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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.
Fighter Archetype Review: A2 P1
Draeznor
Member, Alpha Two
I have only played the fighter archetype since starting A2 testing totaling in around 100+ hours of gameplay in various activities such from PvE, PVP, roaming, solo farming, group farming, etc. As of right now I have really enjoyed the archetype, the combat feels smooth and engaging. I don’t feel too over powered or too under powered, skill cool downs are just right and really let you weave in auto attacks to fill in gaps between abilities or to spread out burst damage with the right procs/combos. the game really show cases that you are able to take a hit and dish a hit out at the same time. Mana is an issue early on and that has to be my number one grip at least up until you unlock Blood Fusion which we will go next over in the skill section.
TLDR: Issues/grips
• Blitz can launch you when on uneven surfaces (best one is launching up the flayers sword when he is guarding) makes for a good laugh when u hit a rock and go to space!
• Wounds only stacks to 10 when rupture benefits from up to 15 stacks
• Passives on forms feel weak in terms of their return, especially when servers have latency
• WW seems really weak for the amount of time the skill takes up, the addition buff that makes you spin with momentum consumption lets you spin forever with 2-3 mobs around which is honestly funny.
• Lunging assault is difficult to use and seems really short in terms of distance. I can see this being very difficult to land in pvp.
• Wallop feels like a great skill, the damage numbers you can burst out are great but the animation is wonky and does not flow well with the rest of the fighter animations. Maybe it would feel better if I had a giant tree branch or hammer to smack people with.
Skills
Overpower
This ability is great, offers various status effects depending on the form you’re in, short cooldown, good filler damage/combo starter. This shares a cooldown with Brutal Cleave so depending on if you’re fighting one mob or multiple will depend on which one you use to apply the bleed/stagger/shaken.
Form of Ferocity
This is the form I stay in 99% of the time. Adds great attack speed boost with full momentum, makes Overpower and Brutal Cleave apply bleed which is needed for a good portion of your main rotation. Great skill and in a great place for the build.
Blitz
This ability feels really good 80% of the time. There are still issues where you will dash beyond your target or if you collide with terrain for some reason you get launched into the sky like Elon Musk is sending you on a mission to outer space. Otherwise the range is IMO perfect, it offers an amazing gap closer, quick momentum generation and the potential to make huge plays in PvP when paired with Reinvigorating Lethal Blow.
Passive augment: Raging Blitz
This augment to Blitz feels really nice when you start to get into the higher levels where combat momentum actually means something to your build (other than a bonus from your current form).
Passive augment: Reinvigorating Lethal Blow
This passive augment resets the cooldown on blitz when killing an enemy with lethal blow, this is very handy in PvP when bouncing landing the killing blow and getting onto of your next target. As far as for PvE I have not found good use for this ability as you spend most of your time in a group environment and landing your lethal blow for the final shot can be difficult at times.
Brutal Cleave
Just like Overpower, this skill applies the debuff’s from your current active form but to multiple enemy’s in a cone in front of you. Shares a cool down with Overpower, nothing bad to say about this skill it is a must take for sure.
Crippling Blow
This ability is one of my favorite utility abilities in the fighter’s kit right now. You can snare a running target to help with kiting or if an enemy has staggered they become tripped. Tripping enemies is the only CC/interrupt the fighter really provides in a normal fight (we will discuss the aspects of Knock out later). Cooldown feels really good, doesn’t feel like I, waiting too long to be able to use it again but not coming up so fast that It feels like I could keep someone tripped infinity with the right rotation. Great skill.
Lethal Blow
This is your bread and butter execute skill that you will find yourself using quite often, low mana cost, and decent recharge time makes this a skill you want to think about if it’s worth a cast or if it’s better to hold off for a more opportune time. It’s a must have for every fighter!
Passive augment: Consuming Lethal Blow
Fell in love with this addition at a low level as this made getting the final blow restore mana back (a really big issues at low levels) easier to manage and helped with sustain in fights. Also great for quick health back in PvP when executing someone. A life saver at low levels, drops off a bit at higher ones but still worth a point.
Whirlwind
not the best Aoe Dps at higher levels due to the amount of time it takes to use. offers immunity to Hard CC (can still be snared or slowed) and weakens enemies making takes strain off teammates.
Passive augment: Whirlwind Overdrive
this ability is really funny because if you get 2-3 mobs around you spin forever. outside of that this skills damage does not outweigh using the skill and missing out on debuffs and dots from auto attacks making this skill addition lack luster.
Passive augment: Climactic Whirlwind
This is a great option to take with whirlwind as it really adds to that AoE cleave by adding in a final swing that can be aimed to hit a target even on the move. Great for pulling big packs in a group or jumping into the middle of a group in PvP and letting loose!
Rupture
A MUST HAVE! This ability feels really good and boosts the damage of Lethal Blow by applying hemorrhaging to a bleeding target. The additional damage after 5 seconds is also really nice if you have a lot of wounded stacks up on a target. The one complaint I have with this ability is that wounded stacks appear to be capped at 10 when the ability says you can get up to 150% (10% per wounded stack) of extra damage for wounded stacks on a target. Overall though a great skill
Lunging Assault
I have mixed feelings on this ability. When it lands its nice, it cleaves and hits multiple people but its range is very short but also just long enough that you will go through enemies if you are too close to them make this skill annoying to work around. Also this skill consumes momentum instead of mana which makes it nice at lower levels when mana issues are huge. The added CC immunity while in using this ability will come in handy in PvP and PvE encounters when timed right but not worth the pickup in my opinion.
Passive augment: Recharging Lunging Assault
Adds and extra charge to lunging and returns 5 combat momentum when landing a hit on a target, from what ive seen its just 5 regardless of the number of targets hit. Could be useful in specific conditions like PvP. Not something I would invest in on every build.
Maim
Easily my favorite skill in the kit for fighters. This skill feels amazing to use, the animation is one of my favorites in the game and being able to change the direction mid air is very satisfying, one thing I have noticed is that even if the skill animation has landed you can still adjust at that split second after and make contact with something outside of its visual path. This I believe is a timing error one when the animation finishes and when the damage gets afflicted and could be easily fixed.
This skill is a must have in my opinion for fighters, it is great for AoE relatively short cool down and when paired with form of Celerity (coming up later on the list) into brutal cleave and cataclysm results in some major burst damage AoE damage. Fantastic skill! Not much I can say that’s bad about this base skill.
Passive augment: Slicing Maim
Great extra damage buff and a really fun ability to snip a target that’s running away in PvP, the major down side to this is it will pull mobs miles away and through walls like nobodys business. This is very annoying since the extra damage from this ability is so good but not worth the chance of pulling extra mobs when in tight areas, (which is a lot of grind spots). Make this skill unable to pass through objects and it will be a part of every fighters kit!
Wallop
This skills damage is great, the boost from using momentum is nice. This skill uses both momentum and mana, ive seen a few grip about this but I think this is perfectly fine since the momentum usage is just a damage boost based on a % unlike lunging assault which is a set base of damage.
Battle Cry
Need to test this skill more, AOC codex says something about shaken (a -15% phys mitigation) need to feel this out more if that is the case
Knock Out
Great CC for that oh S*** moment, only down side is that any damage breaks the CC so this tends to not work well in groups where people mistakenly tag the mob with an AoE or chain lightning. Great skill in PvP to disable support or dps players while you kill someone else. Great skill in the right situations!
Also great skill when running multiple caravans with your guild, you choose attacker on one and just sleep your friends, makes for a fun game of tag along the way!
Art Of War
Pretty simple passive, it’s a must for getting rid of momentum consumption on form swapping.
Form of Fluidity
This form by itself is great, the shaken addition meshes well when swapping in to build momentum with battle shout!
Meditative Form of Fluidity
In the current state of the game I find little use for this passive, with server stability in question ticks are not coming every second as it states and at 100% momentum you should be getting 1% of your mana back. At 3k mana I do not get 30 per tick more like 20. If this is truly 0.01x100 momentum then it should be a true 1% every second. With blood fusion this passive becomes even less important.
Form of Celerity
Great swap to when you need stagger or want to use brutal cleave into cataclysm into maim for aoe burst damage when solo farming mobs. Movement speed buff at full momentum is actually huge. With fighters need to be close up this makes pvp a little more fun when chasing down rangers
Regenerative Form of Celerity
Similar concern to fluidity’s passive.
Cataclysm
Amazing skill, really makes you feel like a bad ass when you use it. Find it hard to hit mobs directly in front of me at times even when backing up. Other than that its easy to land even on moving targets that you need to readjust on.
Blood Fusion
One of the best skills ive had the pleasure of using, this skill made solo farming possible for fighters. I usually stay at full hp/mana and rarely am slowed down.
Preservative Blood Fusion
Great passive upgrade to help you when you get hit with that one skill that chucks your hp.
Leap Strike
Great skill for both chasing and getting away from people, can be hard to land when targets are more mobile. Some learning and adjusting for speed helps. Skill is also very telegraphed by the crouch prior to the jump I think this is great so that people know its coming.
Brutality
A must pick for most builds, wounds stacks for rupture are just too good! Hope they fix the max 10 stacks issue.
Berserk
The bread and butter of your class, a damage increase and immunity to disabling effects and later the refresh on skills really ties the archetype together and makes you feel like a fighter with that last stand mentality!
Reinvigorating Berserk
This is is a must take, refreshes cooldowns up to 25 seconds making 99% of skills instantly resuable and others a few seconds away.
Unyielding Berserk
Makes Berserk a cc break.
Overall there are very few skills I find to be “useless”, skill choices feel very intentional and something that you really can mesh and meld into many play styles! Cant wait to get into more theory crafting for rotations next weekend. Working around skill cooldowns has been a challenge when trying to create something optimal to flow.
TLDR: Issues/grips
• Blitz can launch you when on uneven surfaces (best one is launching up the flayers sword when he is guarding) makes for a good laugh when u hit a rock and go to space!
• Wounds only stacks to 10 when rupture benefits from up to 15 stacks
• Passives on forms feel weak in terms of their return, especially when servers have latency
• WW seems really weak for the amount of time the skill takes up, the addition buff that makes you spin with momentum consumption lets you spin forever with 2-3 mobs around which is honestly funny.
• Lunging assault is difficult to use and seems really short in terms of distance. I can see this being very difficult to land in pvp.
• Wallop feels like a great skill, the damage numbers you can burst out are great but the animation is wonky and does not flow well with the rest of the fighter animations. Maybe it would feel better if I had a giant tree branch or hammer to smack people with.
Skills
Overpower
This ability is great, offers various status effects depending on the form you’re in, short cooldown, good filler damage/combo starter. This shares a cooldown with Brutal Cleave so depending on if you’re fighting one mob or multiple will depend on which one you use to apply the bleed/stagger/shaken.
Form of Ferocity
This is the form I stay in 99% of the time. Adds great attack speed boost with full momentum, makes Overpower and Brutal Cleave apply bleed which is needed for a good portion of your main rotation. Great skill and in a great place for the build.
Blitz
This ability feels really good 80% of the time. There are still issues where you will dash beyond your target or if you collide with terrain for some reason you get launched into the sky like Elon Musk is sending you on a mission to outer space. Otherwise the range is IMO perfect, it offers an amazing gap closer, quick momentum generation and the potential to make huge plays in PvP when paired with Reinvigorating Lethal Blow.
Passive augment: Raging Blitz
This augment to Blitz feels really nice when you start to get into the higher levels where combat momentum actually means something to your build (other than a bonus from your current form).
Passive augment: Reinvigorating Lethal Blow
This passive augment resets the cooldown on blitz when killing an enemy with lethal blow, this is very handy in PvP when bouncing landing the killing blow and getting onto of your next target. As far as for PvE I have not found good use for this ability as you spend most of your time in a group environment and landing your lethal blow for the final shot can be difficult at times.
Brutal Cleave
Just like Overpower, this skill applies the debuff’s from your current active form but to multiple enemy’s in a cone in front of you. Shares a cool down with Overpower, nothing bad to say about this skill it is a must take for sure.
Crippling Blow
This ability is one of my favorite utility abilities in the fighter’s kit right now. You can snare a running target to help with kiting or if an enemy has staggered they become tripped. Tripping enemies is the only CC/interrupt the fighter really provides in a normal fight (we will discuss the aspects of Knock out later). Cooldown feels really good, doesn’t feel like I, waiting too long to be able to use it again but not coming up so fast that It feels like I could keep someone tripped infinity with the right rotation. Great skill.
Lethal Blow
This is your bread and butter execute skill that you will find yourself using quite often, low mana cost, and decent recharge time makes this a skill you want to think about if it’s worth a cast or if it’s better to hold off for a more opportune time. It’s a must have for every fighter!
Passive augment: Consuming Lethal Blow
Fell in love with this addition at a low level as this made getting the final blow restore mana back (a really big issues at low levels) easier to manage and helped with sustain in fights. Also great for quick health back in PvP when executing someone. A life saver at low levels, drops off a bit at higher ones but still worth a point.
Whirlwind
not the best Aoe Dps at higher levels due to the amount of time it takes to use. offers immunity to Hard CC (can still be snared or slowed) and weakens enemies making takes strain off teammates.
Passive augment: Whirlwind Overdrive
this ability is really funny because if you get 2-3 mobs around you spin forever. outside of that this skills damage does not outweigh using the skill and missing out on debuffs and dots from auto attacks making this skill addition lack luster.
Passive augment: Climactic Whirlwind
This is a great option to take with whirlwind as it really adds to that AoE cleave by adding in a final swing that can be aimed to hit a target even on the move. Great for pulling big packs in a group or jumping into the middle of a group in PvP and letting loose!
Rupture
A MUST HAVE! This ability feels really good and boosts the damage of Lethal Blow by applying hemorrhaging to a bleeding target. The additional damage after 5 seconds is also really nice if you have a lot of wounded stacks up on a target. The one complaint I have with this ability is that wounded stacks appear to be capped at 10 when the ability says you can get up to 150% (10% per wounded stack) of extra damage for wounded stacks on a target. Overall though a great skill
Lunging Assault
I have mixed feelings on this ability. When it lands its nice, it cleaves and hits multiple people but its range is very short but also just long enough that you will go through enemies if you are too close to them make this skill annoying to work around. Also this skill consumes momentum instead of mana which makes it nice at lower levels when mana issues are huge. The added CC immunity while in using this ability will come in handy in PvP and PvE encounters when timed right but not worth the pickup in my opinion.
Passive augment: Recharging Lunging Assault
Adds and extra charge to lunging and returns 5 combat momentum when landing a hit on a target, from what ive seen its just 5 regardless of the number of targets hit. Could be useful in specific conditions like PvP. Not something I would invest in on every build.
Maim
Easily my favorite skill in the kit for fighters. This skill feels amazing to use, the animation is one of my favorites in the game and being able to change the direction mid air is very satisfying, one thing I have noticed is that even if the skill animation has landed you can still adjust at that split second after and make contact with something outside of its visual path. This I believe is a timing error one when the animation finishes and when the damage gets afflicted and could be easily fixed.
This skill is a must have in my opinion for fighters, it is great for AoE relatively short cool down and when paired with form of Celerity (coming up later on the list) into brutal cleave and cataclysm results in some major burst damage AoE damage. Fantastic skill! Not much I can say that’s bad about this base skill.
Passive augment: Slicing Maim
Great extra damage buff and a really fun ability to snip a target that’s running away in PvP, the major down side to this is it will pull mobs miles away and through walls like nobodys business. This is very annoying since the extra damage from this ability is so good but not worth the chance of pulling extra mobs when in tight areas, (which is a lot of grind spots). Make this skill unable to pass through objects and it will be a part of every fighters kit!
Wallop
This skills damage is great, the boost from using momentum is nice. This skill uses both momentum and mana, ive seen a few grip about this but I think this is perfectly fine since the momentum usage is just a damage boost based on a % unlike lunging assault which is a set base of damage.
Battle Cry
Need to test this skill more, AOC codex says something about shaken (a -15% phys mitigation) need to feel this out more if that is the case
Knock Out
Great CC for that oh S*** moment, only down side is that any damage breaks the CC so this tends to not work well in groups where people mistakenly tag the mob with an AoE or chain lightning. Great skill in PvP to disable support or dps players while you kill someone else. Great skill in the right situations!
Also great skill when running multiple caravans with your guild, you choose attacker on one and just sleep your friends, makes for a fun game of tag along the way!
Art Of War
Pretty simple passive, it’s a must for getting rid of momentum consumption on form swapping.
Form of Fluidity
This form by itself is great, the shaken addition meshes well when swapping in to build momentum with battle shout!
Meditative Form of Fluidity
In the current state of the game I find little use for this passive, with server stability in question ticks are not coming every second as it states and at 100% momentum you should be getting 1% of your mana back. At 3k mana I do not get 30 per tick more like 20. If this is truly 0.01x100 momentum then it should be a true 1% every second. With blood fusion this passive becomes even less important.
Form of Celerity
Great swap to when you need stagger or want to use brutal cleave into cataclysm into maim for aoe burst damage when solo farming mobs. Movement speed buff at full momentum is actually huge. With fighters need to be close up this makes pvp a little more fun when chasing down rangers
Regenerative Form of Celerity
Similar concern to fluidity’s passive.
Cataclysm
Amazing skill, really makes you feel like a bad ass when you use it. Find it hard to hit mobs directly in front of me at times even when backing up. Other than that its easy to land even on moving targets that you need to readjust on.
Blood Fusion
One of the best skills ive had the pleasure of using, this skill made solo farming possible for fighters. I usually stay at full hp/mana and rarely am slowed down.
Preservative Blood Fusion
Great passive upgrade to help you when you get hit with that one skill that chucks your hp.
Leap Strike
Great skill for both chasing and getting away from people, can be hard to land when targets are more mobile. Some learning and adjusting for speed helps. Skill is also very telegraphed by the crouch prior to the jump I think this is great so that people know its coming.
Brutality
A must pick for most builds, wounds stacks for rupture are just too good! Hope they fix the max 10 stacks issue.
Berserk
The bread and butter of your class, a damage increase and immunity to disabling effects and later the refresh on skills really ties the archetype together and makes you feel like a fighter with that last stand mentality!
Reinvigorating Berserk
This is is a must take, refreshes cooldowns up to 25 seconds making 99% of skills instantly resuable and others a few seconds away.
Unyielding Berserk
Makes Berserk a cc break.
Overall there are very few skills I find to be “useless”, skill choices feel very intentional and something that you really can mesh and meld into many play styles! Cant wait to get into more theory crafting for rotations next weekend. Working around skill cooldowns has been a challenge when trying to create something optimal to flow.
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Comments
lunging is nice for the snare but you can get that through so many other means that i feel like this is useless even with that benefit and with it costing momentum you run slower so lose lose