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
If every classes and archetypes were perfectly equally represented, each archetypes would be at 12.5% (1/8) and every classes would be at 1.56% (1/64). Classes with and (*) are for the ones I judge the names recognizable enough in mainstream pop-culture. Classes with name in bold are the most popular for their archetype.
MAIN ARCHETYPES
FIGHTER 14.5%
Weapon Master (F/F) 2.05%
Dreadnought (F/T) 3.24%
Shadowblade (F/Ro) 1.71%
Hunter* (F/Ra) 0.68%
Spellsword (F/M) 3.41%
Bladecaller (F/S) 1.02%
Bladedancer (F/B) 0.68% (No surprise, it's a class that interest me!)
TANK 12.62%
Knight* (T/F) 1.71%
Guardian* (T/T) 3.07%
Nightshield (T/Ro) 0.51%
Warden (T/Ra) 0.68%
Spellshield (T/M) 1.19%
Keeper (T/S) 0.68%
Paladin* (T/C) 4.27%
Argent (T/B) 0.51%
ROGUE 13.49%
Duelist (Ro/F) 2.22%
Shadow Guardian (Ro/T) 0.17%
Assassin* (Ro/Ro) 2.39%
Predator (Ro/Ra) 2.05%
Nightspell (Ro/M) 2.22%
Shadow Lord (Ro/S) 2.05%
Charlatan (Ro/B) 0.68% (No surprise, it's a class that interest me!)
RANGER 9.04%
Strider (Ra/F) 1.37%
Sentinel (Ra/T) 0.85%
Scout* (Ra/Ro) 2.22%
Hawkeye (Ra/Ra) 1.54%
Scion (Ra/M) 0.51%
Falconer (Ra/S) 1.02%
Soulbow (Ra/C) 1.19%
Bowsinger (Ra/B) 0.34%
MAGE 13.99%
Battle Mage* (M/F) 2.73%
Spellstone (M/T) 0.51%
Shadow Caster (M/Ro) 1.88%
Spellhunter (M/Ra) 1.37%
Archwizard* (M/M) 3.75%
Warlock* (M/S) 1.71%
Acolyte (M/C) 1.02%
Sorcerer* (M/B) 1.02%
SUMMONER 15.19%
Wild Blade (S/F) 0.51%
Brood Warden (S/T) 2.05%
Shadowmancer (S/Ro) 1.19%
Beastmaster* (S/Ra) 1.19%
Spellmancer (S/M) 0.51%
Conjurer* (S/S) 1.37%
Necromancer* (S/C) 6.83%
Enchanter* (S/B) 1.54%
CLERIC 11.93%
Templar* (C/F) 1,19%
Apostle (C/T) 1.02%
Shadow Disciple (C/Ro) 1.88%
Protector* (C/Ra) 0%
Oracle (C/M) 1.19%
Shaman* (C/S) 2.56%
High Priest* (C/C) 3.24%
Scryer (C/B) 0.85%
BARD 9.21%
Tellsword (B/F) 0.85%
Siren (B/T) 0.68%
Trickster (B/Ro) 1.37%
Song Warden (B/Ra) 1.19%
Magician* (B/M) 0.34%
Songcaller (B/S) 0.85%
Soul Weaver (S/C) 2.05%
Minstrel* (B/B) 1.88%
ARCHETYPES AS THE SECONDARY ARCHETYPE
x/Fighter 12.63%
x/Tank 11.59%
x/Rogue 13.15%
x/Ranger 8.70%
x/Mage 13.12%
x/Summoner 11.95%
x/Cleric 21.33%
x/Bard 7.50%
#2 : Nightspell
#3 : Scion
#4 : Guardian
While I think it's important to recognize that this poll likely contains significant selection bias insomuch as the autistic nerds who are currently active on the forums 20 years prior to launch may not represent the gen pop at launch, there are some interesting observations to be made here.
Most striking is the fact that Cleric is far and away the most popular choice for Secondary. I feel this likely represents a desire for survivability and possibly also reveals some level of desire for solo-ability.
I am actually quite surprised at how evenly distributed the Primary class choice is. I'm also surprised that Ranger seems to be lagging, both for Primary and Secondary. Summoner is most popular for Primary, possibly because it can fill any of the trinity roles.
I'm not sure how well this will show up on the forum post, but below is a visual of the Secondary Archetype choice for each of the Primary choices. It's interesting that Cleric is a less popular Secondary choice for the pure DPS classes (rogue, ranger, mage, fighter) than it is for support classes, Tank and Summoner. I also note that Tanks and Clerics are likely to double-down on their choice. This surely is a reflection of the more "hard core" nature of tanks and healers, and also a reflection of the type of player that is currently active on the forums:
Here ya go, color-coded to show the "hot" classes:
Dratted bards and their magic songs! I'm kind of surprised it wasn't the Trickster!
@mcnasty Thank you so much! And not only for the table.
Indeed, we shouldn't read too much in these polls at this stage. Some archetypes probably suffer from lack of information on them, others surf on the waves of expectation despite the vagueness. We have an idea on the intents of the augments, but nothing specific. Still.
Aside from the rogue, even though most primary archetypes are well distributed it's achieved by having very dominant classes and rather neglected ones.
I think the angles we can approach how people build their idea of a class are about complementing the role. Double down on its main function or try to cover its weaknesses? It's valid for defence and offence. Some of the unpopular combos can probably be attributed to the perceived incompatibility of the parent archetypes. A rogue or mage that generate more aggro? No thanks. Self healing tank? Oh yeash! more aggro and less work for my healer!
Support wanna support. Dps wanna dps. Melee wanna melee. Range pray you stay away.
People want self-sustain for the overall solo PvE experience!
However, I am positive this number will be far less in reality when looking at PvP comps and group PvE.
Honestly the only reason I want cleric secondary is for PvP. Nothing to do with PVE for me in regards to that choice.
Yes, sustain is also very good in pvp, specially solo, but.... I feel ( and hope, tbh), other class combo will have more power utility/damage wise that having cleric as secondary will be suboptimal.
In any game, in PvP like in PvE, specializaiton happens towards letting healers heal while the rest of the party is specced around utility/support/cc/damage, and I think thats a good thing. Plus other classes might also have slight regen/damage reduction/self debuffing abilities ontop of the rest of their kits. It'll be interesting!
All depends on the balance. If all secondary augments do is added flavor and one of those is healing on top of already having a high damage output class, it's safe to assume that will be a strong and popular choice. Especially for 1v1 PvP and ganking. I do hope that everything will be viable across the board, but my money is on cleric secondary being an early meta for pvp.
Just a note on secondary archetype, they've said we will be able to change secondary archetype in towns/cities as often as we want. Same with respec. So tanks, clerics and bards can run a DPS secondary for gathering or solo grinding, then switch to a group-spec for dungeons or PvP.
I'm likely to run several rogue archetypes depending on the activity.
From my understanding, we don't get to change secondary easily. It's a potentially long process of switching your secondary class so it wont be as simple as switching back and forth as needed
Primary archetype is set and not changeable. Secondary archetype is changeable but we don't know yet how easy/hard it will be. It could involve a quest of some sort. All you active abilities come from your primary archetype.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Classes
Aside from the wiki:
I'm pretty sure that some comments on livestream have suggested that changing your secondary was something that could just be done in town. You may have to talk to someone, and there may be a cost, but my impression from the way it was talked about, it was something you might end up doing more than once a day if you were switching your objectives around (IE, solo farming to caravan PvP to PvE boss killing). I believe resetting skill point distribution had a similar limitation
All subject to change of course.
I agree that once the archetypes we have yet to see are revealed, we will probably see a change in similar poll results.
You received so many responses, and the breakdown of data was SO interesting to see. I've mentioned it a few times here and there, but from the moment I heard about the Bladedancer class, I knew that's what I wanted to play. Looks like not many others are with me, but we aren't alone, either! ^_^
How to get people to play bard? Bigbys hand, complete with *all* of Scanlans emotes.
Ha, same! I think if the Bladedancer gets anything close to what I suspect it will, it will be one of the most fun classes to play in a group. One of those comrades everyone loves to have with them
And the potential versatility from a roleplay perspective is amazing. It could be like the name indicates a very fluid/elegant warrior or a "right hand of the commander" type who leads a smaller unit and grants them bonuses in, during and out of combat and possibly some others!
Definitely my first choice as well
It kind of looks like that statistic is just skewed because of the necromancer and paladin being the two "hottest" classes and both happen to be cleric.
Cleric looks like it's not as common on DPS classes.
But I love this thread. I hope you can post updated stats each month.
High Priest draws a lot too. 3 classes in the top 5 (or 6 if we consider dreadnought at the same % than high priest) have the cleric secondary archetype.
But, as many have already pointed out, not enough has been officially announced for us to conclude anything at this point. I'm sure we'll have many exiting surprises when more will be said about rogues, bards and summoners. And what each archetypes' augments are!
Still a fun exercise though.
That's cleric cleric though... Also makes sense.
I'm just saying those 2/3 are kinda skewing the "popularity" of cleric as a second.
We have cleric/cleric for those who want to double down on healing
Tank/cleric for those who want the extra self-sustain
And then summon/cleric because necromancers are edgy and cool and people want the class identity.
But amongst the DPS archetypes (mage rogue ranger fighter) cleric is ranked 3rd at best for a secondary choice....
This is assuming bards aren’t healers, once people know more about bards the distribution will likely change.
I voted bard-rogue, but it depends on what the secondary brings to the main class.
I Expect this will be more popular as a secondary spec than a main. It was said somewhere that Ranger augments would increase the range of your skills so this could be a viable kiting build for PvP healing but pretty meh in a dungeon.
I voted for Highpriest but i'm interested in Protector as a back up class, I think the extra range will be particularly useful on caravan runs which is one of the things i'm looking forwards to the most.
But I've seen some funny video clip from another mmo posted by somebody to highlight how homing arrows can act. So while increasing the range, the healing spells should still remain "magically realistic". (magic is not illogical)
That might create the wrong types of expectation of the class, but you're not alone in thinking this, quite a few people seem to want it to be like a Druid, even if they don't call it a Druid.
But it might be better to leave the name alone for now.