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The Fighter - Ability spam
Voxtrium
Member
In combat this ability is extraordinary powerful, as it stands now if you have 2 targets in front of you and use a single ability you will regen almost 100% of your mana bar and become nearly unkillable through 100% damage regen, I believe this ability negates most of the value of the mana bar as it currently stands. It appears like it would be very easy to do a full rotation - pop blood fusion on a high damage ability and do another full rotation - ESPECIALLY once you hit higher levels and have 15+ actives you can use.
Now that actually does feel good - but the problem is it heavily encourages a flashy quick fight with ability spam to kill your opponents. In this case in a 8v8 assuming one group is ganking (like in a caravan raid) the other, the tactic would be to simply blow everything to try to insta-kill as many players as possible as soon as the fight started - It is hard to tell for sure from looking from the outside - but this is what I would anticipate if you had 10,000 people on the server testing it.
Many of the abilities we have seen showcased are beautiful and many fit well into the longer TTK IS has indicated they want. However some of the passives that you can cast in combat are super short duration super high reward with super long cooldowns, the style of gameplay that I believe will encourage an absolute roll of anyone not expecting the visitors.
I know it is a bit early to tell the flow of combat but at least for the fighter he was full dive, full engage, the harder you go in the more you live, press every button and once you hit 50% HP pop blood fusion and become unkillable as long as you either use form of Fluidity or have someone to clear CC on you.
I understand IS goal is to make combat feel impactful and give reward to abilities being pressed at the right time which is why the actives have such low duration and such high impact. I am not suggesting IS remove all high reward low duration abilities, just don't make every ability this way.
My suggestion - Slow down the combat by slowing down the actives you have. Decrease their potency and extend their timelines but keep an ability or 2 per class that has the low duration high reward abilities. Additionally increase the mana a player has but decrease the regen of the mana.
My goal with this post was to indicate the fighter appears to decrease the value of the mana bar and a rotation by introducing insane mana and hp regen in addition to having an ability like Exert which will further exacerbate the capability of players to completely dominate as a fighter within the first few seconds of combat. Additionally combat as displayed in the fighter showcase will be heavily oriented towards blowing up players when the fight starts instead of a longer 30 second TTK that would encourage a counterplay by the defending team.
Now that actually does feel good - but the problem is it heavily encourages a flashy quick fight with ability spam to kill your opponents. In this case in a 8v8 assuming one group is ganking (like in a caravan raid) the other, the tactic would be to simply blow everything to try to insta-kill as many players as possible as soon as the fight started - It is hard to tell for sure from looking from the outside - but this is what I would anticipate if you had 10,000 people on the server testing it.
Many of the abilities we have seen showcased are beautiful and many fit well into the longer TTK IS has indicated they want. However some of the passives that you can cast in combat are super short duration super high reward with super long cooldowns, the style of gameplay that I believe will encourage an absolute roll of anyone not expecting the visitors.
I know it is a bit early to tell the flow of combat but at least for the fighter he was full dive, full engage, the harder you go in the more you live, press every button and once you hit 50% HP pop blood fusion and become unkillable as long as you either use form of Fluidity or have someone to clear CC on you.
I understand IS goal is to make combat feel impactful and give reward to abilities being pressed at the right time which is why the actives have such low duration and such high impact. I am not suggesting IS remove all high reward low duration abilities, just don't make every ability this way.
My suggestion - Slow down the combat by slowing down the actives you have. Decrease their potency and extend their timelines but keep an ability or 2 per class that has the low duration high reward abilities. Additionally increase the mana a player has but decrease the regen of the mana.
My goal with this post was to indicate the fighter appears to decrease the value of the mana bar and a rotation by introducing insane mana and hp regen in addition to having an ability like Exert which will further exacerbate the capability of players to completely dominate as a fighter within the first few seconds of combat. Additionally combat as displayed in the fighter showcase will be heavily oriented towards blowing up players when the fight starts instead of a longer 30 second TTK that would encourage a counterplay by the defending team.
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If the defending side is caught unaware by some fights - imo that's on the defenders, rather than the fighter's abilities.
If the defending group didn't have a tank and a healer who are always alert and can always pop a defensive+healing combo - that's a group that was doomed to fail even if the fighter didn't have Blood Fusion.
And those parties that do have this combo will easily deal with fighters whose entire job is to simply slam into players, do 2 rotations and then do nothing for a good minute. CCs exist, several forms of shields and protections will exist, different dashes/blinks/jumps will exist - all of which can address an attacking fighter.
So far I don't really see this as an issue. If anything, the bigger issue, as some people in the feedback thread pointed out, is that these fighters would be so damn out of position in relation to their own party that they'd be pretty much suiciding into a crowd of people, because the range on their dashes is immense. And if they are not out of position - the attacking group would do their thing even w/o Blood Fusion form the fighter.
In other words, to me this is just normal pvp interactions, until proven otherwise by other archetype skillsets.
It is definitely possible - everything I have thought about is only based on speculation, but in terms of disengage, heroic leap doesn't have to be targeted so fighter definitely has a disengage.
A wider audience will need to get their hands on it to know for sure, but as it stands now I anticipate the TTK for skilled player groups will be very very low.
The wiki didn't give a specific number for the TTK, do you know if it has been mentioned anywhere?
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Time_to_kill
That is what I thought as well, however the caravan stream combined with the fighter showcase has indicated that most fights will be won in the first few seconds, and abilities like Blood Fusion will be the reason since using your entire kit for a kill doesn't mean your left without gas afterwards.
we arent at the balance stage yet. 💀
also, using your own logic, what prevents the other team to just spam everything on the warrior and killing him as fast as possible when the fight starts before he can do anything? it goes both ways ;3
I’m sure TTK going into A2 is meaningless compared to the end result.
slaaayyyyyyy
I've always wondered if that tk refers to a party attacking one person of another party, or 1v1. a ttk of 30 secs in 1vs1 means you have time to do stuff and when you get focus fired in party vs party you wont evaporate instantly.
on the other hand, a short ttk in 1vs1v could mean you would get evaporated instantly when focus fired in a party vs party pvp
I agree we aren't a the balance stage but its the direction of actives that I have seen that is important. It will always be extremely difficult to balance a low duration high CD ability.
Also it is only something I have a gut feeling about, a non cc able dive character that has incredible sustain... reminds of just about every op character I have ever faced.
Still my primary point is that the combat will feel extremely fast paced, ability spam focused when players can just re generate their entire mana bar off 1 ability, it also means mana management is useless.
lower the sustain for balance?...or maybe don't stand in one place when you see him coming? focus him, use your own cd, etc. i mean, you can react to it, you don't have to stand there and take it.
edit: the mana regen from the skill and the weapon abilities seem to be for small group or solo play. we now that the bard will regen your mana, so you wont need those things when you have a full party and a bard (or you shouldn't).