Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Dont do it, you are playing right into @Nagash 's hands! Soon he will have his necromancer army to do his bidding!
I'm the good Necromancer who doesn't kill people. I just brood from the necromancer tower I just bought.
Disappointing
Begone Wight, you hold no power here!
Excuse me. But I'm a Fuck-mothering Lich. I raised a lot of people to get this title. I deserve to be called such.
(if you get the reference to tell me)
1. You are excused.
2. You should worry, for i know all 10 steps to truly kill you and I wont stop after step 1.
3. Okay, you know what? Fuc* it... knife!
And this is why I like you Damokles ^^
EQ2 - Fury: It was a lot of fun to manage DOT healing while having time in between to contribute damage. Plus the class has tons of utility spells, it always felt useful.
Vanguard Saga of Heroes - Disciple: Using Melee combos was a fun and amazing spin of the classic healer. You could easily contribute right on the front line, and had to in order to heal effectively. As a consequence you could often fill an off-tank role.
The theme here I suppose is that in both cases I became far more than a heal bot, so game play was far more engaging.
As a Tank there is one that I always go back to:
SWTOR - Guardian: The AOE agro pulls and crowd control skills livened up the game play (again, letting him do other useful things). Also with multiple types of leaps that could be used at different points in combat it made the game play feel exciting. Immobile tanks are always boring IMHO.
For range some of my best MMO memories are in WOW:
WOW - Hunter: The bow skills are not really anything special here but the class did two things that no one else has done with a ranged character as far as I know. First they added a pet to off tank for you, most ranger type classes just get zerg rushed by mobs so you spend most of your time running to kite (very dull). Second it has very effective escape options when the pet didn't take the pressure off, skills like scatter shot.
DPS...I mean jesus -> push button ->read number ->push next button. Are there different ways to do that?
As a side note another class I enjoyed with the Everquest Enchanter whose sole purpose was to "Mesmerize" enemies and keep the number count down.
I have to disagree, the biggest part of an MMORPG IS the RPG. Taking that away starts to deteriorate the dynamic way that players may interact. Even if you want to just place those non-combat classes as jobs, then reinforce the need for support classes. The only thing is that this will again reiterate the trinity that is usually defaulted to. The trinity wasn't started for only imstancing and pvp. Its just the min-maxing meta that is primarily used.
Still, supporting roles, or non combat classes are a unique and very fun experience for anyone that wants something outside the box/unorthodox
I havent spoken about non combat classes (professions) or RPG. I havent spoken against real non heal-support classes .
I spoke against "build your own class" "play as you want" models which combine random abilities but ultimatelly lead to 4-5 meta builds that 99% of the population runs.
The bard did their buffs and heals by damaging the enemy.
The chloromancer made your team heal by hitting enemies, which was a nice new way to heal.
The Shadowblade and Thane was nice from DaoC.
Thane mostly becouse the lighting attacks while also beeing a melee class.
Champion in LOTRO was really fun to play due to its versitality.
Also really liked the witch hunter in warhammer online.
Assassin from Aion is my favorite assassin due to the pace.
Shadowblade from daoc is my close second.
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Necro is also nice
The first one is an archer that has sick long-range abilities and trick shots to snipe players down before they see me. The fun part of this character was able to set traps, and have a pet with them. Or another fun alternative is there's a second class to this archer character who can use magic (either able to summon a hell hound or cast magic enchanted arrows). if I remember correctly, archers' stats were dex/vit and agi.
The other one is a dual-wielding Theif which can disappear in the shadows and deliver devastating blows from the back of players and quickly back in the shadow again until his next strike. The fun part for this guy is he can sneak pass dungeon and only fight with the final boss. And he can pick other players and NPC's pocket (of course, at a cost when you get caught). The cool thing about this character is, he is the nemesis of the archer mention above because he can set off traps without being noticed. Again to add a twist, the second class to the thief is to have magic abilities. Either become an illusionist or a buff caster thief. Another really cool thing too is slash and hack for a short period of time in dual-wielding. Then for thieves, the stats were vit/str and agi.
In my opinion, I liked the thief more than the archer because I remember the thief can always runs faster than the archer.
I also like how I was able to control what status points I wanted to add to. It makes everyone a bit more unique.
These characters are a combination of multiple games and promises that were never made by some game company, but they sure lived in my gaming fantasy world waiting to become real.
wish someone would do a viable necromancer...fire mage is bleh...it's been done to death...I really liked Rifts warlock....that's my favorite/ideal.
You could summon 3 skeletons and you could choose class for each, 2 healers 1 tank, 1 ranged 2 tanks etc.
Some classes that you can see in Asian mmos but not as much in western mmos, like a Scythe wielding class, or a whip wielding one (vampire hunter anyone?)
Classes like that with different type of weapons we dont usually see.
A Samurai would ofcourse be sweet.
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I had a lot more fun when I got pushed into their other classes though. Paladin was a beast when you set up some huge macros. Something that I couldn't do as a druid. I just loved the drastic differences in all of the classes in that game. As previously mentioned in this thread. Disciple and Bloodmage were some of the most unique healers that I've seen in an MMO. And oddly, haven't seen since. Unique feel to the classes made me and my wife level 8 different classes to 50+.
I like to play a class which can heal and support but if it is necessary can also deal damage.
Lineage 2 Veteran
I will need to do a lot of testing to see what I actually settle on.
So I'm looking at Primary: Bard, Cleric Mage or Summoner augmented with one of the same as secondary.
High Priest or Scryer would be a first choice if I'm feeling the heals/utility
or
Archwizard or Warlock if I want to blow stuff up.
And I will probably end up with a heals utility character and a magic dps character to swap in and out of depending on my mood. There are 16 choices in that setup that I can try out and see what fits.
Unfortunately, only RPGs have been able to fill that void. I still have not found an MMO that has implemented Spellsword in way that feels right. My hopes are that Ashes is able to deliver through designing the Spellsword in the following way or at least have it as an option of play within the class itself. What I am referring to is having the ability to use a sword or any one handed weapon really, in one hand and being able to cast spells with the other hand. I've always loved the idea of having the ability to weave in spells like Geralt does in the Witcher Series. Geralt in The Witch 3, doesn't have many spells, but they few he has he has mastered them, just as well as he has mastered his melee combat. His armor is also something that I would be cool to have for this class too, since it is a mixture of Light and Medium armor.