Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
How Strong is the Secondary Archetype?
Judeth
Member, Alpha Two
So I've read the wiki, and read about the augments. But I'm still wondering, how much does the secondary archetype affect our build?
For example, if my secondary is Rogue, will my attacks do bleed damage?
How far can you bend your primary archetype? If your primary is Tank, will you be shoehorned into playing a supportive/tanky role? Or can you choose a secondary that will allow you to deal more damage and make your role more of a heavy damage dealer?
Disregarding items/enchants
For example, if my secondary is Rogue, will my attacks do bleed damage?
How far can you bend your primary archetype? If your primary is Tank, will you be shoehorned into playing a supportive/tanky role? Or can you choose a secondary that will allow you to deal more damage and make your role more of a heavy damage dealer?
Disregarding items/enchants
0
Comments
You will be 'shoehorned' into being a Tank if you choose Tank, as we currently understand it, that's the design goal we've been given.
The actual specifics are still in development.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1neXhCxv_rFh9QcgWdHdoAnJiB8eBMOBMf0kQgJpMkv8/edit#gid=0
Whilst we still don't know exactly what the secondary archetype will bring to each Primary archetype, the bleed thing would be more oriented towards weapon skill augments.
That means that you get your main abilities from the Primary, some augments for those Primary skills (such as a Tank's dash becoming a teleport, and thus uninterruptible, and then you can spend points into specing towards certain skills for certain weapons.
The typical example is that you augment your dagger skills to proc a bleed. That in synergy with some other Primary and Secondary attributes may ultimately raise the proc chance or guarantee it with certain Archetype skills.
But there was a lot of task about it a few months back.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/51718/archetype-roles-i-swear-im-not-crazy/p1
I mentioned bleed because Rogues are defined as, "The rogue is more physical disable oriented: Applying bleeds or snares or having precision damage that's situational." on the wiki, so i'm hoping that means that having Rogue as secondary can potentially give your primary skills a bleed augment.
I also expect Daggers to add a bonus to Bleeds. As well as Bleed weapon Enchantments.
Bard+rogue= Trickster ( from the rogue probably get a stun )
Cleric+Rogue = Shadow disciple ( from the rogue probably get a vanish )
Fighter+rogue = shadowblade ( From the rogue probably get a bleed )
mage+rogue = shadow caster ( from the rogue probably get a slow )
Ranger+rogue = scout ( from the rogue probably get a ability to climb up walls or see traps)
Summoner+rogue = shadowmancer ( from rogue probably get a ability to summon shadows)
Tank+rogue = nightshield (from rogue probably get some evasion/dodging)
but we wont really know until alpha 2 comes around
Right now though the whole class system is more or less a mystery. With examples like Falconer making class combos look extremely unique, it's hard to tell if they are aiming to give every class a clearly defined style/feeling, or if it's basically the primary class but with different "flavors". I'd GREATLY HOPE that they will try to make every combo feel special, like the aesthetic/lore/community/playstyle of a Nightshield and an Argent feeling exclusively different, despite being the same primary class.
Maybe not even until Beta.
I would expect several iterations of the Secondary Archetype as we test combat balance and give feedback during Alpha 2.
As @Dygz said, there's 4 augment schools within the Secondary Archetype ... so you can see the herculean task ahead for the IS Combat Team (even if there isn't much variation between augments).
As main, sure. But as secondary? Brood Warden seems a very interesting and unique concept for tanking.
That's fair, but I would "Imagine" it would be knocking down number's of how effective that type of archetype is rather then changing the full out concept, but I could be wrong. Either way we will learn more what to expect then what we know now.
It's not as simple as just 4 schools either. They've said that a school can have different effects on different archetypes.
So maybe the death augment from a cleric gets added to a tank or will add a debuff to an ability, but when added to a rogue it adds an execute effect...
As of now they're complete wild cards.
A Fire augment will always be a Fire augment, rather than randomly becoming an Ice augment when placed on a different Active Skill.
But, my point was...
Trickster would be able to use the same augments from the "Shadow" School as Shadowmancer.
Shadowmancer would be able to use the same augments from the "Bleed" School as Shadowblade.
And, we can expect Shadowblades to be summoning blades made from Shadows.
In theme yes it will still be a fire themed effect.
But it could add a burst of fire DMG, add a burn DoT, place a zone of fire on the ground, add a fire shield with a 'thorns' effect... Yes it's all still fire, it is the same school/augment, but it's a wild card as to what they can do with it for every class or even any ability.
So how that augment effects one archetype may not be the same for every archetype. Makes them pretty wild card to me.
Y'all think differently to me, I'm not even willing to assume this.
I'm here worrying about:
Devs: "Well this skill doesn't have anything Fire can do to enhance it so if you use the Elemental school for this specific skill you will automatically get a Lightning Augment because we think that would make the most sense for the skill".
"But... I'm a Fire Juggler Bard..."
"No, you're a Bard, that's your Primary Archetype, you CHOOSE to juggle fire, and you just CHOOSE not to take Elemental on this skill, it's all about choices mattering."
";_;"
Do we have a quote or reason to be certain that you 'could choose Fire as an elemental augment on every skill and actually know you will get Fire'?
The player chooses whether they wish to use a Fire augment or a Lightning augment.
I dunno why we would need a quote that specifically asks that.
If you are worried about it, you could ask that specific question so that we have a dev quote worded the way you want it.
I think their interpretation is based off the fact that Steven has referred to mages as having an elemental school and it's a little unclear if that's one school or multiple schools. If it was one school, then it's unclear if you get to pick the element or if the devs have already picked the element a skill gets when the elemental school is applied to it.
Elemental School is one School. With several types of Elemental augments in that group - Fire, Lightning, Ice...
Teleportation School is one School. With several types of Teleport augments in that group.
The player picks the augments they wish to use. From the School they wish to use.
The Elemental School is not applied to an Active Skill. An augment is applied to the Active Skill.
Yea, i think we(at least me) might have thinking it wrong because i believe we were thinking that each school gave 1 augment. You are probably thinking about it correct in that each school will provide multiple augments.
Yes I'm asking for the quote that implies exactly this because it would genuinely put my mind at ease quite a bit, and in my trawling, I have missed it.
Vaknar recently answered a Q&A question with:
"The Mage archetype offers four elemental schools as augments to a character's primary skills."
And explained that at this stage in development, further clarification is not available (I believe in a different thread).
I just really want to feel confident here, so please please provide me with anything I've missed. I often get caught in the trap of thinking 'this is obviously the way it is meant' and have to roll it back, as you know. I'd love to not have to be 'worrying' about Mage Augments or 'Four Elemental Schools' or whatever.
I'll try to grab a few Steven quotes and post them before tomorrow morning.
Thank you very much! I'll look forward to it. Sorry for taking up your time with it, but I'm pretty sure that my preconceptions/worries are causing me to miss them/gloss over them due to already having an incorrectly primed interpretation.
I dunno
I've been unsure over it
Whether its spacial and elemental and then 2 more schools.
Or if its spacial and elemental as in fire, ice, and lightning are all four schools.
I don't care either way, but it hasn't been super clear to me.
There's going to be four schools of augmentation for each archetype. One of the schools for the mage is the teleport school. You can take that teleport augment, apply it to your charge skill: now instead of charging x distance over time you're going to immediately teleport to the target dealing x damage and a condition modifier. If you were to apply the elemental school to your class ability you would then instead you would charge x distance; upon reaching target you would set the target ablaze if it's fire or you would electrocute them and deal with damage over time.
---Steven
This indicates that the player has the choice to use a Fire augment on Charge or a Lightning augment on Charge.
When you pick the Cleric as a Secondary class... two of the augment (Schools) are Life and Death. Choosing Life on certain skills will he the ability to both potentially impct others to a degree and give them life-giving benefits to a degree, through your Skills, and also provide healing benefits for yourself through your skills as well.
So, pretty much any class that is going to choose Cleric as a Secondary class will have the ability to pick from those augments to influene their skills to affect the life of others and yourself.
---Steven
This indicates that the Life School has several augments - some that heal others and some that heal yourself - and the player picks the augment that provides which of those effects they want.
That doesn't sound like you "apply the Life School" to an Active Skill and the devs determine what kind of Life affect occurs based on the Active Skill.
"The Mage augment is the same grouping (School), 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."
---Steven
"And those augments are different for each class. A Mage affects a warrior (Fighter) different than a Mage affects a Cleric."
---Jeffrey
"Right. The augment School is (the same, but) it will yield a different effect because the base Active Skill is different, but the parent augment is the same."
---Steven
A Fire augment on Hallowed Ground will function differently than a Fire augment on Charge.
But, both will still deal Fire damage.
In regards to how big of a difference the secondary archetype makes, we just don't know.
Every single quote we got is highly interpretable (while respecting the quotes to the letter you could design either a secondary archetype that brings huge differences or that brings no real ones, but rather cosmetic changes).
We will only really know when Alpha 2 hits (which could take even more than a year from now).
The difference the secondary archetype brings could be as massive as being the equivalent or near-equivalent of a wow spec (while not changing your role, such as making you a tank from a support or something like that) or simply being a cosmetic pack combined with some minor buffs/quality of life improvements.
Personally I hope they will take some risks and go for the more complex path, because if they don't, they will disappoint a lot of people.
Thank you, Dygz.
Given those, presented in that specific order, I'm back to feeling mostly comfortable with this system.
I believe my problem comes with the way the wiki structures the information, which gives the opposite conclusion using some of the same quotes.
On the Elements section of the Mage page, we get all this as a preface to the same quote, as Vaknar provided.
"Mages will offer four Elemental schools of augmentation, such as Teleportation, Fire, Frost and Lightning (electrical)."
Which seemed to group Teleportation (for example, could be perceived as Planar?) as an Elemental school, and of course the 'offending line' itself...
"The Mage archetype offers four elemental schools as augments to a character's primary skills."
So it looks like one page is just not updated as much as the other, but through your efforts I no longer am 'worried that there are three Elemental schools'.
BooooOOOooo
Flexible roles sliders 2023!