Classes

Ashes of Creation class list. Primary archetype is on the left. Secondary archetype is on the top.

Classes are the combination of a primary and a secondary archetype.

We have a specific terminology when referring to archetypes and classes. Classes are the combination of your secondary archetype with your primary archetype. – Steven Sharif

Icon	Archetype	Type.	Role.
	Bard	Arcane	Support
	Cleric	Arcane	Support
	Fighter	Martial	Damage
	Mage	Arcane	Damage
	Ranger	Martial	Damage
	Rogue	Martial	Damage
	Summoner	Arcane	-
	Tank	Martial	Tank

• A player chooses their primary archetype at the start of the game.
  • A player cannot change their primary archetype.

• Players receive skill points as they level. These can be used to level up skills within their skill tree.
  • It will not be possible to max all skills in a skill tree.

• A player may choose a secondary archetype when they reach level 25. The combination of primary and secondary archetypes is referred to as a class.
  • The secondary archetype does not provide additional skills.
  • Secondary archetypes may be changed, but not "on-the-fly".

• The player can then augment their primary skills with effects from their secondary archetype.
  • Each skill in the primary tree will have several augment options from the secondary tree. This is an example of horizontal progression.
  • Augments to primary skills can fundamentally change the way the ability works - adapting what the ability once did to incorporate the identity of the secondary archetype/class.

If a Fighter were to choose Mage as a secondary archetype, the fighter would become a Spellsword. This combination opens up augments that can be applied to skills in their primary skill tree. Fighters have a Rush skill that allows them to rush towards a target; and upon reaching the target, deal an amount damage with a chance to knock the target down. A blink augment could be applied to the rush skill, which would now teleport the player to the target; thus eliminating the charge time on the skill.

Class progression does not relate to a player's artisan progression.

World events do not directly impact class effectiveness but there may be ancillary effects in terms of availability of equipment, enchantments or tattoos.

Classes by archetype combination

With 8 Archetypes to combine, players may choose from 64 total combinations to create their class.

Secondary
		Bard	Cleric	Fighter	Mage	Ranger	Rogue	Summoner	Tank
Primary	Bard	Minstrel	Soul Weaver	Tellsword	Magician	Song Warden	Trickster	Songcaller	Siren
	Cleric	Scryer	High Priest	Templar	Oracle	Protector	Shadow Disciple	Shaman	Apostle
	Fighter	Bladedancer	Highsword	Weapon Master	Spellsword	Hunter	Shadowblade	Bladecaller	Dreadnought
	Mage	Sorcerer	Acolyte	Battle Mage	Archwizard	Spellhunter	Shadow Caster	Warlock	Spellstone
	Ranger	Bowsinger	Soulbow	Strider	Scion	Hawkeye	Scout	Falconer	Sentinel
	Rogue	Charlatan	Cultist	Duelist	Nightspell	Predator	Assassin	Shadow Lord	Shadow Guardian
	Summoner	Enchanter	Necromancer	Wild Blade	Spellmancer	Beastmaster	Shadowmancer	Conjurer	Brood Warden
	Tank	Argent	Paladin	Knight	Spellshield	Warden	Nightshield	Keeper	Guardian

Balancing

Balancing in Ashes of Creation is group focused not based on 1v1 combat.

• 1v1 matchups will have a rock-paper-scissors dynamic, where one class will be superior to another.

There will be match ups in 1v1s where one class will be superior to another; and that application should be a rock-paper-scissors dynamic. We want there to be counter-play between the different classes... Instead it's going to be a group focused balance, where as long as you have the diversity of classes present, that's going to be an equal level playing field. It's going to be very dependent on skill and strategy. – Steven Sharif

• Alpha-1 testing was focused on core functionality rather than combat balance.

• Alpha-2 testing will begin to focus on balancing once populations and encounters have been put in place and are deep in testing.

From an engagement or encounter perspective, obviously we do a finger-in-the wind kind of balance pass, but a lot of that stuff from our encounters team doesn't get done until populations are in place and those encounter designs get a little bit more time to bake. – Steven Sharif

The sixty four (64) classes are partitioned into eight primary archetypes. Balancing of active skills only relates to these eight primary archetypes.

• There are four primary groups of augments assigned to each base archetype. Balancing of augments relates to the four augment groups for each of the eight archetypes.

Even though augments do radically change the way your active skills provide you abilities, there's still a primary focus on the base archetype itself and not the 64 whole classes. – Steven Sharif

We're not really talking about 64 true classes, we're talking about eight classes with 64 variants... There isn't as much variance between the 64 classes as you might expect. It's not like there are you know 64 different versions of... radically different classes. – Jeffrey Bard

• Certain secondary archetypes are capable of "bridging the gap" between their counterpart.

Certain archetypes are capable of moving the gap between their counterpart per-se. If I am a Tank archetype and a Mage is my counter, I can take a Mage secondary and kind of bridge the divide slightly; and then move my identity that direction ever so slightly. – Steven Sharif

Meta

The effectiveness of classes, skills and gear is going to depend on the adversary or the encounter. There will be optimal builds for different challenges and difficulty ratings. This design aims to avoid any obvious meta or "cookie-cutter" builds in Ashes of Creation.​

• Different challenges are presented dynamically to players based on node progression and destruction. Situations that are based on a rock-paper-scissors design will inspire a horizontal gear chase. These dynamic challenges will change from month to month, causing a shift in demand in the economy as different builds are required by the new content.

• Increasing difficulty ratings inspire more of a traditional vertical power progression that is common in other MMOs.

Oftentimes you just have a very vertical power scale and that determines chase, but when you have a variety of relevance across certain types of adversaries and that variety changes over time because of player activity- and then that affects the economy and the crafter system and who was producing what for what demand- and everything gets shaken up. That's a very kind of fun environment to exist in. It presents a more dynamic situation rather than a quote-unquote cookie-cutter type selection. – Steven Sharif

Class abilities

Alpha-1 preview primary skills.

If from the eight archetypes whatever you choose as your secondary, you're going to receive a choice of augments that relate to some core ideal of that class. You know like a tank is about controlling the battlefield, is about surviving. The mage is about dealing damage and elements and ability in AoEs. The rogue is going to be about stealth and critical damage. So those augments are going to to play towards those identities. – Steven Sharif

The idea behind the system is that you're kind of skirting the line through these augmentations of your role, right. We have the traditional holy trinity that's present in class designs for MMOs and it's often that those either are not deviated at all or completely deviated from entirely. The augment is to kind of offer a balance between that where you still maintain the semblance of that trinity system while offering the opportunity to customize your play experience towards one of the other angles in the triangle. – Steven Sharif

Primary skills (class abilities) are based on a player's archetype. Players can personalize their primary skills with augmentation from a secondary archetype.

The design behind augments is to not just change the flavor so that it reflects the secondary archetype, but it also fundamentally changes the core components of a skill. – Steven Sharif

• Each secondary archetype offers four different schools of augmentation. Each augment school affects a primary archetype's skills in different ways.
  • For example: A Mage offers Teleportation and elemental schools of augments. These augments will affect a Fighter's primary skills differently than a Cleric's.
  • Each augmentation has a level requirement.
    • Augments do not cost skill points. It was previously stated that certain augments will have more expense required on the skill point side.

There's going to be a certain threshold at which you can no longer augment your active abilities based on the decisions you've augmented previous abilities, so you'll have to pick and choose which ones you want to apply the augments towards. – Steven Sharif

• Choosing the same primary and secondary archetype increases focus on that archetype.

• Augments to primary skills will fundamentally change the way the ability works: Adapting what the ability once did to incorporate the identity of the secondary archetype.
  • The progression system for augments is very similar to the class progression system.

• Changing the augmentations on your skills will require you to go to a NPC in a Village node or higher.
• Some spell colors and general FX change based on augments.
  • Active skills could look totally different after an augment gets applied.

• Outside of class-specific skills there may be a subset of universal skills, such as active block and dodge.
• Class skills are not affected by the type of weapon that is equipped.

Primary skills in Alpha-2 are expected to be very different to those in Alpha-1.

The ability list in Alpha One is nowhere near what the ability list will be, especially from like a level/progression standpoint. So you can expect it to be incredibly different. – Steven Sharif

Skill points

Alpha-1 preview skills user interface.

This is where players allocate skill points into either their active skills, their passive abilities- which can augment their usage of weapons and armors and health regeneration and passive stats and stuff like that-- but on the weapons side of things, that's where you will spec into certain types of procs based off of weapon groupings. So we've talked a little bit about this in the past: If you have a dagger, daggers might have a chance to proc a bleed on your weapon attack and that would synergize with an active skills' ability like let's say Backstab that does additional damage if the target is under a bleed effect. Now we have said in the past that players will be able to allocate skill points into their active skills that are more geared towards either action combat or tab targeting. – Steven Sharif

Players receive skill points as they level. These can be used to level up skills (increase their rank) within their active, passive or combat/weapon skill trees.

• It will not be possible to max all skills in a skill tree.
• In terms of skill progression, players can choose to go "wide" and get a number of different abilities, or go "deep" into a few specific abilities.
• Players are able to reset and reallocate their skill points.
• Augments do not cost skill points. It was previously stated that certain augments will have more expense required on the skill point side.

Making active skills capable of receiving additional skill point allocations and unlocking additional features so that from a player agency standpoint it's going to be up to you whether or not you want to be more diverse but less depth- wider and not taller, in some of these skill choices. Or if you want to be very very tall, that's going to be something that is up to the player in that regard. – Steven Sharif

Universal skills

Outside of class-specific skills there may be a subset of universal skills, such as active block and dodge.

• The developers will be testing the use of separate energy mechanics for universal skills in Alpha-2.
• Universal skill progression may align with a player's passive skill tree.

Outside of your class-specific skill tree, there's going to be a subsection of a few skills that are universal, like active block, like dodge; and I think what we're going to do- or at least what we're going to be discussing here- is those universal skills will have progressions that might align with your passive tree; and you can spec skill points into progressing additional features of those universal abilities that you will have access to. So I think that's probably going to be the direction that we're going to take. – Steven Sharif

Siege abilities

War Beast 3D render. Modelled by Jessica Jennings.

Up to eight players of the same primary archetype can band together to create monumental effects during a siege.

• The classes will need to be in the same group or raid.

These are the types of systems that we want to put in place where groups of a single primary archetype can come together to summon these types of effects that play off of what the identity of that archetype is. – Steven Sharif

Changing/switching

Primary

A player's primary archetype cannot be changed.

When it comes to the the primary archetype, that is a decision you'll want to make and you'll want to make sure it's the right decision, because it's permanent... You are going to create this identity that you can't just change on the fly. This is going to be something that you will know a person and you will know what their base archetype is and they're not just going to change from battle to battle. So that gives some consistency in the engagements and understanding reputation on the server. – Steven Sharif

When players choose their primary class, it’s not just dictating how the next several hundred hours of gameplay will go... It’s only the primary class that cannot be changed. And hey, that’s what alts are for!

Secondary

The secondary archetype of a class may be changed, but not "on-the-fly".

The secondary class choice, which comes after some time getting used to the world of Verra, will be more fluid. If you choose the Fighter and the Rogue to make a Shadowblade, but eventually want to try your hand at Summoning to make a Bladecaller, you’ll be able to do so.

We don't want you to be able to change your secondary class or the augments you have applied out in the open. We want you to have to make a conscious choice somewhere at a NPC. The level of node necessary for that particular NPC to be available will likely be either at the Village stage or above. So, if you are far out in the wilderness exploring – and we have no instant teleportation in the world – you need to be conscientious of what your choices are; and not be able to change them on-the-fly. – Steven Sharif

• Players will likely need to speak to a NPC in a Village node or above to enable them to change their secondary archetype and skill augments.
  • This may be done through a quest system.
• It will be possible to swap between multiple saved specs after a suitable cooldown period.

Class-specific quests

There will be class-specific quests in Ashes of Creation.

There's going to be a lot of shared quests but there's also going to be class-specific quests; and the reason for that is that some classes are better at others than doing certain things and that'll play itself out through the general community quests. That's fine, but there are certain periods from a designer's perspective where you want to make an encounter be the antithesis of what a player is good at. It also gives them perspective because we have a more fluid class combination system where you can play the line in your traditional role by adding a secondary class that's different from your primary classes role. The benefit of having these class-specific quests early on especially in an archetype is that you can come to a determination and have greater experience for the things you're not good at. So you know how to progress your class in the future with the things you have access to that are different from what you're good at.' – Steven Sharif

• Those Quests will be influenced by the player's class progression via their choice of primary and secondary archetypes.

So you want to give them storyline that's relevant and make sense for them to their class progression. If I'm a fighter I should be going to a barracks and learning from this dude early on. Later on if I want to take on that mage secondary and I'm more arcane in the things I do, or more based in the essence, then yeah it makes sense for my also again for a catered quest to me that lets me focus on that route in the narrative. – Steven Sharif

Class trials

There will not be a class trial system in Ashes of Creation.

Racial benefits

Each race has different base stats.

• Races are not gender or class locked.
• Some classes may work better with certain races but nothing is enforced.

A player's choice of race will influence their racial augments.

You'll have racial augments that are capable of being applied to active skills and those augments are going to be a reflection of the flavor of that specific race. In addition, races will have differing degrees of stats and our game in our class system relies on certain stats to achieve different metrics in the game when it comes to damage, defense, and landing rates and all that kind of stuff. – Steven Sharif

Stat growth

Stat growth proceeds in the following order:

1. The race "seeds" a player's base stats.
2. The primary archetype grows the base stats.
3. The secondary archetype (class) does not contribute to stat growth. This is a revision of an earlier statement.

Different races have different stat compositions. Those stats can be important, but we also don't want them to dictate any kind of meta for what classes are best used with different races. – Steven Sharif

Choice of profession does not affect a player's stats.

Gear has approximately a 40-50% influence on a players overall power in the game.

Roles

Ashes of Creation has the traditional trinity of Tank, DPS (damage dealers) and Support (healer or non-healer) roles.

• Although traditional roles are present, players should not feel branded by their primary archetype.
• Skill augments available through the class system allow characters to be personalized outside of their primary role.
• Players can also double down on their archetype choice to strengthen their primary role.

We have our eight base archetypes; and the trinity is a pretty strong influence with regards to the eight base classes. However the area in which we actually begin to play with that line between the trinity is in the secondary classes that you can pick. That's where we begin to blend those spaces and allow people a little bit of influence over their role and whether or not they fit perfectly within a particular category within the trinity. – Steven Sharif

Weapons and Armor

Weapons and armor are not class locked, but certain classes are more efficient with certain types of weapons or armor. Certain abilities require certain items to be equipped.

• Ranged weapons.
• Shields.
• Two-handed weapons.

Weapons are intended to be somewhat agnostic in the sense that you can find a way for a weapon to be utilized by different classes. Not just the rogue is going to be able to use daggers. Because if you restrict equipment through that, it makes the economy more difficult to have sustainability across the market of items. – Steven Sharif

Q: We had stated that we were going to allow people to use any class combination, which would be both your archetypes together, being able to use any weapon. Do we see problems that could occur with that, for instance like a bow tank, or an orb tank or things like- will there be some strangeness there, or are there problems that you first are foreseeing in the future?

A: We're giving a lot of flexibility to the crafters in our game. They get to help define the stat block that a particular item, weapon, or gear has; and that stat block can be relevant to any particular class or archetype combination. So in that sense the idea is, no not to see any strangeness there or not to see any elements that would dissuade a person from that customization perspective. – Steven Sharif

PvX

We like to really refer to ourselves as a PvX game, because in those systems of PvP, PvE, crafting they're all intertwined: They're interdependent on each other... Our system of development really requires some interdependence there between those things. You're going to need a crafter to give you the best items. You're going to need PvPers to secure cities and castles. You're gonna need PvErs to take down those world bosses for those materials to craft. – Steven Sharif

Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focused or a PvE focused, it is a comprehensive PvX game and as a result these systems are all interconnected and have to coexist with one another with certain types of mechanisms that can provide that give and take, that push and shove. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation is a PvX game. Players will naturally encounter both PvP and PvE elements. It is unlikely that a player could purely focus on just PvP or just PvE.

• There is a balance between PvP and PvE in Ashes of Creation.
• All stats relate to a player's combat effectiveness in PvX.
• There won't be separate PvE and PvP servers but some servers may be more PvP focused than others.
• There will not be different PvP and PvE gear types.
• Progression in the game might require PvE elements.

We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody. But you know it is an important reciprocal relationship between the content that's related to PvE and the content that's related to PvP and they feed off of each other. They're catalysts for change: Their progression, their development. It's things that people can value when they see something earned and they see something lost. That elicits an emotional response from the player: That they've invested time in to either succeed or fail; and PvP allows for that element to be introduced into gameplay. And we're very clear that is our objective: That risk versus reward relationship, that achievement-based mentality. Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1

Alpha-1 Teaser.

This is a true development alpha. This is not a marketing alpha; and what that means is as you know part of the process here in developing Ashes of Creation is being open with that development so you guys can see that progress; and it is a double-edged sword. There are going to be a spectrum of people that exists who are very involved with the game's development and those who are just completely at an arm's length away in understanding the process; and they may look at alpha one- the people who don't really understand the development process or haven't been a part of it- they may look at it and they may think oh you know this is trash, looks like trash, you know whatever it's the end-product. But at the end of the day what's important for us and what yields the best possible product is for us to include as much as possible the community in that development process with no NDA so that you guys give valuable feedback; and as we go through the iterative process in further defining the game and fleshing out that content were doing so with the player in mind and their voice in our ear. That is I think one of the key distinguishing factors between our development and many developments that you guys may have seen in the past. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 preview ancients mobs.

What this experience for Alpha one is going to be- that month-long experience- it is not intended to be a content experience... It is not intended to be a game experience. It is not intended to be a fully-fledged content experience. So keep that in mind. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-1 PvE combat.

Alpha-1 is a testing release of the Ashes of Creation MMORPG. Alpha-1 will test:

• World
  • The Alpha-1 map (Alpha island) consists of a mainland area and several islands. This was approximately 70 km² of playable area.
  • Alpha-1 takes place in the north west part of the map.

• Character
  • Progression to level 15.

    The composition of class skills or archetype skills has to tread a fine line between two roads: One we wanted to be representative of skills not just that would traditionally be found 1 through 15 but we're actually introducing some skills that might be found later, because we want to test those particular ideas and how the skill functions. – Steven Sharif

  • Character creator (basic).

• Archetypes
  • Cleric, Mage and Tank archetypes.
  • Ranger may be added later in Alpha-1.
  • Fighter, Bard, Rogue, and Summoner archetypes will follow in later in development (after Alpha-1).
  • Secondary archetypes will not be present in Alpha-1. These are planned for Alpha-2.

• Races
  • 4 playable races Kaelar, Vaelune, Dünir, Empyrean.

    A lot of times people ask well why haven't we seen the other races and stuff? We want to establish the quality bar and process with these races first and then when we move into further content production for the other races we have have those pipelines in place and we have the processes in place and we know how to approach them.

• Combat
  • Hybrid action/tab combat.
  • Revamped combat systems will be rolled out during and post Alpha-1 testing.

The weapon attack is an important component of the combat system, so we want to make sure that as we're doing this combat revamp that we are essentially taking into consideration player feedback and sentiment about how they want a reactive and more mobile weapon attack system. – Steven Sharif

• Nodes
  • Node advancement to Village (stage 3).
  • There are 9 node locations in Alpha-1.
  • Normally there would be 18-20 nodes in the same area.
  • A basic vassal system is in place.
  • The node ZOI's is larger than the final map.
  • Node locations are subject to change prior to Beta-1.

• Economy
  • The economy present in Alpha-1 is not reflective of the final state of the game.
  • Merchant systems and player to player trading.

    We have an economy but it's not really going to be reflective of the final how the economy is going to work. It'll work for alpha one and there'll be plenty of things to trade and buy and exchange, but it's not going to be really super representative what the final state is. So keep that in mind as well it's a stubbed-in system. It's not a complete or really finalized system at all. – Jeffrey Bard

  • Approximately 10 percent of the artisan system.
    • The core basics of the artisan gameplay loop is facilitated via the merchant (NPC) system.
  • Gathering, Processing, Crafting is expected to come online in Alpha-2 and the Betas.
  • Previously this was targeted for Alpha-1.

    What's present in Alpha-1 doesn't even really scratch the surface for crafting. – Steven Sharif

• Gear
  • Approximately 49 unique gear sets.
  • These are unique sets with different stats, but some may be similar in appearance.
  • Daggers (Dual weapons).

• PvE
  • Approximately 6 or 7 dungeons with one almost raid-level difficulty.
  • Two world bosses requiring party-sized groups.
  • One true 40 person raid boss.
  • Over 200 quests.
  • Questing is placeholder until Alpha-2.

• Guilds.
  • Alpha-1 castle sieges and Castles are in a zone accessible via a NPC teleporter.
  • This zone includes three Elder dragon raid bosses.
  • These bosses also appear in the open world (outside the siege zone) with slightly different mechanics.

• Naval content
• Ships for "island hopping".
  • Temporary teleportation points are present in early tests until ships are introduced later in the alpha testing.

• Other
  • There is no instancing in Alpha-1.
• UI and tutorial systems are placeholders until Alpha-2.

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

• Social organizations.
• Portions of player housing.
• Corruption.
• Name reservations.

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse classes

Classes in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges and Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode. Emblem designs by Ryan Richmond.

Six classes will be present in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges and Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode.

• Warrior classes
  • Guardian
  • Weapon Master

• DPS classes
  • Archwizard
  • Hawkeye

• Support classes
  • High Priest
  • Engineer

These classes relate to the trinity of classes: Tank, DPS and Support.

• Skills/abilities are not tied specifically to weapons in castle siege mode.
  • It was previously stated that weapon skills are applied to augment a class' base skills.
• Base class skills may be able to be selected from a host of available skills for that class based on a player's progression within that season.

We had a little bit of an idea that we're going to explore with regards to each of the classes having a range of skills and abilities that players can customize that skill kit based on their progression within a season, let's say; and that progression can be gained from any of the modes and it would grant you the ability to kind of customize that skill kit for the before the siege mode or the horde mode. But that's something that might come at a later date. – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse classes only apply to Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges and Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode.

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse healing

Healing in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse will be reticle based (action targeted).

• Healing skills are proximity based: Centered on self or centered on projectile impact.
• There will be healing potion bursts (healing grenades) that will grant life to allies.
• Healing is part of Class kits that come into play during the testing of Ashes of Creation Apocalypse castle sieges.

We have a few design theories on action combat and healing to began with phase one. Part of that will be the implementation of a class system into the castle siege and horde mode of phase one. Those will be kits that play out as skills available from an action perspective. You'll be able to target in proximity, basically so positioning is going to matter. Importantly, for healers being close to the individual party members you wish to heal. Additionally, you'll have reticle based healing methods. This would be a template that could be launched in that direction as a pulse of heels or augments. So there's a lot of different systems are playing with that you'll see more of when we get to those when we get to the castle siege system and the Ashes of Creation Apocalypse horde mode. – Steven Sharif

Community guides

• Ashes101 - Classes.

See also

• Roles
• Races
• Religions
• Artisan classes
• Skills
• Combat
• Weapons
• Armor
• Alpha-0