Combat Explained (A min maxer / solo player POV)

I want to start off by saying I loved the A2, and felt the strongest point by far was the combat.

That being said after watching 40+ hours of combined videos and streamers, I feel none of them are doing justice to explain the intricate systems of debuffing that can REALLY change your gameplay.

A vast majority of the streaming content, and the content creators in general just stuck to groups and raids and did their basic damage combos.

However, the combat has a lot more to explore beyond the basic.

I'll break it down for you step by step, because I've seen people on these forums bring up this exact point.

Fighters do have CC, they just require set up to utilize.

So you might notice in any class, that their skills have additional effects when certain debuffs are applied.

Great right? Then you read on and realize none of your base skills actually apply those debuffs.

Most people stop there, and most of the combat guides on youtube don't really delve past the "feel" of the combat.

However, if you read it in depth you'll find some intricate in depth combos that work for most classes.

I.E as a fighter a combo would be, starting combat with a longbow and applying the "Stagger" debuff with a weapon combo, then using your snare kick move that trips staggered opponents, and finally utilizing the trip mechanic to min max some of your other abilities with strong synergies against tripped foes.

Using this combo alone, I was able to solo 3,000 HP goblins at level 5 by kiting and using my bow.

Later using this same ideology I was able to pull 10 mobs at a time and efficiently level.

It reminded me a lot of mage AOE farming in WoW tbh, and honestly it might be a sleeper min max way to hit max. Considering I wasn't getting too sweaty I still hit 17 easily solo while only figuring out this method on the last and most unstable day (sunday).

I have 2 main points here
1. Combat is A LOT more intricate then what most streamers / content creators are showing you.
2. A solo player can definitely thrive (and maybe outperform) on certain classes once you figure out your combos.

Remember all the weapons are interchangeable, so there are A LOT of debuffs and combos you can gain access to.

Also I will say, this might not work for every class. If no content creators start covering it I might try to, either way I wanted to give some good news to my fellow min maxing / solo playing enthusiasts.

If anyone wants advice on how I managed to unlock my solo fighter to aoe farm feel free to DM me.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Ludullu

I kept hearing that tank can't solo farm, but then I started playing him and was farming solo just fine. If anything, this was a bit too effective imo
https://www.twitch.tv/ludullu/clip/WonderfulWimpyHeronKippa-P_IqhNkZrCiShSge

alexpetr2023

I am also in the same boat, people were saying a Cleric couldn't kill anything and yet I was solo pulling 2-3 elites at a time and chewing through them with my 2h spell sword, burn build I made. So yeah, I mean people may level more efficiently in big groups, but they are not actually learning the combat systems, or they are making ill-informed assumptions.

Shabooey

Really good post thanks for sharing. I was doing something similar with the Fighter and the "bleeding" effects. I think it would help, when the Devs have time, to update what some of the status effects do and how to activate them. I know the Wiki has some of them detailed but not all of them. I get quite a few of them but not sure how to take "bleeding" to "hemorrhaging" for example, presumably it's more stacks of bleed but would be interesting to see the dev details on that and other effects to really try out some combos.

Percimes

I'm not part of the alpha2, and it's been hard to judge from the few videos I've watched, but do normal mobs last long enough vs. a group for players to even bother with procs and skills synergy? Extrapolating from the experience of people in this thread, unless the fight is against a mob with a large pool of HPs, the larger the group, the less attention to status is needed. Small group and solo play require a better use of the system for basic efficiency.

I'm sure there are efficiency gains to bother with the system even while in a big group. Whether it be for faster kill times, lower mana use, or preventing mobs to leave a certain area. Maybe, in these early times, players are not familiar enough with the global archetypes synergies to really put the system to use.

I don't know, you tell me. But I'm glad to hear it"s a worth mastering, especially since I tend to play mostly on my own.

Areann

I think this is one of the big reasons why Mage is considered good/easy dps. Chill>freeze>shatter is very easy to grasp and reliably achievable without any weapon swapping.

I'm also assuming that except for the spell casters like shamans, the enemies all have better physical than magical mitigation. So the casters achieve higher effective damage on everything, except the Shamans who are a priority kill for everyone anyways.

The_Hippo

Shabooey wrote: »

Really good post thanks for sharing. I was doing something similar with the Fighter and the "bleeding" effects. I think it would help, when the Devs have time, to update what some of the status effects do and how to activate them. I know the Wiki has some of them detailed but not all of them. I get quite a few of them but not sure how to take "bleeding" to "hemorrhaging" for example, presumably it's more stacks of bleed but would be interesting to see the dev details on that and other effects to really try out some combos.

There was a way to trigger hemo with the a 2nd tier ability Rupture.

https://ashescodex.com/planner can be used to get a good idea of builds, but like I said without explanations it's SUPER easy to miss a lot of these combos.

I just wish more content creators delved deeper into it.

The_Hippo

Percimes wrote: »

I'm not part of the alpha2, and it's been hard to judge from the few videos I've watched, but do normal mobs last long enough vs. a group for players to even bother with procs and skills synergy? Extrapolating from the experience of people in this thread, unless the fight is against a mob with a large pool of HPs, the larger the group, the less attention to status is needed. Small group and solo play require a better use of the system for basic efficiency.

I'm sure there are efficiency gains to bother with the system even while in a big group. Whether it be for faster kill times, lower mana use, or preventing mobs to leave a certain area. Maybe, in these early times, players are not familiar enough with the global archetypes synergies to really put the system to use.

I don't know, you tell me. But I'm glad to hear it"s a worth mastering, especially since I tend to play mostly on my own.

I only played in a group for about an hour of play time, but my general experience is things died pretty quickly with the exception of bosses.

There was a big drive for single target damage due to bosses taking a while actually, but you still don't learn HALF your CC kit if you focus on group play.

I still think some archetypes will find it 10x more efficient to level with groups, but man I'm telling you this is the BASE experience.

Imagine adding secondary classes that augment all your base skills / maybe give you new ones. The solo player min / maxing dream is NOT dead.

I know the forums have had a lot of debate of the role of solo playing, so I hope this post gives them hope that it can be a hidden gem.

Andi

There will be a lot of soloing going on, simply because not always everyone is online, or you don't have uninterrupted gaming time but want to play, anyway. If there are mechanics that make combat fun even when solo, it doesn't matter that much that grouping is faster and more efficient. If soloing is boring, though, I don't think that's good for the longevity of the game.

Shabooey

The_Hippo wrote: »

Shabooey wrote: »

Really good post thanks for sharing. I was doing something similar with the Fighter and the "bleeding" effects. I think it would help, when the Devs have time, to update what some of the status effects do and how to activate them. I know the Wiki has some of them detailed but not all of them. I get quite a few of them but not sure how to take "bleeding" to "hemorrhaging" for example, presumably it's more stacks of bleed but would be interesting to see the dev details on that and other effects to really try out some combos.

There was a way to trigger hemo with the a 2nd tier ability Rupture.

https://ashescodex.com/planner can be used to get a good idea of builds, but like I said without explanations it's SUPER easy to miss a lot of these combos.

I just wish more content creators delved deeper into it.

Appreciate the link thank you, I'll definitely check it out and have a play with some builds. Will also see how your stagger/trip would work paired with the bleed/lethal blow.

As I said I hope, when the Devs have time, will give us some more info on all the status effects and how to proc them. I'll definitely be looking forward to testing them out.

SmileGurney

The_Hippo wrote: »

I have 2 main points here
1. Combat is A LOT more intricate then what most streamers / content creators are showing you.

I hope so, I know its early days, we mainly have seen up the clearly half cooked level 10 experience, and the extended classes are not available, but atm the game offers less combat depth and playstyle customisation than 12-15 years old games like Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (RoR) or Guild Wars 2.

Child Item