A take on the Augment/Class systems
So I am always hearing about how the class and augmentation system might make or break AOC. Some people go as far as to say that the developers need to scrap the class system altogether and build it from the ground up. Here is my take on some concerns and examples of how I think it might work.
concern - the archetypes/classes will not provide enough play styles to feel like a different class.
my take - I think that the skill tree system itself will provide enough diversification for multiple play styles. Take the cleric for example. We were showcased around 15 skills. The wiki states, that the max skills a player can have on their action bar are around 15-20, but there will be around 35-40 skills that they can choose from. I think the way you choose to allocate points to these skills can make a unique playstyle.
Lets Theory craft:
For example, again let's use the cleric, you could spec into melee skills, wear plate, use a mace/shield or staff, choosing tank or fighter for your secondary could provide the necessary augments for other skills to be augmented to melee range. for example, resplendent beam could be augmented to shoot a beam of light directly in front of the cleric, it would make you position well and get as many players in the beam as possible.
if instead, you wanted a HoT playstyle, you would spec into HoT skills rather than melee heals. you could choose ranger as your secondary and augment the skills with the school of nature (each secondary class having multiple schools) and you could come up with a druid like healer. an example of an augment would be to change the wave skills (can't remember the name) to have vines come up from the earth in a path in front of the cleric which provides a heal over time for allies and instead of damage to enemies, snares them instead.
The class augment system would tie into the playstyle you choose or vice versa. i.e. You wouldn't choose to spec into melee healing skills then choose mage/ranger as your secondary because mage/ranger augments instead complement ranged skills.
lets use the ranger as an example. rangers typically are good at single target dps, but you want to play a more aoe style ranger. Then you might choose mage as your secondary and the augment system might look like this. you will probably need to imagine the UI so bear with me. You would open your skill tree UI, pick the skill you want to augment, choose between class, race, social faction or religious augments whatever is available. for this scenario, we choose class augments, so the 4 schools from mage show up (fire, ice, lightning, arcane), these would be your different flavours for different situations. so let's apply this to some of the known skills from the ranger.
1. Snipe - mage augment - held ability, imbues your arrow with elemental damage (fire, ice, lightning or arcane), the longer the duration held, the more stacks of elemental ailments (burning, chill, shock etc.) that will be applied, maximum of three stacks.
2. Quickshot - mage augment - rather than having 3 stacks and firing in quick succession, it now shoots all three arrows in a cone in front of the ranger dealing elemental damage and applying a stack of elemental ailment.
3. Airstrike - mage augment - now becomes a vector targeted ability, imbues your arrow with elemental damage, the ranger shoots an arrow in the sky which then lands as either a meteor storm, lightning storm, blizzard or arcane volley in the targeted vector.
The Scion (ranger/mage) now has a very different feel/playstyle from the ranger we witnessed.
Don't forget we haven't even seen many if any passive skills I could imagine a passive skill for the tank that provides damage mitigation based on armor. Then an augment from the rogue would change damage mitigation to evasion and then have evasion tanking viable.
Another example of an augment could be for the tank's Aegis ability. Let's say you chose cleric secondary, let's say there are two schools (holy and death).
Aegis - cleric augment - the skill now places a half sphere on the ground around the tank (think titan ability in destiny 2). Incoming damage from outside the sphere is greatly mitigated (80%) and provides a small HoT for allies within the sphere.
This would be a great sieging ability that could help tanks be more useful in PVP. Imagine during a castle siege, it would greatly mitigate ranged enemies and anyone using the ballista and forces the melee defenders to come and take out the tank, putting them in range of your ranged allies.
Concern there are too many potential skills and abilities with augments and this will be a development and balancing nightmare.
my take When AoC is launched, not every skill will have augments available from all classes, religions, races etc. it will be quite specific. I.e. if you want to be a scion (ranger/mage) then out of your 35-40 abilities there will only be 4-5 that can be augmented by mage, another 4-5 that will have tank augments, 4-5 with summoner augments and so on. As expansions come in, more abilities will be given augments. This would eliminate the need to add new classes as a whole build/playstyle could be implemented just by adding more options for augmentation. If you have ever played a game like POE think of how many ways you can play one class, the class doesn't really dictate the playstyle, it's how you choose to allocate your skill points into your build.
I know its a bit of a long post but I hope this might open some peoples mind to the potential of the 64 class system and they stop bagging it out. please leave your thoughts on the class/augment system. peace.
