Class progression

Class progression in Ashes of Creation proceeds as follows:

• A player chooses their primary archetype at the start of the game.
  • A player cannot change their primary archetype.

• Players receive skill points as they level. These can be used to level up skills within their skill tree.
  • It will not be possible to max all skills in a skill tree.

• A player may choose a secondary archetype when they reach level 25. The combination of primary and secondary archetypes is referred to as a class.
  • The secondary archetype does not provide additional skills.
  • Secondary archetypes may be changed, but not "on-the-fly".
  • The player can then augment their primary skills with effects from their secondary archetype.

• Class progression does not relate to a player's artisan progression.

• World events do not directly impact class effectiveness but there may be ancillary effects in terms of availability of equipment, enchantments or tattoos.

Classes by archetype combination

With 8 Archetypes to combine, players may choose from 64 total combinations to create their class.

Secondary
		Bard	Cleric	Fighter	Mage	Ranger	Rogue	Summoner	Tank
Primary	Bard	Minstrel	Soul Weaver	Tellsword	Magician	Song Warden	Trickster	Songcaller	Siren
	Cleric	Scryer	High Priest	Templar	Oracle	Protector	Shadow Disciple	Shaman	Apostle
	Fighter	Bladedancer	Highsword	Weapon Master	Spellsword	Hunter	Shadowblade	Bladecaller	Dreadnought
	Mage	Sorcerer	Acolyte	Battle Mage	Archwizard	Spellhunter	Shadow Caster	Warlock	Spellstone
	Ranger	Bowsinger	Soulbow	Strider	Scion	Hawkeye	Scout	Falconer	Sentinel
	Rogue	Charlatan	Cultist	Duelist	Nightspell	Predator	Assassin	Shadow Lord	Shadow Guardian
	Summoner	Enchanter	Necromancer	Wild Blade	Spellmancer	Beastmaster	Shadowmancer	Conjurer	Brood Warden
	Tank	Argent	Paladin	Knight	Spellshield	Warden	Nightshield	Keeper	Guardian

Class abilities

Alpha-1 preview primary skills.

If from the eight archetypes whatever you choose as your secondary, you're going to receive a choice of augments that relate to some core ideal of that class. You know like a tank is about controlling the battlefield, is about surviving. The mage is about dealing damage and elements and ability in AoEs. The rogue is going to be about stealth and critical damage. So those augments are going to to play towards those identities. – Steven Sharif

The idea behind the system is that you're skirting the line through these augmentations of your role, right. We have the traditional holy trinity that's present in class designs for MMOs and it's often that those either are not deviated at all or completely deviated from entirely. The augment is to offer a balance between that where you still maintain the semblance of that trinity system while offering the opportunity to customize your play experience towards one of the other angles in the triangle. – Steven Sharif

Primary skills (class abilities) are based on a player's archetype.

• A player may choose a secondary archetype when they reach level 25. The player can then augment their primary skills with effects from their secondary archetype.

• Outside of class-specific skills there may be a subset of universal skills, such as active block and dodge.
• Class skills are not affected by the type of weapon that is equipped.

• Primary skills in Alpha-2 are expected to be very different to those in Alpha-1.

Skill points

Alpha-1 preview skills user interface.

This is where players allocate skill points into either their active skills, their passive abilities- which can augment their usage of weapons and armors and health regeneration and passive stats and stuff like that-- but on the weapons side of things, that's where you will spec into certain types of procs based off of weapon groupings. So we've talked a little bit about this in the past: If you have a dagger, daggers might have a chance to proc a bleed on your weapon attack and that would synergize with an active skills' ability like let's say Backstab that does additional damage if the target is under a bleed effect. Now we have said in the past that players will be able to allocate skill points into their active skills that are more geared towards either action combat or tab targeting. – Steven Sharif

Players receive skill points at specific points as they level. These can be used to level up skills (increase their rank) within their active, passive or combat/weapon skill trees.

• Skill points will accrue at specific XP milestones, such as 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 progress through the level, so as to avoid creating an imbalance with experience debt.

We do have this concept of experience debt that does accrue and we don't want to create an imbalance between skill points acquired versus experience, so we're going to predicate your skill points acquisition based on benchmarks you reach when leveling through a level. So these are going to be at specific points in the level, like one quarter progress, to half progress, to three quarters progress: you're going to get an influx of skill points and then you'll be able to allocate them into your skill tree. – Steven Sharif

• It will not be possible to max all skills in a skill tree.
• In terms of skill progression, players can choose to go "wide" and get a number of different abilities, or go "deep" into a few specific abilities.
• Players are able to reset and reallocate their skill points.
• Augments do not cost skill points. It was previously stated that certain augments will have more expense required on the skill point side.

Making active skills capable of receiving additional skill point allocations and unlocking additional features so that from a player agency standpoint it's going to be up to you whether or not you want to be more diverse but less depth- wider and not taller, in some of these skill choices. Or if you want to be very very tall, that's going to be something that is up to the player in that regard. – Steven Sharif

Class augments

A player may choose a secondary archetype when they reach level 25. Each secondary archetype offers four different schools of augmentation. Each augment school affects a primary archetype's skills in different ways.

• For example: A Mage offers Teleportation and elemental schools of augments. These augments will affect a Fighter's primary skills differently than a Cleric's.

When you reach the class phase, which is around level 25 and you introduce that secondary archetype selection to create your one of 64 classes, then you'll have a number of augments that you'll be able to apply on a per-ability basis; and your core ability kit comes from your primary archetype selection; and those augments will change the look and feel of those abilities; and some will have the affect to create more darker thematic aspects to it. Or just generally different aesthetics to the abilities that represent the secondary [archetype] selection. – Steven Sharif

• The player can then augment their primary skills with effects from their secondary archetype.

If a Fighter were to choose Mage as a secondary archetype, the fighter would become a Spellsword. This combination opens up augments that can be applied to skills in their primary skill tree. Fighters have a Rush skill that allows them to rush towards a target; and upon reaching the target, deal an amount damage with a chance to knock the target down. A blink augment could be applied to the rush skill, which would now teleport the player to the target; thus eliminating the charge time on the skill.

• Each skill in the primary tree will have several augment options from the secondary tree. This is an example of horizontal progression.
  • The progression system for augments is very similar to the class progression system.

• Each augmentation has a level requirement.

• Augments to primary skills can fundamentally change the way the ability works - adapting what the ability once did to incorporate the identity of the secondary archetype/class.

• Augments do not cost skill points. It was previously stated that certain augments will have more expense required on the skill point side.

There's going to be a certain threshold at which you can no longer augment your active abilities based on the decisions you've augmented previous abilities, so you'll have to pick and choose which ones you want to apply the augments towards. – Steven Sharif

• Choosing the same primary and secondary archetype increases focus on that archetype.

• Secondary archetype augments allow different aesthetics to apply to primary abilities that reflect the secondary archetype selection.
  • Some spell colors and general FX change based on augments.
  • Active skills could look totally different after an augment gets applied.

• Changing skill augmentations will require visiting a NPC in a Village node or higher.

Universal skills

Outside of class-specific skills there may be a subset of universal skills, such as active block and dodge.

• The developers will be testing the use of separate energy mechanics for universal skills in Alpha-2.
• Universal skill progression may align with a player's passive skill tree.

Outside of your class-specific skill tree, there's going to be a subsection of a few skills that are universal, like active block, like dodge; and I think what we're going to do- or at least what we're going to be discussing here- is those universal skills will have progressions that might align with your passive tree; and you can spec skill points into progressing additional features of those universal abilities that you will have access to. So I think that's probably going to be the direction that we're going to take. – Steven Sharif

Class-specific quests

There will be class-specific quests in Ashes of Creation.

There's going to be a lot of shared quests but there's also going to be class-specific quests; and the reason for that is that some classes are better at others than doing certain things and that'll play itself out through the general community quests. That's fine, but there are certain periods from a designer's perspective where you want to make an encounter be the antithesis of what a player is good at. It also gives them perspective because we have a more fluid class combination system where you can play the line in your traditional role by adding a secondary class that's different from your primary classes role. The benefit of having these class-specific quests early on especially in an archetype is that you can come to a determination and have greater experience for the things you're not good at. So you know how to progress your class in the future with the things you have access to that are different from what you're good at.' – Steven Sharif

• Those Quests will be influenced by the player's class progression via their choice of primary and secondary archetypes.

So you want to give them storyline that's relevant and make sense for them to their class progression. If I'm a fighter I should be going to a barracks and learning from this dude early on. Later on if I want to take on that mage secondary and I'm more arcane in the things I do, or more based in the essence, then yeah it makes sense for my also again for a catered quest to me that lets me focus on that route in the narrative. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Progression
• Skills
• Classes