How many abilities will an average max level character have?

nerdifiedgeek

I'm very excited about Ashes and continue to be the more information that I hear. One thing that has always concerned me though is the route they go with character abilities. I know there is supposed to be different abilities based on the weapon you have equipped, and of course your class/subclass chosen. I've never really heard how many abilities it is expected this will come out to though. Is it going to be something more like GW2 where you have a single hot bar of abilities that can be hot swapped in combat based on the weapon you have wielded, or is it going to be something more like EQ2 where you have potentially 10 hot bars of abilities?

Thanks!

Noaani

Wandering Mist wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

To be able to choose which skills I use based on the circumstances I'm faced with.

For sure.

But if we only have 4, it isn't that much of a choice.

Give us 15 and all of a sudden tht choice that you and I both want is both more in depth, more interesting and more meaningful.

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Even if you have 10 skills in your rotation, after doing your opener hundreds of times and your rotation thousands of times you stop thinking about it anyway.

See the above three posts.

If this is possible, the combat system is a failure.

My point is that just because you have fewer buttons to press doesn't mean your combat system lacks depth. I'd rather have a skill that can be used 5 different ways than 5 separate skills that can only be used 1 way. If a class is complete I see no need in adding more abilities just for the sake of it.

Getting stuck up on "oh I want at least 15 buttons to press" doesn't help anyone and will just cause problems further down the line.

I play as a DPS mage as my main in every MMO I play - though I also do a fair amount of group and solo content.

As a mage on a raid, I want the following abilities as the absolute basics.
At least four long range single target damage abilities that vary in damage amount with appropriately scaled cast and recast timer.
At least 2 long range AoE damage abilities.
At least 1 massive damage ability that requires specific positioning to use to maximum effect.
At least one proactive threat management ability.
At least one reactive threat management ability on a very long recast.
At least one mana management ability.

With the minimum of the above, we are at 10 spells. I would consider that a barely functioning raid DPS mage - it is the skeleton of what could be a good and enjoyable class, but in itself it has almost no flavor or interest as yet.

The thing with the above is that you can't combine any of those abilities together without taking away from the class.

The damage abilities should speak for themselves. There are only 7 there - 4 single target and 2 AoE, along with one positional ability that is the only part of the class so far that allows for a better player to differentiate themselves. This is one area many games simply give"a" direct damage spell and "a" AoE spell and call it quits. This is why many games have boring combat. Add in a few of each type, each with differing cast, recast and damage values (and mana used, I consider that obvious but am including it for the benefit of others that may be reading). The reason for wanting spells with different recast timers (which in itself kind of requires differing cast timers and damage values in order to maintain some form of balance) will become apparent a few paragraphs from now.

Now, one could look at the two threat management abilities and ask if they could be combined with each other, or if they could be combined with other abilities. The thing is, in a tab target based MMO (which is the perspective I am looking at here), the correct use of threat management is a skill unto itself.

The best DPS mages know when to stop casting damage abilities and instead use that time to cast something to lower their threat - the players DPS appears to suffer because they stop casting damage abilities, but they gain a higher probability of not pulling aggro, being killed and thus having a much lower DPS. If a proactive DPS ability is simply combined in to (as an example) a direct damage ability, then that totally removes the skill involved in knowing when to take the DPS output hit in order to lower your threat in a proactive manner.

All of the above also applies to a mana management ability.

A reactive threat management ability is for those few times the mage does manage to pull aggro, and with quick enough reflexes (DPS mages don't get hit by raid mobs twice), you can prevent a death (or a wipe, depending on raid mechanics and timing).

Those three abilities need to be independent of each other, and independent of anything else, as a raid DPS mage should have the ability to make use of any of them at what ever point the mage feels they are needed - recast timer notwithstanding.

Now, the problem with the above, as I mentioned, is that it is lacking interest. One way to make the above class fun to play would be to add in a few PBAoE abilities, so that the player then has a position based rotation where they need to time running in to the mob (or mobs - as it may only be efficient if there are three or more that you can hit) and cast PBAoE spells, followed by the massive damage position dependent spell from the above list.

To make this even more interesting, there could be the option of having one or two of the smaller damage abilities able to be cast while running, so you are not completely wasting time running in to position yourself. This need not be a new ability.

Then to add the final bit of interest to the class, a short duration self buff that gives all spells cast for the next 10 seconds a [x%] chance to halve the recast timer, and a single target group only (specifically not raid only) buff that adds a damage proc to any melee attack the target successfully makes.

The first of these two buffs is what makes the class a little interesting. You can't have a rotation running optimally if there is a chance that your best spell could be back and ready to cast in half the normal amount of time. You may have to make decisions about whether it is worth casting that self buff in hopes of lowering the recast on a big single target direct damage ability, or hold on to it for a 30 more seconds until your massive damage position dependent ability is ready. You may find yourself in a situation where the best thing for you to do DPS wise is to run in and fire off your PBAoE's and positional attack even if not all of them are up.

Basically, that one single buff turns this class (or any class) from something where you can work out a rotation and just stick to it, to one where you have to be constantly assessing and reassessing your situation every few seconds to determine what is the best thing to be doing next.

The second buff (the one you cast on another player to add damage to melee attacks) is something that you can cast on a melee based character that will (if designed and balanced correctly) slightly alter the dynamics of that players class. It is a buff where smaller but faster attacks will gain more than bigger, slower attacks, and so the player you cast it on - if they know what they are doing - will want to alter how they play ever so slightly to best take advantage of that buff. This is the sort of ability that - to me - every class should have that they can cast on another player, so that there are always subtle changes to how your class behaves based on which of these buffs you have on you - which is obviously dependent on which classes you have with you in your group.

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So, with the above we have a functioning and interesting raid DPS mage class. There are 14 spells, all of which need to be independent of each other. If the function of any of those 14 spells in combined, then the class is diminished as a whole.

The thing with that 14 spells is that there is no "utility". It is just the basics of being a raiding mage and not falling asleep. I'd also like to add to that list a single "interesting" spell, something along the lines of "Tempered Fate" as you mentioned.

I absolutely DO want abilities like that in any game I play. They make the game interesting - not just combat. As a mage, I'd love to have a bubble spell that I can cast on any target (friendly, enemy of myself) that I can then control for 5 - 8 seconds in any direction, on any axis. To me, that gives the class so many possibilities of things they can do, situations they can get out of (or in to) that others can't necessarily do (though others have their own thing).

So now we have a 15 spell class, one that is interesting to play in a raid, and has some interest outside of combat and in unexpected circumstances.

This type of character is what I had in mind when I said 15 spells is the minimum I expect in order to make combat interesting - as again, you can't take any of those abilities away from this build, nor can you combine the function of any of these abilities, without diminishing the class over all.

Having four abilities is fine in a game where you are only every really fighting other players. In a game where there is an expectation of spending hours fighting PvE content though, it won't be enough.