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
My opinion of the classes is that the abillities we saw (like for example the cleric from 1 to 10 abillities) are absolutelly dope as hell, but the names of the subclasses can be very very bad and confusing at times (for example ther is both necromancer and shadowmancer and shadow lord) and its just very very confusing.
I'm very excited to see what you will roll out, there is so much potential and diversity. I see many Alts in my future!
I will certainly spend the majority of my time playing the cleric archetype. The classes I am most excited to play are the protector and shaman. Of all 64 classes these two seem closest to the druid class in pathfinder. The druid class in pathfinder was my favorite, and closest to my ideal party role. They had a diverse spell list which could support allies while damaging enemies, and they could shape change and command an animal companion. So they could run to the front if the party was overwhelmed. I also really felt connected to the nature vibes from a role play perspective.
For this to be my ideal class in AoC I would definitely want the build to have competitive healing and control abilities even if they are not the strongest class in DPS. An AoE spell with vine art that healed allies while rooting enemies for damage over time would be cool (hallowed ground that roots in place?). Finally, my crazy mold breaking idea would be to have some sort of thorn or bestial transformation that would allow the protector/shaman to run to the front line for a brief time if a party is on the verge of death. Stealing health and mana for the group while mitigating big damage (castigation with a large payout large cooldown?). If clerics are the undisputed masters of life and death, my ideal class when working in a group is the cleric who is definitively the master of life and growth.
I'm not holding back.
I'm interested in Bard:
Two reasons drive my personal choice:
Minstrel (Bard/Bard)
What is the core identity of a Bard?
A bard focuses on utility at the expense of all branches of the trinity: damage/healing/tanking.
This means we rely on being in a party, our abilities focus on interaction with other classes, and we don't know what to do with ourselves when we're alone. We don't want to sing/recite prose to ourselves. We want an audience who can benefit.
In PvE we won't draw much aggro, but if we become high priority in PvP then we are extremely vulnerable since we can neither heal or tank or fight back. Because of this, the Bard emergency strategy is to run/evade/confuse/misdirect and when all else fails and we find ourselves cornered: charm.
"I think there's been a small misunderstanding here. Howabout we have a civil discussion and figure out what went wrong?"
Music, prose and poetry have a common root: they all deal with metre (or lackthereof), of seasons, of the passing of time. The crests and troughs of tension and release, ebb and flow, build up and flourish. As a seasoned performer, a Bard has presence - they bring with them an atmosphere that affects others wherever they go.
What distinguishes a Minstrel from her sibling Bards, is that she retains neutrality from all 3 branches of the trinity - whereas other bards lean in toward one of those branches. To me, she supports balance in the trinity by using party member's abilities to reinforce each other:
At a basic level, a minstrel can take a lopsided party, and re-inforce the weaker components by capitalizing on the party's strengths.
At a high skill level, a minstrel is in tune with the flow of battle - directing her support to the tank as he engages, redirecting her support to the clerics if an enemy gets in the back lines, and on the look out for any of her dps members who find an opening.
Mezzo Forte - A Minstrel's presence boosts the base stats of her allies.
Mezzo Piano - A Minstrel's debuffs steal base stats from enemies to bolster her Mezzo Forte.
Songwarden and Bowsinger (Bard/Ranger) and (Ranger/Bard)
By contrast, a Bowsinger specializes in DPS in order to bolster the party's healing and tanking.
Songwardens are not as flexible as Minstrels in their support and rely heavily on other DPS classes to take full advantage of their bonuses. Compared to other DPS Bards, the Songwarden's domain is attack speed - so their focus is to turn an ally into a hurricane, and use this ally's attacks to cut down the enemy's attack speed.
The Songwarden marks an enemy and her designated ally's attacks sap attack speed from that enemy.
Accelerando - Her presence gives all party members a flat boost to weapon speed.
Ritardando - Her debuffs hamper enemy attack speed.
Like the Songwarden, Bowsingers are also in the backlines, casting and attacking from afar. Her consecutive attacks build up her attack speed. As her attacks accelerate to a climax, she expends her bonus attack speed to trigger the effects of her augments:
Trickster and Charlatan (Bard/Rogue) and (Rogue/Bard)
By contrast, a Charlatan specializes in DPS in order to support the party's healing and tanking.
In my head, a Trickster is Flynn Rider from Tangled - a master of make-shift weapons, making things up as he goes along. Now a Trickster is a melee range support character with a small HP pool, as such they employ all manner of disorientation in order to survive at close range: stealth, illusion, evasion, disguise. They have the fastest movement of all the Bards in order to flit in and out of precarious situtations. Their domain is Critical Srikes and their goal is to expose the weaknesses of the enemy, distract and annoy them and send them on wild goose hunts. In PvP, a trickster is trying to bait out the more powerful abilities that their opponents are holding on to. A Trickster is never alone, and any lone tricksters are most probably baiting you into an ambush. A rule of thumb when fighting tricksters: don't waste your spells on a Trickster, kill his team first because he doesn't do much on his own. Even if you do catch him, he'll either attempt to charm you with a blue-steel smoulder, big puppy eyes or a dramatic sob story.
Staccato - a Trickster's presence increases the party's critical strike chance
Sforzando - a Tricker's debuffs expose an enemy, boosting the crit chance and crit damage of ally attacks on the target.
A Charlatan is no more reliable or trustworthy than a Trickster, however a Charlatan won't hesitate to deal the killing blow himself. He loves the limelight, and as such does not use stealth because his enemies should be watching his every movement as he walks around non-chalantly at a safe distance on the battlefield.
"I'm not doing anything, I swear! I just wanted to walk over here."
He is a high burst-damage character, who snaps at opportunities to dash into combat, flourish his weapon and dash back out with his pockets full of goodies to share with the rest of the party.
I paired them like this because I started blurring the identity of the two classes in my head, so I wanted to explicitly differentiate them.
YES!!!
Necromancer- summon undead minions to fight for you and protect you.
Wild Blade- summon ethereal swords that fly at your enemy and can protect you.
Archwizard- move beyond elemental magic to the deeper arcane magics, lots of AoE.
Siren- use the power of your voice to protect and destroy
Magician- use slight of hand and real magic in a trickster kind of way
Warlock- call upon dark denizens to fulfill your darkest desires
Scion- shoot magic arrows of a different caliber
Cultist- wield unholy magic within the shadows
These are just some of the classes I wanna try and my interpretation of them. I am very excited to see what Intrepid Studios comes up with and how different and awesome they can make these classes.
I have mastered Rogue and would like to become an Assassin.
I'm drawn to classes that don't offer a lot of defense, but can do a lot of damage if you take risks, that require such skill and offer the thrill of combat.
I also want to be an armor crafter, so if the materials I need are nearby, I would like to be able to forage for them alone, under the cover of darkness
Ideas of class consist of:
- High self crowd control reduction
- Melee powerhouse
- Intimidating presence
- Increasingly deadlier the longer a fight persists
- High priority target
- Rampage (Consecutive kills grant temporary and stackable stat increases)
- Warcry (buffs self and allies)
- Bloodlust (consecutive attacks grants bloodlust temporarily giving stackable life steal
and increased attack/movement/animation speed)
- Apostatize (Executes a low health enemy that isn't shielded/buffed if successful heals 20% of your
max health)
- Maul (Tackles a target for a duration. While under duration victim is vulnerable to basic attacks.
These basic attacks count towards Bloodlust stacks. Tab targetable or free aim. Maul
breaks target invisibility.
- Stricken (Expends a percentage of Bloodlust stacks, depending how long key is
held, in a devastating AOE around player. Enemies in blast are mini stunned for .35 seconds. Stricken
also mandatorily expends all Rampage stacks increasing the damage of Stricken
for each stack. Stricken heals player for each enemy hit in AOE.
But for now Dreadnought (Fighter,Tank).
Ideas of class consist of:
- Last person you want to focus right away
- Disrupts the battlefield
- Dark sinister presence
- Contention (Passively regenerates a portion of each instance of damage taken)
- Defiance (Decreases the time is takes to regenerate from Contention for a duration)
- Unerring Gaze (Dreadnought's eyes flash with glowing energy. Enemies caught facing
Dreadnought in that time are teleported in front of Dreadnought, max 3.)
- Abide (Enemies effected by Dreadnought's abilities or attacks are slowed and unable to teleport,
enemy individual duration max 5 seconds, enemy individual cooldown 30 seconds).
- Diminish (Dreadnought shoulder charges in a straight line over a good distance at a high rate of
speed. Enemies in direct path are pinned against Dreadnought for duration and thrown to the ground at the
end. Enemies slightly off path are stutter stepped. Allies in direct or slightly off path are stutter stepped.
Breaks invisibility and dismounts enemies. Can be tab targetable or free aimed.)
- Forsaken (Spikes exploded in an AOE in every direction from Dreadnought. Enemies effected are
damaged and mini stunned. After a short duration the spikes return to the player healing Dreadnought for
each enemy damaged.) *For each quarter of max health Dreadnought loses Forsaken casts for
free.
Class abilities should synergize with each other and feel unique having different tempos. No class should feel the same. Abilities should be strong and impactful giving players the sense of worth and power. With the strength of damage giving a powerful feeling to dps classes comes that clutch heal or spell which is the best feeling as a healer knowing you saved your teammates life. And that person being saved feels appreciated.
Synergy, Uniqueness, Power.
I wish I could create a game
I have high hopes that AoC will make this class versatile, not OP.
Long Range
Ability to assume the perspectives of your summon leaving your char on auto.
Flying, swimming, invisible...
Evolving to reflect increased levels or power
Mechanics for multiple summons with combination actions
It would also be cool if they talked back to me when i yell at them. Lol
For me a Cleric/Cleric will be the epitome of Healing wing of the holy trinity. None can match the Holy Priest's power or breadth of healing.
My ideal Cleric/Cleric:
A Holy Priest's offensive casting skills are basic and shallow, as they have trained single mindedly to hone their healing abilities. Their devotion to the healing arts has also left them at a disadvantage regarding physical combat. No heavy-headed maces here, as the Holy Priest prefers a staff or orb.
The Holy Priest not only excels in all forms of healing, but would also offer the party protection in the form of damage mitigation/absorption. These would take the form of 'breaks when xx damage received', 'blocks all damage for x seconds', and 'xx% of the damage your target takes is inflicted on you instead for x seconds'.
The Shadow Lord has so much potential, and I hope at least a fraction of it will be realized.
With the Rogue primary class and Summoner secondary class, the possibilities are endless. Though we do not currently have information on the Rogue skills (besides Stealth) or the Summoner augments, enough can be inferred or imagined to fill in the gaps. For my own ideas, I have imagined the following skills and augments.
Rogue Skills
-Backstab: Maneuvers behind the target and strikes it in the back.
-Beatdown: Channels a combination of punches, kicks, and weapon attacks at the target.
-Caltrops: Spreads sharp spikes on the ground which slow enemies and do a small amount of damage.
-Dodge: Dodges the next hostile skill that would otherwise affect the user.
-Throw: Throws an inventory item at the target.
Summoner Augments
-Clone Summon: Creates copies of the user.
-Creature Summon: Calls forth creatures to enhance the ability.
-Energy Summon: Imbues the ability with dark energy.
-Weapon Summon: Manifests multiple weapons to enhance the ability.
Now then, what happens when we augment those Rogue skills? Broken fun.
Backstab
-Clone Backstab: Creates copies of the user to consecutively channel strikes into the target.
-Creature Backstab: Calls forth a creature to attack in place of the user.
-Energy Backstab: Imbues the user's weapon with dark energy to deal more damage and debuff the target.
-Weapon Backstab: Manifests multiple weapons to strike the target simultaneously.
Beatdown
-Clone Beatdown: Creates copies of the user to consecutively attack.
-Creature Beatdown: Calls forth creatures to carry out the attack instead of the user.
-Energy Beatdown: Imbues the user's strikes with dark energy to deal more damage and debuff the target.
-Weapon Beatdown: Manifests autonomous weapons to participate in the attack.
Caltrops
-Clone Caltrops: Creates copies of the user to make a more widespread and denser field of caltrops.
-Creature Caltrops: Replaces the caltrops with small creatures which latch-on to targets.
-Energy Caltrops: Imbues the caltrops with dark energy to deal more damage and debuff targets.
-Weapon Caltrops: Replaces the caltrops with autonomous weapons which attack enemies in the field.
Dodge
-Clone Dodge: Creates copies of the user which do not dodge but disappear when struck. User still dodges.
-Creature Dodge: Calls forth a creature to act as a shield, effectively providing two dodges.
-Energy Dodge: Imbues the user with dark energy which provides a buff.
-Weapon Dodge: Summons autonomous weapons which counter-attack after the user dodges.
Throw
-Clone Throw: Creates copies of the user to throw one of the item each in quick succession.
-Creature Throw: Calls forth a small creature to throw instead of using an inventory item.
-Energy Throw: Imbues the thrown item with dark energy to deal more damage and debuff the target.
-Weapon Throw: Manifests multiple weapons to throw at once instead of using an inventory item.
These combinations provide a fun variety of powerful abilities which all stay true to the Rogue archetype. In addition, many of the details can be interpreted in various ways. For example, each item thrown by Clone Throw could count as a separate attack which would further enhance the utility when stacked with other effects such as critical hit or poison chance. Another example would be Creature Summon, which could offset the user's debuffs by utilizing a separate stat pool. In which case, an ability like Creature Dodge could also still function once even if the user is interrupted while Creature Beatdown could be completely immune to interrupts. In that same vein, Clone Beatdown could be interrupted by an AOE skill but not a single-target one if each clone counts as a separate entity. This line of thought can continue across all skills for hours of theory-crafting fun. So as I said at the beginning, and as you can clearly see now, there are limitless possibilities.
Though I doubt most of this will be even considered, at the end of the day I'll still be satisfied as long as I can somehow make shadow clones as a Shadow Lord. After all, what is a Shadow Lord without an army of shadow clones at his disposal?
First of all, the name itself sounds cool as heck. Like just pause for a second and say it outloud Soul Weaver. Anyways I have high hopes for the support classes for AoC. I am particularly interested in the Bard classes and I can't wait to get a peak at what the Bard will look like.
Here's what I'm expecting a Soul Weaver to be like.
The Soul Weaver is a bard that dabbled in ancient religion and learned to tread along the thin veil of life and death. The Soul Weaver pulls at the life force of their enemies to return life and power to themselves and their allies.
In essence I want the Soul Weaver to be a healer/support/dps hybrid that siphons away at the enemies souls and essence to heal/support themselves or their allies. Perhaps they could even steal enemy protections or buffs and grant them to ally tanks or dps. A Soul Weavers dps would come from them stealing health from their foes and they would indirectly damage their foes by stealing their protections and damage boosts. I think it would be neat to be able to have three types of siphoning abilities. One type that steals the enemies life force to heal themselves or their allies. One type that steals the enemies defenses to bolster their own or their allies and lastly a type that debuffs the enemies damage in order to bolster their own and their allies.
My first go around will probably be bard depending on its ability to debuff enemies and act a frontline support.
My main playstyle will revolve around acting as a frontline tank while being able to buff my allies and debuff enemies.
For now i would say my ideal class is the Beastmaster,
I really am looking for a "one with nature" vibe for my character so i'll have to try the Shaman too.
For the Soul Weaver class I wisch something that intertwines healthpools of different targets (weaving their soul together). And since you aren't targeting the body but rather the soul, i would alsow wish for a lot of Buffs / Debuffs and only a few direct healing spells.
The Enchanter is a bit more difficult... My base idea for this class would be that you where to enchant the battlefield rather than fight directly.
Setting up magical traps and the like. From slow to stunn zones, over spicky terrain to markers for arcane orbital strikes XD. Fighting against a enchanter should feel like fighting a Mastermind Villan where one trap leads to the next. The more time you give him, the stronger he becomes.
Highly enjoyed being a main Tank in my previous MMO, people depend on you, and there is high demand.
That being said im curious to see what you do with stealth because traditional invisibility in games are pretty busted and i would like for the stelth mechanic to ”blend” yourself into the enviroment instead of making you invisible until you are not, because nothing feels worse then just randomly scooching around and then get absolutely blasted from nowhere by a random rogue without having the possibility to react.
I want to support my group by defensive buffs and revive spells.
Defensive buffs will improve Tank's endurance and HP, and Cleric's heal abilities.
Revive spells will help from an awkward position.
Personally i'd want a conjurer to be able to call forth some crazy summons, of their own making (using animal husbandry maybe) or able to have a special summon to be able to turn into said summon and control it (mind meld?)
Falconer is the usual solo fast-leveling class so not much can be done about that, but the usual "default" animals has always been a huge disappointment personally. I mean come on, why keep your default boar if u can have a lion instead xD
Probably the most interesting system i have yet to see to any "music" themed take on a support class is Octavia from Warframe, giving players the ability to basically play any song they wish as skills and apply buffs (1st skill = seven nation army etc) Would be awesome to have players dish out some tasty riffs while buffing those around them to all hell. (also why stop at flutes and bagpipes)
I had a idea that you can fully control a summon as a summoner to the point that you shift perspective from summoner to summon leaving you vulnerable and use the summon for example as a scouting device.
And with the game being build with flying in mind but only to a handfull of players at a given time, what if the falconer and other summoners with flying summons could use that unused airspace to scout around instead of things like transportation and other perks that flying mounts have.
1. Uses magic. I main-ed a warrior in GW2 and have been regretting my choice ever since. When I'm in a sword&magic fantasy setting, especially when magic plays a significant role in lore, not using magic felt like a loss.
That means mage or summoner must be one of the two archetypes I choose.
2. Ranged, preferrably with insta-cast long range abilities. That's from my negative experience with mob-tagging in a few other mmos I've played (especially the eastern ones). I believe Ashes would be different and mob-tagging war probably won't be a thing, but still, wouldn't hurt to roll a ranged character.
That means I should probably roll ranger as primary.
So ranger + mage -> Scion.
Looking forward to dish out long range firepower imbued with different elemental magic depending on situations.
Another role I'd also like to try is "a swordsmith who's also a weaponmaster". But that depends on what the crafting system end up being.
Or you could go more of a control route with them focusing more on gathering pets during combat and summoning them/keeping them out when you need them but when they die they are gone and you need to collect more. That would be interesting also.
Sword caller sounds like a dps class but it would be nice to be able to switch swords for different kinds of damage. Like one weapon could be more aoe focused, another single target, another might have more range. Etc. That way they can be any kind of close to mid range dps depending on their stance/weapon.
Shadow Caster (Mage/Rogue)
Scout (Range/Rogue)
Apart from that I am also interested in a bard mix, so I'll probably also have a look into Fighter/Bard, that sounds pretty interesting for me as well, especially because bard is not something that can be played in a lot of games.
Also looking forward to a Fighter preview soon
I plan on going into conjuror or possibly spellmancer depending on how the class is handled, personally I believe a class specifically dedicated to conjuring beings to fight and protect you should be the primary focus of the class. For example the problem WoW has is that the pet is just a secondary form of damage for the hunter when personally I would love to see the pet be your primary form of damage with spells from the summoner specifically aimed towards aiding your pets and crowd control.
The specialization side is more towards the aesthetic kind. Great class identity can be found in just the way they look and I believe a good way of identifying the secondary archetype between all the summons is how the summons look. For example a conjuror might have astral looking beings to summon while a shadowmancer has shadow minions.