Gear sets

Kaelar tier 1 (level 10) early Alpha-1 cloth armor non-cosmetic set 3D renders.

Gear sets (also known as tier sets) are a part of Ashes of Creation.

• Different tiers of gear are accessible based on a character's level.
• Players gain bonuses depending on the number of pieces of the set they have equipped.
  • An overarching set effect is granted to wearers of exclusively one type of armor, for example: all cloth, or all plate.
  • Certain set bonuses may trade off core gear stats.
  • There may be set bonuses that members of certain communities will obtain based on gear set type.
• There are passive abilities that can be chosen to become more adept with certain set types.
• There will be viable non-set builds.
• Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.

Armor themes

Kaelar Level 20 robe set 3D render.

This set is a level 20 set and this is not cosmetic. This is an in-game achievable armor set I believe. – Steven Sharif

Level 10-20 crafted leather armor set 3D render.

Light armor

• Robes (cloth armor).
• Lighter armor is more mobile than heavier armor.
• Light armor is geared towards magical damage mitigation.

Medium armor

• Leather armor.
• Can incorporate robe, chainmail, and plate, influences.

Heavy armor

• Predominantly plate metal, but may incorporate other influences, such as leather.
• Heavy armor typically has more HP than lighter armor.
• Heavy armor is geared towards physical damage mitigation.

Armor passives	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Light armor (passive)	Increases armor given by light armor.	Further increases armor given by light armor.	Each piece of light armor increases damage.

An overarching set effect is granted to wearers of exclusively one type of armor, for example: all cloth, or all plate.

Damage mitigation

Different damage types are mitigated by the defensive stats (resistances) on different types of armor.

• Magic damage is mitigated by cloth armor (light armor).
• Physical damage is mitigated by plate armor (heavy armor).
• There will be resistances to elemental damage.
• Holy/radiant damage are modifying energy types that have corresponding synergies and resistances.

• There is also non-mitigated damage.

There won't be any damage dampening due to differences in levels in either PvP or PvE.

Damage numbers will not be so large as to be meaningless.

We don't see the need to have these enormous numbers that are really start to lose meaning. That seems to be an innate design issue with other games as they try to balance the damage output in PvP and in PvE; but our design system allows for a more manageable damage protocol for PvE and PvP to be shared; and those damage protocols relate more to lower numbers. – Steven Sharif

Best-in-slot gear

Best in slot weapons and armor is based on a character's role and the type of monster they are facing.

Mana-forged armor set

Mana-forged armor sets may be achievable in the Ashes of Creation MMO.

• They also appear to be base variants of Ashes of Creation Apocalypse armor sets.

Verra will be filled with many sets of armor, each set uniquely carved into the history of the world. Mana-forged sets are distinctly vibrant with luminescent magic, pulsating across the body of its hero. We hope you enjoy them, and look forward to many more glimpses into the armors of Verra, waiting for their champions! – Margaret Krohn

• 

  Eldritch Touched Regalia

• 

  Guard of the Effulgent Moon

• 

  Livery of the Setting Sun

• 

  Runeweaver's Ensemble

Regalia of the Iron Lion

The Iron Lion is a fairly new order, one formed out of a desire to control the unknowable. With the rediscovery of the old world, many Kaelar wondered what lay beyond, considering the incredible power the divine gateways represented. To this end, the Iron Lion focuses not only on martial combat, but also on the art of dampening magic. Without such knowledge, establishing a foothold may be all but impossible - rampant magic is an unpredictable, and many times lethal, complication in any sortie. Due to this, the Iron Lion puts forth significant effort in studying and learning about the magics they come across, hoping to minimize the dangers they pose.

• 

  Aegis of Fangs

• 

  Curiass of the Pride

• 

  Dawnclaw Ward

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse weapon variants

Basic axe.	Hallowed Bronze Axe.	Arcanic Bronze Axe.	Pyroclastic Bronze Axe.	Eldritch Bronze Axe.

Thundering Mace.	Hallowed Mace.	Arcanic Mace.	Pyroclastic Mace.	Eldritch Mace.

Crafted items

Crafted items will be on par with best in slot items.

• Highest tier items will be a combo of both crafted and boss dropped.
• Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities and stats on gear.
  • Master crafters will be able to influence several (but not all) stats on their crafted items.
• The rarity of the items will be commensurate with the effort required to gather, process and craft the items.
  • Stats on crafted items will vary based on the item's rarity.

That plays into our crafting system in and of itself right. The idea is for those stats to be variables that can be kind of dictated based on the mastery level of the particular crafter; and the higher they become a master of those professions, whether it be for armor or for weapons or for accessories, they're going to have some agency and put their mark on essentially what items they're introducing into the economy. – Steven Sharif

Crafters are able to influence what their crafted items will look like.

• At the moment, harnessing corruption to warp items into demonic or decayed things is not on the cards.
• A crafter's name is embedded in the items they craft.

We believe that every item that exists in the world should in some way reflect its creator. As such, there will be extreme versatility in our crafting system – giving crafters the ability to create unique items that represent their strengths and weaknesses.

Crafting and World Bosses will be the main way to obtain high-level gear. There are some exceptions to this in the form of Legendary items (single server drops or discoveries), and other equipment that may drop wholesale, but we want Artisans and top tier raiding to produce the lion’s share of high level, high effectiveness equipment. – Sarah Flanagan

Skills and stats on gear

Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities and stats on gear.

• Master crafters will be able to influence several (but not all) stats on their crafted items.
  • Stats on crafted items will vary based on the item's rarity.
• There will also be methods of moving stat blocks around but this won't necessarily be an easy task.
• All gear will be able to be assigned any stat.

Crafters will be able to 'rejigger' stat blocks; and there will be a couple of other ways to move things around to create both the look and the stat block that you're looking for. It's not always going to be easy. There will be a lot of challenges involved with that. But the goal is to give you guys the option to customize your gear the way you want them to be. – Jeffrey Bard

Not all armor sets will be the cookie cutter kind of set. They will have the influences from the crafter available in it, if it's a crafted set. – Steven Sharif

Gear is broken down into Core Stats and Additional Stats.

Gear enhancement

Gear enhancements (power stones/runes) can be applied to weapons to add elemental or energy types of damage.

We are very likely going to have a rune system and then we'll have the ability to sort of enchant weapons outside of that too... That's not always going to be like a vertical progression... Some of it's going to be giving up something to get something else; so maybe I do less physical damage but more magical damage, that kind of thing. – Jeffrey Bard

• Progression in various PvP systems will unlock enchantment stones that grant temporary PvP-focused benefits to gear (via a socketing system). Performance is measured over six month PvP seasons.
  • Guild wars.
  • Arenas.
  • Caravan PvP.

It's not as though you're going to necessarily acquire these once and then you're set for your PvP enchantments, but instead you'll have to continually perform month after month in order to keep having those slotted enchantments. – Steven Sharif

Enchanting

There are two types of enchantments for items: Vertical and horizontal.

• Vertical enchantments are a power progression for a crafted item. More damage or mitigations, added effects or bonuses. Vertical enchantments include risks.
  • There isn't RNG in crafting but there may be a small amount of RNG in enchanting.
  • Over-enchanting items comes with a potential risk that the item decays or is destroyed if a safety margin is exceeded. This system is subject to testing.

When it comes to over-enchanting things, what we're going to do likely is have a safety- and this is something obviously it needs to be tested- but we're going to have a safety period of enchantment you know like in Lineage 2 I think you could enchant plus four or something. And so we're gonna have a similar system where you can enchant safely and then when you start to take risks, that percentage of potentially damaging your item either through the decay system or completely disabling it through the destruction system will be a risk that's present. – Steven Sharif

• Horizontal enchantments are more situational. For example: I'd like my sword to do force damage instead of holy damage because the monsters I tend to fight are incorporeal.
  • This doesn't make the item more powerful, but instead more applicable to different situations, and less so to others.
  • This type of enchanting assumes no risk, just time and effort.

Enchanting services are sold at player stalls.

Modular armor

Kaelar base level Ashes of Creation Apocalypse robe set.

You can kind of start to see like some of the components that we put together that we can mix and match and kind of make new armors from. This is kind of like the base chassis for all of that. – Jeffrey Bard

This is what we call our t-shirt and pants. So this gives you a perfect example of just how the most basic you'll ever look in alpha. So even our most basic look, we're really trying to bring it and put a lot of detail in it. – Mat Broome

Empyrean level 20 (tier 3) plate armor.

Your base look for the character can be pretty boring, but what Steven gave us a challenge with from day one was to make sure even the base look, the t-shirt and pants, looked amazing... This is your zero character, if you will... Then you can go in and customize everything from the shoulder pads to the elbow pads, the belt that goes around them; do you want duel belts, you want to harness the clothes in the front. So every piece you see on here you can actually customize that at the front end. So what we do is we scale that up from zero, ten and twenty... We scale it up and we customize it; and then I want to really stress that each one of those looks as you progress is different. We're not just repurposing the same armor pieces. We're making unique sets that complement each other as you progress. – Mat Broome

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse will have three different armor themes: Plate, leather and robe.

You can actually have three different types of themes: You have plate, you'll have leather and you'll have robe. So for every armor set that we're showing at each one of those tiers, you're actually gonna have nine unique looks to pick from. – Mat Broome

Gear appearance

Alpha-1 female plate armor 3D render.

We want to be realistic with the application of particular types of armor, such as plate armor. In this regard for the different sexes there's a fine line that has to be drawn between accentuating the form of the sex as well as making it somewhat realistic and actually applicable to the environment. – Steven Sharif

Gear is intended to be realistic in appearance.

• There will not be "oversized" weapons.
• Armor will not be overly sexual in appearance.

We're going for kind of a more realistic look; not necessarily realistic setting, but we want our characters to have weight and kind of feel like they're there. – Jeffrey Bard

I'm more of the mind that it wouldn't really serve a purpose to have bikini plate armor, just in like reality, if you're going to have armor, it should be protective. I think from a fashion statement is enjoyable for some people, but it's a kind of an immersive issue. – Steven Sharif

Gear will have appearance slots (Transmutation/Transmog/cosmetic slots) that are used to copy the appearance of an item (in some cases).

• There are rules when applying cosmetics to specific items, unlike costumes, which don't have level restrictions.
• Armor will take on a racial appearance.
  • Cosmetics can be used by all races but there may be slight variations to make them work with the body builds of each race.
• Cosmetic slots can be toggled on or off by the player.
  • A "default player appearance" may be automatically applied during sieges or other large scale battles to improve client-side performance.

Players can change gear colors using dyes.

Helmet display can be toggled on and off.

• Hair will likely be masked if helmet display is toggled on.

Particle effects are used to denote the importance and rarity of some weapons.

Weapons are able to be sheathed.

Crafters are able to influence what their crafted items will look like.

Attachments

Attachments are able to be unlocked as flair pieces to armor to create a customizable look.

• There will be hundreds of attachments available ranging from a small clasp to the front plate of a breast plate.

Racial weapons and armor

Armor racial appearances in early Alpha-1.

Violet light and myself are wearing exactly the same armor set right: Same stats, same everything, but it drops for her it looks one way, it drops for me it looks another way; and... a small part of that is gender, but then the other part of it is race. So because I was a Vaelune in that playthrough my armor was in the Vaelune style; and when she picked it up it was in the elven style because she was an elf. So that kind of gives you an example of sort of the breadth of looks that we're going for and how we kind of try to capture like who you are as as a character and kind of allow you to kind of build your look that way. – Jeffrey Bard

Dünir and Empyrean racially styled armor concept art by Keith Kovach.

Weapons and armor are not race locked, but armor will take on a racial appearance.

• Racial appearance of gear is focused on Armor, not Weapons.

The customization of equipment per race is really focused on Armor sets not Weapon props. Weapon props will, from a model standpoint, will translate pretty one-to-one across the races. – Steven Sharif

Let's say for example you have the Eagle set or something, right: The Eagle set has in art, it has a thematic design that's going to include certain attachments to the armor. It's going to include color palette and theme. It's going to have some aspects to it that define it as the Eagle set, right. When a Elf wears the Eagle set or when an Orc wears the Eagle set, you obviously have two different cultures there; and you don't want to stomp out that culture by assigning a de facto 'This is the Eagle set and this is how it looks on everybody.' What we want to have is cultural influences play a role in showing how that set looks. – Steven Sharif

• Racial appearance of gear sets is tied to the character model of that race.

When you say, what if I'm an Orc but want to look like an Elf and I want my Eagle set to be the Elf representation? Well the issue becomes there that you know Orcs have a different organic model. You know, their body is different than that of the Elf. So, from a scope-creep standpoint, it's one thing to add different influences that represent the cultures that are donning the armor; it's another thing to adapt each influence as a matrix that can be worn pretty much by everything. From a scope perspective, that's a very difficult task for the character artists to kind of tackle. So instead what we've done is, in order to facilitate a variety of cultural representation between the races but allow for the sharing of assets like different armor sets, we give different representations of those armor sets to each race. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Gear
• Armor
• Weapons
• Crafting
• Cosmetics