[Discussion] Combat

D3ATHSPARK

Hello Ashes community!

I recently put together a video on my thoughts on the combat system. It may be a bit early to start talking about this given what we currently have is more of a placeholder system, but I feel like giving our feedback on such an important aspect early on is important. With how things currently feel I'm thinking Ashes will either have to choose between tab and action combat, or divide those systems more to make them more concrete. Swapping between the two feels awkward and is most noticeable on the cleric trying to heal others while contribute to the combat.

Personally I would love to see more focus on the action combat. I feel this brings more skill requirement to the game and raises the ceiling allowing players who master their class to really shine. It also allows for more counter play in PvP which is highly desirable to most players who enjoy PvP elements.

As someone who mains the TANK class I would really like to see an active block component. Holding RMB to raise my shield and mitigate damage would be huge. The drawback would be not being able to preform another action while blocking, but the tank's job is to be the focus, cause distractions, and control the flow of battle in PvP. This would greatly add to that. In PvE this feature would allow skilled tanks to greatly reduce damage, and before you think all a tank needs to do is hold his shield up, keep in mind while a tank is blocking he isn't generating threat. Finding that balance would be extremely engaging!

Each weapon could use a secondary ability with RMB. Perhaps even these could be augmented? For example, going back to the shield, perhaps the default is mitigation but you could use a mirror augment to reflect a spell every 10 seconds or a thorns augment to reflect some of the melee damage back to the attacker. Other weapons like a staff could have a ranged arrack with RMB while the LMB remains the melee. This would greatly diversify combat while giving players many more options. Heavier attacks could be reserved for the RMB on most 2h weapons to create that risk vs reward situation if timed right.

I'd also really like to see active dodging and evading of attacks. The current speed of the game feels really good right now, and being able to time dodge rolls to completely avoid attacks would add to the skill factor in PvP. Right now this roll only seems to be a movement burst and nothing more.

Movement while attacking was recently added and I want to thank the devs for this change! This was a HUGE improvement to melee combat and now allows for some of that evasion and better target tracking. Major props to the dev team for listening on this front. I would love it if this was the default setting.

What are your guys' thoughts on the combat and what would you like to see?

PenguinPaladin

I think "stances" have some opportunities to be brought into the combat system. Ranged attackers could have an accuracy focused stance that raises hit chance/crit, melee could have movement focused stances that have them move more quickly, tanks could have a shield stance which raises defence or block chance, but limits what skills can be activated. Stances could effect combat movement speed, damage output, evade chances, block chances, attack range. Stances could even be entered and exited through using skills with certain augments