Skills

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.

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

Active skills

Alpha-1 Tank Action bar early user interface design.

Players can build their characters with the active skills they want on their action bar.

• The number of skills on the action bar will be contained (fewer than 30).
• There will be an option to include multiple hotbars (action bars).
• For example: One Fighter will be different from another based on what active skills they have chosen.
• Through skill choice, players can customize their combat experience to focus on tab targeted skills, action targeted skills, or a mix of both.
• Players are not given skills as they level up, they must choose what skills they take.
• There is no spellbook requiring memorization.

There will be multiple hot-bars that you obviously have available, because you're going to have consumables, you're going to have active skills and whatnot. But the number of active skills are not going to overwhelm necessarily the character and be irrelevant especially at certain stages. – Steven Sharif

Primary skills

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 and number of skill points required to activate it.

  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; and certain augments will have more expense required on the skill point side. – 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.

Weapon skills

A weapon use combo system (also referred to as Combo system, Combat skills, and Combat tree) is utilized instead of a traditional auto-attack ability in Ashes of Creation. No traditional auto-attack system is present in Alpha-1.

• Players can spec into weapon abilities on their combat skill tree, based on their preferred weapon classes (weapon types/weapon groups) and the grade of the weapon.
• The more skill points that are allocated to the combat skill tree, the greater a player's weapon familiarity. This in turn unlocks various proc effects on weapon use that can offer synergy with other active skills. This synergy also applies to active skills from other characters.

  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. – 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. – Steven Sharif

  • These procs may reduce or reset cooldowns on other skills on the player's hotbar.
• Using a skill/ability will in general reset the combo.
  • The developers are considering specific abilities might be able to be used without resetting the combo system.
• The combo system will not have the quicktime event that was seen at PAX West 2017.

It acts similar in the sense of you know the core loop of what an auto attack is so to speak; where you know typically your other skills have a cooldown period, they have a rotation or whatever: Our combo system is a repeatable you know skill effect that you can continually attack with but it's a little bit more involved than what a traditional auto attack is; and it has components from a from an advancement standpoint when it comes to the types of procs that your weapon can have during that combo system... It's not going to have the quick time event that you know you guys saw early on in PAX and gave great feedback on, but it is going to have development with regards to the power of the weapon the type of weapon you're using, the additional proc effects that you can skill into: Those types of things are going to make it a little bit more complex of a system capture. – Steven Sharif

Classes of weapons

In-game achievable weapons concept art.

Weapon classes (also referred to as weapon types and weapon groups) in Ashes of Creation.

• Blunt weapons
• Slashing weapons
• Piercing weapons

Weapon attack cone

Weapon attack cone in Alpha-1.

As I attack I am hitting multiple numbers of these opponents; and that's important because all weapons, regardless of whether you are in reticle mode or tab-targeting mode will be able to have a action-based type weapon attack. Not active skill, but weapon attack. – Steven Sharif

All weapons have a forward attack cone, regardless of being in tab or action mode.

• The cone's arc and distance will vary based on weapon type.

Polearms for example will have a much wider arc and much further out. Daggers will have a more fine-tuned arc, so you have to be more precise in that regard. – Steven Sharif

This is described as a weapon attack not an active skill.

• It was previously stated that cleaving will be a class ability for some classes.

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.

Passive skills

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

• Passive skills can be levelled up by allocating skill points on the skills UI.
• Passive skills enable players to work toward mastery of a weapon.

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. – Steven Sharif

Passive skill	Icon	Archetype(s)	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Attack Damage		Mage	Increases attack damage by 5.
Block Chance		Tank	Increase chance to block attacks by 20% (Blocked attacks deal 20% reduced damage).
Cooldown Reduction		Cleric Mage Tank	Reduce all ability cooldowns by 5%.
Critical Hit Damage		Mage	Increase the damage and healing bonus from critical hits by 20%.
Critical Hit Rate		Cleric Mage Tank	Increase the chance for damage and healing abilities to critically hit by 5%.
Defense Mitigation		Cleric Mage Tank	Increase defense mitigation by 4.
Disable Chance		Mage	Increase chance to disable by 15%.
Disable Defense		Cleric	Increase maximum mana by 100.
Healing Received		Tank	Increase the amount of healing received by 10%.
Health Regeneration		Cleric Mage Tank	Generate an additional 1.5% of your maximum health per second.
Increased Healing		Cleric	Increase healing done by 10%.
Mana Regeneration		Cleric Mage Tank	Generate an additional 1% of your maximum mana per second.
Maximum Health		Cleric Mage Tank	Increase maximum health by 75.
Maximum Mana		Cleric	Increase maximum mana by 100.
Movement Speed		Cleric Mage Tank	Increase movement speed by 5%.
Physical Evasion Bonus		Tank	Increase physical evasion bonus by 5.

Combat abilities

The aspiration for combat is for abilities to have corresponding counter-play abilities.

• The goal is to have special animations for parrying, blocking and evading.

They can be a challenge to implement sort of really reliably so you might not see them on every evasion or every block, but we do want that kind of stuff to show up. – Jeffrey Bard

Crowd control

Crowd control (CC/mezzing) abilities include root, snare, stun, sleep and slow.

• There will be diminishing returns on stuns, sleep and slows so as to avoid stun locking.
  • As of May 28, 2021, diminishing returns on CC effects have not yet been implemented in the Alpha-1 testing.

Diminishing returns in regards to crowd control and conditions like stun and sleep and slows and that kind of thing: Yes we will have absolutely diminishing returns. I think it's a necessary component to balance out classes that have high control ability. – Steven Sharif

• Crowd control won't likely be tab-targeted skills. This is to avoid imbalanced combos with skill shot (action targeted) abilities.

• Hard CC's are stuns, knock downs, sleeps, paralysis, some roots, some silences.
  • Hard CCs may be housed in action oriented skills because they are skill shots that are more difficult to land.

We're trying to stay away from hard locks as much as we possibly can. We want to have the system be very play, counter-play, counter-counter-play kind of feel. – Jeffrey Bard

• Some crowd-control abilities can dismount a mounted player. In that case the mount would persist with its own health pool and other stats.
  • In current Alpha-1 testing mounts are not separate from the player.

There's also going to be effects that just stun the mount or stun you on the mount. – Steven Sharif

• Summoner's summons will be able to use crowd control.

This section contains information from early testing phases. It will be updated as soon as new information is made available.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Javelin		Pulls a target enemy to your location.	Deals damage and generates a great amount of threat.	Reduces cooldown by 5 seconds.
Jump		Dash with cooldown.	Cooldown is replaced by charges with individual cooldown.	Drops a bear trap at the location the ranger dashed from.
Onslaught		Charge and deal damage to your target.	Reduce the target's attack damage temporarily.	Knock down the target.
Snare		Foot pin roots target in place.	Adds a bleed.	Snares after root expires.
Trap		Place a bear trap under the caster that holds them in place and does damage. Also holds targets in place and does damage.	Traps stun instead of root.	Place up to two traps.

Directional attacks

There will be directional attacks (back attacks, flanking attacks, frontal attacks) that deal additional damage depending on the positional context of the attack.

• Rogues will generally have more of these.

Mobility

Revamped Alpha-1 Mage Fireball ability.

The general approach that we're kind of taking based on a lot of feedback and just good combat design in general. You know philosophy is that we want to give more agency in the hands of the player and the antithesis of that is locking the player down for really long amounts of time. The sort of concept behind that is like you could make an animation effects as glorious looking as possible but if it's taking away control of the player, none of that really matters. Especially the 100th or thousandth time you're using the spell you're tired of that happening you don't feel powerful: You feel the opposite of powerful. So we're trying to like give a lot of control back to the player while they're using these abilities so they can still control their movements, they can react simultaneously while they're taking actions; and we just want to get overall more of a fluid flow, I guess, of combat. And that's kind of the general design philosophy we're using to approach the overhaul. – Tradd Thompson

Skills with the greatest power may require the caster to remain stationary while channeling them. This is a risk vs. reward mechanic.

• Prone and crouch will likely not be in the game.
• Moving backward will likely not affect block and parry.

I think that that generally we want to tend to be more mobile in our classes. I think that it's a fundamentally old-school philosophy to have a lot of stuck in place type skills. That isn't to say we won't have skills that have mobility restriction on them- that require you to channel or require a casting time where you can't move; but I think it's a blend between the two. It's neither extreme. – Steven Sharif

It'll be something that you can spec around to. Again it's gonna be a risk/reward thing. We put a lot of thought into what skills are overpowered or have kind of this overpowering nature to them and those are the kinds of skills that will generally find that will be like in-place type of skills; where you are now at risk if you are going to cast this spell, but there's a big reward if you do manage to get it off. – Jeffrey Bard

The revamped combat system will feature split-body animations, where the character's upper body can be locked by weapon attack animations while the lower body is free to continue moving.

This section contains information from early testing phases. It will be updated as soon as new information is made available.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Blink		Blinks forward in the direction you are traveling.	Now deals damage to enemies surrounding your departure location.	Reduced cooldown.
Jump		Dash with cooldown.	Cooldown is replaced by charges with individual cooldown.	Drops a bear trap at the location the ranger dashed from.
Rush		Rush toward a target; and upon reaching the target, deal an amount damage with a chance to knock the target down.	-	-
Sprint		Increases movement speed. Using an ability ends sprint.	Increased resistance to disable abilities.	Clears crowd control when sprint starts and removes silence.

Player movement

Walking and running shown in pre-alpha gameplay.

Sprinting will consume a percentage of a character's mana pool. Sprinting will not be permitted while in combat.

I've instructed design to incorporate a mana consumption that's percentage based for sprinting. So it'll be a similar amount of time that each class, regardless of their mana values, will have in order to sprint and it will not be accessible while in a combat. – Steven Sharif

There is a toggleable walk/run (autorun) capability.

There is not going to be any "go to waypoint" (auto-pathing) mechanics.

Back-peddling (walking backwards) and strafing are slower than normal movement speed.

Collision

There are player and spell collision mechanics in Ashes of Creation.

• Inertia and momentum physics will help prevent blocking doorways/access points. This is based on a character's direction and movement speed, and can be used to push people out of the way.

Dodging

Dodging in Alpha-1 early combat.

Another thing that's important about these action combats is the ability to dodge and moving out of the way of certain skill shots. – Steven Sharif

Dodge rolling type skills is housed in the action skill sets of agile classes such as Rogues or Fighters.

• Hybrid combat will likely have true evasion skills relating to action-oriented combat and also have I-frames (invincibility frames) that apply to tab targeting.

Q: Will there be evade frames/ I-frames on dodge?

A: I would say it's a safe bet with regards to how we're approaching the hybrid combat that not only are gonna have true evasion skills that apply to more action-oriented skills that are coming your way, but you'll also have you know I-frame type skills that would apply perhaps to a tab targetable skills coming your way. So I think you're gonna have a healthy balance of both with it when it comes to skills that you can spec into. – Steven Sharif

Active blocking

The Paladin's Might shield in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse had its own hit box with hit points (HP). It can actively block projectiles.

• The developers have not yet decided on whether active blocking will be part of the MMO. They are currently leaning toward using more traditional buff-oriented universal damage mitigation but are also considering interaction between action-based blocking and a passive block stat from the waterfall stat system.

In APOC when we had the active shield stance- that was an active shield block action-based system; and when we collected design data on essentially the efficacy and essentially the accuracy of players who used that wasn't very high; and there is a concern at least on the front of implementing a action restricted type active shield block as opposed to what would traditionally be along the lines of activating a buff that grants a shield block rate adjustment and is universal on incoming damage- and interfaces with the stats- is really something that we're leaning towards in incorporating for the hybrid combat system. – Steven Sharif

This is something we're still actively iterating on and actively going to be testing in our hybrid system but you know as we're as we're doing that we are taking into consideration. Obviously we want action based components to also interact in some way shape or form with the waterfall stat system as well; and you know that seems like it might be an oxymoron from an action to tab sense, but it doesn't have to be. There can be components of action- so say for instance you could have a dual component where you activate that shield stance and if you accurately intercept an incoming projectile or a skill that's been initiated from the forward arc, you get 80% damage mitigation or 80% application of the physical defense of the shield; and if it comes from an area outside of that forward arc then you get a lesser bonus; and that essentially what would happen is let's say you take into account the stat of the shield's physical defense value, you apply it as a mitigating factor to the incoming damage, but in addition you augment that system with the waterfall stat that is responsible for shield damage mitigation or shield rate; and maybe you know the default skill says 80% damage mitigation from forward arc but that gets augmented up to 87% because of your stat essentially; and if it's not in your forward arc then it gets you know 50% efficacy- maybe it's 40 something percent. So just to give you kind of insight into what goes into kind of determining these skills and how they interact on an action-based front. – Steven Sharif

Interrupts

Abilities with a cast bar can be interrupted during the cast.

• There are abilities to counter interrupts.
• Some interrupts are better than others.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Bulwark		Bash enemies in front of you twice. The second attack temporarily increases block chance. You must have a shield equipped to block.	Additional increased block chance.	The second attack knocks down enemies.
Onslaught		Charge and deal damage to your target.	Reduce the target's attack damage temporarily.	Knock down the target.
Rush		Rush toward a target; and upon reaching the target, deal an amount damage with a chance to knock the target down.	-	-
Thundershock		Shoots forward a beam of lightning that damages enemies in a line in front of you.	Increased damage.	Now knocks down hit targets.

Aggro/Threat generation

Aggro (Threat/Hate) will matter in the game.

• Aggro is based on a hate table.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Javelin		Pulls a target enemy to your location.	Deals damage and generates a great amount of threat.	Reduces cooldown by 5 seconds.

Animation cancelling

Animation cancelling will not be a combat mechanic.

Combat stances

The use of weapon stances in game is likely.

RNG

RNG elements pertain to combat relating to stats such as Critical hit, Evasion, Blocking chance.

• RNG plays a role in both PvP or PvE.
• Action combat is far less dependent on RNG.

RNG is always going to play a role in Ashes of Creation whether that be in PvP or PvE, but one way to mitigate that is through the action system. The action system is going to be far less sort of dependent on those you know dice rolls and there'll be far more in your own hands. They won't ever completely eliminate that but it's a way for us to sort of reward skilled play versus sort of tactical strategies type play. – Jeffrey Bard

Combat targeting

Alpha-1 early hybrid combat demo.

You'll notice as I go into action mode, I have my reticle and when my reticle hovers over an enemy target, it'll turn red, essentially showing like "hey we know you have a valid target hit" that you can see; and when you press 'Q' you can lock on to that target. You can also hold tab to alternate between targets. So like that's an important aspect of the combat that we're trying to incorporate, which is mixing and meshing between tab and action, so you still have that action component but also are available to use some of your tab targeted skills. – Steven Sharif

Hybrid combat refers to the choice between tab targeted and action targeted combat in the Ashes of Creation MMORPG.

• A toggle button (default Z, but can be re-bound to another key) allows the player to switch between action and tab targeted combat modes.

• The action mode utilizes a targeting reticle and is very close to a third-person action game.
  • The player does not have to be in reticle mode to use an action combat ability.

  If you use an action combat ability that's going to be directional focused, you do not have to be in reticle mode to use that. It will fire where that reticle would be. So if you play by feel and you're in tab target camera mode, you can still utilize your action-oriented skills and abilities. – Steven Sharif

  • The reticle will highlight/change color (to red) to indicate if the current target is able to be hit with the currently prepared skill.
  • Action combat abilities will not have a lock-on feature but pressing Q while in action mode will lock on to the current target to enable the use of tab-oriented skills in action mode.

  Action combat abilities will not have a lock-on feature so to speak. Some of those are going to be skill shot only. However because you can have a mix and match of tab abilities that require a target, you will be able to target lock in action mode as well. Right now that's delegated to the Q key as default, but you can obviously set that up you could put it on you know your left mouse button, or you could put it wherever you want; and when your reticle hovers over a target, it rapidly swaps your target ability and when you press your target lock it will then lock that target; and if you have tab-oriented skills, you can use your tab oriented skills and they will be used against that target. – Steven Sharif

  • Holding Tab while in action mode will alternate between targets.
  • Pressing right-click while in action mode will switch to tab mode for the currently highlighted target.
  • The action camera is tied to the to player's reticle. There will likely be a hotkey that when held down will allow free camera movement.
  • In future the user will have the ability to choose from different reticle appearances.

• The tab mode (MMO mode) facilitates tab targeted combat. A tab-targeted ability requires a target in order to utilize that skill.
  • Pressing left-click in tab mode will attack the target (with the currently selected weapon).
  • There will be a "target of target" capability on the user interface.

Hybrid combat is being tested in Alpha-1.

• Targeting modes are able to be achieved through choice of skills/abilities.
  • It may not be possible to be able to fully spec into just action or tab targeted skills. There might be a 75% cap on choosing skills from any one type.
  • Different ranks of the same skill can change the skill from tab to action targeted or vice-versa.

Skill progressions, skill point allocation is determined by the player. The player will be able to choose either more tab-target oriented skills or more action-based skills and customize their playable experience to what accommodates their preference. From a balancing standpoint for us developers, we need to make sure that certain abilities house certain functions so that there's a balance between skill shots and tab-target abilities. – Steven Sharif

Action oriented and tab oriented versions of skills will have different characteristics. Variables will change based on which version is chosen.

• Damage.
• Charge up time.
• CC effects.
• Cooldown.
• Energy consumption.
• Cost to spec.
• Attack range will likely remain the same; as it is driven by the weapon or skill itself.

As an example: Let's say you're playing a ranged class. You could have an action-oriented power shot in your skill tree or you could have a single target power shot that ramps up and does more damage. – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap for Alpha-1.

For the purposes of balance, certain skill types will be either tab or action oriented skills. For example:

• Hard CCs may be housed in action oriented skills because they are skill shots that are more difficult to land.
• Softer CC's would be housed in tab-targeted abilities.

Headshot mechanics

There are no headshot mechanics in the Ashes of Creation MMORPG.

• Headshots were a part of Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale.
• Previously it was stated that headshot mechanics may be implemented in the MMORPG along the lines of a higher critical chance and that they would not be one hit kills.
  • Headshots in action combat are equivalent to a critical hit in tab targeted combat.
  • Players relying on tab skills will have a fixed critical hit chance every time they use an ability or weapon.
  • Players using action-based skills are going to rely on getting a head shot or hitting a critical spot on the opponent.

Skills by archetype

Bard skills

Bards are a tactical support class. They will have more significance based on their mobility and placement in the battle.

Based on proximity, based on your mobility and placement within the battle you're going to have more significance. So it's going to be to a degree a tactical type scenario for those non-healing support classes to be cognizant of. You know, where on the battlefield they need to be positioned in connection with the group that they're trying to augment or support; and so that gives a little bit more tactical sense to these non-healing support classes that's more relevant to them than other classes per-se. – Steven Sharif

• Bards are intended to not be purely support focussed. They will be a "jack of all trades", including offensive and defensive combat abilities in addition to support abilities and buffs.
  • The developers are considering the use of proximity-based ground templates that require the party or raid to move into (and out of) formations indicated by the template to gain added benefits or buffs.

• Bards may offer proximity-based or proc-based healing to a much lesser degree than Clerics.
  • This may be outdated, as Bards have been more recently referred to as a non-healing support class.

• Bards will have a wide range of abilities to choose from, such as wordsmithing, acting, and musical aspects.
  • Bards may be able to play musical instruments, such as Flutes and Bagpipes.

• Bards will not be the "downtime" class. This is the role of social spaces within nodes.
• Bards will have utility outside of combat, like all other classes.
  • Restoring rested XP will not be a Bard utility.

In other games, Bards tend to be a relatively passive kind of way of playing and that's really not the direction that we want to go with it. We want every class to be fun to play. We want every class to be viable. We want you to feel like you are doing something: That your moment-to-moment gameplay is fun; so a lot of that kind of stuff is going to be based on combos, on reactive interactions between your party members and the mob that you're fighting, or the player character that you're fighting. There's going to be a lot of movement from the front lines to the back lines to kind of help out and make sure that everybody is supported in the way that they're doing it; and that you are also being active in what you're doing. You're not just sitting in the back passively playing a lute and not having any fun. – Jeffrey Bard

Bards can choose to activate buffs that augment tanking, evasion, DPS and healing abilities in their proximity.

• Some buffs are related to how the bard performs in combat: If a bard lands a skill shot against a target, allies within a certain range might be granted a temporary buff that relates to the skill that the bard used.

Let's say the Bard is using a weapon, has a sword out and... does some gladiatorial looking performance attack and it looks so great. It inspires his friends around him to increase their multiplier on critical damage, and now they deal additional damage against targets for the next 10 seconds or 8 seconds. So, you're going to need to be active. You're going to worry about your position, the relation of the position of your party members to you in order to accentuate really what you offer the party. – Steven Sharif

Cleric skills

Restoration. Enhancement. Debilitation. Clerics keep their team in the fight by bolstering their combat abilities and cursing their enemies. Far from simply supporting their allies through healing, a Cleric is also capable of wielding destructive force in the face of danger.

Clerics have control over life and this may relate to utility abilities that relate to corruption.

Cleric combat abilities

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Castigation		Lashes your target with holy energy whip, dealing direct damage and restoring health and mana to yourself over time.	Heals you instantly for an additional amount upon hit.	Restores health and mana to nearby party members for the duration.
Devotion		Launch an orb of energy into the air that will fall upon your target, healing them.	The energy orb will travel faster and heal for more.	The target will be infused with a slow, long-lasting healing effect.
Divine Censure		Hurls a radiant spear at the target, dealing damage.	Further attacks upon the target have a chance to heal the attacker.	The target has a chance to deal damage to itself when it attacks.
Divine Light		Heals your target with a flash of light. Reduces the cooldown of Devotion and Radiant Burst.	Increased healing.	Reduced mana cost.
Hallowed Ground		Fills the surrounding area with radiant energy that damages enemies.	The area provides a healing aura for allies.	Allies within the area will receive boosted magical defense. Enemies within the area will deal less physical damage.
Judgment		Holy power crushes your target, dealing direct damage.	Slows the target temporarily.	Temporarily reduces the target's defenses.
Radiant Burst		Heals allies around you in a wide area for a large amount. Stacks up to 3 times.	Heals for a greater amount.	Cooldown removed.
Regeneration		Bathe your target with restorative energy that heals them over time.	Reduced mana cost.	Applies a 5% healing received bonus to the target.
Resurrection		Resurrects a dead ally with 25% health and 15% mana.	Target resurrects with 50% health and 20% mana.	Target resurrects with 75% health and 25% mana.

Cleric passive abilities

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Cooldown Reduction		Reduce all ability cooldowns by 5%.
Critical Hit Rate		Increase the chance for damage and healing abilities to critically hit by 5%.
Defense Mitigation		Increase defense mitigation by 4.
Disable Defense		Increase maximum mana by 100.
Health Regeneration		Generate an additional 1.5% of your maximum health per second.
Increased Healing		Increase healing done by 10%.
Mana Regeneration		Generate an additional 1% of your maximum mana per second.
Maximum Health		Increase maximum health by 75.
Maximum Mana		Increase maximum mana by 100.
Movement Speed		Increase movement speed by 5%.

Fighter skills

The Fighter archetype will include maneuverability and "closing the gap" mechanics to enable the fighter to quickly traverse distances on the battlefield.

This section contains information from early testing phases. It will be updated as soon as new information is made available.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Rush		Rush toward a target; and upon reaching the target, deal an amount damage with a chance to knock the target down.	-	-

What we want the Fighter warrior to do is to be able to cut through enemy lines, get to the support area of a raid perhaps and take out healers with some quick DPS burst damage. We want them to be masters of different weapons. We want them to be able to be versatile in whether or not they want to be a ranged fighter or melee one. It's going to be up to the player. – Steven Sharif

Mage combat abilities

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Black Hole		Summon a black hole at the target location that reduces movement speed of enemies in the area.	Increased duration.	Explodes for area damage upon expiration.
Blink		Blinks forward in the direction you are traveling.	Now deals damage to enemies surrounding your departure location.	Reduced cooldown.
Drain Essence		Drain your target for damage over time, and gain return mana to yourself over the duration.	Heals you over the duration.	Reduced cooldown.
Fireball		Hurl a ball of fire toward your target, dealing direct damage upon impact.	Increased damage.	Burns the target for additional damage over time.
Gift of the Magi		Restores mana upfront, plus an additional amount over time, to you and a friendly target.	Increased duration.	Increased initial amount restored.
Lava Storm		Creates a field of lava at the selected location. Deals area damage over time.	Increased damage. Increased duration.	Increased damage. Increased duration.
Meteor Storm		Summons forth a Meteor Storm, dropping 3 meteors in the target location.	Adds an extra meteor.	Adds an extra meteor.
Prismatic Beam		Spawns a giant prismatic beam of energy that can be aimed around you. Deals large damage to enemy targets.	Increased damage.	Snares hit targets.
Thundershock		Shoots forward a beam of lightning that damages enemies in a line in front of you.	Increased damage.	Now knocks down hit targets.

Mage passive abilities

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Attack Damage		Increases attack damage by 5.
Cooldown Reduction		Reduce all ability cooldowns by 5%.
Critical Hit Damage		Increase the damage and healing bonus from critical hits by 20%.
Critical Hit Rate		Increase the chance for damage and healing abilities to critically hit by 5%.
Defense Mitigation		Increase defense mitigation by 4.
Disable Chance		Increase chance to disable by 15%.
Health Regeneration		Generate an additional 1.5% of your maximum health per second.
Mana Regeneration		Generate an additional 1% of your maximum mana per second.
Maximum Health		Increase maximum health by 75.
Movement Speed		Increase movement speed by 5%.

Ranger skills

This section contains information from early testing phases. It will be updated as soon as new information is made available.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Bow's combo		Target an enemy and use your bow to strike with two arrows. Dealing damage and powering up your focus with this weapon attack.	Prepares four arrows.	Prepared shot works on all arrow attacks.
Flame line		Shoot an arrow that leaves behind a trail of flames.	Arrow explodes upon reaching the end of its distance.	Enemies take burning damage for entering the flames.
Fleeting shot		Retreating shot rolls backward and does damage.	Increases max range.	Breaks crowd control.
Hail of arrows		If your focus is at 80%, use this skill to summon a template and launch multiple arrows within the template.	Adds movement slow.	Adds damage over time to targets in the area.
Jump		Dash with cooldown.	Cooldown is replaced by charges with individual cooldown.	Drops a bear trap at the location the ranger dashed from.
Knockback shot		Knocks a target back X distance.	Adds damage.	Add knockdown.
Marked arrow		Target an enemy to use this skill, causing that enemy to take additional physical damage.	Enemy takes additional magical damage.	Increases the duration of this debuff.
Power shot		Use this skill to charge up a shot that fires forward in a line, damaging all enemies it touches.	Chance to cause bleed damage over time.	Splits into a fan of arrows in a cone. Radius increases based on hold duration.
Slice		Cone melee attack.	Becomes a 360° melee attack.	Adds hemorrhage (bleed) damage.
Snare		Foot pin roots target in place.	Adds a bleed.	Snares after root expires.
Sniper's eye		Summon a zone around you, while within this zone, deal +200% damage for all attacks.	-	-
Sprint		Increases movement speed. Using an ability ends sprint.	Increased resistance to disable abilities.	Clears crowd control when sprint starts and removes silence.
Track		Use this skill to show nearby tracks, leading to unknown adventures.	-	-
Trap		Place a bear trap under the caster that holds them in place and does damage. Also holds targets in place and does damage.	Traps stun instead of root.	Place up to two traps.

Rogue skills

All classes are capable adventurers, but rogues excel at delving the deepest dungeons and finding the most hidden of treasures.

• Rogues will have utility skills that enable them to discover hidden doors, traps and additional treasures.
• These will be randomly spawned throughout different times of the day to ensure that encounters are not the same each time.

If you're in a party and you have a Rogue that's available, they'll be able to use that utility skill to discover these random doors that might exist in a dungeon. Now the way we make it so that it's not essentially the same door every time and it's just a first time thing and every time thereafter you know where that door's at, is these locations are randomly spawned throughout different times of the day so they'll change essentially as you go into a dungeon at different times. So it'll be important and relevant for parties to make sure that they have a diversity of archetypes available to them. And in particular for the rogues case because they can find those hidden type doors and then have access to different types of loot tables based off of that. – Steven Sharif

This section contains information from early testing phases. It will be updated as soon as new information is made available.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Stealth		This does not render a player completely invisible. Instead, there will be indicators that can help players "feel out" where stealthed individuals may be.	-	-

Summoner skills

The summoner uses many abilities that channel through their summon (also referred to as class skill pets). The summoner is essentially playing through their summon.

• Summoners can summon up to three Summons.
• Abilities from the summon appear on the summoner's hotbar.
• Summoner has control over their summon.
• Summoners can summon Tank, DPS or Support summons.
• Summons will exist until another summon is cast, the summon is killed, or the summoner logs off.
• Summoners will likely not be able to fuse with their summons (eidolons).
• Summons can be leveled through the application of skill points to their active skill.
• Summons will be able to use crowd control (CC).
• Summoners may be able to name their summons, but will not be able to change their creature type, which is part of the nameplate above the summon.

You gain your summons from your summoner class as an active skill and then skills can be further developed with points. – Steven Sharif

Summoners summon different summons, depending on the class and augments they choose.

• Animals.
• Spirits.
• Zombies, skeletons and other undead creatures.
• Corpses (potentially).
• Some summoners may summon multiple things.
• Other summoners may only summon one powerful thing.
• Certain summoners may only be able to summon effects and/or temporary energies.

Augments from a secondary archetype can be applied to a summons.

For example: If your summon had a sweeping attack with a claw, or had the ability to bite an opponent, or rush an opponent; and you took teleportation, you could rush them similar to how I've given an example with the tank: Teleporting to a target instead. Or, its claws could combust on impact on a target dealing some burn damage that persists. Or... let's say your summon traditionally was some type of bear or bear cat, you could apply an elemental augment and now it could be a transparent flaming bioluminescent cat; and its damage would be fire based. So, that's how we want to influence the active skills with how augments apply; and that's how it would apply with Summoners. – Steven Sharif

Summoner summons are not the same as combat pets.

Tank skills

Tanks will not be forced to have a shield but it will definitely be a viable option. – Jeffrey Bard

Tank combat abilities

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Javelin		Pulls a target enemy to your location.	Deals damage and generates a great amount of threat.	Reduces cooldown by 5 seconds.
Lacerate		Pierce your enemy, dealing instant damage and causing them to bleed for additional damage over time.	Increased bleed duration. If the target is bleeding from previous Lacerate, explode remaining bleed damage as instant damage.	Hitting an enemy with Lacerate already under its bleed effect will consume the bleed and deal 50% of the remaining damage instantly.
Myrmidon's Fury		Strike your target and gain a temporary buff that gives you a chance to counterattack each time you are struck.	Increased chance to counterattack.	Increased damage mitigation during the buff's duration.
Onslaught		Charge and deal damage to your target.	Reduce the target's attack damage temporarily.	Knock down the target.
Resounding Smash		Strikes in front of you, then deal additional damage after a short delay to any targets that were initially struck.	The delayed hit deals additional damage.	The delayed hit returns mana to yourself.
Shockwave		Strike the ground with your weapon, dealing damage to enemies in front of you and leaving a fiery patch of earth that continually deals damage to enemies in the area over its duration.	The fiery patch left behind deals additional damage.	Slows enemies standing in the area.
Ultimate Defense		Become immune to damage for 3 seconds.	Duration is increased to 5 seconds.	Grant damage mitigation to all party members.
Weapon Toss		Throw your weapon at a target.	Bounces to two additional enemies.	Explodes upon hitting the final target, dealing damage to enemies in the area.

Tank passive abilities

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Block Chance		Increase chance to block attacks by 20% (Blocked attacks deal 20% reduced damage).
Cooldown Reduction		Reduce all ability cooldowns by 5%.
Critical Hit Rate		Increase the chance for damage and healing abilities to critically hit by 5%.
Defense Mitigation		Increase defense mitigation by 4.
Healing Received		Increase the amount of healing received by 10%.
Health Regeneration		Generate an additional 1.5% of your maximum health per second.
Mana Regeneration		Generate an additional 1% of your maximum mana per second.
Maximum Health		Increase maximum health by 75.
Movement Speed		Increase movement speed by 5%.
Physical Evasion Bonus		Increase physical evasion bonus by 5.

Siege abilities

War Beast 3D render by Jessica Jennings.

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

Summoner

Summoners can collaborate to summon larger summons, such as Golems.

• A siege summon will have an incremental size based on the number of summoners participating in that summon activity, with a maximum of eight.
• The number of summoners participating in the summon will determine its overall size.
• All summoners must be in the same party and the party leader must be a summoner.
  • The party leader initiates the summon and then takes control of it.
  • Once summoned, the party leader cannot be changed.
  • If the party disbands, the summon ends. There will be a grace period to handle disconnects.
  • The party may also contain non-Summoners.

It doesn't have to be just summoners, but it has to be a party led by a summoner with other summoners in it. – Steven Sharif

Tank

Alpha-1 castle siege combat featuring a Tank siege ability.

If eight Tank archetypes each use one of their summon wall abilities it might construct a larger wall that can divide two raids in a moment; and would require damage and block skills and abilities for a momentary lapse of battle between those two raids. – Steven Sharif

Healing skills

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Devotion		Launch an orb of energy into the air that will fall upon your target, healing them.	The energy orb will travel faster and heal for more.	The target will be infused with a slow, long-lasting healing effect.
Divine Censure		Hurls a radiant spear at the target, dealing damage.	Further attacks upon the target have a chance to heal the attacker.	The target has a chance to deal damage to itself when it attacks.
Divine Light		Heals your target with a flash of light. Reduces the cooldown of Devotion and Radiant Burst.	Increased healing.	Reduced mana cost.
Drain Essence		Drain your target for damage over time, and gain return mana to yourself over the duration.	Heals you over the duration.	Reduced cooldown.
Hallowed Ground		Fills the surrounding area with radiant energy that damages enemies.	The area provides a healing aura for allies.	Allies within the area will receive boosted magical defense. Enemies within the area will deal less physical damage.
Radiant Burst		Heals allies around you in a wide area for a large amount. Stacks up to 3 times.	Heals for a greater amount.	Cooldown removed.
Regeneration		Bathe your target with restorative energy that heals them over time.	Reduced mana cost.	Applies a 5% healing received bonus to the target.

Ultimate skill

The ultimate skill is a very powerful skill.

• Can be used when enough focus has been accumulated from using the Weapon use combo system.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Hail of arrows		If your focus is at 80%, use this skill to summon a template and launch multiple arrows within the template.	Adds movement slow.	Adds damage over time to targets in the area.
Ultimate Defense		Become immune to damage for 3 seconds.	Duration is increased to 5 seconds.	Grant damage mitigation to all party members.

Utility skills

Pre-alpha rogue climbing a Metropolis wall.

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 you know sometimes "story mode". – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap for Alpha-1.

A utility skill is a non-combat skill that interacts with the environment. Utility skills lend themselves toward how classes navigate and deal with hazards in the world.

• Different classes excel at different skills.
• All classes will have maneuverability/traversal utility abilities.
  • There will be a grappling hook utility skill or item.
• Classes will have utility abilities, such as detecting traps and other hazards. For example: The Mage's detection spell casts light and reveals magical explosive hazards.
• Certain classes are able to climb/parkour in certain areas.
  • Climbing/parkour ability is not free-form and will likely be restricted to certain quests, locations or objects.
• Certain classes (such as Rogues) will have stealth abilities.
  • Rogues may also have a spyglass utility skill.

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. – Steven Sharif

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
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). Players cannot be summoned in the following cases: While in combat, if they are corrupted, or if they are engaged in an event, such as node wars, guild wars, sieges, arenas or participation in the caravan system. If they have mats, gatherables or certs in their inventory. This will be tested in Alpha-2.	-	-
Pathfinding		Reveals corrupted player locations on the bounty hunter's map. 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. The pathfinding ability can be toggled on or off.	The accuracy of the pathfinding skill is determined by a player's progression in the bounty hunter system.	The accuracy of the pathfinding skill is determined by a player's progression in the bounty hunter system.
Stealth		This does not render a player completely invisible. Instead, there will be indicators that can help players "feel out" where stealthed individuals may be.	-	-
Track		Use this skill to show nearby tracks, leading to unknown adventures.	-	-

Elemental skills

The idea behind magic is you're manipulating the elements. They don't just have to be fire, ice, water and air. They can be darkness, they can be light, they can be planar; a lot of different types of "elemental influences". – Steven Sharif

This section contains information from early testing phases. It will be updated as soon as new information is made available.

Skill	Icon	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3
Fireball		Hurl a ball of fire toward your target, dealing direct damage upon impact.	Increased damage.	Burns the target for additional damage over time.
Flame line		Shoot an arrow that leaves behind a trail of flames.	Arrow explodes upon reaching the end of its distance.	Enemies take burning damage for entering the flames.
Lava Storm		Creates a field of lava at the selected location. Deals area damage over time.	Increased damage. Increased duration.	Increased damage. Increased duration.
Thundershock		Shoots forward a beam of lightning that damages enemies in a line in front of you.	Increased damage.	Now knocks down hit targets.

Guns and gunpowder

Gunpowder (black powder) weapons will not be present in Ashes of Creation.

I previously said there was not going to be gunpowder in Ashes. What there will be is something very similar to gunpowder but has a more arcane nature to it. It's not necessarily going to be explainable through the conventional means of chemistry, metallurgy, and physics and what not, but rather the Essence is the core component of many types of magic, one of which is obviously going to be evocation type magic; and that evocation can have some explosive tendencies. – Steven Sharif

Weaponry such as Potion launchers, Siege weapons and weapons used in Naval combat are based on the arcane arts.

• The elements (evocation magic).
• The use of radiance and darkness.

As we said in the past, were not really about that black powder life. Instead it's really going to be focused on the arcane arts: The elements; the use of radiance and darkness; and then those being employed in larger weaponry, such as the type of siege weaponry between ship battles as well as those and sieges. A potion launcher is an example of the arcane energies that can be mastered in order to facilitate these highly destructive alchemical blends that can be created. – Steven Sharif

Skill transfer

Players will not be able to transfer their skills to other players.

Theft

There will not be a theft (stealing/pickpocketing) mechanic in Ashes of Creation in regards to living players.

• There may be quest related actions that involve some form of stealing, but not of actual items from a player's inventory, where the player is identified as the quest's target via a title or some other means.

That kind of emergent gameplay is obviously the objective behind how can we accommodate a non-static quest-line; and the way you do that is you can apply a flag to a title and whoever holds that title becomes the target of that quest segment. And this can change too because that title can change- you know different people might rise up in the ranks of different societies and organizations. – Steven Sharif

• Players are not able to be robbed while occupying their player stall inside the limits of a node.

There is not a theft mechanic for you to walk up to a player that's alive and steal something. – Steven Sharif

Level scaling

Levels, stats, or skills will not be scaled to allow low level players to participate in encounters with higher level players.

Kickstarter skill FX

All Kickstarter backers will receive a skill effects (FX) set.

• Includes unique colors and additional effects for certain skills. For example: A mage with her fireball skill may fire off a ball of searing white flames as opposed to the traditional colors of that skill.

See also

• Skill augments
• Archetypes
• Classes
• User interface
• Combat