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Class Augment Theorycraft

HumblePuffinHumblePuffin Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
edited April 2022 in General Discussion
We already know some of the class skill augments but there are way more that we don’t know. I’m going to take my best stab at what they could be based off of skills we know and a whole lot of wild speculation. What do you think they could be? I’ll put the ones we have a clearer idea on in bold. Obviously even the hints they’ve given us are subject to change.

Mage
Teleportation
Elemental School
Fire
Frost
Lightning



Tank
Threat generation
Defense/various mitigation buffs
Terrain creation
Grabs/Pulls

Cleric
Life(heals)
Death(Resurrection of some sorts? )
Holy damage
Dispels(?)

Rogue
Critical Chance/damage
Stealth

Poisons/Bleeds
Disorients/blinds/snares

Bard
Buffs based based on your primary; possibly group wide
Debuffs based on your primary
Soft CC like sleeps, infatuates confuses
Illusions/Misdirects
(I struggled to think of a fourth, maybe one of the others gets broken up)

Ranger
Stealth/illusion detection
Range increase on abilities
Mobility that lets you create distance: jump backs, speed increases
Traps/delayed damage.

Fighter
Dashes/mobility that lets you close distance
Shields/temporary damage ignore
Buffs to weapons/weapon skills
I really struggled to think of a fourth for this one; to parallel with Ranger:
Close range proficiency on abilities

Summoner
All of these I think are going to involve summoning something since that’s kinda just what this archetype does. I have no clue how they would end up breaking it down. I feel like they would generally be temporary manifestations of the skill they are augmenting. Maybe something like:
Stationary summons
One time/short term summons one attack/maybe a few seconds
Temporary minions last 5 minutesish
Temporary armor/Weapon summons

So few are actually known or alluded to. What do you think each archetypes augments will end up being?
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Comments

  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Mage has Elemental as one of the 4 Schools, so:
    1: Teleportation
    2: Elemental (Fire, Frost, Lightning...)
    3: Mana Drain/Regen
    4: ??
  • HumblePuffinHumblePuffin Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Dygz wrote: »
    Mage has Elemental as one of the 4 Schools, so:
    1: Teleportation
    2: Elemental (Fire, Frost, Lightning...)
    3: Mana Drain/Regen
    4: ??

    I was pretty torn as far as elemental as a school went. Depending on how it goes it could cause some interesting interactions with the current system.

    Steven has been rather consistent with saying there will be 4 schools for each secondary; if you lump elemental all into one category then how would it go?

    Do you choose elemental augment and your skill gets a random elemental effect out of the elemental possibilities each time it’s cast?

    Does the elemental augment actually give mage 6+ augment choices?

    Or maybe the elemental augments only apply specific elements to specific skills i.e. skill X will always have frost applied to it when elemental augments are chosen or skill Y will always have fire applied when elemental augments are chosen?

    Other than that I forgot that mana regeneration was tied to mage so I’ll have to think of another for the cleric’s augments.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited April 2022
    The two Mage Augment Schools that Steven has shared already are Teleportation and Elemental.
    Mana Drain/Regen is just a guess based on the Mage Active Skills we know.

    Schools mean that there are several choices of augments in each School.
  • Are these things not yet hashed out for every class? I can understand that spells of most of the classes are yet to be decided but I was under the impression that these high level view would have been fleshed out.

    Btw, we would have to choose only one school of augment for the character or we can choose different schools for different spells?

    Anyway, for the mage class, here is an idea with augments to blink spell as an example:
    - Teleportation: Now a mage has 2 charge/instances of blink which get refreshed at whatever the cooldown is. So back to back blinks are a possibility.

    - Mana regen/burn/steal: Blink causes mana burn in an AoE. Basically rank 2, causes mana burn alongside damage. Spells like fireball can either mana steal or mana burn.

    - Elemental: Applies a DoT to all the players in an AoE, spell type would be frost in this case (my preference, hehe). DoT causes some damage and reduces movement speed. For other spells it can be fire or lightning based. Basically this will give the devs more freedom to choose how to augment a spell using various elements rather than sticking to only one.

    - Arcane: This augment makes the damage type of the spells pure. Arcane resistance is stuff of legends as in available only as a part legendary items...maybe some 1-5% from epic gear... But this is a balancing issue.

    Anyway, I will be playing a rogue.
    Rogue
    Critical Chance/damage
    Stealth

    Poisons/Bleeds
    Disorients/blinds/snares
    The last category I dont agree with - Disorients/blinds/snares. Reasons being:
    - It has a possibility of being either broken or extremely underwhelming.
    - Rogues arent suppose to man up in a fight, so to speak. So, augments like blind/disorient are counter-intuitive.
    These are my thoughts. I am not completely opposed to it, but would prefer some other avenue of augments.
    "Suffer in silence"
  • HumblePuffinHumblePuffin Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    We have no definitive answer for the majority of the secondary class augments. Most of the things I pulled were from descriptions of the classes and any barebones abilities we may have information on. They could be fleshed out behind the scenes but that hasn’t been shared with us.

    You are not tied to a specific augment school for your whole build, but each primary class ability will only be able to be augmented by one class augment.

    My rogue class augments other than crit and stealth which have been specifically talked about, were assumed based on this quote from Steven on how he views the class:

    “The rogue is more physical disable oriented: Applying bleeds or snares or having precision damage that's situational. Being stealthy. That's kind of how I view the rogue role... The rogue's like you don't see me, I'm coming in and boom I stab you in the back and I do extra damage because of it. Now you're bleeding and you're trying to snare away and walking away, and that's kind of a rogue in my opinion.[3]” – Steven Sharif
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I think we have only a handful of Augment Schools listed.
    We might have 10 examples of specific augments - probably a bit less.

    I'm expecting Shadow to be one of the Rogue augment Schools. If that includes Stealth and Damage, then...
    I think Snares/Traps seems likely for a the 4th Rogue augment School.
  • Currently, in my mind, i believe the 4 schools of each secondary archtype are going to be something like:

    Mage
    Teleportation
    Elemental
    Magic Weapons Specialization
    Magic Damage Specialization

    Tank
    Threat generation
    Damage mitigation
    Physical Hard Crowd Control
    Shield/Reflect Specialization

    Cleric
    Life (Heals and regens)
    Death (Drains and dots)
    Barriers Specialization
    Holy damage Specialization

    Rogue
    Critical Specialization
    Damage over Time Specialization
    Physical Disable (Soft-mid CC) Specialization
    Evasion/Stealth Specialization

    Bard
    Buffs (self or party)
    Debuffs (single target or aoe)
    Magical Hard Crowd Control
    Magical Disable (Soft-mid CC) Specialization

    Ranger
    Accuracy Specialization
    Mobility Specialization
    Traps Specialization
    Bow Specialization

    Fighter
    Duel Specialization (smaller scale conflicts 1v1 to 4v4)
    Skirmish Specialization (bigger scale conflicts 8v8 or bigger)
    Melee Weapons Specialization
    Physical Damage Specialization

    Summoner
    Certainly the hardest to predict which way intrepid will approach with them, alot of games have very different approaches to summoning, but i believe the most universal concept/form of summoning is manifesting something or someone through time and space to your presence which directly correlates to the concept of teleportation (which already is a school for mage) but does not address the concepts of time and space separately. So i believe it would be cool if the summoner would provide these schools.

    Time(Mainly influencing skills durations, cooldowns, attack/cast times)
    Space(Mainly Influencing the size of AoEs skills, the Range of skills)
    Summoning Specialization
    Summons enhancement Specialization

    The lack of information we currently have just make those things full on speculations and shots in the dark.
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    Aren't we all sinners?
  • SongcallerSongcaller Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    For my view on Summoner 4 Schools:
    Time.
    Space.
    Specialised Summons.
    Demonology.

    I merged your enhanced summons and summons together James, because in my mind each augment school is an enhancement.
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  • HumblePuffinHumblePuffin Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited April 2022
    Neurath wrote: »
    For my view on Summoner 4 Schools:
    Time.
    Space.
    Specialised Summons.
    Demonology.

    I merged your enhanced summons and summons together James, because in my mind each augment school is an enhancement.

    I really like the take on a summoner summoning through space and time to bring an entity to life in Verra, and in a sense controlling space and time. I think something like that would provide a really cool depth to the class and open it up to some really interesting abilities.

    I don’t know why I had overlooked these categories in @JamesSunderland’s post
  • edited April 2022
    Neurath wrote: »
    For my view on Summoner 4 Schools:
    Time.
    Space.
    Specialised Summons.
    Demonology.

    I merged your enhanced summons and summons together James, because in my mind each augment school is an enhancement.

    The logic behind the enhancement school would be further enhancing the summons provided by the summoning school, but as i expect that not all skills will provide a summon, some proving enchancement would be logical, merging those 2 is quite reasonable.

    But how about that Demonology school, seems interesting could you elaborate?
    Like summoners/summons originally having a demonic trait or something?
    6wtxguK.jpg
    Aren't we all sinners?
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited April 2022
    Well...
    Demonology is unlikely to be a Summoner augment School.
    Most likely that will be the manifestation of Warlock Summons, specifically - rather than a universal Summoner School. As Undead will be the manifestation of Necromancer Summons, specifically.
  • Dygz wrote: »
    Well...
    Demonology is unlikely to be a Summoner augment School.
    Most likely that will be the manifestation of Warlock Summons, specifically - rather than a universal Summoner School.

    Makes sense, demonic summons would better fit Warlocks Summoning Specialization.

    Funny thing about warlocks in Lineage 2 was that they summoned Cats instead of Demons :D

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    Aren't we all sinners?
  • SongcallerSongcaller Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I'm not sure why you refer to a different class which was not originally proposed. I proposed the proposition first. And the fact remains that a Demonologist is a Class in its own right with its own heritage. However, the summoning function inherent inside the Demonologist Class can be reversed. Last I saw Warlocks use Afflictions and Curses which are not summoned.
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  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited April 2022
    Um. It's the way augment Schools work.

    All x/Summoners share the same 4 augment Schools.
    Each augment in a School changes when applied to a specific Primary Archetype Active Skill.

    So... Demonology would not be a universal Summoner augment School.
    Rather, whatever that School is -"Summon [object/creature]"- whatever it is the devs might label that School...
    Bladecallers would Summon blades.
    Warlocks would Summon demons.
    Falconers would Summon animals/birds.
    Songcallers would Summon songs(?).
    Shaman would Summon spirits(?).

    Summoner is an Archetype.
    Class is a combo of Primary Archetype and Secondary Archetype.
    Summoner is not a class.
    Warlock is a class. Mage/Summoner.
    Demonologist is not an Ashes class.
  • SongcallerSongcaller Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Class augment is the discussion here. Why have you even bothered to correct the situation when demonology would be applied through summoner to warlock too? I don't see how a mage who deals in arcana plus a generic pet school equals demonologist.

    In the other thread you appeared clueless and always seem to want to reverse all of my input. The situation remains that I made the suggestion and I won't change my mind. The fact you want to erase the demonologist into a warlock just because you don't want summoner to have the option is damn disgraceful. The ironic thing is both conjurer and warlock would have had the option.

    I guess some people will have to say goodbye to the elementals which might have been born from the specialised summons too with your game plan.

    By the way, you can keep pasting the same stuff over and over again but I do try to show my appreciation, respect and support with ideas which can be considered with no quid pro quo.
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  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    You don't understand how Secondary Archetypes and augments and augment Schools work.
    Demonologist is not a thing in Ashes.
    I'm off to dance class now and will explain it again to you later.
  • SongcallerSongcaller Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited April 2022
    The issue I have right now is you know your position is untenable for Warlock. The most ironic thing is, your suggestion is the most accurate in terms of primary and secondary, but, not by name - Because a Traditional Demonologist deals in Fire and Demons (Hell). Which is Arcane and Summoning combined.

    What you have just shown is the fact that there is a demonologist except you want to relabel the demonologist as Warlock. I understand you like to quote and paste. What I am trying to make you see is the fact that we have actual issues which can be resolved with my suggestion.

    Here is the current list of pet summons for Summoner from wiki which you seem to never read:

    Summoners summon different summons, depending on the class and augments they choose.[6][13]

    Animals.[13]
    Spirits.[13][14]
    Zombies, skeletons and other undead creatures.[7][14]
    Corpses (potentially).[13]
    Some summoners may summon multiple things.[13]
    Other summoners may only summon one powerful thing.[13]
    Certain summoners may only be able to summon effects and/or temporary energies.[13]
    Augments from a secondary archetype can be applied to a summons.

    I want to highlight the fact that some Demons are Undead. Summoner already has access to Undead. All I am proposing is Demons (Demonology) is moved to augmentation rather than the base class. The devs know my opinion on summoned weapons and my desires elsewhere - which would go in Specialised Summons by the way, so I really do not feel the need to worry about anything you wish to reveal later.

    Edit: Here is the reason why I want my Shaman to have Demons:

    Shamanism, religious phenomenon centred on the shaman, a person believed to achieve various powers through trance or ecstatic religious experience. Although shamans’ repertoires vary from one culture to the next, they are typically thought to have the ability to heal the sick, to communicate with the otherworld, and often to escort the souls of the dead to that otherworld.

    Scholars generally agree that the shaman acquires his profession through inheritance, instruction, or an inner calling or vocation, but each of these terms requires some qualification. In this context, “inheritance” means that the soul of a dead shaman, or alternatively the so-called shaman illness, is inherited. “Instruction” here does not usually mean the study of exact knowledge and explicit dogma, for it is believed that the shaman is taught by the spirits. The inner “calling” is in reality not the call of the person but of the spirit who has chosen him and who forces him to accept this vocation. This compulsion is unavoidable.
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  • CROW3CROW3 Member, Alpha Two
    Hm… I guess summoners have to abide by Genie’s constraints. I can’t summon three summoners who each summon three pets.

    I’d be an exponential nightmare! 😳
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  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited April 2022
    bBoetbe.jpg

    What a traditional Demonologist does is irrelevant because Demonologist does not exist in Ashes.

    Ashes classes were not created by class name, first.
    Ashes classes were created by combining Primary and Secondary Archetypes first. Then, the devs assigned a motif to each combination.

    Primary Archetypes do not have augment Schools, rather Secondary Archetypes have augment Schools.
    All x/Summoners have the exact same 4 augment Schools.
    x/Summoners do not have individual augment Schools based on class name. None of the augment Schools are specific to a class.
    Instead, all x/Summoners have the exact same 4 augment Schools.

    If you look at the class names you will not find a class named Demonologist.
    The closest to Demonologist is probably Warlock.
    And Warlock is a class; not an Archetype.

    So, while a Warlock might very well Summon a demon (and elementals are typically a subset of demon), all x/Summoners will not be Summoning demons.

    Thus, Demonolgy will not be one of the Summoner augment Schools.
    Just as Blades will not be one of the Summoner augment Schools.
    Just as Songs will not be one of the Summoner augment Schools.

    Shamans will not be Summoning demons.
    Shamans will not be Summoning blades.
    Necromancers also will not be Summoning demons, rather, they will be Summoning zombies and skeletons.
    Songcallers will not be Summoning demons.
    Bladecallers will not be Summoning demons.
    Keepers will not be Summoning demons.
    Falconers will not be Summoning demons.

    Especially because Falconers will not be Summoning demons, Demonology cannot be an x/Summoner augment School because all x/Summoners have the exact same 4 augment Schools.

    It’s when the Secondary Archetype augment is applied to a Primary Archetype Active Skill that the Active Skill changes to fit the motif of the class.

    Cleric/Summoner (Shaman) will most likely be Summoning Spirits and Totems via their Secondary Archetype augments.
    If you want your Cleric/Summoner (Shaman) to Summon demons, that will most likely be via Religion augments.

    Your description of what you want your “shaman” to do is great.
    That does not mean that the class the devs have labeled Shaman will actually be the class that fits most closely with the “shaman” you want to create.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited April 2022
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNRD57wHtAE&t=4394s
    Mark 1:13:14

    Damokles: If I'm a Tank/Mage or a Fighter/Mage, are the Mage abilities the same?

    Steven: The Mage augment is the same grouping, but the way it affects the Active Skill --
    You only receive Active Skills from your Primary Archetype... and then it gets augmented by your Secondary choice.


    Jeffrey: And those augments are different for each class. So a Mage affects a Fighter differently than a Mage affects a Cleric.

    Steven: Exactly. Yes, but the augment School, it will yield a different effect because the base Active Skill is different, but the parent augment...

    Jeffrey: The School...

    Steven: ...is the same, like Teleportation, Elemental.
    So, like, you take the Mage groupings of augments (Schools) - you have Teleportation and Elemental - those two things get applied to different Active Skills based on your Primary Archetype.


    Jeffrey: With different outcomes.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited April 2022
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AeuqaELjFg&t=3904s
    Mark 1:05:05

    Keep in mind that it's not 64 vastly different classes.
    Which is why each Secondary Archetype (8 total) only has 4 augment Schools associated with it.
    Rather than all 64 classes having unique augment Schools.

    The Tank/ Mage and the Fighter/Mage both have the exact same 4 Mage augment Schools.
  • SirChancelotSirChancelot Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Personally I think summoners would have to have a school that doesn't really have to do with summons, some kind of targetable spells that can be used on allies or summons. (Time and space don't sound bad, but sound a little too high end extra in a way...)
    Because they can't have all their abilities be summoning related... Sounds like too passive of gameplay to be in this game.
    They're going to have to have some kind of direct damage, heals, or buff spells to use with their summons.

    A while back I wrote up a little theory craft on how summoners could work that would be fun compared to most pet classes of yester'year... I wonder if I can find it.
  • SongcallerSongcaller Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    What a warlock does is irrelevant because the synonym of warlock is conjurer. Therefore, we have two identical classes. Either warlock should be replaced with demonlogist or summoner augment should allow demonology so everyone is happy (no more requests for the corruption system to be a viable evil playstyle).
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  • SirChancelotSirChancelot Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    @Azherae did a series of wants/likes/theorycraft for each archetype
    Here is the summoner one

    https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/50101/summoner-desire-compilation-and-analysis-conversion#latest
  • AlmostDeadAlmostDead Member, Alpha Two
    Dygz wrote: »
    Steven: The Mage augment is the same grouping, but the way it affects the Active Skill --
    You only receive Active Skills from your Primary Archetype... and then it gets augmented by your Secondary choice.

    Will be very disappointed if Rogue secondary doesn't provide some kind of vanish/stealth skill. This quote makes me question if it will, because vanish/stealth seems like a new skill rather than an augment.

    Of course, that disappointment will be within the context of Ashes looking like it will be the most amazing game ever.
  • SongcallerSongcaller Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I haven't blocked any specialised summons which would cover your thread. What I defined was the pinnacle setup for a summoner which culminates in demonology. The debate is not designed to prevent personal choice. The debate is about increasing personal choice.

    I never mean to make essays. I'm used to writing books and creating whatever I want in secret.
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  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    mcnasty wrote: »
    Dygz wrote: »
    Steven: The Mage augment is the same grouping, but the way it affects the Active Skill --
    You only receive Active Skills from your Primary Archetype... and then it gets augmented by your Secondary choice.

    Will be very disappointed if Rogue secondary doesn't provide some kind of vanish/stealth skill. This quote makes me question if it will, because vanish/stealth seems like a new skill rather than an augment.

    Of course, that disappointment will be within the context of Ashes looking like it will be the most amazing game ever.

    I mean, it wouldn't need to. One could easily make it so that certain skills could receive a stealth style augment that causes you to disappear when you use it. I'd expect to put this on buffs or similar. Even a damage dealing skill that has you vanish at the end is still useful because technically if you miss, it should still result in misdirection.

    If anything, it would probably be more balanced this way, since 'being able to put the stealth/vanish augment on every skill' would lead to very difficult battles if the skills it was being put onto weren't mostly 'the kind where vanishing after them doesn't help you'.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Neurath wrote: »
    What a warlock does is irrelevant because the synonym of warlock is conjurer. Therefore, we have two identical classes. Either warlock should be replaced with demonlogist or summoner augment should allow demonology so everyone is happy (no more requests for the corruption system to be a viable evil playstyle).
    A Warlock is a Mage/Summoner.
    A Conjurer is a Summoner/Summoner.
    Those are not identical classes.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited April 2022
    mcnasty wrote: »
    Will be very disappointed if Rogue secondary doesn't provide some kind of vanish/stealth skill. This quote makes me question if it will, because vanish/stealth seems like a new skill rather than an augment.

    Of course, that disappointment will be within the context of Ashes looking like it will be the most amazing game ever.
    Steven says that Stealth is one of the core aspects of Rogue.
    The augment Schools represent core aspects of the Secondary Archetype.
    So, expect that Stealth/Invis will be an x/Rogue augment School just as Teleport and Elemental are x/Mage augment Schools.
  • BalanzBalanz Member, Alpha Two
    Based on the discussions I have heard about Combat Pets being generally available (if you put the effort into acquiring them, which apparently is quite significant), it could be the case that Summoner Augments would synergize with Pets.

    So melee strikes that created an opportunity for a better pet attack, buffs that also effect the target's pet (if any), ranged magical attacks that damage a pet and it's controller (making X/Summoner potentially an Anti-Pet build).

    So "Bonded" might be a Summoner Augment that might spread the effect between a Pet and its Controller. "Generous" might be an augment that amplifies the effect if the target is a pet. That would leave two other stylistic augments for Summoner.
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