So happy to hear you will have in depth custimization on how many abilities you have to use.

Grox

1:24:37 . Just finished watching the stream video. I'm excited and the combat looks promising for a pre alpha. I really dislike having to spam a bunch of abilities and have an overwhelming hot bar. However I'm aware of people who do like to play that way. I am so glad that we will have the option to play how we want so both players get to play that way, I'm happy for them. This opens up more build types and ways to play. I like how Steven said it wide or tall. For someone like me I'd be happy with only 6 abilities can have a lot of fun. Would go with tall. I'm a fan of using a lot of passives. But picking and choosing which to use and upgrade/level up will still matter and have a big impact. A build that still requires skill and focusing on your combat more than abilities. More full action based. Someone else may hate that and find it extremely boring. Because of the choice of customization they can have a massive hot bar and even multiple hot bars. I could imagine someone very skilled and good at multi tasking playing some kind of spell intensive Mage build. You have all kinds of combos, damage and can burst people down. But also a lot of CC and disruption so being skilled at using all your abilities you can really control the battlefield. You must be very skilled at using many abilities and good at timing to pull this off. It's cool someone will have the option for this as I know some players will love this kind of hard but rewarding play. I hope both builds will be viable and helpful in PVP.

Only thing I was disappointed is they barely answered any questions. Would be nice and helpful if they did more question answering streams more often.

Hurf Derfman

I agree. Though I think every base archetype should start with one free rank in a base ability.

Tank- taunt
Cleric- single target heal
Rogue- stealth
Summoner- a pet
Fighter- rush (the only known ability lol)
Ranger- a bow attack
Mage- a spell attack
Bard- a song/dps buff

Unless of course you start with a skill point to put where ever, or the first level goes super fast.

Damokles

I really love their idea of dividing the skills into active, weapon and passive.
They will let me make my 4 ability bard with tons of passives that way!

Grox

Damokles wrote: »

I really love their idea of dividing the skills into active, weapon and passive.
They will let me make my 4 ability bard with tons of passives that way!

Oh yeah there is weapon specific skills too. Hahaha that sounds amazing and so fitting for a bard. I heard him mention daggers will apply bleed. Looks like I'll be rolling Tank main, Rogue sub dagger build.

Inixia

I think I'm actually the opposite end when it comes to ability and skill access although I get why some players would like the MOBA/GW2 style restricted hot bars with only a limited number of abilities to focus on at one time for simplicity.

Personally, I'd rather you have access upfront to *all* of your class abilities via hotbars and I like when the design philosophy is around rotations that are premeditated to be a little complex and engaging to do in raids (staggered cooldowns for example and charge use). I like the feeling of weaving together spells and having a variety of options to make adaptations and counterplay as appropriate when different mechanics spring up. When hotbars are restricted to a few spells I find myself spending a lot of time grinding and even pvp just going through the same button motions. That's by design as abilities aren't designed with one flow in mind but need to be open to work with varying limited-button combinations. And in pvp I feel like the advantage is gained more on choosing the right skills before the fight and knowing when to engage at the start, rather than adding more mid combat adaptation elements and mindgames (which I prefer).

That's just my own opinion obviously. But I suppose the tldr version is that I would rather be slightly challenged/overwhelmed with the tools available to me then given only a few repetitive options. And I know some of you will disagree, but that's just my own preference.

Grox

Inixia wrote: »

I think I'm actually the opposite end when it comes to ability and skill access although I get why some players would like the MOBA/GW2 style restricted hot bars with only a limited number of abilities to focus on at one time for simplicity.

Personally, I'd rather you have access upfront to *all* of your class abilities via hotbars and I like when the design philosophy is around rotations that are premeditated to be a little complex and engaging to do in raids (staggered cooldowns for example and charge use). I like the feeling of weaving together spells and having a variety of options to make adaptations and counterplay as appropriate when different mechanics spring up. When hotbars are restricted to a few spells I find myself spending a lot of time grinding and even pvp just going through the same button motions. That's by design as abilities aren't designed with one flow in mind but need to be open to work with varying limited-button combinations. And in pvp I feel like the advantage is gained more on choosing the right skills before the fight and knowing when to engage at the start, rather than adding more mid combat adaptation elements and mindgames (which I prefer).

That's just my own opinion obviously. But I suppose the tldr version is that I would rather be slightly challenged/overwhelmed with the tools available to me then given only a few repetitive options. And I know some of you will disagree, but that's just my own preference.

Well luckily for you they said you can do both. Or at least something similar to what you are saying.

Ravudha

I liked the part about weapon groups and passives - the daggers and bleeds example...makes me wonder what I can do with a mace

Grox

Ravudha wrote: »

I liked the part about weapon groups and passives - the daggers and bleeds example...makes me wonder what I can do with a mace

Yeah it's really cool. For mace I'm thinking some kind of armor penetration timed activate or passive. Spear maybe bonus range passive upgrades or/and AOE range upgrades? Sword and axe I'm not sure.

ZeekMystic

Here’s my fear about the weapon tree. They’ve said that certain archetypes will be better with certain weapons.

Now does that take the form of access to weapon trees, as in certain archetypes will only have certain weapons on their trees or does the weapon tree only show the equipped weapon and the reason certain archetypes are better with them are because that archetype has skills that benefit from them
The example given being that the rogue can exploit the bleed effect with the backstab skill but anyone can wield a dagger and gain the bleed effect if they spend the SP on the weapon tree for it
Another would be anyone can use a shield but only the tank can take advantage of it with the skills like shield bash.

I fear that if it’s the former it may cause at least some degree of “ideal” builds when picking weapons for archetypes, and I want to be a sword battlemage so bad lol

I understand there’s not been much information of this yet, just wondering if anyone else has thought of this.

Hurf Derfman

KeybladerH wrote: »

Here’s my fear about the weapon tree. They’ve said that certain archetypes will be better with certain weapons.

Now does that take the form of access to weapon trees, as in certain archetypes will only have certain weapons on their trees or does the weapon tree only show the equipped weapon and the reason certain archetypes are better with them are because that archetype has skills that benefit from them
The example given being that the rogue can exploit the bleed effect with the backstab skill but anyone can wield a dagger and gain the bleed effect if they spend the SP on the weapon tree for it
Another would be anyone can use a shield but only the tank can take advantage of it with the skills like shield bash.

I fear that if it’s the former it may cause at least some degree of “ideal” builds when picking weapons for archetypes, and I want to be a sword battlemage so bad lol

I understand there’s not been much information of this yet, just wondering if anyone else has thought of this.

I'm hoping that certain archetypes will have a small group of weapons to pick from and when you pick a second archetype and form your class you gain one or two of that archetypes favored weapon.

So for example Tank is the shield expert, when taken as a second you can now spec into shields.

There are up to 15 proposed weapon types so it's hard to gauge who gets what but a primary archetype should absolutely have more than two.

As for what your second archetype grants I would expect something like:

Tank shield and mace/longsword
Mage, wands and books.
Ranger Bow and crossbow
Rouge dual wield dagger/1h ax
Fighter two hand sword/ax
Cleric staff and hammers

The two hybrid archetypes wouldn't
Summoner grants a pet.
Bards... I honestly have no idea

Or they could do something broad following D&D logic.

Clerics would be restricted to blunt weapons. If he wants martial weapons he takes fighter and if he wants weapons of finesse he would take rouge.

Bard would have a mix of caster and finesse weapons by default.

Anyway these are all just theories based in D&D/Wish list stuff.
😝

ZeekMystic

Hurf Derfman wrote: »

Or they could do something broad following D&D logic.

Clerics would be restricted to blunt weapons. If he wants martial weapons he takes fighter and if he wants weapons of finesse he would take rouge.

Bard would have a mix of caster and finesse weapons by default.

Anyway these are all just theories based in D&D/Wish list stuff.
😝

Yes! Bring d&d into this let AoC do more right by the wonder of d&d than perfect world ever did...
*clears throat* sorry my DM is showing

Honestly I like that idea a lot and if the weapon pools per archetype are broader I’m okay with that and would love it if the secondary archetype were to add more for your character it would go along with there philosophy of “shifting the dial a little bit”

Thank you for giving me more to think about

Damokles

Grox wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

I really love their idea of dividing the skills into active, weapon and passive.
They will let me make my 4 ability bard with tons of passives that way!

Oh yeah there is weapon specific skills too. Hahaha that sounds amazing and so fitting for a bard. I heard him mention daggers will apply bleed. Looks like I'll be rolling Tank main, Rogue sub dagger build.

I really like the idea of a dot based melee tank, with evasion etc, but remember to equip another weapon for group pulls then xD
(Daggers will have the smallest weapon arc of any melee weapon, making them suboptimal for multiple enemies I would think)

KronKrian

Tbh i am also excited but scared at the same time.
On one hand, incredible customization and adjustment to suit your style of play.
But on the other... i am afraid of being left out due to an ineffective build.

Damokles

KronKrian wrote: »

Tbh i am also excited but scared at the same time.
On one hand, incredible customization and adjustment to suit your style of play.
But on the other... i am afraid of being left out due to an ineffective build.

DPS meters are not a thing. Who cares what build you run xD

My planned builds:
Melee offtank bard with a halberd.
Movementspeed Rogue who goes BRRRRRT with a shortbow (Full Dex build with no other stats, because Dex apparently gives you cdr on physical skills)
Bleed Fighter with a twohanded axe or something like that

I dont think that any of them will work, but will they be fun? Hopefully yes!

Vyraka

KronKrian wrote: »

Tbh i am also excited but scared at the same time.
On one hand, incredible customization and adjustment to suit your style of play.
But on the other... i am afraid of being left out due to an ineffective build.

Yes, I'm curious if some archetype combinations will dominate over others and become a meta. That would be a shame. However, I specifically recall them mentioning on working on balancing all 64 combinations. Let's hope that happens. It would be nice to have true variety.

Vyraka

Great Brae

I Like the idea of getting the skills you want, and them improving them with affixes from the 2nd class. I can't wait to make frost/fire/lightning strikes with my spellblade toon, and have that port rush unless the other affixes are more tantalizing for it.

I would like him to be a sword and board dps if that is a thing in this game (we have yet to see the full scope of abilities in game)

I am starting to hear weapons will have there own skills too, I'm wondering if class affixes can be applied to them.