Skill types

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Alpha-2 Ranger skill tree user interface.[1]

What you're seeing at a high level here is just what you'd pretty much expect of a traditional skill. We're doing something a little more advanced than just like a bottom up structure, because we're being a little bit more free-form in this iteration. This will obviously see more UI iterations in the future, but you'll see a mix of active and passive abilities here. Actives are indicated by their square shape, while the circular ones are representing passives; and one thing to note as well is that these passives are aiming to be a little more interesting than just like, this ability does more damage now, or it has a lower cooldown. We do have some of those too, but the goal with a lot of these passives in addition to that is to allow people to lean into unique play styles. So you'll notice that some of them are are changing your gameplay in meaningful ways; and that's the direction we want to take um player and character customization as a whole.[1]Tradd Thompson

Players receive skill points at specific points as they level.[2] These can be used to level up skills (increase their rank) within their active, passive or combat/weapon skill trees.[3][4][5][6]

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.[7]Steven Sharif
  • Skill points will accrue at specific XP milestones, such as 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 progress through the level, so as to avoid creating an imbalance with experience debt.[2]
We do have this concept of experience debt that does accrue and we don't want to create an imbalance between skill points acquired versus experience, so we're going to predicate your skill points acquisition based on benchmarks you reach when leveling through a level. So these are going to be at specific points in the level, like one quarter progress, to half progress, to three quarters progress: you're going to get an influx of skill points and then you'll be able to allocate them into your skill tree.[2]Steven Sharif
  • Skill points can be used to unlock universal skills at the expense of unlocking class-specific skills.[8]
  • Respeccing (resetting and reallocating) adventuring skills may require travelling to a specific location rather than being able to be done on-the-fly.[9][10]
  • Augments do not cost skill points.[11] It was previously stated that certain augments will have more expense required on the skill point side.[12]
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • It will not be possible to max all skills in a skill tree.[6]
  • 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.[13]

Primary skills

Alpha-1 preview primary skills.[14]

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.[15]Steven Sharif

The idea behind the system is that you're 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 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.[16]Steven Sharif

Primary skills (class abilities) are based on a player's archetype.[17][18]

Weapon skills

Alpha-2 work-in-progress weapon skill tree.[25]

The intent here is to give you choices. Either I want to extend and improve my combo, or I want just passive benefits that increase my attack speed or crit chance.[25]Brian Ferguson

Weapon skills grant passive skills and proc effects and other status conditions rather than usable skills on a player's action bar.[26] The more skill points that are allocated to the weapon tree, the greater a player's weapon familiarity. This influences things like the number of attacks, attack speed, and increased chances of proc effects from carrying out basic attacks with that weapon. These procs may offer synergy with the player's active skills.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][4][5][36][37][38] This synergy also applies to active skills from other characters.[28][3]

Weapon skill trees are skill trees that you can unlock and invest points into as you continue to develop your experience with certain weapon types, certain weapon groups, like a dagger; and when you're doing your basic combo attack with those weapons, which is universal for all classes- anybody can use any type of weapon because stats can be changed on these weapon types through crafting and through drops- there will be certain proc effects that live on the weapon skill tree as you advance in them; and those proc effect effects will be able to interact with your archetype skills because they will have promotion type effects that occur when they synergize with one another.[27]Steven Sharif
Our approach is not going to be providing skills through weapons. It's going to be providing skills through classes.[30]Steven Sharif
Let's say a dagger has some slashing effects that bleed the target or that cripple the target... Every time you attack you have a chance to proc that effect. That effect then can synergize with what your active skills tree has available to it. So let's say your backstab deals 30 additional damage to a bleeding target. If you attack with your main weapon first and the target gets the bleed proc off and you do your backstab skill then you're synergizing your effects.[5]Steven Sharif
Let's say backstab that you can apply to deals damage to the target and it'll have a conditional modifier on that damage if you're behind the target, and it'll have a conditional modifier deal additional 50 damage if the target is under a bleed effect. So you want to synergize essentially your weapon proc conditions with your active skills so that you're timing your certain active skills appropriately with the status conditions that the target has taken.[4]Steven Sharif

Passive skills

Passive skills are used to augment weapon usage, armor usage, health regeneration, and passive stats.[43]

All these passive abilities: mana regen, attack damage, critical hit damage, health regeneration, defense mitigation, maximum health: A lot of different changes from the passive side of things and these are based on what archetype you've chosen.[44]Steven Sharif
info-orange.pngThis section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.
Passive skill Icon Archetype(s) Base skill
Attack Damage Attack Damage.png Mage Increases attack damage by 5.[46]
Block Chance Block Chance.png Tank Increase chance to block attacks by 20% (Blocked attacks deal 20% reduced damage).[47]
Caravan Trail Speed Bonus Trail Speed Bonus.png Minor speed boost for travelling on a simple trail.[48]
Cooldown Reduction Cooldown Reduction.png Cleric Mage Tank Reduce all ability cooldowns by 5%.[46]
Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Damage.png Mage Increase the damage and healing bonus from critical hits by 20%.[46]
Critical Hit Rate Critical Hit Rate.png Cleric Mage Tank Increase the chance for damage and healing abilities to critically hit by 5%.[46]
Defense Mitigation Defense Mitigation.png Cleric Mage Tank Increase defense mitigation by 4.[46]
Disable Chance Disable Chance.png Mage Increase chance to disable by 15%.[46]
Disable Defense Disable Defense.png Cleric Reduce chance of being disabled by crowd control effects by 10%.[49]
Healing Received Healing Received.png Tank Increase the amount of healing received by 10%.[50]
Health Regeneration Health Regeneration.png Cleric Mage Tank Generate an additional 1.5% of your maximum health per second.[46]
Increased Healing Increased Healing.png Cleric Increase healing done by 10%.[51]
Mana Regeneration Mana Regeneration.png Cleric Mage Tank Generate an additional 1% of your maximum mana per second.[46]
Maximum Health Maximum Health.png Cleric Mage Tank Increase maximum health by 75.[46]
Maximum Mana Maximum Mana.png Cleric Increase maximum mana by 100.[52]
Movement Speed Movement Speed.png Cleric Mage Tank Increase movement speed by 5%.[46]
Physical Evasion Bonus Physical Evasion Bonus.png Tank Increase physical evasion bonus by 5.[53]

Universal skills

Universal skills, such as active blocking and dodge rolling, are able to be unlocked by all archetypes.[8][22]

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.[22]Steven Sharif
  • Skill points can be used to unlock universal skills at the expense of unlocking class-specific skills.[8]
Q: Will each archetype be equally efficient with universal skills, like dodging and active blocking, or will each of them have their own versions and flavors, or will some people be more powerful than others?
A: We want to provide a progression path that's shared for those universal skills across all the archetypes. So when you spend skill points, you can choose to spend them within the universal skill set and unlock particular ability types for the universal skills as well, but you will be spending them from the skill points that you would normally spend within your class-specific skill tree; and this offers again a different wheel of customization that I think is interesting.[8]Steven Sharif
  • The developers will be testing the use of separate energy mechanics for universal skills in Alpha-2.[54]
  • Universal skill progression may align with a player's passive skill tree.[22]

Utility skills

Alpha-2 Ranger Camouflage skill.[55]

We have what are called utility skills and a lot of MMORPGS really only focus on active combat skills, but some of the favorite things that I've had as a gamer is tabletop RPGs like Pathfinder or Dungeons and Dragons, and there are skills in those games that are relevant to either your environment or the quest line; and they're a little bit sometimes "story mode".[56]Steven Sharif

A utility skill is a typically non-combat skill that interacts with the environment and offers counters and horizontal progression against other archetype abilities.[57][58][59][60] Utility skills lend themselves toward how classes navigate and deal with hazards in the world.[61]

When we think about utilities, some of the examples of those utilities might be a Rogue has invisibility. How do you address invisibility? Well, a Ranger might have a utility ability that spawns a Hound that trails invisible targets within an AoE radius of the Ranger and you get that location. Whereas, a Mage might have an Arcane Eye that actually reveals them to the party of the raid. Those are the types of utility skills that we want to create. They offer counters and horizontal progression against the other archetype abilities.[57]Steven Sharif
  • Classes will have different utility abilities, such as detecting traps and other hazards.[58][59][61] For example: The Mage's detection spell casts light and reveals magical explosive hazards.[62]
    • Certain classes are able to climb/parkour in certain areas.[63][64] This is not a free-form ability. It will likely be restricted to certain quests, locations or objects.[65][66]
    • Certain classes (such as Rogues) will have stealth abilities.[67]
Q: What kind and how many special or unique activities can we expect classes to perform outside of combat, such as rogue's opening locks, tracking enemies as a ranger, or removing corruption from the ground as a cleric?
A: Just thirty minutes ago I was talking about those utility abilities like finding tracks, or cleansing poisons, arcane eye to reveal secret passages. The idea is how do we blend the traditional tabletop RPG role of utility and/or skill checks into the setting of a graphical MMORPG; and I think that it's both a complement of the skill kit that's available and how it interacts with the world for those curated or special designs within these locations. So to answer that question: that is intended- we've shown a little bit of that in the past and it is something that we want to make feel compelling and rewarding and viable as a use-case scenario in many different settings that you might find yourself in within the world.[58]Steven Sharif
  • All classes will have maneuverability/traversal utility abilities.[68]
  • Utility skills exist that can help players discover hidden paths and entrances and may lead to discovering hidden quests while exploring.[59]
  • Certain objects exist in the world (such as ladders and slides) that aid player mobility.[69]
We don't just have the approach of your class being reflected in your combat abilities but also there are utility abilities that certain classes have that other classes don't have.[70]Steven Sharif
info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
  • There will be a grappling hook utility skill or item.[71]
  • Rogues may also have a spyglass utility skill.[61]

List of utility skills

info-orange.pngThis section contains information from early testing phases. It will be updated as soon as new information is made available.
Skill Icon Base skill
Arcane Eye Arcane Eye Icon.png Conjure a magical eye that reveals any camouflaged enemies within a 20 meter radius around you to you and all party members over the next 8 seconds.[72]
Blink Blink.png Instantly teleport a set distance in the direction you are moving.[73][74]
Camouflage Camoflague Icon.png You become harder to see and cannot be directly targeted. The further you are from an enemy, the more difficult you are to spot. Any outgoing combat actions cancel this effect, as well as incoming damage or other negative effects.[75]
Collect Cargo Collect Cargo Icon.png Pick up cargo nearest the mouse location and add them to your caravan's storage if there's enough room.[76]
Convert to Caravan Convert to Caravan Icon.png Allows the raft caravan to turn into a vehicle that can traverse land.[ citation needed ]
Convert to Raft Convert to Raft Icon.png Allows the caravan to turn into a vehicle that can cross calm waters.[77]
Family summon Long duration cast (30 seconds to a minute) with an approximate 30 minute cooldown that slowly summons each of your family members to your location (up to eight members).[78][79] Players cannot be summoned in the following cases:
This will be tested in Alpha-2.[82]
Pathfinding Reveals corrupted player locations on the bounty hunter's map.[83][84] Activating this ability will flag the bounty hunter for combat only to corrupted players for a period of one hour from the time of activation.[83] The pathfinding ability can be toggled on or off.[83][85]
Shell Shield.png Create a protective magical shell[86] around yourself that absorbs a large amount of damage before breaking.[87][88]
Stealth This does not render a player completely invisible.[89] Instead, there will be indicators that can help players "feel out" where stealthed individuals may be.[90]

Ultimate skill

info-orange.pngSome of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Ultimate skills are very powerful skills that can be used when enough focus has been accumulated from using the Weapon use combo system.[91]

- None -

See also

References

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  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Livestream, July 28, 2023 (1:03:27).
  3. 3.0 3.1 Interview, July 29, 2020 (55:44).
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  13. Livestream, November 16, 2017 (30:02).
  14. toast-keybinds-skills.png
  15. Livestream, October 16, 2017 (1:00:44).
  16. Interview, August 8, 2018 (22:27).
  17. 17.0 17.1 Livestream, December 19, 2023 (1:20:41).
  18. 18.0 18.1 progression.png
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  21. class secondary.png
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  47. Alpha-1 screenshot.
  48. Trail Speed Bonus Description.png
  49. Alpha-1 screenshot.
  50. Alpha-1 screenshot.
  51. Alpha-1 screenshot.
  52. Alpha-1 screenshot.
  53. Alpha-1 screenshot.
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  62. class utilities.png
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  64. utility skills.jpg
  65. Livestream, January 18, 2018 (34:56).
  66. Livestream, June 28, 2019 (1:21:46).
  67. class stealth.png
  68. class mobility.png
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  71. Livestream, May 12, 2017 (18:00).
  72. Arcane Eye Description.png
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  74. Camoflague Description.png
  75. Collect Cargo Description.png
  76. Convert to Raft Description.png
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  80. steven-family-summon.png
  81. steven-family-summon-2.png
  82. 83.0 83.1 83.2 steven-bounty-hunters-2.png
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  84. corruption toggle.png
  85. Shell Buff Description.png
  86. Shell Description2.png
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