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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Build diversity
ShaggyRyn
Member, Alpha Two
So I know the game is in an early state and things will change but I’d love to see each class have at least two if not three “skill” builds that are different from one another. Like a ranger that is a typical bow build, or you could go a trapper build, or a pet build depending on how you spend you skill points/ what stats you go for in gear. If not this I’d like to at least see the classes change depending on what weapons you use. Right now I have only played ranger but most of the skills are useless if you aren’t using a bow. How can you use barrage with a sword?
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Comments
From my understanding the augments won’t change up the whole play style of a class. It will just turn for ranger your snipe into an elemental version or something to that effect. It will still be the ranger using the same skills. Now if the secondary classes really do change the feel of the class then this post is pointless lol. I just don’t like feeling like I have the same build as everyone else.
I agree with everything you’re saying but I still feel like you should have a skill tree that you can get all the skill in. Also for you to have skills that use a different weapon. I haven’t tried it but what can a ranger use without a bow equipped. To me there is no point to have access to all the weapons if they don’t really change how you play at all other than skill combo finishers.
Just to clarify for anyone new: you choose your primary archetype when you create your character, and you unlock your secondary archetype at level 25. That’s when your full class is defined, like a Mage/Rogue becoming a Spellhunter, or a Fighter/Cleric turning into a Templar.
The fact that you can tailor your skills, augments, and even your playstyle based on your secondary choice makes me really hopeful for meaningful diversity. Can't wait to see all the creative builds people come up with!
Also the augments are according to the wiki on a 1-10 amount of change bases and each archetype is supposed to have 4 sub effects.
Going further as nanfoodle said we also have augments coming from race and religion. then there is the weapon skill tree's which i also think need some work to better integrate into the archetype skill's. Mainly i think it's important to point out your thoughts, but understand we're in an alpha and there's a lot to come
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/61595/more-options-for-skills-maybe#latest
However they can do it I think people should be able to tell themselves apart before having to change classes. And don't think the class change is a valid argument. If classes don't become diverse till mid-late to late game on a game that's going to be built around long progression is gonna be rough. I don't want to see clones of myself running around everywhere
I’m pretty well informed with the base plan but again if you can get every skill in a skill tree and you’re weapons don’t change anything but your combo finishers a mage/rogue will be the same as almost any other mage rogue. What I’d like to see is a skill tree that forks off or requires a certain amount of points into a skill before another skill unlocks. Say you want a melee mage. You would get a skill that added elements to your weapon attacks and maybe some passive that increase your attack speed then that would unlock were you could auto cast spells as you attack. This is a crude example and I know they kinda have that with the class mechanic but it’s where I’d like to see the skill tree go.
I get what you’re saying, and I think a lot of us feel the same. The current design does give room for flexibility, but if everyone can grab the same skills in a linear way, then yeah, you risk every Mage/Rogue feeling too similar.
Forking skill trees or deeper unlock conditions would really help add identity to builds. Like you said, having to invest into one theme (melee, elemental, ranged, etc.) before unlocking deeper, synergistic abilities would not only improve build diversity, but also reward player commitment to a playstyle. That kind of progression just feels more meaningful.
Let’s hope Intrepid leans into that direction as the archetype augments and class mechanics evolve during Alpha Two.
Forking skill trees or deeper unlock conditions would really help add identity to builds. Like you said, having to invest into one theme (melee, elemental, ranged, etc.) before unlocking deeper, synergistic abilities would not only improve build diversity, but also reward player commitment to a playstyle. That kind of progression just feels more meaningful.
Let’s hope Intrepid leans into that direction as the archetype augments and class mechanics evolve during Alpha Two.
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It’s just hard to imagine how the augments will work. It’s going to be so hard to have that many skills changing depending on your sub class. I honestly would rather see deeper investment into each classes unique build and then the augments/ sub class have an overall change like you get a few skills from that class or something like that. The augments sound amazing and I love the concept but I just hope it doesn’t end up feeling lackluster because it doesn’t change much.
The radical change comes from the overall directional shift of the aggregate, not from aspects of each specific skill.
My teammate and I play two, almost entirely different Darkblighters in Throne and Liberty, and that was before the new Weapon Mastery system caused an even larger divergence. FF11 used to do this with 'just gear' for a while, and TL/Onigiri doubled down on this.
I maintain that the reason games don't do this is because players in general can't/don't handle the complexity, not that the complexity itself is hard to manage.
Also, REHOC, my very human friend, watch out for the formulaic/high frequency nature of your mirroring in the opening line of your posts.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
This is also absolutely true. Build diversity comes from the game offering diversity in potential goals. Ashes has promised to also provide this goal diversity, so we either have to trust that it is coming, or assume that the signs that they can't/don't know how to do it are going to lead down that path.
But they ask for feedback and the feedback they usually get is 'this design sucks', so to assume they won't change even stuff like that is equivalent to having no faith at all.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
And even if that feature gets cornered into a "you choose gear with the highest def values and then apply your preferred stats to it" place - there's still hope for armor passives and armor types, which would at least triple the potential variety of "BiS". And considering that we'll be playing a PvX game with, hopefully, a variety of party compositions (or class combos, if we do end up with "1-of-each" design) - you'll either carry all 3 types of gear on you or you'll have to choose what's best for your preferred playstyle/group composition.
And at that point, I don't really know how much further build variety can be taken.
But that isn't how most players will see it or interact with it almost no matter what you do, so it's not too worth it for Devs to try to push it further in any obvious way.
I'm gonna be so glad when Ashes catches up to PoE/TL and people stop 'worrying' about this, but realistically, they won't, because some idiot in Global chat will just go 'High Priest is the only good healer wdym, healers don't need damage' and then there will be a post about 'gatekeeping' on Reddit or something.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
See just difference stat build on gear is not enough. If you want your gear to really matter it needs to offer more than stats. This way you have people picking off preferences more that what is strictly better.
Wait, have you never played a game where the stats on your gear are actually a matter of actual preference?
Like 'this gear offers me either Ranged or Magic Evasion and I fight Magic enemies so I choose Magic evasion and then tweak the rest of my build to that'.
I genuinely ask because I know many games don't, but even ESO and BDO actually get this far (unless you're only talking about whatever the current meta is).
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
Cause, as I imagine them, the dials should range all the way from "you get 1 str" to "+15% chance to resist poison attacks from amphibious animals".
Like, what else is even possible, if gear is not giving you some kind of stat gain? Oh, and I see any potential party synergistic effects to be "stats" as well. "your water spells do 10% more damage, if there's a mage/archer in your party" is still a stat bonus to me.
In the context of this conversation I'm not sure it's 'fair' to count those, though. Synergy is a choice based on comrades, common flows, etc.
And we do have gear that fundamentally changes the way abilities work (yes that's only in TL for now but Ashes will prob have it).
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
I guess we do have these ancient promises
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Gear
Certain higher-end weapons and armor will have active abilities, but the intention is that these abilities will not radically redefine the way an archetype is played.[18]
Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities and stats on gear.[162][110]
So Iv played mostly Ragnarok online, FFXI, WOW, GW1 and 2, thrones, and a lot more but those are the main ones. So I like gear that can buff certain skills or even can change the way a skill works as well as them having stat lines. I like the idea of countering other classes but not making it where you can completely nullify a type of damage “ like thrones did in tier 1”.
So instead of stats like str, dex, etc, you could have gear that have abilities on them, some like you said that have specific % boots for an element/ type of dmg/or specific skill. Like in Ragnarok you had gear that had all of those various boots on top of some gear had slots where you could put in cards that could have more of those stats or even other classes skills. You still had min/max but the variety made it still feel like with a single class you had 3-5 builds.
if they want diversity instead of everyone picking what gives more phys/mgc power and a bow for a second weapon they will have to change the focus of stats to make all of them or at least a decent amount of them equally good so making a build with one of the many stats as the base is as viable as doing it for any other stat where people will start picking/craft gear more specific stats and at one point let the crafters have ways to change or add some more different stats as a bonus that are weaker and dont scale like normal ones.
doing that will aslo make the weapons more fixed/focused on certain type of stats (eg : spear for phys penetration, wand for mgc cast speed , staff for mgc dmg, daggers for atk speed) instead of having these stats be a worthless secondary to the mgc/phys power where those should be just give a decent flat damage with a lot lower scaling where legendary gives at most 2x the common gear . in short the phys/mgc power should be more like secondary stat bonuses that exist to give bigger damage cuz the design require it and they should be soft capped at a certain point.
they gotta limit the BOW or somehow make the other weapons as viable as it , no one gonna bother using a book to multi hit if just using a bow gets u a lot more damage from a lot safer distance and while at it make the weapons skill trees more unique and actually worth investing a certain build into rather than just throwing skill points into everything.
lastly fixing the TTK to be at least 30~ seconds is the least they can do to give all or at least a good amount of builds the freedom,space and time to shine at what they can do and achieve.
I only asked because you have to remember that a lot of the people who still hang around these forums didn't get to play a lot of the games with meaningful diversity, or played them from the PvP viewpoint with various competitive 'limits' on their view of gear.
So I was 'worried' that your post might seem like 'asking for more than they promised already', but it sounds like you're just asking for it to at least be on the level of those games you played.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
This!
I think the fact that everyone will use a bow is dumb to me. There is absolutely no reason to run two mele weapons. There needs to be other things that make you wanna use a certain weapon.
Class Skill Scaling and Gear Design Philosophy
Class skills should scale with different stats depending on the type of skill—so damage-based skills scale with offensive stats (like physical pentration, magic crit,etc.), while defensive capabilities scale with appropriate defensive stats (such as health regen or physical evasion).
To balance flat skill damage growth and avoid excessive stat stacking, core stats (e.g., constitution, Intelligence or whatever you want to call them , you can just call it hp, mana..etc that comes with gear and its just flat amount that adds to yours) should be separated from derived stats (like Magic Power Rating..etc). The base skill damage increases with flat stats, but with softer scaling and a soft cap to prevent power creep. For example:
A fireball deals 100 base damage and scales with +20% with Magic Power Rating if thats the amount of mgc power rating you have at the moment. With sufficient investment, it could reach 200 base damage by adding stats that add flat damage while the + 20% scaling becomes +30% by having a % of magic power rating in the gear/weapon, ensuring that stats still matter but don’t overtake gear-based scaling.
To promote build diversity and discourage players from stacking only high-damage weapons (“bigger sticks”), gear should scale with specific stats tied to each class or playstyle.
This means:
Weapons and armor should benefit certain builds more than others.
Players will seek gear tailored to their chosen build, encouraging variety and replayability.
Crafting becomes the main way to acquire optimized gear, while mob drops are more generalized—usable in niche builds, but not ideal for all.
Enchanting and Gem System
Enchanting boosts gear power by +2% per level from 1–5, then +1% per level from 6–20, for a maximum bonus of 25%.
Gems (up to 5 per gear piece) provide +2% per gem , but costs increase significantly from the 3rd gem onward.
At max potential, a highly optimized gear setup can yield a 30–35% power increase over unenchanted gear. This provides a meaningful edge for hardcore players without making casual or mid-core players obsolete.
The first 5–8 enchant levels and first 1–2 gems(if thats how gems work like AA i assume) are easy to obtain, making early upgrades accessible to casual players.
After some effort, even a non-min/maxed player might reach 10–20% bonus, creating a healthy power gap that's rewarding but not insurmountable.
Combat Balance: Build Matchups
Combat should remain build-dependent, maintaining a rock-paper-scissors dynamic:
Defensive scaling works similarly to offensive scaling, but in reverse—if your defense is tuned against the stats your opponent scales from, you’ll take significantly less damage.
A player with little to no enchantments could still outperform a highly optimized one if their build directly counters their opponent’s.
This keeps PvP and PvE dynamic and strategic, where knowledge and smart gearing can outweigh raw stats and gearscore.