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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ 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.
Comments
For Bard, I probably enjoyed the Mesmerizing Dance the most. Gave a useful quick stun which I found handy in various circumstances.
For Fighter, I probably enjoyed Brutal Cleave the most, cos it's just an all-round useful skill and resets its cooldown with a simple weapon combo.
Which spells or abilities stand out the most to you from games you’ve played in the past? What made them special to you?
Similar to the above, it's mostly the skills that have a specific usage or purpose, that do the job and do it well.
Archeage: Teleport. Very simple, but impactful. iframe dash ability that gives you skill expression by being able to outplay people with timing. As a darkrunner being able to outplay my hardcounters by baiting and teleporting out of their aoe fear was always very satisfying.
Archeage: Vicious implosion. Aoe pull ability that interrupted and pulled everyone within 10m of the caster. Amazing engage/tank ability that makes them high impactful by making plays forcing clumps. It's essential to have tanks be capable of disrupting and clumping up enemies pvp.
Archeage: Lasso. Simple ability, but again, a pull ability is so essential for a tank class.
League of Legends: Shen ult Stand United. The ability to shield and teleport to an ally is huge. Global for an MMORPG would be insanely broken, but something like a 20-30m range ally dash and shield ability would be really cool.
Overwatch: Reinhardt charge. The ability to do a long range pin that can do a ton of damage if pinned into a wall is huge. Throne and Liberty have a similar skill in an MMORPG that works well to me. A ranged push into a lot of damage and short stun is great to me.
League of Legends:: J4 E>Q. Simple but great engage tool being able to dash for a multitarget knock up is big for skill expression and impact.
What is the best ability or spell you’ve used and why?
-In Ashes, Ball Lightning is the best because you can use it as zone denial, or applying Volatile debuff.
but I think you missed opportunities to really make this spell even cooler and fun! It should absolutely be upgradeable, say like 3 points - so it bounces off walls or solid objects. This way you can bank it off corners, around in a U-shape when fighting in dead end hallways.
I think there's also an opportunity here to use your ground tracking spell tech and give the Ball Lightning "Feet" as it travels across the ground, so it would look like an Electric Spider marching across, and bouncing off walls. These "Feet" would act like feelers/hands reaching out and grabbing anything in range, electrocuting, stunning them or applying a Paralyze debuff. All while the Ball Lightning is doing it's regular Volatile debuff. Maybe this could be the Level 50 version of Ball Lightning? Maybe if you Augment the spell with 5 points into it, this walking spider behavior is added?
-Worst spell in Ashes is Blizzard. Keep the Channeling part, but it absolutely needs to be a gigantic ranged targeting circle you place on the ground, like HoarFrost. Also, give me the option to just keep holding the button down and completely drain my MP to keep the Blizzard going if I want to.
Which spells or abilities stand out the most to you from games you’ve played in the past?
-Final Fantasy Games: Meteor, Meteor 2, Meteor 3, W. Meteor (Double Meteor), Starfall, Starstorm, Comet.
(Meteor example)
(Multi-Caster Meteor example @1:45)
What made them special to you?
-Very dramatic and satisfying to use, especially the ones that fall at an angle, also the multi-caster Meteor could be amazing to use in Large scale battles or Sieges because it requires synchronized casting within the spell effect window!
Hope this helps!
Battlerite - Pretty much all the abilities in this game are satisfying and rewarding to use when done efficiently, some examples being Counter-attacks, basic attacks, Movement skills, Ground Target Area Effects, Sirius's petrifty, All of Ashka's abilities, Rook, and Raigon
Overwatch - Roadhog's hook, Meis Ice wall, Brigitte's Whip shot, Brigitte and Reinhardt Shields, Landing a good Winston jump on enemies for optimal damage
I play caster most of the time, so here I hope we see some of these types of spells.
*Chaos Bolt from World of Warcraft.
Its a fel fire spell that makes you feel powerful, not only because of its visual or beucase it crits but has the ability of pierce any shield. But also have a long enough cast to feel good when you land one.
*Demonic Circle /Wow
A different type of teleport that is canalso be used in very creative ways.
*Unstable Affliction / Wow
A dot which if you dispel it it does even more dmg. In short very cool mechanic.
*Dragons Breath /Wow
Fire CC that feels really good to land and require to be close to your targets to hit.
*Borrowed Time / Dota 2
A spell suited for a necromancer one you activate it any dmg you take its counted as a heal for a few seconds.
*Mana Void / dota 2
For each point of mana missing by the target unit, damage is dealt to it and surrounding enemies. Good for classes like rogue.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H7pTJaU84Ho
*CHRONOSPHERE /Dota 2
Creates a blister in spacetime, trapping all units caught in its sphere of influence and causes you to move very quickly inside it. Very fun to use.
*Chain Frost / Dota 2
Releases an orb of frost that bounces between nearby enemy units up to 10 times. cool frost spell.
*Arena of blood / Dota 2
Creates an arena that confines enemies inside it, pretty cool idea for a tank class.
*Ball Lightning /Dota 2
becomes volatile electricity, charging across the battlefield until he depletes his mana or reaches his target. very cool risk/reward kind of spell.
I also like some poe2 spells and even some lost ark spells too.
For summoner spells I like Golems, demons, elementals and becoming a summon yourrself.
1) The Tank offensive abilities feel more like Fighter abilities than the Fighter abilities do. Fighter should have an earlier ability that has them jump in the air and slam for damage as opposed to 3 different slice techniques.
2) Not the biggest fan of the "weapon abilities". They arent abilities as they are so much as "Procs". The whole you can use any weapon with any class doesnt feel great when their isnt real abilities tied to the weapons. Like greatsword can have a charge, or the wand can have a charged shot based on the last element used if its a mage or just a basic physical thing if its a warrior, and Spears should have a throwing ability tied to it regardless of class. With the way things are most people use the same weapon combos and it keeps it kind of bland. Having a mage with a spear that can throw it using its elemental infusion seems like it could really open up the game, or maybe even a Cleric that uses a 2 handed axe that throws a "slice" at the enemy can heal team mates and then smite whatever enemy it hits.
3) You should add regular weapons in the game that do pure Fire damage or Ice damage as opposed to just magical power.
Id be happy with the way things are now, but i believe the reasons for posts like these are to see what the players are thinking and maybe trying to implement some of these into alphas just to see how the play how and how ppl like them. If it means longer development for a better game then so be it. I want this game to be a game i play for 10+ years and id like to voice things id like to see in the game. Even if you just read it atleast its in your minds.
Nami
Q ground target aoe that Stunned and lifted target in a bubble
W bouncing heal/dmg skill, castable on ally or enemy it bounces 3 times heals allies and dmg enemies however it has bounce from ally to enemy and enemy to ally so it bounces between friend then foe then back again for example was interesting interaction
R ulti, Summons giant slow moving wave that would knock up enemies and speed up allies that it hits
Yasuo
Windwall - Summons a line that block all projectiles/spells skills
Mordikaiser
R ulti - you used this on a target and it would pull them into another dimension with mordikaiser where they would be a 1v1 for a bit think was like 6 seconds or so when the duration ended they would phase back into current dimension in the position they were in
Kalista
Ulti - They would make an ally with a buff at start of the game and when they used there ulti they would pull they ally into them in a spirit form kinda thing making them invunerable then the ally could launch themself out at a direction if it hit an enemy it would CC them with a knock up, this could be used to save the marked target by them jumping away or using them to launch themself at the enemy protecting kalista or engaging the enemy
Taliya (earth mage)
R- This was a ranged engage tool that she ride in on a wall and could jump off at any point the wall would keep going till it reach the max range and would remain for a bit like 5 seconds (taliya could reused the skill to destroy the wall)
i would recommend looking at some moba skills such as league of legends and even smite probaly too they have some interesting kits/skills/spells that could translate well into MMORPG imo.
Also Darkfall wall of force was another interesting spell, created a large bubble that would pull people towards the middle of it
That would be epic haha
Best spell or ability I've used: Ground Pound - The animation is good, the sound is good, the texture it leaves on the ground is cool and displays the hit zone pretty clearly and tripping people feels rewarding.
Spells/Abilities that stand out the most from games I've played in the past:
Spell : Dota 2: Culling Blade - The sound design as well as the finality of the use of this spell make it an absolute pleasure to use. The risk of a high cooldown on a missed window make it skillful to use, but the optimal use of it pushes the player toward using it at the earliest point in that window. Love this one. 10/10
Ability : Dota 2: Counter Helix - The function of this ability makes it similar to a damage reflect that only works in close proximity to the enemy. It encourages staying in melee range, and rewards a player for taking hits while having good positioning.
Spell : Dota 2 : Mana Void - The sound design on this one as well as the payoff of turning a spellcaster into a living bomb based on their lacking mana just makes this spell very fun and satisfying to use.
Spell : Dota 2: Nether Swap - The utility of exchanging your position with an enemy is inherently high risk and reward due the attention you pull from their allies. Great positioning tool for sniping high value targets and also saving allies.
Spell: Dota 2: Meat Hook - It's a skillshot displacement tool with a nuke attached. It feels amazing landing it, and it makes for nice highlight reels.
Spell : Dota 2: Reverse Polarity - This is another example of great sound design as well as instant gratification and high utility. Making the enemy into a pile that you can smack is always nice.
Spell(kind of) : Dota 2: Force Staff - Pushing people in the direction they are facing has good utility for aggression and escape, and it always feels satisfying employing this in any use case.
Spell : D&D: Wildshape - Changing into animals is already really cool. Extra utility while in animal form takes it to a whole new level. Iterations of this in video game form are always cool, and they offer some nice opportunities for cool skins. I like being a fish in the water, y'know?
Spell: WoW: Eye of Kilrogg - I like flying around as an eyeball. It's cool and fun. Also scouting utility. This also leaves the caster in place, channelling. No conflicts with the limited flying mounts plan.This was my favourite spell in the game actually.
Also love the idea behind Guild Wars 2 Necromancer scourge but didnt get enough love from the devs
In this development thread, I’d like to talk about two classes that particularly stood out to me:
1- The Bard in Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC), which I played for 6–7 years. For anyone unfamiliar, this was a musician class with healing spells and mana/endurance regeneration. Its main strength lay in its area crowd control, as well as its top-tier speed buff, the fastest in the realm.
2- The Tomb Warden in ArcheAge, combining the Tank, Virtuoso, and Spiritual specializations. This class excelled at standing in the thick of melee combat while continuously playing songs that boosted ally damage, resistance, and attack speed, and simultaneously debuffed enemies in the same way.
Both of these support classes had next to no DPS, yet they provided some of my best gaming experiences. Why? Because they played an essential support role. In DAoC, for instance, a group without a Bard was at a clear disadvantage: the Bard’s numerous utilities could turn the tide in 8vX battles. In ArcheAge, the Tomb Warden’s powerful debuffs had a decisive impact on the enemy line, making the gameplay both dynamic and strategic.
The Bard in Ashes of Creation
Compared to those examples, the Bard in Ashes of Creation feels too DPS-oriented. Currently, you choose one buff every 30 seconds (whether physical/magical, flat or critical damage, etc.), an attack speed buff, and maintain a background music. There are indeed some interesting crowd control abilities, but many combos focus primarily on dealing damage.
DPS Path vs. Support Path
Some players like this offensive angle to become stronger duelists. Personally, I chose Bard for its pure support style (given my 20 years of experience playing such roles), and I find that the support/control aspect isn’t as developed as the DPS side.
- Healing spells are fairly balanced: they’re useful without being overpowered.
- However, I’d love to see more AoE buffs/debuffs instead of damage spells.
- I also would have preferred continuous songs (buffs/debuffs over time) rather than mechanically reapplying a 30-second buff. This would introduce a more dynamic, strategic element reminiscent of the classic Bard/Support playstyle from DAoC or ArcheAge.
The Importance of a True Support Role
Finally, I’d like to emphasize that, in my view, a Bard isn’t meant to one-shot an enemy by stacking passives or dominating a fight through an overpowered wand. A weapon’s strength should really adapt to the class using it, because a Bard’s true job is to support and protect its group, not to deal massive damage.
But please… A Bard isn’t here to one-shot an opponent with a fully stacked passive and an OP wand. I would love to see the Bard (or any support class) regain the essential role it had in games like DAoC or ArcheAge: a cornerstone of any group, not for its damage output, but for its ability to control, buff, and debuff, thus greatly influencing the outcome of battles.
Thank you for reading. I remain available for any further discussion.
I play mostly Tank. my favorite ability there is reflect. it has a lot of bugs/situations where it doesnt work properly, but if the mana regen and trip work and the skill doesnt cancel itself its great.
it gives skillful mana recovery and the cc + dmg can be pretty good in pvp especially.
its just satisfying if ability usage at the right moment can turn the tides. reflect is a great example for that
Examples:
Irelia - League of Legends
Sophia - Evil Genome
Byakuya Kuchicki - Bleach
Favorite is shadow priest's Surrender to Madness artifact weapon ability from World of Wacraft legion. You need to cast to keep up insanity which is a secondary resource after mana, you need to spend it to cast even more. StM stacks haste but you lose insanity more and more over time, if you are out then you are dead, it's a high risk high reward ability bc if you could keep this up long enough your dmg skyrocketed.
Blood for Blood- Elder Scrolls Online.
Why- sacrifice health to do more damage. The more missing health, the higher your damage. Thus, the larger your health pool, the more damage potential you have.
You can build a tank with a lot of health steal potential and as much resistance as you can while doing ridiculous amounts of damage.
It plays out like dancing on the tip of a knife balancing your health and healing to keep yourself from dying, while you try to kill people.
I ran this build in BattleGrounds and was cackling like a madman when the panic set in on the other teams.
Summoner ability. Eldrich Torment;
Visual;
-Three Green energy balls with trails of energy like a meteor tail, they all swirl around each other once fired out of the Summoners hand. The balls may split, in animation and in the DOT damage depending how many mobs are available upon cast/how many pets You have so it will work slightly differently depending on those things. more will be explained under effect.
When it hits it's selected target the balls go inside three targets, You can still see the green energy balls inside the targets. But they are much more faint as they nestle into the target and the tail disappears. Green energy pulses with each tick .
The balls may split, in animation and in the DOT damage depending how many mobs are available upon cast/how many pets You have so it will work slightly differently depending on those things.
Effect;
-Causes a damage over time effect. Your pets, automatically focus each target and have a movement speed buff to running toward their target.
If there's three enemies or more with You having three pets, the balls will split into three. One will hit Your target, and the other two to the nearest to that targets. Splitting up 33.3% dot damage for each target.
Your pets will follow the balls/ Split up and attack those targets that have the balls inside/dot on them.
If there's two enemies with You having three pets You'll attach two on Your targeted enemy.
The other ball will attach on the closest enemy to that target.
The pets will split accordingly and they will follow the balls. So, 2 on one with 66.6% dot damage, 1 on the other with 33.3% dot damage.
If there's only one enemy with three pets, all three hit the target, balls/dots and all of Your pets attack the target with 100% of the dot damage.
If You only have two pets, the balls will only attach to a maximum of two targets.
2 balls on Your target,
The Third one will go on the closest to that target, even if there's more enemies, will still work like that. The pets will attack each target two targets. 66.6% on one, 33.3% on the other.
If You have one pet all three balls will attach to the target 100% dot damage, and Your pet will attack that one target.
Hope that makes sense, could be a cool ability that has a bit of customizability in if You want it to be more aoe or single target.
Some pictures that might help paint a picture.
Thanks.
I'm going to yap a bit about Cleric and how I would prefer design to be changed.
One of my favorite healing spells of all time - notably my favorite because of how dynamic it's usage was - was Restorative Swarm for World of Warcraft's Restoration Druid during Dragonflight expansion (https://www.wowhead.com/spell=391888/adaptive-swarm)
The skill was versatile. It's allowed to be cast on both enemies and friendlies. Depending on what target it is on, it will do DoT or HoT. Upon expiration it will jump to a new target which again could be an enemy or friendly.
The reason I want to bring that up as a favorite skill for this discussion is that it allowed for other skill interactions to exist. The playstyle was to cast Adaptive Swarm on CD - this eventually would lead to a critical mass of swarms out that would hop from target to target. You then would have a skill called Flourish (https://www.wowhead.com/spell=197721/flourish) that amplified and extended the effects of the swarms on friendly targets. This acted as your burst heal (though you had to prepare for the burst well in advance of it happening). I believe (but am tired of searching through Wowhead) that there was a skill that increased the amount of times your swarms would jump to a new target from the original cap of three.
This is something that I would *love* to see with Clerics. As it stands now, the only spell interactions that Clerics have is upgrading Burning to Conflagrating. The kit is misleading to those not experienced with healing in other MMORPG games in how effective yet simple it is. Their enjoyment comes from the overall power of the archetype where mine and others comes from challenging gameplay that results in a strong power.
The effectiveness is great. Clerics do a great job at keeping their party alive. The problem I'd like addressed is how simple the healing is. I've written about this before, but it feels as if we have Single Target Heal 1, Single Target Heal 2, AoE Heal 1, AoE Heal 2, DPS Skill 1, DPS Skill 2 and there is just no real rhyme or reason behind when you cast which one. The decision tree is Do I need to interact with my enemies or my team right now? If enemies, drop the AoE silence or judgment somebody. If friendlies, are there one or more people hurt? If one, cast my strongest single target heal that's off CD. If multiple, cast my strongest AoE heal that's off CD. Again - while effective - that is ridiculously boring to play.
Having something like Swarm where your effectiveness is determined by how well you are at planning ahead is a great way to make the gameplay more rewarding. Another skill idea that would fill this slot and is similar is a Heal Over Time ability that can then be converted to a stronger heal if a subsequent skill is cast on the affected friendly. Just brainstorming, but imagine putting Soothing Glow on a target and if they need a more urgent heal you can cast this new spell that consumes the remaining Soothing Glow and does a burst of radiance in a 3m radius around the target that heals for perhaps an increased effectiveness. That at least leads to some planning that will be rewarded rather than what we have now.
I think that gets my point across and I've already wrote way more than I anticipated here. If anyone has any discussion they want to have around this, please post in the A2 Cleric Subforum or ping me on Discord @PlasticLemons.
Thanks!
What is the best ability or spell you’ve used and why?
an important ability and the purge, because it is very frustrating to be controlled like in throne and liberty and to die without having had any chance of purge!!
in daoc if you put a mezz you had the possibility once per minute to purge yourself the mezz or the root or other.
and after the purge you were immune for one minute to the spell you had purged.
but the controlling player could root you or snare you behind
the tank could block thanks to an ability to damage another player such as a cleric, a mage or another more fragile class in exchange for endurance consumption.
intensive control without immunity really harms the gameplay in throne and liberty it is unbearable to be non-stop controlled without having been able to do the slightest spell