wise, and isn't likely to be playable.
I doubt that the divination school would be very useful for a game like Neverwinter where it's all about combat. (Unless someone knows something about this school that I don't.)
That leaves us with the Abjuration school. I think giving sorcerers this and (unfortunately) more Evocation would work well.
I'll admit, I never really played any of the magic classes in real D&D, so maybe my assessment of what classes should focus on what schools of magic is inaccurate. Fell free to poke holes.