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
Rogue:
I want all the "Rogue" types to be unique in both abilities and playstyle, I want each one to play in a different manner in which I have to learn to be a "Duelist" after playing as an "Assassin", I would like meaning and difference in a players skill to play the different archetypes.
The one I am most interested in out of the Rogue Types is "Shadow Lord".
Shadow Lord (Rogue-Summoner):
I would like "Shadow Lord" to live up to its name. Have a skill that can make a shadow of yourself and be able to mimic some of your abilities when you use them.
I would also like you to try out this idea:
As a "Shadow Lord" your rogue stealth (if there's one or maybe a different ability) can be either used to summon the shadow clone or maybe you can use the stealth on an enemy or also an ally and hide inside of their shadows undetected from any abilities (time-limited),
Hiding in an enemy's shadow-
You can maybe get into the backline easier to take out the backline but it's risky because you're hoping the enemy you have attached yourself to, will walk to the back lines.
Use during the confusion of a battle on let's say a "Fighter with low hp", "Fighter" backs off and you will go with,
But while in the shadow of your enemy, you can not attack or move, unless you want to appear,
The enemy you have hidden in will not detect you as well as others around the enemy,
Hiding in an allies shadow-
You can hide inside an allies shadow to keep to the shadows and not be spotted right away,
But you can not attack or move unless you want to appear,
This can be used to maybe make a surprise attack or also defend,
This can maybe be used to assist you to escape from conflict or reposition in a unique manner
I really enjoy how they were able to bring a battle Illusionist to life through clones, short stealths, trickery, teleports and the various utility that the class has to offer without being overpowered.
Mesmer is just a solid and fluid trickery class, and if there is an equivalent class that can compare in AoC it'll definitely be my main.
I enjoy caster classes, but I absolutely hate it when they are very basic and unoriginal. Casting fireballs and icebolts is nice, but don't limit casters to such simple magics. Get creative. For example have some kind of ignite spell that causes the target to take burn damage and leave a trail of fire that burns others that pass through it as they run. Hell, allow the player to use that effect to combo with other things, like wind spells to push the ignited target around spreading the fire in a desired direction, etc.
Really, just be creative with casters. Don't just have basic "Throw fireball" or "Throw rock"
Sounds really good, something like crit dmg + elemental dmg
Bard / Ranger (Song Warden)
I imagine it as a support with bow, without slacking the dps either
Bard / Cleric (Soul Weaver)
Really good support i guess, something like Buffer + "Off healer"
helping the whole group with buffs and healing a bit just to give some time to the main healer to get the cooldowns ready for example
I bet for bard, all in.
--> Full Healer ( Cleric/Cleric )
Depends if I can be usefull on AOC's life and pvp with this
I hope the shadowlord is like the MC of the manhua "Solo Leveling", where u can be an assassin that can summon an army of monsters that you have defeated in the past.
My hope is this plays as an archetype that specialises in misdirection. Not looking for the huge direct burst damage of some of the other classes, but more a class that can help mitigate damage/spikes by using illusions of itself, and also using these illusions as a way of moving around the battlefield.
Mobile + misdirection
Think of some kind of melee Mesmer from GW2
Specifically, let's look at Bard + Tank = Siren.
[/i]With Augment Siren -> I imagine those buffs being augment towards a tank / i.e=Damage Reduction / Protection. Whether physical, magical, bubble magic or currents of air protecting an area, hastening our feet to help us evade danger - or inspiring resolve to generally take less damage -> It's easy to see this being a key & desirable subclass option for main-raid tank support for large-scale operations especially within the realm of PvE. How I translate this in my mind is a Bard - i.e: Party Buffs or with some combos possible enemy debuff's via aoe sound and/or possible magic sourcing / potential (Such as the reduction of enemy damage resistances to ensure the class has both offensive and defensive assets to their party).
A large inquiry I have is the thought process towards Summoner: Cleric -> Necromancer. Necros are typically my wheelhouse, and I love death magic. I'm curious however how life magic Necromancy would work! Would we be theorizing healing pets akin to the fairy (not in theme, just mechanically) for a certain ff's healer jorb?
Edit. Stealth, I need it rly bad and tracking down your victims while being hidden.
What would make this class ideal is to make it preferable for group content by adjusting this content difficulty it in the way that other tank based classes still can handle them it but with much grater risks than pure tank.
Other thing that would make it ideal is to make it OP in PvP so I can create nickname "NoobPwNeR2010" and PK people on Dion gates.
I like aninations of sword moves, not too colourful and screen cluttering, but nice to look at.
Depending on how flavoursome and strong with Two Swords fighter classes are, I will play Dreadnaught, otherwise I will go for Fighter/Fighter
Ideally I could have 1-2 gap closer skills, 1 stun, 1 strong radious atk (whirlwind) and the rest can be power attacks with bonus status effects for chain combos.
I'll pick one for the purpose of this discussion.
A Bard. In addition to CC, I would like to have a few abilities based on insults. They would be single target and cone effect abilities doing physical damage. The damage shouldn't compete with Mage dps. I hope a small amount ability overlap between Primary Archetypes will be okay (I saw that Bards wouldn't just be a "buff monkey", so this idea fits in with that)
For some Bard abilities, you could remove all visual clues from around the Bard and just use audio SFX instead (not a hard sell for the animations team!).
Bard abilities that need animations could use arcane text or musical notes in them.
If a Bard has to jump six foot in the air during an ability then I hope it is to pluck a spectral guitar from the aether above them and then land on the ground playing a power chord shockwave like a rockstar in a stadium.
I don't like the AoC jumping and hovering animations I've seen so far (#placeholder); for all attacks and most abilities I'd prefer to see the impactful part being associated with planting a foot (feet) on the ground and sinking some weight onto that leg (legs).
For the level 26+ class I would go Trickster (Bard+Rogue) and think about adding poison or bleed augments. If a Trickster could 'throw their voice' to make Bard abilities start from somewhere else then that would fit the class name extremely well. That could be achieved by keeping a tab target and using an optional ground reticule to determine the fake point of origin.
Basically what I want is a class with some emphasis on pets and nature, and getting around solo through difficult areas. This will also be a gatherer most likely, so I want to be able to either solo-kill hard mobs, or let the pets or traps distract them long enough for me to gather the materials and gtfo. And tame creatures for my animal husbandry character, very importantly.
My group character will be Minstrel or High Priest, assuming they are the best all-round support classes in their respective archetypes. That's really the main drive behind the choice. Forget solo play, just, what synergizes best with my group.
In my mind this is a class that breaks the traditional norm of a typical physical damage rogue by augmenting the attacks with elemental damage or improved survivability. I love the idea of being able to stack bleeds and elemental damage together on my opponents and start falling back early because I know the ticks will kill them and I don't have to stick around.
I also like the idea of having to balance my stats between physical and magical to get the best benefit from both sides. I would imagine that the magical augments would scale off your magic/int stat which means this is a build that takes careful planning to execute at its fullest.
I hope that a class like this has more D.O.T instead of pump and dump burst damage. I envision myself laughing maniacally as I delve back into the shadows to watch my victim die a slow and painful death.
I will probably play a fighter or rogue primary archetype with a fighter or rogue secondary archetype. I might try out some other secondary archetypes if the playstyle feels better.
I would want a character with decent mobility, medium-fast attacks with a heavy hit, but the ability to actually use melee weapons and not get melted by an enemies close-range attacks. ( I have no idea if there will be dodging mechanics or dodge rng, or even a way to block); if there aren't any defense mechanisms then I would want my character to be able stand his ground in close-combat.
For Mage, I hope that the casting and movement doesn't feel "heavy". I feel as if Mages should have a decent amount of mobility spells, but are required to stand still (with some exceptions) while casting as a trade-off for having high burst at range.
A lot of MMORPGs try and make Ranger the "pet" class and I absolutely despise that, so hopefully with Summoner being a thing and Combat pets also being a thing, Ashes will avoid that. I hope that the Ranger archetype is mobile and is able to fluidly use their attacks while moving as I feel like Rangers should be a more sustained damage class with high mobility. This is especially true if Ashes is still going with the design of Rangers not being able to attack with their bow if their target is too close.