Skills

Alpha-2 Ranger skill tree user interface.

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. – Tradd Thompson

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

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

• 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.

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. – Steven Sharif

• Skill points can be used to unlock universal skills at the expense of unlocking class-specific skills.

• Respeccing (resetting and reallocating) adventuring skills may require travelling to a specific location rather than being able to be done on-the-fly.

• Augments do not cost skill points. It was previously stated that certain augments will have more expense required on the skill point side.

Some 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.
• 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.

Active skills

Alpha-2 Tank action bar (hotbar) user interface.

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

• The maximum number of skills a player can have on their action bar will be around 15-20.
  • Each archetype will have roughly 35-40 skills to choose from on average.
• There will be an option to include multiple action bars (hotbars) on a player's UI. For example: One Fighter will be different from another based on what active skills they have chosen.

Some people like to have a very minimalistic number of hot bars. They don't need necessarily to have three, four, five hot bars that are available; but some people do like that: They want to have all their items listed on their hotbar as well as their abilities, as well as as their mounts, as well as anything that they can essentially interact with as an icon. – Steven Sharif

• 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 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. – Steven Sharif

Primary skills (class abilities) are based on a player's archetype.

• A player may choose a secondary archetype when they reach level 25. The player can then augment their primary skills with effects from their secondary archetype.

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

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

Weapon skills

Alpha-2 work-in-progress Greatsword weapon skill tree.

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. – Brian Ferguson

Weapon skills grant passive skills and proc effects and other status conditions rather than usable skills on a player's action bar. 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. This synergy also applies to active skills from other characters.

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. – Steven Sharif

• The weapon combo system determines special effects that proc based on weapon progression.
  • These procs may reduce or reset cooldowns on other skills on the player's hotbar.
  • Certain rotations can ensure the best chance of triggering a weapon proc, but there is no reliable way to ensure that proc activates.
  • Weapon progression such as set bonuses may change at what level any proc effects occur.

Our approach is not going to be providing skills through weapons. It's going to be providing skills through classes. – Steven Sharif

• Players can spec into weapon skills on their weapon skill tree (also referred to as Combat skills, and Combat tree) based on their preferred weapon types and the grade of the weapon.
  • Dual wielded weapons count as a single weapon type on the weapon skill tree.

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

• Certain higher-end weapons (and Armor) have active abilities, but the intention is that these abilities will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played.

Weapon use combo system

Alpha-2 greatsword weapon combo animation.

Whenever you get stab hits on the third and the fourth hit, those are actually procs. So, if you connect with the second hit of that proc hit you'll receive the additional effects, but you actually have to connect with a monster or player to receive the effect; and I think the proc rate is at a static 25 percent right now. We're looking at other ways to scale that. Maybe it scales with a stat, or maybe it scales with additional nodes, but right now it's kind of low. – Brian Ferguson

A weapon combo system (also referred to as Weapon use combo, Weapon attack combo, Weapon combo, and Weapon use ability) is utilized instead of a traditional auto-attack ability in Ashes of Creation.

• The combo system consists of a sequence of combat animations based on the weapon type, referred to as a combat animation montage.
  • Combos are triggered by performing basic weapon attacks (default Q or left-mouse-click).

Let's say for example you're using a two-handed warhammer or something and you have a number of weapon combos that play animation style based on how many combos deep you go into an attack with that warhammer. So the first is going to be like a forward swing. Second is going to be a back swing. The third is going to be swing down and the fourth is going to be some twirl that you do; and that's what we call the combo animation montage. – Steven Sharif

• The number of steps and passive effects that trigger during weapon combos can be customized in the weapon skill tree.

We wanted to have a combo length progression available to players so that certain builds could have longer weapon combos and other builds can have shorter weapon combos with more passive effects.; and this has been the result of our exploration. So, when you start out you've got a pretty quick four-hit combo, but whenever you unlock the additional hits you get the fifth and sixth hits, which are at approximately 50% to the overall combo length. But we found that that gave a pretty satisfying floor and ceiling to how long the combo can be. – Brian Ferguson

• Depending on class skill choice these effects will have synergy with the combat montage.

Depending on what your class skill choice has been those are going to have synergy effects with the weapon skill tree. So my skill called spin-to-win might do 30 additional damage on a staggered target. So I see when my proc occurs with the stagger effect on my first swing, like for me as a player I might be only interested in landing that first swing, so every now and then I'm gonna swing once and then I'm gonna use a skill and then I'm gonna come back and swing again because that'll play my first swing montage, because it's been interrupted. So I won't move to the second one because I'm really just wanna hit that stagger effect. So that's going to be how my rotation lines up. However I might have some skill that on a stun target it might be an immediate cast and it's like some power you push or power hit; and that does- it knocks back a stun target. So if the target's stunned when this skill plays, it has an added effect of knock down and now they're gonna get knocked down for an additional two seconds. Now I might spec into that and as a result I want to finish through: swing, swing, and then knock down. So I get my chance at stunning that target with that weapon skill. – Steven Sharif

• Weapon progression such as set bonuses may change at what level any proc effects occur and therefore enable different combo rotations.

You may have items or set bonuses that change at what level those proc occurs. So I may have a full set of battle armor that changes all third hit combo procs to second hit requirements and now I have a chance not only on my second hit to land that tapering slow but I also have a chance to land my one second stun proc because I have the full set that changes my weapon progression. So that's the way itemization works with your weapon skill tree, is you can enhance when those weapon skill trees become available in your combat montage and that can be a relevant factor in how your skill rotations come to play; and mixes with your weapon attacks.

• Weapon skill choices and rotations will vary based on whether the player is more focused on PvP or PvE.

Right now some people might just say, "I don't care at all about my weapon attacks. I'm not going to invest a lot of points into that. And if I do, it's going to be primarily PvE focused where I'm more comfortable using just swinging my weapon, and I may not use them as much in PvP. I'm just going to be focused on skill rotations." That's okay, but the reason for those skill montages- back to your question- is they have a very relevant role in when certain procs come online from a weapons skill tree perspective. – Steven Sharif

• Using a skill/ability other than a basic attack will in general reset the combo.
  • The developers are considering specific abilities that might be able to be used without resetting the combo system.

It acts similar in the sense of the core loop of what an auto attack is so to speak; where typically your other skills have a cooldown period, they have a rotation or whatever: Our combo system is a repeatable 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 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

Weapons 3D renders. These are depicted in the Threads of Fate cosmetic costume but are not part of that set. Models by Eli Hurst.

Weapon classes (also referred to as weapon types and weapon groups) in Ashes of Creation may deal different types of physical damage.

• 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.

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

• 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.

This section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

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.
• Passive skills are based on the player's choice of primary archetype.
  • Some passives may be introduced with the choice of secondary archetype, but this hasn't been finalized yet.

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

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Act of War		Fighter	Switching forms no longer triggers cooldowns or costs Combat Momentum.
Brutality		Fighter	Weapon combo finishers and extended finishers apply 5 Wound stacks, plus an additional Wound for every 10 stacks already on the target. Each wound stack reduces target healing received by 0.5% and target damage mitigation by 0.15%, up to a maximum of 100 stacks.
Caravan Trail Speed Bonus		Caravan	Minor speed boost for travelling on a simple trail.
Climactic Whirlwind		Fighter	Perform a final swing in an area in front of you after ending Whirlwind's channel, dealing heavy damage and generating 5-10 Combat Momentum based on number of targets hit.
Consuming Lethal Blow		Fighter	Lethal Blow returns 50% of overkill damage dealt as health and mana.
Extended Duration I		Greatsword	Extends the duration of the Second Strike and Perfect Timing proc effects by 2.5 seconds.
Extended Duration II		Greatsword	Extends the duration of the Second Strike and Perfect Timing proc effects by 2.5 seconds.
Extended Duration III		Greatsword	Extends the duration of the Second Strike and Perfect Timing proc effects by 2.5 seconds.
Extra Stacks I		Greatsword	Second Strike and Perfect Timing now stack up to 2 times.
Greater Brutality		Fighter	Overpower and Brutal Cleave apply 10 Wound stacks to enemies hit.
Greatsword Hit 3+		Greatsword	Weapon Combo Finisher. Greatsword Hit 3+ Unlocked. Has 25% chance to proc. Increased damage.
Greatsword Hit 3+: Extra Damage I		Greatsword	Increases the damage of Greatsword Hit 3+ by 10%.
Greatsword Hit 3+: Extra Damage II		Greatsword	Increases the damage of Greatsword Hit 3+ by 10%.
Greatsword Hit 3+: Extra Damage III		Greatsword	Increases the damage of Greatsword Hit 3+ by 10%.
Greatsword Hit 4		Greatsword	Weapon Combo Extended Finisher. Greatsword Hit 4 Unlocked. Increased damage.
Greatsword Hit 4+		Greatsword	Weapon Combo Extended Finisher. Greatsword Hit 4+ Unlocked. 25% chance to proc. Increased damage.
Greatsword Hit 4+: Extra Damage I		Greatsword	Increases the damage of Greatsword Hit 4 by 10%.
Greatsword Hit 4+: Extra Damage II		Greatsword	Increases the damage of Greatsword Hit 4 by 10%.
Greatsword Hit 4+: Extra Damage III		Greatsword	Increases the damage of Greatsword Hit 4 by 10%.
Greatsword Hit 4: Extra Damage I		Greatsword	Increases the damage of Greatsword Hit 4 by 10%.
Greatsword Hit 4: Extra Damage II		Greatsword	Increases the damage of Greatsword Hit 4 by 10%.
Greatsword Hit 4: Extra Damage III		Greatsword	Increases the damage of Greatsword Hit 4 by 10%.
Meditative Form of the River		Fighter	Form of the River increases your mana regeneration by 0.01% of your maximum mana per point of Combat Momentum you have.
Overdrive		Fighter	After completing the final spin, you may continue spinning at maximum speed while rapidly depleting your Momentum. Ends after Momentum is fully depleted or after stopping the channel.
Perfect Timing		Greatsword	Adds the Perfect Timing proc to Greatsword Combo Finisher Procs & Extended Finisher Procs: Perfect Timing Reduces the Cooldown of the next ability you cast by 5 seconds.
Potency I		Greatsword	Second Strike - Increases the damage of the Second Strike Proc by 25%. Perfect Timing - Increases the cooldown reset by 1 second.
Potency III		Greatsword	Second Strike - Increases the damage of the Second Strike Proc by 25%. Perfect Timing - Increases the cooldown reset by 1 second.
Raging Blitz		Fighter	Blitz generates 20 Combat Momentum.
Recharging Lunging Assault		Fighter	Lunging Assault gains an additional charge and generates 5 additional Combat Momentum when dealing damage to one or more enemies.
Reinvigorating Exert		Fighter	Exert additionally refreshes all ability cooldowns by 1% per point of Combat Momentum the caster has upon activation.
Reinvigorating Lethal Blow		Fighter	Killing an enemy with Lethal Blow resets the cooldown of Blitz.
Relentless Form of the Avalanche		Fighter	Form of the Avalanche causes your weapon combo attacks to apply 3 stacks of Staggered to enemies hit, plus 1 additional stack per 30 Combat Momentum you have. Staggered reduces physical accuracy by 0.1% per stack and physical disable reduction by 1% per stack.
Second Strike		Greatsword	Adds Second Strike proc to Greatsword Combo Finisher Procs & Extended Finisher Procs: Second Strike When you strike a target for physical damage with an ability, it gets struck again.
Slicing Maim		Fighter	Maim launches a piercing projectile that deals damage to enemies in its path.
Swordmaster: Consistent I		Greatsword	Adds Swordmaster: Swiftness - Increases effect duration by 0.5s. Swordmaster: Endurance - Increases minimum possible health restored by 0.5% Max HP.
Swordmaster: Consistent II		Greatsword	Adds Swordmaster: Swiftness - Increases effect duration by 0.5s. Swordmaster: Endurance - Increases minimum health restored by 0.5% Max HP.
Swordmaster: Endurance		Greatsword	Adds Swordmaster: Endurance proc to Greatsword Combo Finisher Procs & Extended Finisher Procs: 25% chance to recover 2-4% of your maximum health.
Swordmaster: Potential I		Greatsword	Adds Swordmaster: Swiftness - +5% Attack speed from effect. Swordmaster: Endurance - Increases maximum possible health restored by 1% Max HP.
Swordmaster: Proc Rate I		Greatsword	Increases all Swordmaster effect proc rates by 25%.
Swordmaster: Proc Rate II		Greatsword	Increases all Swordmaster effect proc rates by 25%.
Swordmaster: Proc Rate III		Greatsword	Increases all Swordmaster effect proc rates by 25%.
Swordmaster: Swiftness		Greatsword	Adds Swordmaster: Swiftness proc to Greatsword Combo Finisher Procs & Extended Finisher Procs: 25% chance to gain 25% attack speed for 1.5 seconds. Stack up to 2 times.
Unstoppable Exert		Fighter	Exert additionally breaks all hard control effects on the caster, and may be used any time while under a hard controlling effect.
Weapon Mastery: Bows		Ranger	Lowers the Cooldown of Barrage and Scatter Shot by 3s upon: Completion of a bow weapon combo; Firing a fully charged Longbow.

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 stuff to show up. – Jeffrey Bard

Crowd control

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

• All archetypes will have their own versions of CC breaks.

• CC effects do not apply to Non-combatant (green) players. The target of a CC ability must be flagged in order to suffer the CC effects. This prevents players from opening attacks that stun non-combatant players during a pull for example.

• Melee archetypes will offer various mobility and CC counters against ranged archetypes, such as the Ranger.

• 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 Alpha-1 testing mounts were 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.

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

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

Diminishing returns in regards to crowd control and conditions like stun and sleep and slows and that 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

• 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.

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

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 feel. – Jeffrey Bard

• Soft CC's are in the tab-targeted abilities.

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Air Strike		Ranger	Leap a great distance forward and into the air while firing three projectiles in a line along the path, each dealing area damage and rooting targets hit for 3 seconds. Rotation control is enabled during cast. The root effect is nature based.
Ancestral Bolas		Tank	Throws a magical web of bolas at the target location. All enemies within are snared and build additional hate towards the tank every second. Enemies entering or exiting the radius will be tripped.
Chain Lightning		Mage	Release a powerful streak of lightning that hits your primary target and then chains outward to all nearby enemies from that target, dealing lightning damage and applying 3 stacks of Electrified to each target hit.
Chains of Restraint		Cleric	Call forth spectral chains in a target area that stagger enemies within or stun enemies already under the staggered effect, then leave behind an area that deals radiant damage each second over 8 seconds.
Condemn		Cleric	Stun target enemy for 3 seconds.
Crippling Blow		Fighter	Deal Physical damage and apply Snare to target enemy for 6 seconds.
Fissure		Mage	Call forth a line of jagged earth spikes in front of the[sic] you, dealing earth damage and applying 10 stacks of Stagger to each enemy hit along its path while launching them upwards.
Grapple		Tank	Takes aim for a moment before hurling a hooked chain in a line, damaging the first target it contacts and immediately pulling them to the caster. The target suffers a tapering snare for 3 seconds.
Imbue Ammo: Weighted		Ranger	Imbues your ammunition with weight. Enemies hit by your bow attacks suffer the Snared status effect, reducing their movement speed by 50%. Each application applies 3 seconds of duration to the target, up to a maximum of 12 seconds. 10 charges.
Knock Out		Fighter	Knock out target enemy, putting them to sleep for 10 seconds. Any damage breaks the effect.
Leap Strike		Fighter	Leap to target location and deal damage around you, snaring targets hit for 3 seconds.
Quake		Mage	Held ability: Cast a powerful earthquake that deals more damage the longer it was charged and applies 10 stacks of Staggered to all enemies around the caster. If the spell was fully charged, this applies Tripped instead of Staggered.
Slam		Tank	Slam your target with immense force, knocking them back. Applies 10 stagger. Deals 500% additional threat.
Slumber		Mage	Applies the sleeping condition to targets affected within a small area around the primary target, rendering them unable to move or take any action. Any damage dealt to a sleeping target will break the effect. Duration is reduced by 20% for each additional target hit, to a minimum of 40% of base duration.
Tremoring Bellow		Tank	Releases a thundering shout in a forward cone, applying the staggered condition on enemy targets. Also stomps the ground dealing damage around the caster and tripping enemies affected by the snared condition.

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 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 the general design philosophy we're using to approach the overhaul. – Tradd Thompson

• The revamped combat system features 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.

A lot of abilities you have the capability of moving while casting. It's going to decrease your movement speed significantly or depending on the type of ability. We do reserve the cost- and that's really what it is when you tie ability usage to mobility- we do reserve the cost of requiring the character to remain stationary on some big effect type abilities. – Steven Sharif

• Most abilities in Ashes of Creation are capable of being cast while moving. Some abilities may slow the caster down during the cast, but only rarely will the player be rooted in place.
  • Movement speed can decrease significantly depending on the type of ability.
  • Weapon weight can also affect mobility.
  • Skills with the greatest power may require the caster to remain stationary while channeling them. This is a risk vs. reward mechanic.

Most abilities you'll find in Ashes of Creation are capable of being cast while moving. Some of those abilities might slow your movement during the cast, but you can continue to move. Very rarely, and depending on obviously the importance of the ability or the power level of that ability, you might be rooted in place. So, for example, the AoE ability [Chains of Restraint] has a lot going on. It has damage ticking over time, it is an area of effect, it also has a status condition application; and in those instances the player character gets rooted. – Steven Sharif

• Ranged archetypes will have gap openers to counter gap closers from archetypes like the Fighter.

That's the cat-and-mouse of these abilities. Like we've seen with the Ranger, they have a backflip, they have their Airdrop [sic] ability. The Mage has teleportation. There are going to be abilities that are tit-for-tat; and managing the resource of those abilities and the timing of when you use them to either correlate to your opponent's use of those things, or to save them for yourself when you want to get away, that's part of what makes the engagements dynamic and different each time. – Steven Sharif

• Unreal Engine 5 has enabled improved forms of locomotion, such as crouching, tilting and mantling.
  • Crouching may or may not be in the game.

• The ability to prone is not be in the game.

• Moving backward will likely not affect block and parry.

• Player movement speed during combat is balanced for both PvE and PvP.

There's a balance in the game design between your movement speed on attack and the movement speed of your opponent. When you have a game that is both PvE centric as well as PvP centric, you have to make sure that combat is blended for both approaches; and we can always run into problems where, if you're significantly hampered in your movement speed, that has an effect on how we expect player versus player engagements to interact; and we don't want to restrict a player's ability to be mobile if they're the target of an attack. And as a result of that we need to make sure that we don't restrict the movement abilities of the player who is doing the attacking as well. So we want it to be relatively free for you to stay with each other. Your opponents move around the battlefield together and if we're hampering you on the attack action, we have to then implement some type of snare, or slow, or cc effect essentially on your opposing target; and that's not the approach we want to take for for PvP. – Steven Sharif

• Melee archetypes will offer various mobility and CC counters against ranged archetypes, such as the Ranger.

If we're talking about Fighter, they're going to have a lot of heavy gap closers. They can probably be a little bit more liberal in the use of their gap closers because they have so many of them, versus let's say a Ranger that needs to choose when to use their escape abilities, because they have fewer of them. The same would be true for a melee character like a rogue. Their approach vector is going to be more stealth-driven than it would be perhaps let's say from a gap-closer perspective. – Steven Sharif

Q: If a ranger is super mobile, what are the melee's options in order to catch them?

A: Different class kits will provide different gap closers. They'll provide different mobility skills. They'll have lockdowns. They'll have chains to pull back. They'll have a lot of different things in the rotation. That's part of what an MMORPG experience is. You're not just restricted to three or six skills, you have a rotational suite; and depending on the type of challenges you face is going to help determine which of those rotations you spec into from your skill tree. – Steven Sharif

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Air Strike		Ranger	Leap a great distance forward and into the air while firing three projectiles in a line along the path, each dealing area damage and rooting targets hit for 3 seconds. Rotation control is enabled during cast. The root effect is nature based.
Blink		Mage	Instantly teleport a set distance in the direction you are moving.
Blitz		Fighter	Charge directly toward target enemy, dealing Physical damage to the target on arrival.
Call of the Wild		Ranger	Remove all movement impairing effects and increase movement speed by 20% for 8 seconds. Snares and Roots effects applied to the caster are ignored.
Caravan Trail Speed Bonus		Caravan	Minor speed boost for travelling on a simple trail.
Exert		Fighter	Consume your Combat Momentum rapidly, gaining 20% increased attack and movement speed and immunity to disabling effects while active. Must have at least 20 Combat Momentum to activate, and the effect ends when all Combat Momentum is fully depleted.
Form Of Celerity		Fighter	While in this form, the caster receives +2% Movement Speed per 10 Combat Momentum, up to a maximum of +20%. Shifting form costs 20% of current Combat Momentum and triggers cooldown for all Combat Forms.
Form Of Fluidity		Fighter	While in this form, the caster receives +4% Disable Resistance Chance per 10 Combat Momentum, up to a maximum of +40%. Shifting form costs 20% of current Combat Momentum and triggers cooldown for all Combat Forms.
Leap Strike		Fighter	Leap to target location and deal damage around you, snaring targets hit for 3 seconds.
Lunging Assault		Fighter	Spend 15 Combat Momentum to lunge in a direction a short distance and perform an upward swing upon arrival, dealing damage to enemies in front of you. You are immune to hard crowd control effects while performing this ability.
Recharging Lunging Assault		Fighter	Lunging Assault gains an additional charge and generates 5 additional Combat Momentum when dealing damage to one or more enemies.
Shield Assault		Tank	Bashes the target with your shield, dealing damage and applying the shaken condition. If the target is already suffering from the shaken condition, stun the target instead.
Speed Boost		Caravan	Gives the caravan a temporary speed boost.
Unstoppable Exert		Fighter	Exert additionally breaks all hard control effects on the caster, and may be used any time while under a hard controlling effect.
Whirlwind		Fighter	Channeled Ability: Deal physical damage to all enemies around the caster with each spin while channeled, increasing the spin rate the longer it is channeled. The caster is immune to hard disabling effects while spinning. Activate the ability again to end channeling early.
Wings of Salvation		Cleric	Sprout phoenix-like wings and leap to target ally, then grant a small amount of temporary health to that target on arrival. An ally is defined as any non-combatant player or non-mob NPC.

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.
  • A sprinting/dash skill with a cooldown was confirmed to be part of a class kit.

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.

• Double-jumping has been considered as an option for player mounts.

• Unreal Engine 5 mantling was demonstrated by the developers.

Collision

There are player and spell/projectile 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.

• Mounts and players cannot stop caravans and other vehicles from moving. Nothing can move or block ships.

• Specific ranged skills will have a pushback effect but this is not inherent to all ranged abilities.

• Player collision inherently limits the number of individuals that can be affected by AoE skills.

• Not all projectiles can be body-blocked.

Not all projectiles can be body-blocked. Some potentially can, but there will be certain abilities and effects, like a shield wall, that can that can be brought up and that will obscure line-of-sight to the target as well; and it will restrict some of those attacks from occurring. – Steven Sharif

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

Evasion moves such as dodging and weaving will be present in Ashes of Creation combat.

• The developers are considering the inclusion of dodging in a subset of universal skills that apply to all classes.
  • Dodge rolling type skills were previously housed in the action skill sets of agile classes such as Rogues or Fighters.
  • The developers will be testing the use of separate energy mechanics for universal skills in Alpha-2.

• Dodging will not use I-frames (invincibility frames), but it may affect accuracy and mitigation stats when used.
  • Previously it was stated that hybrid combat will likely have true evasion skills relating to action-oriented combat and also have I-frames that apply to tab targeting.

So you see an animation windup that's a telegraph on what's coming; and then you have response actions that you can take as a result of that in order to dodge, weave, move, do whatever. It is both a combination of what your rotation is but also how you have reaction abilities ready to go that you save for certain circumstances that are important. – Steven Sharif

Active blocking

Tank active blocking with a Shield in Alpha-2.

The shield version would probably be better but you'd still be able to parry or whatnot with a two-handed weapon, or even maybe a dual wield. – Tradd Thompson

Cleric active blocking with a Shield in Alpha-2.

Active blocking is a universal skill that applies to all classes.

• Active blocking is present in Alpha-2. At present the developers are using a universal stamina-based energy system, but they will be testing the use of separate energy mechanics for universal skills in Alpha-2.

Active blocking might be an ability that- it's universal, of course it's universal- but it might be consuming mana; and you'll be able to adjust that mana consumption based off of your passive spec into your skill trees. In addition, it might also consume stamina, where that's something we're going to be testing as part of Alpha-2. – Steven Sharif

• Different types of equipment are catered toward blocking different damage types.
  • Shields are better for active blocking physical damage, but any melee weapon can also be used to parry with a lesser amount of mitigation.
  • Sigils are better at actively blocking magical damage.

Q: How are you designing encounters around active blocking? Will it be situational use, or would I expect to be laying on my block keybind for most of the fight to prevent getting deleted by bosses?

A: It depends really on the type of adversary you're facing. Some of them are going to have indicators or tells that a big attack is coming. It's an animation wind up where you'll have an opportunity to use active block in very unique situations that are based on timing and additional mitigation for those incoming one-off attacks. In other occasions you'll be able to use it off of rotational cooldowns, or if you're waiting for a particular ability or you're during the use of your Aegis. There's different situations for when active block is a relevant use-case. – Steven Sharif

• Some abilities may be able to overcome, surpass, or cancel active blocking.

If a player is in a state, such as an active block, or an active tumble state, there will likely be some types of abilities that interact with reacting to those types of states and will either overcome surpass or cancel out those states, particularly as it relates to not just active blocking, but also potentially passive blocking as well; and that would be something probably related to physical penetration values as a stat, or even CC breaks that could be relevant as well for those types of things. I think that's on the radar for the combat team. – Steven Sharif

• Previously the developers had not finalized designs for active blocking and were leaning toward using more traditional buff-oriented universal damage mitigation for the MMO, and were also considering interaction between action-based blocking and a passive block stat.
  • The Paladin's Might shield in Ashes of Creation Apocalypse had its own hit box and hit points (HP); that could actively block projectiles.

Interrupts

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

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

This section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Bulwark		Tank	Bash enemies in front of you twice. The second attack temporarily increases block chance. You must have a shield equipped to block.

Aggro/Threat generation

Threat (Aggro/Hate) is generated based on damage done, healing done, and modifiers on certain abilities.

• In PvE, aggro against player characters is based on a hate table.
• In PvP, aggro may force target switching to the Tank. Feedback on this will be sought during testing.

If we think about PVP settings and the role of taunt or hate, a lot of times for tanks in the MMOs that I've played- where you have a PvE and PvP scenario- those types of hate generation abilities don't really have cross application into the PVP realm; and that can feel bad, because typically a tank build-out can be delegated around how I generate hate; and if it has no cross application into PvP then effectively you're creating a class composition that just is not relevant in half of the game, or in that area of the game. So when we talk about how we're going to apply hate to player targets or taunt to player targets, sometimes that can move into the realm of target switching, or the ability to demand that target on the tank in a PvP scenario as well. That's something that we need to get player feedback on, because there's a lot of strong emotions around that type of mechanic. I for one am a big proponent of that. I think it's interesting. I think that it plays into the role of the tank and that it it hits a class fantasy that most tank players want to feel. And I think however on the flip side of that, it is a source of control; and anytime you're under the effects of some source of control, it's going to be a feel bad moment for the target that's being controlled. So that's why I think it generates a lot of feelings on both sides of the aisle. – Steven Sharif

• Detargeting is the act of removing hate/threat/aggro from an enemy.
• There will be a taunt skill available at higher levels than what has been previewed so far for Alpha-2.
  • In Alpha-0 testing there was a single-target taunt skill, called Hatred.

Q: There were a lot of concerns about threat [in the Alpha-2 Tank preview video]. A lot of people didn't understand how holding threat works, because you weren't holding threat at some point.

A: It's important to remember that these previews are done at a very low-level, so these are low-level skills and abilities that the archetypes have available to them; and so because of that, some of the functionality from these abilities they don't necessarily perform as well as you would want them to in a later stage of the game for that role. Now also keep in mind that balance is a perspective that needs to be incorporated also. So, threat is generated based off of a few factors: It's based off of damage done, it's based off of healing done, it's based off of threat generation modifiers that are on abilities. Now the tank in this situation I believe has two abilities that are going to generate additional threat. They have the slicing- the number two ability; and then they also have the shout ability. Both of those are creating additional threat. But with that being said, we need to tune probably those abilities up a little bit to contend with the DPS that's coming both from the ranger and with the heals that are coming out of the cleric. – Steven Sharif

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Ancestral Bolas		Tank	Throws a magical web of bolas at the target location. All enemies within are snared and build additional hate towards the tank every second. Enemies entering or exiting the radius will be tripped.
Grapple		Tank	Takes aim for a moment before hurling a hooked chain in a line, damaging the first target it contacts and immediately pulling them to the caster. The target suffers a tapering snare for 3 seconds.
Hatred		Tank	Single target that adds hate.
Inciting Strikes		Tank	Slashes twice in a forward cone while adding additional threat.
Shield Assault		Tank	Bashes the target with your shield, dealing damage and applying the shaken condition. If the target is already suffering from the shaken condition, stun the target instead.
Slam		Tank	Slam your target with immense force, knocking them back. Applies 10 stagger. Deals 500% additional threat.

Animation cancelling

Animation cancelling will not be a combat mechanic in Ashes of Creation.

• Players will be able to cancel channeled abilities.

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 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

Ranger hybrid combat in Alpha-2.

Our desire has always and continues to be how we can create a mixture of tab target abilities and skill-shot oriented positional, directional-based ability usage and make something cohesive in that design. And I think that what we're achieving with that regard may not fully feel like an action-oriented game, but we've always intended to be more hybrid-oriented, leaning towards tab target. So you're going to see a mixture of abilities that require the targets and that don't; and then you're going to have an option as the player's perspective to utilize an action camera mode, which utilizes a soft target lock feature and our reticle. – Steven Sharif

Hard-locked friendly player target.

Hybrid combat refers to the choice between tab and action combat in Ashes of Creation. A toggle button (default Z, but can be re-bound to another key) allows the player to switch between action and tab combat modes.

• The action mode camera is tied to the to the player's reticle (crosshair).
  • There will likely be a hotkey that when held down will allow free camera movement in action mode.
  • In future the user will have the ability to choose from different reticle appearances.

• Targeted skills require either a soft or hard locked target.
  • Soft locking is when the reticle moves over a valid target while in action mode. The targeting plate will appear slightly grayed out to indicate that this is a soft-lock target. If the reticle moves away from the target or the target moves away from the reticle, the target is lost.
  • Hard locking is when the player uses right-mouse on a soft-locked target in action mode, or when the player selects a valid target in tab mode. The targeting plate will not be grayed-out to indicate that a hard-lock target is selected. Unlike soft locking, if the target moves out of the reticle, the target is not lost. Tab will still cycle between hard-locked targets in action mode based on proximity priority.

• Templated skills allow "blind firing" without a target while in action mode. If an entity moves into the path of the attack they can be struck.

Q: Is the development team moving away from action combat, or is action combat more prevalent with the melee classes, and the healing/range classes are more tab-target other than AoE spells?

A: We have not moved away from our hybrid approach to the development of Ashes of Creation's combat; and specifically to reiterate: that approach is incorporating elements of skill shots, fast and reactive gameplay that is situationally relevant, and incorporates the camera mode of both tab-targeting as well as action combat reticle. That's something that is still in progress. We haven't moved away from that however. To note, our approach of that hybridization is going to incorporate things like templated skill-shots, directionally relevant activated abilities, along with the ability to dodge to roll projectiles that can impact collision. Those are elements of action combat that are present. – Steven Sharif

Templated and targeted versions of skills will have different characteristics.

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

• Targeted skills will be greyed out if the target is not within a valid range but templated skills will generally require the player to assess the correct range for the skill.

• Different ranks of the same skill can change the skill from tab to action or vice-versa.
  • Variables will change based on which version of a skill is chosen.
    • Damage.
    • Charge up time.
    • Accuracy.
    • Evasion.
    • Crowd control.
    • Cooldown.
    • Energy consumption.
    • Cost to spec.
    • Attack range will likely remain the same; as it is driven by the weapon or skill itself.

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

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

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

Headshot mechanics

Headshot mechanics (where there is a specific hitbox for a player's head) are not planned for 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.
• A Ranger skill called Headshot was introduced leading up to Alpha-2 testing.

Skills by archetype

Bard skills

Bards fill a tactical non-healing hard support role. They will have more significance based on their mobility and placement in the battle.

Q: Give us a hint on their mechanic please?

A: Proximity based skill combination melodies, through dance song and story. Hard utility and support, you will see in the future.

• Bard mechanics include proximity-based skill combination melodies through dances, songs, and stories.
  • 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.
  • Bards can offer proximity-based or proc-based healing, but to a much lesser degree than Clerics.

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

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

• 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.
  • Certain higher tier Bard abilities will utilize 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.

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

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

• 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 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 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 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

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.

• There will be a healthy combination of healing and offensive spells available to allow a Cleric to level and progress as a solo player. It's left to the player to decide whether they will spec into more solo or support-oriented group-focussed gameplay. Choice of a secondary archetype will enable further customization in this respect.

There's going to be a significant amount of offensive capability for the Cleric because we don't want to create that dynamic where cleric as a support class is inoperable without a companion or a party to go with. We want that Cleric to still be able to survive on their own: to be able to level and progress as a solo player. – Steven Sharif

This section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

Skill	Icon	Source	Description
Barrier		Alpha-2	Sacrifice 25% of your maximum health to place a health shield on target ally for 10 seconds. Does not stack.
Bless Weapon		Alpha-2	Imbues your target's weapon with radiant light, causing each of their weapon combo attacks to deal additional radiant damage and applies a mana regeneration buff to the caster. Each hit extends the duration of the mana regeneration buff, up to a maximum of 15 seconds. Has a 10% chance to proc bonus radiant damage and apply a stack of Burning to the target.
Castigation		Alpha-1	Lashes your target with holy energy whip, dealing direct damage and restoring health and mana to yourself over time.
Chains of Restraint		Alpha-2	Call forth spectral chains in a target area that stagger enemies within or stun enemies already under the staggered effect, then leave behind an area that deals radiant damage each second over 8 seconds.
Communal Restoration		Alpha-2	Restore health to all party members in range instantly, plus additional healing over time. Allies under the HoT also receive +10% maximum health for its duration. This can overheal.
Condemn		Alpha-2	Stun target enemy for 3 seconds.
Consecrating Wave		Alpha-2	Send forth a cone of radiance that deals radiant damage to all enemies while healing the ten nearest allies.
Defiant Light		Alpha-2	Heal target ally for 50% of their maximum health over 10 seconds. If that target would receive fatal damage while under this effect, this effect is consumed and prevents that target's death, healing them for 25% of their maximum health instead.
Deliverance		Alpha-2	Held ability: Charges up healing energy that heals a target ally upon release, scaling in power the longer it is charged and the more % missing health of the target.
Devotion		Alpha-1	Launch an orb of energy into the air that will fall upon your target, healing them.
Divine Censure		Alpha-1	Hurls a radiant spear at the target, dealing damage.
Divine Flare		Alpha-2	Place a targeted area heal on the ground that heals all targets within after several seconds. Total healing is split between all targets hit.
Divine Infusion		Alpha-2	Consume Divine Power to instantly complete the remaining cast time of any healing spell currently being cast. The amount of Divine Power consumed is proportional to the amount of cast time remaining upon activation.
Divine Light		Alpha-1	Heals your target with a flash of light. Reduces the cooldown of Devotion and Radiant Burst.
Flash Cure		Alpha-2	Instantly heal target ally. This may be used during other ability activations.
Healing Touch		Alpha-2	Heal target ally in melee range for a large amount of health.
Judgment		Alpha-2	Cast a heal on target ally for a large amount of health. If this is cast on an enemy, it instead deals radiant damage to the target and applies 2 stacks of Burning.
Mend		Alpha-2	Instantly launch a healing projectile toward target ally. Each charge of this ability consumed after the first has no mana cost, and restores an increasing amount of mana to the caster based on the number of missing charges. Consecutive uses of the ability will gain bonus healing.
Radiant Burst		Alpha-1	Heals allies around you in a wide area for a large amount. Stacks up to 3 times.
Regeneration		Alpha-1	Bathe your target with restorative energy that heals them over time.
Resplendent Beam		Alpha-2	Held ability: Fire a beam of healing energy toward a target ally. Charging this spell allows the beam to bounce to up to 5 additional friendly targets closest to the original target, based on how long it was charged. The amount of healing is reduced for each subsequent target.
Resurrection		Alpha-1	Resurrects a dead ally with 25% health and 15% mana.
Smite		Alpha-2	Smite your target, dealing instant damage and applying a stack of Burning to target enemy. Has no cast time and deals increased damage if activated within melee range of the target. This attack always critically hits on targets under the effect of Condemn.
Soothing Glow		Alpha-2	Apply a healing over time effect to target ally. Reapplying this effect extends its duration on the target by its base duration value.
Wings of Salvation		Alpha-2	Sprout phoenix-like wings and leap to target ally, then grant a small amount of temporary health to that target on arrival. An ally is defined as any non-combatant player or non-mob NPC.

Fighter skills

The Fighter archetype includes maneuverability and "closing the gap" mechanics to enable the fighter to quickly traverse distances on the battlefield as well as debuffs that can reduce healing received on a target.

Skill	Icon	Base skill
Battle Cry		Unleash a resounding war bellow, applying the Riled effect to the caster and all nearby party members and Shaken to all nearby enemies. Gain 5 Combat Momentum for each target that was Riled. Riled targets have increased stability and have increased chance of tripping Shaken enemies.
Blitz		Charge directly toward target enemy, dealing Physical damage to the target on arrival.
Blood Fusion		Return 100% of damage dealt as health and 50% of damage dealt as mana over the next 6 seconds. If activated while below 50% health, gain 25% increased damage mitigation and healing received over the duration.
Brutal Cleave		Perform a wide sweeping attack, dealing damage to all enemies in front of you. This ability shares a cooldown with Overpower, and hitting an enemy with a weapon combo finisher reduces its cooldown by 8 seconds. +10-20 Combat Momentum (based on number of targets hit)
Cataclysm		Deal heavy damage and apply Shaken to all enemies in a large area in front you. Shaken enemies have a 5% chance to Trip when hit, and the effect is removed when triggered. This chance doubles when hit by Riled targets.
Crippling Blow		Deal Physical damage and apply Snare to target enemy for 6 seconds.
Exert		Consume your Combat Momentum rapidly, gaining 20% increased attack and movement speed and immunity to disabling effects while active. Must have at least 20 Combat Momentum to activate, and the effect ends when all Combat Momentum is fully depleted.
Form Of Celerity		While in this form, the caster receives +2% Movement Speed per 10 Combat Momentum, up to a maximum of +20%. Shifting form costs 20% of current Combat Momentum and triggers cooldown for all Combat Forms.
Form Of Ferocity		While in this form, the caster receives +2% Attack Speed per 10 Combat Momentum, up to a maximum of +20%. Shifting form costs 20% of current Combat Momentum and triggers cooldown for all Combat Forms.
Form Of Fluidity		While in this form, the caster receives +4% Disable Resistance Chance per 10 Combat Momentum, up to a maximum of +40%. Shifting form costs 20% of current Combat Momentum and triggers cooldown for all Combat Forms.
Knock Out		Knock out target enemy, putting them to sleep for 10 seconds. Any damage breaks the effect.
Leap Strike		Leap to target location and deal damage around you, snaring targets hit for 3 seconds.
Lethal Blow		Perform a powerful descending strike upon target enemy, dealing additional physical damage based on the amount of % missing health, up to 300% base damage.
Lunging Assault		Spend 15 Combat Momentum to lunge in a direction a short distance and perform an upward swing upon arrival, dealing damage to enemies in front of you. You are immune to hard crowd control effects while performing this ability.
Maim		Perform a powerful melee strike in a short forward cone, dealing physical damage to all targets hit, plus 100% additional damage to recently tripped targets.
Overpower		Deal direct damage and apply Shaken to target enemy. This ability shares a cooldown with Brutal Cleave, and hitting an enemy with a weapon combo finisher refreshes the cooldown of this ability. +10 Combat Momentum.
Rupture		Deal physical damage and apply a debuff to the target. While the debuff is active, the target acquires 5 wound stacks per second that they are moving. After 5 seconds, the largest takes heavy damage, plus additional damage for each stack of wound it has.
Whirlwind		Channeled Ability: Deal physical damage to all enemies around the caster with each spin while channeled, increasing the spin rate the longer it is channeled. The caster is immune to hard disabling effects while spinning. Activate the ability again to end channeling early.

Q: What percentage of Fighter skills are templated attacks versus requiring a target?

A: There's probably four or five abilities right now that require a single target and then I think the rest are either like on self or some template conal attack or something. – Steven Sharif

Mage skills

Skill	Icon	Base skill
Arcane Empowerment		Temporarily dramatically increased cast time while active. Consume all spell charges for increased duration per charge consumed. Spell charges are generated whenever you cast an offensive mage spell while not under the effects of Arcane Empowerment. Each cast generates 1 charge, up to a maximum of 10 charges.
Arcane Eye		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.
Arcane Volley		Fires a volley of arcane missiles at your target, dealing arcane damage with each hit.
Ball Lightning		Creates a large ball of highly charged electricity that travels slowly forward, dealing rapid periodic lightning damage to enemies it overlaps with and applying 1 Electrified stack to targets with each hit.
Blink		Instantly teleport a set distance in the direction you are moving.
Blizzard		Channel a massive blizzard around you, raining a barrage of hail shards upon your enemies while channeling. Each shard impact deals ice damage in a small area around it. All enemies in the blizzard also acquire 1 stack of Chilled periodically. Activate the ability again to end the channel early.
Chain Lightning		Release a powerful streak of lightning that hits your primary target and then chains outward to all nearby enemies from that target, dealing lightning damage and applying 3 stacks of Electrified to each target hit.
Cone of Cold		Blasts a cone of cold in front of the caster, dealing ice damage and applying 1 stack of Chilled to each enemy hit.
Elemental Empowerment		Whenever you cast an elemental spell, your weapon attacks deal additional damage of that spell's element and apply a stack of the corresponding elemental status effects to targets hit. Casting a spell of a different element switches this effect to the new element.
Fireball		Instantly hurl a ball of fire toward your target, dealing fire damage and applying 1 stack of Burning to target on impact. Burning deals periodic fire damage over time for each stack applied. When the target reaches 5 stacks, they become Conflagrated, dealing extreme fire damage over time. Hitting a conflagrating enemy with a lightning spell causes Fusion, dealing significant damage and removing the Conflagrated effect.
Fissure		Call forth a line of jagged earth spikes in front of the[sic] you, dealing earth damage and applying 10 stacks of Stagger to each enemy hit along its path while launching them upwards.
Frostbolt		Launch a bolt of frost towards your target, dealing ice damage and applying 2 Chilled stacks to the target on impact. Chilled reduces movement speed of the target for each stack applied. When the target reaches 5 stacks, they become Frozen, rooting them in place for the duration. Hitting a frozen enemy with a lightning spell causes them to Shatter, dealing significant damage and removing the Frozen effect.
Lightning Strike		Held ability: Charge up a bolt of lightning to unleash upon your target, dealing lightning damage and applying 2 stacks of Electrified to the target. This deals additional damage based on how long it was charged. Electrified reduces the target's magical mitigation for each stack applied. When the target reaches 10 stacks, all Electrified stacks are consumed and they become temporarily Shocked. Whenever a Shocked enemy takes damage, they take additional damage and 1 stack of Shocked is consumed. Shocked is initially applied with 20 stacks.
Magma Field		Erupts the earth at target location, forming a boiling pool of lava that deals fire damage to enemies per tick while periodically applying a stack of Burning to enemies within the area.
Meteor		Conjures a massive flaming rock before sending it hurling toward target location. Upon impact, it deals major fire damage while knocking foes flying, and then continues to roll forward for its remaining distance, dealing additional fire damage while applying stacks of Burning to enemies along its path.
Quake		Held ability: Cast a powerful earthquake that deals more damage the longer it was charged and applies 10 stacks of Staggered to all enemies around the caster. If the spell was fully charged, this applies Tripped instead of Staggered.
Shell		Create a protective magical shell around yourself that absorbs a large amount of damage before breaking.
Slumber		Applies the sleeping condition to targets affected within a small area around the primary target, rendering them unable to move or take any action. Any damage dealt to a sleeping target will break the effect. Duration is reduced by 20% for each additional target hit, to a minimum of 40% of base duration.

Ranger skills

The majority of a Ranger's skill tree will likely be ranged, but there will be options to incorporate melee aspects.

• Some abilities require a bow to be equipped.
• Instead of a minimum range requirement, certain Ranger skills, such as Thundering Shot, currently have variable effects conferred at different ranges.
• The majority of Ranger abilities allow movement while casting. Only a few abilities impose movement penalties while casting.

Skill	Icon	Base skill
Air Strike		Leap a great distance forward and into the air while firing three projectiles in a line along the path, each dealing area damage and rooting targets hit for 3 seconds. Rotation control is enabled during cast. The root effect is nature based.
Barrage		Fires a continual barrage of arrows at your target for 1.5 seconds, dealing 12% physical damage per arrow.
Bear Trap		Spawn a Trap at the target location, which arms after 1 second. When an enemy triggers the Trap, they take damage and become Rooted for 2 seconds.
Call of the Wild		Remove all movement impairing effects and increase movement speed by 20% for 8 seconds. Snares and Roots effects applied to the caster are ignored.
Camouflage		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.
Disengage		Delivers a quick kick backflipping in the opposite direction. Enemies hit are Snared for 4 seconds.
Headshot		Deals 175% physical damage to target enemy.
Hunt of the Bear		Call forth the spirit of the bear, imbuing yourself with increased physical mitigation.
Hunt of the Raven		Call forth the spirit of the raven, imbuing yourself with increased physical penetration.
Hunt of the Tiger		Call forth the spirit of the tiger, imbuing yourself with 10% increased critical damage.
Imbue Ammo: Barbed		Imbues your ammunition with barbed thorns. Enemies hit by your bow attacks suffer the Bleeding status effect, dealing damage over time. Each application applies 3 seconds of duration to the target, up to a maximum of 30 seconds. 10 charges.
Imbue Ammo: Concussive		Imbues your ammunition with concussive force. Enemies hit by your bow attacks suffer ten stacks of the Staggered status effect, increasing Tripped duration when applied and lowering their accuracy and evasion stats per stack. 10 charges.
Imbue Ammo: Weighted		Imbues your ammunition with weight. Enemies hit by your bow attacks suffer the Snared status effect, reducing their movement speed by 50%. Each application applies 3 seconds of duration to the target, up to a maximum of 12 seconds. 10 charges.
Lightning Reload		Grants a charge of Lightning Reload, allowing you to fire one ability Shot for free, ignoring its cooldown and other costs.
Mark of the Bear		Marks the target, reducing their mitigation by 25%.
Mark of the Raven		Marks the target, triggering bonus damage every time the target is hit. The lower the health on the target is, the higher the damage.
Mark of the Tiger		Marks the target, increasing critical chance versus the target by 50%.
Piercing Shot		Fire a projectile that travels in a straight line, piercing through and damaging all enemies in its path.
Raining Death		Fires a dense rain of arrows 20 meters ahead, dealing high damage. Deals more damage to more distant targets.
Scatter Shot		Fires a spread of projectiles, dealing Physical Damage to every enemy target within a 20m cone in front of the caster.
Snipe		Charge a powerful ranged attack, dealing large damage after charging for 3 seconds. Deals 300% physical damage.
Thundering Shot		Fires a lightning-infused projectile at your target, dealing 200% of your physical power as Lightning damage.
Vine Field		Summons 3 fields of grabbing vines, one at the target location every .5s for 1.5s. Targets hit are damaged for 10% physical damage and snared for 3s, reducing their movement speed by 40%. Targets that have more than 10s of snare duration are rooted. This effect can only trigger once per target.

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 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

Skill	Icon	Base skill
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 abilities that channel through their summons (also referred to as class skill pets).

• Summoners can summon up to three Summons.

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

• Abilities from the summon appear on the summoner's hotbar. The summoner is essentially playing through their summon.
  • Summoner has control over their summon, unless the summon is under ancillary effects.

• Summoners will not be able to fuse with or be taken over by their normal summons.
  • In the case of siege summons the summoner does become the summon.

• Summoners may also have the ability to transfer pain to their summons, meaning that a portion of damage or threat taken by the summoner can be transferred to their summon instead.

• Summoner summons are not the same as combat pets.
  • Summoner's summons will add to the summoner's power when they are summoned, unlike combat pets, which take a portion of the player's power.

The Summoner archetype does not have that portion of power taken away when they summon their pet. That's part of their... power is their summon. – Steven Sharif

• Summons will exist until another summon is cast, the summon is killed, or the summoner logs off.
• 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.
• Summons follow the same PvP flagging rules as players and share the player's flag status.

Summons follow the same flagging rules as players, if your summon pks someone, you gain corruption – Steven Sharif

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

• Animals.
• Spirits.
• Skeletons, zombies and other undead summons will be possible with death-based cleric augments.
• 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 summon.

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

Tank skills

This section contains potentially outdated information from early testing phases.

Skill	Icon	Source	Description
Absorption Field		Alpha-2	A field of absorption.
Aegis		Alpha-2	Instantly dispels all negative effects on the caster, then creates a protective dome behind the tank for 15 seconds, transferring 50% of all damage received by targets within the area to the tank instead. All targets within the cone also receive increased status effect resistance for the duration.
Ancestral Bolas		Alpha-2	Throws a magical web of bolas at the target location. All enemies within are snared and build additional hate towards the tank every second. Enemies entering or exiting the radius will be tripped.
Grapple		Alpha-2	Takes aim for a moment before hurling a hooked chain in a line, damaging the first target it contacts and immediately pulling them to the caster. The target suffers a tapering snare for 3 seconds.
Grit		Alpha-2	Applies a buff to the caster, reducing incoming damage by 15%, but also reducing movement speed by 30% and outgoing damage by 20%. Each incoming hit consumes a stack of courage to reduce incoming damage by an additional 15%. Courage can not be generated while Grit is active.
Hatred		Alpha-0	Single target that adds hate.
Inciting Strikes		Alpha-2	Slashes twice in a forward cone while adding additional threat.
Indomitable Spirit		Alpha-2	30% increased max HP and 30% increased healing received.
Protect		Alpha-2	Intercept attacks that strike your friendly nearby target, redirecting half of the damage taken to you. Must be within 10ys to Protect. If this range is exceeded for more than 5 seconds, the effect ends.
Rush of Courage		Alpha-2	You feel a surge of resolve - gain 100 Courage.
Shake It Off		Alpha-2	Activate to instantly restore 50% of all damage taken in the past 4 seconds. Always heals for at least 10% of your maximum HP.
Shield Assault		Alpha-2	Bashes the target with your shield, dealing damage and applying the shaken condition. If the target is already suffering from the shaken condition, stun the target instead.
Slam		Alpha-2	Slam your target with immense force, knocking them back. Applies 10 stagger. Deals 500% additional threat.
Tremoring Bellow		Alpha-2	Releases a thundering shout in a forward cone, applying the staggered condition on enemy targets. Also stomps the ground dealing damage around the caster and tripping enemies affected by the snared condition.

Siege abilities

War Beast 3D render. 3D model by Jessica Jennings.

Group summons are activated by a party leader with that ability in their class kit along with additive components from other classes that are part of the group.

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

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

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

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

Summoner

Summoners can collaborate together during sieges to summon larger creatures, such as Golems.

We do have the concept of siege summons being a thing with multiple summoners being required in order to create that siege summon. In those situations your character becomes the summon. So you don't have an AI that takes over your previous character but instead the recipient of those additional spell effects becomes the actual summon itself. – Steven Sharif

• The target of the group summon becomes the summon itself.
  • Previously it was stated that the party-leader becomes the summon.

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

• 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.

Tank

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

Pre-alpha 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

This section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Barrier		Cleric	Sacrifice 25% of your maximum health to place a health shield on target ally for 10 seconds. Does not stack.
Blood Fusion		Fighter	Return 100% of damage dealt as health and 50% of damage dealt as mana over the next 6 seconds. If activated while below 50% health, gain 25% increased damage mitigation and healing received over the duration.
Castigation		Cleric	Lashes your target with holy energy whip, dealing direct damage and restoring health and mana to yourself over time.
Communal Restoration		Cleric	Restore health to all party members in range instantly, plus additional healing over time. Allies under the HoT also receive +10% maximum health for its duration. This can overheal.
Consecrating Wave		Cleric	Send forth a cone of radiance that deals radiant damage to all enemies while healing the ten nearest allies.
Consuming Lethal Blow		Fighter	Lethal Blow returns 50% of overkill damage dealt as health and mana.
Defiant Light		Cleric	Heal target ally for 50% of their maximum health over 10 seconds. If that target would receive fatal damage while under this effect, this effect is consumed and prevents that target's death, healing them for 25% of their maximum health instead.
Deliverance		Cleric	Held ability: Charges up healing energy that heals a target ally upon release, scaling in power the longer it is charged and the more % missing health of the target.
Devotion		Cleric	Launch an orb of energy into the air that will fall upon your target, healing them.
Divine Censure		Cleric	Hurls a radiant spear at the target, dealing damage.
Divine Flare		Cleric	Place a targeted area heal on the ground that heals all targets within after several seconds. Total healing is split between all targets hit.
Divine Infusion		Cleric	Consume Divine Power to instantly complete the remaining cast time of any healing spell currently being cast. The amount of Divine Power consumed is proportional to the amount of cast time remaining upon activation.
Divine Light		Cleric	Heals your target with a flash of light. Reduces the cooldown of Devotion and Radiant Burst.
Flash Cure		Cleric	Instantly heal target ally. This may be used during other ability activations.
Healing Aura		Caravan	Provides healing to nearby defenders over time.
Healing Touch		Cleric	Heal target ally in melee range for a large amount of health.
Indomitable Spirit		Tank	30% increased max HP and 30% increased healing received.
Judgment		Cleric	Cast a heal on target ally for a large amount of health. If this is cast on an enemy, it instead deals radiant damage to the target and applies 2 stacks of Burning.
Mend		Cleric	Instantly launch a healing projectile toward target ally. Each charge of this ability consumed after the first has no mana cost, and restores an increasing amount of mana to the caster based on the number of missing charges. Consecutive uses of the ability will gain bonus healing.
Radiant Burst		Cleric	Heals allies around you in a wide area for a large amount. Stacks up to 3 times.
Regeneration		Cleric	Bathe your target with restorative energy that heals them over time.
Resplendent Beam		Cleric	Held ability: Fire a beam of healing energy toward a target ally. Charging this spell allows the beam to bounce to up to 5 additional friendly targets closest to the original target, based on how long it was charged. The amount of healing is reduced for each subsequent target.
Shake It Off		Tank	Activate to instantly restore 50% of all damage taken in the past 4 seconds. Always heals for at least 10% of your maximum HP.
Soothing Glow		Cleric	Apply a healing over time effect to target ally. Reapplying this effect extends its duration on the target by its base duration value.
Wings of Salvation		Cleric	Sprout phoenix-like wings and leap to target ally, then grant a small amount of temporary health to that target on arrival. An ally is defined as any non-combatant player or non-mob NPC.

Ultimate skill

Some 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 combo system.

- None -

Utility skills

Alpha-2 Ranger Camouflage skill.

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". – 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. Utility skills lend themselves toward how classes navigate and deal with hazards in the world.

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. – Steven Sharif

• Classes will have different 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. This is not a free-form ability. It will likely be restricted to certain quests, locations or objects.
  • Certain classes (such as Rogues) will have stealth abilities.

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. – Steven Sharif

• All classes will have maneuverability/traversal utility abilities.
• Utility skills exist that can help players discover hidden paths and entrances and may lead to discovering hidden quests while exploring.
• Certain objects exist in the world (such as ladders and slides) that aid player mobility.

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

Some 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.
• Rogues may also have a spyglass utility skill.

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

Skill	Icon	Origin	Description
Ball Lightning		Mage	Creates a large ball of highly charged electricity that travels slowly forward, dealing rapid periodic lightning damage to enemies it overlaps with and applying 1 Electrified stack to targets with each hit.
Blizzard		Mage	Channel a massive blizzard around you, raining a barrage of hail shards upon your enemies while channeling. Each shard impact deals ice damage in a small area around it. All enemies in the blizzard also acquire 1 stack of Chilled periodically. Activate the ability again to end the channel early.
Chain Lightning		Mage	Release a powerful streak of lightning that hits your primary target and then chains outward to all nearby enemies from that target, dealing lightning damage and applying 3 stacks of Electrified to each target hit.
Cone of Cold		Mage	Blasts a cone of cold in front of the caster, dealing ice damage and applying 1 stack of Chilled to each enemy hit.
Elemental Empowerment		Mage	Whenever you cast an elemental spell, your weapon attacks deal additional damage of that spell's element and apply a stack of the corresponding elemental status effects to targets hit. Casting a spell of a different element switches this effect to the new element.
Fireball		Mage	Instantly hurl a ball of fire toward your target, dealing fire damage and applying 1 stack of Burning to target on impact. Burning deals periodic fire damage over time for each stack applied. When the target reaches 5 stacks, they become Conflagrated, dealing extreme fire damage over time. Hitting a conflagrating enemy with a lightning spell causes Fusion, dealing significant damage and removing the Conflagrated effect.
Fissure		Mage	Call forth a line of jagged earth spikes in front of the[sic] you, dealing earth damage and applying 10 stacks of Stagger to each enemy hit along its path while launching them upwards.
Frostbolt		Mage	Launch a bolt of frost towards your target, dealing ice damage and applying 2 Chilled stacks to the target on impact. Chilled reduces movement speed of the target for each stack applied. When the target reaches 5 stacks, they become Frozen, rooting them in place for the duration. Hitting a frozen enemy with a lightning spell causes them to Shatter, dealing significant damage and removing the Frozen effect.
Lightning Strike		Mage	Held ability: Charge up a bolt of lightning to unleash upon your target, dealing lightning damage and applying 2 stacks of Electrified to the target. This deals additional damage based on how long it was charged. Electrified reduces the target's magical mitigation for each stack applied. When the target reaches 10 stacks, all Electrified stacks are consumed and they become temporarily Shocked. Whenever a Shocked enemy takes damage, they take additional damage and 1 stack of Shocked is consumed. Shocked is initially applied with 20 stacks.
Magma Field		Mage	Erupts the earth at target location, forming a boiling pool of lava that deals fire damage to enemies per tick while periodically applying a stack of Burning to enemies within the area.
Meteor		Mage	Conjures a massive flaming rock before sending it hurling toward target location. Upon impact, it deals major fire damage while knocking foes flying, and then continues to roll forward for its remaining distance, dealing additional fire damage while applying stacks of Burning to enemies along its path.
Quake		Mage	Held ability: Cast a powerful earthquake that deals more damage the longer it was charged and applies 10 stacks of Staggered to all enemies around the caster. If the spell was fully charged, this applies Tripped instead of Staggered.
Thundering Shot		Ranger	Fires a lightning-infused projectile at your target, dealing 200% of your physical power as Lightning damage.

Guns and gunpowder

The Gilded Galleon pre-order pack cosmetic ship skin.

The potion launcher idea will be incorporated as part of how cannons operate on ships; and these will be very large potion launchers obviously. The storage of this ammunitions are going to be very important as well... It's not going to be the same potion every time. You can equip the cannon with different types of potions that have different types of effects from a munitions standpoint; and I think that's going to provide a very cool gameplay because as you see the different color of the trail that's coming out of the potion launched, you'll be aware of what your adversary is using and how that affects your ship; and you'll be able to counter based on maneuverability, based on whatever you want to counter that with. I think that's going to present a very interesting dynamic to the attacks with these ships. – Steven Sharif

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

• Ships will utilize a larger form of potion launcher in place of canons. These canons will be able to be equipped with different potions that have different effects.

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 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- 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 or world bosses.

Q: Will world bosses scale when it comes to player levels and is it based on players or the zone itself leveling?

A: They will not scale based on player level, no. – Steven Sharif

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